Masson's Blog
The imagery on this one isn’t great for law enforcement officials in St. Paul:
The first burst of pepper spray doesn’t make the police look very good, but the flower-bearing girl was at least not giving way to the police. It’s the *second* burst of pepper spray that’s gratuitous. Her back was turned, she was walking away, and someone decided to douse her again.
The RNC, citing a shifting array of occasionally false excuses, denied press credentials to Y-Press youth journalists; even after attempts by Mike Pence and Murray Clark to assist the group.
First the excuse was that “it had always been GOP policy not to give credentials to people under age 18.” Which was false since the group had gotten credentials in 1992, 1996, and 2004. Then, one Republican official told them “It’s because you cannot vote.” Finally, the GOP was “just following policy.”
Sounds to me like nobody really knows why they’re rejecting these kids. They can decide who gets access to their own convention, of course; but it sure sounds like they missed the boat on this one. I was a high school journalist of sorts (working on my school paper); and I can tell you that some young journalists do fine work and take their job more seriously than some seasoned, adult journalists. (I do not speak of my own work in this respect — I mostly wrote an opinion column for the paper; the easiest job in the newsroom and now known as “a blog.”)
Update Looks like Y-Press got into the RNC through guest pass credentials.
Fort Wayne Observed has some good observations on the “new” media. In particular, I agree with this:
I compared the blogging atmosphere to print journalism of the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s when the number of published newspapers flourished. Those newspapers gained an audience by appeal over time. The audience of readers sorted out the purveyors’ credibility.
I had a U.S. history teacher in high school who taught us that “today’s reform is tomorrow’s corruption.” In a way, I think that happened to journalism. Striving for objectivity was a reform for the industry; I presume without knowing that this was a reaction to some of the “yellow” journalism at the turn of the 20th century. However, the pursuit of objectivity turned into a fetish of sorts. It led to a sort of relativism where the truth was unknowable and each issue had approximately two equal but opposite sides. “Some say the moon isn’t made of green cheese; other’s disagree.”
Bloggers definitely have points of view which allows them to call bullshit when they see it. After awhile, readers can figure out which writers are credible but honest; which writers are honest but gullible; which writers are simply dishonest; etc.
Of course, this has its disadvantages as well — for example, citizens are less and less likely to share a common frame of reference. If everybody was getting their news from Walter Cronkite, they could have a base of facts and disagree about the proper conclusions. Today, we can have neighbors where one gets their news from Mother Jones and another gets their news from Fox News. Their frames of reference are so far off, they can’t even properly disagree. They simply talk past one another when they bother to talk at all.
Mike Kole has a post that crystalizes some of what led me away from my infatuation with the Libertarian Party.
Americans have spoken. They do not believe in self-responsibility. They do not believe that they should accept the consequences of their choices.
Very well. If I, as a resident of Indiana, have to constantly see my tax dollars going towards the rebuilding of infrastructure for people who make incredibly dumb choices, such as living in an area that’s going to be pounded by hurricanes every three years or so, as Gustave now illustrates, it’s time to become practical and to adjust.
It’s time for the federal government to ban all occupancy below sea level.
It just doesn’t make any sense to be an idealist on the issue any longer. I’m all for liberty in tandem with self-responsibility. But liberty in tandem with collectivism is dangerous. We all have to pay for bad choices? What kind of stupidity is that?
While it varies from case-to-case and while libertarians have a world-view that is theoretically appealing to me in many ways, I don’t think Libertarians have a good plan for dealing with the realities on the ground. For example, we aren’t going to let people die when their choices dictate that result; we are not going to abandon the corporate form even though it shields decision makers from personal responsibility; and we are not going to overcome the various problems with eliminating the ability of polluters to externalize the costs of their activities. Barriers to personal responsibility necessitate limits to individual liberty — in much the same way as subsidies skew the workings of the free market.
Also, I must confess, I have backed off some of my beliefs about individualism. I still believe individual liberty is very important, but it isn’t the whole story. People are social creatures and there are some things we need to do in groups that we can’t do for ourselves. For example, flood control. We have to work together to defeat water, the common enemy. And, it would not be just if 60% of us devoted time, energy, and resources to flood control only to be either defeated by a holdout who wouldn’t participate and formed a weak link in the flood control plan or to have the holdout benefit from our efforts as a free rider without contribution.
This isn’t apropos of anything relevant to this blog, but I thought I’d recommend a fun little site called Lovely Listing. It captures really bad real estate listing pictures and adds snappy commentary. Fun for anyone who has ever tried to sell a house.
In honor of Labor Day, I recommend you give a listen to the Worker’s Song by the Dropkick Murphys.
Say what you will about unions, they were instrumental in raising the quality of life for our country as a whole. The market, unchecked by labor unions, led to conditions of squalor and abuse in the late 19th century and early 20th century which were simply appalling: horribly dangerous working conditions; brutally long hours; child labor; pay that was barely enough to subsist; and profits that accumulated in the hands of very, very few people.
If you’re looking for an Indiana blogger on labor issues, one of my regular stops is Charlie Averill.
This originally came from the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, but I happened to come across an AP version of the story first. So here’s the link. The Journal Gazette found that the Governor’s state-paid air travel is up about 45% this campaign year from last year.
Many of the flights were related to duties of his office, including job announcements or damage assessments after tornadoes or flooding, while other trips were taken to push Daniels’ legislative agenda.
However, the mix includes some trips that seem political, including appearances at local parades and festivals and at least five speeches at Lincoln Day dinners, a traditional Republican event, the newspaper reported Sunday after a review of 113 trips over the past 19 months.
Hey, if that means there’s more money available for those super-awesome campaign commercial telling us how excellent the economy really is, then those flights are o.k. in my book. As McCain economic adviser, Phil Graham, said, we’re a nation of whiners, and Mitch is just trying to get us out of our “mental recession.”
The Republican National Convention looks to be in danger of thinning out its speakers and attendees to the point that maybe they should just cancel for lack of interest. They’re citing the gathering storm down south as reason for staying away, but, come on. The levees broke in New Orleans and Bush & McCain still had time for cake.
If the weather causes tragedy on the scale of New Orleans all of these guys have access to fast planes to get them where they can do some good if it has to be somewhere other than St. Paul. Bush had a fast plane when New Orleans went under, but he chose to spend a couple more days on vacation.
As for the convention:
President Bush, Vice President Cheney and prominent GOP governors are all skipping the Republican National Convention, and the party is considering shortening its big four-day event[.]
The gap in enthusiasm between the two major parties is bigger than I’ve ever seen. It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out in November.
Andy Gammil, writing for the Louisville Courier-Journal, reports on a lesser known consequence of the legislature’s recent property tax repeal. The State is going to pick up schools’ entire operating budgets instead of just a portion. In the past, apparently, if a student wanted to go to a school outside his or her district, the school would charge the parents up to $5,000 per year to recoup the cost of the student that would have been paid by property taxes if the student had lived in the district. Because the local property tax component of a school’s operating costs have been reduced or eliminated, schools won’t be able to charge this sort of tuition.
The new rules should give parents more opportunity to choose their child’s school.
Unless the legislature steps in, however, school districts have discretion to decide whether to accept transfer students and, if they do, which ones they will accept.
That raises questions about how schools can be fair in accepting students without crowding or inviting lawsuits for excluding poor or minority students.
If the only change was this tuition, it sounds like all these grey areas existed before, but they had to be addressed only when a student’s family was able and willing to pay the tuition.
David Kurtz, at Talking Points Memo, posts about Denver:
Life expectancy has to be higher here in Denver. Everyone is lean and fit and looks like they just finished mountain biking, are on their way to yoga class, and might end the day with a run.
The other striking thing about the city is the number of dogs. There must be a city ordinance requiring all residents to own at least one dog. I’m not talking roving bands of stray dogs here, just everyone on the street with a leash in hand, and dogs that look very accustomed to hanging out in coffee shops, chilling in the shade of sidewalk cafes, and in general being part of the life of the city.
Certainly by Indiana standards, this is true. But, this is a little funny to me, because my sister lives to Telluride, CO. So, any time I get to Denver, I pretty much get over to Telluride as well. Compared to the folks in Telluride, the folks in Denver are a bunch of obese, dogless couch potatoes. (Boulder is like this as well. Finding the overweight person in Boulder is a little like playing Where’s Waldo.)