Vinnie “Mad Dog” Lopez may have been the worst drummer to ever record a major-label album.

The New Jersey drummer, most famous known only for having played on Bruce Springsteen’s Greetings from Asbury Park and The Wild, the Innocent and the Street Shuffle – albums famous for swooping changes in rhythm for no good musical reason – was whacked from the E Street Band in 1974, replaced first with Ernie “Boom” Carter (who played on “Born to Run”) and finally Max Weinberg, both of whom could…well, keep a beat for starters.

It’s interesting, then, to look at this video of the tribute band “Tramps Like Us”, featuring Lopez on drums, doing a ’73-era Springsteen classic , “Thundercrack”.

So – not only is he no better a drummer than ever, but he’s backing a bunch of singers that sound like a bunch of Italian soccer fans trying to sing harmony.

I’m always loathe to use the “V” word in relation to Iraq.  It seems like the sort of premature happiness that seems all the more galling if it’s claimed wrongly.

But Andrew Bolt doesn’t mind saying it – that the war has been won.

His piece makes many, many points – casually mauling a lot of the left’s worn-out tropes about the subject on the way.

But the conclusion was something I’ve been harping on for years:

The battle for Iraq always involved a grim calculus: would liberation save more people than it killed?

So let’s calculate how many died under Saddam.

In 1980, the dictator invaded Iran, starting a war in which at least 500,000 people died. In 1987, he crushed the Kurds, killing perhaps 100,000 or more.

In 1990, he invaded Kuwait, starting a war that killed more than 23,000.

On his defeat, he killed some 100,000 Shiites who rebelled.

Add the mass executions he ordered, the purges he unleashed, the opposition activists he shot, the terrorist attacks he paid for.

Remember also the children who died, robbed of medicines by his regime.

Add them all up, and even by the most conservative count you see Saddam did not just threaten the West, but cost the lives of more than 100 Muslims a day, every day, for the 24 years of his barbaric rule.

That’s four times more than are being killed in Iraq today, often by Saddam’s heirs and Saddam’s like.

Was Iraq worth it? Yes. It stands, it stays, and the winning of Iraq was worth it, indeed.

Read the whole thing.

As someone who’s been known to home-brew, I probably shouldn’t cock an eyebrow at people who shear and spin their own wool for knitting:

Hand-spinning is growing in popularity, especially among young people, said Natasha Thoreson of the Minnesota Weavers Guild (www.weaversguildmn. com) in Minneapolis. “We have quite a few members who start with the sheep,” she said, but most take advantage of the sheep farms that also sell cleaned wool, as well as a growing number of yarn shops that now sell roving — bundles of wool that’s been washed clean of lanolin and combed smooth, ready for spinning.

Thoreson said the guild can’t offer enough spinning classes to meet the demand. In addition, two weaving groups meet monthly to spin together.

For me, of course, the next obvious stop would be making my own gyros and souvlaki.

On the one hand, it’s good to hear that there was an arrest in last summer’s brutal murder of Mark Loesch, a Minneapolis father of four who was beaten to death on a late-night ride in South Minneapolis:

On Monday, Loesch’s father-in-law, David Barnes, was initially elated to hear that a 23-year-old man had been charged in the case, which appeared to have all the elements of a violent robbery.

But on the other – there’s a problem. Police allege that Loesch was procuring pot:

But when police officials publicly said they believe Loesch was in the area to buy marijuana, Barnes was brought to tears.

“I know Mark and don’t believe that is what happened,” he said. “They shouldn’t have slandered a dead person.”

I guess that’s one of the “High Risk Lifestyles” that RT Rybak was talking about.

On the one hand, I always love stories like this –  about a couple of rural Wisconsin brothers who restore and replicate Civil War artillery for a living – for their own sake.

Civil War buffs say the Paulsons, 66, are among the nation’s pre-eminent restorers of antique cannons…”We’ve been building cannons longer than anybody in America,” Bernie says.

“We’ve seen them come, and we’ve seen them go,” Bruce says.

“Everybody wants to come in and make money, and then all of a sudden they don’t last,” Bernie says…In the 1960s, they started making historically accurate artillery pieces. Eventually, they sold their farm-machinery business to focus on Civil War cannons. 

I also like to ponder obvious offshoots of the stories – like “if the Hanson Brothers set foot on the campus of Hamline University, would they be arrested and held in a psych ward”?

One must ponder.

Or maybe my next birthday present to myself…

The Democrats don’t want to require voters to prove they are who they say they are…

…but they want to make sure illegals can prove they are what they’re not?

Sen. Hillary Clinton was asked during a debate this week if she supported New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s plan to give driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. At first she seemed to endorse the idea, then claimed, “I did not say that it should be done, but I certainly recognize why Governor Spitzer is trying to do it.”

The next day she took a firmer stand (sort of) by offering general support for Gov. Spitzer’s approach, but adding that she hadn’t studied his specific plan. She should, and so should the rest of us. It stops just short of being an engraved invitation for people to commit voter fraud.

Why do Democrats hate America?

Stephen “Vodkapundit” Greene on his extended falling-out with the Libertarian Party – a topic with which I can relate…

…since his reasons were pretty much the same as mine:

If Libertarians couldn’t agree about the clear-cut case for war in Afghanistan, you can imagine how Iraq must have divided us. I had to stop reading Liberty months before my subscription finally, mercifully, ran out. Blogger friends of mine stopped emailing me. Ron Paul, whose name once graced the back of my first car, started sounding to me, less like a principled defender of American liberty, and more like a suited-up reject from the Summer of Love.

I stopped voting Libertarian for local candidates, leaving lots of blanks on my ballot. Next year, I’m not sure which party I’ll support for President, much less which candidate. From here, it looks as if the Republicans have become wrong and corrupt, the Democrats are stupid and corrupt, and the Libertarians have gone plain crazy.

It was easy tearing up my LP membership card. It’s quite a bit harder to find something to replace it. But I know this much: There’s no going back. Maybe there’s just too little room for principle in such a violent world.

And yet…

Then again, maybe leaving the Libertarians is like leaving the mob. Somewhere in the back of my mind there are echoes of Al Pacino. “Just when I thought that I was out, they pull me back in!”

No, I’m not thinking about being a Libertarian again; there are better ways to kick the GOP in the butt.

…I do have a post written for the morning of September 28, 2025, that starts:

It was September 28, 2005. I started writing about what I’d done twenty years ago that evening.

People have asked.

That is all.

Paul “Wog” Kuettel died on Sunday, after a long battle with liver disease:

Kuettel, Paul Francis Age 51 of Falcon Heights Born May 9, 1956 in St. Paul, MN Paul showed great courage in his battle against liver disease, but died peacefully Sunday, November 4,

I probably met Paul ten years ago, after years of being among the very few Republicans on the various E-Democracy discussion groups. Paul had a wry, laconic way of defusing political arguments, of getting people to act like…people when arguing about the subject

He related his struggles with alcoholism, liver failure, and his wait as the transplant list wended its slow way on his blog, Wog’s Blog. Along with that, though, he was a warm, genuine guy who cared deeply about people.

One day, my battery conked out about the time he called to ask if I wanted to go play trivia at Old Mexico in Roseville. I related my misfortune; twenty minutes later, he and his wife of many many years, Laura, were in my alley with a charger. There was no getting out of NTN Trivia with Paul.

It’ll be a gross understatement to say he’ll be missed, and missed badly.

Please send your thoughts, prayers or whatever you’re inclined to to Laura and Paul’s kids.

UPDATE:  It was a teaching moment for Ben at Hammerschwing.  Flash also pays his respects.

While I think people who are completely ignorant about politics should voluntarily recuse themselves from voting (even though I absolutely defend their right to roust themselves from their torpor and drag themselves to the polls) in real elections, I urge every schmuck to get out and vote in the final round of polling for the MOB Mayor.

So at Hamline University – my bad neighbor in the Midway – here’s how the hierarchy of un-PC offenses breaks out.

Commit a gratuitously racist act?…

Hamline University has suspended six players from its football team for donning blackface and body paint to dress up as African tribesmen for an off-campus Halloween party, an incident that has sparked a discussion about racial sensitivity at the St. Paul liberal arts college.

…get a slap on the wrist:

The six have not been suspended from school but will not be able to play for the rest of the football season.

But exercise your first amendment right to free speech in defense of your second-amendment right to self-defense?

[Troy] Scheffler received a letter informing him he’d been placed on interim suspension. To be considered for readmittance, he’d have to pay for a psychological evaluation and undergo any treatment deemed necessary, then meet with the dean of students, who would ultimately decide whether Scheffler was fit to return to the university.

So, kids – the lesson is this; be a racist all you want, but for goodness’ sake, don’t talk about killing homocidal psychopaths – at least, not in self-defense.

I’m worried that Hamline’s administration isn’t stable enough to trust around kids.

I, along with King, Michael, Ed, Brian, Chad and John, have been doing the Northern Alliance for almost four years.

The downside? We don’t get paid (regularly, anyway – we get the occasional talent fee for appearances and such).

The upside? We don’t get paid. We don’t depend on radio for a living. Of course, none of the other guys ever actually have depended on radio for a living.

I did, for many miserable years. Radio is a funky dichotomy; doing radio in any of its many forms – music, talk, sports, whatever – is just about the most fun thing in the world. But the business itself is just about the skeeziest, most dysfunctional industry there is. The stories I could tell. In fact, I told one: I wrote this about radio, back in 2004:

The industry is a breeding ground for dysfunctional people. It’s no wonder; people usually start in the business at a very impressionable age (late teens, early twenties), when so much of one’s adult personality is formed. It’s a crappy field for people who want to have a life like everyone around them You almost never quit a job; you get fired, for every kind of reason. If you stink on the air, sure, but if your boss is replaced, you can count on the new boss bringing in a clutch of their own people; if your station is sold and the format changes, or just sold, or (these days) goes from being a live to a satellite operation, it’s back to the trades, looking for that next job. As competitive as the field is, it requires monastic dedication not only to advance, but to stay employed. And it draws that dedication – you could call it an addiction, because being on the air is truly addictive. It’s not a recipe for well-rounded human beings.

And I was one of them.

So to sum it up so far – radio is kind of a crazy, ugly, scummy business.

———-

I’ve noted it a million times; when I started in talk radio, in 1985 during the final years of the “Fairness” doctrine of passive-aggressive censorship, talk radio was a fringe player and a very different beast than it is today. After Limbaugh, talk radio went from being an also-ran aimed at bluehairs to a cash cow; when I worked for Hubbard Broadcasting, the AM station was the poor cousin, a property Hubbard tried for 10 years but failed to sell off. When I came back – in 2003, for a one-night fill-in for Bob Davis – the AM station was carrying KS95 and Channel Five, with plenty of money left over.

But for all of that, the business isn’t for everyone. And I’m not just talking about talk show hosts, here.

Some radio stations’ management are distinctly uncomfortable with the flak they take by taking a political stance (even one that is as remunerative as conservative talk). In some cases, management figures “if we can land half of the audience by pissing the other half off, just think of how many would listen to us if we pissed nobody off”. Others just don’t like conservative politics. And for others, criticism stings. For some stations (and the consultants to make a living out of telling stations to try one thing, and then another, and then another, for years and years), it’s just too much; for all that conservative talk pays them, they’re looking for an out.
And when you dip into politics, the audience always yields a bumper crop of criticism – some of it justified, some of it dimwitted and irrational.

———-

Speaking of dimwitted and irrational, some people think I didn’t “fact-check” my story the other day about the firing of Andy Barnett, the morning host at KNSI radio in Saint Cloud (although taking the unvarnished, spin-driven word of a city council candidate does qualify as a “fact”, apparently). They are wrong, as usual. It’s just that there are precious few “facts” to check.

But King Banaian – who knows many of the people involved, whether on the Barnett Show, KNSI’s management, and in Saint Cloud civic politics, knows a thing or two. And here’s the big question:

One is compelled then to ask, did KNSI change its format under duress? What are its intentions to its listeners (of which I am one)?

Duress is a real thing for people who manage small radio stations. KNSI is a tiny station – 1000 watts, high up the dial at 1450 AM. They’re duking it out for the small Saint Cloud/central Minnesota drive-through land audience with WJON, which is sort of the WCCO of Saint Cloud (and is 5000 watts at the much clearer 1240 AM frequency), a station that tries to be all things to all people and, within the context of Saint Cloud, largely succeeded for many years. It’s the sort of thing that, before 1987, would have left KNSI as radio roadkill, broadcasting polkas and community billboards and, with satellite and computer technology becoming ubiquitous and relatively reliable, have led to the station becoming – like so many smaller stations around the country, including my own alma mater – “computer in a closet” stations.
But conservative talk – Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham and Joe Soucheray – have made KNSI a legitimate player and money-maker in Saint Cloud, as well as an audience. And money. Things that precious few 1000 watt stations in metro areas – and Saint Cloud qualifies – have these days.

But as King notes, KNSI’s owner – Leighton Broadcasting – has been uncomfortable with the label that goes along with the format:

• In April, Pscymeistr reported on the newspaper’s criticism of Steve Gottwalt, in which the local newspaper referred to KNSI as “KGOP.” (The article is down, as is the comment stream, but Leo has captured most of what’s written.)
• In July, state Senator Tarryl Clark stops by the station and inter alia informs talk show host Andy Barnett that she is not interviewing on his show any more because “is not comfortable doing opinion based entertainment talk shows.”
• Over the summer, according to sources, the station has been advised by a consultant, and the talk show — the only weekday local programming on the station — underwent several changes at the behest of management. When I guest-hosted on the show in October I saw the new “clock” or hourly chart you follow to know when to do sports, news, commercials, etc. It was very different from what I had seen before. “Why?” I asked Andy. He indicated this was management-inspired.
• There has been criticism of Barnett’s parodies, and those had created some criticism from mostly liberals.

Politicians throwing their weight around.

Consultants with background in the controversy-averse music radio business (i.e. – not the faintest clue about how talk radio works) trying to turn the station into a music station without the music.

The signs, according to King, were there.

Which doesn’t mean Barnett didn’t screw up…:

This should not be construed that I think the station had no right to fire Barnett. It can do what it wants as long as it’s not agreed to not censor Barnett through its contract with him; I agree with most that I do not think I would have fired someone for asking those questions (you can hear what was said by listening to this audio on Andy’s site and decide for yourself.)

Indeed, the question that sent Langjoen into her sullen tantrum was pretty standard talk radio fare; perhaps not really literally germane to a Saint Cloud City Council election, but also the kind of “litmus test” question that will matter to a large chunk of KSNI’s listening audience who – lest you’ve forgotten – come to the station largely for conservative opinion.

Stations have the right to do whatever they want with their format and staff (subject to the contracts they sign); having been fired at four different stations – never for cause, always due to the vicissitudes of management – I’m here to testify. I wish Barnett well.

The interesting remaining question; is Leighton Broadcasting losing its stomach for being a conservative lightning rod, and duking it out with intellectual thugs like Taryll Clark? Time will tell.
But it’d be a shame.

You’ve heard of Scott Beauchamp – the soldier who, as “Scott Thomas”, accused his fellow soldiers of a wholly-fictitious chain of atrocities, with the active connivance of the New Republic.

I’m not quite sure what I expected of Beauchammp – who was the subject of a fairly spirited Army investigation after his identity was revealed.

But I’ll admit that this was just about the last thing I expected:

I was at a reconciliation meeting between Sunni and Shia in the West Rashid district of Baghdad on 24 October, and it happened by complete coincidence that I was with Beauchamp’s battalion. In fact, I was with his old company commander for much of the day, although I had no idea for most of it that I was with Beauchamp’s old company commander.

At the reconciliation meeting, Beauchamp’s battalion commander, LTC George Glaze, politely introduced himself and asked who I wrote for. When I replied that I just have a little blog, the word caught his ears and he mentioned Beauchamp, who I acknowledged having heard something about. LTC Glaze seemed protective of Beauchamp, despite how the young soldier had maligned his fellow soldiers. In fact, the commander said Beauchamp, having learned his lesson, was given the chance to leave or stay…Lapses of judgment are bound to happen, and accountability is critical, but that’s not the same thing as pulling out the hanging rope every time a soldier makes a mistake.

Beauchamp is young; under pressure he made a dumb mistake. In fact, he has not always been an ideal soldier. But to his credit, the young soldier decided to stay, and he is serving tonight in a dangerous part of Baghdad. He might well be seriously injured or killed here, and he knows it. He could have quit, but he did not. He faced his peers. I can only imagine the cold shoulders, and worse, he must have gotten. He could have left the unit, but LTC Glaze told me that Beauchamp wanted to stay and make it right. Whatever price he has to pay, he is paying it.

So I’ll give what little credit I have to give, where it’s due.   

LTC Glaze wants to keep Beauchamp, and hopes folks will let it rest. I’m with LTC Glaze on this: it’s time to let Beauchamp get back to the war. The young soldier learned his lessons. He paid enough to earn his second chance that he must know he will never get a third.

I think a lot of people might be persuaded to take back some of the things they said about Beauchamp. 

As to the New Republic, though… 

…some on the staff may feel like they’ve been hounded and treed, but it’s hard to feel the same sympathy for a group of cowards who won’t ’fess up and can’t face the scorn of American combat soldiers who were injured by their collective lapse of judgment. It’s up to their readers to decide the ultimate fate.

The New Republic treed like a bandit . . . personally, I think they would make a nice Daniel Boone hat.

Now, them,  I can criticize.

In Sunday’s column, Lori Sturdevant recites about eight column inches of party line about former State Rep. and current Taxpayers’ League president Phil Krinkie (“ironically”, exactly the same line that certain other lefty pundits are spouting) – and, by way of noting that she and Krinkie are college classmates, notes that she actually troubled herself to talk with Krinkie about the spin.

And she says:

Notice how much more reasonable a zealot can sound when chatting with an old classmate than when performing on the stump?

No, Lori.  We notice how much more reasonable a reasonable person like Phil Krinkie sounds when his words aren’t filtered through a zealot disguised as a “gatekeeper” like yourself.

Read it yourself.  Make up your own mind.

That might make Lori Sturdevant cry, but life’ll kill ya, won’t it?

U of Delaware forces students into a coercive PC indoctrination program:

The University of Delaware subjects students in its residence halls to a shocking program of ideological reeducation that is referred to in the university’s own materials as a “treatment” for students’ incorrect attitudes and beliefs. The Orwellian program requires the approximately 7,000 students in Delaware’s residence halls to adopt highly specific university-approved views on issues ranging from politics to race, sexuality, sociology, moral philosophy, and environmentalism.

Let’s assume for the moment that those university-approved views were that “racism is a dead issue, gays should be accepted but there are issues with gay marriage, that all moral and political systems are not created equal and that America has ample reason to be proud, and we should await actual empirical proof that human activity has anything to do with global warming before we hand the keys of our economic engine over to the boobs at the UN” – do you suppose these people, pollyannaish as they are about conservative kids being indoctrinated, would take it sitting down?

Oh, relax. Those, naturally, aren’t the views at hand.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) is calling for the total dismantling of the program, which is a flagrant violation of students’ rights to freedom of conscience and freedom from compelled speech.

Keep your fingers crossed.

Greg Lukianoff of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education talked about the whole sordid episde on the Ben Gleck show. It’d be funny if it weren’t everywhere.

Oh, they abandoned it.  Musta been all that unsubstantiable whining.

Rendition, the star-clogged exercise in anti-Administration paranoia, is getting waterboarded at the box office.

Perhaps the production team should be secretly loaded on a plane for Oman:

It’s not easy to make a dull film when your central components include terrorism, torture, secret CIA operations and contempo Middle East intrigue, but Gavin Hood has done it with “Rendition.” By underplaying the melodrama in the presumed hope of seeming subtle when Kelley Sane’s script is so baldly melodramatic, the “Tsotsi” helmer drains the life out of an obviously explosive subject…The CIA’s sliver of evidence against [Reese Witherspoon’s Egytian-born hubby] is records of a few cell phone calls to him from someone who may only coincidentally have the same name as a known terrorist. But that’s enough for the CIA’s terrorism guru (Meryl Streep, brandishing a slight Southern accent and too-obvious negative commentary about her nasty character) to have Anwar “put on a plane” and officially become a missing person.

Who do these people think they are, Michael Moore?

(Via Kouba @ TvM)

Oh, woe is we:

Well, well, well … 166,000 new jobs. Twice the consensus view. Did somebody say Goldilocks? Did somebody say the greatest story never told?

Silly Larry.  That’s what gatekeepers are for.  If this news actually got out, Democrats’d have to work to get elected.

Here’s the key point: Outside the struggling financial and consumer discretionary sectors, the economy is firing on all cylinders. Economy-wide profits are up a smoldering 15 percent in the third quarter when you remove these two laggards. And in addition to today’s robust, expansionary jobs number, GDP blew away forecasts earlier this week, coming in a hair shy of 4 percent. (For the record, this represents the biggest back-to-back quarterly gain in four years.) This means healthy American businesses are generating jobs. Meanwhile, hardworking American workers are out there spending money, with real, disposable, after-tax, after-inflation income running around 4 percent — a big number.

I’ll await the DFLer claims that raising taxes would make things ever better.

It was Wednesday, November 4, 1987.

The U2 concert I’d waited for in line for hours to get tickets for had finally arrived.

Fact is, I only remember so much of the show; it was chilly out; it was dark when I arrived at the show; the girl I’d asked to come to the show – someone I’d met at a B. Dalton bookstore in Maplewood and had been talking with for a few weeks – had bowed out the day before, so I’d sold my extra ticket to a friend of a friend.

I walked into the old Saint Paul Civic Center, and found my seat; it was the seat on the far right of the first row of bleachers, in the section closest to the walkway between the stage-left side of the stage, probably six feet from the stage itself.

The BoDeans came onstage first; Rolling Stone had been raving about them for months (they were going to be voted “Best New Band of 1987” in a few months), but I’d found their single “She’s a Runaway” dreary and irritating; I expected the worst…

…and was surprised that I actually liked ’em a lot.

After the BoDeans’ set, I hunkered down for the long grind as the stagehands turned the stage around for the headliner. My seat was elevated a few feet above the floor, so I had a pretty decent view of the audience. The thing that struck me about the sell-out crowd was that there were so many people waving signs. Now, this isn’t unusual in and of itself; all sorts of people waved signs around at concerts. Most of them involved trying to get the singer’s attention; I remember all sorts of signs from real and imagined “Jersey Girls” at the Springsteen concert I’d attended in ’84, before Julianne Phillips pretty well gutted that fantasy.

But the signs at the U2 gig were…serious. Air-from-the-room-suckingly serious. I suppose we just accept today that U2, or at least Bono, are as much a social advocacy group as a rock band, but it was still kind of new back then.

So the auditorium was sprinkled with signs condemning apartheid, calling for a freeze on the homeless and food and housing for nuclear weapons (or something), bashing Reagan (some things never change).

The one that I remember? At the front of a block of seats on the floor sat a couple of girls in impeccable punk-chic; perfect hair, impeccably-scrubbed, they looked like Saint Thomas kids. Not victims by any stretch. They carried a banner between them; “I Shall Be Released”.

I tired of watching the crowd, eventually, and turned to the stagehands and the contortions they were going through to get the stage ready for the show. U2’s later tours – especially “Pop” – were famous for the campily excessive staging, so it’s easy to forget that the Joshua Tree tour brought (as I recall) the biggest light rig that had ever been stuffed into the Saint Paul Civic Center; huge trusses of fresnels and leakos hung over the stage, while the mezzanine was ringed with follow spots. As the stage itself came together, a group of guys – six or eight – climbed up chain ladders into the huge truss hanging over the stage, looking not a little like sailors manning the rigging of a man o’ war of the sail age, to work follow spots right above the set.

Eventually – I think it took nearly 90 minutes to clean up the BoDeans gear and set up for the headliner – the lights dropped, and (after another long delay) the long-familiar synth line from “Where The Streets” have no name started over the speakers. I looked up and to my right. Adam Clayton walked out, carrying a maroon Fender P-Bass (or a Jazz. I don’t remember). Then Edge started the tinkly guitar part (with a gorgeous cream-white Les Paul)…

…and they threw a concert.

The rest of the setlist, I had to get online:

1. I Will Follow,
2. Trip Through Your Wires,
3. I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For (which had a snippet of “Exodus” in it)
4. MLK,
5. Gloria (always my favorite U2 song, it didn’t disappoint)
6. Spanish Eyes,
7. Sunday Bloody Sunday,
8. Exit (Bono inserted a bit of “Riders on the Storm”, which spoiled that song for me forever more)
9. Silver And Gold,
10. In God’s Country,
11. People Get Ready,
12. Bad (Bono slipped in bits of “Ruby Tuesday” – which he kept in the song for probably a generation – and “Street Fighting Man”)
13. October,
14. New Year’s Day,
15. Pride (In The Name Of Love)

And then the encore, with:

1. Bullet The Blue Sky,
2. Running To Stand Still,
3. With Or Without You,
4. 40

And that, as they say, was all she wrote. The band looked tired. The show looked like it’d been done to death (and indeed the Saint Paul show was toward the end of a very long tour). But it was U2, for crying out loud.

It was freezing as I walked up Cathedral Hill, looking at the green-rusted dome of the Cathedral.

Speaking of radio…

Up in Saint Cloud, Andy Barnett – host of the excellent “Hot Talk” morning show – was fired for holding a liberal politician’s feet in the fire asking a liberal politician about her stance on abortion.

Leo from Psycmeister’s Ice Palace, a St. Cloud resident and one of Minnesota’s better bloggers, has the story:

If you can’t beat them, silence them.

Andy Barnett, of KNSI-AM 1450’s morning show, Hot Talk, has been fired.

I listened this morning to Barnett’s interviews of two St. Cloud City Council Ward 3 candidates, John Libert, and Karen J. Langsjoen.

Langsjoen displayed her mean spiritedness right off the bat when Barnett mispronounced her name (well, who the hell wouldn’t?)

(A radio host who’d done all of his homework in a heavily Scandinavian area, replies the Norwegian-American blogger. But then, if everyone on the air who flubbed a name got fired, Hugh Hewitt would be working at a Burger King in Pomona)

Langsjoen, whom one could tell is as liberal as the year is long, took great umbrage with Barnett’s quizzing both her and Libert on their stances regarding the sanctity of life.

To put it mildly, Langsjoen had a cow, saying that Barnett had no call to question city council candidates on their stance toward abortion.

Barnett countered that it was indeed relevant on a number of levels; including the notion that many of KNSI’s conservative listeners (yes, KNSI is a station heavily geared toward conservatives) would assess the pro-life stance of candidates as a barometer of the candidate’s character; additionally, Barnett brought up the fact that the Council may have to choose city employees’ health plans, and voters may be interested as to whether Langsjoen would approve a plan that paid for abortions, and/or domestic partnerships (read: Gay civil unions)

What a concept – candidates actually being asked tough questions, and, in a relatively conservative area like Saint Cloud (outside the University) in an interview MCed by an overt conservative, being asked questions that matter to the right.

Immediately following the interview, Langsjoen apparently stormed into the offices and threw what could be described as a whiny hissy fit to Leighton Broadcasting ‘s general manager John Sawada, who, after reportedly apologizing to Langsjoen up and down, fired Barnett.

First of all at the start of the interview, Langsjoen had stated that she “always was interested in getting into politics.”

Word to Langsjoen: If you can’t take the heat, get the hell out of the kitchen.

Radio’s an ugly business. I’d be interested in hearing Leighton Broadcasting’s rationale for this firing; it seems on the surface to be simple caving in to political pressure.

Which is nothing new in the world of radio.

But caving in to some pissant City Council candidate?

Read Leo’s piece for the rest of the details; expect more from the rest of the St. Cloud area blog community.

Today on the Northern Alliance Radio Network:

• Volume I “The First Team” – John, Brian and Chad – will shoo the Stroms from the studio and kick things off from 11-1.
• Volume II “The Headliner” – Ed and I will be in next, from 1-3.
• Volume III, “The Final Word” – King and Michael will talk Minnesota trash after that until 5PM.

So join us on the Northern Alliance Radio Network, 11AM-5PM Central on AM1280 The Patriot, and at Townhall.com!

Over at AM1280’s sister station KKMS (“AM980 The Believer”), the Jeff and Lee show will be talking this afternoon with Georges Sada, a former general in Hussein’s Iraqi army, about his allegations – which are story non grata in the mainstream media – that Hussein’s WMD program was far more advanced than conventional wisdom currently holds, and that the evidence was smuggled to Syria.

Sada is on a spin through the area promoting his new book on the subject.

Tune in, call up!

Right, of course.

Imus is back,  and it’s pretty much as I predicted.

It was on this date 118 years ago that North Dakota was admitted to the union.  (South Dakota, too, but, like, who cares?)

There are things I miss about the place; the dry air; the feeling you get driving at night down the highway with stars above you and farm lights around you, that you’re in the middle of outer space; above all, the sky.  Writer Kathleen Norris, in her classic Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, describes meeting a young girl at a school at Minot Air Force Base, a girl who’d lived all over the world in her young life, and who was especially smitten by the sky, describing it as “…big and blue and full of the mind of God”. 

(Photo by Sheila) 

The girl was onto something.

I think it takes someone from elsewhere to really appreciate the place, in a lot of ways.  And Sheila wrote perhaps the best proof of that idea, a while back, above a trip across the state(s):

For a brief whooshing moment, everything went still. The wind stopped. As though a giant hand had turned off the wind machine. Hush. A sudden alarming hush fell over the land. My boyfriend and I both stopped, feeling the change. We paused … holding our breath …

We were having the time of our lives. We were watching the storm unfold as though it was the best movie we had ever seen. We kept looking at each other, wordlessly, like: hoooly shiiiiit …

Silence covered the plains (this was the real calm before the storm, turns out – when everything came to a sudden sharp stop … took a breath … and then the heavens opened up) … and in that silence, we heard a sound. Something that, to be honest, I’ve only heard in movies.

The thundering sound of horses hooves … galloping horses … the galloping sound of MANY horses …

It has got to be one of the most exciting sounds I’ve ever heard in my life. Even though I’ve only heard that sound in movies, when it came to my ears, there was a rush of familiarity, and love, and knowing: Yes. That is that sound. I know that sound. Something in my DNA knows that sound intimately. It was thrilling.

Yeah.

Happy Birthday, NoDak.

(And you too, SoDak).

Sue Jeffers is not amused by T-Paw’s slip to the left:

OK Governor Pawlenty, we know you have jumped on the green band wagon. We got it.

 

We knew it with E-85, we knew it at the Governor’s Convention, we knew it with the Renewable Energy Bill, and we knew it with the Global Warming Mitigation Act. We heard you say loud and clear that global warming is “a huge and defining issue of our time.” We got it.

And it’s not just idle political chatter:

The cost to anyone who uses energy will be staggering.Conveniently ignoring the fact that there is nothing Minnesota could reasonably do which would noticeably impact the climate. In fact there is no proof that these proposals will affect global warming, positive or negative, even if every state in the nation, and every country in the world, adopted them.

I acknowledge that perfect is the enemy of good enough.  As a conservative, I’m keenly aware that politics is about crafting the most advantageous compromise you can manage.  Stomping ones’ feet and threatening to take your toys and go home if you can’t get a perfectly-conservative-enough candidate is a sign of immaturity, at least when it comes to making your politics matter in the real world. 

Still, our role is to push the conversation to the right.  And there’s a fair case to be made that TPaw needs that push. 

And Sue is pushing.

So Governor, hear this Conservative loud and clear: the defining moment will be when you find your backbone and lead and govern using conservative principles instead of supporting yet another invented liberal crisis. It would be much more effective if on your trip to the Arctic you would scope out the terrain and figure out the best spot to put the drilling rigs.

Strommie’s not thrilled either.