Apparently society can’t stop teenage children from drinking, drugs and having sex because, in the words of not a few cultural liberals…:
Dude, teenagers are going to drink, try drugs and have sex!
But not only can we apparently prevent them from smoking and drinking Big Gulps of pop, but it is s societal imperative to do so.
Do I have that right?
Let’s take a look at history.
1985 – Ronald Reagan, who (let’s remember this) governed his entire eight years with Congressional minorities, had to finally cut a deal with the Dems. The deal with Tip O’Neill involved two dollars in spending cuts for every dollar in tax hikes. It led to the “Reagan Tax Hikes” that liberals blather about (they were much, much smaller than his tax cuts, and occurred after the economy had recovered, which isn’t nearly as stupid as raising taxes during a recession). Naturally, O’Neill reneged on the deal; we got the tax hikes and the spending, putting a black mark on Reagan’s legacy and giving a generation of giggly lefty chanting-point-bots a cheap tu quoque tittering point.
1990 – George H.W. Bush cuts a deal with Congressional Democrats, who are still in the majority – just one more round of taxes, in exchange for spending cuts, leading to his famous declaration, “Read my lips! No new taxes!”. The Dems welched, naturally, leaving Bush looking like the fool that, for believing the Democrats, he truly was.
2012 – Some House Republicans are making noises that sound suspiciously similar to “we’ll be happy to agree to tax hikes today, in exchange for spending cuts someday when you get around to it”. In other words, they are planning to extend electoral credit to a party that has “our ends justify our means” as an unwritten platform plank.
Dear House Republicans: you thought the 2010 primary season was brutal for RINOs? Remember Trent Lott, and don’t be stupid. Compromising with Democrats before you’ve gotten your pound of flesh is the mark of the sucker. The moron. The soon-to-be unemployed politician, God and your smarter voters willing.
Mary Franson wins her recount in House District 8B.
Franson, a freshman Republican from Alexandria, picked up one extra vote Thursday when Otter Tail County recounted its ballots. In the end, Franson had 4,799 votes in Otter Tail to Cunniff’s 3,790 votes.
Cunniff’s attorneys are challenging four of the ballots in Otter Tail County, and the campaigns also challenged one vote each in Douglas. But the combined challenges wouldn’t be enough to hand Cunniff the win in the state’s closest election of 2012.
This close win by Franson in a bad year for the MNGOP, and against one of the DFL’s sleaziest campaigns in a year where the DFL buried the sleaze-o-meter, is good news; there are at least some parts of the state with a little sanity.
And it’s fascinating how little the vote counts actually swung in a recount run mostly be Republicans, isn’t it?
By the way – even though DFL candidate Bob Cunniff conceded yesterday, as the Strib notes…:
The recount results are unofficial until the state canvassing board meets on Dec. 4 at 1:30 p.m. There is also always a possiblity of a court challenge to the election results.
And given that trial lawyers are among the DFL’s main constituencies, I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
But ’til then, congratulations Rep. Franson!
UPDATE: John Gilmore echoes thoughts a lot of us agree with:
Last legislative session we didn’t have any leaders. In fact, we had anti-leaders. Morons. Incompetents.
Not even status quo: our new majority made things worse. They earned their minority status this election cycle but the better good of Minnesota did not.
Enter Mary Franson: new, naive, honest, sometimes bumbling. Extremely well spoken on the floor of the MN House of Representatives and off.
But wait! Can she navigate The Wedge? Tell the difference of quinoa from teff?
No and here’s hoping she never does. Would it be too post modern to take a field trip to Alexandria?
During the DFL-manufactured “Animals” fracas last spring, the GOP establishment couldn’t have shot Franson under the bus any faster if they’d loaded her into a wrist-rocket.
To paraphrase The Boss: she’s still there, they’re all gone. Well, some of them, anyway.
It’s a little-noticed verse of a song buried in Bruce Springsteen’s biggest studio album:
Now, honey, I don’t wanna clip your wings
But a time comes when two people should think of these things
Having a home and a family,
facing up to their responsibilitiesThey say in the end true love prevails
But in the end true love can’t be no fairytale
To say I’ll make your dreams come true would be wrong
But maybe, darlin’, I could help them along
It’s from “I Wanna Marry You”, from The River. It’s a nice, simple, romantic little trifle. Given Springsteen’s personal life over the past 25 years, it’d be easy to call it “ironic”…
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…but again, the series isn’t about any artist’s personal life, or personal beliefs. It’s about the resonances his audience finds in the music.
The next tenet of conservatism we’re covering is that conservatives adhere to custom, convention, and continuity (provided ones customs and conventions continue things that are worth continuing – which we’ll get to later on in the series).
And shelve the past twenty-five years of history – because this is about as customary, conventional and continuous as one gets:
Little girl, I wanna marry you
Oh yeah, little girl, I wanna marry you
Yes I do, little girl, I wanna mary you.My daddy said right before he died
that true, true love was just a lie.
He went to his grave a broken heart
An unfulfilled life, darlin’, makes a man hard
No apple-carts upset here, right?
Of course, there’s a lot more to custom and tradition than that.
I’ve had a few people ask me what I thought about Frederick Melo’s piece in the PiPress the other day about the 4th Congressional District ousting its chairman.
Well, Melo did have one quote – where the ousted chair “…characterized the vote to remove him as a split between “old guard” Republicans and younger supporters of Libertarian figure Ron Paul” that was just plain untrue.
The group that moved to oust the former chair included Ron Paul supporters and “old guard” activists (the scare quotes are intentional; many of the “old guard” were Tea Partiers, some were considered “insurgents” two years ago).
In a body that had been largely taken over by Ron Paul supporters, it is utterly impossible to view the constitutionally-mandated 2/3 vote for removal as a “Paul Versus Establishment” factional issue. Everybody joined in.
———-
But those are the facts. The question was my reaction.
My reaction is “who cares?” It’s a week old, and it’s already ancient history. And it’s more of the same tail-chasing that has helped make the 4th CD GOP what it is.
And it’s just plain wrong to focus on this sorry little incident, when there is actually reason for hope buried under the headline.
The Fourth CD GOP has been through a rough 65 years or so. The past seven months fit into the district’s long-term tradition as the sad sack of Minnesota politics.
And the elections this cycle were pretty uniformly dismal for the 4th CD GOP – although we were far from alone.
And yet there are some signs of hope in this past seven months, in the past election cycle, in the ousting of the chair, and in the cards for the near future.
Fractions Of Factions: The big story in the GOP statewide this past year, right up there with the state GOP’s financial travails, was the virtual takeover of the state’s BPOUs and Congressional Districts by Ron Paul supporters. This takeover has manifested itself differently in different districts; it had little visible effect (to an outsider, anyway) in the 3rd or 6th CDs; it led to a fractious primary in the 1st; the 5th initially ceased to exist, and then resurfaced as an intellectually-onanistic vanity project run by a group of autocrats in “liberarian” clothing.
In the 4th? A sizeable group, maybe a majority, of Ron Paul supporters realized that you have to back your ideology up with some shoe leather. The “new guard” largely sacked up, buried the hatchet with the “old guard” (har di har) and learned how to write, print and drop lit, pound signs, and the zilllion other non-ideological, non-rhetorical bits of blocking and tackling that you gotta do to run elections and, one day, win the big prize, affect policy. And while the result were disappointing, it’s worth pondering how the races would have turned out had Ramsey County not been the epicenter of the state’s DFL turnout effort (with ballots cast totaling over 99.5+% of election day registrations, six points above the state average, almost all Democrat).
But that’s for another day. The big takeaway is – for once, the 4th CD GOP managed to bury hatchets in something other than each other’s foreheads.
At the campaign level, at least.
Buyer’s Remorse: While the various factions in the 4th CD GOP don’t agree on everything, they did manage to agree that the district’s current direction, as of last Tuesday, was not the right one.
And that’s something.
Forward Motion: Republicans in the Fourth CD have a chance – almost unprecedented in recent history – to have a role in rebuilding the party into a credible, and perhaps one day formidable, force to be reckoned with. There is talk, for the first time since I’ve been involved in the district, of trying to agree on a long-term plan, on a message that resonates with people in Saint Paul andand , of reaching out to people who may be conservative but don’t yet know they’re Republican, and who may have been told that they were shut out of the GOP…
…all of which are things the 4th CD GOP has badly neglected ever since the last time a GOP candidate was a real contender in the district (1994, when the late Dennis Newinski came within six points of toppling the sainted Bruce Vento).
It’s easy to say “the past is passed”. When you’re a 4th CD Republican, it’s absolutely vital; there has been, for 18 years, virtually nothing good about the district’s recent history.
And it may sound pollyannaish to say “let’s focus on the future”.
But this is one of those rare moments in life when a group can literally say it has nothing to lose by going forward – that, indeed, tossing the past aside can be purely a liberating thing.
So here you go, 4th CD History:
Onward!
October: Millionaire pop stars campaign relentlessly for Barack Obama.
November: Pop stars campaign against big government being involved in their livelihoods:
A coalition of 125 celebrity musicians, including pop singer Katy Perry, have joined forces with anti-tax advocates including Grover Norquist and the National Taxpayers Union (NTU) to oppose an intellectual property “reform” bill that critics charge expands government to the detriment of the free market.
Opponents say the Internet Radio Fairness Act, being pushed by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) and Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), would mandatorily lower the licensing fees paid by Internet radio giant Pandora, moving the royalties system further away from a free market and instead entrenching a system in which government sets compensation rates while picking winners and losers.
It reminds me of the celebs who’d campaign for gun control and then turn around and use their celebrity, money and pull to get carry permits for themselves (Bill Cosby) or their bodyguards (Rosie O’Donnell).
And don’t get me wrong – I’m all for getting government out of as much of the market as we can, while we can.
But it’s the hypocrisy, stupid Katie
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
November 27, 1095, Pope Urban II preached the First Crusade while attending an ecclesiastical conference in Clermont, France. His exact speech is disputed but history shows his words were sufficient to inspire all of Christendom to wage war upon the Muslims then occupying Jerusalem.
September 13, 2001, a different crusader preached the same message in fewer words: “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity . . . This is war.”
It’s been a thousand years and we still haven’t solved the problem.
Joe Doakes
Como Park
One of those faiths went through a Renaissance, a Reformation, and a half a millennium of civil evolution. The other largely did not.
Dave Mindeman at mnpAct (?) illustrates why trying to discuss economics with Democrats is such a deeply, abidingly frustrating diversion:
The business community worked hard to get Republicans elected during the last election…Now they say they are nervous about DFL Legislative control.
This is, bear in mind, the same DFL administration that, the week President Obama told America’s entrepreneurs “you didn’t build that”, repeated exactly the same message to a major privately-owned Minnesota corporation.
If they’re nervous, it’s for a reason.
As usual, business get it wrong when it comes to which Party is best for business. And, frankly, most of the perception problem stems from the fact that business always does better when government policies are promoted which favor their clientele and customers…not themselves.
That’s an interesting claim. Let’s watch Mindeman elaborate on it before we pull the rug out.
Republicans and business generally collaborate on the superficial. They want property tax breaks….they want to limit taxes on the wealthy….they want tax incentives. All of that can free up cash and maybe increase the bottom line to a temporary extent….but they are not really pro-growth policies.
Well, yes and no, and irrelevant. Republicans and business also favor paring back excessive regulation, and reforming taxes in the long term so that they don’t structurally hinder growth. Mindeman didn’t mention that – but to be fair, no Democrat ever does.
The dynamics of the economic engine are heavily fueled by demand. Business can create demand to some degree but unless their is a thriving middle class that has the means to purchase the goods produced, the economy goes nowhere.
Which leads us to a chicken-egg question; what creates a healthy and prosperous middle class? Especially given that so many of us in the middle class work for, well, businesses?
MIndeman, being a Twin Cities liberal – where a sclerotically-disproportionate share of the “middle class” is employed by government, has an answer; we’ll come back to that.
First, we have a chanting point to dispense with:
When Democrats are in power, business may not get the preferential treatment they are used to by the GOP, but the broader economy usually does better.
Ah, well, then. That settles it.
If this is what our “Higher Ed” dollars is buying, then the bubble can’t possibly burst soon enough.
I think we all have examples of professors who’ve outlived their usefulness, and on whom “academic freedom” is as much a waste as their public, endowment or student-paid salaries.
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Commenter “Troy” posted a great quip on a prior column, it deserves a post of its own:
***
President Barak “Underpants” Obama’s Plan for the Nation:
Step 1: unlimited debt
Step 2: ?
Step 3: Prosperity!
***
Genius!
Joe Doakes
Como Park
Neither Troy nor I are the first to note that Obama’s economic policy resembles this cartoon…
…which is famous among engineers and scientists, but not so much among liberal politicos.
SCENE: MITCH is walking down Constitution Avenue, near the state capitol. It’s a bright, bright, sunshiny day. Detached-looking figures wander, aimlessly and slightly out of focus, in the distance.
(Aaron ROSTON, DFL activist, pro-bullying-activist and blogger from Fungus Flats, MN, is standing in the middle of the sidewalk).
MITCH (stepping around ROSTON): Excuse me.
ROSTON (with supercharged sarcasm): Oh, yeah, right. You’re so excused.
MITCH: Huh?
ROSTON: Oh, right. I just bet you don’t understand me.
MITCH: O…K…
(Walks onward)
Professor William G. KRIEPPI staggers into the frame as MITCH walks down the street.
MITCH: Hey, Professor.
(KRIEPPI abruptly lurches off the street, walks into a light pole, and falls, insensible, onto the grass, unconscious).
MITCH: Damn. Hey… (turns to passing figure, who turns out to be Dark MAYTON, billionaire playboy political consultant), er, can you help this guy?
MAYTON: The moon is made of olives and I am pulsating.
MITCH (watches as MAYTON walks down the sidewalk. KRIEPPI snores loudly on the grass). What a very strange place.
ROSTON: Oh, yeah. So strange…
MITCH: Good lord, you’re a wierd little person.
(MITCH walks toward the Capitol, He is presently accosted by a shadowy figure – that of PLARF BINGNERT, chief project manager in the Rhetorical Engineering department at the Alliance for a Better Minnesota).
BINGNERT: Mister Berg, why do you do these curious dialogues? It’s almost as if you are trying to say something.
MITCH: Well, usually, yes – but I feel as if this one has gotten out of control. It’s like…
BINGNERT: WOOOOT WOOOOOOOOT WOOOOOOOT WOOOOOOOOP WOOOP WOOOOP WOOOOOP!
MITCH (sotto voce): What the hell?
ROSTON (in distance, walking in tight circle): Oh, yeah – Mr. Family Values, using swears. That’s so “family”.
(BINGNERT wanders aimlessly away). Po di po di po di po!
(MITCH wanders to the base of the capitol steps, sits on the base of the plinth of one of the statues of the Heroes of Minnesota Social Democracy).
(Inge “Lucky” CARROLL, narrative-buffer for “Alliance for a Better Minnesota”, dressed in Lederhosen and Doc Martens boots, rappels down from a bright orange helicopter).
CARROLL (yelling shrilly through a megaphone): HEY! The GOP wants to sell your children!
MITCH: No, they don’t.
CARROLL (still yelling): The GOP wants to run Minnesota from Mississippi!
MITCH: That’s just bizarre.
CARROLL (still yelling): They want to feed your children assault rifles!
MITCH: That just makes no sense.
ROSTON (yelling from middle of lawn): Oh, yeah – Democrats never make sense, do they, Merg?
MITCH (sotto voce): If I say “that’s a fascinating point”, will you go away?
(CARROLL wanders into the distance, shouting random accusations into the bullhorn. As she and her din recede into the distance, a man dressed in a large purple rabbit costume hops laboriously up the sidewalk and stops in front of MITCH).
RABBIT: Hi. I’m Wyatt RINKLER. You only do these fantasy dialogues because you are afraid. And having a melt-down.
MITCH: Well, no.
RINKLER: I’m too stupid to understand what you just said.
ROSTON (suddenly up close): Oh, we’re all too stupid, says Merg.
MITCH: (shakes head, as if to shake off a sucker punch) Beg pardon?
RINKLER: Yarby yarby yarby.
(RINKLER hops away into the distance, disappears over the horizon). (Yes, a hoppable horizon is unaccountably visible from the Capitol. Go figure).
MITCH (walks up steps to Capitol doors. ROSTON follows at a distance, making sarcastic-sounding noises that never quite resolve into words).
MITCH (looking out over city): Wow. It must have been the burrito.
(From the Capitol comes an ephemeral shape, that of Cat SCAT, factoid bookkeeper for Take Action MN).
MITCH: Hey. Nice day, huh?
SCAT: I’ll check to see what Daily Kos says.
ROSTON (muted in the distance): Oh, yeah – so nice!
MITCH (past caring): So does Kos confirm?
SCAT: Can you confirm that this dialog actually happened?
MITCH: I can confirm that it did not actually happen. It’s entirely a figment of my imagination.
SCAT: So it’s a lie!
MITCH: No. It’s fiction. Fiction illustrates, via storytelling, symbolism, metaphor, satire, humor and other devices, things that non-fiction writing can’t.
(Senator Tom BAKK and speaker of the House Paul THISSEN walk out Capitol doors)
SCAT: So you admit it’s false?
ROSTON (on sidewalk, dousing self in strawberry milkshakes): Oh, Merg is never false!
(BAKK and THISSEN pick MITCH’s pocket, replace wallet with a “Happy To Pay For A Better Minnesota” leaflet)
MITCH (ignoring ROSTON): Irrelevant. It’s neither “True” nor “False”. It’s fictional, so it’s made up – but it can show what I reasonably believe to be larger truths. Or not. Sometimes satire is parody, sometimes caricature. Sometimes it’s just plain absurdist, with the perceived truths buried beneath a heaping pile of misdirection. Sometimes it’s just mockery.
SCAT: That’s just wrong.
MITCH: Wrong? You mean, like a liberal TV star pretending to be an over the top caricature of a conservative TV star to satirize conservatives and our alt-media?
SCAT (looks at at “Crooks and Liars” on IPad, is silent)
MITCH: Er…Steven Colbert?
SCAT (Dissolves into the ether)
ROSTON (yells at passing teenage girl): Hey! My sister had capris like that – until my dad got a job! Who does your hair – Stevie Wonder?
MITCH: Wow. Imagine if they’d lost the election.
(Walks to parking lot. Gives leaflet to attendant. Drives off into sunset).
For starters – the Thanksgiving shooting in Little Falls seems, according to what we know, to be a textbook case of how not to shoot in self defense.
64 year old Byron Smith allegedly shot Nicholas Brady, 17, as he came down the cellar stairs – and then allegedly shot Brady’s cousin Haile Kifer, 18. He’s been charged with two counts of second degree murder.
And if the news accounts are accurate – and as we’ve learned, on all gun-related stories, we must distrust but verify the media, but this case seems fairly clear-cut so far – he’ll deserve the conviction. While you don’t have a “duty to retreat” in your home in Minnesota, you still have to have reasonable fear of death or great bodily harm (or, nebulously, to “prevent a felony”, which in practice had better mean “the felony of killing, kidnapping or raping you or your family”), and the force you use has to be reasonable – in other words, no finishing people off.
According to the complaint, Smith told investigators:
He heard glass breaking around noon Thursday while he was in the basement. It was the latest of several break-ins that he’s experienced. Brady started coming down the stairs, and Smith shot him with a rifle by the time he saw the intruder’s hips.
Unless Brady had a chainsaw running around hip level, there wasn’t a whole lot of fear of death, there…
Brady fell down the stairs and was looking up at Smith when the homeowner shot him in the face.
“I want him dead,” Smith explained to the investigator for the additional shot.
And there’s your “unreasonable force”, right there.
And let’s be honest; you hear the same kind of talk from all kinds of people; “it’s best to finish them off”, one yahoo told me in a bar, “because then they can’t sue you”.
I’ve never heard it from anyone that’s been through carry permit training, of course.
And just in case there was some corner of his legal case that wasn’t already utterly self-sodomized…:
Smith put Brady’s body on a tarp and dragged him to an office workshop.
A few minutes later, Smith heard footsteps above him. As in Brady’s case, Kifer too started down the stairs and was shot by Smith by the time he saw her hips, sending her tumbling down the stairs.
Smith attempted to shoot her again, but his rifle jammed, prompting Kifer to laugh.
Upset, Smith, pulled out a revolver he had on him and shot her “more times than I needed to” in the chest, he said.
Smith dragged Kifer next to Brady as she gasped for her life. He pressed the revolver’s barrel under her chin and pulled the trigger in what he described as a “good, clean finishing shot” that was meant to end her suffering.
Hint: virtually no deer-hunting etiquette is appropriate in self-defense shooting.
This is a case that should be used in self-defense classes as a punch-list of everything not to do in a self-defense case.
And above and beyond that? You call the cops immediately. And – it should surprise nobody – Smith did not:
Sheriff Michel Wetzel told reporters Monday afternoon that Smith explained to authorities that he didn’t call immediately after killing the two because “it was Thanksgiving. He didn’t want to trouble us on a holiday.”…Smith acknowledged leaving the bodies in his home overnight before calling a neighbor to ask about a lawyer and to request that authorities be notified.
Naturally, you should be on the phone with the police before the smoke clears.
And while I send my condolences to the victims’ families, of course, the kids had no business in his house. Note, unruly teenagers; you’re not immortal, and you’re only as safe as your least-informed, least-stable victim lets you be.
But here’s the fearless prediction; this case will be used as a chanting point against “Stand Your Ground” at the very least, and most likely against any sort of self-defense reform.
Not because this case has any merit as an example – no factor in this case has any bearing on “Stand your Ground”, and indeed has to have been one of the least-justified self-defense shootings I’ve heard about since Sgt. Jerry Vick’s shooter tried to claim it.
Not because Smith is a carry permit holder – while the records aren’t public, let’s just say his behavior is not that of someone who knew what he was doing.
No – because it involves two things that are catnip for anti-human-rights activists:
It’ll be wrong. It’ll be legally as well as factually void. It’ll be pure disinformation.
And as we’ve seen in the past two elections in Minnesota, legally/logically/factually void disinformation sells.
Just saying; if Heather Martens doesn’t put out a press release trying to tie this case to “Stand Your Ground” and/or concealed carry, I’ll be amazed.
Joe Doakes emailed me yesterday:
I make a point each morning of reading the Wikipedia page for the day, to see what happened in history.
Today, November 26, is the birthday of Willis Carrier. Born in 1876, died in 1950, he has been one of my greatest heroes every Minnesota summer and I never knew his name until today.
In 1906, Willis Carrier invented . . . air conditioning.
Joe Doakes
Como Park.
Salute!
The 738th American MP Battalion was surrounded. Unaccustomed to being in the midst of fighting, the scattered remnants of the unit grabbed any weapon they could in a vain attempt to defend a Red Cross Service Station and PX against hundreds of enemy troops. A handful of shotguns were distributed to go with the MP’s standard issue Smith & Wesson Victory Revolver. They knew reinforcements weren’t coming – thousands of American & Allied troops were engaged in street-by-street fighting. The 738th left their defensive positions in the Red Cross building and meant the enemy head on in hand-to-hand fighting on November 26th, 1942.
The battlefield wasn’t in the sands of North Africa, nor the jungles of New Guinea, but the streets of Brisbane, Australia. And for two nights, the opponents weren’t the Axis powers. For two nights in 1942, America and Australia went to war.
The Aussie & The Yank
The phrase “they’re overpaid, oversexed, and over here” has usually been attributed to British attitudes about the influx of American servicemen in World War II. Yet the same was said by many an Australian as the Yanks came marching in by the thousands.
Over one million American soldiers would pass through Australia from 1942 until the end of the Pacific War, increasing the overall population of the country by 10%. Nearly overnight, Australian cities on the populous eastern coast found themselves overrun with American servicemen. Brisbane was among the worst affected. By the end of 1942, the city of 300,000 now had to provide food and utilities for a population of over 600,000 – the difference all made up in U.S. GI’s. The sewers and electrical grid couldn’t possibly adapt quickly enough. For many Aussies, the Yanks brought brownouts, garbage in the streets, and increased crime and prostitution – not protection from the Japanese.
The View From Down Under: Americans saw the Aussies as quaint and the Australian front as a relaxing sideshow
Much like in England, the GIs also brought a considerably higher paycheck than their Allied counterparts, a fact that chaffed relations largely because American servicemen could afford to woo the locals with chocolates and silk stockings – luxuries in wartime. Over 12,000 Australians married American GIs during the course of the war, but it wasn’t a lifetime of companionship that Australian troops were searching for when they grumbled that the ladies of Brisbane preferred the handsome foreigners who could buy otherwise limited goods at American PXs. Compounding the Aussie’s frustrations were that the Yanks hadn’t just taken all the girls, but all the booze. Alcohol shortages were so common that hotels became limited to two one-hour long servings each day – leading to binge drinking among civilians and servicemen of both countries.
Actions on the frontlines hardened attitudes as well. The brutal Buna-Gona campaign in New Guinea was being waged at the same time with Allied forces counter-attacking well-fortified Japanese defense in the thick New Guinea jungle. The percentage of casualties at Buna exceeded the better known Battle of Guadalcanal 3-to-1 and the brunt of the fighting was being borne by Australian troops. That fact mattered little to General Douglas MacArthur, who reported on “U.S. victories” at Buna-Gona while setbacks were attributed to the Australians. Aussies who had fought and bled in hard-won victories returned to Brisbane unable to get a date or a drink while reading that nearly non-existent American forces had won the day.
The American Invasion: Members of the US Navy march in Brisbane
By the end of November, 20 brawls a night between Aussies and Yanks were being broken up, mostly by American MPs. Not only would the MPs usually believe their fellow Americans, getting them out of trouble, but the MPs quickly developed a reputation as violent and arrogant. More and more Australians took to mob justice when they felt wronged. 20 Australian civilians jumped a group of American submariners just nights before November 26th, beating them mercilessly.
With this backdrop, it was somewhat surprising that what touched off two nights of intense rioting started with Australian servicemen trying to defend an American from an American MP.
Private James Stein of the U.S. 404th Signal Company had been abusing the limited alcohol policies of Brisbane, and like many soldiers was trying to get to a new bar that would soon be open for one-hour only. Clearly drunk, Stein found himself in front of an MP demanding to see a leave pass. The MP’s verbal abuse caused several Australian soldiers that Stein had been talking with to engage the MP, trying to get him to lay off a drunk but not AWOL Stein. The MP’s response was to lift his baton as if to strike one of the Aussies. One of the Aussies struck first instead. A melee ensued as more MPs, Australian and American soldiers ran to the fight outside the American PX. News of the initial fight spread, starting new brawls. By 8pm – just an hour after the first fists were thrown – over 5,000 people, civilian and military, were engaged in a series of battles across Brisbane.
Japanese Propaganda: Much like the Nazis in Europe, the Japanese played upon fears of lustful American troops
The fights quickly became more than drunken brawls. Guns and grenades were passed about on both sides. Shots were fired by MPs and Aussies. One correspondent called Brisbane “the most furious battle I ever saw during the war.” By night’s end, at least one Australian soldier was confirmed dead – shot by an American MP – and dozens more were seriously injured by gunshot, stabbing or clubbing.
The passage of a day did little to calm matters. 500-600 Australian troops surrounded the PX the next night, eager to get revenge. The MPs were better prepared, armed with machine guns and rifles. What started as a mob turned into a battle line as both sides took up defensive positions and prepared to assault the other. Australian MPs sent to break up the crowd took off their armbands and joined instead. With neither side willing to make a move, elements of the Australian mob moved elsewhere, assaulting Americans around the city. Unconfirmed reports suggested that several Americans were killed that night, either shot or beaten to death by the Australian mob.
The fighting was almost entirely ignored by the wartime press. Other than a brief bulletin mentioning an incident that left one dead and six wounded, media both in Australia and the U.S. were censored to prevent news of the incident from spreading. If the censorship was designed to cool tensions, it backfired. Brisbane sources spread rumors of absurd levels of violence, including a suggestion that 15 Australian servicemen had been shot by Americans with machine guns – their bodies stacked like cordwood outside a Post Office. Although that report is almost certainly false, the true number of dead or wounded has never been released.
Few were punished for the fighting. Units on both sides involved were transferred out of the city. The MP responsible for killing an Australian was acquitted. And despite five convictions on the Australian side, only one served any jail time – for a total of six months. The incident was pushed down the memory hole and forgotten.
Other “battles” would occur in Australia and New Zealand. A similar fight, named the Battle of Manners Street in Wellington, New Zealand had over 1,000 participants in 1943. And much like the Battle of Brisbane, the fight was blacked out by the media.
It was seventy years ago today that Casablanca made its New York debut.
The movie – which started as a script for a never-produced play, “Everybody Goes To Rick’s” – was by no means a sure thing. Its production, under director Michael Curtiz, was almost legendary for its difficulties; the script was being revised constantly during shooting, both for plot reasons and to satisfy objections from the “Production Code Administration”, the industry’s standards and practices board that enforced the “Hays Code” that governed the morals shown in American movies up through the sixties; the references to Major Renault trading sex for visas, and Rick and Ilse’s fling in Paris, were originally treated much less elliptically than in the final cut.
Indeed, much of the movie’s flow wasn’t nailed down until the final edit. The immortal closing scene was very nearly augmented by a “real” ending that showed Rick and Major Renault on a ship full of troops – US and Free French – bound for Africa. This was cut – thankfully – due to Claude Rains’ unavailability – not the only case where a schedule difficulty helped preserve the movie we finally got…
…which was, in its purest form, a parable for what America really stood for on the world stage. We, like Rick, preferred isolation – but could be swayed by an overwhelming moral argument.
And what an argument it was. The moment when you started to have the faintest hint that Humphrey Bogart’s cynical, hard-bitten, paleo-noir “Rick Blaine” might have a soft spot (carefully hidden under layers of callouses and scars) for the underdog maybe one of the most gloriously, over-the-top manipulative scenes in cinema:
At first viewing, it’s a “U – S – A! U – S – A!” style adrenaline rush with the French – who were sympathetic figures to Americans back then – filling the starring role. The more you watch it, the more layers it has. Listen to the way La Marseillaise joins in over the Germans’ Die Wacht Am Rhein, as seamlessly as a nightclub DJ would beat-and-key mix them together.
The scene would make a granite countertop emotional.
I had not watched a lot of old movies, beyond the annual ritual of “Wizard of Oz” when I was a kid. I had little concept of what the golden age of Hollywood had meant, or been. The movie absolutely gobsmacked me.
And it was thirty years ago last New Years Day that I first saw Casablanca. And I never really recovered. I’ve watched it dozens of times, maybe a hundred. Back during college, I saw it so many times that I could recite the dialog along with the movie.
For starters – and it should surprise nobody that a 19 year old would notice this – but you can count the stars in movie history more radiant than Ingrid Bergman on one hand, with a couple of fingers left over.
The boy meets girl (spoilers follow), boy loses girl during a Nazi invasion, boy finds girl in North Africa, boy loses girl to charismatic underground leader, boy has a shot at getting girl back but uses that to trick her and boyfriend into leaving to carry on the fight while he heads off to fight the Nazis is an oldie but goodie – and has never been done better.
It was thirty years ago this past New Years Day that I first saw Casablanca.
And it’d be hard to show us a role that is a greater American archetype than Bogart’s “Rick”.
God knows how many people died of lung cancer decades after seeing Casablanca as a kid – because yes, in the hands of Humphrey Bogart, smoking was cool. It did make you more suave, hard-bitten, dangerous-looking. I was tempted to take up the habit after seeing the movie my first couple dozen times.
And there has never been a cliffhanger ending like Casablanca’s. I won’t spoil it. But if you haven’t seen the movie, you are shirking your duty as a culturally-literate American. Please see to this immediately.
So my evening plans are set, anyway.
To: Over-The-Top Obama Personality Cultists
From: Mitch Berg
Re: Trumped.
To whom it may concern:
That is all.
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Why Obama Administration Treasury Secretary Geithner says there shouldn’t be a debt limit for the federal government.
On the other hand, we can be certain most of that $23,000,000,000,000.00 is Bush’s fault. Must be. Somehow. So I suppose that’s okay, then.
I still haven’t figured out The Plan. We can run up unlimited debt without any consequences because, why, exactly?
We don’t have enough money to fund day-to-day operations so we take an operating loan. Fine, but doesn’t that loan eventually get repaid meaning someday you expect not only to have enough money to fund day-to-day operations, but also surplus money to pay down the principal? How many rich people do we have and can we possibly tax them enough to pay off that kind of debt? If now, what’s the plan for retiring the debt?
Alternatively, if the plan is not to repay it but to keep printing money, doesn’t that result in Weimar or Zimbabwe inflation and economic ruin?
I don’t understand it. Fine, I’m ignorant, explain it. But the politicians can’t explain it in a way that I can understand it. So either I’m ignorant AND stupid, or they’re bullshitting me and have no solution but won’t admit it. I concede the possibility of the former but I suspect the latter.
Joe Doakes
Como Park
I’m trying to figure out what the Dem’s campaign to make unlmited debt seem normal, even good – because that’s what they’ve done for every perversion of reality they’ve inveigled the American people into accepting – is going to look like.
I’m going to guess:
More?
Dr. Peter Weiss on the scam of Obamacare’s “Free Annual Examination”:
I have now posted a notice in my office and each exam room stating exactly what Obamacare will cover for those yearly visits. Remember Obama promised this as a free exam — no co-pay, no deductible, no charge. That’s fine and dandy if you are healthy and have no complaints. However, we are obligated by law to code specifically for the reason of the visit. An annual exam is one specific code; you can not mix this with another code, say, for rectal bleeding. This annual visit covers the exam and “discussion about the status of previously diagnosed stable conditions.” That’s the exact wording under that code — insurance will not cover any new ailment under that code.
If you are here for that annual exam, you will not be covered if you want to discuss any new ailment or unstable condition. I cannot bait and switch to another code — that’s illegal. We, the physicians, are audited all the time and can lose our license for insurance fraud.
You, the patient, will then have to make a decision.
Do you want your “free” yearly exam, or do you want to pay for a visit which is coded for a particular, new problem? You can have my “free” exam if you only discuss what Obamacare wants me to discuss… If you are complaining of a new problem, then you have to reschedule, since Obamacare is very clear as to what is covered and what is not. Obamacare — intentionally — makes it as difficult to be seen and taken care of as possible.
It really is as cynical as its proponents always called Big Insurance.
Hey, who needs a “death panel” if people die waiting on an appointment?
The University of Minnesota redraws the lines of success for Gophers football.
Since the state’s introduction to Jerry Kill’s persistent problems with seizures (in what was only his second game, no less), the topic of the health of Minnesota’s football coach has been near verboten by both the University and a complacent media. That may finally change following a turbulent week which saw the team’s leading offensive player quit with a Tolstoy-length screed, the team lose badly to a very beatable Michigan State, and Kill suffer a seizure which forced him to miss the second half:
After Minnesota fell 26-10 to Michigan State, athletic director Norwood Teague said Kill was comfortable and all of his vital signs were fine. Kill was cleared to go home after resting for a few hours.
“I know this will bring up questions about him and moving forward, but we have 100 percent confidence in Jerry,” Teague said, adding: “He’s as healthy as a horse, as they say. It’s just an epileptic situation … that he deals with. He has to continue to monitor all the simple things in life that we all have to monitor, in that you watch your diet, watch your weight, watch your rest, watch your stress.”
The seizure is Kill’s fourth since taking over the Gophers’ program in 2011 and the third during a season (one seizure occurred in the off-season). Newly installed AD Norwood Teague is certainly correct – Kill’s seizures are not the sign of deeper health concerns, nor is there much Kill can do to lessen their occurrence or severity. That fact alone is the main reason why few in or outside the media have taken up the issue.
But can a Division-I football program grow when the man in charge likely can’t make it through an entire season? Kill’s health may not be a concern to the University administration, but it will certainly be an issue in the cut-throat world of college recruiting. Few rival recruiters in Wisconsin or Iowa will have any qualms about raising Kill’s health or the AJ Barker diva saga. Both call into question whether Kill is truly able to handle coaching at a Big 10 level. Kill’s insistence that he treats all players equally sounds wonderful outside of the realities of college athletics where star players expect some deferential treatment. And there’s little question that Kill’s seizures are becoming more frequent He suffered one in 2005 coaching for Southern Illinois. Now, the seizures are a multiple, yearly occurrence.
The University may have few choices in the matter. Kill’s 7-year contract places the U on the hook for $600k each year they buy-out. The U already had to pay $775,000 to get rid of Tim Brewster and is now out a similar amount simply to avoid a home-and-home series against a mediocre North Carolina team. Nor would the University seriously contemplate firing a head coach two years into his stay as his team has improved from 3 wins to 6.
Yet what does the future hold for a Jerry Kill-lead Gophers program? 2012 has revealed a few hints: that Kill doesn’t think his squad can handle an 8-4 team at home in 2014; that he doesn’t know how his best players perceive him; and (fair or not) that his body hasn’t learned to adjust to the stress of coaching a low-level Big 10 team. What exactly about any of those qualities will change in the short-term?
Instead of worrying about such issues, the University seems content to redraw their expectations. $800,000 is a small price to pay for ensure two non-conference victories against Hamline’s intramural flag-football team or whatever cupcake opponents replace North Carolina. Who cares if the head coach is healthy enough to be on the sidelines when you might make the Meineke Car Care Bowl.
The University of Minnesota might be better served asking if those short-term hopes are worth mortgaging their long-term goals – and Jerry Kill’s health.
We talked with Gretchen Hoffman of Concerned Women For America.
Today, the Northern Alliance Radio Network – America’s first grass-roots talkradio show – brings you the best in Minnesota conservatism, as the Twin Cities media’s sole source of honesty!
(All times Central)
So tune in to all four hours of the Northern Alliance Radio Network, the Twin Cities’ media’s sole guardians of honest news. You have so many options:
Join us!
As Ed announced on Hot Air earlier this week, last Saturday was his last regular Northern Alliance broadcast.
So some might ask – what’s the NARN’s future?
The answer: Lots.
The show will carry on on Saturday at the usual time (and Brad’s show on Sunday, of course, is unchanged). I’ll probably focus more on Minnesota politics – I mean, with Bill Bennett, Mike Gallagher, Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, Hugh Hewitt, Dennis Miller and Mark Levin, AM1280’s got the national stuff pretty well covered, right? I’ll likely also have a group of regular guests in the studio to talk important Minnesota stuff.
So tune in for the new NARN – same as the old NARN – Saturday from 1-3PM (and Brad’s show on Sunday from 1-3) on AM1280 The Patriot, or on the Patriot’s live stream, or (fingers crossed) the show’s new video and chat stream.
In the song “Darlington County” (from Born in the USA), a couple of ne’er-do-wells drive south to find a little work and raise a little ruckus:
Hey little girl standing on the corner,
Todays your lucky day for sure, all right.
Me and my buddy we’re from New York City,
we got two hundred dollars, we want to rock all night.Girl you’re looking at two big spenders,
Why the world don’t know what me and Wayne might do
Our pa’s each own one of the World Trade Centers,
For a kiss and a smile I’ll give mine all to you…
At the end of the song, we find out how it went:
Driving out of darlington county
My eyes seen the glory of the coming of the Lord
Driving out of darlington county
Seen Wayne handcuffed to the bumper of a state trooper’s Ford
It’s comic trifle – the whole song is, really. But it hints at a theme conservatives believe as a part of being conservative; that the world has an enduring moral order. That there is a battle between right and wrong, Yin and Yang, good and evil – and that right and good are better, and should be exalted, or at least striven for.
“Wayne” ran afoul that order – with comic results, unless you’re “Wayne”, I suppose.
But it’s usually a lot deeper than that.
Joe Doakes from Como Park writes:
Exit polling shows the Marriage Amendment was defeated by Baby Boomers, not by Gen X or Millennial voters.
Baby Boomers – the “Me” Generation – already changed America, and not for the better. They seem bent on continuing: tearing down traditional foundations of society and running up endless debt while preening their moral superiority for doing it.
Here’s the question: after the Baby Boomers are gone, can the nation recover? Or will they take it to the grave with them?
Joe Doakes
Como Park
I blame The Doors.
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