Sorry Hugh, I ain't buying it:
The Elder is bored by the Purple Heart story. Tsk, tsk. It is not about the Purple Heart, it is about Kerry's wanting the world to play by his rules, the rules of, as Time Magazine called him, "the Swiss-educated son of a foreign service diplomat," of the Yalie gone to war and back again in a few months to denounce as "war criminals" everyone who ever served in Vietnam, of the long-serving pompous blowhard suffering from what James calls "Senatitus," where no one tells you to shut up and sit down because you are scaring the kids and blocking the views. It is about the fellow who wants to rush the U.N. with apologies, who wants to "literally, formally rejoin the community of nations" even as the battle for Fallujah rages. Who wants his incoherence on the economy and Social Security to be overlooked because, after all, he is damn serious about both, and who doesn't want anyone to see his wife's wealth or question the completeness of his lobbyist contacts.
The disclosure battles are over whether Kerry gets to parade in the Emperor's clothes without anyone shouting naked. I hope we don't get bored, because that's what Kerry's team is counting on. It worked on Russert, on whom Kerry's repeated absurdities were largely lost or abandoned. Tim Russert and The Elder --I should have known.
So let me get this straight. Kerry tells Russert that his military records are available. A reporter from the Boston Globe (or Glob) tries to get the records from Kerry headquarters, but is denied. A couple of days later the records are released (granted not all of them yet) and they reveal...
Nothing. Kerry was a well regarded officer who received high marks for his service. Yesterday on Hugh's show, a number of callers desperately attempted to make something out of Kerry's records by trying to read between the lines and find negatives. It was a silly exercise in lame partisan hackery which convinced no one. No one who wasn't already down on Kerry anyway that is.
Read what Phil Carter at Intel Dump has to say on the records of both Kerry and Bush. Now Phil's not a big fan of the President, but I think overall he's pretty fair in his appraisal of both men. And as an ex-serviceman Phil is certainly qualified to judge.
Over thirty years ago John Kerry served in Vietnam and got some medals. George W. Bush served in the Air National Guard and flew jets.
What either has to do with their worthiness to be president today is beyond me. As Mitch Berg has said many times, being a combat hero does not qualify one to be a national leader. And not having served in combat does not disqualify one from being a leader in a time of war either. What matters is not what they did or didn't do in the military thirty years ago. It's what they will or won't do in the next four years.
Yeah, I know. It's not the Purple Hearts, it's the fact that he lied about releasing the records. But Kerry's lied about other things much more substantive than this. And if you want to get excited about someone's reluctance to release records, you might want to put that stone down and consider the glassy nature of the Bush administration's house in regard to that subject. Not that there's anything wrong with that. In fact I support many of the administration's calls in locking down sensitive information. The last thing I want now is for a wave of "complete openness" spurred on by the media to sweep over the campaign and have both sides required to bare all.
John Kerry's promise to rush to the U.N. after his inauguration, prostrate himself before the world body, and buff Kofi's happy lamp is disgusting and should be talked about today.
His flip flops on Iraq, his lack of understanding of the basics of Social Security reform, his ties to lobbyists, his calls to repeal tax cuts, his vague positions on free trade, his views on whether we're really at war and whether there is a terrorist threat, his ridiculous claims that the environment is getting worse under Bush, are ALL subjects (among others) that should be talked about today.
What shouldn't be talked about is whether getting an "excellent" on a fitness evaluation really means average because of the inflated nature of the grading. Or whether John Kerry flossed and brushed every day on his swift boat.
Because the truth is no one cares. I shouldn't say no one because there's always the hard core political wonks who live and breathe this level of minutia. But I suspect even some of them are getting tired of the military records blahbering. Heck, even the Beltway Boyz, the wonkiest of the wonks, are probably ready to move on.
By no means do I want to give Kerry a free pass. I just want to focus on what really matters. Because wasting our time on frivolous stories like this is the definition of distraction.
Over the years Hugh has tarred my good name many a time calling me a homeless drunk, a figure skater, a dateless loser, a bloated powdered donut, and a Monkees loving geek living in my mom's basement (there's actually a lot more-this is all I can recall at the moment, you know repressed memories and all).
But to compare me with Tim Russert? Ouch. That one stings Mr. Hewitt. And after all I've done for you? Tsk, tsk.
Thursday, April 22, 2004
This Saturday AD
Three words to remember in regard to this Saturday's Northern Alliance Radio Show.
Michael J. Nelson
Okay it's actually a name and not words, but that name alone should be enough to get you to tune in. He's a former star of Mystery Science Theater 3000, author, and arch enemy of leaf blowers everywhere. The complete package.
Visit his web site.
Read his books.
Listen to him in the third hour on Saturday.
Michael J. Nelson
Okay it's actually a name and not words, but that name alone should be enough to get you to tune in. He's a former star of Mystery Science Theater 3000, author, and arch enemy of leaf blowers everywhere. The complete package.
Visit his web site.
Read his books.
Listen to him in the third hour on Saturday.
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
So THIS Is What Ma Did With The Trash
Those who are interested in the greatest band to never come out of Minneapolis should go here now.
Those who are interested in the greatest band to never come out of Minneapolis should go here now.
Where Dreams Become Reality
David responds with more details on Scott's dream girl:
Scott was on the right path when he guessed at the name "Lola" -- it is actually Rosa. The rest of his description is frighteningly close to reality. She married a pasty-skinned American of German-Scandinavian ancestry, and YES does she love to cook. She fell in love with her husband when she spotted the Antonio Gramsci tattoo on his shoulder (this sounds like it was made up, but I swear to you that it is true) and was thus inspired to have Che drawn on her back. She even managed to steer him (the husband, not Che) from vegetarianism to a diet that included such tasty morsels as squirrels imported from Italy.
Sadly, she no longer works in my building anymore. The last couple of times that I saw her, she had grown rather thin from some Atkins-type diet that a doctor had given her. No more pasta and pizza? That was almost her entire diet. And those carbs managed to accumulate in just the right places, too. She always wore glasses, and once when she took them off I almost started to levitate. Those gorgeous eyes, hiding behind those wire-thin frames for so long!
Tell Scott to move over, I'm taking back my daydream...
Did anyone just hear the sound of a heart breaking? I think it came from Oklahoma.
David responds with more details on Scott's dream girl:
Scott was on the right path when he guessed at the name "Lola" -- it is actually Rosa. The rest of his description is frighteningly close to reality. She married a pasty-skinned American of German-Scandinavian ancestry, and YES does she love to cook. She fell in love with her husband when she spotted the Antonio Gramsci tattoo on his shoulder (this sounds like it was made up, but I swear to you that it is true) and was thus inspired to have Che drawn on her back. She even managed to steer him (the husband, not Che) from vegetarianism to a diet that included such tasty morsels as squirrels imported from Italy.
Sadly, she no longer works in my building anymore. The last couple of times that I saw her, she had grown rather thin from some Atkins-type diet that a doctor had given her. No more pasta and pizza? That was almost her entire diet. And those carbs managed to accumulate in just the right places, too. She always wore glasses, and once when she took them off I almost started to levitate. Those gorgeous eyes, hiding behind those wire-thin frames for so long!
Tell Scott to move over, I'm taking back my daydream...
Did anyone just hear the sound of a heart breaking? I think it came from Oklahoma.
When Did We Stop Beating Nick Coleman?
Apparently giving up the Coleman beat is going to be easier said than done. At least if our readers have any say in the matter (memo to readers: you don't).
Jim says there's no walking away :
It occurs to me that while you can promote the idea that others should let their subscriptions to the Strib lapse, you can't.
I don't want to cause any marital strife or a debilitating medical condition, but one of the reasons for visiting Fraters is to read the Strib rants. Coleman, Grow, the editorial page, they're all grist for a humming mill that makes everyone happy. Once your subscription lapses in N days, it's all over... (sigh).
Of course, there's always City Pages, The Rake, even the (MN) Daily, but, you know, they're far too easy. Nobody's parents, friends, co-workers read those things - unless they're looking for a show to see or perhaps a wonderfully depraved partner of indeterminate sexuality for afternoon fun when one's domestic associate is otherwise occupied.
So. It comes down to you and them. The Elder, as played by Gary Cooper, in the middle of the street, waiting for The Strib Gang, no help from the enfeebled townsfolk wracked by their concerns over the (urine-caked) homeless, the lies of George Bush, the gazillions of unemployed and underemployed, and, let's not forget, The Children.
And you're simply throwing your badge in the dust... that won't do.
And Tom concurs:
I beg you not to stop writing about Nicky Coleman. Reading and laughing out loud at your Coleman rants is one of the few things that keeps me sane during the day. Yes, his incessant, self-righteous, condescending blather over life's downtrodden gets old at times. But you would miss not having such a pathetic person constantly serving as inspiration for your writing material. You should view Coleman the way late-night comedian's like Letterman and Leno viewed Clinton--'yeah, he's an arrogant, smug SOB who thinks he's above the law, but boy does he make it easy on our writers.'
So take some Advil, look forward to Nick's next column, and get your pen ready (or mouse and keyboard in today's society). I am already in eager anticipation over what witty and well-reasoned Coleman Column you will come up with next.......
Knowing that a man's sanity rests in the balance is indeed a heavy burden. Instead of calling it a retirement, let's just call it a break. We're putting the pen down, not hanging it up.
UPDATE: Lest anyone be confused as to my intentions, I am not putting THE pen down. I'm just putting the poison pen that I've been jabbing in Star Tribune columnist Nick Coleman's neck down. For the time being.
Jim says there's no walking away :
It occurs to me that while you can promote the idea that others should let their subscriptions to the Strib lapse, you can't.
I don't want to cause any marital strife or a debilitating medical condition, but one of the reasons for visiting Fraters is to read the Strib rants. Coleman, Grow, the editorial page, they're all grist for a humming mill that makes everyone happy. Once your subscription lapses in N days, it's all over... (sigh).
Of course, there's always City Pages, The Rake, even the (MN) Daily, but, you know, they're far too easy. Nobody's parents, friends, co-workers read those things - unless they're looking for a show to see or perhaps a wonderfully depraved partner of indeterminate sexuality for afternoon fun when one's domestic associate is otherwise occupied.
So. It comes down to you and them. The Elder, as played by Gary Cooper, in the middle of the street, waiting for The Strib Gang, no help from the enfeebled townsfolk wracked by their concerns over the (urine-caked) homeless, the lies of George Bush, the gazillions of unemployed and underemployed, and, let's not forget, The Children.
And you're simply throwing your badge in the dust... that won't do.
And Tom concurs:
I beg you not to stop writing about Nicky Coleman. Reading and laughing out loud at your Coleman rants is one of the few things that keeps me sane during the day. Yes, his incessant, self-righteous, condescending blather over life's downtrodden gets old at times. But you would miss not having such a pathetic person constantly serving as inspiration for your writing material. You should view Coleman the way late-night comedian's like Letterman and Leno viewed Clinton--'yeah, he's an arrogant, smug SOB who thinks he's above the law, but boy does he make it easy on our writers.'
So take some Advil, look forward to Nick's next column, and get your pen ready (or mouse and keyboard in today's society). I am already in eager anticipation over what witty and well-reasoned Coleman Column you will come up with next.......
Knowing that a man's sanity rests in the balance is indeed a heavy burden. Instead of calling it a retirement, let's just call it a break. We're putting the pen down, not hanging it up.
UPDATE: Lest anyone be confused as to my intentions, I am not putting THE pen down. I'm just putting the poison pen that I've been jabbing in Star Tribune columnist Nick Coleman's neck down. For the time being.
Spirit of America Soars
Here's an update on the Spirit of America efforts to help the Marines provide an alternative to Al Jazeera in Iraq:
Here are the results. Overwhelming. Incredible. In the last five days we have received $764,408 from 4,088 donors. Most of these funds are earmarked for the request made by the Marines for equipment needed to establish Iraqi-owned television stations in Al Anbar Province Iraq.
Our initial goal for this request was $100,000. The Marines are as stunned as I am. I'll remove the expletives of joyful surprise and forward some of their comments to you next week. They are also developing ideas for the expansion of this initiative. More on that soon.
We are pressing ahead with fundraising. We understand we're at the very beginning of the effort needed to achieve peace and stability in Iraq. The Marines and others serving in Iraq have made clear that all the support we can muster will greatly assist their efforts to win the peace. Rest assured we do not confuse success in donor support with the real results we all seek to achieve. The real work lies ahead. But the funding makes the results possible and we now have a great foundation to build upon.
We are now focused on delivering the basic equipment requested for the first seven stations. Thanks to you we will have everything at Camp Pendleton by next Thursday (April 29). That delivery will make it 21 days from receiving the Marines request to fulfilling it. You can imagine what a response like this means to those on the front lines whose lives are at risk.
That's incredible news. Over $750K in five days? Next stop $1M. You can help make it happen here.
Here's an update on the Spirit of America efforts to help the Marines provide an alternative to Al Jazeera in Iraq:
Here are the results. Overwhelming. Incredible. In the last five days we have received $764,408 from 4,088 donors. Most of these funds are earmarked for the request made by the Marines for equipment needed to establish Iraqi-owned television stations in Al Anbar Province Iraq.
Our initial goal for this request was $100,000. The Marines are as stunned as I am. I'll remove the expletives of joyful surprise and forward some of their comments to you next week. They are also developing ideas for the expansion of this initiative. More on that soon.
We are pressing ahead with fundraising. We understand we're at the very beginning of the effort needed to achieve peace and stability in Iraq. The Marines and others serving in Iraq have made clear that all the support we can muster will greatly assist their efforts to win the peace. Rest assured we do not confuse success in donor support with the real results we all seek to achieve. The real work lies ahead. But the funding makes the results possible and we now have a great foundation to build upon.
We are now focused on delivering the basic equipment requested for the first seven stations. Thanks to you we will have everything at Camp Pendleton by next Thursday (April 29). That delivery will make it 21 days from receiving the Marines request to fulfilling it. You can imagine what a response like this means to those on the front lines whose lives are at risk.
That's incredible news. Over $750K in five days? Next stop $1M. You can help make it happen here.
F-Harmony
Dave's e-mail in regard to my post on Nick Coleman and the bus strike stirred imaginations (among other things) with his description of a coworker:
This particular colleague of mine is an Italian-born beauty who could certainly give Monica Bellucci a run for her money. Very disturbing, then, to find that she has a tattoo on her lower back.
Scott's in head over heels:
There has always been an undertone of brunette bias from this red-head. I lost total focus from the point of the e-mail after the guy in Pittsburgh describes that bad, bad woman in his office! I'm sure she's stunning. I don't mind me some tattoo (if the truth were known). Small of the back even seems sexier because I've never dated "one of them". I'll bet her name is Lola. Lola loves fat, sarcastic, red-heads with pasty white skin too. Since I'm having this mid-morning dream...
She loves my overbearing Mom and my general lack of social skills. Her hobbies include; listening to Van Halen CDs on my living room floor, telling me how the batting cage machine "is pitching too low and nobody could hit those", and cooking. Man, this woman LOVES to cook! Of course, she loves college football, baseball, and a man that "really knows how to drink beer on the couch".
I love you, Lola. I really do.
Dave's e-mail in regard to my post on Nick Coleman and the bus strike stirred imaginations (among other things) with his description of a coworker:
This particular colleague of mine is an Italian-born beauty who could certainly give Monica Bellucci a run for her money. Very disturbing, then, to find that she has a tattoo on her lower back.
Scott's in head over heels:
There has always been an undertone of brunette bias from this red-head. I lost total focus from the point of the e-mail after the guy in Pittsburgh describes that bad, bad woman in his office! I'm sure she's stunning. I don't mind me some tattoo (if the truth were known). Small of the back even seems sexier because I've never dated "one of them". I'll bet her name is Lola. Lola loves fat, sarcastic, red-heads with pasty white skin too. Since I'm having this mid-morning dream...
She loves my overbearing Mom and my general lack of social skills. Her hobbies include; listening to Van Halen CDs on my living room floor, telling me how the batting cage machine "is pitching too low and nobody could hit those", and cooking. Man, this woman LOVES to cook! Of course, she loves college football, baseball, and a man that "really knows how to drink beer on the couch".
I love you, Lola. I really do.
Why We Write
After my latest lengthy lambasting of Nick Coleman yesterday, I was left in a bit of a funk. What was the point anyway? How many times have I pounded on this worthless bastard in the last few months (please don't remind me)? How many hours have I spent dissecting his pompous pontificating? As Saint Paul likes to say, that's time we're not getting back.
Shouldn't I be doing something more productive? Something worthwhile? Something that would mark my all too short time here on earth for the good? Is this really all there is?
And then this morning I checked my e-mail. From Tom:
I read poverty pimp Nick Coleman today before I went to work (by myself) in my V-8 SUV. It was not a normal day for this "office job" person, but then it never is when you are responsible for incomes beyond your own. The day begins early and ends when the work is done and not when the whistle blows or the bus is scheduled to come by, but I digress.
Part of the day, okay a very small part of the day, I worry that The Elder has cancelled his subscription to the Stribune (Star & Sickle, Heh) and didn't read poverty pimp Nick Coleman's piece and won't be giving Nick a good, well deserved Fisking. Arriving at my home in suburbia, I check the web...newsites, Drudge, the Lord of the Lazy Link Dump (HH). I check fraters...RELIEF. My man Elder has gotten out the hammer, and is nailing Nick to the post in no uncertain terms.
Poverty pimp Nick Coleman is the most shameless, prejudiced, judgemental person this side of a paper you have to pay for. My first reaction...Hey, Nick...you're making 6-figures (by pimping poor people), why don't you come from YOUR hip and BUY these poor folks a paper. You probably get a discount, you work for the paper, #%*#@**it! Second reaction...Yeah, Nick, you're right. We're all just trying get by here in George Bushes' Amerika, but the big cheeses (does anyone really talk this way still?) are just keepin us down. Thank goodness you are here to bear witness to the awfulness of our plight. Third reaction...Is Nick Coleman as prejudiced in other areas as well? Does he think Scottish people are thrifty? Does he think only Jewish people make good lawyers and accountants? That Irish people are drunks and British men are effeminate? His column alleging that our Gopher girls use their superior Northern European genes to be harder working than the other players on teams in the final four like that Eye-talian girl from UConn or those shiftless black girls from Tenn. told me how he thinks about those groups. But, what do I know?
Well, I know this much. I may not boycott the paper for their editorial page silliness, but for damn sure I'm boycotting the bigot named Nick Coleman. It's time for the white liberal to stop getting over with his prejudice. It's the not so soft bigotry of low expectations and a white liberal getting away with making judgements based on looks. He'll pay no penalty and probably win an award (like Kent Brockman) for pimping someone elses pathetic life for a living. You make me sick, Nick.
(sniff) Thanks Tom, you made my day. But wait, there's more. David adds:
We had something of an uproar here in Pittsburgh a few months ago. For several years now, bus fares have gone up and ridership has gone down. You might think that the Port Authority of Allegheny County would have spotted the obvious cause-and-effect relationship between what people have to pay and how many people are actually paying to take the ride (and I mean that both literally and metaphorically). But of course, the municipal and transit authorities are blind to the reality of the situation. Rather than lower fares, the Port Authority began reducing the number of runs per day on nearly every route. Eventually, they began eliminating some routes entirely. (At this point, one might imagine some Colemanesque journalist to hang out at the bus stop until someone who was unaware of the route elimination came along to provide him with a full column's worth of material.)
The last time a public meeting was held for riders to express their concern over the proposed service cuts, a nice big color photo appeared in the paper showing who attended the meeting. It was just what you would expect: people in wheelchairs, "minorities", and the elderly (if you'll pardon the expression). One of my co-workers took a gander at the picture and commented on how terrible it was that these people were going to have "a basic human right" taken away from them -- after all, they need to get to work somehow. I just about tore out my hair when she said that -- what sort of document, I wondered, exists that posits a ride on the bus as a "basic human right"? Is that in the US Constitution, or the Declaration of Independence? Perhaps the Magna Carta? Does it come from the Sermon on the Mount, or go back to the laws of Moses and Hammurabi? I decided not to ask out loud, as it would only make things worse.
My place of employment, you see, is the University of Pittsburgh. Like most universities, it is a repository of unreconstructed Marxists of the sort who hang Soviet flags and pictures of Marx and Lenin. This particular colleague of mine is an Italian-born beauty who could certainly give Monica Bellucci a run for her money. Very disturbing, then, to find that she has a tattoo on her lower back. I'm not too fond of tattoos in general, but hers is worse than most -- it was the face of Che Guevara. Kind of telling when you learn more about a person's worldview from their backside than from their face.
Not that cuts in bus service would be much of a bother for anyone who works at Pitt. For about ten years now, the University has funneled loads of money into the Port Authority so that anyone with a Pitt ID can enjoy unlimited bus rides on any route in the system. Of course I take advantage of this benefit every day that I go to work, and will continue to do so as long as it exists. After all, this is an annual deal and there was talk two years ago that the contract would not be renewed. When that happens, a lot of unhappy people are going to have to buy a bus pass, perhaps for the first time ever. Will that bother me? Of course it will, for a while. Until I can get another job to which I can drive, and that pays more money. Gainful employment is no more a "basic human right" than the means to get to work, regardless of what Marxist academia or elitist journalism might think.
Sorry to go on for so long -- I am a frustrated blogger-wannabe with a full-time day job and four times as many kids as James Lileks -- but I just want to call attention to one line in Nick Coleman's extended whine that puts me in mind of one of your Fraters colleagues:
"The sidewalk in front of the bus shelter was splotched with vomit and sprinkled with cigarette butts."
Based on what I have been reading over the last few months, it sounds like Nick Coleman missed running into Atomizer by just a few hours.
Positive reinforcement of my Coleman bashing and a zing at Atomizer? It really doesn't get any better. Thanks guys. You are the wind beneath my wings.
After my latest lengthy lambasting of Nick Coleman yesterday, I was left in a bit of a funk. What was the point anyway? How many times have I pounded on this worthless bastard in the last few months (please don't remind me)? How many hours have I spent dissecting his pompous pontificating? As Saint Paul likes to say, that's time we're not getting back.
Shouldn't I be doing something more productive? Something worthwhile? Something that would mark my all too short time here on earth for the good? Is this really all there is?
And then this morning I checked my e-mail. From Tom:
I read poverty pimp Nick Coleman today before I went to work (by myself) in my V-8 SUV. It was not a normal day for this "office job" person, but then it never is when you are responsible for incomes beyond your own. The day begins early and ends when the work is done and not when the whistle blows or the bus is scheduled to come by, but I digress.
Part of the day, okay a very small part of the day, I worry that The Elder has cancelled his subscription to the Stribune (Star & Sickle, Heh) and didn't read poverty pimp Nick Coleman's piece and won't be giving Nick a good, well deserved Fisking. Arriving at my home in suburbia, I check the web...newsites, Drudge, the Lord of the Lazy Link Dump (HH). I check fraters...RELIEF. My man Elder has gotten out the hammer, and is nailing Nick to the post in no uncertain terms.
Poverty pimp Nick Coleman is the most shameless, prejudiced, judgemental person this side of a paper you have to pay for. My first reaction...Hey, Nick...you're making 6-figures (by pimping poor people), why don't you come from YOUR hip and BUY these poor folks a paper. You probably get a discount, you work for the paper, #%*#@**it! Second reaction...Yeah, Nick, you're right. We're all just trying get by here in George Bushes' Amerika, but the big cheeses (does anyone really talk this way still?) are just keepin us down. Thank goodness you are here to bear witness to the awfulness of our plight. Third reaction...Is Nick Coleman as prejudiced in other areas as well? Does he think Scottish people are thrifty? Does he think only Jewish people make good lawyers and accountants? That Irish people are drunks and British men are effeminate? His column alleging that our Gopher girls use their superior Northern European genes to be harder working than the other players on teams in the final four like that Eye-talian girl from UConn or those shiftless black girls from Tenn. told me how he thinks about those groups. But, what do I know?
Well, I know this much. I may not boycott the paper for their editorial page silliness, but for damn sure I'm boycotting the bigot named Nick Coleman. It's time for the white liberal to stop getting over with his prejudice. It's the not so soft bigotry of low expectations and a white liberal getting away with making judgements based on looks. He'll pay no penalty and probably win an award (like Kent Brockman) for pimping someone elses pathetic life for a living. You make me sick, Nick.
(sniff) Thanks Tom, you made my day. But wait, there's more. David adds:
We had something of an uproar here in Pittsburgh a few months ago. For several years now, bus fares have gone up and ridership has gone down. You might think that the Port Authority of Allegheny County would have spotted the obvious cause-and-effect relationship between what people have to pay and how many people are actually paying to take the ride (and I mean that both literally and metaphorically). But of course, the municipal and transit authorities are blind to the reality of the situation. Rather than lower fares, the Port Authority began reducing the number of runs per day on nearly every route. Eventually, they began eliminating some routes entirely. (At this point, one might imagine some Colemanesque journalist to hang out at the bus stop until someone who was unaware of the route elimination came along to provide him with a full column's worth of material.)
The last time a public meeting was held for riders to express their concern over the proposed service cuts, a nice big color photo appeared in the paper showing who attended the meeting. It was just what you would expect: people in wheelchairs, "minorities", and the elderly (if you'll pardon the expression). One of my co-workers took a gander at the picture and commented on how terrible it was that these people were going to have "a basic human right" taken away from them -- after all, they need to get to work somehow. I just about tore out my hair when she said that -- what sort of document, I wondered, exists that posits a ride on the bus as a "basic human right"? Is that in the US Constitution, or the Declaration of Independence? Perhaps the Magna Carta? Does it come from the Sermon on the Mount, or go back to the laws of Moses and Hammurabi? I decided not to ask out loud, as it would only make things worse.
My place of employment, you see, is the University of Pittsburgh. Like most universities, it is a repository of unreconstructed Marxists of the sort who hang Soviet flags and pictures of Marx and Lenin. This particular colleague of mine is an Italian-born beauty who could certainly give Monica Bellucci a run for her money. Very disturbing, then, to find that she has a tattoo on her lower back. I'm not too fond of tattoos in general, but hers is worse than most -- it was the face of Che Guevara. Kind of telling when you learn more about a person's worldview from their backside than from their face.
Not that cuts in bus service would be much of a bother for anyone who works at Pitt. For about ten years now, the University has funneled loads of money into the Port Authority so that anyone with a Pitt ID can enjoy unlimited bus rides on any route in the system. Of course I take advantage of this benefit every day that I go to work, and will continue to do so as long as it exists. After all, this is an annual deal and there was talk two years ago that the contract would not be renewed. When that happens, a lot of unhappy people are going to have to buy a bus pass, perhaps for the first time ever. Will that bother me? Of course it will, for a while. Until I can get another job to which I can drive, and that pays more money. Gainful employment is no more a "basic human right" than the means to get to work, regardless of what Marxist academia or elitist journalism might think.
Sorry to go on for so long -- I am a frustrated blogger-wannabe with a full-time day job and four times as many kids as James Lileks -- but I just want to call attention to one line in Nick Coleman's extended whine that puts me in mind of one of your Fraters colleagues:
"The sidewalk in front of the bus shelter was splotched with vomit and sprinkled with cigarette butts."
Based on what I have been reading over the last few months, it sounds like Nick Coleman missed running into Atomizer by just a few hours.
Positive reinforcement of my Coleman bashing and a zing at Atomizer? It really doesn't get any better. Thanks guys. You are the wind beneath my wings.
Tuesday, April 20, 2004
Get On To The Bus, That's Gonna Make You Stop Goin' Rub-a-dub
Yes, the transit strike is finally over here in the Twin Cities and we can all get back to normal. The 1.6% of the population that actually felt any noticeable impact from the bus drivers leaving their posts of duty can that is. The rest of us would likely have not even known that there was a strike were in not for the frantic efforts of the local media to top each other in delivering the schmaltziest, most guilt inducing stories of people coping with the bus strike. We've covered these shameless attempts to tug at our heartstrings previously in great detail, both here and on the Northern Alliance Radio show (where JB's memorial "urine caked drunks" line originated). And with the end of the strike, it seemed natural that we would also see the end of the wailing and gnashing of teeth from the media.
But, we didn't count on the Star Tribune's Nick Coleman. Where all others see a story completely played and milked of juicy material, Nick sees opportunity. Where others see the door closing, Nick jams his foot in and says, "Not so fast". Where others pack up and move on, Nick gets on the bus in a column titled Here's How It Really Was the Day the Buses Rolled:
The No. 69 bus was running for the first time in 47 days, and it was going to be clean and shiny and there would be free newspapers and a party atmosphere all the way from the Sun Ray Transit Center on St. Paul's East Side to downtown.
In your dreams. Here's how it really was, at 8:04 Monday morning on the day the buses returned.
The sidewalk in front of the bus shelter was splotched with vomit and sprinkled with cigarette butts. The creaky bus, driven by Shirley Walker, had 350,000 miles on the odometer. The floor was still strewn with street sand tracked in during a February snowstorm and, behind a seat, above the right rear wheel well, a weird white foam was oozing through a crack.
Welcome aboard reality.
Anyone who has ever ridden a city bus before can attest that vomit, trash, and weird white substances are par for the course. So the question is what did Coleman expect? Apparently the Metro Transit Commission's modest efforts (free newspapers, allowing riders to bring coffee with them) to lure riders back after the strike left Nick with the impression that riding the bus was going to be like Carnival in Rio.
By the way, when Coleman was busy chatting up the bus driver to learn her name and the mileage of the bus, why didn't he ask her if it would have been so hard to take a fargin' broom and sweep out her bus? Or is that not in the new contract?
Maybe there were free papers, free back rubs and hot drinks on other buses. Maybe there were express buses full of well-dressed people on the way to the office, people who left the Lexus in the garage Monday and who were laughing and standing in the aisles singing the "Hey Ya" song and catching up on how one another's portfolios have performed since Metro Transit drivers walked off the job March 4.
Feel the love people. Nothing like a little sneering class envy to bring us all together now is there? Maybe if Nick had decided to leave his beloved urban core and journey out to the far sprawling suburbs of say Wayzata or Chanhassen he would have indeed discovered busloads of well-attired business people heading downtown (and elsewhere). There's a transit station close to my workplace in Eden Prairie with a four level parking garage that's jammed full every day. They don't all own a Lexus, but they do okay. And they ride the bus.
Something that Nick should be happy about. Isn't it good that these suburbanites are partaking of the glories of mass transit? When the strike was going on they had alternatives. And they used them. They don't need the bus, but they choose it as a matter or convenience or economics. If Nick really wants the transit system to survive and thrive (and help the "less fortunate" that he supposedly cares so much about) he needs these kind of people opting in. But that doesn't fit his story template so he chooses to ignore it and focus on the "powerless":
But if you want to know how a metro area with pretensions to greatness could allow its rudimentary transit system to sit idle for six weeks before the big cheeses got interested enough to settle it, take a spin on the 69 bus.
The people on the No. 69 don't have clout or friends in power. They don't have a Lexus in the garage. They have the bus, and they are glad it's back. People like a 46-year-old woman named Soong Sook, who rode from the East Side to a charity store on West Seventh to pick up some clothes for her grandkids.
Who exactly does have clout or friends in power? I don't. I don't have a Lexus in my garage either. Can I be one of Nick's people?
One of the most irritating aspects of the media coverage of the bus strike was the tendency, which Coleman of course follows to a tee, to always blame the strike on the MTC commissioners and the governor, apparently the "big cheeses" here. Never blame the drivers who actually engaged in the strike which left the buses idle.
Three hours on the No. 69 -- from the East Side through downtown, then along West Seventh through the West End on out to Fort Snelling and the Veterans Affairs hospital and back again -- and I saw only one person going to an office job.
He only saw one person going to an "office job"? Was this based on his notion of "well-dressed"? Talk about hypocritical. Liberals like Coleman love to preach that we shouldn't judge based on appearance alone and yet that is exactly what he does here. Unless he actually interviewed everyone on the bus, there's no way he make this claim. And what the hell is an "office job" anyway?
Maybe there are more. Maybe they will come back when the parking deals they made during the strike run out. But many No. 69 regulars don't make parking deals. They just make do:
Only Coleman can turn the act of paying a monthly contract rate or "making parking deals" sound like entering into a real estate development agreement with the Donald. Hey Nick, I made an "electric deal" with X-cel energy this month. Wanna write about it?
Coleman goes on to chronicle the tales of no less than seven people riding the bus that day and why bus service is important to them. I'm not going to make fun of those who have to use public transit (I'll leave that to JB), but Coleman's efforts to elicit pity for them didn't exactly leave me fighting back the tears:
Augustine Cortez, 48, said that he was taking the bag of clothes on his lap to wash them at the coin laundry.
I have just enough Spanish and he just enough English for us to communicate, but Lunes is washday everywhere, I guess.
And the point of that is what exactly? This guy takes the bus to a laundry mat. I bet it happens on buses all over the Twin Cities every day. Is this a revelation to Nick?
• And a woman named Lisa Bailey, who has a learning disability and whose left arm was in a cast. She got on the bus with a bag of plastic juice bottles that she was going to drop off at a recycling center because her apartment building doesn't recycle plastic.
"Where's all the free newspapers at?" she asked as she made her way down the aisle, looking for evidence that a disastrous transit strike was finally over and that she was on board a party bus.
That thing I said about not making fun of people who ride the bus? It's getting really hard to stick to. Must resist...
Wasn't the simple fact that she was RIDING ON A BUS evidence enough that a "disastrous" transit strike was over? Oh wait, she did have a learning disability didn't she? No doubt she was hoping to find a free Star Tribune so she could catch up on all her favorite Metro section columnists.
I told her what I had heard: The free newspapers are supposed to be on the bus next week. But that might be too late.
The party's already over.
Earth to pretentious, out of touch, newspaper guy. Riding the bus was NEVER a party. And it NEVER will be. Understand?
All of these people who were riding the bus yesterday were probably riding the bus forty eight days ago before the strike and they'll likely be riding the bus two months from now. And the bus they ride will be dirty, smell of exhaust fumes, and creak along. So what? That's life Nick. It ain't always pretty but it's life.
Finally someone with an insider view of the Star Tribune e-mails to make an interesting comparison:
Coming back from vacation I find the buses are running but the illuminati here are oddly unhappy.
Settling into my desk and looking out the window at the tracks of the biggest electric train set I've ever seen, once again I feel the big wheels of journalism turning in smooth, silent rotation, utterly without friction because they're completely disengaged from reality.
With that I promise that this will be our last word on the bus strike and hopefully my last word on Nick Coleman for some time. My head just can't take it anymore.
But, we didn't count on the Star Tribune's Nick Coleman. Where all others see a story completely played and milked of juicy material, Nick sees opportunity. Where others see the door closing, Nick jams his foot in and says, "Not so fast". Where others pack up and move on, Nick gets on the bus in a column titled Here's How It Really Was the Day the Buses Rolled:
The No. 69 bus was running for the first time in 47 days, and it was going to be clean and shiny and there would be free newspapers and a party atmosphere all the way from the Sun Ray Transit Center on St. Paul's East Side to downtown.
In your dreams. Here's how it really was, at 8:04 Monday morning on the day the buses returned.
The sidewalk in front of the bus shelter was splotched with vomit and sprinkled with cigarette butts. The creaky bus, driven by Shirley Walker, had 350,000 miles on the odometer. The floor was still strewn with street sand tracked in during a February snowstorm and, behind a seat, above the right rear wheel well, a weird white foam was oozing through a crack.
Welcome aboard reality.
Anyone who has ever ridden a city bus before can attest that vomit, trash, and weird white substances are par for the course. So the question is what did Coleman expect? Apparently the Metro Transit Commission's modest efforts (free newspapers, allowing riders to bring coffee with them) to lure riders back after the strike left Nick with the impression that riding the bus was going to be like Carnival in Rio.
By the way, when Coleman was busy chatting up the bus driver to learn her name and the mileage of the bus, why didn't he ask her if it would have been so hard to take a fargin' broom and sweep out her bus? Or is that not in the new contract?
Maybe there were free papers, free back rubs and hot drinks on other buses. Maybe there were express buses full of well-dressed people on the way to the office, people who left the Lexus in the garage Monday and who were laughing and standing in the aisles singing the "Hey Ya" song and catching up on how one another's portfolios have performed since Metro Transit drivers walked off the job March 4.
Feel the love people. Nothing like a little sneering class envy to bring us all together now is there? Maybe if Nick had decided to leave his beloved urban core and journey out to the far sprawling suburbs of say Wayzata or Chanhassen he would have indeed discovered busloads of well-attired business people heading downtown (and elsewhere). There's a transit station close to my workplace in Eden Prairie with a four level parking garage that's jammed full every day. They don't all own a Lexus, but they do okay. And they ride the bus.
Something that Nick should be happy about. Isn't it good that these suburbanites are partaking of the glories of mass transit? When the strike was going on they had alternatives. And they used them. They don't need the bus, but they choose it as a matter or convenience or economics. If Nick really wants the transit system to survive and thrive (and help the "less fortunate" that he supposedly cares so much about) he needs these kind of people opting in. But that doesn't fit his story template so he chooses to ignore it and focus on the "powerless":
But if you want to know how a metro area with pretensions to greatness could allow its rudimentary transit system to sit idle for six weeks before the big cheeses got interested enough to settle it, take a spin on the 69 bus.
The people on the No. 69 don't have clout or friends in power. They don't have a Lexus in the garage. They have the bus, and they are glad it's back. People like a 46-year-old woman named Soong Sook, who rode from the East Side to a charity store on West Seventh to pick up some clothes for her grandkids.
Who exactly does have clout or friends in power? I don't. I don't have a Lexus in my garage either. Can I be one of Nick's people?
One of the most irritating aspects of the media coverage of the bus strike was the tendency, which Coleman of course follows to a tee, to always blame the strike on the MTC commissioners and the governor, apparently the "big cheeses" here. Never blame the drivers who actually engaged in the strike which left the buses idle.
Three hours on the No. 69 -- from the East Side through downtown, then along West Seventh through the West End on out to Fort Snelling and the Veterans Affairs hospital and back again -- and I saw only one person going to an office job.
He only saw one person going to an "office job"? Was this based on his notion of "well-dressed"? Talk about hypocritical. Liberals like Coleman love to preach that we shouldn't judge based on appearance alone and yet that is exactly what he does here. Unless he actually interviewed everyone on the bus, there's no way he make this claim. And what the hell is an "office job" anyway?
Maybe there are more. Maybe they will come back when the parking deals they made during the strike run out. But many No. 69 regulars don't make parking deals. They just make do:
Only Coleman can turn the act of paying a monthly contract rate or "making parking deals" sound like entering into a real estate development agreement with the Donald. Hey Nick, I made an "electric deal" with X-cel energy this month. Wanna write about it?
Coleman goes on to chronicle the tales of no less than seven people riding the bus that day and why bus service is important to them. I'm not going to make fun of those who have to use public transit (I'll leave that to JB), but Coleman's efforts to elicit pity for them didn't exactly leave me fighting back the tears:
Augustine Cortez, 48, said that he was taking the bag of clothes on his lap to wash them at the coin laundry.
I have just enough Spanish and he just enough English for us to communicate, but Lunes is washday everywhere, I guess.
And the point of that is what exactly? This guy takes the bus to a laundry mat. I bet it happens on buses all over the Twin Cities every day. Is this a revelation to Nick?
• And a woman named Lisa Bailey, who has a learning disability and whose left arm was in a cast. She got on the bus with a bag of plastic juice bottles that she was going to drop off at a recycling center because her apartment building doesn't recycle plastic.
"Where's all the free newspapers at?" she asked as she made her way down the aisle, looking for evidence that a disastrous transit strike was finally over and that she was on board a party bus.
That thing I said about not making fun of people who ride the bus? It's getting really hard to stick to. Must resist...
Wasn't the simple fact that she was RIDING ON A BUS evidence enough that a "disastrous" transit strike was over? Oh wait, she did have a learning disability didn't she? No doubt she was hoping to find a free Star Tribune so she could catch up on all her favorite Metro section columnists.
I told her what I had heard: The free newspapers are supposed to be on the bus next week. But that might be too late.
The party's already over.
Earth to pretentious, out of touch, newspaper guy. Riding the bus was NEVER a party. And it NEVER will be. Understand?
All of these people who were riding the bus yesterday were probably riding the bus forty eight days ago before the strike and they'll likely be riding the bus two months from now. And the bus they ride will be dirty, smell of exhaust fumes, and creak along. So what? That's life Nick. It ain't always pretty but it's life.
Finally someone with an insider view of the Star Tribune e-mails to make an interesting comparison:
Coming back from vacation I find the buses are running but the illuminati here are oddly unhappy.
Settling into my desk and looking out the window at the tracks of the biggest electric train set I've ever seen, once again I feel the big wheels of journalism turning in smooth, silent rotation, utterly without friction because they're completely disengaged from reality.
With that I promise that this will be our last word on the bus strike and hopefully my last word on Nick Coleman for some time. My head just can't take it anymore.
How Do You Say "D'oh!" In Arabic?
Mortar attack kills 22 prisoners in Baghdad jail:
Insurgents fired 12 mortars into Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison Tuesday, killing 22 detainees and injuring 92, U.S. military officials said.
All of those killed or injured in the mortar attack on the U.S.-run prison were security detainees, said Col. Jill Morgenthaler, meaning they were held for suspected involvement in the anti-U.S. insurgency or remnants of Saddam Hussein's ousted Baathist regime.
Mortar attack kills 22 prisoners in Baghdad jail:
Insurgents fired 12 mortars into Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison Tuesday, killing 22 detainees and injuring 92, U.S. military officials said.
All of those killed or injured in the mortar attack on the U.S.-run prison were security detainees, said Col. Jill Morgenthaler, meaning they were held for suspected involvement in the anti-U.S. insurgency or remnants of Saddam Hussein's ousted Baathist regime.
To Serve and Resent
A local bus driver comes to terms with his new contract. Read on and wonder no longer why Tim Pawlenty and Peter Bell had such a difficult time trying to negotiate with these people:
In any case, Tim Pawlenty, Peter Bell, David Strom, and basically the Republican Party will never be forgiven. And I’m going to have a hard time thinking about Minnesota as a good place to live. Hopefully we can get someone to try and undo Pawlenty’s twof reign of terror, but I doubt that’s possible. After all he completely undid a hundred years of progress in Minnesota in only two years. I don’t even want to think about what he’ll be up to next.
Is there anything more charming than a government employee with an axe to grind? Sure, they have to accept the taxpayers continuing to fund their healthcare at levels far beyond that offered in the private sector, but they don’t have to like it!
Actually, he doesn’t have to accept it. He could quit his job and save all of us forced to pay his salary the ego driven drama and simmering resentment. Because, I have good news for him, this isn’t slavery! He can seek employment elsewhere and fly as high as his people skills and knowledge of history will take him.
If he does choose to stick around, I just hope he doesn’t let his violated sense of entitlement affect his customer service. I think all the poor and needy abandoned by the Amalgamated Transit Union over the past 45 days deserve at least a smile and a harangue free commute. At least for this week.
A local bus driver comes to terms with his new contract. Read on and wonder no longer why Tim Pawlenty and Peter Bell had such a difficult time trying to negotiate with these people:
In any case, Tim Pawlenty, Peter Bell, David Strom, and basically the Republican Party will never be forgiven. And I’m going to have a hard time thinking about Minnesota as a good place to live. Hopefully we can get someone to try and undo Pawlenty’s twof reign of terror, but I doubt that’s possible. After all he completely undid a hundred years of progress in Minnesota in only two years. I don’t even want to think about what he’ll be up to next.
Is there anything more charming than a government employee with an axe to grind? Sure, they have to accept the taxpayers continuing to fund their healthcare at levels far beyond that offered in the private sector, but they don’t have to like it!
Actually, he doesn’t have to accept it. He could quit his job and save all of us forced to pay his salary the ego driven drama and simmering resentment. Because, I have good news for him, this isn’t slavery! He can seek employment elsewhere and fly as high as his people skills and knowledge of history will take him.
If he does choose to stick around, I just hope he doesn’t let his violated sense of entitlement affect his customer service. I think all the poor and needy abandoned by the Amalgamated Transit Union over the past 45 days deserve at least a smile and a harangue free commute. At least for this week.
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