December 2003

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The return of Steve Perry (well, a link anyway)

by Mark Gisleson

Real live content from Steve Perry to close out the old year: "The Accidental Populist: Howard Dean vs. the democratic establishment."

The grand irony in the case of Howard Dean vs. the Democratic Leadership Council is that it's not at all clear that Dean ever seriously meant to take on the Democratic party establishment, or that he will even carry through with the battle. He talked a tough anti-establishment line out of the gate, yes, but that was the smart outsider play, and Dean's candidacy had struck party sultans as a bit of trivia from the start. As governor of Vermont and already as a presidential aspirant, Dean has tended to speak boldly first and tack practically to the right when under fire. It isn't hard to imagine his fashioning a rapprochement with the party elite as his campaign flourished.

If he had been allowed to, that is. But the party blew it. The DNC's controlling junta--the Clinton/McAuliffe New (business) Democrats--consistently underestimated Dean's appeal and treated him with such raw contempt as to make an alliance impossible in the near term. They tried very hard to derail him instead, which is why so many party regulars have labored to breathe life into the listless, late-entry bid by Wesley Clark. (Gore Vidal on Clark: "I don't like these men of great accomplishment who've accomplished nothing, and who mean nothing.") And for what it's worth, the DLC's principal attack hound, Tailgunner Joe Lieberman, has shown no signs of relenting in his verbal assaults. In one of those bits of doublespeak for which Democrats are rightly as cherished as Republicans, Lieberman decreed that Dean's opposition to the war and to Democratic complicity in it proved him a "divisive" force in politics.

Dean, meanwhile, has conducted a back-channel outreach to many prominent Democrats, resulting most famously in his December 9 endorsement by Al Gore. The question of the hour is whether Dean is trying to wrestle the party into embracing him or to take it over. He is on record loudly intimating the latter, but--well, this is American politics, and people say a lot of things. More tellingly, perhaps, there are many in and around the national Democratic fold who really do believe that Gore and Dean have it in mind to take the party away from the DLC once and for all.

[more]

Still more on Dean from Michael Tomasky:

Some of the criticisms of Dean have crossed the line. Joe Lieberman in particular has behaved appallingly. No Democratic candidate should ever say that Democrat X can't win in November, as Lieberman has said and/or hinted repeatedly of Dean....But for whatever reason, St. Joe enjoys the protective immunity of the pundit class, so he'll never be reproached for his behavior in the way that he deserves. Criticisms and attacks are fine, but saying, repeatedly, that a member of one's own party will lose in November is way, way, way out of line -- it's the kind of mischief one would have expected from Al Sharpton.

And, because Lieberman's pundit protectors seem intent on equating him with the Clintons, it should be noted that the Clintons, however they may feel privately about this race in general and about Dean in particular, have publicly spoken very differently than Lieberman has. Bill Clinton told me for the November issue of the Prospect: "I don't believe that either side should be saying, 'I'm a real Democrat and the other one's not,' or, 'I'm a winning Democrat and the other one's not.' . . . [T]hese kind of ad hominem attacks . . . are dead-bang losers." The first formulation is an implicit criticism of Dean, to be sure; but the second one is an equally clear warning against the kind of game Lieberman has been playing. As for Hillary, she was asked point-blank in early December if Dean could beat George W. Bush. She did not equivocate or play any kind of coy game. "Sure," she said. "Absolutely. Any of our candidates can. Whoever emerges from this nominating process will be a competitive candidate. … We can put together a winning combination to take back the White House, and that's what I'm going to work on."

So Lieberman -- and, to a lesser extent, Dick Gephardt and John Kerry -- are playing dirty pool.

* *

Don’t know why I read economist/pundit Robert Samuelson yesterday, but my blood pressure is still elevated. I’d love to say that of all the media whores he’s the most clueless, but the fact is, as I suspect is usually the case in these matters, he’s simply the most loyal to RNC talking points. No Bob, I don’t hate Bush. But if you don’t shut up and try reporting actual economic news for a change, I may find it impossible not to hate you.

Even the Washington Post op-ed pages occasionally find it necessary to distance themselves from the Bushies. This editorial on Nick Smith is the kind of thing I used to expect from the paper that broke Watergate. But that was a long time ago, and I suspect it will be quite a while before the WaPost runs anything else I like this much. As this snippet indicates, this is still an important story:

[W]hat happened to Mr. Smith was no more than hardball-as-usual on a close and important vote. True, lawmakers understand full well when they cast a critical vote that it is apt to affect their ability to obtain campaign contributions from the affected industries or interest groups. Yet there is a distinction between an implicit understanding of the likely financial consequences of an important vote and an explicit quid pro quo of campaign cash for a vote the desired way. The federal bribery statute makes it a crime to offer "anything of value" to a public official "with intent to influence any official act."

Corruption of course is best measured by the results, not the cloakroom deals that weaken regulations and laws. Jeff St. Clair's "Inside Big Meat" speaks to the bottom line corruption inherent in deregulation. Not for the queasy. Hell, I'm a farm kid and this one had me reaching for the tofu.

The Bushies are notorious for not tolerating dissent within their ranks, and Kuro5hin reports that Free Republic takes a similar approach to non-conforming posts.

* *

Various takes on John Ashcroft's recusal:

Tapped's Matt Yglesias

Josh Marshall's first take, and second take

Billmon

TalkLeft, on the recusal, and linking to an LA Weekly interview with Joe Wilson

Mark A.R. Kleiman

Juan Coleman

* *

The Army has dropped the major charges against Staff Sgt. Georg-Andreas Pogany, but his fate is still undecided. Pogany is the poor schmuck who repeatedly asked for counseling then freaked out while on patrol in Iraq, and as a result was looking at a court-martial.

War is a cruel and unusual thing. My vote for the most stirring war story of 2003 has nothing to do with Iraq, however. After fifty years in captivity in the North Korean gulag, Jeon Yong-il escaped and, after South Korean intervention with Chinese authorities, was allowed to return home to South Korea. Read the Telegraph story for details of the touching reunion and financially happy ending.

Jimmy Breslin and Col. David Hackworth (ret.) both look at the body count from George's big adventure in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Juan Cole on Basra and the harassment of Christians, vigilante justice, and the US media blackout on any part of Iraq not controlled by US troops.

* *

If I don't post tomorrow, you'll know I had a good time tonight.

 

Posted by Steve Perry at December 31, 2003 10:33 AM

 

Numbers all add up to rich getting richer

by Mark Gisleson

Once again, Paul Krugman puts it all together:

Commerce Department figures reveal a startling disconnect between overall economic growth, which has been impressive since last spring, and the incomes of a great majority of Americans. In the third quarter of 2003, as everyone knows, real G.D.P. rose at an annual rate of 8.2 percent. But wage and salary income, adjusted for inflation, rose at an annual rate of only 0.8 percent. More recent data don't change the picture: in the six months that ended in November, income from wages rose only 0.65 percent after inflation.

Why aren't workers sharing in the so-called boom? Start with jobs.

Payroll employment began rising in August, but the pace of job growth remains modest, averaging less than 90,000 per month. That's well short of the 225,000 jobs added per month during the Clinton years; it's even below the roughly 150,000 jobs needed to keep up with a growing working-age population.

But if the number of jobs isn't rising much, aren't workers at least earning more? You may have thought so. After all, companies have been able to increase output without hiring more workers, thanks to the rapidly rising output per worker. (Yes, that's a tautology.) Historically, higher productivity has translated into rising wages. But not this time: thanks to a weak labor market, employers have felt no pressure to share productivity gains. Calculations by the Economic Policy Institute show real wages for most workers flat or falling even as the economy expands.

An aside: how weak is the labor market? The measured unemployment rate of 5.9 percent isn't that high by historical standards, but there's something funny about that number. An unusually large number of people have given up looking for work, so they are no longer counted as unemployed, and many of those who say they have jobs seem to be only marginally employed. Such measures as the length of time it takes laid-off workers to get new jobs continue to indicate the worst job market in 20 years.

[more]

How bad is unemployment really? The Los Angeles Times calculates the real unemployment rate is more like 9.7%.

The nation's official jobless rate is 5.9%, a relatively benign level by historical standards. But economists say that figure paints only a partial — and artificially rosy — picture of the labor market.

To begin with, there are the 8.7 million unemployed, defined as those without a job who are actively looking for work. But lurking behind that group are 4.9 million part-time workers such as Gluskin who say they would rather be working full time — the highest number in a decade.

There are also the 1.5 million people who want a job but didn't look for one in the last month. Nearly a third of this group say they stopped the search because they were too depressed about the prospect of finding anything. Officially termed "discouraged," their number has surged 20% in a year.

Add these three groups together and the jobless total for the U.S. hits 9.7%, up from 9.4% a year ago.

Over at The American Prospect, Harold Meyerson reflects on the meaning of it all in "Un-American Recovery: How the Bush recovery has undone the great balancing act of the New Deal."

After inching along imperceptibly for quarter after quarter, the economy is, by some measures, roaring back. The annual growth rate last quarter topped 8 percent, while productivity increased by more than 9 percent. To be sure, employment is still down by 2.4 million jobs since Bush took office, but it's finally begun to rise a bit....

Who could ask for anything more?

Well, the American people, for one. Since July the average hourly wage increase for the 85 million Americans who work in non-supervisory jobs in offices and factories is a flat 3 cents. Wages are up just 2.1 percent since November 2002 -- the slowest wage growth we've experienced in 40 years. Economists at the Economic Policy Institute have been comparing recoveries of late, looking into the growth in corporate-sector income in each of the nine recoveries the United States has gone through since the end of World War II. In the preceding eight, the share of the corporate income growth going to profits averaged 26 percent, and never exceeded 32 percent. In the current recovery, however, profits come to 46 percent of the corporations' additional income.

Conversely, labor compensation averaged 61 percent of the total income growth in the preceding recoveries, and was never lower than 55 percent. In the Bush recovery, it's just 29 percent of the new income coming in to the corporations.

Meanwhile, here in Minnesota, our guv wants to start building toll roads, but that's OK because we can use weak dollars to pay our way.

* *

VoteHere has been hacked. No big deal, just another warning that e-voting isn't ready yet. Personally, I'm kind of sad that Minnesota uses the highly accurate "optical scanning" technology. I can't think of a better way to start election day than walking into my precinct polling place and tipping over some electronic voting machines that don't produce a paper trail. Don't think this crowd will leave the building without trying to cheat their way into a second term. We will have to fight to take back the power, and that requirement alone should prohibit any current member of Congress (Kucinich excepted) from getting the nomination.

Via Steve Gilliard, Fair Elections is the anti-Diebold site, and has the Martin Sheen seal of approval.

Linked to some folks who were joyfully trashing David Brooks yesterday, but now Tom Stoller does an even better job of eviscerating our #1 Bobo.

And Jay Rosen rethinks Paul Krugman's recent media advisory.

* *

As a New Year's treat, it's hard to beat Hillary Clinton as the most admired woman. We won't talk about who won the men's division, but 8% isn't much to crow about after "winning" a war.

Regular Salon readers may have wondered where This Modern World was yesterday. I don't know, but this link will take you to "Dean Can't Win," the latest irony-filled Tom Tomorrow strip.

Heading: He can't win because George McGovern didn't win!

1st pundit: "That's right! Thirty years ago, in a completely different cultural and political context, another guy lost!

2nd pundit: "Well, that's proof enough for me!"

* *

Stirling Newberry on Dean vs. Clark:

One Republican insider put it bluntly: "Common knowledge that it is the Dean people, who have Gore's blessing, versus the Clinton people for control of the Democrat (sic) Party." While not subscribing to the Hillary Clinton conspiracy theories, it is clear that the Clinton donors list has picked its candidate, and that candidate is Wesley Clark. The spigot is off for the the other candidates....

The money primary speaks volumes: there is Dean, Clark, and everyone else. With the cries of poverty that regularly come from Little Rock, and their complete lack of an internet strategy other than to send fundraising letters and occassionaly ask for some basic pelting of political figures and reporters - the campaign's strategy is, as several people connected with the campaign have maintained all along - to unleash a massive ad blitz, starting with New Hampshire, against a high burn rate Dean campaign. The Clark campaign is, basically, hoping that the power of media and money can win the nomination one last time. The money primary is a dead heat between the two: Clark will probably qualify for 3 to 4 million in matching. Dean would have qualified for at least 5 million, but decided to opt out of the system in a bid to be able to spend freely to hold Iowa and New Hampshire.

What keeps this strategy afloat is not that it might work, but that for many Democratic Party insiders, it must work.

 

 

 

Posted by Steve Perry at December 30, 2003 10:27 AM

 

Pink, Blue and White: exporting jobs

by Mark Gisleson

Bob Herbert writes about "White Collar Blues" today in the NYTimes, and it really set me to thinking. Thanks to this blog, I'm probably going to stop taking new resume clients and am going to get paid to do fill-in work for another political website. Herbert's column summed up both my antipathy towards career development work, and my need to fight back against the "empire" more directly.

I am surprised at how passive American workers have become.

A couple of million factory positions have disappeared in the short time since we raised our glasses to toast the incoming century. And now the white-collar jobs are following the blue-collar jobs overseas.

Americans are working harder and have become ever more productive — astonishingly productive — but are not sharing in the benefits of their increased effort. If you think in terms of wages, benefits and the creation of good jobs, the employment landscape is grim.

The economy is going great guns, we're told, but nearly nine million Americans are officially unemployed, and the real tally of the jobless is much higher. Even as the Bush administration and the media celebrate the blossoming of statistics that supposedly show how well we're doing, the lines at food banks and soup kitchens are lengthening. They're swollen in many cases by the children of men and women who are working but not making enough to house and feed their families.

How do you tell someone their job search is screwed, not because they're not trying hard enough, but because our government has made it easier for corporations to export jobs? A compliant media obsesses about Iraq and terrorism, but when's the last time you saw a line at a soup kitchen on the local news?

An executive at Microsoft, the ultimate American success story, told his department heads last year to "Think India," and to "pick something to move offshore today."

These matters should be among the hottest topics of our national conversation. We've already witnessed the carnage in manufacturing jobs. Now, with white-collar jobs at stake, we've got executives at I.B.M. and Microsoft exchanging high-fives at the prospect of getting "two heads for the price of one" in India.

It might be a good idea to throw a brighter spotlight on some of these trends and explore the implications for the long-term economy and the American standard of living.

"If you take this to its logical extreme, the implications for the entire middle-class wage structure in the United States are terrifying," said Thea Lee, an economist with the A.F.L.-C.I.O. "Now is the time to start thinking about policy solutions."

But that's exactly what we're not thinking about. Government policy at the moment is focused primarily on what's best for the corporations. From that perspective, job destruction and wage compression are good things — as long as they don't get too much high-profile attention.

There is absolutely nothing to stop corporations from destroying American communities if it means they save some money in the short run. Long-term costs aren't part of the equation anymore. Wal-Mart stories abound, but it's rare to hear about a worker victory on any front.

Globalization may be a fact of life. But that does not mean that its destructive impact on American families can't be mitigated. The best thing workers can do, including white-collar and professional workers, is to organize. At the same time, the exportation of jobs and the effect that is having on the standard of living here should be relentlessly monitored by the government, the civic sector and the media. The public has a right to know what's really going on.

Is it just me, or is it harder and harder for everyone to hear the word "media" without mentally adding the word "whores" afterwords? What kind of news gathering organizations ignore a story like this? The whole world is changing but we systematically ignore the consequences of those changes.

We live in a world controlled by corporations out for the short-term buck. I heard a radio commentator mention Lee Iacocca this weekend. The upshot was that when Iacocca wrote his autobiography, every CEO in the country started dreaming about becoming more rich and more famous, just like Lee. That's when the meme started about how this country would be better off if it was run like a business. That idea didn't make sense then, and now that we've tried it, it's obvious that it doesn't make sense as a model for governance. Government is responsible to the people, not shareholders, but business people in government ignore that and keep rewarding their old shareholders, making the rich richer at everyone else's expense.

I've written about this before in other forums, but corporate greed always reminds me of a game we played in my high school Civics class. The class was divided into three groups, and we got to take turns making the rules. When my group was put in charge, we changed the rules so everyone else had to do what we said. In short order, we controlled all the wealth and that was that. [Sidebar: then I screwed it up by giving all my money to the poorest group, which really pissed off the teacher.]

It was a stupid game, and it's an even stupider way to run the economy. Repeat after me, "It's the greater good, stupid."

* *

According to BOPNews, Dean’s getting most of the blog coverage right now, which goes a long ways towards explaining why I’m sitting on a bunch of Dean links, with only one or two for some of the other candidates. True, most of my links are to newspapers, but, for quite a while now, I’ve been suspicious that major media coverage is increasingly driven by blog coverage. Reporters who came of age sucking on the RNC tit for story feeds have been quick to take their lead from online pundits. (Steve Gilliard is even less kind.)

For the record, here's the weekend roundup of coverage of Democratic candidates:

As I mentioned, tons on Howard Dean, including three more links this morning courtesy of Romenesko:

Vermont journalists cash in with a quickie book. Last Friday's Paul Krugman commentary on Dean and the press corps, and Eric Alterman in The Nation on the same topic. And the LA Times thinks press criticism of Dean doesn't stick (finally, a teflon Democrat?).

Rick Lyman has a new bio piece on Dean. In case you didn't hear, Dean ripped the other candidates this weekend, saying that the party can't win without him.

Those pesky sealed records in Vermont aren't going away. Dean's tax incentives are also under posthumous fire.

The Stop Dean movement may benefit from cell phone technology.

Kucinich is the new Sharpton? Dennis Kucinich continues to get some nice coverage, mainly I suspect because the media loves to quote someone who can't win.

Joe Lieberman got some ink for his abortion comments, and his defense of his abortion comments.

Wes Clark in New Hampshire.

Dick Gephardt talks trade in South Carolina, and at an Iowa airport.

* *

The New York Times editorializes on military preparedness, TalkLeft links to reports on "stop-loss" orders that keep soldiers from coming home after their tour of duty is up, children of reservists complain, and Common Dreams reprints an article on more lies that led us to war. Of course, Paul Bremer totally contradicted Tony Blair on a key talking point. If you're interested, here's the dead and wounded count, and more from Steve Gilliard.

To say that troop morale sucks would be a grievous understatement. Via Cursor, the Chicago Tribune reports on military suicides, and the Boston Globe has a possible suicide by a guard at Guantanamo.

Meanwhile, David Neiwert rips the administration for failing to do anything about non-Arab related domestic terrorism.

* *

Recycled from Babelogue, the Sunday NYTimes had a great read on how porno books helped topple the French aristocracy. Frankly, it takes very little imagination to see how this story applies to blogs (porn) and Bush (Louis XV). The analogy is a little strained, altho I'm sure Karl Rove has fantasies about playing the role of Mme. la comtesse du Barry.

* *

If you find David Brooks as insufferable as I do, you may enjoy these responses (CalPundit, Atrios, Josh Marshall) to his horrendous editorial from last Saturday.

 

Posted by Steve Perry at December 29, 2003 11:10 AM

 

More of Vick's Picks

by Mark Gisleson

For our Miami Valley readers and fans of Vick Mickunas everywhere, here's Vick's "Best of the Book Nook" selections for 2003.

I managed to catch quite a few of the interviews via the WYSO Internet stream, and it breaks my heart that these gems aren't available online. The books, however, are all easily obtainable, and worth the expense (or the trip to your local library, a reader's equivalent to downloading music for free).

If you're scratching your head and wondering what all of this is about, click here to get a quick summary from Keep WYSO Local.

 

 

Posted by Steve Perry at December 28, 2003 10:18 AM

 

Best of Book Nook 2003

Vick Mickunas names his favorite Book Nook
interviews from the year 2003

1. Chris Hedges	War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning
2. Nuala O'Faolain	Almost There: The Onward Journey of a Dublin Woman
3. Luisa Lang Owen	Casualty of War: A Childhood Remembered
4. Ted Rall	Gas War: The Truth Behind the American Occupation of Afghanistan
5. José Ramos Horta	[Foreign Minister of East Timor]
6. Charmaine Craig	The Good Men: A Novel of Heresy
7. Greg Palast	The Best Democracy Money Can Buy
8. Gene Logsdon	The Pond Lovers
9. Coleman Barks	Rumi: The Book of Love Poems of Ecstasy and Longing
10. Noah Adams	The Flyers
11. Billy Collins	Nine Horses
12. Jennifer Michael Hecht	Doubt: A History
13. Rupert Sheldrake	The Sense of Being Stared At and Other Aspects of the Extended Mind
14. Judy Blunt	Breaking Clean
15. Tess Uriza Holthe	When the Elephants Dance

 

Vick Mickunas names his favorite books featured in
the Book Nook during the year 2003

book	author	publisher
1. Doubt: A History	Jennifer Michael Hecht	Harper San Francisco
2. Blue Latitudes	Tony Horwitz	Picador
3. Salt: A History	Mark Kurlansky	Penguin
4. War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning	Chris Hedges	Anchor
5. The Good Men: A Novel of Heresy	Charmaine Craig	Riverhead
6. Casualty of War: A Childhood Remembered	Luisa Lang Owen	Texas A&M
7. The Middle Mind: Why Americans Don't Think for Themselves	Curtis White	Harper San Francisco
8. The Russian Debutante	Gary Shteyngart	Riverhead
9. The Company: A Novel of the CIA	Robert Littell	Overlook
10. I Was Howard Hughes	Steven Carter	Bloomsbury
11. Breaking Clean	Judy Blunt	Vintage
12. Prague	Arthur Phillips	Random House
13. Signal and Noise	John Griesemer	Picador
14. The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar	Robert Alexander	Viking
15. Persuader	Lee Child	Delacorte

 

Posted by Steve Perry at December 28, 2003 10:08 AM

 

The "Friday Report"

by Mark Gisleson

Josh Marshall caught the real significance of the Iranian quake: building standards. On the Richter Scale, the 6.5 quake in Iran was identical to one in California last week. The difference? Stringent building codes that require quake-proof buildings in California. Just more of those damn irritating regulations.

Josh also has a nice bit up on tomorrow's David Brooks column: "The failure to do proper planning for post-war Iraq, it turns out, wasn't a matter of hidebound ideologues who ignored and attacked expertise and experience. It was the happy result of America's tradition of non-ideological pragmatism." Brooks, without a doubt, is one of the most clueless commentators of all time. More than anything, he reminds me of that politically astute accountant you met at an office party who almost passed his CPA exam last time around...

The corruption and horrors of war are bad enough, but now the Army is using bureaucratic redtape to compound their venality. It seems that even when you pay for it yourself, all armor upgrades must be Pentagon approved.

As noted at Babelogue, a California newspaper is "breaking" the news that there was a stealth signing of key provisions from Patriot Act II a couple weeks ago — just as Saddam was getting pulled out of his hole in the ground. This is bad news, very bad news.

* *

If you follow online tech news, Joi Ito is a big name, and his blog is legendary. Since signing up for it a week ago, I haven't been too impressed — geek stuff mostly. But every now and then Joi has an interesting post, like these two on Dean answering machines (great idea!) and the Dean for Iowa game.

Mark A.R. Kleiman has an interesting aside on Mickey Kaus' latest dissing of Wes Clark:

[If anyone can explain to me what’s behind Mickey Kaus’s characterization of Clark as “creepy,” I’d be grateful. (Note that Kaus doesn’t bother to try to justify it, he just asserts it as fact. Dec. 24.) I think it just means that Clark is exactly the kind of Democrat Kaus keeps telling people he wants to vote for, and if Kaus couldn’t detect some character flaw he'd have to think about actually voting for a Democrat, which would make him very unhappy.]

Regular readers may have noticed that I never link to KausFiles. That's because, like a lot of online political junkies, I used to read Mickey's blog on a regular basis. Hell, I even corresponded with him, but when he wrote to remind me that he was a Democrat, I figured there was no point in further reading. It's an odd Democrat who always seems to back Bush, and never has a kind word for any Democrat except Joe Lieberman.

* *

Jay Jay the Jet Plane isn't something that was on my radar until I read Julie Salamon's article in this morning's New York Times. Apparently there are two versions of this kids show: one for PBS, and one for Christian audiences. Christ, even kids' show producers have a better sense of the separation of church and state than does our Clown Prince and his Crisco-coated Attorney General.

Also in the Saturday NYTimes is an interesting article about satellite radio. Frankly, the writer, Stephen Holden, strikes me as being just a bit clueless when it comes to contemporary music, but he's dead on when he says that the magic is long gone from our regular radiowaves. I'm sure many readers think my WYSO items and links stem from my willingness to promote a friend's employment situation, but the truth is I hate WYSO/Antioch management more for what they're doing to a once great radio station than I do for their betrayal of my buddy Vick. Employment in the U.S. is a friggin' nightmare, but that's just the result of our best bought and paid for minds in DC deregulating capitalism. What's happened to radio is an even better example of the liberal assertion that deregulated capitalism inevitably results in monopolies. In the case of radio, monopolies like Clear Channel mean limited listening opportunities. Admittedly, it's an Orwellian situation: the more freedom business has, the less freedom the rest of us have. Unfettered broadcasting has resulted in the ubiquity of schlock rock and the vanillification of hip hop.

I posted Vick's new list of the best music from 2003 yesterday in a special post, but to get an idea of just how special his programming was, check out last year's list (some of which you may have heard on the radio this year if you have a college station nearby). It's a tribute to the technological cluelessness of WYSO management that this page still exists on their website, but Google's caching feature will keep this page alive long after WYSO takes it down. Google caches also make it easy to reveal the Orwellian nature of 'net revisionism: here's the Excursions page as it now exists at WYSO's site, and how it looked just one month ago. (The person on the right is, of course, Leon Trotsky, or maybe Lavrenty Beria — I get my purged comrades mixed up sometimes.)

 

Posted by Steve Perry at December 27, 2003 9:12 AM

 

WYSO update

by Mark Gisleson

As part of our continuing coverage of the protests over the malicious firing of long-time Miami Valley radio icon Vick Mickunas, here are Vick's Picks for 2003.

I've been checking Google for new links on this story, and actually found an old posting of a very pertinent Dayton Daily News article from a while back. The reprint was buried pretty deep at DXing.com, so I've cut and pasted it here. Of particular interest is the last few paragraphs where reporter Jim DeBrosse discusses Steve Spencer's background, including his near-destruction of the KOPN community radio station in Colombia, Missouri.

Posted by Steve Perry at December 26, 2003 9:42 PM

 

From the Dayton Daily News

** U S A. RIFT REMAINS BETWEEN PUBLIC RADIO STATION OWNERS, VOLUNTEERS

--- Listeners withhold pledges to protest changes at WYSO

By Jim DeBrosse



YELLOW SPRINGS | It's been more than a year since WYSO-FM, the Miami Valley's most listened-to public radio station, dropped most of its on-air volunteers and much of its local music programming in favor of national network fare — a move that station managers said was needed to grow the Yellow Springs station and ensure its survival.

But after touching off ’60s-style demonstrations and a donation boycott by some listeners and volunteers who oppose what they call "cookie-cutter broadcasting," the changes at WYSO have reaped mixed results.

Audience numbers are up — with 8,000 new weekly listeners, according to Arbitron ratings released last week — but so are expenses and the station's deficit, expected to hit $100,000 in the fiscal year that ended June 30.

Because of the squeeze, station managers say, WYSO has left unfilled its local news director position, vacated last November, and has curtailed community outreach, such as sponsoring concerts and bike rallies.

"So what's the radio station's connection to the Miami Valley community?" said Dave Barber, a longtime station volunteer and former jazz DJ who was among those who lost their shows. "That's the core issue for many of us."

The often passionate debate about the direction and future of WYSO appears to be at a stalemate. Station managers, backed by WYSO's Antioch University owners, say there's no turning back to volunteer-based shows that were unpredictable and often unpolished.

Meanwhile, members of Keep WYSO Local, the listener group opposed to the changes, say they have raised $45,000 in pledges that won't go to the station until their voices are heard.

The demands are almost as varied as the group's membership. Some want a return of jazz offerings. Others want the Women in Music program, canceled after 25 years, back on the air. Still others want the station again to be a training ground for Antioch students, a function it has not served for years.

Steve Schwerner, a retired Antioch professor and a longtime jazz host at WYSO until his show was eliminated, said the station no longer knows what its core audience is.

"WYSO was a precious thing. People would come from out of town and listen and say, 'Hey, what's this?' -- Schwerner said. "Now you can travel across the country and hear everything that's on WYSO -- with the exception of Vick Mickunas' Book Nook."
Regional implications

What may seem to outsiders like one more Yellow Springs counter-culture feud has implications for the entire region, many believe. WYSO (91.3) has come a long way from the tiny student-run station of the 1960s. With a 37,000-megawatt signal and a budget of $935,000, it's now the leading public radio station in the Miami Valley, with an audience of 57,000 tuning in each week.

Beyond that, WYSO traditionally has lent the Dayton area the kind of hip, alternative cachet that consultants say helps recruit younger, sophisticated professionals for driving the Information Age economy. Station managers say that's the audience they want to reach — well-educated, relatively affluent and influential, and likely to listen to National Public Radio as they drive to and from work.

The gospel in public radio these days, delivered by consultants and supported by market data, is that stations must lure more listeners for longer periods of time to create the kind of loyalty that opens wallets and leads to donations.

That's particularly important at WYSO, which unlike most public stations receives no funding from its university owners. About half of WYSO's budget is dependent upon listener contributions — a fickle source of support, indeed. Across the industry, only about one in 10 public radio listeners feels devoted enough to a local station to send a check.

Studies show that listeners "are less and less forgiving of programming that doesn't sound as good or as polished as anything put out by regional producers," said WYSO station manager Steve Spencer. If they don't hear that predictable quality, he said, "they hit another button."

Spencer said WYSO's strategy is to hook listeners with national fare and keep them tuned in for local programming. The trick, though, is maintaining the station's creative edge on a budget squeezed by cuts in state support and corporate underwriting, both of which were down $127,000 this past fiscal year, Antioch officials said.

"If even 15 percent of our listeners gave us money, we would be swimming in it," Spencer said.

As WYSO's managers predicted, more people are tuning in to hear the consistent, quality programming provided by NPR and Public Radio International. Not only has WYSO's listenership grown, average membership pledges this spring were up as well, from $97 to $104.

Less encouraging is that the average weekly time spent listening to the station dropped from 7.4 hours to 4.6, according to last spring's Arbitron ratings. Station managers weren't sure why, but Watts suggested it was a fluke based on listeners tuning in for Iraqi war news but not staying for music programs.

Critics counter that one reason could be that WYSO replaced much of its evening local fare with the syndicated World Cafe show, which features a mix of interviews and adult alternative music.

Station managers say their feedback indicates listener loyalty has deepened. During the last pledge drive, "it's amazing how many listeners told us they like not just a particular program, but the whole (station) package," said said Glenn Watts, Antioch's vice chancellor and chief financial officer of WYSO.

Besides cutbacks in state and corporate support, the cost of airing expensive national programs (Car Talk alone costs $10,000) and paying for services once done free by volunteers are two reasons WYSO is facing a $100,000 deficit this year.

That's more than 12 times the $7,000 debt the station incurred the year before when volunteers hosted an eclectic mix of musical offerings. Managers at other public radio stations in southwest Ohio say they expect their budgets to break even this year.

For fiscal year 2003-04, Spencer's budget is counting on a 26 percent increase in listener contributions and underwriting from businesses, a leap of $233,000, without additional staffing to raise the money. The proposed budget includes $220,000 for national programming.

Station managers won't say how much they now pay for fund-raising services — such as mailings, phone answering, donor tracking — much of which used to be done by volunteers.

As a way to cut costs and boost giving, station managers say they are looking into sharing technical resources and underwriting efforts with WDPR-FM, the classical-music public station in Dayton.

But Keep WYSO Local members think the best way to build listener loyalty and financial support is to involve the community, focus on covering local issues and make the station a meaningful alternative to the mainstream.

That message is echoed across the country by community radio stations who say they are doing just fine without the help of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting or National Public Radio.

Carol Pierson, president of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters and an Antioch graduate, said the group's 160 member stations are faring well in a tight economy "by being a focal point for community issues and concerns. Just because programming is of a local nature doesn't mean it has to be poor quality. You have to put the necessary resources behind it."

Valuable resource lost

WYSO lost a valuable local resource in November with the departure of news director Aileen LeBlanc, who was twice named Ohio's best public radio reporter and was a frequent contributor to NPR. LeBlanc cited both career reasons and her inability to get along with Spencer as reasons for leaving.

Spencer has filled the gap in local coverage with WYSO Weekend, a two-hour mix of national, state and local news hosted and produced by morning-show announcer Ryan Warner. The program includes 40 minutes of local material and was cited by the public radio industry magazine Current as an example of "creativity on a shoestring."

Still, some listeners say they miss LeBlanc's in-depth and on-scene local coverage. "There are some on-air personalities we miss right now," Watts said. LeBlanc "did some wonderful work for us."

Watts said he wants to start rebuilding bridges to the station’s volunteer base and to move beyond the stalemate. But the biggest obstacle may be Spencer, whose brusque management style and apparent uneasiness with volunteers has been noted even by his supporters.

"I don't think the rift can ever be resolved until Steve Spencer is gone," said Char Miller, a former member of WYSO's resource board. Miller quit in March because station managers wouldn't share budget figures with the 11-member advisory panel. Two other board members left for similar reasons. Station managers point out that Antioch's board of trustees, not the resource board, are the true legal owners and financial overseers of the station.

Miller said she received a letter from staff members at WYSO in July 2002 complaining about "Steve losing his temper and screaming at people and shouting." She brought the letter to the attention of Watts, who told her that he wouldn't investigate unless staffers came to him directly with their complaints.

Spencer has gotten anger management and general management training at the request of his Antioch superiors, Miller said.

Spencer "just doesn't know how to work with the community and use them as resources," Miller said. "There was already a huge a volunteer base. But instead of using them, he turned them away."

Spencer defended his management of the station. "How can anyone say I'm standing in the way of this station's progress?" Spencer said. "There have only been three years in WYSO's 43-year history that it ended the year in the black — and they were all after I came here as general manager" in 1998. Watts confirmed that the station ran surpluses the first three years of Spencer's tenure.

In 1997, WYSO was on a list of 30 stations at risk of losing funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which was about to introduce performance standards for member stations that included fund-raising ability and listener loyalty.

Both were in short supply at WYSO at the time consultant Tom Livingston visited the station in February 1997. The station was facing a $176,000 payment on a bank loan to help finance a recent broadcast-power increase. Fund raising was down and listener loyalty was low, just 24 percent.

Livingston's advice? The station needed a more professional sound. Tom Thomas, a consultant with the Strategy Resource Group, a Maryland-based alliance of public radio stations, said stations like WYSO aren't abandoning their local commitment but rather sharpening their quality by mixing national, state and local programming.

"Today, public radio reaches twice as many people as it did 10 years ago," he said, adding that while commercial radio audiences have steadily slipped, public radio now reaches nearly 30 million Americans weekly.

Thomas insists that the proliferation of nationally syndicated programs in public radio has not led to the homogenization now rampant in the commercial industry, where giant companies such as Clear Channel Communications and Radio One own multiple stations in most markets.

"There's a difference between sharing and homogenization," he said. "If it's not being duplicated by another station, then it's not homogenization."

Keep WYSO local, however, points out that many of the national offerings from WYSO are also broadcast on other public radio stations in the Miami Valley, including WMUB in Oxford and WGUC in Cincinnati. Tom McCourt, a Fordham University communications professor and author of Conflicting Communication Interests in America, said national consultants tell station managers what they want to hear.

"It's a lot easier to make decisions when you're using syndicated programs," he said. "You don't have to deal with volunteers or staff, and the program scheduling is almost automatic."

McCourt said public radio's current obsession with audience numbers is defeating its purpose. "Public radio is supposed to be something other than commercial radio. It's supposed to be serving an overlooked audience."

Spencer's background

At the time of Livingston's visit to WYSO in 1997, the station was five months into a search for a new general manager after the previous manager, Norm Beeker, had been forced to quit for making some unpopular programming changes, including the elimination of the leftist Pacifica News.

Spencer, a New York native, was chosen from 35 applicants. Watts touted him as someone who had turned around a troubled community radio station in Columbia, Mo. — KOPN.

Former board members and volunteers at KOPN have since begged to differ, claiming Spencer left the station $100,000 in debt and bereft of its volunteers.

Debbie Johnson, a volunteer programmer at KOPN at the time, said the station was "pretty much hopping with volunteers" before Spencer's arrival as general manager in 1996. Several months after, "you could go up there and there would be virtually no one except Steve and the woman running the office," she said.

Spencer embarked on a course of paid staff and expensive national programming that "little more than a year later, left us more than $100,000 in the hole," said Mark Haim, a board member at the time. "He's a good operations guy — he's good at keeping your radio signal on the air. But as far as some of his community relations skills, that seems to be his downfall."

Former KOPN board member Paul Sturtz said the station is now back on its feet. "We actually have money in the bank and a great volunteer spirit again," he said. "We're very proud of what we've done." Spencer declined comment on his time at KOPN.

Watts said there's no way that WYSO will return to its old format, but that he would like to reach out to the volunteers and make use of their talents. Instead of an hours-long jazz program, for instance, it might take the form of five-minute spots on the history of jazz or important jazz musicians, he said.

One former WYSO volunteer said the rift would be simple to fix. "Put the Women in Music show back on Sunday, put the blues show back on Monday, add a night of jazz and be done with it. It would be easy. But everybody's heels are so dug in right now it will never happen."

Something or someone needs to give or the Miami Valley stands to lose one of its primary attractions for thinking people who want an alternative to commercial radio fare, said Fred Bartenstein, a Yellow Springs-based planning consultant and the new host of WYSO's weekend bluegrass show.

"It's like a game of chicken — each side wants its own view of the world to prevail," Bartenstein said. "But the basic story is the survival of WYSO." (via Artie Bigley, DXLD)

Posted by Steve Perry at December 26, 2003 9:37 PM

 

Vick's Picks 2003

Former WYSO Music Director Vick Mickunas
names his favorite albums from the year 2003

 

artist	title	label
1. Damien Rice	O	Vector
2. Gigi	Illuminated Audio	Palm
3. Kila	Luna Park	World Village
4. Thrills	So Much for the City	Virgin
5. Adrienne Young	Plow to the End of the Row	Addie Belle
6. Reptile Palace Orchestra	We Know You Now	Omnium
7. Paul Mounsey	City of Walls	Iona
8. Savina Yannatou and Primavera en Salonico	Terra Nostra	ECM
9. Los Lonely Boys	Los Lonely Boys	Or Music
10. Noonday Underground	Surface Noise	Setanta
11. Palo Alto	Heroes and Villains	American
12. Geoff Muldaur's Futuristic Ensemble	Private Astronomy: A Vision of Bix Beiderbecke	Edge
13. Dan Bern and the International Jewish Banking Conspiracy	Fleeting Days	Messenger
14. Jessy Moss	Street Knuckles	Dreamworks
15. Butterfly Boucher	Flutterby	A&M
16. Martyn Bennett	Grit	Realworld
17. Gotan Project	La Revancha del Tango	XL
18. Wrens	Meadowlands	Absolutely Kosher
19. Dandy Warhols	Welcome to Monkey House	Capitol
20. Arab Strap	Monday at the Hug and Pint	Matador
21. Daude	Neguinha te amo	Realworld
22. Clearlake	Cedars	Domino
23. Stars	Heart	Arts and Crafts
24. Bob Lucas and Chloe Manor	Kin	Belly Boy
25. Variable Unit	Handbook for the Apocalypse	Wide Hive
26. Mafalda Amauth	Encantamento	Narada
27. Jet	Get Born	Elektra
28. Natalie Merchant	House Carpenters Daughter	Myth America
29. Hamish Henderson	A' the Bairns o Adam	Greentrax
30. Ry Cooder / Manuel Galban	Mambo Sinuendo	Nonesuch
31. Outkast	Speakerboxx/Love Below	Arista
32. Radiohead	Hail to the Thief	Capitol
33. Richard Thompson	The Old Kit Bag	Spin Art
34. Dengue Fever	Dengue Fever	Web of Mimicry
35. Rodney Crowell	Fates Right Hand	Epic
36. Jonny Lang	Long Time Coming	A&M
37. Lucinda Williams	World Without Tears	Lost Highway
38. Ryan Adams	Rock and Roll	Lost Highway
39. Daniel Lanois	Shine	Anti
40. South	With the Tides	Kinetic
41. Fugs	Final CD	Artemis
42. Venus Hum	Big Beautiful Sky	MCA
43. Mojave 3	Spoon and Rafter	4AD
44. Fonda	Catching up to the Future	Hidden Agenda
45. Alexi Murdoch	Four Songs	Lynn Grossman
46. Broadway Project	The Vessel	Memphis Industries
47. Andrew Hill	Passing Ships	Blue Note
48. James Carter	Gardenias for Lady Day	Columbia
49. Brother	Urban Cave	Rhubarb
50. Patty Griffin	A Kiss in Time	ATO
51. A3	Power in Blood	One Little Indian
52. Death in Vegas	Scorpio Rising	Sanctuary
53. Lorraine Hunt Lieberson	Bach Cantatas	Nonesuch
54. Fort Lauderdale	Pretty Monsters	Memphis Industries
55. Tom Russell	Modern Art	Hightone
56. Yerba Buena	President Alien	Razor and Tie
57. Bjork	Live Box 1993-2000	One Little Indian
58. Dar Williams	Beauty of the Rain	Razor and Tie
59. Grazyna Auguscik	Past Forward	GMA
60. Over the Rhine	Ohio	Back Porch
61. Tribalistas	Tribalistas	Blue Note
62. Lizzie West	Holy Road	Warner Bros.
63. Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros	Streetcore	Hellcat
64. Bottle Rockets	Blue Sky	Sanctuary
65. Black Box Recorder	Passionata	One Little Indian
66. Mogwai	Happy Songs for Happy People	Matador
67. Wheat	Per Second, Per Second, Every Second	Aware
68. British Sea Power	The Decline and Fall	Rough Trade
69. Belle and Sebastian	Dear Catastrophe Waitress	Sanctuary
70. Ruth Gerson	Wake to Echo	Near Mint
71. Maurice Rugebregt	Sioh Maluku: Nostalgia for the Moluccas	Radio Netherlands
72. Incredible Moses Leroy	Become the Soft Lightes	I Music
73. Flaming Lips	Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell	Warner Bros.
74. David Rovics	Return	Ever Reviled
75. Tindersticks	Waiting for the Moon	Beggars Banquet
76. International Noise Conspiracy	Bigger Cages, Longer Chains	Epitaph
77. Michael Franti and Spearhead	Everyone Deserves Music	I Music
78. Paul Brill	Sisters	Scarlet Shame
79. Thea Gilmore	Avalanche	Compass
80. Cracker	Countrysides	I Music
81. Yo La Tengo	Summer Sun	Matador
82. Susheela Raman	Love Trap	Narada
83. Kate Campbell	Monuments	Large River
84. Laika	Wherever I Am I Am What I Am Missing	Too Pure
85. Amy Rigby	Til the Wheels Fall Off	Signature Sounds
86. Serart	Serart	Colombia
87. Doug Wamble	Country Libations	Marsalis Music
88. Carla Bley	Looking for America	Watt
89. Mark Lanegan Band	Here Comes That Weird Chill	Beggars Banquet
90. Wayfaring Strangers	This Train	Rounder
91. Josh Rouse	1972	Ryko
92. Hem	Rabbit Songs	Dreamworks
93. Lamb	What Sound Deluxe	Koch
94. Sex Mob	Dime Grind Palace	Rope a Dope
95. Les Nubians	One Step Forward	Omtown
96. Debashish Bhattacharya and Bob Brozman	Mahima	Riverboat
97. Bangles	It's a Doll Revolution	Koch
98. Asylum Street Spankers	Favorite Record	Bloodshot
99. Eastmountainsouth	Eastmountainsouth	Dreamworks
100. Tony Allen	Home Cooking	Narada

 

 

 

Posted by Steve Perry at December 26, 2003 9:15 PM

 

Cheap food + football

by Mark Gisleson

First US News, now the Washington Post: the major media players are facing up to the fact that they’ve let the Bush administration reverse engineer a Romulan cloaking device that shrouds their actions from scrutiny. Except this isn’t Star Trek, and it took the complicity of thousands of very lazy “top” political and investigative reporters to let this veil of secrecy descend over our government.

Via Atrios, the Gropinator has a chilling story about a Fox News crew in action.

Progress in the Plame investigation? Mike Allen and Dana Milbank seem to think so, but I'll believe when I see some findings before November 2.

* *

Rummy and Saddam in the ‘80s: a good story just keeps getting better.

Missed this WaPost story on ret. Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, who’s almost always worth reading about, especially when he’s talking about Iraq.

Watch Salon's commercial so you can read Ruben Bolling's new cartoon on war profiteering. Not exactly subtle, but then again, neither is this administration.

An unusually large number of Washington Post links today. This one isn't exactly fresh, but it showed up in my RSS aggregator list for some reason, and it's very timely: Mary McGrory on the unsubtle nature of "DeLay Diplomacy."

* *

Tuesdays and Fridays. Those are the days that Paul Krugman appears in the New York Times. If there is such a thing as a must-read columnist, Krugman's it. No one else pisses off the right like PK.

NYTimes stablemate Bob Herbert writes about more jobs being shipped overseas. Unlike NPR, which practically ran a love letter to the practice of exporting Michigan jobs to Mexico this morning (that was after their suck-up interview with Republican AARP leader William Novelli), Bob Herbert is pissed. We all should be. Maybe the global workplace is unavoidable and even desirable, but since when do you effect change by brutalizing your workforce? Well, since always, but it would be nice to see some more humane transitional programs put into effect.

* *

Atrios has a sad item about some domestic terrorism in Atlanta, as well as a good lead in to Eric Alterman's new Nation article on Democrat-hating political reporters, and Sean Wilentz on Snitchens. Also, a good link on Congress successfully undermining food safety yet again this year.

On my way back from Iowa last night, I stopped in to see an old high school buddy who runs a butcher shop in my home town. Kent's "beef sticks" and sausage are more wholesome than the steaks you get in your average char house, and frankly, I'd rather eat his dried beef than some of the overpriced tenderloin steaks I've been served in the past.

You don't have to be Upton Sinclair to know what's wrong with the American meat industry. Congress gives them whatever they want, i.e. lax regulation. There is a 1:1 relationship between the new Mad Cow stories and the deregulation of the meat industry, but the mistake is in thinking that this is a new story. It's not. It's a Reagan story. After Ronnie's coronation in 1981, the meat industry went on a productivity rampage, closing older unionized plants and opening nightmarishly "efficient" packing houses, usually scoring huge tax breaks in the process. In the '80s Iowa's Terry Branstad (affectionately known as Gov. Braindead), effectively allowed meat packers to eliminate old jobs statewide, and replace them with low-paying jobs in new plants with horrendous safety records. It got so bad that state Attorney General Tom Miller sent a letter to leaders of the Southeast Asian community warning them that the new meat packing plant jobs were 1) so low paying their families would remain on welfare, and 2) extremely dangerous.

Safe meat is easy. All you have to do is follow some simple rules. Sadly, we live in an era where rules that interfere with profit are verboten. The fact is that cheap food is the "bread" half of the old Roman equation for controlling the masses. This Sunday's football games are the other half.

I realize cheap food is also a goal of many consumer advocates, but any system that screws workers is a bad system. Screwing farmers, packing plant workers and grocery store employees is a bad way to get cheap food, but then again, cheap food and clothes are built-in features for a system designed to underpay workers.

More humbug tomorrow.

Posted by Steve Perry at December 26, 2003 11:09 AM

 

Partly merry, mostly scary

by Mark Gisleson

A nice reminder that the Christian spirit does still exist, at least in some Christians. Salon looks at the liberal side of Christianity as personified by the Rev. Albert Pennybacker.

A lump of coal to the EPA for this just revealed dirty advertising trick.

Kos on Christmas in Iraq.

Josh Marshall has some background on the Paris to Los Angeles flight cancellations.

A Merry Christmas for Darryl Hunt at TalkLeft.

The Ashcroft Christmas memo.

Via Steve Gilliard, a New York Times story on the burden of Christmas for the financially strapped.

Juan Cole.

Another assassination attempt on Musharraf.

Latest Baghdad attack.

Today's newspapers as summarized by Slate.

And, top headlines from around the nation and the world:

Fearing Attacks, Officials Tighten Airport Security [New York Times]

6 Flights Canceled in Security Measure [Boston Globe]

U.S. Recalls Meat Linked to Wash. Slaughterhouse [Washington Post]

Penelas Rebuffed on Drug Efforts [Miami Herald]

State Gets Money Back in Flu Shot Fraud [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

Scared of Santa Gallery [Chicago Tribune]

Iowans Host Out-of-State Campaigners [Des Moines Register]

Cows History Key to Search [Denver Post]

Old Buildings Pose Quake Danger [San Jose Mercury News]

Signs of Terror Plot Point to LAX [Los Angeles Times]

Happy Holidays from GlobeandMail.com [Globe and Mail]

Taoiseach Disputed Cardinal's Stance on Stem Cells [Irish Times]

Schools in Deal to Curb Junk Food Sales [Times of London]

Sweet Norwegian Christmas Begins [Aftenposten]

IDF Force Kills Bomb-Laden Islamic Jihad Man Near Gaza Settlement [Haaretz]

Iraq Reconstruction Bottom-Line [Asia Times]

 

 

Posted by Steve Perry at December 25, 2003 6:59 AM

 

Quick links (gone shopping)

by Mark Gisleson

OK, I really can't put this off much longer. I've got to run out and 1) pick up holiday bread from the Twin Cities most yuppified and traffic jam prone neighborhood, 2) buy gifts for my 7 nieces and nephews, 3) get gifts for my parents, 4) find some insulting knicknacks for my brothers. Oh yeah, and I also need to write an IT cover letter, a pair of Ph.D. application essays, and an unemployment appeal. And, sometime before I