Shot In The Dark

She Knows No-Thing. She Sees No-Thing.

At least when it comes to her staff's antics:

(The image is for satirical purposes only, and deliberately leverages the benign, comedic nature of the late John Banner's beloved character, Sergeant Schultz. Schultz was a stumbling, bumbling oaf - sort of like the Rowley campaign itself - and incapable of comprehending his own situation, much less inflicting evil - again, like Rowley's campaign itself. Coleen Rowley served her country well as an FBI agent for a long time, and for that deserves our thanks. The illustration above in no way implies, implicitly or explicitly, any sympathy for Nazi ideology, history or causes on Rowley's part. Which is why I am disclaiming the image so very, very clearly).

(Unlike her website's original shot of Rep. Kline, of course).

Rowley Departs Controlled Flight

The campaign of former FBI whistleblower Colleen Rowley posted a photoshop of 2nd District Representative John Kline - a retired Marine Corps colonel - depicted as a Nazi.

As noted in Powerline and on Captain's Quarters, the Rowley campaign first scuppered the page - and then came out in support of it:

I support this excellent blog written by one of our best volunteers!
-- Coleen Rowley

Ah, the old "Nameless Volunteer" trick. Sorry, Chief!The funny (?) part - the original piece was about Kline's support for changing the face on the $50 bill from U.S. Grant to Ronald Reagan.

So this was the piece for which the Rowley campaign chose to compare a distinguished veteran with a Nazi:

For those of us who haven’t been greased by as many $50 bills as Rep. Kline (see Tom DeLay and 'Duke' Cunningham), the likeness gracing the bill is our 18th president, Ulysses S. Grant. (Grant has been on the $50 since 1914, the year Federal Reserve notes were introduced.)

It is well-known that Rep. Kline had a personal relationship with President Reagan (you may have heard Kline mention the 'Nuclear Football'? 2). It is admirable that Rep. Kline would assert his loyalty and gratitude by wishing to memorialize President Reagan. But his choice to bump Grant from the $50 reveals a lot about the congressman and today’s Republican Party.

Ms. Rowley (and the chuzzlewit who wrote the pieces): On behalf of all Minnestoans, I ask: Huh?

I mean, on the one hand I have to thank you for not saying the choice "speaks volumes" about anything - it's become the most doltish cliche of the past year.

On the other hand, what does it say? That Kline would like to see our currency updated and the greatest president of the second half of the 20th century honored on par with the greatest president of the first half? And this is wrong how?

DFLers - it's going to be fun to see if any of you renounce this incredible display of sophomoric cretinism.

And if Rowley does it before any of the rest of you do.

UPDATE: MDE notes that Nazi comparisons and the DFL go hand-in-hand.

Congratulations Are In Order

Nihilist in Golf Pants, after 16 months of diligent work, has achieved the most coveted honor a local blogger can have; a mention in Blog House.

Their stature in the local blog community has just soared.

I may not be fit to lick Sisyphus' boots.

Detective Hartigan

Katie from Yucky Salad on her uncle:

Retired Detective Lieutenant Patrick Thomas ("Pat") Hartigan, whom former Police Chief Anthony Bouza once characterized as, "an urban saint," died at his home in Minneapolis on January 25. He was 75 years old. Predeceased by his parents and one sister, Mary Louise, he is survived by three siblings: retired Municipal Judge Bruce Hartigan; Michael, also a retired city employee; Katherine ("Punkin") Hubbell, of Minnetonka; and a large number of loving cousins, nieces, nephews and friends. A 30-year veteran of the police force, Hartigan was walking a Franklin Avenue beat in 1958 when he came upon an older man who had been beaten and robbed. "He had lost everything he had," Hartigan reported. The policeman volunteered to manage the man's finances, and to dole out his money to him as he needed it. "I'm a stable address," he said, "and my mailbox doesn't get ripped off." Before long, he found himself doing the same for many of the people along his beat, most of them native Americans; through the years, he accumulated hundreds of "clients." He made many enduring friendships, loaned or gave many of them a great deal of his own money, served as best man at their weddings and became godfather to many of their children. In an effort to explain his attitude, he once said, "They're poor and powerless, but they are made in the image and likeness of God. You can't help but like them."

Read the whole thing. (Scroll down if you have to - Katie still hasn't figured out permalinks...)

Object Lesson

Thirty-eight years ago today the Tet Offensive began.

It's helpful to remember the context of the offensive: by the end of 1967, the US had basically ground the insurgency down:

From the American perspective, the ongoing "police action" appeared to be going their way. Initial US actions had been met with ongoing resistance in the south, and a number of medium-sized battles with the PLAF. The later had been fairly bloody affairs in the past, but as the US "war machine" got up to speed, they had become increasingly one-sided. The Battle of Khe San, while ongoing, was a failure for the PLAF in both tactical and strategic terms, and would eventually kill about half the PLAF troops sent into action. PAVN was suffering even more stiffly; a combination of the introduction of the M16 rifle, improved air and artillery support procedures, and rapid mobility via the helicopter had transformed US forces from something not that different than average PAVN unit into a force that could call down massive firepower in minutes, at any point on the map. ARVN forces were also improving, albeit at a slower rate, as front-line US forces received new equipment and some of this was now being made available to the ARVN forces as well.

Commanders were justifiably impressed with their success, and were all too happy to share the opinion with reporters. Throughout 1967 the attitude was one of "containment"; the war would never be ended due to direct military action, but it would be reduced to such a low level that the term "police action" would no longer be ironic.

It's rarely noted in the US - the failure of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong efforts be topple Saigon between 1962 and 1967 had not only led to a drop in violence in the countryside - it had helped foment a peace faction in the North Vietnamese government. In Hanoi. Unlike the American "peace" movement, the Hanoi peace faction was purged from power.

The North Vienamese Army and the Viet Cong guerrillas launched the Tet Offensive one primary objective; to kick off what they presumed would be a major urban civilian uprising against US and South Vietnamese control.

The effort was, of course, crushed as a military venture. General Giap - the leader who 14 years earlier had ejected France from Vietnam - felt despondent about the results of the offensive (which he had opposed, but planned).

But it was during Tet that the media's reputation as a left-leaning institution started to work its way, rightly or wrongly (*), into the national canon. We all know of Walter Cronkite's famous assertion - with fires burning in the background, but in abeyance of all military fact - that the war was lost.

More subtly and insidious, though, was the media's intrusion into one of the most famous images of the war, the extemoraneous execution of Nguyen Van Lem by a South Vietnamese general, Nguyen Ngoc Loan (no relation). If you are an American who's not been under a rock for two generations, you've seen the photo:

...and probably also seen the footage of the same event from nearly the same angle, shot by an NBC cameraman.

When the media reminds you of the benefits of the major media's layers of gatekeeping and their monastic commitment to telling the truth, it's worthwhile to remember the story of the shooting. Of all the media that covered the story, only the Associated Press mentioned that Lem was the leader of a Viet Cong assassination unit that had just murdered 34 civilians - including women and children - that had been found in a nearby ditch. None mentioned that there were reports General Loan's family were reported among the dead of that day.

But did they show the silent footage (there was no audio man along for the shoot)?

No - NBC news added a gunshot when they broadcast the event on their evening news.

The "defeat" at Tet wasn't the first story the media conjured from at least partial cloth and got entered into the national mythology (the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine certainly qualified), nor was it the last (gangs of cannibals didn't actually roam New Orleans; the Burkett memos were fake but not accurate). But it was the first one that rendered 50,000 American deaths mostly vain.

And hopefully the last.

(*) Rightly.

Defying Gravity

Sometimes my kids amaze me.

Now, I'm not one of those parents who is in constant, indiscriminate awe of his children; I think part of loving them is helping realize that they aren't the most special people in the whole world (except to me, personally, in my heart, where that sort of thing belongs). My kids do great things; they also blow off their homework and forget to feed the dog. They are, in short, human.

But I gotta hand it to Bun and Zam - they have one thing all over me.

My ex-wife and I started the kids on roller skates very young; I think Zam was barely three years old, and Bun was probably a little over four. This is a good thing; with that boundless capacity for absorbing stuff that little kids have (unless they're stuck in front of a TV wasting that capacity), they developed balance and relative fearlessness about falling before I finished lacing up my skates. They both skate rings around me, and most people to boot.

Last night I took 'em skateboarding - there's an indoor skateboard park in Golden Valley, behind the Louisiana Avenue Taco Bell. It was a three hour session, and I did it largely to buy myself a couple of hours to get some homework done.

I didn't wind up leaving the building. I was amazed.

Part of it was the show on the floor. I find most "skater" "culture" pretty depressing; "Viva La Bam" has to be the most depressing program on television. There's a grotesque nihilism in the way the culture is marketed; one sticker last night was subtitled "Hate. Kill. Destroy", completely with nazi/fascist motif; the ad sells skateboards. Another ad for, I think, skate gear billed "Gear for the Youth Revolution". Advertisers wanting to reach skateboarders seem to mine Goebbels and Guevara with equal aplomb.

But the silliness of the ads was a momentary distraction from the park itself, and all the skating. Which was amazing; watching the older kids - late teens and early twentysomethings, mostly - sailing off the tops of ten-foot quarter-pipes, flying over ramps, flipping their boards, and ending up atop another ten-foot pipe is a daunting display of applied physics for a guy who on a good day can do a straight line in in-line skates.

And I spent most of the time watching my kids. My son is a lot more physically fearless than I ever was (to say nothing of the way I am now), but even he felt a little daunted the first time he stood at the top of the three-foot quarterpipe. He tried kicking his board down - and fell over.

And then he did it again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And yet again.

And then he almost got it, but fell over at the last second.

And then - he made it. He kicked his board over, so he was heading nearly-vertically downward (if only for a foot or so), then bottoming and rolling smoothly across the flat black (what else) floor.

Bun is a lot more like me; she contented herself with rolling down the ramp and across the floor - occasionally over a small ramp in the middle of the floor - over and over again, basically making sure of her balance.

Short quarter-pipe conquered, Zam and his friend made a beeline from the "bunny slope" room to the big park. Zam's friend - let's call him "Jeff" - is one of those kids I remember envying; the right height for his age and size (when I was 15, I was 6'2 and 125 pounds), for starters, and thus coordinated and graceful in a way I could never be (and have never been). He was doing screeching turns up and down quarterpipes, flying over ramps and mastering elementary tricks by the middle of the evening.

Zam went a little slower, but was navigating the tall ramps in the big park with ease - down from about 10 feet to about five, then across the long table, over a short ramp (no tricks, but fast and balanced) and up the ten foot ramp on the other side with a short flourish. They both had a grace and command of...of balance that astounds me.

I watched them - down the ramp, up the ramp, down the ramp, up the ramp - for two of the three hours of the session, Bun and Zam (and of course the advanced skaters, whose tricks gave my knees sympathy pangs). The effortlessness of it all - even in Sam's simple gliding - was mesmerizing. I can understand the fascination.

Oh, yeah - and some of my faith in the next generation is restored. If you watch dreck like "Viva La Bam", you might get the impression that serious skateboarders (like anyone in any area where the worst traits of adolescence are glorified) can be self-indulgent, emotionally-stunted jagoffs. And you'd be right. A couple of the kids, early-teens with great skating chops and minimal social skills, tried to throw their weight around with the beginners - and Bun, Zam and his friend handled things well, holding their own and not backing down and yet not getting into a fight - the sort of thing you hope your kids will do, though on some of the darker days of raising teenagers you hardly expect it.

A great night, all in all.

Evidence?

A commenter to an earlier thread noted something I'd missed; Al Franken has moved his show to Minneapolis.

The locals are all atwitter:

As you may or may not know, The Al Franken Show of Air America Radio is now broadcasting out of the Foshay Tower in downtown Minneapolis. Welcome to the Twin Cities, Al and company!

Now, if you're an Air America fan, that's gotta be bad news; Franken feels it's worth leaving his network's home turf, diminishing his access to the left's movers and shakers, to be here in the Twin Cities. He's now disconnected from the network...

...just in case.

Travelogue

Sheila's been in LA for like a week.

22-part travelogue? Check.

Hilarious? Natch.

The Whole System Is No Longer Out Of Order

There's nothing about a "Fair trial" that involves a defendant controlling the proceedings.

(For that matter, there's nothing about Saddam Hussein's record that justifies a trial in the first place; the US - or the Iraqi government - would have been thoroughly justified in holding a tribunal, summarizing the charges, and executing him. They'd have probably also been better off sending a grenade into his spider-hole than hauling him out, but that's a digression).

But since the US and Iraq have opted to follow the Nuremberg and Eichmann trial models - staging an elaborate trial for someone who built an entire nation on his guilt - it's good to see that the Hussein trial finally has a judge who acts like a judge rather han an ineffective project manager:

A new judge cracked down Sunday in a chaotic session of Saddam Hussein's trial, ordering a co-defendant and a lawyer expelled from the courtroom. The entire defense team left in protest and Saddam was escorted out after a shouting match in which he yelled, "Down with America!"

Despite the turmoil, chief judge Raouf Rasheed Abdel-Rahman pushed ahead, replacing the defense lawyers with court-appointed attorneys and hearing three prosecution witnesses before adjourning the trial until later this week.

It was Abdel-Rahman's first session at the helm, replacing a jurist who stepped down amid criticism that he was not doing enough to stop Saddam and his half brother, co-defendant Barzan Ibrahim, from dominating the trial with frequent outbursts and disruptions.

"Fairness" means the cases are stated, the evidence is seen, a verdict rendered and a sentence handed down according to procedure - not that one side exerts control via their personality.

It's about time.

Pervasive Irony

Recently we noted that recent neurological research has shown that people show interesting neurological effects when discussing politics; people react with disinterest when their opponents are talking, and with pleasure when their opponents get shut down.

Interestingly, the Strib notes the same study today.

I'd have figured they'd have spiked this story:

We all know people who seem to let their feelings drive their politics, untroubled by a steady flow of contrary facts. Still, it's a surprise to read of neurological research confirming precisely those impressions.

Wonder if anyone tested this writer when he said:

...But here's what I found troubling about your letters, Red: Many of you don't seem to realize you live in Minnesota. You think you are in Alabama....the 1960s are over. What worries me is the people who want to go back to the 1860s.

Back to the editorial:

Across the board, the partisans forgave their man and took a dim view of his opponent (it's not clear how they judged Hanks but here, too, the researchers found no difference between Republicans and Democrats). Here's the shocker: They did so without firing up the parts of their brains associated with reasoning. Instead, they shut down the circuits associated with negative emotions, like disgust, and activated those associated with pleasurable rewards, like drugs.

Strib: "I'm shocked, shocked, to find out that anyone acts like that!"

Probably these findings will not surprise the people who shape campaign messages and aim them elsewhere than the intellect. But they should be sobering to citizens who want to believe their political views, of whatever stripe, are based on something more than self-perpetuating bias. Nothing in the Emory study suggests that even the most partisan folks can't think for themselves -- only that, far too often, they don't.

Wow - those baaad partisans.

We don't know anyone like that, do we?

Consequences and Cluelessness

There are a lot of people out there who just don't "get" the Hamas election, I think.

Last night I listened to "Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me", an NPR quiz show that, to be fair, doesn't pride itself on keen analysis. The ofay snark is more its' speed.

At one point, host Peter Sagel quipped "this past week, President Bush welcomed the election of Hamas, saying..." and quoting Bush's generic diplomatic boilerplate welcoming the new government, to the titters of the crowd (of Volvo-driving, alpaca-wearing Kerry voters and MoveOn supporters) who just knew that it was yet another hypocrisy!

Supporting terrorists in the Palestinian Authority while fighting terrorists in Iraq! Not to mention attacking terrorists who his father had bankrolled until they double-crossed Halliburton! Hahahaha!

Of course, as King and Ed noted on last weekend's NARN show, the real good news of the Hamas election is not that terrorists won; it's that the real sentiments of the Palestinian people are on full electoral display. Peace doesn't have a chance until the people of Palestine have a massive change of heart about Israel.

Oh, yeah; Democracy has consequences:

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday ruled out any American financial aid to a Hamas government in the Palestinian territories and said Washington wants Arab nations and others to cut off money as well.

Humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, many of whom are poor and unemployed, is likely on a "case-by-case basis," Rice said. She indicated that the Bush administration would follow through on aid promised to the current, U.S.-backed Palestinian government led by President Mahmoud Abbas.

"The United States is not prepared to fund an organization that advocates the destruction of Israel, that advocates violence and that refuses its obligations," under an international framework for eventual Mideast peace, Rice said.

The PA government, weaned on Yasir Arafat's graft-riddled style, is shrieking like a spoiled six-year-old at the thought of the US denying it support in its electoral goal of destorying Israel.

And the semi-conservative win in Germany is having results:

The European Union could not fund a Hamas-run Palestinian Authority if it did not renounce violence and recognize Israel, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in Israel on Sunday.

It was the most explicit threat to cut aid from Europe, the biggest donor to the Palestinians, since Islamic militant group Hamas won a shock victory in parliamentary elections last week. The United States has also threatened to block funding.

Hamas, expected to form the new government, has denounced Western threats to cut aid as blackmail and rejected calls to disarm and end its formal commitment to destroy Israel.

"Blackmail".

Democracy has consequences. As I noted on the show Saturday, last week's election was similar to the German elections of 1933 in that the winner tapped into a strain of belief that was endemic in their respective societies - eliminationist anti-Semitism - and that neither particularly stood out from either their society or the other electoral options (except, of course, for the Nazis' will to follow through on their campaign promises).

Truer Words

Mr. Beano from the Persistent Burrito notes

-Curious meteorological event today in Minnesota. It rained. Just in case you're the kind of person who loses track of the date, it's January. Yes, that's the month when it's cold (except for Australia, Pele-land, and Chad (not the Elder, the country). Getting rain in January is like getting a smile and an autograph from Barry Bonds; it just never happens. "Never say never, Mr. Bond".

This is the strangest winter since 1986-87; starting with a roar, ending (?) with a whimper.

Did I just compare this winter to a winter 20 years ago?

Ooof.

Wilde: They Broke The Mold

Wendy Wilde is gone from Air America Minnesota.

The reason is one of the best I've seen:

For the first 8 months my office was in the same moldy
basement so I was spending 8-9 hours a day in the moldy air,
and I have developed an extreme allergic reaction to mold.
Management had the grounds graded to try and stop the
frequent basement flooding, and since September when the
basement walls and moldy carpet were removed, it actually got
worse for me. I have been on numerous courses of antibiotics
for sinus infections, and working with blinding headaches and
other symptoms. When I am away from the basement studios I
gradually get better again with a lot of bedrest. That is no
life, and my family misses my company and attention. I was
willing to broadcast from an upstairs office or even from
home, but I was no longer willing to work sick. I offered my
resignation over the holidays, and was asked to wait, but
when I got sick again this week I realized my health needed
to come first, and resigned.

I gotta confess - I'll miss the hystrionic shrieking, the half-informed commentary, and the frothing arrogance.

That's not really true.

According to rumors (I haven't listened to the station since Nick Coleman bailed, they've put Ember Reichgott Junge - a pleasant-enough person, albeit one with some very noxious beliefs, who does a weekend show that the NARN has been beating like a piece of laundry for the past year. Here's a compliment for Wilde and Coleman; either of them would be better-suited to do a major-market (let's be charitable and call Janet Robert's operation "major-market") morning show than Reichgott Junge.

Whew

One of conservative talk radio's greatest hidden treasures is Dennis Prager's weekly "Happiness Hour" (which, come to think of it, should be either starting or finishing any minute here).

There've been two such shows in the past year that have had a huge impact on me. The first - probably back around last New Years - reiterated a lesson I'd known for years in another context. There's an old Hungarian saying; "the best way to become wealthy is to appear as if you already are". Of course, you can substitute many words for "wealthy"; the best piece of advice I ever heard Laura Schlesinger give was a permutation; "the best way to recover your love for someone is to act as if you do, anyway". But of course, it was Prager who closed the loop; "the best way to become happy is to act, live and just be happy". It's true; there are benefits, tangible and non, to keeping a good attitude, to leaving a space in your life for the thing you want - happiness, love, health, whatever - and finding or achieving it. On the other hand, acting disenchanted, poor, miserable and unhappy can all become self-fulfilling acts. So I've made a conscious effort over this past year to just be a lot of things I want to be. It's made a huge difference (except for trying to will myself to be better-looking; I'm looking for progress, not miracles).

Prager's other lesson from the past year that hit me where I live; "Becoming Happy is hard work".

Boy, did he get that one right.

I don't have a lot to complain about, really - but there are some things in my life that were making me pretty unhappy; my house has been a cluttered mess most of the past year (largely a result of having been very sick last winter, combined with having a puppy in the house; a lousy combination at best) and a financial situation that's been chaotic for the past couple of years. Not "bad", per se - just chaotic. While I thive on chaos in many areas of my life - work, creativity, the day to day give and take of life - money is not one of them. Knowing what I have and where it's going is something that makes me feel a lot better - and something I've not had for quite a while, certainly since the miserable year of '03, when I spent five months out of work and five more terribly underemployed, and knowing "where my money was at" was superfluous, since I had none.

I'm not a creature of routine - but one of few routines in my life is getting up around 5AM to write this blog. But for the last month or so, the ritual's been crowded by another one; getting up, entering my receipts and downloading my bank transactions in Quicken, comparing the spending to a budget I set up around Christmastime, and trying to get my finances more or less ship-shape.

And it's coming along, bit by bit; I've pretty much tamed my bills (everything's punched into my bank's Bill Pay site and Quicken a month in advance. I have some catching up to do, but at least I'm on track - and know what the "track" is.

But it's been hard - changing one's behavior usually is. I won't be able to "relax" until probably the summer, sometime. Of course, without this work, it'd be a lot longer...

The house, too; a weekend of crazy cleaning and fixing things up two weeks ago got a few big swathes of the house that had been nagging me more or less into shape; there's a ton to do, but things are showing some improvement...

...as is my attitude in general. Happiness is difficult. Glad I finally figured it out.

Vick Verdict

The jury has reached a verdict in the Vick shooting case. As of noon, we're still waiting.

Says the Strib:

The verdict reached by the jury is expected to be announced within the hour in a courtroom at the Ramsey County Courthouse, where the trial has been conducted since Jan. 11.

The jury has deliberated about 10 hours since receiving the case Thursday afternoon.

Someone once called Saint Paul "fifteen small towns with one mayor". It's at times like this that it's the most apparent.

Adios, Fast Eddie

KFGO, the home station of liberal talk host Fast Eddie Schultz, has bagged the show:

A popular local radio duo [longtime Fargo radio stalwards Jack Sunday and Sandy Buttweiler] switched stations Wednesday to replace the show it was fired to make room for a little more than a year ago...Though Schultz’s show will continue to be broadcast from a studio at KFGO, [station GM Jeff] Hoberg said the syndicated show likely will not air on the Fargo station.

“I would say at this point we don’t have plans to put Ed’s show back on the air,” Hoberg said. It’s possible it could be moved to another time slot, he said.
Messages left for Schultz spokesman Vern Thompson were not returned Wednesday. Ed Schultz could not be reached at his Detroit Lakes, Minn., home...Hoberg said the move is also part of a push to get more live and local programming back on KFGO. He said the politics of Schultz’s left-leaning talk show was not a factor.

The whole story (should you read it) is the sort of stuff radio is famous for, especially in mid-sized markets like Fargo. It illustrates nicely why I'm glad not to be depending on the racket for a paycheck anymore.

The big question; will Schultz get another Fargo outlet?

Fargo correspondents - please keep us posted.

(Thanks to Nancy from ProtestWarrior)

Tragically Hip

Via Chad, I see that Minneapolis/Saint Paul magazine has screwed up again.

While I did a long, involved interview for their "Hipster Survey" - their annual survey of their writers' drinking buddies - the copy editor, still miffed over my drubbing her in an article about strategic defense back in 1998, left my article out.

So, with their permission for the "oversight" (I'm assured the copy editor will never do lunch in this town again), I reprint my interview.

Hipster Survey

Mitch Berg

He's the next generation of amateur pundit in this town. He proves that a blogger can work, drive, and find new opportunities to work too hard for free. The naturally irritating, overly-strident and reflexively partisan Berg is a versatile performer who has worked the at more companies than most people have underwear. But apparently that was not enough. So this fella with a flame in ihs belly recently launched his pet project, "Minnesota Elite Radio" with a mission of making radio accessible to nobody - literally, radio that is too good for every audience.

Where do you live?
Saint Paul. Suburbs are for pansies.

With whom?
My daughter, my son, my dog, my cat, my mortgage.

What’s your coffeehouse/coffeeshop?
The one with the arrogant barrista who's really a novelist.

What’s your Sunday breakfast spot?
Any place where I can feed three without taking out a second mortgage. Usually ends up being my kitchen.

What do you drive?
The agenda.

No, seriously: Anything cheap and reliable. Right now, an '01 Taurus.

What sites do you surf for news?
Anything but ABC, CBS, NBC or CNN.

What’s the first thing you read in the Strib?
I flip straight to the incisive, entertaining analysis of Kim Ode.

What’s on your morning drive dial?
Laura Ingraham (Patriot), Barnard (KQ) and MPR (my fillings)

When not in town, where are you?
Pfffft. I'm always in town. Give me a break. I haven't had a "vacation" in years.

Who’s your local band/musician?
The one that the people at the City Pages just love, that writes all the depressing songs about being a 20-something musician living in the Wedge. You know - that one.

Where do you have season tickets?
To the University Avenue Passing Freak Show. Every season for the past 18.

What’s your apparel store(s)?
My apparel store? I'm a straight male, slick; I don't "have" a store. I just go to them.

Where’s your favorite “go to” place that always seems to have just the right thing?
Willie's American Guitars. Not that I can buy much...

Where do you get take-out?
Black Sea, the turkish joint on Snelling. There is no better.

What’s your bakery?
"My" bakery, Gelpe's, is long gone. Bastards.

Where do you mall?
Any shopping center where anyone who uses "Mall" as a verb gets their ass kicked.

Where are you on a Friday night?
8PM: Tipping my first drink, delighting the crowd with my repartee.
9PM: Face down in a pool of vomit.

That, or doing something with the kids.

Where’s your gallery(s)?
I don't have one; I just go. But I recommend you all patronize this very talented artist and highschool classmate of mine.

Who cuts your hair? Where?
Great Clips. On my head.

What are you really uptight about?
Dealing with the ramifications of my out of control hipness.

What’s your substance of choice?
I don't choose substances. Substances choose me.

What subjects are you a total geek over?
Any that allow me to lord my mastery over other people.

Where do you refuel? (recharge? feed your soul?)
At "Soul Fuel Feeder Recharger", this nifty joint Uptown.

What’s your date night?
8PM: Tipping my first drink, delighting the crowd with my repartee.
9PM: Face down in a pool of vomit.

What’s the most you’ve paid for a concert ticket?
People like me don't "pay" for "tickets". We're just there.

When you’re at your naughtiest, you…
8PM: Tipping my first drink, delighting the crowd with my repartee.
9PM: Face down in a pool of vomit.

What’s your beauty/grooming thing?
Zipping up.

What’s your workout? Where?
8PM: Tipping my first drink, delighting the crowd with my repartee.
9PM: Face down in a pool of vomit.

Who (or what’s) the service provider you can’t live without?
R and M Sanitation.

What’s your favorite night?
Whatever night Karl Rove tells me is my favorite.

What’s the next performance you’ll attend?
My conference call with my bill collectors.

What’s an arts organization you support?
The MOB.

What’s your nightcap?
8PM: Tipping my first drink, delighting the crowd with my repartee.
9PM: Face down in a pool of vomit.

Where’s the afterparty?
People like me don't do "afterparties". We are afterparties.

What’s your favorite restaurant for:

* food?

Black Sea. If you don't know the place, you don't rate.

* quality?

No restaurant could afford to live up to my quality standards.

* late night?

White Castle

* scene?

There will never be another 26th and Hennepin Embers during weekend bar rush.

* impress your date?

Any place I'm at will impress my date. Unless she's a brain-dead skeeze.

* impress your client?

Any place I'm at will impress my client. Unless he/she's a brain-dead dimbulb. When I start having "clients", again, anyway.

Who’s your favorite Twin Citian?
Jed Tostengaard.

Hear me now – X will be Y in 6 months. . .
x = "The subjects of Minneapolis/Saint Paul's "Hipster Survey..."
y = "...so 2005".

It's Not Just Me!

Someone else noticed it - Target is insane!:

It was Jan. 2. Our Christmas tree had just been denuded of decorations, and as is the case every year, I needed one more green and red plastic storage tub to pack away the last of the ornaments and garland.

So I zipped into my local Target, focused and determined not to get sidetracked and wind up spending $50. Halfway down the main aisle I slowed and gaped. There, in the children's section, were racks and racks of short-sleeved T-shirts and swimsuits.

"Short sleeves in January. And swimsuits. Unbelievable," I groused aloud. A cheery Target employee overheard the grumbling.

"May I help you?"

"No, I was just complaining."

"Oh! About what?" The guy either was a glutton for punishment or bucking for employee of the month.

"Short-sleeved tops! In January!" I sputtered. "What is with that?"

"Spring has sprung," the man in the red shirt said. "At least it has at Target."

Ooooh, I hate that! I wrote about that last year, when I went looking - on January 15 - for a winter coat. There were none - but the aisles were lined with spring clothes and swimwear. But try going to Target to find a swimsuit in July, or school clothes in October - you know, when people are swimming or going to school...

Last year, I ran around town trying to locate heavy cotton tights for my child. In February. Target had long since replaced its stock of heavy kids' tights with the thin microfiber variety.

But I've gotten smarter. This year, while Christmas shopping, I noticed that my local Target was down to four pairs of heavy cotton pink ribbed tights in size 4-6x. I knew what to do. I cleaned the store out.

Like shopping for bread in the USSR, I tells ya.

Instant Kanye's Gonna Getcha

Kanye West poses as Christ:

Kanye West, with a crown of thorns atop his head, poses as Jesus Christ on the cover of the upcoming issue of Rolling Stone.

Rolling Stone loves it, of course.

I bet if he'd posed as John Lennon, with a bullet hole in his chest, they'd be rapping another tune.

One Of Those Days

It's 6AM and I'm already ready for a nap.

I'm hitting a bunch of deadlines at work. I'm in the midst of getting a stack of "Functional specifications" - highly-detailed descriptions of what my designs are supposed to do and how they're supposed to do it - approved by...well, everyone. Management, the business, development, my boss. It's the gnarliest part of the job.

Posting may be on the light side today and for much of the week.

The Talent Bubble

Brian Maloney has four questions for Rush Limbaugh:

1) When is the guest-host pool going to finally improve, Rush? You've no doubt heard the complaints, so why must the show's quality drop so much at times while you're away? [Great question. While I never get to listen to midday radio, I reflexively flip the dial when I hear Roger Hedgecock.]

2) For years, your program has anchored the schedules of many talk stations, with local hosts built around your timeslot. Now, many outlets have been so badly mismanaged with infomercials, horrible syndicated shows and more that the entire medium is threatened. When are you going to address the situation's severity? [See below.]

3) Some conservative bloggers are frustrated that you rarely mention their sites by name, yet always seem to give full credit to referenced lefty sites. Do you see right-leaning blogs as friends, or competitors? [I wrote about this a while ago; I stand by my answer.]

4) Conservatives are terribly frustrated by this Republican Congress. What's going to get them back on track?

They're all good ones (read Maloney's post for the whole thing). [It's time for a RINO hunt.]I'm going to run with #2 for a bit.

Back in 1987, when I (and about a dozen other people) got whacked at KSTP-AM during the Peter May purges, I stepped out into a talk radio market that hadn't changed much in twenty years - and would be unrecognizable within 12 months.

Traditionally, smaller and medium-market talk radio stations used to hire younger air talent to work some of their off-drive shifts - mid-days, evenings. The pay stank, but it was experience. I interviewed for jobs in a dizzying array of cities; Orlando, New Bedford, Santa Rosa, Fall River, Cleveland, Hammond, the Quad Cities, and in one whirlwind week, three jobs in and around New York City. Orlando and, for about a month, WMCA in New York were all very interested (format changes nicked 'em both). For the rest...?

Well, there was a new wave of programming becoming available. It came via satellite. It was free - the hosts got paid from their ad revenue, so the station didn't have to pay for the shows. And unlike the tepid syndicated shows available to that point - dross like Owen Span and Michael "Not the singer, not the beer expert" Jackson, Harvey Ruben, Bruce Williams and the like - it kicked butt and took names. Rush Limbaugh was like a hun with a blood-soaked battleaxe sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner.

Did I mention he was free? Stations didn't need to pay a 25 year old kid $25k to do a show when they could get Rush from New York for free. Suddenly, dozens, probably hundreds, of the mid-day jobs that had launched a bunch of talk radio careers disappeared overnight.

Limbaugh's accomplishments are well-known; he rescued the AM band (in the eighties, there was discussion about abolishing AM radio!) and even turned it into a cash cow; he was the godfather of alternative media; he gave conservatism a voice in the post-Reagan era.

He also made a lot of mediocre executives look a lot smarter than they were. Quite a few program directors, with the happy, economically-driven accident of Limbaugh boosting their numbers and especially revenues, went from mediocre also-rans to instant genius, almost overnight. A few got their comeuppance; occasionally,Limbaugh would switch stations, and one "genius" would watch his/her numbers crater as their competition's ratings (and egos) boomed.

So after nearly twenty years of Limbaugh, we have a talk radio business that is very top-heavy; talents like Limbaugh, Beck, Ingraham, Savage, Bennett and a few others rake in huge money running on hundreds of stations - which, in turn, see their solidly-performing (and profitable) freebie shows as an excuse to get lazy; their AM stations turn into cash cows; little new talent is coming up through the ranks in the sense it would have 20 or 30 years ago. There are exceptions, of course; KSTP has launched some new talents, from the sublime (Mischke) to the ridiculous (Kris Krok). I'll give the Patriot credit for taking (inexpensive) chances on the NARN and Patriot Insider; most stations in the Patriot's weight class run either nonstop syndies or "brokered" talk - read "Infomercials", paid shows that dominate the weekend lineups at a lot of smaller AM stations (as they not only do at the Patriot, but at KTLK as well). Did I say the Patriot's weight class? WOR in New York - once one of America's great stations - is mostly brokered talk these days!

So the problem is this: you have a medium where the talent pool has been artificially constricted for 20 years (how else do you explain Roger Hedgecock having a job?), and where the management pool - even assuming some talent, which in any type of radio is always a dodgy assumption - has grown fat and happy and very, very lazy as their superstar syndies do the heavy lifting for them. Limbaugh is going to be sixty before too long; not old by radio standards, but let's face it, the guy has nothing to prove, and could retire today if he wanted to. Bennett and Savage and Oliver North are, I think, in their sixties; Prager and Medved (and I think Hewitt), their fifties. Each (except Savage) has other options in life, as does the fortysomething Laura Ingraham.

Without Limbaugh, the conservative talk medium is going to have to start working for its pay again.

It'll be interesting watching KSTP-AM over the next year or so, after losing Limbaugh; one of these years, the whole industry is going to do the same thing.

Why Do Academics Hate Free Speech?

This has come up in Minnesota; a group - in this case, conservative UCLA alumni - are looking for stories of liberal bias among professors:

An alumni group is offering students up to $100 per class to supply tapes and notes exposing professors who allegedly express extreme left-wing political views at the University of California, Los Angeles.

One of the professors calls it McCarthyism.

To be fair, left-wing professors cry "McCarthyism" when the floor's pop machine is out of Tab. But, again, I digress:

The year-old Bruin Alumni Association says it is concerned about professors who use lecture time to press positions against President Bush, the military and multinational corporations, among other things. Its Web site has a list of what it calls the college's 30 "most radical professors."

"We're just trying to get people back on a professional level of things," said the group's president and founder, Andrew Jones, a 2003 UCLA graduate and former chairman of the student Bruin Republicans.

Let's recap: It's a private group, asking people to take private action for voluntary consumption by people who are interested.

Some of those targeted say it's a witch-hunt reminiscent of Sen. Joseph McCarthy's anti-communism crusade in the 1950s.

"Any sober, concerned citizen would look at this and see right through it as a reactionary form of McCarthyism," said education professor Peter McLaren, one of those cited by the association. "Any decent American is going to see through this kind of right-wing propaganda. I just find it has no credibility."

"Credibility" is for everyone to figure out for themselves. As to the (drearily inevitable) charge of "McCarthyism", theres' the little matter of McCarthy having been an agent of government; the UCLA alumni are private citizens. One might ask Professor McLaren what he thinks about the campus speech codes that have throttled thought and speech on campus; politics are a matter of record.

Which is fine; the First Amendment covers McLaren; it also covers his students.

Now, I could hardly care less about the goings-on on the nation's campuses, personally, although since my children are approaching college age, I'm certainly paying attention. Personally, I took a look at the graduate-school paper chase when I was still in college, laughed, and scratched it off my to-do list; I figured life would be more productive running on a Habitrail wheel. Other conservatives see it differently, no doubt.

But I don't see life from the academic's perspective. So someone tell me - why is it a problem to academics if a private group reviews professors' political biases for non-commercial, copyright-law-compliant, critical use?

I mean, doesn't the First Amendment apply to students and other consumers of the education system?

Unclear On The Concept

From a Kos thread the other day:

Who better to reveal the Republicans' Orwellian plan that the man who probably leaked highly classified national security secrets to the press, endangering precious lives and secret institutions in the process. [I think she's talking about Valerie Plame - whose life was never endangered, and whose vocation was known to everyone in Washington. But I digress] The Republicans will continue their dishonorable crusade of labeling us cowards. They'll keep foaming at the mouth and claiming our dissent gives aid and comfort to the enemy.

From Osama Bin Laden's latest tape:

Bush and his administration do not have the will or the ability to get out of Iraq for their own private, suspect reasons.

And so to return to the issue, I say that results of polls please those who are sensible, and Bush's opposition to them is a mistake.

Could be Paul Begala, to say nothing of a Kossack.

Don't look at me. Look at Bin Laden. He said it.

Happy Birthday, Danny Federici!

The electric guitar in the hands of anyone who can turn an amp to 10 and play a power chord is ideal for communicating raw power; in the hands of better players, it can be much more nuanced, of course.

The pedal steel guitar, of course, shines at capturing sadness.

The bagpipes, with their limited dynamics and nine-note scale, have a limited vocabulary - they stir the savage beast, or (listen to Amazing Grace at a funeral) they drive him to tears. Of course, they excel at both.

But of all the instruments of the rock and roll era, there is nothing like the Hammond B-3. With all the stops pulled and the pedal literally on the metal, overdriving a Leslie rotary speaker, the B-3 howls like a hurricane; dialed back and with the fingers of a skillful player dancing around both ranks of keys, they are pure funk, and can play most of the parts in a jazz combo. And always, in the background, the sweet purr or the keening moan of the B-3 sets a mood behind a band like no other instrument in the lineup.

There are a lot of great Hammond B-3 players out there; Jon Lord, Billy Preston, Nick Mason, Benmont Tench, and clubs full of great jazz, funk and gospel players.

But my favorite has always been Danny Federici of the E Street Band, who turns 56 today.

You could argue that there are better organ parts out there than his wonderful figuring in the chorus of "Incident on 57th Street" (from The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle, the mighty B3 wind behind the "...strap your hands across my engines!..." line in "Born To Run", or especially pretty much every single cut on Darkness On The Edge Of Town. You could.

But you'd be wrong.

Happy Birthday!

Under New Management

"Code Pink" is an organization with extensive Twin Cities ties. They are also a group that has pioneered bringing invincible ignorance to bear in support of left-wing causes - I encountered them during the passage of the Minnesota Personal Protection Act, in an exchange that wasn't a whole lot dumber than any I've seen with them in the media.

Apparently they're no better with paperwork than they are with facts or research.

The Pinks had gotten a corner opposite Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the better to hound wounded veterans from. But they forgot to renew the permit.

The good guys at Protest Warrior were waiting with an application of their own:

I arrived shortly before 7pm, and as I drove up, I saw quite a few people on what are normally the Pinko's two corners. Odd, I thought, as they usually didn't arrive in numbers until 7:30 or 8. After I parked and walked to one of our corners, I noticed to my great surprise that those were our people across the street....Something's up, I thought. Those are mostly our prople, with one or two Pinkos mixed in. What's going on? Usually we stay on our side of the street and they on theirs.

I asked one of our members standing nearby and that's when I learned that one of our number, "Concrete Bob" [who would seem to be to the DC Protest Warriors what "Inge" is to the Twin Cities' doughty band], had secured permits this week for the Pinkos two corners. They had been laggard in renewing their permits and Bob seized the opportunity.

Yes!

As you might imagine, as soon as the light changed I went over to our "new" corner to join my compatriots and see what was up. I knew that the Pinko leaders would arrive shortly and wanted to make sure we had adeqate numbers in place.

"Redhunter" also has a photo series which is simply priceless.

Today, the corner is free of the waxy pink buildup that had polluted it.

Good riddance.

And a fine idea. Hmmmm. Need to check in on the corner of Snelling and Summit...

UPDATE: Now with link to Redhunter's story! :-~

The Healthy Leading The Silly

Remember when you were a kid?

If you were lucky, your parents made sure you ate a balanced diet; some protein, fruit, vegetables, whatever passed for "healthy eating" whenever you were a kid.

Then you grew up, and moved out into the big world; maybe you got a place of your own, or perhaps you lived in a dorm. And for that first couple of months or years, you went to the store with a pocketful of cash (or the cafeteria with your card) and...were on your own, and had to see to your own diet. It was your own choice; you could load up on potato chips and kielbasa, you could go vegan. The good news: it was your privilege to eat any damn thing you wanted. The bad news: It was your responsibility to see to your own health.

We all remembered what happened; some people made good choices, some made lousy ones. I remember guys who indulged - into their thirties - their childhood pickiness, and refused to eat any vegetables. Period. I remember one guy who, just out of college and blessed with a job that paid way above the average for recent college grads (back in the eighties, when computer programmers could largely write their own tickets) who ate out or ordered in for every meal, 2-3 meals a day, seven days a week. Literally - the 'fridge in his apartment contained nothing but beer and condiments.

These peoples' better halves, or cardiologists, or bank statements eventually imposed some sanity (one might assume) on their eating habits. Such is life; eventually you learn your parents were right.

-----

When it comes to health care, most Americans are the equivalents of 18 year olds, just out of Dad's house, the first time away from Mom's cooking. They're used to someone else taking care of that part of their life for them. Things are about to change.

We have all heard that healthcare is becoming prohibitively expensive. Part of the reason, of course, is that companies and the government have paid for it without question for so long.

Every once in a blue moon, I take a swing through the land of the leftyblogs, just to see what's up.

I spun by "Eschaton", a leftyblog that's in the top ten by traffic. He was talking about healthcare.

Well, not so much "talking" as "snarking". Now, Duncan "Atrios" Black is as sparing on biographical detail as he is on verbiage. One rumor was that he had a degree of some sort from an Ivy League school. Apparently the Ivies stopped teaching economics.

We'll come back to that. The subject for the day is the Health Savings Acount:

So, the central idea of Bush's SOTU is, supposedly, going to be medical savings accounts which are probably about the worst idea ever. I don't understand why we're supposed to throw a bunch of money in the bank that we can only use if we can get sick.

"Atrios" doesn't understand.

Let's take a step back.

A Health Savings Account is just that - a savings account that is dedicated to healthcare expenses. You deduct pre-tax dollars from your paycheck, and save them in the account to spend on your out-of-pocket expenses and deductibles. They - and their cousin, the Health Reimbursement Account, which is basically money one's employer gives you at the beginning of the year for the same purpose - are combined with a healthcare plan with a high deductible (and relatively low premiums) and a lot of information about providers, expenses and options to form the latest trend in healthcare, "Consumer Directed Healthcare" - in which the consumer scouts around for the best combination of quality and price, negotiates with providers for the best possible price (the sort of things HMOs supposedly do today), and, fully aware of the costs (more of which are coming out of pocket, albeit paid for by HSA or HRA dollars), is motivated to manage their healthcare dollars very carefully. Physicians - so the theory goes - prefer them because they get paid in cash; many HSA accounts come with a swipe card, like a Debit card, which they can use to pay their minor and routine bills directly in cash at the doctor's office, bypassing the need to submit the reams of paperwork that go along with most insurance coverage today.

It's in contrast with the type of insurance that so many Americans are used to; the insurance that so many unions (minimal copays and one never sees a single, solitary bill) or Medicare/Medicade, or public assistance, or for that matter HMOs or traditional Fee For Service insurance, offer.

The kind that's driving the likes of General Motors and Ford into restructuring, and threatening to make Medicare the largest item in the federal budget very shortly here.

In short, it may be the last great hope for America's private healthcare system - the best system in the world in terms of not only providing quality healthcare, but also the flexibility and innovation to respond to unforseen challenges like epidemics.

The system most of the left has already written off; much of the left has accepted as a given the need for "Single payer healthcare" - a euphemism for socialized medicine, itself a euphemism for rationed healthcare.

Consumer-Directed Healthcare is rationing - but the rationing is administered by the consumer, rather than by management (as in an HMO) or government bureaucrats (as in a single payer system like Canada, Britain or Sweden's miserable systems).

Atrios:

Why don't we just make all health care expenditures tax deductible?

Quite a number of conservatives suggested exactly that, fifteen or twenty years ago. The left reacted like someone had attached high-voltage cables to their private parts.

But that isn't the worst problem with medical savings accounts. Basically they encourage young and healthy people to not buy health insurance, which makes the pool of insurance buyers on average older and sicker and more expensive, further driving up insurance rates, further driving healthy people out, etc...

This, of course, is madness, and wrong to boot.

Young, healthy people are "encouraged" not to buy health insurance by the fact that they are young and healthy. And for most of the past fifty years, American culture has come to expect employer-paid health benefits to be the vehicle by which those young, healthy people transition, about the time they start having families, into older people who need (along with their families) healthcare. Yep, I was one of them.

And because of skyrocketing demand (from a growing, ageing population, many of whom have access to traditional health insurance that asks no questions and encourages, well, skyrocketing demand, as well as from out-of-control government subsidy), that system is rapidly growing less tenable. Hence the need for something to change. Consumer-directed healthcare gives us an opportunity to get the savings in usage that we need, and still save the efficient, effective private healthcare we want. In exchange, it requires the consumer to grow up and take over managing their healthcare - something their great-grandparents took for granted, and that Americans have forgotten about.

And good luck getting any insurance after you've gottten a couple pre-existing conditions (Translation: gotten sick once or twice) under your belt, unless you can get it through your employer.

Unless you do something radical - take responsibility for your healthcare early in life. Get covered, even with a high-deductible policy, when you are in your early twenties. Grow up.

It's something nobody's expected of Americans in a long, long time. It's something the left, with its fantasies of single-payer healthcare, don't expect us to be able to do.

Ask Not Why It's Gone...

...merely rejoice that it's going away.

West Wing has been un-elected by viewers after seven seasons.

I saw it perhaps half a dozen times. I found it well-written, well-acted - and determined to slather a gauzy soft-focus sheen on the mechanics of government. Martin Sheen - whose Josh Bartlett was sort of a Clinton with backbone - played the same character Aaron Sorkin wrote into the American President with Michael Douglass; a three-dimensional human...

...which was more than he gave his opposition, which with few exceptions were portrayed with the subtlety of a black-hatted villain in a turn-of-the-century melodrama; they might as well have been shown twirling the ends of their handlebar mustaches and laughing maniacally as they tied CJ to the railroad tracks (see Donald Sutherland's sneering GOP capo in Commander in Chief).

Martin Sheen smears vaseline on the lens:

Sheen said the show's most positive impact on the country was, during a cynical time, to make people realize the important job that public servants perform.

Didn't Leni Riefenstahl do a lot of that?

I digress:

Series producers have only in the past few days decided who would win the presidential campaign that has been this season's main story; it will be revealed in April. The contest pits a Democrat played by Jimmy Smits and a Republican portrayed by Alan Alda, and the show's writers have fought over who should win.

"It's been quite a brawl," said John Wells, executive producer.

Does anyone honestly think this show will pass up the opportunity to snark at the right?

Status Quo Ante

The indispensable Sean Hackbarth at American Mind covers the outrageous cave-in in Milwaukee allowing the election vandals to go free.

Read the whole blogswarm. Owen from Boots and Sabers notes, correctly, that Milwaukee juries aren't much less predisposed to acquit Democrats than, say, Bronx juries.

Worst part? The plea bargain allows the defendants (and the Milwaukee Democrats) to claim innocence.

Morning Expulsion

Marc Maron is toast at Air America.

Vacuous blowhard James Wolcott issues a "Call to Arms" that reads more like a mash note:

Today I appeared on the show's final half hour, which was graced by a cameo drop-in by Tim Robbins. A lot of people don't know this but when not writing-acting-directing Robbins bumps off businesses that prey on the weak and defenceless, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. He had just committed an unarmed robbery when he realized he was in the vicinity of O'Neal's and decided to pop in and say hello. That's how much Tim Robbins admires the work Marc and Mark do: he interrupted his getaway from an unarmed robbery to make a gesture of moral support.

See, that's the great thing about being on the side of justice and light. You get to shake hands with cool writer-actor-directors slash secret avengers such as Tim Robbins. Whereas those on the side of power and darkness find themselves mingling with the likes of, well, this guy.

Really, there's no contest.

Note to the editors of The Onion: Your next Jackie Harvey column is done.

I'll say this; if I were a Frankennet fan, I'd be bummed. Maron was - how shall I put this - their least un-listenable "talent". It verged, at times, on being radio that wasn't irredeemably awful, from a purely technical perspective (leaving politics out).

When Frankennet went on the air, I predicted that one of its major "talents" as of March 31, 2004 would be gone by September (and, duly, Marty Kaplan was demoted from evenings to weekends in plenty of time to safeguard my prediction). Sue Ellicott, Lizzzzz Winstad and Kacklin' Katherine Lanpher have since jumped or been pushed. My prediction was that FrankenNet would be gone by the end of '07.

So far so good.

So Help Him God

Dave from Mound writes that it was 25 years ago today that...:

...Ronald Reagan, the greatest president in the 20th century (or US
History...which I believe) took the oath of office and launched America
back to its place as the leader of the world.

I can't believe NONE of you NARN guys have mentioned this aniversary
today

Got me there. It's not an anniversary I normally remember, and I say that as a guy who in ten years of marriage never forgot my wedding anniversary.

But duly noted, Dave! And thanks for the note!

Chronicles of NARN

If you caught the Northern Alliance Radio Network last week, you noticed a change or two. The show expanded to four hours - and two concepts.

For the first two hours, Brian "Saint Paul" Ward, Chad The Elder and John Hinderaker do their thing. Then, from 1-3, Captain Ed, King Banaian and I take over.

I kinda like it so far. On the traditional NARN shows, we have four guys in the studio, all of whom have tons of opinions on every issue (which is, like, why we're all political bloggers, right?); my role was more traffic cop than talk show host, trying to "direct traffic" in the booth, trying to keep people from talking all over each other.

Last week, then, was a gas; it was just Ed and I for the whole two hours. I felt like someone who'd been confined to a cave for years stepping out onto the wide-open prairie; Space! Time to talk! Time to develop an idea before someone else wants to dive in! Truly, it was in many ways the best of all possible worlds; having a couple of hosts means less prep time for everyone (not that a week of blogging isn't a ton of prep) than if you're doing a solo show; having fewer than four means you actually get to talk. Or I do, anyway.

On top of that, congrats to Patrick Campion, who started last week hosting "Patriot Insider", the 9-11AM show with Mark Yost and Craig Westover; PC's been angling to get on the air for a while, and he landed himself a good project. He sounds good on the air, and it's hard to go wrong with Yost and Westover.

So tune in, 9AM to 3PM tomorrow afternoon on AM1280 The Patriot or over at am1280thepatriot.com.

Good Fascist/Bad Fascist

It's the oldest interrogation trick in the book (at least, among the books I've read); have one questioner come on strong and intransigent, threatening all manner of ugly consequences for not spilling.

Then, have the other interrogator - sympathetic, concerned, almost conciliatory - come in. The subject - who, unless trained to recognize interrogation patterns, is looking for any way out of his/her current jam - latches onto the faux friendliness - and, bit by bit, spills what the interrogators need.

Rarely do you see the same person playing both roles.

Like Bin Laden did with the "tape" yesterday. The tape isn't aimed at the beheaders, bus-bombers and plane-crashers; it's aimed at his other natural market, the Western left; appeal to their prejudices (didja know Al Quaeda's winning in Iraq? It's true! Bin Laden said so!) and wishes (for the troops to be home - or, in many cases, for Bush to get a bloody nose whatever happens to the troops).

So how did it work?

Well, among leftyblogs, probably about as one might predict. I took a swing through some prominent ones, and a few others that crossed my path.

Full-time Soros mouthpiece Duncan "Atrios" Black is always a good diving board into the fever swamp. Yesterday, he responded to Scott McClellan:

The terrorists started this war, and the President made it clear that we will end it at a time and place of our choosing.

I had no idea we got to choose when it was over. Um, why not now?

I'll leave aside for a moment that Black's entire oeuvre is the out-of-context snark, and answer; "Um, because the fight is only over when the last swing is taken; as long as terrorist roam the Middle East, that swing is still hanging out there". Um.

A blog called "Maine Democrats" - presumably like Minnesota Democrats, only reeking more of crab than booya - exhumes a classic lefty warhorse:

He’s back and warning of a new US attack, but also offering a truce if we will stop fighting Muslims on Muslim land. Remember when we were trying to catch Bin Laden?

On May 4, Donald Eugene Webb will have been on the FBI's "Top Ten Most Wanted" list for a quarter-century for killing a cop. 25 years on the lam in a nation that is fundamentally hostile to cop-killers; a quarter-century on his own against the FBI, one of the world's largest and most proficient police forces. And yet he's free - or, as "Maine Democrat" might snark, "Do you remember when we were trying to find Donald Eugene Webb?". Never mind that Bin Laden, with his quarter century of experience in the chamelonic world of the international terrorist, is hiding in foreign lands among many people who are fundamentally disposed toward helping him...

...sorry. I just realized I was trying to reason with one of those people. I apologize for the digression.

I won't make that mistake with Glenn Greenwald at Crooks and Liars, who sees a conspiracy:

Crying Wolf

Each time a new videotape from Osama bin Laden emerges, as one did yesterday, it ends up embarrassing the Bush Administration because the Administration has adopted a tactic of planting stories in the media that bin Laden is dead, which are then conclusively disproven each time a new tape appears. Every since 9/11, the Administration has repeatedly whipped up speculation that Osama bin Laden is dead in order to induce the public into becoming distracted (and scared) by the Evil Ones, and to give the appearance that Commander-in-Chief George Bush is protecting us all by slaying the Big Bad Wolf.

How many times have we heard the Administration or its close allies plant stories in the media indicating or strongly implying that bin Laden is dead - only for the stories to be proven entirely false? Let us count Michael Ledeen, National Review, January 9, 2006

And, according to Iranians I trust, Osama bin Laden finally departed this world in mid-December. The al Qaeda leader died of kidney failure and was buried in Iran, where he had spent most of his time since the destruction of al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

So...let me get this straight; the government (and media!) are unclear on the status and health of someone whose life depends on, ahem, keeping us unclear on his status and health?

And Michael Ledeen had a theory that didn't pan out. Hm. Damned Halliburton again.

Dave Johnson of "Seeing the Forest" has his priorities straight:

Chris Matthews compares Michael Moore to Osama Bin Laden!

DEMAND AN APOLOGY!,

on Hardball, Chris Matthews just blurted out that Bin Laden sounds like Michael Moore. Simple: Matthews should apologize. On the air. This has NOTHING to do with Michael Moore and everything to do with how far media figures can go slandering the left. And last I checked, Michael Moore didn't massacre thousands of innocent Americans...Don't let Matthews get away with this!

Er, Dave? Bin Laden wasn't suggesting anything that Moore, Streisand, Soros, or Woody Freaking Harrelson haven't said already. Criminy - read what Atrios wrote!

Of course, some abjure even the facade of reason, preferring the ever-popular "illogical digression". Vide the always-comical Ollie Willis:

Feel Safe?
by Oliver Willis

For 74 minutes America knew Osama Bin Laden had issued another threat to America. The President did not.

What? The President should stop what he's doing every time a tape claiming to be from Bin Laden moves on Al Jazeera? Maybe with a theatrical tear of concern, a la Clinton?

As to the "Feel Safe?" Snark (admittedly no dumber than most of Willis' context-free snarks - but no better, either. In fact, exactly the same. Willis seems to have written a crude script that automatically generates posts titled "Feel [insert adjective]?" or "Why Does Bush Hate [something that it'd be ironic if he actually hated]?", followed by some context-devoid factoid, almost like an online game of, ironically, Mad Libs

...where was I? Oh, yeah, feeling Safe. Last I checked, tapes don't kill people; people do.

The people, for instance, that our President sent to the Middle East to kill the people who want to kill, er, you, Ollie.

Probably the best summation of the left's reaction (and, indeed, current intellectual state) is summed up in this A O Hell group:

Help Nancy Pelosi hold Bush Accountable!

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Make America Safe and Catch Bin Laden by impeaching GW BUSH CORP NOW!
Reality of the terror here in the USA. GH Bush, a leader of "The Carlyle Group" allegedely met with Bin Ladens' brother on the eve of 911. His Grandfather, a geologist, discovered the Saudi Oil Fields. A fast and long friendship with the Saudi Royal Family was formed, in fact the Royal family has been propped by the USA ever since. When all US air space was closed immediately after 911, GW ordered all Royal family members flown safely home. Bin Laden is a family member and despite our satellite capability to find a pissant in a sewer Bin Laden hasn't been caught. How convenient to have a continuing threat to our country so Bush can enact things like Patriot Acts, push to use military on US soil, and even worse to get preauthorized use of martial law in the next emergency!. What makes this really scary were the comments made about postphoning the last election due to the terror threat!! Is it POSSIBLE that when the next event occurs Gone Wrong will suggest or order all of the above and acheive his dream of dictatorship?!. With no third term possible it seems the plot many have surmised that I never would have believed until recently is emerging. What is extremely suspicious is Bin Laden quoting recent polls. Surely his partner in political terror (Gone Wrong), will use that statement in his next speach to say we are emboldening the Bush family friend terrorist to threaten us.??? Bush will seize on that to criticize dissent as he always has. I wonder if after the next attack if the list of ignored warnings will exceed the 28 that preceeded 911. Now as the public demands impeachment and withdrawal from Iraq, Bin Laden threatens US attacks? This is counter to his stated goals! Bin Laden emerges with a new message to urge impossible negotiations lest he strike again! All while giving Bush fodder to fuel his criticism of Bush opponents!. The best way to eliminate the terror threat is to outlaw the Carlyle Group, put all Haleyburton Contracts up for public bids per Federal Law, Impeach Bush and Cheney, Also Rumsfeld and Rice. Then have all contracts for preferred production agreements of Iraqi Oil given by Bush to his oil Buddies declared null and void. Then turn Iraq over to Nato and the UN. Let the oil pay to rebuild Iraq and policing Iraq, as Bush promised on the eve of His Falsely Justified Oil and Haleyburton Profit, Deficit Creating War!. Bin Laden at large is a farce! He will not be caught with Bush in office. He is the fear that is supposed to make us support the most obvious plotter of unraveling the Constitution and American freedom since Hitler. Make America Safer? Impeach Bush before he uses his Saudi Family Friend Terrorist to justify taking your freedom. Then find and arrest Bin Laden and make him squeal if he was really working for Bush Corp. all along. Truth is stranger than fiction. Bush and Bin laden seem even stranger than truth! ImpeachGoneWrong <-- Click link to join this AOL group! If you would like to see the electoral college eliminated along with electronic voting machines like Diebold's while mandating paper ballots that are verifiable and are opposed to giving a dictator enabling line item Veto to the President unlike the group with a similar name, pls click this link to another AOLGroup--->Main Page Voter's Reform Party . If you would like to see an AOL journal with similar articles, links to over 3000 anti bush and reform sites, AND to Government representaves sites, then click this link---->Help Nancy Pelosi hold Bush Accountable! Please feel free to copy and paste this article to ANYONE, ESPECIALLY TO THE WHITE HOUSE EMAIL and YOUR REPS IN CONGRESS, and to NSA. Hopefully NSA IS following my suggestion to spy on the crooks in office, and not PATRIOTIC opponents OF BUSH. JEFFERSON WROTE THAT DISSENT IS THE ULTIMATE EXPRESSION OF PATRIOTISM! It is disrespectful to the office of the presidency not to criticise someone who should not be in that office! America can regain respect abroad and at home by impeachment! WE THE PEOPLE MUST DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION AGAINST ALL ENEMIES, FOREIGN, AND DOMESTIC!

Kinda sums it up, dinnit?

Cassette tapes cost what - a buck?

Best buck Bin Laden ever spent, huh?

Busy Morning

I've been running around all morning like a chicken with my head cut off...

...and sure enough, I've got a bunch of naked PETA protesters on my front sidewalk.

More posting later.

Make My Activist Extra Crispy

Via the City Pages, PETA's (not-entirely) naked lunch; an anti-meat protester arrested for a (chilly) demonstration (photos marginally unsafe for work - or not, depending on your workplace).

So let me get this straight: PETA stands for ethical treatment of living organisms. But they send a chick from Los Angeles to sit, naked, on Nicollet Mall in the middle of January in Minnesota...

...oh, never mind.

I Could Read...

...this sort of stuff all day long, if someone would pay me for it...

Warranty Work

Looks like Tuesday was a lousy day to miss reading Captain's Quarters.

Please direct your thoughts and prayers to the first mate, who looks like she needs another kidney transplant.

If the First Mate is sick, then nobody tells Ed to change or wash that @#$#@^% Notre Dame jersey.

Please, First Mate; get well soon.

Can't Fight Bureaucracy

The Army's procurement system is a holdover from the post-World-War-II era; slow, officer-heavy, prone to analysis paralysis.

Headquartered at Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland, the Army's procurement system is famously sclerotic. In few places has this come in for as much criticism as in the field of troops' personal body armor.

As is often the case, the private market reacts, and acts, faster than the government's byzantine contracting, managment, approval, testing and acceptance procedures will allow; hence, many troops buy key pieces of equipment, including body armor, on the private market.

The Army is clamping down on the practice:

Two deploying soldiers and a concerned mother reported Friday afternoon that the U.S. Army appears to be singling out soldiers who have purchased Pinnacle's Dragon Skin Body Armor for special treatment. The soldiers, who are currently staging for combat operations from a secret location, reported that their commander told them if they were wearing Pinnacle Dragon Skin and were killed their beneficiaries might not receive the death benefits from their $400,000 SGLI life insurance policies. The soldiers were ordered to leave their privately purchased body armor at home or face the possibility of both losing their life insurance benefit and facing disciplinary action...At the time the orders were issued the two soldiers had already loaded their Dragon Skin body armor onto the pallets being used to air freight their gear into the operational theater, the soldiers said. They subsequently removed it pursuant to their orders.

But not entirely:

Currently nine U.S. generals stationed in Afghanistan are reportedly wearing Pinnacle Dragon Skin body armor, according to company spokesman Paul Chopra. Chopra, a retired Army chief warrant officer and 20+-year pilot in the famed 160th "Nightstalkers" Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne), said his company was merely told the generals wanted to "evaluate" the body armor in a combat environment. Chopra said he did not know the names of the general officers wearing the Dragon Skin.

Pinnacle claims more than 3,000 soldiers and civilians stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan are wearing Dragon Skin body armor, Chopra said.

Bureaucracy over common sense?

(via the Cigarette Smoking Man)

For Goodness' Sake, Don't Rile Them

Europe is about to rouse itself to ineffective pseudo-action:

EU powers began circulating a draft resolution on Wednesday for a February 2 meeting of the U.N. nuclear watchdog asking it to report Iran to the Security Council...

...but have no fear; Europe will make sure that even ineffective action is stymied:

...but Russia was seeking moves that stopped short of a formal referral.

The good news?

The EU draft resolution drew scorn from Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Yep. That's the good news.

Wretchard at the Belmont Club has the bad news...:

H.G. Wells described how complacent men could be in the presence of unseen but growing danger. No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most, terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment.With a few changes Wells' paragraph could describe the mixture of smug amusement with which the Western intellectual elite watched the growing number of Wahabist mosques, the photography of landmarks, the application for flying lessons and the attendance at courses of nuclear physics by students from older worlds. They laughed, for nothing could threaten the dominion of Western Man, supreme in his socialized state at the End of History. Even after September 11 the only question for many was how soon history would return to normal after a temporary inconvenience. Little did they imagine that the expansion of the European Union, the Kyoto Agreements and Reproductive Rights -- all the preoccupations of their unshakable world -- might be the least of humanity's concerns in the coming years.

...and, maybe, the good:

It was said of Admiral John Jellicoe that he was the only person capable of losing the First World War in an afternoon, because as commander of the British Grand Fleet, he could throw away the foundational power of Britain in a single naval disaster. It may equally be said that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad alone can strip Iran of its invulnerability to military action in a single rash moment. In that sense he is not, as some pundits think, the worst possible leader Iran could have at the moment. On the contrary, this unstable, bellicose man is from another point of view the answer to all his enemy's prayers.

That, or Iran's version of Andropov; the hard-liner that makes the mullahs look over the edge of the abyss.

The big question, of course; do the mullahs think falling off the edge into the abyss is a bad thing, the way the Politburo did before removing Andropov and Chernenko and installing the conciliatory Gorbachev.

Is an Iranian Gorbachev possible, given Iran's leadership's millenarian sect of Islam?

Polishing Hillary!'s Boots

Barack Obama sells his soul, to cover Hillary!'s cellulite butt after her trivialization of slavery:

Obama said Wednesday he felt her choice of words referred to a "consolidation of power" in Washington that squeezes out the voters.

Hm.

The Illinois senator told CNN's "American Morning" he believed that Clinton was merely expressing concern that special interests play such a large role in writing legislation that "the ordinary voter and even members of Congress who aren't in the majority party don't have much input."

Question, Senator Obama: Wouldn't co-opting the Holocaust have been just as effective?

One of the things that frustrates me the most about listening to hamsters like Obama is knowing the extent to which he's playing to the stupid and ignorant:

"There's been a consolidation of power by the Republican Congress and this White House in which, if you are the ordinary voter, you don't have access," Obama said. "That should be a source of concern for all of us."

Right. The "consolidation" is called "winning elections"; the "concern" should take the form of building a party that actually appeals to people...

...other than Obama's base.

New York Rep. Gregory Meeks also defended Clinton.

"There was no race card played here. If any card was played here it was a joker, because that's who seems to be running the House right now if you look at the leadership," said Meeks, a black Democrat.

Upside Of Obscurity

The Northern Alliance Radio Network does pretty well for a little local weekend show - but there's times I look at the big stars, the ones making the big money - people like Strom and the like - and yearn for the big time.

But then I'd probably just have to take a plane to the Peabody Award ceremony stuck in a center seat (always, always the center seat; I'm 6'5, and I get the center farging seat more often than not) between Elder and JB when they whip out their custom-made hip flasks and start pounding back the single-malt.

By the time we hit cruising altitude, they'd be belting out "Danny Boy"; fart-lighting would ensue; by the time the "Fasten Seatbelts" light came on the lead flight attendant would have them in a sodden, vomit-coated hammerlock.

No. Obscurity is fine.

Reforming the Saudis

Jamie Glazov in Frontpage interviewing Ali Alyami on the future - and recent past - of Saudi Arabia.

Money quote for a nation at war:

FP: If you were to give the Bush administration advice on policy toward Saudi Arabia what would you recommend?

Alyami: Contrary to President Bush's bashers, he of all American Presidents has been able to change the political landscape in the Arab and Muslim countries. There is no more evidence of this than in Saudi Arabia. Bush’s public pressure on the Saudi princes to share power with their oppressed citizens have empowered Saudi democratic men and women reformers to speak up and demand fundamental changes in their politically stagnant society. My recommendation would be to continue public demands and pressure on the Saudi ruling family to share power with educated, democratic and tolerant Saudi men and women or step aside and let the people rule themselves. There are alternatives to the present system that can be put in place. Millions of educated Saudi citizens are capable of doing superior a job than the geriatric and uneducated princes who are in charge now.

The piece includes an interesting history of Wahabbism, including a look at how it's changed Arab culture (for the worse) in one man's lifetime.

Read the whole thing.

You've Been Warned

Sheila's teeing up a Cary Grant onslaught.

Ain't no onslaught like a "Sheila's Actor or Writer Obsession" onslaught. And Cary Grant's one of the onslaughtiest of all.

Put in current events terms: this is a Hurricane Katrina of words, and her readers are all the Gulf Coast - but in a good way.

UPDATE: It's mid-afternoon, and she's got 5100 words up, in like three hours. National Novel Writing Month contestants write 50,000 words in 30 days of frenzied writing.

Just saying.

Oh, just go and read.

Just What We Need

Remember back in the nineties, when "Militia" became a dirty word?

Notwithstanding that "militia" is recognized in the Constitution itself as the "good guys", that the Militia won the American Revolution, and its eldest son the state volunteer army freed the slaves; various groups of racist separatists gave the media all the excuse they needed to impugn the term.

Just watch; "Father's Rights" is going to get the same treatment, after the news that a Brit fathers' group is implicated in an plot to kidnap Tony Blair's youngest son as a publicity stunt.

A plan to take the Blairs' five-year-old son as part of a publicity stunt was uncovered by police investigating the activities of men linked to the fathers' action group, a newspaper reported.

No details of the alleged kidnap plot have been revealed and no arrests have been made, but police sources were quoted as saying that the Blairs had been made aware of the possible threat to their son.

A security source was quoted as saying: "They were, naturally, very concerned, as any parent would be. But they have been assured the police are on top of the situation."

He added: "Fortunately, we think we have nipped this in the bud at an early stage. There have been no arrests, although inquiries are continuing. It was good intelligence work."

Of course, it's not like the Father's Rights movement needs any help looking bad; its opponents have done a fine job of painting the movement as a group of abusive whiners.

True story - in 1994, when I started becoming concerned about the issue, I called the chair of the Minnesota Senate Judiciary Committee - then-senator (and current Air America Minnesota weekend talk show host) Ember Reichgott-Junge. I asked her why the concerns of fathers were so routinely ignored in family courts in Minnesota, and in the Legislature. She responded that father's rights activists were mostly guys who "kept their women in shacks out in the woods". Dumbfounded, I asked her if she presumed that mothers were better parents than fathers. "Yes, I do", she replied.

Of course, the National Organization of Women has had its way with legislators and the media, painting the idea of father's rights as a "threat to equality" - even the simple push to institute a presumption of joint physical custody in Family Court is derided as a "threat to women". They defend the status quo - in which women win 90% of contested custody cases, a couple of generations of children have grown up with only occasional fathers, and the social costs of fatherlessness have helped lead to higher crime rates, skyrocketing teenage pregnancy rates, and a crush of other social problems. A status quo where a man can be billed 18 years of child support for children he didn't even father, on a woman's word and with the full connivance of the legal system.

The father's movement...no, wait. There really is no "Father's Rights Movement". There is a bewildering welter of groups campaigning for presumed joint custody, child support reform, toughening up on parental kidnapping enablers and laws, and so on. They are disjointed, barely-organized, and have a constantly-rotating membership (as guys' children reach 18 years of age, the interest understandably wanes).

With all those strikes against it, the movement doesn't need this sort of thing.

The movement, such as it is, needs to learn a thing or two from the Second Amendment movement. One of the things gun groups learned was no camouflage; nobody wearing fatigues or hunting attire was discouraged, even disallowed. Another important thing is to control the emotions; gun owners got upset at the idiocies inflicted on their rights by, well, idiots; the emotions when ones' future with ones' children are at stake are exponentially more intense. They lead to things like...

...well, stunts like the Blair incident, among other things.

The issues are more serious than that. They deserve better.

Would Everyone the Phone Company Places in the 651 Area Code Draw Attention By Waving And Thrashing About

Via the Monkeys - Rap Lyrics Translated.

Name Change

A number of commenters brought up objections to the name "Reaganmas".

Enh. Makes sense.

So - get ready for the "Reagan's Birthday" holiday!

Ten Years And Counting

Andrew Ferguson notes that "Lobbying Reform" in the wake of Abramoff is missing the point.

Read the whole piece - which ends:

Lobbying thrives on government -- specifically the government's willingness to meddle in every sector of national life, multiplying the number of aggrieved citizens who either want to protect themselves or to benefit from the meddling

koff koff Saint Paul City Council koff

It's not a coincidence that while the lobbying community roughly doubled in size, the federal government's budget grew by nearly two-thirds. Big government raises big stakes.

It's possible that smaller government would have the opposite effect. Nobody will know until it's tried. The 1995 lobbying reform was passed by a Republican majority loudly and ostentatiously committed to shrinking government's scope and power.

Do you suppose the failure of lobbying reform is a consequence -- unintended, naturally -- of the failure to make good on that much more far-reaching commitment?

That, and elected legislators' desire to have a really cushy job after they get done with their time in public service.

Things I Wish

Among the wishes of the season, I wish I could get St. Paul City Councilweasels Jay Benanav, Kathy Lantry, Lee Helgen and Mao Tse Thune, as well as their well-heeled, impeccably be-clouted supporters and their pet mayor, Chris Coleman, in a room and make them read this piece.

Money quote:

Liberals see the market as an arena in which evil corporations inflict their greed on innocent victims. I wish you would see that motives matter less than consequences. I wish you could see that greed is at work when laws are passed that regulate markets, because regulations always produce winners and losers. I wish you could see that those winners and losers are often not who you think they are. I wish you could see that competitive behavior and free choice are forces that operate in the market as a check against greed. Finally, I wish you could see that greed is most difficult to restrain when it is exercised through the medium of government.

And I wish I could do it before they turn from trying to ban smoking and move onward to alcohol, fast food, and dissenting from the DFL.

Reaganmas '06

Just a reminder that Reaganmas - the celebration of the birthday of Ronald Reagan, February 6 - is coming up in a little under three weeks.

In last years' celebration, I put out a pot of jelly beans at my cube at work, and took my kids out for dinner, came home, built a wall out of snow around the yard and then tore it down, and then played pinata (with a papier-mache Helen Caldicott, no less!), after which the candy (jelly beans, natch) trickled down.

It's the fourth-most-wonderful time of the year (after Easter, Christmas and Fourth Of July), a time for family and friends and good cheer and dancing on the grave of world socialism.

Feel free to share your family's Reaganmas traditions.

And Hooters Could Host Graduate Seminars

The link on the Strib Online "Opinion" page said "Stern's show could be so much more".

Howard Stern's show - could be so much more.

I had to read more.

I wasn't disappointed:

You're kidding about the new Howard Stern, right? Somehow his new uncensored show on Sirius is supposed to be a "New Golden Age of Radio" (Star Tribune, Jan. 8)?

That's right.

I'm also told Stern has declared himself "King Of All Media"; it's his fault!

Nowhere have I witnessed so much potential energy squandered on mindless topics.

True. When Stern hosted "All Things Considered", he was much deeper.

The only offensive thing about Howard Stern's show is his unwillingness to really use his talents. His interviewing skills are engaging and dynamic, and he has a great voice for radio. But instead of tackling tough issues, exploring culture and pushing the limits of the human psyche in leading a new age of human engagement and enlightenment, he has squandered his gifts on adolescent male banter.

Word has it Stern is just biding his time until Terry Gross retires.

Democrats Endorse Vietnam!

So let me get this straight: John Murtha says he wouldn't enlist in the military today...

...but - in a TV interview last week - he says he did believe in Vietnam, and would have enlisted for that war again?

So the Democrats, in their incoherent anti-Bush rage, have taken to endorsing Vietnam over Iraq?

It Was Twenty Years Ago Today, Part XXIII

It was Wednesday, January 16, 1985. But not just another day at work.

A few weeks back, I'd taken on an assignment on the Vogel show; look into the tape that "Major Bill Smith" of Fort Worth had sent us that purported to show Elvis Presley was alive and well in 1981. The tape - a noisy cassette with lots of background noise - features a dead-ringer voice:

[singing]I will spend my whole life through
loving you, loving you.
Winter, summer, spring-time, too,
loving you, loving you...[singing stops]

I'm sorry...

I...

Uh...

I can't go on.

I just heard that President Reagan...

...has been SHOT...

We booked "Major Bill" on January 8, Elvis' birthday, to present his thesis. Predictably, he snuck in a plug for a new protege, "Kelli", a rough-looking but well-endowed woman singing a version of "Last Kiss" that would have been at home at any karaoke night in Wyoming.

But I had another plan afoot. It involved justifying my English degree.

One of my favorite classes in college had been Linguistics - the study of language. One of the things I'd learned about had been voice spectroanalysis - then being researched for criminal prosecution (unsuccessfully, as it turned out). I remembered that one of the foremost practitioners was at the U of Minnesota.

Armed with a $50 talent fee and some gift certificates to a local restaurant, the Major Bill cassette and another with snippets of the real (?) Elvis saying similar words from one of his live albums, I went to the "U". I met the professor involved (a charming woman who got the gag and jumped at the chance to publicize her program - especially for the $50 and the gift certificate). It'd take her about a week.

I the meantime, I re-booked Major Bill for January 16.

The day came; I got the Major on the line. Don got in the plug for the "Lovely Kelli", and then played the Major's tape.

Then, he introduced the professor. She explained her methodology; then, we played the tapes, one after the other.

"So, professor", asked Don, as producer Dave Elvin cued "Also Sprach Zarathustra" (the dramatic theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey) in the background, "when all is said and done, is this tape the real Elvis?"

"There is an 85% chance that the voice on the tape is not that of the real Elvis Presley"

And, I swear, the big final "DA DUMMMMM" of the them dropped right as the sentence finished. Dave Elvin always had the best timing of anyone in radio.

Major Bill sputtered. Don, Dave and I laughed so hard we almost wet ourselves. And for the first time, I got the feeling I might just belong in this racket.

Blind Fear

I grew up in a little town in North Dakota. I had, probably, the closest thing to a Beaver Cleaver childhood that anyone's had in the past forty years. Doors didn't get locked much, I played around the neighborhood from dawn til way after dark (school permitting), and rarely worried about strangers, abduction, anything of the sort.

Oh, there were episodes. In sixth grade, rumors of a bunch of devil-worshippers swept Roosevelt Elementary School. Wearing sheets and travelling on foot (huh?) by night, sacrificing and butchering random cattle in their path, they were supposedly heading for Jamestown up the valley of the James River. And when I said "rumors spread", I don't mean "around the school"; the rumor swept the town. It made the newspaper; people were keeping their kids home from school, guys were driving south to look for the random pack of devil-worshippers.

The rumor, of course, came to nought; chalk it up to isolation and, perhaps, the sublimated fears of the upcoming farm crash.

Beyond that, of course, childhood was pretty good. Nobody got kidnapped; the only kid we lost, Shane Ford, drowned in the James River, falling off the spillway of an old ice house dam. Which is, of course, in line with the real risks children face.

I'm aware, of course, that for some people things have changed.

"You can't be free to explore the neighborhood anymore, or meet kids in the park," said Privette, a systems analyst in Watertown. "Something happens in 30 seconds. No neighborhood is safe."

That quote - from a superb Strib piece that ran yesterday - is from a guy in Watertown, Minnesota - as bucolic and safe an exurb as exists.

Of course, so was Saint Joseph, MN - where Jacob Wetterling was kidnapped, 16 years ago.

I've been hearing it, of course, since I moved here; people claiming to be afraid to let their children out of the house, afraid of...whatever dangers are out there.

It's a sad, and common, modern mantra. Children keep photo ID cards in their backpacks listing vital statistics. Malls offer free fingerprinting and DNA swabbing. Missing children stare out from mailers and bulletin boards. So it may surprise parents to learn that their fear of a Boogeyman, while understandable, is largely misplaced.

Of course, many parents buy into the boogeyman with both barrels. I've been running into them for years; there are two women in my neighborhood who won't let their sons (four, among them) outside their yards, and only before dinnertime.

More on them later.

Consider this: About 115 children were abducted by strangers in the United States in 2004; about half were returned alive, usually within 24 hours. In Minnesota alone that year, 91 children 18 and under died in motor-vehicle-related crashes, and nearly 8,000 were injured.

In a Minnesota Poll conducted last spring, Minnesotans -- including those with children in their households -- worried far more about abductions and violent crime in and outside of school than about kids drowning. In fact, drownings, along with poisoning and suffocation, are far greater dangers to children. The likelihood of being killed in a school shooting is 1 in 2 million.

So why - at a time when society is statistically safer than ever before - are so many parents so overwhelmingly fearful?

I think there are couple reasons that are being overlooked:

• The Feminization of Education. The public (and, let's be honest, most of the private) school systems are run by graduates of an education academy that is dominated by a strain of feminism that obsesses over victimhood, victimization, victimology. Many of this academy's precepts are based on the prevalence of institutional victimization, of genders, races, classes, whatever. Why would a generation of educators who've trained themselves to think of themselves as victims (with graduate degrees and posh lifetime-tenured jobs) not, consciously or not, perpetuate the victim lifestyle?
• Family Courts. Women are almost universally granted full custody of children in divorce cases. Women are, as a gender, also vastly less proactive about dealing with threats than men (yes, I know exceptions exist). Studies have shown that women tend to be much more risk-averse in child-rearing than men; fathers will tend to allow children to take chances and run risks that make mothers blanche. In an intact nuclear family, that's not a problem; things balance out. But in a single-parent family, isn't it logical to suspect that the single parent's dominant approach to risk will infuse the lifestyle of the house - and, via sheer numbers, society as a whole? I've seen no studies comparing risk-aversion in single-mother and single-father families - but I'll place a bet right now on what the results will be.

Read the Strib piece. It's excellent.

Small World

This guy has not only been an amazingly successful basketball coach at Minneapolis Community Technical College (MCTC) for like the last zillion seasons...:

Jay Pivec has gained a reputation for winning and developing talent at MCTC, compiling a 340-87 record in 16 seasons. He's sent 10 players to Division I, including former Gopher Jerry Holman, and 22 players to Division II.

He's also gained a reputation for giving fragile students a chance -- and a solid base -- to make it academically, at MCTC and beyond. Of the 99 players who completed their junior college eligibility at MCTC during Pivec's tenure, 77 went on to four-year colleges. Fifty-six of those players have earned degrees, and most of the others are either still in school, or still pursuing a degree...

...and he's the former basketball coach at my alma mater (and the only other guy in Jamestown, ND who knew who Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes were)...

...but he's the brother in law of Katie from Yucky Salad with Bones, one of everyone's favorite MOB blogs.

Just saying - in case you've never heard it before - that it's a small world.

Improbable, Over

The Bears' improbably successful season ended.

As did my microscopic interest in football for this season.

Fifteen Shopping Days...

...until Reaganmas.

More later.

More Radio For The People

Remember - today, the NARN expands to four solid hours, 11AM-3PM Central on AM1280 in the cities, or on the 'net (am1280thepatriot.com).

St. Paul's Great Leap Forward

It time to crush the big-tobacco revanchist running dogs!

Illustration by the irreplaceable Freedom Dogs

Did He Jump Or Was He Pushed?

As many noted yesterday, Chris Krok is apparently gone at KSTP.

12 years to the month after everyone predicted he'd be gone.

In the winter of '04-'05, after Krok got into a controversial on-air argument with the relatives of someone who'd died in a car crash which aroused (sources say) the ire of station owner Giny Morris, the rumors were that Krok was on short time. Many sources - including some of his co-workers at KSTP - believe that the station would whack Krok, whose contract was reportedly up in late January or early February and whose ratings were poor at best. Around the time of the January 2005 MOB party, the gossip was that Krok was going to become a purse.

Instead, the station fired Krok's producer and gave the host another year.

It didn't work; by some accounts (I'm not looking at an Arbitron book at the moment) Krok's numbers dropped below the vanishing point.

And - glorioski! - Krok's contract is almost up, and he's on his way.

Happy landings, Krok.

Gatekeeper Alert

It's a good thing newspapers have "gatekeepers"; it keeps them from making stupid screwups:

It was only online for 90 minutes, and never in print, but it was wrong enough to cause an hour-long delay Thursday morning in the trial of a man accused of killing a police officer. "It" was a serious error in a story on the Web site of the Minneaspolis Star Tribune, which went up about 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday and came down at 5 p.m.

Defense attorneys moved for a mistrial, which the judge denied.

The report, for which the paper issued a correction today, incorrectly stated that Ramsey County District Judge Kathleen Gearin went to the dead police officer's widow, before jurors entered the courtroom, briefly talked to her and patted her on the shoulder.

Actually, it was the prosecutor, Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner, who did that.

Snarks about our high priests of information and their errors aside, mistakes - whatever legal issue they may cause - bother me less than the times that the media's "gatekeepers" are the cause, rather than the unwitting dupes, of such errors (Vide Mary Mapes).

If It Ain't Broke

I've been following the lawsuit between Twin Cities PR consultant Blois Olson and Michael "Minnesota Democrat Exposer" Brodkorb.

In the comment section to the post linked above, commenter "PB" echoed a sentiment other people in the media - most recently Strib editor Tim O'Brien - have put forth: bloggers, not having "gatekeepers" or "journalistic standards", should be held to some sort of standard or another.

Question (especially for you blog detractors out there): To what standard should bloggers be held to which they are not already held?

Leaving aside the fact that fact-checking among blogs is instant and brutal - other blogs, and one's own comment section, will set one straight when one is in error. Blogs that play fast and loose with facts get branded as such, and their traffic and influence reacts accordingly; it drops, or it puffs up with people who've drunk the same kool-aid as the writer - which, in the case of fever-swamp hangouts blogs like the "Daily Kos" means lots of traffic but influence ouitside the fever swamp more limited than the numbers might indicate.

Contacting the vast majority of bloggers is a matter of writing them; contrast this with the "Readers' Representative" at most newspapers, people like the Strib's comical Kate Perry, employed mostly to provide laborious rationalizations for newspaper misconduct.

And legal redress against a blog is much more doable than against the mainstream media; most states' "Press Shield" laws make suing a newspaper for libel a very difficult proposition; with the aid of a little capable lawyerin' (which newspapers and TV networks can easily afford), most defamation cases against newspapers are doomed before they're filed. Against a blogger - most of whom are work-a-daddy hug-a-mommy stiffs who work day jobs and have kids and mortgages - the "accountability" of a righteous case (or a harassing stunt) is a much more real thing.

So, detractors; what's broke here? To what "accountability" should bloggers be held that we aren't already, and to a greater degree than the major media to boot?

German Help?

Via the excellent David's Medienkritik (by far the best digest of German media), this item from the Suddeutsche Zeitung (via ABC):

German spies in Baghdad helped U.S. warplanes strike at least one target during the 2003 Iraq war despite Berlin's statements it was not involved in the conflict, German media reported on Thursday.

The Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper and NDR television said two agents of Germany's BND foreign intelligence agency remained in Iraq throughout the war, supplying U.S. counterparts with information.

"They gave us direct support. They gave us information for targeting," NDR quoted a former U.S. military official as saying in a preview of a programme to be broadcast later on Thursday.

I'll have to follow this...

The Latest Boogeyman

Still listening to Biden on the Today show. He's mentioned "going to war in Iran without Congressional approval" three or four times.

It'll be interesting to see whether Feinstein, Kennedy, Leahy and the various Democrat talking heads continue with the "war with Iran" theme. Regardless of their view (or, heh heh, the facts) of Presidential war powers, these hearings are not about Alito to the Democrats; they're about inflaming the Morvons (MoveOn.org members) for fundraising purposes for the fall's campaign.

Under The Bus? Livebloging Biden on Today

Hectoring from the Four Dwarves (Kennedy, Biden, Feinstein and Leahy) sends Martha Alito from the room in tears.

Lindsay Graham, G-d bless him, tore them apart.

Katie Couric's leader this morning: "Did the Democrats go to far?"

She's questioning Slow Joe Biden right now:

"I wasn't in the room...never said he was a bigot...the problem is that the system is broken...the whole point is that nominees come before the committee, and resolve not to let the people know what they're thinking...

Couric presses him on the Bork example:

"Yes, Bork was forthcoming - and he said that the state has the right to say whether people can use contraceptives!"

Biden - BIDEN! - is saying we need to "stop playing the game", and is switching the subject to whether a judge thinks the President has the right to "go to war in Iran without congressional approval".

On whether badgering Alito about his membership in CAP is legitimate: "Wouldn't you have a right to question a liberal nominee over whether they were in the SDS in the sixties?" (Er, Slow Joe? Reference if you will the Ruth Bader Ginsberg confirmation...)

Rank idiocy.

Frogtown Has Always Been At War With Swede Hollow, Winston

Mayor Coleman springs into action and tightens the county smoking ban in Saint Paul bars, with the aid of the Gang of Four:

For: Jay Benanav, Lee Helgen, Kathy Lantry and Dave Thune

Against: Dan Bostrom, Pat Harris and Debbie Montgomery

The city is considering establishing a fund to help small businesses make the transition from smoking to nonsmoking.What's the "fund" going to do? Pay non-smokers to come in and drink?

Or have they developed a "profit patch", which breaks bar owners of the habit of needing to make money with their businesses?

This, I'm afraid, is what we can look forward to from the Gang of Four; create an intractable problem, and then toss a band-aid - taxpayer-funded, of course - to try to ameliorate the unintended consequences. Since that's been the Gang of Four's solution to, y'know, everything else.

Opponents of the St. Paul law may seek a citywide referendum that would ask voters to support a partial, rather than total, smoking ban.

Which the Gang of Four will no doubt block.

Mayor Coleman commented:

"It is very important to recognize Council Member Dave Thune and his peers on the City Council for their leadership. … Their efforts … have made the difference in passing this landmark ordinance that will protect the health of St. Paul workers and patrons for years to come."

Your leash is jerking, Mayor Coleman.

Councilman Dan Bostrom - who opposed the ban - said:

"I think adults are capable of making decisions on whether or not to work in or patronize places that allow smoking."

Obviously not, Dan. Nor are they capable of picking their drinks, their food, their schools, or their underwear.

And so Saint Paul's long civic nightmare begins.

Terrorists: Rot In Hell

Via Bogus Doug, ugly news; Ron Schultz's family believes he's been executed by terrorists who kidnapped him in Iraq [Story in the Strib and the local Jamestown Sun].

Schultz, an electrical contractor and former Marine, is from my hometown, as I noted when he was kidnapped. I remember him from high school, although we didn't hang out in the same social circles. I knew members of his family.

Prayers for the Schultzes, if you don't mind.

And, if you please, for a chance encounger between those responsible and a white phosphorus round. Preferably while smeared with pork byproducts.

Geek Toy Question

All you game geeks out there - what's the best deal going on one of those "PSP" game machines? Where does one look for the best price on one of those #@$#@^% things?

All answers appreciated; answers involving massive savings appreciated even more...

At The Scene

Scott Johnson is at the Alito hearings:

Inside the hearing room this afternoon, the momentum in favor of Judge Alito seemed palpable. The Republicans know that the Democrats are playing a losing hand, and the Democrats know it as well. The Republicans are enjoying themselves, while the Democrats are grasping at straws.

Odd that I don't hear it that way on NPR...

Among the straws Democrats are grasping is Judge Alito's alleged ethical transgression involving his holdings in a Vanguard fund at the same time he heard a case in which he subsequently recused himself. This afternoon the bloggers hosted by the Senate Republican Conference met with two liberal Democrats who have come out of the woodwork to vouch for Judge Alito on the question of his character generally and, in the case of one of these two liberals, with respect to the Vanguard matter generally. These two gentlemen are powerful witnesses on behalf of Judge Alito.

The Drudge headline last night might have said it: "Unstoppable".

Cool.

Involuntary Consent

Minnesota's drunk driving laws - like those of mot of the United States - are an abomination; draconian to the casual drinker who catches the wrong cop's eye on the wrong night, with a blind eye turned to the habitual drunk who routinely drives at over .10 blood alcohol content (BAC) and cause the vast majority of the drunk driving accidents.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving, beneficiary of a gauzy soft-focus media image, is responsible for lobbying the legislature for an unconscionable departure from the Constitution. One wonders where all the lefties who became instant libertarians when John Ashcroft was confirmed as Attorney General are on this one...

...but I digress. Joe Bollettieri and Chuck Ramsay' comment in this morning's Strib about one of the more noxious DUI laws in Minnesota:

The arrest last week of a Minneapolis cop on suspicion of drunken driving is cause for concern for obvious reasons. But this case may also serve to bring attention to another issue: the overreaching, unconstitutional Minnesota law that makes it a crime to refuse to submit to an alcohol test.

As the Star Tribune reported, the officer in question "refused all tests to determine his sobriety." Though the item also stated that the cop had yet to be charged, presumably he will be, and those charges should, absent preferential treatment, include a charge for refusing such testing. In and of itself, refusal creates the slam dunk of all slam-dunk cases, as Minnesota statutes state that a person who refuses to submit to an alcohol test is guilty of third-degree driving while impaired.

In other words, literally, damned if you do and damned if you don't.

"Good", say the anti-drunk driving zealots (is there such a thing as a drunk-driving proponent? Especially with Hunter S. Thompson dead?)

"Bad" say those with a longer view:

Such an approach plainly violates the Fourth Amendment, yet it was passed and survives due to the combination of a heavily lobbied Legislature and an elected judiciary that cannot risk the label of "soft on crime."

This is the problem with so much law designed to deal with crises (or "crises"): it's rammed through by the perpetually concerned, via legislators who want to look like they're "doing something" about the crisis even if they don't entirely understand the problem.

It's a given that most legislators don't understand the Constitution, especially in Minnesota, where the DFL has always felt the end justified the means:

It is well established that the administration of a blood, breath or urine test is a "search," thereby triggering the protections provided under the U.S. Constitution and the Minnesota Constitution...In American jurisprudence generally, and Minnesota case law specifically, in order to be deemed voluntary consent must be given, not extracted. The statutes on the books currently, however, explicitly allow such impermissible extraction. That is, when asking for the necessary consent to conduct a test, Minnesota law requires officers to inform suspects that all refusals to consent to testing are a crime. The message, then, to the suspect is clear -- you are damned if you do (perhaps), and damned if you don't (definitely). This is the epitome of the coerced, involuntary "consent" that the Fourth Amendment is designed to protect against.

This constitutional mess will be cleared up right about the time the wave of "drunk drivers" (swollen by ranks of people snared in the .08BAC witchhunt) stop coughing up tens of millions of dollars in fines. In other words...

Someday When I'm On Jeopardy

TREBEK: "Music for $600: Described on VH1 as having an 'angelic voice', this artist's delivery more closely resembles Rod Stewart if he were being molested in a prison shower..."

BUZZ

TREBEK: Mitch?

MITCH: "That'd be James Blunt..."

TREBEK: "Please phrase it in the form of a question..."

BERG: "Whatever happened to James Blunt?"

DING

TREBEK: "That's correct. You control the board..."

BERG: "I"ll take Blind Dates for $1000, Alex..."

Book Review

The other day, as I was muling a load of cocaine from Little Rock to Hastings, I stopped by a biker bar in some little town in Missouri to carry out a contract hit on a couple of guys who'd skipped town on some money they owed my friend Mbeze, whom I'd met in a waterfront tavern in Boston when I was jonesing for smack a few years ago. As I left the biker bar, a state trooper drove by - so I had to crawl through a culvert and up a creek for about a mile before coming out, stealing a church van (having an affair with the minister's wife on the way), dumping it in Needles Arizona after a three day non-stop drive fueled by meth and Manischewitz that I'd stolen from a Russian gangster whom I'd met on a gambling boat in Mobile; in the midst of gambling away money I'd stolen from an orphanage on an Indian reservation (by disguising myself as a Klansman and sticking the place up with guns stolen from the Smithsonian).

And I thought - "maybe I should get an agent..."

Just saying; Oprah? Have your people call my people.

Things I've Always Wondered About

In that series of Allstate Insurance commercials currently on the TV, why does the actor (the name eludes me; he's like Morgan Freeman Lite, whoever he is) end every spot by saying:

That's Allstate, Stan."

Who is Stan?

And why is Allstate talking to him?

I wonder if someone named Stan ran into Allstate CEO Ed Liddy's car or something.

It's About Speech

First things first: my allegiances. I back Michael Brodkorb in his defense against Blois Olson's lawsuit. I'll be ponying up a buck or two for his legal defense fund, come payday.

I've also been acquainted with Blois Olsen for a long time - eight years, maybe? He's always been fairly moderate for a DFLer - as befits someone who consults in public relations and realizes that not all the public are committed DFLers.

So far so good.

Unfortunately (for him; it's been a goldmine for bloggers in the Twin Cities), he stuck his head in a meatgrinder last week when he filed suit against Brodkorb.

Olson responded in the Strib on Sunday. Gary Miller at KvM beat me to the response with, as usual, a great piece, to which I can add only little.

Olson starts:

Truth and free speech should matter to Minnesota politics. The media's role is to ensure that our candidates and elected officials are held accountable. Such should also be the case for the emerging medium of news dissemination, web logs or blogs.

"Such" has always been the case with blogs.

And it's the perception that the media assigns accountability in a lopsided, politically-biased manner that has launched more blogs than any other phenomenon. Most of the political blogs I know - almost all of the NARN blogs - started with the express intent of throwing brickbats at the local media, especially the Star/Tribune, which has a long history of shading their "accountability" pretty strictly to one side. Some - like the excellent Rambix and the Red Star - exist exclusively to dog the Strib.

Olson:

It is important that, to protect individuals and companies, bloggers practice some standards in the dissemination of information, and that bloggers, anonymous or not, be held accountable when wrong.

We have those standards. They're called "laws"; a few of them pertain to things like libel, slander and defamation. If a blogger has defamed one, one can file a suit.

As, we note, Blois Olson has. If he's right, and MDE's claims were untrue, malicious and damaging to Olson's company, Olson will collect a buck or two.

What other "standard" does one need? The same ones the media use...

...oh, wait - they defend nobody from defamation by the media.

Olson continues:

Blogs are best known for their role in breaking and shaping news stories in the political arena. During the 2004 presidential race, the locally run blog www.powerlineblog.com received national attention when it became instrumental in proving that National Guard records given to CBS News' "60 Minutes" had been forged. Powerline is viewed as credible because the authors identify themselves and are willing to decline funding sources that might influence their posts while standing behind the accuracy of their content.

No. Powerline is credible because their stories are well-written, generally impeccable in their research, and reliable. Those of us who've bet on Powerline over the past four years have been burned only once (the Schiavo Memo case), a much better record than, say, most newspapers or television networks.

However, not all blogs hold the same credibility. After the 2004 election in South Dakota, it was revealed that anti-Tom Daschle bloggers were actually paid by the John Thune campaign, a fact that the public should have had the right to know. Apparently the bloggers who were advocating for "free speech" weren't working for "free."

Hard to know where to start with that:

• Neither of the "anti-Daschle" boggers, Jason Vanderbeek and John Lauck, were anonymous.
• There is no contradiction between advocating free speech and getting paid.
• Vanderbeek and Lauck's only mistake was in failing to disclose; nobody has impeached any of the facts they put forth

Now, Olson moves toward the sound of the guns - or, more appropriately, the flipping dollars:

Now, as Minnesota gears up for a competitive campaign season, anonymous blogs are emerging as a tactic comparable to the 527 groups of the 2004 election. The difference between the two tactics is that anyone can start a blog in 10 minutes, while not just anyone can buy millions of dollars in television ads.

One wonders if Olson actually believes this, or if it's just another piece of rhetorical candy dropped on the public sidewalk for whomever is gullible enough to pick it up.

One can, indeed, set up a blog in 10 minutes. At the end of those ten minutes, one has...a blog. A blank page. A blank page that nobody will see, because it's a brand new blog that someone just started.

One can get on that blank page and write "John Marty Wears Women's Underwear!", and nobody will care - because you're just another new blog, one of thousands that flash in and out of existence every day. It's not until one builds up some credibility with an audience that that blog matters. The millions that a 527 group can spend, however, can get that message on radio, print and TV now.

It is, indeed, harder to get a message out via a blog; one can gather a thousand people, collect a hundred dollars from each, and produce and air a commercial that will reach tens of thousands whether they like it or not. Building a blog audience - and credibility - takes months and years and effort.

Another piece of rhetorical junk food - one that every blogger is cursed to defend for all time:

Another difference is that television and radio stations reserve the right to refuse ads that aren't supported with documentable facts; there is no check to balance the mistakes of a blogger.

This is bald-faced buncombe - the sort of thing which plays with the Strib front office, of course, but it has no basis in reality.

In the world of blogs, fact-checking is instant and brutal; most blogs have comment sections; all blogs have competitors in the marketplace of ideas. Everyone is constantly fact-checking everyone else. The Accountability Curve is infinitely faster and tighter than it is for the media, even when the media's fabled "checks and balances" are working (which, as Brian "Saint Paul" Ward takes delight in showing us, they don't).

Olson cuts to specifics of his case:

On the blog Minnesota Democrats Exposed, a former GOP research director has written anonymously for the last year and a half attacking Democrats at every turn. Only recently did he reveal his identity. His actions came after he posted defamatory statements about me and my company, New School Communications. We took legal action after he refused to retract the statements or even have a dialogue about them.

None of this is about partisan politics, or liberal and conservative ideology. It is about the truth and making sure that free speech isn't threatened by speech that is untrue. The facts too often get glossed over in modern politics, but ultimately they are what our forefathers had in mind when they drafted the First Amendment.

It shouldn't take a lawsuit to keep bloggers accountable for the truth, just as it shouldn't take press coverage to keep politicians accountable, but sometimes it does.

Why should it not take a lawsuit to keep a blogger accountable? What would Olson prefer, a government regulatory body?

That's unfair, of course, putting words in Olson's mouth like that - but why should it not take a lawsuit to keep Michael Brodkorb accountable? He thinks he has a story. Under threat of suit in federal court, he's sticking to his guns. He's either irrational, or he's on to something, or - it's possible - he's wrong.

In any case, the simple fact is that bloggers are vastly more accountable for accuracy than the mainstream media are; we are not covered by "Press Shield" laws, for starters; being unmasked as a complete liar also has a way of gutting one's audience (anyone heard of The Agonist lately?).

Which is something bloggers learned a long time before, say, Dan Rather or Mary Mapes did...

Yecke: "Knoblach's The Guy"

This just came in the mail from the Knoblach campaign:

Cheri Yecke has endorsed Jim Knoblach in the Sixth District Republican endorsement battle. Endorsing Knoblach, Cheri Yecke made the following comments:

“I am supporting Jim Knoblach for the sixth district Republican endorsement.”

“I have the utmost respect for Jim, and I care about making sure that we keep this Congressional seat in Republican hands. Jim Knoblach is highly electable and is the candidate best qualified to make this happen.”

...

Knoblach continued, “While still in the race, Dr. Yecke said, ‘The goals for the federal election must be to gain a seat in the US Senate while we retain the Sixth Congressional District seat with a strong, effective conservative’. Knowing that she believes in me as the strongest candidate to fulfill her vision of an electable, strong, and effective conservative is reaffirming and strengthens my resolve to win the endorsement and win this Congressional race.”

I don't live in the Six - I am cursed with an address in the Fourth - so I can only envy the embarassment of riches that they have up north.

What If?

Jack Kelly of Irish Pennants thinks Castro ordered the Kennedy Assassination. I've always personally thought it was Joe DiMaggio, but Kelly makes an interesting case:

Retired FBI Agent Lawrence Keenan, who was sent to Mexico to retrace Oswald's steps there, but recalled suddenly when he found evidence of Cuban involvement, thinks the truth was withheld because the disclosure could lead to war.

But why such a coverup?

Alexander Haig, who as a military aide in the White House at the time, said LBJ had a partisan political motive as well:

"[Johnson] said we simply must not allow the American people to believe that Fidel Castro could have killed our president," Gen. Haig told Mr. Huismann. "The reason was there would be a right-wing uprising in America that would keep the Democratic Party out of power for two generations."

There have been few political mechanics like LBJ; it seems in character.

But say what you will - the interesting part of Kelly's latest piece starts when the possible facts leave off. What if the word had gotten out, and Barry Goldwater won in 1964?

What would have a President Goldwater meant?

It might have meant World War III, because Goldwater certainly would have taken military action against Cuba. It depends on how the Russians would have reacted. My guess is they would have been cautious. Cuba represented an opportunity for great gain for them, but no vital interests of the Soviets would have been threatened if communism failed there. Soviet vital interests definitely would have been threatened if SAC appeared over Moscow, as the Sovs feared in the two weeks following the Kennedy assassination. My guess is Khruschev would have rattled the saber, but not picked it up, when Goldwater took out Castro.

The Vietnam war certainly wouldn't have unfolded as it did. Goldwater was an Air Force general, and he wouldn't have pussyfooted around as Johnson and McNamara did. The bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong that Nixon did in 1972 would have happened immediately after the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1965...if there had been a Gulf of Tonkin incident. The North Vietnamese, having had the example of Fidel Castro to profit from, might not have messed around with President Goldwater.

Read the whole thing.

And think about the "Might have beens" we can prevent today...

Sam Alito, Laura Ingraham and Me

Another reason the three of us are so freakin' cool:

His music tastes tend toward Beethoven and Bruce Springsteen but "I force him to listen to Scarlatti and Bach," Mrs. Alito said in a Washington Post interview published Monday. He once attended a ska festival _ that's rock music, with a touch of reggae and horns.

Lately, her husband has been reading "Civil War stuff," Mrs. Alito says. Once, he began teaching himself Greek so he could read the philosophers in their original language. He also took up juggling.

"He's a great marksman _ he can do double clays," she says, meaning he can hit two clay pigeon targets thrown simultaneously into the air before either hits the ground.

Take that, Dianne "Guns Are Evil" Feinstein!

Word has it Chuck Schumer has never missed a Celene Dion gig.

(Via Chad the Elder)

Polly Wanna Challenge

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a list of cliches that I'd be thankful to see removed, with the aid of bloodshed if necessary, from the English language. One was:

"...(Something is a) Rote Recitation of Talking Points" - Truism of human nature: your own side is always a scintillating breaking of new ground; your opposition is always dull, thuggish, unimaginative, lumpen, gray, ignoble, and sent from some (usually) evil overlord higher up in the enemy's grand conspiracy. Duly noted. You don't have to say it. No, really.

Eva Young thought I was referencing her.

To be fair, Eva Young thinks everything references her.

We all know Eva. I've actually known her for the better part of a decade, and used to think of her as a fairly normal customer. Oh, as long as I've known her she's been one of those people who just looooooves to pick, point by point, through whatever inflames her, looking for offense, but I always figured she was a fairly benign sort. She even gave me the occasional food for thought; while I opposed gay marriage, Eva did in fact point out some areas where some thought was required.

So far so good.

Of course, since then Eva has become a one-word punch line among local bloggers; her ethical self-indulgence, her spelling (which'd shame a moderately bright sixth-grader), and above all her relentless, shameless, tactless link-whoring; if I had a dollar for every comment thread she'd hijacked with her off-topic pleas for people to read her blogs, I could pick up the tab at the next MOB party. Those blogs include "Lloydletta's Nooz", which features mostly other peoples' writing, copied and pasted in unreadable wholesale swathes, interspersed with comments that alternately snark and kiss ass, and "Dump Bachmann", in which her obsession with Michele Bachmann combines with a bunch of anonymous, tangibly lonely commenters best described as a "chromosomal-anomaly freak show". Her link-whoring has become the target of vibrant satire, with anonymous wags apeing her style and conventions to a "T" that seems to bother Young herself; she snarked "you can't trust the comments in MOB blogs". (Duh. You can't "trust" comments in any blog. But thanks for providing an example of comically-thin skin, oh ye who are so quick to call people "whiner"!)

Anyway - after I wrote the piece about talking points, Young wrote - almost three weeks ago, give or take a week - that she was going to come up with all sorts of examples of my "parrotting talking points", after weekend (this being before New Years - and no, I won't link to her)

Stunned, I sat back; could she be on to me? Has she caught wind of the secret dispatches from Scott McClellan, Karen Hughes, even Karl Rove himself?

Was the jig up?

Friday - after long, dramatic wait - we got our answer.

I opened the post with trepidation. Had she done a scholarly (or obsessive-compulsive) analysis of my nearly four years of output, and found some eery synchronicity between my writing and Uncle Karl?

Had she found wires from my limbs to Hugh Hewitt's hands?

I trembled. She wrote (or, rather, copied and pasted from a comment thread):

As is his wont, Mitch Berg stomped on over [In Eva's childish little world, people who displease her don't leave comments; they "Stomp". They don't remark, they "whine". Her argot is curious (even when spelled correctly); I'm here to help]:

"Blogger Berg seems rather defensive about being called on the regular parrotting of talking points on his blog."

Called, huh-wha?

For starters, it was a criticism of leftyblogs in general - not just your fatuous blathering.

But since you brought it up, please show us how I "parrot talking points", if you don't mind.

You can't, of course - you're just whoring for traffic - but try anyway.
MBerg

Well Michael Brodkorb the Drama Queen wrote up the talking points, and fed them to the Parrots in the MOB. Mitch Berg acted like a dutiful Parrot.

Huh?

Linking to someone's blog is "parrotting" "talking points?"

Erhm. Right. By the same "logic", Eva has her head buried to the shoulders in PZ Meiers' ass.

That was exactly my original point, of course; writings from someone one agrees with are always bon mots of wisdom; from one's opponents? Parroting of inconvenient talking points. It's an all-purpose slur for the intellectually lazy.

Speaking of which: after a week or two's wait, we got childish name-calling and a dog biting a man.

And that was it? The great expose of "Blogger Berg"'s "parrotting" of "talking" "points"?

By the way, the satirical comments in her name really do irritate her:

Over on his comment thread, there are several people impersonating me.

She wrote a longer screed on a Saint Paul email discussion group - off-topic, as is her habit - bellyaching about the fake comments on Kool Aid Report Blois, Pair o' Dice and this space. (Whining? Hmmmm).

She's asked, in several fora, if/why I tolerate phony comments on this blog. The answer is, unless a comment is abusive and anonymous and pointless, I rarely delete any comments from this blog (although I reserve the right to delete or edit for comic effect any blogs that fit that definition - a stance for which Young has criticized me in the past!). I'll note that I've banned exactly two commenters on this blog in four years. Ironically, both of them came here via one Eva Young project or another. The phony comments, while obviously fake, are satire - and Young has certainly made herself into a public figure of sorts, very much open to satire.

You wanted to be a pundit, Eva. The brickbats come with the territory. Time to get some thicker skin.

I am a conservative. I agree, frequently but not inevitably, with other conservative writers. At times, so completely that I needn't write a thing - and yet sometimes I still do. Synchronicity comes, sometimes, from agreement; to call it parrotting - absent stacks of press releases from the RNC labeled "For Release Immediately!" - is the route of the rhetorical dullard.

The comment thread is reserved for satirical versions of typical Eva Young comments. Have at it, all and sundry. Hell, Eva, join in. Why miss the fun?

Now With 33% More Ineluctible Truth!

This Saturday, the Northern Alliance Radio Network expands to four solid hours, from 11AM to 3PM.

The Patriot may be announcing further changes to the Saturday lineup as the week progresses. Stay - literally and figuratively - tuned.

Gaping Hole

In the 1930's, farmers and ranchers and people in isolated hollers and towns in the middle of nowhere - people who had always been part of a nation, but rarely part of a society that went beyond their immediate region - gathered around crude radio sets, and listened to news from the larger world, music and happenings in cities they'd seen only on maps if at all. And slowly, they became part of a larger society.

During World War II, resistors - everyone from active armed guerrillas on down to people who hadn't the nerve or the ability to actively wage covert warfare but who kept a flicker of freedom carefully hidden in their hearts - listened to broadcasts on the BBC, and knew that the outside world hadn't forgotten about them, and was coming soon.

Teenagers across the country tuned in to AM stations in distant cities - scratchy ghost signals from the Delta, rock and roll boomers from distant cities, jazz from disembodied bands and points unknown - and began coalescing into something the world had, for better or worse, never seen; a separate "Teen" subculture, where belonging was a matter of listening to the same music.

A twentysomething who grew up in a Democrat family in a Liberal city, but always felt something was wrong; doubts gnawed at her, the rhetoric didn't fit, the facts didn't add up. Then she heard something on the radio - the wryly combative conservative from the great beyond, the one that so outraged her parents and her professors and her true believer friends - and heard a little bit of herself in response. And for the first time in her life she thought about politics, and went down to the courthouse and registered, biting her lip and wondering what Mom would think, as a Republican.

A guy in Minneapolis talks about driving across country with cats.

Which of these five doesn't fit?

On Hugh Hewitt's excellent "Messiah" broadcast - which the Salem network repeats every Holiday season, and a genuine gift to those who listen - Professor David Allen White said (paraphrasing closely) that music is the most spiritual of the high arts; it's the only art that has no physical manifestation (beyond the instruments used to create it); it happens, and then it's gone, except for the part that stays in your heart and your head.

Radio - in all its gloriously vulgar variety - is similar; it's the only mass medium that, but for a transient audible moment, exists only in the mind. The thin little strip of bandwidth, a musician or announcer or sound effect or recorded instant of news - is all there is. No pictures, no tangible artifact to hold onto. Which is one of the things that makes it so poweful; like books, radio lacks any context on its own; with books, the mind must make up the sounds and the smells and the pictures; with radio, one must make up everything but the sound in one's mind.

Which, like music, can give radio a very powerful, visceral connection in the human mind.

------

Talking about driving cross-country with one's cat, however, does not.

------

The best radio - from FDR's Fireside Chats to Tom Mischke - makes you feel like you're part of a community, whether a nation or a dyspeptic gaggle of swing-shifters with a taste for the stream of consciousness. Whenever radio people forget that, they pay for it.

I've told the story many times; I started in radio in 1979. My first talk radio job (of two) was in 1985, at the height of the "Fairness Doctrine", which mandated that stations needed to ensure moment-for-moment balance in all political content; it was easier to eschew politics and aim right down the "center". So talk radio, from its inception until 1987, was the province of swing-shifters and lonely people without much in the way of social lives; "blue hairs and drunks", one of my co-workers used to say. It said nothing, very pleasantly. It did everything Public Radio did, only worse.

There were exceptions. Some, like Howard Stern and Morton Downey Junior, were pure spectacle. Others - Don Vogel was a great example - gathered around them an audience that couldn't find anything like it, anywhere else. But for the most part, talk radio either languished in the ratings cellar or, in a few cases like WCCO or KMOX or KOA, held on to legacy ratings that, with the aid of sports coverage and being the "go to" station in bad weather, eroded only slowly throught the eighties and nineties.

Conservative talk radio reached out to a massive audience in America, one that felt felt, rightly or wrongly (hint: rightly) that the mainstream media looked down its noses at them. That the mainstream media is irremediably biased to the left isn't even questioned by rational observers; the only debate is the "why", whether conspiracy or institutional inertia. Conservative talk as an institution leveraged that feeling, and brought a sense of community to a group that had theretofore felt it only at annual caucus meetings, and only for those who'd been politically active at all (a tiny minority).

Last summer, in their infinite wisdoms, the management of KSTP-AM and KTLK-FM - and others around the country - looked at the post-election slump in conservative talk stations' ratings, and concluded that the heyday of conservative talk was over. Leaving aside the immutable fact that radio executives are as famous for reflective wisdom as, say, Lindsay Lohan; the state of conservative talk isn't really the issue. Any type of radio that grabs listeners' hearts, libidos, brains, team loyalties or gorges can succeed; no type of radio that doesn't will go anywhere.

Rush Limbaugh grabs the rising gorge. Dan Barreiro gives the sports wonk something to engage in. Michael Medved both illumines and infuriates - a masterpiece of manipulation, and often great radio to boot.

I'm not going to comment here about specific shows on KSTP-AM or KTLK-FM; I've already done my drive-bys of the likes of Willie Clark, Kris Krok, Brian Lambert, and so on. Time and practice may improve some of the efforts; management impatience will likely cut some of the improvement off at the knees. Radio will go on. Stay tuned.

But the radio that lasts is the radio that makes the user feel like they're part of something; something that matters to everyone (saving the nation from liberal scum!) or to the right people (saving the nation from the Packers! or saving the world from fans of uncool music) or to an audience of one at a time.

Which station in this town broadcasts radio that matters to people? You get to choose that.

All I'm saying is that if your office starts a ratings pool on Willie Clark or "Colton and Guest" - take the "under".

Public Relations

A bird told me that "Public Relations" consultant Blois Olson - the guy who's sueing Michael "MDE" Brodkorb over alleged defamation - physically walked his press release in to the Star Tribune. I'm awaiting confirmation of that.

But in any case, let's get this straight: Blois Olson..

1. ...associates with Buck Humphrey, politician, scion of a legendary political family, and person who's been making his living at politics most of his adult life...
2. ...to round up business for New School...
3. Three months after the association began (as noted in the Strib, Humphrey approaches Rowley's campaign three months after associating with Olson.
4. Rowley's campaign rejects Humphrey's overture.
5. At some point later (as noted in MDE, Olson starts dinging on Rowley.

The question for me is partly "Did Humphrey hit up the Rowley campaign on New School's behalf" - that'll come out one way or another.

But if Olson did pimp the story directly to the Strib - "Blois Olson, ultraconnected DFL wonk, commentator and PR flak to the stars, is sueing a frigging anonymous blogger for $50K over something that would seem at first blush to be answerable with a simple look at the timeline" - sounds ridiculous, doesn't it?

Would I want to sound ridiculous if I hired a PR agency?

If Pat Robertson Didn't Exist

...then the media and the left would have to invent him.

Any way we can give him away?

Television evangelist Pat Robertson and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran may not agree on much, but both suggested yesterday that the severe illness of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was deserved.

He's the Howard Dean of the right.

(Except for that whole "not being in control of a political party" bit)

Dump 'Em

The WSJ Editorial Board calls for kickiing the Abramoff Republicans to the curb:

Republicans won't escape voter anger by writing new rules but only by returning to their self-professed principles. Gradually since 1994 they've decided they want to reform and limit government less than they want to use government to entrench their own power, and in the case of the Abramoffs to get rich doing so. If Speaker Dennis Hastert, interim Majority Leader Roy Blunt and other GOP leaders are too insulated to realize this, then Republicans need new leaders, and right away.

The editorial notes - correctly, I'm afraid - that the more likely response to the Abramoff scandal will be more feel-good "reforms" that, unfortunately, coalesce even further with the left's idea of "ethics":

Most "lobbying reform" also accepts the liberal premise that private money is somehow corrupt while government money isn't. More disclosure is fine by us, but any new rules should also apply to AARP, the Sierra Club, Harvard University and "nonprofit" lobbies or foundations, including their grants from the government and George Soros.

But let's try to get one thing straight here:

This isn't to say we agree with the media hype that the Abramoff scandal is of "historic proportions." That's true only if your "history" starts around 1994, after Jim Wright sold his "book" in bulk to the Teamsters, after Tony Coelho of "Honest Graft" fame, after Abscam, the Keating Five, Clark Clifford and BCCI, and any number of other famous episodes of Capitol Hill sleaze. Mr. Abramoff and his pals are stock Beltway characters.

Now You Know Jack

First Ringer has just about the best thing I've seen about the Abramoff scandal.

Money (heh heh) quote:

Abramoff’s Republican connections are no secret. After all, the conservative lobbyist helped give $478,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee and $436,000 to the National Republican Senate Committee. Unfortunately for Democrats, he also gave $423,000 to the Democratic Senate Caucus Committee and $354,000 to the Democratic Congressional Caucus Committee. In fact, Abramoff’s list is littered with Democrats. From Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy ($42,500), to the aforementioned Washington Sen. Patty Murray ($40,980), and more well-known Democrats such as Rep. Charley Rangel ($36,000), Sen. Byron Dorgan ($28,000), former Sen. Tom Daschle ($26,500), Sen. Tom Harkin ($15,500) and even Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid ($30,000). In all, Abramoff and Co. gave $4,434,761 over the last six years to both parties. Why, there’s even a little $9,000 contribution to the Minnesota Democratic Farmer Labor Party with Abramoff’s fingerprints on it, but not a contribution to the Minnesota GOP state party.

Read the whole thing.

Weasels Run Wild

Perhaps you've heard; Twin Cities "public relations" consultant Blois Olson is suing the blogger formerly known as Minnesota Democrat Exposer.

Olson - a longtime DFLer - is suing Michael Brodkorb for defamation:

The suit alleges that Brodkorb, citing an unnamed source, defamed the St. Paul-based public relations firm New School Communications when he posted a claim that New School had become publicly critical of the congressional campaign of Coleen Rowley only after Rowley rejected a contract with the firm.

Read Brodkorb's original stories:

• Part One - read the whole thing, it kicks off with some background, Brodkorb's initial claim, Olson's original email response, and Brodkorb's counter.
  
• An addendum
  
• Part Two
  
• Part Three
  
• Part Four
  
• Part Five
  
• Part Six
  
• Part Seven
  
• Part Eight

Read 'em all, make up your own mind.

In defamation cases, truth is an absolute defense. The Strib story notes:Joe Elcock, Rowley's campaign manager, said that Hubert (Buck) Humphrey, now a senior counselor at New School Communications, did submit a proposal for fundraising to the campaign in June of 2005 but that it was rejected.

Elcock said he was unaware whether Humphrey worked for New School at the time but added that the campaign was focusing on other issues.

New School's website shows that Humphrey joined the firm in March of 2005.

Blois Olson, the president of New School, said neither New School nor he solicited the contract. But Olson said he did not know whether Humphrey, acting on his own, had made the effort. Humphrey was unavailable for comment Wednesday.Olson "didn't know" if Humphrey approached Rowley "on his own"?

Possible? Surely.

Plausible?

Tell it to a jury.

The Glass Floor

John Tierney on the next wave of fallout from our educational dysfunction: an epidemic of spinsters:

When there are three women for every two men graduating from college, whom will the third woman marry?

It's not a joke, actually - marriages between people of grossly-different educational backgrounds start with a strike against them. Differences in intellectual capacity - not to mention earning power - cause problems for couples.

And the education system is shortchanging our boys, who grow up to be the men who don't figure an education is in their interest anyway:

This is not an academic question. Women, who were a minority on campuses a quarter-century ago, today make up 57 percent of undergraduates, and the gender gap is projected to reach a 60-40 ratio within a few years.

And in this post-feminist era, where Madison Avenue and generations of exhortation and seven seasons of Sex In The City have trained women that they can have "it all", that's bad news for guys:

I can't think of any friend who refused to date a woman because she made more money than he did...Nor can I recall hearing guys insult a man, to his face or behind his back, for making less than his wife. The only snide comments I've heard have come from women talking about their friends' husbands...The women surveyed were less willing to marry down -- marry someone with much lower earnings or less education -- than the men were to marry up. And, in line with Jane Austen, the women were also more determined to marry up than the men were.

You may think that women's attitudes are changing as they get more college degrees and financial independence. A woman who's an executive can afford to marry a struggling musician. But that doesn't necessarily mean she wants to. Studies by David Buss of the University of Texas, and others, have shown that women with higher incomes, far from relaxing their standards, put more emphasis on a mate's financial resources.

Women's attitudes as a group, though, are less than half the problem. At the root of it all is a growing male achievement gap wrought by a generation of feminization of education - a "war on boys", as Christine Hoff Summer called it in an excellent eponymous book. Education has swung far too far; past "acceptance" and "reinforcement" of girls (Summers fairly well demolishes the case that girls were ever shortchanged by the educational system) frequently rolling over into barely-muted hostility toward boys and their traits; boys are typically competitive, solution-oriented, and excel at spatial and dimensional thinking; girls tend to develop verbal skills sooner and are more consensus-oriented; schools systematically value the latter at the expense of the former.

Much more on this later. This is going to be regarded as a crisis, someday.

When boys start to matter to the establishment, anyway...

Spare a Prayer

Leo at Psychmeister just sent his son off to war.

Pray, think, wish or whatever you prefer for his safe return - and that of all the other troops overseas.

Smoking Bans: More Collateral Damage

The problem with monomaniacal activists - the kind that give you things like smoking bans and .08 Blood Alcohol limits - is that they rarely if ever consider unintended side effects.

Mark "Marcus Aurelius" Wernimont is a good friend of mine, the Northern Alliance, and the MOB. He runs the Clean Air Quality blog - a blog primarily dedicated to getting the truth about smoking bans and the MPAAT's little racket out to you.

He ran smack-dab into one of those unintended consequences:

Soon after the American Lung, American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, American Non-Smoker's Rights, MPAAT etc. and their financial benefactor [the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation] bought their first smoking bans here in the Twin Cities area I informed the judge in my child support case that I was deeply concerned I would lose my job selling Smokeeters and subsequently my ability to make child support payments. The judge informed me that if I lost my job, I should promptly file a motion to temporarily reduce support until I was gainfully employed again; which I did........and which she promptly denied in court around July of 2005.

Years of observing the Family Law issue show that if I could have a nickle for every guy who was told this by a "Family Court" judge, we could float Mark's mortgage payment and child support bills.

Mark could have used those nickels; his business basically died in one fell swoop.

Now, it is interesting to note that although I haven't been able to make any mortgage payments since June '05.....the mortgage company hasn't had me thrown into jail.......nor the lending institutes for my vehicles......nor the utility companies. MN family court on the other hand is a different story.......Judge Tanya Manrique who advised me to file the motion to suspend child support while unemployed due to the smoking bans, and who then denied that same motion, was happy to sentence me to 90 days in the Hennepin County workhouse for failure to pay the child support.

Read the whole thing.

Mark served eight days in the workhouse until his girlfriend/partner Jordan - formerly of Jo's Attic, occasionally with the MAWB Squad - managed to come up with the money to get him out. Not "bail", mind you - the child support he owed for his time out of work; about $10,000.

Oh, the bad news (courtesy of the "family" court system) doesn't stop there:

No doubt the court will construe the payment for my release as proof that I am financially able to pay my bills, when in truth, all it does is to ensure that I will not be able to make future child support payments even after I find a job as I will be required to repay the loan.

Mark is asking for help:

I am not one to ask for help, as you can see by my being exceedingly behind in mortgage, support etc. And I do not like to be a burden to anyone, it's just the way I was raised. I have however, put a simple website together to help me pay back the benefactor who sprung me from jail, the link is here. Any help would be greatly appreciated.......I would much rather have 10,000 people contribute $1, instead of one person contribute $10,000.........Unless that person is Robert Wood Johnson IV and the non-profits who ARE directly responsible for my job loss.

Once again, here's the link. If can spare a buck - or whatever - think about helping Mark out. He's a good guy who's been backed into a really ugly corner by two huge, impersonal, mindless forces; Minnesota's moronic smoking prohibition movement, and its corrosively idiotic "Family" court system.

UPDATE: The link to the pay site isn't working as I write this. Keep trying.

Disproprotionate

There's a classic cartoon that appeared about forty-odd years ago in New Yorker that showed a map of the United States drawn from a New Yorker's perspective. Manhattan was huge, taking up over half of the map. The other boroughs, Jersey, Connecticut and New England together took up most of the rest of the map; the entire rest of the United States was maybe 10% of the map.

A conceptual map of the American political landscape drawn by someone liberal enough to be on the Strib editorial board would look similar; "Reproductive Health", as abortion is euphemistically called, would be the biggest issue by far.

About the upcoming Alito confirmation hearings, the Strib editorial board says the nominee...:

has a chance to join the high court. U.S. senators are gearing up even now to determine his fate -- and, whether they know it or not, the future of the nation.

The future of the nation? Wow - on what issue hangs the very future of the nation?

The President's war powers, especially the right to surveil people communicating with captured Al Quaeda figures? First Amendment rights to non-institutional journalists? A serious Third Amendment challenge?

Nah. Abortion in South Dakota.

Abortion is not my hottest-button topic; I can understand why it's other peoples' hottest-button topic. Since government governs by the consent of the governed, some compromise is not only necessary, but inevitable. Which doesn't take away from the fact that I think abortion is wrong, except where the mother's life is in danger.

And it'd be a fine idea if, in the spirit of compromise, the pro-"choice" community would allow, perhaps, that a "lump of tissue" that, absent any interference or medical care has a three in four chance of being born, alive, as a living, breathing human being is more than just a run-of-the-mill tumor, to be excised before it metastasizes into a terminal condition for one's lifestyle.

But no. The Strib - quick as they are to condemn the "extremism" of the likes of the Taxpayers' League on utterly temporal issues like taxes - heads for the extremes themselves - as in this piece on abortion in South Dakota entitled "An American Right Is Under Siege".

An American right? Is it just me (possible) or does this imply that, to the Strib editorial board, abortion is on a par with a free press, speech, assembly, security in one's home and the right to a lawyer and a jury? (And for such absolutists on this "American right", it's interesting how blase they were about the Second Amendment - but I digress).

Their beef - the people of South Dakota, acting through their legislators, have made abortion a rather difficult thing to find in South Dakota:

Minnesota has a lot to share with its nearby states, and medical expertise is high on the list. But things have gone awry when a next-door neighbor must ship in Minnesota doctors to perform a procedure local physicians could easily undertake. That's what has happened in South Dakota, where the fight over reproductive rights has grown so heated that getting an abortion is just this side of impossible.

Hence the flying Minnesota doctors -- four of them, who take turns showing up at South Dakota's only abortion clinic to provide a service that no doctor in the state dares to offer. Never mind that the procedure is legal -- and that the U.S. Supreme Court has declared its availability a constitutional right. South Dakota's abortion foes have rendered those facts nearly irrelevant by branding as a "baby-killer" any doctor willing to perform abortions. Not surprisingly, no doctor remains willing. South Dakota has become one of the three states in the nation where getting an abortion is most difficult.

Leaving aside the inflammatory "baby-killer" crack - yes, pro-lifers say it, but we have a First Amendment, and it even applies to people like pro-lifers! - what the Strib leaves out is that the majority of the people of South Dakota, acting through their legislature, have passed laws that make abortions hard, maybe impossible to get. South Dakotans that want abortions - usually an elective procedure by even the most vile liberal standards - have to travel someplace, either to the Planned Parenthood clinic in Sioux Falls, or to a neighboring state. The problem, to the Strib, is that the people of South Dakota have the temerity to pass and enforce laws on their own, without Washington's bye.

Surely Minnesotans shouldn't resent lending out a few doctors [I wasn't aware that they were government property... - Ed.]. But they ought to take real umbrage at the movement that makes the arrangement necessary. South Dakota has long been in the vanguard of the quest to fulfill by intimidation a goal lawmakers and courts have so far declined to deliver: an abortion embargo.

Huh? A goal "...lawmakers..." have declined to deliver? But the very next line, the article says...:

Not that South Dakota's Legislature hasn't been trying. Last year, a bid to ban abortion outright -- in direct defiance of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Roe vs. Wade -- failed by a single vote. In 2005, lawmakers passed five laws restricting abortion. This year state leaders are almost certain to consider proposals that would oblige any abortion-seeker to watch an ultrasound of her fetus and to receive psychological counseling and warnings about abortion's presumed dangers before the procedure.

So is this something South Dakota is doing in its Legislature, or in spite of it?

The Strib is concerned about rights, dammit!

South Dakota's drama might be barely worth a worry but for the example it sets and the future it portends. Many states -- Minnesota included -- have passed laws forcing women to clear an obstacle course on their way to an abortion clinic. Such hindrances have worked lamentably well to make pursuit of an abortion more arduous -- though in most states, women eventually reach their destination. In South Dakota, the destination has virtually vanished; but for a few frequent-flying Minnesota doctors, the abortion choice would disappear altogether.

It's hilarious, of course; Abortion is a "right" only because a court 32 years ago conjured emanations and penumbras from whole cloth, finding a case for rule from the bench in a Constitution written to prevent it.

Actually reading the Constitution? Pshaw, says the Strib:

In applying to work in the Reagan Justice Department in 1985, Alito emphasized his belief that "the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion."

Having secured the job, Alito soon thereafter spelled out his favored strategy to "advance the goals of bringing about the eventual overruling of Roe vs. Wade": Until the time is right for a "frontal attack" on Roe, Alito wrote, the ruling's opponents should focus on "mitigating its effects" -- by supporting just the sort of restrictions that have made abortion so hard to get in South Dakota and beyond.

The Strib states this like it's a sinister thing.

Fact: Roe is a miserably-written decision.

Fact: People have the right to enact change in their society; they do this by electing legislators and executives that support their goals. The Strib's fantasy life aside, we still have that right -a more fundamentally "American" right than abortion, to be sure, and certainly not one that had to be invented by a band of ex-lawyers in Washington. That activism can, and does, include "mitigating the effects" of all kids of court decisions until sanity can prevail.

It's not like I expect better from the Strib, of course; the only question is to what to ascribe it; muddled thinking, or an overt desire to feed the people only half of the story?

It Was Twenty Years Ago Today, Part XXII

I'd been at KSTP a little over two weeks. The job was settling into a bit of a routine. I got up at 8:30 or 9AM, got to work around 10:30, ran the board for two hours during the syndicated Owen Span show (a classic "Fairness Doctrine"-era talk show, simultaneously about everything and nothing, mushy-left but unwilling to say it), then into the "production meeting" with Don Vogel and Dave Elvin.

The meeting usually involved listening to Don bitch about his latest travails (the unreliability of his Metro Mobility driver was constant theme) and gush about his latest joys (food was a big, constant one) for about an hour, and then a frantic hour of getting stuff together for the show.

Thursday, January 3, 1985 was no exception.

"I got this tape in the mail", said producer Dave Elvin. "It's from a guy who claims Elvis is alive".

The letter was from a "Colonel Bill Smith", a Dallas man who claimed to have evidence that Elvis faked his death; the tape was from 1981, and purported to prove that Elvis was alive and well, and in hiding.

He popped the cassette into a player. There was some crowd noise, and then the sound of Elvis Presley over a strummed guitar:

I will spend my whole life through
loving you, loving you.
Winter, summer, spring-time, too,
loving you, loving you...

The guitar stopped. There were a few seconds of silence, broken only by a few mutterings from the crowd and what sounded like glasses tinkling.

Then, the voice of Elvis (?), speaking this time...:

I'm sorry...

I...

Uh...

I can't go on.

I just heard that President Reagan...

...has been SHOT...

The tape ended.

Don erupted in his deep-in-the-belly chuckle. "We gotta book this guy!"

"I'll do it", I said. It sounded interesting.

I walked out to my little desk - it was a little larger than a cutting board, its right wall was a rack of satellite demodulators, and I shared it with the morning show's producer - and called the number on the "Colonel Bill Smith" letterhead.

Answering machine. I left a message.

The rest of the day? Do the show, get home around 7PM.

My biggest challenge, of course, was figuring out how to stretch my $3.35 an hour to cover my bills; $212.50 a month rent, probably $100 for gas (I put "move to Saint Paul", a much shorter commute, high on my list of to-dos - once I could afford it), and that left about $100 of my $420 monthly take-home for food, clothing, and everything else.

I started scouting around for ways to supplement my income.

Death Rides!

During the winter of 1990 - a rough one, with two major blizzards, the legendary Halloween Blizzard and another big one a month later, in time for Thanksgiving - I first encountered the term "Sport Utility Vehicle".

During the Halloween Blizzard, I was stranded in Crystal for three days, with my then-wife, my newborn daughter, my teenage stepson, my mother and my in-laws.

When we could finally get out of Crystal, we drove back to Saint Paul in my little Hyundai Excel (yes, it was crowded). There were many, many vehicles in the ditch. Back then, I figured that SUVs were maybe 10% of the vehicles on the road. They were fully half of the cars in the ditch.

I have nothing against SUVs; my old Jeep CJ7 is just about the favorite vehicle I've ever had; I've also had a Ford Ranger and an F150. But I think - anecdotally, of course - that a good chunk of the people who buy SUVs for "safety" are really doing it to add some brawn to compensate for the fact that they're really crappy drivers. I can't put hard numbers to any of this (duh) but it's my impression that a disproportionate number of the cars I see tailgating, driving too fast for conditions, weaving through traffic (sharing this honor with the "Rice Rockets" that prowl I-94) are big SUVs. The "driving too fast for conditions" part especially; too many inexperienced four-wheel-drive owners think that because four-wheel-drive will make you go, it'll make you stop. Oh, they'll stop, all right, as I discovered in my Jeep one night, as I was rolling down 35W through Northeast Minneapolis in a blizzard; I broke sideways in a four-wheel skid on the packed snow; as I skidded, I thought "I hope I don't hit a dry patch right now, I'll flip like a Matchbox car".

I corrected my skid and made it home. Not everyone is so lucky:

Despite their heft, sport-utility vehicles aren't any safer for kids because of their propensity to flip over, a new study shows.

"Despite the larger size of SUVs and the consequent perception of improved safety, children riding in SUVs have a similar risk of injury compared with children riding in passenger cars," according to the report published today in the journal Pediatrics. "The protective effect of increased vehicle weight offered by SUVs is tempered by their higher risk of rollover crashes."

Tempered also, I'd say, by the feeling of false invincibility and, dare I say it, competence that infects so many people when they get behind the wheel of their urban assault vehicles.

Laptops: The Impossible Dream?

Question for geeks: I'm thinking about buying a new laptop.

Not soon; it's in my family budget for later in the year, most likely, probably November or so (although an unexpected bonus or windfall might accelerate things).

I have a few questions for those of you in the know:

• My first laptop, an HP Pavilion from two years ago, worked just fine until it stopped; first, all the white pixels on the screen went pink, and then it stopped working altogether. I've been using a second-hand Toshiba Satellite, which is great - except that there's a known problem involving a buildup of dust around a key logic chip on the mainboard, which tends to cause this model of Satellite to burn out the chips, requiring new mainboards; hence, my Satellite is in the shop for the third time. Does anyone have any impressions of laptops that are rock-solid reliable under normal-to-vigorous use (and don't cost an arm and a leg, which sorta rules out things like militarized laptops)?
• I worked at a couple of companies back in the day that supplied me with the old IBM ThinkPad. These computers seemed durable, reliable, hard to destroy; I never had any problems with 'em. I know that IBM has sold the ThinkPad to a company called "Lenovo"; does anyone know if the 'pad is still a reliable, durable workhorse computer? (Or, for that matter, if my impressions of the ThinkPad were right or wrong in the first place?)
• I notice that the Apple laptops - the G4 Powerbooks, anyway - are coming down in price. I also know that Apple software is very expensive. How do the Apple laptops stack up in terms of reliability and robustitude?

Thanks in advance.

Open Letter to CompUSA

On the one hand, thanks for leaving internet connectivity on your Apple (TM) Demos.

On the other - try hiring some "service" that's less churlish, more competent.

Thank youl

Begging To Differ

The sweeper at the end of the spot break growled "This Isn't Your Grandmother's Talk Radio".

I beg to differ.

I missed the debut of the Andrew Colton/Kelly Guest show this morning on the new Clear Channel talk station in town, KTLK-FM. I'll try to catch it tomorrow.

Today's the first I've seen of the new station's lineup of non-Limbaugh shows, although I've heard bits and pieces over the past few weeks.

I caught about an hour of Pat Kessler - normally WCCO-TV's top political correspondent - today, though, whilst driving. And yes, in fact, it is my grandmother's talk radio.

One of the big "What-Ifs" in local media over the past decade has been "I bet Pat Kessler would be great on a regular talk show". Kessler one of the better political reporters in town, and has been for a long time.

We have our answer. Granted, it's Kessler's first day as a regular host (I believe he's done some fill-in work over the years), and there's little doubt Kessler's delivery will improve with practice...

...but the delivery's not the problem. Kessler's show, in tune with Clear Channel Communications' management's newfound belief that political talk has lost its ratings sheen, shoots straight down the middle; the first hour included about 40 minutes on Mike Tice's firing (including an interview with Senator Dick Day on its impact on the stadium push), twenty on the Highway Patrol's crackdown on drunk driving, and most of the second hour on lesser-known obituaries of 2005.

The new talker's Program Director is my old KSTP-AM colleague Doug Westerman (and KSTP-AM's returning PD is my old KDWB cohort Steve "Wally Pike" Konrad). I bring up Doug, onetime Sportstalk producer who's been in management at KFAN for most of the past decade, because listening to Kessler, and looking at most of the rest of the lineup, gave me an intense sense of deja vu, taking me back to the eighties and the days before the repeal of the "Fairness Doctrine", when almost all talk radio sounded like this; middle-of-the-road chuckle-talk topics intended so baldly to appeal to everyone, hence appealing to almost nobody. "Bluehair Talk", we used to call it. I wonder if Doug gets the same sense of deja vu?

I'll try to listen to Colton and Guest tomorrow. As to the rest of the lineup - Limbaugh's a very known quantity. I gave my pre-debut impressions of the Sarah Janecek/Brian Lambert afternoon drive project a few weeks ago, and will review for tomorrow. Worst of all may be the statiion's evening host, former KSTP placeholder Dan Conry, a nonentity in his first go-'round for whom I confidently predict early oblivion.

Another sweeper said "No Pledge Weeks!". No, but the Kessler show was otherwise sedate and well-mannered enough to fit on on MPR.

For Every Occasion

Hard to avoid Red's musical memes.

This one? Best songs for twenty different occasions.

1. Hate song? Best song about hate? "Clampdown" by the Clash. Best song expressing hatred? Red's call, "Father of Mine" by Everclear, is a good place to start.

2. Love song? "All I Want Is You", U2

3. Crush or Flirt song? "Dover Beach", Bangles.

4. Fuck song? "Duelling Banjos", Eric Weissberg. No, I'm just kidding. It's really "Voodoo", Godsmack.

5. Goofy song? Either "Cretin Hop" by the Ramones, or Prince's "Housequake".

6. Dance song? "DMSR", Prince.

7. Rage song? Always, always "Anarchy In The UK" by the Sex Pistols

8. Slow song? "Baby Be My Friend", Iron City Houserockers.

9. Make-up Song? "Dance With Me", Iron City Houserockers.

10. Redneck song? "Sweet Home Alabama" is, first, last and always, the best in this category.

11. Make-out song? Much as it pains me to say, "Don't Know Why" by Norah Jones.

12. Break-up song? "Jenny", Richard Thompson

13. Happy song? "Closer To Free", BoDeans.

14. Sad song? This is a solid tie between "I Wish It Would Rain", by the Four Tops, and "Here Comes A Regular" by the Replacements. I love them both.

15. Corny song? "These Boots Were Made For Walking", by Nancy Sinatra and a dizzying variety of covering artists, from Jessica Simpson to Megadeth.

16. Christmas song? Of the rock and roll era? "2000 Miles", Pretenders. Of all time? "Oh Come All Ye Faithful". Or maybe "The Hallelujah Chorus".

17. Perverted or Horny song? Gotta be "Erotic City" by Prince. There really is no substitute. Although "Laid" by James has its place as well.

18. Boring song? If I could remember the names and/or artists, I'd have hundreds of finalists; I just don't retain the names or artists of things that bore me. Many possibilities; most of the Pink Floyd, Yes, Yngwie Malmsteen, Alan Holdsworth or Steve Howe discography.

19. Favorite song? At the moment: Hard to pick. Probably Allison Krause's "And The Angels Cried" - I've been humming it nonstop for a week or so now. Etermally: "Darkness On The Edge Of Town", Springsteen. No question. Close second: "Great Northern Avenue", Tenant's Union. Favorite recent (last five years) song: "Love And Hate", Frankie Perez.

20. Funeral song? I don't know many good "funeral" songs per se, but my favorite song involving the untimely death of a principal is "1952 Vincent Black Lighting" by Richard Thompson.