R.I.P. Howard Zinn

You've probably heard by now that Howard Zinn died. There's not really much I can add to the chorus of obituaries that have already been written about him. I think my relationship with his work was pretty boilerplate -- I first read a copy of A People's History when I was in high school, and it more-or-less changed the way I see the world, like it did for about 50 million other people.

And what more can you say about a man so dedicated to humane ideals that he once re-traced the routes his planes flew in WWII when he was a bombardier so he could find and apologize to as many victims of his actions as he could. I'm guessing there's not a large number of ex-military who have done that.

Right up until the end he was a prolific writer and lecturer, and he will be sorely missed.

Conservative Activists Strike Again!

A group of four "conservative activists" (it's hard to write the phrase, because conservative and activist tend to be two diametrically opposed terms) were arrested recently trying to bug the office of a U.S. Senator. One of the arrested is James O'Keefe, who regular readers might recognize as the guy who went under cover to entrap ACORN workers into quasi-illegal situations (hear a podcast with media expert Peter Drier discussing such attempts to discredit ACORN here).

My favorite part of the article? As O'Keefe was leaving jail on bail, apparently the only thing he said to reporters was "the truth shall set me free." Leaving aside the fact that leaving jail means you are currently free, I'm very interested to hear what truth that is. Dude, you were caught red-handed trying to bug the office of a United States Senator -- there are not too many situations in which that is not a crime. I can't wait to find out what "truth" there is out there that suddenly makes an obvious federal offense totally fine and understandable. I mean, even if I agreed with the guy I'd have to admit he screwed the pooch big time on this one.

So if we follow the safety procedures established by our previous president for dealing with ideologically-opposed activists, we need to convene a grand jury and threaten these four with dozens of years in prison, and assume anyone they have contact with is a dyed-in-the-wool terrorist...

Now That They're People And All...

...here's a handy how-to guide for dating your favorite new people, corporations.

And appropriately enough, a local article about how hard it is living without giant multi-national corporations. A recent state law requiring all state-purchased goods to be American made is straining budgets across the state.

The most ironic part of the article is that one person interviewed bemoans how other countries can recover more quickly from economic downturns because they actually make things that people need. I know it's more about political grandstanding than anything, but isn't part of the purpose of passing this kind of law so that American manufacturing companies, which by law and social pressure must pay their employees at least a decent wage (though often far from a living wage), can at least compete somewhat with multi-nationals that pay their workers pennies per hour?

So if people actually followed this law, then we would have companies actually making things and could recover faster from these kind of economic problems. But what do I know -- I'm sure the short-term solution of continuing to off-shore our production so we can get cheaper mershandise now will certainly pay off in the long run...

It Still Hurts Too Much

Couldn't even read the sports section this morning. In classic style, the Vikes played just well enough to get me to believe, so they could dash my hopes at the last second.

I'm now operating on the theory that Favre was actually Packer sleeper cell and this whole retirement saga/fiasco was just to lull us into accepting him so he could get our hopes up only to crush us...

Yeah, But Do The Saints Have Prince?

If you follow football, you know the Saint have a regular cadre of nuns who always show up to their home games (in their habits, nonetheless). Some are suggesting this gives the Saints some sort of holy advantage in the up-coming NFC Championship game.

But do the Saints have an incredibly odd new song written by Prince? No, but fortunately the Vikings do. Entitled simply "Purple and Gold," Prince wrote it after he apparently had a "vision of the future" during the Dallas game and was inspired to write a theme song for the Vikes' championship run.

Now, whether Prince is more powerful than some nuns is a subject to be debated, but I'd be willing to be none of those nuns have ever worn ass-less chaps, so I think the edge has to go the Purple one...

But What Does Unemployment Look Like?

Unemployment numbers are often bandied about in the media as good or bad, big or small, etc. But it's always hard to know what they mean and who they effect. For example, somewhere like Detroit that has 100% or so unemployment (well, it's not that bad, but close enough) can have a big impact on unemployment numbers. Things may not be so bad elsewhere, but when one big employer leaves the country, it can skew numbers. Or not. I'm no labor expert.

But here's a really cool graphic that has the growth in unemployment broken down by county over the last several years. It does a good job of both showing the big trends in employment, but also showing how it effects different places at different rates. It's worth a very depressing look-see.

And as another note to throw on there, the unemployment rate (which nationally is currently about 10%) only measures people actively looking for work and not in prison. This is big for two reasons: 1) many people have given up looking for work because in many place there simply isn't work to be found, and B) we have by far the most people in prison in the world (most of whom are unemployed). If you put those people in the number (to actually reflect how many Americans don't have jobs), the unemployment rate would easily double. Which means that it's much closer to 1 out of every 5 Americans being unemployed...

In totally unrelated news to balance out that depressing thought, here's a handy Onion infographic on other ways God has shown his wrath through natural disaster, according to Pat Robertson.

Ups and Down for Ioweagens

On the plus side, my beloved Panthers, the powerhouse of the plucky and lovable under-dog Missouri Valley Conference, are now ranked 20th in the nation in basketball. Granted, 20th is only a couple of slots into being ranked, but for a no-name school in the middle of nowhere Iowa, that's a pretty big deal. An even bigger deal? College basketball gods North Carolina are ranked a full 4 spots behind the panthers.

On the down side, Iowa is thinking of adding it's name to the long list of states that have banned the high-proof grain alcohol Everclear, just because some dumb-ass college kid nearly killed himself chugging the stuff. Without even getting into a rant about how Iowa can hardly ban the world's most infamous grain alcohol, why do we always have to make stuff illegal just because people are stupid? Why can't we just skip a step and make stupidity illegal, thus saving fun things for those of us who can use them responsibly, and guaranteeing the continued explosion of the criminal justice industrial complex? It's what we in business call a win-win!

Why Dr. King Was Against The Iraq...er...Vietnam War

Who Supports Green Initiatives?

Apparently the Pope. In the large stockpile of interesting things I probably should have known about but didn't, it turns out Benedict XVI is apparently pretty pro-environment: he's done everything from installing solar cells on the roofs of Vatican buildings to strongly denouncing world leaders for failing to make any sort of real progress at the Copenhagen summit.

Of course, though, global warming is just a scam and this is nothing but further evidence that the Pope is actually a left-wing nutcase intent on damaging free market enterprise, but it's interesting nonetheless...

What Are Your Neighbors Watching?

The NY Times has a great interactive map this morning allowing you to see what videos are most (and least) requested from Netflix for a variety of metro areas.

Turns out the Twin Cities' most popular movie right now is the Curious Case of Benjamin Button (a/k/a Forrest Gump II), which also holds true for my zip code (though my old hippie neighborhood favors Milk...surprise, surprise). Giving me some hope? The least requested movie for my zip code is The Proposal, starring the charming Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. I haven't seen the movie, but I can only guess some wacky circumstance is keeping those two from falling in love...or is it?

My only bone to pick with this map is that you can't really define the least requested movie. Netflix has to have hundreds of thousands of movies, and I would guess that several thousand of them are tied for least requested at zero. On the other hand, if you were going to pick one movie out of the pack and define it as the least popular, I'm pretty comfortable with that choice.

Crazy Number 80

As I wrote only a few days ago, Michelle Bachmann is the insane crown jewel of Minnesota's bevy of crazy politicians.

Well, now she's been named the 80th most important Conservative politician in the nation, by the British newspaper Telegraph. The 80th most important Liberal? Bo Obama. Yeah, the dog.

That sounds about right, though: Michell Bachmann is about as important as the President's dog. Couldn't have put it much better myself...

R.I.P. Art Clokey

He may not be a household name, but his claymation friends are (or were...hopefully they still are). Art Clokey, the inventor of Gumby, died this week at 88. Though he's also responsible for the hokey and over-the-top Davey and Goliath shorts, he did use the money from them to get Gumby back on the air, so I prefer to think he was only doing them for the cold hard cash.

Either way, I know Gumby filled up much of my childhood, and a Gumby and Pokey still sit atop my desk, inspiring me to reach for the stars...or something like that. In any event, he will be missed.

Here's Your Weird News of the Morning

Li'l Wayne -- rapper extraordinaire, defender of New Orleans, syrup enthusiast, cake model for Alec Baldwin's daughter, soon to be convict, and all around bad ass -- will provide the voice of Jesus is an upcoming [adult swim] special "Freakniks," masterminded and produced by king of the vocoder T-Pain (who, of course, also played Frylok in the live-action Aqua Teen Hunger Force episode).

This isn't exactly the weirdest news I've ever read over my morning coffee, but it's probably the coolest. And I've got to give it to [adult swim] -- no other block of television can claim to have cornered the coveteted stoner/overweight loser/gangsta market so throroughly...

Michele Bachmann's Crazy Chickens Come Home To Their Insane Roost

You know Michele Bachmann, right? You know, the woman who had an orgasm the first time she met then-president Bush? The woman whose un-paralleled insanity embarrasses Minnesota on a near daily basis? Yeah, you know who I'm talking about.

Well, you probably remember how she said she wouldn't fill out her census because it would send her to an interment camp, or something like that. And she encouraged other God-fearing Minnesotans not to fill out their census either, because then they, too, would be open to all sorts of government mind control now that Obama and his socialist-fascist regime would know their estimated annual income. (Though I do have to at least point out the irony between this "how dare the government want to find out basic information about me?!?" stance and her continued support of government spying programs...)

But if you follow her crazy ramblings, you might notice she's stopped caring about the census so much lately. Is it because she suddenly realized she's bat-shit insane and wanted to back off of her comments to save whatever scrap of dignity she has left?

Of course not! It's because Minnesota is in danger of losing a seat in the House, and the person most likely to suffer from that is none other than Bachmann herself, who would then have to run against another far-more qualified and likely sane incumbent.

And in the end, I guess that would be a pretty good outcome. So maybe this is indeed the one time people should actually do what Michele Bachmann says...

How Do You Decide When to Die?

And does it depend on your marginal tax rate?

It turns out that the super-wealthy (a/k/a our betters) are now desperately trying to cling to life so they can die in the small window this year when the estate tax momentarily lapses before being renewed in 2011. It turns out many wealthy people actually have directives in their wills telling their family to keep them on life support before until the estate tax is temporarily off the books.

Because you can't take it with you, but just because you can't, doesn't mean you should have to pay your fair share of taxes.

And a word on the so-called death tax -- remember, it will never apply to me or you or to anyone you know. If every single member of my extended family died tomorrow and everyone of them left everything they owned to me, I would still not have enough money to qualify for the estate tax when I die. As the article points out, the estate tax applies to about 5,500 people each year. According to the CDC, 2,426,264 died last year, meaning the "death tax" applied to roughly 0.2% of the population. The 0.2% we call the "obscenely wealthy who go to such lengths to avoid paying their fair share of taxes that they artificially keep their corpses alive long enough to avoid paying in any way."

Not noted in the article, of course, is the irony of how much money it takes to keep someone alive who otherwise would be dead. It seems the obscenely wealthy don't mind draining away large sums of money, they just don't want it going to their fair share of taxes...

Teaching Deviance and Safe New Years Eve Plans

As a teacher of crime and deviance, one of the biggest yet most basic points I try to get across to my students is that the two are not the same. That is, not all crimes are deviant and not all deviant acts are crimes. It sounds like a basic and obvious point, which it really is, but it's so important for how we make laws and use the limited resources of our criminal justice system. It's equally important for understanding why certain crimes tend to be committed by certain people and why some communities barely look askance at crimes that shock other communities.

The most obvious example of this concept is speeding. Speeding is a crime, yet it's not at all deviant, seeing as roughly 99% of our population does it (I just made that number up, but I would not be surprised if it were true). But I think a more illustrative example is drunk driving -- it's certainly illegal, and in most places it's also fairly deviant. But even for something so obviously dangerous and risky, there are still varying shades of deviance attached to it (even though it's illegal throughout the U.S.).

For instance, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and the Dakotas almost always fill out the list of top 5 states for DUI arrests. Now this could be because DUI enforcement is stronger in these states, but if I had to hazard a guess, I would say it more likely stems from the fact that we here in the Upper Midwest like our alcoholic beverages. Also, we tend more rural with far fewer taxis or dependable forms of public transportation.

As such, while drunk driving is still illegal, and probably still seen as pretty deviant by many people around here, it's probably less deviant in the Upper Midwest than it is elsewhere. So while the legal regulations on drunk driving are pretty uniform across the nation (all 50 states now have a BAC limit set at .08), the social regulations on drunk driving are probably weaker around here. And given that social pressures tend to be much more effective in limiting criminality than are legal regulations, you have people more likely to drink and drive yet face the same legal sanctions as they would in a place where it's less socially acceptable.

Now, I'm certainly not saying that it's socially acceptable around here to drive with a BAC of .708 as they do in South Dakota, but if you live in the Upper Midwest and are heading out to a party tonight, you should probably be a little extra cautious about drunk drivers...

Lazy Blog Post

Don't have much time to write today because I'm busy working on funding proposals and taking care of a dog that had to have surgery (yes, I provide my dog with the medical care I myself cannot afford).

So in the interest of posting yet not spending time on something, please do check out the craziest shit said in the media in the past year. Not too surprisingly, Glenn Beck tops the list. S read it, and then remember that thousands of people actually listen to that guy. Then go take a long, long shower...

If You Can Read This, You're Probably a Robot

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Find a translation here.

Put Bert in the Hall Already

Don't have much time to blog today with end of the semester work to do, but I did want to link to a great article by Sports Illustrated's Joe Posnaski arguing again why Bert Blyleven should be in the Hall of Fame.

Bert gets no love from the selection committee because he was never a Cy Young winner or MVP candidate or collector of any of the big awards that make a choice obvious. But if you take a minute and look at what he actually did, he was easily one of the best pitchers of his era, and clearly one of the best pitchers of all time.

Besides, if nothing else, Bert leads the league in sexually inappropriate comments during telecasts, and that's gotta count for something...

That's Not America!

Once, when Homer Simpson was running for Springfield Sanitation Commissioner, he was decrying that sad state of the world by exclaiming "That's not America! That's not even Mexico!"

And that seems to be a pretty common belief in the U.S. -- that we may not be that great, but shit, look at how bad Mexico's doing. We can't be doing that bad...

But once again, the people we look down on have shown us up as Mexico City recently legalized gay marriage. Not some bullshit "partnership" thing, but full-on marriage with all the attendant rights and responsibilities.

But meanwhile, here in enlightened America, things could only be going so well...