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!

Checks and Balances (in its usual misspell-o-licious form) via Minnesota Democrats Exposed ©

“Looks like our specualtion on Al Franken has been right all along. On Saturday, he attended the DFL Inaugural Ball and told anyone who asked that he was [definitely] running against U.S. Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN).

These next two years are going to be the most fun ever.

Michelle Malkin is  back from Baghdad:

I came to Iraq a darkening pessimist about the war, due in large part to my doubts about the compatability of Islam and Western-style democracy, but also as a result of the steady, sensational diet of “grim milestone” and “daily IED count” media coverage that aids the insurgency.I left Iraq with unexpected hope and resolve.

The everyday bravery and consummate professionalism of the troops I embedded with has strengthened my faith in the U.S. military. These soldiers are well aware of the history, culture, and sectarian strife that has wracked the Muslim world for more than a millennium. “They love death,” one gunner muttered as we heard explosions in the distance while parked in al Adil. Nevertheless, these troops are willing to put their lives on the line to bring security to Iraq, one neighborhood at a time.

They have teamed with Sunni and Shia, Iraqi civilian and soldier, alike to establish local government structures and security framework districts. “We are not here to build the Iraqi Security Forces,” Lieutenant Colonel Steven Miska, deputy commander for the Dagger Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, said. “We’re here to grow them. You can’t just plant and walk away.” Capt. Aaron Kaufman of Task Force Justice added: “It’s not a six-month or year-long process, especially when you’re talking about training the Iraqi forces.”

The troops I met scoff at peace activists’ efforts to “bring them home now.” But they are just as critical of the Bush administration and Pentagon’s missteps—from holding Iraqi elections too early, to senselessly breaking up their brigade combat team, to drawing down forces and withdrawing last year in Baghdad and Fallujah, to failing to hold cities after clearing them of insurgents. They speak candidly and critically of Shiite militia infiltration of some Iraqi police and Iraqi Army units and corruption in government ministries, but they want you to know about the unseen good news, too.

Read the whole thing.

…but Matt Lauer, “interviewing” Hillary! Clinton, seems to be feeding the former First Lady her answers re her recent trip to Iraq.

I’d hope that her big idea – a “phased retreat”, first from Baghdad (!), then from the rest of the country – is her own, since it’s pure madness.

And I had to wonder who it is that briefs Clinton on these things; she said “we’ll need two new battalions in Afghanistan – why should those two battalions be in Iraq”.  Of course, “two battalions” is about 1,500 troops.  Is she merely parroting information from people who don’t understand the field very well (likely, given the Clinton Adminstration’s history), or does she just think the American people won’t know the difference?

The “good” news – Minneapolis misses the “distinction” of adding two more deaths to what is shaping up to be a horrible year.

The bad news – the double homicide happened in neighboring Brooklyn Park.

The bodies of a man and a woman were found in a car in the parking lot.

The victims had been shot multiple times.

Names of the victims have not been released and no one has been arrested.

Brooklyn Park is a schizophrenic place; the northern part is an idyllic ‘burb; the south, an expansion franchise for North Minneapolis’ crime quagmire.  A Hennepin County city, it “benefitted” from eight years of Amy Klobuchar’s worthless legacy as County Attorney.

This part kills me.

A woman there said she believed it was her son who had been shot because other young people were calling her about it.

“All we can do now is pray for my son,” said the woman, who was then directed by an officer to go up the block to Brooklyn Park police headquarters.

Yeah.  And everyone else in the area, as well.

Lest we forget, Minneapolis voters were duped into electing a racist troll to their school board this past November.

Jim W. at Anti-Strib sums up where things are at.

Stay tuned at Anti-Strib – this is one of the most amazing stories in Minnesota politics today.

Remeber during the first four years of the Bush Administration?  When every Democrat, including the ones who’d spent the Clinton era chuckling at the crazies in the Libertarian Party, thought concern for civil liberties (other those to abortion, making poop sculptures and exposing oneself in public) was the mark of tinfoil-hatted crazies?

 Remember how the minute John Ashcroft was sworn in, they became strict constructionists…no, that’s not accurate.  They became not-very-discerning absolutists? 

And when word got out that a group of soldiers mistreated a group of Iraqi detainees, Liberty was the word of the day?

They must have woken up.  The fantasy is over; the leopard’s spots are visible again.  The Democrats want to put free speech on a leash and make it bark like a dog:

Over the weekend, the National Conference for Media Reform was held in Memphis, TN, with a number of notable speakers on hand for the event. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) made an surprise appearance at the convention to announce that he would be heading up a new House subcommittee which will focus on issues surrounding the Federal Communications Commission.

I can hear it now:  “Oh, it’s just that nutbar Kucinich”.

Not at all.  Regulating free speech (by conservatives) is close to the heart for the left for almost two decades, ever since the Fairness Doctrine was repealed, opening the way for conservative alternatives to the left’s smothering hegemony in the media.  Hillary! Clinton and John Kerry have both floated the idea.

Kucinich’s push isn’t the ravings of a crackpot; it’s a trial balloon floated by someone who can’t do the Democrat mainstream any harm.  Their focus groups can poke and prod and see if the issue can move in from the fringe in time for the election.

In addition to media ownership, the committee is expected to focus its attention on issues such as net neutrality and major telecommunications mergers. Also in consideration is the “Fairness Doctrine,” which required broadcasters to present controversial topics in a fair and honest manner. It was enforced until it was eliminated in 1987.

Kucinich said in his speech that “We know the media has become the servant of a very narrow corporate agenda” and added “we are now in a position to move a progressive agenda to where it is visible.”

What Kucinich means, of course, is that he (and the new Democrat majority for whom he speaks) want to explore the idea of using the government to reassert control of the media. 

Here, though, is where the real agenda is betrayed:

FCC Commissioner Michael Copps was also on hand at the conference and took broadcasters to task for their current content, speaking of “too little news, too much baloney passed off as news. Too little quality entertainment, too many people eating bugs on reality TV. Too little local and regional music, too much brain-numbing national play-lists.” Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein also spoke at the event.

Of course, Mr. Copps doesn’t note how much Americans’ news and entertainment bypasses the traditional broadcast and print media, today.  The market has been bleeding people away from newspapers, network newscasts, even the Big Three’s entertainment programming for decades…

…and have been proving Copps’ thesis to be void and without merit, lately, inasmuch as we are, right now, in the golden age of the broadcast TV drama.  The networks have had to respond to cable and the internet; some of that response has been Fear Factor, true, but great drama, comedy and writing (24, House, Scrubs, Lost and many more) are all over the place, like never before.

But don’t be fooled.  This isn’t about Fear Factor, or about quality at all; the FCC held full sway during the “glory” years of Laverne and Shirley, Three’s Company and The Love Boat. 

No.  This is about silencing talk radio, neutering conservative blogs, and re-homogenizing all American news content.

If you are a conservative – or a liberal with any integrity – you need to call your congresspeople and set them straight about this.

And if you call yourself a “liberal” but you support this, then you need a new, more honest label.

How about “authoritarian thug”?

(more…)

No, not lately.

Another busy morning.  More posting later.

Without spoiling anything…

…that’s gonna be hard to top in Seasons 7 and 8.

…who was the first person, for example, to think of frying an egg.  “Hm – here’s the slime from those things the birds leave lying about; let’s put it on a griddle-shaped piece of granite and fry it up with some tabasco sauce and see how it goes?”

Ditto truffles.  “I just wrenched a piece of fungus from the mouth of this warthog.  I smell delicacy!” 

Nice to know that I’m not the only one who wonders these things.  Doug from BoGold ponders the clam.  Who?  Where?  Why?:

There’s really nothing about a clam that convincingly resembles “food.” It’s a hard shell with something resembling phlegm inside.

And yet, at some point in history, someone put one in his mouth and swallowed it. Was culinary history made by the equivalent of that kid on your grade school playground who would eat a bug for a quarter? Was it more of a hazing incident that had a surprisingly tasty upside? Was someone starving on a desert island and it was either eat a clam or feed the seagulls with your own carcass?

And so while I don’t feel any better informed about these things, I feel a little less lonely…

…has turned out to be a bruiser of a day.  Posting likely light until much later.

Caught the first two hours of 24 last night.  I’m going to try to watch this season’s original broadcast (I was only able to watch sporadically during the first four seasons; enough to make me want to watch the whole thing, but not enough to get me caught up enough on each day’s plot to really enjoy it – as I did when I watched the first four seasons in five weeks.  Of course, if I miss an episode, I’ll have to call it all off and wait for the DVD).

And I figure it’s time for me to put out either a pool or my first meme; the combination CTU Deadpool/24 plotpool.

The questions follow.  My answers will be below the fold:

1. Who will Morris – Chloe’s sleazy squeeze – end up working for?
2. Who will be the mole(s) in CTU?
3. Who will be the mole(s)/turncoat(s) in the Chris Rock Wayne Palmer administration?
4. How many levels above Fayed will the real conspiracy lie?
5. Which CTU members are going to buy it?
6. The only job more dangerous than a red-shirt on Star Trek is a member of the tactical team on 24 – and the  only job more dangerous than that is CTU/Los Angeles Leader.  So what’s going to happen to Nadia?
7. Bauer sort of raised the bar for taking out a perp in Episode 1 (I won’t spoil it).  Where can he go from there, carnage-wise?

My answers below the fold.

(more…)

I love this site, especially this story.

(Via Red)

Counting the hours until the new season of 24:

Oh no they di-in’t.

That’s what you’ll be saying when you see the first four episodes of the new season of 24, which begin this very Sunday night on Fox.

I’ve just finished watching them, and I can tell you that not only should Kiefer win an Emmy for his first five minutes on screen alone, but also that this damn show has done it again. Just when you thought you knew the formula, knew the players, could possibly predict what might happen next, the storyline bitch-slaps you into an entirely different hemisphere. And oh, it is good.

Don’t bother calling tomorrow night.

The Northern Alliance schedule today:

• John, Brian and Chad from 11-1
• Michael and Andy from 3-5
• And Ed and I from 1-3.

Ed and I will be talking with Senator Norm Coleman at 1:30, as well as talking about the week that was.

We will, of course, be taking your calls the whole time. Have a question for the Senator? Bring it on!

A little background.

Over the previous summer, my first General Manager at KSTP, Scott Meier, had left. He eventually wound in New York, where he started WFAN, the first station in the wave of all-sportstalk stations that have swept the nation. For this, he may still be held accountable.

But I digress.

We went without a GM for the better part of four months. Stuck out in Maplewood on Highway 61, far from corporate, we might as well have not existed. The checks showed up every two weeks, and we pretty much did what we did best; produce and host talk shows.

We got the best ratings the station had had as a talk station, from a 2.2 share when I’d started 13 months earlier to a 4.0 in our latest book. We were like a radio Lord of the Flies, stuck in our claustrophobic little bunker in the ‘burbs, like we were putting something over on The Man.

It couldn’t last, naturally.

In mid-October, Hubbard Broadasting sent us a new GM and Program Director, Pervy LeDouchebag [*]. Mr. LeDouchebag had a long pedigree in radio – as an alcoholic with a long history of legendary blackouts.

To make a long ordeal short, Pervy made his presence felt.  On the first day on the job, while talking with the sales manager, he saw one of our news reporters – a very attractive strawberry blonde who was also a very orthodox ultrafeminist, and fairly yelled “Jeezus Christ, look at the t__s on that one!”.  A few moments later, while giving dictation to our receptionist, he apparently made rather forward proposal.  In his first day, he started on his way toward two of the (it was later related) seven sexual harassment suits that eventually helped get him shown to the door.

But that was the future.

Pervy was also a very “hands-on” program director.  One day in late November, we used “Play That Funky Music” by Wild Cherry for a bumper.  Mr. LeDouchebag ran into the control room, face purple with rage.  “Get that *****mn song off the air! It says “Play that Fu****g Music…”

The problem was not that he was a crappy manager.  Most general managers in radio are awful (and no, my current GM John Hunt at the Patriot isn’t one of them).

So it was Monday, January 12, 1987.  The “Mitch Berg Show” had been going great.  I felt it was time for things to move to the next level.  I walked into Mr. LeDouchebag’s office.

“Mr. LeDouchebag”, I started, “my show’s been going well.  I’m wondering – since there’s nothing going on on Sunday mornings, I was wondering if I could take that 2 to 4 AM slot, too…?”

LeDouchebag looked at me, his dead, soulless eyes peering through the leathery mask of his face.  “It all depends on what Don wants.  Your job is to make Don sound good.  Clear it with him!”.

No problem, I thought as I walked into the talk studio for the production meeting.

“Don?”, I asked, “Remember how we’ve been talking about me taking Sunday mornings?  Pervy says it’s up to you.  What to you say”.

Dave, my co-producer, shook his head and chuckled.  Don laughed too – one of the laughs you heard less often from him back then, his sarcastic titter.  “I don’t think that’s going to be an issue”.

“Huh?”

Dave smiled awkwardly at Don.  “Ummmmm…”, he started, “Don’s leaving.

I think I did a spit-take.

“Huh?”

“I’m going to WMAQ.  I gave my notice today.”  Dave shook his head, resignedly.

“I just can’t stand working with LeDouchebag”, he said, laughing.  “It’s too good a deal to pass up”.

The production meeting was strained.  I’d never worked with a lame duck before; it was strange.

The show started at three, and Don made the announcement.  The control room, usually buzzing with energy, seemed drained.

We all had a bad feeling about things.
(more…)

Two boys – one missing for nearly four years – found alive in Missouri:

A 13-year-old boy who vanished from the gravel road near his home five days ago was found alive about 60 miles away in a suburban St. Louis home, along with a 15-year-old boy missing since 2002, authorities said Friday.The boys were found in a Kirkwood home belonging to Michael Devlin, 41, who has been charged with one count of first-degree kidnapping, Sheriff Gary Toelke said.

I do love these stories, when they happen.

And I’m tempted to send a stack of newspapers to the Missouri State Penitentiary, just so everyone knows who to look for.

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.

…the Strib’s letter of the day‘s IQ is above the outdoor temperature for a change:

On Sept. 19, 2006, a letter writer argued that President Bush influenced the price of gasoline, and that, after the elections in November, gas prices would rise above $3 per gallon.

I would like to quote from an article in the Jan. 10 Star Tribune: “The price of a gallon of gas has fallen to $1.98 at many Twin Cities stations for the first time since mid-February 2006.”

I have a question for the letter writer from September: Why is Bush moving the gas prices lower now?

Probably because I’m now busing to work.

But I digress.  It’d be almost fun to hear Mike Malloy explain this on the air.  Not that he could.

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)

…I’ve declared “this is the week I’m getting down to Keegans!”; inevitably, something came up at the last minute, every week.

Last week I said nothing.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

As a kid in the seventies (I graduated from high school in 1981) who was aggressively contrarian about music (into classical, punk, the Who and Springsteen, mainly), I pretty much eschewed most of the Top 40 pop of the day.  Of course, much of it deserved eschewing; it was the era of “Afternoon Delight” (still the worst song ever to make the Top 40, which after all these years continues to squeak a “win” out against Britney Spears’ loathsome “Lucky” and anything Dennis DeYoung ever sang), a time when people like the interchangeable Alan O’Day, Roger Voudouris, Henry Gross, Rupert Holmes, Robert John, Robbie DuPree,  and Sammy John (no, I mean it.  Look them all up.  They were all interchangeable musically and visually.  It says something about the impact of MTV that the musical careers of guys who looked like 35-year-old Woody-Allens-via-artin Scorsese dried up overnight) had interchangeable hits (“Undercover Angel”, “You Better Get Used To It”, “Shannon”, “The Pina Colada Song”, “Sad Eyes”, “Bread and Butter”, “Hot Rod Hearts” and “Chevy Van”).  As to mainstream rock, I have two words; KissandTedNugentwere Thetopgrossingtouringacts. Foreigner ruled the charts, making Boston seem like Ray Charles in comparison.

Dreadful stuff.

And yet in the past few years, I’ve actually started to appreciate some of the stuff I hated so badly for what it was; solid, well-crafted, hook-laden pop.   I’ve learned to listen to some of it the way it was meant to be listened to; unquestioningly, uncritically, like a good consumer.

And here’s what I’ve found:

• ABBA, “SOS” – Treacly manufactured Swedish pop?  Yes – but they also managed to manufacture a hook that would have woken Connie Francis from the grave.
• Fleetwood Mac, “Rumours” – The album was inescapable when I was in ninth and tenth (and probably eleventh) grade, except by pure denial.  So I denied.  And walked away.  And while I still can’t stand the sound of Christine McVie, and Lindsey Buckingham’s solo career served as aversion therapy to the sound of his voice, I can listen to “Don’t Stop” and “Second Hand News” all day and ask for more.  Two of the most mathematically perfect pop songs ever.
• Kiss, “Destroyer” – I always hated Kiss.  I probably always will.  But “Destroyer”, featuring “Detroit Rock City” (the greatest death-rock song ever) makes you feel like you’re present at a moment; in this case, the moment when all of teenage America went gloriously stupid simultaneously.  And I sorta miss being gloriously stupid without serious consequences.
• “Saturday Night Fever” – Yep, I was one of those “Disco Sucks” guys.  I cheered when I saw Mike Veeck and the Insane Coho Lips on Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Park.  And I thought of the record as a campy novelty for years – sort of a “Flock of Seagulls” of the seventies.  How wrong I was, of course, both in terms of its impact on pop culture (sheesh) and some of the music itself; “Night Fever” is, again, almost mathematically perfect, while Yvonne Elliman’s “If I Can’t Have You” has the most gorgeous hook of the decade. 
• Slade – I sort of looked down my nose at Slade; they seemed like a bunch of drunken yobs.  I realized years later – that was the point.  “Mama Weer All Crazee Now” still rocks my world.
• Sniff ‘n The Tears, “Driver’s Seat” – I heard that one on KQRS a few weeks ago, for the first time in probably 20 years.  What a cool song…

 Oh, heck – nominate some!