The suggestibility of readers isn't news. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's novel of a sensitive young man destroyed by unrequited love, "The Sorrows of Young Werther," inspired a rash of suicides by would-be Werthers in the late 1700s. Jack Kerouac has launched a thousand road trips. Still, this is part of science's job: Running empirical tests on common knowledge -- if for no other reason than because common knowledge (and common sense) is often wrong.

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I'm on the cusp of my 30s, in a life partnership and polyamorous. My personal history involves a graduate-school education, a grade-skipping, semi-home-schooled childhood and several coming-out stories. So I'll ask you to picture me as I am right now. I have crazy hair and clothes. I'm finally allowing myself to feel young after many years of trying to look mature and serious; I am secure enough in my spiritual and political beliefs to remain quietly confident about them, but I used to be quite the crusader. There's a strong creative vein that runs through my family. I learned the hard way that to repress my artistic impulses makes me go quite mad. I make music, perform and dress up whenever I can. I get hooked on things and experiences very easily, but I have enough self-awareness to unhook myself before I get too damaged. I used to drink too much and get in fights, I used to have a really haphazard, risky sex life -- till I laid out rules, got some help and learned to watch my moods and habits. Mostly I get by. I read a lot of philosophy, I meditate, I do the spiritual stuff and try not to live in my head all the time. I still get a bit obsessed with ideas and concepts and lifestyles, and of course, I get hung up on wonderful people.

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[caption id="attachment_318721" align="aligncenter" width="492" caption="The affairs of the workers of Eretz Israel should be in the hands of the workers of Eretz Israel, 1935."][/caption]

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It's undoubtedly gilding the lily to claim that "Battleship" is the dumbest movie I've ever seen -- for all that I front as someone who only likes Turkish films where people stare at the landscape without talking, I've seen a lot of dumb movies -- but it's definitely up there. Over and above its extraordinary, mind-melting level of stupidity, "Battleship" (which is directed by actor-turned-filmmaker Peter Berg, of "Hancock" and "Friday Night Lights," and written by action-flick brothers Erich and Jon Hoeber) is also extremely weird. Its shameless and nonsensical combination of ingredients finally won me over, after a fashion, when I realized that its gung-ho Navy-recruitment propaganda and retrograde gender politics shouldn't be taken any more seriously than the ZZ Top, AC/DC and Billy Squier songs on the soundtrack. The only point of the whole exercise is to make small boys whoop and holler.

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A few highlights:

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“First, I talk about how I received my indictments, and then I give the laundry list of stipulations for my probation,” says Williams-Bolar, who is halfway through her two-year sentence. The 42-year-old single mother, with an otherwise spotless criminal record, is not allowed to drink, must submit to drug tests and reports monthly to a probation officer. She had to perform 80 hours of community service and pay $800 in restitution, as well as the cost of Summit County’s prosecution against her.

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A federal district judge today, the newly-appointed Katherine Forrest of the Southern District of New York, issued an amazing ruling: one which preliminarily enjoins enforcement of the highly controversial indefinite provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act, enacted by Congress and signed into law by President Obama last December. This afternoon's ruling came as part of a lawsuit brought by seven dissident plaintiffs -- including Chris Hedges, Dan Ellsberg, Noam Chomsky, and Brigitta Jonsdottir -- alleging that the NDAA violates "both their free speech and associational rights guaranteed by the First Amendment as well as due process rights guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution."

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And yet, as relentless as the obesity crisis appears to be, its expansion doesn't have to be a foregone conclusion. That's because, unlike a naturally occurring epidemic, it's almost completely human created -- a reality that allows for the possibility of a human-directed reversal.

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"That's not been a topic of discussion," Romney campaign adviser Kevin Madden said when asked if the Republican former Massachusetts governor would compete in the heavily Democratic state.

Romney was never a hero in the liberal bastion, and aides say there are other ways he can win the White House and deny President Barack Obama a second term without the 11 electoral votes Massachusetts offers.

The fact that Romney likely cannot win Massachusetts — and probably won't even try to — illustrates the degree to which his currying favor with conservative Republicans in GOP presidential primaries has alienated the moderate base that launched his political career.

If Romney defeats Obama while losing Massachusetts, he would be the first presidential candidate elected without carrying his home state since before the Civil War. James K. Polk lost Tennessee en route to the White House — 168 years ago.

In 2000, Democrat Al Gore, who had spent years in Washington as a senator and vice president, fell short of winning Tennessee in his losing White House bid. Other notable home-state losers include Democrats Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota in 1968 and Adlai Stevenson of Illinois in 1952 and 1956. Republicans need to go back to 1936 to find a nominee who didn't carry his home state: Kansas Gov. Alf Landon.

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The Arizona Daily Sun reports (http://bit.ly/JrL3zQ ) 63-year-old Jerry Nabours was elected mayor Tuesday night.

The retired attorney beat City Councilman Al White by 320 votes in the vote-by-mail election.

With more than 10,000 votes cast, turnout was about 39 percent.

Nabours says his victory is a validation of his conservative fiscal vision for Flagstaff. He has criticized White's policies as a waste of taxpayer money as well as the city's public-private partnerships.

Nabours is suing Flagstaff over an ordinance that requires property owners to pay for repairs of city-owned sidewalks. He initiated the suit in 2009 after receiving a $5,000 bill for a sidewalk in front of an apartment building he co-owns.

The case is awaiting review in the Arizona Supreme Court.

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Information from: Arizona Daily Sun, http://www.azdailysun.com/

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But it's nonetheless disappointing that a man we at Salon bestowed our highest honor to just six months ago has proven himself so terribly unenlightened. In an interview for Examiner.com last week, one of our 2011 Sexiest Men declared of marriage, "It should not be of the same sex so as to adulterate the altar of matrimony, like in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah of Old." Oh dear. Winning lots of fights? Sexy. Getting elected to the Filipino Congress? Sexy. "Donating millions to improve living conditions in his poverty-stricken nation"? Super hot. Not being down with civil rights? Bzzzzzzt!

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They're hoping you don't. And acting like it never happened (even though most of their words are just clicks away online.)

One by one — with the exception of holdout Ron Paul — the GOP also-rans have coughed up endorsements of their onetime rival. And as they do, they're pulling rhetorical backflips to distance themselves from their former harsh assessments of Romney.

Don't try this at home, folks. It takes a professional politician to pull it off with a straight face.

A sampling of the also-rans' anti-Romney rhetoric when they were candidates and their obligatory niceness after endorsing Romney.

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RICK SANTORUM

The former Pennsylvania senator still doesn't have trouble curbing his enthusiasm for Romney. He waited a month after dropping out of the race to endorse Romney, then emailed his tepid endorsement in the dead of night. He finally got out the E-word in the 13th paragraph of his 16-paragraph statement.

THEN:

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Deb Fischer’s late charge to victory wasn’t really rooted in ideology. As Hotline’s Reid Wilson points out, she’s actually racked up a (somewhat) moderate record in the Nebraska legislature, and has some personal connections to the state’s leading GOP establishment figures.

But most GOP primary voters probably didn’t know this. Fischer came to the race with little money or name recognition and spent virtually all of the campaign toiling the shadows of her two better-known opponents. The Palin endorsement came just a week before the primary, giving Fischer a sudden jolt at just the right time. It may be that all Republican voters really knew about her was that she was a rancher and a conservative (per the ads she ran), that she had Palin’s support, and that she wasn’t her rivals. And that was enough to pull out a victory that no one saw coming.

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“I absolutely advocate for comprehensive immigration reform,” Martinez  told reporter Andrew Romano. “Republicans want to be tough and say, ‘Illegals, you’re gone.’ But the answer is a lot more complex than that.”

With those words, Martinez inflicted multiple wounds on whatever slender chance she had to join the national ticket. First, she indicated support for the immigration agenda that President Obama promises to pursue if he defeats Romney in November. Second, the reforms the 43-year-old first-term Republican favors are opposed by every Republican member of the Senate (even those like John McCain, who used to support it) and a solid majority in the House. (In case there was any doubt, the same day Martinez's interview appeared, Politico reported that the Romney campaign was seeking a "boring white guy" as a running mate.)

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One was the Great Recession that took hold before Barack Obama became president. That landmark event went unmentioned in Romney's speech. Another was a series of Bush-era tax cuts that Romney wants to follow with even lower rates.

Instead he laid the blame on Obama, a president who has certainly increased the nation's eye-popping debt — but not, as Romney claimed, by nearly as much as all other presidents combined.

A look at some of Romney's assertions and how they compare with the facts:

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ROMNEY: "America counted on President Obama to rescue the economy, tame the deficit and help create jobs. Instead, he bailed out the public sector, gave billions of your dollars to the companies of his friends, and added almost as much debt as all the prior presidents combined."

THE FACTS. Hardly. Presidents from George Washington through George W. Bush ran the national debt up to $10.62 trillion, the amount it was on the day Obama took office. Today, it is $15.67 trillion, according to the Treasury Department's Bureau of Public Debt. So it has gone up by $5.05 trillion under Obama. That's roughly half of the amount amassed by all the other presidents combined.

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But just mentioning Netflix and Hulu, two companies that have thus far rolled out exactly one original scripted program each to not much fanfare, is a compliment of the “It's better to be talked about than not talked about at all” variety. Hulu and especially Netflix, which will begin airing new episodes of Fox’s former show “Arrested Development” sometime later this year, are on the playing field. Since one of the major distinctions between Hulu and Netflix and broadcast TV is that there’s no proper time to watch their shows, now seemed as good as any to catch up on the two existing series and see if Fox and its brethren have anything to worry about.

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Let's get something straight, so to speak, right off the bat. There's no disputing that Manny Pacquiao is not the most enlightened guy to ever put on gloves and fight for a belt. In a story for Examiner.com this past weekend, blogger Granville Ampong wrote of how the boxing champ takes issue with Barack Obama's recent groundbreaking declaration of support for same-sex unions. "God's words first ... obey God's law first before considering the laws of man," Pacquiao told Ampong, in what the writer described as "an exclusive interview." Pacquiao was further quoted explaining that "God only expects man and woman to be together and to be legally married, only if they so are in love with each other… It should not be of the same sex so as to adulterate the altar of matrimony, like in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah of Old."

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