Post-Triptophan Randomness

OK, as usual to get back into blogging mode, I need something easy, something trivial, something . . . random.

Ran across this from xkcd in my Reader:


Which also frequently depicts the Random Ten experience for me. Take, for example, the current list:

1. Raconteurs, “Old Enough”
2. 3D, “Listen to the Radio”
3. Sixpence None the Richer, “Breathe Your Name”
4. AC DC, “Hell’s Bells”
5. Beck, “Peaches and Cream”
6. Social Distortion, “Cold Feelings”
7. The Jam, “Precious”
8. Five for Fighting, “Maybe I”
9. Dwight Yoakum, “Throughout All Time”
10. Alison Krauss and Union Station, “I’m Gone”

OK, yea, so I kinda like Sixpence None the Richer. I know I'm not supposed to. No doubt some of you are tuning up: they are bland MOR adult-pop that straddles the mainstream and Contemporary Christian markets. What's your deal Pho? Personally Leigh Nash's voice appeals and they come up with crazy good pop hooks.

Probably I wouldn't pay for it, but their weird crossover "Breathe Your Name" was a free promo download. It's exactly the sort of Christian pop song South Park sent up -- it sounds like a deeply romantic uptempo ballad until you dig into the lyrics.

Anyway. I've never liked it better than as a lead-in to "Hell's Bells."

Some thoughts on stuff:

I missed blogging on the lead up, but much thanks and kudos to both Akron City Council and Summit County Council for their votes for ordinances banning sexual orientation discrimination.

The big news today of course is the President's speech outlining the revised strategy for the Afghanistan war. I part ways with many of my compatriots on the left on this one -- and increasingly with Americans generally. Failure in Afghanistan would be devastating. I'm happy the President is willing to continue to pursue a successful resolution, notwithstanding the popular sentiment. More later.

In tomorrow's Legal News column I take on Stupak-Pitts. Again, more to follow.

I have an early start tomorrow, so that will have to do for tonight.

In Which a Tone Deaf Rock Fan Takes in the Worlds Best Orchestra

The offer came in this week -- get comp tickets to a Cleveland Orchestra performance and "blog about the experience." When our schedule cleared up for Friday night, I accepted the offer and took Kid Z along. I assume the offer came to me because I participated in a similar outreach by Opera Cleveland last summer, which in turn happened as a result of knowing that organizations communications director through her blog. These things can happen when you blog.

Despite being mostly a rock fan, I've seen quite a bit of the Cleveland Orchestra. In fact before we became parents Prof. W and I had a Severance Hall subscription. Not to say I can tell you why the orchestra is generally acknowledges as among the three or four best in the world. I just know they are and that they sound great.

Let's think a bit about Cleveland being home to one of the best orchestras in the world. Face it, one reason we are collectively gripping about the possibility of LeBron James leaving town is what it says about Northeast Ohio. He grew up here following the team and has been embraced as a hometown hero, and the team will be able to match whatever another team will pay him. And yet he might leave. If he does we are left with yet another bit of evidence that this is just not a place where people of excellence wish to live.

We're concerned that if he leave, the team will suck; we're really scared that if he leaves, it means we suck.

But we do have our pockets of excellence, and few if any are more excellent that the orchestra. It seems almost impossible that lowly, perennial joke-butt Cleveland could have anything, much less a highbrow cultural institution that ranks so highly.

Of course once you go you are reminded where you are. We have a world class cultural institution, a jewel of a venue in Severance, and perfectly abysmal parking. So the first part of the experience was getting there just in time, which meant that everything was parked up and we would be late.

Very Cleveland.

So we followed winding roads to, I think, Parma, laid in provisions for the trek back to Severance and set out. As a result we got there midway through the first movement of Dvořák's Cello Concerto in B Minor. Watching from the wings was nonetheless impressive. Again I know tiny bits about string playing (mostly from watching my kids take lessons) but soloist Alisa Weilerstein gets truly impressive sounds out of her instrument.

Once that piece was over, we were seated. The Orchestra apparently likes bloggers as they gave us seats on the floor three or four rows back. Viewing and listening from this distance is a whole new experience. First off you see things. Like everyone dresses in all black, but up close you see that some men wear tuxedo pants, some where regular dress slacks and one of the first violins wore ratty black cargoes. Who knew?

But more than that, the sound is stunning. Premium seats at the orchestra won't set you back much more than nosebleed seats at an aging rocker's Retirement Villa Tour at Quicken. But instead of muddy sound and dubiously tuned instruments you can hear what precision playing sounds like. I still listen to mostly rock and jazz at home, but increasingly classical is what I want to see live.

From that vantage we listened to Strauss's "Also Sprach Zarathustra." You know the first section better as:


The piece starts with basses rumbling so low they set up vibrations in your diaphram before you hear them. And of course the piece has far more to it than the now-cliche opening.

After the orchestra's performance internationally renouned percussionist Jamey Haddad set up shop in the lobby with a band of his students from Cleveland Institute of Music and Oberlin Conservatory, playing polyrhythmic jazz pieces deep into the night. The real treat of that portion was Ms. Wallerstein sitting in.

Like everyone else, the orchestra is hurting economically. And as noted, it is a can't miss gig. They never show up half in the bag and play half a set. And they won't turn free agent at the end of the season. Check them out. And if you can get away tonight, they are playing the Dvořák, which you really want to see.

Linkage:

The orchestra has a blog with tons of pics from last night. The PeeDee's review of the concert is up.

(Image from the Cleveland Orchestra)

Hubbard High School and Why We Have a First Amendment

If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.
-Justice Robert Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette

The Vindy (h/t ABJ) reports today about an Ohio high school student who was disciplined for not standing and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance:

Roxanne Westover, 17, of Elmwood Drive, had been reprimanded by the school for refusing to stand during the pledge, which is recited each morning. She said it contradicts her beliefs and she elected not to participate.

“I’m an atheist, and I believe the pledge isn’t something toward our nation,” she said. “It’s more like a religious oath, and I believe that if I stand I’m still participating in it.”

Westover said she had been written up and sent to the principal’s office multiple times for her refusal over the course of the past few weeks. The ACLU sent a letter requesting the school to stop requiring students to say the pledge.

In fact the question of compelling students to recite the Pledge was resolved back in 1943 in the Barnette case cited up top. The school is listening to the ACLU and in fact have discovered that school policy says students aren't required to recite.

All of which points up why civil libertarians work so hard to hold a strict line on attempts to introduce anything religious into schools. The pro-school prayer folks wonder ingenuously what could possibly wrong with a voluntary teacher-led prayer. This is what could -- and almost certainly would -- go wrong. Here is a school violating not only a decades-old Supreme Court precedent, but their own school policy. But we are supposed to trust that teacher-lead school prayer would never coerce non- or different believers.

Conservative Christians who pen thumb suckers about being oppressed. In fact they are angry that they can't use the mechanisms of the state to evangelize. That's not oppression. The plaintiffs in the Barnette case were Jehovah's Witnesses. Their children were expelled from school and their homes picketed. In other communities Witnesses were assaulted for their beliefs. That's oppression.

What Roxanne Westover experienced is hardly comparable to some of the outrages Americans past have experienced, but she did suffer real consequences just for believing something different than the majority. Happily we have a First Amendment to protect Roxanne -- and the rest of us.

Today in the Akron Legal News -- Low Power FM

What with the health care death match moving into the Senate and ongoing dramas over the budget, it's easy to miss the small bills floating around Congress. For today's column I flag one such bill, HR 1147, the Local Community Radio Act. The LCRA expands the authority of the FCC to issue licenses to non-profit low-power FM radio stations.

These 10-100 watt stations essentially cover a neighborhood -- imagine a radio station for Highland Square. Um, one not run by the Highland Square Neighborhood Association, preferably. In one article about low power FM the range of a rural station is described as having a 20 mile radius -- city clutter would cut that down.

Both commercial broadcasters and NPR have been lobbying against the proposed new rules for fear that the signals form low power stations would interfere with there signals. Given the current state of corporate radio, that sounds like an advantage. But in fact the FCC commissioned a study that indicates that the expanding LPFM will not interfere with extant radio stations.

Despite the technical reassurances and despite bipartisan co-sponsorship versions of the LCRA have failed in two Congresses so far. The House version is supposed to be heading for a floor vote in the next month or so.

Blogging is a big deal because a diversity of people were able to gain wide exposure with essentially no entry costs. LPFM isn't that good, but the entry costs are a fraction of starting up a traditional radio station. The effect of blogging on traditional news gathering has been undeniable. The effect of LPFM on commercial radio is likely to be slower and more subtle, but then commercial radio can't go anywhere but up.

LINKAGE:

I heard about the issue from getting on Free Press's email list. Here's their take on it. Free Press also lobbies for net neutrality.

One of the lead players in the lobbying effort is the Prometheus Radio Project. Here is a HuffPo piece from a Prometheus spokes person.

A map I reference showing LPFM stations in the U.S. is here.

The FCC is pretty much pro-low power. Here for example is a fact sheet from the agency answering a bunch of the objections. And this page contains links to a number of publications the FCC has put out as the controversy has worn on.

The essence of the Act is to allow third adjacent channel stations -- that is stations that are three channels away from an extant station. Here's a more detailed explanation of that.

If you are interested in following the progress of the bill, check out the Open Congress page.

On Akron's New Transparency (By Request)

Jill asks about the back story of this ABJ story last week. The city of Akron is posting regular daily updates of income tax receipts. I have some things to say about a few comments from the interweb now that I'm back on top of things. Might as well start with a friendly one.

This is happening because of a) the fiscal crisis every city is experiencing b) the deep distrust of the Mayor on the part of the public safety unions and c) the highly vocal anti-Plusquellic minority.

It goes like this. Because tax receipts are way down, the city has to make deep cuts. Ultimately those cuts include laying off a number of firefighters. No one is happy about this. We who live in the city really want to have confidence that our houses won't burn down. But a deficit is a deficit.

As unhappy as the residents are, the firefighters are extremely unhappy, and they accuse the administration of not doing everything they can to prevent the layoffs. The antipathy between the Mayor and union leadership cannot be exaggerated. They actually believe he would endanger residents in order to screw over the union.

The debate has taken on a surreal turn as the Mayor's various antagonists have claimed that the administration isn't forthcoming about the city's finances. This echoes the debate throughout the recall effort. Every time the Mayor would answer a charge about city finances, his critics would move the goal posts again.

Jill ventures into the dark place of madness and despair that is the Trollhio.com comments section. Needless to say the denizens are unimpressed. Jill is right about the limited capacity of regular folks to objectively interpret information like that being posted. What the posting does offer is the Mayor's critics the opportunity to find someone who does have the chops and have at it.

Not that they will. It's far more enjoyable to just sit back and bitch. Hell, a certain Akron attorney has practically made a career of it.

Public Option Annie

Work of a guerrilla musical theater group that infiltrated a national conference of the health insurance trade group AHIP. Thanks to the friend who passed this along. Enjoy.



Apologies for any Ohio bloggers who may have hit this first. I have, as noted, been out of the loop.

Tom Ganley in Akron

Tom Ganley spoke before the Akron Press Club in early October and, yes, I'm just getting to it now. It's been a trying semester. Sue me.

Anyway, with Ganley running the first ad in what looks like a media-heavy campaign and the ODP increasingly working to pump up the NY23-ness of the Republican primary, it's worth revisiting that appearance. In a separate post I'll offer my views on what threat, if any, he is in the race.

The first thing we learned about Tom Ganley is that he's sufficiently interested in the race to spend money recklessly. He hired a crew to assemble a stage for his presentation -- raised platform, blue drapery background, teleprompters, all for an audience of maybe forty.

The second thing we learned was that Ganley fancies himself a populist. A thin line exists between conservative populism and ugly xenophobic nativism, but it doesn't matter how thin because Ganley vaults himself well into nativist territory.

For much of his 15 minutes or so of prepared remarks Ganley hit on traditional economic conservative themes -- lower spending, lower taxes, smaller government. But he hit on some odd themes as well, particularly decrying the loss of manufacturing jobs in Ohio. Since most of those jobs have gone overseas and pro-business conservatives don't necessarily see that as a bad thing.

Ganley's one specific policy proposal is a job creation tax credit, given for recalling laid off workers, creating new jobs or repatriating jobs that have gone overseas. Hmm. There it is again.

The other strong theme in his brief stump speech is that Tom Ganley is a businessman. That he is a successful businessman cannot be denied. He started with a Rambler dealership when he was twenty something and has built that into the highest volume dealership group in the state. Recalling the Rambler my parents had when I was wee, parlaying that dealership into anything better than Chapter 11 is a significant accomplishment.

But Ganley oversells the business angle. Why does everyone who runs for Congress as a successful business person think he/she is the first to do so? In Ganley's mind, no one in Washington understands business and everyone who understands business can understand government. He says that when he is elected he will bring eight or so Senators together and teach them all there is to know about running a business. Then charge those eight Senators with teaching their colleagues. And that will fix things in Washington.

No really, he said all this. Like a freshman Senator will be in a position to "teach" senior Senators anything. It's so darn cute you just want to hug him. It might be worth sending him to Washington just to see the inevitable hazing.

If you haven't been to a Press Club event, the usual drill is a half hour or so speeh, followed by Q&A from the audience. Among other things we're trying to fill the one hour slot we have for cable rebroadcasts. Ganley's people knew this, but nonetheless he gave his fifteen minute stump and looked increasingly uncomfortable as the questioned dragged on. He derides "professional politicians," but the sooner he learns there is an actual skill set to appearing before and adapting to a crowd, the fewer days like this he will have.

It was in the Q&A that we really get that populist, er, nativist streak in Ganley's thought. When pressed to differentiate himself with Portman specifically on trade, he made overtly protectionist noises. He said as a threshold matter that he would not have voted for a trade deal with China, and that he does not believe in negotiating trade deals generally. He also had favorable things to say about recent measures to protect the domestic tire industry.

But of all his positions, none got him more animated that illegal immigration. To his credit, he would "come down hard" on the executives on companies that hire illegals. But he also made ugly noises about the "millions who don't belong here." He's clearly not in favor of any reform that would involve a path to citizenship. And when asked a tricky question -- what should we do upon finding an undocumented family with a child sick with H1N1 -- he said indignantly that if they are illegal, deport 'em.

So while populism generally aims at channeling grassroots energy at challenging the power of establishment institutions, Ganley seems more interested in channeling it at alien others. Depending on where he goes with it, this could devolve into a nasty, shower-necessitating campaign. And that bit about deporting a sick kid for one will make a nice sound bite against him.

Grumpy Abe has been attending and writing up the Senate events as well. You can read his take on Ganley here.