For some reason, netroots policy wonks from the political “left”:http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/11/thought_of_the_day_11.php and “right”:http://rossdouthat.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/11/can_a_bad_actor_play_a_good_on.php today expressed unusual interest in “The Almost It Girl,” (Digital Reader link “here”:http://archives.newyorker.com/?i=2003-10-20#folio=096) a 2003 Rebecca Mead profile of Jaime Pressly and its lengthy “abstract”:http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/10/20/031020fa_fact_mead. (That’s ‘i’ before ‘m’ and no ‘e’ in the surname.)

Daniel Radosh is pretty clearly “right”:http://www.radosh.net/archive/002498.html about The New Yorker‘s style rule on such constructions as, “So I was like, ‘I’ll have you know my dissertation is being published by Cambridge University Press!'” I’m glad to see that the magazine has taken a “step”:http://www.radosh.net/archive/002540.html in the right “direction”:http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/11/24/081124fa_fact_bilger?currentPage=all. It’s painful to see a mere punctuational nicety elevated to a wilful refusal to understand the actual content of the utterance. Hurrah!

A couple days after it premiered, Jason Kottke unveiled his “review”:http://www.kottke.org/08/11/the-new-yorkers-online-digital-reader-an-evaluation of the New Yorker Digital Edition. (Here’s my “summary”:http://emdashes.com/2008/11/the-new-yorker-digital-edition.php.) I think he’s speaking a lot of truth there. But then few people bring it like Kottke.

I’ve run into this idea about five times now. I was probably as immersed in the campaign as anyone I know, yet I haven’t the slightest “worry”:http://www.wxii12.com/politics/17938333/detail.html about filling my “post-election”:http://www.theonion.com/content/video/obama_win_causes_obsessive time, and indeed, I’m glad that the days of visiting “www.fivethirtyeight.com “:www.fivethirtyeight.com seven times a day are overwith. (Much as I love those guys.) Do you really know anyone who would trade today for two Tuesdays ago? Who are these people? I suspect it’s mainly media people who prefer the campaign to the aftermath.

After many months, Malcolm Gladwell’s blog “roars to life”:http://gladwell.typepad.com/gladwellcom/2008/11/the-uses-of-adversity.html. (I submitted a wee comment.) I’d be glad to see Gladwell document his impending/incipient book tour on his blog, or even just announce his new articles.

At what point can we start calling “Barack Obama”:http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/11/17/081117fa_fact_packer?currentPage=all a “traitor to his class”? I kind of like that idea. FDR attended Harvard and then Columbia Law School; Obama attended Columbia and then Harvard Law School. Hmmm.

_(Illustration credit: Richard Thompson)_

I wanted to point out that New Yorker Digital Edition doesn’t always seem to provide the best oversight over the archive, but the “_New Yorker_ website”:http://www.newyorker.com/ has these swell “cover pages”:http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/covers/2008 that permit pretty easy access to the Digital Reader. Even if you forget the distant past, you’ve got 2008 right there on a single page, and that’s nifty.

Perhaps even more remarkable than these moving photos of the Obamas and co. on election night is that the future president is now on my Flickr contacts list. He’s male and taken! —E.G.

Do you realize that this makes it three straight presidents who publicly admitted to illegal drug use prior to being elected?