The latest New Yorker features a fascinating piece on 24 producer Joel Surnow.

Macalester College tries to square its relentlessly liberal image with its students’ growing sanctimony fatigue after some Mac students were found throwing a party with racist overtones:

Macalester is just the latest in a string of colleges nationwide to investigate student parties and incidents this year that have involved racial overtones.

Officials are checking to see exactly what happened at the party, and Macalester will have a campuswide discussion on issues of stereotyping on Tuesday.

“We hope to take the teachable moment and engage our campus community a little bit more deeply,” said Jim Hoppe, Macalesters associate dean of students. “We hope we can start a deeper dialogue on … why these types of activities hurt people and why they get the kind of response they do.”

I’m pretty un-PC; I’ve always figured tact and manners were enough in this world.  While the professionally-indignant crowd has done this nation – especially this nation’s colleges and universities – immense damage in the past 25 years, I’ve never seen much humor in intentionally picking at other peoples’ emotional scabs.  And so even I cocked an eyebrow at what the kid involved were alleged to have done – some wore “costumes depicting negative stereotypes of race, religion and gender”, according to Mac’s president.

Of course, Macalester does more than cock its eyebrows at this sort of thing:

“Several of the attendees allegedly wore costumes depicting negative stereotypes of race, religion and gender,” [Mac prez Brian Rosenberg] wrote. “It is important to understand that the college condemns and will not tolerate activities of this type. It is deeply disappointing that Macalester students would be so insensitive and demonstrate such a lack of understanding of the colleges values and mission.”

Earlier this school year, two other very selective colleges — Trinity College in Connecticut and Whitman College in Washington state — had parties where students showed up in racially offensive costumes or blackface.

“PC for thee, but not for me”, apparently. 

I have to wonder – if a school adopts a relentlessly PC attitude about society’s seemier historical aspects, and drives all non-“PC” thought  underground (as, indeed, Mac has – they have a notable-repressive speech code), does it have to find some way to get out?

Because maybe it’s just me, but I don’t see so much of this at less-PC schools…

Update and Bump II:  It’s tomorrow! 

Our producer on the NARN, Matt Reynolds, and his wife Amber are currently busy trying to adopt a child from Guatemala. This is not an inexpensive proposition – so they’re holding a bit of a fundraiser:

Fundraising Fiesta for Hezekiah is on Feb 10th from 6-9 pm with a silent auction and a Mexican dinner. If people are interested in attending or donating they can check out our website at www.kiahskapers.8k.com or email us at kiahskapers@gmail.com. Or if they prefer they can make a tax deductible donation online through Life International at http://www.lifeintl.org/donation.html, then click the “make donation” button and it goes to PayPal. For a donation to go to our specific account, they need it to say “Mathew and Amber Reynolds” in the “payment for” box. Thanks for your support and help.

I’m planning on being there on Saturday. I invite you and yours can spare a bit of help for the Reynolds’.  Oooh – and the food is from Chipotle!

The event is being held at the Maple Grove Evangelical Free Church from 6-9PM Saturday night. Email them at kiahskapers@gmail.com to reserve a spot!

Ed writes about the event today, too.

I’m all about tackling the big questions.

For example:  Why do people build even numbers of urinals in men’s rooms?

Follow along here:  If men are following proper men’s room etiquette, they NEVER stand at adjoining urinals (unless there are dividers present – and there never, ever are).  Proper etiquette requires one to leave at least a one-urinal gap between you and the next guy over. 

Picture a men’s room with, say, three urinals – 1, 2 and 3.  Ideally, one guy will take 1, and another can use 3, while 2 will remain fallow, as it were, serving as the “no-man’s land” between the two.  (Only the hopelessly gauche, when entering a men’s room, will use #2 barring an emergency; to do so would render 1 and 3 unusable). 

So let’s say you have a men’s room with four urinals, 1 through 4.  Only two can ever be occupied – 1 and 3, or 2 and 4.  In effect, one urinal is wasted, since no more than two men can ever use the setup at a given time.  Better to either tear one out, or build another. 

The logical conclusion is that there is never a reason to build a men’s room with exactly two urinals; one will always be unoccupied, barring emergencies; men with class will either use an unoccupied stall or just grit their teeth and think of walking through Death Valley rather than use the adjacent urinal.  It is, in effect, wasted resources and effort to install two urinals.

Architects?  Please see to this.

The lefties are commencing their Vietnam-fantasy foreplay:

Barack Obama is introducing binding legislation mandating the phased removal of combat brigades from Iraq to start in a few months, with the goal of getting “all” — we repeat, “all” — removed by March 2008. From a release just sent out by his campaign:

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) today introduced binding and comprehensive legislation that not only reverses the President’s dangerous and ill-conceived escalation of the Iraq war, but also sets a new course for U.S. policy that can bring a responsible end to the war and bring our troops home.

“Our troops have performed brilliantly in Iraq, but no amount of American soldiers can solve the political differences at the heart of somebody else’s civil war,” Obama said. “That’s why I have introduced a plan to not only stop the escalation of this war, but begin a phased redeployment that can pressure the Iraqis to finally reach a political settlement and reduce the violence.”

The Obama plan offers a responsible yet effective alternative to the President’s failed policy of escalation.

I entitled this post “The Suicide Commences” for a reason.  I’m not sure whose suicide it is.

If the nation keeps its head about itself – if it heeds its troops in the field, follows a sensible (read: hands-on, dead-terrorist, whether-Shi’te or Sunni-focused) course, and focuses its efforts on protecting the vast majority of Iraqis who do want a peaceful, stable, vermin-free country, then it’s the beginning-of-the-electoral end for Obama.  If the GOP can refocus the national agenda on what matters – the war on terror – among the many cleanups, and getting-back-on-messages they need to do (and yes, that’s going to be a tall order), and appeal to the common sense and lingering social memory of the American people, then this is a total loser after the Democrat convention.

On the other hand, if the GOP doesn’t present the people a solid alternative to the Democrat agenda – if we continue to appear like Democrat Lite, as we do right now – then it’s the suicide of the nation as a whole that I’m most worried about.  If you accept that we are in a war against a terrorist movement – a real, hot war, as opposed to an ongoing investigation, like some distended RICO manhunt – then, for all the double-talk about “responsible effectiveness”, this would be vastly worse than the disengagement from Vietnam.  The North Vietnamese Army didn’t follow us home in 1975, after all. 

Being ever the optimist, I choose to work for the former, and against “Neville” Obama.

I’m trying to picture what would happen if, in the interest of preserving liberty, any conservative were to advocate forcing those who disagree with us to  fall in line, “for everyone’s good”.

Volokh points us to this extraordinary call from The Nation – Chris Hedges’ demand for censorship of the fringe right:

This is the awful paradox of tolerance. There arise moments when those who would destroy the tolerance that makes an open society possible should no longer be tolerated. They must be held accountable by institutions that maintain the free exchange of ideas and liberty.

The radical Christian Right must be forced to include other points of view to counter their hate talk in their own broadcasts, watched by tens of millions of Americans. They must be denied the right to demonize whole segments of American society, saying they are manipulated by Satan and worthy only of conversion or eradication. They must be made to treat their opponents with respect and acknowledge the right of a fair hearing even as they exercise their own freedom to disagree with their opponents.

I’m trying to think of any credible conservative (and Hedges is “credible”; he’s worked for the NYTimes and NPR) that’s called for anyone on the left to have anything forced (Hedges’ word) upon them.

Oh, and there’s no parsing his meaning; Volokh has Hedges’ “clarification” from an appearance on Talk of the Nation:

I think that, you know, in a democratic society, people don’t have a right to preach the extermination of others, which has been a part of this movement of – certainly in terms of what should be done with homosexuals.

Of course they do – noxioius as such preaching is.  I’ve heard some of the “Christian” Radio that Hedges is complaining about – and some of it is sickening.

But for Hedges to assume that there’s no slippery slope – and to ignore the absolutism with which his fellow NYTimes and NPR correspendents regard equally egregious free speech from, say, Louis Farrakhan or some moslem clerics or for that matter Mary Daly – is myopic at best.

Not to mention “par for the course”.

Read the whole sickening thing.

(Via Peg Kaplan)

Arizona State student Ryan Visconti proves that there is hope for the future.

Visconti – a senior at the school – is pushing back over a “diversity exercise” in which students were assigned ethnic, affectional and social backgrounds, and subjected to society’s supposed stereotypes.

Visconti said the students who designed the roleplay overlooked their own stereotypes, such as the notion that white men don’t have to work for wealth because society gives them a free ride. Or the idea that Christian churches are filled with bigots, and people who support traditional family values such as heterosexual marriage are hateful and narrow-minded.

“They were basically saying that if you don’t feel the same way, you’re wrong,” Visconti said. “It got to the point that if you weren’t a minority or gay, you were supposed to feel guilty and that everything was given to you in life.”

To start the role-play, participants were handed coded index cards that indicated their race, ethnicity and sexual orientation. Participants were then told to visit different “life stations” and create their “perfect life.”

The stations included booths for housing, banking, church, jail, transportation and employment.

At each stop, Visconti said he was given scripted responses based on his gay Hispanic identity. He was told he could be a landscaper and live in a ghetto apartment or be unemployed and homeless. Meanwhile, students assigned white identities were encouraged to be business executives.

Of course, the “training” starts well before college.  I’ve had a longstanding program with my kids; I pay ’em a buck for every example of liberal indoctrination they bring home from school.  These sorts of stereotypes are all over schools well into the elementary grades.

It’s equally interesting to read the comments from the “tolerant” people at the end of the article…

See if you can see what’s missing from this Op-Ed by Barbara C. Crosby this Monday in the Strib:

A friend of mine, whose son was just notified that his National Guard unit will have its tour in Iraq extended, asks, Why aren’t there massive protests against this misguided war? She remembers the Vietnam era and the sustained protest movement of the time.

Of course, only a tiny portion of the American people ever protested against the Vietnam war. 

But I digress.  While “a genuine memory of what happened in this nation during Vietnam” is indeed missing, that’s not what I’m shooting for.

Easy answer: No draft. Indeed, the antiwar movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s was dramatically subdued by President Richard Nixon’s replacement of the existing draft with an annual lottery that, in effect, cut in half the number of young men who were vulnerable to conscription. Later, the nation adopted an all-volunteer policy for the armed services.

It’s an “easy answer” – and wrong, as far as it goes.  It’s true, we don’t have a draft – but then, a minority of those who served in Vietnam were draftees, and the majority of the protesters were on deferments. 

Now our nation is at war with terrorism, and the volunteer army is stretched to the limit, even with a questionable reliance on National Guard units. So should our policymakers reinstitute the military draft administered by the euphemistically named Selective Service?

A few members of Congress say yes, and perhaps they are right. A truly universal draft would diminish the current system’s disproportionate burden on low-income and minority communities. And, no doubt, a return to the draft would heighten opposition to the current military strategy in Iraq.

And for the first time, Ms. Crosby skirts perilously close to…not the truth, but a truth.

Conscription – the draft – forces a nation to be very conservative about the wars they fight.  If a war doesn’t have very broad, popular support (like World War II, which was largely fought with draftees) or involve the nation’s survival (all Israeli males serve), draftee armies are very blunt instruments that tend to fight poorly (see the Russians in Chechnya) and/or with draconian enforcement from above (the Russians in Afghanistan). 

My own proposal is that our nation consider instituting a universal draft of nearly everyone between ages 18 and 65, male and female, except for parents of minor children.

Admittedly, the oldsters in this group (and I’m one) can’t do a lot of heavy lifting (unless we’re talking ideas and such), but we could work on nation-building endeavors, such as microfinance projects or educational programs.

Can we see what’s missing yet?

Of course, the designers of a new draft would have to be creative in order to minimize central bureaucracy. One idea is to rely, as in the past, on local draft boards that would randomly call up eligible individuals until a board’s quota was filled.

Something else is missing here.  No, not the big kahuna thing I’m really looking for – but I have to wonder if Ms. Crosby really knows what she’s talking about.  She seems to be mixing up “the draft” – a lottery that picks and chooses what it needs – with “universal service”, like in Israel or Switzerland, where everyone between ages 20 and 50 (and sometimes older) serves in the reserves, civil defense or some other area. 

They are very different ideas; the “draft”, as it was practiced in the US from the forties to 1973, was inherently vastly more unfair than the “disproportionate burden on low-income and minority communities” Ms. Crosby kvetches about; upper-middle-class kids, from families with money or influence or savvy, routinely got deferred or found less-dangerous ways to while away their eligible years.

Universal service – where everyone who’s medically able serves 1-3 years in the regular military and then a number of years in the reserves, like in Israel and Switzerland (and in some ways Norway), whether your parents are plumbers or Senators.  The CEO’s son drives the tank commanded by the farmer’s kid; the mayor’s son loads bombs onto a plane flown by a bus driver’s son. 

They couldn’t be more different, with one exception; they both impel a nation to be much more conservative about using the military.  Most heavily-draftee or universal service militaries are only notionally able to serve outside their own nation’s borders (nations like Israel and Germany can only send their special forces and all-volunteer elites like paratroops and fighter pilots overseas, usually only for very brief periods or with immense support from the US).

Talking seriously about a universal draft might cause us to question our current reliance on the youngest adults to bear so much of the war burden… Maybe we should send tough grandmas to war at an equal rate.

And this is just stupid.  Fighting – and having a reasonable chance of surviving against an enemy that really does want to kill you (something few Democrats recognize in the current world situation) takes springy knees and sharp eyes and keen ears, not to mention the ability to be taught to do something utterly unnatural to you.  Ask any drill sergeant who is easier to turn into a soldier, an 18 year old or a 25 year old…

I hope the nation also would consider an ongoing requirement that every 18-year-old put in two years of public service either in the military or in a community development program. Such a move could vastly expand VISTA and the Peace Corps, which in turn might do much to improve conditions that spawn hopelessness (and prime the terrorist recruitment pipeline) in the poorest parts of the world today.

Would volunteers “improve” jihadist hatred of everything the West stands for – indeed, be proof of it? – or would they be merely hostages on the hoof? 

In such a scenario, special incentives may be necessary to ensure that enough young people sign up for military duty.

Here’s one:  make serving the nation an honorable profession, or at least a time in one’s life where one is part of an elite brotherhood set apart from the rest of society by a code that outsiders just don’t understand.

Sort of like what we have today, in a military that actually does the job. 

Another approach would be to require all young citizens to go through both military training and nonviolent conflict resolution and serve two years as members of the military or peace brigades.

I’m not sure what the best approach is.

Obviously.

Ms. Crosby seems to think that military is like high school – a captive audience that needs to be exposed to a bunch of abstruse concepts for their own good, as judged by society.

It’s not.  It’s an arm of the government that tries to kill, maim or drag to the bargaining table by force those who would do us harm.  It’s a specialized trade, with skills and standards that occupy mens’ lives for decades in the learning.  The professionals that make up the backbone of our military, the greatest on earth, devote their lives to learning the craft and art of war every bit as much as any other professional – and their lives depend on it more than most. 

And that is what’s missing from Ms. Crosby’s piece; any sense of what a military is for, and why it exists.  Is it a social program?  A vehicle to engineer society? 

Because Ms. Crosby certainly shows no understanding on any other level: 

This policy shift makes sense if we are truly serious about fighting a War on Terror and improving global and domestic conditions.

Actually, as noted by people who differ from Ms. Crosby in knowing what they’re talking about, draftee armies are the worst instrument for fighting that kind of war.

Internet romance goes horribly awry:

 He was an 18-year-old Marine headed to war. She was an attractive young woman sending him off with pictures and lingerie.

Or so each one thought.

As we parents all know – it’s all fun, until someone gets hurt: 

In reality, they were two middle-aged people carrying on an Internet fantasy based on seemingly harmless lies.

When a truthful 22-year-old was drawn in, authorities say, their cyber escape turned deadly.

[Murder victim Brian] Barrett, 22, was an aspiring industrial arts teacher, an accomplished high school athlete who had coached Little League all summer and helped his father coach soccer. Those who knew the Buffalo State College student described him as quiet and unassuming.

He had clearly been targeted. Barrett was shot three times at close range in the neck and left arm after climbing into his truck about 10 p.m. at the end of a shift at Dynabrade Corp. in Clarence, 20 miles outside of Buffalo. His body was found two days later when a co-worker spotted his pickup in an isolated part of the company parking lot.

The problem is, except for the whole “one of the principals got murdered” bit, I can’t see a way to make it anything but a comedy.

Don’t get me wrong – I probably verge on being one of Rod Dreher’s “crunchycons”.  I generally try to leave as small an environmental footprint as I can.  Not so much so I can be smug about my environmental consciousness as for basic ethics and, mainly, economics; it’s cheaper. 

When I practice it myself, anyway.  Spread over an entire society, it’s another matter.

Ask a global warming enthusiast (term used advisedly) about their pet topic.  They chortle with glee – and will not brook any disagreement about the theory’s supposed empirical underpinning.  The more ignorant the enthusiast about current events in general, the more blinkered they are about politics, the more certain they are that global warming is here to save them and their millenarian socialist worldview.

But now, some climatologists are starting to think that global warming has been “oversold”:

Climate scientists might be expected to bask in the spotlight after their decades of toil. The general public now cares about greenhouse gases, and with a new Democratic-led Congress, federal action on climate change may be at hand.

Problem is, global warming may not have caused Hurricane Katrina, and last summer’s heat waves were equaled and, in many cases, surpassed by heat in the 1930s.

In their efforts to capture the public’s attention, then, have climate scientists oversold global warming? It’s probably not a majority view, but a few climate scientists are beginning to question whether some dire predictions push the science too far.

Or indeed, whether they were science at all.  Given the revelations over the past few years – that catastrophe advocates believe it acceptable to fudge science to affect policy – it’s a legit question.

“Some of us are wondering if we have created a monster,” says Kevin Vranes, a climate scientist at the University of Colorado.

Vranes, who is not considered a global warming skeptic by his peers, came to this conclusion after attending an American Geophysical Union meeting last month. Vranes says he detected “tension” among scientists, notably because projections of the future climate carry uncertainties — a point that hasn’t been fully communicated to the public.

The science of climate change often is expressed publicly in unambiguous terms.

For example, last summer, Ralph Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences, told the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce: “I think we understand the mechanisms of CO2 and climate better than we do of what causes lung cancer. … In fact, it is fair to say that global warming may be the most carefully and fully studied scientific topic in human history.”

Vranes says, “When I hear things like that, I go crazy.”

As he should.

Among enthusiasts, global warming (like so many other of the millenarian left’s pet causes) has taken on all of the worst aspects of organized fundamentalist religion; unassailable dogma (enforced by ostracism or worse), paranoia about dissenters, and downright anger about probing the “faith’s” origins.

While we’re a long way from answering the questions about global warming (is it man-made, or part of a natural climate oscillation), expect global warming fans to be about as graceful about the debate as snake-handlers are about those who question their approach to blind faith.

I loved Freedom Writers – the story of a plucky teacher who breaks all the rules and refuses to knuckle under to an uncaring racist system – the first time I saw it.

When it was called Dangerous Minds, Stand and Deliver, Mr. Holland’s Opus, Save The Last Dance, Math Club ‘n Tha Hood, To Sir With Love and Save The Dangerous Chess For Ms. LoveSir.

Please see to changing this.

Thank you.

I hate “Free Speech in the Schools” debates. 

On the one hand, students being adolescents, and adolescents having huge tolerance for drama, the controversies are frequently giggly, overwrought and self-serving.

On the other hand, as I’ve noted (and will note further in the future), school administrations are frequently – how can I say this? – not the brightest lights on the Christmas Tree?  And while students under age 18 are not adults and aren’t expected to have fully-formed decision-making skills, school is (in theory) where they’re supposed to start learning how the adult world works.

So that’s why I’m going to side with the students in this rhubarb:

A high-school newspaper in Anoka County will be printed today with a big blue box on the front page because the principal banned a photo that simulated the ripping of an American flag.

“Originally a photo was to be placed here but was censored by the administration,” reads a message inside the box, which is to accompany a front-page story in the Crier student newspaper at St. Francis High School.

It’s not really a flag that was destroyed during a school play last fall, but rather bunting that looks like an American flag. The Cold War-era story had explored the repercussions of a fictional conquest of a U.S. school by an oppressive government such as that of the Soviet Union.

Under the circumstances, the photo in question seems very appropriate to the story. 

Not everyone thinks so, of course:

The brouhaha began with a photo that [the paper’s editor Eric] Sheforgen took during the play called “The Children’s Story.” Students handled an actual flag, then substituted shredded bunting to make it appear as though a flag were destroyed. …”A photo of the school’s fall play was not placed in the newspaper after Principal Paul Neubauer threatened the newspaper with possible legal action and froze funds to the Crier’s financial accounts. Because of these actions the Editorial Board felt it had no choice but to not print the picture.”

Under the compromise, the principal allowed the blue box to be published in place of the photo.

A caption reads: “During the fall play, lead actress Becca Bennett held up a prop, made from table cloth bunting, representing how a country could be torn apart by affecting the youth. The picture was removed off the wall in the PAC (Performing Arts Center) hallway.”

Aside:  they’re teaching their paper’s editor to write like freelance soft-skills consultant? 

[Superintendent] Saxton, who fully supported the principal’s decision, said that while many other photos of the play would have been suitable, the one depicting flag desecration could have offended many veterans and service organizations that support the schools.

Which is, I think, fascinating.  I’ve yet to meet a school that fudged one iota about offending, say, Christians, Republicans or pro-lifers.  Money talks, I guess.

But this seems like a bad decision on the part of the administration.

OK, lefties, this one’s for you.

Dennis “Starchild” Kucinich is floating the trial balloon; the left wants to resurrect the “Fairness Doctrine”, which would require that broadcasters “balance” their politically-focused programming. This would either force stations to air liberal hosts (who are a drag on the market) or, as most stations did before 1987, steer for the safe, boring middle.

The Democrats want…

…well, let’s let Democrats tell us what they want. As we noted yesterday, Democrat blogger Taylor Marsh says:

Democrats are still behind in radio…instead of using their donor base to help hosts who could hold their own. Creating Democratic business consortiums that help hosts get on the air, with the best of us staying on and eventually catapulting to syndication. The Fairness Doctrine could really make a difference.

In other words, “let’s use government to force the market to do what we can’t make it do via talent and savvy”.

Obsessive Regular commenter “Doug” puts it another way; when asked if Fairness Doctrine supporters believed that the people were too stupid to process information for themselves, he responded:

No Mitch but they are too lazy.

OK, lefties – keep ’em coming. Why do you want to reinstate the “Fairness Doctrine”?

What excuses do you have for parsing the First Amendment?

Comments must be on-topic; I will be uncharacteristically really ruthless about this today.

Si eres uno de esos republicanos que permanecían caseros este último noviembre porque Mark Kennedy apoyó subsidios del etanol, o porque Michele Bachmann hizo política mejor que el status quo en el 6o Districto – esto es sobre lo que te advertíamos.

Bush signed the law last year and the Republican-controlled Congress provided money to start work on the fence. But Republicans worry that now they have their majority on Capitol Hill, they never will see the fence built. Democrats in charge today generally oppose the fence.Based on the comments of some Democrats, there is no rush.

Rep. Bennie Thompson (news, bio, voting record), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he wants the Bush administration to offer a plan for securing the northern and southern borders.

“My preference is to delay the construction of a fence until we have a plan,” said Thompson, D-Miss.

 The other day, when talking about the Dems’ plan to try to reinstate the “Fairness Doctrine”, I noted that there really are only two sides to this debate; you support free speech, or you believe that federal bureaucrats should control it; the exact words were “authoritarian thug”. 

We have a vote for thug:

But the Fairness Doctrine is back or at least being talked about again, with Congress set to challenge the FCC. The thought is already driving conservatives nuts, with more here, here, here, here, here, with Jeff Goldstein his usual obtuse self. QandO offers more. One blogger calls it Free Speech’s Abu Ghraib. [waves] They’re all nuts [Doh!  I’m “nuts”!  I’m disintegrating in the face of the logical onslaught!]. They’re also very happy with controlling the radio waves.

Let’s stop right there for a minute.

The woman writing this bit – Taylor Marsh – bills herself as a “radio host”.  Her “radio show” is, of course, an internet-only stream.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it explains how so much of what she says really has nothing to do with the reality of the radio industry.

Conservatives “control the airwaves” because we provide a better product that more people want to listen to.  Example:  My NARN pals and I (who broadcast on a real station as well as a real internet stream) “control the market” among political talk on Saturday afternoons not because of “corporate support” (Salem vs. Clear Channel?  Puh-leeze).  No, we bitch-slap both KTLK-FM and the local Air America affiliate like a prison laundry-room beat-down because people want to listen to us, for whatever reason.

Ipso Limbaugh, Hannity, Hewitt and the rest of us.  Nobody holds a gun to an audience’s head and makes them tune in. 

Looking at Ms. Marsh’s take on history is interesting, inasmuch as it shows the left hasn’t changed their talking points in over a decade:

The short version of the Fairness Doctrine is that in 1987 Reagan had it scuttled. Shortly after that Rush Limbaugh began his journey and right-wing radio was created and gradually took over the airwaves, with the help of their corporate friends

I’ve often wondered what Democrats think they mean when they say this?  Was it that…:

•  Limbaugh succeeded only because of the machinations of a cabal of oligarchs that forced America to make him their #1 talkradio choice?
• Or was it that they don’t think there were a slew of “corporate friends” backing the likes of Jim Hightower, Mario Cuomo and, of course, Air America?  And, with that in mind…
• …how do they think someone launches a national syndication effort?  By nailing posters up on telephone polls asking people to listen?

And, speaking of “corporate support”; the week after the NARN went on the air, Fast Eddie Schultz appeared on the Today show, in a gushy, fawning interview with Katie Couric.  “Is this man the answer to Rush Limbaugh?”, Couric asked in the teaser into the break before the interview.  At that moment, Schultz had six stations in his network; other than Fargo and Minneapolis, none were in large markets.  KSTP’s Joe Soucheray had a bigger cumulative audience.  But the big media desperately want someone on their side to come along and knock off Limbaugh, which is why stiffs like Schultz and Air America get such breathless, sycophantic approval from (and treated like actual players in) the mainstream press.

  More history gone tragically awry follows:

 I’m exaggerating, but Democrats were so dense about radio for so long it’s amazing there are still any progressive hosts out here working every day to get back on radio.

They were indeed dense – and, looking at the endless farce of Air America, seem to remain so – but the denseness was that of the fat ‘n happy incumbent, not the plucky challenger.  Remember when the “Fairness Doctrine” was repealed?  I do – I was working in talk radio at the time.  Who were the big players?  ABC Talkradio was the big network in 1987; their big players were Michael Jackson (who, with the repeal of the Doctrine, came out as an unabashed lefty), Sally Jessy Raphael (not political, but her sympathies were obvious), Owen Span (left of center) and some whom I’ve long forgotten, but not a conservative among ’em.  Mutual’s big – and only – property was Larry King, who never did a “political” show, but whose sympathies are and were solidly left of center.   “Conservative” network talk was pretty much unheard of; Morton Downey, Bob Grant and Joe Pyne were the godfathers of the genre, and they were purely local.

So in terms of content, the left had control of talk radio the day the Fairness Doctrine was put to sleep.  How could that status quo have flipped 180 degrees within two years? 

 Because “corporate friends” willed it?  Or because Rush Limbaugh et al delivered a product that the market wanted and scooped up in droves?

And what about those droves?  How did they get there?

 It’s about getting control of all the little stations in all the little towns so that you can influence all those people.

Why does the left fail at radio?  Because they don’t understand it.  Yes, Limbaugh has been for many years a Clear Channel property – but his popularity waxed long before that deal was ever inked.  And in those days, stations – including a throng of small to mid-market stations, most of them not even “talk radio” stations in format terms – took Limbaugh’s show in droves.  My own radio alma mater, KQDJ in Jamestown ND, ran Limbaugh for years; the rest of the day, they were middle-of-the-road music and farm prices.  Many small market stations followed suit.  Why?  Because people tuned in.  Which is the goal in the business.

The inevitable rejoinder from the left is “But ClearChannel controls both Limbaugh and hundreds of stations!”.  Yes, for now – they’re selling off most of their small-market stations – and it’s irrelevant.  ClearChannel is a business.  Not only that, but much of the “success” Air America has had in the past few years has been from Clear Channel optioning Air America programming at some of its smaller urban stations as a tactical move. 

In other words, Clear Channel – the big, bad, “conservative” radio powerhouse – did more than any other broadcast corporation to keep Air America alive in the market.  Why?  Because they figured there might be a (fringe) market!  (They eventually realized they figured wrong; most Clear Channel talk stations are backing slowly out of their Air America commitments).

Let’s return to Ms. Marsh.  Contempt for the audience?  She’s got it!

 The host gets to know his/her audience, they trust him/her, so when this host tells them to vote for Right Wing Randy/Roxanne, they likely will.

Yeah, it worked like a charm this past November, didn’t it? 

 After all, they’ve built up a trust. Republicans will do anything to get ratings, which includes leaving the facts out and plying their audience with daily doses of emotion instead.

Leaving aside the “facts” bit – and no movement that includes Keith Olberman and Chris Matthews should complain much about selectiveness – talk radio is entertainment.  Emotion trumps fact (although among many of conservative talk’s stocks in trade is filling facts about stories the left-wing media omits.  Memogate, anyone?) 

But I’ll give this to Ms. Taylor; her next graf sums up the left’s ignorance of radio as perfectly as anything I’ve seen:  

Creating Democratic business consortiums that help hosts get on the air, with the best of us staying on and eventually catapulting to syndication. The Fairness Doctrine could really make a difference. Why do you think conservatives are screaming like crazy?

The left treats radio like a top-down command economy; all it takes is a couple (more) lefty plutocrats, and all the walls will fall!  And like all top-down command economies, it needs government coercion to work. 

(And as far as that “the best of ‘us'” bit – I’ll have to listen to Ms. Marsh’s show and see if she rates this impromptu promotion).

Ms. Marsh; there is nothing preventing Democrat talk radio from doing exactly what you describe.  Nothing.  Indeed, it’s been done; NPR (and MPR) are nothing if not the product of left-leaning power brokers – they differ in working through government rather than the market.  And in fact, Air America’s three year nightmare was exactly what you described (except for the whole “best of ‘us’ vaulting to syndication”; Air America tried to skip the whole “learn how to do good radio” step of the process.  As did Hightower and Cuomo.  The results were, at worst, comical; standup comics make lousy talk hosts). 

No, what you (plural) want is for government to force the market to accept you. 

We’re “screaming” (the term I use is “pointing out the inherent oppressiveness and paternalism of your idea”) because you want the government to do for you what the your genre’s fundamental lack of talent, mass appeal and market savvy can’t do for you.

Because head-to-head, all things being equal in a free, open market, conservative talk beats liberal talk every time.  And without Big Brother holding a gun to our head and telling us to fight with an arm behind our backs, we always will.

So here’s the question:  Do you believe that people are too stupid to be trusted as consumers of free speech (as Ms. Marsh seems to)? 

Because, as Ms. Marsh put it in about as many words, that’s really the only reason to reinstate the “Fairness Doctrine”.

 Posh NYC antique dealer sues the homeless for harshing his mellow:

A high-end antique dealer on the Upper East Side is suing four unnamed homeless people for $1 million on the grounds that they’ve driven away customers by loitering on the sidewalk in “old, warn, and unsanitary clothing and cardboard boxes and old blankets which they convert into sleeping accommodations.”

In addition to money, Karl Kemp & Associates Antiques, located near 69th Street at 833 Madison Ave. near Gucci, Chanel, and Prada, is asking a Manhattan Supreme Court judge to force the homeless defendants to stay at least 100 feet away from the store, according to legal papers filed yesterday.

For more than two years, the papers allege, the homeless have spent “significant amounts of time” obstructing Karl Kemp’s storefront window display, “consuming alcoholic beverages from open bottles, performing various bodily functions such as urinating or spitting on the sidewalk, and…verbally harassing or intimidating … prospective customers.”

A saleswoman at Karl Kemp, whose Web site says specializes in “rare Biedermeier and Art Deco” furniture, referred questions to its attorney, who didn’t immediately return a phone call seeking comment.

Now, if Mr. Kemp were only heavily involved with a political party that’s been flogging compassion for the less-fortunate, maybe he’d have a different outlook. 

On the other hand, maybe the Hennepin County Attorney’s office can learn something from Mr. Kemp; start hauling gang-bangers into civil court!

The unmarried, “child-free” career woman is a Democrat, statistically speaking (women without children vote overwhelmingly Democrat; women with children tend to be Republican).  And it’s an electoral truism that African-Americans vote left.

Feminists – both equity and identity feminists, and the distinction is a very meaningful one – flocked to the left, the Democrats, because of the left’s purported openness to women in non-traditional roles – like, for example, working women who choose career over family.  The Democrats, the saw went, treated these women better.

Unless, of course, those minority, female overachievers aren’t Democrats.

Barbara Boxer took a swipe at one of America’s two foremost black working women, and the most powerful black woman in US government history, dinging Condi Rice – a woman who is in every way Boxer’s better – for not having children:

Boxer was wholly in character for her party – New York’s own two Democratic senators, Chuck Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton, were predictably opportunistic – but the Golden State lawmaker earned special attention for the tasteless jibes she aimed at Rice.

Rice appeared before the Senate in defense of President Bush’s tactical change in Iraq, and quickly encountered Boxer.

“Who pays the price? I’m not going to pay a personal price,” Boxer said. “My kids are too old, and my grandchild is too young.”

On the one hand, it’s Barbara Boxer – one of the stupidest people to ever serve in the Senate, and with the departure of Mark Dayton perhaps that body’s biggest embarassment.

On the other hand – what’s it gonna be, Democrats?  If women don’t have children, does it devalue them, as Boxer would seem to believe?  Because you can’t have it both ways.

Hitchens on Keith “X” Ellison’s “Jefferson’s Qu’ran” stunt (and the ignorance so many bring to the flap):

As to the invocation of Jefferson, we know that when he and James Madison first proposed the Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom (the frame and basis of the later First Amendment to the Constitution) in 1779, the preamble began, “Well aware that Almighty God hath created the mind free.” Patrick Henry and other devout Christians attempted to substitute the words “Jesus Christ” for “Almighty God” in this opening passage and were overwhelmingly voted down. This vote was interpreted by Jefferson to mean that Virginia’s representatives wanted the law “to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahomedan, the Hindoo, and Infidel of every denomination.” Quite right, too, and so far so good, even if the term Mahomedan would not be used today, and even if Jefferson’s own private sympathies were with the last named in that list.

And, moreso, if Jefferson would have been rightly nauseated by what so many of Ellison’s supporters at CAIR stand for.
(Via Chris at Buddha Patriot)

The phrase “[something someone said that the speaker doesn’t like] speaks volumes…”.

Indeed – but probably less about the subject than about the speaker.  It’s become the new “at this point in time”, something people toss in when they don’t or can’t spend the intellectual effort to come up with a serious response.

One acquaintance of mine once sniffed “the fact that you support Ann Coulter speaks volumes.”  Perhaps.  Volume I: the speaker was too lazy to say exactly what that meant.  Volume II: the speaker ignored the context of the “support” (Coulter was in an argument with someone who, unlike her, is always crazy, and not just for Coulter’s theatrical effect).  Volume III:  You speak in code words, like “Coulter” and “Wingnut”, among those for whom those code words have meaning and outside of which do not.  Volume IV: If challenged (and I did challenge) the speaker could not tell me which “volumes” were being “spoken”.

Someone using the phrase “speaks volumes” indeed, itself, speaks…ill.

I was wondering when the European population gap was going to come to this:

When her water broke early on New Years Eve, Julia Gotschlich was mainly thinking about the imminent birth of her second child. But she couldnt help worrying about family finances, too.

She and her husband stood to lose out on more than $13,200 if the baby arrived before midnight, when Germanys generous new family benefits took effect – part of a government effort to raise one of the lowest birthrates in Europe.

Births in Germany dropped 4 percent in 2005 from the previous year, according to figures from the Federal Statistics Agency, to around 690,000. Thats the lowest since World War II and lagging even 1946, when 922,000 babies were born even as the country lay in ruins.

A recent government study forecast that Germanys population will drop by as much as 16 percent by 2050, from the current 82.4 million to as little as 69 million. That could hurt the economy by sapping the work force – and undermine the state pension system.

Not to mention leaving the country being assimilated into the Moslem world.

Will money do what social vitality can’t?

Brangelina attack Guydonna’s latest celebrity therapeutic adoption:

Her comments follow accusations that Madonna used her fame and money to speed the adoption of one-year- old David Banda late last year.

‘Madonna knew the situation in Malawi, where he was born,’ said Miss Jolie, who has adopted two Third World youngsters of her own.

‘It’s a country where there is no real legal framework for adoption.

‘Personally, I prefer to stay on the right side of the law. I would never take a child away from a place where adoption is illegal.’

Not so dumb, really.  And this next part…:

Miss Jolie, 31, also made clear she was shocked by Madonna’s decision to take David from the country where his father still lives.

…may be the first time I’ve ever seen a celeb pay even lip service to the father in the situation.

I’m amazed.

Every time the Strib’s New Years’ editorial makes a muted plea for a monolithic socialist state or a vacuous apology for the vapid left, an angel will lose its wings and fall to earth.

As we say farewell to 2007 and hello to 2008, it’s appropriate that we take a moment to reflect on events of the past year. That a single circuit around the sun could have brought so many welcome developments would have seemed incredible a year ago. Remember the sadness of that season? The deaths, in cruelly quick succession, of Frank Stanton and Gerald Ford? The prospect of a winter with virtually no snow? The Iraq Study Group had found almost no reason for optimism in the war; polar bears were endangered; Israel was proposing a new settlement in the West Bank; James Brown was dead.

Into that void of hope strode 2007. How quickly things changed!

No one could have foreseen the sudden surrender of Osama bin Laden. His dramatic arrival at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, with his hands up and his BlackBerry at his feet, turned the tide of what we used to call the “war on terror” [“aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh”] and certainly earned him his recent designation as Time’s Person of the Year (albeit deceased). The rapid unraveling of the Iraq insurgency, and the speedy consolidation of power by Iraq’s first female president [“Someone grab my harp!!!”] , combined to form a miracle: a truly democratic, progressive [“Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeelp”] government, and a year in which the dwindling U.S. force — now down to 150 — suffered not a single casualty.

Likewise, the 2006 Christmas sales numbers for Al Gore’s film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” [“Pull thy ripcord, Jeremiah!”] shocked Detroit, the energy companies and Washington into an unprecedented effort to fight global warming [“I’m going in! I’m going in!”] . President Bush’s now-famous shirtsleeves stroll down Pennsylvania Avenue [“A Jimmy Carter reference…hey, where the hell are my wings?”] before delivering his State of the Union address last January showed that he finally understood the nature of the threat [“Hang on! It’s going to be a bumpy landing!”] . And while the arctic summer ice has yet to recover, the federal initiative to outfit polar bears with FEMA pontoon boats offered a temporary fix and won world admiration.

Of course, some problems remain. The refugees who fled North Korea after Kim Jong-il’s suicide still need meaningful work [“Assuming the position!”] . Fidel Castro’s renunciation of communism has created a troublesome brain drain in Miami as Cuban-Americans pull up stakes and move back home [“Did he just write the communism will recify its own excesseswhoooooaaaaaaaaaaaah!“] . And the passage of national universal health care threatens to extend the average U.S. lifespan and put more pressure on the Social Security system [“This place is so crowded from all those British cancer patients who died on the waiting liwhoaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!“] .

Even so, a country that can make college free for any student with a 2.5 grade point average or better can do just about anything [“Did they just devalue college, and at the same time raise the demand curve to the point that no person can afford a higher education without government assistance, all the while utterly socially devaluing all non-college-track vocationsaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!“] . We’re proud to live in a country that, in a single year, brought peace to Sudan and Somalia [“Isn’t that a conservative value…hey, I still have my wings…”] , gave free HIV medications to anyone on the globe who needed them, made abortion permanently legal but completely unnecessary [“ISn’t that a complete logical inversion, making a good free and ubiquitous but then assuming that people will have the infinite common sense not to use is Heeeeeeeeeeeeey, wheeeeere did my wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiings gooooooooooo…“] , and established a national endowment to prevent domestic abuse [“Oh, take my fecking wings. The notion that you can spend money to prevent something like domestic abuse – something we don’t even entirely understand – is just too stupid to think about. I’m walking home”] .

And of course, the Twins’ victory in the 2007 World Series speaks for itself. [“Welcome to the Metrodome. No, I have no wings. Just a pitchfork”]

I gotta hand it to Keith Ellison; although I think he’s well on his way to being a terrible Congressional representative, this is a pretty smooth move.  For his controversial swearing-in on the Qu’ran tomorrow…:

We’ve learned that the new congressman — in a savvy bit of political symbolism — will hold the personal copy [of the Qu’ran] once owned by Thomas Jefferson.

“He wanted to use a Koran that was special,” said Mark Dimunation, chief of the rare book and special collections division at the Library of Congress, who was contacted by the Minnesota Dem early in December. Dimunation, who grew up in Ellison’s 5th District, was happy to help.

Jefferson’s copy is an English translation by George Sale published in the 1750s; it survived the 1851 fire that destroyed most of Jefferson’s collection and has his customary initialing on the pages. This isn’t the first historic book used for swearing-in ceremonies — the Library has allowed VIPs to use rare Bibles for inaugurations and other special occasions.

I don’t personally care on which book, if any, a Congressman takes his/her oath; using the book, if any, that is most meaningful to them makes perfect sense to me. 

 Because the part that counts starts later this week.  And oy, what a mess that’s going to be.

Barack Obama was a cheetoh-chomping cheeba zombie in high school and college, and he admits it…:

Obama’s revelations were not an issue during his Senate campaign two years ago. But now his open narrative of early, bad choices, including drug use starting in high school and ending in college, as well as his tortured search for racial identity, are sure to receive new scrutiny.

As a potential candidate, Obama has presented himself as a fresh voice offering a politics of hope. Many say he offers something new in American politics: an African American with a less-than-traditional name who has so far demonstrated broad appeal. What remains to be seen is whether the candor he offered in his early memoir will be greeted with a new-style acceptance by voters.

…and, like Ed in his piece on the subject, yes, I am qualified to criticize; I’ve never smoked pot in my life (largely because in my punk-rocking high school years I figured pot was for dozey, dim hippie bulbs; punks, in my little worldview, were all about beer and speed. Of course, I didn’t do speed or, until college, drink beer either).  And I say…who cares?
I don’t support Obama – I think the notion that he’s a “moderate Democrat” are pure marketing – but I think it’s a safe bet that he, like President Bush, has reflected on, recovered from, and gone on to abjure his youthful vices.

Of course, it’s incumbent on all of you Democrats who claimed that Bush’s old (and thoroughly-controlled) addictions disqualified him for office to get out there and oppose Obama. Right?

A. S. Hamrah, in and amid the de regeur Bush bashing, stumbles upon a couple of truths
in an editorial in today’s Strib:

From mainstream actioners such as “Casino Royale” and “Apocalypto” to horror cut-’em-ups such as “Saw III” and “Turistas” (itself a retread of 2005’s breakout torture hit “Hostel”), the kind of entertainment referred to as “torture porn” combines the mise-en-scene of Abu Ghraib with screenwriting evocative of reports from Camp X-Ray.

In reviewing the torture hits, critics take pains to tell readers that these movies are somehow about our collective fears of confinement and mutilation, about confronting some kind of ultimate evil that kicks us in the crotch before it cuts off our head and sends it tumbling down the stairs, punishing us for our desires.

But if we’re confronting our fears, we’re sure doing it exuberantly. The ingeniously imagineered punishment devices in these movies, along with their chummy torture-chamber repartee and quick recoveries from pain and abuse, aren’t so much about the fear of torture as they are about the joy of it — and its necessity. Torture is a duty that filmmakers, like Tom Sawyer painting the fence, have convinced us is a lot of fun.

Um no, A. S., not a duty.  A pornographic profit center.

(As Abu Ghraib was, indeed, for the “news” media).