Shot In The Dark - Politics and Current Events in Minnesota and Beyond

Sunday, June 15, 2003

Father's Day - Fathers Day used to sort of bother me.

Part of it is the excessive Hallmarkization of the day; the whole thing is an excuse to sell cards.

A larger part of it is - or was - that for much of this country, it's hypocritical. This nation does not honor fathers. Fathers are routinely considered worth not much more than paychecks after divorce. "Fathers are a biological necessity, but a social accident" wrote Margaret Meade in 1956. Our society's social engineers treated this as gospel for four decades; today, the sons and daughters of those same thinkers wonder why we have a generation of young men who will father children but won't raise them; we have social programs and law enforcement initiatives to shame, cajole and force young men into raising - or at least paying for - their accidental offspring. Fatherhood is a big stick used to deter irresponsible sex.

But even in regular families, our culture trivializes fathers and fatherhood. Look at sitcoms; in TV families from Jackie Gleason and Fred Flintstone through the present day, the mother is the font of all wisdom; the father is buffonish comic relief. Look - and I mean, look honestly - at how fathers are portrayed in commercials, movies, art, music. Absence, ridiculousness, triviality rule the portrayals coming from our popular culture (sure, there are exceptions; for every John Walton or John Ingalls, there's a George Jetson).

Neil Tift wrote this, in an article from nine years ago that's not much removed from life today:
For hundreds of generations, child rearing has been the shared responsibility of both of the biological parents of their children. While the dichotomization of gender roles may have existed in many cultures, that has not generally excluded fathers from parenting roles and responsibilities, which might be defined as teaching, nurturing, supporting, communicating, disciplining and caring for their offspring.

Only in recent history, with the advent of the Industrial Revolution in the western world, have we seen a major emphasis in the separation of the male from the home. Prior to this, cottage industries prevailed for hundreds of years. This concept permitted mothers and fathers to live, work, and raise their children together within the home. If someone needed bread, they went to the home of the baker, who made and sold or bartered the bread from their cottage. Parents taught their children their trade, or sent them to the home of the harrier, or tailor, or candlemaker to learn a different trade. But, again, child rearing was a shared responsibility of both of the parents. As one conference participant noted, with the removal of the father from the village, the commitment toward fatherhood goes down. Then, men's investment in their village tends to decrease, resulting in a downward spiral.
So fatherhood is beleaguered.

But when I step out of rant mode, I realize I shouldn't complain. I was raised by a great father, one that taught me a lot about perseverance and critical thinking and love of learning - and about all the things I didn't want to do with my life. I hope my own kids do as well. Thanks, Dad.

So today, I'm thankful for what I have - and concerned for where we as a society all fall short.
posted by Mitch Berg 6/15/2003 01:59:30 AM

Saturday, June 14, 2003

The Inmates are Running The County - Doug Grow writes a paeon to criminals.

Hennepin County (which is where Minneapolis is) plans to defy the terms of the new concealed-carry law. This is, of course, against the law. It's also a lousy lesson for "the children".

The law's supporters make their usual case:
"We all have to abide by the laws that are set," Boudreau said. "You can't set new law just because you want to."

Joe Olson, a Hamline University law professor who did much of the actual writing of the conceal-and-carry law, also said there are no clauses allowing counties to follow only those portions they like.

"If you or I did what they're doing, we'd go to jail," he said. "There was a lawyer at the [commissioners'] meeting. He pointed out they were intentionally violating the law. They are setting themselves up to be sued."

Olson said strategy sessions already are being held regarding ways to counter rebel governments in the state.

"The test case will be carefully planned, I assure you," he said. "Right now, our tactic is to wait and see if they're really going to try to enforce their ban. They know it's illegal. They may be doing this just to make themselves feel good. Obviously, if they try to enforce, there will be a suit."

Meantime, he said, "think of the message [that the Hennepin County commissioners] are sending to our youth: 'If you're big, the law doesn't apply to you."
Hennepin County always has at least one county commissioner whose overheated paranoia about gun issues makes great tragicomedic copy. This year, it's Gail Dorfman:
Dorfman obviously detests the new law. She said her decision to look for ways to adjust it came after a phone call from a constituent.

"This woman called and said, 'I'm taking my kids to the library. Are there going to be people with guns there?'

"I had this vision that you can't even take your children to the youth reading session at the library without thinking about guns. There's something wrong with that."
What's wrong with this is that people in positions of authority, like Gail Dorman, are allowed to spread such idiotic, paranoid bathwater.

What's worse is that the likes of Doug Grow can lionize this sort of thing - inflammatory paranoia, and shifting of blame for society's problems to the law-abiding citizen. Worse still, Grow compares this sort of thing - "government civil disobedience", Grow calls it, oblivious to the oxymoron he's just coined - with the Boston Tea Party.

Sorry, Doug Grow. You have it backwards. The Boston Tea Party was thrown by a bunch of grassroots patriots who fought for the rights of the law-abiding individual against overbearing, overweening government.

The Hennepin County Commission is the redcoats, in this case.

As always, I welcome the opportunity to debate Mr. Grow on this subject. Have his people call my people.
posted by Mitch Berg 6/14/2003 10:35:30 PM

Friday, June 13, 2003

Baghdad Mike - In his book Baa Baa Black Sheep, Major Gregory "Pappy" Boyington relates a story from his air battles over the Solomon Islands in 1943. He was jumped by a group of Japanese aircraft. He radioed his second-in-command, Captain George Ashmun.

"Come on help me out here", he said, "I've got five of 'em surrounded".

"Where are they?" Ashmun asked.

"Outside this cloud I'm in", Boyington responded.

That's what leapt to mind when I heard Minnesota DFL State Chair Mike Erlandson, commenting about President Bush's visit to Minneapolis next week - which will fall the day before the meeting of the Democrat National Committee and the gathering of the Nine Dwarves.

I just heard Erlandson on the radio, commenting about the timing of Bush's trip, and its suggestion - that Minnesota is in play, and could actually vote Republican in '04.

"I knew we had 'em on the run, but..."

I missed the rest. I was laughing too hard. It was a performance worthy of Baghdad Bob.

Yes, Mike. We're on the run. We got the governor, the "Wellstone Seat", another US House seat, the State House, and we're within a few votes of taking the Senate. We held the line on taxes, beat you squarely on concealed carry, and may very well put our electoral votes in the Red column next year. Five will get you ten one of us will be taking Mark Dayton's job in '06.

If we were any more on the run, we'd own Wisconsin, too.

I realize Erlandson has to keep his troops' morale up. But henceforth in this column, Erlandson shall be known as "Baghdad Mike", in honor of his ability to squeeze fictional victory from the jaws of real defeat.

Baghdad Mike.

Have a great weekend.
posted by Mitch Berg 6/13/2003 05:51:08 PM

Status Plus Shameless Plug - Here we go:

Good News: I'm in the final three for a job I'd really like to land.
Bad News: Again.

Good News: Another company seems to be interested in having me do a bunch of little odd-lot contract jobs.
Bad News: Maybe. Soon.

Need a software designer/usability guy/Biz Analyst? Just asking.

Good News: Contributions keep coming in, which keeps "Shot In The Dark" self-supporting. Thanks!
Bad News: Nothing bad about that.

Good News: Kids are home from school, giving us all sorts of quality time.
Bad News: Kids are home from school, giving us all sorts of fights and screaming.

Good News: I keep getting great information for my article.
Bad News: This is going to be a bear to write.

Good News: Started second trimester of bagpipes on Tuesday.
Bad News: Four months closer to having to shell out for a set of pipes. I need that job!

More as we go along here.

posted by Mitch Berg 6/13/2003 09:44:40 AM

Where's WMD? - Don Lambro in the Washington TImes discusses the most important point about the WMD chase; to most Americans, it's irrelevant:
I think we will find further evidence of weapons buried in the sands of Iraq. But the news media's obsession with such weapons overlooks one important and overriding reality: Most Americans think the quest for illegal weapons at this juncture is irrelevant.
Last month a national Gallup poll for CNN and USA Today found that 79 percent of Americans said the U.S. was fully justified in toppling the Iraqi regime without any evidence of such weapons.
An April poll by The Washington Post showed that 72 percent supported the war's objectives, even if no chemical or biological weapons were found. The Post quoted Pew Research Center pollster Andrew Kohut saying, "If I were a Democratic candidate, I don't think I would be pushing this issue." Mr. Kohut noted that at the start of the war, nearly 40 percent said that even if weapons of mass destruction were not found, the war was still the right thing to do. That number leaped to nearly 60 percent by the war's end.
"Inasmuch as we've already done the deed, the need for that as a rationale is less," Mr. Kohut said.
Powerline has an excellent post on this article this morning:
Oddly this kind of calculus seems lost on supposedly sophisticated liberals, especially those in the media. Ever since the Vietnamese War, liberals have demanded that the government present a simple, single rationale for military action. Whenever multiple reasons are presented, they accuse the government of equivocating. Fortunately, the public understands that decisions over war and peace are more complicated than this, and they are capable of performing a cost-benefit analysis involving multiple considerations.
I'm sure you'll see the Democrat that survives the primaries and comes through the convention figuring that out.

But first, expect a media blitz about the missing WMDs and angry Shi'ites - and a drought of stories about mass graves and Iraqis growing into democracy.
posted by Mitch Berg 6/13/2003 08:17:31 AM

Thursday, June 12, 2003

Those Days - This is one of those weeks I wish this was a group blog, like some of my favorite local blogs (Fraters Libertas, Powerline and SCSU Scholars, for example). Each of them is at least three guys - so if one of them has an off week, the others are still writing away.

Of course, many of my other favorite blogs - Sullivan, Lileks and Instapundit - are still solo acts. But Sullivan gets $100K or more per year in contributions, Lileks writes fulltime, and Glenn Reynolds is obviously really four or five people.

Sigh

So I'll beg your indulgence for my off-ish week here, and assure you better days are in store.

Very soon.
posted by Mitch Berg 6/12/2003 04:07:25 PM

Hagiographic Elementary - The Saint Paul Public Schools re-name one of their schools after Paul and Sheila Wellstone.

They take their hagiography seriously here in Saint Paul:
The decision concludes a rigorous selection process that began several months ago. After reviewing lengthy applications and conducting school visits of the three finalists, a selection committee decided that Saturn/River Front�s school climate and culture best matched the passion and perserverance that played out in the lives of both Paul and Sheila Wellstone. The selection committee included the Wellstones� son Mark, a teacher at Humboldt Senior High School in Saint Paul; Minnesota Sen. Mee Moua; and Shawn Huckleby, a Saint Paul parent who is active in the school district.

�Paul and Sheila Wellstone were both known as people with strong values, high energy and a commitment to social justice,� said Saint Paul Board of Education Chair Al Oertwig. �These are energies and values I hope all of our students will consider as they prepare for adult life.�
Of course, the SPPS can let no communication go out without emphasizing its own balkanization:
The newly named Wellstone Elementary School currently enrolls about 500 students. About 85 percent of the students are students of color, half are English language learners and nearly 90 percent receive federally funded free or reduced-price lunch.
That's the part the always amazes me about the St. Paul Public Schools; every communication - written, spoken, drawn or heard - must include a paeon to "diversity", sort of like how every Moslem reference to the Almighty must include "...blessed be his name..."
posted by Mitch Berg 6/12/2003 09:44:57 AM

From Whole Cloth - You've seen the stories; the looting, or the "Saving Private Lynch" pieces where reporters repeat, ingenuously, stories that, even to the casual observer at home, have vast gaping holes.

You wait a day, maybe less. Then a blogger - the info-age equivalent of an inventor tinkering in a basement shop - who happens to have some knowledge of the area, or an off-the-wall contact, writes a piece correcting the major-media story. People read the blog, and more people add more details to the debunquement, which soon starts to snowball into an unstoppable juggernaut of accuracy, which is distilled three weeks later into a two-line correction on page B-17 of the Times.

Roger Kimball in the Journal, with an excellent article about the press' susceptibility to anti-American fantasies:
In the New York Times, Maureen Dowd skirled about coalition forces "guarding the Iraqi Oil Ministry building while hundreds of Iraqis ransacked and ran off with precious heirlooms and artifacts from a 7,000-year-old civilization." Oh dear. Everywhere one turned, the major media had the same story: Thousands upon thousands of rare, priceless, irreplaceable artifacts had been "taken or destroyed by looters." One hundred thousand objects, according to some reports; 270,000, according to one story in the London Observer.

The Iraqis were looting themselves, but responsibility for the outrage was placed squarely at the feet of the Americans. On April 13, the Washington Post grimly informed readers that "it has become increasingly clear that the looting that was sparked by the fall of Saddam Hussein's government--largely unchecked by U.S. forces--has wreaked more damage on Iraq's civilian infrastructure and economy than three weeks of U.S. bombing." The Post went on to quote an Iraqi museum official who keened: "Our heritage is finished. Why did they do this? Why? Why?"
Why, indeed?

Kimball continues:
That story plays brilliantly but, as the London Guardian reported June 10, "it's nonsense. It isn't true. It's made up. It's bollocks." It wasn't the crazed Iraqi populace that denuded the museums but careful Iraqi curators, who spirited the swag away into vaults and secret storerooms before the war even began. Yes, there have been a few important losses. But there weren't 270,000 items missing, or (the most frequently reported number) 170,000. One museum official put the number at 47 items, but that was later revised down to 33. Meanwhile, the museum that was supposed to have been destroyed is scheduled to reopen next week. Stay tuned for further reductions.
Read it all, of course.

And print it out to give to your DFLer cube-neighbor who was kvetching last month about the "Fact" that US troops were securely garding the Iraqi Oil Ministry as looters paraded hauled off swag like the Museum was throwing the ultimate blue-light special.

Then, ask them; how much longer do you think the "The Administration Lied About WMDs!" story is going to last?
posted by Mitch Berg 6/12/2003 09:09:30 AM

BlaaargSorry about yesterday. Things started rough, and just got worse. I ended up with a raging headache and no time for blogging.

No job offers, either.

But today is another day, hopefully one that'll include some posts I've been working on for a while.
posted by Mitch Berg 6/12/2003 08:09:20 AM

Hatch and American Bankers - The legislature held hearings on the American Bankers settlement yesterday.

We've been talking about this story on this blog for the past week or so. I promised an article on the subject, and I'm going to deliver one; but it's complicated (and would be, even if I were a full-time reporter - which I'm not!).

I've been reading the Legislative Auditor's report, as well as depositions Mike Hatch made to the Legislative Auditors Office - and it begs all sorts of questions. And I'm trying to get quite a number of people to comment on their sides of this story.

Which I'm working on today...

posted by Mitch Berg 6/12/2003 07:57:21 AM

Wednesday, June 11, 2003

Revenge of the Nekulturny - You know who you are.

You're the "HR" person who suffered through the cha-cha years of the late nineties, unneeded and unappreciated.

You were un-needed because all the technical managers in your company realized you were clueless about technical staffing, and went around you to find scarce talent, using you only to fill out paperwork and send the (rare) rejection letter. You were justifiably reviled as someone who'd have been a bean-counter if you'd only passed bookkeeping class.

Or you are the hiring manager at a little consulting shop or company that's managed to hold on because of the marketing wisdom or sales skills of those just up the food chain from you, who've been carrying you for these last few years. The cha-cha boom years allowed you to get into a position of relative security.

And now that times are tough, you're having the time of your passive-aggressive little lives. You see the resumes pouring in, and your phone rings off the hook, and you roll your eyes and take your sweet time. You reject resumes that are on the wrong paper, or whose font irritates you, or that remain unread come lunchtime. You never return phone calls, even from those who interviewed with your company a month or two or three ago, wondering what the HELL happened with the position that your company was so hot to fill back when there was still snow on the ground.

You're enjoying this. All the programmers, analysts, technicians and other folks who were in their heyday three or four years ago - earning big money, getting the respect that you felt so rightfully belonged to the HR department (the REAL key to your company's future, dammit) or to ineffective middle-managers who are fast running out of laurels to rest on - well, who's laughing now, right?

Enjoy it while you can. Because in a year or two, when the economy is back in some kind of shape, there are a lot of very pissed people out here. And one of these days, when the number of resumes per opening drops back into single digits, and you look out your door and see a crowd of people, they won't be there to ask you VERY politely if it's a good time for you to discuss 401Ks. Nooooo, nosireebob, it won't. It'll be to give you the first swirlie you've had since the many you no doubt got in junior high.

Oh, mark my words. The day will come. And I'll be there, arms wrapped around your hog-tied, upside-down legs, foot on the "flush" lever, at the head of the gleeful mob.

Mark my words, I tell you.

Real posts coming soon.
posted by Mitch Berg 6/11/2003 11:38:10 AM

Crazy Day - I'm getting to the point where I should just write that every morning before I brew the coffee.

Some housework and shopping to do before I do any blogging, but oy, vey, will there be blogging. Got a couple of things to talk about today.

When I have time...

To kill time, check out Lileks' Bleat today.

All I can add is; "Chino Latino. I loved it the first time I saw it. When it was called the Loring Cafe".

Attitude-wise, anyway.

See you all in a bit.
posted by Mitch Berg 6/11/2003 09:13:35 AM

Tuesday, June 10, 2003

Another Big Day - Last day of school - plus a job interview this morning. Then, some crucial and long-deferred lawn work.

More posting later today.
posted by Mitch Berg 6/10/2003 07:35:36 AM

"You Never Had Privacy, Winston..." - Surveillance cameras are coming to downtown Minneapolis:
There already are hundreds of surveillance cameras downtown -- in parking ramps, in stores and on the streets. Many are private; a few are public but focus on traffic congestion.

But a gift by Target Corp. that was accepted Friday by the City Council would allow the installation of cameras focused on street activity and would tie them into a network at the downtown police precinct.

Police argue that it will make for a safer downtown. A video-watching cop can cover the same territory in three minutes that it might take a street cop more than half an hour to cover, Inspector Rob Allen said. Moreover, the cop watching on video can gain vital information to gauge how many units are needed to deal with an incident. And the video evidence can be saved for trial.
Inspector Allen goes on to ask:
"What's the difference between being watched by a cop on the street and being watched by a cop on closed-circuit TV?"
Because a cop on the street provides a commensurate deterrent. A camera can't respond to a mugging; a blue-and-white can.

Cameras (and the face-recognition software that people like the Minneapolis City Council will soon start rationalizing) don't make arrests, chase perps or scare the soft-core criminal into maybe waiting for another day to carry out their first mugging. All they're good for is watching people, with all the abuses that inevitably follow.
posted by Mitch Berg 6/10/2003 07:32:07 AM

Minnesota Carry Permittee Shoots Cop! - Unfortunately, it was another cop.
Named as defendants are Charles Storlie, the officer who shot Duy Ngo; the unidentified supervisors, and the city. In court documents, Ngo blames Storlie for violating his civil rights by using improper deadly force and acting maliciously or with reckless disregard for his rights.

Ngo is on paid leave and undergoing up to 30 hours of physical and occupational rehabilitation a week, his attorney said. He walks with a limp and has not regained use of his left hand. Police have said that Storlie shot Ngo once in the torso, once in an arm and once in each leg.
Duy Ngo

The suit accuses supervisors of issuing Storlie the submachine gun, "knowing his record for use and misuse of force, including deadly force on others." The suit said it is believed that the supervisors "knew of Storlie's propensity to dramatize, imagine, and thereby mentally incorporate personal danger into calls where such a danger may not be present in reality."
"Only police should carry guns", say the likes of Wes Skoglund and Ellen Anderson. "They've had the training it takes to handle guns in high-stress situations"
Ngo, who had recently been assigned to work with the Minnesota Gang Strike Force, was doing surveillance Feb. 25. He had been called to report for duty with the Army Reserves and was trying to gather more intelligence on a "high narcotics address" that he could pass on to his colleagues, he has said.

About 2:30 a.m., a suspect fired at him while he was in the car, but Ngo's bullet-resistant vest stopped the slug. Ngo got out of the car and chased the suspect, but collapsed and radioed for help.

Believing Ngo was the suspect, Storlie shot him four times with a submachine gun, according to police accounts, although Ngo's attorney said that he was shot at least seven times.
Statistically, police shoot the rong person five times as often as civilians do. That's not a rap against cops; the situations that police face are more fluid and confusing than those faced by citizens.

And when was the last time a civilian shot a perp like this?:
Police have said that Storlie shot Ngo once in the torso, once in an arm and once in each leg.
Dirty Harry lives.
posted by Mitch Berg 6/10/2003 07:24:31 AM

Saving Beeb's Privates - The WashTimes piles another rock on the BBC's claims that the Lynch Raid was a fabrication.
Special Operations and defense officials discussed the mission in interviews this week to rebut what they consider an inaccurate report by the British Broadcasting Corp.
The state-supported network, whose coverage was generally critical of the war in Iraq, charged that the U.S. Central Command staged the mission as a public relations stunt. It also said the commandos fired blanks inside Pfc. Lynch's hospital prison for cinematic effect.
U.S. officials have adamantly denied the charge. They say no shots � blanks or otherwise � were fired by the Navy SEAL-led team inside Saddam Hospital in Nasiriyah, south of Baghdad.
The article goes on to cite something about about five million blogs pointed out:
After Baghdad fell April 9, the same specially trained SEAL unit went on to capture the majority of wanted senior Iraqi leaders on Central Command's "deck of cards." In Afghanistan, some of the SEALs had comprised Task Force 11, a secret unit dedicated to catching senior al Qaeda terrorists.
"These are not the type of guys who carry blanks," an official said.
I notice that while most of the smarter left-wing pundits never really ran with this story, even some of the smarter among the more myopic ones are starting to drop it.

Which, of course, doesn't include Dennis Kucinich.
posted by Mitch Berg 6/10/2003 07:11:27 AM

Monday, June 09, 2003

Sleeper Bomb - Where are the WMDs?

They're there. In spirit.

No, I'm serious, and it makes perfect sense.

There are two great stories today - from Stanley Kurtz and the LATimes Bob Drogin - claiming that Iraq's WMD program essentially went dormant while the heat was on:
Saddam Hussein's intelligence services set up a network of clandestine cells and small laboratories after 1996 with the goal of someday rebuilding illicit chemical and biological weapons, according to a former senior Iraqi intelligence officer.

The officer, who held the rank of brigadier general, said each closely guarded weapons team had three or four scientists and other experts who were unknown to U.N. inspectors. He said they worked on computers and conducted crude experiments in bunkers and back rooms in safe houses around Baghdad.

He insisted they did not produce any illegal arms and that none now exist in Iraq. But he said the teams met regularly and put plans on paper to quickly develop weapons of mass destruction if U.N. sanctions against Iraq were lifted.
This makes sense on two levels:
The hardest part about building WMDs isn't the actual, technical work on the hardware; it's knowing how to do the job. According to both stories, the Iraqis knew the how, and had the material stockpiled to build what they needed the moment the sanctions and inspections were lifted.
The Iraqis were taught the art of strategic deception by the Soviets, who were the masters of the art. And the easiest way to hide something is if it can't be seen at all - if it's all just information on computers and relatively innocent raw materials.
The left's current snit about the lack of WMDs is going to fall flat.

Because of this, I think you can watch for the biggest accusations of all, coming soon to a major media outlet near you.
posted by Mitch Berg 6/9/2003 08:09:56 AM

Forced Attitude - When I moved to the Twin Cities, it was partly to find a job that didn't involve teaching small-town high school English or working at 500-watt Country/Western stations.

But my unstated, ulterior motive; get into the Minneapolis Music scene.

The visions danced in my head as I went to sleep before my big move: the Replacements. H�sker D�. The 'Burbs. The other North Dakota guys who'd gone there before me and found (at the time) success, the Metros and the Phones (formerly The Newz) and a few others.

And those dreams all took place in a place I'd only seen in the movies - or to be accurate, Purple Rain, largely set at the First Avenue and Seventh Street Entry bar.

Of course, when I moved here and finally went to the First Avenue and wandered around the club's smoky periphery, it was a little nonplussing to notice...it's just a bar, not much different than any other.

But of course it was different; I saw the Replacements and the Clams (and Karen Kusak broke my heart...) and the H�skers and the Butthole Surfers and Los Lobos and Richard Thompson (three times). I saw the lead singer of the F****ng S**t Biscuits rolling on a floor covered with broken glass. I saw people stabbed, people puking up their skulls, people boinking in the dressing rooms...

...and best of all, I saw the audience from the front. My various bands played the Entry several times, and the mainroom once. The best gig of all? Certainly - Saint Patrick's Day, 1987. My band, "Tenant's Union", played the Entry and caught the slopover from the traditional, ultra- packed Boiled In Lead gig in the mainroom. They were some of the best times of my life.

Peter Scholtes says the bar may be on its last legs.

Not sure how to react to this. On the one hand, times do change, and clubs will come and go. The notion that a bar that was a cradle for the local punk boom could become an institution is itself comical.

On the other hand, the club that'd replace the old Forced Attitude would likely mean nothing to me. Quest means nothing to me - and believe me, I've tried. Oh, they can book good bands, but it's just not the same.

So I may have to check the place out a few more times.

(Via Fraters Libertas - who just got on Instapundit's blogroll! Congrats, guys! You may now come into the secret Instaroll washroom, and dine at the Reynolds Club with the rest of us!)
posted by Mitch Berg 6/9/2003 07:31:27 AM

Turnbuckled - Jesse Ventura wrote an op-ed in yesterday's Strib.

It's perhaps redundant to call anything Jesse Ventura does "self-serving" - the man practically defines the term.

But this article is amazing:
Last year the state had a deficit of about $2.3 billion. In an attempt to correct the deficit I made some very difficult decisions. Basically I proposed to cut government spending substantially and raise and reform taxes in an effort to mitigate the effect of future recessions on the flow of revenue.

It was a proposal that Democrats could have and should have supported. But not Moe. When Roger had the chance to show strong leadership and do the right thing (avoiding Draconian cuts to social services and other programs), he sold out the party for his own selfish gain. Roger and his followers got into bed with those civilized Republicans, called my proposal "Jesse taxes" and agreed to ignore the problem for another year, when we all knew it would double in severity.

Why did Roger do such a thing? Why would the Democrats marry their political adversaries? Did they not know that Republicans don't approve of divorce, and that if in the end they did agree to one the Democrats would pay dearly?

Of course they knew. But there were bigger fish to fry. We all know that power and politics are more important than good public policy, and as the leader of the Democrats Roger Moe had a score to settle. Roger and his followers could not stand that an Independent had become governor of Minnesota, and this was his way to set up a race that would defeat Jesse Ventura and restore "order and civility" to politics in Minnesota.
That's right, Formergovernor Ventura. It was all about you. Roger Moe - the leader of the former majority party - staked his entire electoral, and his party's future (and its tenuous present) on a vendetta against a fluke governor with a one-seat legislative caucus.
(Incidentally, did I miss all the stories about how the Republicans and Democrats were so successful in restoring "civility and respect" to the legislative process now that the third-party Independent governor is gone? Oh, and then there was the gridlock that was going to end.)
That was one of Ventura's more irritating misconceptions; the notion that government was supposed to function as smoothly as the engine in one of Ventura's Porsches.

Ventura's stupidest proposal of all was his mania for unicameral government - a one-house legislature. I always wondered where that came from; Ventura's one-track mind, or the relentless, "Good Government" wonkery of Dean Barkley and Tim Penny, who were the men behind the curtain of the Ventura administration.
The rest is history. Jesse didnt run. Roger lost the election and with it every bit of leverage the Democrats had against the Republican majority.

The Republicans reign and John Hottinger is left to wallow in lost battles over important DFL social issues like a 24 hour waiting period for an abortion, a mandatory pledge of allegiance and a more liberal conceal and carry law.
Jesse?

Just a question, here, formergovernor; how does Jesse Ventura's absence from the scene lead to John Hottinger's problems?

And for a guy who ran as a putative libertarian, you act as if shall-issue is a bad thing...
Seems to me that you have to give credit where credit is due: To Gov. Pawlenty and House Speaker Steve Sviggum for suckering the Democrats into a trap, and to Roger Moe for falling head first into it.
Hunh?

Trap?

Perhaps it's early. Perhaps I need coffee before I try to tackle Jesse Ventura's reasoning; maybe Ventura is really making a point of yeshiva-like complexity that merely has gone past me.

I'll go make a pot, and read this again.

I'm back. The coffee was good, but it's not helping.

Formergovernor Ventura; the only "trap" Tim Pawlenty set for Roger Moe (and Tim Penny) was the same one Ronald Reagan set for Jimmy Carter - or for that matter, that one Jesse Ventura set for Norm Coleman and Skip Humphrey. He articulated a vision. He portrayed that vision relentlessly on the campaign trail. And when the electorate responded to that vision, he pushed it through the legislature with single-minded tenacity.

Except when you were governor, Jesse, the last sentence would have been "...he dumped the vision from the campaign trail and ran to the left".

In fact, the only "trap" that the state as a whole - Moe, Pawlenty, Hottinger, Sviggum and the whole lot of them - are currently in is the eight billion dollar trap that formergoverner Ventura left them in; the incredible increases in spending that the DFL forced through against a weak governor who was being led around by the nose by Tim Penny and Dean Barkley.
And finally, please spare us the comparison of Roger Moe to Vince Lombardi. Coach Lombardi would never have purposely lost the final game of the season on the chance it would improve his chance of success in the following season.
Maybe. Comparing politics and football rarely works. But it's certainly a fair cop that Roger Moe, legislative technician that he was, never came within a country mile of articulating any kind of vision that voters - even many of his base - could sink their teeth into.

So there's the comparison you wanted, Governor:
Roger Moe: No Vision
Tim Penny: Wonky vision
Jesse Ventura: Vision abandoned.
Tim Pawlenty: Vision fought for with relentless perseverence.
And that is a message Vince Lombardi would sink his teeth into.
I always said that in politics the best road is the right road -- even if it takes a little longer.
Corollary: But if it takes longer than you have, is it really the best road?
posted by Mitch Berg 6/9/2003 07:02:44 AM

My Own Private D-Day - Today I'm going to tackle my daughter's principal over this little matter of the Code Pink literature being distributed in school, armed with the text from a couple of court decisions (thanks to a couple of you readers!).

And fix the dishwasher...

I'll report on the school bit, anyway.

%^#$$@# Blogger - I have no idea what happened in the post below. Sometimes I'll enter some of the HTML code wrong, and there's no way to edit it.

I had been trying to say that the world's only readable diaryblog, (check code veeeeery carefully) "Plain Layne" seems to have disappeared, leaving us with a cryptic admonition..

So I'm off to scour the web for more stuff that doesn't stink.
posted by Mitch Berg 6/9/2003 06:32:20 AM

Sunday, June 08, 2003

Wave of Nostalgia - Once in a blue moon, I like to go through this blog's archives (the ones that work, anyway).

It's amazing how much stuff I wrote that I can't remember at all.

Like this piece from last July, with my big prediction for the November elections.

I guessed all the numbers wrong, of course - neither Tim Penny nor Ken Pentel polled as well as the surveys were showing in July (when some polls showed Penny leading the pack!).

Turn, Turn, Turn - Blogs are such a fickle thing.

Fatherhood seems to be cutting into Jeff Fecke's blogging time, which is a drag, because his "Blog Of The Moderate Left" is a good one (for a moderate Democrat).

And it's a complete buzzkill that the world's only readable diaryblog, posted by Mitch Berg 6/8/2003 10:40:06 PM

Genius Among Us - Yesterdays' Andrew Sullivan featured the best anagram poem I've ever seen, by a John Addis:
I'll tell you a story of: Howell Raines
How everyone knew: He'll Now Arise
Before the scandals: He is All Owner
But while in power: Ran Whole Lies

Honest reporters think: He's Orwellian
In news, there was: Nowhere as Ill
Blair was simply: A Swollen Hire
Contributing to the: Sewer on a Hill

The internet blogs: Learn Who Lies
How fired reporters: He Reallows In
Just honest mistakes: He Will Reason
Now all media is doubted: Hell, a Sore Win

posted by Mitch Berg 6/8/2003 08:24:42 PM

Identify This Church - I'll give you the clues:
Complete inabilty to tell villain from victim
Picking the precise response that Jesus would not
An absurdly exaggerated notion of the value and purpose of a church's physical property.
If you guessed Edina Community Lutheran Church, the congregation of well-heeled, anti-gun DFLers in Edina, you'd be close...

...but in fact, we're talking about this church in New York City:
A Manhattan church that rented space to a synagogue tossed its tenants into the street and locked the doors yesterday in a tenant-landlord dispute allegedly prompted by terroristic threats against the Jewish worshippers.
Don't take this the wrong way; I'm a virulent, militantly-moderate Christian (and fish out of water - I'm a conservative who worships in the Presbyterian Church). I think (as most of the principals in the story do) that the vast majority of churches would tell those making the threats "Over our dead bodies". I'd suspect that most Jewish congregations would do the same. (Suspect? No, I know that one liberal St. Paul synagogue recruited one of its members, a known firearms expert, to bring his legal, permitted handgun to services, after a flurry of antisemitic violence a few years ago).

But the church involved is cut from a different grade of cloth, it seems:
Cohen, 48, said he had first received a letter from the church last October informing him of a rent increase. He said he was open to discuss changes with Casey.

But instead of talks, Cohen said he received a flurry of letters telling him he had until May 31 to leave the premises. One letter contained a list of reasons for eviction, including a claim by the church that an "Arab-looking man" had verbally threatened them to "get rid of the Jews," the rabbi said.

"When we challenged them about the letters, the church told us they had received two Muslim threats saying, 'Get rid of the Jews - or else,' " Cohen said. "We said, 'You can't throw us out on the basis of that.' "

He produced a typewritten letter, hand-dated Oct. 19, 2002, that said in part that "threats have been made against 'Rock Church' because their premises are being used by Congregation Beth-El." The missive provided three months notice of eviction.
Here's the big question; what do you suppose the odds are that "Rock Church" is a left-of-center congregation that was in complete support of, say, the Sanctuary Movement?

(Via Powerline
posted by Mitch Berg 6/8/2003 02:16:32 PM

Thanks! - I just looked at my Amazon account. Many thanks to those of you who saw fit to contribute to this site in the past week. Your contribution is deeply appreciated, and I'll keep working to make sure Shot in the Dark is worth your patronage.

It warms my heart to say that your contributrions have made this site completely self-supporting for the past eight months now. Contributions in the last week will keep the site on the air through the summer - which is a very good thing!

Thanks again!
posted by Mitch Berg 6/8/2003 01:56:54 PM

Berg's Law of Liberal Iraq Commentary:

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