Joe Nuxhall – legendary baseball broadcaster and trivia answer (the youngest person ever to pitch in the majors) dead at 79

Nuxhall’s place in baseball lore was secured the moment he stepped onto a big-league field. With major league rosters depleted during World War II, he got a chance to pitch in relief for the Reds on June 10, 1944.

No one in modern baseball history has played in the majors at such a young age — 15 years, 10 months, 11 days old. He got two outs against St. Louis before losing his composure, then went eight years before pitching for the Reds again.

After which he had a 14 year career in the majors, followed by four more decades in the broadcast booth.

He retired as a full-time radio broadcaster after the 2004 season, the 60th anniversary of his historic pitching debut.

Nuxhall and play-by-play announcer Marty Brennaman described the Big Red Machine’s two World Series titles in the 1970s, Pete Rose’s return as player-manager and then banishment for gambling in the 1980s, and another World Series championship in 1990.

The move to get him into Cooperstown – as a broadcaster – has already begun.

(more…)

Bonds indicted for perjury, obstruction of justice:

The perjury case against former Giants star Barry Bonds is built on documents seized in a federal raid on a Burlingame steroids lab and positive drug test results indicating that baseball’s all-time home run king used steroids, court records show.Bonds, perhaps the greatest hitter of his generation, was indicted Thursday on four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice. He is accused of lying under oath in December 2003 when he told the grand jury that investigated the BALCO steroid ring that he had never used banned drugs.

Waaah.

That’s right; gotta get Bonds, to protect “the integrity of the game“.

The Strib’s been cranking out the stories (and the wishful thinking) about the 35W bridge collapse in the Strib.

According to Sarah Janecek at Politics in Minnesota, there’s a story behind the story:

One GOP legislator, disturbed by the secrecy shrouds detailed in the Star Tribune, sent an email to MnDOT asking what’s going on. [PIM obtained copies of the relevant emais.] Here’s how MnDOT answered the question:

“Unfortunately, the relationship between our employees and some reporters — and I stress ‘some reporters’ — at the Star Tribune has become extremely strained…MnDOT employees have been subjected to professional and unnecessarily harsh name-calling, hostile phone conversations and phone and email harassment. MnDOT employees have come to me with reports of enduring profanity in phone conversations and having their professional and personal integrity questioned. Employees have further reported that, when they have granted interviews and provided professional information, they feel their work has been mischaracterized in print and facts have been disregarded in lieu of predetermined story lines.”

I’d ask someone from the Strib for a comment – but they’d probably punch me.

Janecek:

To be precise, MnDOT employees are tired of hearing “BS” in heated long form, and “you’re lying” and “you’re stonewalling” from the two career Star Tribune reporters with pit bull reputations: Tony Kennedy and Paul McEnroe. What’s more, a document request made one hour is followed by a series of harassing emails mere hours later asking where their documents are.

Reporters acting like jagbags? Nothing new, right?

Of course, there’s more:

…Many of the document requests are duplicative — different people at the paper are asking for exactly the same stuff. As far as PIM knows, there are at least eight different requests from Star Tribune people. Besides Kennedy and McEnroe, other Star Tribune reporters who are asking for duplicative documents are Dan Browning, Nick Coleman, Pat Doyle, Jim Foti, Kaszuba and Bob Von Sternberg.

Typically, on a big story like the bridge collapse, one editor is put in charge. This apparently hasn’t happened.

In other words, the Strib’s newsroom – wracked by layoffs and budget cuts – is a Sacramento fire drill.

Or is there more?

Better media analysis minds than ours think there’s something else going on: Star Tribune editor Nancy Barnes and others at the paper want a Pulitzer for the paper’s coverage. That makes sense to us. The bridge collapse will likely be the only shot Minnesota media will have in our lifetimes at winning the “Breaking News” prize. [Let’s all certainly hope so.]

Which makes sense; it’s something people’ve been predicting since the spume from the river was still in the air. Indeed, many of us – the Strib’s legions of amateur critics – lauded the paper for its reporting (albeit not opinion writing) in the wake of the collapse, and figured the paper might be in line for its first Pulitzer since the Battle of Yorktown.

Does it affect the paper’s approach to journalism?:

The Pulitzer theory also explains why the paper repeatedly fails to point out MnDOT’s legal constraints on document requests, an omission that is grossly misleading to readers. Media requests for government documents are covered by the Minnesota Data Practices Act (MDPA) and the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The most important aspect of these laws as they apply to obtaining government information about the bridge collapse is that the MDPA applies before August 1, 2007 and the federal FOIA applies after the bridge fell. That’s because the National Transportation Safety Board has an exemption from FOIA for any “ongoing investigation” so as not to jeopardize that investigation. Obviously, that exemption is broad and severely curtails the information MnDOT can legally provide.

Which – as Janecek alleges – is the part the Strib won’t tell the reader.

Is it just another example of “not having enough space” to fit it in – a standard Strib excuse when important details get left out? We’ve been through this before.

On the one hand, “jourmalistic ethics” tend to be exactly what a “journalist” needs them to be to get their story (and/or their Pulitzer).

On the other…well, read the whole thing.

…for the battle royale, as it were, with King “King” Banaian, I’ve decided it’s time to let some other old feuds die natural deaths.

More later.

Maybe.

I think it’s great news – for Republicans.

Jay Reding agrees, I think:

They’re apparently going to “balance” Kos with a right-of-center blogger, yet to be announced. Then again, I doubt anyone would want the job of “balancing” Kos unless it’s by giving him medication. I’m not sure of a writer whose name doesn’t rhyme with Fan Molter that even comes close to the level of pure ideological spite and relentless cheerleader-ism that Kos spews on a daily basis.

Then again, it’s probably good news for the Republicans in the race—the more exposure people like Kos get, the more people see the true face of the Democratic Party.

I may just start posting Kos’ kolumns prominently, every chance I get.

Australian Santas-in-training (?) told ho,ho,ho is sexist and derogatory:

Thirty trainees at a Santa course in Adelaide last month, held by recruitment company Westaff, were urged to replace the traditional festive greeting with “ha, ha, ha”.

Thankfully, not everyone is jumping on the sleigh:

A Santa veteran of 11 years who attended the course told the Sunday Mail the trainer was very clear in spelling out no to “ho”.

Two Santa hopefuls reportedly left the course after the trainer’s edict.

The bitch of it the ironic part is that “ho” isn’t even an Australian term, unless you’re gardening:

The term “ho” is also American slang for a prostitute. “We were told it (ho) was a derogatory term for females and can upset people,” said the Santa, who did not want to be identified publicly.

“As far as I’m concerned, a hoe is something you dig the ground with.

“I don’t think you’ll hear too many Santas saying `ha, ha, ha’.”

Tommy Lee Jones, maybe.

Critics have branded the instruction for Santas to use “Ha! ha! ha! Merry Christmas” as nonsense and madness.

University of South Australia communications senior lecturer Dr Jackie Cook said any banning of “ho, ho, ho” was “nonsense”.

“Can we use a garden hoe anymore? Do we have to remove that?” she said.

And if they come for Hoe, pretty soon they’ll come for Whole, Home, Honey…

(more…)

Gateway Pundit notes that Pelosi’s war policy has hit…a bit of a quagmire:

Speaker Pelosi has failed to pick up any Republican backers to cut and run with the democrats from Iraq since she took over the House in January. And, 5 more democrats bailed on the party since July.

When they even lose Hegel…

Mary Katherine Ham wraps up from Vegas:

That may be all I can tell you without divulging anything top secret and/or embarrassing. You know what they say about Vegas…it stays.

Developing…  Hmmmm.

They say “keep your enemies close, and your friends closer”.

“They” are right.

King Banaian has gone too far, proving that power, indeed, corrupts:

In the words of the great Parcells, if I am making the dinner, I get to buy the groceries.

Make no mistake about it:

1. King is not “Making dinner”; the mayor is chosen to serve as the bus boy, or maybe the kitchen’s saucier. The NARN are the chefs; the MOB are the clientele. The Groceries are bought by consent of the fed.
2. Parcells was a punk.

In a moment of crisis, someone had to step up and make a decision. Since NARNians were already in turmoil over this, decisive action was needed.

Wasn’t that Hitler’s justification for dissolving the Reichstag?

So the ingratitude of this remark from Mitch will not go unnoticed:

I call upon King Banaian to relinquish control over the MOB’s policy-setting apparatus and, above all, the “Blue” and “Red” lists of blogs’ standings in the MOB.

King “King” Banaian fancies himself a judge:

The Mayor’s office rules that Shot in the Dark must bear this logo in order to fly the MOBroll. There will be a meeting at the Patriot studios about this shortly.

I gotcher logo right here:

This one here is much more appropriate

You can take my MOB, but you can’t take my freedom.

Let the war begin.

Joe Kimball at the MinnPost briefly profiles St. Paul school board member Tom Conlon – the sole elected Republican in the city:

Conlon is the lone elected Republican Ranger in a city dominated by DFL office holders. Not since Norm Coleman changed his party stripes in Mayoral Term Two (1997) has there been another Republican elected in the city. Before that you have to go to the 1970s and ’80s with names like Ron Sieloff and John Drew and Joe O’Neill and Bob Pavlak.In those cases, Republicans were elected in St. Paul thanks to their personalities and connections, and despite their Republican affiliation. So, it seems, is the case with Conlon.

“Every time, I hold my breath, thinking: Is this the time they’re going to get me?” Conlon said Wednesday, before heading out to pick up lawn signs from supporters’ lawns all around St. Paul.

So what’s the secret? Conlon points to three things:

Read the whole thing. Note that none of the three things involve any help from the Republican Party, which continues to abandon the parts of the Fourth CD south of County Road C.

Yesterday, I noted that in the wake of Karl Bremer’s rapier-like assault at the heart of the Minnesota Organization of Bloggers’ content-management and enforcement policies, King Banaian had assumed an unconscionable amount of power unto himself, and declaring himself superior to the Northern Alliance’s “advice and consent” role.  In effect, he has declared himself absolute dictator of the MOB.

He was given a chance to fall into line and obey the constitution – an imperative that he swept aside like Caesar crossing the Rubicon.  King Banaian rebuffed my efforts to broker a settlement.

It would seem the MOB – heretofore a placid, unified front in the blog wars – has been rent asunder. 

Though it pains me, there comes a time when a guy has to make things perfectly clear:

I call upon King Banaian to relinquish control over the MOB’s policy-setting apparatus and, above all, the “Blue” and “Red” lists of blogs’ standings in the MOB.

I’m maintaining my calm – but it can’t last forever.

Don’t mind those engineers. They were sitting in class taking calculus and learning the scientific method when people like Nick Coleman were learning how to…

…um…

…well, anyway.

The point being that even though the latest news on the Bridge Collapse investigation – the one being carried out by actual engineers – indicates that the bridge didn’t collapse as a direct result of the failure of the Gas Tax – Nick Coleman still knows better than all those dumb engineers:

Get ready to be gusseted.

Let’s stop right there.

Has Nick Coleman learned nothing from years of having his neologisms thrown back in his face wrapped in ridicule?

I doubt that many Minnesotans heard of gussets before Aug. 1, but since the collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge, “gusset” has become a favorite word in the mouths of politicians, particularly those looking to cast suspicion not on their politics or policies, but on inanimate steel objects.

Of course, if the “inanimate steel objects” (and, more importantly, the design work that went into them) actually were the problem – well, that’d be an issue, wouldn’t it?

Gussets are steel plates used to reinforce joists or connect girders. Although a three-year study of the problems of the ailing I-35W bridge did not focus attention on the bridge’s gussets, and although the bridge was still in the Mississippi River, it took only a week after the bridge fell for the Bush administration’s secretary of transportation, Mary Peters, to finger the culprits: Gussets.

A week.

Shocking.

Or course, two days after the collapse, Nick Coleman appeared on cable TV to pin the entire blame on Minnesota Republicans, funding, and the gas tax.

Two days.

She was immediately echoed by a private consulting firm hired by the Pawlenty-Molnau administration within hours of the collapse — without public bid. That firm Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, was hired for $2 million — coincidentally, the cost of a plan for reinforcing the bridge that was rejected by the Minnesota Department of Transportation months before the collapse.

Since Coleman clearly rejects all of that “empirical method” and “engineering” nonsense in favor of “knowing stuff”, I have to wonder if he wrote that graf without even knowing that it’s complete doubletalk? Two million was the price of a plan. A plan that might have planned to address the causes of the collapse (maybe – and we’ll never know from Coleman’s column), but, given that it came up “months before the collapse”, wouldn’t have actually fixed the problem, even had it addressed the actual cause of the collapse – which we don’t yet know!

The Pawlenty administration has been accusing critics of jumping to conclusions about the cause of the collapse because we argue, whatever the physical causes, that there was a dereliction of a public duty to keep bridges standing and bridge users alive.

And – let’s say it together – Pawlenty is right. “Critics” – mainly politically-motivated hacks like Coleman, Elwyn “E-Tink” Tinklenburg and Alice Hausman – were blaming Pawlenty before the last girder had fallen.

If you listen to Minnesota’s officials, it’s almost like the bridge never fell. It couldn’t have. After all, they had a great plan for keeping it up.

On paper.

SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH

You mean, just like the $2 million “plan” to keep the bridge up that Coleman mentioned not ten paragraphs above?

The one that’s distinguished from the “plan” Coleman now ridicules…why?

This is an illustration of the disconnect between no-tax politics and the real world, where gravity is stronger than wishful thinking.

And actual empirical science is stronger than the wishful thinking of a bitter old hack who wants, more than anything, to capitalize on the Bridge tragedy.

This next bit (emphasis added)…:

Pinpointing the physical cause of the collapse will require long forensic investigation. But CYA is Chapter One in the political playbook, so the pols are clinging to their Grassy Knoll Gusset theory.

…makes me wonder if the entire state can take out a restraining order.

Peters, the federal secretary of transportation, repeated her gusset tale Nov. 1, causing one gob-smacked Republican who heard her, Edina’s Rep. Ron Erhardt, to state the obvious:

If gussets failed, he said, “What is that but a lack of maintenance?”

Exactly.

“Exactly” – in the same way that a faulty premise is a matter of bad copy editing.

Numbnuts “Representative” Erhard and “Writer” Coleman:  if the gusset plate was designed wrong, it wouldn’t matter if it was brand-new off of the palette.  It would have been inadequate from the moment it was welded into place. 

That is not maintenance.

That is design.

That is what we get for electing scientific illiterates – or reading them.

Someone pointed out a few weeks back – the survivors of the Holocaust, like our own WWII generation, are dying off.  Most of the remaining Holocaust survivors were teenagers or children at the time – and even they are getting on.

So I’m grateful to Saint Cloud State’s public radio outlet, KVSC, for broad/podcasting Dr. Henry Oertelt’s ten-part testimony, “An Unbroken Chain” – the story of his life, survival, and rescue. 

Oertelt, a Berlin-born Jew, links his survival to the “unbroken chain” in the title; to eighteen different events (his being selected for one camp rather than another), lucky breaks (his youth and health), happenstances (an unexplained act of an SS officer that could have been expedience, or could have been…human kindness?  To this day, Oertelt is not sure), or personalities (from his brother to General Patton, whose 90th Infantry Division rescued him in the midst of a death march days before the end of the war), without any one of which  he’d not have survived. 

By eighteen links – each fragile as glass and, in the end, utterly inseparable – Oertelt clung to life.  For each of them, he’s profoundly, audibly grateful. 

Go download and listen to the series.  It’s a small story – the story of a man and his brother, really – told in a small way. 

Which, in the end, is the only way to explain what may have been the biggest story of the last 100 years, one that is still affecting us today, even as the event’s survivors slip away.

When it comes to gays, the left talks a big game – but as we’ve been noting for years, when the chips are down, lefty commentators are vastly more likely to resort to gay-bashing than the mainstream right.  (Note:  opposing gay marriage is not “Gay-Bashing”).

I noted this years ago in re Nick Coleman’s abortive, abortious “radio show”, which consistently  tittered and giggled like a couple of junior high kids over a bunch of “gay” cheap shots. Of course, even the most rigorously reputable regional media outlets aren’t above gay-baiting cheap shots.

Taranto notes its’s not just a regional phenomenon:

There’s almost a year to go before the presidential election, and already the Angry Left is employing gutter tactics against the Republican front-runner. One ugly theme has emerged:

* “Could the United States, for that matter, elect a cross-dresser? The Rudy Giuliani surge would be comic if its broader implications were not so grave.”–James Carroll, Boston Globe, Oct. 29

* “Rudy’s acceptance of Pat Robertson’s endorsement is equally foolish. Not only has it made utterly transparent that Giuliani isn’t just a cross dresser but also a man capable of practicing the oldest profession as well as any Jezebel . . .”–Gloria Feldt, Puffington Host, Nov. 9

* ” Rudy Giuliani did Hillary imitations, complete with mincing steps and effete hand gestures, looking just like the cross-dresser we know him to be.”–Stanley Fish, New York Times Web site, Nov. 11

* “The old guard, Pat Robertson, has just endorsed the cross-dressing former mayor of New York to defeat what he called Islamic ‘blood lust.’ “–Andrew Sullivan, Times (London), Nov. 11

They make Giuliani sound like Boy George. In fact, as we’ve noted, he’s more Monty Python, having donned a dress on a couple of occasions purely for comic effect.

It’s especially sad to see Andrew Sullivan, who styles himself a champion of gay rights, resort to a rank appeal to homophobia in order to score cheap partisan points.

Sad?

More like “predictable”.

I’d love to see how the region’s more-prominent gay-activist bloggers (pretty much universally left-of-center) treat this.

Or “if”.

Elliot Spitzer gundecks his plan to give drivers’ licenses to illegals:

The governor is due to meet Wednesday morning with New York’s congressional delegation, many of whom openly oppose the program. Debate over the issue also has spilled into New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign.

The governor’s office signaled to New York lawmakers Tuesday that Spitzer will say at the meeting that he is shelving the plan and that immigration is a federal issue to be handled by Washington, according to congressional aides who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because no formal announcement had been made.

While plan advocates rationalized it by claiming it would make the roads safer, that was bit of a red herring – think how much safer we’d be with millions of criminals off the road in the first place? – the real problem was the disingenuity of the plan’s supporters, who either didn’t know about the loopholes the plan offered to illegals, or didn’t care.

Political incompetence or tone-deafness on their part doesn’t constitute and emergency on ours.

Last month, Spitzer sought to salvage the license effort by striking a deal with the Department of Homeland Security to create three distinct types of state driver’s licenses: one “enhanced” that will be as secure as a passport; a second-tier license good for boarding airplanes; and a third marked not valid for federal purposes that would be available to illegal immigrants and others.

How about one that is stamped “CRIMINAL”?

Clinton has been criticized by her Democratic and Republican rivals for her noncommittal answers on the subject. She has said she sympathizes with governors like Spitzer who are forced to confront the issue of immigration because the federal government has not enacted immigration reform. She has not taken a position on the actual plan offered by Spitzer.

Because then all the nasty men would be mean to her?

They do have a point; the government – Congress as well as the President – has been shamefully craven on immigration.

When he’s had a couple of tots of Armenian brandy, King can be a jovial sort (and no, that’s not what he does before going on the air, although I can’t speak for his blogging-from-home technique).

But when he’s drunk with power, it’s a whooooole ‘nother thing:

I have stated that I have NARN as councilors in this matter, but all decisions regarding any membership revocation will be issued from this office and is the responsibility of the mayor alone.

King “Musharraf” Banaian has declared a MOB state of emergency and absorbed all government power unto himself?  What’s next – Chad “Bhutto” the Elder being held under hard-to-sell-house arrest?

The MOB’s constitutional crisis – the question “who will control the MOB’s boundless enforcement power and ruthless policy-setting machinery” – grows.

Who will survive?

Stay tuned.

Some good news from North Minneapolis – violent crime has dropped:

But serious crime incidents in the North Side precinct are down about 15 percent this year.

That’s good news.

Of course, the numbers are not the whole story:

 The North Side has accounted for about 21 percent of the city’s serious incidents this year, with 17.5 percent of its population.

The North Side, of course, is a big place; it includes gang strongholds like the Near North and Camden, as well as placid near-suburban areas like the big swathe above Dowling and into the forties and fifties. 

Which means, I suspect, thatmost of that “21% of the city’s serious incidents” are taking place in the part of the North Side below Dowling and above Highway 55.  What percentage of the city’s population is that?

The piece seems to have the wrong headline, though – while a paragraph or two are about crime numbers, the piece largely seems to be about…marketing: 

Think of the North Side of Minneapolis and what comes to mind? Crime and foreclosures? Or parks, clubs and gathering spots?

A new marketing strategy for north Minneapolis is designed to get you to think more of the latter.

The strategy has been rolled out for North Side community leaders. Organizers plan to launch their marketing push more broadly by March after seeking business, foundation and public money to finance it. A campaign incorporating a website, street signs, brochures, postcards and print ads is planned. The budget is still undetermined.

The campaign focuses on four strengths — consultants called them chest-pounding topics.

Those selling points, identified in meetings with residents: the area’s breadth of community organizations, its varied businesses, a solid housing stock and an abundance of opportunities for recreation.

On the one hand, as conservative bloggers we well understand the imperative to counter relentless, one-sided bad news. 

And there is value to this sort of effort; Saint Paul did plenty of the same in its epic battle to turn around Selby-Dale; thirty years ago, the neighborhood was a complete toilet.  Today, it’s a largely decent place – allowing the city to fight the ongoing battle to reclaim Frogtown (hopefully before Light Rail destroys it again) and arrest the deepening blight on the East Side. 

But I digress.

I don’t live in Minneapolis, of course.  For Minneapolis crime news, I always turn to the Minneapolis Crime Watch blog, the single essential stop for crime news (since the late, lamented Rambix departed the scene).  Margaret Martin – who lives on the North Side – responds to the piece, noting that the group cited in the story may be talking a bigger game than they actually play:

I’m on some of the e-mail lists and, aside from a rejuvenation of the neighborhood organization in my neighborhood, a group of people has come together to create “a marketing plan” for North…The reality is that something’s got to replace or supplement the NRRC, which has spearheaded many of these types of initiatives in the past, because the NRRC is broke and although NRP got a stay of execution, funding will not be at the same level. It’s a fine time to start looking elsewhere, for development funding.

She also notes the story’s incongruity:

The problem I have with the story is the headline. “Serious crime in north Minneapolis falls 15%.” But the story isn’t about crime, it’s about these activists’ desire for a better future for North. The headline conflates the desire with the reality. The reality may be that “serious crime is down” it doesn’t mean that North is safe, the schools are good and that if we build it “they” will come…I know that the stats have been improving and I don’t deny that they are…The problem is that crime is not just about numbers. It’s about perception.

Perception is, indeed, reality.  You knew that the effort to revitalize Selby-Dale was succeeding when people stopped perceiving that you could get killed for no good reason in the neighborhood; when people perceived that people weren’t getting stabbed every weekend outside the People’s Choice club, or that they could let their kids play outside.

And the North Side isn’t there yet, says Margaret: 

So homicides are down. If you knew that a few blocks away on a “safe” block, a driveby just took out a some people at a barbecue last weekend, would you feel safe? If you had 3 houses on your block that were vacant and deteriorating, would you feel good about the direction that things were going?

Here’s something to think about it. If people in South Minneapolis are concerned about crime and worried about their future in the city, and it’s got all the attractions and amenities that South has, what does North have to offer in comparison?

I’m no expert.  As near as I can tell, the best thing an area can do is “be a place where young families – by definition, low-to-middle-income, for the most part – can afford to live and raise kids without worrying about their safety”. 

So what does the North Side offer? 

I’m genuinely interested.

Austin Bay has a heart-to-heart with a fighter pilot in Afghanistan.

They have a lot of territory to cover together – you should read the whole thing.’

The fighter pilot – a colonel whose son is a new Army officer, the second generation in his family to fight in the War on Terror – is tired.  Bay sums it up:

Now, once upon a time we could ignore those suffering in the planet’s hard corners. Oh, we could send them a few bucks and the Lefties could bitch about colonialism and capitalism but the hard corners were isolated. A threat to security? Only nuns and missionaries and you are your brothers keeper types thought so. Well guess what — the nuns were right. 9/11 changed that deceptive calculus. Distance? Colonel, there isn’t any distance. We learned that the destruction of New York and Washington started in the backwaters, of Afghanistan, of Somalia. Technology has done it. We can’t escape one another, for good and for bad. Jet transports, like the ones out on the runway at Bagram, put you on the other side of the globe in 14 hours. The internet doesn’t require description. East Asia shares diseases with Africa within days, if not hours. And special weapons? Nukes and nerve gas make every tribal war an international crisis. Goodbye Tokyo, Moscow, or Miami– because a sophisticated tribesman at war with his eternally despised neighbor decides that demolishing the global economy would make everyone pay attention to his neglected, forgotten grievance. Tyrannies keep breeding this insanity…He looked at me, the dreadful nearness of it.

It’s on us, man, I continued. And I don’t like it. I didn’t like it during the Cold War. Remember 1983? The same creeps who’ve quit now, quit then. Reagan was a warmonger, going to start a nuclear war in Europe my responding to the Soviets deployment of theater nuclear missiles. The defeatists said the Cold War was our fault, we were the threat. Then the Berlin Wall cracked and that jackass calumny disappeared as Marxism’s Eastern European wreckage emerged in drab, polluted, horrifying, undeniable color.

This war follows the same arc, with the same defeatists adding new nouns to old verbs and adjectives. But it’s a war of liberty versus tyranny and they’re shilling for the tyrants.

Take it up with the Colonel.  Both of them, really.

Via John at Night Writer:

Your Inner European is Norwegian!

Dour and retiring on the outside, with an inner skraeling that is just dying to chop someone’s head off with a slash from your mighty sword. You put the “aggression” in “passive aggression”. You can be pushed,and pushed…to a point. Then, suddenly, bodies start turning up. You will feel guilty about it – mostly about enjoying it. Oh, well.

Who’s Your Inner European?

MNMon’s editor Paul Schmelzer responds to my email and the post below:

Yes: Jim’s moving on. He took the Strib buyout this spring, helped us out with some very useful mentoring (a 10 hr/week gig) and now that he and his wife are moving full-time to their place in Grand Marais (this week), he decided he wanted to be retired, for real. I’ve really enjoyed working with him, but I definitely understand where he’s at. I hope he finds the time to write the occasional guest column for us, but, yes, by the end of the month he’ll be doing what retired northshore guys do, full-time.

I guess we won’t have Jim Boyd to kick around anymore.

Much.

A source at the Monitor (whose permission I don’t yet have to go on the record) confirms; Jim Boyd is leaving.

A source with knowledge of the situation tells me there’s trouble brewing at the Minnesota Monitor.

>> we’re hearing minnesota monitor is in
>> trouble. Jim Boyd has quit and there is some
>> consternation among the writers.

Rumor has it that Boyd – whose much-ballyhooed entree to the Monitor was intended to be yet another coat of credibility (along with hiring Eric Black) onto an enterprise that employs some good writers, some ethical trainwrecks, and some well-meaning amateurs – is moving on to another regional online outlet.  I’m working to confirm or spike the rumor.

The source also tells me that some local journalists are also upset in that nobody tells even potential employees exactly who it is that funds the Monitor.  (While nobody has formally confirmed anything, the Monitor’s parent group, the Center for Independent Media, shared offices with George Soros’ “Media Matters for America” during their organizational gestation period.  Nobody from the Monitor or the CIM has ever denied, after repeated direct requests, that Soros was the organizations’ sugardaddy). 

The rumor (and it IS just a rumor at this point) continues that Boyd will be joining the MinnPost – the new online DFL PR organ news outlet run by Boyd’s former boss Joel Kramer.  A source at the Post declined to comment and has kicked my request for an on-the-record comment up the chain of command.

More info as it becomes available.

UPDATE:  Roger Buoen, the MinnPost’s Managing Editor, writes “we haven’t talked to Jim [Boyd] about writing for MinnPost”

I link to a lot of people on my blogroll.

A link doesn’t necessarily imply complete agreement on every – or any – issue.    I link to David Strom, Fraters Libertas, Kool Aid Report and Ed Morrissey even though I’m not against the North Star line, am not Catholic, ignore the Packers (to say nothing of Notre Dame, Hockey and parrots) and never cared much for Iron Maiden, and oppose smoking bans.

Indeed, I link to the likes of Blanked Out, Blog of the “Moderate” Left, MNSpeak and Powerliberal even though I don’t agree on much with any of them.

So let’s take a brief – and final – run through last month’s week’s dismal little flap.

• I’m pretty loathe to call someone “racist” frivolously.  When you apply it to a person, it implies a pretty broad character judgement – that, deep down in the pit of their gut, they believe other races are inferior to their own, down to the DNA level, and deserve to be subjugated, oppressed or eliminated.  It’s a serious accusation; its collateral implications involve Slavery and Auschwitz.
• Tracy Eberly’s piece last week last month, which the local Sorosphere has been tossing about like a bunch of poo-flinging monkeys, had some background – an obnoxious commenter – and an underlying point (not all cultures are equally good, and other cultures can and should be criticized as freely as our own).  Observing this helps explain the piece, I think…
• …but doesn’t excuse the fact that Eberly didn’t just push some rhetorical hot buttons about which Native Americans are legitimately sore – he jumped on them wearing big clunky boots.  He said some things that, depending on your point of view, one could call “dumb”, “insensitive” (yeah, like a real conservative is going to use that term) or “racist”. 
• I distinguish between “saying racist things” and “being a racist”.  (Your mileage may vary, but then I didn’t really ask anyone else’s opinion).
• I don’t disagree with Michael Brodkorb for whacking Anti-Strib from his blogroll.  He makes his reasons pretty clear in this post – and given his position, I can’t say as I fault his reasoning.
• I don’t even blame the local Sorosphere for piling on.  That’s the way the “game” is played.  Que sera sera (or as John Kerry would say, Que seared…seared).
• But Karl Bremer was deeply disingenuous (and playing to the Daily Mole’s audience’s ignorance) to turn Eberly’s article into a smear of the Minnesota Organization of Bloggers (MOB).  Nobody expects anything but skulking yellow hackery from Bremer, as worthless and yellow a “writer” as exists, an embarassment even to “Dump Bachmann”.  But neither does one expect “Drinking Liberally” (the left-of-center social group) to enforce any standards of behavior on the local Sorosphere, because, duuuuuude, they’re just a bunch of lefties who get together to drink!  So why is the MOB – whose charter is, if anything, less politically motivated than DrinkLib – suddenly accountable for its members’ opinions?   The MOB strives to be apolitical, and I have dozens of email invitations to local leftybloggers (and apolitical bloggers) to prove it.  The MOB is mostly center-right and/or non-political bloggers, of course; my theory is that too many regional leftybloggers are afraid to be seen in a  room with people they disagree with, but I don’t know.  At any rate, there is no enforcement arm to the Minnesota Organization of Bloggers; there is no MOB editorial board; the sole function of the MOB’s capi di tutti capi, Brian and Chad and King and I, is to call Terry Keegan and ask if it’s OK to invite 100 of our closest friends over to drink on a Saturday night.  The MOB  is a blogroll and two annual parties that are explicitly open to everyone who wants to show up.  And that means you, whether you’re Michael Brodkorb or Steve Perry for that matter.  The entire “when will the MOB police itself?” “argument” is akin to asking “when did you stop beating your wife”.  It’s a cowardly stawman set up (and supported) by yellow hacks with intent to obfuscate.
• When the likes of Karl Bremer and Steve Perry start demanding accountability from “Drinking Liberally”, or Flash’s “Drinking Moderately”, for the gaffes and offenses and beliefs of their attendees , maybe they’ll have earned the right to squawk be worth a listen.  But nobody’s demanding that accountability, because it’d be dumb; that’s not DL or DM’s purpose!  Declaring the MOB different is purely agenda-driven wishful thinking. 
• That being said, responding to this incident by claiming it’s “bowing to political correctness” to disapprove of the way Tracy expressed himself in his post – as claimed by several Anti-Strib supporters in Michael’s comment thread – is an evasion of responsibility.  Says me.  It’s something we expect, rightly, of the giggly fratboys and callow wannabees of the Sorosphere.  Man up and take your lumps.

I would never put a racist blog on my blogroll.  And I don’t think Tracy Eberly or Anti-Strib are “racist” in any sense that a victim of genuine racism (as opposed to agenda-flogging selective indignation) would recognize.  So they’ll remain on my blogroll; I’ll continue to support them – and hope and trust that they’ll express their views about race and culture a lot more artfully, if no less forthrightly.

As a friend, I’ll both agree with Tracy that our culture does have plenty to be proud of and is objectively better in balance for the vast majority of its people than most of the world’s other societies.  America, and the West that it leads and (with Britain) defined, eschews ritual genital mutilation, the stoning of gays, the lynching of adulterers, and…the list goes on.  Our language, unlike so many of the world’s tongues, doesn’t have different words for “human” that grow more derogatory the farther from “American” or “English” one gets.  Our society is far from perfect, but it strives to uphold not only the rights of women and social and cultural and ethnic minorities and has done more than any other society in history to atone for the wrongs of its own past than any other culture in history.  Tracy is right about this; I’d like him to express that point without pissing in Native Americans’ wheaties along the way, just for the sheer South-Park-olicious fun of it.

As a blogger who reads Anti-Strib (at the very least for Hot Telanovela Chick Friday) and supports the local center-right blog scene, I’ll criticize the offense – partly because actions DO have consequences to a principled conservative, and partly because I’d hate to see one of the Cities’ more prominent center-right group blogs get trashed for no good reason.  Anti-Strib has some good friends, some good writers (Badda, Kermit, and yes, Tracy) along with some notso-hotso ones (it’s Tracy’s party, he can invite who he wants), and above all some solid points to make.  Anti-Strib did yeoman work in exposing the casual, racist screedmongering of Minneapolis School Board member Chris Stewart and American Hot Sausage (which passed without a word from  Karl Bremer, and earned a flakky puff-piece from Steve Perry – even Eva Young covered that one); Anti-Strib makes a valuable contribution to the local blog scene, and will do so in the future.  They deserve (and have earned) both criticism and recognition; they also deserve, I think, the benefit of a doubt.

I’d hate to see Anti-Strib’s rep get shredded (or shredded further) over Tracy’s gaffe, or maybe worse, defending something that’s just not worth it.

The new Lori Sturdevant column is headlined:

Legislative session could be idea-rich, cash-poor

Do you suppose anyone will make the connection?

Alternate Title:  “They Eat Their Own, Part MLXXXVIII“.  El Rider notes the niutroots are out for Rahm Emanuel’s political head:

Okay, if it takes a “member of the vast right-wing conspiracy” to defend Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) then things are not going all that swimmingly over on the other side of the pool. Yesterday, Markos Moulitsas of the Daily Kos asked whether Rahm Emanuel is a racist. A few weeks ago I read a comment stream on Ellen’s Tenth… concerning Rahm and Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) that was bizarre even for those folks. So what the heck is going on?

Feeding frenzy?

Methinks that some folks are trying to move any blame concerning the current congress away from the more outwardly liberal Pelosi and toward the more centrist Emanuel. Some commenters over at Ellen’s place and on the regressive Daily Kos don’t seem to understand what Rahm did last year. He recruited good centrist candidates in vulnerable districts around the nation and not only were those candidates successful but they gave the Democratic Party it’s current House majority.

Thank God for the nutroots – Kos and his regional doppelgängers and anhängers – or the GOP would be in real trouble right now.