Red State, Blue State

Red State, Blue State

This is a link to a link to an original so I'm fourth hand here which sets some kind of personal record. The subject is the culture shock of Blue Staters visting Red States:

As a Blue-Stater in a Red State (or an urbanite in a rural area) there's really no acceptable reaction to your new surroundings. Either you sneer and note the lack of Vietnamese restaurants/museums/sample sales, and you're an elitist ("What, corn dogs again?"), or you bubble over with David Brooksian enthusiasm for wholesome exurbia, in which case you're seen as smug and patronizing, or as pro-rural only to make a political point ("Mmm, corn dogs!"). A rural person visiting a city can act either awed or horrified, and either reaction is generally considered to be understandable. So what's a stranded-feeling, smile-forcing Blue American to do?

The original blog is named What Would Phoebe Do which plants it firmly in the Blue. The commentary, mostly at Washington Monthly, is very "navel gazing" as one commenter puts it - which makes it again Blue.

I'm rural with an asterisk: planted in Iowa but in the deepest blue point in the state, a little piece of academia dropped in the middle of a corn field. I had my own urban/rural divide today: I visited a small unincorporated town a dozen miles south of Iowa City.

On my bicycle.

Bikes are a HUGE urban-rural splitter. The bikers that passed me all said hi or some variation. The trucks seemed to speed up. And a couple times I got The Look.

I lived in a small town not too far from my bike destination for a couple years and The Look was one of the big things that drove me away. When you go into the corner store, and the older guys are sitting there drinking their coffee (brewed and 40 cents a cup, none of this fancy ex-presso stuff) and they don't know who your grandfather was - they give you The Look. These guys don't like bikes or especially bike trails. The argument we bikers hear is litter and safety. But having campaigned among them - and lost - I really think it's a gut property rights thing. They don't want any city folk "trespassing" on their back 40.

And city folk we are. You can bet a triple mocha that virtually all the bike trips began and ended on the Iowa City end - if I was headed north and I saw someone headed south, they weren't going home, they just got a later start than I did. If you were starting the journey on the south end of the county it was probably on a four-wheel all-terrain vehicle.

I hope I don't sound smug and superior - now I'm navel gazing. Anyway it was a great day for a ride and my legs really hurt now.

This Is About Israel, Not Anti-Semitism

This Is About Israel, Not Anti-Semitism

"For 20 years Israeli governments have attempted to portray anyone who forcefully criticizes the policies of Israel as anti-Semitic. The truth is the opposite: The same universal human values that recognize the Holocaust as the greatest racist crime of the 20th century require condemnation of the policies of successive Israeli governments — not on the absurd grounds that they are Nazi or equivalent to the Holocaust, but because ethnic cleansing, discrimination and terror are immoral." - Ken Livingstone, mayor of London

Weekend Followups

Weekend Followups

Atrios: Rep. Jim Gibbons is apologizing for being a plagiarist but not really apologizing for saying opponents of the war should be sent to Iraq as human shields.

Some dispute around the blogosphere as to how serious Bradley Smith of the FEC was about the idea of regulating blogs under the auspices of campaign finance.

One school of thought is summed up by Fret Wertheimer:

Smith's comments are obviously designed to instigate a cyberspace furor to pressure Congress to reverse the court decision requiring that paid political ads on the Internet should be treated like any other paid advertisements. Mr. Smith has a right to try to win converts to his anti-regulatory philosophy, but he has an obligation to present the issues fairly and forthrightly, and his comments to CNET fail both tests.

Have we been fished in? Electrolite seems to think so and has links to many others.

I must admit I'm a slippery slope guy with my 1st Amendment, so maybe I overreacted. But the Bushies are so brazen I'm afraid to take any chances.

Politics

Copyrights Keep TV Shows off DVD

Wired News: Copyrights Keep TV Shows off DVD

Eyes On The Prize is more important, but we all have our tastes and this Wired article leads with one of mine:

"WKRP in Cincinnati was one of the most popular television shows of the late '70s and early '80s, but it is unlikely ever to be released on DVD because of high music-licensing costs."

Actually the writers exaggerate the popularity (if not the quality); it struggled in the ratings due to constant time-slot changes and got killed off after only four seasons.

The music was part of the very fabric of the show, which was one of the things I loved about it when it was made back in my high school days. (That and Jan Smithers.) I was fascinated by radio as a young teen, and it was fun to envision life as a DJ - a life I later led briefly in a very non-Johnny Fever way. (However, the show is much much funnier if you have ever worked in radio.)

But copyrights cleared for the short term are not cleared for the long term, so even the rare cable reruns are cut to sonic ribbons as this site details.

Music | Television

Popstrology: What's Your Sign?

Popstrology: What's Your Sign?

This is a cute parlor game we've done for a while: what was the #1 song when you were born? I used a BOOK but some kind soul has web-i-fied it.

I deeply regret that I am a Singing Nun. Especially since "Louie Louie" stalled at #2 that week. And darling daughter is a Milli Vanilli...

UPDATE: There's another version that offers both a cute jukebox interface AND the British charts. I did better by the Brits: "I Want To Hold Your Hand" which didn't top the US charts till I was about 6 weeks old.

Music

Senator Bids to Extend Indecency Rules to Cable

Senator Bids to Extend Indecency Rules to Cable

"We put restrictions on the over-the-air signals," Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) said after his address to the National Association of Broadcasters, according to news reports confirmed by his staff. "I think we can put restrictions on cable itself. At least I intend to do my best to push that."

I'm a day or so behind the curve here because I didn't think I had anything to add. The House sponsor has all but said this is a bargaining chip; what they REALLY wnat is the obscenely-high fines for BROADCAST "violations".

But then I thought today: this is where the hypocrisy falls apart. This is where the fundamentalists who decry the morality of others, but secretly crave Friday night Skin-amax, will bail on the Church Police.

Politics

Congressman Says Syria Nuke Comment a Joke

Congressman Says Syria Nuke Comment a Joke

At a church pancake breakfast?!?

"The Feb. 19 remarks by Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas, at a church pancake breakfast were first reported this week in Roll Call. The Capitol Hill newspaper reported it had heard a recording of the talk made by someone in attendance.

According to Roll Call, Johnson said he told the president: "Syria is the problem. Syria is where those weapons of mass destruction are, in my view. You know, I can fly an F-15, put two nukes on 'em and I'll make one pass. We won't have to worry about Syria anymore."

And where have I heard this before?

Immigrant Hunt Update

Immigrant Hunt Update

Hunt didn't happen. Dueling protests did. Burnt Orange Report:

"Don't buy the YCT innocent defense or 'we never planned to have such an event' garbage. They talked about it two week ago, kept trying to land a date, and were discussing it the day before with officials in the Student Services Building. They used Texas Independence Day as cover. I remember last year when they were planning Straight Pride day..."

Politics

Today's Trouble On The Choice Front

Today's Trouble On The Choice Front

Pandagon: Teen charged with murder for inducing miscarriage

Yahoo! News - Pa. Woman Pushes Fed. Abortion Notification Law: "A Pennsylvania woman who says her teenage daughter was lured into another state by a boyfriend's parents for a secret abortion told a House panel Thursday that a federal parental notification law could have stopped it."

Washington Monthly: "Kansas AG Phill Kline claims he needs abortion records of teenage girls because he figures some of them were raped and he wants to track down the rapists. You'd think that if he were really concerned about child abuse and rape, as opposed to harrassment of abortion clinics, he'd try actually investigating teenage births..."

Reuters: "Jeers and catcalls greeted the top U.S. delegate to a global women's conference on Friday as she stressed Washington's opposition to abortion and support for sexual abstinence and fidelity..."

Politics

Friday Frist Cat Blogging

Friday Frist Cat Blogging

Bill Frist Attacks Tony Snow's Cat on Fox News Sunday

Politics

Robert Byrd and Godwin's Law

Robert Byrd: Behind the Times

Cribbing from Wonkette this morning:

You may have heard the rumblings from the right about Senator Robert Byrd's not-that-helpful historical analogy vis-a-vis the Senate Republicans' threat to disallow filibusters and, uhm, Hitler. Byrd, who is old and scary, said that "Hitler never abandoned the cloak of legality; he recognized the enormous psychological value of having the law on his side. Instead, he turned the law inside out and made illegality legal."

She goes on to list a great many right wingers (including Iowa's own Steve King) who've used the Nazi Analogy. This seems to be affirmation of Godwin's Law:

"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one. Once such a comparison is made, the thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress."

Joe Scarborough is one of my regular viewings - it's important to keep up on what the right wingers are up to. Last night he tag-teamed with the dreaded Ann Coulter to bash on Byrd for the first third of the hour, and his name was never mentioned without the preface "former Klansman."

Now Byrd long ago renounced his segregationist views of 40 years ago. And he's done many great and good things over his 46 years (!) in the Senate. His principled opposition during the lead up to this war was truly statesmanlike.

But the right gets a lot of mileage out of that long ago brief Klan membership, and a few other anachronistic verbal gaffes. Might it be better for the Democratic Party as a whole if Byrd steps aside next year at the end of this term?

Politics

Congressman unapologetic about comment that liberals should be Iraq human shields

Congressman unapologetic about comment that liberals should be Iraq human shields

Last Friday, Rep. Jim Gibbons (R-NV) excoriated liberals and said it was “too damn bad” the U.S. didn’t buy liberals “a ticket” to become human shields for the “enemy” in Iraq.

“I say we tell those liberal, tree-hugging, Birkenstock-wearing, hippie, tie-dyed liberals to go make their movies and whine somewhere else,” Gibbons said.

UPDATE: Atrios notes that not only is this speech awful, it's plagiarized, too.

Politics

The coming crackdown on blogging

The coming crackdown on blogging

Free speech meets campaign finance:

If someone sets up a home page and links to their favorite politician, is that a contribution? This is a big deal, if someone has already contributed the legal maximum, or if they're at the disclosure threshold and additional expenditures have to be disclosed under federal law.

Certainly a lot of bloggers are very much out front. Do we give bloggers the press exemption? If we don't give bloggers the press exemption, we have the question of, do we extend this to online-only journals?

Another case where the law isn't in synch with the technology. I have a feeling the Founders or Framers or whatever you want to call them would have a soft spot for us ploggers, posting our electronic pamphlets on the virtual tree in the virtual town square.

How is a blog gifferent than, say, a pamphlet? How is linking to a URL different from publishing a phone number? What if I LIST the URL but don't LINK it; does that extra cut-and-paste step I make the reader take make it less of a "contribution"? What if I write a letter to the editor of a print paper and include the URL?

Political speech should be the most protected speech of all and we bloggers need a break on this.

Jerome at MyDD: "If the 3 Democratic-appointed judges on the FEC panel manage to extend the 2002 campaign finance law to regulate political speech over the internet, we Democrats can say hello to the wilderness for sure."

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I've been doing too much linking and not enough writing lately, leaving me with a lot of posts that are long quotes followed by one line of comment from me. In lieu of that I'll try a different format today and just give you a few links:

2008: Bayh Could Be GOP Nightmare

GOP drive to woo blacks via church alarms Brazile

Political Wire quotes the pay-to-play Roll Call: "Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) "plans to re-introduce a measure that would permit churches to endorse political candidates."

Pandagon has an excellent long post about KS Attorney General Phill Kline's efforts to force two abortion clinics to turn over the complete medical records of nearly 90 women and girls.

Politics

Texas Immigrant Hunt

Texas Immigrant Hunt

Burnt Orange Report, an excellent Texas blog, publicizes the following:

Well, the YCT (Young Conservatives of Texas) are at it again. This time they've organized a so-called "Immigrant Hunt" for this Wednesday, March 2nd on the West Mall on campus-- they have reserved the space from 11:00am-1:00pm. They recently organized a similar event at the University of North Texas (http://www.yct.org/illegal.htm) and appear to be emboldened by the post-9-11 anti-immigrant climate. They plan to wear color-coded anti-immigrant shirts and "hunt for immigrants" who will be YCT-ers dressed in brown for Latina/os, yellow for Asians, etc. and offer rewards...

Wonkette: "We look forward to their tribute to lynching." And pictures from a previous "hunt."

All this is reminiscent of Clayton Williams, the GOP candidate for governor in 1990 who was too big of a redneck even for Texas (though he came within a percent of beating Ann Richards). Couldn't find the smoking gun, just one reference, to the alleged "honey hunts" he held on his ranch: the story was he'd hire a bunch of hookers from the neighborhood Chicken Ranch and the good ole boys would "hunt them down." Presumably while singing a rousing chorus of "Texas Has A Whorehouse In It."

Politics

Electronic Anklets Track Asylum Seekers in U.S.

Electronic Anklets Track Asylum Seekers in U.S.

"The Department of Homeland Security is experimenting with a controversial new method to keep better track of immigrants who are applying to remain in the United States. It is requiring aliens in eight cities to wear electronic monitors 24 hours a day.

The ankle bracelets are the same monitors that some rapists and other convicted criminals have to wear on parole. But the government's pilot project is putting monitors on aliens who have never been accused of a crime."

A typical Homeland Security solution: guilty till proven innocent, treat everyone like a criminal. The slope is feeling mighty slippery these days. Is tearing down the Statue of Liberty next? (she IS from FRANCE, you know...)

Politics

Dean hopes to turn Nevada blue in '08

Dean hopes to turn Nevada blue in '08

"'I understand we're not going to win in rural Nevada. But if we can increase from 35 to 45 percent, we're going to win.'"

FASCINATING how the Dean era at the DNC is beginning with a Red State tour. There's also a good report today from Mississippi, and last week he knocked their socks off in Kansas.

He's going to places that haven't seen a major Democratic figure in years. He's playing for the long term, to complete the national organizing work that didn't come to fruition last year.

Politics

Richardson pitches Western primary

Richardson pitches Western primary

"New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson is planning an aggressive push to persuade Western mountain states to have a presidential primary on a single day early in the nominating process in 2008."

And... who would THAT help?

California Democrats offer remap deal

California Democrats offer remap deal

"California Democrats have agreed in principle to allow an independent panel to take over redistricting as long as changes do not take effect until 2012.

The concession represents a partial victory for Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who believes the current state and federal district lines were gerrymandered to protect incumbents."

Looks like a stategic retreat to keep it off the ballot in AHnold's upcoming special election. Buys some time to work on the details. As I understand it, the current proposal calls for making disticts "competitive" using voter registration figures, which produced a more Republican map than if one uses a voting performance measure (since statistically Democrats are less likely to vote and more likely to move or otherwise have an outdated registration on the books). And the whole thing will ultimately have to go to court anyway.

But we'll be watching this one very closely.

Politics

Officer tried in fake-drug cases

Officer tried in fake-drug cases

I hate linking to the Moonie Times but I haven't seen this story out of Dallas anywhere else:

"Two dozen persons, many of them illegal immigrants from Mexico, were arrested and convicted about four years ago in a fake drug operation, one of the most embarrassing moments of Dallas Police Department history. What were said to be cocaine and methamphetamines in well-publicized seizures turned out to be simple pool cue chalk.

Informants, often working off drug charges of their own, were allowed to set up others for arrest. In these cases, narcotics officers were led to fake drugs that had been planted. The main informant in the cases was paid more than $200,000 over several months."

Common Ground Elusive in Abortion Debate

Common Ground Elusive in Abortion Debate

A couple good quotes in here. As I've said, I'm not a big fan of the trend to abortion-is-bad-but-choice-is-good rhetoric. But some of the legislation has its good points and lets the GOP box itself into a corner:

"It would have been easier to reach common ground a decade ago, when these issues were more bipartisan," said the institute's president, Sharon Camp. "Some anti-abortion politicians were for family planning, and they were able to bring the two sides together. Now, other than Harry Reid, it's hard to see any politician in Congress who fits that mold."

Cynthia Dailard, a Guttmacher policy analyst, said family planning and contraception access are difficult issues for some Republicans.

"They recognize it's not in their interest to come out against birth control in a major way — they'd alienate the vast majority of American women who use it," Dailard said. "At the same time, they don't want to alienate the part of their base that's extreme on this issue, so they're saying nothing."

Or if they are saying anything they're sounding extreme:

Referring to Reid and Clinton, Tony Perkins of the conservative Family Research Council said, "Their idea of reducing unintended pregnancies is more sex education and distribution of contraceptives. ... That's not the solution, that's part of the problem."

"If they want to start promoting abstinence, fine — but they won't," Perkins added.