Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog

The every-four-year freak show starts tonight

September 26, 2016

US politics
Erick Erickson has nothing good to say about tonight’s first presidential debate:

Neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump is fit for the office of President of the United States.

They are both appalling, immoral cretins and their parties should live in everlasting shame that they foisted the two turds from the bottom of the bowl and floated them in the pool of American politics.

Tonight they will meet in New York and remind the nation just how awful, vain, and self-interested both are. Hillary Clinton will come across as completely unlikeable and so will Donald Trump. The Amorphophallus titanum will meet the bastard love child of Bozo the Clown and Chucky. Manhattan will meet Queens and it will be as smug, condescending, and pretentious as all that such an encounter entails.

We will really learn nothing about either one except that it will be possible to hate both more after tonight. It is my hope and prayer that the voters who voted for these two be permanently compelled to put their heads in paper bags and live in undying shame for having supported them in primaries. …

As we prepare for the shrill hell of monotony and are only spared old-people smell by virtue of not being in the same room with these reanimated corpses, I root for injuries. May both so thoroughly destroy each other than the American people look elsewhere, or at least look in the mirror and reassess the lack of seriousness of the several million voters who are to blame for those two creatures being on stage.

A pox on both of them.

A pox? Is it improper to wish that they both drop dead tonight?

Arthur Brooks asks whether the debates matter, and answers …

First of all, general election debates seem to matter less than everyone thinks. Surveying the literature, Professor John Sides at George Washington University concludes that presidential debates usually have little to no effect on general election outcomes. One study he cites, by political scientists Robert Erikson and Christopher Wlezien, examined a big set of elections from 1952 to 2008. Their finding? “The best prediction from the debates is the initial verdict before the debates.”
So the general election debates hardly ever yield earth-shattering inflection points. But the data can still help us guess what might happen [tonight[. In 2012, Nate Silver looked back at the historical record and found that the first debate usually helps the candidate whose party is out of power. Interestingly, he published his piece just a few days before Mitt Romney turned in an enormously successful performance in his first debate with President Obama. Romney’s big night won him a real bump in the polls (as per Silver’s analysis), but it soon faded away, and the underlying fundamentals of the race returned to the fore (as per Erikson’s and Wlezien’s hypothesis).
But this contrasts sharply with the research on primary debates, which seem to matter a lot. One 2013 study found that after primary debates, a whopping 35 percent of viewers said they changed their candidate preference. After the general election debates, only 3.5 percent of viewers said the same. People’s minds are seemingly only 1/10th as open during the general debates as during the primary debates. Why? I’ll make a few guesses.
For one thing, the primaries usually feature candidates with similar views. If voters can hardly distinguish between their options on policy substance, it makes sense that stylistic differences would exert a larger impact. What’s more, we hear a lot from primary voters that they are actually value debating skills pretty highly as an important trait that they’re looking for. (“I want someone who can really take the case to the other guy on national TV in October!”)
In sum, we are left with a bit of a paradox. While many primary voters seem to care a lot about rhetorical skills when they’re choosing who will represent their “team” in the general election, very few general election voters seem to be swayed permanently by those prime-time performances. As a result, debates matter a lot in the primaries but only a little in October.
Try dropping that factoid into the conversation at your debate watch party. It might be the most substantive talking point people hear all night.

In addition to the fact that I work, I am not watching because debates have nothing to do with being president.
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Postgame schadenfreude, State of Missedagain edition

September 26, 2016

Badgers, Packers
By a quirk of the schedules, two Wisconsin football teams played two Michigan football teams this weekend.

Wisconsin started the weekend by going to East Lansing, where the Badgers are usually, and sometimes painfully, unsuccessful. But not this time, which didn’t please the Lansing State Journal:

One quarterback looked like a rookie making his first Big Ten start. One played with the poise of a fifth-year senior.

Tyler O’Connor struggled mightily as Michigan State committed costly turnovers. The defense couldn’t generate much pressure on Wisconsin’s Alex Hornibrook, with the redshirt freshman shredding No. 8 MSU to lead the 10th-ranked Badgers to a 30-6 victory Saturday at Spartan Stadium.

“People have been saying a lot of good things about us lately,” 10th-year coach Mark Dantonio said. “And now we’ll take some shots. I think that’s usually the case with these things. We gotta regroup ourselves. And like I tell our players, it can always, always get worse.”

It was the Spartans’ worst home loss since a 42-14 blowout against Penn State in 2009, their only losing season under Dantonio. It’s also the first time MSU’s offense did not score a touchdown at home since a 20-3 loss to Notre Dame in 2012. …

Wisconsin converted 7 of 15 third downs and 2 of 2 fourth downs. Hornibrook, who got his first start in place of senior Bart Houson, shined for the Badgers. Hornibrook went 16 of 26 for 195 yards, a touchdown and an end-of-half interception.

O’Connor, meanwhile, made bad throws and poor decisions in MSU’s passing attack. He was 18 of 38 for 224 yards, no touchdowns and three interceptions.

“Give credit to Wisconsin, I thought they put together a really good game plan,” O’Connor said. “They threw some blitzes at us that maybe we weren’t ready for. Also, it’s on me to get the ball out on time and put in a good spot and not make a bad play worse for us.” …

Running back LJ Scott also committed a fumble that Wisconsin’s Leo Musso returned 66 yards for a touchdown that broke the game open in the third quarter. Two of MSU’s four turnovers, along with a muffed snap by punter Jake Hartbarger, led to 20 points for the Badgers.

“It was huge, anytime we can get a turnover and then also score on defense is huge,” Badgers linebacker T.J. Watt said. “We’re trying to flip the turnover margin in our favor. And when you score on defense, obviously that’s a huge play.”

The Spartans finally caught rhythm midway through the fourth quarter and got to Wisconsin’s 23, hoping to come back like Notre Dame did against them a week earlier. However, left tackle David Beedle took a 15-yard tripping penalty, O’Connor took a pair of sacks and the quarterback’s fourth-down heave to Donnie Corley in the end zone was batted away harmlessly.

Game over.

All the Spartans managed on offense were a pair of first-half Michael Geiger field goals. The Badgers got a 1-yard TD pass from Hornibrook to tight end Eric Steffes and a 1-yard TD run by Corey Clement for a 13-6 halftime lead.

Dantonio said the Badgers’ “points were sort of handed to them,” indicative of an MSU team still trying to find its identity.

“It’s all inclusive,” Dantonio said. “You can look at these statistics and start to read them and say, ‘Oh, there’s why they didn’t win, there’s why they didn’t win.’ Possession time, turnovers, running the football, sacks, third down conversions combined with fourth-down conversions – it’s all right there. That’s why you don’t win a football game.”

The Badgers’ murderous schedule made many observers believe they would be 2-4 after their first six games, including likely losses to top-10 LSU, Michigan State, Michigan and Ohio State. The Badgers instead are 4-0 heading to Ann Arbor Saturday. LSU, meanwhile, fired head coach Les Miles and offensive coordinator Cam Cameron Sunday.

The Packers, with one insufficiently impressive win and one loss that one should have expected, then hosted Detroit. The Detroit News reports:

Whatever had been ailing Aaron Rodgers, the Detroit Lions defense proved to be the elixir. The Green Bay Packers quarterback moved his offense up and down the field with surgical precision, tossing four first-half touchdowns in 34-27 victory at Lambeau Field on Sunday.

The Lions staged a comeback after falling behind 31-3, capped by a 35-yard TD pass from Matthew Stafford to Marvin Jones with 3:34 remaining, but Green Bay was able to run out the clock to end the game.

Rodgers’ struggles had drawn national attention in recent weeks, but he looked far more like the player who won the MVP in 2014 than the one who has struggled with accuracy and efficiency the past year.

“Rodgers’ was hot, completed a lot of big passes on us,” Lions coach Jim Caldwell said. “He really gave us some problems in that area. We just couldn’t slow him down.”

The Packers wasted little time getting on the scoreboard, taking the opening kick and driving 75 yards with eight plays. Rodgers completed four of his five throws for 75 yards on the drive, eluding pressure to connect with Randall Cobb on a 33-yard gain before capping the series with a 14-yard touchdown pass to Devante Adams running a slant with cornerback Quandre Diggs in coverage.

After a Lions field goal, Rodgers continued his assault on the opposing secondary. Taking advantage of a coverage mismatch, the quarterback waited for Jordy Nelson to run past linebacker Thurston Armbrister down the seam before delivering a strike that resulted in a 49-yard pickup. Three plays later, Rodgers went back to Nelson for an eight-yard touchdown to give the Packers an early 14-3 advantage.

The Lions proved unable to keep pace, going three-and-out on the ensuing possession, while Rodgers kept his foot on the gas.

The Packers needed just two plays to get back into the end zone. The scoring drive, if you can call it that, was aided by a 66-yard pass interference penalty against Lions cornerback Nevin Lawson, the longest such call in the NFL the past 15 years. That set up a two-yard scoring toss to tight end Richard Rodgers.

With Detroit’s defense unable to get a stop in the early going, the offense only compounded the problems with a turnover. Looking for tight end Eric Ebron in a soft spot of the Packers’ zone defense, Stafford’s pass was ripped from his intended target’s arms by cornerback Damarious Randall.

Ruled an interception because Ebron never establish control, the turnover was returned 44 yards and shortly after turned into three more Packers points, a 36-yard field goal for Mason Crosby.

“That’s a throw I make 10 out of 10 times,” Stafford said. “Eric probably didn’t feel (Randall). He did a great job coming from the side and the guy made a really nice play.”

Rodgers put the finishing touches on his masterful first half, leading a six-play, 67-yard touchdown drive following a missed field-goal attempt by Lions kicker Matt Prater.

The scoring strike, a perfectly-placed fade to Nelson down the right sideline, put the Packers up 31-3 with 3:53 remaining in the half.

Caldwell shouldered the blame for the sluggish performance.

“It’s all on coaching if you ask me,” Caldwell said. “If you have been around me long enough, you know we don’t ever back away from that. Every single bit of it, we’re responsible.” …

Needing a stop, the Lions defense stuffed Packers bruising running back Eddie Lacy on first and second down, before Rodgers beat the defense again, this time with his feet.

With the coverage taking away all his receiving options, Rodgers scrambled to his right, gaining 11 yards to convert the third-and-8.

“He just scrambled out of the pocket, broke contain and pick up the first down,” safety Glover Quin said. “It was the key play of the game.”
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Clarity about racism

September 26, 2016

Culture, US politics
Facebook Friend Tim Nerenz:

I don’t know how many of you have seen a meme posted by Occupy Democrats recently in which a stern older white women giving a lecture on race dares the white people in her audience who wish to be treated the way society treats blacks to stand up. When no one does, she berates them and tells them it is because they know black people are mistreated by whites and are ashamed of themselves. The meme is advertised as “brilliant” and “thought provoking”. Well, it did indeed provoke a thought or two I decided to share here rather than be confrontational on someone else’s Facebook page.

The obvious question is why Colin Kaepernick is celebrated for his refusal to stand on command while these “white folks” who came to hear a lecture are castigated for it. And then I wonder what exactly -specifically – is it about how black people are “treated” by “white folks” in “this society” that we are supposed to consider when making this decision to stand or not stand? How are black professors treated differently than white professors? How are black judges treated differently than white judges? Or engineers, accountants, pastors, teachers, computer techs, architects, lawyers. NFL players, county supervisors, campaign staff, police officers, models, toll booth workers, welders……the list goes on.

Let’s get down to cases, starting with this lecture itself. Did the white people make the black people sit in back? Did the black people have to pay more to hear this woman talk? Were there snacks and beverages provided for the white people only? Did the white people make the black people clean up the hall when the talk was over? Didn’t all those people in the hall come from “this society? Were they flown in from some other society?

Let’s play some more of the racial stand-up game. Which of those white people in the audience advocates black-on-black crime? Stand up. Which of those white people advocate teen pregnancy and illegitimate births? Stand up. Who is forcing black kids to drop out of school? Who is encouraging black kids to join gangs and sell drugs? Or take drugs? Stand up! C’mon, you guys – stand up! Don’t predominantly black public schools receive more per-pupil funding than schools with few minority students? I would bet those white parents in Mercer, Wisconsin would gladly trade Milwaukee for the state school subsidy they each receive. Is that the sort of treatment she is talking about?

And If it is all about race, how does this woman explain Oprah, Clarence Thomas, Barack Obama, Beyonce, Condi Rice, Colin Powell, Herman Cain, Ben Carson, Prince, Mike Singletary etc.? Why not examine the millions of successful black people who have risen to the top of their professions and then talk about the choices they made to get themselves there? If she could tell her audiences why some people are successful when so many are not, THAT would be brilliant. And it would be helpful.

Her “very plain” (her words) conclusion for why nobody stood up is not brilliant at all – she states her own unproven belief that every white person in the room is a closeted (or not) racist ashamed of their privilege; aside from the irony that such a prejudicial condemnation based on skin color is the very definition of racism, it is most likely dead wrong. A more plausible explanation is that they were afraid to be humiliated by standing in response to such an obvious trap question from a belligerent and condescending tyrant with a microphone.

Here is a slightly more brilliant question – if white privilege is “very plain”, why do no mixed-race people (e.g. our President) not identify with the white half to claim the privilege? Why would privileged white people claim to be black to snag a gig with NAACP or claim to be indian to get a cushy job at Harvard and then elected to the Senate? Think about it – when is the last time you heard of a black person faking whiteness to tap into the privilege? Marrying a Kardashian does not count.

No one can dispute that statistically black people are worse off in this country in many important ways, but I would suggest that it is because people like this lady have gotten things their way during these past 60 years since segregation was replaced with affirmative action in the law. Her ideological rote recitation of white shaming rhetoric from the 50’s is considered “thought provoking” by Occupy Democrats. It probably provoked a thought in this lady’s head 50 years ago; from the short clip I have seen I can’t say if she has had any new ones since, and the ones that are in that head were probably put there by somebody talking down to her when she was the same age as those she is guilt-tripping on whatever campus this was filmed at.

Here is a thought provoking question: why is that a higher proportion of black people today have college degrees than did white people in the 1950s, and have not translated that 300% increase in educational attainment into the same levels of prosperity? Maybe the universities and colleges should re-evaluate their decisions to throw in with the leftist indoctrinators and go back to providing rigorous and relevant educational content. Real education can make any life matter.

The problem is not just that blacks today are not as well off as whites, it is that on balance, black people today are not as well off as their own grandparents – more live in poverty, more live in broken homes, more are unemployed, more are in prison, more live in unsafe neighborhoods, more have drug addictions, and more have abortions. All “white people”, did not bring this about; liberal white people did, by undermining the values that produce independent and productive adults and coherent civilizations, and ostracizing black leaders who speak up in favor of traditional values and individual liberty.

If you have a black child, who would you rather have come and speak to her about what she can do to be successful in life – Ben Carson or this whitey-stand-up lady? This lady would tell your little girl that she can’t be successful until all the white people in the audience stand up. Ben Carson would (I think) tell her not to wait for someone else; he would tell her to study hard, work even harder, respect others, marry once and marry well and THEN have children, trust in God, give to charity, volunteer, save money, avoid drugs, don’t commit crime, eat healthy and exercise, and obey the ten commandments. I suspect that Dr. Carson would make quite an impression on your little girl; conversely, I doubt that your little girl would remember the old white lady’s name in a week.

If there is any validity at all to the largely delusional notion of white privilege that is proving to be such a lucrative side gig for university professors who do not teach or do research that anyone reads, it is the privilege of being raised with traditional values; proportionately more white kids are raised in drug-free and crime-free homes with two parents, regular church attendance, continuous employment, discipline, and education as a priority. In households where these factors are present, black and white families are indistinguishable in terms of income, wealth, health, and levels of social dysfunction – suicide, drug abuse,sexual abuse, etc.

For centuries, medical practitioners were certain that infections were caused by too much blood, and the “settled science” treatment was to attach leeches. When the infections worsened, the smart people’s answer was always, more leeches. As fevers rose, the answer was, even more leeches. As the patient slipped into coma, still more leeches. And when the patient died, the cause of death was obvious: not enough leeches. Never did it occur to them that they were wrong about the cause of infection; and those who dared question the orthodoxy of the day were labeled deniers, banished from medical practice, and shunned by elite society. The word deplorables comes to mind.

This is pretty much the story of the progressive movement over the past century – guessing wrong about the causes for all the troubles in the world and answering every failure of their own policy prescriptions with demands for more leeches (government programs and tax dollars). Poverty does not cause sociological dysfunction; it is the other way around. Race is not a disability; embracing racial victimhood is.

Had I been in attendance at this lecture, I would have taken her challenge to stand up…and then walked out. That does not make a racist; it just means my mind has not been occupied by democrats. It was not a brilliant thought-provoking lecture clip, it was involuntary group therapy where only one person gets to talk.
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Presty the DJ for Sept. 26

September 26, 2016

Music
The number one song today in 1960:

The number one song today in 1964:

Today in 1965, Roger Daltrey was fired from The Who after he punched out drummer Keith Moon. Fortunately for Daltrey and the Who, he was unfired the next day. (Daltrey and Pete Townshend reportedly have had more fistfights than Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier.)

(more…)
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Presty the DJ for Sept. 25

September 25, 2016

Music
The number one song today in 1965 was this pleasant-sounding, upbeat ditty guaranteed to leave a smile on your face:

That was on the same day that ABC-TV premiered a cartoon, “The Beatles”:

The number one British song today in 1968:

Today in 1970 was the premiere of a sitcom based on the Cowsills:

Unlike the Cowsills, only two members of the on-camera Partridge Family performed with the Partridge Family band (which were a group of session musicians): David Cassidy, who sang lead, and Shirley Jones, who sang backup vocals.

Today in 1975, singer Jackie Wilson suffered a heart attack while singing “Lonely Teardrops” in a casino in New Jersey. The heart attack caused brain damage, and Wilson died in 1984.

Today in 1982, viewers of NBC-TV’s “Saturday Night Live” got to see Queen:

Today in 1989, viewers of “Saturday Night Live” got to see Neil Young:

Britain’s number one single today in 2006 wasn’t from a British act (though the song was written by Elton John):

Birthdays start with John Locke (not the philosopher) of Spirit:

Owen “Onnie” McIntyre of the Average White Band:

Burleigh Drummond played, what else, drums for Ambrosia:

Two deaths of note: today in 1980, John “Bonzo” Bonham, drummer for Led Zeppelin, died of a vodka overdose:

Today in 1999, Stephen Canaday of the Ozark Mountain Daredevils died when his World War II plane stalled and crashed into a tree:
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Presty the DJ for Sept. 24

September 24, 2016

Music
We begin with an odd moment today in 1962: Elvis Presley’s manager, Col. Tom Parker, declined an invitation on Presley’s behalf for an appearance before the Royal Family. Declining wasn’t due to conflicting film schedules (the stated reason) or anti-royalism — it was because Parker was an illegal immigrant to the U.S. from the Netherlands (his real name was Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk), and he was afraid he wouldn’t be allowed back into the U.S.

Number one in Britain today in 1964:

Number one in Britain …

… and in the U.S. today in 1983:

(more…)
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More blasts from Madison’s media past

September 23, 2016

History, Madison, media
Early in the history of this blog I wrote a popular entry on what Madison media I could remember and find online in my early TV-watching days.

That included this classic photo of WISC-TV’s “Action News” from the 1970s:

The earliest version of this set had neither of the Big Giant 3s; it had up to five anchors sitting in chairs you might find on your screened-in porch, with graphics that would come up in the non-blue checkers behind them. (Which obviously eliminated the old summertime blazer-and-tie-and-shorts for those who report the news behind desks.)

News Checkerboard 2.0 added the 3 table (which obviously also indicated how many people could be seated at the table) and the big blue 3 behind them. (Back when I was on cable TV in Ripon I suggested someone build a big giant R table for programs. It didn’t happen.)

Doing the news on the Big Giant 3 set this night were Tedd O’Connell (center), the so-called “hipster newsman” whose career highlights included visiting Cuba with Mayor Paul Soglin (in the middle); sports director Jim Miller (left); and reporter and weatherman John Digman, who used a ’40s car antenna as his weather map pointer.

(Digman once talked to my high school journalism class. He was hilarious. Sadly, he died at 40 of a heart attack.)

It turns out that WISC-TV’s website has a number of old photos, including O’Connell after “Action News” was replaced by “News 3” and the checkerboard and Big Giant 3s were replaced by something more colorful:

Channel3000.com also has photos of O’Connell’s colleague and replacement John Karcher …

… weekend anchor Rick Roberts …

… Bill Brown (at least I think he is), deep-voiced news anchor who preceded O’Connell back when WISC had one hour of “Eyewitness News” at 6 …

… local TV pioneer Marlene Cummings …

… meteorologist Marv Holewinski, minus his banana-yellow blazer (and Holewinski can still be heard on Wisconsin radio) …

… and former weekend sports anchor Curt Menefee, now host of Fox NFL Sunday:

A web search found another photo of Brown, who is one of the first TV people I remember:

YouTube also has one of the aforementioned Digman’s former coworkers, Rick Fetherston, who later went to WMTV while teaching my UW–Madison broadcasting course. Digman and Fetherston were on-set at WISC while longtime anchor Jerry Deane was doing the news, when suddenly Deane’s dentures flew out of his mouth live on the air. Since apparently this had happened before, Deane calmly caught the dentures in mid-air, put them back in his mouth, and continued as though nothing unusual had just happened. He was the only person acting like this; Digman said Fetherston and he were on the floor laughing off camera.

Also on YouTube is Tom Bier, who worked on- and off-air at WISC for years:

Those with interest in Madison media history can also go to the online Wisconsin Broadcasting Museum, where can be found Wisconsin Broadcasting Hall of Fame members Tom Bolger of WMTV, WISC owner Elizabeth Murphy Burns and general manager David Sanks, WIBA radio founder William T. Evjue (who, yes, also founded The Capital Times; Evjue is probably spinning in his grave over WIBA’s carrying non-lefties Rush Limbaugh and Vicki McKenna), WKOW meteorologist and Weather Central founder Terry Kelly, WISM and Z104’s Jonathan Little, WKOW radio (later WTSO) and TV’s Roger Russell, WKOW sportscaster and “Dairyland Jubilee” host John Schermerhorn, WKOW and WOLX radio owners Terry and Sandy Shockley, former WISM and Magic 98 general manager Bill Vancil, and one of my favorite UW professors, School of Journalism director Jim Hoyt. A number of famous Wisconsin sports announcers can be found there too.

Not in the Hall of Fame is former UW–Madison pharmacy Prof. Phil Mendel, better known as the former public address announcer for Badger hockey games at the Dane County Coliseum, and road-game color commentator for Badger games. Mendel worked with Bob Miller, the first of three Badger hockey announcers who later worked in the NHL, and then when Miller left for the Los Angeles Kings, Paul Braun (announcer of four of six UW NCAA hockey titles) and former UW assistant coach Bill Howard.

As you know, Braun and Howard got to cover one of the more wacky moments in college hockey history, the 1992 North Dakota–Wisconsin Water Bottle Fight.

Mendel always opened games at the Coliseum with “Good evening … hockey fans” which I, uh, pay tribute to by opening every one of my live games with “Good morning/afternoon/evening, [insert sport name here] fans.” The “If you grew up in Madison you remember …” Facebook page contains a thread started by a former UW hockey player, where those who remember Mendel’s ’70s radio and ’80s TV appearances chimed in with such sayings of his as “[insert opposing goalie’s name here] is as useful as a screen door on a submarine!” and “[insert opposing sieve’s name here] is as frustrated as an unmated coon!” You are unlikely to hear the latter on the air anymore, but that’s not the point.

For those who think a 30-minute hockey fight started by a water bottle is strange, consider what Braun, Howard and Mendel got to cover the next year in another UW game against the Boys (Then) Named Sioux. Wisconsin played North Dakota in the 1983 Western Collegiate Hockey Association semifinals, a two-game total-goal series in Grand Forks that, thanks to the first night’s 1–1 tie and second night’s 4–4 score after three periods (only because of a Chris Chelios goal with 12 seconds left in regulation), went to overtime. And then a second overtime. And then a third overtime. And then things got strange.

Ted Pearson scored the game-winning goal in the third overtime, only to have the goal disallowed because Pearson was using an excessively curved stick, which Mendel and his partners dramatically announced upon coming back from commercial after the supposedly game-winning goal. So not only was the game (and series) not over, but the Sioux went on the power play due to the resulting unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty. An overtime penalty usually is a recipe for losing the game, and yet 26 seconds after Pearson went to the penalty box, teammate Paul Houck scored to win the game again, this time officially. (Remarkably, it was the first shorthanded goal North Dakota had given up all season.) The Badgers then beat archrival Minnesota in Minneapolis to win the WCHA playoff, and beat St. Lawrence twice in the quarterfinals, then Providence and Harvard in the Frozen Four in, of all places, Grand Forks (where North Dakota fans improbably wore “This Sioux’s for You” buttons in support of the Badgers) to win the Badgers’ fourth NCAA title and the first of two for coach Jeff Sauer.

Would you believe there is something older from Madison? How about WISM radio from March 4, 1966 (when I was nine months and one day old):
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Presty the DJ for Sept. 23

September 23, 2016

Music
Would Buddy Holly have a number one song? Some might have said before today in 1957 …

The number one song today in 1967:

Today in 1969, the Northern Star, the Northern Illinois University student newspaper, passed on the rumor that Paul McCartney had died in a car crash in 1966 and been impersonated in public ever since then. A Detroit radio station picked up the rumor, and then McCartney himself had to appear in public to report that, to quote Mark Twain, rumors of his death had been exaggerated.

(more…)
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It’s 2016, not 1956

September 22, 2016

History, US politics
Erick Erickson:

Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton supporters want a return to the 1950s. Trump supporters say so explicitly at times. They want a return to cultural norms, two parent households, stay at home moms, and everyone in church. They don’t want men in their daughters’ bathrooms and they don’t want the glorification of sexuality across the media. They want the 50’s.

Democrats, though they will not admit to wanting the 50’s, want the 50’s as well. Trump supporters want it for social reasons and the Democrats want it for economic reasons. The Democrats’ dream is to have every American a member of a union working for a Fortune 500 company that funds the welfare state.

Both sides want the past because they are fearful of a future they cannot anticipate. C.S. Lewis wrote about this in the 15th of his Screwtape Letters.

To be sure, the Enemy wants men to think of the Future too—just so much as is necessary for now planning the acts of justice or charity which will probably be their duty tomorrow. The duty of planning the morrow’s work is today’s duty; though its material is borrowed from the future, the duty, like all duties, is in the Present. This is not straw splitting. He does not want men to give the Future their hearts, to place their treasure in it. We do. His ideal is a man who, having worked all day for the good of posterity (if that is his vocation), washes his mind of the whole subject, commits the issue to Heaven, and returns at once to the patience or gratitude demanded by the moment that is passing over him. But we want a man hag-ridden by the Future—haunted by visions of an imminent heaven or hell upon earth—ready to break the Enemy’s commands in the present if by so doing we make him think he can attain the one or avert the other—dependent for his faith on the success or failure of schemes whose end he will not live to see. We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow’s end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the future every real gift which is offered them in the Present.

The past makes both sides resentful of the present because the past they cling on to is an idolized, idealized past. It is not the real past. It is the one they conjured up to reassure themselves that the past was better than the present. They want that past in the present because they fear the stepping off point into an unknown future and are hell bent on shaping that future.

What Trump supporters cannot appreciate is that black voters hear this rhetoric about going back and they remember Jim Crow and segregation. The idealized past for Trump voters is one of servitude and second class citizenship for many Americans.

What Clinton supporters cannot appreciate is that we abandoned their preferred economic models because they were inefficient and served to stifle innovation — innovations that will be key for a productive future.

Both sides want what not only never really existed, but what they cannot have. And the result is that they’re all angry, bitter, and resentful. Neither side wants to appreciate the present and both Presidential candidates are arguing for the past as future. Clinton wants to bring back the Clinton glory days and Trump wants to make America great again, an echo to a past he claims existed.

We have reached this point because of a failure of leadership on all sides. The Washington establishment of both parties is more committed to managing national decline while profiting from it than committed to stopping that decline from happening.
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What (doesn’t) cause terrorism

September 22, 2016

US politics
Over the weekend terrorist attacks took place in New York and, of all places, St. Paul, Minn.

And Scott Shackford reports:

Since this is an election revolving around blaming and punishing people, of course that’s where the political discussion went. Reminding us that they are both terrible on issues of free speech, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton both had awful things to say about everybody’s civil liberties in the fight against terrorism.

Trump, [Tuesday] morning, on Fox & Friends, blamed the freedom of the press because of the publishing of magazines that instruct people on how to make bombs. He insisted that he believes in the freedom of the press (doubtful), but also called for anybody who provides instructions on how to build bombs to be arrested because they’re “participating in crime.” He also said some people who operate websites should also be arrested for “inciting violence. … They’re making violence possible. They should be arrested immediately” for operating websites that give instructions on making bombs. …

In typical Trump (and Fox & Friends) fashion, everything discussed is so vague as to be unclear what he means. Does he believe it’s a prosecutable offense to simply publish information that can be used to make bombs? It’s absolutely not, but it’s often worth trying to tease out the bigger issue Trump is trying to get at. I want to maybe guess that what he really wants to do is go after sites that are actively attempting to stir up terrorism on behalf of the Islamic State, but maybe that’s giving him too much credit. If he thinks that the providing of information is what makes the violence possible, then he’s got a problem because—even if it were legal for the United States to prosecute people simply for providing information that could be used for violent means—the ability to access information on the Internet doesn’t end at the U.S. borders. Who is he going to arrest?

Trump’s response is awful, but represents a commonly held attitude: Quite a few people want to censor information that can be used for violent means without actually thinking through the unintended consequences (maybe remind them of the court ruling that a school could ban patriotic apparel if it offended students and potentially stirred up violence).

Trust Clinton to match Trump with her own broadside against free speech in response to the attacks and to make it all about Trump himself. Clinton said that the things Trump says is being used as a recruitment tool for ISIS and flat out essentially accused him of treason (without actually using the word).

From New York Magazine:

“We know that a lot of the rhetoric that we’ve heard from Donald Trump has been seized on by terrorists, in particular ISIS,” Clinton said “They are looking to make this into a war against Islam, rather than a war against jihadists, violent terrorists — people who number in the, maybe, tens of thousands, not the tens of millions. They want to use that to recruit more fighters to their cause, by turning it into a religious conflict.”

Clinton went on to note that Trump’s comments have been used for the recruitment of terrorists online, according to former CIA director Michael Hayden.

“We also know from the former head of our counter-terrorism center Matt Olsen that the kinds of rhetoric and language Mr. Trump has used is giving aid and comfort to our adversaries,” Clinton continued. [emphasis added]

Not entirely sure how social signaling is going to help with the war on terror. Also not entirely sure it’s going to help with the election. When you’re accusing Trump of treasonous language, what are you saying about his supporters? Frankly, this statement is probably much nastier than the “deplorables” comment, but it’s probably too subtle to register to a lot of people. (David Harsanyi noticed over at The Federalist.)

And Clinton may not want to prosecute people for posting information that authorities deem dangerous, but she most certainly wants to fight terrorism by censoring the Internet, and she wants Silicon Valley to help. She endorses a very technocratic approach that assumes the right people and the right technology and the right algorithms will somehow make sure only the bad people get censored. But tell that to anybody who has had to suffer the abusive enforcement of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

Moving down the Bill of Rights, Brian Anderson (not the Brewers’ TV announcer) reports:

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has suggested that a democratic gun control bill would have stopped these attacks and stated unequivocally that the legislation would stop any further attacks like them. So yes, the democratic leadership believes a gun control bill can stop terrorists from stabbing and bombing.

The democrats are pushing a bill that would ban people who are on the FBI terror watch list from purchasing a gun. It’s terribly unconstitutional because it strips a person of their rights without due process, but who ever said lefties give a shit about the Constitution or people’s rights?

“It’s hard to believe in America today an FBI terror suspect not allowed to fly on an airplane can walk into a gun story in Las Vegas, New York City, anyplace, and legally purchase explosives and assault weapons,” said Reid on Monday.

Are there any gun stores in New York City? I know for a fact that no one, including terrorists, can buy an “assault weapon” in NYC or anywhere else in the state because they were banned by the SAFE Act. I’m also pretty sure explosives are not for sale in the Big Apple. Is he trying to suggest that terrorists can walk into Sack’s Fifth Ave. and pick up some designer C4, and that somehow a gun control bill would stop this? Sadly, yes.

“We can argue from now on about whether this bill would have prevented this weekend’s attacks,” Reid said.

Only an idiot would argue that a gun control bill would stop terrorists from stabbing or bombing innocent people. Gun control laws don’t even stop bad guys from getting guns, so they sure as hell won’t stop them from getting knives or making improvised explosive devices.

If you think that was stupid, check out the punch-line:

“But one thing is for sure, it would prevent the next attack,” Reid finished.

Let’s think about this for a second. Reid is pushing his “no-fly no-buy” gun control bill that would keep people on terror watch list from being able to legally purchase a firearm. If it were to pass, a person would have to be on the list to be prevented from buying a gun from a federally licensed firearms dealer. Most lone-wolf terrorists are not even on this list and it certainly doesn’t address the reality that criminals don’t purchase firearms legally and have absolutely no problem getting their hands on a gun.

And all of that ignores the fact that the terrorists in Minnesota and New York didn’t use a gun in their attacks. One used a bladed weapon and the other used homemade bombs. Not only won’t Reid’s pet legislation stop any future terrorist attacks, it wouldn’t have come close to stopping the attacks over the weekend.

On to the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments, Mediaite reports …

Speaking to supporters in Florida Monday, Donald Trump denounced that the alleged NYC bomber would be given hospitalization and legal counsel in accordance with his constitutional rights.

“Now we will give him amazing hospitalization. He will be taken care of by some of the best doctors in the world. He will be given a fully modern and updated hospital room,” Trump said.

The suspect, Ahmad Khan Rahami, an Afghan-born naturalized citizen, was injured in a shootout with the police Monday morning before being apprehended. The FBI said he was “directly linked” to the homemade bombs that appeared over the weekend in New York and New Jersey.

Trump continued: “And he’ll probably even have room service, knowing the way our country is. And on top of all of that, he will be represented by an outstanding lawyer. His case will go through the various court systems for years and in the end, people will forget and his punishment will not be what it once would have been. What a sad situation.”

He argued for the need for “speedy, but fair trials,” as well as a “very harsh punishment.”

He also said that authorities must use “whatever lawful methods are available to obtain information from the apprehended suspect to get information before it’s no longer timely.” (Previously on the campaign trail, Trump has spoken of his enthusiasm for waterboarding and other methods of torture.)

Speaking to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Monday evening, New York’s Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo responded to Trump by saying, “Welcome to America. We have a system of jurisprudence. You’re innocent until proven guilty. You have a right to counsel. And you have the right to hospitalization if you’re ill.”

Cuomo added, “Let’s not lose ourselves in an effort to protect ourselves. We want to protect America. What is America? It’s the rights that we’ve established.”

He said, “I fear sometimes with this rhetoric that people are suggesting we lose what’s special about us in a way to protect ourselves. And that doesn’t work. It’s not who we are. Let’s preserve the system. Let’s be fair about it. Let’s keep our heads.”

Whether terrorists should be handled by the criminal justice system or the military is an interesting argument. In this country as of now, the criminal justice system handles alleged terrorists, and defendants have rights in the criminal justice system.

Perhaps a law should be created that requires political candidates to pass a test about the U.S. Constitution before they’re allowed on the ballot.
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