Berkeley not only tries to shut down a Marine recruiting station, it gives Code Pink preferential treatment to carry out their harassment!

[the Berkeley City Council] voted 8-1 to tell the U.S. Marines that its Shattuck Avenue recruiting station “is not welcome in the city, and if recruiters choose to stay, they do so as uninvited and unwelcome intruders.”

OK, so we’re used to Berkeley (and San Francisco, and Minneapolis for that matter) “sending” stupid “messages”. 

But this bit here… 

In a separate item, the council voted 8-1 to give Code Pink a designated parking space in front of the recruiting station once a week for six months and a free sound permit for protesting once a week from noon to 4 p.m.

In other words, in parking-strapped Berkeley, the City Council is lending city property to a protest group!

Can every protest group expect that sort of consideration?

Doy…:

“I believe in the Code Pink cause. The Marines don’t belong here, they shouldn’t have come here, and they should leave,” Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates said after votes were cast….The recommendation to give Code Pink a parking space for protesting and a free sound permit was brought by council members Linda Maio and Max Anderson.

Some peoples’ freedom of speech is more important than yours, obviously.  At least, it is in Berkeley.

Code Pink on Wednesday started circulating petitions to put a measure on the November ballot in Berkeley that would make it more difficult to open military recruiting offices near homes, parks, schools, churches libraries or health clinics. The group needs 5,000 signatures to make the ballot.

In other words, zoning them like pr0n shops.

But here’s the part I like; it’s not entirely one-sided!

Because not only does the story note (as I did, years ago) that the Pinkers are stupid and ignorant – they’re lousy neighbors!:

Even though the council items passed, not everyone is happy with the work of Code Pink. Some employees and owners of businesses near the Marines office have had enough of the group and its protests.

“My husband’s business is right upstairs, and this (protesting) is bordering on harassment,” Dori Schmidt told the council. “I hope this stops.”

An employee of a nearby business who asked not to be identified said Wednesday the elderly Code Pink protesters are aggressive, take up parking spaces, block the sidewalk with their yoga moves, smoke in the doorways, and are noisy.

“Most of the people around here think they’re a joke,” the woman said.

A joke?  Really?  Seems a little…

…well, accurate.  It seems their Pinkers aren’t any smarter than ours are:

Fran Rachel, 90, a Code Pink protester who spoke at the council meeting, said the group’s request for a parking space and noise permit was especially important because the Marines are recruiting soldiers who may die in an unjust war.

“This is very serious,” Rachel said. “This isn’t a game; it’s mass murder. There’s a sickness of silence of people not speaking out against the war. We have to do this.”

“Our opponents are mentally ill”.

Oh, I’m looking forward to seeing those dimwitted old crones at the RNC.

Really, really, I am.

UPDATE WITH BOOYAH:  The American Legion says “Berkeley Delenda Est“.  Legion leader Marty Conatser does to the Berkeley Flower Children and the Pinkos what the Marines did to Peleliu (via Michelle):

“Osama bin Laden couldn’t have said it better,” American Legion National Commander Marty Conatser said of the Berkeley City Council Resolution, which tells the Marines that they are not welcome there. “Disgraceful, disloyal, ungrateful. These words are too kind in describing the actions of the public officials in Berkeley, who voted for this disgrace. Nonetheless, our Marines continue to bravely serve and in so doing, allow Americans to spout such foolishness. The American Legion not only strongly condemns this action by the City Council but also believes that a sincere apology is in order to all Marines, past and present.”…“I have been a recruiter in the National Guard and I know that it’s tough duty, with long hours,” Conatser said. “What these recruiters do is essential to our national security. Without recruiters we have no military. And I don’t think we can count on the flower children from Berkeley to protect this nation when it comes under attack. They have to remember that Marines are not the enemy; the terrorists are.”

“Remember”?  They have to learn it in the first place.

Remember; if some tinhorn city government can vote to make the Marines (or any other body of government) “unwanted and unwelcome intruders”, they can do it to anyone. 

CMLP at Casual Sundays notes:

“Political Correctness: A doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical, liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous media, which holds that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.”

It actually was from a contest at Texas A and M…

But this time he’s got numbers – scary numbers – about black American society:

It’s hard to argue with the numbers. The disintegration of the black family that was accelerated by welfare, has stunted a generations of Americans. This is why we fight so hard to stop the social programs that ruin lives, communities and families.

And the numbers come from that noted O’Reilly-esque tool The Economist.

Smoke-free crusaders may now be at your door

One anti-smoking group will kick-start a campaign this week to encourage landlords to outlaw smoking in their buildings. While the program would be purely voluntary for now, some communities might follow two California cities by considering broader ordinances that would apply to multi-unit dwellings.Smoke-free groups are also considering pushes to restrict drivers who smoke with kids in their cars, park users who smoke and even cigarette-dangling youth-sport coaches. Still, condos and apartments appear to be the next battleground in the state’s smoking wars.

And after that, maybe they can go after people who talk on their cell phones in the rest room?

Maybe?

Because that is a scourge upon the land.

It is so good to have Fishsticks back blogging. 

Over at TrueNorth, he tackles last week’s Anti-Strib flap:

For the record, it’s ignorant, and in the character of “dump” blogs, it clouds an issue more than enlightens it. It is more embarrassing to the conservative audience it would support than to the people it attacks or the liberal left.

While as I noted last week I think Eberly has learned a lot from this dustup (more than any comparable leftyblogger would under similar circumstances; when was the last time you saw  a regional leftyblogger get called on the carpet by his own fellow bloggers for an ethical or moral lapse, much less actually acknowledge the problem the way Tracy did?), Westover agrees about the upshot:

Racist? I tend to reserve the “R” word for people that take action based on race, but the post certainly violates the conservative principle of judging individuals and not aggregating people by ethnicity or some other characteristic.

 Not to speak for either Westover or Eberly, but if you’re a first-principles conservative, that is among the most damning indictments of racism, casual or otherwise; that it treats people as groups and categories (to say nothing of wrongly) rather than as individuals.

There’s a discussion to be had there, naturally.

Of course, no discussion is needed about the left’s response; Fishsticks loads his cannon with grapeshot and lowers them to deck level in re Karl Bremer’s vacuous attack on all regional conservative bloggers and, incidentally, Eberly:

As to the responses that included my name, they are worthy of the original post – they do the same thing, aggregate everyone associated with the MOB with an ignorant idea that, in fact, violates conservative principles.
 
If anyone were interested in really busting the Anti-Strib post, he might have started a conversation about the Iroquois constitution.

Read the whole thing.  Welcome Fishsticks back.

And marvel at how much more lopsided the intellectual battle among the bloggers in this town just got.

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

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

Thankfully, not everyone is jumping on the sleigh:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tommy Lee Jones, maybe.

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

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

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

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

(more…)

A few years back, many left-leaning commentators – up to and including Geraldo Rivera and some who are on the George Soros payroll – tried to bury Michelle Malkin in a wave of anti-Filipina bigotry.And while many people, left and right, rose as one to condem this ugly racist display, a number of left-leaning commentators were as silent as death on the subject. Among the silent – and thus, complicit – were:

• Steve Perry, editor of the big-buck-lefty-supported Daily Mole (and, at the time, editor of the City Pages),
• Karl Bremer, foul-mouthed Stillwater screechmonger, who has found via the local alt-meda a ready outlet and ravenous market for his raving vein-bulging screeching inner lout.
  
• Minnesota Monitor
• Every leftyblogger that attends “Drinkiing Liberally”, an organization of regional leftyblogs, which sets the agenda for local left-leaning alternative media.

The inference is clear; Perry, Bremer, Eric Black and the DrinkLib bloggers think the only place for a Filipina woman is writhing around a greased pole on a stage, or turning tricks by a navy base.

For that matter, on this blog I’ve commented many times at great length about the pre-1945 German trait of eliminationist anti-Semitism, as identified by Goldhagen. Who was silent on this subject? Perry, Bremer, MinMon and Drinking Liberally.

Their silence tells the tale; obviously, they hate Jews and want them all murdered.

Let us not forget that four years ago, DrinkLib participant and leading local leftyblogger Mark Gisleson called for the lynching of Vice President Cheney, among many other things. Whose silence again rolled like a hurricane storm surge? That’s right; Karl Bremer, the MinMon, the DrinkLib bloggers, and…well, OK, Steve Perry did sort of wind up giving Wege a muted “tut-tut” online.

The meaning is clear; all left-of-center alt-media commentators are racists who want to murder jews and lynch Dick Cheney.

Their silence is the proof.

When will leftybloggers rise as one and attack Steve Perry, Karl Bremer, the Minnesota Monitor and all of the Drinking Liberally leftyblogs?

———-

Stupid, right?

Yep. Intentionally so.

If only Steve Perry’s “Daily Mole” could say the same thing about Karl Bremer’s grindingly, corrosively stupid “Reader Op-Ed” hit ‘n run on Tracy “Anti-Strib” Eberly and, by the way, every single center-right blogger in the Twin Cities.

What happens when a leading local Republican blogger publishes a virulently racist screed that refers to Native Americans as “dirt worshipping heathens,” “domestic terrorists permanently stuck in the Stone Age” and “humanoid animals,” and describes them as a race “so primitive that they created nothing of any lasting value, nor did they contribute anything of note to the world”?

In Minnesota, evidently nothing—at least from his right-leaning compatriots in the Minnesota Organization of Bloggers and the mainstream media.

Wow. That’s pretty damning stuff. Where could that have come from?

Minneapolis regulatory affairs consultant Tracy Eberly published such a piece on his local blog Anti-Strib on October 11. Those are just a few salient quotes from it. If you want to read his further defense of genocide against Native Americans, you’ll have to visit his website yourself. Suffice to say it would make Andrew Jackson proud.

Um, yeah, Karl/Steve. About that.

Bremer knows how to put links into web copy; he provides copious links to the other Minnesota Organization of Bloggers (MOB) blogs that he wants to smear by association. So why – in the left-leaning “Mole”, publishing to a left-leaning audience – can’t he provide a link to Eberly’s actual piece?

Does he (and, by association, Perry, MinMon and the Drinking Liberally bloggers damn, now I’m picking up that awful habit), know is audience isn’t going to bother googling and digging to find the article? Is he counting on inertia (a reasonable assumption) to keep his audience from knowing the actual context in which Eberly was writing?

So read Eberly’s piece. I did. For the first time. I didn’t like it much, and don’t agree with it. Of course, I understand where it comes from – and it’s not racism.

To know that, of course, the reader would need to know the context of the story as well as the pull-quotes Bremer has elected to highlight. But that would undercut Bremer’s foamy-mouthed, self-righteous “point”. It’s unsurprising, of course – Bremer, a long-time anti-Michele Bachmann zealot, writes for “Dump Bachmann”, a blog whose entire oeuvre is built around crimes against context (and which also refuses to condemn the attacks on Malkin, the Holocaust, and to renounce the attack on Dick Cheney Crap. It’s catchy, and hard to kick).

More on that later. Bremer next lets his imagination romp and play – with results that some of his associates might find…hinky?:

Eberly is a member of a group known as the Minnesota Organization of Bloggers, or more appropriately, MOB. Self-described as “a group of mostly center-right bloggers,” MOB includes virtually every Republican blogger in the Twin Cities, including GOP-affiliated Minnesota Democrats Exposed, TCF-connected Power Line, and St. Paul Pioneer Press editorial board member Craig Westover.

Bremer slips from omission into lying, here. PowerLine is not “connected” with TCF, any more than Karl Bremer is “connected” to the Nazi Party for whom his deafening silence about the Holocaust is a sure sign of support (dammit) my employer is “connected” to my blog (I’m going to make sure Scott Johnson sees that, however; Steve Perry might want to see to the “Mole’s” “fact”-checking).

More importantly (to me)? The MOB is rigorously non-partisan. As one of the group’s “organizers” (there is no “organization”), I am the one, along with Chad the Elder, Brian Ward and King Banaian, to state this for the record; the MOB eschews politics completely, as a matter of principle. The group is a blogroll and a twice-annual gathering at a bar. Not only that, but we have made a point of reaching out and inviting leftybloggers to our semiannual MOB parties; not only as blanket invitations on our blogs, but specific emailed invitations to the leftybloggers themselves. These invitations have included several sent to specific City Pages writers (Paul Demko among others) while Perry ran the place.

Karl Bremer’s “boss” at DumpBachmann, Eva Young, attended the last MOB Party. She seemed to have a great time! And – what’s this? Tracy from Anti-Strib attended! Eva must hate Indians, too!

Some “right-leaning” group, that MOB, huh, Karl?

Eberly reportedly finished third in the runoff for their little club’s “mayor,” so he clearly has their respect.

For the benefit of any “Mole” reader who reads this; the “Mayor” race is the MOB’s equivalent of a “Miss Congeniality” award and – again, I say this as one of the MOB’s Capi di tutti capi, the mayor election is not an official MOB function. It is something the Kool Aid Report does for the fun of it.

Yet since Eberly’s “dirt-worshipping heathens” column ran last month, the silence from the usually fawning MOB mob has been deafening.

Let’s make sure we provide the context that Karl Bremer (anti-filipina, anti-semite and pro-lynching-advocate-by-omission that he is Jeebus, this “smear by omission” thing is a slippery slope!) is apparently afraid to, yet again.

Anti-Strib is a rant blog. It is not the Weekly Standard. It is among local center-right bloggers what “Norwegianity” is for the local center-left; the loud, unrepentant, sometimes gauche, sometimes dead-on (well, Anti-Strib, anyway), shoot-first-ask-questions-later portion of the local center-right psyche. They are South Park conservatives of the most unrepentant stripe; they whiz on Political Correctness with the sort of glee that PZ Meiers piddles (or tries to piddle) on faith, or “Crayola Boy” Avidor pees on…I dunno, artistic talent?

And – take note, Karl Bremer – just because we share a label doesn’t mean we think, act or believe the same. I’m not a screedblogger, so sometimes the Anti-Strib is off-putting. It’s a “big tent” groupblog, so the writing is mighty uneven, ranging from amateurish and awful to really good (sort of like the City Pages).

Do I care for the tone of Tracy’s piece? Of course not. Of course, unlike Bremer, I know some of the backstory that is probably opaque to Bremer and his readers; as he notes, Eberly is reacting to “Doug”, a malignant comment-section tumor (one of only four people that’s ever been banned from this blog) who claims to be (among many, many things) Native American, and who relentlessly romanticizes Native culture. “Doug” is such a remorselessly abrasive jagoff that if he were to start advocating for unicorns and puppies, I’d be tempted to rhetorically warm up the .270 and the meatgrinder. And I hate that – because while I deeply respect Native culture (I’ve spent a lot of time reading about hunter-gatherer and aboriginal farming cultures in recent years) within their cultural context, Doug’s relentless preening is enough to make Russell Means break out a copy of Fort Apache out of pure snotty spite.
Tracy’s article is an attempt to let the air out of a really obnoxious balloon. Was it coarse and un-PC and maybe just a tad less artful than I’d shoot for, myself? Sure. Remember, I banned Doug rather than indulge in a reaction I’d rather not have; after almost six years of this, I’ve learned to pick and choose my stressors. Tracy sees it differently; that’s Tracy.

I don’t endorse his reaction; neither do I think it’s a sign of racism or lousy character or bad breath or anything other than wanting to give the relentless prig Doug a rhetorical wedgie.

Suffice to say every regional leftybloggers had best be very careful about their own flippant bigotries.

And, of course, “logical fallacies” – like the kind Bremer smears all over himself in the next bit:

Minnesota Democrats Exposed is authored by Michael Brodkorb, a paid consultant to the Minnesota GOP, Norm Coleman and many other past GOP campaigns. Brodkorb calls Anti-Strib.com a “daily read,” and it’s the first permanent link on his website, where he has been flogging Al Franken relentlessly lately for Franken’s statements about Native Americans.

The “daily read” list is in alphabetical order. And – lest the distinction be lost on anyone dim enough to take Karl Bremer as an authority on anything – Tracy Eberly is not running for US Senate.

Even Westover, with his bully pulpit on the Pioneer Press editorial page, has remained on the sidelines

Bremer, again, fails to provide a link to allow the reader to note that Westover has “remained on the sidelines because his blog has been moribund for six months. Clearly, Westover’s “silence on Al Quaeda” during that time means he also supports stoning gays – by Bremer’s logic.

Substitute “Blacks” or “Jews” or “Christians” or “Catholics” for “Indians” in Eberly’s harangue, and what do you think the reaction would be, even from the right?

That’s easy. “That’s stupid enough to be a Karl Bremer opinion”

Isn’t it time Republicans and their internet and media cheerleaders [Hahahahahahaha! – Ed.] quit pointing their fingers at liberal political groups and their TV ads, and cleaned up the hatefulness in their own back yard? A good place to start would be a repudiation of one of their own family members, Tracy Eberly and Anti-Strib, for the shame he’s laid upon their doorstep. Because as long as they remain silent about fellow MOBster Tracy Eberly and his “earth-worshipping heathens” slurs, they will all wear the mantle of racism in my eyes.

OK.

Tracy; don’t insult Native Americans. Please.

Now – Steve Perry? What do you think about the fact that Karl Bremer has selectively misreported key facts of this story? If these misstatements aren’t corrected and atoned for, you will forever wear the mantle of “hack” in my eyes. And I know that’d hurt you to the quick.

Eva Young (Karl’s boss at “Dump Bachmann”) – either Karl misrepresented the MOB, or you are a closet right-winger because you attended the last MOB party. Clearly, if Bremer is correct, your participation in the MOB party means you Hate Native Americans! Where’s the correction – nay, the outrage?

See where this leads?

Karl Bremer is a Stillwater writer and part Cherokee Indian.

Good thing he’s got “aggrieved minority” to fall back on.

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

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

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

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

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

One must ponder.

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

Commit a gratuitously racist act?…

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

…get a slap on the wrist:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And I was one of them.

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

———-

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

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

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

———-

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

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

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

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

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

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

Politicians throwing their weight around.

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

The signs, according to King, were there.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Keep your fingers crossed.

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

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

Right, of course.

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

The Night Writer notes that political correctness is hardly new:

It’s the birthday of poet E. E. (Edward Estlin) Cummings, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1894), who became interested in communism as a young man and traveled to Russia to see it firsthand. He was horrified to find the theaters and museums were full of propaganda, and the people were scared to even talk to each other in public. Everyone was miserable. Cummings went home and wrote about the experience, comparing Russia to Dante’s Inferno.

His view of communism was not popular in the literary world at the time, and magazines suddenly began refusing to publish his work. For the next two decades, he had a hard time publishing his books, and he got terrible reviews when he did. Critics thought his exotic arrangements of words on the page were silly, and they said he wrote like an adolescent. Then, in 1952, his friend Archibald MacLeish got Cummings a temporary post at Harvard, giving a series of lectures. Instead of standing behind the lectern, Cummings sat on the stage, read his poetry aloud, and talked about what it meant to him.

It resonates today, of course:

Today our theaters and museums (and Nobel nominating committees) are full of propaganda and things such as so-called Fairness Doctrines and Hate Crimes proposals still try to make people afraid to talk to one another. And if your views aren’t acceptable to the gatekeepers at the Ivory Towers you won’t get invited or, if you do, you get food thrown on you.

Of course, to be fair, liberal commentators speaking at conservative universities face a phalanx of the same kind of hatred.

CORRECTION:  My bad – they don’t!

I’ve been  highly critical of the NCAA’s drive against Native American-related team names – or, more particularly, names that aren’t overtly degrading (I think Washington could retire “Redskins” without any great fuss).  And while I realize it’s a fine line and an emotional topic, I take schools like UND at their word that their mascot names – the “Sioux” – have no derogatory intent. 

Still, I’m glad to see that the U of M, in enacting the policies of that rigidly ethical body the NCAA, has  observed the highest standards of ethics and logic, declaring with unequivocal moral rectitude that…:

A University of Minnesota policy discouraging the school’s athletic teams from competing against the University of North Dakota in any sport…

Well, while I disagree with the policy, it’s good to see that the U of M is standing for principle, even a misguided principle, and eschewing the path of the weasel – like, for instance, if they’d exempted the big money-maker game against their archrival, a rivalry that is a huge cash cow for the athletic department…

… except hockey will stand.

[SCREEEEEECH]

Um…

 

So in other words, the U of M will stand by smug, sanctimonious PC policy, except where there’s big money and alumni dollars involved?

UPDATE:  King adds:

One is left to conclude that the University has engaged in the ultimate of cheap signaling.

Paul Demko wrote me:

Hey Mitch,

I was going to leave a comment on the blog, but it seems you have to login or somesuch.

Yeah.  Notice how little spam I have here lately?

But a couple of things: CP broke this story and it would be nice if you linked to the piece by Matt Snyders rather than the strib (which simply stole it without attribution).

Duly noted.

Secondly where has Tutu compared Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to Hitler’s treatment of jews? You allude to this, but don’t point to any source. I’ve seen this assertion elsewhere, but am  yet to see any proof of it. I’m not saying it’s inaccurate, but i’m curious to see some proof.

This piece in Ha’aretz is as good a recap as I’ve seen – showing both the ambiguity of Tutu’s statement, and the lack of forgiveness of ambiguity that many Jews feel about the issue.

Saint Thomas University continues its tradition of gutless disengagement.

The Saint Paul-based Catholic university has disinvited Bishop Desmond Tutu, one of the anti-apartheid movement’s household names, because of remarks he’s made that might be “hurtful” to Jews.

Doug Hennes, vice president for university and government relations at St. Thomas, said the Rev. Dennis Dease, St. Thomas’ president, made the final decision not to invite Tutu after consulting with his staff.

“He [Tutu] has been critical of Israel and Israeli policy regarding the Palestinians, so we talked with people in the Jewish community and they said they believed it would be hurtful to the Jewish community, because of things he’s said,” Hennes said.

A leader of the international group that was to sponsor Tutu’s visit blasted the university’s decision.

“This is a tragedy for the entire community of Minneapolis-St. Paul and indeed for the entire state of Minnesota,” said Ivan Suvanjieff, president and co-founder of PeaceJam, based in Colorado. “Archbishop Desmond Tutu is a towering moral arbiter of our day. He has worked tirelessly on a global basis in the name of human rights and all that is decent.”

PeaceJam has 10 affiliates across the United States and often invites Nobel laureates to meet with young people for a weekend of discussion.

We’ll come back to “PeaceJam” in a minute.
I don’t doubt for a moment that Tutu made the comments – comparing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to Hitler’s Holocaust.   And since Saint Thomas is a private institution, they can make or rescind any invitation they want to.

But mightn’t it have been better for everyone had Saint Thomas kept the invitation, and the Jewish groups swarmed the campus with protesters, to ensure that everyone knew Tutu’s past sentiments?  Or – perhaps – to get Tutu to admit he was wrong?
This continues the Saint Thomas tradition of gutless disengagement and blowing with the prevailing PC winds.  The college’s president, Father Dennis “Havana Denny” Dease, got the epic vapors over Ann Coulter’s appearance at St. Thomas, and reacted like a banana republic dictator when a Cuban baseball player, Mario Chaoui, in town to play St. Thomas’ team, defected at the Twin Cities Airport.  Dease barred St. Thomas students from helping Chaoui, committing the University to finding and returning the player to Cuba and certain persecution (which Chaoui thankfully evaded).

Saint Thomas:  A feather before the moral wind.

UPDATE, 6/28/2021:   Imagine my shocki, seeing this (checks revision record) 14 year old piece that has, for some reason gotten more visits than any other post on this blog since I’ve been keeping records.

Like, by a 7:1 ratio.

If you’re visiting, please leave a comment as to what brought you here.

The curiosity is overwhelming.

Thanks in advance.

Bear in mind, most of what I know about the law, I learned from watching Law and Order. 

Which I freely admit isn’t a whole lot.  But, in at least one key respect, there’s a lesson or two in there that some parts of the American legal and law-enforcement systems could stand to assimilate.  In L’nO, often as not, thinking you’ve solved the case too early – based on “norms”/cliches, usually – is a “gotcha” that leads to mild, amused chagrin around the bottom of the hour. 

In real life, of course, it destroys lives, literally and figuratively.  It’s been in the news twice this past weekend.

Duke University finally apologized to the three lacrosse players in whose railroading they participated last year.  (No matter – everyone knew they were guilty, until, oops, they weren’t:

Duke University President Richard Brodhead apologized Saturday for not better supporting the men’s lacrosse team and their families after three players were falsely accused in last year’s highly publicized rape scandal.

Brodhead, speaking at the university’s law school, said he regretted Duke’s “failure to reach out” in a “time of extraordinary peril” after a woman accused three players of raping her at a March 2006 party thrown by the team.

“Given the complexities of this case, getting the communication right would never have been easy,” Brodhead said. “But the fact is that we did not get it right, causing the families to feel abandoned when they were most in need of support. This was a mistake. I take responsibility for it and I apologize for it.”

Brodhead spoke at a school-sponsored forum on legal and ethical issues common to high-profile cases, and he received a standing ovation following his speech. He left afterward and school officials said he would not be available for further comment.

Well, after all, they were upper-middle-class white guys (mostly), and one had a record of being a jag.  That whole “innocent until proven guilty” thing doesn’t count for them, right?

And if that white guy looks like of like a redneck, well…:

A woman who spent more than a week trapped in the wreckage of her sport-utility vehicle has been upgraded to serious condition, a spokeswoman at Harborview Medical Center said Sunday…Her husband, Tom Rider, said Friday he was frustrated by the red tape he had to fight to get authorities to launch a search for his wife more than a week after she disappeared…When he couldn’t reach his wife, Rider said he called Bellevue police to report his wife missing.

Bellevue police took the report right away, but when they found video of Tanya Rider getting into her car after work, they told her husband the case was out of their jurisdiction and he should notify King County, he said.

Tom Rider said he tried that, but “the first operator I talked to on the first day I tried to report it flat denied to start a missing persons report because she didn’t meet the criteria,” he said…Thursday morning, detectives asked him to come in to sign for a search of phone records. They also asked him to take a polygraph test.

“By the time he was done explaining the polygraph test to me, the detective burst into the room with a cell phone map that had a circle on it,” Tom Rider said Friday. He said the detective started explaining the blip they had found and within minutes, news arrived that Tanya Rider had been found.

That’s right – shake down the husband before you look for the cell phone.  Because of course  the husband did it. 

The white guy always does it, doesn’t he?

An abbreviated list:

1. Tom Jones fans sitting back, scratching their chins, and saying “Engelbert Humperdinck really is a talented guy.
2. Hugh Hewitt pronouncing a four-syllable name right on the first try.
3. Me staying awake long enough to turn the dial away from the “Willie and Jay” show
4. Scarlet Johannson and Kate Winslet getting into a knife fight over me.
5. Mark “Look At Me, I’m A Union Goon!” Gisleson, proprietor of the most profane, scatological (and sixth-most unintentionally funny) blog in the local Sorosphere, lecturing me about manners and propriety.  Oops. 
6. A worse movie than Little Nicky.

That is all.

I took this test to see how I’d stack up in terms of “Sustainability”.   

Of course, the only way to “pass” the test is to live in a commune in rural New Mexico (that, for whatever reason, is still high-density). 

Perhaps the Guatemalan peasant is the model they’re shooting for (especially since they have to get all of their news from the government.  Like…American Public Media!

(Via X-Perspective)

And I was so looking forward to our duet of Mandy at the next Patriot Forum.

It’s not to be.

I guess Ms. Hasselbeck and I will just have to sing something.  Maybe “Na Na Hey Hey Goodbye”.

(Via GeeEmInEm at TvM)

The city’s North Side and Phillips neighborhoods are foetid cesspools of crime.

Gangs prowl downtown, fighting and shooting and intimidating pretty much at will.

The budget is a disaster.

Their last fire chief was tossed for being a Lothario…er, Lotharia?

But never let it be said Minneapolis’ City Council doesn’t have its priorities straight.  They’re working on banning wild animals from Minneapolis.

Barry Hickethier writes:

The Minneapolis City Council is considering amending an ordinance in a way that would ban any circus animals that are “wild by nature” (e.g. elephants, lions, tigers, etc.). This would in effect bring and end to the Minneapolis Zuhrah Shrine Circus. The amendment is sponsored by Cam Gordon and Ralph Remington. A .pdf of the ordinance with proposed amendment is here or you can link to it from this page.

The Shrine Circus raises tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars each year for Shrine Children’s Hospitals. Last year, over 80,000 attended the Zuhrah Shrine Circus. Shrine Hospitals are a leader in spinal and burn injury care and research. In 2006, Shrine Hospitals attended to the needs of over 128,000 patients all at no cost to the patient or their family. The hospitals rely solely on donations through member dues, donations and fundraisers such as the Zuhrah Shrine Circus. Outlawing the circus will lead to a reduction in funding, which means children going untreated, research being cut or both.

Never a group to let untrammeled PC get in the way of doing what’s right, it’ll be fun to see what the Green/Looney dominated City Council ends up doing.

Rachel Blount has the vapors over Dirk Boogard’s Fight Camp:

It’s all about the kids. At least, it’s all about the $40 the young’uns pay to get a T-shirt splashed with fake blood and watch a videotape of Boogaard’s most ferocious beatdowns. The big guy seems to have a gift for entrepreneurship, but he’s going to have to work on his debate skills to sell this dubious venture to a sporting public weary of unchecked violence in its games.

“That is awfully young to even know the ugly side of the game,” said Dr. Aynsley Smith, a sports psychologist and researcher at the Mayo Clinic’s Sports Medicine Center. “It’s counterproductive to the direction we’re trying to go as we try to grow the game among kids [in Minnesota].”

Anyone who has spent enough time in an ice rink to get cold has heard the logic-bending arguments of the blood-hockey crowd. Skilled players need protection from physical opponents. Eliminating fighting would lead to more high-sticking and other dangerous behavior. Fisticuffs provide a necessary outlet in a physically rough game.

Now, ordinarily I wouldn’t care, since hockey is more boring than NASCAR racing.

But I’m thinking a Patriot Forum featuring a point-counterpoint between Blount, and, say, Elder or JB.

I’m not one of those conservatives who are giddily ostentatious about driving a leather-plated Hummer with high-drag wheels while smoking cigars made from the pelts of endangered species. 

Neither, naturally, am I one of those groaningly over-earnest Greens who’ve elevated “environmentalism” into an aescetic religion.  Far from it. 

I doubt I’d even call myself a “crunchycon”, because human beings should never be referred to as “crunchy”, unless you’re an M-1 Abrams driver and a carful of Al Quaeda have rounded the corner in front of you.  No, I merely happen to like a cool house, and I bike to work, not out of any contrived whinging about global warming and its probably-fictional human causes, but because I, myself, happen to enjoy biking.  A lot. 

But after seeing Nih[i]list’s recreation of Algore’s footprint – 140 metric tons of carbon a year, compared to the average American’s roughly 9.5 tons – I decided to go check out Yahoo’s “Carbon Footprint Calculator“. 

My – actually, the Berg Family’s – results? 

You create 5.7 metric tons of CO₂ per year.

Your impact is BELOW AVERAGE

Hm.  Who’da thunk it? 

(Although the only way, it seems, to really be acceptable is to stay childless and  live in a tent in Hawaii, without a car, and reaching the mainland only via outrigger canoe.  But only an outrigger made from a tree that died of natural causes, since chopping down a tree will increase your carbon footprint).

Via Buzz, I see RT Rybak has kicked off the next Big Fight – against Big Water:

San Francisco’s mayor announced a ban on bottle water at the 75th annual U.S. Conference of Mayors and the nation’s mayors passed a resolution looking into potential negative impacts of bottled water on municipalities. The move follows a similar announcement last week, when the Ann Arbor City Council in Michigan announced that it would no longer have bottled water available at city events.

The resolution was introduced by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, Salt Lake City Mayor Ross “Rocky” Anderson, and Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak.

Saying bottled water costs too much, worsens pollution and is no better than tap water, Newsom also announced that he would sign an executive order banning city officials and contractors from purchasing bottled water with city funds when tap water was also available.

But for all of you who just need that jolt of Dasani to get through the day, allow me to announce my new venture; “Water Offsets!”

That’s right – if you’re a politically-correct water drinker with a conscience, I’ll be happy  – for a buck – to offset your cool, delicious bottle of Evian via trading the cupped-palm drink of bacteria-ridden slime some Congolese villager scooped out of a creek downstream from the next village’s latrine!

It’s all a wash (as it were)!