Give us this day our daily fix

Having resolved a few days ago not to blog again about politics (I didn't say "ever again," did I?), I am suffering terribly from withdrawal pains.

It is not so much that my guy won and the other guy lost. The thing of it (as people used to say) is that American politics in the last year has become downright fresh and interesting, and we are still taking its measure. Old loyalties have become realigned, old balances upended. Moderate Republicans are gone. White guys no longer call the shots; a coalition of white women and minorities hold the power. The South has lost its ballot-box clout. For the independent voter, reasoned argument now trumps mindless invective. And so on.

But will the new center-left hold as we plunge deeper and deeper into the slow-motion train wreck of what may yet be a second Great Depression?

It's hard to stay silent on the sidelines. (Just think how those poor K Street commandos feel now that Obama has told them there'll be no lobbying for scraps of that $700 billion largesse.)

I promise that however strained this blog becomes in its effort to provide meaningful content, it will not forsake the vital trivialities of life, and in that spirit here is a video of a singular Nude Cat Descending a Staircase, with apologies to Marcel Duchamp: