Saturday, May 10, 2003
Fair Weather Fan - I remember listening to Pat Reusse and Joe Soucheray on the old Monday Night Sportstalk show back in 1987, during the American League Championship Series. The boys were sneering down their noses at the full houses of fans at the Metrodome, wondering where they'd been the previous year, when the Twinks were battling for the AL West cellar against the Chisox, drawing 6-8,000 fans a night. "Minnesotans are such a bunch of wussy, fair-weather baseball fans", rasped Reusse. "Where are you when the team stinks, huh?"
I thought about it for a second, driving down the street to my band's practice. "Probably doing something that they don't think is a complete fargin' waste of time", I answered.
"I mean, what do these franchises think - that just because they're a local sports team - hell, even a local sports team in a sport I love, like Baseball - that I owe them unquestioning loyalty?" I said, louder this time, as I drove up the Lyndale exit on 94. "Jeezawfriday, you stuffed shirts act like actually doing things we enjoy is some sort of base character defect!", I said, yelling by now.
"I mean", I hollered, apoplectic now, as a couple of cute girls in a nearby car watched, goggle-eyed, "it's not like the Twins or the Vikings or the North Stars are, like, the Constitution or our country or our families. IS IT?"
Souch and Reusse prattled on.
Well, that's how I remember the scene.
My motto when it comes to sports teams; "What have you done for me lately". And I'm damn proud of it. Life is too short to waste your time on the stupid and futile.
(Except for the Chicago Bears. I've been a steadfast Bearss fan since I was four years old. Every year since 1970, I've predicted "next year is the Bears' year!". Unlike Vikes fans, I've been right once.)
So anyway - Go Wild! Until the good times are over, anyway, when I'll promptly stop caring, and switch to the flavor of the month (when it comes to local pro sports, anyway).
And if Patrick Reusse doesn't like it, he can get out there and mow my lawn. I'm a fair weather fan - and without about 100 million of us, professional sports would still be on the back pages of the Sports section, and Pat Reusse and Sid Hartman would be donating plasma to make ends meet!
Say it loud; I'm a fairweather fan, and I'm proud.
Now let's play hockey!
posted by Mitch Berg 5/10/2003 05:21:18 PM
It's a Hard Knock Life - Michael Barone examines why so many American teenagers - TV-addled, poorly-eductated, with very low expectations thrust upon them - grow up to create the world's wealthiest nation, most vibrant economy, most innovative technical sector and most powerful, competent military. And in so doing, he uncovers a dichotomy I've wondered at myself; the split between the Hard and Soft sides of American life:
Soft America took over much of society because in the early and middle 20th century, America seemed to many people to be too Hard. Not many kids made it up the educational and job ladders. Much work was hard labor, and in the 1930s, jobs were scarce and charity inadequate. Educators wanted to make schools Soft, and New Dealers wanted to shield people from the marketplace with strong unions and Social Security. By the 1970s Soft America was trying to Soften Hard America with guaranteed incomes, job tenure, and comparable worth (bureaucrats, not markets, setting salaries).
Don't you hate it when bloggers say "It's all worth a read?" Me too. But dammit - it IS all worth a read!
In the 1980s and 1990s Hard America fought back. Surging private-sector growth brushed aside attempts to Soften the Hard economy. The military, hobbled by public contempt after Vietnam, built a voluntary force in which people could gain benefits and honor by performing. Politicians started passing laws to make the people who run the schools accountable for results. A sensible society wants to keep some part of itself Soft: We don't want to subject kindergartners to the rigors of the Marine Corps or to leave old people helpless and uncared for. But a sensible society also understands--and the military has been driving home the lesson--that Soft America lives off the productivity, creativity, and competence of Hard America. And that we have the luxury of keeping part of our society Soft only if we keep most of it Hard.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/10/2003 05:00:41 PM
'Ockey - The Fraters attach a block and tackle to the Berg petard:
(Warning to Mitch. This post and probably any other posts of mine today will focus on hockey. No baseball. No bagpipes. No bread baking banality. Perhaps later this summer I'll compare the relative merits of the American and National leagues, Great Highland bagpipes versus North Thumbrian Smallpipes, and the differences between short mix, improved mix, and intensive mix but for now it's hard core hockey baby.)
Yeah, fair enough. Heck, I might even wind up learning the rules to hockey if this keeps up. I mean, I skate just fine - maybe I'll grab a hockey club and practice my chip shots next time I'm at the rink.
I liked this observation:...why do Canadian fans feel the need to elevate every contest into a national showdown with the U.S.? The way the Vancouver fans were waving their Canadian flags around last night during the O'Canada you would have thought we were watching the Olympics. The series was Minnesota versus Vancouver not the U.S. versus Canada. There's just something desperately pathetic about a country so lacking in national self esteem that its people leap at any opportunity, however inappropriate, to demonstrate their patriotism and wave the flag.
Er, yeah - isn't that what the rest of the world's pointy-headed fundamentalist intellectuals criticize the US for?
posted by Mitch Berg 5/10/2003 09:18:22 AM
Chomskied - Keith Windschuttle, with an article in New Criterion that has the coveted J Go Stamp of Approval.
The article is a Brinks truck full of money quotes. I like this one, among many:The media, they note, are all owned by large corporations, they are beholden for their income to major national advertisers, most news is generated by large multinational news agencies, and any newspaper or television station that steps out of line is bombarded with “flak” or letters, petitions, lawsuits, and speeches from pro-capitalist institutes set up for this very purpose.
It's long, but it's very much worth a read.
There are, however, two glaring omissions from their analysis: the role of journalists and the preferences of media audiences. Nowhere do the authors explain how journalists and other news producers come to believe they are exercising their freedom to report the world as they see it. Chomsky and Herman simply assert these people have been duped into seeing the world through a pro-capitalist ideological lens.
Nor do they attempt any analysis of why millions of ordinary people exercise their free choice every day to buy newspapers and tune in to radio and television programs. Chomsky and Herman fail to explain why readers and viewers so willingly accept the world-view of capitalist media proprietors. They provide no explanation for the tastes of media audiences.
This view of both journalists and audiences as easily-led, ideological dupes of the powerful is not just a fantasy of Chomsky and Herman’s own making. It is also a stance that reveals an arrogant and patronising contempt for everyone who does not share their politics. The disdain inherent in this outlook was revealed during an exchange between Chomsky and a questioner at a conference in 1989 (reproduced in Chomsky, Understanding Power, 2002):
Man: The only poll I’ve seen about journalists is that they are basically narcissistic and left of center. Chomsky: Look, what people call “left of center” doesn’t mean anything—it means they’re conventional liberals and conventional liberals are very state-oriented, and usually dedicated to private power.
In short, Chomsky believes that only he and those who share his radical perspective have the ability to rise above the illusions that keep everyone else slaves of the system. Only he can see things as they really are.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/10/2003 08:48:57 AM
Maybe Susan Sarandon Will Play The Lead - A woman in Tennessee escapes from jail, holds her child at gunpoint:
Lovell, who is in jail for stalking and harassment, had faked a seizure in prison on Thursday and been taken to hospital. On the way back to jail, she gave prison guards the slip, stole a patrol car and smashed through a roadblock, slightly injuring a policeman, on her way to her sister’s home to collect her son. The sister is his guardian.
Don't they know it's mother's day weekend?
Lovell then held the boy hostage at gunpoint as police closed in on her. The deputy shot her while she was holding the child, who was then hurried away in a policeman’s arms. He was blood-spattered and crying, but otherwise unharmed.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/10/2003 08:19:25 AM
Friday, May 09, 2003
Monkey Lit 101 - Researchers in England have taken the first step on the road to a simian recreation of the works of Shakespeare:
Give an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of typewriters, the theory goes, and they will eventually produce the works of Shakespeare.
But from small things, big things one day come.
Researchers at Plymouth University in England reported this week that primates left alone with a computer attacked the machine and failed to produce a single word.
"They pressed a lot of S's," researcher Mike Phillips said Friday. "Obviously, English isn't their first language."
Who funded it? Guess: Phillips said the project — funded by England's Arts Council rather than by scientific bodies — was intended more as performance art than scientific experiment...The Plymouth experiment was part of the Vivaria Project, which plans to install computers in zoos across Europe to study differences between animal and artificial life.
[Reader: Insert your own "Senate DFL Caucus" joke here].
posted by Mitch Berg 5/9/2003 10:57:24 AM
Fast Food Update - Dino's Gyros in Roseville is my favorite fast food in the Twin Cities. (The Black Sea Turkish restaurant on Snelling is better, but not fast at all. Which is just fine).
The City of Roseville wants to redevelop the Snelling/Larpenteur intersection, which would involve tearing down Dino's, which is in a cruddy-looking building that used to be a Clark Sub shop.
The developer is trying to help Dino's move half a block north, to a new building on the site of an old Embers on Snelling.
Here are the disturbing parts of the story:Under the plan, the Ember's building would be demolished and a bigger Dino's would be constructed with the updated look of the five other outlets, including a drive-through. This could happen in fall, if all goes as planned. If it doesn't, it's back to square one.
There are two jarring notes in this story:
"If they can't get the deal done across the street," says David Schomaker, president of Dino's Gyros Franchise Corp., "we're not going anywhere."
posted by Mitch Berg 5/9/2003 09:09:28 AM
Jobbed Up - Well, for a week or two, anyway.
I start a short contract job this afternoon. Three days next week, maybe more the week after (I hope).
I currently have three fairly solid leads for permanent jobs. I just have to hope one of them pulls the trigger during my natural @#$@#%^ lifetime.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/9/2003 08:20:35 AM
Yow - So I've been hearing for a long, long time now about Al Roker and his stomach surgery, and how he's lost a zillion pounds. But I VERY rarely watch the Today show (it's occasionally on in the background as I chase kids around getting ready for the morning's festivities).
So I thought "when did they hire the buff black dude" when I watched the weather this morning, a femtosecond before I realized that's Roker.
Yeah, yeah, I know - I also heard that George W Bush was elected president...
posted by Mitch Berg 5/9/2003 07:51:46 AM
Stiff Upper Yap - Margaret Drabble of the Telegraph doesn't mince words:
My anti-Americanism has become almost uncontrollable. It has possessed me, like a disease. It rises up in my throat like acid reflux, that fashionable American sickness. I now loathe the United States and what it has done to Iraq and the rest of the helpless world.
So we need an attitude check.
But here's the part that the fellas at DiscountPundit brought to our attention:But what struck home hardest was the subsequent image, of a row of American warplanes, with grinning cartoon faces painted on their noses. Cartoon faces, with big sharp teeth.
She's referring, of course, to the practice of painting tiger teeth (among other things) on the noses of warplanes.
It is grotesque. It is hideous. This great and powerful nation bombs foreign cities and the people in those cities from Disneyland cartoon planes out of comic strips. This is simply not possible. And yet, there they were...
... there was something about those playfully grinning warplane faces that went beyond deception and distortion into the land of madness. A nation that can allow those faces to be painted as an image on its national aeroplanes has regressed into unimaginable irresponsibility. A nation that can paint those faces on death machines must be insane.
What "insane" nation invented that practice?
That's right - the British, in North Africa in 1941.
(Via DiscountBlog)
posted by Mitch Berg 5/9/2003 07:41:22 AM
Death Penalty - I've always opposed the death penalty. Some conservatives get very exercised with me about it.
It's not that some people don't richly deserve it, of course - I am a strong advocate of armed self-defense. And racial and social disparities can be dealt with, if the political will to do it is there.
No, my only real qualm about the death penalty is that judges, juries and defense attorneys are fallible - and prosecutors are frequently not only fallible, but also beholden to their political careers. Death cases equal votes - in some cases, it doesn't matter if you kill the wrong person.
While Tom Hackbarth, a Republican rep from Cedar, MN, introduces a death penalty bill every year in the House, it's a legitimate issue this year (although this probably not a serious candidate for passage, this close to the end of the session). The killing spree in Minnespolis and Long Prairie is the headline that's driving a lot of discussion. But behind the scenes, a 1998 federal case against Richard Oslund, who killed an armored car driver in a 1998 robbery in Bloomington, may be what drags Minnesota into the world of death penalty politics.
Here's the part that bothers me:Observers believe this case was carefully selected as a test because Oslund is not a racial minority and may not have the unstable mental health history common to many death row inmates. U.S. Attorney Thomas Heffelfinger declined to comment on the case.
So it's not entirely, or even primarily, the merits of the case - it's heinousness or callousness or, for lack of a better term, deathworthiness - that is driving the feds in prosecuting Oslund; it's the desire for a social slam dunk.
"It was hand-picked to be an unsympathetic defendant," Frey [Barbara Frey, director of the Human Rights Program at the University of Minnesota] said.
The death penalty isn't supposed to be capricious; doesn't cherry-picking count as a form of caprice?
Again, I doubt there's any way to pass such a divisive bill this session. But proponents of the death penalty will probably benefit from the same sense that has brought tax cuts, concealed carry reform and a 24 hour waiting period on abortions to Minnesota this session.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/9/2003 07:03:21 AM
Thursday, May 08, 2003
Permalinks - I know it - my permalinks have been broken for a week now. I'm trying to fix them.
This could turn wierd, fast.
UPDATE: I guess they didn't!
UPDATE 2: Or not...
UPDATE 3: So I fix my permalinks, and my formatting goes plooie. Gaaah. I need a job.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/8/2003 01:05:04 PM
The Best They Can Do? - The Democrats must be getting desperate. They're attacking last week's carrier landing, now.
New Jersey Democrat representative Bob Menendez just finished facing off with New York Republican Peter King on the Today show.
The Dems are trying to string a series of strawmen together into a case against the President.
Let's hope this is the best they can do.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/8/2003 07:27:22 AM
Wrath of Kahn - Rick Kahn - the person who arguably put Norm Coleman in the Senate - is finally "breaking the silence".
Kahn - who was the treasurer for the late Senator's 2002 re-election campaign - is infamous for his speech at Paulapalooza the Wellstone Memorial service last fall. His hystericial call to the assembled Republicans to work for Walter Mondale and for the enactment of Wellstone's agenda kicked off a three-hour orgy of under-the-radar campaigning, carried live as "news" on statewide TV and radio. National revulsion for the tacky display hurt, perhaps (but not certainly) fatally, Walter Mondale's bid to replace Wellstone.
Now, Kahn is talking to KARE11's Kerri Miller. For the interview, which was conducted Tuesday, Miller had Kahn, who was Wellstone's campaign treasurer and close friend, watch his speech, something she says he hadn't done for months. "What he told me was that when he sat down to write it, he was physically exhausted and numb and that as he wrote it, he felt Paul's presence."
That, I can believe.
Whatever Wellstones virtues, he was an amazingly irritating public speaker. His voice reminded me of Richard Simmons, and his style did nothing to alter that perception. At his worst - like at the last DFL convention - he was a nightmare; shrieking, bellowing, pulling out every cheap device to rouse the rabble, waving his arms like (sorry about the unfortunate comparison) Lenin at the Train Station. It worked for him, of course - he was nothing if not a live wire.
It didn't work for Kahn.
Here's the most interesting question:Does Kahn say anything conclusive about whether any major Democrat vetted the speech prior to delivery?
Guess we'll have to watch, d'ya think?
"He addresses that," Miller said, coyly. "But I'm not going to give everything away here."
posted by Mitch Berg 5/8/2003 07:18:15 AM
NOW I'm Worried - The left's been wrong about most everything when it comes to Iraq so far. It's been a generally-overwhelmingly-successful liberation, by all rational accounts.
But this could be troubling:So all the way from Hollywood to the Iraqi holy city of Kerbala, five police officers from the Los Angeles Police Department - in Iraq as reservists with the US marines - have begun training local law enforcement in riot control tactics.
He missed "checking for nearby video cameras".
"Right now we're teaching them basic crowd control procedures, how we do it in Los Angeles. Yesterday we went over basic searching procedures, vehicle stops, just the very basic stuff you need to work patrol," said US serviceman Vincent Deglinnocenti.
Nah, best of luck to the guys. Can't blame them for Darrell Gates.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/8/2003 07:01:22 AM
The Real Twin Cities Sports Curse - OK, the Wild are flying high today after tying their series with the Canucks last night. I know this because I read it. Ever since my very brief stint as the rink announcer for my high school's hockey team, I have watched exactly one hockey game, and that was on a date.
But while I know more about osteopathic surgery than I do about hockey (which, indeed, only serves to draw attention away from baseball), I do know this: I'm worried.
There's a curse in Twin Cities sports: When Patrick Reusse stops grousing about you, you're doomed.
For those who haven't read his column or heard him in the various incarnations of "Sportstalk" on KSTP over the years, Reusse is "dyspeptic" in the same way that Anna Nicole Smith is "a little padded". He's built an entire career growling about sports teams' ineptitude. So when he stops grousing about your team's chances...
...then your team is doomed.
Oh, there've been exceptions. He called the '87 and '91 Twins right. But as a general rule (and by "rule", I mean "something I noticed, and am spinning a column out of"), if you're a team, your luck lasts only as long as Reusse's disdain for you.
So if you're the Wild, this...:They will be back in GM Place tonight, where the last time the home folks saw them they were getting embarrassed 7-2 by these Wild. We still don't know what that animal is on the front of the Wild sweater, but we are now certain of this:
...can't be good news.
It's something that can't be killed.
But good luck, Wild. You've overcome a lot this year. It's unfair - but you can hopefully beat this, too.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/8/2003 06:32:12 AM
"Chilling Effects" - While driving to pick up my son yesterday, I listened to nattering MSNBC nabob Jill Nelson on the Michael Medved Show. Nelson had just written an article, "A mean-spirited America" in which she claimed that she was more afraid of our government than of any foreign terrorist.
The interview was painful, of course. Nelson is a "Journalist" who never learned to substantiate her story, and Medved tore her apart for it. Her article lapses frequently into the type of paranoia that seems, in a backhanded way, to justify her premise.
It was almost more than I could handle to stay on the road, rather than to find some gas station and call Medved, when Nelson said things like:These days, a sense of apprehension and foreboding lurks in the back of my head and the pit of my stomach. It’s a gut-wrenching reminder that something very bad has happened and is about to happen anew. It is an anticipation of the next insult and injury in an America that has been defined under the Bush administration by a profound meanness of spirit.
I wanted, badly, to pull over and call, and ask the following:Mizz Nelson? You do realize that you sound exactly like the Apocalyptic Libertarians I used to know back when I was...well, an Apocalyptic Libertarian, back during the Clinton Adminstration, right? One of those people for whom the sky is always falling - because you can always see bits of it up above you? For whom every piece of evidence proves the premise, but then all lack of evidence also proves the premise? You do know this, right?
I didn't, but and I doubt it'd have done any good.
The piece is so invincible in its paranoia that fisking its nearly-invincible ignorance is probably like cleaning the living room while the kitchen and basement are on fire.
For example, Nelson says in one printed breath: ...to question this war and its aftermath is characterized as at worst treason and at best anti-American cynicism. And woe unto those who criticize Halliburton, Kellogg Brown & Root and the rest of the corporate sponsors of the Bush administration as they line up at the trough of government contracts to rebuild Iraq and control its oil.
However, she doesn't say what sort of "woe" betides those questioners.
Nor could Michael Medved get that answer from her. Oh, there was bleating about "chilling effects"; Nelson has supposedly "heard from many colleagues" who had supposedly "become reticent about criticizing the government". When presented with the sheer prevalence of the criticism before the war, and especially in the major media in the days before the final rush to Baghdad when things were looking dicey, Nelson said, in effect, "Er, that chilled things, too..".
She goes through several paragraphs of half-witted economic ignorance before she concludes the article: Meanwhile, here in our great democracy, Americans go along with the program or remain silent, too afraid of the Muslim bogeymen thousands of miles away to recognize the Christian ones in our midst. Fearful that we will be verbally attacked, or shunned, or lose our livelihoods if we dare question the meanness that characterizes our government and, increasingly, defines our national character.
Nelson could provide no examples of "attacks". Her example of a journalist who'd "lost his livelihood" was, as Medved pointed out, an editorial rather than a political matter, no different than Ann Coulter being fired at the "National Review Online" for writing, jokingly, that American should forcibly convert Moslems.
She was, of course, unswayed. Three years ago, before the bloodless coup d’etat that made George W. Bush president, America was a far-from-perfect nation. Yet there was the possibility, almost gone now, that our country might evolve into a place that lived up to its loftiest democratic rhetoric. Today, I live in an America that makes my stomach hurt and fills me with terror. A nation run by greedy, frightened, violent bullies. It is time to take our country back before it is too late.
I'm going to take a moment to savor the irony here. Eight years ago, Apocalyptic Libertarians who talked like this (although never heard on outlets like MSNBC) were told to adjust the tinfoil under their hats.
But that, of course, would have a chilling effect. And probably be hateful and "mean".
Absent a single example of any action taken against a critic, it'd seem Nelson's main point is this: Dissenting from me is mean. And paranoid. And bad. And poopyheaded.
Read the whole depressing thing.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/8/2003 05:57:00 AM
Wednesday, May 07, 2003
Update - Got a job.
Well, not a "job" in the sense of "steady long term work". It's more like a 1-2 week contracting job. But it'll stretch my unemployment a bit.
Nice to know I can still get 'em in the hoop...
posted by Mitch Berg 5/7/2003 11:02:58 PM
The Way We News - On the Today show this morning, Amy Jacobson of WMAQ TV did a report on some very shocking hazing at a high school in the Chicago area, where senior girls harassed junior girls under the pretext of a powederpuff football game, to "initiate" them into their senior year.
And I suppose the proceedings - beatings (including with a baseball bat), kicking, pummelling, pushing through the mud, force-feeding fecal matter - all in all, some pretty ghastly stuff that resulted in five injuries (stitches, broken bones) and a bacterial infection from the fecal matter. It seemed that at least five students videotaped the festivities.
And yet, what was the most jarring part of the report? To me, anyway?
In her report, Ms. Jacobson (one of whose associates went to the high school involved, and was familiar with an earlier, more innocent version of the initiation) described the way the event was carried out "back in the day".
I'd like to look ahead to Network News, 2010:Yo yo yo, K Cou in Da House! Givin' a shout out to ma homies wit' da Columbia School of Journalism Possss-seeee!
Not that I'd mind, per se. Just saying.
Yo, word up for ma homey, M-Dog Lauer..."
posted by Mitch Berg 5/7/2003 07:25:19 AM
Graham, Lieberman - I'd love to see the Democrats nominate Howard Dean. He's got a lot of juju now among the far-left Democrat faithful. And he'd probably make George McGovern look good.
And I bet the Democrats know that. So I doubt Dean'll get through the primaries (but I'll certainly do my part).
No, I'm thinking the big three are going to be Kerry, Lieberman and Florida Senator Graham.
Aaaaaagh!
No, I'm not talking about their politics - or at least, not Lieberman's.
But if you've been following this blog any length of time, you'll know I place a high regard on speaking style. Dad was a speech teacher, and I worked in radio, and I value verbal expression and commnication. My political idols, of course, are Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan.
And from a speaking standpoint, any of these three fossils would be a complete disaster.
With Kerry, you get all of Bill Clinton's smug condescension with none of the former president's facility at faux sincerity.
Joe Lieberman talks like I feel when I accidentally lose count of how many NyQuils I've had.
But Bob Graham may be the worst of all. Listening to him on the Today show this morning, he spoke like a guy whose thought processes just...don't...connect.
No, George W Bush is not a classically great orator - but at least he doesn't make me wonder what's going on in there...
More as the campaign develops.
You Know Who You Are - When you got over your infatuation with the "General Lee" and your childhood desire to be Bo Luke, you graduated to your real teenage desire - to be a fighter pilot.
That dream lasted about two months, until you were told that your 20/100 eyesight and atrocious reflexes would disqualify you from flight training. So you went on to your true vocation - processing titles for UltraTitle in Woodbury.
Your life has taken its bad turns; you're 36, can't get a date (although losing 50 pounds might do wonders, if you can find a very nearsighted woman who's got a thing for doughy faces), you have $12,000 in credit card debt and a ratty townhouse in Golden Valley, your 4x/week beer habit is making you crabby, you've been passed over for promotion to branch manager three times now, and more and more frequently you've been coming up on the wrong ends of the fights you start when your "little guy syndrome" mixes with your "liquid courage" on Friday nights at Champs.
But one part of the dream still remains, as you weave through traffic, pretending you're at the stick of an F-15E, swerving at 80mph through the 50mph traffic.
Which is what you were doing at 8:45 this morning on I-94, eastbound at Dale Street. You raced up behind the delivery truck in the middle lane, swerved out from behind him with about four feet to spare, rode up so close to my back bumper that my "Deserve Victory" sticker has "Dodge" imprinted onto it, and then swerved across two lanes of traffic with two inches to spare between me, the delivery truck and the Geo Metro to my immediate left.
So, on behalf of my son (who was in the seat next to me) and the people on the road this morning that you came one hiccup away from smearing along the nearest abutment, all I can say is this: I hope the extra donut you ate with the 12 seconds you saved yourself getting to work by driving like a ferret on espresso gave you heartburn, you piece of filth.
OK. I'm done.
That is all.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/7/2003 07:20:35 AM
Swamped - Very busy today. I'll be posting this evening.
Til then!
posted by Mitch Berg 5/7/2003 07:16:07 AM
Tuesday, May 06, 2003
In My Rear-View Mirror - One of the most contentious issues in the recent concealed carry debate was the extent to which private and public establishments and property owners could post their property to bar concealed-carry permit-holders.
During the final debate on the subject, Senator Jane Ranum (Illiterate, Mpls) harped for a solid half hour on whether or not public university campuses would be able to bar everyone on campus, not just staff and students, from carrying. And Ellen Anderson (DFL, Alpha Centauri) wasted nearly an hour shrieking question after question about her abject horror at the notion of law-abiding, trained, permitted citizens carrying firearms at the State Fairgrounds.
Neither, of course, seemed to notice that there is no law regulating current permit holders in either of those places, or any other private property.
Anyway, the upshot of the law is that any privately-owned property open to the public - stores, y'know - has the right to post its entrances with a notice (of at least 187 square inches) barring firearms from the premises. If someone came in anyway, they were to be notified, and if they didn't leave, they'd be guilty of a misdemeanor with a $25 fine. This notion horrified some of those present (ignorant of the fact that current law has no such provision), who didn't consider that permit-holders - who, after ponying up $100 for the permit, more for the training course, and more yet for the pistol, are likely to be very scrupulously law-abiding - are likely to regard that misdemeanor very seriously. It could be used to revoke their permit or deny their renewal.
So the law covers those businesses that don't want law-abiding permit-holders on their property. Well, fair enough.
Whether I have a permit or not (and you can probably guess my sentiments), I think the proprietors that post their doors need to get a message, too.
I think I'm going to print up a box of these little numbers:
Even if you don't have a permit - if you think the law-abiding citizen is less a threat than everyone else that's carrying, you should find your own way of getting the message across.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/6/2003 10:16:18 AM
State of Mitch - Today's report:
Lot of work to do today, but I'll post more later.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/6/2003 08:31:30 AM
Whither WMD - Debka reports that Syria and Iraq colluded to ditch Iraq's WMDs:
Now, our intelligence sources can disclose exclusively that the relocation of Iraq’s WMD systems took place between January 10 and March 10 and was completed just 10 days before the US-led offensive was launched against Iraq. The banned arsenal, hauled in giant tankers from Iraq to Syria and from there to the Bekaa Valley under Syrian special forces and military intelligence escort, was discharged into pits 6-8 meters across and 25-35 meters deep dug by Syrian army engineers. They were sealed and planted over with new seedlings. Nonetheless, their location is known and detectable with the right instruments. Our sources have learned that Syria was paid about $35 million to make Saddam Hussein’s forbidden weapons disappear.
The State Department is exerting pressure on the Syrians, more or less behind the scenes:DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s sources say Washington was nevertheless far from placated and Powell’s meeting with the Syrian president Saturday was a confrontation. The secretary of state laid down the following demands:
Debka, of course, should be taken with a grain of salt. But they've been right about a lot; they reported US/UK/Australian special forces in Iraq a month before the major media.
1. A map with the coordinates of the pits holding Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.
2. Surrender of Saddam’s most senior insiders who fled to Aleppo and Latakiya. After DEBKAfile blew the whistle on April 3 [already covered in this space], the group staying at the Cote D’Azur De Cham Resort in Latakia was whisked away leaving their families comfortably ensconced there.
3. Handover of the two senior Al Qaeda members now in Damascus. DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military and intelligence sources say their names and whereabouts were uncovered by US intelligence units in Iraq.
4. An explanation of Syrian motives in allowing two British terrorists, Assif Hanif, who blew himself up in Tel Aviv on April 30, and Omar Khan Sharif, who ran away, to transit Damascus en route to Israel. (One of the duo spent four months of preparation in the Syrian capital with the Hamas operations officer and associate of Hizballah Imad al-Alami, as reported exclusively by DEBKAfile.)
5. An immediate stop to the military-terrorist activities of the Lebanese Hizballah and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas in Syria and Lebanon. Failure to do so, Powell explained, will result in a painful tightening of economic pressure on Syria, after the loss of $1b in oil revenues from Baghdad.
As far as points 2 and 3 are concerned...
French Complicity - The French have allegedly been helping Iraqis flee Syria ahead of the apparent Syrian desire to comply with our demands, according to Bill Gertz:The French government secretly supplied fleeing Iraqi officials with passports in Syria that allowed them to escape to Europe, The Washington Times has learned.
It'll be interesting to see not only how this develops - but how it'll affect relations within the EU. Much of Europe is swinging to the right; this isn't good for France, even if evidence of their complicity with Hussein doesn't blow up in their face.
An unknown number of Iraqis who worked for Saddam Hussein's government were given passports by French officials in Syria, U.S. intelligence officials said.
The passports are regarded as documents of the European Union, because of France's membership in the union, and have helped the Iraqis avoid capture, said officials familiar with intelligence reports.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/6/2003 08:06:35 AM
Shocked the World. Shocked, I Tells Ya - Jesse Ventura's new TV show is having lots of trouble, says Drudge:
"[Ventura] has been having just a terrible time," says a source with direct ties to the project. "The rehearsals have been extremely trying. It doesn't look good."
Doesn't surprise me a bit.
He showed nearly no aptitude for broadcasting during his radio talk show - and TV is at least an order of magnitude more difficult.
Acquaintances of mine who worked with Ventura during his stint as a radio talk show host (probably ten years ago) and as governor all agree that the former governor is a galloping ego who's very difficult to work with.
None of this bodes very well.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/6/2003 07:44:15 AM
Chomsky on Tolkien - Via McSweeney's:
Chomsky: One of the problems with the perspective offered by the Man-Elf coalition is that you have to try so hard to get at the truth of the conflict, at what is really going on; it's so obscured by their propaganda and relentless militarism. I mean, here we have swords being distributed to the Hobbits by Strider so they can protect themselves against these "evil creatures." Now, in this case, it's probably warranted, though the "evil creatures" are looking for the ring in their own individual self-interest. They're behaving in a purely rational way.
Satirized for your protection. Read the whole thing.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/6/2003 07:12:03 AM
Blinding Epiphany - Lileks has passed on one of the great talkradio secrets:
12:24 PM Note to people who feel compelled to begin talk-radio conversations with “long-time listener, first-time caller” - no one cares. Least of all the host.
It goes way beyond that.
The staff mercilessly mocks the schlemiels who start off their calls that way. Word to the wise; just don't do it.
However, "Long time caller, first-time listener" might get noticed. Maybe.
You're welcome.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/6/2003 06:35:37 AM
Monday, May 05, 2003
Concealed Logic, Part XXV - I don't, as a rule, turn to Laura Billings for reasoned, rational commentary on the issues.
Her Thursday column in the Pioneer Press, on last week's passage of the Minnesota Personal Protection Act, did nothing to change that. It seems fitting that today's National Day of Prayer comes just as Minnesotans must cope with the newly passed concealed carry handgun law.
Unmentioned: that 34 other states are "coping" just fine.
Lord, protect us from half-cocked legislation like this.After all, say supporters, this law is not about putting an estimated 70,000 more handguns on the streets of Minnesota, and shoring up a declining market for handguns.
Handgun sales have been booming since 9/11. It's not about repaying the National Rifle Association, which has been awfully generous to so many of our elected officials.
The National Rifle Association was on the sidelines on the concealed carry issue. It's not even about pandering to those Second Amendment ideologues who think the Constitution guarantees them the right to pack heat at Gopher games and city council meetings.
So unlike those "First Amendment Ideologues" who think that "free speech" is about being able to speak freely.
Up to this point in the editorial, Billings was trumpeting her ignorance. Here, she turns into Miles Davis:No, no, our new concealed carry law is all about being "consistent" with the way gun permits are issued in Minnesota. It's about creating a "uniform policy," in the words of Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who complained on his radio show recently that the old law was "highly subjective,'' forcing many decent citizens to leave their sheriff's office with an empty holster.
Ms. Billings, please picture this scenario.
This, despite the fact that a Bureau of Criminal Apprehension survey found that 93 percent of permit applicants got one in 2002.
Say that in Minneapolis, hypothetically, a rape victim receives instant care; is referred immediately and without fuss to a crisis counselor who works with police to gather the evidence in a sensitive yet efficient manner, to ensure the victim's dignity and catch the perp. In the meantime, in Winona, let's say hypothetically a rape victim is forced to wait in a holding cell, while allegations that she was wearing a miniskirt are sorted out.
Or how about this: In Bemidji, domestic abuse victims' complaints are dealt with immediately and fairly, while in Farmington, only victims who are friends with the DA can expect their complaints to be addressed.
Would Laura Billings tolerate either of these situations?
Yet a rape or domestic violence victim who decides she wants to carry a handgun to protect herself (or himself) and the family is routinely rejected in the Metro area (unless she's a crony of the police chief), while outstate the permits are fairly uniformly granted.
See the inconsistency?Given our leaders' new obsession with uniformity and consistency, one can't help wondering why they're not equally interested in making sure that Minnesotans also pay a uniform and consistent percentage of their income in state and local taxes.
Because paying taxes and defending ones' life are vastly different things?But what is it they say about consistency? It's the hobgoblin of small-caliber minds?
We'll take a journey through the peculiar hole in reality that Ms. Billings is describing.
Well, now that we've joined the 34 other states that have had this sort of legislation ramrodded through their legislatures by NRA lobbyists, the organizations and officials forced to deal with the law's implications can't help noticing it has some rather unnerving holes in it.
But first - "Ramrodded through legislatures?" As if the 35 legislatures that have adopted these laws don't have any minds of their own?
Is that Ms. Billings' position? If they're that stupid, why are they voting on taxes, either?For instance, the law has no requirement for state residency, meaning we are now poised to become the drive-through gun retailer to the upper Midwest, since neighboring states Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa have much more sensible laws. Is this really the way we want to shore up our economy?
It's about here that you realize that it's not a fair argument.
Leave aside that any out-of-state applicants would have to meet exactly the same criteria as Minnesota residents. Once they've done that, they go back to Illinois or Wisconsin or Iowa...
...and the permit is no good! That's right, they could drive to Minnesota, spend $100 on the application and more than that on training, and get their permit, and then drive home to a state that doesn't recognize the permit at all, and where using it would be illegal!
Ms. Billings; I realize that you have to fill a certain number of column inches per month. But do try to think about these things before writing, OK?Mental health "issues" could disqualify an applicant from receiving a concealed carry permit, but after the implementation of much stricter medical privacy rules last month, will sheriffs really have all the information they need to assess which applicants can be a risk to themselves or others?
Er...yes?Guns won't be allowed at the state Capitol, thus providing some protection to the legislators who passed the law. But guns can't be barred from city halls, the State Fairgrounds, or convention centers.
Here's a question I ask all concealed carry opponents:
And thanks to the new law, the University of Minnesota Gophers sports teams could be under fire in whole new ways. Unlike private pro teams that can bar gun holders at the door, or high schools that can ban guns from prep sports events, it seems the university can only prohibit students and staff from carrying guns on its property. It would have no authority over spectators, or even fans from rival schools. Imagine how much fun next year's Frozen Four riot could be.
Sure, shootings happen at city halls and at arenas and at state fairs around the country. But legal permit-holders carry out almost none of them.
Unlike Ms. Billings' paranoid fantasies, that is in fact reality in all 34 "shall issue" states.It seems odd that legislators so concerned with "uniform policy" didn't offer the Senate the chance to amend some of these inconsistencies.
That's because those behind the bill knew that, in a Metrocrat-controlled Senate, "conference committee" is the same as "death" for any conservative bill. When you have the votes, there is no reason to play the game by the opposition's rules. Unfortunately, this sort of ideologically driven legislation is entirely consistent with the new sheriffs at the Capitol, who are determined to shoot holes through the sensible policies that once made our little home on the prairie an oasis of safety and sanity.
Ms. Billings: I once taught a rape victim how to shoot (my main lesson - get a real teacher). She could not get a carry permit, even though her attacker was never caught.
Tell her how "safe" and "sane" our policy is.
Er...was. Lord, have mercy...
...on Ms. Billings' editor.
Again, I know that I have readers in the Pioneer Press building - I see the entries on my hit logs. Please pass the word to Ms. Billings - I reiterate my challenge to debate the actual issue with her, in any forum of her choosing.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/5/2003 10:17:23 AM
Today - Now and Then - The Today show last month: worrying about the pace of the war.
The Today show this morning; a skateboarding bulldog.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/5/2003 08:05:37 AM
Innocence - Maybe it's just my normal dyspepsia returning after a really nice weekend.
Maybe it's my 40-year-old brain looking at 21-year-old college kids and feeling like I'm looking down the wrong end of a pair of binoculars.
Maybe it's my inner history nerd and my internal social critic getting together, splitting a twelve-pack of James Page, listening to The Alarm and leaping to their feet looking for some butt to kick.
But I'm not quite sure how to react to this piece in today's Strib, about the young composer from St. Olaf College whose first major work, "Christine's Lullaby", received its debut performance at the Minnesota Youth Symphonies concert at Orchestra Hall today.
The piece - an elegy to the youngest victim of 9/11, Christine Hansen of Groton, Connecticut - has been getting great reviews. Lileks was there, and he loved it. It's apparently good neoclassical music - something the world needs more of.
But the composer - Carl Schroeder - had this to say in the Strib article:"It all became symbolic for me. Christine became a symbol of the senselessness of human violence. It seemed to me the story was being made so complicated -- about a clash of civilizations and about the event reshaping the world -- when what really happened on September 11 was the death of innocence, the loss of our innocent future," Schroeder said.
America "Losing Its Innocence" is one of those things, like "Madonna Changing Her Style" or "Africa A Mess", that every generation must have to discover for itself. Our innocence has been trashed at many times in our history: the Jackson Administration; The Kansas War; The Civil War; both World Wars, the Cold War, Vietnam; the Kennedy Assassination, Watergate; finally, 9/11. At each stage, the nattering classes and the wonks and the people who were never really taught history need to be reminded that, while each generation may have come into the world wet behind the ears, America as a whole is generally as innocent as a cashier at a peep show across from a navy base.
I'm a dad. When I see the outrages committed upon us, especially to our children, I don't see our nation "losing its innocence", like an eight-year-old hearing her parents fight over what the Easter Bunny's going to leave.
We're more like a guy lying on a beach chair with a beer, who sees his child is walking into traffic. We lose our sense of purposelessness.
Mr Schroeder continues:He sifted through news of her family's story and found a Web site dedicated to the memory of Christine and her parents, packed with remembrances and condolences. Reading them, he said, "It felt like Christine had become a little more real."
Speaking for every father in the audience, I think this was real the moment we heard about it.
But I'll look forward to hearing the piece.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/5/2003 06:30:09 AM
Sunday, May 04, 2003
Allies - Our most powerful ally in terms of numbers of troops and hitting power during the Cold War was West Germany.
They built the largest army that their post-war constitution would allow, with the aid of a draft that stopped just barely shy of Swiss-style National Service. During the Vietnam and Carter years, the German military looked down its noses at the quality and fighting ability of the US Army - justifiably so.
But the radical reversal of US doctrine after Vietnam, and the end of the Cold War, have reversed the old roles. Today, the German Bundeswehr (Federal Armed Forces) are still a largely conscript force - but the conscripts' training has been cut to a fraction of its Cold War level. In the meantime, the budget to train and equip this large force of draftees has been slashed even further. The result, according to this fascinating article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine, has left the German military a husk of its former self.
While German professional troops - the HSK commandos and Fallschirmjäger paratroopers that served in Afghanistan - are excellent, the conscripts are a sort of Peace Corps with guns, prompting calls to abolish the draft and create a volunteer, professional military that can actually fight:After decades of priding itself on its “peace force,“ Germany's “civil society“ is now opposing an “intervention force,“ which is probably why Struck and the entire government do not want all too much military intervention. And this is also why the military draft will only be modified rather than being restructured to fit the war concept of the 21st century.
That's a key point to remember, especially if you're one of those who wondered why the US didn't actively seek out non-British troops to fight alongside us in Iraq; the troops of Germany and France aren't equipped or trained to anywhere close to our standards. They (the non-special-forces among them, anyway) would be more a liability than an asset.
The Germans are closing their eyes to the globalization of threats. After all, if things get serious, that is what the Americans are there for. Those who believe this are happy to keep the current oversized but underfinanced and poorly equipped Bundeswehr.
Real warriors - which any army needs - are hard to find in the Bundeswehr, as became clear when a commander was asked recently to explain the Bundeswehr's mission. He cited peacekeeping missions, the deployment of conscripts as “nurses“ in the Balkans, and the German military's role in combating natural disasters. All the while, the U.S. military is widening its lead over Germany in terms of military equipment to the point that the two forces cannot be deployed together anymore.
So the solution seems clear right?
Ah, but not in a nation run by a Sozialdemokraten (Think John Marty in lederhosen)/Green coalition.The Bundeswehr's political and military leadership is hesitating to make the necessary decisions in favor of quality at the expense of quantity. But is the concept of a small but powerful mobile force built around professional soldiers, with just a minor role reserved for draftees, really a viable option? The answer is yes. Only thus can the Bundeswehr save what remains of its military substance.
The Allgemeine is, by the way, moderate-right in outlook, and has gone on record favoring a professional military. Watching the German media take sides on this has been fascinating.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/4/2003 08:25:48 PM
Cry "Unilateral Quagmire" - Two months ago, the left was up in arms (so to speak) about the lack of other countries willing to send troops to help in Iraq.
As we predicted in this space last summer, now that liberation is a fait accompli, a good chunk of the rest of the world is signing up under a new US plan to split Iraq in to three and possibly four zones, controlled by US, UK, Polish and possibly Indo/Pakistani troops: Under the planning, the British would maintain a headquarters to command a multinational division to be based in Basra and elsewhere in southern Iraq. That division would be made up of a British brigade and possibly forces from other nations, including Spain and Italy, which are expected to send troops.
Let's stop right here.
Poland would also command a division and has offered to contribute a brigade of troops.
That has to gall the French. During the war proper, the Poles contributed a commando company, a logistics ship, and a chemical warfare unit - maybe 300 men and women all told. The Poles defied French orders to close ranks with the Franco-Belgian EU against the war.
Now, they've leapfrogged into the position the French (and the UN) thought would be rightfully theirs. The Australians, who have sent special forces to Iraq, are expected to keep a small military presence in Iraq. Other nations that are expected to contribute troops include Bulgaria, Denmark, Ukraine and the Netherlands.
What do these nations - Poland, Bulgaria, Denmark, the Ukraine, the Philippines and Quatar? All are nations that have been forced to play regional second fiddles to nations that have faced off economically or politically against the US. The opportunity is now here for each of them to join the Anglosphere - and they're takign it.
Three more nations — the Philippines, Qatar and South Korea — have agreed to make other contributions, including field hospitals, engineers, and civil defense and mine-clearing specialists, the official said.A senior allied official said today there had been discussions about the possibility of troop contributions from India and Pakistan, creating yet another division of troops.
Not entirely symbolic, though - they're from a European Moslem nation that has benefitted from westernizing without losing its faith. If the contribution is symbolic, one hopes the symbolism isn't lost on the locals.
A recent and largely symbolic contribution is the deployment of some 200 Albanian soldiers.As of now, however, the American-led effort pointedly excludes France, Germany and Russia, three nations that actively opposed the war.
So would someone tell me why the UN's presence is actually needed to "internationalize" this action?
A fierce fight over the role the United Nations will have in postwar Iraq is expected to be fought in Washington, New York and the capitals of Europe and the Middle East over the next few weeks.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/4/2003 08:06:30 PM
It's Sunday - Usually, weekends are big for blogging. A trip through the Sunday paper is always great blog fodder.
But I'm taking it easy this weekend. My reading has found a few things I'm dying to write about...
...but I'm not! Not yet, anyway. I have some family things to do, and a few "Mitch's Mental Health" things as well.
But I'll be back at it tonight and/or tomorrow. The blog never sleeps...
posted by Mitch Berg 5/4/2003 10:55:28 AM
In attacking the reasons for war, no liberal commentator is capable of addressing more than one of the justifications at a time; to do so would introduce a context in which their argument can not survive
Best Shots
American Bankers and the Media
Blogs
Big Media
Niche Media
Other Blogs from my Kids and I
Mental Shrapnel
Current Issue
Contact Me!
Support democracy and human rights in Iraq!
Everything on this site (c) Mitch Berg. All
non-quoted opinions are mine.
Tanks for the Memories!
The Untouchables
The Class System
The DFL Deck of Cards
For The Children
The Pope of Bruce
The Blogosphere Blacklist
Keillor, Again
Open Letter to Keillor
More...
Links
The Northern Alliance of Blogs
Fraters Libertas
Lileks
Powerline
SCSU Scholars
and the Commish
Frankfurter Allgemeine
St. Paul Pioneer Press
Minneapolis Star/Tribune
Jamestown Sun
Reason
Center for the American Experiment
National Review Online
Drudge
Backstreets
WSJ's OpinionJournal
Toquevillian
Daryll's "Horses and Orlando"
Sam's "Comic Post"
Rock's So Tough - the Iron City Houserockers
Ian Whitney's MN Bloggers
Day By Day
Bureaucrash
CuriousFurious
MN Concealed Carry Reform Now
The Onion
James Randi Educational Foundation
The Self-Made Critic
Book of Ratings
Archives
visitors, more or less, since 9/13/03
