But that's the difference between then and now: the loss of proportion. They had victims galore back in 1863, but they weren't a victim culture. They had a lot of crummy decisions and bureaucratic screwups worth re-examining, but they weren't a nation that prioritized retroactive pseudo-legalistic self-flagellating vaudeville over all else. They had hellish setbacks but they didn't lose sight of the forest in order to obsess week after week on one tiny twig of one weedy little tree.

- posted by Brian J. @ 2:57 PM   0 comments

Be as informed as your listeners: Hosts should know at least as much about current events as those who are on the other end of the radio. And it doesn't take that much work.

Former Blues defenseman Tony Twist was a casualty of changes at radio station KSLG.

- posted by Brian J. @ 1:48 PM   0 comments

• It's named Smash Mouth, which describes a style of speaking that's sort of, um, colorful.
  
  
• Its first hit album was entitled Fush Yu Mang, alternately entitled on Amazon.com as Fush Yu Mang [EXPLICIT LYRICS]. Fush yu mang is a slurred pronunciation of a Nuyorican spoken unwritten mandate, if you get my drift. If you don't, you should read this blog more frequently.
  
  
• The first line of their first hit ("Walkin' on the Sun") is It ain't no joke I'd like to buy the world a toke. You know, a marijuana cigaret.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:52 PM   0 comments

The guns used by the Red Army and assorted guerrillas around the world are indeed automatic weapons, firing up to 100 rounds a minute with a single squeeze of the trigger. But the so-called AK-47s allowed before the ban were semiautomatics, which fire only once each time the trigger is pulled. They are to authentic military weapons what a beer-league softball player is to Barry Bonds.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:04 PM   0 comments

A $2 million gift isn't tempting enough to get Marquette University to change its nickname back to Warriors, but the fact that an important alumnus asked for the change during a public event is forcing the university to think about it.

Wayne Sanders, the vice chairman of the university's Board of Trustees, said at the end of the commencement address to Marquette graduates Sunday that he and another, unnamed trustee each would give $1 million to Marquette for the switch from Golden Eagles to Warriors.

School officials declined the money Monday, but they said that in coming weeks, the board will consider formally revisiting the decade-long debate.

Through These Eyes #6: The Great Mascot Controversy

In the interest of saving the university some money, I would like to make my contribution to the "Name the Mascot" competition. There's no need for them to go throwing away money to a private consultant, even though I realize they just stuck us for ten percent more for just such academic emergencies. Let that much-needed cash go to making some dean's office more competitively decorated like that of other schools.

Okay, the Native Americans got a little bent out of shape that the university used an image of a Native American for a while there. I know what great strain and emotional upset some of them must have gone through attending basketball games and seeing the mascot, even if it was a descendent of the original Native Americans. This great debate is not limited strictly to the campus. All over the country, groups of Native American are protesting the use of their heritage on athletic teams. I mean, I can understand. I abhor the New York Yankees. How dare they? So now the university needs a new, non-offensive mascot. Something that can be identified with the Warrior. I humbly submit the following.

How about a white man dressed in skins carrying a club? Think about it, a nice barbarian figure for our sporting events. No, wait. That might be deemed too something-ist for our school if we featured a White European Male mascot like that. Besides, it is not a sort of figure easily identifiable with a Warrior. We'd hate to be mistaken for the Marquette Neanderthals.

Okay, idea two. A nice knight figure. In armor. A chivalrous warrior. No, wait. That's still a European figure. Besides, some Arabic or Islamic groups might get angry because every few years a bunch of these guys would get together and try to take over the Middle East, or select parts thereof.

Okay, check this out. An African tribesman. With a spear and paint. No, can't do that. The African Americans would have the same objections as the Native Americans.

Well, how about a samurai in his battle robe and armor, helmet adorned with ox horns, quiver, gold-studded sword, his ancestral crest, the whole bit? Maybe a neat little pseudo-seppuku when the sports team is down? Oh, there's that blasted heritage argument again.

How about that lone American warrior, the cowboy? Why not, Rick Fields classifies that historical figure as a warrior in his book The Code of the Warrior. Since I'm running low on ideas, why not? A six-gun and ten gallon hat, idealizing the American spirit of independence and swift justice. Uh-oh, wait a minute. Cowboys tended to shoot Native Americans, didn't they? Maybe this version of our mascot wouldn't placate them so well....

I have to admit, I'm getting a little frustrated here. When I think of a Warrior from history, I tend to think in terms of different heritages like that, and that's already proven to be taboo. Either the Warrior was the member of a distinct ethnic group that can and will be offended, and/or they killed people of an offendable group.

I mean, that's the way I see it. Of course, that is ignoring the common denominator among all Warriors, which is some sort of hardiness and bravery, a willingness to risk their very lives in pursuit of what they thought was right, the skills of life and death intertwined into a person who would kill or die for honor and justice. The Native American Warrior did this. Maybe having a brave as our mascot is not so much a way of spitting on a race of man and saying "Nyah nyah, you injun," as it is a way of showing respect for a gallant breed of our species and the finest their culture produced.

Or, I guess we could have Patty Smythe mousse up her hair and paint her face up and start singing, "Shooting out the walls of heartache, bang-bang..." But that might get a bit expensive.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:55 PM   0 comments

A man has been charged with child abuse for not applying enough sunblock to his 12-year-old son before a day at the beach.

The boy was severely burned as a result, authorities said.

Walter McKelvie Jr., 43, of Vineland, was indicted Tuesday and charged with one count of child abuse and neglect in the July 20 incident, in which he took his mentally disabled son to the beach in Wildwood.

The son, identified only as R.M., suffered large, bleeding blisters on his back and face. Authorities were alerted by the boy's mother, who has custody of him but was not with him at the beach, according to Assistant Cape May County Prosecutor Meghan Hoerner.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:40 PM   0 comments

Democrats are playing politics with the weather reports.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:29 PM   0 comments

George W. Bush promised us a foreign policy with humility. Instead, he has brought us humiliation in the eyes of the world.

He promised to "restore honor and integrity to the White House." Instead, he has brought deep dishonor to our country and built a durable reputation as the most dishonest President since Richard Nixon.

- posted by Brian J. @ 4:55 PM   0 comments

In Elm Grove and Brookfield, so much rain fell in an eight-hour period in 1997 that it was labeled a "300-year-storm" - just about the worst thing to happen, we were led to believe, since the invention of the loincloth.

That's definitely bad - though not nearly as bad as the "500-year storm" that reportedly hit the exact same area the very next year.

Not nearly as cursed, either, as what transpired in the late-1990s in New Berlin.

Here's a real paragraph from a story about New Berlin that ran in this paper three years ago:

"Storm water management efforts were under way in New Berlin long before 100-year storms hit the city in 1997, 1998 and 2000..."

That's right. The only year between 1996 and 2001 that there was not a so-called 100-year storm in New Berlin was 1999.

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:59 AM   0 comments

If, by some quirk of fate, you run into your favorite celebrity/supermodel fantasy object, and, by some other quirk of fate, they [sic] come onto you, what would you do? What if you were in a committed relationship? Do you ask for an autograph afterwards?

When you're in the shower and you see a little hair on the tile wall, do you fill your hands with water and try to splash it off, or [sic] try to pluck it off with your fingers? Why are we so predictable?

If you ate your own foot, would you lose weight?

Do you think that the first time corn ever popped [sic] it scared the hell out of the Indians?

Why do people who use "correct grammar" sound like such dorks?

If they can make a "black box" that is so indestructible that it survives a plane crash, why don't they just make the airplane out of the same material?

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:38 PM   0 comments

Back in the 1970s, younger Americans might be surprised to learn, government bureaucrats controlled all prices in the economy. I'm not talking about the economy of the Soviet Union or Cuba--I'm talking about the economy of the United States. If a company wanted to raise its prices, it had to ask for permission from a federal agency, which didn't always agree.

The experiment was a disaster, and it cured most politicians of the urge to meddle in such matters. They learned they weren't qualified to decide the correct price of any commodity. Except one: gasoline.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:49 PM   0 comments

"I saw no weapons being used," wrote Harrison, the wife of a retired cop whose husband was in the hospital, leaving her alone that night when it happened.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:43 PM   0 comments

A BILL

To allow Congress to reverse the judgments of the United States Supreme Court.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Congressional Accountability for Judicial Activism Act of 2004'.

SEC. 2. CONGRESSIONAL REVERSAL OF SUPREME COURT JUDGMENTS.

The Congress may, if two thirds of each House agree, reverse a judgment of the United States Supreme Court--
(1) if that judgment is handed down after the date of the enactment of this Act; and
(2) to the extent that judgment concerns the constitutionality of an Act of Congress.

SEC. 3. PROCEDURE.

The procedure for reversing a judgment under section 2 shall be, as near as may be and consistent with the authority of each House of Congress to adopt its own rules of proceeding, the same as that used for considering whether or not to override a veto of legislation by the President.

SEC. 4. BASIS FOR ENACTMENT.

This Act is enacted pursuant to the power of Congress under article III, section 2, of the Constitution of the United States.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:27 PM   0 comments

US airlines have warned that the continuing sky-high price of fuel has "all but wiped out any chance of a profitable year for the industry". [Revel in the British style, gentle readers, of placing the punctuation outside the quotation marks.]

The comments of their trade body, the Air Transport Association (ATA), came after Continental Airlines became the latest carrier to raise ticket prices.

To try to ease the high price of oil, the ATA called on President George W Bush to stop stockpiling the fuel.

"We agree that the strategic reserve is an investment in the nation's future," said ATA president and chief executive James May.

"However, any investor will tell you that you buy low, sell high. Unfortunately the government is doing just the opposite."

The comments of their trade body, the Air Transport Association (ATA), came after Continental Airlines became the latest carrier to raise ticket prices.

Continental's price rises were later mirrored by United and North West.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:43 PM   0 comments

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:14 PM   0 comments

1. "M*A*S*H*" -- "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen" (Feb. 28, 1983)

We know, we know, there are lots of you out there who think the two-and-a-half-hour finale is pure genius, but we think after 10-and-a-half increasingly sentimental seasons, the still top-rated show had lost the plot -- literally. In the syrupy, self-righteous swan song, earnest Everyman surgeon Hawkeye Pierce (Alan Alda, who co-wrote and directed) suffers a nervous breakdown after witnessing a mother smother her baby on a bus. He recovers and returns to the 4077th in time for the war to end. Tears, manly hugs, and more tears build up to the big heart-tugging conclusion. As Hawkeye's helicopter takes off, he sees that best bud B.J. (Mike Farrell) has spelled out "goodbye" in stones on the ground. Someone give us a schmaltz-ectomy -- stat! Still, 106 million people tuned in for the pop-culture event (it's still the all-time ratings champ), many of whom we expect will write in to tell us just how wrong we are.

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:05 PM   0 comments

A gang of men got out of the van and threatened warehouse staff with at least one firearm and other weapons, including knives, Scotland Yard said.

The gang tried to steal the gold bullion at the warehouse and force their way into a secure area containing a large quantity of bank notes, police said.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:23 PM   0 comments

You might see these photos as evidence that we should never have been in Iraq, that we're no different than our enemy, that we should pull out now.

I'd respectfully disagree with that.

We are different. There is no moral equivalency here, despite what some politicians want you to believe.

Those Americans who committed outrages at Abu Ghraib should be sent to prison, and not only the enlisted people and the strange woman with the dog leash, but their commanders as well. Let's be clear on that. Torture and the mass murder of innocents was Saddam's policy. That is not our policy. Just as the severing of heads and putting it on video is not our policy.

As a political tactic, comparing the United States to Saddam Hussein promotes uncertainty in selected constituencies, particularly the young. It is absolutely necessary that we reject it, because it saps American confidence. It is dangerous.

There is no other option but to accomplish the mission in Iraq, to develop some stable government and turn the country over to the Iraqi people. Yes, that might mean that U.S. forces will be there for years.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:23 PM   0 comments

Black students in the St. Louis area are more likely to attend a school in a district that is virtually all black than they were in the 1960s.

Fifty years after the highest court in the land declared school segregation illegal, the region's student population as a whole has become more diverse. But still about half the area's students - white and black - attend public schools where nearly all the children look like themselves, a Post-Dispatch analysis shows.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:29 PM   0 comments

The mother of accused serial killer Maury Travis, whose bizarre hanging death in the St. Louis County Justice Center was ruled a suicide, filed a suit Friday against the county, the architects who designed the jail and the contractors who built it.

The federal suit by Sandra Travis Harden claims her son's civil rights were violated by negligence and building flaws while he was supposed to be on a suicide watch after his arrest in June 2002 on federal charges involving two kidnappings.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:21 PM   1 comments

With a week of retrospective, that seems to have played out to a "T" in the Blues' nixing Fox Sports Net's desire to keep Ken Wilson, who had broadcast Blues games for a record-tying 20 full seasons.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:18 PM   0 comments

John Kerry yesterday said he'll back President Bush's call for $25 billion in extra funds to support U.S. troops in Iraq, after taking lots of heat for voting against $87 billion for the troops last fall.

"The situation in Iraq has deteriorated far beyond what the [Bush] administration anticipated. This money is urgently needed and it is completely focused on the needs of our troops," Kerry said in a statement.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:14 PM   0 comments

Microsoft is objecting to the size of legal bills submitted by lawyers who brought an anti-trust case in California against the software giant.

Microsoft told a California court that consumers could suffer if it has to pay the full $258m ('/£146.7m) bill.

The legal costs are part of Microsoft's settlement for over-charging consumers buying its software in California.

"I wouldn't have put it in if I didn't think we earned it," said Eugene Crew, the lead attorney against Microsoft.

"Somebody ends up paying for this," said Microsoft attorney Robert Rosenfeld. "These large fee awards get passed on to consumers."

Do they really understand why there are laws?"

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:52 AM   0 comments

Sen. John F. Kerry said Friday that despite public declarations from France and other European countries that they would not send troops to Iraq, there were indications some of the nations would be willing to change course with the right diplomatic effort.

"There are senators and … diplomats who have had conversations with other folks that I think indicate that — given the right equation, given the right statesmanship and leadership — it is possible to have a very different level of participation," Kerry said Friday at his Washington campaign headquarters.

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:17 AM   0 comments

The rise of terrorism and so-called asymmetric warfare only reinforces the wisdom of making distinctions between legitimate POWs and unlawful combatants.

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

House Bill 1626, also known as the “Baggy Pants Bill” states: “It shall be unlawful for any person to appear in public wearing his pants below his waist and thereby exposing his skin or intimate clothing.”

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:19 PM   0 comments

Various sources last week said the photos displayed by Turner came from a pornography website, and they may well have, although I could not trace it to the source.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:04 PM   0 comments

Cuban President Fidel Castro launched an immense anti-American protest on Friday with denunciations and ridicule of President Bush, saying the U.S. leader was fraudulently elected and trying to impose "world tyranny."

The Cuban leader led a sea of Cubans past the U.S. diplomatic mission here on the oceanfront Malecon Boulevard in a demonstration organized by the communist government against new U.S. measures aimed at squeezing the island's economy and pushing out Castro.

The crowd chanted "Free Cuba! Fascist Bush!"

- posted by Brian J. @ 4:29 PM   0 comments

Bush's gains were notably big in the 17 so-called battleground states, those that were decided by a close margin in 2000 and promise to be close again this fall.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:44 PM   0 comments

How do we account for the continued strength of President Bush in the polls, relative to his presumptive Democratic opponent, despite the stream of bad news from Iraq? Much of the journalistic and intellectual establishment is plainly baffled …and dismayed. The answer is not that complex: the public, unlike the class which defines itself as living the life of the mind, understands that we are at war, a war in which our very survival is at stake. This is a gut-level cognition.

Those who pride themselves on their ability to spin chains of logical reasoning, and sometimes arrive at a counter-intuitive conclusion, instinctively recoil from the obvious lesson, especially when it validates the positions of their political opponents. For them, the battle against the hated Bush is more important than the battle against Islamicist terror. Theories which blame the West as the source of all evil take precedence over actual evil, stariung them in the face.

Major news media are the same as reality television.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:10 PM   0 comments

• Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times:
  
  
  Conservative commentators who seized on this tragedy to complain that the so-called liberal media was more interested in abused Iraqi prisoners than a murdered American civilian are either lying or stupid.
  
  
  
• Sara Shipley, St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
  
  
  The Howard Bend Levee District is nearly finished with a $25 million upgrade designed to protect against a so-called 500-year flood, or one that has a 1 in 500 chance of happening in any given year.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:36 PM   0 comments

You go first. In a recent column you brought out the big guns, God and the Vatican, to condemn Rush Limbaugh for his support of the troops in the so-called Iraqi prisoner abuse. Who you gonna call on now to comment on the televised beheading of an American civilian -- the liberal high authority Michael "Freaky" Moore? Let's just see if this cold-blooded murder gets as much air time from the media as the naked butts of Iraqi prisoners.

Alberta Dabrowsky, Lake Zurich

The entire world should be condemning that horrific, cowardly murder. As for press coverage: the beheading of the American civilian is a huge story and was treated as such. Conservative commentators who seized on this tragedy to complain that the so-called liberal media was more interested in abused Iraqi prisoners than a murdered American civilian are either lying or stupid.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:14 PM   0 comments

• Because the Port of Newark is an easy target:
  
  
  He [Tony Soprano] comes across a documentary about the potential use by terrorists of the nearby Port of Newark. The Port of Newark, the biggest port on the eastern seaboard, receives millions of ship containers each year; the feds say they can check only 2%; terrorists could easily smuggle in a dirty nuke.
  
  Tony becomes alarmed. He knows Port Newark. The mob is there, his people are there. It is corrupt, lazy, badly run. Suddenly he realizes there's nothing between his home and kaboom but a chain-link fence and a mall.
  
  
  
• Because the Port of Newark is an attractive target:
  
  
  Port Newark is just beyond the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. A hit on Newark would cause panic in al Qaeda's great target, New York--stock market crash, terror in the streets. A hit on Port Newark would deal a blow rich in practical and symbolic terms.
  
  
  
• Because New Jersey is becoming the center, in America, of the movement for cloning:
  
  
  But there's more and for me it's more central, and the reason my pings began. New Jersey is becoming the center, in America, of the movement for cloning. Its governor just signed the most liberal cloning bill in the United States. There is money in cloning research, and status: We're the coming intellectual center of science! We're not just the Meadowlands and the mob, we're Princeton and Einstein! There is greater suburban affluence to be gained, and higher tax revenues for politicians to spend on community centers built through no-bid contracts by big contributors. The Robert Torricelli Psychotherapy Institute for the Differently Abled. The Jim McGreevey Carpal Tunnel Trauma Research Facility.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:56 PM   0 comments

Some newcomers are planning to move to Chicago, and the invasion sounds as though it will be a grim affair. "They're a negative for the city," said one fearful alderman. They're guilty of "treating people wrong," said an angry minister. They exploit a "slave mentality," charged another clergyman.

You'd think Genghis Khan was riding in our direction, with his marauding hordes in tow. In fact, the would-be migrants are from Wal-Mart, whose chief crime is to become one of the most successful companies in American history. All the giant retailer is threatening to bring is a few hundred jobs and a lot of inexpensive products. But critics want the City Council to block the project.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:51 PM   0 comments

• "Love is a Battlefield" by Pat Benetar. The 13 year old in 1987 knows this song by heart. This song was released in 1983 on Live From Earth. It was a very big deal back then, but by 1987, it wasn't popular.
  
  
• "Thriller" by Michael Jackson. Again, since this album was released in 1982, when the main character would have been 8 years old. By 1987, Bad had been released, redefining Michael Jackson as "tougher" or something. Regardless, the youth of 1987 thought Michael Jackson was gay, werd, and no one would have thought to imitate the dance from the video, which was not getting that much airplay on MTV in 1987.
  
  
• Worst of all, the main character has a crush on Rick Springfield, and she apparently kisses her middle school love interest to the song "Jessie's Girl", which came from 1981's Working Class Dog and didn't get airplay that a person born in 1974 would have remembered until the 1980s stations started cropping up around the turn of the century.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:20 PM   0 comments

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry warned his political opponents on Monday against attacking his outspoken wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, saying, "They're going to have to go through me."

- posted by Brian J. @ 3:56 PM   0 comments

Commercials featuring topless models with buff bodies and unattainable physiques may make the viewers feel depressed and unhappy with their bodies.

Sound familiar? It is, but this time it's the men's turn to feel insecure.

"The level of muscularity and attractiveness that are idealized in the media often are not attainable for the average man," says researcher Stacey Tantleff-Dunn, professor of psychology at the University of Central Florida. "Men see more of a discrepancy between how they want to look, or think they need to look, and the image they see in the mirror. Such discrepancies can cause the dissatisfaction and low self-esteem that lead to extreme and often unhealthy actions, such as eating disorders, exercising too much, and steroid abuse."

- posted by Brian J. @ 2:59 PM   0 comments

Debbie Williams, a fortune teller, was caught faking a fall in aisle nine of a New York City grocery store. Williams — who is also a fortune teller — knew she was going to fall before she walked into the store.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:50 PM   0 comments

The federal government should give New Yorkers unused housing subsidies earmarked for other states, Sen. Charles Schumer said yesterday.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:40 PM   0 comments

The media coverage of the violations of American law against Iraqi prisoners is in peril of setting a dangerous double standard for America and the Arab world. The administration must be very careful in explaining how we feel and what we will do. Otherwise our enemies will use our own words as an excuse to exploit this double standard.

To be clear, a very small number of Americans did a terrible thing at Abu Ghraib. And because we live under the rule of law, and we take protecting the Constitution seriously, the accused will be investigated and, when guilty, punished. The incidents themselves are to be condemned.

Some have called for Donald Rumsfeld to resign. However, he has led the process of exposing the wrongdoing and investigating the charges. Moreover, he will see to it that the accused get a fair and honest trial, in which there is a presumption of innocence until guilt is proved and the guilty are punished. That due process is something we as Americans should be proud of, and unequivocal about. In view of Mr. Rumsfeld's significant contribution to our security, this incident will be but a footnote.

Explaining our anger at these misdeeds and our determination to punish the wrongdoers is appropriate. Appearing overly contrite or overly apologetic, however, will be a big mistake.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:36 PM   0 comments

• (No) Opponents of new casino tell tales of addiction's toll
  
  Looking back, Connie realizes she should have seen the problem. Her family members always wanted her to take a separate car to the casinos - they knew she would want to leave long before they did.
  
  She should have known the $50 here, $100 there that they borrowed was not a coincidence. She had lost a few bucks playing bingo before, she knew grocery bills were hard to cover sometimes. No big deal. They always paid her back.
  
  Had she been asked three years ago to vote on a new casino in Lemay, where she lives, "heck, yes, I was all for it," said Connie.
  
  The loan requests grew larger and more frequent.
  
  "They ran themselves low on one person, and they couldn't go to them anymore, so they would start on other people, and pretty soon, I realized they were all hitting on me," Connie said of her family members.
  
  None of these relatives had gambling problems before casinos came to the St. Louis area. They had never visited Las Vegas. There was a history of alcoholism in the family, and Connie smoked through three pregnancies before she finally quit.
  
  "I know about addiction," she says.
  
  
  So we start with an anecdotal lead that, I guess, will support the argument that government should pad the harsh walls of reality to make it safe for the least responsible or intelligent members of society, because if they can, stupid people will do stupid things.
  
  
• (Yes) Supporters for new casino see cash for education
  
  Last week, Hancock High School Principal Jason Naucke bluntly told his students that if they even considering drinking, don't bother showing up for the prom. Fifth graders got a one-hour lesson from a police officer about the consequences of joining a gang, the 15th week of a 17-week course urging them to reject drugs and violence.
  
  Just another week in the "values" curriculum at Hancock Place School District, while the district's superintendent was pushing for a casino to come to the neighborhood.
  
  A casino means money, and Superintendent Ed Stewart hasn't seen enough of that.
  
  
  A new "casino" would mean "tax revenue" that "scare-quoted" "educators" could [Please punch up with use of term so-called. --Ed.] use in promoting "values" in their so-called curricula, and the unintelligent educators "educators" don't capture the "irony" of raising money from gambling while promoting other "values" (which are obviously "scare-quoted" because anything valued by someone other than the journalist is "suspect"). Thus begins the story favoring the casino.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:26 PM   0 comments

Perhaps the only wild creatures Melody Noel studied in law school were F. Lee Bailey and Alan Dershowitz. But today, Noel is an expert on penguins, cheetahs and addaxes.

"Farmers in Botswana are shooting cheetahs because they eat their livestock," Noel said. "It's going to take some creative solutions and some time to work through the problem."

Noel has no background in biology, but she is married to St. Louis Zoo president Jeffrey Bonner. And anyone who lives in Bonner's world - whether for two decades, like Noel, or two years, like the Zoo's 1,000 employees - invariably adopts his passions.

"I am a perfect example of a convert," said Noel, who practices domestic law. "These are not things I thought about before, but he knows how to get people fired up."

Now Bonner wants to convert St. Louisans and one of the city's most beloved institutions. Soon, he promises, visitors will see a new sort of St. Louis Zoo, one that confronts the destruction of the wild, the slaughter of endangered species and the hard choices the public must face if it wants to change the world. This new Zoo that Bonner envisions looks a lot like the old one: The train still runs, sea lions still flip for fish and Raja still roams the sprawling River's Edge. But with the fun comes a sober message of conservation and responsibility.

"What we have failed to do is really show people the world around us. In Africa, the loggers are putting in the roads, and the hunters go in with their AK-47s and slaughter every animal they see.

To Bonner, who studied anthropology, the human element matters most.

"The environment is never the problem. It's the people that are the problem - always the people," he said.

"Conservation ultimately requires compromise," Bonner said. "I think people struggle with that all of the time, but if you look at the big picture, there are ways of balancing your lifestyle with the good you do."

In Bonner's case, he drives a sport utility vehicle, eats meat and wears leather shoes.

Jerry Borin, director of the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, calls Bonner "a big-picture person."

"He is always two or three steps ahead but he brings people along," Borin said. "That's important in the zoo community. We are not that large of an industry, and by nature we have to cooperate."

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:49 AM   0 comments

​ ​​​​Smoking is a filthy habit. It causes bad breath. It stains the fingers and the teeth. It rots the lungs and it takes the breath away. Spend a day in any doctor's office and you can quickly spot the long time smokers, such is its impact on the body. And death by tobacco is a truly horrible death, with the final days spent gasping for breath and drowning in ones own secretions while the doctors look on helplessly.

And yet, as loathsome as smoking is, it's hard not to feel sorry for smokers. Every morning I pass small clusters of them in front of the hospital, just around the corner from the "No Smoking" sign, like high school hoodlums who smoke just a step away from school property. Some of them are hospital employees, puffing off job stress during their breaks. Others are patients, with nothing but flimsy hospital gowns and robes to protect them against the elements while they seek solace in tobacco. It seems cruel to make them smoke outside. The hospital has a special room for prayer. Couldn't they have a special room for smoking?

But then, the world has become a cruel place for smokers. Not only must they huddle outside at work to indulge, they increasingly must also huddle outside when they're enjoying a night on the town. Over a hundred cities in the U.S. have banned smoking in public places such as bars and nightclubs. Last month, Ireland banned smoking in pubs. Now Scotland is under pressure to do the same, and the EU is flirting with its own ban.

The rationale for these bans is that smoking in public is not only a nuisance for non-smokers, but a health threat. While it's true that an asthmatic non-smoker may have problems working or relaxing in a smokey bar, anti-smoking advocates have lately drastically stepped up their claims regarding the dangers of second hand smoke. A CDC official, writing in the British Medical Journal warned people with heart disease to avoid all buildings that allowed any smoking, claiming that just thirty minutes of inhaling second hand smoke could cause heart attacks. Apparently, even miniscule amounts of tobacco smoke can turn your coronary arteries from this into this.

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:03 PM   0 comments

• Everyday Obstruction: The government finds a new way to nail old tax evaders
  How prosecutors nail people, like Martha Stewart, Frank Quattrone, and Jayson Williams with obstruction when they cannot make a case for an actual, you know, crime.
  
  
• Zero to Life: The injustice of white-collar sentencing rules
  How a "fraud" that causes Microsoft stock price to fall less than a nickel could cost the perpetrator life in prison.

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:59 PM   0 comments

• p11:
  It's dark inside arcades and video game centers, womblike, comforting, exciting. Lights flash and flicker seductively in many colors from strange and alluring sources. Sounds of battle beckon the players to death-defying heroism, courageous exploits hardly possible in the ordinary worlds of school and home, and hours and hours of fun!
  Jeez, man, I'll admit my mother smoked cigarettes while I was gestating, so I remember the womb as dark, soft, and warm (or so I remmeber through the recovered memories). What was your mother smoking to make her womb like a freaking video arcade while you were gestating?
  
  
• In a section called "Tricks of the Trade":
  A distributors' [sic, and from a TEACHER no less] problem that makers assist in solving is "burn-out" among players who become tired of playing the same games in the same places. One tick the markers use is to provide distributors with decals and pop-in microchips; the decals slide under the tabletop on the front of the machine, making it look like an entirely new machine, and the exchange of microchips changes the way the machine plays in a way so the playes believe it is a new game.
  You heard it here first. JAMMA is a trick! played upon poor, unsuspecting quarter-thieving, ganja-smoking teens. Except swapping the boards (not just the chips, brother) does make a new game. Of course, Beamer's technical comprehension is limited.
  
  
• p67, introduction to the chapter "Do Video Games Harm Anyone?"
  Perceptions of experiences are more important than the experiences themselves. There are people who can find joy hidden in even the most tragic situation, and there are others who cannot be satisfied or made happy no matter what their experience of joy. We see ourselves and our experiences uniquely, and "real facts" are distorted and shaped and changed by any number of factors--how we feel about ourselves, our memory of past experiences, and our expectations of a situation.
  Just put down the epistemology and back slowly away before you harm yourself and others. "Perceptions of experiences are more important than the experiences themselves"? Jeez, whatever your mother was smoking must have been potent.
  
  
• p135, in "Appendix B: How the Games Work":
  Home-delivery systems have been heralded as the "coming thing." Promoters say that soon (even now in some areas) it will be possible for you to shop for groceries or any other product from your home.
  Well, it took a couple years, by Cosmo and Webvan took right care of that. Note to younger readers: In the later part of the last century, two Internet companies called Cosmo and Webvan got lots of venture capital to lose trying to do just that. "Even now in some areas" would take eighteen years from Beamer's prognostication to be proven unready. Cripes, it's 2004, and I have to explain Webvan.
  
  
• p136, the real pain sets in when Beamer describes how arcade games are programmed in Basic [sic] where a pyxel [sic] is manipulated and a byte is 1000 [sic] bits and wherein
  Two other terms now come into play, and both refer to program commands in response to a player's action. The first term is "poke." Poke is a command meaning "go to" some pyxel or matrix on the screen. When a player fires the cannons or lasers of his spaceship to destroy an asteroid or a space invader, the microprocessor understands only "Poke." On a microchip, an impulse flashes toward a number of pyxels in a direct line (a line that appears direct on the screen but actually is moving diagonally or slantwise across tiny dots) toward the edge of the screen.
  The second term is "peek." It is a command meaning "look ahead." The microprocessor is asking a microchip to look ahead of the "poke" command to see if there is anything along the line of "poke." If there is, then another subprogram goes into operation: a collision occurs, an invader is blown up, lights flash, sound blares.
  In Beamer's world, upright arcade games are written in mangled Commodore BASIC 2.0. I'd weep for Babylon, too, if I were projecting the future across these flawed sightlines.

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:59 PM   0 comments

The president of the United States of America assured the rest of the world Wednesday that images of prisoners in Iraq being mistreated by their American captors were just an aberration.

"People in Iraq must understand that I view those practices as abhorrent," Bush said on Arab television, referring to alleged abuse of prisoners by the U.S. military at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.

"They must also understand that what took place in that prison does not represent the America that I know."

Maybe he ought to tell it to Curtis Harris, a Milwaukee man in danger of never walking again after an encounter with Milwaukee police officers last December.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:03 PM   0 comments

The hot-air balloon was too low, much too low. A mountain loomed ahead, its granite wall reaching out to smash the fragile basket. Daniele De Francesco had only seconds to react. So De Francesco did the only thing he could do. He pedaled faster.

It worked. On the TV screen in front of him, the balloon slowly rose, clearing the peak with room to spare. De Francesco even got a couple of bonuses. He snared a floating gold coin worth 50 points, as well as a vigorous cardiovascular workout.

As a 2000 graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, De Francesco still has use of the school's Zesiger Sports and Fitness Center. That's why he's one of the test subjects for an MIT project that merges video gaming with physical fitness.

It's called CycleScore, and it's a recumbent bicycle connected to a personal computer programmed with a simple, engaging game. CycleScore transforms the bike's pedals and handlebars into game controllers, and offers a game program that rewards steady effort and the occasional burst of speed. There's even a touch of the shoot-'em-up, as the balloonist can fire missiles at passing targets for extra points. The idea is to create a system so interesting and enjoyable that people will forget they're sweating.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:39 PM   0 comments

• Official Site: Sledge Hammer Online
  
  
• The Sledge Hammer! Arsenal

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:05 PM   0 comments

Lynn Faulkner, his daughter, Ashley, and their neighbor, Linda Prince, eagerly waited to shake the president's hand Tuesday at the Golden Lamb Inn. He worked the line at a steady campaign pace, smiling, nodding and signing autographs until Prince spoke:

"This girl lost her mom in the World Trade Center on 9-11."

Bush stopped and turned back.

"He changed from being the leader of the free world to being a father, a husband and a man," Faulkner said. "He looked right at her and said, 'How are you doing?' He reached out with his hand and pulled her into his chest."

Faulkner snapped one frame with his camera.

"I could hear her say, 'I'm OK,' " he said. "That's more emotion than she has shown in 21/2 years. Then he said, 'I can see you have a father who loves you very much.' "

"And I said, 'I do, Mr. President, but I miss her mother every day.' It was a special moment."

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:43 PM   0 comments

I never really loved R.E.M., because I felt as if I was supposed to love it. C'mon! The guys are brainy-looking, and sometimes their lyrics make Elvis Costello's opaque blocks of text look as clear as an Irving Berlin chorus -- heck, man, you're in COLLEGE! You HAVE to love R.E.M.! It's this or Ratt! Fine. I liked them, but never loved them. Example: "End of the World As We Know It" -- it's Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" for vegan guys with goatees.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:05 PM   0 comments

I've never stolen any hotel shampoo because of course I always wash my hair with Guinness and condition it with Harp. It's been a family tradition since 1917.

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:55 PM   0 comments

In 1999, Robert Bowers, a buyer for the Office of Administration, signed a contract on behalf of the state with Environmental Systems Products, a Connecticut-based company that runs the 15 inspection stations in Missouri. The company is the largest provider of emissions tests in the world.

Its contract runs through August 2007. Ending it early could mean the state would have to refund $40 million to company.

With a general fund that already faces shortfalls, that could mean the death of legislation that narrowly won first-round approval in the Missouri House on Monday.

The state would also lose the $2.50 fee it collects from each $24 inspection if it ends the program. That would mean about $600,000 a year in lost revenue.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:37 PM   0 comments

Whether becoming your mother thrills you or terrifies you, it's likely you'll find something to laugh about in artist Anne Taintor's new collection of collages in "I'm Becoming My Mother" (Chronicle Books, 112 pages, $12.95). Taintor takes images that promote the domestic ideals of the early 1950s and slaps one-liners - often hilarious, always unexpected - on them.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:22 PM   0 comments

My room at the David Intercontinental looked down on the beach. The first night I couldn't sleep, so went downstairs to slog through the Mediterranean and join what looked like about 10,000 people partying on the sand. I expected young adults dancing the hora. What I found were high school students, some falling-down drunk, clutching tequila bottles. I tried assessing the mood of Israeli youth, which seems to have absorbed our core American values. "I want to be a star!'' exuded Tal Zolti, 16. Their English was good, but I started feeling like Bob Greene crashing the junior prom, and after one kid called me "Grandpa'' I decided it was time to head back upstairs.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:04 PM   0 comments

That's what happened recently when Chicago's Jennifer Hudson and two other young black women finished in the bottom three in viewer voting, while that Doogie Howser-lookin' 16-year-old, John Stevens, was among the top vote-getters, despite the fact that he CANNOT SING A LICK. (To the shock of the judges and anyone with working ears, Hudson was sent home, which turned out to be a great career break. You don't get to read a Top Ten List on "Late Show With David Letterman" unless you're making real news.)

How could this happen? How could arguably the three most talented performers finish with the three worst vote totals? Hmmm, could it have something to do with the fact that they're black?

A lot of people, including Elton John, seemed to think so.

I thought the cries of racism in the wake of Hudson's ouster were emotionally cheap and intellectually lazy. (Personally, I was glad to see Stevens go because I'm a rabid anti-schmaltz-ite.) To slap the "racist" tag on millions of people because they preferred a hokey teen-boy singer to some over-emoting junior divas is quite a leap. Maybe there are just a lot of Nebraska grandmas and New York teenyboppers who voted for Stevens, while fans of the Bottom Three felt so secure about their favorites that they didn't bother to vote. I mean, if the vote two weeks ago is proof that America is racist, then last week's vote means America has learned its lesson, and isn't racist any more. Right?

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:34 PM   0 comments

Bill sponsor Rep. Jim Lembke, R-south St. Louis County, said the testing is unnecessary, unpopular and a burden to the elderly and poor. He said the program should be eliminated because 92 percent of all vehicles pass the test and the biggest polluters - motorcycles and many trucks - are exempt from the law.

Rep. Barbara Fraser, D-University City, said ending the clean-air testing could exacerbate the symptoms of allergy sufferers and would mean the loss of 250 jobs.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:25 PM   0 comments

The LA Times is reporting that presidential campaign spending in this cycle may exceed $1 billllllion dollars. (Thank God we have campaign finance reform.)

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:13 PM   0 comments

Attached is a picture of Mike McNaughton. He stepped on a landmine in Afghanistan Christmas 2002. President Bush came to visit the wounded in the hospital. He told Mike that when he could run a mile, that they would go on a run together. True to his word, he called Mike every month or so to see how he was doing. Well, last week they went on the run, 1 mile with the president. Not something you'll see in the news, but seeing the president taking the time to say thank you to the wounded and to give hope to one of my best friends was one of the greatest/best things I have seen in my life. It almost sounds like a corny email chain letter, but God bless him.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:52 PM   0 comments

"For all of its history, ADL has been self-asked to live up to one of the oldest most fundamental principles of civilization. It is actually one of the Commandments as we know: 'Love your neighbor.' And all of you are yourselves showing courage, because it can be bitter, it is tough. Bigotry, hatred, fear, drive people to do things that are inexplicable, and it is hard in any community to stand up against that, but it is vital."

John Kerry --connecting again with yet another audience. ADL is a largely Jewish organization, which is not likely to recognize John Kerry's "commandment" as one of the big 10.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:38 PM   0 comments

Kerry's verbal meanderings are partly a reflection of a mind that sees complexity in almost every issue. The son of a diplomat, educated partly in boarding schools in Europe, Kerry learned to look at current affairs from multiple perspectives. Says an adviser: "It's not like he's trying to shade the truth. He overintellectualizes his explanations." Asked by TIME in a March interview whether the Iraq war would be worth the costs if no weapons of mass destruction were ever found, Kerry replied, "No, I think you can still — wait, no. You can't — that's not a fair question. You can wind up successful in transforming Iraq and changing the dynamics, and that may make it worth it, but that doesn't mean [transforming Iraq] was the cause [that provided the] legitimacy to go." Kerry may in fact be right when he argues that a successful outcome does not justify an illegitimate war, but a listener has to work hard to understand his point.

"If you look at his public career, it's been just the opposite. He's not been unclear on the environment, on labor and education issues," says former Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey. "His reputation in the Senate is that you can trust his word. If he believes in something, he'll fight for it."

• Kerry's not been unclear.
  This does not say that he has been clear. Just that he is not unclear.
  
  
• His reputation ... is that you can trust his word.
  This does not say that you can trust John Kerry's word. This says his reputation is that you can trust his word. He's got Senate cred, werd.
  
  
• If he believes in something, he'll fight for it.
  This does not address whether Kerry says what he believes, nor whether he will fight for what he says he'll fight for, or anything, really.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:56 PM   0 comments

High gas prices are forcing families to shop in cut-rate grocery stores, a food industry analysis finds.

"High oil prices, both at the pump and for home heating, depress consumers' ability to spend more," said a report by the Food Marketing Institute released at its annual trade show in Chicago yesterday.

"It is not surprising that more shoppers are buying food today in discount stores and other low-price venues than ever before," the study said.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:29 PM   0 comments

Yet another theory is dumping on St. Louis' ability to create jobs, bashing the region and others like it on the most unlikely of economic measures: its lack of gays and bohemians.

It's an argument waged by author Richard Florida, and it has set off a firestorm of debate about what makes up a vibrant economy.

• Protection from nature and enemies. Better police coverage, fire protection, and better medical care than the small towns or rural areas.
  
  
• Jobs. A livelihood that does not involve slaughtering your own pigs or scratching dirt.
  
  
• Infrastructure. Since one's not slaughtering one's one pigs, one would prefer to not have to drive into the next town to visit the bazaar. One would also like roads, commerce, schools for the children, and other amenities that one cannot find in the wilderness.
  
  

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:15 PM   0 comments

A 72-year streak links the victory or defeat of the Washington Redskins on the eve of election day with the presidential race. If the Redskins go down to defeat or tie, the sitting president?s party loses the White House.

***

The Redskins? performance has aligned with the presidential outcome in the last 18 elections ? a probability of 1 in 263.5 million, according to Dave Dolan, an assistant professor of statistics at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

I don't know what to make of this, because the professor is an academic, so he probably wants the Democrats to win, and he's from Green Bay, so he probably wants the Green Bay Packers to win when they play the Redskins on October 31 (Schedule).

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:44 PM   0 comments

9. Kim Basinger and Angelina Jolie -- Showed society that girls with unsightly, overweight lips can lead normal, healthy lives.

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:16 PM   0 comments

Google denies FBI link to Gmail
Google on Thursday denied that it has had any contact with the FBI regarding the design of its Gmail Web e-mail service. The search firm's denial came after the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the FBI seeking information about whether the bureau was considering the "possible use of Google's Gmail service for law enforcement and intelligence investigations." EPIC, which gave an award last week to a California state senator who is trying to ban Gmail, announced the request immediately after Google said it was filing for an initial public offering.

Critics immediately criticized EPIC's request as a publicity stunt and because the nonprofit likened Google's Web-based e-mail service to the FBI's controversial Carnivore wiretapping utility and the Pentagon's discontinued "Orwellian Total Information Awareness program." EPIC's request also asked whether Google had discussed licensing its search technology, in use by customers in the private sector, to the FBI "to further law enforcement investigations or intelligence gathering activities." Google spokesman Nathan Tyler replied: "I cannot confirm whether they're using our technology."
April 29, 2004 

- posted by Brian J. @ 4:08 PM   0 comments

A judge gave a Tennessee zoo six months to convince him that an African elephant named Ruby is adapting well to her new home after being separated from a pachyderm friend in Los Angeles last year.

Judge George Wu ordered the report from the Knoxville Zoo on Thursday during a hearing in a lawsuit that seeks to return Ruby to the Los Angeles Zoo.

- posted by Brian J. @ 4:05 PM   0 comments