I guess the winter makes you laugh a little slower,
Makes you talk a little lower about the things you could not show

Bogus Doug is blogging again.

Welcome back, Doug!

(Via Tracy)

I wasn’t able to post about this before the fact, but Ed Morrissey was gracious enough to have me on the “Heading Right Radio” show on  BlogTalkRadio today, discussing the Year in Review with Patterico.

The podcast should be up and going; check ‘er out.  And if I sound cold – well, I did most of the show standing on a plaza above the Mississippi River.  You’d be amazed how hard it is to find a place downtown that’s quiet, free of co-workers, where a guy can use his radio voice, and is warm.  I had to settle for three out of four.  And the feeling is just now returning to my hands.

Anyway – check ‘er out!

It was Thursday, December 31st, 1987. 

I was working at “Jams” in Brooklin Center again.  My boss, the spiky-haired guy at the DJ service, said they – especially Scowly, the manager – loved me out there. 

It was wet and sloppy out, and I had a miserable cold; sinus congestion, hacking my lungs out, brutal headache.   Barely functional.  But I needed the money real bad, and the DJ service was desperately short of jocks.

So off to the bar I drove, around 7:00.  I had not much better to do that night.  Wyatt was going to a New Years party with Teresa; Chris was packing up to move. 

I celebrated with one of Jams’ burger baskets – happy new year to me! – before I started turning on the gear.

The good news; one of the bartenders took pity on my state.  He brought me a shot of Jeszynowka – a brand of Polish blackberry brandy made from (this is important) blackberries (as opposed to grain alcohol with “blackberry” syrup).  “Best decongestant and cough syrup ever made”, he said.  And danged if it didn’t work.  Or at least if it didn’t feel like it’d worked.  I had another, just to be sure.

My condition aside, it was a great evening.  The bar – not a big place, mind you – was packed to the gills.  The DJ booth – a square formica “bar” with maybe twelve square feet of space – was an oasis of elbow room. 

And the dance floor was packed – the first time I’d ever had that happen in almost a whole week of being a club jock. 

Scowly really liked me.

———-

The bartender who’d sicced me on the Jeszynowkia – “Tom” was his name – was a genial, stoner kind of guy.  He invited me to a party at one of the bowling alley managers’ places after closing time.  It was just up the street, in Brooklyn Center.

I got there – a tiny post-war prefab just north of 100 and Shingle Creek – around 1:30 AM.  It was almost as crowded as the bar had been.  The air was blue-green with cigarette and pot smoke.  The first keg of the evening was starting to sputter, as someone started tapping #2.  I knew nobody – Tom the bartender never showed up.  Nobody knew me.  A couple was arguing in the corner.  I struck up a conversation about the Vikings with someone who asked me if I was working hard, or hardly working.  I left around 2:15. 

I have to get out of this racket, I thought as I picked my way through the icy streets back to I94.

———-

I got home around 2:40 or so.  The tart tang of pot smoke covered the smell of male cat spray, finally.  Wyatt was in the kitchen making some scrambled eggs, with a borderline-chubby, late-teen/early-twentysomething girl.  Not Teresa.

“Hey!  This is Ann!”

I waved “hi” as I went up to my room, locking it behind me.  I reached into the closet, under a pile of dirty laundry, and grabbed a plastic water jug with a couple of inches of cheap gin in the bottom – where I’d been hiding it from Wyatt – and poured a couple of fingers into a plastic mug on my nightstand. 

I carefully hid the jug again, and sat at my desk, pushed up against the wall by the window across from my bed, and slowly sipped the gin as I looked out on the street, the streetlamp shining with crystalline intensity in the frigid night air.  I caught the faint whiff of the slowly-dissipating funk of male cat spray over the cheap-gin aroma as I put my feet up on the desktop, and took a long drag as Wyatt’s headboard started to bang against the wall.

Happy Friggin’ New Year, I thought, hoping this’d be the last one like this.

Yep.  Last one like this.  1988’s gonna be my year.

Michael Bloomberg is pondering entering the race:

Buoyed by the still unsettled field, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is growing increasingly enchanted with the idea of an independent presidential bid, and his aides are aggressively laying the groundwork for him to run.

I’m inclined to support him on principle.

No, not for President.  Just as a candidate.  He’ll soak up ten Democrat votes for every Republican vote he lands.

Go, Mike!

Ed and I talked about this theory with Joel Rosenberg on the NARN show the other day – and since Joel mentioned it on his blog yesterday, I figured I’d elaborate. 

I’ve been talking with some lawyer friends of mine about the Treptow case. By no means can I take credit for all of the reasoning (or, heh heh, legal literacy) below. I will, however, claim to be the first person to consolidate all of this info and publish it.

Here are the facts as we know them, with some law-based asides interspersed:

1. Martin “Scott” Treptow, in an SUV with his pregnant wife and two small children, and Robbinsdale Police officer Landen Beard, in a sporty little red car, exchanged gestures, words, and aggressive maneuvering. Pesky Legal Point: By continuing to drive, he established that he was not a willing participant in the altercation.
2. Treptow pulls up to a stoplight – behind another car, in the right lane.
3. Beard pulls up next to him, on the right. Pesky Legal Point: At this point, Treptow was reasonably unable to disengage any further.
4. Words are exchanged. What words? Again, we’re not entirely sure, but more on that later.
5. Someone pulls a gun. Who drew first – Treptow, in his SUV full of kids, boxed in at a stoplight, or Landen Beard? We don’t know – not officially. More below. We do know that Martin Treptow’s story – that Beard boxed Treptow in at the stoplight, unable to move, threatened Treptow, and then drew a gun and pointed it at the pregnant Rebecca Treptow – has stayed consistent from the first 911 call. Pesky Legal Point: assuming Treptow’s version of the incident is correct, that would constitute a “threat of death or great bodily harm” that a jury would find compelling. – if they had to hear about it.  But they don’t.  Because Treptow won’t be defending himself against any sort of Assault or Attempted Murder charge, where he’d have to prove self-defense at all.
6. Martin Treptow fired three shots, wounding Beard about as superficially as is possible under the circumstances. Pesky Legal Point: Self-defense with lethal force requires that the force used be “reasonable”. You can’t spray fire indiscriminately; you can’t shoot your target when he’s down and incapacitated.   Again, irrelevant, since Treptow won’t need to defend his claim of self-defense.
7. Rebecca Treptow called 911 on her cell phone as her husband drove to a convenience store and reported the shooting, apparently not knowing that Beard was an undercover cop. Pesky Legal Point: this is necessary; one may not “shoot in self-defense” and then just let the chips fall. Indeed, the record shows that Rebecca Treptow was the first person to call 911 about the incident.
8. Police responded – told at first that Treptow was the “victim” defending himself against a road-rager, and then that Beard was a cop and Treptow was a suspect.
9. Treptow was arrested, and taken to the Anoka County jail, where…
10. …the next day, he was released. No arraignment, no charges. He didn’t even have his Concealed Carry permit revoked – which would have taken the Anoka sheriff five minutes, and is basically pro forma in cases when there’s the faintest doubt. Which – after a day of interviewing witnesses, there apparently was not. Inconvenient Legal Point: At this point, the Anoka County Attorney could have charged Treptow with whatever charges applied, had Treptow’s claim of self-defense not stood up (i.e, not met the four criteria for self-defense – that he was an unwilling participant, and that he reasonably feared death or great bodily harm, made reasonable efforts to disengage, and that he used reasonable force. The charge would have been something involving violence against a person; assault, aggravated assault, assault with a deadly weapon, attempted murder.
11. Months later, Anoka County convenes a Grand Jury. Legal Point: the Grand Jury only hears the prosecution’s side of the story; no defense is offered; Treptow didn’t even have an attorney available to him. And the Grand Jury refused to bring any of the big charges – the various flavors of assault or attempted murder, the kind one would expect from a wrongful claim of self-defense -against Treptow. Rather, they brought three charges that were…well, we’ll get to that below.

The Grand Jury, while refusing to indict Treptow for any type of Assault or Attempted Murder, did return three indictments:

• Drive by shooting. MS 609.66 subd 1e(b)
• Reckless discharge in municipality sub 1a(3)
• Terroristic threats. 609.713 sub (1)

Let’s look into these.

Remember – a defendant in the United States is innocent until proven guilty. And the prosecutor has to prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt every “element” of the offense to get the conviction. The defense has to provide one (or better yet, twelve) jurors a “reasonable doubt” of any of the elements of the charge to get the acquittal.

And – and this is important – as I understand it, none of the charges in the indictment has a “lesser included” charge; for example, if someone is charged with First Degree Murder, and a jury doesn’t find that the prosecution met the burden of proof for First Degree, but did for Second Degree murder, the jury can vote to acquit for First Degree, but convict for the “lesser included” charge of Second Degree Murder. But the jury may not vote to acquit Treptow of “Drive-By Shooting”, but convict for the lesser-included charge of, say, “Reckless Driving”, because it doesn’t exist; the “Drive By Shooting” indictment has no lesser included offenses. (Lawyers – so far, so good?). Ditto for the other two charges; the jury has to find Treptow guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of every element of the other charges, or…nothing. They can’t unilaterally ratchet the charges down to something else.

Let’s look at the first charge, “Drive By Shooting”, (MS 609.66 sub 1e). The ordinance says (with emphasis added):

Subd. 1e. Felony; drive-by shooting. (a) Whoever, while in or having just exited from a motor vehicle, recklessly discharges a firearm at or toward another motor vehicle or a building is guilty of a felony and may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than three years or to payment of a fine of not more than $6,000, or both.

(b) Any person who violates this subdivision by firing at or toward a person, or an occupied building or motor vehicle, may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than ten years or to payment of a fine of not more than $20,000, or both.

The prosecutor needs to prove each of the following beyond a reasonable doubt:

1. That Treptow was in a motor vehicle. Nobody argues this: Treptow’s admitted as much.
2. That while in the motor vehicle Treptow discharged a firearm. Again, no argument.
3. That the discharge of the firearm was reckless. Fussy Pointillistic Legal Point: And there’s your reasonable doubt. Treptow was responding to a legitimate fear of death or great bodily harm, while an unwilling participant in the incident, while using force that was apparently reasonable enough that the Grand Jury refused to indict for assault. Under those conditions, self-defense is a right – and had Treptow acted “recklessly”, there’d be no legitimate claim to self-defense.  Had there been the faintest hint of “recklessness”, Treptow would have been charged with some flavor of Assault or Attempted Murder, probably before being released from jail last June.  He would not  have been released uncharged, without bail, and with his carry permit un-suspended.
4. That the reckless discharge of the firearm from the motor vehicle was towards an occupied motor vehicle. Hypothetical Legal Point: Although the defense counsel can argue in the alternative – sort of a legal, rhetorical “I’m not saying, but…what if” defense – that Treptow wasn’t trying to shoot toward an occupied car, in theory…well, you see how this works, right?

So – how about “Reckless Discharge of a Firearm”? Again – if the prosecutor can’t prove “reckless” behavior for the Drive-By Shooting charge, the same should go for this count. In State v. Richardson, 670 N.W.2d 267, 283 (Minn. 2003) , the Minnesota Supreme Court has said “reckless discharge of a firearm . . . requires proof that the defendant intentionally discharged a weapon in a municipality in a manner that the defendant should have known created an unreasonable risk of harm to others.” Legal Point: Self-defense – especially the whole “force used was reasonable” bit – should take care of that “unreasonable risk of harm to others” bit.  Remember – had the force Treptow used not been “reasonable”, he’d have been charged for it months ago.

Onward to the Terroristic Threat charge.

Subdivision 1. Threaten violence; intent to terrorize. Whoever threatens, directly or indirectly, to commit any crime of violence with purpose to terrorize another or to cause evacuation of a building, place of assembly, vehicle or facility of public transportation or otherwise to cause serious public inconvenience, or in a reckless disregard of the risk of causing such terror or inconvenience may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than five years or to payment of a fine of not more than $10,000, or both. As used in this subdivision, “crime of violence” has the meaning given “violent crime” in section 609.1095, subdivision 1, paragraph (d).

Let’s break it down:

• A person threatens directly or indirectly to commit a crime of violence
• The threat has the purpose of terrorizing another

This one boils down to one question; can the prosecutor prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Treptow threatened, directly or indirectly, to commit a crime of violence, for the purposes of terrorizing Landen Beard?

Before you answer that, remember – self-defense is not a crime. (Assault is – but Treptow isn’t on trial for that. The Grand Jury refused to return that indictment).  And then there’s the little matter of “what will the eyewitnesses say?”.  And while nothing official (beyond the 911 transcripts) is known about the eyewitness accounts, rumor has it that one or more eyewitnesses pretty completely corroborate Treptow, and impugn Officer Beard.

Now, the Anoka DA knows this. They KNOW they have a crappy case against Treptow.

So why bring it?

So here’s a theory for you; the Anoka County Attorney brought the three indictments against Treptow as a dog and pony show to cover the county’s ass from:

1. the civil action that Martin Treptow will bring against (at least) the Robbinsdale PD when he’s acquitted on all charges.
2. the administrative action that Robbinsdale might eventually bring against Officer Beard – which, procedurally, it can not bring until all court action is resolved (because the administrative action against Beard depends in part on the outcome of the court cases).

As to Officer Beard’s indictment for Terroristic Threats – well, there’s some other info out there that’ll come out at trial, assuming the case isn’t dismissed. Stay tuned; the legal maneuvering could get REALLY interesting.

Anoka County’s actions so far – the Grand Jury, the (arguably) potemkin indictments combined with the Grand Jury’s *refusal* to indict for any type of assault or attempted murder – might tend to indicate that the county is punching its procedural tickets, to…:

• keep the county attorney from looking like he’s selling a cop down the river
• help shield Anoka County (and, maybe, Robbinsdale) from civil litigation after the criminal cases are resolved.

So to sum up: Anoka County, under pressure to do something about the case, brings three indictments against Treptow that pretty much any lawyer can see will be relative cakewalks to win in court. It’s a CYA exercise, whose denouement won’t take place in a courtroom.

At least, not a criminal one.

PS:  Again, the Treptow Defense Fund:

Martin and Rebecca Treptow
Anoka Hennepin Credit Union,
3505 Northdale Blvd. N.W.
Coon Rapids, MN 55448.

David Warren takes an oblique look back at ’07:

The journalist’s prayer, at the end of each year, should be, “I don’t know what happened in the year just passed, and I won’t know what is happening next year. Lord preserve me from the smugness of those who think they know, and help me to see thy truth.”

So go there and read the whole thing.

Last year, I made the big mistake of posting my “resolutions” – which weren’t resolutions at all, since I don’t do them; they were goals – in this space.

Or was it a mistake?

Let’s look back (answers in blue):

1. I’m in vastly better shape than I was a year ago. Now is no time to backslide; joining the “Y” (for the kids and I) in about two weeks (Did it!)
2. In a similar vein, now that I’m working in downtown, I will be well able to bike to work when the weather improves, especially in the summer (when I don’t have to drive kids to school and I can get as early a start as I want). That’s the goal for the summer; bike it to work every day weather permits. (I did it, and it was very successful More below).
3. My daughter has had a blinding flash of epiphany re school in this past three months. Need to facilitate my son’s having the same thing (It’s just gotten better for my daughter – it’s been a great year for Bun. She really bloomed at school, and in her summer job. Still working on Zam, but there’s early promise.).
4. My house is the next priority. Going to improve the overall level of housekeeping quite a bit. Even if I have to pay for the help. (OK, not everything can be a raging success. Things improved incrementally, though. It’s an “opportunity” for ’08)
5. Also re the house – I’m going to build that patio I’ve been yammering about for the past two years. (Ummmm…
   
   Will work on it this summer)
6. In many ways, the job I have now is the one I’ve been hoping to find ever since I left StorageTek in 2000; I am, at least nominally, in a leadership position. I’m going to make the most of that in the coming year. (So far so good)
7. The blog – there are a number of things I’ve been dying to do with this blog as it approaches its fifth anniversary, in about a month. More later (Ditto).
8. Also – after nine months of thinking about it, I’m going to try to get my podcast site finally up and on the air in the coming weeks. There’s a technical issue I have to work out – but it’s finally doable (Life is what happens when you’re making other plans, sometimes).
9. As re the NARN – well, the status quo isn’t half bad. We’re starting to see how well the show’s actually been doing; continuing to clobber the competition in head-to-head radio combat. Next year will bring even more fun stuff (Very true!).

OK, so on to the goals for ’08:

1. The bike thing: Start earlier. Indeed, try to start biking to work this spring, before school lets out for the summer, and try to continue after school starts in the fall, to extend my biking season ideally from April through October.  (Alternate option:  gain a LOT of weight, so I can easily conceal an S&W Model 29 or an M1911A1 or something.  Health vs. Firepower…firepower vs. health…oh, screw it, I’ll take the health).
2. That’s gonna involve the Great White Whale of my personal life; getting my kids to get up and reliably get their own butts to school in the morning. It’s going to take some work.
3. Continue Bun’s great success in school. It’s been a huge, and gratifying, turnaround for her.
4. Get Zam to turn the corner.
5. Work hard on enacting True North’s goals for the year – of which much more later.
6. Find the next step for the NARN, and take it. That mostly involves listening for that banging sound, and figuring it’s opportunity rather than just kids leaving bags of burning poop.

So anyway – all the best to all of you!

Stephen Kaus writes that rarest of things – something at the Huffpo that’s worth reading.

Here – Hillary’s shot at bucking the 22nd Amendment (I’ve added emphasis):

The more Hillary tries to use Bill’s presidency as experience, the more we feel like it is the same old, same old and the closer it approaches the 22nd Amendment [which codified the two-term limit] situation, as Ann Althouse points out at the end of this clip. The idea that we have had enough of the Clintons and the Bushes is deeply rooted in our feelings about government. If Hillary had left Bill and were striking out on her own, we would feel less this way, but that is not what she is doing. She is campaigning for a third term while invoking executive privilege as to what she did during the first two.

Worth a read.

Joel Rosenberg and I had an interesting time talking about the Treptow case on the show today. And I don’t mean “interesting” in the classical Hindu sense of the term, either.

Expect much more coverage on this blog over the next few months; this case isn’t going to get any less interesting, that’s for sure.

As I promised on the air, here’s the address to help out the Treptow defense fund.  While my opinion of Treptow’s legal position has changed very much for the better in the past few days, there’s no way around the fact that defending oneself against a felony charge is expensive.  If you have a post-holiday buck or two to share…:

Martin and Rebecca Treptow
Anoka Hennepin Credit Union,
3505 Northdale Blvd. N.W.
Coon Rapids, MN 55448.

Stay tuned, natch.

Today on the Northern Alliance Radio Network: 

• Volume I “The First Team” – John, Brian and Chad – will kick things off from 11-1.  No idea, as this is written, what they’re going to talk about, but I’m going to guess it’ll involve Loons and Gatekeepers.  Finding out is half the adventure.
• Volume II “The Headliner” – Ed and I follow, from 1-3.  It’s been a jam-packed news week; expect talk about New Hampshire, Pakistan, and Anoka (we hope to interview a special guest regarding the Treptow/Beard case, although as this is written nothing is confirmed yet).
• Volume III, “The Final Word” – King and Michael will talk Minnesota trash after that until 5PM.

So tune in to all six hours of the Northern Alliance Radio Network, the Twin Cities’ media’s sole guardians of sanity.  On the air at AM1280 in the Metro, or streaming at AM1280’s Website, or via podcast at Townhall.

(Along with the Stroms, from 9-11, natch). 

Conservative talk show featuring the cream of the local blogging crop – including bloggers that’ve brought down two governments (Jean Chretien and Dan Rather) not only goes on the air, but lasts nearly four years (and counting, knock wood), kicks ratings ass, and draws 20,000 podcast downloads a week?

The Strib’s never heard of us.

Put a one-hour show promoting atheism on Sunday mornings on an also-ran “liberal” station that’s been circling the drain since it went on the air?

The Strib is right there.

Sorta like the time the Today show did a five minute interview (“The left’s answer to Rush Limbaugh!”) with Fast Eddie Schultz, when he had a “network” of six stations, five of them in markets like Lisbon, North Dakota.

(“Hahahahaha!  Mitch is jealous!”  No, not a bit.  The Northern Alliance rips on the Strib pretty consistently, and indeed has held an “Unsubscribe-athon”; it’s fair to say our audience isn’t reading it very much.  They really don’t matter.  Just wondering about their news judgement, given the rather lopsided impacts of the various shows involved.  Just saying). 

(Via Brian the Saint @ Fraters)

For years, I wondered if Stacy Jones – the drummer for Letter for Cleo – was the same guy who was the a-friggin-mazing drummer on Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill tour.

No, I find out – ten years later – it was Taylor Hawkins.

Apopos not much.

That is all.

I was worried the Saint Paul City Council wasn’t going to tackle the big issues facing our city:

On a 6 to 1 vote, council members banned the [Sugar Glider, a breed of] nocturnal marsupials that hail from the South Pacific and have flaps of skin from wrists to ankles and a bit of a sweet tooth.

Although St. Paul isn’t teeming with the critters, banning their purchase, sale and ownership is a preventive measure, city officials say. The animals wouldn’t do well in this climate, and are high-maintenance, leading the city’s animal control department to fear frustrated owners would abandon their pets.

The ordinance stems from an incident in which a person was selling the animals at a trade show without a license. Animal control employees did research and found that sugar gliders take a lot of maintenance, make a lot of noise and can smell.

They haven’t actually chewed any children to death, of course; stealing candy, maybe, but again, we don’t know. 

No, the Saint Paul City Council – led by the Gang of Four Five – is getting out ahead of the plague of flying, candy-craving mini-possums because the might be difficult to handle. 

“I think they were misinformed about many things when they made their decision,” said Jeff Stein, who with his wife, Terri, breeds sugar gliders in Lino Lakes.

They have a room full of about 34 adult gliders, which sell for prices starting at $200. “They’re harmless little friendly things.”

Put “Buck Fush” T-shirts on ’em.  The Council will reconsider faster than your Sugar Glider can unwrap a Starburst.

(Via Margaret at Anti-Strib)

I’m pretty up front about music I love, and music I can’t stand.

But really, any music that’s got something that grabs me in the liver can rock my musical world – hence, there’s a third category; music done by artists that I should detest, but I just can’t help it, I love it anyway. It’s usually got a hook to it that makes me feel all minty, but whatever, its’ all good.

Just…guilty.

• Rocky Mountain High, John Denver – Not to say I’m a huge John Denver fan, but…oh, who am I kidding? I taught myself to play guitar from John Denver records. And while most of his stuff has fallen out of my conscience over the years, I still love this song; partly because it’s not a bad tune, and partly because the album for which it was the title cut featured one really good acoustic band, including Mike Taylor on the guitar – and Mike Taylor could play that thing.
• Cry, Mandy Moore – The worst thing about being in my mid-forties is the realization that I’ll probably never get a shot at nailing Mandy Moore (motto: “80% less embarassing than Britney, more PG-rated than Christina Aguilera“). But “Cry” has a really, really cool hook (especially the roll out of the bridge), it’s from a very underrated movie (that would have been less underrated, perhaps, if they’d hacked out the stupid “terminal illness” stuff), and I just like it, and I don’t care what you think.
• Kids in America, Kim Wilde/Lem/New Radicals – Oh, shut up. You know you love it. It’s that moment just before English synth-pop tipped over the edge from desperately un-funky to desperately un-fun. (And I love both the covers, including the New Radicals‘ thrashy cover, if only because it helps answer the question “whatever happened to Danielle Brisebois“)
• Do You Sleep, Lisa Loeb – Lisa Loeb, during her razor-thin heyday maybe ten years ago, was the Sarah Vowell of pop music. No, that’s not a good thing. But I always liked this song; I chalk it up to the background vocal part. It doesn’t take much, sometimes, for me to rationalize my way into liking something. (And since we’re talking hooks…). But I still want to break horn-rimmed glasses worn for ironic purposes on basic principle, so I’m still OK.
• If She Knew What She Wants, Bangles – Let’s get one thing straight; there was nothing guilty about the pleasure of the Bangles’ debut album, 1984’s All Over The Place. It was chock full of really great stuff,and I’ll beat the crap out of anyone who wants to argue it. But Different Light was a little different; loaded with covers and beating us over the head with Susanna Hoffs (not that there’s anything wrong with that), it was an obvious play for Top40 wuv (not that there’s anything wrong with that, either). But this song had the most gorgeous hook of the 1980’s, so all is totally forgiven.
• This Woman’s Work, Kate Bush – Kate Bush is usually just…too…weird for me. She’s an acquired taste that I’ve tried, oh lord I’ve tried, to acquire, over and over again. And I enjoy her stuff, in the same way that I enjoy Rachmaninoff piano concertos; “how the hell do they do that?” Oh, she’s musically interesting, and, um, interesting otherwise as well, but most of her music I can take or leave. And yet this one absolutely shreds me. Every damn time. Even when it was in that stupid Kevin Bacon movie.
• She Said, She Said, The Beatles – Time for a shameful declaration; I’ve never been a huge Beatles fan. I don’t care for anything after Sergeant Pepper, to be perfectly honest.
• But I Do Love You, LeAnn Rimes – Do I even have to say it?
• A Long December, Counting Crows – Adam Duritz has always bugged the bejeebers out of me. But this song has always ripped me up from the inside out – never more than this past year.
• She Said, She Said, The Beatles – Here’s a surprising revelation; I’ve never been a yuuuge Beatles fan. Oh, I like lots of their stuff, don’t worry – although most of their stuff after Sergeant Pepper honestly bores me stiff. Really. It just doesn’t grab me. ‘Strooth. But this song just totally hypnotizes me. And that’s a good thing.
• Boulevard of Broken Dreams, Hanoi Rocks – Ok, nothing remotely guilty about it. No, wait; they’re from Finland.Hm.Nope. Still not guilty.
• You Really Had Me Going, Holly Dunn – Holly Dunn, the queen of twangy honky-tonk country back before twang was cool again, was saving country-western from the “Crossover-Pop” nightmare of the seventies and early eighties when Garth Brooks was still greasing palms in Nashville. Her disappearance is proof positive that the country music business is just plain stupid.

…I was working at a couple of contracting jobs, which meant at various points working a number of allnighters; starting work at 5PM (after finishing up the day’s contracting!) and working until like 11AM the next morning.

And I owned exactly two CDs. And one of them was The Ghost of Tom Joad, which, with the Lord as my witness, includes no hummable songs whatsoever.

And the other one was the one this song is off of – and so this song for me is forever associated with being exhausted, and up and working in the wee hours, and freezing my ass off from either the chilly room or the fatigue.
UPDATE: Well, TGOTJ includes almost no hummable songs. Now that I mention it, I do have “Sinaloa Cowboys” stuck in my head.

I used to make a concerted effort to read leftyblogs.  I did it for the same reason that I read things like Mein Kampf or The Turner Diaries or Steal This Book – to know what the enemy believes, what motives him/her, to get an insight into how they think.

Lately?  Not so much.  Reading most leftybloggers is like listening to 14-year-olds argue.

Jane Hamsher – from “Firedoglake”, which, since the demise of “Pandagon” has been the “Norwegianity” of the national leftyblog scene – walks out onto rhetorical thin ice and starts doing a Dutch clog dance:

 Take, for example, supermodels. When you meet them you’re usually struck with the impression that something’s not quite right about them, and after a while it dawns on you that you’ve never met anyone quite this stupid who is so convinced that every word they utter is dripping with peerless insight…

[Really, Jane?  You meet a lot of supermodels?] 

Chris Rock has a whole routine about “model smart,” which basically means being smart enough not to walk out in the middle of traffic and get hit by a car. Which pretty much sums it up.

Er…indeed.

Let’s take a step back.  After the ’72 election, Pauline Kael is famously (and probably apocryphally) supposed to have exclaimed “How could Nixon have won?  Nobody I know voted for him!”

Apocryphal as that may have been, there’s a teaching moment there; someone whose entire world revolves around one region, social circle or professional clacque might just lack the perspective to comment coherently outside that circle.  It’s why Appalachian junk dealers are illiterate about nouvelle cuisine, and why Pauline Kael didn’t know any Nixon voters. 

And, I suspect, it might explain a lot – somewhat ironically, as it happens – about Ms. Hamsher:

Rush Limbaugh has a self-awareness problem.

It’s one you commonly see in celebrities — they form their self-image based on what those around them think, but those people are frequently responding to some combination of factors that may have nothing at all to do with who they are.

It explains a lot about the likes of Arianna Huffington and Alec Baldwin and Sean Penn, to be sure…

Anyway, now we have Rush Limbaugh. He’s been putting out the message on behalf of the GOP to millions of the AM radio faithful so long he thinks he’s one of them, a “man of the people,” or as he likes to say, “part of the Cape Girardeau [Missouri]-Middle America axis.”

But Rush is no such thing. Unless his audience is composed of a lot more people making $35 million a year than I’m aware of, he’s an ugly weld spot between the corporatists and the rank-and-file within the party.

Let’s mark that idea – “Limbaugh is out of touch with the rank and file of the GOP” – for later use.  File it under “Jane Hamsher drops Acid” if you’d like – that, or show me that there are enough “corporatists” – as in, 20-odd-million – to make Limbaugh the biggest name in radio.

Hamsher invokes the “Sista Soulja” moment the Hucker is trying to create with Limbaugh:

 Huckabee knows that audience rather better than Rush does, at least the Southern contingent, and given the fact that the GOP has become largely a regional party, that’s a significant portion of Rush’s base.

That brings up a couple of interesting questions:

1. Does Huckabee “know” southern conservatives?  Given that he’s basically a pro-life, pro-NRA nannystater – basically Bill Clinton with some ethics?  (My guess:  exactly as well  as he needs to to win elections in famously-schizophrenic Arkansas)
2. Do Republicans know exactly how right Hamsher is about that “regional party” thing?  (The GOP is a regional party; it represents the “region” west of the Hudson, east of the Sierra Madre, and outside of Chicago).
3. How does Limbaugh manage to dominate political radio, what with his audience being only “corporatists” and all?
4. Does Jane Hamsher know more conservatives than Rush Limbaugh knows liberals?  (I’d suspect not just “no”, but “hell no”). 

Back to Hamsher:

Which is why Huck’s attack-by-proxie [sic] (“a DC based Huckabee ally”) is so spot-on, and amusing:

“Honestly, because Rush doesn’t think for himself. That’s not necessarily a slap because he’s not paid to be a thinker—he’s an entertainer. I can’t remember the last time that he has veered from the talking points from the DC/Manhattan chattering class. If they were praising Huckabee, he would be too.”

Chicken and egg, Ms. Hamsher.  If Huckabee were a conservative, you bet they’d be praising him!

But he’s not.

Rush rebounded by basically calling Huckabee a stupid hick:

He called the attacks “Clintonian” and accused Huckabee’s campaign of “trying to dumb down conservatism in order to get it to conform with his record.”

Given the region’s cultural persecution complex — not exactly a wise move.

Help me, here:  “conservatism” and “dumb” are southern-specific?

Who’s insulting southern culture?

More importantly – does Jane Hamsher think she’s equipped to serve as a cultural arbiter?

Exhibit A:

As a veteran spewer of right-wing talking points, Rush thinks he’s well aware of what’s going on here, and capable of combatting it with his usual armaments. He retorts by projecting onto Huckabee motivations that legislate the game he perceives himself as playing:

“Armaments?”  “Legislate?”  And what the hell does that last sentence mean, anyway?

“What was somewhat stunning about all this is that NO ONE in the GOP field, including advisers and staff, could possibly misread my 19-plus-year career the way Gov. Huckabee’s D.C. supporter did,” Limbaugh said. “Whoever said those things was essentially repeating the Democrat mantra of all these years: that I am just an entertainer, not an independent thinker, part of the Wall Street/D.C. axis. If it was someone on Gov. Huckabee’s staff or support team, it was just silly, uninformed and thus curious.”

Yeah except it isn’t a left/right PR game this time around, Rush. You’re taking arrows in the back.

Really?

An unnamed Hucker supporter took a specious – and just-plain-dumb – dig at Limbaugh; he/she wrote a rhetorical check that reality just won’t cash.

To wit:

Rush is betting that his listeners will see him as “part of the Cape Girardeau [Missouri]-Middle America axis.” The GOP elite have told him to take down Huckabee, and his ego is so engorged with money and seven years of right wing hegemony he thinks he can win that battle. He doesn’t see the weld spot preparing to crack.

Could someone please send me a nickel for every time the left has said Limbaugh was “out of touch” with Republicans, or that his support was all built on sand?

That’s just…model smart.

And Jane Hamsher thinks some (anonymous) Huckabee staffer speaks for the GOP rank and file, nationwide, more than the one person who, along with Ronald Reagan, made conservatism a genuine mass movement?  A man who goes on the air daily and by the end of the day has reached 20 million people – 19,990,000 of whom likely will be back the next day?

That’s just…leftyblogger smart.

(more…)

The following minutes were taken at a secret meeting of McDonalds’ Corporation’s corporate Strategic Marketing department.

All names are redacted to protect the innocent.

ATTENDING: [MARKETEER 1], [MARKETEER 2], [VP STRATEGIC MARKETING], [ADVERTISING DEPT 1], [VP SPECIAL ADVERTISING], [AD AGENCY REP 1], [AD AGENCY REP 2], [THE ANIMATED HEAD OF RAY KROC]

[VP STRATEGIC MARKETING]: OK, come to order! Let’s get this meeting underway. [VP SPECIAL ADVERTISING], I’d like to to turn it over to you to talk about “Project Berfunkle”

[VP SPECIAL ADVERTISING]: Thanks, thank you. As you know, as part of McDonalds’ long-term plan to win even more market share, we’ve decided as part of our long-term strategic marketing initiative that, perhaps counterintuitively, “winning mindshare” isn’t as important as helping our competition lose mindshare. Our campaign has been proceeding anon. And so I’ve brought in my assistant, [ADVERTISING REP 1], who has brought in a couple of the agency vendors involved in what may be our most successful “anti-mindshare” campaign yet. [ADVERTISING REP 1]?

[ADVERTISING DEPT 1]: Thanks. As you know, conventional advertising – the whole “draw people to your brand” – peaked out as a “means of getting people to try your brand” nearly twenty years ago. After years of intense market research, we found that launching spoofs – what used to be called “black parodies” – of our competition’s advertising is actually much more effective.

[MARKETEER 2]: Is that actually ethical?

[ADVERTISING DEPT 1]: Was bombing Dresden ethical?

[MARKETEER 2]: Hm.  Good point.  Continue.

[ADVERTISING DEPT 1]:  Thanks.  So, approximately three years ago, we started Project Berfunkle – an initiative to launch black parody advertising “on behalf of” our competition, Burger King and Wendy’s. We combined this with our innocuous, “message”-free “I’m Lovin’ It” campaign.

[MARKETEER 2]: I figured there had to be an ulterior motive for that campaign.

[VP SPECIAL ADVERTISING]: You’re right! At any rate, I’m happy to say that this strategy has come to fruition. I’ve brought in [AD AGENCY REP 1], from [COMPANY 1 REDACTED], and [AD AGENCY REP 2], from [COMPANY 2 REDACTED]. Go ahead.

[AD AGENCY REP 1]: About three years ago, our company launched a subproject of “Berfunkle”, called “Burger Knave”. We started running ads “for” Burger King, featuring “The King” as a grotesque, plastic-headed clown that appears as if from a nightmare in all sorts of surrealistic situations.

[MARKETEER 1]: We paid for those? Good G_d, those were awful!

[ADVERTISING DEPT 1]: That, of course, was the point. And it was hugely successful across nearly all demographics! Young children were frightened by the gargoyle-like, frozen-faced apparition. Middle-class adults were turned off by the forced, post-hip irony. Parents were repulsed by the implied obscenity of the “Big Huckin’ Chicken” spots…

[MARKETEER 2]: Oh, maaaaan. I had to listen to those spots like five times to make sure there wasn’t an “f”-bomb in there!

[AD AGENCY REP 1]: Precisely. In the end, every demographic except recent college liberal arts grads ended up less likely to go to Burger King – and even among that demographic, only the left-leaning ones who really, really love kitschy irony ended up actually eating there…

[MARKETEER 1]: Er, is that a good idea…?

[ADVERTISING DEPT 1]: Yes! They’re more likely to steal the food than pay for it!

[MARKETEER 2]: Ingenious!

[VP SPECIAL ADVERTISING]: Thanks, [AD AGENCY REP 1]. Now, I’d like to turn to [AD AGENCY REP 2].

[AD AGENCY REP 2]: Thank you. We covered the Wendy’s business. We got a later start, because we didn’t want to draw suspicions. Our ad campaign involves a series of incongruous archetypes, wearing the Wendy’s brand’s signature “Pippi Longstocking” wig. Market research since the campaign began running shows that over 60% of respondents thought “Wendy’s” was now a place to go to hear lesbian coffee-house poetry, or a French avant-garde art film outlet, rather than a burger joint.

[VP STRATEGIC MARKETING]: Wow.

[MARKETEER 2]: I call that “success”!

[AD AGENCY REP 2]: Thank you. Phase Two will involve images of cattle wearing the “Wendy” wig being pushed down the gates to the slaughterhouse as “Yakkity Sax” – the “Benny Hill” theme – plays on a bullhorn in the background, driven to their doom by a gaggle of “My Little Ponies”.

[VP STRATEGIC MARKETING]: Wow. Excellent!

[MARKETEER 1]: I’m speechless. Brilliant.
[VP STRATEGIC MARKETING]: So what is the next phase of Project Berfunkle?

[VP SPECIAL ADVERTISING]: In February ’08, we start the “Culvers’ Custard presents Linda Ellerbee speaking for 9/11 Truth” blitz. And in August, we roll out the White Castle “”Jughead” campaign, featuring a loveable, dope smoking NASCAR-watching androgynous 20-something high school dropout who rides a skateboard and leers at young girls as he wishes for a slider.

[ADVERTISING DEPT 1]: Excellent!

[VP SPECIAL ADVERTISING]: Well, Mr. Kroc, sir?

[THE ANIMATED HEAD OF RAY KROC]: I pronounce it good. Burgers on the house!

[ALL]: Yaaay!

And…scene.

Israel is confronting the notion of the Iranian Bomb, as well as being surrounded by hostile neighbors with WMDs:

If a nuclear war between Israel and Iran were to break out 16-20 million Iranians would lose their lives – as opposed to 200,000-800,000 Israelis, according to a report recently published by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), which is headed by Anthony H. Cordesman, formerly an analyst for the US Department of Defense. The document, which is largely theoretical due to the lack of verified knowledge in some areas – specifically in terms of Israel’s nuclear capability – paints various scenarios and attempts to predict the strategies of regional powers, as well as the US.

The report assesses that a nuclear war would last approximately three weeks and ultimately end with the annihilation of Iran, due to Israel’s alleged possession of weapons with a far larger yield. Israel, according to the assessment, would have a larger chance of survival. The report does not attempt to predict how many deaths would eventually be caused by possible nuclear fallout.

Israel – which has had to fight for its very survival four times in the past sixty years, and that was after the Holocaust – takes survival fairly seriously, at least officially. They’re launching an ad campaign…:

One of the commercials features Gadi Sukenik, until recently anchorman for Channel 2 News. The campaign’s slogan is “Being ready means being protected.”

“The campaign is one of the main lessons we learned from the Second Lebanon War,” a senior HFC officer said Sunday. “This is our way of helping the public get ready for the possibility that war will break out in the future.”

The brochure provides details about potential conventional and nonconventional threats. It recommends that civilians prepare basic supplies – water, flashlights, batteries and plastic sealing paper – now, ahead of a possible missile attack on Israel.

…and a website (Hebrew and English).

I’m trying to picture the response to such a campaign in the US, even in the face of an imminent, mortal threat like Israel may face:

LIBERAL: “If someone bombs us, we probably deserve it.”

NEW YORKER: “Pffft.  There’s nothing worth bombing west of the Hudson.”

TWIN CITIES DFLER/HIPSTER:  “Tape?  Tape?  Hah!  They said tape!  Hahahahaha”
RESIDENT OF NEW BRUNSWICK, NEW JERSEY:  “There’s nothing worth bombing west of the Hudson”

UTAHAN: “Self-sufficient for two weeks?  Jeez, I carry that in my golf cart!”

NORTH DAKOTAN: “Batteries…candles…food…OK, limpd**k, what do you think this is, a blizzard?  Where’s the guns?”

And so on.

…that “Jackie Harvey” isn’t over-the-top enough…

…Melinda Jacobs is here to serve you.  Bonus:  Jacobs is “real”.

Oh, but Mel, babe?

So, why is FM 107.1 so successful?

It’s not, and you should stop with the upsucking.

(Via Brian “Saint Paul” Ward @ Fraters, who read a lot more of the site than I could stomach.  Kudos, bro.  You’re a better dude than I).

Hollywood Liberals: all the history that’s convenient to observe!

In his book, “Ronald Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime,” Lou Cannon notes how Reagan “expressed revulsion of the brutal destruction of Afghan villages and such Soviet policies as the scattering of mines disguised as toys that killed and maimed Afghan children.” He did not need much convincing to aid the Afghan resistance.

Cannon credits Undersecretary of Defense Fred Ikle and CIA Director William Casey with allaying any concern that providing Stinger missiles to the mujahadeen might lead to the missiles’ capture and copying by the Soviets. Also involved, says Cannon, was a bipartisan coalition “led by Texas Democrat Charlie Wilson in the House and New Hampshire Republican Gordon Humphrey in the Senate.”

So you have at least five players, including Reagan, involved — four of them Republican conservatives. Ikle notes: “Senior people in the Reagan administration, the president, Bill Casey, (Defense Secretary Caspar) Weinberger and their aides deserve credit for the successful Afghan covert action program, not just Charlie Wilson.” So guess which one Hollywood makes a movie about?

I think it’s a rhetorical question.

To be fair, the movie doesn’t mention Jimmy Carter either. It was his naivete about Communist expansion that led the Soviets to invade Afghanistan in the first place. Had Reagan not beaten Carter in 1980 there would have been no Stingers and no victory in the Cold War.

But don’t expect a movie about Reagan’s victory over communism or Carter’s surrender to it.

Mark my words: In ten years, Hollywood will credit Harry Reid with winning Iraq.

“Taxation is Slavery”.  It’s the old Big-L Libertarian saw. 

And, as Tracy at Anti-Strib notes, it’s also on the brink of being a literal thing:

Audrey Davison lives alone, gets a $620 Social Security check each month and worries about the sharply rising taxes on her four-bedroom house. Davison, 76, raised her family there and after 43 years, she really doesn’t want to leave Greenburgh.

Greenburgh doesn’t want her to leave, either.

The town is pushing a program that would let seniors work part-time, for $7 an hour, to help pay off some of their property taxes.

Davison, who suffers from arthritis and sciatica and needs a walker to get around on her bad days, said she pays about $12,000 a year in property taxes – perhaps $2,000 to the town – and has already taken out a reverse mortgage to pay her bills.

And if years of working at $7 an hour doesn’t work, the city can still auction off the property!  Everyone wins!

Except the taxpaying senior, but hey, why start caring about taxpayers now? 

Eberly:

This is liberal “thinking” at it’s finest. There is no mention anywhere of lowering taxes or even freezing them for retirees. No, liberals want to keep raising taxes and then expect you to work longer to pay for their government programs.

The modern day slave is subservient to the liberal welfare state run amok.

Freedom is “happiness to pay for a better Minnesota Greenburgh, Winston”.

It was Saturday, December 26, 1988.

I’d driven back to the Twin Cities early in the morning; I’d left Jamestown at a frigid 8AM, and arrived back in the Twins early in the afternoon.

I walked into the house; it reeked of chiba and…something else. I couldn’t quite place it, but it was hideous.

Wyatt was sitting on the living room couch, with a flamboyant-figured, devastatingly-gorgeous blonde woman. Both were wearing bathrobes.

“Dude”, Wyatt grunted. “Hey, Chris locked his cat in his room!”.

Chris – our somewhat-emotionally-challenged roommate – had a cat. The cat usually had leave to wander the house – but Chris had gone to visit his mom for Christmas, down in Burnsville, and locked the cat in his room while he was gone.

I’d never really had pets in my life, so I didn’t quite know the full import of “un-neutered male cat”.

“Oh, hey – this is Teresa”, Wyatt said, nodding to the woman on the couch. “C’mon up…”

I should take a moment to point out that Wyatt, in addition to being a smoker and a drinker and a heavy pot smoker, was an inveterate (albeit inept) gambler. He also had a thing for the ladies; he usually brought a different one home every night. This, however, was the third or fourth time I’d seen Teresa.

“Hi”, I said, following Wyatt to Chris’ room.

“I think she’s gonna be a regular thing”, Wyatt whispered conspiratorially as we walked up the hall to Chris’ door.

“Like, girlfriend?” I asked.

“Sure. She’s awesome”.

Then, a change of subject; “Smell that?”

It smelled bad, and the door was shut. I whipped out my driver’s license, stuck it into the lock, and popped it open…

…and was bowled over by the stench, as the cat ran out between us.

The landlord came over later in the day, took one whiff, and said Chris had to go. “Now”.

———-

I had a new bar to work that night, so I grabbed a quick nap, took a shower, and got ready.

The bar was “Jams”, in Brooklyn Center. It was another bowling-alley bar, smaller and smokier and more-cramped than “City Limits”, but a shorter drive. They also made a really mean burger basket.

I started at 8:30. By 10:15, I had a full floor, and I kept it that way until closing time. The manager – a portly woman in her late thirties with a face frozen in a permanent scowl – came by the booth. “You’re pretty good! Great job!”, she said, scowling.

———-

I came home around 2AM. Wyatt was on the couch with a woman. Not Teresa, in this case; short, dark-haired, very Hispanic-looking.

“Hey, Mitch”, Wyatt said, “This is Ruby”.

Leo “Psychmeister” Pusatieri’s father is gravely ill.  Leo’s at the hospital in Chicago right now.

Prayers, best wishes, or whatever your personal worldview calls for would be greately appreciated. 

…that it would not have even occurred to me to try to make.

But I suppose it’s good news.