I can’t decide who Barack Obama should choose as his running mate.

I’m sure he’s on the edge of his seat, waiting for my call, but I’ve got nothing to tell him yet. Ken Rudin at NPR discusses the pros and cons of Mrs. Clinton, and a short-list of other possibilities, including Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, and Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia, among others.

Who do you think it’s gonna be? Who do you think . . .

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Somewhere along the way, people decided to start saying “It is what it is.” No one knows why, but God knows everyone wishes they would stop.

I started hearing it last year some time, and I knew “it is what it is” had really made it when it appeared on the American version of the office (B. J. Novak, as Ryan, throws it in a rant filled with other business platitudes).

Soon after, I heard my actual boss say it on a conference call. Then, a client at work. Now, as of last week, my therapist, from whom I expected . . .

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Salma passed her dissertation defense! Congratulations!

Think all the way back to college. Do you remember William Carlos Williams “note-I-left-on-the-refrigerator” poem?

This Is Just To Say
by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast.

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold.

Pulao and I listened to a podcast of This American Life from three weeks ago, an episode called “Mistakes Were Made.” In it, among other things, are a few riffs on . . .

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This year, Minnesota is the third-worst state for drunk driving. We got beat only by Wisconsin and North Dakota. In fact, the top five are all in the upper Midwest: WI, ND, MN, NE, and SD.

In Minnesota, nearly 24% of people in a survey admitted to driving drunk, compared to a national average of 15%, and the low of Utah’s 10%. This means one of two things:

1. At 6:30 in the morning and 14 degrees below zero, the only way to gather . . .

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