Shot In The Dark - Politics and Current Events in Minnesota and Beyond

Saturday, May 24, 2003

The Usual Suspects - To help you recognize them, Shot In The Dark Press has just released this set of DFL Playing Cards.

Suitable only for very high-stakes gaming!

And I have no idea what's with the duplicate post below - I only know I can't seem to get rid of it...
posted by Mitch Berg 5/24/2003 09:02:10 PM

The Usual Suspects - To help you recognize the state DFL's social, media, national and state leadership, Shot In The Dark Press has released this set of posted by Mitch Berg 5/24/2003 09:00:00 PM

Friday, May 23, 2003

Get Your Own Material - The Democrats now have their own playing cards.

I see I didn't make the, er, cut.

Pffft. First I'm not in the "Northern Alliance of Blogs", and now this. It's enough to make me want to take the weekend off.

Hmmm - maybe I'll do one for the DFL...

Hey...
posted by Mitch Berg 5/23/2003 06:47:43 PM

Those Edina Lutherans - Jeff Fecke wrote about my piece from the other day about the Edina Lutherans' lawsuit against the Minnesota Personal Protection Act. His permalinks are just as hosed as mine are, so scroll down if you have to (as this is written, it's still his top posting).

Jeff makes some decent points, regarding the potentially valid property rights concerns a church might have, requiring them to allow guns in their parking lot (albeit stored). He's right, to some extent - infringing property rights is a slippery slope. But we've slid a lot farther down it than that already; that same church must reserve parking spaces and build accomodations for handicapped people that may never attend the church.

But, as a small-"l"-big-"c" libertarian Conservative, I fundamentally agree with Jeff's premise - property rights are certainly vital. The church's biggest kvetch (at least in terms of stated goals) is that they aren't allowed to bar firearms in their *parking lot*. So the question is - do we allow churches to specify the parking lot as a *storage space* under limited, prodential circumstances, as a compromise between the rights of the church and of the legal, law-abiding permit-holder, or do you give the church absolute right to determine what people will bring into a peripheral part of the property (the parking lot) ? Should they also have the right to search cars for guns?

Then there's the obvious question - if a church believes that it's above state law regarding concealed firearms, what about when a church wants to eliminate Handicapped Parking? Or allow only Hispanics to apply for the church secretary gig? Or not pay the janitor's unemployment taxes? If a church can declare that their religious freedom trumps THOSE laws, too?

Here's another part of Jeff's post I wanted to comment on:
A failure of the gun law is that it turns the tables on private actors; it declares the right to carry a concealed weapon to be superior to the right to bar such weapons from your own property. It sets limits on what an organization can do to ban weapons, and limits where weapons can be banned.
I disagree - it doesn't declare the right to carry (in a legally-prescribed manner) trumps other rights. Rather, the law enumerates the extent to which other people can impinge on that right.

Finally - I don't care if a church wants to make its property, parking lot included, a no-gun zone. I won't be there, not willingly. But if I or any member of my family is on those premises, and his harmed as a result of a crime that might have been prevented or halted by a law-abiding citizen with a gun, rest assured - I WILL sue the church, and each and every member of the church's governing body, for every dime they have and will ever make.

I'll give it to other churches and charities, of course. Ones that respect the rights, intelligence and integrity of the law-abiding citizen.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/23/2003 01:00:13 PM

Turn Your Back, Gonna Pay You Back, Last Call - Minnesota bars will be able to stay open until 2AMunder a new agreement among legislators.

The deal will charge bars a fee based on projected sales, which will go toward funding 50 new Highway Patrol officers:
About two-thirds of bars statewide are expected to take advantage of the new closing time, including nearly all of the 2,000 largest ones.

The new bar fees, plus $1 million a year in federal funding, will also finance a small step-up in liquor control, Pawlenty said. He defended the charges as user fees because they will be spent on efforts that relate "very directly to the impact" of more time for drinking.

He also said that a University of Minnesota study of later bar hours in several other states showed mixed results for public safety.

"In my judgment," he said, "this will not make public safety dramatically worse." As a legislator, he had opposed a 2 a.m. close.
Here's the part where it all disconnects for me: if the impetus behind bar closing time laws is neo-temperance moralizing, they should have closed the bars earlier. If the impetus is public safety...

...then what (short of another prohibition) would be more logical than abolishing closing times completely? The most dangerous time to be on the roads is during bar rush, when taverns flush thousands of toxically inebriated drivers out onto the roads. Why not instead let bars stay open all night, to spread the efflux of bombed drivers onto the roads and, above all, not force a mass of drunks out onto the roads simultaneously?

If, on the other hand, the goal is to raise money for the state, in terms of fines - then this law is perfect. Give drunks another hour to get those last two drinks down the hatch, and make the bars (and, indirectly, the drunks themselves) pay for the cops that'll be hauling them into the pokey and on their way toward a multi-thousand-dollar fine?

The later closing time is no biggie to me - I don't think I've closed down a bar more than once or twice in the last ten years, and I usually regretted it the next morning. But I'd love to know the motivation, here...
posted by Mitch Berg 5/23/2003 10:40:46 AM

Radio Nights (and Weekends) - As noted in my article on Monday about local talk radio, I only covered mainstream talk shows between 6AM and 9ish PM. I had several reasons for this: I don't listen to a whole lot of weekend or overnight radio, plus the piece I wrote was plenty big enough already, plus there's a dizzying variety of shows available on the weekends, and I was focusing on current-events/political talk shows on mainstream stations.

But as the Fraters noted, I did omit quite a swathe of talk radio by sticking to weekday prime-time stuff. So I'll set that all straight right now:

Laura Ingraham(WWTC (Various Times) ) - I really can't criticize Ingraham - and it's only partly because of her impeccable conservative credentials and incisive logic. Oh, her delivery sounds like a barely-reconstructed Valley Girl, and her show has a sort of herky-jerky quality to it (careening between guests, callers and regular bits with little apparent rhyme or reason), and her producer/on-air sidekick is a fairly irritating presence. But if I do criticize her, it'd jeopardize my chance of ever getting a date with her, and that would not do.
Dave Thompson (KSTP (Weekend Afternoons) ) - In my original piece, I wrote that Jason Lewis was the host I wanted to be when I grew up. Dave Thompson, on the other hand, was the host I actually was. I like Dave's show - he's reasonable without being MPR-fodder, funny without distracting, conservative without beating anyone over the head with it. He's a smart, solid, meat 'n potatoes conservative talk show host, a perfect antidote to accidental Michael ~~Weiner~~ Savage exposure. Back in 1987, Lileks wrote a piece about teh KSTP-AM lineup of the day, in which he referred to me as "...an unreconstructed rock-and-roller and painfully polite man...". Well, Thompon's not painfully polite, but you get the idea.
Bob Davis ((KSTP, Weeknights 10-12 )) - If Mischke is like dropping acid, Davis is like snorting coke. It's fast. It's furious. Jokes seem funnier, ups seem uppier, lags seem laggier, and eventually everything gets sorta disjointed. Which, if snorting coke or listening to middlin' conservatism through a heavy-metal filter is what you're looking for, is perfectly fine!

Dark Star ((WCCO, Weeknights 9-12) ) - Star got where he is by being the most skilled, talented and relentless butt-kisser in radio history. Some might take that as a slam - it's not, I swear. Dark Star's rise to prominence in the '80s - from constant gadfly caller on sportstalk shows, to guest, to cable-access sportstalk producer/host, to weekend host on edge-of-metro stations, to WCCO nightside host in a matter of just a few years - is a model of networking, persistence, and self-directed development of talent. Star is a radio Horatio Alger. Unfortunately, his show makes me pray for the sweet release of death.

A Prairie Home Companion ((MPR, Weekends) ) - Garrison Keillor is an archetype that's verging on self-parody. And the parody is sneaking into his show, which is more and more becoming a mouthpiece for Keillor's condescending Democrat sympathies. And yet I still love the show. The writing's just about as good as ever, the "acting company" of Tim Russell and Sue Scott is pretty good, his "News from Lake Wobegone" is still all right, and the show still books a pretty good, eclectic collection of great musical guests. So when one of the bits launches into condescending anti-Bush/anti-Republican jape, I merely say to my radio, in a measured tone: "We won. You lost. That's the news from Lake Wobegone, where all the men have carry permits, all the women voted Pawlenty, and all the children think Roger Moe looks like a muppet".
Josh Arnold's Money Talk ((Weekends, WWTC) ) - This about sums it up.
Sean Hannity((Weekends, KSTP) ) - Hannity combines all of Limbaugh's calculated button-pushing, with none of Limbaugh's sense of humor.
Coast To Coast with George Noory ((KSTP, Graveyard Shift) ) - Whever I hear this program, I give a silent prayer of thanks that I'm normally sleeping at night.
OK. Back to news and current events.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/23/2003 08:57:52 AM

Thursday, May 22, 2003

My Day - Very long. One good interview, one that might have been good, and I landed another interview at a job I'd never have expected to be interested, early today.

So I'm pretty exhausted. 'til Morning!
posted by Mitch Berg 5/22/2003 10:22:06 PM

SOME Good News - There are few things in the world that I genuinely loathe:

5. People who've adopted Gene Roddenberry's fictional Federation directives as their worldview - their de facto religion.

4. Fruit bagels.

3. Chalupas

2. Actively-practicing Klansmen

And the #1 thing I actively loathe:

1. The 1971 Gene Wilder movie Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Roald Dahl's book "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" was much better, and those accursed "Oompa Loompas" from the movie still scare me to this day.

But I saw this in the London Times Online today:

The film director Tim Burton is to make a new adaptation of the Roald Dahl book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston�s company, Plan B, will produce.

The Edward Scissorhands director is to meet Dahl�s family to confirm the deal, according to Variety. Dahl was unhappy with the 1971 adaptation, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
About time.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/22/2003 10:19:33 PM

Wednesday, May 21, 2003

Thursday Blogging - My afternoon job interview was rescheduled to Thursday at 11AM. So now I have two job interviews on Thursday, the first at 7:30 AM.

Then, I have to go to my son's presentation at school. His project for the year - Hawaii. He's dressed as Kamehameha, and he's going to demo the volcano we built last week.

Yes, the volcano works. I've always wanted to do that.

Anyway, posts will probably come later in the day Thursday. Bear with me. And with any luck, I'll have a job in the next week or so. Finally.

Dee Long And Winding Road - MPR's Midday show had an hour-long interview with former DFL senator Dee Long today.

Long - most famous (to me) for being at the center of a golf junket scandal about ten years ago - is apparently a pundit without portfolio these days.

I was tempted to call when she said, about the "no new taxes" pledge (I'm closely paraphrasing here) that some user fees are going up sharply - so as long as they're going up, why not raise regular taxes as well?

Big difference, Ms. Long: user fees are to some degree voluntary. Don't want to pay the fee? Don't use. One has some recourse that doesn't involve waiting for the next legislative session. Taxes - direct assessments - on the other hand are not voluntary in the least. It's no surprise that Long wants to give the government more leeway to set and raise the involuntary taxes.

By the way, here's an open note to those of you who say "Tim Pawlenty was only elected by 24% (or whatever) of the total voters. The DFL stands for everyone else!". By your "logic", Roger Moe got 20% of the vote, then, and the GOP stands for proportionally more of the non-voters than does the DFL.

Carry on.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/21/2003 10:11:04 PM

What Would Jesus Pack? - I'm a Christian. Denominationally, I'm a militantly moderate Presbyterian (purely for theological reasons; I abhor the preening, self-righteous nannystatism and extreme social liberalism of the church's General Assembly, so far removed from John Knox' original doctrines).

I'm a fundamentalist, if you go by the strict definition of the word; I believe Christ is the Son of God, sent to earth to redeem us. I believe that we are saved from our sins by accepting Christ, and that following Christ's teachings leads us to a better life, and that prayer is a direct line of communication to God.

So it's with complete expectation of forgiveness that I say this: I want to pimp-slap a lot of local Christians.

No, not the Moral Majority Falwell clones - while they say and do some noxious things, they've got plenty of people hovering over their every word.

No, I'm talking about the Minnesota Religious Left.

You know the type; painfully-thin, balding, bearded, bespectacled fiftysomething men of scandinavian extraction, with their corn-fed, hawk-faced, alpaca-clad wives, who(as P.J. O'Rourke said) "have self-righteousness like some people have halitosis", standing with wrenchingly grim solemnity at vigil after vigil, trundling between readings and protests and "Peace and Justice Forums" in their Volvos with the "What Would Wellstone Do" stickers on the back...

And the self-righteousness is always, always about social issues.

And one of the issues that gets these types most exercised is guns. During the concealed carry debate, church after liberal-leaning fashionable church bombarded legislators with petitions and results of board or session meetings demanding the bill be rejected.

Now, one well-connected wealthy limo-liberal church is taking the matter to court.
Erik Strand, co-pastor of the 600-member Edina church, said that in his 14 years there, he isn't aware of anyone causing problems with firearms.

Nevertheless, he said, the church council, staff and many congregants support the suit.

"We personally have to inform everybody coming through the door that firearms are prohibited, so it's like 'Peace be with you, now get rid of the guns,' " he said. "Which we think is telling us how to speak within our religious space."
It would be...

...if it were true. But it's not. Nothing in the law requires a church to tell each and every person entering the building that guns are banned - merely that they are to verbally inform anyone that might accidentally disregard the signs that they need to leave their guns outside. Rev. Strand's story is yet another of Senator Wes "Lying Pig" Skoglund's scare stories - one that has gained currency with that part of the local population that hasn't yet realized that Sen. Skoglund is lying about the issue whenever his lips are moving.

The article goes on:
The suit is based on these points:
The requirement that the church allow guns in its parking lot. The church, at 4113 W. 54th St., has prohibited firearms on all of its property, including the church building, a child care center, a playground and the parking lot.
The requirement that a private organization banning guns post 11-by-17-inch signs naming the organization and saying it "bans guns on these premises." The church has decided to post a sign that says, "Blessed are the peacemakers. Firearms are prohibited in this place of sanctuary."
The requirement that the church modify its customary welcome of worshipers to include personal notification of the prohibition of firearms and a demand for compliance.
The church has a long history of promoting nonviolence, dating to the Vietnam War era, said co-pastor Pamela Fickenscher. Many members were involved in protesting the war in Iraq.
In other words, it'd be more correct to say the church has a long history of promoting non-violence against criminals, tyrants or those that the World Council of Churches deems anti-western enough.
She, Strand and R. Daniel Rasmus, president of the Council of Ministers, joined in filing the suit. After a poll of worshipers Sunday found unanimous support for the challenge, the church council decided to proceed, according to a news release. Lillehaug, a former U.S. attorney for Minnesota who is a member of the Edina church, said he expects about a dozen other churches will join the suit by the time the law takes effect.
Anyone in my congregation, please take note; if our church is one of them (and our assistant pastor is nothing if not a far-left screed in vestments), you'll have seen the last of me, my kids, and our offering money. Period.
Said the Rev. Ronald Johnson of Holy Trinity Church: "I think I speak for an awful lot of churches in saying that we are furious."
No, Reverend Johnson. I am furious. For the "crime" of deeming myself competent to see to the defense of myself and my family, and for choosing (soon) the one means of self-defense that actually, consistently, reliably WORKS when the chips are down, your church has opted to discriminate against me and people like me; people who are rigorously law-abiding in every way, people who are arguably better risks than anyone else in your congregation. You are engaging in prejudice. You are choosing evil over good. You are engaging in faulty and specious theology; Christ never overtly called for self-defense (although there are some muted references), but then he was speaking to people who lived in a totalitarian Roman dictatorship that didn't recognize the concept of lawful self-defense, either (so odd, isn't it, that tis is the only issue on which most of these inevitably-liberal churches see fit to read the Bible as an absolutely literal document?).

David Gross, a former Minneapolis City Attorney and volunteer with Concealed Carry Reform Now, responds to the suit:
He asked whether the church thinks it's not subject to other state laws, such as those mandating parking for the handicapped. The suit is politically motivated by people who don't like the law, he said, noting that churches had not passed regulations about guns on their property until after the current law was passed.

"If this makes it [Edina Community Lutheran Church] feel better spiritually, fine. But there's no legal significance to the suit," he said.
Mark my words; I will attend no church that bans the law-abiding permit holder.

More as events warrant.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/21/2003 09:53:06 PM

Consumer Confidence - One job interview this afternoon, another tomorrow morning (which dropped into my lap yesterday morning at about this time), and two other fairly solid leads in play.

Consumer confidence numbers are slowly rising.

Missing Persons - Fraters Libertas, one of my favorite local blogs, had some very kind things to say about Monday's tour of the local talk radio market.

But they wondered - why did I neglect shows heard on the evenings, weekends, and off-brand stations in the far 'burbs?

Partly because I don't listen to a lot of nighttime or weekend radio. And partly because I'm listening to a lot of these shows for the first time.

But I'm not going to neglect Dave Thompson, Laura Ingraham, Auto Talk, Bob Davis or the rest of the swingshift crew. I have a soft spot in my heart for them - that was my old digs, too.

So stay tun...er, check back.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/21/2003 11:10:00 AM

Imp of the Perverse - I was in a "discussion" with a particularly irritating DFLer the other day - a man that fits every unfortunate, demeaning stereotype I've put forth about DFLers. Let's call him "Ben Anjerry". He was a fiftyish, thin, new-agey, retro-hippie, Wellstone-worshipping, henpecked-looking man who teaches some soft-science at a local college. We were discussing the budget debate...

...well, OK, "discussing" is a bit misleading. I was putting forth the thesis that Pawlenty's holding the line will help revitalize the economy, with the rising tide lifting all boats; In response, he was calling me a babykiller. Or close to it.

And as I kept my cool and tried not to rise to the bait, I thought, "wouldn't it be nice to handle this discussion the way rapper DMX would handle it?":
What's gon' be the outcome? Hmm, let's add up all the factors
You wack, you're twisted, your girl's a ho
You're broke, the kid ain't yours, and e'rybody know
Your old man say you stupid, you be like, 'So?
I love my baby mother, I never let her go'
Perhaps it's a sign that I'm unelectable.

No, I never convinced Ben.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/21/2003 08:12:49 AM

What Sid Did - Some of my DFLer friends are raving about the new Sidney "Sid Vicious" Blumental memoir of the Clinton years.

Noted rightwing tool Michael Isikoff is less impressed with the former White House Aide.

Isikoff, who broke the Monica Lewinsky story in the major media (after Matt Drudge forced the hands of the editors at Newsweek), exposes Blumenthal's boat-anchory tome as a whitewash:
How, for instance, do you write about the campaign-finance scandal�another Republican "pseudoscandal," Blumenthal claims, in which "all the charges were revealed to be empty"�without even mentioning the Lincoln Bedroom sleepovers or Clinton's connivance with Dick Morris to circumvent the campaign laws by crafting soft-money sponsored "issue ads" from his White House office? There is not a single reference to Johnny Chung or any others in the long parade of Democratic donors who later pleaded guilty to federal crimes in connection with Clinton's re-election campaign. Blumenthal defends the pardon of commodities fugitive Marc Rich. He calls Rich "a financier of the peace process"�and entirely skips over the role of Beth Dozoretz, a Democratic fund raiser who had pledged $1 million to the Clinton library and who peppered Clinton with phone calls about Rich during his final days in office.
The conclusion?
The point is not that Blumenthal is a hypocrite (although he seems to be exactly that). The point is that throughout this book Blumenthal seems utterly incapable of understanding how his own uncompromising, take-no-prisoners defense of the Clintons contributed to the poisonous political atmosphere that he bemoans. Time and again, in the book as in life, he rearranges facts, spins conspiracy theories, impugns motives, and besmirches the character of his political and journalistic foes�all for the greater cause of defending the Clintons (and himself). Hyde, Kenneth Starr, Hickman Ewing, Lindsey Graham, Tom DeLay�each was malicious, narrow-minded, bigoted, buffoonish, and anti-democratic. Meanwhile, Blumenthal wonders repeatedly why so many people dislike him. At one point, bizarrely, he suggests it is because he is "intellectual" and "Jewish."
It's useful as a lead-in to the upcoming Hillary! autobio, anyway.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/21/2003 06:18:42 AM

Tuesday, May 20, 2003

Shameless Solicitation - I have a second interview tomorrow for a job I really want. It got moved up at the last minute from next Thursday. Supposedly there are three finalists for this position.

So - your prayers, best wishes, karmic kudos or "attaboys" are all eagerly solicited.

Now, off to get my suit pressed.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/20/2003 11:14:27 AM

Profiles in Futility - They're about to repeal the Profiles of Learning.

It's been a Republican goal ever since the Profiles were passed, in '98. It's been a constant topic among "Garage Logicians" all along. It's being treated as a major triumph by the GOP, which has always favored a "back to basics" approach.

I'm not so sure it's a good thing.

Bear with me, here. I have as little tolerance for the arrogance of the professional, academic educational establishment as anyone. And the original Profiles in Learning system reeked of "professional educators" cutting loose with a big budget and a blank sheet of paper.

But the basic idea was sound; children learn differently. Some learn by reading, others by writing or watching or doing or hearing how to do something. Profiles' great strength was that it focused on the outputs of education - can a student put together things he/she's learned to actually do something meaningful?

The Profiles were project-based; the students were to be assessed based on projects that tied together all different areas of learning. It made perfect sense to me. I must have been one of the few.

For years, I've followed the workings of the Sudbury Valley School, in Sudbury, Massachussetts. The website (and the profile on the school on "60 Minutes" two years ago) is full of hippiedippy sounding platitudes - but don't let that throw you off. The school has no formal structure - kids literally study anything they want, even if that means (as the school literature points out) fishing every day for four years. The school's staff is there mainly to hook the kids up with the resources they need to study whatever they're looking for. The goal is the exact opposite of the "Back to Basics" movement.

And, say at least two friends of mine who are committed to the system, so are the results. Kids come out of Sudbury-type schools with something public schools frequently extinguish - a genuine love of learning, and a self-confidence about it that (to most accounts) dwarfs that of most public or private school kids.

Here's an example that Sudbury proponents talk about a lot - nobody tells the kids to learn to read. They learn when they're ready. Then, they work with staff, or other kids, or even teach themselves. Although nobody tells the kids to learn reading, they all do - and apparently at a very good level. Here's where the Sudbury people make a great point; nobody tells children when they have to learn to talk - they just do it. They learn it from their parents, from other kids, everywhere. Barring physical or mental impairment, it's very rare to find "speaking-disabled" kids. But if there were a cultural norm that said "Kids must speak by 22 months", and an entire caste of professional "toddler speech professionals" cramming kids through "speaking programs" and declaring "Speaking Is Fundamental!", it wouldn't be long before you'd see kids in "Remedial Speaking" programs, and developing a life-long disdain for talking...

...the same way so many American adults have a disdain for books, math and science.

But I didn't come here to praise the Sudbury School. I came here to bury the Profiles In Learning.

The Profiles may have been an educationese boondoggle, a bureaucratic mess (I know teachers who detested the immense paperwork involved - which would normally draw a chorus of "boo hoos", but teachers DO have an insane amount of it these days) and a triumph of the (liberal) academic educational establishment - but it did make at least a cursory nod to something our educational system direly lacks - a means of mapping the things they learn in school to their own styles of learning, so that they can apply what they're learning to their lives in ways that'll benefit them long after they're done with school

But proponents of "Back to Basics" standards tend to be two types of people:
the people who thrive under one style of learning - reading and taking tests. Since this was the system in place for most of recent memory, the people who throve at this style of learning did well in the traditional academic settings - including law schools and universities. Hence, they tend to be the teachers who teach the next generation - and the lawyers who make the laws.
Those who think that reading and taking tests were good enough for them, so dammit, it's good enough for the kids. "Boo Freakin' Hoo", the Garage Logicians will say. "I learned by sitting in a desk and reading my damn assignment, and look how I turned out!". And perhaps they turned out well. But I'd like to ask them, in all honesty - "what was the last book you read? When was the last time you went out and learned something completely new, not because your boss told you to (important as that is), but because you just love learning stuff? When was the last time you willingly applied something you learned in Algebra, or American Literature, or Biology, to your life?" And, GLers -how did you learn to fix cars? Did you read a book on the subject and take a test before you started tinkering? Really? How do you suppose that connects with your own style of learning? Think about that for a while.
I love learning - and I learn best by doing. Always have. And it infuriates me sometimes; when I sit down to do a project, I gleefully apply everything I know from a zillion different fields to the problem, including bits and pieces of stuff I remember from eighth-grade science classes - and I can remember exactly when the "Read, Regurgitate, Repeat" process of learning science and math finally turned me off to the whole process. I'm a natural engineer in many ways - an inveterate tinkerer, as anal-retentive about laboratory procedure as I am sloppy about everything else in my life - but the "read, regurgitate, repeat" system of "learning" pretty well extinguished any thought of that from my life by about ninth grade.

So Minnesota's going back to the old system. As the Strib says:
The new standards, completed so far only for language arts and math, would be substantially different from Profile standards. There are many more of them, and they are more specific about what students should know.
We're back to writing recipes for the students and citizens.
Add four units of English, three units of Social Studies, two units of Math and one unit of Art. Shake vigorously, examine after four years. If the student doesn't respond, discard and start over
More to come; education is major screed-fodder for me.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/20/2003 07:28:15 AM

Monday, May 19, 2003

Radio Daze - It's wierd to remember that in 1986, when the Mitch Berg Show was on KSTP-AM (weekend graveyard shift), Talk Radio was not yet a conservative playground. Conservatives were a strong minority, slugging it out against an equal number of liberals and a larger crew of non-political talking heads. I'm not being in the least bit hyperbolic when I say I was the first conservative the Twin Cities had seen on the air.

How things have changed in 16 years.

OK. Nobody asked me. But I'm going to do it anyway; my reviews of the major Twin Cities talkradio shows, sorted by daypart and station.

Mornings
KSTP - Woedele and O'Connell - This show is like a throwback to the old days of talk radio; two talking heads of indeterminate political orientation talking about...er, stuff. Lots of it. John Woedele - Jesse Ventura's former press secretary - is as connected as he is bland. O'Connell is a great guy (I met him once) who brings some personality to the proceedings; the big question is "Why?"
WWTC - Savage In The Morning - Back in 1987, when I watched Oliver Stone's film version of Eric Bogosian's Talk Radio, I figured "No. No way anyone could be this insanely dystopic. Nobody could be this depressing and earn a living. Voila Michael ~~Weiner~~ Savage. Listening to him for five minutes wrecks the next hour. I try not to.
FM107 - Luka. - "Radio for women and the men who love them". Haven't heard it yet.
WCCO - Garrison Keillor's Material On Parade - No, not really, it's actually Dave Lee. But close.
MPR - Morning Edition - Edwards intones, Wurzer declaims.

Late Mornings
KSTP - Ron Rosenbaum - There are talk show hosts out there where you can tune in any day, even years apart, and feel like you're listening to the same show every time. With the good ones, you don't notice. Rosenbaum hasn't gotten to that point yet.
WWTC - Mike Gallagher - Another throwback to old-fashioned talk radio - a reminder of the days when "conservative talk" meant interchangeable voices like Bob Grant and...er, a bunch of others, with interchangeable views. Gallagher sounds like everybland, interchangeable network talk host from the seventies or eighties.
FM107 - Ian Punnett - Every time I listen to Ian Punnett, he's tackling some key, life-or-death existential moral issue. I love key live or death existential moral issues. I could listen for hours. And then I reach my destination, and get out of the car. It's frustrating; key moral issues should be discussed in the living room over a glass of something or other, not interrupted by commercials and turned off when you get to work.
WCCO - Tim Russell - OK, this one really is Keillor-fodder - although Russell's a great guy (and one of the highlights of Keillor's actual show...)
MPR - Cacklin' Katherine Lanpher - She's a prima donna, she has call-handling skills that would have gotten her fired in Bismark, and the whole "Diva" thing that's sprung up around her (thanks, City Pages) is totally misplaced - but if you want to stay in touch with what the Volvo-driving Highland Park "No War With Iraq" set is thinking, this is the place.

Middays
KSTP - Limbaugh - The guy who invented conservative talk as we know it. I don't listen much, but when I do, I love it if only for the carefully-calculated pomposity; I can practically hear fuses blowing in Mac-Groveland.
WWTC - Dennis Prager - Also a throwback - but in a better way. There was a time when talk radio hosts could be intelligent on a broad variety fo topics without leading with their political agenda (not that Prager's is any big mystery). Prager's great at that kind of show. Unfortunately, I rarely have the patience to sit through that kind of show.
FM107 - Dr. Laura - Part of me really wants to like this show - I really do. There's a place in this world for no-nonsense moral absolutism. But that voice...aaagh. And while I don't mind moral absolutism, it'd be nice if she actually heard what callers said before pronouncing snap judgements. The show gives me at least one cringe moment each time I listen.
WCCO - Kim Jeffries - Ever seen "The Usual Suspects"? Keyser S�ze is a Turkish arch-villain that nobody's every seen, but everyone knows. Kim Jeffries is like that on local radio. She's always existed. If Kim Jeffries didn't exist, mankind would have to make her up. Unfortunately, I have no idea what her show is like.
MPR - Midday with Gary Eichten - The best show that's ever been pieced together from random interviews and taped segments. Word has it that Eichten is MPR's token Republican. Indeed.

Early Afternoons
KSTP - Garage Logic - Soucheray's social observations are dead-on (when they're not maddeningly off). "The Rookie" is an excellent side-kick and a gifted impressionist; word has it his "moron" schtick is an act. But the show has not changed one iota since Bill Clinton's first term, which is a long time to hear that @#%@^ foghorn. If I hear another engine starting up on the air, I'm going to haul off...
WWTC - Michael Medved - Ooozes smart. So smart, he has to carry his extra brain in a backpack. Like Jason Lewis, he's the kind of host I always wanted to be back when I was doing talk - a conservative who doesn't live to just punch liberal buttons.
FM107 - Kevyn Burger - Former TV reporter. Bob Yates' ex-wife. Very funny woman. I haven't heard the show, but I met Burger years ago, and I figure she's as promising as anyone on FM107
MPR - ~~All Edition Things Almanac~~ Talk Of The Nation - Impeccably produced talk, guaranteed to offend nobody. Neil Conan replaced the unlistenable Juan Williams, thankfully.

Afternoon Drive
KSTP - Jason Lewis - This is the host I wanted to be when I grew up. Only I'd have better bumper music...
WWTC - Hugh Hewitt - Eclectic, conservative, Christian...I should totally dig Hewitt. I'm still waiting for the blinding flash of Hewitt epiphany. UPDATE: I'm told that the flash of epiphany is inevitable. OK, I'll hang in there...
FM107 - Lori and Julia - Like chippendale night at a suburban bowling-alley bar. In hell.
WCCO - Don Shelby - On a station built around throwbacks, Shelby may be the throwbackiest of all.
MPR - All Things Considered - Usually when you hear women on the radio, you picture some gorgeous vision. Then you meet them - and they're pretty much regular women. Lorna Benson is the opposite; she sounds like one of those flinty, Volvo-driving, fiftysomething Mac-Groveland crones. She's not - emphatically not. Corey Flintoff (or, spelled phonetically the way he pronounces it, "Corey FLYNN toff") intones gravely and precisely - I'd like to hear him do voiceovers for WWF. Oh, yeah - they cover the news.

Evenings
KSTP - Mischke - I've never dropped acid in my life. With Mischke on the air, what'd be the point? No, I mean that as a compliment. Tom and I go way back - he got his "start" doing hilarious, anonymous "Phantom Caller" call-in bits when I was producing Don Vogel. Through tireless investigative work (his brother told me), I uncovered his identity a year before he went public with it, and I've been a fan ever since. And by "fan", I mean in the "what's going to happen next" sense of the term...
WWTC - Savage Nation - Three MORE hours of depressing dyspepsia. I'm serious - every time I hear ~~Weiner~~ Savage, I feel like I've eaten too much slightly-bad ham. Savage is in real life what every liberal thinks of when they caricature conservative talk radio.
FM107 - Dr. Joy Browne - There are glaciers younger than Browne. Before Doctor Laura, before Sally Jesse, there was Joy.
WCCO - Some sports show that I've never listened to.
Notify the media.

By the way, Medved mentioned a "Peter Teel", at a station in Spartanburg, NC yesterday on his show. I'm wondering - could it be "Peter Thiele", former would-be conservative host, board operator and gadfly-without-portfolio from KSTP-AM? The world wonders anxiously.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/19/2003 10:20:30 PM

Fickle Soul Finger of Fate - I hate American Idol. No, really, everything about it.

I've watched a grand total of maybe half an hour of the show during its entire run, in addition to hearing innumerable bits of highlights in the past couple of years, and unlike most "reality" TV, it doesn't merely bore me. I actively detest this program.

Part of it is that the fix is so obviously in. Everyone knows Ruben Studdard and Clay Aiken have been the judges' favorites all along. It's got all the drama of watching my goatee grow.

But the worst part of "American Idol" has always been the music itself, the dreck the would-be Idols are forced to sing; the worst dregs the the last thirty years of American pop and "R and B".

"Idol" brings into grotesque relief how far "Rhythm and Blues" has fallen in the last thirty years. How far, exactly, I realized when listening to Nick Spitzer's American Routes on NPR. Yesterday's show (click to hear it in RealPlayer format) was on the Stax Music Museum in Memphis.

Forget Motown - Stax/Volt Records in Memphis was the greatest R'nB label in history. Sam and Dave, Booker T, Otis Redding, the Staples Singers, the Bar-Kays and Rufus Thomas, among many others, recorded on Stax/Volt; the label's hallmark was raw, unpolished, pure soul.

And listening to the rare chestnuts that Spitzer uncovered (Otis' "These Arms Of Mine"), it whacks you over the head what incredible, banal crap "Rhythm and Blues" is today. It's neither rhythmic nor blue.

And, in the hands of our would-be "Idols", it's banal, slick, and has no place to even put any genuine soul (as opposed to the Michael Bolton-y hyperemoting that passes for "soul" these days).

Wake me up when it's over. I'll be curled up listening to my Sam and Dave anthology 'til then.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/19/2003 11:56:24 AM

Hey! Minnesota! I Have A Question! - I've been wanting to follow up on this idea for some time now. I finally have a moment or two.

I've been asking a lot of questions of my liberal friends, in a couple of different contexts: why do Minnesotans feel that they are so utterly superior to their neighbors and the rest of the country, and yet why so many of you feel Minnesotans, left to their own devices, will start gunning each other down in droves, and letting this state turn into a "cesspool" of...er, non-Minnesotan-ness.

Here's what set me off. In another forum, a correspondent said something that' s not at all unfamiliar if you're a Minnesota politics watcher:
Republicans are turning us into a cold Mississippi
Now, you hear this sort of thing all the time from Minnesotans, and I've always thought it was a curious view; I've known Mississipians, and they tend to be either fairly happy with their state, or they leave - much as Minnesotans do. And I've been all over the country, and I've only rarely heard such sentiments (outside of New York and San Francisco), and usually chalked them up to provincial arrogance when I did. But you never hear North Dakotans try to scare their neighbors into some political action by saying "If we don't, we'll be just a smart Minnesota".

So I've often wondered about the dichotomy I've seen in this past few weeks - and years - on this list, and statewide. On the one hand, blinkered smugness that'd make a Greenwich Village scene-hopper blanche with embarrassment; on the other, a sense that Minnesotans don't think other Minnesotans are all that bright underneath it all, without some higher authority to whack them into line once in a while. Maybe even (as we find in the Concealed Carry debate) just a little too depraved to be left on their own.

I should mention this - I'm not from Minnesota originally (although my family goes back about 125 years here, and was in fact involved in creating one of the great Minnesota icons). I moved here after college, in '85, from North Dakota. Yes, I moved here because I wanted a job that didn't involve diesel mechanics or teaching high school English. Some Minnesotans (in other forums) think that means I forfeit any right to criticize this state.

This place has a lot to be proud of - some of it even related to its tradition of public-private partnership. But there's a lot of dreck in that tradition, and for this state to stay healthy - or get healthy again - we need to look with a critical eye at a lot of assumptions. First and foremost, the notion of Minnesota Exceptionalism.

I didn't hatch the notion of "Minnesota Smug". There was a great article in the Strib a few weeks ago (which we covered in this space) by Steve Berg (no relation) that explored the idea in great detail:

The Other Berg reaches a few conclusions I'd contest, but on the way there he brings up some points that we (and that means "you, too") are going to have to deal with:
Our political-social system, rooted in Scandinavian village traditions and codified during the seventies, may make "us" feel good on some elemental level - but they make Minnesota uncompetitive, which will eventually make Minnesota a worse place to live no matter HOW good you feel about yourself.

Our sense of exceptionalism, rooted in a time when big (government, business, social programs) was king, is obsolete. Other states accomplish many of the things of which Minnesota is so proud - and do it in a way that stays competitive.

Before we get to my questions, let me clarify - there is much about Minnesota's public tradition to admire. It did a lot with a little, and in its time, it may have even been the right answer in many ways.

So I have a couple of questions for the madding horde:
Given that the economies of the world, nation and region have changed drastically in the past thirty years, and that huge, institutionalized, programmatic government tends to be a drag on innovation and competitiveness, how do you see Minnesota's traditional public institutions evolving in these leaner, more competition-oriented times to remain relevant, and to contribute to Minnesota public life again? By this, I mean more than "provide subsistence"; feeding the hungry is a worthy goal, not an end-result. Remember - while Wendell Anderson accomplished a miracle, today's state government is not Wendell Anderson's state government. It's for damn sure today's DFL is not Hubert Humphrey's DFL.
Much of Minnesota's public-private partnership was carried by the wealthy business families that happened, happily, to be so enthusiastically philanthropic. The Cargill family, the Dayton family, the Target and 3M families all contributed immensely to Minnesota's charities and arts. But today, most big business isn't family-run, it's controlled by shareholders who have a different set of priorities - and justifiably so. Our state needs to allow the NEXT wave of business leaders to move into a place that will allow them, ideally, to develop into the sorts of philanthropic partners that the state will need in the future. Unfortunately, the DFL detests business growth and investment (as we've seen on this list). So...what do we do?
Minnesotans are proud of our educational system - but, frankly, the system is incredibly sclerotic. Nevertheless, when faced with change, some Minnesotans sneer "hah - that'll make us like our neighbors!". Yet many of our neighbors are doing a better job. North Dakota, for example, has an educational system that is every bit as good as Minnesota's (as measured in terms of test scores), and better in many areas (including, of all things, the arts and music education of which Minnesotans claim to be so proud, but at which North Dakota actually leads the nation) at a fraction of the cost of Minnesota's system. South Dakota's business growth is staggering - largely as a result of governmental decisions. Wisconsin's welfare system is years ahead of ours (except in terms of "institutionalizing itself" and "Creating multigenerational dependence", which seem to be the only terms that matter to many on the left). And in terms of public/private partnerships, NOBODY out-does North Dakota, which has both a good business climate AND the only functioning State Bank and State Mill in the country. Question: Can Minnesotans drop some of their provincialism and learn something from our neighbors, who frankly do a lot of things better than we do?
To go along with the provincial arrogance I noted above, Minnesotans (or some of you) seem to have a paradoxical low opinion of other Minnesotans. It may well come from the Scandinavian tradition, with its very hive-y mentality. But for whatever reason, many of you seem to think that, left to our own devices, out of the watch of Big Mommy Government, we're a bunch of no-count wastrels. It came up repeatedly during the concealed carry debate; opponents insisted that Minnesotans would seize shall-issue as an opportunity to release their pent-up bloodlust on each other; being told that that pattern had NEVER occurred in 34 other states, including states to which Minnesotans believe themselves superior (Mississippi! Florida! Louisiana! Texas!), made no impact. The same thing holds true with the "frozen Mississippi" remarks - as if Minnesotans want to be anything other than what we are. Question: Do you (on the left) honestly believe that, without the hand of big, intrusive government to guide us, we're all going to jettison everything that we all love about this place? Why?
I have other questions, but those are the ones that matter.

It's a topic of great interest to me. I'm raising two children here, I've built a career, and I will eventually be involved in politics in this state. So yes, I do care about this state's future - and think that it will have to include a government that is leaner, institutional establishments (especially education and the U of M) that are less hidebound and self-aggrandizing, and a social class that both trusts the people and gives them some credit.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/19/2003 11:09:12 AM

Battered Party Syndrome - I'm starting to see the current realignment in Minnesota much as I would see a change in a long-term, dysfunctional relationship. And I'm going to look at it through the lens of today's Strib editorial.

The Strib editorial board has no doubt about it; when the DFL moses, Minnesota loses now that the DFL has capitulated on the budget.

The editorial starts off peevish:
It was no compromise that was struck Friday by legislators and the governor to balance Minnesota's 2004-05 budget. It was a case of conquest and capitulation -- conquest by Republicans hell-bent on shrinking government's contribution to Minnesota's shared life, capitulation by the DFLers who were its defenders.
Wow. No doubt about their sympathies there, huh?

Of course, neither the Strib Editorial Board nor any pro-tax activist has ever showed me where the tax cuts will "shrink government's contribution to our shared life" in any substantial way - they even hint at this in the editorial.

But it's not about accuracy. It's about power. When a dysfunctional relationship changes, the person losing power strikes back.

The editorial continues:
Politically, Pawlenty's victory is a remarkable achievement. Not for at least three decades has Minnesota seen a rookie governor get his way so completely. Not before in modern times has a governor attempted to close a double-digit gap in the state budget solely with spending cuts and one-time infusions of reserved cash.

Thirty years ago, Wendell Anderson had his Minnesota Miracle; Pawlenty is producing a Minnesota Retreat from government as this state has known it.
When someone in a relationship loses power, that person predicts dire conseqences.

The moment's been a long time coming, of course. As I wrote on Friday, this moment parallels one in national history - one that had similar symptoms.

Minnesota is running about 25 years behind the rest of the country in finally starting to tinker with the notion that happiness is something government can give you. And the Minnesota GOP is also 25 years late in rejecting the Rockefeller Republicanism that dominated the old "Independant Republican" party, the party of Arne Carlson and Al Quie. (And do you remember how the national establishment - the media and chattering classes - reacted to that?)

The old IR was "Independent" because it was far to the left of most Republican parties in the US (New Jersey's was one of few that are worse). They were Republicans in name only; they had Chamber of Commerce presidents in their leadership, rather than union activists and college professors, but the policies were nearly identical.

Why?

Because in a state where the entire public class - the educational, political and media establishments - were solidly pro-tax, pro-spending, pro-government intervention, to swim against the tide was to risk character assassination, abuse, to lose one's reservations at the metaphorical St. Paul Grill of acceptance.

And so the "opposition" became a codependent partner in a sick, skewed relationship, based on a few good things and a lopsided balance of power.

And the establishment used that power, not only to benefit Minnesotans (and even as a conservative I can allow for the benefits that the "Minnesota Miracle" spawned, even as I criticize this state's addiction to state-sponsored miracles), but to intimidate and browbeat those who could foresee a need to trim some of the fat, to become more competitive. The Strib's editorial board was always quick with the class envy...:
Several weeks remain before legislative inaction would risk a state government shutdown. That prospect apparently worried DFLers more than it did Republicans. As one DFL senator said: "It's usually the privileged who think shutting down government would be a heroic act."
...and with the establishment's parade of pet experts...:
It was only in recent days that leading economists and former governors called for state tax increases instead of deep cuts in public services, particularly for children.
The old IR couldn't handle that sort of opprobium. It craved approval, even as it went back on everything it was supposed to have believe in.

It was a codependent in a deeply dysfunctional relationship.

In the early nineties, the conservative wing of the party erupted under Alan Quist, a firebrand, unelectable Christian Conservative. The media feasted on Quist an his followers - you'd have thought Martin Borman had sprung from a field near Mankato and started leading an army in a march on Minneapolis, pledging to feast on children, gays and women who wanted abortions.

The media and the public class hated Quist. Hell, I disliked Quist; many of his grass-roots supporters were pro-life single-issue monomaniacs, illiterate about economics, the Second Amendment, conservatism beyond abortion. Today, those that didn't get more educated are calling talk radio shows to stump for Pat Buchanan.

But they took the flak. They convinced more Republicans and conservative Democrats that the sky wouldn't fall if the Star-Tribune editorial board shunned them. They learned to organize themselves. They learned how Conservatism was done in the real world. Talk Radio and the conservative internet helped a lot - it's no accident that the rise in Conservatism in Minnesota we didn't need the mainstream media to have a common voice anymore.

And they helped the rest of us break out of the trap - the trap that told us "you're nothing without us", the one that said "WE are the people. If you are against us, you're against The People."

And like a controller who senses power is being lost, the establishment is snapping back in anger:
The ultimate loser this session will be Minnesota. In more ways than most people expect, Minnesota's shared life will be painfully pinched as state spending is rolled back. Real cuts -- not just smaller increases -- are in store. They will fall with disproportionate severity on the poor, students, Minneapolis and St. Paul, outstate cities and cultural institutions. The most vulnerable will pay the greatest price.

That has not been the Minnesota way. Until now.
. "You're nothing without me!"

Minnesota is realizing; the party is not the people. The government is not the fount of all good.

We can expect a period where the formerly-dominant partner will wallow in impotent rage.

I think we're seeing that now.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/19/2003 08:27:11 AM

The Answers - For years, the Star-Tribune carried the water for the anti-gun movement in Minnesota, uncritically carrying the fevered rantings of the likes of West Skoglund and Matt Entenza.

They were also the first prominent media outlet to give the concealed carry issue any sort of relatively fair coverage, during the '01 legislative session, when Conrad DeFiebre broke the ice and actually learned something about the issue.

Today, the Strib runs a list of frequently-asked questions about concealed carry, complete with answers.

It's a good step, which helps make up for all the wrong impressions people got during their years of "coverage" that began and ended with the fabrications of the bill's opponents.

And yet, the spin remains. Read the article, and notice how many sympathetic quotes given to those who are trying to find ways to ban the law-abiding permittee from their properties, or find ways to extend the law's restrictions to their circumstances, compared to the complete lack of rebuttal.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/19/2003 07:23:58 AM

The Last Team Standing - The Twins are in first. It ain't pretty, but they're the only pro team playing in town now.

Until hockey starts up...when? Right after July 4, right?

I love spring.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/19/2003 06:58:55 AM

Sunday, May 18, 2003

Metal Health - According to this MSNBC report, the military is using heavy metal music and kiddie songs to break suspects' resistance under interrogation:
THE IDEA, says Sgt. Mark Hadsell, is to break a subject�s resistance by annoying that person with what some Iraqis would consider culturally offensive music. The songs that are being played include �Bodies� from the Vin Diesel �XXX� movie soundtrack and Metallica�s �Enter Sandman.� �These people haven�t heard heavy metal before,� he explains. �They can�t take it.� Few people could put up with the sledgehammer riffs of Metallica, and kiddie songs aren�t that much easier, especially when selections include the �Sesame Street� theme and some of purple dinosaur Barney�s crooning.
Instapundit says:
WHAT WILL AMNESTY SAY? Is the Barney song torture?

Ask any parent. . . .
Dunno, Insta. When I was a home-during-the-day dad, when my daughter was a little girl (I worked nights), that Barney theme meant a half-hour respite, twice a day, where I could go to the bathroom, cook a meal, read a book without having to entertain a year-old girl.

But if you're a prisoner, I agree - wait'll Arthur Kustler hears about this.

Oh wait - he's dead. Never mind.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/18/2003 05:59:25 PM

Der Pianist - I saw "The Pianist" last week. If I didn't blog about it, it was only because the past week has been so crushingly busy.

The review in a word? Incredible. What a truly spellbinding, horrifying, wonderful, awful, incredible movie. It's among the great movies about the Holocaust - better, I think, than Schindler's List, Holocaust, and Escape from Sobibor (generally overlooked because it was a TV movie, even though it featured great performances by Rutger Hauer, Joanna Pacula and Alan Arkin and was based on a wrenching book of the same name), it's based on Wladyslaw Szpilman's riveting autobiographical novel of his own survival, and is one of few movies to genuinely do justice to a memoir of any type, much less a Holocaust memoir.

I read William Grim's piece on watching the movie in Munich, surrounded by Germans:
I have to admit that it is a strange experience to watch a Holocaust film in Germany. It's even stranger when you're the only American in the midst of about 200 Germans. But perhaps the strangest thing of all is to watch the reactions of the Germans as the events of the movie unfold. You hear a lot about how Germans are so ashamed today of the behavior of their countrymen during the Nazi period and about how much they've done to atone for their past sins. Don't buy that bill of goods. If the audience of the screening I attended is any indication of German attitudes in general, it doesn't augur well for the future. Remember, this wasn't an audience composed of skinheads from the neo-Nazi enclaves in Karlsruhe and the former DDR. This was a group of Germany's best and brightest: educated, middle class, sophisticated denizens of a major cosmopolitan city.
The article goes off into some assertions about German culture that are both dicey and thought-provoking.

Brief background: In college, I minored in History and German. History obviously fascinates me - and especially Germany's role in it. I speak the language, and am very familiar with the people and culture.

Now, when you grow up in America, you grow up in a society that's been assembled from the parts of dozens of other nations; an English legal system, a German educational philosophy, largely Anglo-Saxon language, predominantly North-European and Mediterranean religions, and folk traditions that are both as diverse as the nations from which most of us came, and yet that tend to gradually disappear over time as people assimilate into the larger American culture. It's hard to comprehend, for Americans, the notion of living in a genuinely homogenous culture.

Most European cultures are wrapped up in a single, unifying tradition; a shared language, a set of traditions, tales, myths and legends, a series of cultural roadmaps that you inherit at birth (and no other way; you can immigrate to Germany, but you can't "become German" the way that generations of Irish, Poles and Vietnamese have become American).

Germany's shared tradition - it's called "Volk", which literally means "people" in German, but has a vastly deeper figurative and cultureal meaning to Germans, the same way "Liberty" and "Freedom" have meanings much deeper than their Websters' definitions to Americans - is intimately tied to Germany's rural, pagan, insular collective memory, as well as the glories of its imperial history (Charlemagne's "First Reich" figured heavily in this story).

Part of that Volk tradition, as David Goldhagen explored in his book, "Hitler's Willing Executioners", is deeply antisemitic. I won't go too deeply into explaining Goldhagen's book - you need to read it if you haven't. Goldhagen traces the roots of eliminationist antisemitism in German culture, and deflates the notion that German hatred of Jews sprang from the whole cloth in 1933; it's part of Volk, an embedded part of German culture.

Goldhagen, in the epilogue to his book, stresses that he believes that the war beat the anti-semitism out of Germany. It's a comforting thesis.

I wonder if it's right?

Did the sound thrashing the South got in 1865 beat the discrimination out of the southern states? Of course not. It went underground, and bubbled slowly back to the surface over the course of a couple of generations of neglect, to the point where America had to fight another civil war - one fought in the legislatures and courts, mostly - to finish the job legally, and to try to enforce it socially. Some would say the war's not yet won.

Now, ask yourself, as I'm asking myself now: If, after a hundred years, it's that hard to get rid of the noxious idea of racism in a nation built at its very core on the ideas of liberty and equality, how much harder must it be to do it in a nation built on a several-thousand-year-old shared cultural tradition of homogeneity, unity and exclusivity?

Not that Germans - maybe a majority of them - don't abhor the notion of antisemitism. But I wonder - how realistic is it to expect that thousands of years of Volk tradition could be extinguished by three years of bombing and eight years of occupation and fifty years of liberal democracy?

I'm genuinely curious. Jede Deutsche die diese Blog lest - was denkt Ihr euch?

UPDATE: Instapundit is getting some emails from people who disagree - Germany is mostly past its traditional antisemitism. But then, there's more commentary on both sides.

I suspect that it's somewhere in between - much as America is with its own past racism. There are still bigots, both overt and covert, in the US. I'd suspect Germany's not much different. Is it the majority? Time will tell.

(Via Instapundit)
posted by Mitch Berg 5/18/2003 01:07:34 PM

Berg's Law of Liberal Iraq Commentary:

In attacking the reasons for war, no liberal commentator is capable of addressing more than one of the justifications at a time; to do so would introduce a context in which their argument can not survive