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The Dissatisfied Voter Blues: Watching the debaters who would succeed Jeb Bush in Fla., Tom Matrullo grumbles about the boring middle. Nobody does it better.

snake eyes

Apparently the Gubernatorial challenge for the chad-averse Die-bold crowd here in Florida is to detect which of two absolutely indistinguishable white guys, whose views of what is important appeal to the lowest, most self-serving instincts of a venal, ignorant and unconscionably uninformed electorate that cares about property tax, insurance premiums, bad Cubans, evil Mexicans, Terri Shiavo, intangible tax, Florida being a shining state (behind strong borders) upon a mountaintop [sic], comparative standing in high school statistics (Florida under Mr. Bush stands at 49th for lousy SAT scores and drop-out rates), boyscout rhetoric and nothing else.

Not disagreeing, Florida Today's coverage of last night's debate begins,

Republican Charlie Crist said a governor needs to show up. Democrat Jim Davis said it’s more important to stand up.

Where do you stand on that? Vote Nov. 7.

Howard who? Free Howard, writes Jeff Jarvis, but he's not using "free" as a verb.

It's not as part of a glowing tribute that paid-subscriber Jeff is happy Sirius is free today and tomorrow -- he uses the occasion to air some dissatisfaction and urge improvements.

But Howard Stern returns briefly from cultural exile, hence the headline. (This is "shock jock" Howard A. Stern, not Anna Nicole Smith's attorney husband, Howard K. Stern. Oops!)

Like Times Select, pay radio can be a career killer. It's reduced Maureen Dowd to writing cerebral fortune cookies.

Obscure punctuation rides again. The Web sure needs this: the "Irony mark":

Never mind that it looks like a nose. We do need ways to indicate statements with inflection.

If you think this is a newfangled thing, Wikipedia says it isn't:

This mark was proposed by the French poet Alcanter de Brahm (alias Marcel Bernhardt) at the end of the 19th century. It was in turn taken by Hervé Bazin in his book Plumons l’oiseau (1966), in which the author proposes several other innovative punctuation marks, such as the doubt (), certainty (), acclamation (), authority (), indignation () and love () marks.

Indignation () is the only one that's self-evident to me.

The idea of a richer written language is appealing in this typing medium, though.