AbsurdBeats

Two more things before I return to my regularly scheduled programming of cats, ontology, and the edges of modernity.

First, August.

Yes, I’m going to talk bitch about August again because, goddammit, August is only halfway over and I’ve yet to get some serious hate on.

But here’s what I can hate about the month: the mugg. The heat, actually, isn’t as bad as it is in July, when the sun gleefully and maliciously hammers us with her rays (and of course the sun is a she; is this really even a question?) and refuses to go away. She’s there when you get up in the morning, stalks you all through the day, then hangs on with her nails to the last shreds of the beaten day. Even after the sun has been put down, however, her vicious heat lingers throughout the night, waiting to be reborn.

July sucks, in other words.

But at the beginning of the month you’re kind of brave, thinking, No, this summer won’t be so bad. C’mon, June was reasonable; maybe that’s a good omen! It is only by the end of the month that you are thoroughly battered and waving your hands in futile plea for it all to stop.

That’s when August begins. The days are shorter, yes, and the peaks of heat not as sharp, but now that the sun has bashed you into submission, she turns sullen and tag-teams with humidity, which proceeds to smother you with its mugg.

You have already conceded, already given up, but before she sneers away into September, summer needs to kick you a few more times just to make sure you stay down.

And in the city, it smells bad, too.

Okay, so that was issue one.

Issue two is, ta da, the election.

Yeah, I’ve been hittin’ it pretty hard the past few days, but, honestly, I doubt that will continue. It’s not that I have nothing to say—I always have something to say—but chances are someone else has said it better. If I really have to let loose, I will, but I ain’t gonna post just to post.

Probably.

Anyway, here are a few  sites which will have coverage worth paying attention to:

• Jonathan Bernstein, a plain blog about politics
• Mischiefs of Faction
• The Monkey Cage
• Riding the Tiger, The Miller Center

All are more or less scholarly; Bernstein is more willing to mix it up than the folks at The Monkey Cage, while the Miller Center folks take a more historical approach. I only intermittently peeked in at Mischiefs of Faction, but they appear to take a scholarly approach to parties.

I hesitate to link to journalistic blogs, but Nate Silver’s polling work at FiveThirtyEight tends to get a lot of respect from the pros, even if they don’t always agree with his analysis.

Finally, there may be other links within these sites that may be worth following; I’ll add as my laziness permits.

I can’t promise this will be my last post on August (I’ve got another analogy involving backed-up sewers I’m itchin’ to use) nor that I won’t lose my mind in the campaign, but this should do, for now.