Work habits.

George Carlin, as described in tomorrow's NYT:

Mr. Carlin is constantly scribbling notions down in a notebook or recording them on a small voice recorder, and he spends most of his time typing, organizing and reorganizing his ideas in a library of 2,300 files he keeps on his computer — raw material he may someday forge into actual jokes, monologues or material for his books. And as soon as he has recorded a new HBO routine, he begins cycling in fresh material, so that over the course of two years, his entire routine is replaced, and he's ready to record another.

"It's like a sock," Mr. Carlin said. "I darn the sock so much that none of the original material is left. It's the same sock — it's my show — but the old material is gone."

"I have no hobbies and I have no leisure activities," Mr. Carlin added. "My greatest joy is working at the computer with my ideas."

Replacing William Safire.

After New York Magazine ran a piece cataloguing the candidates to replace William Safire on the NYT op-ed page, Slate went looking for more daring ideas, one of which is Alex Kozinski, whom Slate calls "a world-class shit-stirrer." Well, they also call the judge a "practicing lawyer," so I can't trust their terminology. But I do think it's a cool idea.

Mainstream media.

Maybe there is always a theme to the first two posts of the day. There was yesterday. The theme was food, and I went on to restrict my posts yesterday to that theme. That would be a strange way to run a blog. Start with whatever strikes you that day for the first two posts, then derive a theme, then adhere to that theme for the day. I'm not saying I'm going to go on to run my blog that way, but I can easily see the theme for today from the last two posts, and, being a lawprof, I feel that I pretty much always could, if necessary, look at two things and find something they have in common.

Today's theme, then, would be mainstream media.

1. On that theme, I like this recent piece by Jonah Goldberg about the arrogance of mainstream media:

In the Middle Ages, aristocrats and clerics were protected by a panoply of rules and customs - sumptuary laws, for example - that separated them from the peons. Henry VIII declared that no man below the rank of earl could "wear cloth of gold or silver, or silk of purple color" in an effort to maintain a color-coding system for the lower classes.

Well, elite journalists may not want a color-coding system for the rabble, but they do seem keen on having special laws just for them.

2. Then there's the retirement of Bill Moyers, who goes out criticizing. MSM criticizing MSM, apparently from another planet:

"I'm going out telling the story that I think is the biggest story of our time: how the right-wing media has become a partisan propaganda arm of the Republican National Committee," says Moyers. "We have an ideological press that's interested in the election of Republicans, and a mainstream press that's interested in the bottom line. Therefore, we don't have a vigilant, independent press whose interest is the American people."

3. Give credit to the many dedicated journalists who serve us. Fifty-four of them were killed this past year. Twenty-three of these were in Iraq -- mostly Iraqis, deliberately targeted for working with western media. The second most dangerous place for journalists: the Philippines. Here's a Philippine editorial (with a sad cartoon) discussing the problem:

[W]hile journalists in other countries are jailed, or are subject to harsh censorship and media laws, media practitioners in the Philippines are paying an even greater -- indeed, the ultimate -- price: They are being murdered with impunity.

4. Janet Museveni, the first lady of Uganda urges journalists to report the good news: "Do not bring Uganda down in the eyes of the world. We are a country on this globe that is so blessed. Show what is beautiful and not just kids with big tummies and brown hair." (Loss of hair pigmentation is a symptom of malnutrition.)

Eyewitness accounts.

The NYT prints website firsthand accounts of the Dimebag Darrell Abbott murder:

Soon after the shooting, eyewitnesses posted their accounts. "Oh, my God," one reported on Metal-Sludge.com. "I'm shaking so bad I can hardly type this. I went to see Damageplan tonight at the Alrosa Villa here in Columbus. And I'm afraid I may be the bearer of some VERY TRAGIC news. Less than a minute into Damageplan's set, some guy ran onstage, grabbed Dimebag and just started pumping shots into him!!!"

Metal-Rules.com picked up a post from Australia that included another firsthand account: "I saw the guy jump out of the crowd onto the stage. He was yelling something about how 'you broke up Pantera! You ruined my life!' The whole time I thought it was part of the show. I had blood on me I was so close. I'm still freakin' out here."

We're used to non-mainstream media piecing together posts by grabbing choice quotes from mainstream media. This is the man-bites-dog reverse phenomenon. The Times article goes on to portray the reaction of of Abbott's fans through website quotes:

One Dimebag fan promised he would be visiting a grave soon - not that of Dimebag, but of his killer. The reason? To urinate on his headstone and defecate on the grass near his head. "I bet I won't be the first person there," he predicted. Another fan intimated that Mr. Gale's mother should have tried oral sex instead of intercourse.

I wouldn't have printed that here, except it was in the New York Times, so it had to be "fit to print."

"Public" wireless internet in Madison?

The Capital Times reports:

Wireless Internet could be available in downtown Madison and at the Dane County Regional Airport by this spring, said mayoral spokesman George Twigg.

The state Department of Administration is putting out a request for proposals today seeking vendors interested in building the network...

But how "public" is it?

[I]t is expected that the chosen vendor, not taxpayers, would pay for installation of the network and then recapture the cost through user fees.

Twigg said some access to basic sites on the Internet might be free, but anything beyond that would incur a charge.

But, he added, "It is our hope that it will be less expensive than Internet access fees from other commercial vendors."

Twigg said the city is trying to strike a balance between imposing user fees and building the cost of using the network onto the property tax.

Well, it sounds like wireless internet, but it doesn't sound all that public. One vendor is going to get the deal for the whole city, and we're all left paying user fees forever? And who's going to decide which are the "basic sites" that you don't have to pay for? Since millions of non-basic sites are offered for free, why is the provider collecting a fee on these? Is this the way for mainstream media to recapture its dominance?

Should we want "public" wireless internet in this form or should we be quite actively opposed to it? Seriously, email me. Is this good or bad?

UPDATE: Here's the Wisconsin State Journal's article today on the subject, suggesting that the only the local government sites would be free. Which is basically saying, nothing is going to be free. Actually, that's better than letting only some MSM through. I could support this project I think if only the fees are kept very low. It should be cheap and easy so that students and short-term visitors will participate.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The WiFi in Milwaukee is really free, an emailer writes. Several people have written to express suspicion of the proposed deal between the city and an individual provider.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: An emailer writes that the plan is bad:

Sounds to me like the "cable TV licensing" model applied to wireless networking (with the free access to government web sites being equivalent to the "community access" channels). City picks exclusive vendor, gets cut of revenue (either now or eventually), other vendors are restricted (either now or eventually). Doesn't sound promising.

More food.

1. There's Carnival of the Recipes.

2. I finally got around to finishing watching Super Size Me, which I never liked very much. I thought the central character was smug and annoying. I'm sure he was massively disappointed that his final blood tests showed an improvement, which he admits before quickly moving on. The movie was a strange mix of interest in science and the complete flouting of science. But forget science: isn't the movie funny? If you begin with hostility to the fast food industry, you probably find lots of laughs. But what if you begin with antagonism to sanctimonious health nannies?

3. Do we live in a "toxic food environment"? And should the government clean it up? Here's a nice article on the subject.

4. More amusing: Nina is blogging from Poland this week, and today's posts include kielbasa. She writes: "Each nation defends its sausage. The Germans stand by their bratwurst, the Italians love their pepperoni, the Poles cling to their kielbasa." The American sausage is the hot dog, but here in Wisconsin, we have our brats.

Food Blog Awards.

In keeping with today's food theme, let me call attention to the new Food Blog Awards. Nominations are currently open. Are there a lot of blogs that are just or mostly about food? Presumably so. I don't think I'd want to write a single-issue blog. But doing that last post, I figured out some easy techniques for scaring up links for a limited topic that could easily be followed on a daily basis. I mean easy if you really had an abiding, passionate interest in one topic. I think it's fun to have a topic of the day, but not a topic of the blog!

Is today's theme food?

So far, the theme for today's seems to be food, a humble little theme that just accidentally seems to have established itself, so let's continue with it.

1. The big food story of the day is that the astronauts are running out of food on the International Space Station. The astronauts have to cut back, but don't worry too much about them: they are cutting back from 3,000 calories a day to 2,700. It is a little troublesome though because "[s]pace station meals come in individual packages that cannot be separated into smaller portions and saved for later." You can only cut back by skipping whole meals.

2. Starbucks is adding some more substantial food items. Instead of just cookies and cakes, there will be some sandwiches. That's an excellent idea. Our independent cafés here in Madison usually have some nice sandwiches and sometimes soups. I like these places for lunch because they are comfortable when you're eating alone and want to read or work on your laptop. But if Starbucks is just going to have wrapped, cold sandwiches, it won't be that great. The cafés I like here in Madison give their pre-made sandwiches the panini grill treatment. It makes a big difference. [UPDATE: I note that the Starbucks plan is to somehow heat the pre-packaged sandwiches.]

3. Here's a report about a dog food cookbook. "The idea was that if I were a dog, what would I want to eat?" No, the idea is: If I had a life, what would I want to do with it?

4. Here's my favorite sentence in an article about a book-signing appearance by cookbook writer Ruth Reichl: "Christ has been reading Reichl for years, going back to when Christ used to run 'a little gourmet food store' in Rhinebeck, N.Y." In search of new loaves and fishes recipes, no doubt.

5. Here's a report of a scientific study I'm pretty skeptical about: "Dieting Moms Likely To Have Lesbian Babies."

6. Speaking of dieting and scientific studies, this suggests it's best not to get liposuctioned. You'll just get fat all over again unless you diet.

7. My favorite food that seems as if it should just be for kids is the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. But what is the history of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich? It's all about World War II. And here's the FDA taking itself and the PB&J very seriously: "The peanut butter and jelly sandwich, itself a staple in American life, will enter the twenty first century as a living history lesson on the importance of regulating, but not over-regulating a wide variety of foodstuffs in a dynamic marketplace."

8. If you get tired of eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, you can do the Elvis variation (no jelly, nanner).

9. And if there are no nanners handy, surely you have some Fluff and can make a fluffernutter. Please go here and click on the "Fluffernutter theme." Here's the history of Fluff, which begins with two WWI veterans returning from France and giving their product the Frenchy name "Toot Sweet Marshmallow Fluff."

Having reached the point of blogging about complete fluff, I'll stop.

UPDATE: Looks like Drudge is stealing my food theme with:

Man Charged With Sandwich Rage in Houston...

Inmate charged with assault with pork chop...

Why I love business.

My UW parking spot is in Grainger Hall, which is the Business School. Every day I ride up the elevator and enter the beautiful lobby and... what's that smell? Someone is baking yummy cinnamon buns... People selling houses often make a point of baking cinnamon buns when prospective buyers are tromping through. The idea is to reach deeply into their emotional minds and make them feel soft, cushy feelings of home and motherly love. Is that the devious scheme of the Business School? Or is it the simple consequence of the snack bar on the ground floor? We have a little snack bar on the ground floor of the Law School, but I never smell anything even when I walk right by it. There's certainly no smell pervading the entire atrium. How do we expect to instill love for the law without some nice, homey aromas?

Truffle story.

The NYT reports:

It was one of the most expensive truffles in the world, costing a group of regulars at the London restaurant Zafferano - said to include Gwyneth Paltrow - $53,000 dollars at a charity auction last month. But it met its end before anyone had even a taste of it, undone by its allure. The purchase of the 30-ounce white truffle, unearthed in Tuscany, caused so much excitement the restaurant put it on display, for five days. Then the chef went on vacation, locking the truffle in the fridge, and taking the keys with him. When he returned after four days, he found it had rotted. It was buried near a tree and "died a very happy truffle, back in the ground, unsliced," the restaurant's owner said.

This sounds like a fable. It should have a moral. Any ideas? Email me. If I get some good ones, I'll do an update.

UPDATE: The "virgin, unsliced" truffle has inspired a poem parody: "Fungus had we enough, and time,/Chilliness, chef, would be no crime."

Blogging and physics!

The best email of the day comes from UW Physics professor Clint Sprott:

I enjoyed reading the article in today's Wisconsin State Journal about blogs... I would like to invite you to give a talk on that or a related topic of your choosing at the interdisciplinary Chaos and Complex Systems Seminar next spring. We are especially interested in the dynamical and self-organizing aspects of this phenomenon, but just to hear about your experiences and impressions would be very enlightening.

You know, I'm interested in the the dynamical and self-organizing aspects of this phenomenon as well. How cool!

Check out Sprott's fractal gallery! I love the fractal background music!

The death of Darrell Abbott.

I wrote earlier today about the murder of former Pantera guitarist "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott. I see in the BBC report that some people in the audience heard the murderer accuse Abbott of breaking up Pantera. Police shot the murderer, Nathan Gale, to death, so maybe we'll never know why he did it.

My post brought an email from a reader who wrote: "I was amused to see you had been to a NIN concert and now a Pantera concert as well? I shall never cease to be amazed." Well, it's less amazing than you may think. I have two sons, one born in 1981, and the other born in 1983. What music do you think they listened too? When they were in their early teens, I was happy to drive them to concerts, and I didn't just drop them off. I stayed for the show! As a result, I saw quite a few great concerts that I would never have gone to on my own. Nine Inch Nails (with an opening act of Marilyn Manson) was probably the best one I saw in those days. Sonic Youth, Green Day, and Smashing Pumpkins were the closest to something I would have been interested in on my own. Pantera was beyond the limit of what I really wanted to hear, but they were undeniably great at what they were doing, and I admired the intense commitment to that extreme form of music. I enjoyed watching the show, including the crowd of kids who just loved them, but I was watching as more of an objective outsider. The opening act was beyond what I could enjoy on any level, the only band of the many I saw in those days that I can honestly say I hated: Type O Negative. And I'm sure if any of my readers are Type O Negative fans, they don't want people like me to enjoy their band anyway.

But my son John called today and said he saw my post about Darrell Abbott. [UPDATE: The next sentence is wrong.] He said I should have said in my post that half of Pantera died: Abbott's brother, Vinnie Paul, was also murdered. [UPDATE: No, Vinnie was not among those who were murdered. Sorry for the misreporting, though it's clearly good news. I'll leave the tribute to Vinnie that follows.] Vinnie was the drummer, and he was, John tells me, a truly great drummer, who wrote the Pantera songs with his brother. The two musicians had a great style, a brilliant way of playing together in lockstep, John tells me. He says the drumbeats were so distinctive that by thinking the drumbeat, you think the song, just as normally when you think the vocal melody, you think the song. Vinnie's drumming was not just the background, John says. It was the song.

John also informs me that Darrell Abbott was not just "a" guitarist in Pantera. He was the guitarist. He says that most bands who have only one guitarist have trouble when they play concerts, because in making their records, the guitarist has recorded a continuous rhythm track and then made a separate track for the solo parts. As a result, when the band plays in concert, it seems that a second guitarist is needed to keep up the rhythm track, so it won't sound empty during the solos. But in a rock band, John says, once you have people on the stage they have to play all the time, so adding an extra guitarist can be a problem. If you just have that one guitarist, it's going to sound awkward when he switches from playing the rhythm part to doing the solo and it's going to sound too thin. What was distinctive about Abbott, John says, is that he played in concert as the sole guitarist and it sounded full the whole time and there was no awkward shift from rhythm to solo. He says that in the Pantera recordings you can hear that the rhythm guitar track does not extend under the solos. So what Abbott did on the record, he could also do single-handedly in concert. It was brilliant!

Go up in my room and get the CD of "Vulgar Display of Power," John says, and listen to the third track, "Walk." You can really hear it in that song. I do. I listen to "Walk," and I listen to "This Love." "Vulgar Display of Power" is their best album, John assures me. I've put an Amazon button for it in the sidebar, and you can hear short clips of both of those songs over there. [UPDATE: Button replaced by hot link.]

Very sad!

UPDATE: Title of the post changed to reflect the correction in the third paragraph.

ANOTHER UPDATE: MTV has a detailed article about Abbott and lots of video clips.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Interesting discussion at Metafilter. Someone wonders whether anyone has ever been murdered on stage like this before. There's a link to a Snopes page listing many performers who've had fatal heart attacks and the like on stage, but none who were murdered.

STILL MORE: An emailer notes that the great jazz trumpeter Lee Morgan was murdered on stage (by his wife).

Household minutiae.

It's a gray day here in Madison, but the temperature is 46 degrees. At this time of year, it would not be surprising for it to be 50 degrees colder. I drove home after my morning office hours to meet the plumber who should be showing up at any minute to fix a shower that's been dripping for a long time. Shower dripping is especially noisy because of the long distance of the drop. I hear the splat all the way downstairs in the dining room, my favorite place to work. I don't like to call in the plumber to fix just one thing. (Cf. this post, explaining how I don't like to buy only one item.) But yesterday the shower drip rate crossed the line where waiting for some other plumbing problem to occur no longer made sense, so today is plumbing day. It's also the day to get my Civil Procedure exam written, I think, as I get out of the car and walk toward the house. But I get a little distracted and stop to photograph three things on the way from the car to my front door.

Here's a bird's nest, revealed when the leaves fell from my redbud tree. I'm going to guess it's a cardinal's nest, because I often saw a cardinal couple fooling around in the tree and because it seems fitting for red birds to go for redbuds.



And here's a second newly revealed bird's nest. It's in my neighbor's hedge:



Next to the hedge on the other side of my front yard is this pumpkin belonging to my other neighbors. My guess is that the pumpkin does not represent a failure to put out the trash, but a beneficent gesture toward the squirrels and raccoons. Eat your vegetable! Have some vitamin A! Note the gnaw marks.



UPDATE: The plumber had to do a makeshift repair. The shower handle is 80 years old, and you can't buy replacement parts. To replace the handle altogether would entail an elaborate reconfiguration of the pipe work, which would be better done when I undertake the much-needed restoration of the bathroom. Having just survived the carpentry work shoring up the back of my house and the receipt of the $15,000 bill for that work, I'm not ready to do the bathroom just yet. I wonder if the plumber found the ancient fixture interesting to figure out. I've had electricians work on my house and comment on how unusual some old switch or outlet is. I like to think they find it relatively amusing to deal with these "This Old House" problems.

Metal Massacre.

How sad to read of the death of "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott and others who were gunned down last night in Columbus, Ohio. Abbott, who was playing last night with his new band Damageplan, was once a guitarist for the great metal band Pantera. Though not a fan of heavy metal music, I happened to see Pantera in concert once, and the musicianship was brilliant.

Man's Life, Man's Exploits, Real Men.

Lurid men's adventure magazines from the 1950s are the subject of a new book, reviewed in today's NYT. Don't miss the glorious, hilarious covers. I love the one of the manly guy saving a curvaceous lady from turtles.

A classic showdown between lawyer and judge.

Adam Liptak reports on the argument before a D.C. Circuit panel about whether journalists have a privilege to protect their sources. Judge David Sentelle addresses famed First Amendment advocate Floyd Abrams:

"I take it you do not have a material difference between this case and Branzburg," Judge Sentelle finally said, "or you would have given me an answer on the first, third, fourth or fifth opportunities you had."

A classic showdown between lawyer and judge. The precedents are powerful, but some things you still want to fight to the hilt.

UPDATE: I named the wrong circuit court and have correct it.