At the Winter Prairie Café...

... you can talk about whatever you want.

France drops hate speech charge against Bob Dylan but not because it doesn't think his speech was a crime.

The charges were only dismissed because Dylan was speaking to the U.S. edition of Rolling Stone interview to the U.S. and did not expressly agree to publication in the French edition.  Prosecutors may go after the publisher of the French edition. [NOTE: I read this as news. First I'd noticed, but it's from April 2014.]

I blogged about the charges, here, back in 2013. Dylan was responding to the question "Do you see any parallels between the 1860s and present-day America?" And he gave the following answer, within which I've boldfaced the words that led to the complaint:

The Ted Cruz campaign sends out a mailer that's creepier than something I called "incredibly creepy mail" and maybe "the most disgusting thing I have ever received in the mail."

This post of mine — "We're sending this mailing to you and your neighbors to publicize who does and does not vote" — is the most-read post in the entire archive of this blog.

Back in 2012, an outfit called the Greater Wisconsin Political Fund sent me a mailer informing me that "Who votes is public record" and listing my name along with the names of many of my neighbors, noting whether we'd voted in the last 2 elections. At the time, I said:

Your vote is private, you have a right not to vote, and anyone who tries to shame and harass you about it is violating your privacy, and the assumption that I will become active in shaming and pressuring my neighbors is repugnant.

Not voting is a valid choice. If you don't have a preference in the election, don't vote. If you think no one deserves your vote, don't vote.

Now, some voters in Iowa have received mailers from the Cruz campaign that's similar and worse. It has a scary heading "Voting violation" and it shames voters by assigning them a letter grade (such as F for voting 55% of the time). 

Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler confirmed to IJ Review that the mailer was theirs in a phone call Friday evening, saying that the targeting had been “very narrow, but the caucuses are important and we want people who haven’t voted before to vote.”

Terrible. Atrocious judgment. 

"A false rumour that men in Eritrea would be legally obliged to marry at least two women went viral this week."

"But it's a hoax that has hit at least four countries to date, and actually began in Iraq, where it wasn't as implausible as it seems."

... An "official" government document is leaked on social media, bearing a letterhead, or the signature of a supposed dignitary. It reads - and we're paraphrasing here - "Due to the recent troubles in our country, we are experiencing a serious shortage of men, and an abundance of woman. Men are now legally required to take at least two wives, and any that fail to do so will face strict punishment." The punishments range from life imprisonment to the death penalty.

"A mob of black-clad masked men went on a rampage in and around Stockholm's main train station last night beating up refugees and anyone who did not look like they were ethnically Swedish."

"Before the attack, the group of 200 people handed out xenophobic leaflets with the message 'Enough now.'"

'All over the country, reports are pouring in that the police can no longer cope with preventing and investigating the crimes which strike the Swedish people,' reads the leaflet. 'In some cases, for example, in the latest murder of a woman employed at a home for so called ‘unaccompanied minor refugees’ in Molndal, it goes as far as the National Police Commissioner choosing to show more sympathy for the perpetrator than the victim,' it continues. 'But we refuse to accept the repeated assaults and harrassment against Swedish women. We refuse to accept the destruction of our once to safe society. When our political leadership and police show more sympathy for murderers than for their victims, there are no longer any excuses to let it happen without protest...."

ADDED: BBC reports that Sweden now has 123 boys for every 100 girls in the 16 to 17-year-old age group. The strange, huge disparity is attributed to asylum applicants:

What is surprising is that if you look at the breakdown of the ages of applicants in Sweden, there's a huge bump in the figures at the age of 16 - often unaccompanied minors arriving without a parent or guardian. And 92% of unaccompanied minors aged 16 and 17 years old are male. So why is this?

"If you're underage, first of all, you get housing, you get more financial resources. You also have a lot of staff around you helping you with different issues," says Hanif Bali, a member of the opposition Moderate Party in the Swedish parliament - which is on the centre right of the political spectrum. "If you need food, clothing, everything, you can go to the municipality and demand this money... You have the right to family reunification. So you can bring all of your family to Sweden, if you are underage."

Given these huge incentives and the fact that age isn't checked, men are lying about their age, according to Bali:

"[A] very big amount of those who are tested do not have the correct age. Some friends of mine, who have taken care of these unaccompanied refugees, are saying, 'We took care of one kid, and we found out he was about 28 years old.'"

"It’s a very exciting idea. In every generation, it’s males creating males. Eventually the population runs out of females, and you’re done."

Do it!

George W. Bush, Michael Jackson, Jesus, Barack Obama, Hitler, Britney Spears, The Undertaker, Roger Federer, Kane, and Beyonce.

Treat that like a "Jeopardy!" answer. What's the question?

(Here.)

"But what too many people forget is that on a Venn diagram, PC and good manners do overlap to a limited extent."

"Yes, huge swaths of political correctness amount to cultural-Marxist codswallop and other forms of leftist bullying. But some of it — just some — does have to do with figuring out how to show people respect. And that is exactly what good manners are all about: showing respect. And as someone who sincerely believes William F. Buckley was the most well-mannered man I’ve ever met, I’d hate to see conservatives defenestrate good manners in their indulgence of populist hysteria."

Jonah Goldberg, of the famously Trump-hating National Review, says that right after denouncing Trump's "I refuse to call Megyn Kelly a bimbo, because that would not be politically correct. Instead I will only call her a lightweight reporter!" Goldberg insults Trump —  "almost Caligulan narcissism" — and uses the word "idiots" to refer to anybody who thinks Trump refrained from calling Kelly a bimbo.

Meanwhile, here's a video on political correctness that Trump put up 2 days ago. It's amusingly short because we. don't. have. time:



ADDED: For reference, here's William F. Buckley's "now, listen, you queer" outburst:



IN THE COMMENTS: rhhardin said: "Bimbo is correct. She dresses up for TV and does a soap opera serious newsbabe act for the women in the audience."

It's a good question: If the woman dolls up like mad, with extremely heavy makeup — and Kelly came to the debate in absurdly thick fake eyelashes — if she uses that to advance her career, are we supposed to maintain respectful silence, because respect must be paid to women?

Last March, I had a post about someone (Mark Belling) calling female reporters "bimbos" and getting criticized for it. My response at the time was:

When I hear "bimbo," I think of "bimbo eruptions," a term coined by Governor Bill Clinton's chief of staff Betsey Ross Wright:

As deputy chair of the 1992 Clinton presidential campaign, Wright established the rapid response system that was responsible for defending Clinton's record in Arkansas and promptly answering all personal attacks on the candidate. During the 1992 campaign, Wright coined the term "bimbo eruptions" to describe rumors alleging extramarital affairs by Clinton. 

And that makes me want to stop and think about whether Trump was playing at the genius level when he floated the term "bimbo" in the Kelly context. Not only did he have his (somewhat ludicrous) out — that he said he wouldn't call Kelly a bimbo — but he also meant to get people talking about the word bimbo — what does it mean? how bad is it? when can it be used? — because he anticipated — several moves ahead in this chess game — that people would arrive at the most notable use of "bimbo" in American politics, "bimbo eruptions," and it's Hillary Clinton who will get hurt the most.

"I see little difference between a drone hovering near my window, and someone standing across the street with a pair of binoculars."

"Both can peer into my office. But I may be in the minority here. When I mentioned it to my wife, she was outraged by the intrusion and briefly contemplated buying a shotgun, should my neighbor’s drone reappear near our bedroom window. Unlike binoculars, she argued, a drone can actually enter your property and see from more invasive vantage points...."

From a NYT column (in the "Style" section for some reason), "When Your Neighbor’s Drone Pays an Unwelcome Visit." The author, Nick Bilton, refers to a recent Kentucky case in which a judge dismissed charges against a man who shot down a drone that came into his property where his 16-year-old daughter was sunbathing.

Bilton takes a stab at the legal issues, but doesn't get very far. Can you destroy someone else's property when it trespasses into the air above your land? I wrote the question that way to exclude the distinct issue of discharging a firearm. Assume you have a device that catches the drone and you smash it with a hammer or drive your car over it. What if you just capture it and sequester it (or call the police)?

Here's another NYT article about a bill in Congress aimed at regulating drones:

Hobby groups are trying to peel back recreational registration rules, while airline pilots are pushing for more mandates that drone makers like DJI and GoPro put safety technology on machines. Amazon and Google, which want to use drones for delivery, are asking permission to test their technology....

Here's a CNN article from last fall: "Is it OK to shoot down a drone over your backyard?"

[Lawprof Michael Froomkin]... argues that self-defense should be permissible against drones simply because you don't know their capabilities....

And here's an article in The Atlantic: "If I Fly a UAV Over My Neighbor's House, Is It Trespassing?":

Drones -- as flying, seeing objects -- scramble our 2D sense of property boundaries....

"This idea of a reasonable expectation of privacy has always been accepted as the standard and the interface of that privacy right and emerging UAV technology is fascinating," [said aviation lawyer Timothy Ravich]. "There is not an answer. The best we can do is arrive at laws and practices of the then-existing sensibilities of the population."

Ravich said that in 2012, when "the then-existing sensibilities of the population" were whatever existed then. Who knows what the now-existing sensibilities of the population are? Wait a few more years and there won't be any at all.

AND: Those who, like Nick Bilton's wife, care about privacy, tend to appear late in the time line. First come the tech fans with their toys and devices, figuring out new things to do, becoming interested and invested. It's hard for the privacy people even to understand what's going on, let alone jump into the regulatory process and make themselves heard. That's why I cringe at the Ravich's "then-existing sensibilities of the population"... and why, I think, we're seeing the defenders of privacy going for a self-help, self-defense approach.

IN THE COMMENTS: robother said:

I'm always struck by the geeky proposition that because it's a new, cool technology using wifi or the internet, that makes it different, automatically exempt from prior legal categories. Uber isn't gypsy cabs because...it's an app!

Drones are cool tech-toys, so using them to take pictures of neighbors sunbathing in their backyards or taking showers isn't the same as a peeping tom.

Downloading free music from an app isn't the same as stealing a CD from a music store because... The Internet! 

Ranking the 168 finalists in "American Idol" history.

With reasons given for all. Having watched the show all along, I found it hard enough just to remember everyone, but at least in some cases, it was fun to try.

Polka dots for pedestrians...

... cheap and cute in Austin.

Copenhagen's "green and blue" solution to climate change.

Instead of expanding the urban sewer system for draining all the new excess water expected — the "gray" solution — they're building parks that become ponds:

During heavy rains, the flowerbeds fill with water and wait to drain until the storm runoff subsides. The upside-down umbrellas collect water to be used later to nourish the plantings. And clever landscaping directs stormwater down into large underground water storage tanks. Above those tanks are bouncy floor panels that children love to jump on—when they do, the energy from their feet pumps water through the pipes below.

And streets that become canals:

During the worst deluges, certain streets with raised sidewalks will become “cloudburst boulevards,” creating a Venice-like cityscape of water channeled safely through the city until it can empty into the harbor....

"Water is used as a resource to improve urban life"....

ALSO: In New Orleans: "a network of interlocking canals and water-absorbing parks... [t]he 'living with water' philosophy..." and (yikes!) "a new source of mosquito-born illnesses and even drowning risks...."

If the promotion says "Come ride with Chelsea Clinton in support of Hillary for America," doesn't Chelsea have to get on the cycle and spin along with the donors?

I'm seeing attention given to the shortfall in fundraising: "Chelsea Clinton's fundraising flop: Soul Cycle event to raise money for Hillary a bust as $2,700 seats are offered for just $50 to fill bikes."

But what I think is a bigger problem is that donors were lured by — and they paid big money for — the opportunity to ride with Chelsea:

CNN reports that Chelsea herself did not participate in the class but did answer questions for guests shortly before they began their stationery ride....

Here's the promo:



Don't you think the ladies who forked over $2,700 pictured themselves in their workout clothes, sweating, grunting, and laughing alongside Chelsea in her workout clothes, plugging away, taking instructions from Senior Master Instructor Laurie Cole for the full length of a "SoulCycle" session?

In the grand scheme of injustices, this ranks exceedingly low, but there's something irksome about the use of the old first daughter as bait... especially in a bait and switch.

And what's the "soul" in "SoulCycle"? I can't detect anything soulful about it.

Wow! This WaPo front-page squib for Paul Kantner irks me.

The Jefferson Airplane was one of the greatest manifestations of the 1960s. Why would you reference a 1980s song — a song many people loathe — from a later iteration of the band that didn't even include Paul Kantner?

I don't like being one of those people who make obituaries about their seemingly personal relationship with the deceased, so I'll just say, "Surrealistic Pillow," framed, has hung over my fireplace for many years....



The Jefferson Airplane... Love them. I'll read the NYT obit:

Paul Kantner, a founding member of Jefferson Airplane... died... of multiple organ failure and septic shock....

“Paul was the catalyst that brought the whole thing together,” [ lead guitarist Jorma] Kaukonen said in an interview on Thursday. “He had the transcendental vision and he hung onto it like a bulldog. The band would not have been what it was without him.”...

Mr. Kantner came to be seen as the intellectual spokesman for the group, with an ideology, reflected in his songs, that combined anarchic politics, an enthusiasm for mind-expansion through LSD and science-fiction utopianism. The song “Wooden Ships,” which he wrote with Stephen Stills and David Crosby, was emblematic, describing a group of people escaping a totalitarian society to create their own freedom in a place unknown....

“For us it was about new frontiers,” Mr. Kantner told the website Wales Online in 2009, speaking about the Airplane. “The whole world was going through these forward steps — beautiful, amazing stuff — much of it working, much of it not working. Revolution is not the right word for it, but it was progress.”

Horror grips us as we watch you die/All we can do is echo your anguished cry/And stare as all your human feelings die/We are leaving, you don't need us/Go and take a sister by her hand/Lead her far from this foreign land/Somewhere where we might laugh again/We are leaving, you don't need us...

"Politico implodes" — what happened?!

WaPo's Erik Wemple tries to figure it out:

The reported departures follow whispers among Washington media circles that [CEO Jim] VandeHei was clashing with Politico ownership... From his early days at Politico, VandeHei has driven Politico’s workaholic competitive edge... Whether Politico was “better” than the Washington Post or the New York Times, one thing is clear: It forced those newspapers, and many other outlets, to expedite their work to keep pace with Politico.....

VandeHei stumbled, however, when it came to replacing himself. After ascending to the CEO position, he and Harris hired Rick Berke, a former New York Times editor, to serve as executive editor..... Succeeding Berke was Susan Glasser.... A former colleague and friend of VandeHei’s, Glasser secured the sort of authority and control that Berke had craved... She promised to carry forward Politico’s fast-twitch heritage while at the same time producing in-depth journalism.... What she got was a period of turmoil. Valuable staffers headed to other pastures....

So... too much hard work?

"A lot of people refer to it as 'moonshine on steroids.' A lot of people call it 'Dewshine.'"

People are drinking Mountain Dew mixed with racing fuel... and some of them, it seems, are dying.

"I think they were trying to substitute the methanol that's in racing fuel for alcohol... Methanol is metabolized to very, very strong acid. The pH of the blood goes so low, it's incompatible with life."

While the immediate effect of drinking methanol is similar to getting drunk from alcohol, ingesting it "causes the cellular machinery to break down".... "One of the unique things is it's metabolized in the eyes, so you get blindness"....

 ADDED: Irene sends a link to her blog post, "A Tragedy at the Žirgynas":

A group of Displaced Persons—single men from the Seligenstadt Žirgynas—were working for the U.S. Army at either a defunct air base or munitions plant. They found a barrel. It was marked, "alcohol." Woot! The men decided to have a party....

Everyone whooped it up and drank the alcohol. Over the next few days, groups of men from the Žirgynas reported to the Seligenstadt infirmary. The men complained of double vision and dizziness. They also began to exhibit other neurological abnormalities.

The alcohol turned out to be nonpotable methyl alcohol—the kind used to clean airplane engines and the like. My Mom was working at the time as a nurse in the infirmary. She remembers that the doctor on duty shrugged and said there was nothing to do but wait for the men to pass away....

Terribly sad.