Sally Jo Sorenson of Bluestem Prairie isn’t the most ignorant and depraved leftyblogger out there – she’s probably not “Minnesota Progressive Project” material.  She’s even got the odd bit of useful material in there, occasionally.

But it’s a leftyblog.  What do you expect?

Well, I never expect anything – and my expectations get lived up to in spades in this post, about College Republicans protesting a bottled water ban at Saint Benedict’s, a Catholic college in Saint Joseph:

The Republican Party is changing…College Republicans want students to defy a decision made by a private religious college.

Sorenson quotes a Strib piece explaining that St. Ben’s College Republicans – who knew? – are protesting the ban.  To replace the water (in the machines stocked with pop made with high-fructose corn syrup, the market for which is making food unaffordable in the third world), Saint Ben’s installed, essentially, pay water fountains for refilling reusable water bottles.

The Strib piece quotes the CRs:

“Just as the government should not ban plastic bottles in America, a school administration should not ban the sale of plastic water bottles on their campus,” said Ryan Lyk, chairman of the Minnesota College Republicans, in a statement.

This fall, St. Ben’s became the first school in the state — and the ninth in the nation — to ban the sale of plain bottled water on campus. Macalester took a similar step Sept. 1.

Students can buy bottled water off campus and bring it to class.

Yeah, I know – you’re shocked too?  If a commune in Portland decided to mandate aluminum foil pants in solidarity with Indonesian maggot ranchers, Macalester would adopt the rule.

The “Hydration Stations” cost the private school $20K to buy and install – a cost that is eventually passed on to the students (or whoever pays the tuition).  From the Strib, again:

But that expense is just one part of the problem, said Kate Paul, a St. Ben’s student and a Minnesota College Republicans leader. Her statement: “The hydration stations not only cost us money to use, they are costing us our ability to choose and convenience that derives from choice.”

Sorenson responds:

This is a stunning show of support not for the free market, but for consumer rights.

Sorenson is under the impression that there is a distinction – or that “consumer rights” is a regulatory rather than grass-roots activity. Either way, she’s, well, wrong.

St. Ben’s is a private college founded by the Benedictine orders, known for moderation and hospitality.

Their hospitality stops short of providing an inexpensive education, of course; a years’ tuition at St. Ben costs $34,000 and change, not counting the $9K room and board.

Sorenson didn’t list that in her article – but she did do some research on monastic vows:

But the fifth chapter of Rule of Benedict concerns cheerful obedience to leadership, while the students are looking simply to service their own wants.

Sorenson has apparently mistaken monks for students. Monks aren’t “customers” or “consumers” of St. Ben’s; they are “employees”, if you will.  Someone entering into an “employment agreement” – I think monastic vows count – has a different set of expectations than someone who pays, ahem, forty-three thousand dollars a year to attend the school.

In her confusion, Sorenson accuses the CRs of…confusion:

Moreover, the students seem to be a bit confused by their chosen analogy, which equates the private college’s administration with government.

Well, no.  I mean, a college is an authority, to be sure – they have more “authority” over a student’s life than, say, Taco John’s or Walmart or The Gap do.  But where is it written that people can only protest government?

And Ryan Lyk didn’t equate the school with government; he compared them.  There’s a difference.

Sorenson gets more and more confused as she goes:

Should they really wish to follow the free market arguments which appear to be so dear to their tender young hearts, the little darlings will recall the advice given to workers who wish to organize their workplaces.

That logic suggests that those who don’t like working conditions or work rules have the choice to find a new job elsewhere.

Snoogum Sorenson’s peppy but dotty little girl brain (“tender hearts”?  “Little darlings?”  Sorry – it creeps me out) can’t seem to twig the fact that she’s got it exactly backwards; employees are being paid to work; college students are paying to attend a college.

Likewise, in the free market of education, if students don’t like the rules, they can simply go elsewhere if they don’t approve of the private school’s decision about an investment that it believes will in the long run cut costs.

And in Sorenson’s world, maybe those are the only options; obey every whim of “authority”, whether from ones’ boss (who pays you), college or government (both of whom you pay for) or shut up and move along.  Perhaps Sorenson believes that college students should just shut up and know their place and switch colleges like they switch cell phone plans or internet providers when a squabble over water bottles gets ’em exercised.

Rather than, y’know, making their voices heard.

After a couple years worth of $43K investment, I think the students have every right to take a more – what’s the word libs use? – nuanced approach.  Not to mention using that pesky freedom of speech thing that libs like to natter about so much.

Or perhaps Sorenson means that Republican kids should shut up and take what’s dished out to them.

Bluestem will keep our eyes up to see if the College Republicans will begin to approach Wells Fargo or Cargill with protests about how those private entities decide to spend their money or limit consumer options.

“Bluestem” might better use their time thinking about what they really mean by “free speech”, and perhaps learning a bit about how the “free market’ actually works.

Either that, or subject herself to her own “logic”, and shut up and accept the voters’ will about, say, Steve Drazkowski.

Whereupon we’ll discover that to Sorenson, shutting up and obeying “authority” is for other people…

Dan Haugen, who we last ran into a few years back when we taught him a little about research, writes for “Midwest Energy News” – which is funded by an alt-energy pressure group – about Minneapolis’ new biking director, which recently survived a challenge in the Minneapolis city council even as the city lays off firemen.

The rationale is – well, both typical and mildly troubling (emphasis added):

‘An investment, not an expense’

Across the country, cities like Portland are hiring bicycle and pedestrian coordinators to help attract not only federal project dollars but also to make their cities a more attractive place for workers who want the option of living without a car, says Joan Pasiuk, director of Bike Walk Twin Cities, which promotes non-motorized transportation.

In other words, you have to spend taxpayer money to get other taxpayers’ money:

Chicago has had a bicycle coordinator for a decade and a half. Omaha hired its first bike coordinator last year. Even cities like Miami and Phoenix that probably don’t come to mind as major bicycling hubs have hired for similar positions in recent years.

“Cities are seeing this as an investment, not an expense,” says Pasiuk.

And there you see the spread; cities that are broke, or cities that are doing well enough that they can afford some of the petty luxuries like, well, biking coordinators.

It’s an odd set of priorities for a city that’s flirting with “broke”.

I had to mention this:

And then there’s the health savings. Researchers in the Netherlands found that despite being at higher risk for injury, cyclists enjoy “substantially larger” health benefits compared to drivers.

But if you read this blog, you knew that two years ago.

UPDATE:  I changed the reference to MN Energy News in the first graf; it’s “Funded by”, rather than “a front for…”, the pressure group.  It was pointed out to me – civilly, mind you – that the phrase “front” casts an unnecessary aspersion.  I’ve reworded accordingly.

Turner didn’t just beat Weprin last night. He brutalized him.  53-46 – for the Republican.  And it was more like 3:1 in Brooklyn.

In a district that voted 11% in favor of Obama in 2008, and hasn’t had a Republican in Congress in nearly eighty years.

Let the excuses for this past year begin:

• “We Almost Won The Wisconsin Senate Back!”: Great.  That’s more or less like getting inside your opponents 30 yard line before going four-and-out…
• “And New York Was…Well…”: …and then shanking the field goal.
• “It Wasn’t About Obama – It Was About Israel”: And Obama is behind our Israel policy.  Jews have been fleeing Obama. They were solidly for him three years ago.

If things don’t change soon, Obama’s going to have shorter coattails than a plumber.

Bear in mind, things can change between now an November of 2012.   I still fully expect Obama to win in 2012, to gain at least one seat in the Senate, and to retake the House; if they fail at any of these, given the magnitude of Obama’s original win and the wave that swept Dems into office in ’06 and ’08, it will be a humiliating defeat.

But this, like Scott Walker’s win in Massachusetts two years ago, could be an interesting harbinger for 2012 – If the GOP nominates a great candidate, and Conservatives hit the street and work like hell, like we did last year.

Every so often, I need something that reaffirms my faith that not everyone is trash.

I mean besides the NY09 election results, of course. That was good too.

No, I’m actually referring to this video, which you’ve no doubt seen: A group of bystanders rescue a motorcyclist who’d slid under (ow, ow, ow ow ow) the BMW during an accident.

OK. Back to the regular news.

It’s been a frustrating year for biking.

The bad news:  My office is in the western burbs.  I live in Saint Paul.  That makes for a sixteen mile commute.

The good news: Those sixteen miles are almost completely striped lanes and bike paths.  I know – taxes, transportation dollar, silly expenditures, bla bla bla, but I paid for ’em, so I’m using ’em.

More bad news: my daily schedule frequently doesn’t allow me the hour-and-change it’d take me to ride home at night; stuff needs to get done after work.  It’s clearing up…just in time for autumn.  Not that autumn is bad bike weather – not at all – but it does mean that the season is going to end in the next 2-3 months.

Semi-bad news:  since I really only got to start biking consistently in early August, I’ve been working my way up to doing the whole run.  I started by throwing my bike on the rack and driving to a park-and-ride out in the western subs.  Every week, I switch to a park-and-ride a little farther from the office.  I’m currently riding in the last eight miles or so.

The bad news:  between eight and 16 miles, there are no park and rides.  So I’m mentally working my way up to taking the plunge and riding the whole 16 miles each way.  But it’s my goal to fit the whooole thing in at least once a week,and ride all or part of the commute at least four days a week.

It’s more psychological than anything; three years ago, when I was biking all the time, sixteen miles wasn’t that big a deal.

The good news:  Oh, screw it. I’m going to do it.  Monday.

So as some of you know, I use to be a nightclub DJ.  At one point, I was widely known as “the best bald, white, father-of-two rap DJ in the Twin Cities”, a distinction I wear – wore, anyway – with hard-earned pride.

Now, there’s not much about that part of my life that I miss (as I believe I’ve established).  Certainly not most of the music – indeed, I remember buying a car back in 1990; the seller said “you know, it doesn’t have a radio” and I replied “Good”.

But there are a few bits and pieces of music I miss.  Not many, but a few.

Gangster Rap is part of the noxious cocktail of debilitation that grips large swathes of urban culture in America (and by that I mean all urban culture; it’s not a racial code phrase), a cynical exploitive genre that enriches the very few by submerging the many in a toxic mental miasma.  And for the last twenty years, cynicism aside, most of it’s just been really really bad music.

Now, there’s no accounting for taste – but I gotta say that after all these years I still like “NWA’s” “Straight Outta Compton”, even with all its yappy violence and teenagey misoginysm. Here’s the video, from 1989 (But first, let me remind you…

…that the language is not remotely safe for work):

Now, the point isn’t really to re-play that particular video…

…as to answer the question I think we all have on hearing it; “how would that sound as a brooding Seatle-coffee-shop folk cover?

(That’s Nina Gordon, formerly of college-pop darlings Veruca Salt, who always bugged me).

And, my favorite so far, this impeccably-edited version of Barney, Baby Bop and BJ:

Anyway – I’m going to pour out a forty, where “forty” means “Coffee”, and “pour out” means “Drink a cup of”, and get to work.

To: The Media
From: Mitch Berg, schlub citizen
Re: Terminology

Dear Sirs and Madams:

You call it “bail“.

We call it “ransom”.

That is all.

Sincerely,

Real America.

Kids graduating from college today are having a tough time of it, according to the researchers.  During this current recession, I’ve heard the stories – seniors bemoaning the fact that there just aren’t a lot of good companies with good jobs at the campus job fairs.

I had to laugh. At my little college in the middle of nowhere in 1985, in the middle of an epic farm depression, they didn’t even bother with job fairs; people came to campus to recruit nurses, and that was about it.

And when I left NoDak and moved to the big city, I met people whose experiences had been very, very different; people whose education…

…well, no – not “education” so much as schooling – had led them to expect some results.  It always puzzled me.  It still does.

I’m going through the reactions from “Millennals” to the current job market in Derek Thompson’s piece in the Atlantic about the anger the recent graduates are feeling toward their society, their background and their elders.

I happened on this young woman’s screed: 

“Serving people drinks was more rewarding than this full-time job, and it is killing me inside.”

In high school, I worked two jobs, took college coursework, participated in ten student organizations, held prominent leadership positions and earned a 4.0 GPA. I was rewarded with a scholarship to a top twenty university and had the whole world ahead of me. In college, I studied Business. I was active in campus groups, had multiple internships and held a 3.9 GPA. After seeing many of my older friends obtaining great jobs with signing bonuses and benefits, I decided to graduate 3 Semesters early. This was May 2008.

Society does have a way of telling kids “play the paper chase – especially if you play it well enough to get into a “great school’ – and the rest takes care of itself”.  There’s a big part of our society – educational classists, I call thim – that seem to think of life as an equation; (Tier of school * Grade Point Average = Worth as a person).

And our society does impart a mythology onto a “good education” – which is less about “education” than getting inducted into a gold-plated alumni directory. And if the alumni are out of work…well, you know how that works, right?

After graduation, I began applying for my dream jobs. I started to get some responses, and then the economy tanked. I tried to follow-up with those who had expressed interest. No response. I extended my search to other cities and states and could not even get a phone interview. I then began searching for less than ideal positions. Not a call back to even be a Secretary. So, I became a bartender.

OK, so I’m sorry the young lady didn’t get her “dream job”.  26 years after graduation, I’m still waiting on mine.

But that’s not the real issue here:

Eventually, I took an unpaid internship in a field I never imagined working in.

And is that a bad thing?

There I was, Miss 4.0 Honors Student, working for free with freshmen and sophomores in college.

I’m not sure if the writer thinks being a “4.0 honors student” was supposed to make her too good for having to scramble, think creatively, and maybe even swerve outside her field for a while, and maybe even permanently – skills I suspect she never learned on her way to her “honors”.

But even if she didn’t mean it that way, you don’t have to look too far to find young people who do think this.  In fact, it’s the mantra that our public education system chants; a college education, in and of itself, opens doors for you.

Notwithstanding the fact that degree inflation has made a BA worth about what a high school diploma was in 1940, the fact is that while the diploma may be an entry-level requirement, it’s still up to you to actually make someone want to open the door – if they have the option of opening one for you.  Which, often as not these days, they don’t.

Then one day, I got a call. The company I had interned for had recommended me for a position with another firm…Only this job was nothing that I would have ever wanted to do. I am still here to this day, only because I know how difficult it will be to find another. I continuously read articles about unemployed recent graduates and lend a sympathetic ear to my job seeking friends. I feel as if I am wasting my life, sitting here at this desk, doing trivial work and browsing news articles all day.

Not sure what the young lady expected – and, obviously, what she studied in the first place.  School, and especially the entertainment media, show graduation as an abrupt swerve from endless parties into a life of doing exactly what you studied and wanted to do.

That’s more the exception than the rule.  But nobody tells kids that – or that a degree isn’t a vaccine against the reality that all of us non-honors-graduates live in.

When people tell me that I am lucky for having a job, I want to cry. How can this mundane existence actually be envied?! I do have a roof over my head and health insurance, but my optimism about the work world has been severely damaged. I did not work this hard in order to obtain this outcome.

And if that’s the reason one “works hard” on academics, at least academics outside sciences and engineering, then one was very badly advised.  Any “4.0 honors education” that doesn’t teach you that life, to say nothing of the world of work, is a marathon rather than a sprint, is a waste of time and money.

Any “Education” that doesn’t teach you that you learn more, and benefit more in the long run, from adversity than from success, is just schooling – and apparently inadequate schooling at that.

Serving people drinks was more rewarding than what I do at my full-time job, and it is killing me inside.

Any “Education” that you don’t leave knowing that the challenge in life isn’t just to get a good start, but to persevere and try to thrive during the curve balls that life willinevitably throw you was no education at all.

It is terrible that so many of our nation’s top youth are going through the same struggles.

No.  It’s not “terrible”.  It’s life.

It’s been conventional wisdom in linguistics circles for a long time now – America’s dialects, under assault from mass media, are fading.

Only it’s not true, and they’re not (emphasis added):

Although the United States is an international melting pot and the average American makes a dozen moves in a lifetime, regional accents are alive and well. In fact, regional accents are becoming stronger and more different from each other, says William Labov, a professor of linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, although it’s not entirely clear why.

So why would that be?

Well, there are explanations that seem like linguistics, sort of…:

One possibility, says Labov, is that these original sound differences are being exaggerated, like trains moving in opposite directions on two railroad tracks.

Others?  Well they sound like Paul Krugman plain linguistician:

“The other is that dialect differences have become associated with political differences, so that the Blue States/Red States division comes close to the boundary between the Northern and Midland dialects,” he explains.

On the one hand – please tell us what a “Red State” accent sounds like?  Anyone?

On the other – there’s an interesting point there; there is at least a correlation between linguistic groups – maybe:

The “Northern”dialect group covers everything from New York to the western Great Lakes (and on west through the Dakotas and Montana, which kinda scrubs the whole “northern dialect is a red-state dialect” thing.

Labov says that our dialects change little after age 18 and we tend to retain the accent we grew up with. Young people first match the dialects of their parents, but then they often change to match their peers. These changes, though, are unconscious, he explains.

Oh, ya.  You bet.

In the immediate wake of the anniversary of 9/11, Micheal Moore is reminding us who the real victim was.

Him.

He’s declared himself the “most hated man in America” – and he’s started with a quote from Glenn Beck:

 ‘I’m thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I’m wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it … No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out [of him]. Is this wrong? I stopped wearing my ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ band, and I’ve lost all sense of right and wrong now. I used to be able to say, ‘Yeah, I’d kill Michael Moore’, and then I’d see the little band: What Would Jesus Do? And then I’d realise, ‘Oh, you wouldn’t kill Michael Moore. Or at least you wouldn’t choke him to death.’ And you know, well, I’m not sure.”

Now, I don’t care for Glenn Beck much.  Honestly, I don’t care for his show.

And since we do have to try to run a country together, I’ll urge everyone to refrain from threatening each other.

But it’s worth noting that if I thought someone seriously was threatening me, I’d be talking to the police.  It’s not academic; I’ve gotten threats (although it was a while ago); if Moore didn’t file a restraining order against Beck at the very least, then I think it’s safe to say that he wasn’t especially worried about it.

To be fair to Hemmer, I was not unaware that my movies had made a lot of people mad…Why was I still alive? For more than a year there had been threats, intimidation, harassment and even assaults in broad daylight. It was the first year of the Iraq war, and I was told by a top security expert (who is often used by the federal government for assassination prevention) that “there is no one in America other than President Bush who is in more danger than you”.

Odd, that, Moore contributed to that danger to the President – y’all know that, right?

How on earth did this happen? Had I brought this on myself? Of course I had. And I remember the moment it all began.

Well, I remember the moment I began to completely detest everything about Moore.  It had something to do with this:

That’s Moore in “Bowling for Columbine”, badgering Charlton Heston about…well, stuff that neither Heston nor the NRA had any culpability for.  It was the noxious capstone in a reprehensible movie.

Still, Moore has been on the wrong end of some weirdos:

But the worst moments were when people came on to our property. These individuals would just walk down the driveway, always looking like rejects from the cast of Night of the Living Dead, never moving very fast, but always advancing with singleminded purposefulness. Few were actual haters; most were just crazy. We kept the sheriff’s deputies busy until they finally suggested we might want to get our own security, or perhaps our own police force. Which we did.

We met with the head of the top security agency in the country, an elite outfit that did not hire ex-cops, nor any “tough guys” or bouncer-types. They preferred to use only Navy Seals and other ex–Special Forces. Guys who had a cool head and who could take you out with a piece of dental floss in a matter of nanoseconds. By the end of the year, due to the alarming increase of threats and attempts on me, I had nine ex-Seals surrounding me, round-the-clock.

And right there is the reason I detest Michael Moore.  He’s spent a good chunk of his career attacking the law-abiding American’s right to defend themselves from, well, exactly the stuff that Moore is worried about.

And those of us who can’t afford to hire a bunch of Navy Seals to deal with life’s crazies have every reason to wish Moore would…

…get smarter.

Pediatric psychologists show that I’ve suspected all along; “Spongebog Squarepants” will kill them.

No.  It won’t But it makes them into spazzes:

In a randomized, controlled study, psychologists from the University of Virginia in the US tested 4-year-olds just after they watched nine minutes of television shows or sat drawing for nine minutes. The children watched two types of show: SpongeBob Squarepants a fast-paced cartoon fantasy show, and Caillou, a slower-paced, more realistic public television educational cartoon about a pre-school boy.

Upshot: While the kids who watched “Caillou” thought Al Franken was just dreamy, the “Spongebob” sample smoked crack and hit each other with bowling balls.

No, I’ve always hated that stupid show.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they tied it to terrorism.

Paul Krugman may not have written the most reprehensible column in his entire career as a cossetted, ivory-tower academic – but for the life of me, I don’t remember anything he’s ever done that’s worse than last weekend’s “9/11” column:

Is it just me, or are the 9/11 commemorations oddly subdued?

Actually, I don’t think it’s me, and it’s not really that odd.

I have a hunch most people get very “subdued” around Paul Krugman.

No, that’s not fair.

Still, it’s fairer than Krugman is…well, ever.  As in this bit – which may be the dumbest piece of writing I’ve ever read in a column by a “major” columnist (emphasis added):

What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful.

“This is what you think, whether you admit it or not”.

It’s a a claim common to drama queens, 5’4″ guys selling Amway distributorships, and junior high girls worldwide.

 

Te atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror.

How many greasy black suns orbit Planet Academia?

The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it.

In its heart, the nation knows that Paul Krugman offers less intrinsic value to society than most drunk drivers.

In his heart, Krugman knows it too.

(Nah, it’s not very satisfying, actually.  Not sure what Krugman gets from it).

I’m not going to allow comments on this post, for obvious reasons.

Obviously, Krugman’s a gutless punk.

In his “jobs” speech, Barack Obama jobbed history.

In a flub that would have set the media and Jon Stewart babbling for a solid week had it come from George W. Bush, Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin, Obama said that Abraham Lincoln founded the Republican Party.  Lincoln, of course, joined the party two years after its founding.

The media, at best, yawned and let it pass without remark.

But not PBS:

…[Government]-funded PBS has altered the transcript of the Presidents speech, removing the offending comment.

The New York Times transcript has the following quote:”We all remember Abraham Lincoln as the leader who saved our Union.  Founder of the Republican Party.  But in the middle of a civil war, he was also a leader who looked to the future — a Republican President who mobilized government to build the Transcontinental Railroad — applause — launch the National Academy of Sciences, set up the first land grant colleges.  Applause.  And leaders of both parties have followed the example he set.”

That’s how I heard it…

But how does it appear in the PBS transcript?”  We all remember Abraham Lincoln as the leader who saved our Union.  But in the middle of a Civil War, he was also a leader who looked to the future – a Republican president who mobilized government to build the transcontinental railroad; launch the National Academy of Sciences; and set up the first land grant colleges.

Now, NPR did correct the “flub” – on Saturday.

Here’s my question: Forget about Jon Stewart and Brian Williams; the real question is will Bob Garfield and Brooke Gladstone’s NPR program “On The Media” cover this bit of egregious Obama-fluffing at all?

My money is on “hah, are you kidding?”

It’s time for the traditional feeding frenzy at the Capitol, as well as at legislators’ offices statewide.

It goes a little something like this:

1. School districts represntatives swarm the various legislators, trying to convince them that…
2. they’re going to have to put students down if they don’t get more money than the legislature is offering, and threatening to…
3. jack up property tax levies to make up the difference.

Of course, it’s a little dodgier this year – for all the DFL’s apocalyptic yammering, the legislature actually is spending more money on eduation this year; in some districts, lots more money.

And yet some of those districts are still acting like they’re getting foreclosed.

We’ll be highlighting some of the more absurd entreaties in coming weeks.  Stay tuned.

The police are searching for a missing woman:

[Maplewood police say] 74-year-old Geraldine LeClaire told her husband that she was going to US Bank on Beam Avenue and to Maplewood Bakery Saturday morning.

 

 

She left the couple’s house around 8:45 a.m. and never returned. Police say LeClaire suffers from memory loss.

She was last seen driving a 1999 tan Buick Century with license plate RGK 546.

Geraldine is the mother of one of my absolutely nicest neighbors, and grandma of one of my kids’ lifelong friends.  Please keep an eye peeled for her and her car.

UPDATE:  She’s been found, safe.

Remember.

Here’s Project 2996 – the blog memorial to all of 9/11’s victims.

Just a reminder – the benefit for Homes for Heroes is tomorrow, 3pm to 6pm, at the St. Cloud Holiday Inn, (Division Street & 37th Avenue).

Homes for Heroes builds and renovates homes to make them accessible for badly-injured veterans.

The benefit is a wine tasting, along with a Silent Auction. Hors d’oeuvres will be served!

Admission is $50 Per Ticket or $75 For Two – 50% Military Discount.

The party is loaded with guest speakers:

• Andy Pujol – President, Building Homes for Heroes
• Dan “Doc” Severson – US Senate Candidate
• King Banaian – State Representative
• Steve Gottwalt – State Representative

Joe Doakes of Como Park writes:

Pass This Bill?

Okay, Let’s Do It.  Hey you, Mr. Clerk of the House, what’s the File Number of the President’s jobs bill?  Let’s call it up right now and take a vote.

Huh?  There isn’t a House File number?  Why not?

What do you mean the bill hasn’t been written, yet?  He just called on us to pass it, a dozen times.

The President is going to start writing the jobs bill next week?

Then why in Hell did we have to listen to his speech last night?  Why the hoo-haw about scheduling the speech on the night of the Republican debate, the hysterics about rescheduling it to the night of the Packers game, the wailing about the discourtesy of Republicans not responding to the speech, not even attending, when in the end it turns out the Republicans were right all along – there’s no point in responding, there’s no point in even attending, because there’s NO BILL TO PASS.

This entire episode was empty hot air from an empty suit.  Worse than Carter, which I wouldn’t have believed possible.

Worst.  President.  Ever.

It’s always tempting to run a poll – but a poll with only two options is kinda anticlimactic.

I’d have never thought so at the time – but one of the best things that ever happened to me was getting fired from my first radio job when I was 17.

I’d have never thought so at the time.  My first radio job was – not to be overdramatic- the first great love of my life.  It gave me some things that I – a gawky, uncoordinated, athletically-inept, greasy-haired acne-ridden nerd – needed badly; an identity that I really liked, an area where I excelled, something that nobody else in my school did at all, much less did well.

After a year or so, the station was bought by a couple of slick twentysomethings who’d been knocking around the business for a while, including some time in the major markets. They wanted to make the station like a big-market station in a small town. High school kids working weekends weren’t part of the plan.  So I got whacked.

It was a kick in the teeth.  I was just another high school kid again.

And in that, there were some great lessons. I learned…:

• Loyalty Is Earned – But Almost Never: My father, in almost forty years of teaching, taught for exactly two school districts.  After we moved to Jamestown, in 1964 or ’65 or so, I think he had exactly two classrooms, to say nothing of jobs.  Many of my generation’s fathers were similar; they worked in one career, usually one job for one or two employers.  I learned a good ten years before the rest of the economy that loyalty to an employer was a chump’s bargain; you, the employee, were an asset, not a person.  You needed to look out for yourself, because your employer wasn’t going to do it for you.
• What Have You Done For Us Lately? I learned when I tried to get back into radio a year or so later that not only didn’t the world owe you a living, but in fact you owed it to yourself to know how to earn one.  Life wasn’t just about having a skill – it was about keeping it up to date, and making sure you could “sell” your skill to new employers (or clients), perhaps in new flavors of your career, or even in entirely new careers.  You had to be your own marketer.
• Schooling Is Not Education: Not long after I got whacked, I went to Jamestown College.  And then four years later I went out into the world, where nobody had heard of Jamestown College.  And while I’d been under no illusions that I’d be able to wave a diploma in anyone’s face to open a door, I ran into plenty of kids who did – and I had to out-perform them in the great competition to actually get  a job.  And I usually did. Because while my diploma from an obscure little school didn’t open any doors, the things I learned – who I was, what I wanted, how I thought, and how to solve a problem – did.
• Mobility Is Life: KQDJ wouldn’t be the first radio job I’d get fired from (never, ever for cause, by the way). Finally, 12 years later, in August of 1992 when K-63 went dark and no decent radio jobs awaited anywhere, I had to take my skills – knowing how to tell stories whose subjects I didn’t start out understanding, in ways that the listener could understand – and find a career that paid.  It led me to Technical Writing, and thence to User Experience.  Your job description and your paper credentials do not sum you or your capabilities up – indeed, if you let them, you can lose big.

Well, apparently the Atlantic, for starters. Yesterday they released this piece by Derek Thompson about the anger of “Millennial” graduates and their job-hunting travails.

And as a parent of a college kid and a son who’s still figuring it all out, and has had to re-figure it all out a few times in the past 20-odd years himself, part of me wants to give the kids a fatherly hug and a little encouragement…

…and part of me wants to slap them upside the head.

And so – partly for the benefit of any other kids who are feeling the same way, and partly for the benefit of my own kids, I’m going to do a little bit of both, and respond to the four “Millennials” who, as Thompson wrote…:

…responded with beautiful, heart-wrenching accounts of the job search that we have published in four parts: The Unemployed Speak and Advice from Employers, Longer Voices of the Jobless, and What It’s Like to Be Jobless in Your 20s.

There were several bits from unemployed twentysomethings.  I’ll feature one of them today:

“I want to blame the universities and grown-ups who should have known better. Instead, like my me-first generation, I blame myself.”

Subject line: MAD AS HELL

I’m only 23 and it’s been barely over a year since I graduated from university. Yet already the work environment and the consequences of the “real world” have warped and degraded me.

Not to bag on the kid excessively, but dude – what did  you expect the adult world  to be, anyway?

All I have are feelings of disillusionment and betrayal.

“Betrayal” implies trust.  Who – outside of yourself – did you trust when setting out into the world?

 I work full-time at a temp position that under-utilizes me. I make sure not to finish work to quickly, for fear it doing so will only shorten my employment. Before that I worked in retail. Before long, I may end up back there.

Perhaps that’s one of the advantages of coming from a place – the rural Midwest – where nobody really expects much of you, or an unranked obscure little college that imparts no academic mythology on you to change your mind on the subject – but on the one hand, that’s life, and on the other, if you approach it right, none of it’s wasted.  In my various travails, I worked as a temp, and some awful temp jobs at that – but it was where I learned to use a PC, back before everyone learned it at birth.  Just saying – if you use that time at a miserable job to takeaway the parts you need, it’s not wasted.

Much of my rage is reserved for a predatory system of higher education and the failures of a generation that came before. I’m angry that a “state” university costs as much as it does. That many, if not most of the students who attend, treat the experience like a 4-year version of MTV’s Spring Break. Massive grade inflation means one less standard deviation between myself and those who don’t try. Lax entrance standards means that even in smaller classes, half of the students do as little as possible, have nothing to contribute, and see learning as a necessary evil, if even that.

And now we’re onto something.  The education bubble is a real thing, gobbling up immense capital, while spitting out a lot of students who have failed to learn the most important lesson one can learn from a degree (that’s not intended as a direct entree to a career, like engineering or nursing or computer science or whatever) – how to think, to analyze and solve a problem that one isn’t innately equipped to solve, and how to know what one is really about.

Then there’s the baby boomer generation. Guardians of the state, they have left it dysfunctional. Watchdogs of the economy, they have let it burn.

Well, yeah, but…no.  We’ll come back to that later in this series.

But most of my anger is reserved for myself. I pursued a “Liberal Arts Degree” in communications rather than a B.S. in engineering or computer science. I spent all four years at a state university rather than the first two at a community college. I worked in the summer instead of getting an internship. I worked harder at my classes than making contacts and networking with professionals. Not everyone is suffering in this economy, and if I were going to college for the first time this fall I’d know how to prepare. But I didn’t at the time and now I’m left to face the consequences.

And while the kid in question has picked up the odd bit of wisdom here, he missed out on something that, perhaps, only comes with experience; life is not a crap game where you cast your die at graduation.  It’s an endless (well, not endless, but you know what I mean) game of hold’em, where the terms and parameters of the game change, sometimes radically, in the middle of the game – and then you’re on to the next hand.  And if you’re smart, you don’t let a bad opening hand spook you.

That higher education today doesn’t make sure kids know that – and equip them to deal with it – is one of the great failures of our system.

More on Monday.

From the facebook page of Gary Miller, who’s at least exercising some of the brilliance of his late, lamented Truth Vs. The Machine blog over there – a response to one of Obama’s questions from last night:

OBAMA: “What kind of country would this be if this chamber had voted down Social Security or Medicare just because it violated some rigid idea about what government could or could not do?” ~President Barack Obama

MILLER: Um, a solvent one? One that abides by the rule of law perhaps?

I think it’s time to give an Obama speech the MST3K treatment…

Gibson Musical Instruments Corp. CEO Henry Juszkiewicz via smacked Obama and his speech with a big piece of rosewood:

”He’s a government fan,” he says. “He has a problem with successful businesses. He thinks they’re the problem, that they shouldn’t be quite as successful.”

“He is using the levers of government to not only redistribute, but to penalize,” he adds. “I see a difference between what he said and what he’s doing.”

“We’re under attack,” Juskiewicz says. “It’s pretty interesting to see that one of the points in Obama’s speech was to cut back regulation and promote jobs, when, in fact, he’s done just the opposite…

The splash Obama’s made about “cutting regulation” is, of course, purely potemkin – or as that other Gibson player, John Lennon, once noted…

The Gibson "John Lennon", modeled after one of Lennon's old instruments

…it’s one (cut regulation) for you, nineteen for me.

To: History Channel
From: Mitch Berg, Mere Peasant
Re: “America: The Story Of Us”

Dear History Channel

I watched an episode of “America: The Story Of Us” – an episode focusing on the history of slavery.

In and among all your traditional low-budget camera herky-jerkery, there was a fairly well-told story there.

Your show follows the current fashion, interspersing commentary from experts – or “experts” – into the cinemetic story.  Anyone who’s ever watched a PBS cinementary knows the technique; academics adding bits of, well, academia to a larger story.

Now, some of the “experts” you picked – Colin Powell, Al Sharpton, Henry Louis Gates – are pretty predictable in a story on slavery.  So far so good.

But “Mack” Machiewitz, the overdramatic former SEAL whose claim to fame is having hosted “Future Weapons?”

Bill Maher? I say again, Bill Maher?

Who, to be fair, was at least more measured and sober than noted historian Sheryl “Share Your Toilet Paper” Crowe, whose comment “I think in the south today there are still people who believe in the rightness of slavery?” still strikes me, three days later, as one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard?

Gibson Musical Instrument Corp. CEO Henry Juszkiewicz will be at President Obama’s “Jobs” speech tonight, to remind His Excellency and the assembled, adoring media that the Administration’s politicized, idiotic policies – enforcing an arcane Indian law – are going to cost the company millions of dollars, and if followed through will cost the Nashville area 40 skilled, high-paying manufacturing jobs.

Close-up of the new re-issue "Eric Clapton 1960 Les Paul". Hint, Santa.

In solidarity with Gibson, I’ll supply them some free advertising.

Indian Freaking Rosewood, Administration Byatches!

I do endorse Gibson guitars (although, to be fair, most guitar players do – even lifelong Fender guys like me; I finally took the plunge on a Gibson product last year, and yeah, it’s niiiice).

Oooh - Gibson provides jobs all over the world!

Gateway Pundit writes:

Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz told reporters today that the federal raid on the popular American guitar maker will cost the company $10,000,000. Juszkiewicz also said that he will attend Obama’s big spending jobs speech tomorrow in Washington DC.

Is that a gorgeous piece of work or what? It sounds even better than it looks. And guess what? Yep - made in the USA. One of those "American Manufacturing Jobs" that lefties are constantly barbering about. Outsource this? Why not outsource guarding the Tomb of the Unknowns to the Pakistani military, while you're at it?

Attorney General Eric Holder said the raid on the Gibson was not political.

And if you believe Holder you are an idiot here’s an excellent Fox News clip summing up the entire story so far.

Remember – the CEO of Martin guitars (sorry – while they make gorgeous guitars, and I also own a Martin product, they get no free ads from me), which builds guitars out of exactly the same Indian-grown, American-finished rosewood as Gibson, which is not illegal under US law and only vaguely-sanctioned under Indian law, is a big Democrat contributor.

A Gibson ES335. A favorite of both jazz musicians and loud rockers who like the ES' excellent feedback characteristics.

Of course, Gibson is just one of many such stories – companies being harried, money being confiscated, jobs being destroyed by our rapacious, power-mad bureaucracy.

Yep, there's parts, too. This is a Gibspon "Soap Bar". I have one sunk into the middle position of my Fender Jazz, wired out of phase with the bridge pickup; when they play together, it sounds more like Mark Knopfler's Strat (think "Sultans of Swing") than Mark Knopfler's Strat does.

I’m working to get Mr. Juskiewicz on the Northern Alliance one of these next few weekends.  Keep your fingers crossed; if you’re a fan of limited government or music, it’ll be a great chat.