ALAS, PUTTING THE BOOK UNDER THE PILLOW DOESN’T WORK: How To Learn In Your Sleep.

ROGER KIMBALL: PERIMETER ACCESS.

The entire area surrounding the buildings is cordoned off with a maze of high fences and security check points and patrolling guards from, I’m told, 60 separate law-enforcement agencies. I’ve seen scores of secret service agents, FBI agents, state troopers, military soldiers, local policemen, and TSA agents. They’re on foot, on bicycles, on horse back, aboard golf carts, in SUVs, and God-knows what else. It took my party about forty minutes to get into the Forum for a media gathering last night, not because there were long lines — those will come later — but because we had to park about three quarters of a mile from the building and then walk through a warren of security checks. One friend told me he’d been through 5 separate checks before he was let in and handed a lukewarm Coors Lite. “Never seen anything like it,” said this veteran of several national political conventions. . . .

I have no idea who is ultimately responsible for the unpleasant and unnecessary security nightmare that has been assembled in Tampa. Knowing the Obama administration as I do, I would not put it past them to have had a hand in in it. But before the Republican love fest starts in earnest — and let me say I am intending to emit as much good cheer as anyone — it is worth pausing to acknowledge that the unseemly growth of government is as much a Republican problem as it is a Democratic problem. Of course, one needs to be careful. We live in a dangerous world. There are a lot of bad guys out there who mean us, and our leaders, ill. But the most effective security is usually the least obtrusive. Over the last couple of decades we have let our politicians arrogate more and more of the trappings of despotic power to themselves. It’s unattractive and, I’d say, downright un-American. I hope that when Mitt Romney becomes President, he will do something about it.

If he doesn’t, we should.

APPLEBEE’S TRANSFORMS INTO A HOT NIGHT SPOT.

NARCISSIST-IN-CHIEF: Obama pays tribute to Neil Armstrong, the only way he knows how. With a picture of . . . himself! “This is not a Photoshop. This was actually posted on Obama’s official Tumblr page.”

HAS THIS EVER WORKED? Togo Women Vow Sex Strike To Oust President. “Women in the civil rights group ‘Let’s Save Togo’ said they will have a week-long sex strike to demand the resignation of President Faure Gnassingbe. The plan for women to withhold sex from their husbands for a week will start tomorrow, said Isabelle Ameganvi, leader of the group’s women’s wing. She said the strike will urge Togo’s men to take action against Gnassingbe. Ameganvi, a lawyer, said her group is following the example of Liberia’s women who used a sex strike in 2003 to campaign for peace.”

UPDATE: To be fair, if by “worked,” you mean “gotten press,” I’m not sure it’s ever failed.

THE GUERRILLA CAMPAIGN: Reader Monika Nelsen sends this pic of a gas-pump sticky note from near Sycamore, IL.

SO NOW THAT ISAAC HAS MISSED THE GOP CONVENTION, somebody should ask Dana Milbank if this is proof that God loves the GOP.

THIS IS SELDOM WISE: Elizabeth Warren Aide Knocks Around Republican Cameraman.

UPDATE: Once again, following in Martha Coakley’s footsteps. You go, girl! No, really, go.

RAND SIMBERG: “It’s unfortunate that so many supposed conservatives are opposed to competitive markets in spaceflight, to the point that they embarrass themselves with ignorant rants against the Obama space policy, one of the very few things that the administration has gotten sort of right.”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Morris Brown College Files For Bankruptcy.

CHINA’S NATIONALISM PARADOX: “America’s goal isn’t to impose an Asian order on China against the will of China’s people. America’s goal in Asia is to promote the emergence of an Asian security and trade system that allows all the peoples of the region, mainland China residents very much included, to build the kind of future they want. The secret weapon behind America’s Asia policy is simple: the Asia we want aligns very closely with the Asia that most Asians also want and so to some extent, America’s Asia policy involves pushing a snowball downhill. Freedom, prosperity, security. We want those things for Asians because their success and prosperity creates the best possible conditions for us to enjoy these blessings for ourselves.”

STEPHEN GREEN ON HOW TO MAKE A MINT JULEP. My friend Ralph Davis lets the mint steep in the bourbon overnight, which is even better than Stephen’s recipe.

AND GETS GRUDGING CREDIT: Armed Citizen Stops Violent Attack On Cop.

NAOMI WOLF, CALL YOUR OFFICE: “Haley Barbour knows what women like.”

Related item here.

FROM MICKEY KAUS, A REMINDER: The mainstream media comes in to Tampa with one mission, Brian, and that’s to subtly give the impression that Romney is floundering. You know it already, but it’s worth repeating.

ISAAC MOVES WEST: Brendan Loy is following. “Always prepare for one category higher than forecast, knowing that intensity-forecasting skill is not high.”

#RETIREMENTFAIL: Low interest rates throw wrench into retirements.

John Folsom holds a solid job in medical device sales and has put two children through college. He has lived his life, as he sees it, “trying to play by the rules.”

He and his wife invested for retirement by socking money into safe mutual funds to build a nest egg that could support their dream of one day having a house on a lake. But at 53, Folsom looks at his retirement portfolio and sees that “the rules” aren’t working.

The market crash and housing collapse hammered his net worth. Now the Apple Valley man’s life savings are earning about half what he had expected, dragged down by record-low interest rates.

“All of our calculations have been thrown asunder, and everyone has to rethink the whole deal,” said Folsom said, who is planning to push back his retirement five years, possibly until he’s 67.

The Federal Reserve’s near zero interest-rate policy, aimed at stimulating the economy, has created bargains for borrowers refinancing a mortgage or buying a car. But the low rates are penalizing “savers” such as seniors and others on fixed incomes, forcing millions of middle-class Americans to reconsider how they will live when they retire, if they can retire at all.

“We’re not really seeing the positive benefit of low rates, but we’re seeing a huge negative hit,” said Tim Gillaspy, who recently retired as Minnesota’s demographer. “And that needs to be discussed as a national policy issue.”

The low-interest rates are the latest financial challenge for a wave of baby boomers on the cusp of retirement. Already, an estimated 44 percent of boomers between the ages of 48 and 64 will run short of money in retirement for their basic needs and uninsured health care costs, according to Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI), a nonpartisan research group in Washington.

Then there’s the food-price inflation. I’m glad to see someone addressing this, but I have to think that if we had a Republican in the White House, everyone would be talking about it. . . .

THE HILL: Poll: Obama, Romney tied in swing-state Ohio.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH AUSTIN, TEXAS? Man arrested for second time for filming police.

ARAB SPRING NOT LOOKING SO SPRINGLIKE: Egypt prosecutor probes anti-Brotherhood critic.

FARHAD MANJOO: Targeted Web ads are too dumb to be useful and just smart enough to make you queasy.

“MOSTLY PEACEFUL:” Anti-RNC protester arrested for carrying a machete.

A GENERATIONAL THOUGHT: No one born after 1935 has walked on the Moon.