Hmmmmm.....

Andy Kessler writes in OpinionJournal.com that one can self-publish a book and succeed.

Maybe we won't be residing this year after all, honey.
- posted by Brian J. @ 8:35 PM   0 comments

 
Layer Up, Prosecutors; It's Cold Out There

In this FoxNews.com story, we find (under the heading of "Now, Honey, Do as I Say, Not as I Do") another example of clever prosecutorial layering:

The 10-minute pursuit Friday morning ended outside Del Mar Pines School with the arrest of Stacy L. Taylor for investigation of evading arrest and child endangerment.

Got that? Child Endangerment. Mother runs off from a ticketing officer, and suddenly she's under the stormcloud of a nebulous criminal charge.

Any moving violation can now become child endangerment. Speeding? Rolling through a stop? What if someone were to be coming the other way? The Children might have been endangered!

I think this post makes me guilty of conspiracy of child endangerment or perhaps incitement of child endangerment.
- posted by Brian J. @ 8:30 PM   0 comments

 
Two Google Searches I Could Do Without

Unfortunately, I score highly on:

• "+too+much+qa"
  Too much QA? There's never enough QA, much less too much.
  
  
• leather-futures
  Perhaps I should be proud of this one. I am a Googlewhack.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:17 PM   0 comments

 
What If Seattle Needs a Wal-Mart?

Kim du Toit is all over a story in the Seattle Workers' Revolution story about Bill Gates buying properties surrounding his home and letting friends and family members live there. In some cases, the original owners are still there, living in Bill Gates's house.

And this accumulation of property by a capitalist must be stopped, or so the story implies.

But let's get to the point of the knife. The municipal government's worried about its money:

If other residents follow Gates' lead, that could present some challenges for the city of 3,000, said Medina City Manager Doug Schulze. Much of the money the city gets from the state is based on population. If people buy up surrounding houses and don't have people living in them, the city's share of state funding might decline, he said.

Ah, yes. Lest we forget, the government has a right to revenue from property owners. Or so it's assuming.

That's why your house is worth less to your local government than a dozen empty parking spaces in a Wal-Mart parking lot, and why this local government is beginning to make noise about preventing a man from acquiring property legally. For the neighborhood, and undoubtedly for the Children.
- posted by Brian J. @ 8:09 PM   0 comments

 
Return of the Architects

It sounds like a Dr. Who episode, all right, but it's not. Ozguru probably should have called his post Revenge of the Architects for all the damage the vice presidents of technology and software architecture do.

Oh, how we know how you feel.
- posted by Brian J. @ 7:46 PM   0 comments

 
What About Poor Melissa?

How short are the memories of technology writers, or how short do they think their audiences' memories are?

Every new threat reminds them of the last threat.

When will we see another Melissa? Another Morris Worm? Never, because those damn kids don't remember Melissa, and they won't remember Code Red, Nimba, Bugbear, or Beagle/Bagle by this summer.
- posted by Brian J. @ 7:36 PM   0 comments

 
Fighting for the Little Guy

Once again, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch issues the clarion and unfurls the banner of fighting for the little guy. In this case, it's a 412-pound truck driver fired because he couldn't fit behind the steering wheel of the truck he was supposed to drive.

We covered this in my collegiate class on ethics and contemporary issues. It's not discrimination if it disqualifies you from the physical duties of the job. You don't see many 4'8" centers in the NBA, nor will you see paraplegics as warehouse pickers. If a person just cannot do the job, the employer has no obligation to continue paying that person for nothing.

But this guy, and his mighty champion paper, want him to retain his position and pay without doing the work. Instead of hanging onto the old, perhaps he should look for new opportunities. Like being a dispatcher, where he can sit all day.

That's forward thinking, and that's not what people or the Post-Dispatch do.
- posted by Brian J. @ 7:23 PM   0 comments

 
Woe, Woe Upon Me

I am only the number 8 Google hit for sexy grocery baggers.

I guess I better hit the gym with Heather more frequently.
- posted by Brian J. @ 9:47 PM   0 comments

 
Silicon Valley Street Seethes, Whines

(Headline style appropriated from Charles Johnson.)

Speaking of outsourcing, Alan Lacy, CEO of Sears hits the nail on the head, and undoubtedly United States developers will shriek as though it was their collective thumbnails he hit:

But I think, beyond that, to me, a very interesting trend right now is the whole non-U.S. opportunity that's available, and ... if you think about personal intelligence and drive being randomly distributed by population -- you know, there are four or five times as many smart, driven people in China than there are in the U.S. And there's another four or five, three or four times as many people in India that are smarter or as smart or have more drive. And if technology is now going to basically reduce location as a barrier to competition, then essentially you've got something like whatever that was, seven or nine times, more smart, committed people that are now competing in this marketplace against certain activities.

Right on, brother. Give the jobs to the cheapest and smartest people you can find.

Don't like it, fellow IT professional? Get smarter, get faster, get cheaper, or get out of the way.

Never mind. Seething and whining plays better to the id and on the network news.
- posted by Brian J. @ 7:28 PM   0 comments

 
Overheard at a Garage Sale

(Apologies to Trey Givens.)

Woman (noticing Ayn Rand University Sweatshirt): Ayn Rand, isn't she a writer? Brian J.: Yes, she is. Woman: She lives in New Orleans, right? Brian J.: Uh, no.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:13 PM   0 comments

 
Book Review: The Book Wars by James Atlas (1990)

This edition of The Book Wars contains advertisements for Federal Express, now more commonly known as FedEx, facing each chapter. The publisher is Whittle Direct Press, and it's part of a series entitled "The Larger Agenda Series". It's out of print, and Amazon's never heard of it, so no link for you.

Back in 1990, I was starting college, and I read the academia-critical works of Charles J. Sykes (ProfScam and The Hollow Men). So I served my tour in the Curriculum Wars, participating as appropriate, so I'm familiar with the book's message and the time period in which Atlas wrote it.

The Sykes books are definitely partisan in tone, written to inflame the passions and mobilize the troops. This book, on the other hand, makes the reasons for the other side clear. Atlas wrote this book somewhat as a response to Allan Bloom's Closing of the American Mind, which details the fall of the Great Books Curriculum. I haven't read the primary text, so I cannot comment on it.

In this book, though, Atlas explores the reasons that some of the new hippie English Department personnel (sorry, I mean resources) want to overturn the canon. Essentially, they want to introduce new ways of relating to literature, including literature from underexplored cultures. Some want new veins of ore from which they can mine publish-or-perish papers. Some want to stick it to The Man. Whatever the reasons, Atlas characterizes them more as misguided than evil. Which differs from Sykes.

Atlas defends the canon, but only slightly. He remembers a time when Joe Suburban bought Everyman's Library editions (or Colliers Classics) of the canon and read them. Some people might not have understood them, nor picked up all the subtlety that professional interpreters would, but they realized that reading the books could better you.

I attained an epiphany while reading this book. The Curriculum Wars really are meaningless. The Old Booksters and the New Diverse Canoneers fight over the hearts and minds of kids who just don't care. Those who want to read and better themselves will do so. Case in point: me. I read for pleasure and to keep my numble mind occupied. I survived an English Degree no worse for wear.

The real problem is that people just don't do that anymore. Perhaps both sides have made the books inaccessible through constant obfuscation for publication, or perhaps... well, this book obviously doesn't speculate on that.

Regardless, the book's short--under 100 pages less ads--and it inspired me to redouble my efforts to read those great books and small remaining on my shelf. Sykes' books incited me, but this one inspired me.
- posted by Brian J. @ 6:38 PM   0 comments

 
For Future Reference

TV Shows on DVD lists television series available for purchase on DVD.
- posted by Brian J. @ 6:23 PM   0 comments

 
Book Review: Rumpelstiltskin by Ed McBain (1981)

Rumpelstiltskin is the first Ed McBain book I didn't like. Not Evan Hunter books--heaven knows the distaste I have for Last Summer--but the first Ed McBain book. I've read quite a few.

It's an early Matthew Hope novel. I don't like the series as much as the 87th Precinct series, to be honest, and I get all of the Florida color I need from Travis McGee novels. But it's not the series that does it for me.

The plot of the book's okay. A former pop sensation (whoops, rock since it was in the 1960s) is going to make a comeback at a small bar. She opens to bad reviews, and then gets killed. Matthew Hope, who spent the hours before her demise having curtain-climbing good sex with her, is briefly a suspect. The deceased had a trust fund due to pay out in a matter of days, so her father and her ex-husband make good suspects, with each standing to benefit depending upon the fate of the dead woman's daughter, kidnapped at the time of the murder, don't you know?

No, the plot's all right, it's the execution thereof that lacks. The book is paced poorly, and there's no pressure on Hope. He's a suspect, but he's cleared quickly. So he's got lots of time to meet new people, have a little wall-scarring good sex with another attorney, and jet to New Orleans for....well, his daughter's around, so no sex, but just foreplay to the blossoming intrattorney relationship.

Meanwhile, the author fits in his characteristic asides, but they're rather clumsy. There's a three page treatise about how a woman can have red hair and blonde pubic hair, including the relationship of melanin levels and genetics in the occurrence as well as the difficulty experienced by a woman in the 1960s and 1970s growing up with it and how it impacts her psychological and sexual development. Wow, that's quite a bit of research, Mr. McBain. Thanks for sharing your report with the class. Fortunately, the three pages end with some lamp-crashing, nightstand-tipping good sex.

It's a short novel, clocking in at about 215 pages. I slogged through it. If you're a big fan, you will, too, but I don't recommend it for someone looking for a good, light read.
- posted by Brian J. @ 3:14 PM   0 comments

 
Where There's No Law but a Prosecutor's Will, There's a Way

When a "sexual predator" escaped a Missouri Sexually Violent Predator Unit, he didn't break a law. According to a story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

It's a crime in Missouri to escape from a jail or prison, and it's a crime to escape from a mental health facility if the escapee was sent there in a criminal process, such as found not guilty but insane.

But the state of Missouri, in its hurry to follow other states' lead into indefinitely extending the finished sentences of certain classes of offenders, managed to create a means of continued incarceration for violent sexual predators, but didn't make leaving those means of continued, un-sentenced incarceration periods against the law.

Never fear, though. Prosecutors have a myriad of laws available for any occasion.

In fact, the interview is somewhat limited that he could give the Post-Dispatch because:

He said talking about that now could hurt his chances with his current criminal case, a charge of felony property damage for cutting the fence.

What? He must not have dropped the portion of the fence he cut away in his escape or else he would also face a charge of felony littering.

Meanwhile, after releasing himself from indefinite incarceration and a probable unsentenced life term, this guy goes to Florida, gets married, and apparently doesn't commit another sex crime, or any crime for that matter:

Neither Florida authorities nor investigators here have been able to link Ingrassia to any new sex crimes.

Instead, he's gone south, gotten a job, and gotten married. Granted, it was his wife who got suspicious of his past and led to his return to Missouri. Hey, I'm not some multiple-degreed, highly-paid state consultant, but that sounds almost reformed to me.

But he's cheesed off some officials who feel that their power derives from the respect they feel should be paid to them, so they're going to get him. Instead of a warehouse for undesirables, they'll throw him back in prison, and when his sentence for vandalism is over, they'll return him to his indefinite warehouse.

Don't worry, citizen. It hasn't happened to you. Yet.
- posted by Brian J. @ 10:22 PM   0 comments

 
One More Reason to Move to Colorado

Not only does it offer a taxpayer "bill of rights," but it might also implement controls on eminent domain.

Boulder and Denver and all of that property-rights-infringing, cougar-loving nutbarism doesn't cover the whole state, wot? In some places, Jeremiah Johnson could live with his guns and his fit wife, right?

Sounds as good as Texas to me.
- posted by Brian J. @ 10:10 PM   0 comments

 
What I Might Say Were I Thoughtful

Jared at Exultate Justi explains why the Left and the Right don't get along anymore.

I might have said something like this were I yet a reasoning, thoughtful writer.
- posted by Brian J. @ 9:51 PM   0 comments

 
Fitness Proves Unhealthy

New York Post headline: "MAN CLUBS WIFE TO DEATH WITH DUMBBELL"

Apparently, a man beat his estranged wife to death with a five pound dumbbell.

A five pound dumbell? We've got dumbbells six times as deadly here in la casa de Heather, but I didn't want to call the perp nor the victim a wuss. Instead, I wanted to point out the New York angle. The husband tried to kill himself after the murder, and failed.

Did his neighbors characterize him as a quiet man, the last sort of fellow who would do this sort of thing? Not in New York:

"He tried to kill himself, but he didn't try hard enough," said neighbor Ralph Watson. "He was a punk son of a gun for hitting her in the head like that, and if he really wanted to kill himself, he should have jumped in front of a train."

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:36 PM   0 comments

 
Who Needs Seven?

MSN's Dating and Personals site has a story entitled "7 ways to keep him interested".

Your womenly-affectation advisors are coming up with lists of seven ways to keep us interested? You could narrow it down to one, baby, in most cases.

And if you feel the need to go for extra credit, freshly-baked pastries for number two.
- posted by Brian J. @ 5:04 PM   0 comments

 
Damn Esquire Fact Checkers

El Guapo, I thought you said the fact checkers called you. So when Esquire prominantly features you, as well it should, in the February 2004 issue, why does it say you're from Mizzou?

For crying out loud, brother, you may live in St. Louis, but you're from somewhere else entirely and you have no relationship with the University of Missouri, commonly referred to those of us here in the Midwest as Mizzou. I guess to the coastal types, Mizzou, Missouri, Nebraska, all the same. Midwest. Nobody in the Midwest reads Esquire since they have Grit.
- posted by Brian J. @ 2:25 PM   0 comments

 
Steinberg on Mars

Neil Steinberg, of the Chicago Sun-Times, on Mars:

Myself, I'd ask, "How come nobody applies the same logic to Kennedy? Nobody says, 'Oh sure, Kennedy committed us to go to the moon and then he up and died and left the hard work to others.'''

He also manages to spank NPR, too. Read it. You will like it.
- posted by Brian J. @ 11:23 PM   0 comments

 
A Turning Point

Spoons links to this column by Radley "The Agitator" Balko. It's about the deficit and the mighty vote-pandering going on, wherein our current politicians pass out entitlements like Tic Tacs to woo aging voters. As a member of the Libertarian wing of the Republican party, or perhaps the sane fringe of the Libertarian Party, I agreed with the sentiment until I hit this point, buried in the lead of Balko's column:

A few of us had our taxes cut, but that hardly matters when government keeps spending the way it is. Sooner or later, the waiter will come by with the check, and it?s those of us under 30 who will be reaching for our wallets.

Under 30? You mean, I, being of the distinguished and learned age of 31 and 10.75/12, won't be on the hook?

Heck's pecs, politicos, pander to me, too. I want guaranteed Federally-subsidized Guinness, and a pizza a week, and could do with a couple of new t-shirts. What, do you want the poor elderly IT professionals to freeze? You heartless kids are ungrateful for all that Generation X has given you.

Don't trust anyone over 30.
- posted by Brian J. @ 8:23 PM   0 comments

 
The Truth--Revealed!

Pejman Yousefzadeh is a damn kid!

According to the mathematicians I consulted (as people with English and Philosophy degrees cannot be troubled with mere counting), he says Moxie is 32, and Pejman will be reaching that hallowed age in five months. Since I'm reaching it in a month and a handful of sand grains, that means I'm older than he is.

So now matter how much smarter than I am he sounds, he should respect his elders. Damn kids and their online "diaries."
- posted by Brian J. @ 7:51 PM   0 comments

 
Shine Up The Land Seizure Jackboots

I saw this story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and was smitten with the title. New Urbanism! In St. Louis!

Except it's in St. Louis County, which doesn't have much of the old urbanism really. And then I realized the location in mind: Hanley Industrial Court. I work on the edges of Hanley Industrial Court. New Urbanist, this area ain't.

Across Hanley, Richmond Heights just eminent domained a pile of houses to build a Walmartplex, and the area features three drive-to shopping complexes (four, if you count the new Meridian). Acres of parking lots is not New Urbanism. And wait a minute... in Hanley Industrial Court, there are....industries.....

Wait a minute:

There, the $48 million, 8-acre Hanley Station is being planned by MLP Investments, a Frontenac-based developer. MLP envisions a neighborhood where condo dwellers walk to upscale restaurants and stores, and eventually, take the MetroLink to the St. Louis Galleria or Forest Park. A proposed light-rail station would be integrated into the town center-style community.

It will come to pass, I bet, when Brentwood seizes condemns through eminent domain the majority of the industrial court. It's blighted, don't you know.

And if it's not now, it will be. I've walked through the industrial court and have seen buildings for sale or rent back there. Now that the developments are being planned, who's going to waste money buying a building that's going to be seized? Who's going to take out a lease, not knowing when it will be ab-ended by the municipality? Suddenly, those vacancies, which would have been filled by the business cycle and the marketplace, stand empty. A blight, I tell you!

Maybe I am making a mountain out of a piedmont here, but I know that the Animal Protective Association, where we get all of our quality recycled animals, just renovated, and Centene just did some work to make a mail distribution/child care center in the industrial court. I'd hate for them to lose it. Also, since my employer's currently occupying a building at the edge of one of the megastripmallplexes, I'd hate for them to move anywhere that's not closer to me.

Bear this in mind, you foolish local governments, when you realize all the industrial jobs are disappearing from your area. Why is that?

Because you wanted the sales tax from the discount store/electronic store/strip mall instead!

New Urbanism my johnk.
- posted by Brian J. @ 9:59 PM   0 comments

 
I Prefer "Laid Back"

Your Character’s Alignment

Based on your answers to the quiz, your character’s most likely alignment is Neutral.

Neutral

A neutral character does what seems to be a good idea. She doesn’t feel strongly one way or the other when it comes to good vs. evil or law vs. chaos. Most neutrality is a lack of conviction or bias rather than a commitment to neutrality. Such a character thinks of good as better than evil. After all, she would rather have good neighbors and rulers than evil ones. Still, she’s not personally committed to upholding good in any abstract or universal way. Some neutral characters, on the other hand, commit themselves philosophically to neutrality. They see good, evil, law, and chaos as prejudices and dangerous extremes. They advocate the middle way of neutrality as the best, most balanced road in the long run. The common phrase for neutral is "true neutral." Neutral is the best alignment you can be because it means you act naturally, without prejudice or compulsion.

It's TSR's Wizards of the Coasts'Online Alignment Test, you geeks.

To be honest, I was hoping for Chaotic Good, but oh, well. I don't care that much one way or the other.

(Link seen on Fark.)
- posted by Brian J. @ 9:07 PM   0 comments

 
Bumper

Java Developer

Design servlets to deploy every day.
If we hit the Web server, would it play?
XML with an exception,
XML it doesn't know
How to SOAP the right connection.
You wrote that code.
You wrote that code.

Java Java Java Java Java developer
You wrote that code.
You wrote that code.
Testing would be easy if your app worked like a dream,
Type, click and save,
Type, click and save.

Didn't check your method calls every day
And all of them used to work, or so you say.
But your app is like spaghetti,
It's the knots that makes it strong.
Once it's kludged, it's kludged forever,
It breaks anon.
It breaks anon.

The Event OnClick doesn't fire.
Get the gum and the baling wire.
The Event OnClick doesn't fire.
Get the gum and the baling wire.

XML with an exception,
XML it doesn't know
How to SOAP the right connection.
You wrote that code.
You wrote that code.

(Apologies to Culture Club.)
- posted by Brian J. @ 9:09 PM   0 comments

 
Engineer on the Gravitas Train

Let me be the first to ask:

Don't you feel the Democrat contenders for nomination lack gravitas?

It was so damn important four years ago.
- posted by Brian J. @ 7:02 PM   0 comments

 
No Probable Cause? No Problem!

The Supreme Court has said that the police can stop your car and give you a flier, and then arrest or ticket you for whatever they uncover:

llinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said the Supreme Court's ruling "will allow law enforcement in Illinois and across the nation to seek voluntary assistance from citizens in their efforts to solve crime."

Roadblock = Voluntary assistance

Once you embrace that, citizen, you will be happy.

The case stemmed from someone who was busted for DUI while stopping for one of these roadblocks for an unrelated crime committed a week earlier:

The constitutionality of the informational roadblocks was challenged by Robert Lidster, accused of drunken driving at a 1997 checkpoint set up to get tips about an unrelated fatal hit-and-run accident. The roadblock was at the same spot and time of night that the hit-and-run took place about a week earlier.

Authorities in Lombard, Ill., got no helpful tips that night in the death of a 70-year-old bicyclist, but they arrested Lidster after police said he nearly hit an officer with his minivan.

Law enforcement loves roadblocks. And they're not just for dangerous criminals anymore! They're for illegal immigrants, drunken driving scans, and for passing out literature. Did the roadblock work? No.

Lidster argued that police could have used other methods to get information about the hit-and-run driver, like billboards or stories in newspapers and on radio and television stations. Television coverage of the roadblock did lead to information that helped solve the case.

So the police handing out literature, nor stopping drivers in the middle of the night to answer a few questions, helped them in the case for which they set up the roadblocks. But those roadblocks did, however, come in handy for at least one unrelated crime. That's the point.

This, like so many other handy law enforcement practices and new laws, is all about bringing you, the potentially guilty citizen, in contact with police where they have a pretense to look for probable cause. Now, police can pull you over for driving without a seatbelt, or if it looks like you don't have a seatbelt on, or for driving in the left lane for longer than they want. And once you're on the side of the road, then the fun begins. Where are you going? What's in the bag? Can we take a look in your trunk?
- posted by Brian J. @ 6:59 PM   0 comments

 
Gun Bans Aren't Enough

Let's see. New York's banned guns. They've tried to ban toy guns. And it's still not enough to stop criminals:

Dan Looney, a chief prosecutor with Nassau County, said that each time Trantel pulled off a heist, he handed the tellers a note saying he had a gun.

"He produced a robbery demand note detailing the threat of using a firearm and thereby placing the tellers in fear of injury from the use of the weapon," Looney said.

Authorities do not know "whether, in fact, he had a loaded gun," and no weapon was recovered, Looney said. The prosecutor declined to comment on a motive in the case.

Criminals are committing crimes and frightening innocent people with just the word gun. Therefore, in the interest of public safety, we should strike it from our language and make it a felony to use or write the word gun.

Of course, since criminals can convey the meaning with synonyms, such as pistol, rifle, niner, firearm, and so on, so of course, they'll have to go, too.

And since they can, at least some of them can, convey the proper image through metaphors, such as hand-held volcano that erupts leaden lava, we'll have to banish the entire concept of personal projectile weapons. Maybe taking it back to slingshots and atl-atls is a little much, but it's for The Children somehow, so we must!

Report to public reeducation camps immediately.
- posted by Brian J. @ 6:31 PM   0 comments

 
Public Health Announcement

As someone from CDC.gov searched this blog yesterday for site:blogspot.com "colleen shannon" (and hit the cache, too), I can only assume that Colleen Shannon, the fiftieth anniversary Playboy playmate, is at the heart of a national health epidemic.

As a public service, I shall issue the first warning:

Caution:
Colleen Shannon is suspected of causing blindness in young men.

Thank you, that is all.
- posted by Brian J. @ 6:11 PM   0 comments

 
This Cannot Stand

So the Recording Industry Association of America is dressing up like law enforcement officials and conducting raids. This, my friends, cannot stand.

Though no guns were brandished, the bust from a distance looked like classic LAPD, DEA or FBI work, right down to the black "raid" vests the unit members wore. The fact that their yellow stenciled lettering read "RIAA" instead of something from an official law-enforcement agency was lost on 55-year-old parking-lot attendant Ceasar Borrayo.

The Recording Industry Association of America is taking it to the streets.

. . .

"They said they were police from the recording industry or something, and next time they’d take me away in handcuffs," he said through an interpreter. Borrayo says he has no way of knowing if the records, with titles like Como Te Extraño Vol. IV — Musica de los 70’s y 80’s, are illegal, but he thought better of arguing the point.

The RIAA acknowledges it all — except the notion that its staff presents itself as police. Yes, they may all be ex-P.D. Yes, they wear cop-style clothes and carry official-looking IDs. But if they leave people like Borrayo with the impression that they’re actual law enforcement, that’s a mistake.

Oh, ramsexcrement. The RIAA is playing cops, although it's using real ex-cops to do so. Win/win. Ex-cops get to pretend like they still have some sort of power--and don't you believe for a moment they lack an attitude--and the RIAA gets to harrass citizens.

Meanwhile, our country steps slightly toward that dystopian future where corporations have their own cops out there enforcing the laws and shooting them up with bad guys. These guys with RIAA stitched onto their backs aren't ED-209, but if this travesty is left unchecked, soon the Business Software Alliance, the Mystery Writers of America, and every other person whose copyright might be infringed will be fielding their own set of jackbooted thugs to menace and harrass society. So who loses?

• The citizens, of course, because its our right to be freed from persecution, and let's face it, the RIAA's persecuting and not prosecuting when its minions "raid".
  
  
• True law enforcement loses because the weight of its actions are diluted by the other thugz and playaz conducting their own raids. If a citizen's got a bunch of surly looking men with dark vests bearing an acronym ending in A standing on his property and acting menacing, he's got to wonder if they're surly looking men with dark vests bearing an acronym ending in A who are illegal trespassers whom he can shoot or if they're surly looking men with dark vests bearing an acronym ending in A bearing legal warrants. Does law enforcement win whenever it puts someone who guesses wrong into the ground? Hardly.

It's encouraging to see that the law might not take too lightly anyone antitrusting its monopoly on power:

But if an anti-piracy team crossed the line between looking like cops and implying or telling vendors that they are cops, the Los Angeles Police Department would take a pretty dim view, said LAPD spokesman Jason Lee.

I hope we see it loudly and soon. The RIAA, with all its subpoenas and lawsuits and whatnot has crossed the final line by adding physical intimidation and blatant deception to its playlist.

(Link seen on /. or Techdirt or both.)
- posted by Brian J. @ 9:25 PM   0 comments

 
Book Review: Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Sometimes it strikes me how readable the classics are. I've always found the works of Hemingway exceedingly accessible. Of course, I find the works of William Shakespeare and Ben Johnson accessible, and often funny. Regardless, I've recently been on a Steinbeck kick since I picked up a matching set of some of his books in nice Collier hardback editions (although I must include the obligatory Amazon link to a paperback edition). I've read Cup of Gold and The Winter of Our Discontent and enjoyed both. So when I was looking for a more classical turn from the sci-fi on my shelves, I went back to this collection of Steinbeck novels (for which I paid $1 each at an estate sale--good deal at those estate sales). And I selected Of Mice and Men.

I'd never read it before. I realize many of you read it in high school, but somehow I dodged it in high school and in my numerous college classes. Yeah, I got an English degree, but before you use this single anecdote to thrash English programs and modern education today, remember I chose to read this of my own accord at 31. On the other hand, such enlightenment probably is a statistically insignificant minority of college graduates, so feel free to thrash academia anyway. I do.

So, about the accessibility of this book. It's written in modern English, even modern American, so it requires no footnoting. And unlike modern "classics," old time classics, part of the canon disparaged by peers of mine in English programs who never evolved beyond English majors--that is, they never grew up and got jobs outside of the English department--some of these books dealt with weightier matters than nihilistic couplings of college professors or the emotional melodramas favored by Oprah. No, life and death were on the line.

The edition I have clocks in at 186 pages, but the margins are wider than the term paper from a twelfth-grade wrestling stand-out, so it's a quick read. Not Old Man and the Sea quick, but I went through it in a couple days. Another good selection if you want to impress your book club with your classical educational leanings but don't want to spend a lot of time on it.

Of Mice and Men tells of two traveling farm workers, Lennie and George, who find work at a ranch after getting in some trouble in Weed and leaving in a hurry. They're working to earn enough to buy their own land, but of course they encounter obstacles, or mainly an obstacle, and then there's a surprising ending where George has to defuse a nuclear bomb while Lennie holds off a number of Columbian revolutionaries with a half-full revolver and a bottle of whiskey....

Well, not really. It's not that bang-and-flash, but the book delves into the nature of friendship and man's obligations to right and wrong better than most blockbuster thrillers or buddy cop movies do. Plus, it makes you sound smart to allude to a John Steinbeck novel, which is why I do so frequently. Maybe it won't make you sound smart. Maybe it only makes me sound like I've read only one Steinbeck novel, once, in high school. But I am a slightly better person for it and I'm not angry at the writer for wasting my time. Does that count as a rousing endorsement? You bet.
- posted by Brian J. @ 8:56 PM   0 comments

 
Fair as Ballast

What liberal media? The Associated Press, as reprinted in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch works both pro and anti-war viewpoints into this headline/subheadline combo:

Shells reportedly carrying blister agent are uncovered in Iraq
Six die when Iraqi policemen, British clash with demonstrators

I envy the news service's flexibility. Cannot find an anti-war sentiment in a single incident? No problem! Just mash two completely separate instances together so you can create the proper "balanced" story. Yo ga, girl!
- posted by Brian J. @ 7:32 PM   0 comments

 
Look at All The Pretty Dots!

On the front page of today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch, marginalized by the two columns of Rams' agony, we have a hard-hitting story entitled "Pipeline for antibiotics is running dry". Lead:

Major pharmaceutical companies have abandoned or scaled back research and development of drugs that kill bacteria in favor of anti-viral drugs, such as those to combat HIV, and medicines for chronic conditions, such as high blood pressure and heart disease.

Journalists see a lot of dots in the industry, from the drug reimportation ideas to the lawsuits to force legalized patent infringement for the generic drug producers to the lack of new drugs in development. All are Bad Things for the Proletariat, which undoubtedly the continued Marxist evolution state can better handle, but the journalists don't have the time, foresight, patience, or perhaps open minds to realize that the first two lead to the latter, and to ensure that pharmaceutical companies can occasionally profit from the great financial risks they undertake would ensure a steady stream of new, innovative drugs.

Oops, I said profit with an F instead of a PH, didn't I? Well, that's not to be allowed. Perhaps the State could better run innovation with the same élan demonstrated by the nationalized shipping and passenger transportation companies.
- posted by Brian J. @ 1:27 PM   0 comments

 
John Cole Makes The Medium Time

Perusing the paper this afternoon, I discovered the page 1 story in the Everyday section entitled Web Surfing the Presidential Pool", and I skim it, finding in the section on Dennis Kucinich, a URL for a permalink from John Cole at Balloon Juice, featured proudly on the MfBJ blogroll.

Congrats, John. You're in the medium time when the St. Louis Post-Dispatch notices you.
- posted by Brian J. @ 4:11 PM   0 comments

 
Yahoo!

MfBJ: Your #3 source on the Internet for pictures of gruesome jail inmate kills.

That's on the $9.95 a month password-protected site. Order now!
- posted by Brian J. @ 10:34 AM   0 comments

 
A Rock in My Reeboks

Local or state politicians often like to make an argument like this one regarding getting "their slice of the pie":

Officials in Killington want the town to secede from Vermont and join the neighboring state because of a dispute over taxes. They say the town's restaurants, inns and other businesses rake in ten (m) million dollars a year for the state -- but gets just a (m) million dollars of state aid in return.

You often hear that, whether it's California griping about not getting one dollar of federal tax grants and goodies for every dollar they ship to Washington or little towns like this one griping about its high tax revenues not returning one for one. Are these politicos stupid, or cynically trying to drum up votes with this idiocy?

In case it's the former, I offer the following explanation to our municipal or state leaders:

I told you a hunnert times, Lennie, when the bigger brother takes that money, it takes its taste, its viggorish from the top, and whatever he's got left after paying off his string of highly-paid thinkers, legislators, and hangers-on and then pays down what he owns on all dem buildings and motorcars they go tooling around in, whatever he's got left he splits among his friends and then littler big brother. Den he can put it towards a stake in a ranch, or he can blow it in a cathouse or pool room or on whiskey, or maybe all three which is a popular choice for govenment.

I suspect they're just cynical, though, in which case I offer them a hearty Hi-ho, STFU. I know you're all about shifting wealth from the private sector, where it was created, to the public sector, where you and your cronies can spend it lavishly, but it's a real rock in my Reeboks to watch you public sector ticks argue about who gets to suck from the neck and who has to suck from the leg artery. I don't turn on the nature channel to watch the jackals rip apart gazelles, and I don't care to watch you guys fight over the spoils, either.

So get over the fact that Mississippi and Wyoming aren't going to subsidize your schools, and maybe, you know, stop spending money profligately and maybe you could squeak by on whatever annual millions you can skim from the top while the citizenry makes do with green-capped milk.

(Link seen on Drudge.)
- posted by Brian J. @ 10:30 AM   0 comments

 
Columnist Argues for a Classless Society

Bill Hobbs links to a column in the Philadelphia Daily News wherein the columnist executes a number of cheap shots on Brett Favre.

Sounds like Brett Favre's a man to me. I'd like to see what sort of erroneous, idealized self-image the columnist has of himself to see how he reconciles his own perfection with the ability to make snarky comments about another man's recently-deceased father.

Spoken like a man who has not yet lost his father.
- posted by Brian J. @ 9:24 AM   0 comments

 
Why Do East Coasters Equate St. Louis With Bowling?

Lord, love a duck. Seems that some Charlotte newspaper writer has written a piece denigrating (uh oh, insensitive word) the St. Louis football fans' enthusiasm. Seems amid his trash talk, he's got to fixate on the Bowling Hall of Fame. Here's his lead, that is, his first couple paragraphs:

Just a few blocks from the home of the St. Louis Rams, the city celebrates its sporting heroes -- legends such as Dick Weber, Mark Roth and Earl Anthony.

Well, OK, if you're a football fan you might not recognize those names. That's because they're not football players.

They're bowlers.

Here you can spend hours (really!) at the International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame. It shares a building with a museum honoring the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team.

What is it with you East Coast types? You come to St. Louis and think bowling's what the people here obsess with. Listen up, Tommy Tomlinson and all you vapid eastern coasters who come to this town and want to snark it with the full weight of your Coastal Cosmpolitanism, St. Louisians are not bowlers by nature.

Milwaukee has more bowling alleys per capita than any other city in the world, ainna?

Oh, and if you're a Rams fan, you can read his column at the Charlotte Observer site (registration required), or you can see where the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has reprinted it.

Tomlinson doesn't waste the opportunity to mock St. Louis for its unhistoried Rams team. How cute. From the fan of a ten-year-old football team.
- posted by Brian J. @ 11:25 PM   0 comments

 
Those From Wisconsin Just Don't Understand

Speaking of sports fandom as a hobby, even those from the vaunted Charlotte area cannot understand true passion.

I have a niece named Starr. Two Rs. Not misspelled.
- posted by Brian J. @ 11:10 PM   0 comments

 
Book Review: Naked Beneath My Clothes by Rita Rudner (1992)

I paid $3.95 for this book at Downtown Books in Milwaukee, and it's worth every penny. Of course, I bought it used, scavenging upon an already-paid royalty as far as the author's concerned, and I'm sorry, Ms. Rudner. However, rest assured, upon the weight of this book, I have added some of your other, more readily-available material to my Amazon wish list so my ungrateful readers can browse it if they want but not buy anything.

For those of you damn kids out there who don't know Rita Rudner is, she's a very funny comedienne from back in the old days of cablized standup, which is to say the late 1980s. Ah, the old days. When Richard Jeni, Rita Rudner, Dennis Wolfowitz, and their kind first started getting HBO specials and when Rosie O'Donnell was a an obscure unfunny stand-up comic who MCed VH-1s stand-up spotlight, and nobody knew who she was. The good old days. This book was written probably at Rita Rudner's zenith, back in the administration of the first Bush presidency, before the Internet bubble, and before blogs. Remember those days?

I digress, of course. This book collects some of Ms. Rudner's comedic musings. She's witty with the pen as well as the microphone, and she turns some nifty phrases. She's no P.J. O'Rourke or Dennis Miller, but she's far above say, Andy Rooney (several of whose books I purchased in the same little humor alcove of Downtown Books as I bought this volume). Rudner's 45 chapters (brief, in 162 pages) capture some of the truisms of life and relationships, and they're quite funny. I read this particular bit to my esteemed spouse because it accurately captures the tension between a husband and wife when it comes to clothes shopping:

We always have the same argument. I choose clothes that make me look like a nun (see essay number 19), and my husband chooses clothes that make me look like a hooker. We compromise, and that's why on television I usually look like a flamboyant nun.

I mean, there's nothing wrong with shopping for casual, lounging-around-the-house comfortable clothes from Frederick's of Hollywood, is there?

Based upon the weight of that and the first chapter which she sneaked a read of while it sat beside the computer awaiting review, Heather will snatch this book from my read shelves and will read it herself. So if you don't believe me, believe her, or you will anger Heather and she will crush you.
- posted by Brian J. @ 10:12 PM   0 comments

 
Quick Observation

Is it just me, or do a lot of the Democrat presidential nominees all have first names for last names?

There's Howard Dean, Wesley Clark, John Kerry, Jonathan Edwards....

I am not sure what this means, but our crack staff of paranoid neurotics (not the paranoid schizophrenics, who make things up) here at MfBJN are working on it as we speak.

The prevalent working hypothesis: It will be easier for candidates to completely reinvent themselves in 2008 if each has a completely new name, such as Dean Howard, Clark Wesley, or Clinton Hillary.

We the People will have completely forgotten about that other schmuck losers whose ideas and policies were completely out of touch with the direction in which we want the country to go by then.
- posted by Brian J. @ 9:34 PM   0 comments

 
A Quiet Evening At Home

My esteemed spouse has joined NetFlix, and she received a disc in the mail the other day. Maid in Manhattan. "A chick flick," she called it.

With Jennifer Lopez in a maid uniform, honey, it's got something for the whole family, don't you worry.

So we watched that tonight. I'm trying to convince Heather we don't have to send it back right away.
- posted by Brian J. @ 9:20 PM   0 comments

 
Lazy Fare

SFGate.com has a story featuring Carly Fiorina, head of Hewlett-Packard-Compaq-Digital, telling the information technology professionals who are watching their profession awaken after the party that was the Internet boom and stagger into the developing world for a quick bit of relief from burgeoning labor costs. Fiorina says:

"There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore."

Right on, sister. Capitalism keeps our prices down as consumers, so as long as we continue to adapt as producers, we can continue buying stuff and make the whole world go around. I'm all for that, because I realize once all the jobs are overseas, the board of directors will realize CEOs will be cheaper over there, too. No, no, they tell themselves, it won't happen to us.... just like the myopic IT career counselors told their charges in the 1990s.

But that's the way business works, and society and government ought to let the businesses do their thing. I'm with you, Carly. Of course, I wouldn't invest money in that sinking ship you're piloting towards the crumbling glacier, but I'm with you.

Well, no, I'm not. Because the solutions she proposes are not laissez-faire capitalism solutions:

They outlined a list of objectives, including a doubling of federal spending on basic research in U.S. universities. Barrett derided Washington's decision to spend as much as $40 billion a year on farm subsidies and just $5 billion on basic research in the physical sciences.

"I have a real degree of difficulty with the fact that we are spending some five to eight times as much on the industry of the 19th century than we are on the industry of the 21st century," Barrett said.

The executives also urged a national broadband policy to allow more homes and businesses to quickly take advantage of high-speed data networks, much as Japan and Korea have done.

They also called for dramatic improvements in K-12 education in the United States, saying schools act more to block budding math and science students than to foster them.

Federal government should start throwing money to the technical industry the same way it throws money to all industry. Fiorina and her buddies don't want laissez-faire capitalism. They want crony capitalism and are auditioning for the roles of "cronies."
- posted by Brian J. @ 7:05 PM   0 comments

 
And In An Alternate Universe....

When ESPN's Jim Kelley would report:

1. The kids are all right
We tip our proverbial hat to the work of veterans like Mats Sundin in Toronto, Robert Lang in Washington, Joe Sakic in Colorado, Markus Naslund in Vancouver and Brett Hull in St. Louis.

Danny Flor, an esteemed former co-worker, would smile and thank his lucky stars that the Blues took all necessary steps to ensure the Golden Brett finished his career here.
- posted by Brian J. @ 4:44 PM   0 comments

 
A Homie Too Harsh?

Owen over at Boots and Sabers links to a Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel story about a 71-year-old, wheelchair-bound hit and run victim in my old neighborhood in Milwaukee. Here's Owen's post on Boots and Sabers:

There are some cold, cold people in this world.


Police searched Tuesday for the driver of a white, late-model Oldsmobile that struck and killed a 71-year-old man in a wheelchair in the 9100 block of W. Appleton Ave.

The victim, Ernest McNair, was wheeling down Appleton Ave. about 7:40 p.m. Monday when he ws hit by the westbound car, police said. He died early Tuesday morning at Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hosptial.

I sure hope this dirt bag dies a long, painful, and lingering death. I think that may be too good for him (or her). Bastard.

Owen's being a little harsh on the "dirt bag." Here's more details from the Journal-Sentinel:

McNair was a resident of the Marian Franciscan Center, 9632 W. Appleton Ave. He frequently signed himself out of the nursing home against doctor's orders and did so sometime Monday afternoon, according to information gathered by the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner's Office.

A friend of McNair's told an investigator he came by his apartment Monday looking for money to do some drinking, but left when the friend told him he didn't have any cash.

The circumstances of the accident were sketchy Tuesday, while police asked for any witnesses to contact them.

I don't know about McNair, but I do know that some wheelchair-bound residents of Missouri travel in the road on occasion. So McNair's out, possibly wheelchairing drunk in the street in the dark and he gets hit. The driver runs. Tragic, but not pure evil. The "dirt bag" might be a kid, might be a scared housewife, but the absolute condemnation is wasted, particularly if the circumstances are sketchy.

Full disclosure: The first novel I started in college, entitled Tragedies, dealt with the hit and run accident of a housewife at the corner of Villiard and Appleton in Milwaukee, which is the 9000 block of Appleton. The corner between the Westside Liquor store and what used to be a Sentry foods. The assailants were a couple of scared kids. The tragedies, of course, referred to the fact that all the lives were destroyed. So that's the perspective from whence my bleeding heart liberalism potential for perspective springs.

Of course, running from the accident is wrong, but on the scale of evil, accidentally hitting a hard-to-see object in the dark is substantially less than shouting, "Crippled old man, one point!" and swerving into McNair.
- posted by Brian J. @ 8:56 PM   0 comments

 
It's Cold Out There, Prosecutors; Don't Forget To Layer Up

More from prosecutorial "layering" of charges indicated in a St Louis Post-Dispatch Law and Order round-up:

Two men are indicted in construction scams

Two men have been indicted on charges that they bilked people through home construction scams, the U.S. attorney's office in St. Louis said Tuesday.

One of the men, Jeffrey Thomas, is accused of selling the same property in St. Louis County to three buyers. He collected more than $500,000 on the sales, and did nothing to build on the property, according to the federal indictment.

Thomas, 36, of the 300 block of Autumn Creek Drive in Valley Park, is charged with mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering.

The other defendant, Carlton Dinwiddie, 39, of East St. Louis, is charged with mail fraud and misuse of a Social Security number.

Perhaps I should write to my state legislator, Al Liese (who replaced his own term-limited son in the state legislature by posting signs that looked just like the incumbent legislator's--ELECT LIESE--perfectly gaming the gullible voters), to enact laws against fraud committed for monetary gain, Crimes committed during commission of fraud, Fraud committed during course of a crime, English-language fraud, and Sound-wave fraud.

Double-jeopardy? Hah! We spit upon your double-jeopardy! Prosecutors need flexible and innovative tools to deal with their burgeoning political careers and their appearances as depicted by the media modern con artists.
- posted by Brian J. @ 8:10 PM   0 comments

 
Teaching An Old Joke New Tricks

A baby boomer father and son, walking in the forest, come upon a grizzly bear. The father immediately opens a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts and begins stuffing glazed doughnuts down his craw.

"What are you doing?" the son said. "You can't earn enough to pay taxes to offset the increased entitlements that politicians are enacting to buy your vote."

"I don't have to earn enough," the father said. "I only have to have a coronary before the bear that metaphorically represents the impending fiscal collapse catches us."

If that's not the zaniest link to a Robert Samuelson column ever, I don't know what is.
- posted by Brian J. @ 8:01 PM   0 comments

 
Troubleshooting Blogger

I realize I am but a knuckle-dragging software tester, so take pity on me, oh soon-to-be-IPOed development staff at Pyra Labs Google, but I think I know what's wrong with your permalinking here on my site.

The <$BlogItemArchiveFileName$> server-side variable is not currently including the name of my archive directory, strangely enough entitled /archives/, into the path; ergo, when a user clicks this permalink, it leads them to the archive filename and post number in my root directory, but the archive file is not in that directory. It's in /archives/.

Please translate this into Hindi and have Uncle Ray's friends fix the problem.

Also, if one of my dear readers wants to link directly to my post, please add the archives directory to the URL by hand. For example, if you right-click the permalink link at the bottom of the post and select "Properties," you'll see this URL currently:

http://stlbrianj.blogspot.com/2004_01_04_archive.html#107352521550898577

If you add the /archives/ directory to the URL, like so:

http://stlbrianj.blogspot.com/archives/2004_01_04_archive.html#107352521550898577

It will work.

Undoubtedly, status.blogger.com will acknowledge this problem once they have it solved. In a couple of weeks.
- posted by Brian J. @ 7:26 PM   0 comments

 
Are You Listening, Ehrenreich?

Donald Sensing's eyes have opened to some of the depravity and hardship suffered by the American poor. The real question is, "Is Barbara Ehrenreich listening?"

Probably not; she's probably enjoying an indiscretion that will keep her from getting any job that requires a drug test.

However, I have a hot tip for her next book:

Half the families in the country earn less than the average household income!

Quick, redistribute the wealth until we're all above average! Vote for Dean Howard!
- posted by Brian J. @ 6:51 PM   0 comments

 
Busted!

Notice this page on my "innocent" wife's blog: cat_recipes.html.

Maybe I should take back what I said about her conmingling cat care books and cookbooks.
- posted by Brian J. @ 9:06 PM   0 comments

 
Thank Goodness Software "Engineers" Aren't Civil Engineers

Otherwise, we would see this in the defect tracker:

Defect # 102033
Title:	Striking bridge support at speed greater than 60 mph causes bridge to collapse
Severity:	Critical
Problem:	If a driver strikes a support beneath the overpass while exceeding approximately 60 miles per hour, the support will buckle and the entire span and bridge will collapse, killing the driver of the car that struck the support, the passengers, and any people passing over the bridge when the support is struck. To recreate: 1. Drive northbound in car at 62 mph. 2. Guide car into support. Support should not buckle nor should the bridge collapse when struck by such a light object at such a low rate of speed.
Status:	REJECTED
Developer's Note:	In a real-world scenario, users would not deviate from the approved workflow by crossing the yellow line that demarcates the edge of the roadway. Also note that posted speed limits are 60 mph, so users would not exceed this posted limit.
Project Manager's Note:	Rejection approved. Add to construction notes document.

Thank goodness we keep these madmen in ill-lit cubicle cells where they can only harm information and not real people.

Ahhhhh...... Information-systems-industry-venom sacs emptied.....
- posted by Brian J. @ 8:22 PM   0 comments

 
Compare and Contrast

In New York, compare and contrast:

• Giuliani time, with the Broken Windows theory of policing, wherein police crackdown on nuisance offenses to improve the quality of life.
  
  
• Bloomberg time, which apparently features the Flat Broken theory of policing, wherein police write tickets for as many offenses as they can to help the city can balance its finances as taxpayers flee for less strident regimes.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:57 PM   0 comments

 
Book Review: The Fine Art of Swindling edited by Walter B. Gibson (1966)

The more things change, the more they stay the same, and that goes for stupid is as stupid does and a fool and his or her money are soon parted. This book collects a number of essays and nonfiction pieces that appeared in The New Yorker, The Saturday Evening Post, and other periodicals or publications. Each essay explores a scammer or a scam in detail, but most of the scams come from around the turn of the century (as the book itself is almost forty years old).

Two things strike me:

• The heights that the best scammers reached.
  Charles Ponzi, whose very name is synonomous with the pyramid scheme, bought a bank and a brokerage firm with the money he made from working class Bostonians who wanted to earn fifty percent interest in 90 days. Oscar Hartzell lived for over a decade in style in London while purportedly seeking to settle with the English monarchy for the Francis Drake estate--but really he was just after his "investors'" money. That's long jack, my friends. Nowadays, nobody lives that high on the hog with so little production but venture capitalists, their pet executives, and government officials. At least swindlers used their wits and not their contacts.
  
  
• The same scams are still running.
  Three specific examples: The Nigerian scam (help me transfer my ill-gotten gain from my African country); the here's-a-bag-of-money-you-can-hold-it-if-you-give-me-slightly-less-of-your-money-as-a-deposit (which really needs a popular nickname), and the pyramid scheme (now more popular than ever as women's "Gift Clubs"). The population is getting more technologically knowledgeable, but not necessarily more savvy.

Of course, the best swindles aren't in this book, because the best swindles are not reported or solved. Still, the book's an interesting read, but not widely available. I paid $6.00 for this copy....wait a minute...the penciled-in price claims it's a 1966 first edition, but it looks like a book club edition....

Fine art of swindling, indeed. Curse you, Sheldon! Next time I am in your book shop, I am pulling the books out by putting my fingers at the top of the spine.
- posted by Brian J. @ 7:44 PM   0 comments

 
Two Kinds of Managers

There are two kinds of managers. Those who help pull the load, and those who spend all their time pulling on the horses.
- posted by Brian J. @ 4:46 PM   0 comments

 
I Feel Pretty, Powerful

Meatriarchy leads me to some introspection, wherein I discover I am:


Which Typical Anti-Hero Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
- posted by Brian J. @ 8:09 PM   0 comments

 
Reaching the Outer Limits of Property Rights

Drudge linked to a story (registration required) in the New York Times about how radio broadcasters are exploring a new system, called Radio Data System, wherein the radio stations can push text advertising onto your car dashboards (or other radios, I would guess). Some critics assail the possibility of drivers becoming distracted from their driving, but I'm not so worried about that. I realize most drivers aren't paying attention to their driving anyway, and that the text advertisements might only distract drivers from their phone conversations, newspapers, breakfast, or make-up application.

Instead, I am worried more about property rights slowly but continually eroding, almost invisibly. Because, citizens, when it comes to who holds broadcast or reception rights to your personal property, the answer always seems to be not you.

It used to be that if you bought something and it became your property, you had rights to use it and dispose of it as you saw fit. No one else had rights to use it without your permission, else it would be stolen (or borrowed by your irresponsible sibling, but that's something else). The Constitution even addresses a particular instance of government appropriation, quartering, in the Bill of Rights. You owned something, you could use it as you saw fit, and unless you were doing something illegal, no one could stop you.

Technology changes things. With radio, you bought a device that allowed you to receive information broadcast by another person or a corporation. So you had a personal device through which you could opt to listen to a broadcast, and you could choose among available broadcasts that you wanted to receive. The act of owning a radio and receiving a broadcast require an explicit owner action. Granted, the user had no control over the content, but the user had the control over the reception thereof. The radio broadcaster could not force the user to listen.

The telephone represents a two-way communications device that most people possess as personal property. The telephone allows you to either receive a transmission (a phone call), or it allows you to create a transmission (pick up and dial out). In either case, the owner must explicitly use the device to broadcast. The owner retains the right of transmission through his personal property.

The right of transmission, as I have so eloquently labeled it, should be a fundamental corollary of basic property rights. That once I own a device, I and I alone determine how to use it and when to use it. As technology outpaces understanding and forethought, we're in great danger that this right is being ceded de facto to corporations whose products send and receive data without explicit owner consent--often without owner knowledge.

I see this end-run around the right of transmission in any number of instances, including existing and projected technologies. RFID tags that continue broadcasting their signal after purchase, not for the benefit of the owner but instead for the benefit of the manufacturer, retailler, or their bestest, closet "business partners." Silver boxes beneath your car seat that record what you're doing so that the manufacturer can point its finger at you, not the automobile, if an accident occurs. Of course, the worst offender is computer software.

New Internet-connected software often, without explicit user consent--phones home to rewrite "patch" itself or to "improve the customer experience"--by transmitting information about you and your computer to, once again, the manufacturer and its closest friends. The user's experience improves in that he or she only sees the targetted marketing and reminders to upgrade that the manufacturer thinks the user wants to see, which is probably better than all possible marketing the manufacturer could send you. The software in some cases will contact its home without seeking consent to fix manufacturing defects--"consent" is granted through a single click at some time in the past or a nebulous and unreadable license agreement. Because of its current Wizard-of-Oz nature, the software industry gets away with this because its magic takes place behind the curtain, its functionality apparently wizardry when it works.

But I digress from my thesis with the expenditure from my information-systems-industry-venom sacs. Unlike automobile manufacturers who issue recalls that require a user's specific action to take the auto into the dealership for repair or upgrade, some software manufacturers insist they'll fix it automatically. A person who purchases a house would recognize his or her rights have been violated if he or she came home from work to find the house has had its deck removed and has been painted eggshell blue by the previous owners--however, some software companies reserve the right to refactor and rewrite--that is, replace--private property of its customers. The more they condition customers to accept this as normal, the less customers will recognize the nature of their property rights.

I admit that the article linked above only provided a jumping-off point for thought regarding this matter. I have trouble imagining people will rush out to buy radios that provide an extra benefit for broadcasters and nothing for the consumer. However, these companies do see it as their right to push marketing and to take other liberties with your personal property, and we as consumers and as citizens must stop clicking Yes, signing unread or undisputed contracts, and accepting quietly this usurping of our property rights.
- posted by Brian J. @ 1:44 PM   0 comments

 
Holidays Are Over

Put the fruitcake back in the freezer and dig into the cheesecake.
- posted by Brian J. @ 11:27 AM   0 comments

 
Suburban Knees Jerk

Memorandum to a neighbor:

Dear sir, and undoubtedly you are a sir and not a ma'am, I understand that the weather was nice in Casinoport, Missouri today, with a temperature reaching seventy-one degrees FARENHEIT, but what on earth prompted you to go to your shed or garage, get out, and start your lawn mower on the second of January?

Pray tell, how much shorter did you want your brown lawn to be?
- posted by Brian J. @ 4:12 PM   0 comments

 
Step Five: Classified

Fark led me to a set of helpful tips about how to handle giving your old computer to someone else. Here's a summary of what Kim Komando, noted radio computer "expert," suggests as steps or protocols for what you can do to safeguard personal information you might have on the P.C.:

1. Don't want a big hassle? Give the computer to a trusted employee, friend or family member.
   
   
2. Reformat the hard drive and re-install the operating system.
   
   
3. Buy software and overwrite the disk, again and again and again.
   
   
4. You're totally paranoid, so get out the acetylene torch.

That's it, Komando? That's all you have? What about step 5?

If you don't know what Protocol 5 is, you're not totally paranoid.

I guess not everyone can afford an atom-smasher in the basement.
- posted by Brian J. @ 8:02 PM   0 comments

 
When Frilly Meets Football

As I was reading the Febuary 2004 issue of St. Louis Homes and Lifestyles on the cycle at the gym (and I must have picked it up on the cycle, because for what sort of Man reads such a fru-fru magazine--hey, look, the person who left it here has the same name and address as I), I came across the article entitled "Running for Daylight: A light-filled domicile is where Rams' head coach Mike Martz and wife Julie touch down". As you all know, I don't care for the St. Louis Lambs--I mean, come on, any football team with less than fifty years' tradition in their city is a bunch of tax-sucking mercs. However, I like to look at the pretty pictures of rich peoples' homes had nothing better to do for 20 minutes of intense cardiovascular working. I mean, aside from looking at the scantily-clad, physically-fit women as they sweat, but once you've seen the best, everything else is just furniture.

The text, amid the pictures, included this cute little nugget written by Carla Patton (whose name I included so the next time she Googles herself, she'll read my blog):

The Martzes arrived here with the Rams from L.A. in 1995; Mike was then the wide receivers coach. With the exception of a two-year stint in the northwest with the Washington Redskins, they have lived here ever since.

You remember those two years, don't you, when the Redskins played the Seahawks sixteen times?

(Note to Carla: The Washington Redskins are the Washington D.C. Redskins.)
- posted by Brian J. @ 7:47 PM   0 comments

 
Public Service Announcement for New Year's Eve Revellers

Plenty of ink is spent reminding you each year that firing guns into the air is a dangerous way to celebrate the holiday.

As a public service announcement, we at MBJ remind partiers that firing guns into each other is not a good idea either.

Thank you, that is all.
- posted by Brian J. @ 4:03 PM   0 comments

 
New Divining Rod for Drunkeness

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, St. Louis area police have a new gizmo to use on motorists:

More St. Louis-area police officers are carrying extra gadgets this holiday season to help them catch drunks on the road.

Several police departments in Missouri and Illinois have acquired the new technology during the past year. It is geared for traffic enforcement and could be key in the campaign to halt drunken driving during the holidays.

In the past six months, St. Louis County police bought portable breath testers for each precinct station.

Now officers in the field can easily test a driver who might straddle the line between sober and illegally drunk, police said. Results from the tests are not admissible in court, but officers can use the test as probable cause to arrest a driver then test him or her on a more sophisticated machine at the jail.

That's right, fellows. They've got a new divining rod that, if it twitches right, indicates you might be in violation of the law. Enough to arrest you and drag you downtorn or to Clayton. For violating a law that's sliding slipperily but certainly to the point where wearing an alcohol-based cologne will make you legally intoxicated. Why do the police think this new gizmo is important?

"Some professional drunks can fool you," said Maj. Timothy Fitch, commander of the St. Louis County police patrol division. "Even if they can pass the field sobriety tests, they can't pass this."

Got that? People who are "professional drunks" can pass field sobriety tests--by not behaving in such a manner as to indicate the alcohol has affected them! Could it be that they're perhaps not driving badly either?

What, you think I am making this up and it will only be applied to people who drive forty miles an hour in reverse on the shoulder on the wrong side of the highway? Wrong.

Departments expect these gadgets will come in handy during roadside safety checks and extra patrols scheduled for the New Year's holiday. [Emphasis mine.]

Roadside safety check? Buddy, that means the sobriety checkpoints the police set up on the roads wherein all vehicles get screened. So whatever false positives this thing provides, complete with paddy wagon ride and booking, that means you Mormons are eligible, too.

A pile of cash and another nick in our liberty, for what? Here's the numbers, in a metropolitan area of up to three million people (depending upon the counties you include):

Officers gave DWI violations to 713 drivers through November last year. They arrested 922 in the same time period this year.

That's almost three arrests per day. In a population of three million. Obviously the profession of drunkeness does not pay well, or most professional drunks are telecommuters. What's the life savings?

Last year, Missouri lost 525 people in alcohol-related crashes.

Fewer than two per day, and I would wager that many of those deaths were self-inflicted.

Individually, drunk driving deaths are tragedies, particularly the non-drunk victims. However, I do dispute that all the effort and ever-tightening legislative and law-enforcement nooses drawn around the problem probably have entered the diminishing returns effort. And it's more than the returns that diminish; it's our very freedom, Chester.

Now have a Guinness, and walk home, for crying out loud. A little cool air will clear your head, and you could use the exercise.
- posted by Brian J. @ 12:37 AM   0 comments

 
Easy Transition

The Noggle household for the holidays:



The Noggle household for the NFL playoffs:


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:10 PM   0 comments

 
Join Your Loyal Citizens Book Burners Watchers Brigade

Drudge links to a story entitled FBI urges police to watch for people carrying almanacs in the San Francisco Chronicle. Lead:

The FBI is warning police nationwide to be alert for people carrying almanacs, cautioning that the popular reference books covering everything from abbreviations to weather trends could be used for terrorist planning.

Also:

"For local law enforcement, it's just to help give them one more piece of information to raise their suspicions," said David Heyman, a terrorism expert for the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. "It helps make sure one more bad guy doesn't get away from a traffic stop, maybe gives police a little bit more reason to follow up on this."

The FBI noted that use of almanacs or maps may be innocent, "the product of legitimate recreational or commercial activities." But it warned that when combined with suspicious behavior -- such as apparent surveillance -- a person with an almanac "may point to possible terrorist planning."

To better prepare you intrepid citizen informers out there, I'll give you a head's up to other suspicious characters in America:

Educated people.

That's right, folks. Keep an eye out for:

• Physicists.
  These diabolical intellectuals study such dangerous things as force, velocity, gravity, and other skills useful to terrorists who want to use everyday objects and the laws of nature against innocents.
  
  
• Chemists.
  These "scientists" study how natural and artificial combinations of atoms interact, which can lead to substances harmful to the population.
  
  
• Biologists.
  These dabblers in the arcane arts know how microorganisms--as well as larger organisms, such as angry mutant sea bass--can be used against the children.
  
  
• Engineers.
  These hands-on appliers of science understand the way bridges work, buildings stand, dams hold, and electric circuits work. It's best to let the FBI know immediately if you find an engineer around a possible target. Particularly if the engineer is doing something suspicious, like holding a clipboard.
  
  
• Information Technology professionals.
  Computer geeks, misanthropes and asocial misfits all, know the vulnerabilities of the technological infrastructure of the nation, nay, THE WORLD!

You don't need to fear all academics, intellectuals, or college faculty, however. Although English, History, and *-Studies departments fancy themselves revolutionaries, they're harmless.

Instead, citizen, you should focus on nefarious characters who read books. Sound harmless? Consider someone who reads:

• Comic books or mystery novels.
  These people often determine that there exists a standard of right or wrong aside from U.S. law and court rulings, and often read books where "good" triumphs over "evil," often without the proper bureaucracy in place to spread blame for failure or leak credit for success.
  
  
• Science fiction.
  Non-academics or speculative individuals often read these books, which, like religious documents, contain fantastic versions of reality or blueprints for the future. These individuals are harder to trace than academics since they're "freelancers" who often have telescopes, chemistry sets, or workshops in their homes, garages, or closests and are not subject to sanction by removal of federal funding.
  
  

Of course, anyone who reads literary fiction or Oprah's book choices are safe enough--for now--because they've embraced a passive fatalism that will make them easier to control less likely to perform wanton acts of destruction.

So turn your neighborhood watching eyes on those cash only used book stores, loyal citizens, and the federal law enforcement officials will review bookstore and library records to see who has the dangerous information.
- posted by Brian J. @ 7:02 PM   0 comments

 
The End of the Conversation

Since we painted our master bathroom last autumn, I've been meaning to recaulk around the tub. It's starting to break down and show its age. Not that the mold spores mind. They've found a good home and some tasty latex upon which to feast. But I've meant to recaulk this tub since about spring, but I haven't had quite the stretch of time to devote to it. Several hours at least, non-stop, to devote to the project. How could I find the time, when Civilization III called?

But since I had a personal day on Christmas Eve, I had a long block of time available. Particularly since I could not leave the house until the FedEx truck delivered Heather's Christmas gift (which is another story entirely). So I got into the bathroom and began removing the existing caulk. I think a previous owner just applied a layer of latex caulk over an existing layer of silicone caulk when it came time for him/her to do the deed. So it took me almost five hours of intermittent scraping, cursing, and swearing to get all of it off. Once I got the old caulk off, it was a breeze to apply a new ring of caulk.

So although I was reluctant to perform this much-needed household maintenance, I'm still proud to have done it. But why is it that the casual conversations end when people ask me how my holidays were and I answer:

"I spent Christmas Eve in the bathtub with a razor blade and wondered if I really wanted to go through with it."
- posted by Brian J. @ 7:12 PM   0 comments

 
Book Review: Who's Looking Out for You? by Bill O'Reilly (2003)

I have read O'Reilly's first two nonfiction offerings (The O'Reilly Factor: The Good, the Bad, and the Completely Ridiculous in American Life amd The No-Spin Zone: Confrontations with the Powerful and Famous in America), so you can expect I'm somewhat a fan of O'Reilly's message. Be that as it may, you should know that I don't fully appreciate, in an O'Reillyriffic way, his television show; as a matter of fact, I drew attention to my recent personal record of watching forty minutes of his sixty minute show. I don't even bother with his radio show. So my enthusiasm for all things O'Reilly is somewhat tempered.

His books, though, and in particular this book, captivate me. Contrary to what his schooling and his valuable work experience with CBS, Fox, and so on, bring him, he's a better read than a watch. He gets to elucidate his points in far greater detail than when he's got a two minute Talking Points Memo or five minutes to spar with someone with an opposing viewpoint. Still, The O'Reilly Factor is nice, and The No Spin Zone drops a lot of names, but this book is the masterwork of them all.

The title question frames the message. Who's looking out for you? O'Reilly contends that none of the power structures out there, from the government to the media, really have your individual goals and best interests in mind. Of course not; those institutions really aren't about your best individual interests, but they often act as though they are, so it's a point that we the people need to remember.

Of course, even though I agree with his points in the book, O'Reilly has a couple things to with which I contend. First of all, he's a blowhard. He even illustrates this in the book when he quotes himself disagreeing with an opponent and calling him a pinhead. However, I get the sense that he knows the role he's playing, that he is a bit over-the-top. Kind of like Rush Limbaugh speaks with a tongue-in-cheek in many cases. I don't get that sense with many opposing viewpoints, from Michael Moore to Molly Ivins and Barbara Ehrenreich.

Second, O'Reilly asserts that he's on your side. Well, no, but thanks, Bill. I know enough to know you're suspect as well. You don't know me, and you might crusade for an idealized collection of people you know as the little guy, but unless I know you personally, I still see you through the filter of MegaOther--that other person who speaks to many people anonymously and individually. So you might be good to your friends, and you might be good for me as you pursue your audience, but I don't put all my faith in trust in you, Bill.

I know you'll understand.

Still, gentle blog reader, I'd recommend this book highly. I have given it as a gift this Christmas to a family member I value highly. So although I won't give it to all six of you regular readers (especially since Heather can just read mine), I'll give you my honest opinion that it's worth reading.

Take it for what it's worth. I'm only looking out for my personal integrity as a reviewer. You might not even like it.
- posted by Brian J. @ 7:06 PM   0 comments

 
More Creepy Love Song Lyrics

Over at Signifying Nothing, Chris Lawrence takes Clay Aikens to task for his song "Invisible". Lawrence decries the lack of subjunctive voice in the following:

If I was invisible
Then I could just watch you in your room
If I was invincible
I’d make you mine tonight
If hearts were unbreakable
Then I could just tell you where I stand
I would be the smartest man
If I was invisible
(Wait… I already am)

Dudes, that's the second scariest song in the universe next to "Iris". Let's just break this down:

• If I was invisible
  Then I could just watch you in your room
  He's a voyeur, peeping Tom, or valued x10 customer.
  
  
• If I was invincible
  I’d make you mine tonight
  Okay, wait a minute. If he were invincible, then he would make you his tonight. You've got no choice, he's invincible, just lie back and enjoy it. Fellows, that's called rape, and that's what the word means. Not patting a reluctant fanny. Getting made his by Mr. Invincible, yes.
  
  
• If hearts were unbreakable
  Then I could just tell you where I stand
  Hearts were unbreakable? You mean if handcuffs were not so confining and the hoods of police cars such unyielding headrests, don't you? If you mentioned where you stand, that would be yet one more restraining order in your collection, wot?
  
  
• I would be the smartest man
  If I was invisible
  (Wait… I already am)
  The final assertion is the scariest. If he were invisible, he would be watching you in your room tonight. And he admits that he is! Draw the blinds, turn on some running water and a couple of radios, and stop down at the sporting goods store tomorrow for a nice shotgun for when he gets it in his head that he's invincible.

And they say that video games make people violent. This song is a veritable roadmap to stalking. All the lyrics need is a reference to Google, and all the pieces would be in place.
- posted by Brian J. @ 9:40 AM   0 comments

 
Brian Gets His Christmas Wish

I am the number 1 Google hit for Brian J.

In the coming year, I shall endeavor to warrant the attention and the respect my advertent and sometimes inadvertent branding demands.
- posted by Brian J. @ 2:21 AM   0 comments

 
Brian's Top Five Christmas Movies

Not that you asked, but since Heather and I just watched my favorite, I thought I would list the top five for you:

1. Die Hard
2. Lethal Weapon
3. Die Hard 2
4. Gremlins
5. Invasion USA

Nothing gets me into the spirit as much as a roaring fire, a couple beers, the smell of cordite, and these movies.

Bless them all, every one, and let God sort them out.
- posted by Brian J. @ 10:24 PM   0 comments

 
Rovers That Pay For Themselves

So I am reading the Samizdata post on the Beagle 2 Martian lander, and I read about how Mars is going to be crawling with landers in the coming months with the arrival of Opportunity and Spirit in January. Beagle 2, for those of you who don't know't, is a European probe, and Spirit and Opportunity are American landers. So I look at the artist rendition and I think of a bunch of robots tooling around on the planet of Mars, and immediately I think:

Wouldn't it be cool if, at the end of their lifecycles, the landers fought it out like Battlebots?

And then I think I am onto something. I mean, think of the possible commercial possibilities that could underwrite part of the cost of the voyage! A pay-per-view spectacular, wherein the robots duke it out in a hostile environment on another world? Dudes, I'd order my first pay-per-view event to see it! Maybe a couple of corporate logos slapped onto the landers, a special camera lander to transmit live video, and bam! You've got enough capital to lift the things at more than seven miles per second, werd.

Picture it. After NASA and the European Space Agency have had their time with the landers, accumulating and transmitting data back to home base, imagine the two rovers rearing up and exposing whirring blades, great spikes and drills, and articulate claws to rend the other into space junk. Because ultimately, that's what they are, junk and refuse and detritus from our exploration. At least we could have some fun with it.

Picture the Beagle 2 and Spirit going at it on the red sands of Mars. Imagine a couple of landers doing battle on the ice of Europa, among the volcanoes of Io, or the hazy surface of Venus. I'd buy the DVDs, dammit.

So get to it, guys. Who needs the X-Prize when you can have the Solar Battlebot Championship Tour? Am I onto something, or just on something here?
- posted by Brian J. @ 10:59 PM   0 comments

 
We Like To See Cohen Squeezing the Resin Bag

Richard Cohen, of the Washington Post, continues to toss us juicy pitches. Speaking of Howard Dean's recent musing about an interesting whack job conspiracy theory that Bush knew about the September 11 attacks before they occurred, Cohen posits:

There is no excusing what Dean said. But providing a context is a different matter entirely. As Dean himself said, the Bush administration has been very stingy about revealing just what it knew about terrorist activities before Sept. 11. Couple that with the fact that no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq -- nor a link between Saddam and al Qaeda proved -- and you have the requisite ingredients for a conspiracy theory: Something here doesn't add up.

Let me paraphrase: The theory doesn't make sense, but it only makes sense to have a senseless theory.

(The little angel of paranoia on my right shoulder asks "But why does Richard Cohen want us to think that?")
- posted by Brian J. @ 10:26 PM   0 comments

 
Reassurances From Your Older Sibling

In a St. Louis Post-Dispatch article about how the suburb of St. Peters and its duly appointed constabulary love their new cameras, we get this reassurance:

The only incident of abuse, according to St. Peters officials, occurred more than a year ago. An employee was caught using the cameras to improperly watch people at the Drury Inn on Mid Rivers Mall Drive, a police dispatcher said.

Police spokesman David Kuppler wouldn't say exactly when the incident occurred, or whether the person was charged with a crime. [Emphasis mine, of course.]

Why's that at the end of the story? That deserves a lead of its own.

Remember, fellow sheep, cameras won't keep the wolves from eating you. It will only make sure that the shepherds can identify which wolf ate you. Also, it's apparently good for seeing what Little Bo Peep's doing in her motel room with Christopher Marlowe when they forget to pull the shades.
- posted by Brian J. @ 10:20 PM   0 comments

 
In Case You're Wondering

Fark has a Photoshop contest for Playboy covers, and as an inspiration, they link to this story. Fark inadvertently calls the March 1980 the "best ever" Playboy cover.

Au naturel contraire. The very best Playboy covers are:

1. November 1971
2. November 1970
3. May 1973
4. December 1988
5. July 1970

Trust me. I have seen a lot of Playboy covers in my day. Ask me sometime, and I will tell you about the Great Playboy Score.
- posted by Brian J. @ 7:07 PM   0 comments

 
A Fair Trade for Your Municipality

Ravenwood links to a bit of Neilz Nuze about a common eminent domain abuse, this time in Alabaster, Alabama.

Remember, citizen, that your municipality would gladly trade your home, without your consent, for a dozen empty spaces in a Wal-Mart parking lot. It only has not because no developer has offered. Yet.
- posted by Brian J. @ 6:46 PM   0 comments

 
You Can't Improve on Perfection

Taito's bringing back Space Invaders, Slate reports. Mattel's remaking Electronic Football II. Activision's releasing their greatest hits in a single joystick you can hook up to your television. The commentator acknowledges the creativity inherent in working in the tight technological media. Good work.

In today's games, though, except for Civilization III, the technology has outstripped the game play. I mean, arcade games have dwindled to three genres: Gun games, side-by-side fighters, and driving (or airplane) simulators. Home consoles have first person shooters and role playing games. Where's the creativity in frames per second? Here's a hint; it's not.
- posted by Brian J. @ 6:43 PM   0 comments

 
In My Day, a DoR Degree Meant Something

Pardon my disgust, but I just heard a DJ for KSHE 95, "Real Rock Radio", identify Guns N Roses "Welcome to the Jungle" as "the title track" to an album. Johnkin' J!

For you damn kids, "Welcome to the Jungle" was the first track (on side 1, before we had CDs--and we liked it that way) of Appetite for Destruction. But this DJ didn't know that. Back in the idealized-and-probably-inexistent old days, disk jockeys (back when the discs were bigger than dinner plates, dammit!) knew their music. But now, the Doctors of Rockology don't know much.

I don't so much blame public education as I do for the consolidated inifinitization of radio stations, wherein the disk jockeys are all utility infielders, plugged into whatever genre of music the home office determines needs a "resource." This explains why drive time guys from the light hits stations suddenly find himself running the morning shows on country and western stations--no knowledge of Kenny Rogers or Hank Williams required!

Sorry, but it irks me. These guys dispense asides and information about what you hear on the radio, and they don't necessarily know the truth, nor how the particular work or individual talent fits into the tradition of the style of music. And they don't care to learn, because it's not important. Not as important as their careers, which will soon take them out of this mid-sized market, and if they're lucky, will land them in the overnights in a major market, regardless of whether they know or even like the damn music they play. It's just a job, and where their enthusiasm and knowledge of the music leaves off, their knowledge of established sophomoric radio tricks, such as the novel prank phone call, takes up.

Welcome to the jungle, indeed.
- posted by Brian J. @ 8:56 PM   0 comments