Only the radio.

My New Beetle is now five years old and the original stereo no longer recognizes the CD player that is lodged in the trunk. "No magazine," it tells me. The tape player died a while back, so that leaves me with only the radio. I generally prefer to listen to the radio, because I like to hear people talking about one thing or another when I'm driving. I don't hate music, but I find I rarely want to listen to music. I enjoy a music-free atmosphere. You'd think someone who drives a New Beetle and uses only Macintosh computers would be the sort of person who would have an iPod, but I don't want an iPod, because I don't want to listen to music. I think there is too much music around already. The main reason for an iPod for me would be to play music to screen out other music. When they make an iPod that cancels out music, I'll buy it.

But sometimes the radio is not enough. On a long trip, it can be hard to find anything on the radio. I've driven through places in the West where you hit the scan button and it just goes all the way around the dial over and over. I've driven in other places where the scan button takes you all the way around and back to where you were before (and it was always Cher singing "Believe"--a few years ago). Sometimes, being limited to the radio can draw you into the landscape in a deep and mysterious way. I remember driving through rural Mississippi and hearing the middle of a long gospel song, a sung sermon. The singer was describing how some day she would arrive in Heaven, and she would not want to see her mother, because she wanted to see Jesus, and she would not want to see her father, because she wanted to see Jesus. It went on and on, with different persons the singer did not want to see in Heaven, until my driving took me out of the range of the broadcast.

I could almost convince myself that it is better to be limited to the radio while driving, even when it means driving out of the reach of all broadcasting. That is a stunning and eerie experience, to go with the desert landscape. But sometimes the radio is not enough. If you have a long drive, especially on the boring Interstate, you need something to occupy your mind. I have many spoken word CDs to load into the CD player, and, in any event, I share my car with my sons, and they like to hear music.

But how can you replace the stereo in a New Beetle? It's got a distinctive curve and an oval shape and lighting that matches the beautiful lighting of the entire dashboard. The aesthetic effect would be ruined! The only choice, other than to stay with only the radio, is to go back to the dealer and repair the original stereo, though it's five years old, or buy another one. We had wanted a new stereo with a nice slot to stick in one disc at a time, which we all prefer to loading six CDs into the device in the trunk, but there is no such stereo designed for the Beetle. (What about an iPod that you connect to the stereo? I can't use one of those devices that you insert into the tape player, because the tape player is broken. There's another device that plays through the radio, but I don't trust that to work well enough.) We are forced--by aesthetics--to stay with the trunk CD arrangement, or stick with just the radio. I remember when a radio in a car was an impressive extra, and an AM-FM radio something to brag about. Staying with only the radio is the perfectly cheap, do-nothing solution, which is always a plus. It is my car.

UPDATE: After this paean to radio, the God of Radio smiled upon me and made my CD player start working again. Now, if only I could think of a way to appease the God of Cell Phones and find the one I lost on Thursday.

I hate disco!

Time for another grueling round of "American Idol." The theme is announced: “70s dance music.” It makes Constantine say: “Let’s boogie.” It makes Chris (here at home) say: “Why don’t they just say disco?” I say, “I think they are counting something beyond disco.” Seacrest gave Earth, Wind & Fire as a clue (along with Bee Gees and Donna Summer), so I think they can do disco or (let’s hope) funk.

Funk ≠ disco.

Constantine Maroulis: proving he’s into the whole cheesiness of Idol, he goes with the Bee Gees. “Nights On Broadway.” He’s gotten his hair streaked with blond, and I’m seeing eyeliner. He hams it up a lot. Paula: “Everything about you in the last few weeks is oh-my-God.” Simon: “Akin to a waiter in some ghastly Spanish restaurant.” In the Seacrest interview, we get a nice closeup. His hair is super-shiny, and there’s not just eyeliner, there’s golden eyeshadow. And it looks great!

Carrie Underwood: she’s doing “MacArthur Park.” Huh? You know, the Donna Summer one. She’s going for a Stevie Nicks look, but Stevie Nicks in 80s “Dynasty” makeup. She’d look better if someone left her out in the rain and let the sweet green icing flow down. The song ends with a long, dragged out “Oh, no” – like “ooooohhhhhh noooooo” – and that’s my thought exactly. Randy loves it. Paula (she’s cringing, but she’ll lie): “Wow on that last note, you held it out for the longest I think any Idol’s ever held a note.” Yikes! What passes for good. Simon comments on the look: “It’s like Barbie meets the Stepford Wives.” Nothing about the music.

Scott Savol: “Seventies ain’t my thing.” But he is dancing and moving about under a mirror ball. So there’s a fun side of Scott. Actually, it’s rather amusing. The song is “Everlasting Love.” Nice! They want him to leave though, so let’s see how they try to kill him. Randy: “just the right song… it was hot.” Paula uses her turn to harass Simon about how he probably never danced. Simon admits he’s never danced and Randy quotes the phrase “the dead don’t dance.” Simon’s looking for a theory why Scott has squeaked by thus far: “You are Ordinary Guy who is doing quite well” – basically karaoke. Scott aces the Seacrest interview, asking God to bless Simon and saying happy birthday to his mom. Why is that acing? Because it will bring in the votes he needs. Watch him avoid the bottom three this week. America will keep Ordinary Guy afloat.

Anthony Fedorov: boy, is he looking dewy fresh! He’s figured out what he has that the other guys lack: sheer youth. “Don’t Take Away the Music.” Ooh, I hate this song. Oh, but he’s ending well. Those high notes. Randy, Paula: they love it. Simon: “pleasant, safe, and a little insipid – so it’s sort of a compliment.”

Vonzell Solomon: doing Chaka Khan’s “I’m Every Woman.” She’s got a cool 60s hairdo: the huge bump with a long fall. But you’re not supposed to remember the decades straight. It’s just some nostalgic old crap. I guess she’s good, but by now I’m in full “I hate disco” mode. Randy: “you worked it out.” Paula: “best performance so far tonight.” Simon: “one of the most difficult songs… your personality can carry a song like that.. and I think you did get away with that.” So they pretty much all said it was on the edge of a horror, but we love you anyway.

Anwar Robinson: “September” – Earth, Wind & Fire. Is this funk? Just seems like more disco. Arrrggghhh! That was painful. Randy: “great… good.” Paula: “awesome.” Simon: like a “seventies revue musical.” In the interview, he phonily claims he “just wanted to have fun tonight.” I’m predicting him as the loser.

They’ve saved Bo Bice for last. Clearly, they want to help him (after he landed in the bottom three last week). They already singled him out in the show’s intro. Don’t forget to help Bo! “Vehicle” is his song. Never heard of it. I tried to hide from disco. Everyone I knew hated disco. Oh, wait. I know this song. “I’m your vehicle, woman/I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.” He just wants to be used. Please think of me as a car. Kind of a rich, old geezer’s desperate line to a beautiful, young woman, isn’t it? Simon thinks this is his “only authentically good performance.”

Okay. I hate disco, and I did not enjoy any of that. But it’s over now, so I'll settle down. What’s going to happen in the vote? I think Constantine, Bo, and Vonzell are secure. I think Anwar is in the biggest trouble. But who will the other two in the bottom three be? You know I want Carrie in the bottom three, so I’ll just predict her. And Anthony. Scott will survive.

"Bob Dylan Wins Nobel Prize in Literature."

Whoa!

I am stunned. It's taking some moments for the news to sink in.

My first reaction was: I'd heard this idea floated for a long time, but I didn't take it too seriously. And I'm the kind of deep devotee of Dylan that when I write "take it too seriously," I hear a Dylan song and stop to think what it is. Isn't that a Dylan line? No, I'm thinking "You shouldn’t take it so personal...." — which is "One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later)." "Seriously" only appears in one Dylan song — if I can trust the search function on his website — and that's here....

Now, little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously
He brags of his misery, he likes to live dangerously
And when bringing her name up
He speaks of a farewell kiss to me
He’s sure got a lotta gall to be so useless and all
Muttering small talk at the wall while I’m in the hall
How can I explain?
Oh, it’s so hard to get on
And these visions of Johanna, they kept me up past the dawn

"Visions of Johanna." Sorry if I'm muttering small talk at the... web... while I'm just out of bed...

Oh! I am simply delighted. No one I don't actually know has made such an impression on me in my life, and it was done with words... words and music... but it's the literature prize, so I'm going to stick to the words here, even though the last thing I read before I went to sleep last night was David Remnick's New Yorker article "Leonard Cohen Makes It Darker/At eighty-two, the troubadour has another album coming. Like him, it is obsessed with mortality, God-infused, and funny." And that contains some long quotes from Bob Dylan, who had a lot to say about Cohen. But it wasn't mostly about the words, but the music:

“His gift or genius is in his connection to the music of the spheres,” Dylan went on. “In the song ‘Sisters of Mercy,’ for instance, the verses are four elemental lines which change and move at predictable intervals . . . but the tune is anything but predictable. The song just comes in and states a fact. And after that anything can happen and it does, and Leonard allows it to happen. His tone is far from condescending or mocking. He is a tough-minded lover who doesn’t recognize the brush-off. Leonard’s always above it all. ‘Sisters of Mercy’ is verse after verse of four distinctive lines, in perfect meter, with no chorus, quivering with drama. The first line begins in a minor key. The second line goes from minor to major and steps up, and changes melody and variation. The third line steps up even higher than that to a different degree, and then the fourth line comes back to the beginning. This is a deceptively unusual musical theme, with or without lyrics. But it’s so subtle a listener doesn’t realize he’s been taken on a musical journey and dropped off somewhere, with or without lyrics.”

But let's talk about lyrics, Bob Dylan's lyrics — a singer's lyrics have won the Nobel Prize. I don't think that's happened before. We expect poetry — to be taken so seriously — to stand disengaged from music. But wasn't early poetry sung? Dylan's words, because they were sung, became imprinted on minds. I cannot exaggerate the impression these words made on me when I began listening to the songs half a century ago. Utterly entranced by The Byrds' "Mr. Tambourine Man," I took a chance and bought an album from the "folk" section of the record store: "Bringing It All Back Home." That was Bob's current album at the time The Byrds' single came out, and "Mr. Tambourine Man" was on that album. It was also just before the release of "Highway 61 Revisited," so a summer of bonding to "Bringing It All Back Home" ended with access to the new album. I played those 2 albums continually in 1965, when I was 14. I went back into the old albums, "Another Side Of Bob Dylan" and "The Freewheelin Bob Dylan."

Unlike many of the recordings of the day, Bob Dylan enunciated his words clearly. He was saying unusual things, but you knew what the words were — nothing garbled Louie-Louiesquely — so you got those words lodged in your head, where they would come to mind often, and swirl into your self-generated thoughts, even when you didn't know exactly what he was talking about, there was meaning, meaning to contemplate for the rest of your life.

You could read and try to memorize poems or hear a poet recite his verses — Dylan Thomas, Allen Ginsberg — but because this was music, those words got very deeply rooted. All my life, ever since I was 14, Bob Dylan lyrics have been interlaced with my own thoughts. I can't imagine who I would be without Bob Dylan. I can't begin to unravel my mind back to the point when it didn't contain threads of Bob Dylan. I can't pull out any particular idea of mine that I got from Bob Dylan. I'm not the get-out-of-the-doorway-if-you-can't-lend-a-hand type of Bob Dylan fan, stuck on the political propaganda era, his younger, older days.

Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth
“Rip down all hate,” I screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull. I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers
Foundationed deep, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now....

"American Idol" -- the "girls."

It's "girls" night, and I expect to find it less entertaining than last night. But Randy does think they are going to "bring it," so let's see if they do.

Aloha Mischeaux. Wearing a big red flower in her hair and a giant rectangle of red chiffon, she sings a draggy song, one of those meandering, tuneless R&B songs so many of the contestants do. It's an Alicia Keys song. The judges all hate it.

Lindsey Cardinale. I can barely hear her over the band. Seems to be some sort of country song. She does that growly thing with her throat that singers do to seem sexy and emotional, but the effect is phony. The judges all hate it.

Jessica Sierra. She tells us she's a country girl. She's wearing a large swath of blue satin, possibly an actual article of clothing. I hate the song -- something about angels flying, but I think she's singing pretty well. Some good belting, some decent range. The judges all love her. Simon: "amazing."

Mikalah Gordon. This is an incredibly annoying 16-year-old who looks 40, has (apparently) heavily collagened lips, and tries to act as much like TV's "The Nanny" as she possibly can. How long can we put up with that? But you vote for people on this show, not against them, so she may be able to hold on for another week or so. Wow! She sits on a stool, she wears a real article of clothing (a red turtleneck), and she sings a real song: "God Bless the Child." Damn, I like her just for singing a real song! Randy: "I give you mad props, man." Paula: "You nailed it." Simon: "That was just a joy to watch and listen to... You weren't annoying in the slightest, because you're not talking!" Well, somebody gave her some good advice, and she adjusted well.

Celena Rae. More bogus throatiness. Another cheesy country-ish song. I Google a lyric and figure out it's Faith Hill's "When the Lights Go Down." I hate that kind of crap. The judges find her ordinary. Simon: "There's a thin line between being a pop star and singing in a hotel."

Nadia Turner. The coolest looking person who has ever appeared on the show. Amazing, huge hair is just the beginning. She's wearing a short white camisole and a red skirt held up by her pubic bone. And some kind of wacky black and white boots. She sings Paul McCartney: "My Love." She's not really a good enough singer, but we all like her.

Amanda Avila. She attributes her success to "God's timing." She sings "Turn the Beat Around" -- horrendously. She's pretty, but get her out of here!! Painful! I bet the judges tell her she's pretty. Randy: better than last week -- not just a beautiful face. Paula: better than last week. They are not harsh enough. Please, Simon: slam her! "Overall, it was a great performance." Ridiculous!

Janay Castine. She was terrified last week, so what will she do now? She's singing some weird song that reminds me of that "I love to sing-a" cartoon with the frog -- you know? But much less musical. I just can't understand this concept of music. It's somewhere in a realm that is not music. Randy: "That wasn't very good, man.... A little rough." Paula: "It wasn't bad..." Simon: "You're like a little doll who's been programmed to be a pop star.... Right now, I think you're too young."

Carrie Underwood. She accepts being thought of as "farm girl." She sings "Piece of My Heart"! But she starts too low for her range. She dances in that bouncy, wiggly way that does not make me feel anything -- maybe it works for you. My opinion: not enough real feeling. Randy: "It's hard to do Janis Joplin." Get back in your country box! Paula: "That wasn't believable." Get back in your country box! Simon: "We loved you last week. This was reminiscent of what a cover band would do... You lost some star quality." All true! "Oh, you're holding me!" Ryan says when she puts her arm around him. "That's a first this season." Hey, get back in the box! You're the squeaky clean girl!

Vonzell Solomon. She's going last, the mailman girl. So I guess she's going to be good. She's wearing a black sheath and a clunky gold breast plate. Her voice is thin and screetchy. I don't like it! Randy: "Didn't quite make it." Paula: "You were ambitious... you're a fun performer... hold your center together." Simon: "An overcooked performance." Well, I'm glad they broke from the pattern of putting the best person last.

America, feel free to vote off: Aloha, Lindsey, Celena, Amanda, Janay, Carrie. Especially Amanda! But you've got to keep: Jessica and Mikalah. And let's give Nadia and Vonzell some more chances. Tomorrow night, I'm predicting Amanda and Celena are gone.

UPDATE: A reader emails that Carrie really was still in her country box, because Faith Hill had a big hit with "Piece of My Heart," and Carrie was probably doing the Faith Hill version. Another emailer writes to say that Alicia Keys is not herself "meandering and tuneless" when doing that song that Aloha did badly. I assumed so. I think Keys -- whom I haven't listened to much -- has a lovely voice that brings musicality to things that mediocre singers can't find the music in.

Is podcasting good?

The NYT has a frontpage article promoting podcasting, which is supposedly the big new thing now that blogs are so last year. I decided to check out Adam Curry's "Daily Source Code," and clicked on this one. It was just unedited, uninteresting blather. He rambled on about NYC. He seemed to think it was worth stating that he hadn't been there since 9/11, even though he had nothing else to say about 9/11 and just continued into some lightweight talk about how he had a lot of friends to visit. And there was no amusing detail of any sort about the friends. Just: he has a lot of friends in NY. Who cares? Then, he got to the topic of "The Gates," which he had nothing interesting to say about. "The Gates" made it hard for him to find a hotel. He said, "The hotels are all booked to the hilt," then immediately started talking about the Hilton. Well, it seems to me that if you have any way with words at all, if you say "to the hilt" and then "the Hilton," you've got to riff on that. If you don't have a way with words and you can't riff verbally and your ideas and observations don't flow out with some detail or distinctive edge, why are you recording yourself?

So I've got the lav on, so I can walk around a bit, look out the window. Let's see. What was I going to do?

One thing about written blogs is you can glance over them quickly and decide how much you want to read. These podcast recordings impose their time frame on you. A slow talker forces you to listen longer. A slow writer doesn't cause you to read slowly.

I'm not completely knocking podcasting. I might like to do it myself. Curry deserves credit for developing the medium, but I don't see him as much of a content provider. That's my snap judgment after listening to him for about two minutes and not wanting to put up with any more slow-moving banalities. I can see the special value to people who are walking around with iPods and want to listen to something radio-like. Sitting with my computer, I find it annoying to listen to a rambling chat. But audio might be a nice addition to a blog, like photography. But like photography and writing, spoken word needs to be done well. It can't be just: hey, look, I'm podcasting.

UPDATE: I should have mentioned that at some point Curry plays music. That's when I turned it off, actually. Conceivably, a DJ can chatter inanely and still be acceptable to people who want to hear music. I pretty much only listen to music in my car. You might wonder why I don't have an iPod. I quite simply don't want one. I don't like to listen to music while I'm out walking around.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Legal Underground thinks I'm rejecting podcasting and Adam Curry unfairly and claims that there are a lot of great podcasts out there. First, link to some that you consider great so I can see for myself. I picked Curry's site because he seemed to be an important podcaster. And I did get his "soundseeing" concept, but found it lacking in content. (I also hate when NPR pads out its stories with footsteps in the crunching leaves as we approach ... whatever.) And I do understand the notion of downloading the material into an iPod, but I'm not going to sign on to the idea that the material therefore doesn't really need to be that good. If I listen through my computer and find it boring and pointless, I'm going to stand by that opinion. I've listened to "This American Life" and old episodes of Jean Shepard's great show on the computer. It's the same as listening to the radio.

YET MORE: There is also just "audioblogging," which looks really easy to do on Blogger. One advantage is that you can phone in your posts, which means you can blog without a computer. A pitfall, judging from the examples at that link, is talking as you would in an ordinary phonecall. It is quite tedious to listen to a stranger talk in a way that would be normal and acceptable in a personal phone call. I think people naturally hold themselves to a higher standard when writing. But audioblogging might be great for a small blog that is read by friends and family -- basically, the people who would enjoy chatting on the phone with you. It would take a real effort, I think, to use a telephone to make an audio clip that a large number of strangers would want to hear out. Even getting good content would be hard, but add to that the problems most of us have speaking fluently and distinctly and in a nice-sounding tone of voice.

AND YET MORE: Jonathan Gewitz agrees with me about the problem of audio imposing its time frame on you and adds that videoblogging has the same drawback. I note that I'm essentially making an argument for why reading is the best way to receive communication (unless you're having a personal relationship). I've developed almost an aversion to going to the movies in the last couple years, and I know it's mostly about feeling stuck in the theater. You commit yourself to being there for the two hours or so and then you have to wait while the material is reeled out at the pace somebody else decided was a good idea for the audience in general. At least with TiVo or a DVD you can pause when you want, but isn't reading superior? You're not limited to pausing. You can vary the pace constantly depending on your interest, the difficulty of the material, and how much room you need to make for thoughts of your own.

I realize that this point is related to what I wrote yesterdayabout the Summers speech heard live and the speech read as a transcript. ("I think if I had been there and heard the 'daddy truck/baby truck' part, I would have missed the whole next section because I would have become wrapped up in my own thoughts. This is one reason why I'd prefer to read a speech than listen to one. Who can sit through a long, overcomplicated speech with a passive mind?") Of course, as a teacher, I impose live speech on an audience all the time, so I must also believe that there is something that happens in that setting that is better than reading or an important addition to reading. But I certainly know one needs to make a very great effort to do it right. You've got to feel that you owe your audience a lot, since you are presuming to trap them in a room for an hour.

Mysterious personal reaction to Dick Cheney.

With the big vice presidential debate tonight, let me say something about the vice presidential debate four years ago. In 2000, I supported Al Gore from the beginning, I voted for him, I stayed up late into the night on election night waiting to hear that he had won, and I monitored each phase of the post election legal battle hoping for Al Gore to find a way to victory. On the Friday when the Florida Supreme Court ordered the full-state recount, I felt stunned by joy. I remember going to see a performance of Handel's oratorio "Israel in Egypt" at the Music School that night and thinking about Al Gore throughout the performance. The whole time I was listening to the story of Exodus, I was also thinking about Al Gore. Lines like "He spake the word, and there came all manner of flies and lice in all quarters" blended in my mind with images of hanging chads and Floridians eyeing punchcards. When the oratorio was over--"Sing ye to the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously"--and we got up to leave, the first thing I said was: "Al Gore!"

In short, I was for Al Gore.

But there was one point when I was surprised by the anomalous thought: maybe I should vote for George Bush. Within the long period of commitment to Al Gore, the contrary thought that Bush might be the right choice flared up briefly, shortly after Dick Cheney began to speak at the vice presidential debate. (Transcript.) Astounding! Why would that be? Lieberman made the first opening statement. It was warm and folksy, thanking "wonderful people," naming his wife, saying that his 85-year-old mom had called him that day to tell him to be positive. How could the charmless Cheney compare? Cheney began with a quick thanks, an agreement about being positive, and an ad lib about Lieberman's singing, then said, in that flat, warmth-free Cheney manner:

I think this is an extraordinarily important decision we're going to make on November 7. We're really going to choose between what I consider to be an old way of governing ourselves of high levels of spending, high taxes, an ever more intrusive bureaucracy, or a new course, a new era, if you will. And Governor Bush and I want to offer that new course of action.

Well, what is the great appeal in that? It's a bit of a mystery to me. Did I find the very flatness refreshing? He was saying: look, there are two ways of doing things, and you people are just going to have to choose. Not: I'm charismatic, love me. Just: here's the deal; decide.

UPDATE: Gerry Daly of Daly Thoughts tries to solve the mystery:

Obviously, I do not know your mind beyond your writing on the blog, so the possibility I am floating here would be offered to anyone saying that the reaction was a mysterious one.

As you probably have guessed from my blog, I am a bit of a poll junkie. Over the years, I have learned a few things following the polls. One thing is that people lie (or maybe it would be better stated that people often answer in ways that cannot be reconciled with reality). An example is this is how often polls show that people are disgusted with the way politics are conducted. They hate the negativity. They hate the pandering. They hate the money. They hate the disingenuousness. Yet time and again, it is proven that the negativity works, that the pandering works, that the money works, that the disingenuousness works, and the way politics are conducted works. The public does not like it, yet the public acts as if they do like it; they are persuaded by it, and when it is not there they complain about how boring and uninspiring the candidates are.

A second thing I have learned is that even when the public lies, there is some truth involved. And I believe that people really do not like the negativity, the pandering, the money, the whole kit and kaboodle. Time and again, the reformist mindset shows polling appeal when it is properly tapped by an aspiring politician. The public just hates when the views they hold lose, more than they hate the crud that goes on. They believe that both sides do it, so why punish the guy they agree with for doing it?

Now, read Lieberman's offering. It was nothing like what Al Gore has become, what Howard Dean is like, or anything of the sort. As you put it, it was "was warm and folksy", and positive. It was prepared. It was political. Not that there is anything wrong with that; the world would be a better place if politics were conducted more like Senator Lieberman approached it that night.

But Cheney's was a little different. It offered a glimpse beyond politics. It provided a glimpse of the world if, instead of us making political decisions, we made decisions on how we wished to be governed.

Sadly, I think that Cheney is gone. I have not seen him since 9/11. It is almost like since then, he has decided that it is just too important to lose, and that he must play the politics game. I am not sure that is what has happened. If it is, I am not sure he is wrong.

But I wish that Cheney was back, and I wish that mindset was the predominant one. Here's how it is. Choose. And then get back to living life rather than playing these silly games.

Well put. We'll see soon enough which Cheney we will get in this year's debate. My new TV is being set up with HDTV reception today, and I will be testing it out tonight with the wonderfully contrasting mugs of Edwards and Cheney. I'm hoping for some high definition in their substantive positions as well.

ADDED: I've got the title ready for my simulblog of the debate: HDVP.

ANOTHER UPDATE: First, thanks to Instapundit for linking to this. Second, I'm told the debates are not shown in HDTV, so that dashes my hope of getting the chance to inspect every well-shampooed strand of John Edwards's hair and to use my planned title. Third, more than one emailer has observed that two out of three of the components of the "old way" have survived in the Bush Administration.

Public radio needs classical music?

Andrew Ferguson, writing in the Weekly Standard, doesn't like that his local NPR station is going from classical music to all news and talk. And he's arguing that this format change is a reason why public radio ought to be privatized. I would argue the opposite: public radio is most justifiable in the news and talk format.

I listen to WERN here in Madison, but only if it has a news or talk show on. If I turn on the radio and hear classical music, I turn it right off and am, in fact, irritated that they are using the public station for that purpose. I don't hate classical music -- Ferguson calls it "beautiful and intelligent music." But it is only listened to by a small segment of the population, no doubt the more affluent folks who are perfectly capable of purchasing all the easily available classical music they want on CD or as digital files. Yet Ferguson's argument is studded with points about a dysfunctional marketplace:

Public radio in the United States is remaking itself according to a wholly new sense of its mission. Originally conceived as a service for preserving and encouraging minority tastes ignored by the market -- particularly in the arts, not only in classical music but also in jazz, bluegrass, cabaret, folk -- public radio is being transformed into the nation's first government-funded news service....

"We're in the business of trying to create a larger audience," [WETA's president] told the Washington Post, explaining the [format change]. Her line of reasoning is shared by the new generation of station managers who have gained control over public radio in the last 15 years. According to their conventional wisdom -- though whether it's wisdom or merely convention has yet to be determined -- news and chat inevitably bring in more listeners, and more affluent listeners, than classical music or jazz. And affluent listeners draw higher-class advertisers (called "underwriters" in the painstaking lexicon of public broadcasting) and respond more generously during pledge drives.

... [But] the point of subsidized radio has never been to maximize its audience, and certainly not to maximize its income. It has always been sustained instead on an odd, but sturdy, rationale: Public broadcasting needed to exist because its programming wasn't terribly popular....

If poor, minority, or marginalized persons were big fans of classical music, I might think about this differently. But the audience for classical music does not deserve special favors. They got what they wanted in the past precisely because they were the affluent people who would respond to fund drives. Now that the baby boomers have filled up the affluent demographic, the same dynamic is pushing out classical music, because not many baby boomers care about classical music. Quit whining about the advantage you're losing and ask yourself whether you ever deserved that advantage in the first place. It's not enough to say that classical music is "beautiful and intelligent." Nearly everyone thinks the music they like is the best.

I do realize that there has always been an argument about cultivating a new audience for classical music, and that telling people who already like it to buy their own CDs is not enough because we need new people to encounter it on the radio, where they can learn to like it. But why should the government care which genre of music people decide to like? Why isn't the marketplace enough? Just because it doesn't favor the music you like? There is some problem with radio stations being too much alike, but playing a lot of classical music is an inadequate solution to that problem. Why should only one minority taste get government support?

Remember your birthday?

Oh, it's that time again! Another round of "American Idol." I pick up the TiVo controller with trepidation. Ryan Seacrest acts like it was a travesty that Nikko Smith lost out last week, but Nikko deserved to go. Seacrest chides us: "Watching the show without voting is like starting a conversation with Randy: pointless." Obviously, he knows nothing of the pleasures of blogging a crap-ass TV show.

What's the theme tonight? Ryan tells us: "Songs from the year you were born. Remember your birthday?" What the hell kind of question is that? If you can't remember your birthday, I'd suggest sitting home on a comfy sofa and just watching the big show.

First up, Nadia Turner. Born in 1977. I guess I wasn't paying enough attention in 1977, because this song means nothing to me, but Nadia's huge hair and drapey, ultra-short, red dress mean a lot. Still, I'm bored out of my skull with this song. The word "dream" is in it. And the words "come true" are in the last line, after which she gives a syrupy smile. Ha! Randy doesn't know the song either. "It's from Crystal Gayle." Paula wows over the look, but the song: umm... Simon says "That was musical wallpaper." Seacrest: "Of all the songs in that year, why did you pick that one?" Answer: dreamy, dreams, dreeeeeemssssss, I'm a dreeeemer.....

Bo Bice is going to sing "Free Bird." 1975. I am so up for this! Randy and Paula love it, but Simon advises him to "use the rock influence on your voice on well-known songs." "Free Bird" isn't well known??? "Free Bird" is iconic! Simon says it's a "sacred song" that you shouldn't "run all over the stage" singing. So it's "sacred" but not "well-known"? Simon speaks in a very self-consciously rational way, but sometimes he says something that just doesn't make sense. What did he mean? I do agree, however, that Bo shouldn't roam about so much. And I like the way, when Ryan tried to hold his hand, Bo jerked his hand away.

I start thinking about what songs would be available to me, if I could be on the show. I'm way too old and I'm a horrible singer, but still ... Here's the list from my year, and my song from that list is "Sweet Violets." I remember hearing it once. I was in bed and overheard my parents playing it. I loved it deeply and the next day asked my parents about it. They told me, it was not for children and I couldn't hear it. Was it about sex? Death? Oddly, though I've always remembered it, I have never bothered to find the song and listen to it. I can still hear it in my head from that one listen, but I've never heard it again. I rush over to iTunes. The Dinah Shore hit is not there (only a Mitch Miller version). Ah! here are the lyrics. It's a bizarrely veiled filthy song from the past! Good thing my parents protected me, or protected themselves from having to deal with my questions.

Anwar Robinson. 1975. "I'll Never Love This Way Again." In the intro, he admits that as a little kid, he didn't talk, but he found a voice for himself in music. That's genuinely touching. How many musicians can say that? Most, perhaps. Maybe I'm too much of a mom, but that brings tears to my eyes. Randy says he's "the best singer in this competition." Paula: "The tone of your voice... is mesmerizing." Even Simon likes it, but then says "comforting ... like a blanket." True! Anwar is a sweetheart. And the repeated phrase "I know I'll never love this way again" really is very engaging.

Anthony Federov, born in 1985, is singing "Every Time You Go Away," that nice Paul Young song, a good choice for him. Halfway through, I'm thinking, it would be fun to hear Clay Aiken sing this. Anthony's okay, but he's a little short of power. He ends well enough. The judges like him, including Simon. An example of good song choice.

1984 is the birth year of our dear Vonzell Solomon, who sings "Let's Hear It For the Boy." I hate the song and I hate the instrumentation. I predict she'll be in the bottom three. I'm tired of strenuousness. Paula tells her "you're adorable up there," and Vonzell beams in a way that makes me love her again, much as I detest that kind of crap music.

Scott Savol was born in 1976, and they show a picture of him as a pissed off, scowling baby. Ah! Give the boy credit for what he's achieved if sourness was ingrained biologically. He's going to sing "She's Gone." Hall and Oates. He says, he's the rocker in this competition. Hall and Oates are in the audience and we see them nodding enthusiastically. This may be the best song choice ever on "American Idol." The high notes are beautiful. Paula's up and dancing. Randy: "Scotty... you got it started man... you brought it home." Paula: "Awesome." Simon: "Scott, you're a nice guy, however...." Scott protests: "I think I rock."

Carrie Underwood is next and is it mean of me to hope she screws up? My #1 goal for Season 4 is: Carrie must fail! 1983 is her year and "Love Is a Battlefield" is her song. Damn, that's a song that could win me over! She's a bleating zombie, swiveling her hips in a way that's intended to be sexual. It's strenuous... and bleaty... How I detest her! Please, slam her! Randy: "pitchy... you messed up the words." It's a song Paula has covered, so maybe Paula will be critical. No, she says "I think you rocked." Simon: "It was a little bit like watching a kitten who wants to be a tiger." Randy: "Finally, he speaks the truth." Yes!

Last tonight is Constantine Maroulis, the Justin Guarini of Season 4. Born in 1975 and singing "Bohemian Rhapsody"! We love the boy! Crazy white light blinds us, and then, there he is, all charismatic. We love him! Simon: "That was astonishing!" Seacrest: "He's never, ever used that word on this show." He sang "Bohemian Rhapsody," people. It's Constantine! The next American Idol.

Jeez, I'm even considering voting for the first time this season.

Now, I kind of like them all. Except Carrie. Let that phony girl go. Bottom three (in my dream world): Carrie, Nadia ... ?.... Anthony?

Why I quit watching the debate halfway through and woke up the next morning identifying strongly with Cruel Neutrality.

Do you remember Cruel Neutrality? It's an attitude I noticed in myself and embraced and branded in March 2008:

Who am I supporting in the presidential contest? You shouldn't know, because I don't know. In fact, I'm positioning myself in a delicate state of unknowing, a state I hope to maintain until October if not November. In the meantime, I will spread the attacks around and give credit where credit is due. I think if you look back, you'll see I've done this in the past week. Nothing is more boring than a blogger's endorsement, and I'm not interested in reading any blogger's day to day spin in favor one candidate or another. I would rather take a vow not to vote in November and to keep track of my pro and con posts and go out of my way to keep the tallies even than to turn into a blogger like that.

So I'm taking a vow of neutrality, but it won't be dull beige neutrality. I think partisanship is too tedious to read. This is going to be cruel neutrality.

In 2008, my cruel neutrality was monitored and verified and:

I'd say I've displayed impressive neutrality, being far more likely to stay neutral than to go either positive or negative. But when I did go negative, it was much more likely to be against Obama, and when I did go positive, it was more likely to be about McCain.

Does it surprise you then to realize that I'm almost surely going to vote for Obama -- the chances are about 89% -- and that through the entire period of the vow it has been more likely than not that I would vote for Obama? It shouldn't!

I did go on to vote for Obama. I voted for him before I voted against him (in 2012). Or... it's more accurate to say: I voted against McCain before I voted against Obama. I'm just not that enthusiastic about political candidates. We're in the middle of the 4th election I've blogged, and as ever, I'm drawn to the distanced observer position. I'm one of those voters who get categorized as "undecided" right up until the final weeks, annoying the hell out of some people who can't imagine what more needs to happen to make you decide.

But unless you're a donor — and I never am (not since young Russ Feingold personally pestered me by telephone and I was too polite to use another method to make him stop) — you don't have to nail it down until it's time to vote. Normally, what happens to me is that at some point, in spite of myself, I perceive that the selection has taken place, and it's because one of the candidates has lost me. I go back into my archive and study my own mind to see "How Kerry lost me," "How McCain lost me," and "Why haven't I done a 'lost me' post [in 2012]?" It's nice to have an archive of indecision to mine for the decision.

Last night, I walked out of the debate at about exactly halfway. Part of it was that 9 Central Time felt very late. I'd been up since 3:30 a.m. I am able to pinpoint my bailout time because this morning I'm reading my son's live blog of the debate, and I see the time-stamp on what I know propelled me out of the TV room:

9:30 [Eastern Time] — After Bush criticizes Cruz, Wallace finally lets Cruz respond. But Cruz doesn't have a substantive response — instead, he whines about how many of the questions have asked the candidates to attack him. Wallace retorts: "It is a debate, sir!" Cruz coyly threatens to walk off the stage if there are too many negative questions about him — an allusion to Trump's absence. [Added later: After I point out that Cruz was being facetious, Alex Knepper says, "I thought he was being serious! I guess not. Didn't deliver the line very well." My response: "It's safe to say that if as savvy a political observer as you thought he was being serious, his sarcasm wasn't effective enough to work on prime-time TV a few days before Iowa."] [VIDEO.]

I hated the argumentative overtalking. The moderators try to control, and they really have to. That's the idea of a debate, imposing some format. But it's a thing these days to bust through the rules and pose as the tough guy who's just got to get the truth out. It's irritating as hell. Either submit to the rules or don't. In that context, a joke about rejecting the debate (like Trump) doesn't work. Cruz wouldn't actually walk away, so the rules applied to him. Trump showed how to say I'm not going to submit to the control of these media moderators. Out or in.

But I stayed in. In my chair, watching the debate, for a few more questions, until the immigration part of the show began:

9:59 — Megyn Kelly plays a long clip show of Rubio in about 2009 talking about how phrases like a "path to citizenship" are "code" for "amnesty." Then Kelly suggests he then supported amnesty once he later became a Senator....

Yeah, I know this problem, and I know Rubio will need to twist and contort to answer, but I don't need to see exactly how. Not after I've been up for 18+ hours. It will all be there on the DVR in the morning. I was out. 9 Central. I called it a day.

I woke up clear headed. I really don't like any of the candidates too much, and I also don't hate any of them. I don't like the expressions of hate toward anyone. I have a certain longstanding aversion to Hillary, but I'm also able to accept that she's the most likely next President, and I'm a solid citizen of the Real World. In my youth, I suffered through LBJ and Nixon. It felt like a horror show. I'm old now, and nobody on the current scene is reprehensible in the LBJ/Nixon fashion. Maybe that's the perspective of long experience, but I just don't feel the emotion.

I'm balanced and distanced. I'm interested in observing the day-to-day details and writing about it with whatever edge and humor and insight happens. I'm not lying. I cannot tell you who I'll vote for. We'll see how things look next fall. I don't even know who'll I'll vote for in the primary... or which party's primary I'll vote in. There isn't one candidate I've x'ed out. Not Cruz? Not Trump? Not Bernie? No!

Going back to old "cruel neutrality" posts, I was struck by one commenter's "armchair analysis... of the character AA plays on her blog" — back in September 2008. Blake said:

I think MM is close to right [that Althouse is a Democrat and wants the Democratic Party to succeed], but I don't think that, even as a Democrat, AA identifies all that strongly with her party.

We can see that with her frequent mention of the sacrifice of feminism at the, uh, hands of Bill Clinton.

I think we see there that her identification as a feminist (as she defines it) is far stronger than party affiliation. Minimally, we see a level of integrity and respect for logic that prevents her from lauding Democrats when they do the things they've attacked Republicans for.

Still, she believes in things she associates with the Democrats like social justice (witness the fracas with the Libertarians [link]). She believes, perhaps hesitantly, that race has a non-zero weight in making her decision.

And we might guess that there's a certain, almost sarcastic identification with the person of her youth, that hippie art student who wouldn't bother with A Man For All Seasons or listen to square music, man. This character is obviously a Democrat, even if her future incarnation is surely too sophisticated to boil down politics into "Democrat Good. Republican Evil."

In that context, "cruel neutrality" wasn't ever about being 50-50, something the more strident here have missed. It simply meant that this character was going to go about her business as she always has, and not close her mind to the possibility of voting one way or the other.

Democrat has always been her starting point; but just as Kerry proved unworthy of her 2004 vote, Obama could prove unworthy of her 2008 vote.

The cruelty part comes in playing Devil's Advocate with her own comfort zone. As MM says, she's inclined to vote for Obama, but she won't give him a free pass. She's not the hippie true-believer any more.

This drives the hyper-partisans nuts, of course, since they need every observation to be balanced by a tu quoque.

As for the performance art/traffic angle, my take is slightly different:

If any of you are familiar with Loudon Wainwright III, you know that he writes all these songs about, essentially, himself. Ultimately, however, and by his own confession, the self that sings about isn't really him, but a more dramatic and interesting version of him.

That's sort-of how I see Althouse. There's certainly a motivation to drive traffic, but only within the parameters of what amuses the real Althouse.

5 cents please.

Ha ha. I'll leave it to you to think about how much of that really feels true to me now... other than to say the phrase that jumped out was "there's a certain, almost sarcastic identification with the person of her youth, that hippie art student...." And I haven't followed Loudon Wainwright III since those days, when — some of you will know what I'm talking about — I went to see him at The Ark.

I hate music.

I'm in a forced music environment that has pushed me over the limit where that is what I end up thinking. If I were given a choice right now between continuing to hear music normally and being able to switch off my hearing of all music for the rest of my life, I would choose the latter.

Ironically, the music that's playing is easy-listening pop, obviously intended to be utterly inoffensive. I am offended. I am offended by inoffensiveness... 

ADDED: Example of the type of thing I'm talking about: Belinda Carlisle, "I Get Weak." I get psychotic.

Would it be possible to provide this feature for iPhone (or other music streaming devices)?

I can see that my iPhone allows me to "Reduce Loud Sounds" in the headphones. I can choose the decibel level that I want to be the ceiling. So if I've got the volume set where I want it for a soft part of the music and it's composed or engineered to get loud, my phone intervenes, and protects my ears. Nice. But I don't use that function. I haven't had a problem with soft/loud music. Look, my iPhone keeps track:

Seems like I'm "OK." 

But I want something more specific: the detection and elimination of applause. I was out walking this morning, listening to a playlist that I'd put together, so this was something I wanted to hear — the version of "Helpless" in the "Last Waltz" concert. You can watch the performance — The Band with Neil Young — at YouTube, here, and it begins where the music begins. But that's not how the album track works! The album track begins with 50 seconds of crowd cheering and applause. 

I have to take it off my playlist. I never want that in my ears again. I kept waiting for it to end. I hate applause in my ears even if it's just 5 seconds or whatever producers deem necessary to convey that this is a live concert. I never want to hear any applause on any music recording. It's the opposite of musical. It's cacophony. So I would love a feature on my iPhone that just skips over any applause.

In the Monday fog, a hidden sunrise.

1. I could hear rain as the sunrise time (7:18) approached, so I considered skipping a day. It was foggy too, but not foggy enough to worry about the drive. I stepped outside in my slippers to check the intensity of the rain. It was exactly the kind of rain that, years ago, I started calling my favorite kind of precipitation — little droplets that seem suspended like a mist.

2. It feels nice on the skin, gentle, though the look of things is rather creepy. At 7:21:



3. Something that makes a run happen is to not think about it much. Just do one thing after another. Get your shoes on, your jacket, put the right things in your pocket, get in the car. Don't even think ahead to the next street after the next turn until you've turned. Don't imagine getting out of the car, just continue until the point where you get out of the car. And so forth. Isn't that how we live life most of the time? Be in the moment and accord each step the dignity of regarding it as complete and worthy in itself.

4. In all my sunrise runs, there has only been one other day when there was fog that made it impossible to see the opposite shore of Lake Mendota. That was October 31, here (with lots of snow). Today, it looked like this at my vantage point. You'll just have to try to remember where the shore line is supposed to be. This is 7:25, 7 minutes after the actual sunrise time:



5. By 7:37, the shore came vaguely into shape. The little dot of light is not the sun, but car headlights:

The morning after the Oscars.

Wow. I did not enjoy that. I already updated my live-blog post from last night to say I did not enjoy that, but I need to get it out of my system. I did not enjoy that. Why do I do that to myself every year? Because there was a time when I truly loved it — and the movies — I guess. Watching the Oscars when you no longer care about the movies is like... watching "American Idol" when you no longer bother with the new music recordings that are released from day to day. Wallowing in the bad seems somewhat fun even as you've lost the hope that there might be something good. Life is funny. And, no, wallowing in the bad as I've lost hope in something good is not how I feel about life itself.

Anyway, the only interesting thing anyone said — that registered with me, anyway — was Mo'Nique: "It can be about the performance and not the politics." I highlighted that line last night, but then this morning, I realized I wasn't sure what she was talking about. Here's the whole text of what she said:

First, I would like to thank the Academy for showing that it can be about the performance and not the politics. I want to thank Mrs. Hattie McDaniel for enduring all that she had to so that I would not have to. Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey, because you touched it, the whole world saw it. Ricky Anderson our attorney of Anderson and Smith thank you for your hard work. My entire BET family. My Precious family thank you so much. To my amazing husband Sidney, Thank you for showing me that sometimes you have to forego doing what’s popular to do what’s right. And baby, you were so right!

Now, what was she talking about?  What did her husband encourage her to do that was "right" but not "popular"? I'm guessing that she worried about playing a character that would be viewed by many as a racist stereotype, and her husband convinced her that it was a great script and a great dramatic role and she's an artist who should decide based on what is right for an artist: artistic principles. And Oprah touched it, and that worked some magic, taking much of the power out of the accusations of racism that had to have been anticipated.

Here's a NYT Magazine article from last fall that, I think, explains it:

[The director Lee Daniels told Mo’Nique] he had a part for her that was “going to mess up your career. You are going to lose your world, your audience, your standing in the BET community.” Mo'nique was not fazed. “I did not hesitate!” she exclaimed on a warm day in September in New York City. “I said to Lee, if you want me to play this demon, I am there.”....

Although Mo’Nique’s performance as Precious’s mother has generated talk of an Oscar, Daniels has heard complaints from the black community about the image her character projects. “They see the film as negative to black women,” Daniels said. “Black women are the pillar of the family. Black men have left, and how dare I stab at the one thing that’s helped. So I told Mo’Nique, ‘They’re going to hate you for this movie.’ She said, ‘Let them hate me.’ ”

And, by the way, there was no mention of Barack Obama in Mo'Nique's speech. From that NYT article:

[T]he movie is not neutral on the subject of race and the prejudices that swirl around it, even in the supposedly postracial age of Obama. “ ‘Precious’ is so not Obama,” Daniels said. “ ‘Precious’ is so not P.C. What I learned from doing the film is that even though I am black, I’m prejudiced....”

... “As African-Americans, we are in an interesting place,” Daniels said. “Obama’s the president, and we want to aspire to that. But part of aspiring is disassociating from the face of Precious. To be honest, I was embarrassed to show this movie at Cannes. I didn’t want to exploit black people. And I wasn’t sure I wanted white French people to see our world.... But because of Obama, it’s now O.K. to be black. I can share that voice. I don’t have to lie. I’m proud of where I come from. And I wear it like a shield. ‘Precious’ is part of that.”

And who knows what Samuel L. Jackson was thinking? Watch his reaction to the speech:



Perhaps he was feeling some vindication in his own choice to play some pretty negative characters (rather than the idealized friend/helpmeet/savior/Morgan Freeman type that must not be all that rewarding to play).

"American Idol" -- it's "guys" night again.

For some idiotic reason, they are calling attention to the astrological signs of the contestants tonight. Arrrgghhh! How I hate astrology!

Scott Savol is Taurus -- the bull. But does this have anything to do with singing "Can't Help Myself"? Maybe impulsiveness is a Taurus trait. But why should I care? I care that I'm being forced to listen to this old song that sounded clunkily old fashioned back when it came out. Savol's enunciation is so good that I understand a line that has evaded me for over thirty years: "I'm tied to your apron strings." Randy: "You did it." Paula: "You threw in the choreography." Simon: "The choreography ... was horrendous."

Bo Bice is a Scorpio -- threatening to sting us, he says. He sings this incoherent song. "Instead of the gallows of heartache that hang from above/I'll be your cryin' shoulder/I'll be love suicide" -- what on earth is that supposed to mean? Randy: "You've got that gruff... that growl, dude." Paula: "Slam dunk." Simon: "I think it's your competition to lose." Note that last week, Simon said he thought he knew who would win, and I said I thought the person he'd identified was Bo. Simon's comments tonight add weight to that theory.

Anthoy Federov moved to the U.S. from the Ukraine when he was nine -- supposedly that has something to do with the fact that he's a Taurus. He sings this putrid song. Why is that even a song? Randy and Paula love him. And Simon -- I'm glad! -- disagrees: "You're sweet ... but you have as much Latin flair as a polar bear." But he's bathing him in comparisons to Clay, so I assume this criticism is lighting a fire under all the young girls.

Nikko Smith is another damned Taurus. I guess being Taurus helps in this competition. He sings a real song: "Georgia on My Mind." So this makes me want to love him. But he's a little shaky. I think he's in trouble. Wait, now! He's warming up and becoming thrilling! I'm for Nikko! Beautiful! Randy: "Wow... very ambitious ... you ended it so good. ... Brilliant, man." Paula: "Wonderful." Simon: "Everyone will remember that one, last note." Hmmm.... I may vote for the first time this week! Weirdly, he says he sang the song not because of the success of "Ray" at the Oscars, but because "I feel the same way about St. Louis." So, presumably, it's a song you sing about a place, and you sing "Georgia," but you think whatever place you love. What a sweetheart!

Travis Tucker, singing as an Aries, looking all newsboy in suspenders and a cap. He sings this godawful song. Randy tells him he was totally out of tune. "Pitch-wise, it wasn't on, dude." Paula: "You're different and unique." Simon: "That, I thought, was appalling." I think Travis is going. I thought he was going last week. He says, "America, help me out," and flashes a winning smile. Maybe that will work. But it shouldn't.

Mario Vazquez is a Gemini, so he's supposedly going to bring some duality. He goes hatless for the first time, and we get to see that he is not bald, but has a headful of curly hair. He sings "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart," which is a real song. He sings it in a way that makes it less song-y, but I still kind of love him. He ends really prettily. Randy: "I like you, man." Paula: "I've got goose bumps, goose bumps." Simon notes that he's going hatless and being a bit smarmily please-the-parents-y: "I prefer the other side of you, to be honest."

Constantine Maroulis is a Virgo, meaninglessly, and he sings "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" -- a great song, but he's a little thin. But he pours in the personality, and I think he'll make it. Randy thinks it's a good song, but he's not that good, yet he's got personality. Paula: "Charisma!" Simon: "A bad impersonation of Sting." True!!! Constantine smiles as Ryan Seacrest announces the numbers. He knows he can coast a good ways on his charm. But in all fairness, he (and Travis) ought to go down this week.

Anwar Robinson -- another Taurus -- he sings "Wonderful World." He hits a lot of sweet, clear, high notes. We love him! Standing O! Randy: "I gotta give it up for you... best vocal I've heard this season." Paula emits a classic Paula-ism: "Your voice is truly your instrument." Simon: "You're everything a music teacher should be. You're so nice." Anwar is officially the embodiment of niceness now. That could hurt! Simon tried to sandbag him there.

I still haven't voted this season, but if I were going to vote, I'd vote for Nikko. I think Travis ought to go. For the other loser, I might pick Constantine, because he's the smarmiest. Or maybe Scott, because he's just so charm-impaired. I still like Mario and Bo, my early picks. I don't care one way or the other about Anthony. And it would be wrong to eliminate the uplifting music teacher guy, Anwar. We'll see!

The Sikh temple shooter's band: End Apathy.

[UPDATE: I have many posts on the subject of the temple shootings. I would appreciate it if seemingly respectable journalists would take some time to discover what I am actually saying before indulging the usual shameless political nattering, which I'm seeing now at Salon and Esquire.]

ORIGINAL POST:

The Southern Poverty Law Center put out the early characterization of End Apathy as a "racist white power" band, but I'm not sure how they know that:

A MySpace page for the band describes them as an “old school” band with “punk and metal” influences.

“The music is a sad commentary on our sick society and the problems that prevent true progress,” reads a description of the band on the MySpace page.

[The now-dead suspect Wade Michael] Page...  interviewed in April 2010... said he started the band because he wanted to “figure out how to end people's apathetic ways” and that it would "be the start towards moving forward."

The band's songs, Page said, were based on a variety of topics including, “sociological issues, religion, and how the value of human life has been degraded by being submissive to tyranny and hypocrisy that we are subjugated to.”...

“Back in 2000 I set out to get involved [in music] and wanted to basically start over,” he said. “So, I sold everything I owned except for my motorcycle and what I could fit into a backpack and went on cross country trip visiting friends and attending festivals and shows.”

MORE: At the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a group that has studied hate crimes for decades, reported Monday that Page was a frustrated neo-Nazi who had been the leader of a racist white-power band known as End Apathy.

Heidi Beirich, director of the center's intelligence project, said her group had been tracking Page since 2000, when he tried to purchase goods from the National Alliance, a well-known hate group.

The National Alliance was led by William Pierce, who was the author of "The Turner Diaries." The book depicts a violent revolution in the United States leading to an overthrow of the federal government and, ultimately, a race war. Parts of the book were found in Timothy McVeigh's getaway car after the bombing of the federal building Oklahoma City in 1995.

Beirich said there was "no question" Page was an ardent follower and believer in the white supremacist movement. She said her center had evidence that he attended "hate events" around the country.

"He was involved in the scene," she said.

Pierce is dead, and Beirich said the National Alliance is no longer considered to be an influential group.

Also on Monday, a volunteer human-rights group called Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) found links between Page, his band and a white supremacist website called Stormfront.

Jeffrey Imm, who heads R.E.A.L., said in an interview Monday that someone based in Milwaukee using the name "End Apathy" began posting on the website in February 2008. Additionally, appearances by Page's band were promoted on the Stormfront site, including a white supremacist gathering in March 2012 in Richmond, Va.

The Journal Sentinel includes some links to places I don't want to link to.

IN THE COMMENTS: Sorun said:

By the way, what happened to all of the dangerous white militia groups in the 90s? They were everywhere! Did they all just decide to go bowling instead?

How much money did the SPLC raise from that great crisis?

CommonHandle said:

I find it a bit creepy that SPLC defines its "intelligence project" as following around anyone who has an association with people or groups that espouse racist beliefs, even if nothing that individual has done or said themselves comes across as overtly racist. Creepiness aside, aren't there plenty of real racists out there? people who regularly and unambiguously engage in racist speech? That the have a "profile" of this man isn't only kind of disturbing, but it seems pretty frivolous.

BarryD said:

Sometimes I think the SPLC figures that every time there are two or more white people standing on the street together, it's a white-power group.

That said, this guy was, indeed, not apathetic, in the end.

Too bad, really.

There's a lot to be said for apathy, especially among those who are fucked in the head. I think that apathy saves our society from many ills, actually.

Chip said:

From the article:

"According to Heidi Beirich, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center 's intelligence project, the group has been tracking Page since 2000, when he allegedly attempted to purchase goods from the neo-Nazi National Alliance."

How does the SPLC have access to to information about a private - and perfectly legal - commercial transaction?

Michael Ryan said:

Is it just me, or does anyone else find it weird that the SPLC allegedly knows what "goods" people are purchasing, and is following people around the country? An entire group built around stalking?

Sorun said:

The SPLC didn't prevent any of this.

What the hell good are they if they're going to get in everyone's business but not accomplish anything other than paying their own salaries.

Rob Crawford said:

The description of his band sounds like "Rage Against the Machine" and that "Peace Through Music" crap.

Thank goodness we have SPLC to tell us which is a hate group, which is a bona fide band, and which deserves hundreds of thousands in charity dollars!

Chef Mojo said:

The description of his band sounds like "Rage Against the Machine" and that "Peace Through Music" crap.

That was my first thought, too. I wonder what SLPC's criteria is in this charge?

Again, not saying he's not a white supremacist, but I'd like some very specific evidence as to why. Actually, I hope that's what this pathetic loser was, so we can get a partial explanation, so the people dealing with the aftermath of this atrocity can start to gather their lives back together.

And TMink says:

OK, it sounds like this guy is an actual, you know, racist. This is what racism looks like. It is stupid and violent and senseless.

Using the term for anything else makes horrid racism like this more acceptable.

ADDED: Whatever the degree of racism in the the punk rock music, the music is less connected to the murders than the "Batman" movies were connected to the Aurora murders. You have these artistic forms of expression that entail violence, and then you have one person who crosses over into extreme violence. What is the relationship? Be careful about seeing a stronger causal connection because you don't like the artwork in question — punk rock... Hollywood movies.... Let's try to find out what is true, not what we want or don't want to believe.

UPDATE, August 7: Here's some useful individual information about Page, based on an interview with someone who viewed him as his "closest friend" a decade ago:

Christopher Robillard of Oregon, who described Page as "my closest friend" in the service more than a decade ago, said Page was pushed out of the military for showing up to formation drunk.

He described Page as "a very kind, very smart individual -- loved his friends. One of those guys with a soft spot." But even then, Page "was involved with white supremacy," Robillard said.

"He would talk about the racial holy war, like he wanted it to come," Robillard said. "But to me, he didn't seem like the type of person to go out and hurt people."

Later Monday, Robillard told CNN's "Piers Morgan Tonight" that Page likely sought attention to his beliefs "because he was always the loner type of person. Even in a group of people, he would be off alone."

Teresa Carlson, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Milwaukee office, said investigators have been told Page may have been involved with the white supremacist movement, but that hadn't been confirmed. No motive for Sunday's attack had been established, but the FBI was investigating whether the killings at the Sikh temple were an act of domestic terrorism, she said.

Page moved back to Denver after his discharge, where he had a tough time in civilian life "and was basically living on the street," Robillard said. It was during that period that Page joined a "racist band" and started to get his body inked, his Army buddy told CNN.

"I asked him why he was aligning himself with this stuff," Robillard said. "He really didn't answer. He would duck it."

Page had a girlfriend who left him for another member of the band, which then kicked him out, Robillard said. The last time they saw each other -- more than 10 years ago -- Robillard said Page was on a motorcycle trip across the country.

It was a trip Page recounted in 2010, in an online interview about his band End Apathy. He founded it in in the small town of Nashville in eastern North Carolina, where he ended up after bouncing around the country from California to West Virginia.

"I am originally from Colorado and had always been independent, but back in 2000 I set out to get involved and wanted to basically start over," he said.

The band put out at least two recordings through a label that promoted them on the neo-Nazi website Stormfront.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More here, with specific detail on Page.

When the very thing you were just saying nobody talks about anymore turns up as the subject of the new Ross Douthat column.

I was going to do one of those blog posts about noticing something that was a big topic that's gone away, but I never got around to it. Douthat notices the topic because someone on some lesser website wrote an article dredging up what was one of the big blog topics of 2005: "Why Women Aren’t Welcome on the Internet."

Douthat calls that "a candidate for the most troubling magazine essay of 2014." In a world of scandals and suffering, women not feeling welcome on the internet is supposed to be the most troubling thing? But we troubled our asses off over the lack of women-welcoming on the internet a decade ago.

[Amanda] Hess takes a reality many people may be only dimly aware of — that female writers come in for an extraordinary amount of abuse online — and fleshes it out with detail, data and personal experience. The anecdotes, her own and others, range from the offensive to the terrifying, but there’s also a thudding, soul-crushing sameness to them: graphic threats of sexual violence, rape and murder, intertwining and repeating.

Douthat goes on about "how online forums should police abuse" and how "the Internet itself" is a "magnifer" of hate, etc. etc.

It's all been said before, but I think I was consistent back in the old days expressing the view that threats and stalking can be serious, whether they arrive by phone or by internet, and when they are, call the police. That's what I've had to do a couple times. But distinguish what we call in First Amendment law a true threat from other kinds of verbal aggression.

There's so much fighting over politics and ideology and whatever on the internet that it's absurd to hold back until you feel welcomed. The people who are already there have territorial feelings and would love to make you feel you can't enter. If you say you're holding back until people stop being so mean, you'll never get in.

In case you don't remember the old discussion that got discussed out, here's the classic "Women and Blogging" post by Kevin Drum that got everyone talking back in March 2005. I see that piece links to something I wrote, here, which linked to something Maureen Dowd wrote in a piece called "Dish It Out, Ladies." That was back before Ross Douthat was her office mate.

Okay, I'll do it. I'll blog "American Idol."

Your requests have not gone unheard. I will go back to "American Idol" blogging! At least tonight. I will watch in real time and simulblog to keep from losing my mind. All for you, my dear friends.

1. Ryan's looking all arty in a black suit with a black turtleneck. Isn't it rude not to shave? Jordin Sparks sings some Pat Benatar. "Heartbreaker." It's full of ugly vibrato. Sparks demonstrates the erstwhile unknown authenticity of Pat Benatar. Randy thinks she's hot (and better than all the boys). Paula does the theme she's been working all season: Singers should keep getting better. Simon calls her shrieky.

2. Sabrina has her crinkly bronze hair and crinkly bronze dress. She's singing about "heartbreakin'" -- so I guess the breaking of the hearts is a theme tonight. The song makes no sense to me. No, I will go further. The song makes me hate music. Forever! Randy wishes the song had a little more melody for him. Yeah! I want some for me too. Paula praises but in amongst the praise says the word "piercing," and I feel my eardrums do a little sympathetic scrunch.

3. Ack. It's Antonella Barba. I like the black over-the-knee boots. But as they say: This is a singing contest. She ends kind of nicely, but really, it's not singing. Simon's left with a wistful wish: If only she could sing better. Translation: She's pretty.

4. Hayley Scarnato: She's awful. America, make her go away. Only Simon is honest: "I thought it was horrible." He's all: I don't even know her name. Paula offers: Hayley. Simon: "What's her surname?" And everyone in the place -- and in America -- is all: What are you talking about? Surname?!!! Who are you, English boy? In the recovery phase, with Ryan, we see her in closeup, with giant, heavy earrings, and they are stretching out her earlobes in a ghastly fashion, like in those commercials for those anti-ear-sag stickers. Then she reveals bad attitude: "Every week, I've gotten bad comments. You just gotta do what you gotta do. You gotta clock in, clock out. So, I'm clockin' in, doin' my job, and I wanna clock out, right after I walk off the stage." Ooh! They don't usually go all human like that.

5. Stephanie. Nice but bland.

6. LaKisha. She hates puppies! ("Terrified of animals.") Uh, oh. Will America accept a puppy-hater? She's screetching that "don't walk away from me... I have nothing" song that they always do, the one that goes all sweet on the final "yooooooooo."

7. Now, it's Gina, who's wearing a thin, stretchy gray knit dress with a red bra showing through. Should we do that? Wear red bras that show through? Maybe I'll go with that look for the next BloggingHeads.tv. She's doing well. Possibly the best "rocker chick" we've ever seen on the show.

8. Melinda Doolittle. Oh, no! She's talking about her OCD, how she has to chew an equal amount on both sides, etc. "It's all about equality." Okaaaay. She sings a song I know: "I'm a Woman." Wow! I love it. This is the only performance I genuinely enjoy. I mean, it reacquaints me with the idea of enjoying a performance. If OCD helped with that, I'm for OCD.

"One wonders if the boy did not know what would happen. I do not know about you, but in my youth I have never been in situations like this."

"Never. I was always aware of what could happen. When you are in somebody’s bedroom, you have to be aware of where that can lead to. That’s why it does not sound very credible to me. It seems to me that Spacey has been attacked unnecessarily.... People know exactly what's going on [about Weinstein]... And they play along. Afterwards, they feel embarrassed or disliked. And then they turn it around and say: 'I was attacked, I was surprised'. But if everything went well, and if it had given them a great career, they would not talk about it. I hate rape. I hate attacks. I hate sexual situations that are forced on someone. But in many cases one looks at the circumstances and thinks that the person who is considered a victim is merely disappointed."

Said Morrissey.

ADDED: These remarks made me wonder how smart Morrissey is. My guess was that he's very smart, and he likes to look at things from different points of view and talk about what he sees, and that can get you into trouble, at least if your smartness doesn't lead you to see what you're going to get if you waft miscellaneous ideas where people expect you to say only one thing and you decide to protect yourself by keeping quiet.

I read the "Early life" section of Morrissey's Wikipedia page, and see that his parents were "working-class Irish Catholics," and he "failed his 11-plus exam" after elementary school "and proceeded to St. Mary's Technical Modern School, an experience that he found unpleasant." He was good at sports but still "an unpopular loner." He said his education was "evil and brutal," and "All I learnt was to have no self-esteem and to feel ashamed without knowing why." He did read a lot, we're told, including feminist literature and Oscar Wilde. And he turned to music — very successfully — as the solution.

Even here, music was a solution. Morrissey could have saved these ideas for song lyrics, which can be enigmatic, ambiguous, and seeming to arise from a character the singer embodies.

"The Path to 9/11."

I wouldn't have watched this show, because I never watch shows like this. What does "like this" mean? Oh, there are at least five factors that would designate this as the kind of thing I don't watch: 1. network drama, 2. hyped miniseries, 3. dramatization of some hot issue, 4. 4 hours long, 5. lots of concerned emoting by actors who are often looking at video screens or arguing on the phone or sitting around fretting about things. I could go on. Basically, I don't like watching much of anything, though I do like the occasional HBO series and I enjoy unwinding to certain bloggable reality shows that I don't necessarily really like all that much.

But I am going to watch this now because of all the fuss. So take that! That's what you get for making the fuss. I am going to watch. And, since at least one reader has requested it and since it's the main thing that makes watching TV worthwhile, I will simulblog (or as some people like to say live-blog -- though the thing is not live, nor am I on the scene except in front of my HDTV). I may not have much to say, but I'll be saying whatever I feel like saying as the occasion arises. I'll put time-stamps on the following paragraphs so you can see what's new as we go along. Here goes.

7:10. There is a disclaimer explaining how dramatizations are done, by compressing time, combining characters, etc. An elegant opening sequence with black and white photography and tastefully minimal music. Early scenes show various earnest low level investigators who are generally thwarted by higher ups. We see a brief shot of a George Bush, sweating in a stretched out T-shirt, seen on an airport TV on 9/11, before the attacks, and later a bit of Mario Cuomo, just after the 1993 WTC attack. Each says a few words, enough to give us the sense that they are disengaged from the problems that are brewing underneath them.

7: 55. It's talky, interspersed with some action scenes. There are also scenes in nightclubs and closeups of bombmaking doings. In film, it seems, you have to constantly think about keeping people excited. It's not really an effective way to convey information. I'd much rather get it in writing. So many names and dates fly by. The terrorist guys are all sweaty, grimy, and pimply. No one worried too much about ethnic sterotypes.

8:06. "I don't want any lawyers getting in our way," says Harvey Keitel, as John O'Neill, showing up and taking charge, barking orders. (A little "Pulp Fiction" resonance there.) I'm totally bored, clicking over to websites to read the details of Ramzi Yousef to make sure I've got his story straight. I realize it's way easier and quicker this way. The movie is more about making you feel the frustration and the danger.

8:20. But I don't like surrendering to the manipulation of my feelings. I don't need a movie to help me feel something about 9/11. I'd rather read the 9/11 Report... or any number of things. I especially hate the scenes where characters walk quickly through hallways with the camera shaking and swinging about so we'll sense the urgency. Sometimes the camera is taken in and out of focus to try to make it seem like a documentary filmed on the fly. I have to confess I switched it off just now. I'm still TiVo-ing it, so I can go back, but the flashy cutting and the anxious actors yammering at each other are getting on my nerves. I need a break. You know this commercial-free thing has a down side.

9:18. That's an irrelevant timestamp, just the time here in Madison, Wisconsin, after I've taken a break and gone back to the TiVo'd version of the show. I don't like it at all. Too chaotic. Really, I've got to wonder how those geniuses at ABC figured out how to get Bill Clinton, et al., to do their publicity work for them. Totally viral!

9:29. Osama Bin Laden is introduced in a scene where O'Neill must tell Sandy Berger, "We're at war." The screen goes black, and the disclaimer runs. Something was cut here!

9:48. A vivid scene showing Berger accused of caring too much about following the law and covering his ass gives way the voice of Bill Clinton saying "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." The visual is a little Clinton, a little Monica, and a little Washington Monument (for the phallic effect). Then Keitel in a car, hearing the tail end of the Clinton assertions, being told that the President insists the scandal won't affect his decisionmaking. Keitel is all "So it's okay if somebody kills bin Laden, as long as he didn't give the order. That's pathetic."

9: 56. The scene with Berger refusing to give the order to kill bin Laden ends early.

10:09. I'm turning it off with an hour left on the TiVo. Maybe I'll pick it up tomorrow, but I'm just forcing myself, and only half watching it. Hey, I was forced into it. But I can only take so much.

About my proposed Titus recording.

So I said I wanted to record — and sell — a CD of me reading some of my favorite Titus comments. I hadn't decided if I'd actually do this, so your reaction to the proposal matters to me.

Chuck b. said:

Oh my..!

I would of course include selected tracks in the music program that I play during the cocktail hour before all my dinner parties.

Like everyone else in the world is going to do once this gets in circulation!

Everyone one the coasts, I mean.

Your level of celebrity is about to tick up a notch.

So far, so good. Chuck is with me!

Palladian said:

This is a terrible idea. I can't think of anything more repellent than having to listen to Titus's comments.

But this is the way the wind is blowing around here. Apparently someone's endless commentary about their excrement and their fictive sexual encounters and their ugly dogs is what passes for interesting conversation these days.

Will you include the parts where he insults other commenters? How about when he sexually harasses female commenters, asking about their tits? What about his unfunny faux-conservative rants? Will these all be a part of the collection?

Bleh. Better to make a best-of cd of your late podcast or sell prints of your photographs or squirrel mugs or simply as for donations like Andrew Sullivan used to do?

Uh oh. I don't have Palladian! Why doesn't he appreciate Titus's absurd writings? You won't be listening to Titus. You'll be listening to me. Whatever is repellent about Titus's voice will be transformed. It won't be an attempt to impersonate him, but purely me. I think I can help you see what is so funny about it. As for prints of my photographs, anyone can download the original files and print out whatever they want under the Creative Commons license I have displayed at Flickr. As for donations, my post worked as a request for donations and I got a few. (Thanks!) I'm not desperate for money. That's not my purpose here. I really am in it for the laughs. I was reading some Titus comments aloud — the thing about the sock — and I laughed into hysteria. I'd have a lot of fun making the recording, and I only want to share the fun.... with those who find it fun.

Skeptical said:

I know why Althouse likes Titus's shtick.

Even the lame crap that Titus serves up over and over becomes performance art through his sticking to it over the long haul. When one thinks of the narrative strand that is Titus's 'I squeezed out a loaf this morning, and it had two heads,' etc., picturing it extended in time, itself like an endless loaf shat out of Titus, it has an aesthetic appeal that none of the individual loaf comments even hints at individually. So when Althouse laughs at Titus's loaf remarks, she is laughing at it not on its own, but only as a loaf-moment, if you will, in the unending loaf.

Ha ha.

John Stodder said:

I think the guy's hilarious.... [T]here is something so decorous about the way Titus expresses pride in his creations, I can't help but laugh. There's a generosity about his whole approach here. Obviously, he's one of the commenters who disagrees with the majority, but his stings are gentle and sometimes clever....

But, professor, wouldn't it just be easier for you to write a damn book? You're a pioneer blogger, a pioneer bLAWger, and a pioneer woman blogger. I'm also convinced that you've got one of the few big blogs with political content that isn't essentially dishonest.... Why don't to write a book about this blog, why you do it, what it has added to your life and career, what it's taught you?....

This is something I thought of doing and, in fact, worked on — 100 pages worth — in 2005. I abandoned the project because I didn't like the way it felt to be on the outside observing the thing I was actively doing, as if it had already occurred. To blog is to be constantly in the middle of things. I want to be the blogger, not the memoirist observing me, the blogger. That's not bloggy. This blog may seem to be about me, but it's not. You may be able to see something of me in it, and I know it feels personal. But the fact is, I don't blog about myself. I blog about whatever interests me at any given moment, and I'm not self-absorbed. I want to look out, not in.

Onparkstreet said...

I have to admit, I scroll past the Titus comments because I find them a little bit gross.

And, the funny thing is, I'm trained as a pathologist.

Ha ha ha. That is funny.

Palladian again:

Titus is not just a harmless minstrel in a faggot costume debasing himself for the pleasure of the straights. If you have read enough of his comments (and there are certainly a lot of them), you'll have noticed that there's a deep nasty streak underneath all the "namaste" crap. The titus project is to disrupt any attempt at reasonable conversation and drive away the intelligent commenters and readers. It hasn't totally worked fortunately, but I have to say that my interest in reading the comments on a post drastically diminishes when I see his alias...

"Always wondered why Titus was tolerated."

Unfortunately Althouse's commendable respect for free speech in her comments has allowed some bad-faith commenters to do a lot of damage to the community.

I don't understand the attraction Althouse has for titus's writing. I mean, the first few times he talked about his vapid life and his "rare clumbers" I thought it was amusing. But it quickly got old and quickly became apparent that his intentions were not good-faith performance art....

To me, titus is like a blackface minstrel amusing a crowd of upper-class white people. I'm not entirely comfortable with his clownish and repulsive depiction of a gay man. And I'm still not convinced he's not an entirely fictitious character.

So if I'm amused, then I'm not politically correct, gay-wise?

Jason (the commenter) said:

Always wondered why Titus was tolerated.

I always wondered why Palladian was tolerated. I bet they are the same person!

The plot thickens. But I know Palladian. He couldn't be playing such an elaborate prank on me.

Theo Boehm said:

When Titus writes about some place or thing I know about, it's inevitably misapprehended and cartoonish. It seems, as Palladian points out, as if he's toying with the suckers. His putative sexual escapades are along the same lines, again, per Palladian....

Part of what Titus is about, as has been said, is the making of everything he tells into clownish and unappealing grotesquerie. Althouse reading [some other commenter's porn] would certainly attract attention, but it wouldn't have the same underlying dark and hostile humor, if you want to call it that, of Titus' offerings. The point of porn is to attract; Titus' goal is to repel. I do think, however, there's something to learn in the process.

Althouse has in the past attracted to "comic" characters... who were classic long-range trolls, and whose goal was disruption exactly as Palladian describes. I think Althouse's commitment to free speech assumes that openness toward, and even, in the case of Titus, a co-opting of hostility that is the best way to handle it. She may have a point and a lesson to teach here. Or she may be incredibly naive about the motivations of disruptive people.

Among the many things I have learned in this blog these past years is to never underestimate Althouse, especially in her longstanding role as teacher.

That means a lot and emboldens me.

Penny said:

Two thumbs up for Althouse, two thumbs up for Titus and two thumbs up for Palladian and all the rest of you.

The beauty of Ann's blog is its diversity. She has created an exceptional oasis here, where those who have very different sensibilities can come for a little bit of this, and a little bit of that.

I love politics and law. I love art and photography, and humor, and commenting on headlines. I could go on and on. The best thing that Ann has brought us ALL, is a place where we can virtually sit down and hash nearly ANYTHING out, and nearly always without making those not-like-us our enemies...or worse yet, buffoons.

Face it. Most of us head out on the internet every day for hours. Some might like to spend most of their time listening to those who say EXACTLY what they are thinking. Some take some time to check out msm links, or even the political "opposition". But where the heck do we choose to plop our asses down at the end of a hard day, or a boring day or a so-so kind of day? Right the heck here at Ann Althouse's place.

And why is that? I suggest it is because Ann is OPEN to all of us being EXACTLY the way we are. It is her "gift", and our good fortune, to have found her in this world that is becoming increasingly intolerant.

Please don't screw up what our hostess, Ann, is bringing to the internet.

This fine lady will become famous for opening up her "living room" to all of us. ALL of us.

Count me as one who will be searching out Titus, right after I give Ann a great big hug for keeping us all human.

Money follows value, my dear. And YOU, Ann Althouse, are more valuable than you know.

Aw. Cool. Thanks.

Ralph said...

"Sex and the City" proved there's a market for women talking about dicks. Perhaps Althouse wants to prove there's a market for women talking about shit.

And hog.

Palladian said:

Good Evening fellow republicans and lovers of the Bush Doctrine. Here's my attempt at a titus audiobook. I took all the comments he made in yesterday's "Mauve Cafe" post and performed them in the closest approximation of my impression of titus that I could throw together in 5 minutes. I did a bit of digital post-processing to "enhance" the performance and added an appropriate backing track.

Am I a bad person if that made me laugh until tears ran down my face (even though you tried to make me feel guilty about laughing by using that "gay" voice that only homophobes are supposed to laugh at)? By the way, Palladian left out the funniest part of the sock story, the part that nearly killed me.

Jason (the commenter) said:

Palladian,

Althouse MUST do this!

I never knew you had such a sexy voice. I always read your stuff (out loud to my friends) in a monotone.

Palladian said:

Well... uh, thanks I think. But that's not really what my voice sounds like, the pitch and speed is digitally altered and I was laying on the stereotypical faggotry pretty thickly. But my voice is quite animated and modulated, not a monotone at all.

Darcy said:

Palladian, with that bit of genius, you do realize you probably just guaranteed Althouse doing this, right?

Palladian said:

My God! What have I done!?

Oh, by the way, I am The Arm, and I sound like this...."

[cough]

Jason (the commenter) said...

Palladian,

You're real voice sounds cute! You could have read what Titus wrote with your normal voice and it would have been just as funny.

Clearly, Althouse should do a compilation.

It would be amazing if Matmos could make it into a song, like Tract for Valerie Solanas.

This also shows the genius of Titus. He's growing on me.

Palladian said:

Just like tinea cruris...

Here's my LuckyOldSon/Michael voice.

Penny said:

Althouse is a leader, and shaping us all, simply with her presence.

The fucking beauty here is that she is not shaping us all in her own form.

To whoever up above asked where I came from? Same place as you. I hit a link that FINALLY makes some sense to me.

Philosophical "warrior" in need of some middle place...and YES...even better, a sometimes silly place to set my ass down when I have had enough of "all that".

Thank you, Ann, for allowing my butt to rest here.

So? Does this site make my ass look big?

TitusFreezeFrame said:

Palladian that was brillant.

Wow, the time and energy you have devoted to this is remarkable.

More please!

I laughed my ass off!

Palladian said:

Took 5 minutes each, darling.

TitusFreezeFrame said:

Regardless of how much time it took it was terrific.

I bet you even got a little chuckle doing it, didn't you?

That voice, which I know is embelished, is the voice of my comments.

I love how you pronounced burgurs the same way I spelled it. Amazing....

All and all there is a lot of love here.

And hate I guess-150 comments on me? One commenter was right I don't give a shit...obviously.

What I do think is amusing is if anyone tried to share this with someone outside of this blog.

So there is a commenter who comments about pinching loaves. I am thinking of putting it on a CD (Althouse). I am actually going to tape some of his comments in a very queeny voice (Palladian). Try explaining that to someone at your next company staff meeting.

Also, this place would be boring without me. Just another voice bitching about liberals. Ignore me, although it seems to be hard for some.

And I actually do talk to my friends like I talk on this blog. I think I have mentioned this before but I actually leave recordings on my friends voicemails of me pinching loaves with grunts and groans and everything. They in turn forward them to other friends. I have also called them when I am having sex and let them listen. The trick doesn't know but it is my little way of sharing my life with my friends.

Now I feel a virtual group hug coming on. Don't you?