Norbizness is smart, inventive and funny and does this every freakin' day. It's like whoever noted that Joe DiMaggio never got grass stains on his uniform. HFPST is a blog with no grass stains. Even when he's passing time with the topselling albums of alltime.
The really frightening thing there is not the cringe-worthy artists nor the shocking failure to choose the best albums by even the good ones, it's the number of Greatest Hits packages. Look, I know why I buy a Greatest Hits collection: the artist is long dead, long past recording, or had only a couple of songs I liked. Why do 21 million people buy "Billy Joel's Greatest Hits Vol. 1 & 2"? "Y'know, I really like that Billy Joel guy. Here's the 24 of his chartbusters I'd like to restrict my listening to" ?
[Ob.Simpsons. Helicopter pilot: "Another guy I like is that Leo Sayer."]
Alex of Buck Hill reminds me of the glory days of Bravo as an arts channel, when they'd fill open spots with independent shorts, which I am left to guess now play on IFC, which I can't get despite having the cable company complaint desk number memorized. Siddown with Alex and the academy leader starts, then there's something between 15 seconds and two minutes long which may frequently be described as magic. Wednesday he put the Grokster business to bed by quoting a sentence and a half. Wow-ee, as we say here in Dixie.
Which brings to mind the local dust-up over radio station format changes which had probably aready occurred in the other 49 states and Guam. The Oldies station is now a veritable iPod shuffle of "the 70s, 80s, 90s and today", while an adult contemporary station went to an eclectic country format. Front page story in the Star.
Like I care. I dropped the radio habit for good in 1977, when Elvis Costello and the Ramones did not blast "Freebird" off every FM outlet in the country. But there's two interesting things about this. One, these are both multi-station operators making the change, and it's usually amusing to see what an idea that passes through thirty corporate inboxes comes out looking like. Obviously, this one can't be chalked up to audience demand; somebody somewhere sold the idea, and somebody else wrote it up in a trade journal, and now everybody's just got to play "a wide range of music". Gee, that's a great idea. What's kept you from doing it for the last 25 years?
The other trend just now washing ashore on the mighty White River is giving these stations the diminutive of men's names, Jack and Hank, respectively, ("like in other cities with stations such as Bob, Joe, and Dave", notes the Star.) This crowns the effort to reduce the call letters to the singular. Apparently the reduction from three to one, plus three or four numbers, is still too challenging, and market research has shown that Americans respond best to products named by a specific barking sound. This does not bode well.
Friday, April 1
Thursday, March 31
Punk Bonzai #1: Meadow Sage (Dharma for Cows)
This was the original punk bonzai, the inspiration for all that would follow, and that's probably why there's no tree in this one. The religious theme is new this year. Previously the piece has contained only cows and the occasional land shark or fireman, depending on my wife's whim. They have been known to engage in unbovine behavior. Once they held a cotillion. One night last summer tiny malicious small-town wiseacres tipped every last one of them. The very large cow appears to be their leader.
My wife has a lifelong thing for tiny toys, especially animals. That's why I paid no attention to her when the cows came home. They were an electric orange. She spent the winter sanding and painting them. Late spring, two years ago, I went to check the moss container gardens and they were grazing on this one.
Sharp-eyed perverts may note the beginnings of sexual differentiation among the protonemata.
Pass The Popcorn
The New York Times> Opinion> Jon Danforth: In the Name of Politics:
By a series of recent initiatives, Republicans have transformed our party into the political arm of conservative Christians. The elements of this transformation have included advocacy of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, opposition to stem cell research involving both frozen embryos and human cells in petri dishes, and the extraordinary effort to keep Terri Schiavo hooked up to a feeding tube.
Senator Danforth, you have a reputation as a decent guy, but I'm not sure the man who was single-handedly responsible for the elevation of Clarence Thomas should be pointing fingers. But you know me, it's your fight. I'm just here for the catcalls.
High-profile Republican efforts to prolong the life of Ms. Schiavo, including departures from Republican principles like approving Congressional involvement in private decisions and empowering a federal court to overrule a state court, can rightfully be interpreted as yielding to the pressure of religious power blocs.
It's early days yet, but I'm gonna show my cards anyway. Spare me the claims that this is some recent development. It's the result of thirty years of cross-breeding experiments. The whole Right to Life business has been money in the bank for your party for a generation. Reed and Falwell and Robertson were supposed to keep their people in check, as when they swallowed hard and backed Dole or when they agreed to stay off the convention dais during prime time. They got to enrich their licensed beggar operations via the public airwaves, they got to funnel money in who knows how many directions with no oversight, and they got whatever personal perks were thrown into the bargain. They've had veto power over Republican nominees for AG and education, until they finally got the appointment power ceeded to them. And that's not to mention the real money behind it all. This was always a bargain with the devil and you knew it. Now it turns to bite you and you say, "I just blinked and there they were"?
The problem is not with people or churches that are politically active. It is with a party that has gone so far in adopting a sectarian agenda that it has become the political extension of a religious movement.
Nah, it's with a party that thought it could buy religious radical votes with biennial Anti-abortion and School Prayer amendments it had no real interest in passing, a party which now finds its pet-food empire patricians encircled by the rabble. The Republican party could have prevented this continual traffic-jam of debate over 19th Century theology by putting the extremists in their minority place. Instead you stoked the fires. The Reagan FBI never investigated anti-abortion violence. "Just a series of local incidents." You could have done your job and upheld the rule of law. It would have cost votes and money, though.
Then came the time when your boy had to play the Jesus card to grab the office. Oh, Lord, who coulda foreseen it?
As a senator, I worried every day about the size of the federal deficit. I did not spend a single minute worrying about the effect of gays on the institution of marriage. Today it seems to be the other way around.
And it's been that way for a decade. C'mon, effective control of Congress, and the Executive, for most of the last quarter-century, and the only time we've cut the deficit was with a Democrat in the White House. Where is the Republican legacy? It's not in deficit reduction, jobs, or smaller government. We don't have term limits, voluntary or otherwise. Our military is fractured, our international standing is nil, our very words are suspect. The boats in that rising tide sailed for India with our jobs. And the national debate centers on the wording of the Plejuleejunce and whether pharmicists should fill prescriptions.
The historic principles of the Republican Party offer America its best hope for a prosperous and secure future.
Were you listening to what I just said? Massive deficits, cuts in Social Security threatening not just the future of the elderly, but the disabled and homeless as well. Increasing disparity between rich and poor. Deplorable health care and prescription costs. Monopolistic control of the airwaves. Foolish and ill-considered international adventurism. Of course, if by prosperous and secure future you mean one in which our elected officials will spend every non-fundraising moment searching for communists in Hollywood, or ordering Ten Commandment accessories for the courthouse lawn, or keeping science out of our public school rooms, then, yeah. I'd have to agree.
By a series of recent initiatives, Republicans have transformed our party into the political arm of conservative Christians. The elements of this transformation have included advocacy of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, opposition to stem cell research involving both frozen embryos and human cells in petri dishes, and the extraordinary effort to keep Terri Schiavo hooked up to a feeding tube.
Senator Danforth, you have a reputation as a decent guy, but I'm not sure the man who was single-handedly responsible for the elevation of Clarence Thomas should be pointing fingers. But you know me, it's your fight. I'm just here for the catcalls.
High-profile Republican efforts to prolong the life of Ms. Schiavo, including departures from Republican principles like approving Congressional involvement in private decisions and empowering a federal court to overrule a state court, can rightfully be interpreted as yielding to the pressure of religious power blocs.
It's early days yet, but I'm gonna show my cards anyway. Spare me the claims that this is some recent development. It's the result of thirty years of cross-breeding experiments. The whole Right to Life business has been money in the bank for your party for a generation. Reed and Falwell and Robertson were supposed to keep their people in check, as when they swallowed hard and backed Dole or when they agreed to stay off the convention dais during prime time. They got to enrich their licensed beggar operations via the public airwaves, they got to funnel money in who knows how many directions with no oversight, and they got whatever personal perks were thrown into the bargain. They've had veto power over Republican nominees for AG and education, until they finally got the appointment power ceeded to them. And that's not to mention the real money behind it all. This was always a bargain with the devil and you knew it. Now it turns to bite you and you say, "I just blinked and there they were"?
The problem is not with people or churches that are politically active. It is with a party that has gone so far in adopting a sectarian agenda that it has become the political extension of a religious movement.
Nah, it's with a party that thought it could buy religious radical votes with biennial Anti-abortion and School Prayer amendments it had no real interest in passing, a party which now finds its pet-food empire patricians encircled by the rabble. The Republican party could have prevented this continual traffic-jam of debate over 19th Century theology by putting the extremists in their minority place. Instead you stoked the fires. The Reagan FBI never investigated anti-abortion violence. "Just a series of local incidents." You could have done your job and upheld the rule of law. It would have cost votes and money, though.
Then came the time when your boy had to play the Jesus card to grab the office. Oh, Lord, who coulda foreseen it?
As a senator, I worried every day about the size of the federal deficit. I did not spend a single minute worrying about the effect of gays on the institution of marriage. Today it seems to be the other way around.
And it's been that way for a decade. C'mon, effective control of Congress, and the Executive, for most of the last quarter-century, and the only time we've cut the deficit was with a Democrat in the White House. Where is the Republican legacy? It's not in deficit reduction, jobs, or smaller government. We don't have term limits, voluntary or otherwise. Our military is fractured, our international standing is nil, our very words are suspect. The boats in that rising tide sailed for India with our jobs. And the national debate centers on the wording of the Plejuleejunce and whether pharmicists should fill prescriptions.
The historic principles of the Republican Party offer America its best hope for a prosperous and secure future.
Were you listening to what I just said? Massive deficits, cuts in Social Security threatening not just the future of the elderly, but the disabled and homeless as well. Increasing disparity between rich and poor. Deplorable health care and prescription costs. Monopolistic control of the airwaves. Foolish and ill-considered international adventurism. Of course, if by prosperous and secure future you mean one in which our elected officials will spend every non-fundraising moment searching for communists in Hollywood, or ordering Ten Commandment accessories for the courthouse lawn, or keeping science out of our public school rooms, then, yeah. I'd have to agree.
Pruning Day
Pruning day (for roses) is usually the Big Event of the early spring season, but it got buried under work and dogsitting and misjudged dosages this year and is only half completed. This formerly would have been unthinkable, as everything else would have moved down the schedule until pruning was finished, but maybe I'm becoming more casual about roses the more I know about 'em. That, or the indolence thing.
I don't have many roses. Seven hybrid teas or multifloras, three climbers, five miniatures. I like to act like it's a huge spread of prize winners, but the truth is I do work like a maniac on roses, but it's because on the best ground I could provide them they get maybe 6.5 hours of sun at peak and it takes every advantage I can give 'em just to have what would amount to a mediocre season for someone with full sun. Because of the low light my roses have had every disease and insect infestation in the books, excepting anything fatal. I feed them every week, two gallons per plant of one thing or another on an arcane schedule. They seem marginally healthier for it than when they just got once-a-month rose food. I, on the other hand, am being consumed with increasing rapidity.
Which brings me to the dog. He's stupid. People involved with large purebred dogs can probably explain to me whether intelligence has been bred out of them as a matter of choice or it's just the inevitability of genetic law. He's a retriever, probably a cruiserweight. I can still hold my own with him left handed with one of those tug-of-war toys, but I'm slipping. He's entered a not-sleek-but-solid middle age just as I'm exiting one, which got me started figuring in dog years to see if I needed to start training. And the thing about dog years is they're factored wrong. Dogs live about ten years. Humans, about seventy. Ergo, each year for a dog is ten human years. Only, dogs, like every other mammal lives only half as long a humans. Measured by total respirations or heartbeats or something I don't quite remember, a mouse and an elephant, wildebeest and wombat, all live exactly the same span. And Homo sapiens live twice that. So it's actually 3.5 years of human time, and that dog's got several years of fight left in him. Better find where the weights got to after the last yard sale.
I don't have many roses. Seven hybrid teas or multifloras, three climbers, five miniatures. I like to act like it's a huge spread of prize winners, but the truth is I do work like a maniac on roses, but it's because on the best ground I could provide them they get maybe 6.5 hours of sun at peak and it takes every advantage I can give 'em just to have what would amount to a mediocre season for someone with full sun. Because of the low light my roses have had every disease and insect infestation in the books, excepting anything fatal. I feed them every week, two gallons per plant of one thing or another on an arcane schedule. They seem marginally healthier for it than when they just got once-a-month rose food. I, on the other hand, am being consumed with increasing rapidity.
Which brings me to the dog. He's stupid. People involved with large purebred dogs can probably explain to me whether intelligence has been bred out of them as a matter of choice or it's just the inevitability of genetic law. He's a retriever, probably a cruiserweight. I can still hold my own with him left handed with one of those tug-of-war toys, but I'm slipping. He's entered a not-sleek-but-solid middle age just as I'm exiting one, which got me started figuring in dog years to see if I needed to start training. And the thing about dog years is they're factored wrong. Dogs live about ten years. Humans, about seventy. Ergo, each year for a dog is ten human years. Only, dogs, like every other mammal lives only half as long a humans. Measured by total respirations or heartbeats or something I don't quite remember, a mouse and an elephant, wildebeest and wombat, all live exactly the same span. And Homo sapiens live twice that. So it's actually 3.5 years of human time, and that dog's got several years of fight left in him. Better find where the weights got to after the last yard sale.
Wednesday, March 30
Cheneymania
Via Oliver Willis, Jonathan Chait senses a draft:
The Draft Cheney movement is burbling just below the surface. Fred Barnes suggested it earlier this month in the Weekly Standard. Tod Lindberg of the Washington Times and Lawrence Kudlow of National Review Online echoed Barnes in columns this week.
Cheneymania has reached critical mass.
Now, maybe it's Cheney '08 springing into action in the wake of the Social Security fiasco, or maybe it's the Gray Man Group hoping to count Dick in or out so they can set their financing priorities. Of course, it could just be three right-wing tools taking payola for column inches, a possibility which has to be considered anytime any of those guys opens his mouth. Chait believes that Cheney is at least not averse to taking the job, but then there's the little matter of his promising not to do so. Tis an insignificant hurdle if he decides he needs to jump it, but it could be costing him valuable time considering that the religious radicals are out there and prepared to swarm. Absent a nod from Bush a draft movement is his only way for a quick start. I've got no idea what Cheney's intentions are, but it sure is interesting what's popped up before the daffodils this year.
Feerless '08 Prediction of the Week: One of those crypto-Stepford Wife Republican CNN/MSNBC or network correspondents will, live, on-camera, and in the presence of the GOP nominee, go into full Devils of Loudon, speaking-in-tongues mode.
The Draft Cheney movement is burbling just below the surface. Fred Barnes suggested it earlier this month in the Weekly Standard. Tod Lindberg of the Washington Times and Lawrence Kudlow of National Review Online echoed Barnes in columns this week.
Cheneymania has reached critical mass.
Now, maybe it's Cheney '08 springing into action in the wake of the Social Security fiasco, or maybe it's the Gray Man Group hoping to count Dick in or out so they can set their financing priorities. Of course, it could just be three right-wing tools taking payola for column inches, a possibility which has to be considered anytime any of those guys opens his mouth. Chait believes that Cheney is at least not averse to taking the job, but then there's the little matter of his promising not to do so. Tis an insignificant hurdle if he decides he needs to jump it, but it could be costing him valuable time considering that the religious radicals are out there and prepared to swarm. Absent a nod from Bush a draft movement is his only way for a quick start. I've got no idea what Cheney's intentions are, but it sure is interesting what's popped up before the daffodils this year.
Feerless '08 Prediction of the Week: One of those crypto-Stepford Wife Republican CNN/MSNBC or network correspondents will, live, on-camera, and in the presence of the GOP nominee, go into full Devils of Loudon, speaking-in-tongues mode.
Tuesday, March 29
TV Guide™ Roundup
Sorry, sorry, sorry. Please refrain from actually reading the TV Guide™ yourself. I'm late because of the holidays, because of pressing business, because I'm dogsitting Neighbor Dog, and I'm a very conscientious dogsitter. Much more so than blogger.
But the big reason TV Guide™ Roundup is late is...TV Guide™, which last year changed its format from Saturday-Friday to Sunday-Saturday. This was done, per TV Guide™ to better serve YOU! its readership. Because YOU! had written in so many times demanding just that change. Funny thing, though, from MY! perspective is that neither YOU! nor TV Guide™ saw fit to explain that what was once available the previous Tuesday for a week starting Saturday will now be generally unavailable until Saturday afternoon sometime. So now I've got to make a special trip. Well, Mr. Know-it-All Public, Mr. Big Time Media Publishing Conglomerate, I'm rarely sober enough on Saturday or Sunday to make the trip. Nobody thinks about the little guy in all of this.
The other thing that delayed me is, it's a really good issue. Letters:
Pro vs Con returns, this week: Chris Rock. Some like him (Kate Jones, Oak Park, IL where I roamed as a lad). Others don't: Cherry and Mike Okragly actually changed channels long before the show was over.
Sean Kelly wants people to quick overanalyzing Alias and just enjoy the ride! Tom M. Wallace offers a final salute to NYPD Blue's Steven Bochco and Dennis Franz. Catherine Smith, of the Latham, New York, Smiths, sees no more reason to watch JAG without David James Elliot than Colombo without Peter Faulk.
This week brought us two notable letters, one which got an editor's reply. Katrina Gross, of the charmingly named Loveland, CO, chided The Magazine of TV Record for the heavily airbrushed pic of CSI's Marg Helgenberger. Ms Gross says when she first picked up the issue she thought it was Pamela Anderson. Ms Gross thereby wins the First BLTR Free Speech Award for Lack of Treacle in a Letter to TV Guide™. The Editors reply that they did no more than some minor retouching. Marge, they tell us, looks great! So, we all go home happy.
Barbara Gagnon though, gets a award I had to make up on the spot, the Shapiroesque Reviews Award for Achievement in Conceptual Art. Hailing from Bakersfield, CA, which reminds us not only of Buck Owens and Buck Owens' Personal Branson MO, but also Bakersfield PD, one of the funniest programs on teevee, ever. Ms Gagnon opens with a standard paean to Matt LeBlanc and Joey, then grabs the near-sonambulent reader by the jugular: "Producers should call in Tony Danza to play Joey's uncle, who's still trying to make it in Hollywood." Ms Gagnon, on that glorious Day when you are called before St. Peter, Jorge Luis Borges himself in gonna be heading the welcoming committee.
Cheers and Jeers: 3 Cheers, 4 Jeers. Is this possibly a stock market indicator? Could that be why they changed the distribution, hmmm? Anyway, it's all boring, except the Jeer to Tyra Banks for not picking plus-size women models is illustrated by a photo of the, I'm guessing here, petite Ms Banks in full cantilever. I'm assuming this is supposed to be ameliorated by the photo at top of Fat Actress's Kirstie Alley in some decolletage ensemble.
And, joy of joys in this season of rebirth, it's Another One of Those Top Twenty-Five of Somethings. Sadly only ten in this week's listing of "TV's Biggest Brats". Bart Simpson, #1. That'll have 'em talking over the watercooler tomorrow. Oops, sorry, yesterday.
But the big reason TV Guide™ Roundup is late is...TV Guide™, which last year changed its format from Saturday-Friday to Sunday-Saturday. This was done, per TV Guide™ to better serve YOU! its readership. Because YOU! had written in so many times demanding just that change. Funny thing, though, from MY! perspective is that neither YOU! nor TV Guide™ saw fit to explain that what was once available the previous Tuesday for a week starting Saturday will now be generally unavailable until Saturday afternoon sometime. So now I've got to make a special trip. Well, Mr. Know-it-All Public, Mr. Big Time Media Publishing Conglomerate, I'm rarely sober enough on Saturday or Sunday to make the trip. Nobody thinks about the little guy in all of this.
The other thing that delayed me is, it's a really good issue. Letters:
Pro vs Con returns, this week: Chris Rock. Some like him (Kate Jones, Oak Park, IL where I roamed as a lad). Others don't: Cherry and Mike Okragly actually changed channels long before the show was over.
Sean Kelly wants people to quick overanalyzing Alias and just enjoy the ride! Tom M. Wallace offers a final salute to NYPD Blue's Steven Bochco and Dennis Franz. Catherine Smith, of the Latham, New York, Smiths, sees no more reason to watch JAG without David James Elliot than Colombo without Peter Faulk.
This week brought us two notable letters, one which got an editor's reply. Katrina Gross, of the charmingly named Loveland, CO, chided The Magazine of TV Record for the heavily airbrushed pic of CSI's Marg Helgenberger. Ms Gross says when she first picked up the issue she thought it was Pamela Anderson. Ms Gross thereby wins the First BLTR Free Speech Award for Lack of Treacle in a Letter to TV Guide™. The Editors reply that they did no more than some minor retouching. Marge, they tell us, looks great! So, we all go home happy.
Barbara Gagnon though, gets a award I had to make up on the spot, the Shapiroesque Reviews Award for Achievement in Conceptual Art. Hailing from Bakersfield, CA, which reminds us not only of Buck Owens and Buck Owens' Personal Branson MO, but also Bakersfield PD, one of the funniest programs on teevee, ever. Ms Gagnon opens with a standard paean to Matt LeBlanc and Joey, then grabs the near-sonambulent reader by the jugular: "Producers should call in Tony Danza to play Joey's uncle, who's still trying to make it in Hollywood." Ms Gagnon, on that glorious Day when you are called before St. Peter, Jorge Luis Borges himself in gonna be heading the welcoming committee.
Cheers and Jeers: 3 Cheers, 4 Jeers. Is this possibly a stock market indicator? Could that be why they changed the distribution, hmmm? Anyway, it's all boring, except the Jeer to Tyra Banks for not picking plus-size women models is illustrated by a photo of the, I'm guessing here, petite Ms Banks in full cantilever. I'm assuming this is supposed to be ameliorated by the photo at top of Fat Actress's Kirstie Alley in some decolletage ensemble.
And, joy of joys in this season of rebirth, it's Another One of Those Top Twenty-Five of Somethings. Sadly only ten in this week's listing of "TV's Biggest Brats". Bart Simpson, #1. That'll have 'em talking over the watercooler tomorrow. Oops, sorry, yesterday.
Monday, March 28
Next Week We'll Be Covering the Crusades, So Remember To Bring Blindfolds and Earplugs
Money quote from John Leland's "Did Descartes Doom Terri Schiavo? in the Sunday New York Times:
...this idea that all life is sacred has exerted a powerful force in America, said Mark A. Noll, a professor of history at Wheaton College, a prestigious evangelical school in Illinois, and the author of "The Old Religion in a New World: The History of North American Christianity. " It fueled the abolitionist movement of the 18th and 19th centuries, which insisted on the humanity of slaves, against the prevailing views of social science. In the early 20th century, the same ideal stood up against eugenics, which advocated forced sterilization to prevent the weakest members of society from reproducing.
Okay, it's a cull-the-Rolodex article, get quotes from four people with some officially sanctioned standing to comment, and don't have anybody respond to anyone else's statements. Professor Noll does what he's called on to do, get his buzzwords into a single paragraph.
One is simply left to hope that the good Professor's students don't graduate with such a single-minded view of history. Let's hope they somehow are made aware that the pro-slavery forces in the US could and did quote their Bibles with equal fervor, that racial relations in this country worsened in the aftermath of the Civil War, and that many of the worst abuses of the eugenics movement occurred in Western, Protestant countries with little objection outside the Catholic Church. We'll leave aside, for the moment, religion-inspired opposition to birth-control information, let alone contraception, and what that meant for the "humanity" of women and the unwavering defense of the poor. But if you mean to tar your opponents with the brush of 19th Century science, you might want to gin up your defense of the Spanish Civil War, or the church's role in the genocide of the Americas, or a couple-thousand years of persecuting Jews, or...
...this idea that all life is sacred has exerted a powerful force in America, said Mark A. Noll, a professor of history at Wheaton College, a prestigious evangelical school in Illinois, and the author of "The Old Religion in a New World: The History of North American Christianity. " It fueled the abolitionist movement of the 18th and 19th centuries, which insisted on the humanity of slaves, against the prevailing views of social science. In the early 20th century, the same ideal stood up against eugenics, which advocated forced sterilization to prevent the weakest members of society from reproducing.
Okay, it's a cull-the-Rolodex article, get quotes from four people with some officially sanctioned standing to comment, and don't have anybody respond to anyone else's statements. Professor Noll does what he's called on to do, get his buzzwords into a single paragraph.
One is simply left to hope that the good Professor's students don't graduate with such a single-minded view of history. Let's hope they somehow are made aware that the pro-slavery forces in the US could and did quote their Bibles with equal fervor, that racial relations in this country worsened in the aftermath of the Civil War, and that many of the worst abuses of the eugenics movement occurred in Western, Protestant countries with little objection outside the Catholic Church. We'll leave aside, for the moment, religion-inspired opposition to birth-control information, let alone contraception, and what that meant for the "humanity" of women and the unwavering defense of the poor. But if you mean to tar your opponents with the brush of 19th Century science, you might want to gin up your defense of the Spanish Civil War, or the church's role in the genocide of the Americas, or a couple-thousand years of persecuting Jews, or...
Nuisance Suits In The News
Indianapolis Star: Charter school won't expel special-needs 10-year-old.
And all it took was five months of effort by a Legal Services attorney. Five months while the boy sat out of school after being suspended from class (as a first step to expelling him) for being "disruptive", despite the fact that Federal law prohibits suspending students for behaviors linked to their disabilities.
My favorite part of the article, though, was the contributions of the Official Charter School Apologist Society and Debating Club, one of whom works at taxpayers' expense. Indianapolis' charter school director, David E. Harris, explained the difficulties charters face: "A school with 100 children doesn't have the same resources of a 35,000-student district." Adds Gerry Wagner, director of the Special Education Co-operative for a statewide charter organization, "Charter organizers never dreamed there would be this many children who qualify for special education services enrolling."
Oh sure. There's no way city government could have foreseen that charter schools would run up against federal regulations in the matter of special-needs students. After all, it was only charters' opponents who were talking about it in the bull-rush to open as many as possible. And who woulda guessed that charter schools would attract almost half the percentage of such students that the public schools do? Or that not every one would go quietly when they tried to shunt 'em back from whence they came? Apprently not the guy who runs their Special Education Co-operative. Man, I hate to see public servants get blindsided like that.
And all it took was five months of effort by a Legal Services attorney. Five months while the boy sat out of school after being suspended from class (as a first step to expelling him) for being "disruptive", despite the fact that Federal law prohibits suspending students for behaviors linked to their disabilities.
My favorite part of the article, though, was the contributions of the Official Charter School Apologist Society and Debating Club, one of whom works at taxpayers' expense. Indianapolis' charter school director, David E. Harris, explained the difficulties charters face: "A school with 100 children doesn't have the same resources of a 35,000-student district." Adds Gerry Wagner, director of the Special Education Co-operative for a statewide charter organization, "Charter organizers never dreamed there would be this many children who qualify for special education services enrolling."
Oh sure. There's no way city government could have foreseen that charter schools would run up against federal regulations in the matter of special-needs students. After all, it was only charters' opponents who were talking about it in the bull-rush to open as many as possible. And who woulda guessed that charter schools would attract almost half the percentage of such students that the public schools do? Or that not every one would go quietly when they tried to shunt 'em back from whence they came? Apprently not the guy who runs their Special Education Co-operative. Man, I hate to see public servants get blindsided like that.
Friday, March 25
Bart Is A Very Very Good Mayor. It's Good What He's Done.
Bart Peterson is the first Democratic mayor of Indianapolis in forty years. He's in his second term.
In his first term, Peterson inherited the biggest of the city's build-us-a-new-stadium-or-we-just-might-move professional sports headaches, your Indianapolis Colts. Right on schedule, about a year before he'd have to start running for reelection, the Colts started making noises about needing a stadium with skybox revenues to stay competitive, and they trotted out the Great NFL Los Angeles canard. Paul Tagliabue blew into town to assure the taxpayers that the NFL really really really needed a franchise in the nation's #2 market. Which prompted one interested observer of my height and weight to ask how come the league had expanded three times since LA kicked its last two teams out without going there, but I'm used to not having my questions answered.
Negotiations proceeded in the headlines. A decent interval passed. Then one morning Naptowners awoke to find a front page story featuring Colts owner Jim Irsay, his inordinate fondness for OxyContin™ and an ongoing investigation thereof. Irsay entered rehab, kicked his habit, and found an undying love for the Circle City.
Peterson now wants to consolidate what's left of the county government functions (police/sheriff, township offices) from the great county annexation of the mid-60s known as Unigov. He has to fight a Republican controlled legislature for the plan, and they, and the township officers whose oxen are set for the pike, have been somewhat negative about the idea.
A decent interval passed. Yesterday morning's Star headlined the story that 8 of the 9 township accessors have kinfolk on the payroll to the tune of $473,000. Plus a sidebar on how the Speaker of the House does $120,000 in legal business with three of them.
Like I say, Bart Peterson is a very good mayor. And the guy in those pictures only looks like me.
In his first term, Peterson inherited the biggest of the city's build-us-a-new-stadium-or-we-just-might-move professional sports headaches, your Indianapolis Colts. Right on schedule, about a year before he'd have to start running for reelection, the Colts started making noises about needing a stadium with skybox revenues to stay competitive, and they trotted out the Great NFL Los Angeles canard. Paul Tagliabue blew into town to assure the taxpayers that the NFL really really really needed a franchise in the nation's #2 market. Which prompted one interested observer of my height and weight to ask how come the league had expanded three times since LA kicked its last two teams out without going there, but I'm used to not having my questions answered.
Negotiations proceeded in the headlines. A decent interval passed. Then one morning Naptowners awoke to find a front page story featuring Colts owner Jim Irsay, his inordinate fondness for OxyContin™ and an ongoing investigation thereof. Irsay entered rehab, kicked his habit, and found an undying love for the Circle City.
Peterson now wants to consolidate what's left of the county government functions (police/sheriff, township offices) from the great county annexation of the mid-60s known as Unigov. He has to fight a Republican controlled legislature for the plan, and they, and the township officers whose oxen are set for the pike, have been somewhat negative about the idea.
A decent interval passed. Yesterday morning's Star headlined the story that 8 of the 9 township accessors have kinfolk on the payroll to the tune of $473,000. Plus a sidebar on how the Speaker of the House does $120,000 in legal business with three of them.
Like I say, Bart Peterson is a very good mayor. And the guy in those pictures only looks like me.
Pass The Popcorn II
Jonah Goldberg swims up the torrent to spawn:
The negative political consequences in the long term for the Schiavo manuevers by the GOP will be near-zero, even though a majority of Americans will view them negatively. This episode is simply too unique, awful and conflicting for anybody except a very small number of people to hold a grudge about it.
Not quite sure I agree with your police work there, Lou.
You already had buyer's remorse setting in with bankruptcy and social security on top of the deficits, and like it or not there are still some folks keeping conservative values in their trunks, though I admit they've been pretty willing to sell them out in exchange for power up to now. Those folks don't care much for DeLay's latest slitherings, and this is not a man who needs to have any of your people give him a good hard look. George W. has come off once again as a pandering politician with no real leadership qualities, only this time a lot of your folks weren't cheering the results and ignoring how it got there. BrotherJethro Jeb has looked worse, rolling over and fetching and the first sharp tug on the leash, then finding out that that wasn't good enough. And maybe it's just me, but now he sounds like the stupider brother.
But above all else, Jonah, if you can imagine now that this is some sort of one-off, unique event for the religious radicals you've been paying less attention than I thought. I realize you thought they'd just hand over money and votes in perpetuity, and wouldn't be coming for your porn stash, but that's your problem. It's their time, Chuckles, and they really believe they were the reason you won last fall. Plenty of House incumbents just lost running room, and everyone with Presidential aspirations just got a letter in the mail. Try keepin' 'em off the podium in prime time next time.
The negative political consequences in the long term for the Schiavo manuevers by the GOP will be near-zero, even though a majority of Americans will view them negatively. This episode is simply too unique, awful and conflicting for anybody except a very small number of people to hold a grudge about it.
Not quite sure I agree with your police work there, Lou.
You already had buyer's remorse setting in with bankruptcy and social security on top of the deficits, and like it or not there are still some folks keeping conservative values in their trunks, though I admit they've been pretty willing to sell them out in exchange for power up to now. Those folks don't care much for DeLay's latest slitherings, and this is not a man who needs to have any of your people give him a good hard look. George W. has come off once again as a pandering politician with no real leadership qualities, only this time a lot of your folks weren't cheering the results and ignoring how it got there. Brother
But above all else, Jonah, if you can imagine now that this is some sort of one-off, unique event for the religious radicals you've been paying less attention than I thought. I realize you thought they'd just hand over money and votes in perpetuity, and wouldn't be coming for your porn stash, but that's your problem. It's their time, Chuckles, and they really believe they were the reason you won last fall. Plenty of House incumbents just lost running room, and everyone with Presidential aspirations just got a letter in the mail. Try keepin' 'em off the podium in prime time next time.
Red Lake Is Where, Again?
I mentioned that my wife's students were more than a little puzzled about the relative lack of coverage of the Red Lake shootings. My long-suffering readers chimed in with the reasons. I'll add mine.
Yes, they were all geared up on Schiavo, with its exciting opportunity to pander to the religious right, but I think Red Lake fell uncomfortably outside the script, which has become increasingly out-of-date to begin with. Faced with the earlier rash of school shootings, which were happening in white suburban schools, not the failing inner-city hellholes big media would have preferred, and with the inescapable conclusion that the crux of the matter was easy access to guns, which big media wasn't gonna get anywhere near, the script evolved into the Internet-using-death-rock-and-violent-videogame-fan story we all know. And Red Lake isn't white, or suburban, and every student in America is on at least one of the internets now, and even CNN has heard that rap is popular. Plus, Weise turns out to have been more than a little familiar with some Nazi sites, which is a topic I don't recall every seeing on teevee news, not that I watch it much.
No, it's not a simple racial equation, but had this been another middle-class white district the Schiavo wall-to-wall would have been interrupted a bit more and the old script given a thorough dusting off. In the event it plays as a serious problem and not an easy morality tale. And big media does not demand Republicans actually solve problems, unless the Republicans were the ones who pointed them out in the first place.
Yes, they were all geared up on Schiavo, with its exciting opportunity to pander to the religious right, but I think Red Lake fell uncomfortably outside the script, which has become increasingly out-of-date to begin with. Faced with the earlier rash of school shootings, which were happening in white suburban schools, not the failing inner-city hellholes big media would have preferred, and with the inescapable conclusion that the crux of the matter was easy access to guns, which big media wasn't gonna get anywhere near, the script evolved into the Internet-using-death-rock-and-violent-videogame-fan story we all know. And Red Lake isn't white, or suburban, and every student in America is on at least one of the internets now, and even CNN has heard that rap is popular. Plus, Weise turns out to have been more than a little familiar with some Nazi sites, which is a topic I don't recall every seeing on teevee news, not that I watch it much.
No, it's not a simple racial equation, but had this been another middle-class white district the Schiavo wall-to-wall would have been interrupted a bit more and the old script given a thorough dusting off. In the event it plays as a serious problem and not an easy morality tale. And big media does not demand Republicans actually solve problems, unless the Republicans were the ones who pointed them out in the first place.
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