I’ve predicted it for years; if anything was going to cause problems for Minnesota’s concealed carry law, it’d be a screwup on the part of government, not the law-abiding gun owner.

And I was right; while one’s application for a permit to purchase or to carry a concealed firearm can be derailed for many reasons (crime record, record of drug or alcohol abuse problems, a history of starting fights that can be documented by a police department), the system for flagging the mentally-ill is broken:

[T]he system for tracking commitments may not be working properly, state officials say, and law enforcement officers probably are not getting the data they need to conduct background checks required by law.

As we noted in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech massacre…: 

Federal law should have barred Cho, who fatally shot 32 people on the Virginia Tech campus before killing himself, from buying a gun from a licensed dealer based on his 2005 psychiatric commitment. But because Virginia turned over only information on patients restricted to in-patient care, Cho’s name wasn’t in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. (NICS)

Minnesota’s gun laws don’t distinguish between commitments for inpatient and outpatient psychiatric treatment. But the state is one of 28 that withholds all of its mental health data from the NICS database.

Asked why, the state’s Department of Human Services said in a prepared statement that it “has not been asked” to provide that information.

Here’s another prediction; the state DHHS has been extremely sympathetic, I’m told by participants in the system, to the demands of advocates for the mentally-ill in Minnesota.  These advocates are working – not without reason, obviously – to de-stigmatize mental illness.  Unfortunately, as advocates, I’ve noted that many of them view the effects of mental illness through rose-colored glasses, choosing to ignore the fact that while most of the mentally ill will not harm anyone, there are a few Chos out there.

Meanwhile, the system that Minnesota has in place to block anyone who has been committed for psychiatric disorders from buying a gun or obtaining a carrying permit appears to have a serious flaw: The state Supreme Court apparently is not complying with a law that requires it to notify the DHS whenever a judge commits a person to community-based treatment programs, said Patrice Vick, a DHS spokeswoman.

Go figure – a liberal-dominated court sandbagging data in such a way as to sabotage public confidence in the screening system.

Read the whole piece; it’s interesting.

Hack partisan journalism!

The “Center for Independent Media” – which until recently shared office space with George Soros’ “Media Matters for America” – is setting up another paid rentablog operation in Iowa, to “cover” the caucuses.

But have no fear!  They have a code!

Like Minnesota Monitor and Colorado Confidential, the Iowa site has hired a slate of New Journalism Fellows who are being trained in investigative reporting, follow a code of ethics based on that of the Society of Professional Journalists, and are supported by journalistic mentors and editors.

That’s right, Iowa!  Trained investigators with real mentors and everything!  Who would never hide their financial support from scrutiny to see exactly how it might affect their credibility – or, for that matter, pretend as if there’s just no rational issue!  Who follow the highest standards of journalism!  Who never mix editorializing with reporting!  With editors and all!

Let the hackery begin!

I don’t follow horse racing at all, although it was the only form of gambling at which I’ve ever succeeded (as in, have never lost money in my life).

Still, I love reading people who do:

MLP from “Casual Sundays…”:

Street Sense just beat Hard Spun.

I know it sounds like the headline the morning after the election in which Guliani beats Clinton, but it’s the Kentucky Derby.

Miss O’Hara’s liveblog culminated with…:

As soon as Street Sense made his move, I just started to cry. I don’t know why, but I did (and my husband started laughing at me for being such a silly female).

It’s more fun than actually watching the thing…

Freedom advances in that craziest of places:

Conservative Nicolas Sarkozy won France’s presidential election on Sunday, beating his Socialist rival Segolene Royal by a comfortable margin and extending the right’s 12-year grip on power.

Last week – in between bleating that Sarkozy was a hatemonger – Royal noted that her supporters were getting ready to hit the streets and smash things.

So far so good.

Now there’s the little matter of governing his virtually-ungovernable country.

But Sarkozy’s victory is a sign that maybe France isn’t dead yet.

Perhaps we should be so lucky in ’08.

The Minnesota Monitor – as impeccable a source of journalism as George Soros’ money can buy – snarks at covers Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, quoting a piece from Radar, which would appear to be yet another bunch of John Stewart wannabees (not unlike, as it happens, the piece’s author himself).

Oh, it starts out with the usual symptoms of Bachmann Derangement Syndrome:

“Bachmann, an Evangelical Lutheran, and self-professed fool for ‘Christ,’ ran for Congress because God—and her husband—wanted her to,” the tongue-in-cheek article said.  “The representative publicly credited her campaign to her submission to her husband, who was channeling God’s wishes for her.”

(Offline note to Christians – d’ya ever think that anyone in the Sorosphere will bother to figure out that “fool for Christ” doesn’t mean what they think it means?  Or that the voluntary, theologically-based notion of “submission to one’s husband” isn’t necessarily personally disempowering, given that she is now one of the most powerful people in the United States?  No, me either)

But then it touches upon some interesting history:

It also notes, “as a Minnesota state senator, Bachmann launched a crusade to outlaw gay marriage that turned into a highly publicized spectacle replete with restroom run-ins with angry lesbians

 SCRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATCH!

“Run-in with angry lesbians”? 

Radar via their mouthpiece at Minnesota Moneyitor is referring to an incident in Scandia, Minnesota about two years ago, in which Michele Bachmann she was detained against her will in a restroom.  Bachmann claimed her visitors were upset and moved to prevent her from leaving the rest room. 

However, on the Dump Bachmann blog – your one stop shop for Bachmann derangement – reported the event as follows:

Less than a moment later, piercing
screams were heard from the ladies’ washroom. “Help!!!!
HEEEELLLLLLPPPPPP!!!!!” With everyone’s attention riveted
on the door, Senator Bachmann emerged in a crouching run,
crying, “I was being held against my will!” Two women
were seen standing behind her, one tall and elderly,
the other young and petite, both unassuming and bewildered.

So one of several things is going on here:

1. Radar knows something the “Dump Bachmann” gang aren’t telling us; that Bachmann was not casually queried by a gentle biddy and a nun!
2. Radar is lying, and Minnesota Moneyitor is blithely passing the lie on without any further checking, defaming the indefamable Dumpers.

What is the truth?

By the way, here’s an infinitesimal nod toward Radar’s credibility:

and grainy photos suggesting that Bachmann was ‘spying’ on a gay rights rally while crouching behind a bush.”

They put scare quotes around the elements of the “Bachmann spied on the gay rally” story, one of “Dump Bachmann’s” most delusional old chestnuts.

MinMoneyitor – the best “journalism” George Soros’ money can buy!

UPDATE:  Open note to a certain ethically-challenged leftyblogger who thinks puerile name-calling is “argument”:

I get twenty times the traffic you do – and I always will.  So no, I’m not trolling for traffic on your dim little site. 

Face it; your efforts helped Michele Bachmann get into Congress.  With y’all as enemies, she may be the first female president.

Now go run along and play in the little pool of  your own febrile splittle that you’ve been marinading (poaching?) in since November.

Saint Paul is having City Council elections this fall. 

The usual suspects are lining up. 

On the “Saint Paul Information Forum” – a long-running email discussion group on Saint Paul politics – a thread started the other day about the voting for the group’s executive board.  My longtime political sparring partner Erik Hare – West End transit activist, recent NARN guest and proud amateur wonk – responded to me as I responded to a jab at my habit of writing my pets into uncontested races:

 I do.  I write in pets, friends and kids, usually into uncontested races (usually involving candidates I don’t like), so that I can easily ensure that my vote has been counted. 

 > Oh, but what have you done about it?

Erik has sown the wind.  He shall now reap the whirlwind.  A whirlwind of dog hair.

Saint Paul’s city council is up for election this year.  Now, in some of Saint Paul’s seven wards there might actually be some choice – an actual GOP or at least semi-conservative DFLer in the Randy Kelly tradition, one of the “pro-life, pro-assault rifle” wing of the East Side DFL – it’s fairly clear that in my own ward, Ward 4, there will be no meaningful difference.  In the Four, we’ll have our choice between someone just like crypto-Maoist Jay Benanav, the current, outgoing rep, a man so left-of-center he made Paul Wellstone blanche in muted horror, or someone just like him who wears a Patagonia skirt.

Until now.

No, I’m not running for the St. Paul City Council.  In my DFL-throttled ward full of retired union guys, state employees and teachers union members, I’d have as much chance of winning as I would of getting a called third strike on Torii Hunter.  Oh, I could be a protest candidate, all right – but then I’d have to drop the show.  Frankly – and I don’t think this is ego speaking – I think I do a lot more good for regional conservatism on the air than pounding futile pavement in the Saint Paul Four.

But my dog doesn’t have a talk show.

(portrait of the candidate as a puppy)

Clu Berg has everything one really needs to serve on the Saint Paul City Council. 

1. She barks loudly at intruders, which would make her the only genuine law and order candidate on the Council.
2. She has soft, pettable fur, which will do more for peoples’ health than anything the City Council has proposed recently.
3. She pees and poops outdoors, rather than dropping legislative turds like the “city income tax” in the Council chambers
4. She curls up around your feet on cold nights.
5. She has a better sense for avoiding unintended consequences of things like “city income taxes” than any of the currently-sitting Councilpeople.
6. She’ll have me for a chief of staff.

And so I hereby announce the (write-in) (probably) candidacy of Clu Berg for Ward Four of Saint Paul’s city council!  She’s running on the “Dog/Human Consensus” party ticket, so as not to siphon away crucial (also nonexistent) party funding from any GOP candidate who might step up.

Come election day, remember; Every Dog has her Day – and today is Clu’s!

UPDATE:  Yep, I’m stuck in the past.  Benanav is leaving.  I changed the post, above.

It was 41 years ago today that a little red-faced ball of ornery came into the world, wrecking my brief idyll as an only child and turning me, for better or worse, into a Big Brother.

And I do remember meeting her on the doorstep at 724 Third Avenue Southeast in Jamestown and hoping for not a whole lot different.

Barb went on to a long career as Dad’s little darling (it’s true!  it’s true!), the family’s talented artist, and along with little bro Jim the bane of my young existence – and, later on, a 4.00 (if not more – criminy, where did that  come from?) student, renovator of chicken coops, mom of three four adorable kids, and the queen of the area north of Billings, Montana.

Happy birthday, Barb!

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”.

Usually, that’s what inside-the-GOP party mechanics, especially the “State Chairman” race, is like.  The machinations of the GOP State Central Committee are kept pretty much out of the reach of us plebeian activists-on-the-street, or so it sometimes seems.  Both at the Congressional District and State level, it often seems that we foot soldiers have as much say in things as Catholics in the pews do in the selection of the next Pope.  The difference is, most Catholics actually know how the election is carried out.

This year, though, things are a little more interesting – interesting enough that I’m actually going to write about it for the first time in this blog’s history. 

Ron Carey is, of course, running for re-election.  He was dealt a bad hand in the last election; it was a bad cycle to be a Republican.  A lot of my good friends support Ron; I think the party could do worse.

Colonel Joe Repya is also running.  He’s an intrigueing possibility; a natural PR whiz, of course, but most of all a leader in both the military and Reaganesque senses of the term, a guy with a vision and the ability to convey it.  If elected, he just might help counteraction some of the “passion fatigue” that’s been afflicting the hordes of volunteers that the GOP depends on.  This is nothing to sneeze at; while the DFL rents people to do the door to door work (like they rent their bloggers), the GOP uses volunteers – people in it for the love of the cause – for both.  And volunteers stepped up in ’98, ’00, ’02 and ’04 – all of them “Must-Win” elections in which we did, indeed, kick donkey.  But all of that volunteering has a cost – in energy, job time, family quality time, the works.  In ’06, the usual suspects among the volunteers, the people that run things, seemed tired; after the election, they seemed dejected, like they needed the break that this accelerated season can’t give ’em. Repya might be, figuratively, the tonic for the metaphorical troops. 

Now, I don’t ever take sides on things like State Party Chair races.  Besides being of not that much interest to me, the last thing I want is for my blog and the Northern Alliance show to be seen as having a dog in an intra-party fight, when my/our real mission is supporting conservatism as a whole.  That’s job number one.   It makes it difficult, of course, that I know, and have had extensive interactions with, both candidates – which makes staying neutral all the more imperative (not that I think I actually have any influence in the party, don’t get me wrong).

But this is going to be the first interesting State Party race I’ve ever heard about.

Someone actually sorta kinda got the joke.

Although just to be clear, “Mitch is a totally awesome feminist” isn’t the joke; that’s pretty much true.  No, the fact that I could say something so clearly hyperbolic, and draw so much brow-knitted, sweat-drenched near-derangement from the regional Sorosphere professional bed-wetting class is…

…well, kinda fun.

Jim McDermott did to a political opponent what he doesn’t want the Administration to do, with probable cause, to people talking with terrorists overseas.

And while the Sorosphere doesn’t want you to know about it, he’s finally gotten spanked:

Rep. Jim McDermott had no right to disclose the contents of an illegally taped telephone call involving House Republican leaders a decade ago, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

Now that I’ve successfully defended my credentials as the Twin Cities’ foremost feminist (granted, it wasn’t difficult), it’s time to move on to the next challenge. 

This orange I have in my hand here?

Tastiest.  Orange.  In the.  World.

No other orange can come close.

Feel free to find your worldviews again challenged to their very cores.

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.

Learned Foot eulogizes a teacher and Minnesota notable who seemed to excoriate a younger, less learned Foot for a wrong answer in a Civil Procedure class – who then could not find the right answer…:

…I asked a friend who did attend what the damn answer was.

It was the exact same answer I had provided in class, and that the prof declared to be wrong. Apparently, because of his advanced age or whatever, he didn’t hear me correctly. I couldn’t find the right answer because I had already given it, and was looking elsewhere for it.

Amid which he discovered a vital life lesson:

And he taught me that in order to be right, you need to speak loudly.

Granted, with some of us it’s manifested more metaphorically than with Foot, but lessons is lessons.

(Scott Johnson also eulogizes the teacher, former Minnesota judge Donald Lay)

I nod to Lileks:

The season’s transition to “The Days of Our Lives” with geosynchronous satellites is now complete.

Mr. Surnow:  Next season, follow this simple formula:

Less post-West Wing canoodling about Washington, fewer Palmers that aren’t David (and don’t Dallas  him back to life, either), and less about relationship arcs.

More Jack biting through jugular veins.

That is all.

I have a black thumb; if plants talked, they’d call me “The Terminator”. 

But I try.  I’m going to the Friends’ School Plant Sale this weekend and loading up on annuals for the front flowerbed and the flower boxes along the front walkway, as well as jalapenos, tomatoes, habaneros, cilantro and onions for salsa.  I’m going to try my hand at canning the salsa in such a way as to make it not intensely poisonous. 

So it’s good to see that not only is my neighbor MidwayPete blogging about gardening stuff, but that my old college friend Jackie (who is married to my high school acquaintance Brian, formerly “Mr. Cheer Or Die” of Vikings fame) is done some writing again for her garden/lifestyle/diaryblog “Through The Garden Gate“.  Jackie has solid potential to be the next Martha Stewart – and I mean that in a good way.

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)

I was listening to the audio of Keri Miller’s MPR “Town Hall” meeting, Is High School Obsolete, yesterday.  It’s worth a listen (although I have yet to find the audio online – I’ll let you know). 

But toward the end, there was one bit that I thought needed a response.

One of the panelists, asked what we should do about the problems faced by public high schools, says “we should treat it as a national scandal”.

Oh, good Lord.  No.  Don’t.

The problems in education have been treated as a “national scandal” twice in my adult lifetime.  The first was in the mid-late eighties, when the “teacher shortage” was the big issue.  Recruiting teachers was made a national priority; thousands of college grads went into the field; pay and benefits increased (conservative cant aside, teaching doesn’t pay spectacularly well everywhere in this country, although being in administration can be a nice payday).  Then, between burnout (the teacher’s unions have turned education into a factory job in all too many ways) and a demographic drop bringing layoffs in many school districts, many of them left the field. 

And again, early in the Bush Administration, dropping test scores and zooming expenditures left us with “No Child Left Behind”. Enough said.

Calling something a “national scandal” causes politicians to pose for cameras and propose flurries of legislation to make it look like they’ve done something about the issue.  Is the “something” useful – indeed, is it better than doing nothing at all?  In many cases, no. 

But calling difficulties a “national scandal” is, in any case, not only exactly the wrong approach, but indeed due to the law of unintended consequences will no doubt make things much worse; today, it’d most likely cause politicians on both sides (because Education is the same third rail for the right that gun control is for the left) to pour a lot of extra money  into “saving” the current, in-my-opinion unsaveable system.

My, oh my.  I seem to have stirred up a firestorm dust-devil of petulance.

It seems a conservative can’t say he supports women’s right to equal protection, access and treatment under the law and by society without having gaggles of intellectual lilliputians vex him.

Where do we start?

MNob, who writes at Cucking Stool, Norwegianity, MNob, MinBlue, MinLeft, MinVolved, MinDem, DemMin, BlueDem, MinRedWatch, RedWatch, RedWatchMN, BlueStool, Bluegianity, Blog of the Shrieking Incontinent Left, StoolWatch, RedStool, Cucking Blue, BlueVolved, Cuckegiainity, PowerBlue, Lawyers Without Constraints, BlueCuck, Stooling Knob, LeftBlueVolved, Feminixies…

Um, where were we?

Oh, yeah – MNob brings the same keen, logical, intellectual approach to my legitimate claim that she brought to dissecting Olson v. Brodkorb:

Over at Shot in the Dark (no, I won’t link there),

Didja know that’s the latest way Minnesota’s increasingly insular, increasingly paranoid, every-more-gutless leftybloggers try to get atcha these days?  By not linking to people that they’re talking about?

They’re afraid, of course, that their audience will be free to make up their own minds. 

And I tell you – I’m cut to the quick.  To the quick, I say.

But I digress:

 Mitch Berg takes on the events in Austin and domestic terrorism, trying to wrap himself in the flag of feminism to make a point that isn’t entirely clear even after reading the piece three times over.

Of course, MNob’s readers – who don’t have the benefit of a link to my original piece – won’t know that I didn’t “take on” the events in Austin at all (except to condemn them), and didn’t “wrap myself” in any “flag”.  MNob could say pretty much anything she wants to about me (which is, indeed, her usual MO anyway).

My point was pretty clear:  The original blog I linked to, “Feministe”, was a bunch of victim-mongering, hysterical dimbulbs.

…it’s pretty hard to see what the premise is beyond taking “feminists” to task for being angry that they might be exposed to violence when going in for that annual pap smear.

Remember – this woman is a lawyer.  Lawyers, supposedly, spend three years learning to be rigorously logical.  Of course, to be fair, they also spend three years learning to abuse rhetoric to try to win over the unsuspecting.

Nobody will defend people – male or female – against violence for whatever reason more staunchly than I.  And I have put my ass, physically and literally, on the line to prove it enough times in my life to be able to stand behind that claim.  So MNob’s change in subject is particularly callow and logically void.  I took “Feministe” to task for claiming (amid a lot of other hysteria)that there is a big media conspiracy to downplay violence against women. 

One might also wonder if MNob really has much respect for her audience; she giggles at me of citing a CNN report that “regurgitates” data from the BATFE.  Ms. Nob – where else does one go for information about bombs?  The National Organization of Women? 

Of course, MNob tried to stay with substantive discussion (my local leftyblogger standards) of the actual issue. She failed, but she tried. And all Robin “Rew” “Chicken to Drink Around Conservatives Any More” Marty can come up with is a bunch of quotes I’ve made about women, most of which she is apparently unequipped to address, none of which address much less attack the fact that I’m the most feminist guy in town.  It’s what passes for “journalism” among that set these days, I guess. 

And then there’s Jeff “All Snark, No Content” Fecke, one of George Soros’ human schnauzers “citizen journalists” from Minnesota Moneyitor. 

In his second leaden thwack at my claim, he writes (see, leftybloggers?  Linking to people you disagree with not only doesn’t hurt much, it shows your readers you’re not afraid to let them make up their own minds about things)…

…well, a bunch of NOW talking points about Camille Paglia and Christina Hoff Summers and the like, which amount to saying “I don’t really know much about this, but I’m faithfully reciting from the manual”. 

And then…:

The avenue to that future is feminism. Not “gender” feminism, or “equity” feminism, but feminism–full stop.

In other words, “just accept everything you’re told, and never approach any of this with a critical mind”. 

Buncombe.  “Feminism” means many things; nobody appointed Jeff Fecke (or the National Organization of Women or NARAL, for that matter) official custodian of the term, or for that matter the belief.

And as long as you continue to hem and haw about how the uppity women just keep demanding rights

Um, Jeff?  I fully support those rights.  Unless (as is likely the case) the only “rights” you’re concerned with are abortion (I reserve the legitimate right to dissent, for very good reason that anyone is free to ask me about) or institutionalizing victimhood.  If those are really the only “rights” you’re concerned about, then we either need to have a different discussion, or you’ll need to change your snark just a tad.

and keep complaining about how little things like bombing attempts fail to make the news,

And again, Fecke either misses the point, ignores it, or is unequipped to recognize it.  Let the self-styled riotgrrls from “Feministe” complain all they want about what the news covers!  That’s why they blog; also, it’s why I blog!  More power to ’em!  I’m calling them, though, on their whiny habit of finding conspiracies around every corner.  

And – lest I’d left any doubt the first several times I said it – bombing abortion clinics is wrong.  Don’t do it.  The explosives would be better used trying to blast some logic and reading comprehension into the skulls of Twin Cities leftybloggers.

you’re actively working with those who would cheerfully place your daughter and mine in the second tier of society. And that’s as far from feminism as is humanly possible.

Get that?  If I don’t buy every crazed nuance of the most deranged feminist fantasy, I’m “actively working” to harm women.  Put other way, “If you’re not with us, you’re against us” – the last great refuge of the thug, the fascist, the autocrat, intellectual or otherwise.

Bullpucks, Jeff (and all who think like him recite the same rote, intellectually-desiccated talking points); as an American, a human and someone who takes an active interest in not only the world around me but the one that my kids will inherit one of these days, I have not only the right to question things, but the obligation. 

And if the best defense y’all can mount is “If you’re not with us in every niggling particular demanded by the most dogmatic, extreme, pseudo-religious faction of ‘the movement’ then you’re against us”, then I think the discussion is over.

But if signing off with an ofay snark and declaring victory makes you feel better, by all means do what feels right.

After reading “retired diplomat” Dan Simpson’s non-muted plea for a totalitarian dictatorship to protect us from ourselves, I needed something to wash the stench of fascism from my nostrils

Policy wonk John Q. Wilson, from Pepperdine, arrived on cue:

  So far, not many prominent Americans have tried to use the college rampage as an argument for gun control. One reason is that we are in the midst of a presidential race in which leading Democratic candidates are aware that endorsing gun control can cost them votes.

I switched from being a gun-controller by habit to a Second Amendment activist about the same time as I became a conservative, during college.  It was a time when I despaired of ever seeing things as they are today…

…with gun control the notion of punishing the law-abiding for the crimes of the guilty being considered as big a third rail as, say, rationalizing Social Security.

Who says there’s no progress?

This concern has not prevented the New York Times from editorializing in favor of “stronger controls over the lethal weapons that cause such wasteful carnage.” Nor has it stopped the European press from beating up on us unmercifully.

Leading British, French, German, Italian and Spanish newspapers have blamed the United States for listening to Charlton Heston and the National Rifle Assn. Many of their claims are a little strange. At least two papers said we should ban semiautomatic assault weapons (even though the killer did not use one); another said that buying a machine gun is easier than getting a driver’s license (even though no one can legally buy a machine gun);  [Not actually true; if you pony up a big registration fee and pass a background check not a whole lot less intrusive than that for a Top Secret security clearance, you can get a Class III license, which allows you to buy fully-automatic machine guns.  In seventy years, exactly one person with a Class III license has committed a crime; it was a cop] a third wrote that gun violence is becoming more common (when in fact the U.S. homicide rate has fallen dramatically over the last dozen years).

But what are facts when one has a pseudo-religious  crusade at hand!

Note to Dan Simpson – and others who think that banning guns in the hands of the law-abiding is some sort of panacaea that’d lead us to a crime-free Eden:

If we want to guess by how much the U.S. murder rate would fall if civilians had no guns, we should begin by realizing — as criminologists Franklin Zimring and Gordon Hawkins have shown — that the non-gun homicide rate in this country is three times higher than the non-gun homicide rate in England. For historical and cultural reasons, Americans are a more violent people than the English, even when they can’t use a gun. This fact sets a floor below which the murder rate won’t be reduced even if, by some constitutional or political miracle, we became gun-free.

Of course, to many European observers, facts aren’t as important as agenda:

AS FOR THE European disdain for our criminal culture, many of those countries should not spend too much time congratulating themselves. In 2000, the rate at which people were robbed or assaulted was higher in England, Scotland, Finland, Poland, Denmark and Sweden than it was in the United States. The assault rate in England was twice that in the United States. In the decade since England banned all private possession of handguns, the BBC reported that the number of gun crimes has gone up sharply.

Oh, and strict, Euro-style gun control doesn’t prevent

Some of the worst examples of mass gun violence have also occurred in Europe. In recent years, 17 students and teachers were killed by a shooter in one incident at a German public school; 14 legislators were shot to death in Switzerland, and eight city council members were shot to death near Paris.    

The main lesson that should emerge from the Virginia Tech killings is that we need to work harder to identify and cope with dangerously unstable personalities.

And there’s the rub.  Advocates for the mentally-ill have made it very difficult – for some good reasons and some not-so-good ones – for the public to know a whole lot about peoples’  mental health backgrounds.  Knowing more about Cho’s judicial commitment, for example, might have done a lot more good to prevent the VT tragedy than putting more petty roadblocks in the way of the law-abiding gun owner.

It is a problem for Europeans as well as Americans, one for which there are no easy solutions — such as passing more gun control laws.

But like most such solutions, it’s not about solving things so much as helping a powerful and well-connected but impotent clicque feel that they’re doing something, even if that something is utterly useless.

Jeff Horwich of MPR’s In The Loop noticed what I wrote about my guest-shot on the show two weeks ago, in the show’s “Loophole” blog.

He commented about my “country radio mouse/city radio mouse” remarks:

[I provide] these observations, which certainly caught my attention:

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’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.

I can understand the impression, and it’s valid to a certain extent. True, on the night of the show we put on an impressive display. We are fortunate to draw on the engineering staff of MPR once a month to make the show happen, and of course a beautiful and effective space for what we do. We can plug into some remarkable resources here.

It’s worth pointing out, though, that there’s more (or less) here than meets the eye. Many of the names in the credits — including people who run the lights, hold the microphones, run the slideshow, and print up scripts — are volunteers. We couldn’t do it without them. Many other names in the credits are people from inside and outside MPR who offered their free advice or assistance in putting the show together. Our band and stage manager are compensated but…let’s just say they wouldn’t be there if they weren’t in it for the experience.

(Carson on) I did not know that! (Carson off)

Duly noted!

I will say this (in addition to what I’ve already said) about In The Loop – the thing I found most surprising about the show’s production was that the whole production had a kind of “Hey, gang!  Let’s put on a show!” quality to it – in the sense of enthusiasm, as opposed to amateurism – that was the last thing I’d expected to encounter at MPR (especially given things I’ve heard about life in the Keillor and Lanpher universes at MPR).

Laura McCallum at NPR – recently moved from the Capitol to an Eduation beat – did a series of pieces, “Is High School Obsolete“, that’s trolls some familiar territory.

Every school day, as many as 300,000 Minnesota teenagers stream through the doors of one of more than 450 high schools in the state. These buildings are their gateways to either college or the workforce, and the rest of their lives. Is high school preparing them for the world that awaits?

…If you ask Gov. Tim Pawlenty, his answer would be “No.” He said so in his State of the State address in January. 

“In too many cases, our high school students are bored, checked-out, coasting, not even vaguely aware of their post-high school plans, if they have any, and they are just marking time,” Pawlenty said. 

Pawlenty believes that high schools need to modernize to prepare students for the jobs of tomorrow. He describes high schools as a “one-size-fits-all assembly-line model” trying to educate students in a high-tech world. 

The governor’s remarks are music to my ears.  And Bill Gates is also involved – and says some of the same things I have been pushing: 

Gates goes further than Gov. Pawlenty, wanting to redesign today’s large comprehensive high schools, particularly those in urban areas. 

Gates’ money is building new smaller schools, and dividing big schools into smaller entities within the same building. One wing might focus on technology, another on the arts. Gates believes that high schools with fewer than 600 students are more successful. 

“In those high schools, the goal is that every adult knows every student. So that when you’re walking the halls, they say, ‘Hey, you’re supposed to be over there. Hey, I heard you didn’t turn your homework in, do you need help?'” Gates told the Senate panel. “If you create a smaller social environment, then it really changes the behavior in the high school.” 

This is an idea I’d love to pursue; I actually wish I could have attended the forum on the subject.  McCallum notes something that’s worth further exploration: 

Still, there’s no question that in a school this big, even with all its advantages, some students fall through the cracks.  

Here’s a question I’d like to see more fully explored:  there are students who thrive in the current, one-size-fits-all, factory-model school system.  And the ones that “check out” the worst, are pretty obvious and easy to find; they drop out. 

I’m most concerned for the ones in the middle; the ones who plug it out in the system for 13 years, and don’t drop out, but for whom learning will forever be associated with sitting in long rows in airless rooms, having a pre-assembled curriculum read to them on a schedule that has nothing whatever to do with how they learn.  The ones for whom learning will be turned from a normal human activity, as natural and human as eating and breathing, into a duty, a drudge-like exercise in communal hazing that they’re happy to survive but take not much more away from. 

The piece explores a subject much nearer and dearer to my heart:  

The Gates Foundation is putting money into schools like Avalon School in St. Paul, a charter school with fewer than 150 high school students. Avalon has received two grants from the Gates Foundation totaling $150,000. 

First thing in the morning, Avalon students check in with their advisor. Then they spend their days either working independently on projects, or attending seminars that meet the state’s graduation standards. They have individual workspaces that look like office cubicles. 

Both of my kids have attended Avalon.  For my daughter Bun, it’s been a godsend. 

Even though people who are addicted to the conventional view of what a school is supposed to be often don’t seem to get it: 

And their projects are certainly different. One student is working on a project about Sicilian cooking for his geography graduation standard. Another student did a project on pop art to meet some of the requirements of her U.S. history grad standard. And another did a project on Star Wars for part of his English grad standard.

The topics sound too quirky to be academically rigorous. But that’s why Avalon students get excited about learning, according to Gretchen Sage-Martinson, one of the school’s two program coordinators.  

Sage-Martinson said Avalon students have to meet the same graduation standards that every Minnesota student needs to graduate. That includes four credits of English and language arts, and three credits each of math, science and social studies. The difference is that Avalon students earn those credits through subjects that are intriguing to them. 

This is the part that’s either smoothly intuitive or impossible to explain, depending on your view of what “education” is supposed to be.  If “academic rigor” means ensuring students get a prescribed ration of subjects jammed down their throats on a specified schedule – a ration they’re able to satisfactorily regurgitate on standardized tests – or if it means teaching kids to know how to learn, to take responsibility for learning (as opposed to following the dotted line to the prescribed way stations). 

Sage-Martinson said Avalon doesn’t drill students to do well on standardized tests. Yet with the exception of last year’s math test scores, Avalon students do better than the state average. 

Wonder how that happens? 

 Sage-Martison said Avalon tends to attract intellectual students who’ve struggled to do well in traditional high schools. 

That was certainly the case for senior Ian Weiland. He’s the teenager who did the project on Star Wars. At his old school, Weiland fit the stereotype of the checked-out student. He began high school at a suburban school with about 2,000 students, and he was flunking out. 

“It felt like I was just, like, in a prison,” Weiland said. “I go from one class, you got five minutes to get to each class, and you’d go there and you’d listen to some boring teacher, pretty much reading out of the textbook. And I’d sit there, and I’d just be so unmotivated and I would just not do anything. I’d just sit there, and I’d just fail.” 

While I didn’t have the option of flunking out – Dad was a teacher, after all – I can remember feeling exactly the way Weiland describes. 

The whole series is worth a read.  I’ll probably be going through more of it in coming days.