The Second Dean Dozen

The Second Dean Dozen -- This time with a New Jerseyan running for Freeholder in the quite rural second southernmost county of the state. Now that's really grassroots politics.

Eric Idle's FCC Song

Eric Idle's FCC Song -- Will Parker provides the lyrics so you can sing along, as well as links to mp3 downloads so you have something to sing to.

Dress for Distress

Dress for Distress -- You know the way that doctors think a necktie makes them look more professional? Well, it turns out that those useless pieces of cloth may be harming their patients. (via Boing Boing)

Must See (and experience) in New Jersey

Must See (and experience) in New Jersey -- My contribution...

Take a ride on Route 22 westbound from Newark to Philipsburgh. What other state has such diversity on one short road?

The Ocean City boardwalk. No bars. No wheels (except when they have the hot rod or Corvette gatherings). No loud music. Just a great comfortable walk, good food, and family fun. Grab a seat at the end of the music pier with a good book like my wife or an iPod like me, and enjoy killing a few hours over the water.

And by the way, the best bagels I've ever had -- dense and chewy schmeared with a super spinach/garlic or bacon horseradish cream cheese -- are also in OC -- Bagels by the Beach on Asbury Ave. Oh yeah; I've still got the weeks of August 28 available on my OC rental condo. ;-)

Woodbridge. The confluence of the major rivers of vitality of NJ...Route 1, Route 9, the Turnpike, the Parkway, and 287. Get lost in the interchanges.

The blueberry farms in Hammonton. There's a great road by them between 30 and 422 that is perfect for opening up the throttle on my 'vette.

Rutt's Hut and Ryland Inn for the best of both ends of the culinary scale. (Adding a third R, Rita's Water Ice -- half cherry/half citrus for me.)

The Princeton campus and art museum. (And Conte's Pizza while you're in the neighborhood.)

The Cape May-Lewes Ferry.

The Delaware Water Gap.

Oh, and Shep's New Jersey of my youth.

Message to Kerry

Message to Kerry -- Go big. Ask more.

Democratic Leadership

Democratic Leadership -- True leaders are enablers of others. Howard Dean has put his supporter's money where his mouth was. If a grassroots movement could raise substantial cash at the presidential level, think what it could do for congressional races. More commentary here.

The Intersection of My Radio Listening

The Intersection of My Radio Listening -- Howard and Me, where me is Ira Glass of This American Life, one of my favorite offerings on public radio.

...the recent F.C.C. rulings make me Stern's brother as I've never been before. Here are just a few of the things we've broadcast on our show that now could conceivably result in fines of up to a half million dollars for the 484 public stations that run the program: assorted curse words, people saying ''damn'' and ''goddamn'' (a recent F.C.C. decision declared that ''profane'' and ''blasphemous'' speech would now come under scrutiny); various prison stories; and a very funny story by the writer David Sedaris that takes place in a bathroom and that violates all three F.C.C. criteria for ''indecency.'' It's explicitly graphic in talking about ''excretory organs or activities''; Sedaris repeats and dwells on the descriptions at length, and he absolutely means to pander and shock. That's what makes it funny.

In the past, the F.C.C. would have considered context, the possible literary value or news value of apparently offensive material. And the agency still gives lip service to context in its current decisions. But when the commissioners declared in March that an expletive modifying the word ''brilliant'' (uttered by Bono at the Golden Globe Awards) was worthy of punishment, it made a more radical change in the rules than most people realize. Now context doesn't always matter. If a word on our show could increase a child's vocabulary, if some members of the public find something ''grossly offensive,'' the F.C.C. can issue fines.

Because the whole process is driven by audience complaints, enforcement is arbitrary by design.

Howard all morning. NPR all day.

Democratic Backbone

Democratic Backbone -- From an article about Howard Dean...

When it comes to the war in Iraq, or the growing influence of Christian fundamentalism on public policy, or the mounting budget deficit exacerbated by targeted tax cuts for the wealthy, Mr Dean - in contrast to John Kerry, who beat him to the Democratic presidential nomination - does not believe there is room for compromise with the Bush White House, or any of the like-minded politicians he characterises as 'right-wing wackos'.

Instead, he believes, the Republicans need to be fought on their own turf, in places where ordinary working-class voters have been persuaded to vote Republican but may yet be open to the notion that they are betraying their own interests.

'You've got to show them the Republicans will never deliver jobs and education because they can't manage money,' Mr Dean said. 'You've got to talk about the enormous deficits. These are people ... who really struggle with money issues of their own and know they can't go into debt. So when they see the country go into debt, they worry about it.'

This campaign could have been exciting.

Dissension Grows In Senior Ranks On War Strategy

Dissension Grows In Senior Ranks On War Strategy -- From the Washington Post...

"A senior general at the Pentagon said he believes the United States is already on the road to defeat. 'It is doubtful we can go on much longer like this,' he said. 'The American people may not stand for it -- and they should not.'

"Asked who was to blame, this general pointed directly at Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz. 'I do not believe we had a clearly defined war strategy, end state and exit strategy before we commenced our invasion,' he said. 'Had someone like Colin Powell been the chairman [of the Joint Chiefs of Staff], he would not have agreed to send troops without a clear exit strategy. The current OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense] refused to listen or adhere to military advice.'

Like several other officers interviewed for this report, this general spoke only on the condition that his name not be used."

Considering Rumsfeld's attempt this week to kill the messenger with his blame of the media for bringing torture to the front pages, I don't blame this general for insisting on CYA anonymity. (via Backup Brain)

Bummer: Comcast Fires TechTV Staff

Bummer: Comcast Fires TechTV Staff

A speech I'd like to hear

A Speech I'd Like to Hear --

"We're brave. We're free. We love justice. We love life. That's our America.

But is that the America you see peering back at us from our own headlines?
Is that the America the world sees now?"

From someone who isn't running. Too bad. I'd vote -- with great enthusiasm -- for a leader who gave such a speech.

Interesting that it sounds like Dean. Think there's a connection there? Sure is. Dean was the first time I got enthusiastic about a presidential candidate in a long time.

While I'm committed to vote against Bush, and I won't throw my vote away on a Nader, Kerry is, I fear, turning into a snoozefest as he lurches to the center. I just can't get excited about him, no matter how I try. So I guess, one more time, I'll keep my enthusiasm up on the negative side rather than the positive.

What is torture?

What is torture? --

"It's torture when they do it. It's abuse when our guys do it."

From Xeni Jardin at Boing Boing. Read the whole (short) thing.

Operation Hypocrisy

Operation Hypocrisy -- Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, here's a set of examples of complaints to the FCC -- complaints about Oprah's "indecency." My favorite. (via Boing Boing)

Responding to Torture

Responding to Torture -- Perception is reality. Unfortunately, the actions of this administration and its paid contractors have created a perception of an America as bully. And unfortunately, in this case, the reality matches the perception. Only an open investigation into the recent events can change that perception, if not the reality.

MoveOn.org: Responding to Torture provides a petition to call for such an investigation. (Via David Weinberger, who has some additional ideas for addressing the situation.)

Comma, Period

Comma, Period -- Dave Pollard starts with an essay on punctuation, and ends up talking about real-time communication...

"Anyone under 25 would probably think this post, and Mr Rosenthal's op-ed, pointless and esoteric. The young are learning to think and write almost entirely in real time, precisely the way they talk, and they have willingly traded off the time and the value that comes from careful composition, editing and reflection, in favour of an iterative, 'successive approximation' means of communicating. In such a world, punctuation may soon be seen as an affectation, not a tool for comprehension.

"I suspect that this conflict of language cultures will bring about a revolution in the way in which we use language. That revolution will face its first bloody battles in the universities, where the established elite are heavily invested in old ways of written communication. Once that battle has been won, the war front will move on to business, where the carnage will be even worse, and will I suspect produce a 'generation gap' unlike anything we've seen since the 1960s. The next generation will have no tolerance for formal meetings, PowerPoint slides and long reports, and with their more oral culture will quickly learn to blow us away when they speak impromptu from the podium or look for learning or consensus in self-organized workgroups that will be substantially paper-free.

"After this revolution, all we'll have left to write about is whether the result has been more understanding, or less."

Bedrock Principle

Bedrock Principle --

"If there is a bedrock principle of the first amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable."
    -- Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan

Howard and Howard

Howard and Howard -- This blog has definitely made a hard turn into the political recently. I can attribute the initial move to my appreciation for the Dean campaign and the evolving call for change that has come out of it, and then to Stern for keeping the juices flowing in a specific issue.

F*cked by the F*CC

F*cked by the F*CC -- I don't mean to come of as obsessed with this issue, but this cover story from The Nation (by Jeff Jarvis) is an excellent summary of the ramifications of current FCC nannyism...

"I asked Robert Corn-Revere--the First Amendment attorney who recently got Lenny Bruce pardoned and who litigated against the Communications Decency Act--about the constitutionality of current regulations and new legislation. He replied: 'What constitutionality?... The FCC has done its best to prolong the longevity of this doctrine by keeping it out of court.'

"In compelling testimony before Congress, Corn-Revere pleaded for a long-overdue constitutional review of indecency policy. He complained that the FCC's indecency (and now profanity) standards evade the tests that courts grant for obscenity: The FCC judges a work not as a whole but by just one word; it judges not by the standard of an 'average person' but by that of a child; and it short-circuits due process (Stern complains that his company settled $1.71 million in fines in 1995 only because the FCC was using it to hold licenses hostage). Finally, Corn-Revere says, the enforcement is inconsistent. No one knows where the line is."

So much for the old concept of one's "day in court."