DC Administrative Law judge sues immigrant family for $65,000,000 over a pair of pants…

Jin Nam Chung, Ki Chung and their son, Soo Chung, are considering moving back to Seoul, seven years after they opened their dry-cleaning business in the nation’s capital, said their lawyer, Chris Manning.

“They’re out a lot of money, but more importantly, incredibly disenchanted with the system,” Manning said. “This has destroyed their lives.”

The customer, Roy L. Pearson Jr., who has been representing himself, declined to comment.

Pearson – whose Administrative Law judgeship isn’t partisan, but whose party you can pretty much guess given that he was appointed in the Democrat-strangled District of Columbia – has a history of frivolous lawsuits.  But he’d seem to have outdone himself this time:

According to court documents, the problem began in May 2005 when Pearson became a judge and brought several suits for alterations to Custom Cleaners in Washington. A pair of pants from one suit was missing when he requested it two days later.

Pearson asked the cleaners for the full price of the suit: more than $1,000.

But a week later, the Chungs said the pants had been found and refused to pay. Pearson said those were not his pants, and decided to take the Chungs to the cleaners and sue.

Manning said the cleaners have made three settlement offers to Pearson: $3,000, then $4,600, then $12,000.

But Pearson was not satisfied and expanded his calculations beyond one pair of pants. Because Pearson no longer wanted to use his neighborhood dry cleaner, he asked in his lawsuit for $15,000 — the cost of renting a car every weekend for 10 years to go to another business.

Manning said Pearson somehow thinks he has the right to a dry cleaner within four blocks of his apartment.

The bulk of the $65 million demand comes from Pearson’s strict interpretation of Washington consumer protection law, which imposes fines of $1,500 per violation, per day. Pearson counted 12 violations over 1,200 days, then multiplied that by three defendants.

Disbarment would be too good for this weasel, unless “disbarment” is really short for “dismissal with a rebar”.

The local Sorosphere continues to huff and puff at the notion that a conservative might claim – rightly – to be not only a feminist, but the very best feminist in the Twin Cities.  George Soros’ money is being well-spent, and I for one am having a lot of fun watching the local lefties jump up and down and spatter spit all over the place and demand that I leave “their” sandbox. 

Like this woman, most famous for being enraged all the time and…well, that’s about it.  (Note to Ms. Furious; “truthiness” is so 2005).

Or George Soros’ #1 local temp, Robin, who can’t leave well-enough alone, when she stomps her feet and gets mad that I…:

1.  write a satirical poem about online dating (in the third person, nonetheless)
2. make critical and non-reverent observations about the contributions of a young woman with some deeply fascist ideas
3. point out that the fabled “women earn 3/4 of what men earn” is a misleading mangling of number (she cites an AAUW study which purports to show that women do earn less than men.  While I’m waiting on information from the AAUW on the study’s methodology, it doesn’t matter – it’s one of the reasons I am a feminist; I don’t want my daughter to get any less than she deserves!)

…which sends that message that I shouldn’t criticize any woman in any way, or claim that they’re not eternal victims – which is a pretty Victorian, paternalistic attitude for one who’d style herself a “feminist”. 

If my daughter grows up to be a whiny rage-o-holic, I’ll truly know I’ve failed, both as a father and as a feminist.

It’s been an interesting exercise, watching all these paid operatives  people hop up and down like monkeys on espresso over my simple – though utterly true – little claim.

My inner experimental psychologist is having the time of his life.

Waitstaff can have just about the crappiest job there is.  I’ve never been a waiter (or, for that matter, a cook; I guess that means local leftybloggers will start calling me a “chickenfoodserviceworker”), but I’ve worked with ’em in a slew of jobs – and the notion that part of one’s income is dependant on the social skills, much less the felicitude, of one’s fellow restaurant or bar patron would scare the bejeebers out of me. 

Suffice to say that in the 23 years since I worked as a bellhop at a Holiday Inn (partly for tips, and interacting constantly with the waitresses at our hotel’s wan little restaurant), I’ve never stiffed anyone on a tip.   

So, if the NYPost is any indication, the next big beef (as it were) against Limbaugh is that he’s a good customer?

Rush Limbaugh is far from conservative when it comes to his big appetite. The Post’s Braden Keil reports that Limbaugh and a female companion lived large at Kobe Club last Thursday night, devouring bacon with truffles, Japanese strip steak, Kobe beef cheek ravioli, a large seafood platter, a combo of American, Australian and Japanese wagyu steaks and several “side” dishes.

After finishing their $700 feast, Limbaugh left the server a $1,000 tip.

Wow.  He takes care of the working class.

Wonder how Al Franken, Mike Hatch, Judi Dutcher or Chris Coleman tips.  Any Oceanaire staff reading here today?

 (Via Maloney)

Brian Ward on noted feminists Nancy Pelosi and Betty “Rubble” McCollumn’s be-hijabbed visits to Greater Islam:

[T]here is something amusing about feminists like Pelosi and McCollum merrily donning the hijab, which has the primary purpose of hiding one’s femaleness, lest you enflame the attentions of men. If that’s what they want to do, fine. When in a patriarchy, do as the patriarchs tell you, I guess.

Check it out.

By now, everyone’s heard about Alec Baldwin’s profane rant at his daughter via voice mail.

And a good chunk of America – including some who’d claim to know better – has taken sides; Baldwin is the bad guy, according to much conventional wisdom.  And of course, calling your daughter a “pig” is very, very bad form, to say the least; don’t do it, Dads.

And yet. 

In most of these divorce squabbles, it does indeed take two to tango.  And while venting at his daughter was a very bad thing, the fact is that Baldwin’s ex, Kim Basinger, is providing ample grounds for anger:

Basinger is facing trial on 12 misdemeanor counts of criminal contempt for allegedly disregarding court orders concerning Baldwin’s visitation rights.

 I’ve known a lot of divorced dads in my day – guys who don’t have publicists, who can’t even afford lawyers to go to court over things like their ex-wives keeping their kids from them (although they’re happy to cash the child support checks).  For most of these guys, guys who don’t have Baldwin’s resources to fight endlessly in court, the anger turns inward; depression, self-destructive behavior, booze.   The simple fact is – as Basinger’s record shows – there are very few serious consequences for interfering with a father’s visitation in this country.

Once you get past the flagrancy of Baldwin’s tirade, the question you might ask yourself is – “Who’s the pig?”

“Kim Basinger did not release the voice mail. Additionally, the voice mail was not sealed under a court order,” said publicist Annett Wolf.

Catch that?  “We deny releasing it, but there’s nothing saying I can’t, so it’s not illegal even if I did!”

Baldwin’s voice mail was stupid.  And I make no claims to clairvoyance; I don’t know that it was the result of pent-up anger and frustration over Basinger’s apparent sabotage of his relationship with his daughter.  But, Baldwin’s politics aside (way aside), I’d like as a father to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Because it might seem he’d have it coming.

One of Jeff Horwich’s questions last night was one that I should have been ready for – but wasn’t. 

It was (and I’m paraphrasing fairly closely here) Why aren’t conservatives out there protesting? 

I responded with a quip about people having day jobs and mortages and kids to take care of – to which Erica responded “But I have a day job too…”

Of course, my response was all wrong.  And while I pride myself on usually getting those “woulda coulda shoulda” responses out there in time most of the time, I kinda woofed that one.

So if you happen to listen to the broadcast on MPR tonight, please fill in the following answer for that question.

“Jeff, I think the difference is that conservatism isn’t fundamentally about emotions, or their expression. 

Liberalism – or the left, anyway – is really a co-option (good or cynical, or a little of both, really) of a lot of things most of us are taught as kids; share with people, be nice, don’t fight, you’ll shoot your eye out with that gun.  That kind of thing.  Now, it adds some grownup things, like a legal imperative and, in extreme cases, a certain pseudo-religious ardor – but at the end of the day liberalism is  just an institutionalized version of things we all learned in kindergarten.

Conservatism is not about emotions, usually; it’s something that doesn’t come easily to a lot of people, since it’s something you have to think hard about, and in some ways on the surface it seems to fly in the face of things we’re brought up to believe.  You share, or be nice, or quit fighting, not because mommy or the government tell you to, but because it’s the right thing to do.  And you realize that there’s complexity to all these things; sharing in the form of charity is good, while welfare has and causes serious problems.  Fighting is bad, but sometimes it’s necessary to defend yourself, your family, and your country.  That kind of thing.

So if you consider that becoming a real conservative is largely a solitary, intellectual journey rather than an emotional wave one gets swept up in, it makes a lot more sense that we’re not out there waving signs and threatening to, say, bum-rush Erica’s convention, to pick a random example.

Maybe next time…

UPDATE:  Troy, in the comment section, had a good point.  Changed accordingly.

All of you voicing over my radio appearance; Take Two!

I spent a couple of hours last night at Minnesota Public Radio’s UBS Auditorium, the huge top of the MPR’s Taj MaKling, their immense downtown Saint Paul headquarters.

I was a guest on “In The Loop“, a newish MPR public affairs program hosted by Jeff Horwich. Word had gotten to Horwich that I was a conservative who was interested in the whole topic of the planned protests at next year’s GOP National Convention.

More on that later.

As I’ve written in the past, once you get past the whole “public” nature of Public Radio – the fact that taxes go to support what is in essence a medium catering to a specific socio-political niche – there is actually some excellent stuff out there. And “In The Loop” is certainly an interesting experiment. I’ll give the Loop crew this; file away your “Delicious Dish”/Terry Gross “Good Times/Good Times” stereotypes. It’s a fun, fast-paced, eclectic show, recorded live in front of a studio audience (and edited for time and to cut out flubs – it is public radio, after all). Horwich, a talented, personable guy (at from my first impression, as a guest) is a good interviewer. And he seems to have done a good job, tonight at least, of seeking some sort of balance in stacking the show. The show takes an hour (more like 90 minutes before editing) and talks about an issue – in this case, activism from the very personal to the very public (which was where I came in).
Again – more on that later.

———-

After almost thirty years, off and on (mostly off) of working in radio stations that were tucked above drug stores and into transmitter sheds, MPR is something else; big, clean, Scandinavian, expansive, an equipment geek’s dream. The UBS Auditorium feels like a lecture hall at a well-endowed university, with theatrical lighting, badonkadonk acoustics, and a gorgeous north (?) facing view of downtown Saint Paul.

———-

The culture shock continued when I saw the way the show ran.  Where  commercial talk show involves a host or two, a board operator, and maybe a call screener (and on major-league talk shows like Limbaugh they might add a person or two to do on-the-fly research), a National/Minnesota Public Radio show involves a crew that, to my commercial-radio tastes, looks more like the crew for a good-sized TV production.

The show included the host, at least four producers (one of whom acted as a combination stage manager and technical director, calling instructions to the booth staff into a wireless mic as he maneuvered about the floor), at least three engineers that I could see (two or in the large booth at the back of the room running the recording, the lights and the Powerpoint slides that ran behind the interstitial recorded bits, plus one running the house sound from a big mixer back to the audience’s left).  The show’s closing credits ran on a long time, listing close to a dozen people.  Plus the band.

To produce a one-hour, monthly show. 

Not criticizing.  Just saying – to my frugal, commercial-radio-raised tastes, it was like being in a foreign country.

———-

The first guest was songwriter Larry Long, a local folkie in the Pete Seeger mold – musically and politically – who played a couple of songs. A local “storyteller” read a couple of poems. “The Smarts”, a three-guy jazz combo, provided some occasional hilarious bumper music (a jazzy version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” after…well, we’ll get to that).

There were some recorded segments of interviews with people discovering activism and protest in various ways.

And then it was my turn.

———-

I was on a panel with a cute-as-a-bug twentysomething named Erica, from some anti-war organization (the name sounded similar enough to every other anti-war group out there that I involuntarily started replaying the “People’s Front of Judea” sketch in my head).

Her line; she and her fellow protesters want to show the “ruling class” in this county – the one coming to the GOP convention – what anger was all about. They want to block freeways, raise havoc – in her words, they want to break up the convention, in as many words.

Y’know – to teach Republicans a lesson about democracy. The message seemed to be “My ends justify my means!”, delivered in a perky chirp with just a tinge of Valleygirl.

I tried to respond. Horwich split the time – under ten minutes – pretty evenly. Which, being as used to co-hosting a two hours show as I am, was very, very difficult!

I was nearly a loss as to how to respond. The ruling class? Does my boss know this? At any rate, it was hard to find a way to engage her; she seemed to believe her feelings about the President trumped everyone else’s right to participate in a democracy – a point I tried to make several times. Between the fact that Horwich kept the interview zipping along (it’s a live show, after all) and the fact that, like most anti-war protesters, “Erica” would zip away from topics when cornered like a greased rhetorical pig made me pine for my nice, long-form talk-radio interview format.

Still, check it out; it’ll be on at 9PM tonight, and 6PM Sunday on your area MPR affiliate or online.

While Erika slipped away without a word to me, Larry Long and the whole MPR crew were exceptionally gracious; any thoughts of being trapped in the belly of a left-of-center beast were…well, not untrue, but whether you chalk it up to good manners, love of a good debate, or professional polish, everyone I met – Horwich, his producers, the show staff, and the other MPR staff present – was way beyond civil, and downright friendly.

Leaving philosophical problems with taxpayer-funded media aside (let’s face it, MPR could most likely support itself), In the Loop is an interesting experiment – think of it as a live This Minnesota Life with an audience.  At any rate, it’s well worth a listen.

The GOP is bringing their national convention to Saint Paul next year.

The local, regional and (I have to presume) national left is planning on being here in force.

It’s going to be an interesting 18 months.

Let’s pick up where we left off last Thursday.

———-

A couple of bits of housekeeping, first.

I’m schedule to appear on Minnesota Public Radio’s “In The Loop“.  It’ll be recorded Thursday night at the Taj MaKling in downtown Saint Paul, and broadcast  Friday, at 9 p.m. and Sunday at 6 p.m.

The subject?  Protest!

———-

As a couple of commenters obliquely pointed out last week, the temptation to rhetorically overstep is almost overwhelming.

As I noted, the Saint Paul City Council has officially welcomed protesters. I gave significance to the fact that they haven’t mentioned anything about protesters who come to town with an aim toward disruption – and a commenter correctly noted that in fact legislators’ resolutions should be presumed to refer to activities that are within the laws that they make and that their government is charged with enforcing.

True, and a good point.

Another commenter said something to the effect of “he’s just setting up a strawman”.  That’s not true in and of itself – I’m not trying to negate either the legitimate, law-abiding protesters’ points or right to speak with the activities of their less-legitimate pals. 

Merely pointing out something the mainstream media in this town, I suspect, will bend over backwards to avoid reporting; while the fringe left is complaining about nonexistent plans to stifle their free speech, some of them would seem to be intent on no good.

———-

Lassie at Freedom Dogs – who has, herself, immense experience dealing with the left’s professional protest clacque – writes in quoting the RNC Welcoming Committee (RNC-WC) website:

Looks like they hope to maintain a looser structure so as to escape notice by the authoritarians, and are confident that their numbers are strong.

…we hope that the RNC-WC will maintain a unified, anti-authoritarian presence at the 2008 RNC. Our numbers are huge, and it’s time that our actions reflected that.

Well anarkiddies, our numbers are also strong, and we look forward to welcoming you next fall. Keep daddy’s number on speed dial — that unfortunate authority figure is the one you’ll be crying to for bail. This is going to be fun to watch.

It’s a “MySpace” site.  Big whoop? 

Maybe, maybe not.  You be the judge.  Here’s the “Welcoming Committee’s” agenda:

Those who work with the RNC Welcoming Committee must agree to:

1. A rejection of Capitalism, Imperialism, and the State; [Whatever]

2. Resist the commodification of our shared and living Earth; [Kumbaya]

3. Organize on the principles of decentralization, autonomy, sustainability, and mutual aid.  [Kind of like a bunch of terrorist cells.  OK, that was a low blow.]

4. Work to end all relationships of domination and subjugation, including but not limited to those rooted in patriarchy, race, class, and homophobia; [Unless they’re Israelis, but again, whatever]

5. Oppose the police and prison-industrial complex, and maintain solidarity with all targets of state repression; 

6. Directly confront systems of oppression, and respect the need for a diversity of tactics. [Hm.  “Diverse” tactics?  Let’s come back to that later.]

Though the RNC-WC is focused on a specific event, we hope that our work transcends the convention by contributing to the development of anti-authoritarian movements and mutual aid networks both locally and globally. We are no more opposed to the Republican Party than we are to the Democratic Party. Affiliations and labels aside, we invite all who share our vision to join us in resistance.

So they wanna protest.

Cool.  See y’all on the street. I’ll be interested in checking out those “diverse” tactics.

Waving signs and walking around dressed in papier-mache puppets?  Go for it.

Threats, violence and intimidation?

———- 

Jeff Kouba – he of stronger stomach than I – apparently reads the MN Daily.

And a few weeks ago he found this little nugget; a U of M twinkie is having violent little delusions of grandeur.  And if you believe him, he’s not alone.

Oh, not

Maybe it was all the wine my buddy salvaged from some trash containers after a high-class tasting party, and then served up at his own festive blow-out gathering of assorted radicals on Friday night, but I’m really starting to have hope.

Yes, I’m starting to believe certain vague, visionary plans to throw our Republican friends a street party in St. Paul in 2008 are really, truly going to happen.

Look away, you fun-loving Republicans, we’re planning a big surprise party for little ol’ you during your special convention in 2008.

Aw!  You shouldn’t have!  I love surprise parties! 

Hopefully, it will be more fun than the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

Oh, but now my mellow is harshed.  I don’t like violence!

And to be perfectly clear, either does the “writer” of the MNDaily op-ed, John Hoff – as long has he’s potentially on the wrong end of it, as in this editorial, where he frets about the crummy neighborhood around his stop on the Ventura trolley.  So we know he’s not a diagnosable sociopath, since he doesn’t like potential violence aimed at him, anyway. 

Right?

Yup, we know you Republicans are still jealous about all the attention Democrats enjoyed in Chicago back in the days of the hippies, but just think: 40 years, my pinstriped, conservative friends.

Oooh!  An ambiguous warning!

Of course, there’s nothing ambiguous about the gutlessness of people like “John Hoff”:

Nobody in this column except me has a real name, of course, and even I have been known to become “John Hoffman,” in homage to Abbie Hoffman of the Chicago 7.

You know – Abbie Hoffman, upper-class yippie turned condo-pink cause celebre, who went “underground” for a decade after being busted for dealing coke?  The person over whom Pete Townsend earned everlasting credit for clubbing with a guitar at Woodstock? 

The person who served as the model, in many ways, for today’s pampered, privileged, tax-funded hothouse “radicals”?

Anyway, the article continues:

We talked about gas masks. I mentioned how difficult it was, during the Battle of Seattle, to procure a gas mask at the last minute. But it isn’t enough to merely possess a gas mask, oh no. I know from my time in the army that gas-mask training is essential, so you will trust your equipment even when you’re exhausted from running, fighting for breath, and it’s tough to suck air through the filters.

Wow.  Gas mask training.  Sounds dramatic!

Stella told me activists have been planning and coordinating for a few months, traveling to the Twin Cities and quietly familiarizing themselves with routes and landmarks. A meeting between a major group of “anti-authoritarians” and a large liberal Christian organization was scheduled to take place … um, well, no sense mentioning the day or the location.

Of course not!  Because acting like it’s a big secret certainly buffs up that self-serving sense of drama that being an arrested adolescent requires.

Which is, perhaps, what we should write this next bit off to (emphasis added):

Will enough people come to the street demonstrations in 2008? Will it be a gas? Will demonstrators have enough sense to focus on a target of opportunity outside the main security perimeter, like a luxury hotel where delegates will be staying with their laptops and revealing documents, instead of going up against massive security surrounding the convention center? It would be good to apply the hard-earned lessons of Seattle in 1999.

Yeah, I know.  John Hoff and his alleged friends are a bunch of hyperdramatic arrested adolescents; for this little flock of state-supported (over half of a U of M student’s costs are paid by the taxpayer before they even see a tuition figure) dilettantes, the drama is the point; sneaking about with secret names and big plans is validation for people who’ve adopted the whole “change the world now” mission in life.  I’ve known the type over the years – even interviewed a bunch of them on my old KSTP talk show (kids from the “Backroom Anarchist Center”); talking about recreating the fabled riots of the mystic past is for them what NASCAR and sports-talk radio are for blue-collar guys – a time-killer, a substitute for doing something useful.

And yet.

Hoff’s piece appears in the Minnesota Daily – a semi-independent body and not an official voice of the U of M, by any means (if I recall correctly, they are partially funded by student activity fees, although I’m not entirely sure of the extent), but certainly no underground publication.

Question:  If it were a Republican student advocating stalking pro-abortion activists (for that is exactly what Hoff is advocating; “Will demonstrators … focus on a target of opportunity…like a luxury hotel where delegates will be staying with their laptops and revealing documents” which has nothing to do with protesting the administration and everything to do with harassing people who are, in turn, exercising their own rights to free speech and assembly!), what would the university’s reaction have been?

———-

Relax.  I’m not especially exercised about little John Hoff’s fantasy life.  Talk is cheap.  And it doesn’t impugn the vast majority of protesters, who, wrong as they are in my opinion, don’t intend to do anything stupid.

But as much as some on the regional left fret about being “stifled” and “oppressed“, the fact is powerful, well-heeled interests in Saint Paul are looking out for protesters’ First Amendment rights.

I just want to make sure that the rights of those of us who dissent from this city’s political mainstream – and those who come to this city – will get the same consideration.  The mainstream media has been reticent to cover the abuses of the anti-war, anti-Republican protesters.  

If that’s a do-it-yourself job, that’s fine; it’s what we conservative bloggers do best.

But someone’s gotta do it.

Reality, as usual, is stuck somewhere between everyone’s perceptions of it.

Immigration is an issue fraught with this trait.

The cultural left believes that America has always been an uneasy truce between incompatible cultures, held together only by the grace of government.

The cultural right believes that until recently, America was a melting-pot rather than a quilt; a place where people (other than the odd bit of pride in their heritage) stripped away the old to embrace the new.

The truth, naturally, is somewhere in between (even if, as usual, somewhere to the right of dead-center).  Not everyone assimilated instantly to the New World.  My maternal grandmother and my ex-father-in-law both grew up speaking other languages – Norwegian and German, respectively.  More globally, many ethnic groups – most notably the Italians of New York and Boston – actively resisted assimilating in the mid-1800s, keeping their language and their customs and the hope of making some money and moving back to the Old Country sooner than later.  Others – the Irish then, some Central Americans now – were similar if not the same.

So it’s not a huge surprise that some people coming from a very foreign cultural tradition and a society little-advanced since the seventh century, might not dive into American culture head-first.

What’s distressing is that so many Americans – too many – are actively facilititating this; creating an America of many cultures that intersect only where they absolutely have to.

 Katherine Kersten in the Strib, in the second part of a great two-part series on MCTC‘s effort to install Moslem-friendly facilties, and the agenda behind the move:

Last week, I wrote about Minneapolis Community and Technical College, which is planning to install facilities to help Muslim students perform ritual washing before daily prayers. It’s a simple matter of extending “hospitality” to newcomers, says President Phil Davis — no different than providing a fish option in the college cafeteria for Christian students during Lent… [But] On the [College’s Muslim Accomodations Task Force website] , I found information about the handful of public colleges that have “wudu,” or ritual bathing, facilities.

Now, a conservative – or one that believes in separation of church and state, no matter what their politics – might be tempted to ask “what allowances do public colleges make for Christians?”  Of course, modern Christianity is pretty low-impact as far as public affordances go; most of us can pray in private if we’re so inclined, and can save our public observances for church. 

Islam, traditionally, is different – although Moslems around the world do get allowances for interacting with modernity.  Should they want them.

Which is the big qualification.  I’ll add emphasis below:

But I also discovered something more important for colleges seeking guidance on “accommodations”: Projects like MCTC’s are likely to be the first step in a long process.

The task force’s eventual objectives on American campuses include the following, according to the website: permanent Muslim prayer spaces, ritual washing facilities, separate food and housing for Muslim students, separate hours at athletic facilities for Muslim women, paid imams or religious counselors, and campus observance of Muslim holidays. The task force is already hailing “pioneering” successes. At Syracuse University in New York, for example, “Eid al Fitr is now an official university holiday,” says an article featured on the website. “The entire university campus shuts down to mark the end of Ramadan.” At Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn, Mich., “halal” food — ritually slaughtered and permissible under Islamic law — is marked by green stickers in the cafeteria and “staff are well-trained in handling practices.”

At Georgetown University, Muslim women can live apart in housing that enables them to “sleep in an Islamic setting,” as the website puts it. According to a student at the time the policy was adopted, the university housing office initially opposed the idea, on grounds that all freshman should have the experience of “living in dorms and dealing with different kinds of people.” That might sound appealing, Muslim students told a reporter in an article featured on the website. But in their view, the reporter wrote, “learning to live with ‘different kinds of people’ ” actually “causes more harm than good” for Muslims, because it requires them to live in an environment that “distracts them from their desire to become better Muslims, and even draw[s] weaker Muslims away from Islam.”

In some of these cases, I don’t see a huge problem; in areas where Moslems are a significant part of the population (like Dearborn), the market will drive these things, just as Catholics in the market drive cafeterias to serve fish on Fridays.  As to holidays – well, at a private school (like Syracuse and Georgetown), it’s really up to the buyer to decide if they want Eid off; when I was in college, during some of my tougher semesters, I’d have taken Cthulhian holidays if could’ve gotten ’em.

For that matter, if private schools want to invest in prayer spaces and separate facilities for Moslems because it’s just-plain good marketing, more power to ’em. 

But at public schools?  I don’t want tax money going toward separate-but-equal capital expenditures for anyone’s religion, even my own!

Read the rest of Kersten’s piece, which goes into great depth about the agitation for these changes.

My NARN colleague Ed Morrissey writes: Ed Morrissey writes:

In other words, what we will get from this process of multiculturalism is precisely the kind of “separate but equal” facilities struck down by the Supreme Court in Brown v Board of Education in 1954. These Muslim activists want to create a separate society within the United States for Muslims, and they want the US to provide them the facilities with which to create it. Separate dorms, separate cafeterias, Muslim-only physical-education classes — they want a separate Muslim college at MCTC and everywhere else. It’s self-initiated apartheid.

Forty years ago and more, we had segregationists insisting that different peoples could not live within the same area without dividing lines…Now we have Muslims who want to reopen the argument in order to create a closed society for themselves within the US. We have no problem with Muslims who integrate into our society and become Americans in deed as well as in name. If Muslims want to open their own universities to ensure the proper exercise of their religion, well, that works too…We do not need religious apartheid at MCTC or any other public university or facility. If devout Muslims do not want to integrate into American society, then they need to find another place to live. Period.

That is, of course, the larger danger; that a significant part of our society will get the means to segregate itself…

…with the active connivance of too many “well-meaning” Americans.

No matter how they undercut the military, no matter what loathing they pour upon America’s system and elected adminsitration and capitalist system and history, no matter what horrors they’ve coddled as they do so, it’s established that one dare not call any liberal “unpatriotic”, for fear of being called an ugly angry conservative.

But apparently, if you’re a major-league leftyblogger, wanting to keep more of the money you earn not only makes you unpatriotic, but it means you hate democracy.

It’s not a coincidence that Grover Norquist, the architect of the right-wing ascension to power, runs an organization called Americans for Tax Reform.  People like Norquist, who are charlatans at heart and deeply unpatriotic and immoral, use the complexity in the tax code that they help to create to persuade Americans that taxes are bad.  This is also true in states all over the country, where it is the unpredictability of property tax burdens and not the amount that causes schools to go wanting for funding.

Our tax code is the DNA of our nation’s moral compass.  I am proud to pay taxes because I take pride in America, and paying some tiny burden to keep our society running is an extremely small price to pay for being able to call myself an American citizen.  The old expression ‘you get what you pay for’ is apt for all sorts of situations.  People tend to express what they value in how much they are willing to pay for it.  I am willing and feel privileged for the right to pay for my country.  The right-wing is embittered to do so, if they do so at all.  And that, more than anything, says something about how much they value this experiment called America

No, Matt Stoller; as Thomas Jefferson himself averred, keeping a lid on the size, power and appetite of government is fundamentally American and itself deeply patriotic; our founding fathers believed that government was not so much an enemy (let’s be realistic) as a animal that needed to be kept tame.

But much more important for this “experiment called America” is the ability and willingness to accept that dissent and difference aren’t themselves base and evil. 

Not to do so is a form of moral retardation that is itself deeply antithetical to what this country is about.

I never cared much for Imus.  I can’t say that I’ve listened to him more than a half a dozen times, ever; he never really took off in the Twin Cities (Pointless disclosure: Salem Radio engaged Imus for the morning shift at the re-tooled AM1570 within the past couple of weeks).  I’ve always found his phlegmy, gargly-sounding voice unlistenable; as someone who grew up in the business, I’ve always found the old-school, big-name “shock jocks” (from back when that term meant something) to be deeply distasteful people; and as he developed as a reliable liberal outlet in a medium run by conservatives, I found him (counterintuitively) less and less interesting.

So he’s gone.  Whoop di doo.

Of course, the scandal that led to his demise (?) teaches all the wrong lessons. 

Jason Whitlock writing in the Kansas City Star sums up the real importance of Imus’ demise, and the way it went down.   You need to read the whole thing – but I’m going to excerpt big chunks of it anyway.

Thank you, Don Imus. You’ve given us (black people) an excuse to avoid our real problem.

You’ve given Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson another opportunity to pretend that the old fight, which is now the safe and lucrative fight, is still the most important fight in our push for true economic and social equality.

Exactly.

William Raspberry wrote an excellent column about 15 years ago, officially consigning the petty racism of name-calling to the “Pathetic, Ignore” bin (and I’d love to find that article online somewhere).  Long story short: anyone who thinks that ignorant morons calling black people naughty names is teh biggest problem facing blacks in America today – or even an important one – is deluded. 

Thank you, Don Imus. You extended Black History Month to April, and we can once again wallow in victimhood, protest like it’s 1965 and delude ourselves into believing that fixing your hatred is more necessary than eradicating our self-hatred.

The bigots win again.

The only question I have; which bigots? 

Jackson and Sharpton, who believe Blacks in America deserve no better from their “leadership” to wallow in the sort of petty victimhood afforded by a statement as dumb (dumb!) as Imus’?

Or the casual, de facto bigots who control so much of African-American culture in America:

While we’re fixated on a bad joke cracked by an irrelevant, bad shock jock, I’m sure at least one of the marvelous young women on the Rutgers basketball team is somewhere snapping her fingers to the beat of 50 Cent’s or Snoop Dogg’s or Young Jeezy’s latest ode glorifying nappy-headed pimps and hos.

If the misogyny and self-loathing in hip-hop were to be directed self-directed at any other ethnic group, psychologists would queue up around the figurative block to try to find the cause of such a cultural dissociation.

I ain’t saying Jesse, Al and Vivian are gold-diggas, but they don’t have the heart to mount a legitimate campaign against the real black-folk killas.

It is us. At this time, we are our own worst enemies. We have allowed our youths to buy into a culture (hip hop) that has been perverted, corrupted and overtaken by prison culture. The music, attitude and behavior expressed in this culture is anti-black, anti-education, demeaning, self-destructive, pro-drug dealing and violent.

Rather than confront this heinous enemy from within, we sit back and wait for someone like Imus to have a slip of the tongue and make the mistake of repeating the things we say about ourselves.

The thesis – that mainstream black culture has become Black America’s worst enemy?

It’s embarrassing. Dave Chappelle was offered $50 million to make racially insensitive jokes about black and white people on TV. He was hailed as a genius. Black comedians routinely crack jokes about white and black people, and we all laugh out loud.

There is nothing quite as depressing as watching the various “Apollo” comedy specials and tours.  And while Chapelle is funny (in the same way that “Borat” was funny – in a way that I kind of didn’t like myself for finding funny, in many ways), you watch it knowing that behind all comedy is some form of pain or another – and the sense that the “pain” behind the likes of Chapelle and the less-tony black comic community is self-hatred.

Somehow, we’re supposed to believe that the comments of a man with virtually no connection to the sports world ruined Rutgers’ wonderful season. Had a broadcaster with credibility and a platform in the sports world uttered the words Imus did, I could understand a level of outrage.

But an hourlong press conference over a man who has already apologized, already been suspended and is already insignificant is just plain intellectually dishonest. This is opportunism. This is a distraction.

Worse than a distraction; it’s going to give some of the lesser lights of the “civil rights movement” a sense they’ve “won” something, while the real problems just grind on and on.

And those real problems, more and more, drive Mercedes and wear lots o’ bling:

I don’t listen or watch Imus’ show regularly. Has he at any point glorified selling crack cocaine to black women? Has he celebrated black men shooting each other randomly? Has he suggested in any way that it’s cool to be a baby-daddy rather than a husband and a parent? Does he tell his listeners that they’re suckers for pursuing education and that they’re selling out their race if they do?

…No. We all know where the real battleground is. We know that the gangsta rappers and their followers in the athletic world have far bigger platforms to negatively define us than some old white man with a bad radio show. There’s no money and lots of danger in that battle, so Jesse and Al are going to sit it out.

Read the whole thing.

And ask yourself; with Imus gone but Fitty Cent and Snoop Dogg still acting out a stereotype more corrosive than Stepin’ Fetchit (because nobody seriously aspired to be Mr. Fetchit, while a generation of kids now use the word “pimp” as an adjective of approval), what’s really changed?

 UPDATE:  Flash at Centrisity adds 2,000-odd words to the subject.

An array of Minnesota bloggers, left and right, covered Congressman John Kline’s town hall meeting last night. 

The Twin Cities’ fringe left, convinced that Kline was shunning his constituents (because his office didn’t kowtow to the demands of a group of stalkers “demonstrators” who conducted several de facto sit-ins at his office), showed up in force.  Some of the best of the Twin Cities’ conservative blog community showed up to keep an eye on the “demonstrators” (and, as it happens, the leftybloggers).

Joe Tucci of Kool Aid Report was there, and provided the first report I saw of the evening’s tempest in a teapot:

740 – Gold star Mom just [smacked down the assembled lefties]. Half the place gave here a standing O. Half did not. Guess which half sat on their asses. Watch for the footage (and why the assholes patriotic Americans that didn’t stand, didn’t applaud her son are dregs) on residual froces tomorrow.

…

815 – LIBERAL LIES!!!! Minnesota Monitor monitor sez:

Reporter [heh -ed.] Jeff Fecke has called in from the town hall meeting sponsored by Rep. John Kline (R – Minn.). Although wifi access has been enabled, [lie – it has not been enabled – we checked. -ed.] Kline’s staff has asked that there be no live blogging of the event.He asked no such thing. They merely said that the school’s wifi was off. Fecke playing loose with facts? Like that never happens.He asked no such thing. They merely said that the school’s wifi was off. Fecke playing loose with facts? Like that never happens.He asked no such thing. They merely said that the school’s wifi was off. Fecke playing loose with facts? Like that never happens.He asked no such thing. They merely said that the school’s wifi was off. Fecke playing loose with facts? Like that never happens.

He asked no such thing. They merely said that the school’s wifi was off. Fecke playing loose with facts? Like that never happens.

Curious, I ran over to Minnesota Monitor (a regional rent-a-blog supported by the Washington-based “Center for Independent Media”, which used to share office space with George Soros’ “Media Matters for America”, but which denies any connection or funding from Soros, even though I’m not aware that the group has ever responded to any questions about its funding with anything but a giggle and a change of subject) to see what the fuss was about. 

MinMon’s rent-a-blogger Jeff Fecke, who wrote an otherwise fairly dispassionate account of the event, had this to say about the purported “restrictions”:

Minnesota Monitor had intended to liveblog the event.  Unfortunately, while some conservative bloggers were allowed internet access, Kline staffers informed this reporter that I would not be able to take advantage of internet access that had been offered me after inquiry with the Lakeville school district.

The Kline camp also declined to let news media hook into the auditorium audio feed, and did not allow anyone in to set up until ten minutes before the meeting was to start.

Michael Brodkorb responded by posting the rules for the event, that WiFi was not at the moment available, and that he…:

…walked into the auditorium, found a place to sit and used my Verizon Wireless Air-Card to access the Internet.  It is was not the responsibility of Lakeville South High School (the taxpayers) or Congressman Kline’s office (the taxpayers) to provide me with access to the Internet…

To prevent being scooped on future live-blogging events, I would suggest liberal bloggers buy air-cards, rather than creating conspiracy theories that  “somce conservative bloggers were allowed internet access”

And Kevin Ecker clarified:

I spoke with several members of the Kline staff and it was never related that there would be no liveblogging. Just that while the school had wifi, it wasn’t turned on. And I verified this with my laptop….which I had out, open and turned on. Plus both Joe Tucci and MDE were liveblogging next to me. Nobody questioned it. 

 Which introduces the question; when will the “journalists” – as the MinMon people claim to be – either:

• reveal the source that told them that live-blogging was “prohibited”
• elaborate on their claim of discrimination (“…some conservative bloggers were allowed…Kline staffers informed this reporter that I would not be able to take advantage of internet“)
• Admit that they cried “wolf” when they should have cried “we didn’t do our technical homework”

Note to the MinMon kids from someone who’s actually worked for a [bad] living as a reporter; nobody is required to kiss your ass just because you show up at an event claiming to be a reporter.  Getting let into events late and being barred from PA system feeds is hardly unusual, and rarely political, and never an impediment to covering a story.

And a separate note from someone who has worked for a [equally bad] living as a broadcast producer, covering news, sports and special events; your failure to have a backup plan for a technical hitch doesn’t constitute a “conspiracy”.  When you are trying to cover an event and you are relying on any form of technology to help get the story out, you must always assume that the technology will fail, and have a back-up plan.  Michael Brodkorb had a technical workaround – his Verizon card.  Other conservative bloggers took their notes and waited until after the event to upload and publish; good enough is good enough!

Grow up.

After complaining about being repressed by the injustice inherent in the system, Fecke reported that the crowd – on both sides – seemed fairly restrained and civil.   

Kevin Ecker of Eckernet was also there, and had a slightly different take:

Several moments stuck out, some of them in retrospect, some of them I know even before were going to be memorable. One in particular was when a woman got to speak and started by saying she was a Gold Star Mother. I couldn’t help but wonder how many of these hippies knew the difference between a “Gold Star” mother and a “Blue Star” mother. So I knew where this was going and wow, she hit the ball out of the park with her speech, and when she was done quite a few people got up to applaud the sacrificies of her and her son. Not the lefties of course, they just sat there sulking.

Retired Lt. Col. Joe Repya…called out the lefties in the audience, declaring that they should be ashamed of themselves for not standing up and applauding for a Gold Star Mother and her deceased son.

More from Ecker, who opined…:

Somewhere in there [a woman who was a detractor of Kline’s] objected to being called unpatriotic (nobody called her that…it’s liberal talking points), and then called Kline dispicable. Kline waited until she was done and said he understood why she was upset if her patriotism was questioned, but that he also gets upset when he is called dispicable.

Fair?  Balanced?  You be the judge.

The Lady Logician from Ladies’ Logic was there, and promises both photos and a longer post.  But she notes:

Both sides were fairly equally represented. The town hall meeting was open to ALL issues so we did get a couple of intelligent questions about issues other than Iraq, but we all knew why the majority was there and the questions reflected it.We heard from the usual suspects on the left but we also got to hear from a Gold Star Mom (Merrilee Carlson) and from Powerlines Sgt Thole from Chaska. Sgt. Thole’s rep read from his 3/17 Star Tribune editorial and informed Congressman Kline that they were going to present his office first with the Appeal for Courage Petition (if you are active duty you need to check the site out).

Stay tuned; I have a hunch this is just getting rolling.  

And thanks, and good job, to Joe Tucci, Kevin Ecker, Lady Logician, Andy Aplikowski, and even Jeff Fecke.  I mean, I’d be wrong not to thank a guy for serving up a high, down-the-middle ‘tater like that…

A few years back, in response to the “epidemic” of “deadbeat dads”, a slew of government agencies embarked on a raft of programs to teach fathers “how to be responsible” as parents. The goal? Well, no, it wasn’t some warm ‘n fuzzy desire to make sure every kid grew up with warm memories of Dad.

No, it was to make sure that guys – even though they were and are discriminated against in custody trials, and subject to being “guilty until proven innocent” by the domestic abuse industry, even though it’s a known fact that as many as 50% of domestic abuse allegations brought during divorce proceedings are false – were both able and motivated (or just shamed) into keeping up their child support payments. Especially those owed to various county government bodies from whom their childrens’ mothers were receiving welfare payments, naturally.

Prejudicial? Sure. Degrading to most men, especially men who are non-custodial parents, the vast majority of whom work their asses off to do what they can (and what their childrens’ mothers will allow, in the worst cases) for their kids? Absolutely.

But there’s money involved. So the pants-wetting class among the professional feminist movement is getting involved, wanting women to get a piece of the action.

It’s called the Promoting Responsible Fatherhood Initiative, and the Bush administration doles out up to $50 million annually to fund its programs to build job skills and help fathers connect better with their children. But the National Organization for Women says the effort is illegal because it’s only about men.

NOW and Legal Momentum, another advocacy group, filed complaints yesterday with the Department of Health and Human Services alleging sex discrimination in the initiative that is funding about 100 programs this year.

Cute.

Are NOW and “Legal Momentum” moving to reduce some of the abject discrimination against men in family court? Trying, perhaps, to remove the punitive aspects of child support enforcement? Maybe even moving to enact Presumption of Joint Physical Custody legislation nationwide, so that parenting rather than finances drive family court settlements?

Har di har har.

The complaints cite 34 programs, including one run by the District and two others in the Washington area, that, they say, do not offer the services to women. That, the groups say, violates Title IX, the law that prevents sex discrimination in federally funded education programs and is best known for forcing universities to offer comparable sports programs for men and women.

“What we’re asking them to do is to make sure that the grantees provide equal services to women and men,” said Kathy Rodgers, president of Legal Momentum. “It should be a parenthood initiative.”

Yeah, I’m sure a lot of women – who win 90% of custody cases in “winner takes all” states, and who are the recipients of the vast preponderance of “child support” payments, will be lining up to get into programs that scold and cajole men parents to step up to their obligations.

Oh, wait – maybe they just want the money!

Another group under fire is the Latin American Youth Center in the District, which got a $250,000 annual grant to provide 30 young fathers a year with job training, language classes and parenting skills. But women can enroll, too, said Lori Kaplan, the executive director.

“It doesn’t mean that anywhere along the line our moms are getting excluded,” she said.

The big difference, of course, is that welfare pretty much does exclude able-bodied men who have children who don’t live with them. Much of welfare, today, is indeed targeted at single mothers – women who become single parents either because the system:

• subsidizes illegitimate parenthood
• forces men out of the family before the family can get welfare
• grants, almost exclusively, full custody to women who are frequently unable to support families on their own – and then subsidizes their lifestyle (and administers the fathers’ child support payments).

I didn’t see NOW complaining about that.

Let me know if I missed something.

John Mellencamp on yesterday’s KQ Morning Show, talking about why the US prospered so much during the Baby Boom’s childhood:

(paraphrasing very closely)

During World War II, we bombed everyone else back to the Stone Age!  That’s why we prospered!  There was no competition!

Ah, Coogs.  Silly, silly Coogs.  We did it, huh?  If the US hadn’t been so damn trigger happy, World War II would have worked out for everyone?

Ah, well.  We’ll always have Scarecrow and Lonesome Jubilee.

Schmuck.

Couldn’t make it to last night’s Saint Paul School Board meeting.

Swiftee could, though (I’m adding my own emphasis here).

 Board member Tom Goldstein spoke at length about his objections to the presence of military recruiters on school property; he barely made an effort to conceal his contempt for the two US Navy Master Chief Petty officers present.

He said that he was of a mind to make their job as hard as possible and went on at length about his objections to the war in Iraq. He also said that he “didn’t care if the war was not a school board issue”.

The district’s tanking test scores and dismal graduation rates bear him out on that fact.

Board member Tom Conlon, as ever the lone voice of sanity, pointed out that the board’s time would be better spent pursuing an improvement in the districts academic achievement

For starters, thank goodness for Tom Conlon; Swiftee’s right.  If you follow the Saint Paul School Board long enough, you start to think that Tom is the only one in the bunch whose head isn’t swaddled in tinfoil.

But let’s look into this issue.

A small, vocal, and (because the board is so very hard-left) very well-connected group of students, parents and advocates in Saint Paul – almost universally white, upper-middle-class, and DFL – are voicing their distaste for the military.  Their own kids are safe, of course – Saint Paul allows parents to sign an opt-out form that forbids recruiters from talking to their children. 

But they want to make sure that no children are exposed to [what they regard as] the big, bad, evil US military.

These same people are leading a push to keep the services’ Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) programs out of the schools.   These programs – whose enrollment is heavily if not mosty minority, in Saint Paul – teach discipline, self-respect (as opposed to self-esteem – a distinction that few in the SPPS seem to recognize), and organization; they also provide an entree into college-level ROTC programs, which may be the best chance for many of these kids to afford college.  In exchange for five years in the military, these kids – many from the sort of straitened circumstances that the programs’ detractors merely drive past on the way to their yoga classes – can get a college education, and more importantly a good start in adult life.

But there are uniforms involved, so the granola-chomping, Whole-Foods-shopping, Highland-Park-dwelling detractors wrinkle their noses, and call their pet school board members to complain.

This battle is a class struggle, all right.  It pits the patrician inner-city DFL against the people in this city that regard military service as an honor, or a gateway to opportunity, or one’s privilege as an American citizen.

Ironic, isn’t it?  The Democrat “Farmer Labor” party stands, yet again, against the values of the farmers and the workers?

As no public comment was allowed at the meeting yesterday, I will be on the lookout for the next meeting on this subject.  Suffice to say I will not miss the next one.

As I discussed with the St. Paul School Board’s Tom Conlon last weekend on the NARN, elements on the board want to restrict access to St. Paul students on the part of military recruiters.

Swiftee – a longtime gadfly of the board – is leading everyone interested in speaking out against this move at this afternoon’s board meeting. 

It’s at 4:30, at the SPPS headquarters fortress at 360 Colborne in Saint Paul. 

I’m going to try to be there. 

UPDATE:  Couldn’t swing it.  But Swiftee could.

 A German judge cites the Quran in handing down a verdict:

A German judge has stirred a storm of protest here by citing the Koran in turning down a German Muslim wife’s request for a fast-track divorce on the ground that her husband beat her.

In a remarkable ruling that underlines the tension between Muslim customs and European laws, the judge, Christa Datz-Winter, said the couple came from a Moroccan cultural milieu in which it is common for husbands to beat their wives. The Koran, she wrote, sanctions such physical abuse. 

Here’s my prediction; given that radical Islam in America is using the Twin Cities as its testbed for slipping Moslem religious law into American life – the Flying Imams, Target Cashiers Against Pork, and the cabbies who won’t carry booze – I have to wonder if we’re not going to see someone trying to push a case just like this, right here, and very soon.

 (Via David’s Medienkritik)

One of my great inspirations has to be Tony Snow.

Two years ago, he came down with colon cancer.  Like a lot of people (of all political walks), I sent him a “get well soon” email; I’ve long respected Snow’s chops as a radio guy. 

His email in response was truly a gift of insight into dealing with difficult times.  I’ll find it and share it one of these days, if it survived the last couple of system crashes.

It’s a shock to see he’s apparently going back for more surgery, to remove another abominable abdominal growth.

And it’s good to see that good people still know what comes first:

“The biggest problem you have sometimes with cancer is flat-out fear,” Snow said. “When you see an Elizabeth Edwards saying, ‘I’m going to embrace life and I’m going to move forward,’ that is a wonderful thing.”

After hearing the news, John and Elizabeth Edwards called Snow, during a refueling stop on their way to Los Angeles, to express their support and concern, said Edwards adviser Jennifer Palmieri.

Snow’s news is by no means necessarily bad – they don’t know it’s a relapse – but please keep him and his family alongside the Edwardses in your prayers, wishes or what have you.

(more…)

Comment-section gadfly gadflea gadmite gadamecium RickDFL wrote:

On behalf of the younger generation can I just say that watching all you old baby boomers re-fight the war protests of your youth, only this time without the cool soundtrack and hot women, is really boring.

I pointed out that I’ve banned people for less than calling me a baby boomer. His response:

From wikipedia, “There is little agreement as to the exact beginning and end dates of the baby boom, but it is commonly identified as starting in 1946 and ending in 1964.” So, if you were 38 on 9/11 2001, you were born at the tail end of the baby boom. Hate to break it to you.

Well. Wikipedia says so. I guess that settles it!

Rick – didja catch that whole “there is little agreement” bit at the beginning of your pullquote? Slapping an arbitrary date on something that subjective is inherently unclear and lazy.

Fortunately, that’s why I’m here.

Baby boomers were the children of the World War II generation. While they largely started having their kids nine months after VJ day, and kept right on breeding into the early sixties, their Boomerhood was a factor of being children of the “Greatest Generation”.

On VJ day, my dad was nine and my mom was five. They might have been old enough to fight in the Volkssturm, but not for the US. Demographically, socially and morally, I am not a baby boomer. Never have been, never will be.

But – and again, with apologies to Jeff Foxworthy – here’s a little quiz to help you decide what generation you really belong to.

You Might Not Be A Baby Boomer If…: you have more Clash, Springsteen and Sex Pistols than Beatles and Stones in your music collection.

You Might Not Be A Baby Boomer If…: you have never used the term “Camelot” unironically to refer to anything after the 13th Century. Or if the word “Camelot” to you means dancing knights who push the pram a lot, rather than Jackie Onassis.

You Might Not Be A Baby Boomer If…: the Teheran Hostage Crisis is more prominent in your memory than Kent State.

You Might Not Be A Baby Boomer If…: you think Dennis Miller was a better Weekend Update host than Chevy Chase.

You Might Not Be A Baby Boomer If…: “Quadrophonic” and “Eight Track” mean the same thing as “Edsel”.

You Might Not Be A Baby Boomer If…: “Woodstock” was a bird.

Carry on.

Mary Louise at Casual Sundays…

Socialism may not be pretty but it sure as hell is funny!

Read the rest of it.

Almost three years ago, I wrote this piece, which generated a ton of traffic. 

The main part:

If You Believe: that America has problems – huge problems – then dissent is American.
But If You Believe: …that America’s problems make it an inherently rotten concept, then maybe you should think about whether you’re living in the right place.

 

If You Believe: …that America’s projection of power around the world is immoral – then dissent is American.
But If You Believe: …that any projection of American power is inherely unjust because it’s America, then maybe you should be living in, say, Sweden? Just an idea.

If You Believe: …that capitalism is wrong because its inequalities are inherely unjust, then dissent is American.
But If You Believe: …that the free market is inherently, irrevocably evil, perhaps China would be a better fit? Just suggesting…

If You Believe: …that invading Iraq was wrong, then dissent is American.
But If You Believe: …that our temporary administration of Iraq is worse than Hussein’s 30 year reighn of horrors, then perhaps you should rot in hell we need to have an attitude adjustment.

And I’ll reiterate – while I question those who dissent from the administration, I certainly will defend their right to do it (which is more than some of them will do for me, but then such is life).

But let me add to the above:

If you believe: …that the war in Iraq is wrong, and you want to pull out now and bring the troops home, then yes, while I think you’re wrong (and most of the troops clearly agree), but your dissent is certainly American.

But if you believe: …that this isn’t deeply intensely sick, then no.   Your dissent is not “patriotic”, and you do not “support the troops”, and your opinion is worthy of scorn at least, but only if we’re in a really good mood.

That is all.

It’s the same old story:

• Boy unfurls giggly, pseudo-provocative sign at a school event.
• Principal suspends boy.
• Boy and his lawyers spend six years pursuing the case all the way to the Supreme Court.

Let’s join them, shall we?

[Joseph] Frederick filed suit, saying his First Amendment rights were infringed. A federal appeals court in San Francisco agreed, concluding the school could not show Frederick had disrupted the schools educational mission by showing a banner off campus.

Former independent counsel Kenneth Starr argued for the principal that a school “must be able to fashion its educational mission” without undue hindsight from the courts.

Now, let’s get this straight; the “incident” happened six years ago, and the kid won (albeit at the Ninth Circuit, which is sort of like a group of Phyllis Kahns in robes) – and the school district took it to the Supremes?

That brought swift skepticism from some justices.

“There was no classroom here,” said Kennedy.

“This was education outside a classroom,” replied Starr of the torch relay observation.

“What did it disrupt on the sidewalk?” asked Souter of Fredericks banner.

“The educational mission of the school,” was Starrs answer.

“The school can make any rule that it wants on any subject restrictive of speech, and if anyone violates it, its disruptive?” asked Souter.

Ding ding ding. Give a cigar to David Souter.

Welcome to life in a public school – where a parent, in addition to chauffeur, short order cook, taskmaster and sales manager, needs to be a lawyer to boot.

Justice Samuel Alito, alone among his conservative bench mates, appeared sharply critical of the schools position

“I find that a very, very disturbing argument,” he said, “because schools have and they can define their educational mission so broadly that they can suppress all sorts of political speech and speech expressing fundamental values of the students, under the banner of getting rid of speech thats inconsistent with educational missions.”

I’m tempted to get my daughter to make a sign – “Christians 4 Reagan” – and see what happens.

Let me leave aside my well-established cynicism about the public schools’ “educational mission” (and I do suspect that an awful lot of kids learned much more about American civics and government through this case than they ever did in class. Indeed, if my daughter’s last public school history teacher is any indication, they’d probably learn more American history watching soap operas. But I digress). And don’t bother that the “war on drugs” is a quagmire in a way that Vietnam never was and Iraq never will be, which has killed more Americans than both wars put together, for a moment.

The answer, on the part of the school (an arm of government) in response to this frankly dumb, sophomoric provocation is not to throw yet another draconian, anti-“educational” rule at it (although it’s more than likely the kid learned more in ten days out of school than he’d have learned sitting on his butt in a classroom). The answer to “bad” speech – or “dumb” speech, like this kid’s doltish sign, is to explain to him and the other students why this is dumb, wrong and sophomoric.

There are so many ways to do this; have the students talk about what is sophomoric versus useful speech; learn a bit of logic, and critical thinking; expose them to humor predating John Stewart, maybe.

Of course, if public schools taught critical thinking (to other than kids on the debate team), they’d grow up into parents that questioned whether jamming kids into huge schools run on an assembly-line model – possibly the system least conducive to actually learning things ever devised – is a good idea.

And then all hell would break loose.

The Strib, pro forma, notes:

A much smaller group of counterprotesters held signs and shouted slogans supporting the troops, the war and Bush.

They left out “dominated every argument with calm style”.

And while our numbers were certainly small, I called my friend from Citizens for a Supine “Safer” Minnesota for an estimate.

“You had close to 1000 people there”, she said upon looking at the group picture.

I always feel better about numbers after I talk with her.

So we followed the demonstration up to Lagoon and Hennepin.

We stood at the corner, flag and signs in hand, as the crowd of “protesters” swelled around us. Oh, we got some good response – an MTC bus driver honked and gave us a thumbs up – as well as some anger (a few middle fingers).

“So why didn’t you join the Army?”, yelled one vapid/drunk-looking thirtysomething decked out in Patagonia.

“Um, because on 9/11 I was a 38 year old single parent with two bad knees, offhand?” I responded.

Patagonia stood there, flummoxed, not really thrilled with the whole “eye contact” thing. “Oh, yeah? Are you on the Halliburton payroll?”

Observation: At their best, the typical anti-war protester is incapable of maintaining a discussion of longer than one statement, maybe two, without changing the subject. If you follow these things in my comment section, of course, it’s no surprise, but it’s interesting to see how flummoxed they get when they’re not in complete control of the discussion (as they no doubt are on campus).

On the other hand, at their worst…

Oh, we had the usual – one red-faced guy bellowed “F*CK YOU!” at the top of his lungs (yes, there were kids present). Another, obviously intoxicated, staggered down the bus/turn lane in front of us, bellowing “YOU MOTHERF*CKING HYPOCRITES” (yeah, still kids present) before staggering in front of someone’s car.

The lowlight of the day?

A shrivelled little husk of a “person”, probably 5’6 with a ill-trimmed fringe of white hair and a tumorous white goatee framing what looked like ill-fitting dentures, walked up to us. “What IS the mission?” he bellowed, sounding mildly intoxicated.

“Win the war”.

“How do we do that?”, he yelled, with a voice whose vocal cords sounded calloused by years of bellowing along on cue at demonstrations.

“Kill the terrorists, make the country safe for the law-abiding Iraqi”.

“What if there’s a million of ’em?”

“There aren’t”.

He upped the ante; “What if there’s ten million of ’em?”

“There aren’t”.

“Are you on some oil company’s payroll?”

“Um, yeah. Does it show?”

He put his hand on my left shoulder. Then, with his left hand, he reached over and grabbed my crotch, then staggered away into the crowd.

My hands were in my pockets – partly to keep warm, largely to make sure I couldn’t react to provocations. That little leprechaun’s dentist can be thankful for this.

I’ll be going through any photos I find of the event. If I find him on film, anywhere, I’m going to give the little perv his fifteen minutes of fame.

Got film? I’d love to take a look.  I’d love to make sure his co-workers get some idea of his predilections…

…but then, from the looks of him his only job for the last forty years has been “protester”.

The “protester” bumped – intentionally – into Amendment X.

A string of profanities – from the protester, bellowed at full volume – ensued.

I looked at the four little kids in strollers and wagons that the passersby were pushing/dragging.

“Dude, there’s kids here”.

I don’t think he skipped a beat.