We begin with two forlorn non-music anniversaries. Today in 1897, Oldsmobile began operation, eventually to become a division of General Motors Corp. … but not anymore.
No comments on Presty the DJ for Aug. 21
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Jim Pethokoukis admits that Occupy Wall Street won, and as a result we all lost:
By the time the demonstrations started, America had already elected a president whose top priority was to reduce high-end income inequality — i.e., the inequality between the wealthy and everyone else. If Obamacare — at its heart a “spread the wealth” redistribution scheme — and a call for ever-more tax hikes on the rich and on businesses aren’t proof enough, there’s also Barack Obama’s recent speech at Knox College. The enormous disparity between the 1 percent and the 99 percent, the president argued last month, “is not just morally wrong, it’s bad economics.”
But that financial divide is hardly America’s biggest challenge, economic or moral. Obama’s Knox College claim that the income of the top 1 percent surged over the past 30 years, while the income of the typical family “barely budged,” has been thoroughly debunked. While the rich did get a lot richer, real median household income grew by roughly 20 percent before taxes and government transfers, and by about 40 percent after. And, says a Washington Post fact check, “it’s inaccurate of Obama to suggest otherwise.”
Then there’s a blockbuster new study from economists Steven Kaplan of the University of Chicago and Joshua Rauh of Stanford University on why high-end inequality has increased so much the past three decades. Is it compliant corporate boards’ giving huge payouts to CEOs, or perhaps crony capitalism between Washington and Wall Street? Was it the Reagan and Bush tax cuts? Not so much, according to Kaplan and Rauh: “We believe that the US evidence on income and wealth shares for the top 1 percent is most consistent with a ‘superstar’-style explanation rooted in the importance of scale and skill-biased technological change.” Market forces — technology and globalization — allow a broad swath of folks — CEOs, bankers, lawyers, athletes — whose skills are in high demand “to expand the scale of their performance.” The NBA has a global TV audience today, so its superstars can earn more in salaries and endorsements. Growing international markets have greatly increased the size and value of U.S. companies and, not surprisingly, executive pay has risen, too. Technology allows top executives and financiers to manage larger organizations and asset pools.
Instead of fretting so much about income inequality at the high end, Obama should focus on expanding economic mobility. Primarily, this means policies to boost GDP growth, polices including education, tax, and regulation reform. The economy has grown at just 1.8 percent annually, adjusted for inflation, for the past decade, versus 3.3 percent a year since 1929. And a new JPMorgan research report, “U.S. Future Isn’t What It Used to Be,” says we had all better get used to the New Normal: “The long-run growth potential of the U.S. economy continues to slide lower, by our estimate, to around 1.75%; if realized this would be the lowest of the post-WWII era.” That’s a huge drop; it means the economy will double in 42 years instead of 22. …
But increasing absolute mobility — making sure kids end up more prosperous than their parents — is not enough. Solid research from the Equality of Opportunity Project shows big variation among U.S. cities in residents’ ability to rise above their birth stations thanks to factors — including family structure and geographic segregation — not directly linked to the macro economy. This suggests it’s wise to implement micropolicy ideas such as relocation vouchers for the long-term unemployed in high-unemployment areas and rolling back regulations that limit urban density. Ryan Avent, a reporter with The Economist, calculates that various urban land-use regulations cost the U.S. as much as half a percentage point per year in GDP growth. Business tax cuts and entitlement reform alone make for an incomplete conservative policy agenda.
America does have a 1 percent problem, just not the one Obama thinks it has.
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Specifically, parents of boys (of which we have two), says Christina Hoff Sommers:
As school begins in the coming weeks, parents of boys should ask themselves a question: Is my son really welcome? A flurry of incidents last spring suggests that the answer is no. In May, Christopher Marshall, age 7, was suspended from his Virginia school for picking up a pencil and using it to “shoot” a “bad guy” — his friend, who was also suspended. A few months earlier, Josh Welch, also 7, was sent home from his Maryland school for nibbling off the corners of a strawberry Pop-Tart to shape it into a gun. At about the same time, Colorado’s Alex Evans, age 7, was suspended for throwing an imaginary hand grenade at “bad guys” in order to “save the world.”
In all these cases, school officials found the children to be in violation of the school’s zero-tolerance policies for firearms, which is clearly a ludicrous application of the rule. But common sense isn’t the only thing at stake here. In the name of zero tolerance, our schools are becoming hostile environments for young boys. …
Zero tolerance was originally conceived as a way of ridding schools of violent predators, especially in the wake of horrific shootings in places like Littleton, Colo. But juvenile violence, including violence at schools, is at a historic low. The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that in 2011, approximately 1% of students ages 12 to 18 reported a violent victimization at school. For serious violence, the figure is one-tenth of 1%. It does no disrespect to the victims of Columbine or Sandy Hook to note that while violence may be built into the core of a small coterie of sociopathic boys, most boys are not sociopathic.
On the other hand, millions of boys are struggling academically. A large and growing male cohort is falling behind in grades and disengaged from school. College has never been more important to a young person’s life prospects, and today boys are far less likely than girls to pursue education beyond high school. As our schools become more risk averse, the gender gap favoring girls is threatening to become a chasm.
Across the country, schools are policing and punishing the distinctive, assertive sociability of boys. Many much-loved games have vanished from school playgrounds. At some schools, tug of war has been replaced with “tug of peace.” Since the 1990s, elimination games like dodgeball, red rover and tag have been under a cloud — too damaging to self-esteem and too violent, say certain experts. Young boys, with few exceptions, love action narratives. These usually involve heroes, bad guys, rescues and shoot-ups. As boys’ play proceeds, plots become more elaborate and the boys more transfixed. When researchers ask boys why they do it, the standard reply is, “Because it’s fun.” …
Play is a critical basis for learning. And boys’ heroic play is no exception. Logue and Harvey found that “bad guy” play improved children’s conversation and imaginative writing. Such play, say the authors, also builds moral imagination, social competence and imparts critical lessons about personal limits and self-restraint. Logue and Harvey worry that the growing intolerance for boys’ action-narrative–play choices may be undermining their early language development and weakening their attachment to school. Imagine the harm done to boys like Christopher, Josh and Alex who are not merely discouraged from their choice of play, but are punished, publicly shamed and ostracized.
Schools must enforce codes of discipline and maintain clear rules against incivility and malicious behavior. But that hardly requires abolishing tag, imposing games of tug of peace or banning superhero play. Efforts to re-engineer the young-male imagination are doomed to fail, but they will succeed spectacularly in at least one way. They will send a clear and unmistakable message to millions of schoolboys: You are not welcome in school.
Of course, maybe we parents are doing everything wrong anyway, as the University of Notre Dame claims:
Social practices and cultural beliefs of modern life are preventing healthy brain and emotional development in children, according to an interdisciplinary body of research presented recently at a symposium at the University of Notre Dame.
“Life outcomes for American youth are worsening, especially in comparison to 50 years ago,” says Darcia Narvaez, Notre Dame professor of psychology who specializes in moral development in children and how early life experiences can influence brain development.
“Ill-advised practices and beliefs have become commonplace in our culture, such as the use of infant formula, the isolation of infants in their own rooms or the belief that responding too quickly to a fussing baby will ‘spoil’ it,” Narvaez says.
This new research links certain early, nurturing parenting practices — the kind common in foraging hunter-gatherer societies — to specific, healthy emotional outcomes in adulthood, and has many experts rethinking some of our modern, cultural child-rearing “norms.”
“Breast-feeding infants, responsiveness to crying, almost constant touch and having multiple adult caregivers are some of the nurturing ancestral parenting practices that are shown to positively impact the developing brain, which not only shapes personality, but also helps physical health and moral development,” says Narvaez.
Studies show that responding to a baby’s needs (not letting a baby “cry it out”) has been shown to influence the development of conscience; positive touch affects stress reactivity, impulse control and empathy; free play in nature influences social capacities and aggression; and a set of supportive caregivers (beyond the mother alone) predicts IQ and ego resilience as well as empathy. …
Whether the corollary to these modern practices or the result of other forces, an epidemic of anxiety and depression among all age groups, including young children; rising rates of aggressive behavior and delinquency in young children; and decreasing empathy, the backbone of compassionate, moral behavior, among college students, are shown in research.
According to Narvaez, however, other relatives and teachers also can have a beneficial impact when a child feels safe in their presence. Also, early deficits can be made up later, she says.
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Today in 1965, the Rolling Stones released the song that would become their first number one hit, and yet Mick Jagger still claimed …
An august group of acts is represented in birthdays today, beginning with James Pankow, trombone player of Chicago:
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Someone once defined a conservative as a liberal who has been mugged.
Perhaps that will describe the population of New York City, or so thinks Daniel Henninger:
Within days of President Obama’s decision last week to appoint a civil-liberties “adversary” inside the U.S.’s antiterrorism surveillance program, a federal judge created a “monitor” to oversee the New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk anticrime program. Both these decisions, if allowed to take full effect, run a significant risk that violence will return or increase—as the terrorism of al Qaeda or as murder and assault in New York City.
If that happens—and don’t bet against it—a liberal president and a liberal federal judge will have brought back to life one of modern liberalism’s worst nightmares: the belief that Democrats can’t be trusted with national security or the control of violent crime. They’re soft on security.
In New York City a handful of Democrats—canaries in the party’s mine shaft—are competing to succeed Mike Bloomberg. For months, New Yorkers of all political persuasions have been asking sotto voce if the city’s 20-year miracle of urban tranquility under Rudy Giuliani and Mr. Bloomberg will vanish if a left-wing Democrat (the city allows no other kind) becomes mayor.
The subject can’t be avoided because the city’s irrepressible, activist left made weakening the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk policies a litmus test for winning the Democratic primary next month. All the Democratic candidates have saluted the movement to downgrade stop-and-frisk.
A liberal Democratic mayor is unsettling for New Yorkers who’ve lived in the city long enough not to have to Google the meaning of “Bernhard Goetz” or explain the legendary New York Post headline—”Dave, Do Something!”
Mr. Goetz was the vigilante who shot several muggers on a subway train in 1984. “Dave” was Mayor David Dinkins, who in the early 1990s presided over a city in the grip of civic disorder. …
U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin decided not to wait for the November mayoral election to bring back the 1980s, or even the 1960s. That’s when criticism of liberal belief on security matters emerged, notably in Richard Nixon’s victorious 1968 “law and order” campaign. This critique argues that when liberals weigh the reality of physical threat to home and hearth against hyper-abstract interpretations of constitutional rights, abstraction wins. The Scheindlin decision, handed down Monday, is a classic of liberal abstraction on security.
New York has its lowest murder rate since the early 1960s, a big reason for the city’s 50 million meandering tourists last year. This tranquility of pedestrian life is presumably one point of an effective policing strategy. Ask Chicago. Not so for Judge Scheindlin, who discusses murder in footnote 210. She describes a “17% drop in index crime reports between 2003 and 2012, and a 30% drop in reported murders.” No matter. “I emphasize again,” the judge insists, “that this Opinion takes no position on whether stop and frisk contributed to the decline in crime.” And why is that, one might ask? Judge Scheindlin explains: “This court’s mandate is solely to judge the constitutionality of police behavior, not its effectiveness as a law enforcement tool.” …
Except at the far left and right, people believe security is government’s first obligation. In the 1990s, New York City’s voters tossed out Democrats ideologically unable to provide security. Voters know that crime and terror are real. And that unopposed, violent crime and terror always return. Judge Scheindlin and President Obama have answered the liberal siren song of a world without violence. Come 2016, the last thing voters may be looking for is a Democrat, no matter who she is.
Bill Clinton might count as the first law-and-order Democrat in my lifetime. One reason for his political success was his ability to see what regular voters thought was important, and one of those issues was, and is, public safety. You may recall that Clinton dramatically left the campaign trail early in 1992 to sign the death warrant for a convicted murderer. Clinton got through Congress his proposal to fund (until the funding ran out, of course) 100,000 police positions across the country. Clinton also has been one of the few Democrats smart enough to recognize gun control as a losing proposition for Democrats.
What about in Wisconsin? Gov. Scott Walker’s predecessor, James Doyle, was previously the state’s attorney general. Before that, he was Dane County’s district attorney. The words “tough on crime” and “James Doyle” have never appeared in the same sentence. (Doyle disdained prosecuting bad checks while he was D.A., for instance.) Twice-failed Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Barrett has been at war with Milwaukee’s police and fire departments, apparently with no political repercussions, in the city that leads, if you want to call it that, Wisconsin in crime and violent crime. And both Doyle and Barrett opposed concealed-carry, the former vetoing it, the latter, thankfully, losing to a governor who signed concealed-carry into law.
Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen was elected in 2006 over Democrat Kathleen Falk, a former state attorney general. Falk, however, had nothing to do with actual crimes such as murder, assault, sexual assault, theft, etc. She was the state’s “public intervenor,” a position thankfully eliminated by Gov. Tommy Thompson.
And then there’s Madison, whose officialdom cannot be bothered to notice its decrease in quality of life, the result of its increase in crime and specifically violent crime. The only sheriffs who have ever exhibited much concern about crime are sheriffs who were appointed by Republican governors, which therefore doesn’t include the present sheriff.
The only Madison commentator that appears to notice crime is David Blaska, who recently observed:
A 10-year-old boy was mugged by a man who jumped out of a car, took the boy’s iPhone, and got back into the car driven by an accomplice. This occurred in the middle of the afternoon of Monday, July 23, near the intersection of Hammersley Road and Whitney Way on the city’s southwest side.
The Capital Newspapers report included a description of the two assailants, including age, height, hair style, tattoos, facial hair, gender, and race. The assailants were identified as members of a minority race.
When that report was shared with neighbors, the new president of the Meadowood neighborhood, Krista Ralston, objected:
It’s always better to be well informed and search for open-minded, holistic solutions than to simply complain, or jump to disturbing, unproductive and fear-mongering conclusions about perceived problems in our community. Obviously it is important to be aware of criminal behavior in our neighborhoods and take all necessary precautions, but let’s not over-blow the “problem.” [Her quotation marks] Unfortunately, crime happens but …
Do you hear that? The “perceived problem.” If we can’t admit that there is a problem, how can we solve it?
Yes, let’s not “over-blow” the “problem.” But what about under-blowing the problem? If it was one stolen cell phone, she might have a point. Police Chief Noble Wray came to this part of town in 2009 to hold a press conference begging residents to stop the shooting. A week or two later, a 17-year-old kid was popped. On June 28 of this year, 75 residents of the Betty’s Lane/Theresa Terrace area of west Hammersley Road went at it with fists, rakes, rocks, brass knuckles, and other weapons. To the melee, 24 police and three ambulances responded. (The police report.) Hey, “crime happens.”
Blaska passed on a statement from Madison Police Officer Caleb Johnson:
Many of you have expressed concern over the recent gun violence on Madison’s west side and have inquired about what the police department is doing to address this escalating problem. One particularly troubling incident took place on March 30, 2013, where multiple cars were involved in a rolling gun battle that traveled from Raymond Road through residential neighborhoods to Hammersley Road.
The Madison Police Department invested a great deal of resources into responding to this incident and following through with the investigation to determine the vehicles involved, the passengers, and the suspects who were firing the weapons. As part of this investigation, Michael Gales was arrested by the Madison Police Department and charged with three felony crimes, Discharge Firearm/Vehicle-Towards Person [941.20(3)(a)1], Discharge Firearm/Vehicle-Bldg/Vehicle [941.20(3)(a)2], and Endanger Safety/Reckless Use of Firearm [941.20(2)(a)].
I regret to inform you that Gales has been released as he has accepted a plea agreement that leaves him with three years of probation and no jail/prison time. With the plea agreement the charges … were dismissed. Details from this case can be viewed on CCAP [here].
I wanted to share the outcome of this incident with the community because it illustrates some of the challenges that the police department faces and sheds light on why some of these violent criminals continue to roam the streets even after they have been arrested and charged with numerous serious crimes.
Which prompted this comment, among others:
Unfortunately, you have a District Attorney and a Chief of Police who are both, at very best, inept and at worst, bordering on incompetent.
These issues have been going on for years in the D.A’s Office during Ozanne’s tenure and can be attested to by many officers and detectives within the Police Department, attorneys who have fled the sinking ship of that office and victim’s who’s cases do not get charged. The D.A. himself is only interested in his public persona and political future. He was originally a political appointee, selected by Gov. Doyle over a huge hue and cry for other much more qualified candidates to be chosen instead.
Internally in the Police Department, officers and detectives are stifled by Police Chief Wray and his Administration when they complain openly about the District Attorney, his staff and the poor or non-existent charging decisions that are routinely made.
This issue is absolutely nothing new and you will find hundreds of examples if you take the time to speak with members of the police department who bring good, solid criminal cases to the D.A.’s Office, only to have them declined because of the lack of leadership at the helm of the D.A.’s Office.
Blaska later added items about someone having a bicycle stolen out of his garage while he was mowing his grass, and …
Madison man arrested after pit bull fight Aug. 7
(WKOW-News 27) Madison police officers were called to apartment building on Raymond Rd. Tuesday night for a dog fight. According to an incident report, about 20 were people outside and four pit bulls. Only two were reported to have been involved in any fighting. The dogs’ owners quickly led them away on leashes.When officers stopped two young men walking with the dogs that had been fighting, one handed a leash to the other and took off running. Twenty-two-year-old Damarius Haywood was later found hiding in a nearby apartment. He was arrested for obstructing, bail jumping and criminal trespass.
Officials say a witness told police the owner was trying toughen up his pit bulls by having them fight. The dogs’ 15-year-old owner was cited for not having a dog license.
Man mugged in own driveway, police say
(Channel 3000) Police said a Madison man was robbed in his west side driveway last week. The Madison Police Department said a 35-year-old man was coming from work to his home on the 6300 block of Bettys Lane at about 3:54 a.m. on Saturday. Police said as soon as he parked his vehicle, a man opened the driver’s-side door and began punching him in the face. The victim told police another man took his wallet and fled. Police believe the robbers left in a car, as the victim heard tires screeching immediately after the mugging. The victim suffered facial injuries, police said. The victim told police there were three or four robbers. They were described as black, all in their 20s and about 6 feet tall.
Which prompted this comment from a resident of the All-American City:
I live in Meadowood and have to say that more happens in our neighborhood then the public knows about. Walking my dog everynight and day, I see drug deals going down in day light. Had my dog attached by a pitbull (rolling) as I walked down the street. After my husband grabbed the dog to stop it, the Owner then came out of his house to yell at my husband to “let go” of his dog. Of which, my husband wouldn’t do until the dog was under control of his Owner. How bad does it have to get when you can’t walk your own dog in your own neighborhood safely? What else are we to do but stand up for ourselves? These are own homes, our families that live and play here. Is it just wishful thinking to live in a safe place? I would love to see what would happen if the Mayor was dropped in the middle of Hammersley and Prairie Rd. What might happen then?
Outside of his stupid war on obesity, Bloomberg has been smart enough to continue his predecessor’s tough-on-crime approach, an approach Bloomberg’s Chicago counterpart, Rahm Emanuel, hasn’t been smart enough to pick up on as Chicago has passed New York in murders. Elsewhere, noticing increasing crime gets you called a racist (see Blaska, David) by people who don’t pay attention to the fact that the number one victims of crimes committed by, for instance, blacks are other blacks. Or perhaps those are people who, because they haven’t been victims of crime, think they’re immune to it.
Maybe being weak on crime doesn’t have political consequences in Dane County or Milwaukee County. (And I bet you can’t even make that blanket statement about all of Dane County or all of Milwaukee County.) Elsewhere in the state, there is a name for political candidates seen as weak on crime generally or violent crime specifically: Loser.
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The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports:
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) said Friday that he will back an effort this fall to raise the state’s speed limit to 70 mph to mirror the higher limits in other Midwest states.
Vos said freshman Rep. Paul Tittl (R-Manitowoc) has been working on the bill and plans to submit it by Labor Day — one of the busiest travel weekends of the year.
Tittl is expected to circulate the bill next week for co-sponsors.
“I think it’s a common sense, straightforward bill,” said Tittl.
The speed limit on interstates and other highways in Wisconsin is 65 mph. Raising that limit would mainly affect traffic on the state’s major interstates, Vos said.
He noted that Minnesota, Iowa and Michigan all enforce a 70-mph limit and “we haven’t seen any issues there,” Vos said.
Vos’ support is key to getting legislation through the Republican-controlled Assembly.
It’s about time. Yes, the pun is intended, but it is about time, which is the only truly, provably nonrenewable resource.
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How much money would you have paid for tickets for this concert at the Cow Palace in San Francisco today in 1964:
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How can two songs be the number one song in the country today in 1956? Do a Google search for the words “B side”:
(Those songs, by the way, were the first Elvis recorded with his fantastic backup singers, the Jordanaires.)
Today in 1962, the Beatles made their debut with their new drummer, Ringo Starr, following a two-hour rehearsal.
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The Beatles were never known for having wild concerts. (Other than their fans, that is.) Today in 1960, the Beatles played their first of 48 appearances at the Indra Club in Hamburg, West Germany. The Indra Club’s owner asked the Beatles to put on a “mach shau.” The Beatles responded by reportedly screaming, shouting, leaping around the stage, and playing lying on the floor of the club. John Lennon reportedly made a stage appearance wearing only his underwear, and also wore a toilet seat around his neck on stage. As they say, Sei vorsichtig mit deinen Wünschen.
Four years later, the council of Glasgow, Scotland, required that men who had Beatles haircuts would have to wear swimming caps in city pools, because men’s hair was clogging the pool filters.
Today in 1968, the Doors had their only number one album, “Waiting for the Sun”:
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The family (as in Manson family or Addams family) that is Facebook allows me to update a couple of my previous Friday posts about vehicles, including Corvettes, as depicted on a movie or TV (or desktop or laptop or tablet or smartphone) screen near you.
The Simply Corvettes Facebook page adds to my list of Corvette depictions in entertainment:
The movie “The Gumball Rally” …
… includes a white C3 convertible whose driver finds out they’re really not meant for jumping (depicted at 1:39 on the trailer).
I had forgotten what an entertaining movie this was. The cast includes Michael Sarrazin, Raul Julia, J. Pat O’Malley, and Linda Vaughn. (If you followed cars in the ’60s and ’70s, you know who Linda Vaughn was.)
The movie “Billy Jack” …
… includes a gold C3 convertible whose owner finds out Vettes don’t float either.
The movie “Con Air” apparently includes a flying Corvette. I saw the movie, but I don’t remember the air-Vette.
“Star Trek” also includes a flying Corvette (and my favorite Beastie Boys song) …
… which is unrealistic, of course, because there is no gorge in Iowa that looks like that. Maybe you could drive a car off a Mississippi River bluff, but the bluffs don’t look like that.
And who can forget the movie “Never Too Young to Die,” with John Stamos, Vanity (yes, that Vanity) and Gene Simmons (yes, that Gene Simmons):
There’s also a movie called “The Red Corvette” …
… not to be confused with “Red Corvette,” or, obviously, “Little Red Corvette.”
Because astronauts had Corvettes, Tom Hanks had one in “Apollo 13,” with a slight launch problem in the stoplight scene. (Which appears to not be on YouTube.)
There’s also the concept Corvette …
… that Elvis Presley drove in “Clambake“:
Sam Malone, the pitcher-turned-bartender of “Cheers,” owned a ’67 Vette:
Harmon of “JAG” had (emphasis on the past-tense) a C3:
The L82 Corvette page mentions others, such as the Corvettes of Paul Drake, Perry Mason’s private detective; Larry Tate, Darrin’s boss on “Bewitched”; and “Face,” from …
Meanwhile, a site called Review Hyundai picks the top five most wanted Hollywood cars (none of which are Hyundais), four of which are …
… but are not (but should be):
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 