Just before sunset I took a mile-long swim in Great Pond — almost certainly my last of the year, and by far the latest in the season I’ve ever done so. After a full September of cool and lengthening nights, the water was cold — but given the gift of a golden, late-summer day in the second week of October, how could I resist?

Soon the nights will turn cold for real, and the chill November storms will strip the leaves from the trees and batter the backshore beaches. But today was a day outside of time, a dreamlike, elongated present in which the world seemed to stand still. And as presents go, we couldn’t have asked for a nicer one.

I have a feeling that doesn’t just happen to me. I’ll bet Madame Secretary knows it too. It must bug the hell out of her.

(Hat-tip to my colleague Yaniv Sarig.)

This is, of course, what various concerned sorts have been saying all along, although I had for some reason thought that the idea had been shown, generally, to be false. These games are hugely popular, and are the focus of an enormously profitable industry, so you can bet that the usual battle lines, easily predictable and tiresomely familiar, will soon be drawn.

I have no expertise whatsoever to bring to bear here — all I can say, from my own wholly unscientific sampling of the phenomenon, is that I used to play a fair amount of Doom with my son Nick when he was a boy, and he turned out to be as amiable a fellow as you could ever hope to meet.

Whenever there’s a new result in the social sciences, can some new laws be far behind? Indeed, the good professor is already looking forward to some benevolent social engineering:

The researchers conclude that the study has important implications for public policy debates, including development and testing of potential intervention strategies designed to reduce the harmful effects of playing violent video games.

“From a public policy standpoint, it’s time to get off the question of, ‘Are there real and serious effects?’ That’s been answered and answered repeatedly,” Anderson said. “It’s now time to move on to a more constructive question like, ‘How do we make it easier for parents — within the limits of culture, society and law — to provide a healthier childhood for their kids?’”

Ah yes, those pesky limits. Well, in the meantime, Dr. Anderson has some advice for anxious parents:

But Anderson knows it will take time for the creation and implementation of effective new policies. And until then, there is plenty parents can do to protect their kids at home.

“Just like your child’s diet and the foods you have available for them to eat in the house, you should be able to control the content of the video games they have available to play in your home,” he said. “And you should be able to explain to them why certain kinds of games are not allowed in the house — conveying your own values. You should convey the message that one should always be looking for more constructive solutions to disagreements and conflict.”

Geez, I dunno. When a bunch of those Hell Knights pop up out of nowhere, I’m pretty sure I’m still going for my BFG. Let Satan sort ‘em out.

lich: southern dialectal survival of O.E. lic “body, dead body, corpse,” cognate with O.Fris. lik, Du. lijk, O.H.G. lih, Ger. leiche “dead body,” O.N. lik, Dan. lig, Goth. leik, from P.Gmc. *likow.

I’m still a bit woozy, though, so for tonight, some “shameless filler”: a most extraordinary piece of email that appeared in my inbox earlier today. Here’s the text, in full:

blat

[link removed]

Good evening, Alphonse!

Thus the assurance in My note. Then feel the wrath of Satan! Suddenly Zane was choking. That is all. It had him now. Recall their mighty deeds! He could toss in a bomb.
Here is the place behind the ear. But with an accent. The stallion leaped into the sky. Jacob looked them all over to see. He was worried. There are your pension papers. After a while.
The air molecules were agitated into glowing. The Drusus was ready to spring. Tompetch had no idea what it was. Then it was all over. Atlan began again. Bink was last to go. Might as well start there. What can I do for you? Then Tompetch screamed in terror.
It is against anybody learning the truth. How are you going to do it? Bink gave it no chance to think. Fij-Gul felt relief. They were on Wanderer. He was terribly confused by it all. That’s the way I like it. Worse and worse! The landscape on the vidscreen sank past.

Below this haunting fragment was an image of an attractive couple straining to increase their tribe. The picture bore a hortatory caption:

Show your girlfriend what a real sex is!

ORDER CIALIS

I feel there must be some hermetic meaning, some occult semiotic payload, in this mysterious communiqué — but like poor Tompetch, I have no idea what it is.

But hey, that’s the way I like it. Worse and worse!

As it turns out, the leader and drummer of The Bedbugs are none other than the great Lowell George and Richie Hayward, respectively, whom the cognoscenti among you will of course know as founding members of Little Feat.

Have a look.

Apparently, nostalgia for this iconic brand lingers also in the mind of one Anthony Toth, a resident of Redondo Beach, California. Over the last 20 years Mr Toth has assembled, in his garage, a meticulous reconstruction of a Pan Am 747′s first-class cabin, using parts foraged from a jetliner junkyard in the Mojave Desert. Have a look here.

It is hard to imagine anything more evanescent than a footprint left in the mud, yet these have lasted 150 times as long as the entire span of recorded history. Think of all the forgotten generations that have lived and died and turned to dust, and more recently the empires that have risen, triumphed and fallen, while those fragile impressions — nothing at all, really, just some wet feet on a rainy day — slumbered in the stone. It must be an eerie feeling to walk in them.

You can read a brief account here, or watch a truly riveting video here.

Meanwhile, new analytical tools are making it possible for linguists to identify the oldest words still in use, and to make predictions about which ones will last. Learn more here.

I realize, of course, that for me to present these two items in the same breath may remind some of the desire that “intelligent design” advocates always express to have their creationist claptrap taught alongside real science. It does appear that there is a broad consensus among experts that global warming is real, as well as a somewhat less broad consensus that it is anthropogenic. There are important differences, though, between this disagreement and the intelligent-design “debate”, chief among which that neither side in the global-warming dispute is serving as a Trojan horse for fundamentalist religious mumbo-jumbo: both camps are making arguments based on an appeal to our understanding of climatology, such as it is.

I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion, frankly — I have heard persuasive arguments from both sides, and haven’t the expertise to judge — but I do know that there is something in me that is very wary of new religions, especially those that make pious calls for us to unite under the guidance of a new secular priesthood and make enormous economic and political sacrifices. What I really ought to do, rather than japing in ignorance from the sidelines, is to take the time to learn as much as I can about the relevant science, read very carefully the arguments on both sides, and try to come to an informed and independent opinion.

But there are only so many hours in the day, especially with all this free-will business to look after. So for now, japing it is.