Big cities losing people - washingtonpost.com Highlights - MSNBC.com

Big cities losing people - washingtonpost.com Highlights - MSNBC.com

New Jack Radio

Today I listened to the Brian and Joe show on WAIF, the radio equivalent of the more amicable discussions that take place among local bloggers. The production is surprisingly smooth, and the topics are familiar. Cincinnati development, revenue, crime, the Internet - all of this was discussed, as well as 'YPs', young professionals.

I've noticed that a lot of young professionals are eager to fall all over themselves trying to explain the importance of (guess who?) young professionals. "I'm vital for the city's well being!" they seem to be saying. "More coffee shops and accessible parking on crime free streets! And build more retail outfits sort of like Anthrpologie but locally owned, so I don't feel guilty!"

Don't get me wrong, unencumbered professionals are a benefit, because without children or a mortgage they can spend fistfuls of money in the city during the years between college and the time they get married and buy a house in a sub-development in the outer counties. Even though I don't quite fit the demographic (since I've got kids, and I'm 34) I do live in town. And I support the groups that promote this approach, such as Give Back Cincinnati and Cincinnati Advance. (But on what are we advancing, Indiana? Now we're giving back?) And the notion of a creative class sounds tremendously appealing - as if I will be attending many parties with people wearing small glasses who name-check Jean Genet.

A tail-wagging enthusiasm and self-absorption is endemic to people in their 20s. But a sense of investment comes into play later - when homes, school systems, and safety are in the mix. Show me more neighborhoods with yards, clean sidewalks, kids, shops (not drunk idiots puking on lawns at 1AM) and you will be much closer to the goal of a stronger city. Show me the young professionals who have taken root in the community and have a stake in it's institutions. Those are the folks with the future in mind.

Judge Souter, You Like Apples?

Every four years our national attention focuses on New Hampshire, a state charged with the task of holding the first primary in the election of the next president of the United States. And every four years these citizens smirk back at the rest of the country, raise a patriotic middle finger, and vote for some outlandish and possibly unelectable candidate - like Tsongas, Buchanan or McCain.

It's an smart, ornery, sarcastic, and very liberty-loving state.

Supreme Court Justice Souter is from New Hampshire, but doesn't appear to share those virtues. He's the judge who cast a decisive vote in the Kelo decision on allowing corporations the right to use eminent domain to take the houses of average citizens for development. This decision did something miraculous, by managing to almost uniformly tick off people on both Left and Right.

Now the citizens of Weare, New Hampshire have concluded that some land in town - land where Judge David Souter happens to have located his home - might just make a lovely spot for a brand new hotel. They intend to use the revised definition of eminent domain to seize the property. Right now it's supported by folks on the Right, but since the irony is so immensely satisfying, I hope that the effort can be broadened to include friends from all over the political spectrum.

HAT TIP, NIXGUY

Prelude to a Political Freakout

Right now a struggle is taking place on a cellular level as radiation and cancer collide in an old man's lymph nodes. The implications of this conflict extend far beyond biology into politics, even history. But the outcome, at best, can only delay the inevitable. Sooner or later (or perhaps already, unknown to us), Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist will retire from the bench. And the passing from public life of this faithful civil servant will herald the beginning of a political and cultural battle royale.

Tower, Thomas, Ginsberg, Shaivo? Please. Those were chump change compared to what's in store, as fundamentalists and liberals claw at each other's eyes to protect their interests in the final venue for matters of law. Republicans go into this fight with firepower in two branches of government, but the Democrats can sway a handful of independents. Dems also have a knack for portraying everyone right of Elmo as horrifically mean and cruel - a trick which doesn't really wash with the public anymore, but does buy them time while congressional staffers frantically dumpster-dive for negative character evidence.

An article in the WSJ today describes a new front that may develop in this conflict. A rift has emerged between the pro-business (anti-liability) corporate conservatives and the Bible thumping conservatives over state versus federal authority. The anti-abortion crowd has historically sided with states, but the rise of aggressive attorneys general has businesses squealing for federal deliverance. This won't translate into flashy demonstrations on the Mall, but it may explain sudden shifting of senatorial position, as major campaign contributors exert pressure during the nomination process.

Those of you disposed towards prayer consider Justice Rehnquist, and his health, in these days before all hell breaks loose.

Mallory at Sidewinders

Mark Mallory sat down with local bloggers last week to discuss his run for Cincinnati mayor. He's a natural politician, practiced at the art of storytelling, listening, and offering behind-the-scenes details about the campaign. Everyone nodded vigorously over the importance of bridging the communication gap between candidates and 'indie' media like bloggers. Efforts are underway to set up similar forums for others in the race.

As for the issues - crime, business development, the efficacy of local leadership - these are common concerns for everyone. Mallory's undeniably successful record as a Democrat in a Republican-controlled state legislature is an clear-cut asset. There is also a "throw out the bums" attitude towards city hall which works in his favor. He is an outsider with insider credibility, benefiting also from the political legacy of a father who served in Columbus for 28 years.

Mallory is quick on his feet when an issue lands on the table. I like this style myself, but I'm from the East Coast, and I'm noticed there's a "duffer" factor in Midwest politics. Folks stand back from people who seem too slick. Another potential liability might be found in a closer look at his resume. He still deserves credit for preserving funding for programs that already elicit sympathy, such as schools, arts programs, and libraries. But this seems less difficult than the battles he would face with entrenched city bureaucracies that can't ever be satisfied with their slice of the ever-dwindling revenue pie.

So it's with a funny mix of confidence, admiration, and sadism that I say I'd like to see Mallory tackle this job. I won't quite endorse him yet, since I still know very little about Pepper or Winburn. Alicia Reece fails to impress with her bland, situationally-appropriate rhetoric - the usual toothless puff about "creating opportunity". But even with her I'm willing to listen.

And I especially look forward to a serious, gloves-off debate.

Gambling In Casablanca

Republican evil mastermind Karl Rove recently took a lot of heat for observing that the GOP responded to 9/11 by preparing for war, while liberals wanted to pursue terrorists with criminal litigation and therapy. This ball was snatched up as a potential political alley-oop: Democrats grew hot-faced and indignant, and claimed Rove was attempting to divide the country along partisan lines.

Now, most of my readers won't bother to read them - but suffice to say that the conservative side of the blogoshere has already gone apeshit finding article after article by liberals about how terrorism should be pursued in the courts, and we need to understand our attackers and their motivations. (Juan Cole, white courtesy phone.)

And this morning on NPR, immediately after a segment about Rove's remarks in which you could hear the consternation in the hosts voice - they cut, without any interruption or apparent sense of irony - to a long segment about suicide bombers, the nuances of their personal biographies, their motivations for blowing people to bits, and how we should change US foreign policy to avoid them.

Instant Karma Chameleon

Hi, I'm the Grand Sultan of Dorkistan.

Last night I socialized with other bloggers at two separate events. First at a meetup with mayoral candidate Mark Mallory organized by The Dean of Cincinnati. Second at the 'After Five' pub crawl from Cincinnati Advance, which happened to end up at my favorite neighborhood fake Irish bar. It was nice to chat with Brian Griffin, Wes Flinn, and Maggie Downs - folks with whom I've communicated in various forums over the past few months.

With regard to Mallory, I intend to post more thoroughly on him and his candidacy soon, when I can review my notes. Overall I am impressed with his character, track record, and conception of leadership. But more detail on specific solutions would be welcome.

I'd like to see indie media in this town challenge the monolithic outlets. There is too much factionalism - but some efforts, such as the Independent Eye, show promise. The politics are invariably predictable and leftist, but I'll forgive that (for now). My concerns are not about the political conservatism of corporate media - but the blandness, risk-averse mindset, and the absence of authenticity.

CNN.com - High court OKs personal property seizures - Jun 23, 2005

CNN.com - High court OKs personal property seizures - Jun 23, 2005: "Local officials, not federal judges, know best in deciding whether a development project will benefit the community"

Spatial Education

Boy monkeys have better spatial perception then lady monkeys, at least until they get older. It's in a recent study. In other news, drunken foolishness is widespread among the people in charge of handing out research money.

They could have easily observed my future spouse and I as we moved into our home together this week. My Y chromosome apparently endows me with a magical ability to size up several pieces of furniture or boxes and accurately determine what will fit into a living room or storage space. When confronted with the same task my future spouse becomes faint and confused. She has other skills that exceed mine, but not in this area. And I've observed this is common.

Some traits come out of the box. Soon after they emerge from the womb many boys start banging trucks together and making a nursing sound when they glimpse the cover of Maxim. Other boys get distracted by a makeover show on the Style Network. This actually means nothing in terms of how these lads will end up later in life - but it exposes some innate interests.

When my daughter participated, for the first time, in a Girl Scout cookie drive, they had a special meeting to show off prizes that could be won by top sellers. The prizes included colorful strings of butterfly lights and pens that squirted out a sparkly plastic poo. But the mack daddy prize was a beaded curtain for hanging in the doorway to a bedroom. This prize must have been scientifically designed by advanced Girl Scouts to elicit a deep psychic response. The room full of seven-year-old girls leaned forward and sighed, all at once.

We sold boatloads of cookies that year. It was like the crack-selling montage from 'New Jack City' - except with Thin Mints. The GSA promotes self-esteem, fitness, and civic-mindedness, worthy goals for any gender. But when it comes to motivating the rank-and-file, they damn well know what works.

Review: Howl’s Moving Castle

A girl watches though a window as a castle on legs strolls over a hillside. Her feet are hooked over the rungs of her chair, and her fingers pause in the business of hat making while she observes. When he renders these scenes, animator Hayao Miyazaki is displaying a masterful understanding of a concept CGI experts are only starting to put into practice. A movie must nail these human details - the subtle 'tells' of our interior lives - to earn the patience of the audience. If this bargain is made successfully both young and old alike can visit the relentlessly strange parallel worlds presented in stories like Howl's Moving Castle.

A girl, a curse, and creatures both malevolent and benign that spring from some Jungian-eastern sub-consciousness - these are the common features of many of Miyazaki movies. Spirited Away, which won an Academy Award, was the perfect calibration of those elements in all his work to date. Howl's Moving Castle only falls short in a few areas. Billy Crystal and his New York twang seemed out of place as voice talent for one of the characters, but this was a decision made by Disney, the US distributor and translator. And there were some disorienting plot twists in the back half of the story. But the movie still preserves the ability to transport and amaze.

And the computer jockeys at Disney and Time Warner should recognize the chance to get vigorously schooled in how great art can still be done today.

---

Howl is plying in Cincinnati at the Esquire. National movie times and information can be found at Moviefone.

Sleepwalking On Ice

From From USA Today:

On one hand, we have been lulled by the fact that there hasn't been an attack here since 2001,' says Stephen Wayne, a political scientist at Georgetown University. 'But on the other, we're generally in a funk about a lot of things — the economy and the war — and these numbers reflect it.

Panic fatigue has taken over America. Fewer people are afraid of a terrorist attack, but fewer have confidence in the Bush administration's ability to protect us from the threat. "It probably won't happen, and besides, they couldn't prevent it anyway." is our national attitude, I suppose.

Lord help me, we are a country of silly boobs.

Eight years passed between the bombing in 1993 and the attacks on 9/11. And Islamic fascists have a memory so long it goes back to the crusades and the freaking caliphate. And if the weenie liberals are right (and they could be on this one) there are even more people out to get us than before because we're in Iraq and acting all tough and preemptively. Even the neocons acknowledge this is a likely side effect, although they claim it is temporary.

I will begin to breathe easier once eight years have passed since 9/11. I expect terrorists can see the plain evidence that habitual complacency is our primary weakness.

Today at work some low-level FBI agent was reviewing transcripts of intelligence data, trying to connect the dots on a possible planned attack - it's a much less glamorous job than Jack Bauer on Fox's 24. If this agent makes an incorrect assumption America will overreact and look foolish. But if he or she ignores one suggestive detail there could be thousands of us dead.

Kabuki Breakdown Theatre

A particular type of misfortune appears to be commonplace in downtown Cincinnati. I'm referring to the guys who are visiting from Cleveland (or Dayton, or Columbus) who have suddenly run out of gas, or had their ATM cards taken. Their family, including children, is usually nearby waiting in a car. And they only need a few dollars to turn the entire situation around.

You would think our highways were lined bumper-to-bumper with stalled vehicles - each with a sweet family of passengers inside, anxiously hoping for their fathers return.

And the gentlemen who have met this fate have a common characteristic; when they start telling you this story, you can't get a word in edge-wise. If they were to pause for breath and tell me in a burst of candor "I need money. I'm at the dead end of a lifetime of bad decisions and substance addiction." I would probably empty my wallet out of sheer admiration.

Self-knowledge is the first step towards recovery. And even if the money ended up being smoked, drank, or injected, there is dignity in knowing that both the supplicant and donor made an honest transaction, and didn't need to endure a well-rehearsed fabrication.

Día de Padre

Today I saw something that restored my faith in humanity. After a long day moving - consolidating households, organizing, and getting rid of the detritus of my quasi-bachelor lifestyle - I decided to take a walk in the neighborhood.

And while I was walking I happened to pass a small house, from which the sounds of Mexican music were playing. I looked, and could see around the corner to the back yard, where two Hispanic-looking little girls were seated at a picnic table filled with food and condiments, the leftovers from a cookout that had ended. The girls had their chins cupped in their palms, and they looked giggly.

Nearby on the lawn a bald man and a woman in a sundress - mom and dad, I think - were dancing closely to the music, swaying back and forth with broad smiles in the late light of an almost-summer evening.

Free Katie Part II

This weblog is getting hammered by people who are concerned about Katie Holmes, and who are visiting by way of Google, which apparently features my "Free Katie Now" post rather prominently.

I never asked for a leading role in this cause, but it may be thrust upon me. You may have heard rumors about a stealth commando raid to secure her freedom from the Cruise Singularity. This is premature, but all options are on the table, including prayer vigils, a congressional inquiry, and UN sanctions against the Tom regime.

More seriously, I think she is seen as a sweet Midwestern girl - who could have been anybody's talented friend from the high school musical - who has been swept away into Hollywierd. I'm not bananas over her acting ability - I never saw that TV show, but she was likable in 'Wonder Boys'.

Mr. Cruise is a little creepy and Katie is probably making a mistake. It's the sort of thing girls and boys do in their twenties, one which usually comes sternly into focus a few years later. But in the words of Mr. Tweedy ... I'm not calling a pot kettle black.

I can't believe I am writing about this ...

Tech Roundup / Miyazaki

Various items of interest from the technology desk:

• Lately I've been playing with Knoppix. For those of you that are not ultra-dweebs, it's a version of the LinuxOS that is self-contained on one CD. Drop it in the tray, restart and viola - a neat little desktop with web connections and printer settings all hooked up nicely.
  
• Interesting article on the Tar Sands in Alberta. If you've got money to invest, I think it would be hard to go wrong with companies that produce advanced oil extraction technology. Or are you one of those people that thinks windmills and cow flatulence will really be a suitable replacement?
  
• Social bookmarking: because it's nice to share. (I'm new so there's not a lot of links.)
  
• Michael Dell may indeed be making goo-goo eyes at Steve Jobs over the prospect of selling Dell PCs running OSX, but nobody in their right mind seriously thinks former Dell Dude Benjamin Curtis could ever get a date with Apple Switch Girl Ellen Feiss.

Also, while not strictly a technology item - all geeks and otaku should be aware that the new Hayao Miyazaki movie, Howl's Moving Castle, is opening tomorrow in Cincinnati - nary a week after it opened on the coasts - a fact which is itself remarkable. If you never heard of this guy - or saw Spirited Away (which won an academy award last year) you should immediately leave work or your home and rent his movies.

For years I've been put off by Japanese animation - which seems antic and flimsy. (The characters seem to laugh at things that aren't quite funny.) Miyazaki is slower, thoughtful, and has an incredible eye for the true details of human critter experience - even while taking the most magical mythologies as his subject.

My nine year old girl loves these movies too. Howl plus a trip to the Indian place next door sounds like a great outing for for Father's Day.

Intrepid Civic Participation

Despite the fact that I am preoccupied with an upcoming wedding, an integration of households, and gainful full-time employment (I do work, people) - I am also abandoning my curmudgeonly recluse existence to touch the public sphere in two ways:

First, thanks to The Dean of Cincinnati I will be participating, next week, in a discussion between mayoral candidate Mark Mallory and other local bloggers. I'm ignorant of local politics, but I like this guy's biography and I look forward to asking questions about how to make the city truly work. And while I am conservative on some issues (foreign policy, markets) - I often feel more confident about Democrats on the local situation.

Second, some of my paintings are going to be in an art show at The Mockbee on Central Avenue in July. It's being organized by my friend Dom, and it looks to be an eclectic mix of work. More details as the date gets closer. Note that some readers mat be surprised I'm an artist. I'm little more than a slightly trained amateur. I took quite a few classes years ago, and I still paint intermittently, and slowly.

My work will be sharing the walls with some coworkers - some of whom may visit this blog in the next few weeks for the very first time. Read my terms and conditions (and the FAQ) to learn more about the firewall between my professional life and the writing you see on this blog.

Trust in Allah, but tie your camel.

Fantasy League Politics

E.J. Dionne Jr. in yesterday's Post:

McCain-Bush in 2008? That would be John and Jeb, the most logical Republican ticket if the party remains in the polling doldrums.

If there's a political equivalent of fantasy football among the chattering class, it's the imaginary matchmaking that constantly occurs with John McCain and politicians of every conceivable variety. Previously mentioned ticket-mates include John Kerry and Joe Lieberman.

Some enterprising producer could put together a reality TV show where contestants compete to become the Arizona senator's pick for veep in '08. Think "The Bachelor" but with less dignity. Who will it be this week? Joe Biden? Schwarzenegger? How about Gary Coleman, Dakota Fanning, or "The Game"? Because you just never know with that McCain. He's always coming at you from some crazy new angle.

Post Postmodern Man

In the work environment and school I've taken many instruments (don't call them tests) intended to diagnose personality, style, or system of belief. I almost always end up in the creative oddball bin - and usually I'm in some very marginal fraction of the population overall.

So when Brian Griffin put up a post about this online quiz concerning "world view" I was intrigued, even though (like him) I am usually skeptical of these things. Certainly the wording of the questions is loaded toward overblown, freshman-dorm-room rhetoric.

But here's my diagnosis - regular readers can decide if it applies:

You scored as Cultural Creative. Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational. Cultural Creative 69% Existentialist 56% Idealist 56% Romanticist 44% Fundamentalist 25% Postmodernist 25% Materialist 13% Modernist 0% What is Your World View? (updated) created with QuizFarm.com

Free Katie Now

From CNN.com:

Katie Holmes says she's converting to the Church of Scientology, embracing the religion of her boyfriend, Tom Cruise.

Western civilization has flourished for thousands of years, and it's been a good run, on the balance. Certainly there have been wars and oppression, but it has produced Degas, Mozart, Hendrix, Jefferson, Shakespeare, Pascal, and Miles Davis. Even some of the music from the 1980s has stood the test of time - as odd as that seems.

But now, by virtue of the fact that CNN sees the conversion of a vapid actress to a cultish quasi-religion as news - I think we can turn out the lights and wait for invaders to sweep in and begin chopping people into bits. Perhaps they will come from Montreal. Or the gods, sickened with rage at our brainless idiocy, will send down thunderbolts to raze our cities, starting (one would hope) with Atlanta, where CNN is headquartered.

Either way, we richly deserve it. There is a last-minute effort for salvation, but I'm afraid the end is nigh.

Ergonomic Dystopia

Today I woke up early, and hauled off before dawn to the gym with (soon-to-be) Mrs. Spacetropic. There's a whole different crowd in the early AM - a buncha talkers and friendly types, which is where my better half comes in handy. (As previously noted, I am not friendly, especially before being properly medicated with coffee.)

Soon I will be able to go strait to the office, and kill two birds with one stone. A researcher at the Mayo Clinic has invented a workstation-treadmill, which allows bovine cubicle-dwellers to pad along at a few miles an hour while sending emails and making up fanciful numbers in spreadsheets. It certainly wouldn't do any harm to the thundering herd of office workers I see every day in downtown Cincinnati - a town where healthy lunch options are limited, and cheese and pastries are indeed popular.

But what does this portend for the future? I'm afraid that executives will realize that this strange contraption can backended with the benefits package. A little window will appear on the corner of the screen telling you how much of credit you will receive to the health insurance charge on your next paycheck as the result of improved physical fitness.

Exercise diligently, workers! For a brave new world awaits.

All Your Base

Keep up your crazy talk!

That’s the Republican response to the latest ranting from Howard Dean. The Vermont Congregationalist recently suggested that the Grand Old Party consisted of nothing less than a group of – get this - white Christians.

You see, liberals are supposed to instinctively start hissing at this assertion. Never mind the record number of Hispanics that voted for Bush and are now asking themselves ‘¿Qué?' Dean’s tactical intention is to provide meat to the check-writing, partisan Left. But in terms of overall political strategy - well, even John Edwards and Joe Biden know this is crazy and stupid.

So the clever thing to do, if you’re a Republican flack, is to get on TV shows and radio and claim that this type of rhetoric makes it clear how far from the mainstream the Democrats are these days. Long live Howard, they say, while smirking. This requires a little confidence that the public will come along on this point ... but really not that much, since every American did witness Dean's feral donkey scream.

So here’s my question: How come the Democrats never try the give-‘em-enough-rope trick? When’s the last time you heard them say, “Whoa, Tom DeLay, keep it up, pally.” - or smirk and roll their eyes at the American public whenever a conservative talk show host makes outlandish claims? It might be an unexpected break from acting offended all the time, and it would telegraph more confidence.

Hillaryzilla

"No, really. Don't be fooled. Bush is a simian frat boy, warmonger, and idiot. He's a puppet in the sway of greed-obsessed businessmen. All of that talk about principles, patriotism, and compassion is a smokescreen."

This is, of course, is a standard attack on the current president. To the majority of the American public it has sounded like teeth-gnashing and sour grapes. Democrats, however, should take some comfort in knowing that soon we will witness the Republican party making the following claim, loudly, and also with limited appeal:

"No really. Don't be fooled. Hillary is a socialist, opportunist, and harpy. She's a puppet in the sway of trial attorneys and government-crazy ACLU'ers. All of that conciliatory centrist talk is a smokescreen."

The implication will be that, when nobody is looking, Hillary Clinton peels back her mask of flesh, revealing the lizard beneath. Then she unhinges her jaw, and swallows bunnies whole - kinda like those aliens from the old "V" television series.

And any truthful observer may notice that Hillary never quite takes a definitive position on any issue. She will never be wrong, after the fact, because she never quite solidly stood up for anything beforehand. She's covered if the war succeeds or fails. Same with the economy. Triangulation means never having to say I'm sorry, no matter what the outcome.

But at this point I think she'll take the prize in 2008. The leadership of the Republican party has shown a stalwart tendency to force a choice between unforgiving, rock-ribbed conservatism or "spineless" attempts at agreement. The dichotomy is bogus, and unappealing, and Hillary has all of the skills necessary to subvert it. She will also make the inevitable awkward white Republican candidate (who will be chosen over a moderate) look mean and uncharitable in comparison to her eminently reasonable positioning.

MSNBC - Today's News from MSNBC Front Page

MSNBC - Today's News from MSNBC Front Page: "Iraqi judge says gravity of charges lowering Saddam's spirits."

Princesa De Las Aguas

A horrific murder took place in an upscale locale; one brother allegedly bludgeoning another to death with a baseball bat. Columnist Maggie Downs is at work interpreting the sad, ephemeral meanings that might be suggested by the public graffiti she discovered nearby in the neighborhood where the tragedy took place.

Graffiti is a weapon of contraband expression in what the blathering postmodernists call the "contested sites" of public discourse. It can be sacred, offensive, mysterious, profane - and most often a mixture of those elements.

Which brings to my memory El Tamarindo restaurant in Northwest Washington DC. For a period of time in the late 80s it was one of a few joints that didn't seem to mind serving Dos Equis to gawky and obviously underage kids in black Joy Division shirts. It was little more than a dive. But on a wall in the men's room was a large diagram, rendered very carefully in colored magic markers. It was a lady, drawn in lines with loving, incredible precision. It's was one part Trans Am airbrushed hood art, and one part Gray's Anatomy, and all of the parts (and I mean all of them) were conveniently labeled in Spanish.

Crass? Maybe. But now we live in a society saturated with structured information and electronic data. Hand-made folk expressions are rare, and when we can find them they can sometimes lead us back to our essential humanity.

Saint Etienne

European bloggers supposedly played a big role in the recent votes on the EU constitution. Etienne Chouard has become a folk hero among the French for giving voice to the populist 'Non' with an essay on his weblog while the government and media establishment were pushing the citizens to vote 'Oui'. (Via Instapundit)

I can't reckon if the now-virtually-defunct EU constitution is a net positive or negative. I tend to endorse the right of nations and individuals to be independent, sovereign, and self-determined (the Texas or New Hampshire model) - so if the Dutch citizenry want to tell the technocrats in Brussels where to stick it - well, I'm inclined to be supportive. However, many people have said that a unified Europe would benefit America when crucial international matters are at stake. True I suppose, if Europe and America agree on things. But lately they think we are acting crazy with our preemptive war.

But to the matter of Euro-bloggers, this is a classic example of a story the media will get wrong. The bloggers didn't whip up support for a 'No' vote. They articulated a sentiment that already existed, and which wasn't being given voice in the channels of cultural debate.

Soon bloggers will be the explanation behind any unknown. The unexpected, counterintuitive results of a vote? Must be bloggers at work. Somebody tore up the new flower bed you recently planted? Bloggers again, sneaking in under cover of darkness and snickering like munchkins. Crop circles, dandruff, or a missing slipper? Bloggers, bloggers, bloggers!

Rehashed Pornography

The media frenzy over W. Mark Felt is an artifact of history. The baby boom generation continues to navel-gaze at their formative experiences. Turn on the news networks or check the paper and it's all old men and women regaling each other with the same tired narratives of Watergate, Nixon, and the Washington Post.

The only relevance to current issues can be found in the link between the ideal of heroic investigative journalism (in the mold of Woodward and Bernstein) and the later-day version of the same - which has been corrupted, some would say, into the over-reaching of Rathergate, Easongate, and the Newsweek kerfuffle. What was once stalwart news reporting has become hype, half-truth, and ideology.

The truth is often more ordinary. Weakness, greed, and vanity are more plausible explanations for trouble in the public sphere than vast, evil conspiracies by a secret cabal of people in power.

Nonetheless, the 'boomers that retain editorial control of media want to believe their own creation myth. To them there is always a source in the proverbial darkened corner of the parking garage, the insider who can make the harrowing connections that reveal machinations and duplicity within our nefarious government. And so the revelation of 'Deep Throat' has the rest of us choking, once again, on this endless self-infatuation.

KFC and Divine Hotspots

A busy week since the holiday weekend. Later I hope to write about our trip to Ithaca and Cornell- and my sister's graduation. (The country up there is beautiful.) Meanwhile two miscelaneous items:

• Between bomb-happy Pakistani Shias and offensive advertising in the UK, it's fair to assume that this is a difficult week for whoever does public relations for the Colonel.
  
  
• Also from the UK, news of a church that is offering a wi-fi hotspot for Internet access. Your prayers for a a fast connection have been answered.

More updates as the situation develops.