Saturday, June 20, 2009

Weekend Tids and Bits

FLY INCIDENT STILL BUZZING -- It seems the fly unfortunate enough to fatally annoy the First Swatter in a CNBC interview isn’t an isolated incident. The New York Times reported last week that the Obama White House is infested with flies. Sources in the Agriculture Department who requested anonymity to remain employed suggest that any large concentration of manure is bound to be a fly magnet.

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HARDLY AN EXPLOSIVE ISSUE -- The AP reports that a couple of lawsuits have been filed against propane gas companies who are accused of putting less than 20 pounds of propane in the tanks that fuel backyard grills. The explanation offered was that putting less propane in the tanks was a way to deal with last summer’s fuel costs. A quick backyard check here showed both fuel tanks from FerrellGas, one of the companies named in the suit, were clearly labeled as containing only 15 pounds of propane. The real damage is mostly to one aging Baby Boomer’s ego. The old guy had been congratulating himself that he could still handle a full 20-pound tank one-handed.

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NOT HALF BAD --The Guardian reported that an analyst told Parliament that half of Britain’s local and regional newspapers could be shut down within the next five years. Revenue that’s already declined by half gets the blame. Mirroring their U.S. counterparts, newspaper executives whined about the recession and changes in technology. No word in the story of any MP expressing outrage or even interest.

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NO BOYS ALLOWED – or wannabe Supreme Court Justices either it seems. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor resigned from the Belizean Grove after Republican senators questioned her membership in the exclusive women-only group. While the Senate itself used to be a mostly all-male bastion, the current Senate has 17 females, four of whom are Republican. You know you’re in trouble when a Republican Senator has the high ground on diversity.

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BRIDGING THE GENERATION GAP – Actually, maybe floating over it. Polls showing something like half of the adults in America would legalize pot. That lights up common ground between today’s college students and their aging Baby Boomer parents. Both groups tend to be for legalization, although there was concern about adolescent pot use, which would then join adolescent drinking, tobacco and sex on the list of things parents themselves did but now counsel against.

LAST WEEK’S DISCUSSIONS:

n Alaska’s Gov. Sarah Palin and Louisiana’s porn star Senator Wannabe Stormy Daniels could be a 2012 Republican Dream Ticket at http://larryblaskosaid.blogspot.com/2009/06/gov.html

n The recession must be ending because the political But Birds now have the time for English-only nonsense at http://larryblaskosaid.blogspot.com/2009/06/recession-must-be-ending-springtime-for.html

n The cross-border trade of guns and drugs between Mexico and the U.S. is blooming, so the Customs and Border Protection folk are going to get tough – on pocket knives at http://larryblaskosaid.blogspot.com/2009/06/customs-and-border-protection-cutting.html

n Newspaper consultants are telling their nervous employers that the way to make money in a nation of nymphomaniacs is to open a brothel at http://larryblaskosaid.blogspot.com/2009/06/newspapers-and-nymphos-dying-newspapers.html

n Why do we need to know whether or not the employees of Brooksville, FL, are wearing underwear at work? See http://larryblaskosaid.blogspot.com/2009/06/internet-tower-of-babel-informed.html

Happy Fathers Day!

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Friday, June 19, 2009

Internet Tower of Babel

An informed citizenry is essential to democracy and so the world has learned that revolution simmers in Iran, a nuclear-armed North Korea plans dangerous provocations, and that employees of the City of Brooksville, FL, must wear underwear at work.

This wide-ranging view of the burning issues of our time comes hard on the heels of an earlier revelation, mainly that whatever his other talents and duties, President Obama is good at killing flies. Millions of us watched the videoclip of decisive presidential action in the face of airborne attack.

While there was no word from the White House on whether the late fly acted alone or was part of a larger effort, informed sources said that flies breaching the supposedly airtight security of the White House had become routine.

Nonetheless, President Obama’s summary execution of the fly drove reporters to buzz about PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) until PETA said in as low-key a way possible that it wished the fly still had its buzz and added it was sending the president a catch-and-release fly trap.

Getting back to the underlying information in the Brooksville story, the Tampa Bay Online website reports that enforcing the undies rule is up to supervisors who must be on the lookout for “unacceptable attire,” which includes "the observable lack of undergarments and exposed undergarments.”

Neither the Tampa Bay Online story or an Associated Press pickup that identified the Tampa Tribune’s website as the source of the story mentioned whether a Brooksville supervisor repeatedly staring at an employee’s private areas in an effort to determine whether they were wearing underwear could be accused of sexual harassment.

Research shows that direct action is no stranger to Brooksville. The city’s web site explains it was named for Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina, who became so incensed when a senator from Massachusetts denounced a senator from South Carolina during an 1856 debate that he later used his cane to knock him senseless.

All of this information comes to me on the internet, of course, and it illustrates one of the challenges ahead as old-line media withers and dies – the internet has no editors.

The world today is just as screwy a place as it was twenty years ago, but the difference is that twenty years ago editors separated the stuff we needed to know from the stuff we probably didn’t want to know.

That doesn’t happen now, including at many of the old-media shops that still survive. Editing is out and marketing is in. Editing decides what information is important and relevant and what isn’t. Marketing merely matches information to perceived demand. Parents edit what their kids eat. Marketers only care that their product is eaten.

The result is that the ability to communicate is vastly outstripping the ability to sort and understand. It’s happened before. In Genesis, the result was a tower called Babel.

I wonder what we’ll call ours.

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Thursday, June 18, 2009

Newspapers and Nymphos

Dying newspapers haven’t been coughing much lately, but most of them aren’t getting cured, they’re just between spasms. And like others who face The Final Diagnosis, newspapers are looking for miracle cures and support groups, trying to strike a bargain with the inevitable.

One of the most popular of the current round of miracles cures is “monetizing content,” which is how a newspaper person whose formative years were spent in accounting class instead of the police beat says “let’s charge for online stories.”

Never mind that the print product has gigantic production expenses and debt service no longer supported by giant advertising revenue. Never mind that the “audience” peddled for so many years to advertisers is skewed towards Baby Boomers who don’t boom much anymore. Never mind that as an industry, newspapering’s response to the incoming digital tide has been to stand at water’s edge yelling Halt! Let’s charge for online stories.

Well, let’s. It’s a swell idea, because folks are used to paying for the print edition, so they’ll pay to read content online, right?

And if some evil folks misappropriate our content or sell ads around links to it without giving us a cut, we’ll sue them, right?

Besides, we’re the main local source of information, ads and news, right?

You betcha! as Gov. Go Go would say.

Yeah, but. . .

It’s too late to start charging for content, online or otherwise because newspapers never really did it before and the public knows it. Even the dimmest bulbs understand that print subscription rates and single-copy prices are a tiny, tiny fraction of what newspaper content costs.

Besides, news-related content of all sorts has been free on the internet for more than 15 years. Newspapers in the United States who protest that free isn’t an optimum model and a pay model just makes more sense should study the U.S. implementation success of another optimum model, the metric system.

As for lawsuits in an area where technology and society have lapped existing intellectual property laws, it might be useful to contemplate that surgeons recommend surgery, internists recommend medicines and lawyers recommend lawsuits. Whether the patients or plaintiffs benefit is often uncertain, but the practitioners always do

As for newspapers still being the main local source of information, ads and news, that’s simply no longer the case. The kind of information that appeared in classified ads was once so valuable that newspapers were able to charge both for running the ad and reading it. It’s on the web now, mostly for free. Display ads are moving there.

The kind of information that appeared in “What’s Happening” columns now appears on government and private websites and e-mails, and newspapers are fighting a rear-guard action against moving legal ads there as well.

As for hard news, newspapers and other news organizations aren’t the sole source or often even the best source. Cheap computing, internet access and social network sites have turned news consumers into news providers and consumers. Look at the turmoil in Iran, where the government has shut down the so-called mainstream media, but certainly hasn’t shut down the story.

But still, the hyena pack of consultants now circling the dying newspaper herd with hungry yelps of Monetize! Monetize! may be right. Their advice amounts to telling frightened publishers that the key to success in a nation of nymphomaniacs is to open a brothel.

Oddly enough, besides advice, they also sell red light bulbs. . .

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Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Customs and Border Protection

Cutting Both Ways

Americans are rightfully concerned about our borders these days – especially the one with Mexico. High-powered drugs come north, high-powered guns go south and illegals go both ways by the millions.

In a Mexican tourist haven like Acapulco, authorities and the bad guys can exchange gunfire and grenade attacks for hours and double-digit body counts, while in the United States, the Deport-Em-All crowd is again rushing to attend anti-immigration rallies – at least just as soon as they pay their housekeepers, nannies and gardeners in cash.

Beyond Mexico, there are other border security concerns. Although the Canadians on our northern border seem pretty well behaved, our several thousand miles of coastline on the east and west are openings for all sorts of mischief and contraband, everything from cigarettes to suitcase nukes.

Clearly the situation should concern the ever-vigilant CBP (Customs and Border Protection), the federal Department of Homeland Security group that, in its own mission-statement words, works to “protect the American Public against terrorists and the instruments of terror.”

Well, it does concern the CBP folks, and they are thinking of cracking down.

On pocket knives.

In a 67-page gush of FedSpeak last month, the CBP folk re-examined the issue of pocket knives that may be opened with one hand, usually by thumbing a stud at the base of the blade. They’re very common – I’ve carried one for years – and many of them are imported.

The reason they are common is that needing to cut something when working around the house, fishing, hunting or camping usually finds you one hand short. Whatever needs cutting goes back to what it was doing while you fumble the blade open.

Because you can open the knife with one hand and the blade locks into place with an audible click, some folks might think these pocket knives, typically with a blade less than four inches long, were forbidden imports under the Switchblade Knife Act of 1958. (Members of Congress in 1958 were all a-twitter after a few teen gang flicks in which switchblades played a role. Besides, it was easier to deal with switchblades than the just-launched Soviet Sputnik 1.)

Previously, the CBP had decided that most of the one-hand-opening knives weren’t switchblades because they had utilitarian purposes, pocket clips and short blades. Besides which, even the CBP could figure out that anyone using a knife with a four-inch blade as a primary weapon is either desperate or suicidal, but in any event not a tremendous threat to the nation’s security.

Of course, that was then and this is now. Determined to protect our shores, the CBP is thinking of banning the import of these knives in case America’s enemies are secretly plotting to whittle down our defenses. Apparently literally. Comments run until June 21.

All of which would be just for laughs if the CPB wasn’t serious and if the times in which we live suggest that the CPB ought to have lots of things – or just about anything – better to do than this sort of foolishness.

A tip of the hat to the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action, which e-mailed me the heads-up on this. You can read all about it, its implications and even find a link to the full text at http://www.nraila.org/Legislation/Federal/Read.aspx?id=4972.

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Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Recession Must Be Ending—

Springtime for But-Birds

One of the surest signs that the Great Recession might be ending is the resurgence of the But-Birds.

And no, while there are great similarities, not the ones who would need to spell it with an extra letter T.

Like the feathered dudes who chirp the coming Spring, these birds all have their distinctive calls:

n “I’m not against health care for everyone, but I’m against socialized medicine.

n “Sure, the wealthy ought to pay a bigger share of taxes, but you can hardly call my income bracket wealthy.”

n “Of course I believe in equal opportunity, but I’m against reverse discrimination.

n “You can speak any language you want, but English ought to be the official language of government.

And just as the guys with feathers either migrate in the winter or keep under cover, But-Birds wait until the recession starts to thaw before they emerge. The last group, the But-Birds who want all governing done only in English are a related species to the ones who “supports immigration, but not illegal immigration.” You can usually find them together, and their call is starting to be heard again. Still, one But-Bird at a time. . .

Last month, Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, introduced English-only legislation, saying according to his web site:

“Our nation was settled by a group of people with a common vision, and as our population has grown, so has our cultural diversity. . .This diversity is part of what makes our nation great. However, we must be able to communicate with one another so that we can appreciate our differences. By establishing that there is no entitlement to receive documents or services in languages other than English, we set the precedent that English is common to us all in the public forum of government.”

The effort is called the National Language Act of 2009. If you look at the statement above and realize that “however” is the way someone speaking their Sunday-Go-To-Meeting Language says “but,” you’ll see the But-Bird’s native behavior in its habitat.

Which is to say the behavior that preys on the anti-immigrant, mostly anti-Hispanic fears of a But-Bird’s constituency. This is the 111th Congress, meaning our democracy has survived 110 previous ones, and Senator Inhofe’s web site explains he was up to similar stuff in Nos. 109 and 110.

English-only proponents, as Senator Inhofe says in that statement, seek to improve communication by denying a large group of folk the easiest way to communicate. And they ignore that the “common vision” that brought almost all groups to the United States was to get far away from societies hell-bent on enforcing a common vision. You know – one monarch, one faith, one tongue, one culture; Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer; Workers of All Countries Unite; Serve The People. And all the others too tiresome to repeat or live under.

They also ignore that the children of Spanish-speaking immigrants inevitably learn English and that their children will usually speak only English – as did the Polish. Italian, Greek, Russian. Ukrainian, German, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese and many others before them. And they ignore that making it easier for the largest immigrant group to put down roots in our society by offering them help in their own language at key points actually speeds the assimilation process.

Still, the ritual tweets of the But-Birds, even this one, mean that a pre-dawn is breaking the recession darkness.

We just have to be careful of the gifts these birds have a habit of dropping on the rest of us.

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Monday, June 15, 2009

Gov. Go Go and Sen. Stormy –

Steele’s 2012 GOP Dream Ticket?

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele has the unenviable task of shepherding two candidates into what figures to be the 2012 model Obama Republican Shredder, unless he strips away his blinders and sees a winning ticket as Mother Nature made one.

If he keeps the blinders, he’ll only see the likes of Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, to name a few. But if he sheds those blinders, he’ll see the greatest Republican national ticket since Reagan-Bush.

The pulsing, throbbing political passions these two candidates inspire are guaranteed to arouse the Republican base.

We refer of course to a Republican 2012 presidential ticket of Alaska’s Gov. Sarah Palin and the person many in politics call a real comer, Stormy Daniels, who has an exploratory committee looking at a 2010 race against Louisiana’s Republican Sen. David Vitter.

Governor Palin’s candidacy speaks for itself, which is fortunate since her speaking performance as Senator John McCain’s running mate got mixed reviews. But it introduced her to the national stage you betcha. Her ability to balance the Golden Ager at the top of the ticket with the Miracle of Life provided by her unwed pregnant daughter, all the while keeping an eye on Russia across the Bering Strait and shopping at Saks Fifth Avenue made her the stuff of legend.

Rather than being cowed by national media milking the issues of unprotected sex and Saks, she became the go-to person for lively quotes in the McCain campaign, a Governor Go Go on the national stage.

Ms. Daniels is a veteran of films noted for exceptional wardrobe cost control. She brings excellent face recognition to the ticket, with similar results on all body parts. Although some questioned whether a star of porno flicks could perform in the United States Senate, supporters said her experience and the long list of Senators caught with their pants down would be a good fit.

Ms. Daniels film positions are many and well recorded. For others, she has a forthcoming book, according to her exploratory committee’s website, “Stormblazer! Stormy Daniels and the Triumph of Responsibility.” Her exploratory website splash page doesn’t declare a party affiliation.

As he considers the implications of a ticket featuring Palin and Daniels, Steele’s job is probably made easier by recalling that while Daniels is comfortable on top, she doesn’t need to be there to perform well.

The wide-appeal fundraising possibilities alone of a Palin-Daniels ticket make it worthy of serious consideration. Donors could be offered a chance to explore field dressing or undressing with each candidate demonstrating their particular skills.

It’s not known whether anyone has approached RNC Chairman Steele with these ideas before. The Republican National Committee website splash page informs us that “Chairman Steele is listening to social media,” so anything is possible, including Republican wins in 2010 and the big one in 2012.

You betcha.

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