pinkmonkeybird

Blogaversary today v.02

2006-07-27T07:12:00.000-05:00

It was two years ago today that the Fraters Libertas guys convinced me (to their regret) to begin blogging. I shall celebrate by wilding in the park all day.

News of the weird

2006-07-26T18:31:00.000-05:00

This story in the Star Tribune sort of lumbered up and freaked me out:

The 81-year-old father of U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman was cited for lewd conduct and indecent exposure Tuesday for allegedly having sex in a vehicle with a 38-year-old woman, according to police reports.

But really. It seems to me that the person who ought to be arrested is the cop or whoever discovered these shenanigans. It takes a real pervert to gawk at a pair of old-timers and see what they were up to when they're peeled. Give the old guy a break, I say. After all, a little risky business is sometimes the cure to excite the old libido when you get to the wrinkled age of 81.

A little respect for our elders, please?

How to make money at home

2006-07-20T14:17:00.000-05:00

Sell all your stored up junk on eBay.

This blog is no more

2006-05-06T18:17:00.000-05:00

Well folks, it's been fun and it's been a learning experience, but I'm trashing pinkmonkeybird blog into the ashbin of history.
Readers will know that I've been wrestling with the lefty name of this blog. I recently rationalized that I should continue it, despite the pink name. But my gut feeling is that my needs have outgrown the founding idea of this blog and so I'm discontinuing it. Thanks go to any and all readers who have visited here to find what I've got to say.

But I haven't stopped blogging. I will now write as Diamond Dog in Freedom Dogs blog. In fact, I've submitted a post just today. Once the moderator ok's it, it just might get published.

Just to be on the safe side, I'll keep this blog active for another week or so before I kack it.

UPDATE: It's been pointed out to me by Ed of Monkeywatch that it would be unwise to kack this blog just yet. If I kack it, subhuman real estate spammers will appropriate my name and hawk poisoned ground in my name. Therefore, this blog will remain as a tombstone to a dead idea. Thanks for visiting. Now go to Freedom Dogs. Bow wow. Woof woof.

John kenneth galbraith, rip

2006-04-30T21:14:00.000-05:00

Today, at the age of 97, economist, author and ambassador John Kenneth Galbraith passed away.

That this giant of economic history has only just passed now is amazing. He was very influential to the economic ideas of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But moreso, Galbraith was very much the soul of Lyndon Baines Johnson's Great Society, the natural successor to FDR's New Deal Big Government.

In the 1930s, when Galbraith began work with FDR's big government machine, the world was seeing a consistent trend toward state centralization and planning. In the Soviet Union it was the economic plans of the Kremlin. In Nazi Germany, the Fuehrer dictated economic policy. The Roosevelt Administration was America's version of this historic trend and Galbraith cut his teeth there. As Red State blog points out;

In speaking of his appointment as the head of the Office of Price Controls in the (Franklin) Roosevelt, Galbraith noted that his staff at the OPC was initially sized at 7 people.

It eventually reached 15,000.

15,000 people. And they were in charge of price controls.

Galbraith authored, The Affluent Society, in which he argued that Americas corporations had grown too large and were growing ever wealthier at the expense of the poor. It can be said that the writing of this book led to LBJ's "war on poverty", a dismal failure that not only failed to eradicate poverty, it only served to make big government yet bigger.

In short, Galbraith was a key player in steering America away from the free ideals of its founding, changing her forever, despite Ronald Reagan's subsequent revolution, into a state of big taxes and liberal wealth redistribution.

I win "most eligible bachelor"

2006-04-30T16:23:00.000-05:00

After much drama and suspense and a nose-to-nose race, I have been voted the MOB's Most Eligible Bachelor. I accept this honor with great reverence and seriousness and sobriety immediately after the ginormous bender I am launching tonight. Nihilist In Golf Pants points out:

This is indeed an upset victory as PMB actually conceded the decision to Andy early last week.

I tried to help AAA garner as many votes as he could. I felt that it was the only honorable thing to do in a contest between gentlemen. Heck, I even voted for AAA, but I won't tell you how often. It is my solemn belief that this honor will lead to meeting someone special, devotion and love will follow, culminating in my lifelong enslavement to a woman who knows that if she works me hard enough, I can one day be worthy of her.

I imagine one of the first things she'll command is that I drop my effeminate blogger name. Consider it done.

United 93

2006-04-28T22:30:00.000-05:00

I just saw the new 9/11 movie, United 93 downtown at the Block E Crown Theater. The show times were designed to capitalize on the boxoffice draw, so it seems. Usually, I can see a movie at 5:30 and pay a measly $5 or so at matinee rates. This movie had a showtime of 4:15 and the next one was at 7:25. Since I, like a lot of workers, get off my job at 5 0'clock, I had to pay $8 and change. No wonder people are staying away from theaters and opting to watch movies at home.
Nevertheless, I would say the audience I viewed this movie with numbered about 100 heads. So that's an extra $300 for this one show that the Crown Theater is pulling in.

But I'm not writing this post in order to report how much it costs a body to watch a movie on the notorious E Block, where a man was recently shot dead on the sidewalk. I'm writing this entry as a review of United 93. So let's roll.

The film is shot in the documentary drama style. Jittery cameras. Off color timing. Guerrilla style moviemaking. And this proves to be a very effective style to tell this particular story, as we very soon come to believe that we are there on the plane, there in the control room, with the people of this story. And of course, that's our natural default setting in the first place, as there is not a single person in the auditorium who isn't intimately familiar with the occurrences of that day and what they felt when they learned of the attacks.

The movie begins with the al Qaeda terrorists getting out of cabs, praying in their hotel rooms, preparing for what we all know they are about to do. But the film is so purely docu-drama, the filmmakers do not even tell who these men are. We hear them speaking Arabic. We see their brown faces. But there is no dramatic device such as a phone call from Afghanistan with instructions or any such kind of contrived scripting. The filmmakers know that their audience has plenty of wheels turning in their heads already. They wisely choose not to let the movie get in the way of that anticipation.

September 11, 2001 was a beautiful, gloriously sunny and calm day to begin with. And we see air traffic controllers going about their jobs with competence and good spirits and intelligence and professionalism. How ironic, the viewer feels these innocent moments are, as the shock of a foreign attack overwhelms them in the moments to come.

Frankly, I'd forgotten some of my United flight 93 history. I'd forgotten that the terrorists had seized the cockpit and that the brave passengers took it back. But I had to wonder how much of this movie was dramatic speculation and how much of it is known to be accurate. One never gets the sense that any detail of this movie is embellished for dramatic effect. When one of the passenger/attackers says, "I don't give a damn if that bomb is real or if it's fake. I'm going to take it away from him. I'm going for his hand. I'm going to break his arm," I have no reason to believe that was invented out of thin air. We know that the passengers of United 93 used phones to call home and tell what was happening. And this is depicted in the movie as well. The whole experience is as organic as Buddy Hackett.

I don't think I can spoil much by telling what happens in this movie. All of us know that it crashed in a field in Pennsylvania and everyone died. But I can inform you that it is a ride of a movie, fueled by the knowledge that it really happened and that anyone of us watching the movie might have been aboard Flight 93 that morning, given the circumstances.
When the movie faded to black, women were gently weeping, couples and small groups of friends were hugging where they stood before their seats. I kid you not.
In the final battle for the cockpit, I was gripping my own forearms tightly in tense anticipation of what was going to happen on the screen.

There has been some voiced reservation that this movie is too intense, too soon after the day of it's horrible telling. I think that's nonsense. I urge every American to see this movie, to think about what they hope they would do under similar circumstances and to remember the bravery of the passengers of United 93.

Moral of the story; There were many aboard the plane who were too gripped in fear to do anything. There were some who tenaciously clung to the belief that if they behaved well, the hijackers would let them all go safely. It seems to me that's a parable of what's still going on in the world and in this country. Those who opposed the disarming of Iraq remind me of the European fellow on the flight who argued that everything would be fine if they did nothing. Like the brave passengers of Flight 93, we have to be realistic about the evil intentions of the bad guy. We cannot trust that all will be well if we do nothing.

MOBMEB vote

2006-04-24T20:24:00.000-05:00

My good friend, AAA over at Residual Forces is appealing to the MOB's good judgment to vote for him as MOB Most Eligible Bachelor.
He seems to want it more than I do, (sadly pathetic as that may be) so I endorse Andy as the best choice. Then, when he snarfs up the trophy, I get to mop up the leftovers. And I don't even have to buy a ring.
Fiendishly clever, eh?

Best of luck, Andy.

UPDATE: I should have pointed out that my other good friend, Kevin of EckerNet is vying for this honor as well, though he lags far behind in votes. Your votes would also be well spent on Kevin's good name. Word has it that Mitch of Shot In The Dark has taken himself out of the running. In other words, he's not eligible.

Indeed, I am the most eligible bachelor

2006-04-22T15:40:00.000-05:00

Nihilist In Golf Pants is causing my meter to jump to heretofore undreamed of, off the chart levels of traffic up into the 30s. Now that Brian "St. Paul" Ward is engaged to be married, he loses the crown of MOBMEB and a new clown prince must be found. I am that clown. Why? Because I'm 52 years old, never been married and I'm reaching levels of desperation, that's why. I've failed in life on a number of scores and now I need to fail in a marriage. Jes' kidding.
But seriously, I am eligible. I haven't been on a date for years. I don't know why. Maybe it's because chicks hate me for favoring the smoking ban. Or maybe it's because I call women chicks. I don't know. I am very particular about the women I am willing to be seen with in public. They have to be hot and attractive and young enough to be my daughter. Jes' kidding again. That was then, this is now.
Now, I am much more accepting of the fair sex. All I want is a woman who has a car and can drive me places. Jes' kidding again.
Now you know why I'm still single. I don't have a serious mind about anything and people who talk too much irritate the heck out of me. If you're a reasonably attractive woman, like to laugh, can conduct an intelligent conversation and don't mind riding the bus...wink at me sometime. That's all the encouragement I need.

Lesson learned

2006-04-22T06:20:00.000-05:00

Lent is over, Easter is past, and I am now "allowed" to return to The Patriot am1280. But I've found that I am in no hurry to hear the steady stream of annoying advertisements there that come with the programming. And I find that I'm in no hurry to hear The Hugh Hewitt Show itself, ads notwithstanding. Hugh is a great fellow and a very intelligent pol, but I am annoyed by just about anybody who talks as much as his job requires him to talk. And to be fair, that's probably not just Hugh who annoys me. The same goes for Katherine Van Den Heuvel. And in my book, Hugh talks infinitely more common sense than she.
Oh, I suppose there are some speakers who I could listen to all day and not become grouchy. That's a rare gift, though. And all too few with this gift have a radio show that requires them to speak almost continuously for hours per day. Rush Limbaugh? No, I don't think so. James Lileks has a voice like apple butter. I rarely grow tired of his Diner podcasts. And they're ad free.

But I do believe I was better informed of the day to day political landscape and world events when I was listening to Hugh than I now am. Unfortunately, I am happier. I'll tune in sometimes. But not so heavily as I was before Lent
I'm going to be listening to NARN today for the first time since before Lent. But I just don't have it in me to listen to the whole block of Patriot Insider through to the finish of NARN. I'd just rather have the blessed radio off or listen to Vivaldi or just about anything else than radio ads.

Happy easter

2006-04-15T08:58:00.000-05:00

As I've mentioned, I've returned to the Roman Catholic Church. I think the reasons for this are just too personal to write about, but I don't mind saying that this is the first Holy Week that has ever meant anything to me and I feel very fortunate to be on this journey.
Whether you celebrate Easter in a secular manner or a religious manner, have a Happy Easter. And if you are Jewish and celebrate Passover, all the best to you as well.

Sorry, preoccupied

2006-04-10T06:52:00.000-05:00

I'm sorry I have not been updating this blog much lately. My days seem to be filled with things to do, and I never get around to posting. It seems that giving up The Patriot radio and its annoying advertisements has taken political topics out of my head. I've been devoting a great part of my energies to returning to the Roman Catholic Church and I feel that's a subject that's too personal for me to be sharing with the world in a blog.
I feel very good not to be listening to The Patriot much anymore. When Lent is over, I hope I won't be such a heavy listener as I was. Those ads were crowding my head, making me irritable.

I'm back

2006-04-03T18:40:00.000-05:00

As noted the other day, I went on a road trip to Milwaukee. This excursion was a terrific idea. I really needed it. I traveled with parishioners from the Basilica of Saint Mary to see the aforementioned show. We also had dinner at an historic German restaurant and visited the Milwaukee Art Museum. We spent the night at a Howard Johnson's hotel.
Everyone was in an excellent disposition and it was great fun to make new friends. Now when I attend 9:30 mass on Sundays, there's a very good chance I'll see some people I know. Isn't that an important part of celebrating mass? Community with others? I think so.
Of course, most of these folks are liberal Democrats and dramatically opposed to the Republican Party and George W. Bush. So I don't let on about that part of my life. It might taint our relationship. One member wore a Code Pink button. On the way home, I was treated to one in my party's discussion (or should I say "lecture") to another in the seat directly behind, on the evils of the Bush Administration and the fact that the Iraqis are much worse off now than they were before the war was launched. It was interesting to hear him proclaim that history would vindicate his view and excoriate Bush. That's precisely the opposite of my claim. Rather than argue with my new friends, I relocated myself at the back of the bus and said a prayer for him.
But all in all, most everyone understood that politics ought to be left out of this trip. And so, a good time was had by all.

Road trip

2006-03-31T21:39:00.000-06:00

I'll have to let up on my heavy blogging schedule as I go on a little road trip to Milwaukee. I'm going to check out an art exhibit on tour called Saint Peter and the Vatican: The Legacy of the Popes.
It's actually something I decided to do almost on a whim. I've been cooped up at home for too long. I'm tired of politics. I hardly have any fun at all these days as all I do is work out, trying to lose weight, working on my arm therapy. I'll be going with a group from the church where I've been attending mass this Lent season, the Basilica of St. Mary.
Maybe I'll make a new friend.
Have a great weekend. I'll see you when I get back.

Candlelight vigil

2006-03-26T08:19:00.000-06:00

The candlelight vigil in memory of the young man who was shot last week at 31st & Girard was not attended by myself. I had no intention of gathering with the bleeding heart types who think the answer to crime is to feel intensely sad about the senseless murder of a person. I suppose the vigil accomplished some worthy things. It probably raised consciousness of the need for good lighting.
I just wasn't in the mood to be in attendance at this vigil as an observer. I stayed home.

Uptown mood

2006-03-22T21:36:00.000-06:00

I'm afraid I don't have much to add to the murder story in my Uptown neighborhood. Other blogs and the msm seem to be bring out quite a bit of information.
Tonight I had to work late. Rather than getting off my bus at the usual stop, I got off one stop early so I could walk through the crime scene. Right away I noticed a FOX-9 television cameraman on the corner of 31st & Hennepin, rolling tape. Then I walked down to Girard and the FOX-9 van was parked on the corner, its antenna raised.
I looked for but did not yet find a marker such as a cross or flowers. But there are posters everywhere announcing a candlelight vigil that will be taking place this coming Saturday, March 25th for the memory of Michael Zebuhr. It will be at 8 pm in front of 3116 Girard Ave., South.

The poster says, "Anyone is welcome."

For interesting details not found in the msm, click on Rambix & Red Star in my blogroll to the right.

Man shot in Uptown

2006-03-19T22:15:00.000-06:00

Rambix & the Red Star blog has this chilling report on a man shot in the head just one block from my house!

SD60 convention

2006-03-18T21:43:00.000-06:00

My Senate District convention was held yesterday morning in the beautiful Lyn-Lake neighborhood, or as suburbanites call it, Uptown. I threw my hat into the ring to be elected Delegate for the 5th Congressional District and State of Minnesota conventions. With a little bit of help from a constituent, I won. I consider it an honor.

Since SD60 has no candidates running for any office and since this is a non-presidential election year and since there is no drama in the Republican races this year, by far the most electrifying issue of the day was Martin Sabo's announced intention to retire as Congressman of the 5th Congressional District.

Only two days ago I wrote that a realistic approach will dictate that no one but a liberal Democrat or a Green Party candidate has any hope of getting elected to this seat. But there were inspiring voices heard today at my convention that say I am wrong and pessimistic. Naturally, I want to believe that a Republican can win as Congressman of CD5, so I listened and dared to dream it might come to pass. Deputy Chair of the State Party, Eric Hoplin made no bones about the work involved and implored us to give up "that thing you love to do evenings" in order to work for a Republican victory. I couldn't help but notice that Mr. Hoplin's inspiring words actually caused another "realistic" Republican I know to beam and jump to his feet with applause. Just last Thursday, this "realistic" Republican was heard saying that because the 5th District is rife with social programs, it will always remain in DFL hands.

So I wasn't the only one who was struck with sparkles and dreams, although I'm not sure I have time to give up all my evenings. It seems to me they are already fairly well spent.

James Turnham's name had come up during the course of the convention and he was referred to in very favorable terms. To his great credit, then, when Mr. Turnham appeared in person to meet with us, this was a very powerful showing. Everyone in the room saw James Turnham as possibly being our next congressman. If you look over in my sidebar, you'll see a new addition; James Turnham For Congress. I think it looks a bit weak as of this writing, but I expect it will be improved in time. After all, James is just finding his legs so far and I predict he will find his stride before long.

I got this email from "the soul of the MN GOP", Lyall Schwartzkopf;

Now is the best time in 28 years for
a candidate to win.
But everyone needs to move quickly.
We have a base in the 5th Dist. of
about 28 - 30 % of the vote.
We need only
another 5 to 10 % of the vote
to win. The 5th District
is the most liberal dist.
in Minn.  Therefore we need a
candidate that can keep much
of the social conservative base
and put in the conservative DFL
and union base.  The Fire, Police,
Building Trades and Teamsters
are all up for 
grabs when the DFL endorses a very
liberal person for Congress.
It means that our candidate can not
be a strong Bush backer.
The person must have sound ideas on
 Iraq, on the 9 trillion
dollar deficit, on health care and
the environment.
I believe we can be for peace in the
middle east and a sound
gove[r]nment in Iraq can begin to
stabilize that peace.  But,
now is the time to move.  Maybe the
candidate we support has to
be an Independent.  That is not all
ba[d].  The most important
vote cast by a Congress person is
the first vote which is for
the Speaker of the House.  How  that
vote goes, so goes
legislation for the next 2 years.
We need a candidate that will
not vote for a Dem. Speaker.  I would
prefer a candidate that
will vote for a GOP Speaker, but I
would settle for a candidate
that would vote for no Speaker. It
means the Dems have one less
vote for Speaker.  That's what counts.

 
The most reassuring fact of Mr. Schwartzkopf's
 analysis is that,
"We have a base in the 5th Dist. of about
28 - 30 % of the vote."

Living in Uptown, it's far too easy for me
 to assume it's even lower
than that and then to reason that
any conservative representative would
simply leave the district unrepresented.
I think Lyall is right
when he says that, "It means that our candidate
 can not be a strong Bush backer."

A Republican candidate would attract
little support if he were to support
a "stay the course"
line in Iraq. But Lyall mentions some common
 ground issues that could actually
gain some of
the conservative democrats and and the union base.

This is getting interestinger and interestinger.

Huge sucking sound in 5th district

2006-03-17T21:58:00.000-06:00

That huge sucking sound coming from the 5th Congressional District of Minnesota was heard as soon as Martin Olav Sabo announced he would not seek reelection to his seat and will retire. It was written long ago in stone that the only ways Sabo would be replaced were if he retired or if he were struck by lightning. But I think that even if he were to fall victim to the latter, they would still use his glowing body as a novelty sign to illuminate Calhoun Square's facade.

I live in the heart of Uptown. This is Sabo Country. Throw a stone in any direction and you'll hit a DFLer for Sabo. (And no, I am not advocating you do so.) As First Ringer explains, the DFL has no reason to fear that the 5th District will fall to anyone else but the Democrats. Many liberal candidates will vie for this coveted seat in the legislature. One of them shall win.

So what can the Republicans possibly gain from this disturbance in The Force? We can only watch and learn and feint and test. This is going to be quite interesting to students of politics.

Mehlman & Ruffini

2006-03-17T00:18:00.000-06:00

I just returned home from my weekly gathering at Keegan's Pub for Trivia Night. There was a buzz over a blog event today. Ken Mehlman, Republican National Committee Chair and Patrick Ruffini, previously the webmaster of www.georgewbush.com, were in town today and met with bloggers.

Triple A has all the links to today's event.

Mr. Ruffini made an appearance at Keegan's tonight. I didn't get a chance to speak with him, but all the bloggers were agog.

It seems to me that nothing really concrete was accomplished by this meeting, other than the establishment of a rapport. It is a signal that Minnesota and her bloggers are deemed important at a national level by the Republican Party.

Hey, that's cool!

Dean johnson in the hot seat

2006-03-16T23:53:00.000-06:00

Dean Johnson is in the proverbial hot seat
From the MNGOP Website;

March 16 Press Release Dean Johnson's Credibility Gap Widens

Republican Party of Minnesota Chairman Ron Carey today issued the following statement regarding Dean Johnson's serial contradictions. "Dean Johnson's misleading and contradictory statements have produced a credibility gap the size of Lake Superior. "Minnesotans aren't interested in Dean Johnson's self-serving excuses. "It is time for Dean Johnson to stop misleading Minnesotans and blaming others for his own self-inflicted problems. It is time for Dean Johnson to provide a full accounting of his actions and an up-or-down vote on the marriage amendment."

Will Dean "Cottonmouth" Johnson respond, or will he simply continue to blather? We're waiting.

"Rich loves stacy"

2006-03-15T06:49:00.000-06:00

This winterwonderland snow we were gifted with has got Uptown folks happy and inspired. The miracle of beauty this snow brings is really breathtaking (to use Dr. Evil's favorite exclamation). And you don't have to walk far down the street to see the inspiration the view imbues my neighbors.

At the corner of 34th & Girard someone made "Footprint Art".
Along the sidewalk border is a series of footprint impressions neatly planted, alternate-sized shoes making their angled signature.

At 35th & Dupont a tribute to "Rich & Stacy" has been written in the cold, white tablature.

And everywhere Mother Nature flourishes her ephemeral stamp of beauty. I saw a thousand pictures. And having no camera, I could only tell you about some of them.

Change of scenery

2006-03-13T22:03:00.000-06:00

The parent company of the StarTribune newspaper has announced that it is going to purchase the parent company of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. In other words, McClatchy Company will be devouring Knight-Ridder, Incorporated. But because there is a law that forbids newspapers from gaining monopolies of media in cities, McClatchy will most likely be forbidden from keeping the St. Paul Pioneer Press. This is of no consequence, as it turns out, because McClachy Company has no intention of keeping the St. Paul paper, as that paper does not fit its growth strategy;

Gary Pruitt, McClatchy's CEO...

is ... counting on paying down acquisition debt quickly by selling The Philadelphia Inquirer, the San Jose Mercury-News and 10 other Knight Ridder newspapers. Those properties don't meet Sacramento-based McClatchy's growth-market criteria or in the case of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, compete directly with McClatchy's Star Tribune in neighboring Minneapolis.

So, we have a much needed situation of musical chairs being played in this two-paper Twin Cities market. I think this is good news. The Pioneer Press is not distinctly differing from the Strib in its editorial profile. The stock holders of the Knight-Ridder company were dissatisfied with the performances of its papers, including the Press. So any future buyer of this St. Paul paper will have pretty definitive evidence that sticking close to the Strib is not a money-making strategy. The obvious choice is to distance its editorial profile from the liberalism of the Strib and thereby offer consumers a real choice in their daily spreadsheet. In other words, we may have a shot at seeing a truly conservative newspaper rising from the corpse of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. That would spur real competition and help to make it and the Strib much better newspapers than they are today.
The deal is expected to take place in three to four months. That means we'll could see a dramatic shift in news reporting in the Twin Cities about three months before Election Day. And Minnesota is already a national battleground state for the U.S. Senate. This change of scenery could pump it up a notch.

Mitch Berg weighs in that he doesn't think this deal will mean much in the long run as newspapers lose market share.

Kennedy st. paddy's bash

2006-03-12T08:21:00.000-06:00

Boy, Republicans can drink! And they can generously buy others drinks. I wouldn't be able to write these words if it weren't for the two aspirin I popped during the wee hours last night along with the tall drink of water I washed them down with.
Regular readers will know that I haven't owned a car for about 30 years. I took a taxi home last night from a Nordeast bar where a few of us got away from the O'Gara's Kennedy fundraiser. I suppose you're getting the idea...this post will ramble on all over the map until it crashes senselessly into a tree.

Funny, how I'd feared that I missed out on all the fun because I was late. But I caught up pretty quickly. Having no car, I took the Selby-Lake bus from my Uptown estate, Zazudu. I recall being a bit peeved at myself because I got a late start. The #21 bus ride from Uptown to O'Gara's is a long one...about an hour long. And I've ridden this line countless times. But MetroTransit never sent me the memo telling me that they'd changed the route. It used to run right past O'Gara's, turning the corner at Snelling & Selby. So I stayed on the bus, not remembering precisely where the bar was. Now this bus takes Marshall Avenue to Snelling, which is two blocks away. Another change to this line is that the "21D" (which I was riding) reaches the end of it's line at Pascal Avenue right behind the Midway Shopping Center. And since I didn't know I had already passed O'Gara's, I stupidly waited for the next "A" bus that I thought would take me there. Only by the time my A bus turned left onto Selby and headed for downtown St. Paul, did I realize that O'Gara's had to be behind me. So I pulled the cord and waited for the next westbound #21. And I'm becoming all the more tardy for the Kennedy party of course as I wait.
When I climbed aboard that bus the driver asked me in a friendly voice, "How are ya doin'?"

"I'm lost."

I explained my dilemma to him and he cleared up all the confusion for me, quicklike. MetroTransit changed the route about two years ago because they had such a high traffic accident rate on the corner right in front of O'Gara's Bar. He advised that I get off the bus (debus?) at Hamline & Selby and walk two blocks to the bar.

When I arrived, I didn't waste any time getting a drink at the bar. I ordered a Jim Beam on the rocks and a Leinenkugel. The bartender thought I said two JB's on the rocks and a Leinenkugel. I told him that if he was going to throw the extra poured whiskey away, I'd be willing to take it. He said sure and cheerfully charged me for both and the beer. What could I do? I drank them, that's what.

Because I was late, I entirely missed Elizabeth Dole's appearance. But this was a good time and a good cause. I also met a new candidate for the 5th Congressional District of Minnesota. This seat is currently occupied by Martin O. Sabo, who's held the office since 1978. James Turnham has stepped forward and let it be known that he will be seeking this office as a Republican, though so far as I know, he has not yet formally announced his candidacy. Mr. Turnham assures me that while he does not yet have a website with information of his candidacy, he will be uploading it before very long. When it's available, I'll link to it.

While we're on the subject of CD-5, SD63 blog has this story about another challanger to Sabo's seat.

Intelligent guessing power

2006-03-09T22:54:00.000-06:00

As I've said many times in the past, you cannot win Keegan's Trivia unless you are able to make intelligent guesses and win points for things you do not know. I had the opportunity of demonstrating this tonight at our wonderful Thursday night gathering place. My team mates were Kevin of EckerNet and Ben of Hammerswing75 as well as Chris of BuddaPatriot a little late in the game.

One of the questions, if I may quote it as best I can from memory was; "What is the slang name of a flirtatious email in Blackberry?"

No one in our party knew the answer to this. I certainly do not have a Blackberry text messenger. I've heard of them, but have no need for such a thing. I reasoned out loud with my team mates that such a name should probably resemble the word, "flame" in that it is simple and monosyllabic. Perhaps "blurt" would be a good answer because it contains the "bl" of blackberry and the "urt" of flirt. No one argued and this was readily accepted as better than a blank space which would certainly be counted as incorrect.

Blurt was the correct answer. Nevertheless, we only culled 14 points total, I think. In any event, my team mates and I were all amazed that I actually knew something without really knowing it.

Saints be praised.

Patriot act passes in u.s. house

2006-03-09T10:20:00.000-06:00

At last, the Patriot Act, the legislation that breaks down the walls of communication between law enforcement agencies in order to protect the nation from international terrorist attacks, has been extended in the House of Representatives. Congressman Mark Kennedy of the 6th District voted "Yea". Further, his campaign for the office of United States Senator points out,

Democrat Senate candidate Amy Klobuchar has refused to say how she would vote on the Patriot Act. While Klobuchar has remained silent, her four Democrat supporters in the Minnesota House delegation all voted to oppose the extension of the Patriot Act. "Since Ms. Klobuchar has been unable to show one area of disagreement with her party, it is very troubling that every Democrat from Minnesota voted against extending this common sense security measure," added Kennedy. "This is exactly the type of mindless partisanship that has no place in the U.S. Senate."

And while we're talking about Mr. Kennedy's campaign for the Senate, be sure to visit the spot in his website concerning this Saturday's Saint Patrick's Party. You can phone in your intent to attend and they'll accept your contribution and put you on the list.
Hope to see you there!

Caucus summary

2006-03-08T15:13:00.000-06:00

I convened my local Republican precinct caucus last night. It was my first experience as convener and it went reasonably well. After all, the entire caucus was scripted out for we conveners onto paper. As has been noted across the land, attendance was down since 2004. The obvious reason is that 2004 was a presidential election year. I can't argue with that reasoning. But it strikes me as odd. After all, precinct caucuses are local politics...as local as you can get. I was drawn to that 2004 Republican caucus along with about a dozen other (mostly) men in my precinct. While I stayed active in the party these past two years and especially up through the national general election of November, I hardly ever again saw any of the other attendees from that caucus two years ago. So it makes me wonder what they sacrificed one to two hours of their time for that chilly March evening.
For my own part (as I've found myself explaining now and then to folks) I came to realize after George W. Bush was reelected, that if I walked away from political activism then simply because my guy was still in the Oval Office, I would be defeating myself. Once you're smitten with the political bug you know too much to simply walk away. At the same time, some people overwork or overextend themselves and ultimately burn out. The trick is to know your limits and know your capacities and work within them while you grow into the role.

I learned a few things last night. And I was lucky enough to meet an activist contact who is new to my precinct and a sharp cracker. I hope to convene my caucus again in 2008. By then I'll have accumulated yet more knowledge and experience. Last night I had the honor of being elected Precinct Chair as well as Delegate to my BPOU Convention taking place a week from this Saturday.

Coincidentally, I am reading Paul Johnson's A History Of The American People. Currently, I happen to be reading Johnson's account of the creation of the U.S. Constitution. We are very lucky to have this form of government in America. Participation makes the learning all the more potent. *Cue fife and drums*

Lent deprivations

2006-03-08T10:56:00.000-06:00

I've been turning to my Roman Catholic faith lately, attending mass and saying my prayers. This Lent Season is a wonderful time for a Roman Catholic gone astray to come back to the church.
I'm a little slow out of the gate, but I've decided today what I will give up for this current Lent season; The Patriot Radio.

While I appreciate and like the various radio programs on The Patriot, I've lately been aware that the advertisements on this station are making me one angry burrito. I don't want to use a harsh word like "hate" when speaking of Lent, but these ads on The Patriot are very disagreeable to my mental wellbeing. It's unhealthy.

I realize that the advertisers and their money are what make it possible for great shows like NARN, Patriot Insider, The Hugh Hewitt Show and others onto the air. But the lion's share of the ads just infuriate me. My favorite ads on this excellent political talk radio station are the Benjamin Franklin ads; "Plumbing-focals, Wally?" I suspect that's because they are just light and silly and vaguely humorous in nature. I wish all the ads on this station could be so inoffensive.

So without much joy, I am not tuning into The Patriot until Lent is over. I need to allow the peace of Creation back into my life.The constant mental barrages over Memowhatever, The Three Point Plan, that "Reality" company and all the other maddening noise that come over the airwaves from advertisers is best forgotten for what's left of the forty days of Lent.

WELCOME, FRATER LIBERTAS READERS; I should also point out that because I appreciate the programming on am1280 The Patriot, I try to patronize their advertisers. Last spring, I hired John Haley #1 Roofer purely because their advertising dollars make the radio shows available to my hungry ears. I am pleased with John Haley's work and would recommend them to anyone in need of a roof. Naturally, I told John that he was getting my business because of their Patriot support.

Tiger installed

2006-03-05T20:25:00.000-06:00

I had some false starts and then I was down...no Internet...no telephone....blackout.

But now things are looking so good, I am in a state of catatonic shock. Prior to my Tiger install, I had OS 10.2 and most of my programs simply wouldn't work. I had no multi-media. I had no local email program. I couldn't get iPhoto or iTunes or anything to work but the Internet.
Now the world has been brought to my very feet and I am reeling.

In good time I should be posting here again. Right now I'm busy working on something and learning how to use Tiger.

Thank you.

Retooling

2006-02-27T22:30:00.000-06:00

My apologies for the lightness of blogging lately. I am installing Mac Tiger and reconfiguring just about everything on my computer.
I haven't abandoned this blog. It only looks that way lately. I'll be back before long.

Thank you.

MN is insta-linked

2006-02-23T07:12:00.000-06:00

The Instapundit blog has these stories on Minnesota this morning.

One-alarm chili

2006-02-20T22:11:00.000-06:00

Wintertime is great for making chili. Maybe it's just because it's wintertime or maybe I got a taste in my mouth at the SD63 Chili Dinner that I just couldn't quit. But I made a big batch of vegetarian black bean chili for my daily lunch pail just yesterday. At work today, I was comparing lunches with my customers, asking what they had in their bag (tuna sand) and then telling of my vegetarian black bean chili I made.

"How many alarms?," David asked.

That question stopped me in my tracks.

"One. One alarm, " I reported honestly.
"Then it doesn't count," David intoned.

My God, he's right. One-alarm chili isn't chili. It's just stewed black beans. But I followed the recipe. It called for 4 cloves of garlic, 2 minced jalapeno peppers and a slew of other spices tossed in. I don't remember the last time I used this recipe. I was being cautious and followed the details to the letter. I think this chili could easily have room for 5 minced jalapenos and perhaps another 3 tablespoons of chili powder. It's weak.

Only one thing to do. Tomorrow I'll stop at the convenience store (conveniently located right in the building) and buy a bottle of Tabasco Sauce. Just a couple squirts of that will bring the alarms up from one to oh....I don't know. Three alarms oughta do it

Getting home from the gym this evening I found a notice rubberbanded to my front door. The CARAG Chilly Chili Fest is this Sunday. I think I'll go.

Shame on the dfl

2006-02-19T21:36:00.000-06:00

The DFL Party website has this news release;

DFL CHAIR CALLS FOR MISLEADING AD TO BE TAKEN OFF THE AIR ST. PAUL (2/16/06) Today, DFL Chair Brian Melendez called on all Minnesota TV stations to follow the lead of KSTP TV and pull the "Midwest Heroes" ad off the air. He was joined at a press conference at the State Capitol by Congressional candidate and veteran Tim Walz.

The ad states that the media only reports negative stories, a comment that is patently untrue. As reported on WCCO's "Reality Check", 4 out of 10 news stories are positive and the majority of Sunday political news show commentators are conservative.

The ad then states that the enemy in Iraq are the same terrorists responsible for 9/11, and images of Saddam Hussein are shown along with the Twin Towers. This tactic is misleading at best, as the 9/11 Commission Report states that there is no connection between Iraq and the 9/11 terrorist attack.

"Minnesota has the chance to take a stand against this kind of misleading propaganda," said DFL Chair Brian Melendez. "Right now, our state is a testing ground for this particular ad, and we can be sure that many more will follow this election season. Minnesota TV stations should pull this ad and send the message that we will not tolerate this kind of swiftboating anymore."

"WCCO has called this ad "misleading" and only "partly true," said Chair Melendez. "Well, partly false advertising insults Minnesotans intelligence. We won't stand for propaganda that can't be backed up with fact."

This is a shameful position for the DFL to hold. This ad is not misleading. Al Qaeda is not only in Iraq fighting against our brave men & women in uniform, the organization that is our enemy is actually named "Al Qaeda In Iraq". The ad does not say that Saddam and Saddam's Iraq were responsible for the 9/11 attacks on America. It only states that we face the same enemy today in Iraq that attacked us.

If I'm not mistaken, the quotes of Melendez calling the soldiers of "Midwest Heroes" as "un-American" has been removed from the DFL website. I believe the quote had previously been located in the above DFL news release. If the DFL and Melendez want to retract their previous characterization of the "Midwest Heroes" as un-American, that's great. But they don't seem to address the issue. Rather, they merely wipe it off and pretend such words were never uttered. I think that's cowardly and disingenuous.

Shame on KSTP-TV for pulling the "Midwest Heroes" ad. It is the height of arrogance for KSTP to squelch this terrific ad. The bias of the msm is the reason blogs and right-wing radio are doing so well in this current climate of msm spin and insulation from balanced reporting.

Once again, Power Line has more.

Going local

2006-02-18T07:34:00.000-06:00

As I mentioned recently, I'm rethinking the emphasis of this blog and attempting to focus essentially on local politics, leaving the national and international stuff to the big boys. That's not exactly easy for me. It was the war in Iraq and an embattled President Bush that got me interested in politics again in the first place. It was W's reelection bid that got me motivated to begin writing a blog at all. It was Hugh Hewitt's national radio show that stoked my fire. I subscribed to The Weekly Standard to get my hard facts and deeper understanding. While the Northern Alliance Radio Network addresses local issues at times, it was the national and international scenes that grabbed me.
Quite honestly, I don't know very much about local politics. Often, when I see a story on local issues, I'll skip it or just skim the first few paragraphs and then move on unless something in there grabs me. It scarcely does.
I have sometimes wondered why this is. At one of my local BPOU picnics I was having a conversation with Ezra Ebner about this and I speculated that maybe at least part of the reason is because Minneapolis is too often monochromatic. For example, the Republicans did not even offer a candidate for the recent election for the office of mayor of the city. Every time a story came out on the mayoral race in the Minneapolis StarTribune, I was offered a perspective on two socialist-progressive candidates written by a socialist-progressive newspaper. Naturally, knowing little of the local issues, there was little or no spark in there to gain insight on how things might be otherwise. And if voters can't wonder how things might be otherwise, a bland diet of gruel is all that is tasted.
I've often heard local conservatives grumble that all too often our local Republican candidates and officers don't know how to behave and perform like Republicans. They want too much to be "liked" by the Democrats, so they act like Democrats. Minneapolis is essentially a one-party town and that party is the DFL.

Well, I believe that can and should change. When a single political party dominates a sphere there is little or no choice. Vitality diminishes and complacency sets in. Good governance suffers in the absence of good challenges.

So, I will be mixing up my personal intake of media exposure. This morning in just a few minutes I'll be listening to The Patriot Insider on radio. I'll be paying more frequent visits to Kennedy vs The Machine blog, Residual Forces blog, The First Ring blog, MN Democrats Exposed blog, local DFL online forums. There are many other excellent local blogs within the Minnesota Organization of Blogs, such as Rambix and the Red Star. Bogus Gold blog is one of the most crucial of the local blogs. There are too many good blogs for me to mention here, so I'll undoubtedly neglect to list them all. SD63 blog is an excellent blog and might be considered a sister blog if Jerry doesn't mind being a sister to somebody named pinkmonkeybird. (Oh my God, what have I done? ) I'll try to pay more attention to local stories in the Strib and I expect I'll attempt to gain an insight toward the way they view the issues and how they report on them...in other words I'll be looking for accuracy and bias. I'm already a fairly regular viewer of At Issue with Tom Hauser on KSTP television. I'll continue to watch that program.

The State of Minnesota is blessed to have the Northern Alliance of Blogs located right here and writing about both national and local issues. I'll continue to use all of them, but I'll have to wean myself off of lingering on Power Line and Hugh Hewitt so much with their incisive national and international opinion and reportage and try to make more time for the many local stories that will be most assuredly written of the local.

I'll be gaining an education and using this blog to discover what I've learned. Writing serves that purpose for me. It's not just a way of letting others know what I know. It's a way for me to discover what I think.

Why "pinkmonkeybird"?

2006-02-14T21:28:00.000-06:00

If you've been reading this blog this past week, you know that I'm changing the emphasis of this blog to a local focus. I also thought about ditching this blog in order to be rid of a name that sounds like a leftie-liberal blog, and then creating a new blog with a more "Republican" name. I never quite got far enough in that process to conjure up possible names. But could anything be more fun than naming your band or naming your blog? At one time I thought the ultimate name for a blog might be Blog Zeppelin. I'd be surprised if someone in the world has not already taken that one. Well then, color me surprised. I'll never forget the look on his face when I confided with Ed Morrissey of my Blog Zeppelin idea. It didn't do anything for him. He yawned, I think.
Let's see...what might be some good names for a Republican blog? Just shooting from the hip here....City On A Hill....Rail Splitter...whatever.
Groucho once asked, "Why a duck?" And now I have to ask, "Why pinkmonkeybird?" It began as my user name in BowieNet. I got it from Bowie's song, Moonage Daydream. But it's got that pink -femme sound to it and I think it understandably confuses people. But I've decided to keep it as a subversive name.

Here's the angle; I made the mistake of believing that America could "afford" liberalism as a guiding philosophy. After all, we won WWII. We won the Cold War. The United States became the world's sole superpower. If we can't afford liberal policies now, then when? We had no enemies. Why should we need a strong military?
I should also point out that I didn't think about politics very much at all. I was more concerned with cultural activities...movies, music, women, baseball and so on. Well, all that changed on 9/11/01. That's when I realized that everything's seeming peacefulness was really just an illusion. I was very impressed, though I did not vote for him, with George W. Bush's leadership as president. And then when W proposed "regime change" in Iraq, I knew he was right. The Democrats initially supported W's action on Iraq, but as we all know now, that didn't last long. And that's when something stirred within me that caused a whole new reevaluation of my perspective of my country and the world and my place in it.

Flash back to my high school years; I was chapter leader of Young Americans for Freedom. That was 1972. Back in those days, I thought it was important to stand firm against International Communism. I was proud to be an American and thought that despite her faults, America was the best country on earth. I subscribed to National Review magazine. I even saw William F. Buckley speak at a sponsored event. Oddly, while Governor Ronald Reagan was on YAF's National Advisory Board, I'll never forget noting that my State Chairman and other MN YAF officers thought Reagan was too far-right and gave the organization a bad name. I have no doubt that those officers quickly changed their minds when Reagan became president.

So, in my early youth, I had the seeds of patriotism within me. But years of college and rock bands and film crews and Minnesota lifestyle gradually turned me into somewhat of a Democrat/Independent liberal. Nixon's fall from grace and his resignation helped convince me that I wanted little to do with the GOP. I never did see Reagan's greatness until very recently this past year when the state funeral prompted me to revisit his accomplishments. I'm not proud to say that I voted for the wrong man many times. I voted for Carter, Clinton, Mondale, Jackson. In 2000 I voted for Nader/LaDuke as what I thought of as a "protest vote". I didn't like Bush or Gore, so I voted Green Party knowing full well that they would never win.

And that brings me up to our current times. My youthful patriotism was reawakened in 2001. As I became acquainted with the Republican platform and philosophy and began to realize that deep down, I hold those same ideals. These are ideals of individualism and opportunity. I just had to blow the dust away that had settled on my inner beliefs in order to recognize they were still there.

So, yes, pinkmonkeybird is a leftie-liberal sounding name for a blog. But the reader has to dig a little deeper to see that the name is reference to a formerly lost pathway. I'm a former Democrat-Independent living in Uptown Minneapolis. Like Reagan, I changed my party. I think there may be other former liberals living next door as my neighbors. If I changed from pink to red (Republican), so can my neighbors. I want to use this blog to try and help bring the Republican message to Uptown.

Hinderaker on nick coleman

2006-02-12T22:40:00.000-06:00

In keeping with my newfound mission of redefining this blog to local issues, I'm linking to John Hinderaker's post on Nick Coleman, columnist for the Minneapolis StarTribune, today.

I have seen the Progress For America ad on television. But I wasn't aware of Coleman's opinion piece until I read this scathing fisk mounted by Rocketman.

Coleman concludes with a venom that surpasses even that which came before:

Be warned: Despite the patriotic music, the flags and the burning Twin Towers, these ads aimed at Minnesota's heartstrings are not about supporting the troops. They are just a desperate attempt to salvage support for an unpopular president's reckless war.

Well, that's what the Left thinks, all right. But why is Coleman so exercised at the fact that three servicemen, who together have served for years in Iraq and observed conditions there with their own eyes, want to express a contrary view? What is so threatening about the idea that "American troops are making real progress"? And why do liberals find it necessary to smear servicemen who offer a message of hope and optimism?

My own guess is that liberals aren't afraid that the Midwest Heroes are wrong. They're afraid they're right.

Read the whole thing.

24th annual battle of the jugs

2006-02-12T10:50:00.000-06:00

I try to make it to this event every year. And I'm heading out the door now so I won't miss the opening band. Yes, it starts at noon. If you have some whacked out idea that you shouldn't go to a bar to drink alcohol and watch live music until 9 or 10 pm, then you'll miss everything.
I'll be taking my "I Support President Bush and the Troops" button off my coat lapel before I go, as the place is crawling with old hippies and radical lefties who think W is a war criminal and the troops are baby killers. I'm going to this event to have fun, not argue politics.

UPDATE: Here's a website created especially for the event.

Final words on chili dinner and beyond

2006-02-09T22:14:00.000-06:00

Triple A has a rather in depth reflection on the SD63 Chili Dinner. (Be sure to open Rob's link to photos of the event. If you look closely, you'll spot yours truly dressed in fashionable plaid and a shiny head. Last picture, bottom right.) Apparently he took notes, as he remembered a lot more than I did about Congressman Kennedy's speech. I should also point out an observation of Mr. Kennedy I heard tonight from my own BPOU meeting; He's charismatic and projects a sense of accessibility to people.
I think this is true. I've noticed that Mark Kennedy is a respectful listener.

So, reinforcing my post from yesterday, I think Mark Kennedy will be our next Minnesota US Senator. But it won't happen unless activists are willing to work for his campaign. I signed up tonight, as one of his managers attended our meeting in SD60 this evening. I've also accepted the job of SD60 volunteer coordinator. This is a natural position for me, as I got my feet wet as a GOP volunteer in '04 working to reelect the president. So I know what the job entails and I'm really excited about the challenge of turning out Republican votes in the Uptown neighborhood. And believe you, me....that is a challenge.

Chili dinner part 2

2006-02-08T21:07:00.000-06:00

There were a few other things I wanted to say about last night's Chili Dinner for SD63. Congressman Mark Kennedy is running for US Senate. He knew this event would have some heft and he'd made an impromptu appearance along with his lovely wife, Debbie Kennedy. I may have tunnel vision, but from where I sit, it appears Kennedy will be our next United States Senator. And if I'm right, that's great news because we need to replace the dim bulb who occupies that seat today with a certifiable conservative hawkish Republican of Kennedy's caliber. The math is not difficult to do. A more conservative Senate will translate into a more assured opportunity to appoint a more constitutionally conservative Supreme Court Justice, should yet another seat vacate in the next three years.
Debbie Kennedy made the rounds last night and spent a few minutes at my table just saying hi and politely asking about our blogs. And at the podium, Mark Kennedy made the affirmative statements we've come to expect he'll make. No stirring up the pot is necessary. He merely did what is required and let us know that he supports the president's stand on Iraq and the GWOT. If we wanted spice, there were a few chili pots that provided that.

I also met a friendly woman with a familiar face. I said hello and struggled to remember how I knew her. Her name is Donna, and she reminded me that she's served as a poling place election judge with me in my precinct on a few occasions. Ha! And to think, I'd always thought I was the only Republican serving there since I began serving as a judge in November of 2004.

Colonel Joe Repya was there, too... back temporarily from Iraq. He gave a stirring speech of how the war in Mesopotamia is going like nothing we may be reading in the msm. Of course, we bloggers and blog readers already suspect that's true. But there is quite a bit to be said for a man like Col. Repya telling us it's so in a church basement. Mr. Repya's account of the war was the perfect compliment to the speeches that the three bloggers delivered.

An inspiring evening. I enjoyed the local political candidates from SD63, as well. But I lost my ride home and had to cut out to catch my bus before they were finished.

More here in the coming week on my background and my thoughts of blogging pinkmonkeybird style.

SD63 chili dinner

2006-02-07T21:53:00.000-06:00

As promised, I attended this fund raising event for Senate District 63 in South Minneapolis. If you're reading this you probably already know that it's theme was Blogs: The New Media. It was a fun and interesting evening. I sampled two kinds of pretty decent enough chili. I had some good conversation with a young man who is signing up into the Army. I had a chance to exchange some positive thoughts with Jerry of SD63 blog. And I heard some darned good speeches from some very good bloggers about blogging and such.

As noted earlier, I haven't been updating this blog much lately. There's a reason. Besides my excuse that I'm busy with personal matters, I've been rethinking the reason for my blog. When I began this blog in July of 2004, President George W. Bush was facing a reelection campaign that would translate into either a ratification of the war in Iraq or a rejection of that war. It was important for me to invest my time and money into the campaign as a volunteer. To reinforce my volunteerism, I blogged about my experiences. While I have no regrets about my participation, it turned out that my writings about telephone canvassing and sign waving rallies really amounted to nothing. My readership has never really exceeded 50 hits a day. That's pretty pathetic. To be honest, this blog has really never been anything much more than an echo chamber. Once I realized that, it has become somewhat humiliating to sit down and write. It turns out that feeling good about expressing myself just isn't enough anymore.

So I'm rethinking pinkmonkeybird.

I have more to say on this subject by my fingers are getting tired and it's past my bedtime and the echoing sounds are giving me a headache.

More tomorrow.

Busy lately

2006-02-07T06:49:00.000-06:00

I'm sorry I haven't been updating this blog for the past two weeks. I've been busy with a personal project.
Tonight I'll be attending SD63s Chili Dinner.

See you there.

Joel stein pile on

2006-01-24T22:56:00.000-06:00

As is my habit these days, I listened to the Hugh Hewitt Show this evening and when I tuned in, Hugh was conducting this interview.
And by coincidence, I'd heard Dennis Prager talking about Stein's piece earlier this afternoon while I was getting my workout at the gym. So I found it interesting that while Prager had been praising Stein for his forthright honesty in proclaiming that he opposes the war and therefore does not support the troops, Hugh had little time for any praise. Prager disagrees with Stein's opposition to the war, but he agrees that one cannot oppose the war and claim to support the troops.
Hugh was not interested in that facet of the Stein piece. Hugh was more interested in the blatant disrespect and ignorance of our men and women in uniform and so he was lucky enough to get Stein to do an on-the-air interview.

Hugh is absolutely right, of course. And Stein couldn't be more wrong...except for that part about how an anti-war proponent can't claim to support the troops. But I must say in all honesty that this interview was ugly. Hugh just absolutely destroyed Stein. Another blogger called it an evisceration. It was so embarrassing to listen to that when Hugh reran the taped interview later in the show, I turned the radio off even though I hadn't heard all of it. I couldn't bear to witness a guy getting such a thorough drubbing as was administered to Stein. It was like watching a Praying Mantis devour a hummingbird. That's a good analogy by half, at least, as Hugh is a praying Evangelical Christian. But I'm not so sure Stein's ideas are so harmless or sweet as the hummingbird.

Our armed forces and the brave and wonderful men and women who act to defend the United States are to be honored and supported. Stein has tried to trash them. Maybe I should have enjoyed Stein's humiliating defeat, but I just didn't have the stomach for it. But hey, even Praying Mantises have to eat.

UPDATE: Joel Stein calls himself a humorist. So does Lileks. Scroll down.

That sticky iran problem

2006-01-22T23:11:00.000-06:00

Yes, you know what I'm talking about. The problem is how to pronounce the name of the leader, Ahmadinejad. I've heard Hugh Hewitt proclaim that no one knows how to pronounce this name. And a lot of folks don't. But I've settled on a pronunciation that I've noticed most people seem to be gravitating to.
First of all, any word or name, no matter long and difficult it seems to appear, can be easily pronounced if you break it down into segments, or syllables. Then, one must decide which syllable to stress as being the stronger.

I've decided that this name should look like this; Ahma DEEN e jod.

Say it. Rolls off the tongue once you've made up your mind, doesn't it? Now, all that's left is to secure confidence in this pronunciation. Make a little sing song with it to cement that confidence. Like this;

Ahma DEEN e jod.
Ahma DEEN e jod.
Ahma DEEN e jod is an Iranian clod.

Good. You've got it. And remember this; even if this pronunciation isn't perfect, if you say it with confidence, everyone else will be impressed and believe you know how. And who the heck are they to argue with you?

Okay. Now for that other sticky Iranian problem...the nukes. I'm no military or world order expert, but I've been sampling the many opinions in the blogosphere. And it seems to me that the worst thing we could do is nothing...allowing Iran to go nuclear and blackmail the world or share nukes with terrorists. So we have to do something.

And so it seems that there are basically three camps of thought on this;
1) Continue diplomacy
2) Launch air strikes
3) Invade

All of these choices are dicey and fearsome for the world. Continuing diplomacy in hopes of an internal uprising is dangerous because it allows Iran to continue to buy time. The remaining two choices are obviously dangerous, as well, for their own reasons. I can only hope that the US Special Operations might have some secret aces up its sleeve in order to bring about an internal coup in Iran to energize the young populace there that hates the mullahs and supports the US. I believe that's what Donald Rumsfeld's military emphasis has been all along since he took the job as Secretary of Defense.

But falling short of any Special Ops wizbang miracle, I feel that we should not shrink from the dirty but necessary job of invading this member of the Axis of Evil if necessary to keep the region safe from Iran's nuclear ambitions. We are very well positioned for an invasion, as our forces are already heavily positioned on both sides of Iran. It seems to me that once we display a firm will to invade, Iran will be forced to recognise that brinkmanship can only result in their own destruction.

All my years of playing Risk have taught me a thing or two about strategy. But sadly, this is no game.

TV jag continues

2006-01-22T18:16:00.000-06:00

I wrote about Meet The Press this morning. Now my television viewing day brings me to 60 Minutes. I just now watched a story about sand saturated with oil in Canada. According to this story there is enough oil in the ground here to provide a reliable source of energy for America's needs.

Now the only question we have to ask is, did CBS simply make this story up as they have done in the recent past? We can't believe anything this network tries to tell us.

Grooming

2006-01-22T09:11:00.000-06:00

NBCs Meet The Press is attempting to groom Barack Obama for the upcoming political battles of 2006 and 2008. In an exclusive interview with Mr. Obama, Tim Russert showed him video clips of Harry Belafonte's controversial comments in Venezuela. Russert asked Obama if he thought those comments were appropriate.

I would have to ask why Harry Belafonte's comments have any bearing in this interview. Belafonte is a former actor and singer. He's not a politician or an elected official. Harry Belafonte has already received far more publicity than he deserves. He should be ignored. But NBC finds him useful for grooming Obama.

Amazinging, Obama actually tried to find a way to agree with Belafonte without doing so directly. He pointed out that Americans are at liberty to say what they want to without recrimination. He said that while he wouldn't characterize the Bush Administration in the same words that Belafonte did, he can understand why he would be critical.

Obama is a rightwinger! He does not agree that George Bush is "the world's greatest terrorist." Surely, NBCs opinion shapers are grooming Obama for a more centrist position in light of the evidence that Democrat leftist positions do not win elections.

Taking it to the people

2006-01-21T18:46:00.000-06:00

Fox News reports that the Bush Administration is going to take its case for the NSA warrantless wiretaps to the American people.

"We are stepping up our efforts to educate the American people," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said about Bush's trip to the NSA, based at Fort Meade in Maryland."This is a critical tool that helps us save lives and prevent attacks," he said. "It is limited and targeted to Al Qaeda communications, with the focus being on detection and prevention."

This is great news, of course. And it's necessary. If Average Joe is left with the impression the msm leaves over these wiretaps, he will most likely come to believe that his every phone call is being listened in on by the police state and that our president should be impeached.

Back to work

2006-01-17T18:27:00.000-06:00

This week marks my cautious return to the rat race. Regular readers of this blog and those who know me know that back in September I got my elbow shattered when a jogger unexpectedly ran in front of my bicycle. I had two surgeries and was on physical disability for three months.

Well, this week marks my return to work and the end of disability, although my doctor is allowing me to work only part time. I'm doing alright. Yes, I have pain. Yes, I am self-administering physical therapy. Yes, the use of my left arm is still limited in strength and I have limited mobility.

But I'm getting better. Lately, I've been leaving my brace and sling at home, but if I have to venture out on a particularly icy day, I'll try to remember to wear it for additional protection.

MLK day

2006-01-16T23:45:00.000-06:00

This very worthy national day of observance of Dr. Martin Luther King is nearly over. But I just now opened an email from Republican Chairman, Ken Mehlman. I think it's worth reprinting here, as it's important to remember that Republicans are every bit as keen on the spirit and ideas of Dr. King as all Americans should be.
Sorry I'm posting this so late in the day. I hope you took a moment to remember those ideas and that spirit. That's really what the day is all about and that's a good part of what being an American is.

Today, we reflect upon the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and rededicate ourselves to fulfilling his Dream. In the courageous struggle for civil rights, we find the inspiration to grow more united as a Nation and stronger as a Party by welcoming Americans from every race and every background to our cause.

Under this President's leadership, we have made great strides towards fulfilling the promise of opportunity for every American. Thanks to the President's bold education reforms, we have narrowed the achievement gap between white and African American children. The homeownership rate among African Americans is near record highs, and African Americans are starting new businesses at a rate double the national average. And President Bush is leading the way in reforming Social Security and Medicare so that those who most rely on these programs have more choices and better benefits.

In this President's Administration and at the highest levels of our party, African Americans are leading the way. We are proud to be the party of Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Alphonso Jackson and Rod Paige. Leaders like Michael Steele from my native Maryland make me proud to be a Republican - and Michael is joined by a growing number of African American candidates and officeholders in our Republican family.

We have come a long way, but we are only part way along in this journey of progress and opportunity. Let me be clear. No matter how many elections Republicans win, no matter how many times we hold the White House, no matter how many seats in Congress, the party of Lincoln will not be whole again until more African Americans come back home.

Quoting scripture, Dr. King said "Let justice roll down like the waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." These words remind us that the principles of freedom and equal opportunity for which Dr. King heroically stood endure beyond the life of one man, and must be advanced not just on this day, but every day.

Sincerely,

Ken Mehlman
Chairman, Republican National Committee

P.S. In February, we celebrate some of our nation's most extraordinary achievements during Black History Month. Watch our African American Team Web site for special features throughout the month.

"Hang rummy show"

2006-01-15T09:15:00.000-06:00

L. Paul Bremer, III has a new book; My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope. Mr. Bremer (why is he sometimes called "Jerry"?) was ambassador to Iraq in the aftermath of Saddam's removal. I've seen Mr. Bremer in interview over this book on The Charlie Rose Show. And I also heard him interviewed on The Michael Medved Show. Now this morning, Bremer is interviewed by Tim Russert on Meet The Press.
It's noteworthy that Rose and Russert were both aggressive in trying to get Bremer to say that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld ignored needs for more troops on the ground at that time. And I mean aggressive. Russert even went so far as to ask Bremer if the Bush Administration told him to say that we did not need more troops. At two separate points, Bremer responded to Russert that "you can have any interpretation you want...I'm telling you how I saw it."

Michael Medved had a couple of hardball questions for Mr. Bremer, too. After all, even President Bush's supporters in the war have been critical of the troop levels in Iraq. Most notable among them is William Kristol.
But it was obvious to me that Russert and Rose were out to hang Rummy.

And there's not much that's very surprising about that, is there?

Zawahri reportedly still alive

2006-01-14T10:46:00.000-06:00

There was some commotion in the news yesterday of a drone-launched missile attack in Pakistan that targeted al Qaeda's number two man yesterday. It should be of little surprise today to learn that Zawahri was reportedly not in the zone and is still alive.

Al Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri is alive, Al Arabiya television reported on Saturday, quoting a source which it said has contact with al Qaeda. A source with contacts with al Qaeda reiterated to Arabiya that Zawahri is alive," the satellite television said.

Of course, it should also be remembered that while probably true, none of these sources are completely reliable. Al Qaeda has good reason to lie. The source in connection has good reason to lie. Al Arabiya has good reason to lie. We are at war, and one of the tools of war is disinformation.

In any case, my understanding is that a reliable team is already on the target site or is on its way to perform the unsavory task of scrapping up vials of bloody goo for dna analysis. The tests that would come out of those samples could take a week to process. We'll have more reliable information then as to whether this murderous doctor was successfully sent to meet Allah yesterday.

The upside of this news, if true, is that if Zawahri is still alive, then we can still kill him some day

Craig ferguson's funny lies

2006-01-12T23:51:00.000-06:00

Recently, I've been watching a very funny comedian, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on CBS.

I like him. He's a funny man.

I've noted before, Ferguson's jokes about W.

One thing that's come to my attention since I made that post is the fact that Ferguson has his own personal battles with alcoholism. To his credit, Ferguson came to terms with his affliction and quit drinking 14 years ago. That might explain his readiness to make light of President George W. Bush's past history with alcohol. Hey, it's all just comedy, right?

I've got the show on my tv right now. Just a moment ago, Ferguson made a joke about "Fox News' made up news." Naturally, the crowd squealed with glee over this joke. I don't know if the crowd reactions are canned or if they are real.

Is it just me, or does anybody else notice that it is CBS News' 60 Minutes II that is the guilty perpetrator of "made up news"? Not Fox News.

Is this what CBS has sunk to? Having failed to sell their lies and made up stuff in their packaged news programs, it's just so much easier to flaunt their fantasies in their comedy programs. Hey, we all know it's not true. That's not the point.

It's funny.

Right?

Dead brain cells

2006-01-11T16:28:00.000-06:00

As usual, John Podhoretz says it much better than I ever could. Here is his entry at The Corner blog over at National Review Online regarding the Alito hearings;

LINDSEY GRAHAM APOLOGIZES TO ALITO [John Podhoretz]
"I'm sorry you had to go through this. I'm sorry your family had to sit through this." That's very nice of Graham, but really, I think he and the committee should beg forgiveness from...me, and the guys over at Bench Memos, and Ramesh over on PBS, and every other American who is sitting through this nonsense. Our brain cells are dying by the minute over here, Lindsey! And I'm 44 years old, which means when they die, they're gone and they never grow back!

I feel genuinely sorry for anyone who has to watch this crap. If the Republican Party had stayed with Harriet Miers, we'd probably be done by now and, if you trust W as I do, we'd have a nominee who is every bit as conservative as Alito is.

Your tax dollars at work.

Bowie's 59th birthday

2006-01-08T11:31:00.000-06:00

As the rock and roll gods would have it, today is shared as the birthdays of two giants. Elvis Presley and David Bowie were both born on this day of January 8th. Bowie turns 59 years old today.
Local radio station, KFAI-FM Fresh Air will be hosting a unique program in his honor tonight at 90.3 FM, midnight. It's a show called This Little Girl's Gone Rockin'.
I got this email from the regular program dj today;

Hey Scott-- Whatta great e-mail name "pinkmonkeybird." There used to be a bidder on eBay whose user name was "hot donkey" and THAT made me giggle, too. Super Listener Tom is filling in tomorrow night/TONIGHT, now that it's Sunday. I believe he is going to play GIRLS singing David Bowie songs. "Cover Girls." SLT is a HUGE David Bowie fan and when I asked if he could fill in for me this week, he paused and with excitement said, "It's David's Bowie Birthday! I'll do a Bowie tribute!" Idiosyncratic as it is, Mister Novak found a Marc Bolan tribute record yesterday and there are 2 "cover girls" doing Bolan tunes.... another idiot-syncratic thing -- it's MY birthday on Monday. I'm a little bit younger than David Jones Bowie. Thanks for listening & for the e-mail and enjoy tonight's show -- Mick Novak

What a great idea! Naturally, I've already got a complete library of Bowie's recordings, as do all true Bowie fans. So if they were filling the program with Bowie's recordings, that would be a little mundane, would it not? So I'll be sure to tune in to this show to hear a pile of stuff I've never heard before. It seems like quite a challenge. I honestly can't think of a single Bowie cover recorded by a woman. This show will be an education.

Oh wait!...I have a terrific recording of Bowie's bassist, Gail Ann Dorsey, singing Under Pressure. So, while they exist, I suppose this show will gently remind me that there are more "Cover Girls" of Bowie than I am aware at first blush.

Thanks to the genius of today's modern communications innovations, you can listen to this show without tuning in at midnight to hear it "live". Fresh Air radio has an online archival library and so you can listen to this show online at your convenience whenever you want (after today) for the next two weeks by simply clicking on my above provided hyperlink located in the program's title. And, of course, if you don't live within broadcast range of the Twin Cities, the Internet option is your only option.

Tune in and celebrate Bowie's birthday before he becomes a sexagenarian.

Suicide

2006-01-05T03:19:00.000-06:00

I'm a fan of Mark Steyn's work. Whenever he guests on the Hugh Hewitt Show I do whatever is necessary to stop what I'm doing and just listen to the guy. He's not only extremely insightful in politics, he has a wonderful sense of humor and a true gift for clever wordplay.
One of Steyn's favorite topics is the suicide of civilization. Having read most of his columns on this subject, I can say that he's written what is probably the best and most well defined piece yet on the subject. Published in the Opinion Journal just the other day, it's entitled It's the demography, Stupid.The real reason the West is in danger of extinction.

The design flaw of the secular social-democratic state is that it requires a religious-society birthrate to sustain it. Post-Christian hyperrationalism is, in the objective sense, a lot less rational than Catholicism or Mormonism. Indeed, in its reliance on immigration to ensure its future, the European Union has adopted a 21st-century variation on the strategy of the Shakers, who were forbidden from reproducing and thus could increase their numbers only by conversion. The problem is that secondary-impulse societies mistake their weaknesses for strengths--or, at any rate, virtues--and that's why they're proving so feeble at dealing with a primal force like Islam.
As I see it, Steyn's thesis can be summed up by saying that Progressivism is the doom of the West. I had a brief discussion of this subject with a Progressive friend of mine some months ago. My good friend argued that immigration will suffice as it has in the past to sustain our societies. But since we'd had that conversation a year ago, Europe witnessed widespread riots throughout France and parts of Germany and Belgium. These riots were conducted by Islamic youths who feel disenfranchised from their host countries.

I doubt these are the sort of immigrants my friend had in mind for keeping these societies flush.

So, what if Steyn is right? What do we do to save ourselves, Steyn doesn't offer any specifics. Should I grab the first available single Christian woman, propose marriage and then create a family of 4.8 children with her? While I could then smugly maintain that I have done my part to save the world, a lot of other folks would have to have the same plan of action in order to make it successful.
Steyn believes that our society worries too much about the unimportant things, stealing the time away from us to worry about the big problems that are truly worth worrying about. But how do we get such a set of worries in gear?

Reading this article is a good way to start.

UPDATE: Lileks offers his thoughts on Steyn's piece in his Screedblog.

AND ANOTHER UPDATE: Dafydd of Big Lizards blog has some interesting analysis as well, mostly toward dispelling the weight of Steyn's argument.

It is Mark Steyn's despair I reject. I have seen nothing to make me believe that the most powerful culture ever invented by humans, Western liberal democracy, having risen up and defeated the Moslem jihadists the first five hundred times, will simply roll over and die on the five hundred and first. And that is the crack in the marble that splinters the beautiful edifice of Mark Steyn's thesis: Western Civ will survive because we have been socially evolved as winners and survivors for millennia; we will prevail because we refuse, in the end, to accept any other result.

I think it's possible that Steyn is well aware of the dynamics Dafydd writes of. But the politically correct mindset requires that some very cold water be splashed into their sleepy faces.

Media sloppiness and limitations

2006-01-04T23:27:00.000-06:00

It's a big, bad world of half-truths and mischaracterizations and yes, even a little bit of truth out there. Consumers of news must find those sources that are credible. The series of events that transpired in the coal mines of Tallmansville, West Virginia and then by extension, the nation's news media is instructive. If you think you know where I'm headed with this, then keep reading because I'm going somewhere else entirely.

One of the prime sources of news I utilize is the Hugh Hewitt Show. But he let me down today. Fortunately, I have the Internet to clarify the facts for me. Listening to the HH Show this Wednesday evening, he took a phone call from a woman right here in my home town of Minneapolis. She reported that the StarTribune had carried the false front page story that the 12 miners were recovered alive. Hugh remarked that he wasn't aware that any newspapers had gotten the story wrong and went on to point out that the Strib is one of the worst papers in the country. Hugh, who lives and broadcasts from California, is at the opposite end of the lower 48 from West Virginia. That puts him into four hours of time lag from the Eastern Time Zone. Consequently, the newspapers Hugh reads had plenty of time to correct their story before going to press. I find that odd, as according to Mr. Hewitt, he doesn't read the papers. So why then, did he say he wasn't aware that any papers had miscarried the story? Many of them miscarried the story. The Strib story, for example, was carried from the Washington Post.
Hugh then went on to lambast the newspapers.
"They are lazy. They don't check their facts.", says Hugh.

Well, it turns out that many of them actually did check their facts.

Television also got the story wrong;

"We didn't take the family's word for it," "Nightline" executive producer James Goldston said. "We had confirmation from two separate, very well-sourced people involved in the rescue, from a very high level. They both told us repeatedly the same information. We had five or six separate sources. By our reckoning, it was enough to go with, and we went with it."
But the sources were just wrong. Does Hugh expect the papers to fly a reporter out to Tallmansville and dig into the mine shaft himself to uncover the true facts? It turns out that the Governor of the State of West Virginia was sourced. He thought the false story was true. As we all know, the family members of the miners thought the false story was true. The mining company was incommunicative on the matter while they tried to gather more information.
Hugh urges us to cancel our newspaper subscriptions. I'm not going to disagree with that advice. I don't subscribe to any papers and for the same reasons Hugh cites, I don't intend to.

Hugh also challenges any newspaper person to phone his show if they want to disagree with him on the accuracy of newspapers. I hope James Lileks will take him up on that challenge. If Lileks is aware of the challenge, I think he will, as the Strib is his employer.

Here's the way I see it. Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody's wrong sometimes, including news reporters, "radio shock jocks" and yes, bloggers. The key question is, does your favorite news source correct itself in a competent manner and in a competent time frame? On a story such as this mining story, which is essentially a human story, 24 hours will pass and these media will have time to correct. What's the problem? To my mind, the real problem might be the mining company. Why did they wait three hours to correct the information? This is literally a life and death issue. The mining company should have a well defined policy regarding control of information to avoid this terrible sort of thing from ever happening. You don't play yo-yo with mining family's heart strings. I understand the control of information was lost because someone misunderstood a telephone communication. As soon as the mining company learned that the town was celebrating, they should have issued a corrective, even if only a limited corrective.

Three hours is a long time to be overjoyed that your family member has been saved from a horrible death in the mines. Consumers of news media around the country might have been under the thumb of false information for at least that long before word of mouth or a television update corrected. But those folks around the country are not, most of them, family.

What's the lesson? Simple. No matter what your political persuasion, for the love of Mike, get your news from a variety of sources. Don't depend on just one or two, especially if they happen to be the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. Hugh Hewitt is right. MSM is lazy and biased. But I think he's overplaying his case on this miner story. The lost lives of the miners, each and every one of them, is tragic and terrible. But since this really is just a "human" story, it will be easily corrected. This, unlike other more egregiously mischaracterized stories the msm never corrects regarding the war in Iraq or Joe Wilson, III. And so far as I know, no further lives were jeopardized through the false reports coming out of West Virginia.

Happy New Year

2005-12-31T23:51:00.000-06:00

Wishing you the very best New Year. Give yourself permission to fail trying if you have to, but try anyway. But I wish you success.

That monkey movie

2005-12-30T19:48:00.000-06:00

I just saw King Kong this afternoon.

I thought it was too long, its story was implausible and the whole experience was loud.

This movie doesn't bring anything to the King Kong myth or story that the beautiful 1933 original doesn't already have. You'll just have to believe me that I tried, mightily, to like it. Heck, I think my fellow audience members thought I was obnoxious in my constant chuckling throughout the first part of the flick. I think the movie is nothing short of terrific in the suspenseful expositional segment. We know that this story is headed for some very incredible events and I loved the way King Kong milked that for all it was worth.

The movie starts going downhill when we see the big monkey. We are then induced to slumber when long, lingering love gazing predominates between the monkey and the blonde. This, interspersed with lengthy cgi sequences.

I was glad when it died so I could go home.

Be warned

2005-12-27T08:02:00.000-06:00

Here's a news story that really shouldn't be too much of a surprise.

A number of Catholic cardinals are warning Italian women against marrying Muslims.

Church officials say some 20,000 mixed marriages took place this year alone, the BBC reported.

The Catholic Church's official position is to encourage dialogue between Rome and other religions, including Islam. But two documents published in Rome have called for extreme caution by Catholic women contemplating marriage to a Muslim, the BBC said.

It's tough enough for two Catholics to succeed at marriage. Mixing the personal cultural learnings of Catholicism with Islam brings mighty obstacles to overcome. Of course, love can overcome all things. But caution is advised.

Merry Christmas from bowie

2005-12-25T16:25:00.000-06:00

I got this groovy ecard in my inbox today. Passing it on to you.

All the best.

"To our readers"

2005-12-25T13:29:00.000-06:00

I'm not a regular reader of the StarTribune, but my dad is. I'm spending the weekend with my folks at their home where the newspaper is delivered daily. Picking up the Sunday Christmas Morning paper from their doorstep, I couldn't help but notice this little message to readers in the lower right hand corner of page one;

To Our Readers

The Star Tribune is dedicated to deep and rigorous reporting, unwavering accuracy and the daily story of life in the Twin cities and Minnesota. We cherish your trust, and thank you for reading this newspaper and StarTribune.com.

I could be wrong, but I think this little note of appreciation is new to the paper. I asked my dad about it and he's never noticed anything like it before, either.

Firstly, a note like this tells us that the Strib is finally coming to recognize that it is seen by many readers as being arrogant and partisan.
Secondly, I think it tells us that the publisher realizes they are losing circulation numbers and have to stick their thumb in the dyke to try and stop readers from running away.

This is a good sign. We want the Strib to stick around and survive as a healthy newspaper. No one is served well if the paper disappears and we are left to seek new ways of finding information. Hopefully this is a sign that the StarTribune is keen on delivering on its pledge.

Merry Christmas!

2005-12-24T12:45:00.000-06:00

Wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas if you're a christian and a Happy Hanukkah if you're Jewish and a Happy Festivus if you're a Seinfeld fan.

May our terrific men & women in America's armed forces have a wonderful day.

I don't ask for anything for Christmas much anymore these day. I've received what I asked for with my successful second surgery. So I follow procedure with physical therapy. My arm hurts, but I'm on the mend. Sometimes an extra brandy on the rocks will help me through my pain.

Today I'm wearing my new MOB t-shirt. I guess we could say it's my Christmas gift to myself.

Leave a Comment and tell us what your best gift was today, won't you?

NARN: the lion, the witch and the pantyhose

2005-12-22T19:28:00.000-06:00

I love fantasy and horror and movies and all three can be found in two movies showing at the Mann St. Louis Park Cinema tonight. Those would be the movie about bloggers from NARN and another movie about a big monkey.
Does my construct cast the Deacon as the pantyhose? Well, only if Rocketman is the lion and Big Trunk is the witch in alphabetical order, of course.

I'd better stop my parallelism right here right now.

I saw Narnia: The lion, the witch and the wardrobe just now. I'm not familiar with C. S. Lewis' work, but as a pure cinematic experience, for me it sucked. Big time. It seemed very contrived and synthetic.

Yet, a note or two. The little girl actress who played Lucy has a smile so similar to Gwyneth Paltrow, Hollywood should immediately commission a script for Paltrow in which she is seen as a 5 year old. This kid would be perfect.

The Fawn character was really giving me the creeps. Every second that Fawn was on the screen was a painful moment.

I hate Disney, I hate Disney, I hate Disney, I hate Disney...

Tilda Swinton did a great job, but her director managed to waste her efforts with blandness.

The ending doesn't matter. I was lucky. A bus came precisely when I reached the stop.

If this is supposed to be a Christian message movie, then it's the hokiest piece of animation to come down the pike since Davey and Goliath.

I knew I was going to see either this movie or King Kong, whichever one was showing first upon my arrival. Narnia won that game by fifteen minutes. It really didn't matter to me. I have decided to see King Kong very soon. Yes, yes, I know I'm going to squirm in there at probably a few points through this three hour long remake. And I'd love to be proven wrong. I know Peter Jackson is a by gosh genius, but I'd love to be surprised to find the three hours just slipping away.
Somehow I doubt it.

Another festivus miracle

2005-12-21T10:47:00.000-06:00

Checking out MOBANGE! today, the aggregate blog took only 60 seconds to download. That's at least a 100% improvement in speed. Doug promised he would work on making this great site faster. My guess is that he's not finished tinkering yet.

Craig ferguson's joke

2005-12-20T23:58:00.000-06:00

The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson has taken up a recurring gag that I really wish they would drop. Craig announces to his tv audience that it's been learned recently that President Bush "may have started drinking again."
They then show a White House speech clip that's slowed down, sound slowed to a slur. It's so effective, it's scary. It really seems to be W sloshed to the gills.
The gag is on the CBS website as well. Check it out and understand how lefties who hate W are so frustrated they can't impeach him, they can only mock him and ridicule him.

Is this what comedy has come to on our nation's television screens? Ferguson takes a known fact about W's past, his youthful drinking, and creates the strangely disturbing illusion that this president who is contested daily for his decisions, is nothing more than a drunk.
For what it's worth, there was a guest on his show, a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, who Ferguson never bothered to thank for his service in the U. S. military. Ferguson could only bring himself to express his relief that this man who served was never killed or wounded. After all, this would be a waste, would it not, to die or get maimed over the actions of a drunk.

Am I saying that Ferguson should have his license revoked? No. It's an hilarious talk show, imho. I'm not advocating a boycott.

I've just got my eyes open to these extraordinary times we live in.

UPDATE: Dwight Yoakum is Ferguson's guest tonight. He's doing a country music duet with Craig, who does a sweet and endearing Bing Crosby impression. Yoakum jokes, in mid-strum; "This is almost like Bing and David Bowie, eh?"

In a moment, Craig's guest will be Terri Garr. Miss Garr was discovered on a favorite tv show of the 1960s.

W's speech to nation

2005-12-19T03:17:00.000-06:00

As the president's supporting critics have been urging repeatedly these past months, he must continually tell the American people why we are in Iraq and why we must win. He did that last night from the Oval Office. A quick survey of blogs in support of the president give him good marks for a good speech. As has been noted, the speech really didn't say anything new for anyone who is familiar with the issue.

But the hostile msm we see operating in this country today has been projecting a distorted picture. I'm flabbergasted to come to grips with this, but there are actually millions of Americans who might very well believe that Iraq is a quagmire, that the Army is broke, that our military is terrorizing Iraqis...ad nauseam. So the president must tell the people what's really happening. Our so called "Fourth Branch of Government", the main stream media, is the one that's broke, not the Army.

Instapundit points out something I hadn't noticed:

He repeatedly talked about "my decision to invade Iraq," even though, of course, it was also Congress's decision. He made very clear that, ultimately, this was his war, and the decisions were his. Why did he do that? Because he thinks we're winning, and he wants credit.

This sounds true to me. After all the pummelling W has taken for making that tough decision, he darned well better get credit for making the right call as Iraq proves successful. I won't be holding my breath for that credit to be given to him tomorrow. But I full well expect history to get it right, but I hope he's recognized for his brave decision by the time he's retired from the White House. After all, the BHS barking moonbats and the Democrats are a very stubborn lot. And as we've already seen, the msm has dug their trenches and show no signs of admitting that their view is dead wrong.

Smoking ban talk and hitler

2005-12-18T22:57:00.000-06:00

I'm listening to the NARN rebroadcast from yesterday here on this quiet Sunday evening. I was unable to hear it "live" yesterday as I was at my BPOU Christmas party.
I must say, the NARN boys are really reaching new heights of anger and histrionics over this issue. Chad the Elder is just livid over this issue and has taken to ranting. Mitch Berg confessed to being close to speechless over the issue, he was so flummoxed. As a regular listener of Mitch's radio appearances, that's extremely rare. King Banion, usually a very reasonable and measured fellow, actually made the Hitler comparison. Quoting from memory, King said something to the effect;
"And the proponents of this ban talk of preserving FREEDOM for bar-goers. Well guess what. Hitler claimed the very same thing!"
It is a very sad thing for me to observe that my friends and fellow MOBsters are actually taking pages from MoveOn.org in their vitriolic attacks. And I suspect I know why; Because they are losing the battle.

I've been reluctant to go toe to toe with my friends over this issue because I've suspected all along that the news that Terry Keegan brought to the broadcast would come to fruition. Terry reports that a statewide ban on smoking in bars is inevitable. Why should I strain my good spirited relationships with my fellow bloggers over this issue if there's no reason for me to raise their ire? Another reason I am reluctant to argue with my friends is that they are so out of control, as yesterday's NARN show demonstrated very clearly. They scream of the arrogance of the ban proponents. They rage over the disingenousness of the pro-ban folk. But my friends should not confuse me with those bitter elements, for I am none of those things and have not joined any of those pitched ranks.

I've written an email to Terry Keegan;

Hi Terry. I'm in support of the smoking ban. I was cheered to hear you on NARN Saturday when you explained that the statewide ban is inevitable. Bravo! It's unfortunate that any bar should go out of business or suffer poor business due to the ban. But I think it's necessary for the health of the people of Minnesota. I attend bars at least as much if not more now that the ban is in effect. It is such a pleasure to be able to go to my favorite bars and not be poisoned. I'm sure you've noticed that I've been a regular customer of Keegan's lately. I support you. If smoking were allowed in your wonderful bar, I'm not so sure I'd want to do that so often. See you soon. -Scott

So why do I bring up the subject now, if I claim I am reluctant to argue the issue? Because the best political talk show on radio, The Northern Alliance Radio Network, made it a topic of discussion. Just because I disagree with the boys over this one doesn't trump the quality of this great show.

I respectfully disagree with them. And if being in opposition to the ban makes those folks More Conservative than Thou, then I'll concede that I'm not held in such high esteem as they are. Is that a sin?

I still maintain the issue is a health issue. I applaud the ban. The sooner it goes statewide, the sooner the local business competition will compete on a level field.

8 beers and 1 vicodin later

2005-12-18T11:14:00.000-06:00

Huh?

I slept well last night for the first time in weeks. Beginning in the early afternoon I attended my local BPOU Christmas party. We had food and Elephant beer and political talk. State Deputy Chair of the GOP, Eric Hoplin and Minnesota's "Mr. Republican", Lyle Schwarzkopf were generous enough to attend and deliver speeches on the political battles to come. Both of these men are terrific orators and they had great ideas to put forth and great challenges to present to us. And of course, these parties are always fun because it's an opportunity to see all the great new friends I've made since I joined up with the GOP.
The Winter MOB Blogger's Bash was my next stop. Rob and Teri were kind enough to give me a ride to NE Mpls. at Keegan's Irish Pub. The whole gang was there. For some excellent photoblogging, check out Hammerswing75...even though yours truly isn't in the mix. A fine time was had by all. I met some new bloggers and I also bought a MOB t-shirt from Chief. At one point, I was crossing the room and passed James Lileks who was the center of attention of half a dozen young women.
"James", I cried. "Leave some of the women for the rest of us, will ya?"
Moving on without pause, I left it to James to inform the ladies that the handsome and mature gentleman who'd made the snarky comment was none other than pinkmonkeybird. I'll be looking for an upturn in my Comments in coming days as these ladies come to realize that James is happily married.
And of course, I quaffed a few Guinness Extra Stouts the whole time I was down at the bash.

Rob & Teri dropped me off at home before it got too late. I'd had enough excitement for one day. My doctor recently give me a prescription for vicodin to help me sleep. After brushing my teeth, I popped one of those and dreamed sweet dreams of John Kerry's censure, Mark Kennedy's victorious election as U.S. Senator and bin Laden's capture.

Gee. Nothing like good drugs to reconstitute one's soul.

UPDATE: It seems that I've made it into Part 4 of the photoblog.

W addresses the nsa wire taps

2005-12-17T12:16:00.000-06:00

When I was at the U of M campus in the summer of 2004 for a Bush rally, I happened to run into a friend and client who is a liberal Democrat. He and I got into a brief discussion of W. My friend warned that we must not allow W to be reelected because he most certainly would be impeached for illegal activities if he were, and our country just can't survive that kind of dishonor and that kind of blow to stability.
I thought that was an absurd argument and that it mostly went toward describing the depths of Bush Hatred Syndrome more than it did the real world.

But I must say that my friend's words came crashing back at me when I read the headlines the other day of Bush's questionable and probably illegal wiretap authorization through the National Security Agency. Was this the fulfilled prophecy?, I wondered.

Last night on the Jim Lehrer News Hour, David Brooks chided the White House for not at least explaining to the American people why he did it and how it is legal.
So it's with quite a bit of relief that I read in Fox News today that the president has done just that.

This authorization is a vital tool in our war against the terrorists. It is critical to saving American lives. The American people expect me to do everything in my power, under our laws and Constitution, to protect them and their civil liberties and that is exactly what I will continue to do as long as I am president of the United States," Bush said.

This is satisfactory for me to be able to sleep nights and remain faithful to the president. White House counsel has examined this procedure and found it to be within the law. That's good enough for me. I understand that bad guys are trying to kill us. I want my president doing everything he can within the law to protect my safety and the safety of the country. I have no objection to the NSA's wiretaps. They are welcome to wiretap me, as they will find nothing worth bothering over.

The Bush Administration, once again, seems to understand that if they do anything illegal or try to cover up any illegal activity, will be found out by a hostile press and will be brought down like Richard Nixon was. They therefore devote much energy toward remaining within legal bounds and toward showing transparency of legality.

Of course, that's not good enough for the barking moonbat Chimpy McBushitler BHS lefties and the hostile liberal biased msm and the opposition-at-any-price Democrats.

CLARIFICATION: As I've been learning more about the NSA wiretaps, I've come to understand that I and most Americans have nothing to fear in the way of wiretaps on ourselves.
So, regarding my line; "They are welcome to wiretap me, as they will find nothing worth bothering over."
There is no reason for any American to worry that his or her phone is being tapped unless he or she is phoning terrorists overseas. Most of the taps were conducted on non-citizens who fit that profile.

Our failed msm

2005-12-17T07:24:00.000-06:00

Tom Bevan has this post , The Media's Incurable Myopia, at Real Clear Politics.

Iraq is tough, to be sure, but it's far from a disaster. The only thing missing from the picture today is knowledge of history and context.

I'd be very much distressed over the msm's failings if it weren't for the fact that newspaper subscriptions are shrinking and we now have right wing political talk radio and the blogosphere. Those elements bring levity and they maintain confidence in the marketplace of information. After all, that's what alternative media is; the satisfaction of marketplace demand.

And this satisfaction maintains confidence in the founding fathers of this country, who wrote the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The msm may be broken, but our freedom of the press still works just fine as market demands find a way to get information to the people. And better still, the Internet has innovated ways to facilitate the will of the people to be communicated to the general public as well as the halls of power.

We're gonna be just fine.

Mondale sighting

2005-12-17T06:55:00.000-06:00

Last night I was shopping at the Kowalski's grocery store at 25th & Hennepin Ave, S. in my Uptown neighborhood. There, in the butcher/meat area, was my former vice president, Walter Mondale picking out a steak in his shopping.
I don't agree with Mondale's politics, but I've never run into a former vice president at the grocery store before, so I was a bit star-struck. The first thought that enters the mind is to say "Hello. You're Walter Mondale. You were vice president once. Wow! I'm blogging about my encounter with you!"
This is quickly abandoned as over-excitable behavior. Then one thinks to simply say, "Hello, Mr. Mondale. Merry Christmas."
And that thought leads to the realization that one should just let the poor guy pick out his steak in peace without being bothered. After all, what's the follow-up if he should say something back? "You & Jimmy Carter were the worst president and vice president ever."?

No, of course not.

Shortly after I strolled on down the aisle, minding my own business, I noticed that some other shopper had recognized him and said "hello" and engaged the man in conversation. Poor guy. It must be crummy to not be able to simply pick out a steak without being harassed by strangers.

Stupid Democrats.

MOBANGE!

2005-12-16T04:44:00.000-06:00

Pinkmonkeybird has been linking to Crossword Bebop quite a bit these past few days and here we go again. And for good reason.
Douglas has created a Minnesota Organization of Blogs aggregator. He calls it MOBANGE! I've added this site to my blogroll. This is an amazing site. It aggregates all the blogs of the MOB with the top three freshest posts.
With this site, anyone can survey what kind of chatter is going on in the MOB and do so all at one convenient address, all whilst listening to African mobange music. The winter MOB blogger's bash is to be held this Saturday evening, so I'm learning of this aggregator just in time to give it a great test drive. On this very Sunday morning, one can visit this site and handily pick up all the flow of the bash. Is that totally cool, or what?

One word of warning about MOBANGE! You should be prepared for a load time of a minute or so...maybe two. In this fast-paced blogosphere we live in, that might seem like years of waiting. So once you're there, stick around in there and check out as much as you can.

I'll be at the bash. Hopefully, I'll see you there.

Trivia tie

2005-12-16T04:07:00.000-06:00

Last night I was on a winning team at Keegan's Trivia Night. We scored 21 out of 25 correct. But the Trivia Quizmaster gave the 1st place award to the other tying team because they had only three members to our four.
For a complete play by play check out Crossword Bebop, who somehow managed to liveblog the event without incurring the harsh disciplines of the Quizmaster's wrath upon us. I do not understand how Doug got away with being online in the course of the game. I've seen other bloggers try to do this and they were immediately instructed that they could not play whilst online. Could it be explained because we named our team "No, We're Not Cheating,"?

Somehow that seems very naive to me.

Anywho, this was my second win at Keegan's Trivia, thanks to my sponge-brained teammates.

Thou shalt not misinterpret

2005-12-15T17:59:00.000-06:00

Thoughout my life, I've always been under the false impression that the Lord's Sixth Commandment forbids any man or woman from killing another man or woman under any circumstances whatsoever. If my confession doesn't already tip you off, I am not a Biblical scholar. In fact, there's very little of the Bible that I've even read. Perhaps I should.

In other words, I had thought that every soldier in the world and in the history of the world commits a sin when he or she kills. It was my assumption that this killing must be atoned for as a violation of God's Law. After all, would the Pope kill someone who was going to kill him? Would Christ kill for any reason whatsoever? No. Of course not.
I had thought the Ten Commandments was an expression of absolute devotion to God.

It turns out that I am wrong.

Last week I sent this matter to my friend and fellow MOBster, Doug Bass of Crossword BeBop blog, who has devoted some significant part of his interest in understanding Christianity.

How is a soldier not violating God's law? Because the word for what a soldier does is not the word for "kill" that is in "Thou shalt not kill."

Of course, we already know that the Muslim soldier is not violating God's Law when he kills. He's following the Prophet's example.

RNC 2006 calendar

2005-12-15T11:04:00.000-06:00

I received my Republican National Committee 2006 wall calendar in my mailbox yesterday. It's a beautiful thing to behold. Each month features a wonderful, unique full color photo of the president in various actions.

Here is one of my favorites. If you look closely at my small pic, that's Barny sitting in the cab with W.

This great president will be in office for only another three years, God willing. I cannot imagine that we'll be lucky enough to have another like him in 2008, so this calendar is a terrific way to be reminded daily of how blessed we are to have brave leadership in time of war.

Go to hell

2005-12-15T07:38:00.000-06:00

Political right wing radio is giving heavy airplay to a sound bite of Betty Dawisha, an Iraqi expatriate who happens to live in Indiana now, I believe.

"Anybody who doesn't appreciate what America has done, and President Bush, let them go to hell!"

Could any bite be more refreshing? I'd like to hear more from Iraqis who are displeased with the liberal leftist media spin on their country.
Iraq is voting today and I am proud to be an American.

Check-up

2005-12-14T16:53:00.000-06:00

I saw my attending surgeon this morning by appointment. Things are looking good. My x-rays show good healing. My doctor showed me a space he'd cut in my radius that he had to create in order to access areas. That space is not yet healed, but that's to be expected.
In short, there were no surprises. I'm on track. I'm still swelling at the elbow, but my doctor is not alarmed by this and believes it will gradually reduce. He gave me a prescription for vicodin so that I can sleep nights undisturbed. I'm planning on using it only at bedtime. During the day, Extra Strength Tylenol should suffice. But I am weaning myself off of painkillers.
Chief of Freedom Dogs warned me months ago that this sort of injury makes it easy to gain unwanted weight. I stubbornly replied that it was my intention to do the opposite and lose weight while I was laid up. I was wrong. I've gained about ten pounds. But, you know what? I don't care. While I've been laid up, I've been slothful and lazy about many things. Yes, I allowed the scourge of Hostess Ho Hos to dig their hooks into my soft flesh, but I was comforted by them like an invalid soldier is comforted by a young nurse with a tight behind. I've been focused on healing myself. When I go back to my day job next month I'll rejoin the rat race, resume the daily exercise and get myself back onto a sensible diet and lose the weight. Heck, Robert DeNiro did it, so can I.
My surgeon thinks I'm ready now for "resistance" exercises in my physical therapy. This is also known as "strength" exercise. These consist of simple exercises that entail utilizing my muscles in more ways than simply lifting the weight of my arm. These kinds of exercises are crucial in the healing process.

Things are looking up. Thanks for all your caring and concerns, dear reader. I'm gonna be okay.

As heard on morning in america

2005-12-13T04:18:00.000-06:00

The other day I was listening to a bit of Bill Bennett's Morning In America show on The Patriot. Bill Bennett, besides being a political pundit and former drug czar and former Secretary of Education, is also a classic rockandroll fan.
A listener called in to tell Mr. Bennett of a great surf rock band that has a great holiday music album; 'Tis The Season for Los Straitjackets.

I can vouch for this album. It's a terrific disk to put on during the Christmas season. My fave tune would have to be Feliz Navidad. It has to be heard to be believed.

Los Straitjackets will be in the Twin Cities on Dec. 30th to play a live concert. See you there?

Walk the line

2005-12-12T23:27:00.000-06:00

Late last week I saw the new biopic on Johnny Cash; Walk The Line.

I was pessimistic about this movie. There are more ways to get things wrong in a biographical movie of a great American icon than there are to get right. But my fears were unfounded. This movie rocks. I'm not an expert on Johnny Cash....I'm just a fan of his music. I haven't read the books this movie utilized to tell his story. But I've read a few liner notes from Cash's albums and I've read a few historical accounts. Sure, the movie takes some dramatic liberties with the subject matter...we expect that. But it gets the basics right and it doesn't shrink from the ugly parts of Cash's life.

One of the amazing things about this movie is the performances. I actually came to believe I was watching June Carter Cash and Johnny Cash. The actors really went the distance and got the mannerisms down pat. The artistic design is top notch, too. The feel of the era these people lived in is captured like few others I've seen. T-Bone Burnet t is responsible for the soundtrack. He won an various awards for his work on the Coen brothers' movie, O Brother, Where Art Thou? And I expect he'll win the Oscar this year for his work here.

The script is good and tight. One of the ways I gauge a script is if I check my watch while a movie is rolling. I didn't care what the time was. Each scene moved the story forward and there are some very nice resonances written therein. Sometimes we talk of a movie's arc. This movie arcs nicely. It doesn't take a genius to predict that Cash's drug abuse will bring us to the low point. This movie is ultimately a love story and a true story, as June saved Johnny through her faith in him.

I'll be watching Walk The Line again someday, as I do most movies I like. If you like Johnny Cash, you'll like this film. I enjoyed it, as did my mother & father, with whom I watched this movie.

W's latest speech

2005-12-12T21:12:00.000-06:00

I just read the president's latest speech, delivered today, regarding Iraq.

It's been hailed as a great speech and I wholeheartedly agree. It's wonderful that W is fulfilling the requirement that so many supporters had insisted upon; that he should almost daily tell the American people what is going on in Iraq, what our challenges are, what the stakes are and that we will remain firm. This speech does all of those things and it is merely today's, following many others and presumably to be followed by many more.

Now, no one can say with a straight face that there is not plan and we don't know what we're trying to achieve in Iraq.
They'll say it, just the same.

I don't have much in the way of analysis of this speech, though I found it informative and reassuring. Many of the things I had hoped I understood about today's Iraq were reinforced by the president's words. One issue that confuses me just a wee bit is how to measure the success of this Thursday's elections. I've been seeing a number of opinions put forth that seem to say that this Thursday will once and for all, if not silence the critics of the war, will go a long way toward proving success there.
That will probably be true for objective, honest folk. But the anti-war crowd will not accept any degree of success in this new election as proof they were wrong. What's to stop them? Facts never mattered before. Why should they matter now?
They will claim that Iraq's democracy is illegitimate and is nothing more than a US puppet state.

There's never been any shortage of silly people. Today's world is no exception.

During the blazing hot war in Iraq back in 2003, there was a factor known as the "tipping point". The tipping point is when the tide turns...it's when the defeated know they are defeated and a common consensus is gained that tips the issue toward a decision. There seems to be a feeling in the air that we are quickly approaching a political tipping point on Iraq.

W comes to mpls today

2005-12-09T08:39:00.000-06:00

As most folks know by now, President Bush will be in Minneapolis today for a Kennedy fundraiser. Naturally, there will be rallies.
Since I'm on physical disability these days, I've got time to show up at 13th & Nicollet today at 11 am to rally for the president before I trot off to my physical therapy session.
See you there!

UPDATE: I write this at 3 pm local time. I went downtown today, as promised, to join any pro-W rally that might have been organized. There wasn't. I also discovered that I had the address wrong. The barking moonbat demonstrations were at the Hilton Hotel at 10th and Marquette Avenue. I found 4 specific street corners at the hotel where the radical lefties staked out their ground. Palestinian flags were in abundance. Old Glory was flying upside down. Placards referred to Bush's "Death Camps". This was a very radical group of America haters.
Combine the fact that I saw no counter-rally with the bitterly cold air today and it was a no-brainer for me to leave.
So I popped on in at Brit's restaurant on Nicollet and tried their bangers & mash before hopping the bus to see my physical therapist. So far as I witnessed, I was the only Bushie exhibiting support for the president on the street today.

Victoria's secret

2005-12-06T20:37:00.000-06:00

Oh yeah.

Hugh hewitt is straining his voice again

2005-12-06T19:37:00.000-06:00

I'm listening to the smartest radio show in America again; The Hugh Hewitt Show. He's, as I am wont to say, "on fire" with the issues tonight. Fortunately, I am not speaking literally.
I predict that Hugh will have a bad case of laryngitis, or at the very least, some croakiness in his voice, tomorrow. That's because he's not following my advice and speaking in resonant tones. He's bleating to the skies and his voice is close to unbearable to listen to.

The Democrats are to blame for this. Hugh is all bound up in outrage over Howard Dean and John Kerry.

Hugh; for the love of Mike, please try to relax. You've got the facts on your side. There is no reason to throw a fit.

UPDATE: Well, I'm listening to the smartest radio show in America again this evening, and Hugh's voice isn't the least bit damaged. But he's giving me a headache. I wish he'd stop straining his voice. To make matters worse, when the show goes to commercial break, The Patriot often plays a series of Hugh Hewitt commercial messages. They are even worse than Hugh's on-air voice.

Republican victories as far as the eye can see

2005-12-05T20:39:00.000-06:00

We've turned the corner in Iraq.

We've turned the corner on the homefront, as well.

Just this morning I heard George Will express an interesting idea on the Laura Ingraham Show. He posits that Iraq may well become an asset, politically, for the Republican Party. It's not difficult to follow and it goes like this; The Democrats are riding nearly all of their chips on Iraq 's becoming a failure. (Indeed, they think it has been a failure since shortly after they voted for its funding in Congress.) They are broadcasting a message that looks very much like an advocacy of defeat at any price in Iraq.
But what if Iraq becomes (as I believe it is becoming) the stellar success story of the century?

A black hole that the Democrats will find even light itself will be impossible to escape from.

Now we have Howard Dean insisting that the US Won't Win in Iraq.

"I've seen this before in my life. This is the same situation we had in Vietnam. Everybody then kept saying, 'just another year, just stay the course, we'll have a victory.' Well, we didn't have a victory, and this policy cost the lives of an additional 25,000 troops because we were too stubborn to recognize what was happening."

He attempts to cover the footprints of his cut and run proposal;
He said the Democrat proposal is not a 'withdrawal,' but rather a 'strategic redeployment' of U.S. forces.

It's really astounding, but the Democrats are, as Will observes, exhibiting insanity. A good definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. (A quick Google of some key words in that postulate brought me to a source that traces its origin to American Statesman, Benjamin Franklin).
Now we have the Democrats positioning themselves, says Will, to run on the George McGovern platform.

Will is not chalking rocket science on his blackboard. I think every pro-war advocate hoped that this war would be successful and bring coat tails. Is it possible that the negative din has been so protracted, so mounting, the Democrats began to believe their own "Quagmire" stories so fervently, they are hurling themselves off a cliff?

If that's so, then we may have Republican victories as far as the eye can see.

Persevering

2005-12-02T20:33:00.000-06:00

My arm hurts. My arm hurts now more than it it last week. This is distressing, as I naturally want to see less pain from day to day since my bicycle crash and subsequent surgeries. But it doesn't work that way. If I give in to the desire to watch pain fade away, I will be a man with one good arm and one frozen, near-useless arm. Needless to say, I don't want that. I want my arm back 100%. My doctor tells me I'm not getting my arm back 100%. If I work hard and bear the pain of exercise, I'll be lucky to get back 98% of my arm.
So I exercise. So I inflict and withstand pain.
Last week, my doctor examined my arm and found that it's healing well. He wouldn't go so far as to proscribe a strength physical therapy regime. But he did tell me that he wants my physical therapist to become "more aggressive" in motion exercises. I took my new orders to my therapist, but she was a bit hesitant to embrace his advice. She wanted to phone him and learn more precisely what his instructions were.

I lost a week of aggressive self-administered exercise upon myself because I was fooled by these two professional offices in their arm-wrestling. I am trying to be a good patient, so I try to follow instructions from these folks as closely as possible. No one told me to aggressively exercise my arm, myself. I dutifully took the news to my therapist and then she wasted a week in conferencing with my doctor.

That was my mistake. My first-hand experience with these health people tells me that, if you'll pardon my expression, the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Maybe it's incompetence. Maybe it's fear of litigation. I don't know. My therapist accused me of "arguing" with her yesterday because I kept asking questions. That bothered me. I thought about dropping her services and finding a new therapist. But I devoted some deep thought over the situation and decided that that's probably not necessary. What is necessary is simply to embrace the fact that my own personal health is in my own hands at this point. Most of the rehabilitation I stand to gain will ultimately come from my own self-administered exercise regime at home on a day to day basis, two to three times per day.

So I've begun to do 20 repetitions of arm curls, three times per day. It's difficult. This is a motion that was, before my accident, done with very little effort. I used to do 3 sets of 8 curls per day with 50 pounds of weight. Now, it's important to use no weights. My doctor wants range of motion exercises; not strength or resistance exercises. No argument there. Just making the range of motion is difficult enough for me. My therapist observed that I'm not breathing naturally when I do this exercise. Once again, I have some problems with the way my therapist presents this coaching to me. She operates from a negatively critical point of view. Why? It seems to me that she should be adept at understanding where the patient is coming from. Of course I'm not breathing naturally! It hurts like hell!

Once again, some time alone, contemplating the situation helped me realize that just because my physical therapist and doctor are not perfect, is no reason to give myself short shrift. I take their information, no matter how ineffectually presented to me, and utilize it.

So I now concentrate on breathing regularly and naturally as I flex and extend.

My opinion of health officials and health specialists has taken a severe downgrade. But I'll be damned if I will let that get in the way of my complete recovery.

Christmas cheer

2005-12-02T00:50:00.000-06:00

Kevin McCullough of WMCA radio has a great idea. He's sending a religious Christmas card to the American Civil Liberties Union. You know, the folks who want to wipe Christianity out in America. I can't think of a better way to express my Christmas love than to jump onto McCullough's wagon.
'Tis the season.
(tip o' the bird to Hugh Hewitt)

Keegan's tonight

2005-12-01T15:49:00.000-06:00

Well, I'm sorry I haven't had much to say about political events or my arm or really much of anything this week. It's Thursday and that means Trivia Night at Keegan's Pub. See you there.

War hits close to home

2005-11-28T23:34:00.000-06:00

It's come to my attention that a friend of Hammerswing 75 has been abducted by terrorists in Iraq.
It's not just happening over there. This war is real and it's close to home.

Happy thanksgiving day

2005-11-24T11:29:00.000-06:00

I write today from my parents' spacious ranch in Apple Valley. I hope you will have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day. Today is Michael Medved's favorite holiday. Today is PETAs least favorite holiday. We give thanks for what we have and for the opportunities to prosper.

Here is a link to the White House's thoughts on this day.

Thanksgiving is a holiday rooted in the American spirit of gratitude and sharing. We see this spirit in America today. When the communities along the Gulf Coast were devastated by Hurricane Katrina, Americans came together to provide help for their neighbors in need. It was a remarkable outpouring of compassion and generosity. That outpouring of compassion demonstrated once again that the great strength of our country lies in the hearts and souls of our citizens.
We also give thanks on Thanksgiving for our many blessings, and we thank those who are far away from home who protect our freedoms. It's through the courage and skill of our Armed Forces that we're safe as a nation, and we're very proud of their service.
We think of our military families who will have an empty seat at the table this Thanksgiving. The American people are thankful for the sacrifice of the American military families, as well. America's men and women in uniform and their families have our gratitude -- not only on Thanksgiving, but on every day.

If he's not dead, he should be

2005-11-21T05:27:00.000-06:00

This morning there are two headlines concerning Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. One is that he may be dead. The other is that his family has disowned him and denies him protection.

"Nobody here supports the insurgency," says Nissan, 47, blaming the attack Friday on Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. "Even before this attack, the feelings against Zarqawi were growing. He has no religion, no sect, no humanity. He is the devil."

So most of us agree about Zarqawi's standing in the world as a man. We all grow weary of these unsubstantiated reports that certain bad guys are or may be dead. It should be remembered that we can't hang our hats on the fate of the GWOT dependent upon one or two individuals. Our enemy isn't just one or two men....it's a corrupted faction of a theology. When Zarqawi or bin Laden fall, they will be replaced with other devils. The enemy will be defeated when these devils are no longer remembered.

Entirely predicted

2005-11-18T07:00:00.000-06:00

The war in Iraq is in crisis today as the Democrats and their propaganda arm of msm continue the drumbeat of quagmire and immediate pullout. It's an important crossroads in the defense of this country. It's important for Americans to notify their representatives and let them know that we must stand firm with the president. A good piece of advice to find motivation to take action on this issue is to get angry about it. After all, if we don't get mad, it would be very easy to be complacent over it.

"Eh....whatever."

But it's not so easy to get angry about this when we realize that this day has always been inevitable. Because of the nature of this enemy, it's been postulated all along that it becomes more and more difficult to remain vigilant in offense as time wears on. There are no terrorist attacks occurring on American soil. The landscape of the mainstream media is a daily report of the deaths of our troops and very little reporting of gains in Iraq. So a mindset grows larger and larger that we could pull out our troops and put an end to the bloodshed.

And this brings me back to writing in my blog about this issue. This blog is a little blog with light traffic, but nevertheless, I began writing it because I realized that this war has an all important home front. Unlike 1972 when we lost the war in Vietnam on the home front by succumbing to msm distortions, the blogosphere and Internet information flow have created an entirely new rubric in the democratic process.
Yes, this juncture was entirely predicted. We knew that the Democrats would call for cutting and running. We knew that the 6 o'clock News would portray the war in Iraq as meaningless bloodletting. We knew that msm polls would one day show the war to be unpopular.

We knew this juncture would arrive one day. And now we need to remember that the notion made us angry back in 2003 and the time is now to get angry and to launch into action. Let your congressmen know you are angry and that we must stand with the Iraqi people. Our brave men & women in uniform are fighting this war on the battlefront. It's up to us civilians to fight this war on the homefront.

The morning after

2005-11-18T06:19:00.000-06:00

I went to Keegan's Irish Pub last night for Trivia Night. I've become a regular for this event since my injury and it's become the highlight of my week. Last night I had the pleasure of getting to know the three other members of my team. They were Kevin of EkerNet, Andy (Triple A) of Residual Forces and John of Night Writer blog. This was a good team. We should have tied for first place with 19 correct answers, but the Quiz Master marked two of our correct answers as wrong. Strangely, they were both answers that were contributed by me. They were;
1) Who wrote the song "All Along The Watchtower"?
2)What numbers are painted on the hull of the Starship Enterprise in Star Trek?

As I said, I contributed the answers for both of these questions for my team. They are as follows; Bob Dylan wrote "All Along The Watchtower" and the numbers on the Enterprise are 1701. The Quiz Master thinks "All Along The Watchtower" was written by Jimi Hendrix. And who knows what numbers they think are on the hull of the Enterprise?

I've long known there are a few rules to Trivia that are incontestable. One is "No whining" and another is "No insulting the Quiz Master". I discovered last night that contesting the truth with the Quiz Master breaks both of these rules. The Democrats are rewriting the history of how America went to war in Iraq and the Quiz Master is rewriting America's pop history. There is nothing to be done about these facts but to begin to learn to speak Arabic and convert to Islam, as well as to tear out the Dylan pages in my Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll and then to take sandpaper to my Star Trek dvd collection whenever the Enterprise pops up on the screen.
I will also be tearing down the statue of Uncle Joe in my back yard.

Assume the position.

Call to action

2005-11-17T17:24:00.000-06:00

Hugh Hewitt has the crucial post of the week with the crucial phone numbers and emails to contact Republican leaders and let them know we must stay firm in Iraq and reverse the resolution that calls for a rebuke of President Bush.

It's a long post but if you scroll down, you'll see the numbers and the links. Use them, please. We cannot go wobbly now.

Painful recovery continues

2005-11-17T01:07:00.000-06:00

I'm in my second week of physical therapy for my busted elbow. The daily exercise seems to be causing a ratcheting up of pain and swelling. I'm icing my elbow a few times per day now in order to try and keep the swelling down.
This is easily the most pain I have ever known in my life. I wouldn't wish this injury on my worst enemy and I sure as heck hope I never have to go through anything like this ever again.

This morning's weather report said the sidewalks were very slippery with ice today. Since slipping and falling on my arm would be the worst nightmare I can imagine, I made a firm point of staying indoors all day today. There will be days when I will have to go outside and risk a fall. But while I have any choice in the matter, I'm opting to just stay curled up against my radiator, arm elevated, doped up on Extra Strength Tylenol, sipping hot tea and dunking buttered toast.

Cheers!

Ha ha funny

2005-11-15T09:21:00.000-06:00

I am beside myself with laugh out loud laughter as I'm listening to the Laura Ingraham Show this morning. Laura has just played a sound clip of Chris Matthews in which he stated on his MSNBC cable television show that W and the Republicans had promised several things before the war in Iraq and none of them came true.

One of the things he listed is that the oil was supposed to pay for the war!

This is astounding. I couldn't believe it. Fortunately, Laura played the clip three or four times so we could wrap our brains around this comment. If I didn't know better, I'd wonder if this was actually a clip from Saturday Night Live. Matthews is confused. President Bush never said the oil would pay for the war. In fact, when asked about it, the president made it clear that Iraqi oil belongs to the Iraqis. Quite the contrary to the president claiming the oil would pay for the war, it was Moveon*dot*org and Chris Matthews' leftie anti-war friends who had made the claim that the oil would pay for the war. It was the left that claimed the war was all about oil.

We are living in amazing times. Chris Matthews and the Democrats are trying to rewrite history right before our very eyes

W's hits

2005-11-14T10:24:00.000-06:00

The president's approval and popularity ratings, as the msm have gleefully pointed out to everybody lately, are way down. Yesterday's Sunday morning political talk shows were pounding home these figures. Supporters of President Bush are wringing their hands over this to some degree, some more than others. The contributors to these low ratings are several; Katrina, the Miers nomination, gas prices. But the most visible current issue and certainly the most important one, is the war in Iraq and how America went to that war.
W is fighting back now. Who knows if the president will ever get his approval ratings back up to the highs he once enjoyed? But it is clear that he must do something to keep them from getting worse. He must defend his honor for his own sake, but more importantly, for the sake of the nation and the morale of our military.
Some Bush supporters think that this fight is long overdue, and perhaps they're right. But it smells to me like a Rovian ploy. I think it's quite possible that Karl Rove knows full well that the president's approval and popularity ratings are impossible to keep at high levels. They must come down. If that's true, then wouldn't it be better to allow them to come down at a point in his term when it really doesn't much matter? That time is now. So what if people want to grouse about the president's leadership? There's no election this year for national offices. Let them grouse. Republicans have a good window of a year to improve matters.
Karl Rove knows that Americans have a short attention span. He knows that it's human nature to grow tired of the same old face in the White House and turn to blaming. And I have a hunch he also knows that if you give the Moveon*dot*org people and their paid politicians enough rope, they are quite likely to hang themselves. The left wing of the Democrat Party is too emotional and too consumed with hatred to think things through clearly. They grow encouraged when they see their daily attacks gaining results in the president's popularity. This is the moment they've been dreaming of since November 3rd, 2004. Finally, so they think, things are going their way. So they pour it on even more until they very much begin to resemble the traitors that Ann Coulter has been talking about for the past several years.

Is this a rosy analysis? I don't know. Maybe it is. But as presidential counselor Dan Bartlett said today on the Laura Ingraham Show, the president has the truth on his side.

Scaredy cat

2005-11-13T21:30:00.000-06:00

Howard Dean is a scaredy Democrat. I was going to write about Howard Dean's refusal to appear on Meet The Press alongside Ken Mehlman. But Powerline's Rocketman puts it so well. Why not just link to his post?

I've noticed that there is some jealousy and resentment of Powerline among the MOB. I suppose this is a natural human response. Last Thursday at Keegan's, one MOBster who shall remain unnamed by me actually referred to Powerline as a "Mainstream Blog". It's become almost uncool to admit that we read Powerline anymore. If that's true then I am uncool. I love how Powerline has so effectively revealed the left wing msm for what they are. And they do just about everything else they attempt equally well.

Happy veteran's day

2005-11-11T18:21:00.000-06:00

I should have posted early this morning on this subject. I want to thank our nation's veterans of the armed services. My dad is a U.S. Marine. He served in the Pacific Theater in World War II. The Japanese sneak attacked Pearl Harbor when my dad was just 17 years old. He lied about his age in order to enlist. I think that's heroic.
Thanks, Dad. Thanks for your service to our country. Thank you for keeping America free.

Thanks to all our fine men and women in uniform today serving their country and protecting freedom.

Mommy knows worst

2005-11-11T10:36:00.000-06:00

As promised, here is my review of James Lileks' latest book, Mommy Knows Worst; Highlights From the Golden Age of Bad Parenting Advice. I gave a copy to my mother and got myself my own copy, too. As far as I know, all of this humorist's books are similar to this one. It's choc full of illustrations, photos and clippings. The original item is presented and then the author riffs his wry spin on the item.
Lileks is in his element when he's interpreting pictures. That's his schtick in much the same way that telephone conversation is Bob Newhart's schtick. The author has a keen eye. If men are visually oriented, then Lileks is gifted with 20/20 hindsight. He is able to immediately grasp any significance of a picture, find the comic angle and then put his wacky humorous insights into words for maximum laughability, or at least, for enough effect to turn one corner of your mouth into a grin.
The author sets the tone for this book by placing near its beginning, a picture with this caption; "Do not kiss me....or I will strangle you with my giant monkey-feet". When I'd first seen the picture of this infant, I just saw a picture of a baby. But after reading Lileks' take, I revisited the picture and yes, by God he's right. That baby does indeed have giant monkey-feet! Poor kid. I hope it received the proper corrective surgery. But I wonder if that surgery was performed by a doctor or a veterinarian. Maybe the kid is now in the San Diego Zoo. Lileks doesn't say, but he's got plenty of other funny observations. The heart of the book is Lileks' mixture of outrage and bemusement over the audacity of generations of baby doctors who'd thought they knew something about baby care but were completely and absurdly wrong in more ways than we should have to know. They thought that babies should be placed face down for sleeping. They thought that the rays of direct sunlight were good for extended and repeated periods of time. They never thought to advise the invention of and use of seat belts in cars. On and on and on, Lileks presents laughably false notions that baby doctors had as well as obvious harmful do's & don't do's. For instance, the experts advised new parents, in Lileks' words; To sum up what we've learned thus far; Give the baby air and don't stun it with opium.

In one inspired moment, the author transmits his warning to the hapless mothers of yesteryear;
Mom! This is the future! Hello! THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT!

No review of this book would be complete without mentioning the graphics. Lileks is a modern geek but he is also very much a retro freak. This book is very beautifully illustrated with brilliant color and reproductions of mostly 50s and 60s design. It's fun to look at and it's funny to read. This was an excellent distraction for me, as my arm is broken, I'm dealing with constant low-level pain and it was possible for me to read it in my condition in ways that reading something more demanding, like say Friedrich Nietzsche, would not. This is an excellent book for people who are bedridden and need to be cheered up. But others would enjoy it, too.
My mother has finished reading it, as well. I asked her of her thoughts. She reports that the book is fairly accurate. She remembers these inept pieces of advice from the years when she was raising six children. Of course, she knew that some of that advice was absurd even back then and did not follow all of it, even though the "experts" urged parents on. But there are some pieces of advice in this book that were entirely unknown to her. So far as humor goes, my mother didn't find herself all that much amused by Mommy Knows Worst. She doesn't remember having a Laugh Out Loud moment in her read and she commented to me that Bill O'Riley's book was funnier. This doesn't surprise me very much. Lileks' humor is almost always rather gentle. His comic sensibility is for my generation much more than for my mother's.

This reminds me of a realization I'd had whilst reading this book. It plays quite a bit like an issue of Mad Magazine; Illustrations. Glib, irreverent commentary on the illustrations. Wackiness.

This is not your mother's Oldsmobile. If Lileks is your cup of tea, I can recommend this book. It's funny and it's educational. That's a useful combination, even if you're not a mom.

That 70s music

2005-11-11T09:11:00.000-06:00

Surfing the television stations this morning, I came across one of those half hour commercials from Time-Life for a box set of the music of your life. This one is called 70s Music Explosion.

This is a wonderful, exciting, riveting commercial that everyone who lived through the 70s should stop and watch from beginning to end. These songs, many of them, were recorded and played constantly on the radio and yet I never heard of most of these bands or performers. This commercial is filled with moments of brilliant realizations; "Oh! Pilot! So that's who sang that song!" I never heard of Pilot, yet their song is immediately recognizable to me. They had a hit with a song called Magic.

Oh, oh, oh it's magic. It's so-oh-oh Blah blah blah blah blah blah oh

The Time-Life 70s Music Explosion is a treasure trove of music that you hated all through the 70s, as well as a few gems. But they are now masterfully put all together on 10 cds so they are in one place for you to sneer at. It's kinda like golden oldies radio only without the commercials, so that you can continue to sneer and sneer and sneer without distraction. I actually thought about buying this box, but I talked myself out of it because I'm afraid my face might peel off from chronic sneering.

The 70s is my era. That's when David Bowie was leading the pack in glam rock. So this package really is targeted at marks like me who go all woozy and soft in the middle from memories that flood back at the slightest whiff of these recordings. I'm sure this box set would be a valued possession for many people. But for myself, the television commercial seems to be all I need. I can record this commercial on my VCR and relive the 70s over and over again for a blissful half hour for free and see the video clips, too.

And remember; Disco still sucks.

New signposts

2005-11-05T20:46:00.000-06:00

I suddenly realized that I am now able to type at my keyboard with two hands once again. After all, typing doesn't involve lifting with the arm. It merely involves coordinating the fingers. Fortunately, I can do that and I can do so painlessly and effortlessly.

The other new function returning to me is washing the dishes. When my arm broke, I had a sink full of dirty dishes that I'd meant to get around to. But the broken arm prohibited my doing so. Maybe I could have done them if I'd applied super-human effort. But hey, a broken arm has to be good for some things, don't it? It served as an excuse to not wash the dishes for awhile. I would have had to wrap my left arm in a plastic bag to keep the splint dry. Also, that splint was heavy. Lifting my arm was painful. And that meant that I would have been forced to find ways to use it as little as frickin' possible.
Now that the splint is off, I'm washing dishes. Hell, I have a sink full of soaking dishes in the kitchen even now as I write these words. When dirty dishes sit around for over a month, it is wise to soak them and allow the food particles to soften.

Don't I lead an interesting life? I am so happy to be doing dishes and blogging again with two hands.