<$BlogRSDUrl$>

Monday, January 31, 2005

PURPLE HEADLINES 

Headlines and photographs shape (or reflect) our opinion of events. The ink-stained forefingers of Iraqi voters made for arresting and heartening images yesterday and today. The headlines I saw slowly morphed from variants on Bush Says the election is a success (but who can really believe him?) to The Election is a Success!

Strangely enough, The New York Times apparently worked backwards, growing more despondent as the day progressed:
TIME HEADLINE [the headlined article itself did not change during the day]
09:24 High Turnout in Baghdad Points to Early Success
10:24 Amid Attacks, a Party Atmosphere on Baghdad's Closed Streets
18:26 Insurgent Attacks in Baghdad and Elsewhere Kill at Least 24
20:50 Attacks in Baghdad and Elsewhere Reportedly Kill Several Dozen
Today they grudgingly editorialized:
This page has not hesitated to criticize the Bush administration over its policies in Iraq, and we continue to have grave doubts about the overall direction of American strategy there. Yet today, along with other Americans, whether supporters or critics of the war, we rejoice in a heartening advance by the Iraqi people. For now at least, the multiple political failures that marked the run-up to the voting stand eclipsed by a remarkably successful election day.
When even the naysayers admit to "remarkable" success, it is truly a remarkable event.

Saturday, January 29, 2005

HEY DEMOCRATS!: HERE'S HOW TO WIN IN 2008 

Keep folks from getting married or encourage them to get divorced:
The marriage gap is one of the most important cleavages in electoral politics… The marriage gap is a defining dynamic in today’s politics, eclipsing the gender gap, with marital status a significant predictor of the vote, independent of the effects of age, race, income, education or gender.
(Via Steve Sailer, who performs a victory dance of vindication)

The Warrior Monk's comment: Aha! You've acceded to the patriarchy! [He then performed his own dorky and ribald victory dance]

Friday, January 28, 2005

TSK TSK TSK SUCH VIOLENT IMAGERY ... 

The Coleman v. Blogdom sparring we all enjoyed so much back in December keeps reverberating. Now Editor & Publisher has got hold of it and graced us with some new Coleman quotes:
So is this the future of blog-newspaper relations in 2005 and beyond? According to Coleman, yes, and not in a good way. He says traditional news outlets need to keep tabs on the blogs and shoot back when necessary. "Editors and writers in mainstream media are very naive," he says. "Readership and power of the blogs is increasing." He also claims that the blogs are dangerous because they are not under the same ethical restrictions as mainstream media and seek to stay on the attack, facts be damned. He contends "the mainstream media is under assault."
(Via People's Republic of Minnesota)

That Coleman. So ethical. Plus he knows stuff, like how to whack people with a hockey stick. Now he's one MSMer who's ready to shoot back at those dangerous blogs! Everyone feel safer now?

CODDLE ME NOT 

The seven year old is off to sleep over at her friend's house tonight. I'm a bit wary of sleep-overs because a year or two ago her hostess' parent completely fell for the seven year old's pathetic "I'm scared! [whimper]" act and ended up trying every soothing trick they could think of: OK! you can fall asleep in our bed ... still awake and whimpering? OK! we'll go to sleep on the floor in your room ... still whimpering? OK! you can watch the movie we're watching ... and so on. Very little sleep was had by anyone and I felt terribly guilty. So this time I warned the mom: don't coddle her! Be very matter of fact if she whines and don't reward any silly complaints with gooey sympathy.

The seven year old is an exceedingly bashful and anxious soul so I long ago learned to match my sympathetic responses to the reasonableness of the complaint: bit tongues get hugs and coos (but not for terribly long), complaints that she "didn't have fun today" get a perfunctory ("well, I'm sorry you feel that way"). If we cuddle and make much of her when she's "scared," she seems to feel it more intensely, not less.

You get more of what you reward -- this seems like a truism to me. But not to the (now fading, I hope) self-esteem gurus who recently endured another nail in their beloved theorem:
In fact, according to a study by Donald Forsyth at Virginia Commonwealth University, college students with mediocre grades who got regular self-esteem strokes from their professors ended up doing worse on final exams than students who were told to suck it up and try harder.
(Via Functional Ambivalent)

If the students got strokes for mediocrity what's the big surprise that they didn't try hard to preven it from happening in the future?

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

OTHERS: BLAND AND PADDED WITH CLICHÉS 

St. Paul Pioneer Press Columnist Mark Yost interviewed the Northern Alliance this past weekend (for the most part, the interview took place live, on air) . The result:
It's fair to say that Power Line, where astute fact checkers nearly brought down Dan Rather, were the cyber stars of 2004. And rightfully so.

But Power Line is just the tip of the iceberg. Minnesota is replete with bloggers, including Fraters Libertas (www.fraterslibertas.com), part of the Northern Alliance, which includes SCSU Scholars, Captain's Quarters, Shot in the Dark and others.
"Others"! Spitbull finally has found a nickname to go with its snazzy new tagline: bland and padded with clichés.

But not everyone was as pleased with the results of the interview. Some felt there were important omissions. Others sniffed that the resulting editorial merely showed the MSM had little power to increase hit counts. Still others decided to seek the truth by posting a transcript of the interview:
Yost: I’m doing a story on the Fraters and understand that you are an avid reader of theirs. Do you mind if I ask a few questions?

NIGP: I’d be happy to talk about blogging. I initially started blogging to keep in touch with friends.

Yost: I’m not asking you about blogging. I’m asking about the reasons you read the Fraters. So, how long have you been reading the Fraters?

NIGP: I’ve been blogging for about two years. I started as a favor to the Fraters, adding my contributions to their site to help them build readership.

Yost: They never mentioned that.
They report, you decide.

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

IT WAS ME! 

Protest tipping point missed:
If one more person had come through for us, Bush would have had a moment of clarity and changed his entire approach to governing America.

...

To the disappointment of Heiko [who organized the protest through his website TurnYourBackOnBush.org] and his fellow protesters, Bush was able to continue to ignore widespread criticism, because of the one person who didn't show up.
The Onion reports on this and other bungled protest opportunities.

I have never protested anything. I feel more powerful than I have in years.

Monday, January 24, 2005

LEFT BEHIND 

Even when I lived in New York City I used to leave my purse everywhere. Amazingly, I always got it back somehow and now, years later, seem to have finally learned that I should have it with me when I walk out of a place.

Dangerously, I now possess both a mobile telephone and a pocket PC, both of which are two of the most frequently forgotten objects in taxicabs according to a recent survey:
Taxi drivers in nine cities also said they had found a range of other items left by passengers, including a harp, 37 milk bottles, dentures and artificial limbs. One driver said he even found a baby in his taxi.
But fortunately I rarely have reason to take a taxi anymore now that I live in the Twin Cities.

The Warrior Monk has a habit of leaving objects on top of his car (while dealing with packages, kids, car seats and so on) and then driving off. Anyone finding a pair of horn-rimmed glasses in the street of Southwest Minneapolis, please drop us an e-mail.

Friday, January 21, 2005

ANOTHER REASON FOR HUGH TO HAMMER TARGET 

An ad agency survey reveals: Bush voters prefer Wal-Mart; Kerry voters prefer Target.

(Via Agenda)

Thursday, January 20, 2005

MORE FOLKS DRINK COFFEE THAN LISTEN TO TALK RADIO ANYWAY ... 

Air America's losing altitude in Philly:
... Arbitron ratings for fall were released last week. Though specific numbers are not available for Franken's time slot, a check of Rhodes' finds that WHAT's ratings have dropped.

Among total listeners ages 12 and older, the station managed a 0.5 rating in fall 2003; it got a 0.3 this time. The "cume," the cumulative number of weekly listeners, fell from 22,000 to 17,800. By comparison, Sean Hannity and Dom Giordano on talk rival WPHT-AM (1210) had a 4.4 rating and cume of 217,800 weekly listeners; the top afternoon-drive station was WBEB-FM (101.1), with a 7.6 rating and a cume of 441,100.

At its flagship station in New York, Air America finished 24th in the fall.
(Via VodkaPundit)

But, on the bright side, Al Franken has picked up a new gig writing copy for coffee cups. Or, as Starbucks puts it "a collection of thoughts, opinions and expressions provided by notable figures." A collection of thoughts that apparently requires the following disclaimer on every cup:
Please note: The opinions put forth by contributors to “The Way I See It” do not necessarily reflect the views of Starbucks.
(Via Adfreaks)

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

HIS REAL NAME IS "CAMPUS ED" 

Via Dilley Blog I see that NARNian Captain Ed "of the popular conservative blog Captain’s Quarters" is quoted in City Journal. He is tapped to explain why America's college campuses are drifting right:
these kids "grew up on . . . moral relativism and internationalism, constantly fed the line that there was no such thing as evil in the world, only misunderstandings.” Suddenly, on 9/11, this generation discovered that “there are enemies and they wanted to kill Americans in large numbers, and that a good portion of what they’d been taught was drizzly pap."
If asked, Spitbull would have said that the kids finally figured out Volvos are awfully expensive and kind of unreliable, but we weren't asked. Maybe next time.

THE NEW IMPROVED SAT: NOW WITH BIAS!? 

In two months the venerable SAT will include a written essay! The Washington Post goes behind-the-scenes at a sample essay scoring session:
Brian A. Bremen, an English professor at the University of Texas at Austin, notes that the writer provides only one real example. Nevertheless, he says, the writer displays "a clear chain of thought" and should be rewarded, "despite his Republican tendencies."
(Via Marginal Revolution)

Hey! Two can play at that game: I give the scoring scheme a 3 (out of a range of 1-6), despite its makeup of "a team of English professors and psychometricians."

Monday, January 17, 2005

BLAND: THE POWER OF WRITING WITHOUT SAYING ANYTHING 

Professor Ann Althouse comes to the defense of both Malcolm Gladwell and Judge Posner, the first in response to a charge (made by Judge Posner) that the prose in Gladwell's new book Blink : The Power of Thinking Without Thinking is "bland and padded with clichés," the second, more weakly, responding to a profile of Posner (not authored by Gladwell but published a few years ago in The New Yorker, Gladwell's usual literary haunt) that called him "ectoplasmic."

Althouse posits that the padding in Gladwell's writing is The New Yorker's fault:
Somebody, somewhere along the line at that magazine, a long time ago, decided the writer has to paint a picture for the reader. So whether you're interviewing a movie star or a scientist, you've got to give us some words about the person's face, what the room was like, what food was consumed, whether a dog trotted into the room.
Since Blink did not itself appear in The New Yorker, I guess this boils down to a claim that Gladwell's slightly flabby writing style was learned at that magazine's knee. But Althouse's rueful re-quoting of the somewhat uncomplimentary Posner profile from the same magazine belies this charge: "he has about him the distant, omniscient, ectoplasmic air of the butler in a haunted house" does, I believe, add a dimension to the understanding of how Posner can write such original let's-get-to-the-point-right-away legal opinions--as well as books--all at an unholy and clerk-destroying pace. It's not a superfluous description (and Althouse herself lauds the article as "rich").

Much as I respect Professor Althouse (and Malcolm Gladwell too--I own and have read The Tipping Point and greatly enjoy his contributions to The New Yorker over the years), I think she is wrong to believe that Posner's criticism of Gladwell is payback for the ectoplasmic remarks: remember, this man chuckles when accused of holding views "bordering on fascism." He also praised The New Yorker profile as "witty, perceptive, and on the whole accurate, though there are a few points that I would take issue with." (The Warrior Monk posted this about the "inhuman monster" last year)

I think if Posner is irked at Gladwell's--or The New Yorker's--literary style, it is more likely due to Posner's preference for spare and sometimes vicious prose as demonstrated in his own writing. For example, his review of
Evan Gerstmann's book Same-Sex Marriage and the Constitution contains this jab:
It is a strange implication of Gerstmann's approach that if a man wanted to marry his sterile sister, his eighty-year-old grandmother, three other women, two men, and his chihuahua, a court would have to turn somersaults to come up with a "compelling state interest" that would forbid these matches.
(the review prompted, in part, this previous post here)

Even the very phrase Althouse has taken issue with has a certain appeal. Although Spitbull's current motto/descriptor reads "an effete and impudent blog" I now intend to petition The Warrior Monk to change it to "
bland and padded with clichés." A much better tagline than we could ever have come up with.

Saturday, January 15, 2005

UNDERSTANDING JIHADIS 

Is the "War on Terror" a misnomer?:
My argument is that the "War on Terror" is a pretty bad name for what's going on because you're fighting a tactic. You have to personalize this and show what group of people we're fighting. Then the objective becomes pretty clear. The objective in the "War on Terror" is not clear; it's not clear how you know you've won. But a "War on Jihadis" is pretty clear.
The Northern Alliance radioists are interviewing the author of this statement, Yale military historian Professor Mary Habeck, right now on AM1280 The Patriot. Listen up!

Friday, January 14, 2005

DEFINE MIXED BLESSING 

I live close enough to downtown that on days like today (-20 degrees) I am at my office by the time my car warms up.

On a more positive note, the dishwasher didn't freeze this morning as it has the previous ten years of cold snaps. Last year we finally got wise and insulated its back end. Now that's thinking ahead!

Thursday, January 13, 2005

THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PAST 

Who's dissing CBS News now?:
... it has no credibility. And no audience, no morale, no long-term emblematic anchorperson and no cohesive management structure. Outside of those annoyances, it shouldn't be that hard to fix.

...

... I stopped watching it some time ago. The unremitting liberal orientation finally became too much for me. I still check in, but less and less frequently. I increasingly drift to NBC News and Fox and MSNBC.
Surprise! It's Van Gordon Sauter, former president of CBS News. (Via Romenesko)

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

HOW LONG IS THE STRIB'S TAIL? 

Jane Galt discusses the national aspirations of The New York Times in light of their poor national circulation numbers (vis-a-vis The Wall Street Journal and USA Today) and concludes:
I imagine the folks at Times headquarters are as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
Spitbull doesn't know how to stop the rocking, but predicts many lives for the Times crossword puzzle feature, and fewer than nine for their Editorials/Op-Ed section.

Monday, January 10, 2005

WE INTERRUPT THIS POST FOR SOME TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES 

It has come to our attention that on the rare occasion that the length of our post exceeds the length of our blogroll, our post loses. That is, it gets truncated.

On the rare occasion that you actually want or need to read the end of the truncated post, here's the solution: toggle your "Favorites" sidebar on and off by clicking on the "[Star] Favorites" button on your toolbar at the top of this page. Or you can download the FireFox browser (the truncation bug seems to only happen with Internet Explorer).

I sent an e-mail to Blogger but I don't know when we'll get a fix.

Friday, January 07, 2005

MAYBE THEY SHOULD ASK WHETHER THE BBC IS A POWER FOR GOOD OR ILL IN THE WORLD 

I usually think conspiracy theorists are just crazy loners who perhaps mutter to themselves and wear inappropriate clothing; I tell myself that if I see one I should just cross the street without attracting its attention. So it kind of blows my world view when I discover that the BBC is egging them on in its exploration of how the US base at Diego Garcia managed to avoid casualties in last week's horrific tsunami:
Is America a power for good or ill in the world? Was there a malign hand at work, or has America's role in the crisis in fact been a model of humanitarian leadership.

Let us know what you think. Is this just anti-US sentiment on the web or something more worrying?
(Via Natalie Solent at Biased BBC).

Makes our local rag seem the model of moderate reasonableness by comparison.

Wednesday, January 05, 2005

A REVIEWER IS BORN 

The real reason for Instapundit's regal blogstatus is his hard work opining on digital cameras and designer cookware. I forsee a similar meteoric rise for Fraters Libertas now that Atomizer plans to wade into the garbage disposal market.

Inquiring mice, I mean minds, want to know.

Tuesday, January 04, 2005

PLUS, WE CAN'T HAVE THEM CHECKING OUT ANY BLOGS, CAN WE? 

Danger! Danger! Texas has begun a pilot program of offering wi-fi Internet access at the campgrounds of five state parks. While regretting the "erosion of woodland peace and quiet, thanks to visitors who fetch along boomboxes, cellphones and televisions," our local paper feels a line must really be drawn at the tap-tap of laptop keys:
The Texas department's observation that laptops won't generate noise, and therefore are more benign than boomboxes, is true but beside the point. And the assertion that wi-fi campers will be using their laptops to plan hikes, check weather or identify warblers -- well, that's a stretch. Undoubtedly most will be sending e-mails, checking their stocks and surfing for smut, just like they do in regular life.
Yep, gotta make sure those RV'ers can't get at their smut (the wi-fi attennas are being set up at every tent pad and trailer slot)--you know how they are.

(Thanks Nancy!)

WE THINK IT'S GOING TO BE CALLED "DON'T BLINK" 

Former Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark is working on a sitcom. (Via Brainwash)

Saturday, January 01, 2005

OF WINGNUTS AND MOONBATS 

Every once in a while I slum through some of the far left blogs looking for post material. Local columnist Nick Coleman often provides great material but recently he has become somewhat overexposed or, come se dice? "jumped the shark" (but I'm sure he'll be back -- you go girl!). So I've noticed that lefty bloggers and commenters often use the term "wingnut" as a pejorative to describe folks on the right. Here, at random, is one example:
The wingnuts are full of venon. Notice they never make a reasonable point about something that raises Righteous anger. They make stuff up or pretend that invading Iraq is on the same grand footing as joining a World War to prevent real time genocide.
The writers all appear very satisfied that they've issued a horrific insult but the term just doesn't seem all that nasty to me.

So, I googled it. Here's what I found:
  • Create poetry at Wingnut-etc.
  • An interview with Robert "Wingnut" Weaver, reportedly "a modern version of a Sixties Surfer" from Surfmag.com.
  • A producer of vegan artisan truffles. Wingnut Confections, whose motto is "candy with a conscience," boasts: "Each truffle is hand-made and delivered by bicycle especially for you!"
  • Wingnut Galleries' home page currently features a photo of a naked woman entitled "The Womb."
  • The "Caucasian Wingnut" or Pterocarya fraxinifolia is "a relic of the Teriary flora on the southern flanks of the Caucasus Mountains and was introduced to France in 1784 but not until after 1800 in Britain."
  • Wingnut Games is releasing Solid!: The D20 Blaxploitation Experience to stores this February. One review gushes:
    Solid! allows players to experience the soul, power, and action of the movies that defined a generation. Includes new advanced classes like the Private Dick, Foxy Lady, Hustler, Preacher, Hoodlum, Police Detective, and Politician ...
  • Meet Wingnut, the band. Who are they?
    Wingnut music is mostly instrumental, drawing from jazz, hip-hop, funk, soul, trance and other genres. With high regard for dynamics, the groups original compositions transform from funky Hammond B3 organ groove to deeply melodic piano passages into tear-your-head-off distorted fender rhodes evil. Wingnut music is exploratory but maturely composed, balancing intense, aggressive improvisation with solid foundation and structure...
Perhaps the lefties ought to pick a slur with less baggage, or at the very least, a slur lacking such stereotypically left leaning baggage. The corresponding rightwing insult, "moonbat," doesn't seem all that nasty either (it evokes "wombat," which is kind of cute) , but at least it has the virtue of being a completely new word so perhaps it will acquire some venom.

Clearly more evidence of Karl Rove's evil genius at work.