• Presty the DJ for Sept. 16

    September 16, 2012
    Music

    The number one song today in 1972:

    Britain’s number one album today in 1972 was Rod Stewart’s “Never a Dull Moment”:

    The title track from the number one album today in 1978:

    (more…)

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  • Presty the DJ for Sept. 15

    September 15, 2012
    Music

    Today in 1956, Elvis Presley had his first number one song:

    Today in 1965, Ford Motor Co. began offering eight-track tape players in their cars. Since eight-track tape players for home audio weren’t available yet, car owners had to buy eight-track tapes at auto parts stores.

    Today in 1970, Vice President Spiro Agnew said in a speech that the youth of America were being “brainwashed into a drug culture” by rock music, movies, books and underground newspapers.

    I would say something about how all that ended, but that’s way too easy. (Besides, it would require me to speak ill of a fellow coreligionist.)

    (more…)

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  • Da Bears Still Suck, chapter 185

    September 14, 2012
    Packers

    One of the most fun things for Packer fans following wins over the Bears or Vikings is to read the outraged, or resigned, or disgusted reactions of the Chicago and Twin Cities press corps.

    It’s as if the Chicago sports media feels personally offended at a Bears loss, and that the media fully expects the Bears to lose every single game the rest of every single NFL season. You expect that of fans; you do not expect that of media professionals, who should be able to view wins and losses with more perspective, and who get paid the same (assuming they’re full-timers and not stringers) regardless of how the team they cover does.

    We begin with the Chicago Tribune:

    At least the on-field camera for this nationally televised game didn’t capture Jay Cutler shouting vulgarities at his offensive coordinator. …

    The NFL hyped the matchup of Cutler and his Packers counterpart Aaron Rodgers, but he was dreadful against Green Bay again.

    With an upgraded offense that was supposed to be ready to match firepower with the Packers, the Bears fired only blanks.  …

    It will only add to questions for Cutler, who didn’t take kindly to inquiries during the week about why he struggles against the Packers. …

    One evaluation is simple: Cutler is not in a class with Rodgers. He was intercepted four times, twice by Tramon Williams, and completed 11 of 27 passes for 126 yards. A 21-yard touchdown pass to tight end Kellen Davis with 6 minutes, 49 seconds to play was set up by a Tim Jennings interception. Cutler was sacked seven times, 3½ by Clay Matthews, and his passer rating was an anemic 28.2. The offensive line, without the seven-step drops, was overrun. …

    Cutler now has a 58.9 passer rating in eight meetings, including last season’s NFC championship game. He has thrown eight touchdowns and 16 interceptions.

    The Tribune’s Brad Biggs has 10 things to say, including …

    Cutler took seven sacks which is the second-most in his career behind only the nine-sack meltdown in the first half of the Oct. 3, 2010 game against the Giants in East Rutherford, N.J. …

    Outside linebacker Clay Matthews had 3½ sacks to give him six for the season and match his output from all of last year. … Matthews was far too much for Webb to handle and when the NFL finishes reviewing the replacement referees, they will see multiple holding penalties that Webb got away with. There was a two-point takedown that went uncalled at one point. …

    What is most disappointing is the new playbook that was supposed to create a sturdy pocket for Cutler looked a lot like the old one. Sure, circumstances conspired against the Bears when they fell behind by two touchdowns, but this was ugly all the way around and Cutler isn’t going to be taken to the turf repeatedly and not act out. …

    The offensive line is largely responsible for seven sacks and Cutler is to blame for four interceptions for bad mechanics driven in part by ego. When he throws off his back off, as he did repeatedly, bad things can happen. They tend to in bunches against the Packers. …

    The Chicago Sun–Times’ Rick Morrissey adds:

    Did somebody say something about offense? A new, improved, unstoppable, quite possibly otherworldly Bears offense? …

    It’s not quite all that you, I and Jay Cutler made it out to be.

    The Bears need blocking. They need an offensive line, in the exact way the Bears have needed an offensive line for about 10 years. They don’t need bad penalties and wretched interceptions. There will be games this season in which they’ll get away with some of that. This wasn’t one of them, not even close.

    Cutler threw four interceptions and was sacked seven times in a 23-10 loss to the Packers, and it was every bit as bad as those numbers suggest.

    There’s a good chance an apoplectic Cutler burst blood vessels in his eyes. In the second quarter, Packers linebacker Clay Matthews blew past Bears left statue J’Marcus Webb and took down Cutler like a rodeo calf. Cutler got up and screamed bloody murder at Webb.

    Forget about Cutler’s bad body language issues of last season. That was nothing. The Bears had a crazed quarterback on their hands. He lurched between snapping at teammates and spraying poorly thrown passes all over the field. …

    What a sudden, distressing loss of cabin pressure this was from the victory in the opener. After one quarter, Cutler was 1-for-3 for minus-2 yards. As a team, the Bears had zero yards of total offense. That’s hard to do. By the time it was over, Cutler had a passer rating of 28.2. Also hard to do.

    You see where I’m going with this: nowhere, just like Mike Tice’s offense. …

    Bears right statue Gabe Carimi had a rough night in front of fans who liked him at the University of Wisconsin and positively loved him inside Lambeau Field.

    “The protection isn’t what it needs to be,’’ coach Lovie Smith understated. …

    In six games against the Packers going into Thursday, Cutler had thrown seven touchdowns and 11 interceptions and was sacked 19 times. That’s called “having a history.’’ This was history repeating itself.

    It was as bad a game as the Bears have had with Cutler as their quarterback, though I’m sure I’ve purged some memories just out of self-preservation. …

    Cutler had said “good luck’’ at a news conference this week when the topic turned to the Packers’ habit of pressing receivers man-to-man. Cutler liked his odds with the 6-4 Marshall and the 6-3 Alshon Jeffery.

    The Packers travel to Soldier Field for a rematch Dec. 16. After what we saw Thursday, there’s only one thing you can say to the Bears.

    Good luck.

    About the fake field goal (who knew Mike McCarthy had that in his playbook?), the Sun–Times’ Mark Potash writes:

    The Bears gave new meaning to the age-old football warning, ‘‘Watch the fake!’’ Thursday night.

    That’s exactly what they seemed to do, as the Green Bay Packers’ Tom Crabtree took a shovel pass from holder Tim Masthay on a field-goal attempt and went 27 yards untouched into the end zone for a discouraging touchdown that gave the Packers a 10-0 lead with 1:50 left in the half.

    It was a rare mental breakdown for the Bears’ vaunted special teams and coordinator Dave Toub. But it typified a disappointing night of errors and missed opportunities. …

    It looked like a minor victory for the Bears — going into halftime down 6-0 after a poor first half marked by negative plays. But long-snapper Brett Goode snapped to holder Masthay, who shoveled a pass to Crabtree, a tight end who burst through a huge hole in the coverage on the right side of the field for the touchdown. The play worked so perfectly that the Packers were celebrating almost as soon as Crabtree got the ball.

    The play put the Bears on tilt.

    The Arlington (Ill.) Daily Herald is even more pointed about the Bears’ performance:

    For the second straight game the Bears’ offense got off to a disjointed, ineffective start.

    This time it never got any better in a pathetic, demoralizing offensive performance that resulted in a 23-10 loss to the Packers that left both NFC North foes at 1-1. …

    Cutler was bad, but so were his teammates. He lambasted his offensive linemen during the game and then afterward, when he was asked about it.

    “I care about this,” Cutler said. “This isn’t just a hobby for me. I’m not doing this for my health. I’m trying to win football games; I’m trying to get first downs.

    “When we’re not doing the little things consistently the right way, I’m going to say something. If they want a quarterback that doesn’t care, they can get somebody else.”

    All this means that until the rematch in Soldier Field Dec. 16 …

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj5aW0tj3mE

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  • The definition of “classic”

    September 14, 2012
    media, Wheels

    One of the underrated sources of car information is Consumer Guide (not to be confused with Consumer Reports), which has published many books about cars.

    Consumer Guide has a website, Daily Drive, that is an entertaining read from time to time. (Nothing is always an entertaining read, except this blog, of course.)

    Daily Drive recently brought out “5 Wagons You’ve Completely Forgotten.” And they’re mostly right:

    2005-2008 Jaguar X-Type Sportwagon
    Mistakes were made—the largest of which was thinking that Americans (or anyone, anywhere, really) was looking for an underpowered compact Jaguar. The X-Type was launched in the U.S. for the 2002 model year, but the Sportwagon didn’t arrive until 2005. … Because the Mondeo’s front-drive arrangement was unacceptable in a Jaguar, an AWD system was fitted to X-Types instead. Sales of the sedan and wagon came to a halt during the 2008 model year.

    1985-1988 Nissan Maxima
    The year 1985 was pretty important in Maxima land. First, the car was now a Nissan, not a Datsun. Secondly, the car was redesigned. As a Nissan, the Maxima wagon would get a four-year run. Power came strictly from a spunky 3.0-liter V6. Rare but cool, a few manual-transmission Maxiwags should be floating around out there.

    1993-1996 Mitsubishi Diamante
    Like the Maxima, the Diamante was a sort of near-luxury car, marketed in a niche about a half-notch above mainstream midsize offerings. And like the Maxima, Diamante could, for four brief years, be had in wagon trim. But, while Diamante sedans were sourced from Japan, U.S. wagon shoppers were treated to the rare Australian import. As it turns out, the wagon wasn’t really a Diamante at all, but a reskinned Aussie-designed Mitsubishi Magna. Still, it was properly trimmed for the U.S. market and looked the part, and by all accounts it was a pretty slick ride.

    It’s too bad the Maxima wagon didn’t survive the next generation of the Maxima, because the 1989 redesign breathed some life under the hood accompanied by a much better looking exterior. Nissan started calling it the 4-Door Sports Car (with a 4DSC sticker on it), and it was pretty close.

    From where, we head to “5 Newly Classic Convertibles.” Two, however, aren’t worth your attention because they’re powered by weak four-cylinders, and the third isn’t really a convertible. Which leaves you with …

    Chevrolet Cavalier/Pontiac Sunbird
    These two badge-engineered cars are listed together because they’re quite similar. Both are front-wheel-drive 4-seaters available with a 2.0-liter 4-cylinder engine. The Cavalier could also have a 2.8-liter V6, while the Sunbird was optional with a 2.0-liter turbo. The Pontiac’s sportier trappings make it the more attractive of the two, but both serve the purpose well. …

    Ford Mustang
    Back in ragtop form since 1983, the Mustang was updated to be much sportier and more aggressive in 1987. Only two engines were offered: a wheezy 2.3-liter 4-cylinder and a stomping 5.0-liter V8, with the V8 being vastly preferable in this rear-drive car. The convertible was offered in LX and GT form, the latter being the sportier version, which came standard with the V8.

    I can’t personally attest to the Sunbird convertible, but we did own a Sunbird coupe with a seriously underrated V-6 and five-speed. GM stuck the 3.1-liter in larger cars attached to automatics, with the result being a car that resembled your least favorite canine. In a light car like the Sunbird, though, that was fun. The Sunbirds also had better designed interiors.

    The Mustang mostly speaks for itself. It’s interesting that the 1979–1993 versions appear to be looked down upon by collectors. (Though not as much as the Mustang II.) The ’94 and onward Mustangs looked like previous Mustangs, and that can’t be said for the previous generation. However, the third-generation Mustang included a hatchback model, which means you can own a manual-transmission V-8 that handles well but has versatility for hauling stuff when needed.

    You may find the next one, shall we say, illogical: “What Would Star Trek Crewmembers Drive,” starting with part 1:

    Counselor Deanna Troi
    As a Betazoid, Counselor Troi has the ability and predisposition to communicate through nontraditional means. Likely she would, despite its detractors, embrace the MyFord Touch suite of control tools as a step toward more open relations between crew and vessel. Also, given Troi’s willingness to sport the occasional, rather-flattering non-regulation jumpsuit, we can assume a certain appreciation for things subtly on the more expressive side. Because she’ll need rear-seat space for group therapy sessions, I’m putting Troi in a Ford Taurus SHO. The car’s taut lines hint gently at the potential beneath the calm surface, and the over-the-top level of vehicle-to-humanoid communication options are just what the empath ordered.

    Captain Jean-Luc Picard
    The thinking man’s Schwarzenegger, Jean-Luc Picard is both deeply cerebral yet given to fits of controlled visceral indulgence. The Captain is also a practical sort, unlikely to commit long-term to anything so flamboyant as a sports car. He is educated and refined, though, so a certain of amount of craftsmanship and restrained luxury are in order. For Picard, I choose the Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG Wagon. It is tastefully restrained inside, practical almost to a fault, and absurdly fast—in a dignified sort of way. The AMG Performance Package is a must, because lifting the limited top speed is a must for a guy accustomed to moving a warp speed. Engage.

    As for the original series:

    Mr. Spock
    Logic dictates that efficiency be a primary decision-driver for the galaxy’s most prosaic first officer/captain/ambassador. Additionally, living long and prospering means doing things in a sustainable, practical manner. When you add to the mix Spock’s love of technology, the Toyota Prius v becomes the logical choice for our Vulcan friend. The practicality of a roomy wagon, the promise of 45-50 mpg in routine driving, and a relatively modest asking price make the v a natural choice for anyone accepted to the Vulcan Science Academy.

    Actually, they’re incorrect. We know what Mr. Spock drove, thanks to what Collectible Automobile unearthed:

    What? You find a 1964 Buick Riviera illogical?

    Finally, there is the craziest vehicle comparison since Car & Driver famously compared a Ferrari GTO to a Pontiac GTO, a 1970 Chevrolet ad:

    Some might think a Corvette and a Titan 90 (which no longer exists because GM is out of both the medium-duty and over-the-road truck markets) are in different markets. (Although they both had manual transmissions.)

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  • Presty the DJ for Sept. 14

    September 14, 2012
    Music

    Today in 1968, ABC-TV premiered “The Archies,” created by the creator of the Monkees, Don Kirshner:

    The number one single today in 1974 is a confession and correction:

    Stevie Wonder had the number one album today in 1974, “Fulfillingness First Finale,” which wasn’t a finale at all:

    Today in 1979, the film “Quadrophenia,” based on The Who’s rock opera, premiered:

    Paul Young hadn’t had a very long career when he released “From Time to Time — The Singles Collection,” and yet he still had the number one British album today in 1991:

    Today in 1994, Steve Earle was sentenced to a year in jail not for shooting the sheriff, but for selling crack cocaine:

    Birthdays start with Pete Agnew of Nazareth:

    Steve Gaines of Lynyrd Skynyrd:

    Paul Kossoff of Free:

    Barry Cowsill of the Cowsills:

    Steve Berlin of Los Lobos:

    Morten Harkett of A-Ha:

    Amy Winehouse, whose biggest hit turned out to be prophetic:

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  • The Question

    September 13, 2012
    US business, US politics

    I keep asking …

    Investors Business Daily has an answer:

    If President Obama had run in 2008 promising to cut family incomes, shove more people into poverty, create greater inequality and make people more dependent on the federal government — and that black Americans would fare worse than everyone else — would he have won that election?

    Well, the latest Census Bureau report shows that these are precisely the results Obama has delivered since taking office.

    According to that report, median annual household income dropped by more than $2,000 in real terms since 2009, a 4.1% decline. Blacks fared even worse, watching their incomes fall 5.7% between 2009 and 2011.

    And despite more than three full years of economic recovery, nearly 2.7 million more people are languishing in poverty than in 2009. The current 15% poverty rate is well above where it stood in Obama’s first year in office — 14.3%.

    Here, too, blacks have fared worse, with the black poverty rate now at 27.6%, up from 25.8% in 2009. And while the number of whites in poverty dropped slightly in 2011, it continued to climb among blacks, the census data show. …

    It just shows that government spending can’t generate prosperity for the middle class.

    And it shows that when your policies choke off what should have been a solid economic recovery, the only ones who benefit are those already at the top.

    You might try to blame these lousy numbers on the recession that started under Bush.

    Except for the fact that the recession ended five months after Obama took office, and all these dire results occurred during Obama’s “recovery,” when his policies were in full effect.

    Any wonder President Obama wants this to be a “choice” election, rather than a referendum on his record?

    But a referendum on Obama’s record is a “choice” election. Just like 1980.

     

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  • Presty the DJ for Sept. 13

    September 13, 2012
    Music

    Today in Great Britain in the first half of the 1960s was a day for oddities.

    Today in 1960, a campaign began to ban the Ray Peterson song “Tell Laura I Love Her” (mentioned here Friday) on the grounds that it was likely to inspire a “glorious death cult” among teens. (The song was about a love-smitten boy who decides to enter a car race to earn money to buy a wedding ring for her girlfriend.  To sum up, that was his first and last race.)

    The anti-“Tell Laura” campaign apparently was not based on improving traffic safety. We conclude this from the fact that three years later, Graham Nash of the Hollies leaned against a van door at 40 mph after a performance in Scotland to determine if the door was locked. Nash determined it wasn’t locked on the way to the pavement.

    One year later, a concert promoter hired two dozen rugby players to form a human chain around the stage at a Rolling Stones concert at the Empire Theatre in Liverpool. Rugby players are tough, but not tough enough to take on 5,000 spectators.

    The number one album today in 1980 was Jackson Browne’s “Hold Out,” Browne’s only number one album:

    Birthdays begin with a pair of horn rock legends — David Clayton Thomas of Blood Sweat & Tears …

    … and Peter Cetera of Chicago:

    Producer Don Was, who formed Was (Not Was) …

    … was born the same day as Randy Jones of the Village People:

    Steve Kilbey of The Church:

    Fiona Apple:

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  • The radical concept of profit

    September 12, 2012
    US business, US politics, Wheels

    Regular readers know that I am not a fan of Government Motors, its bailout, or the Chevrolet Volt.

    Investors Business Daily reports the unbelievable news that the Volt costs GM more than twice its sticker price. Which makes them conclude:

    This is no shocker, but it should be an alarm to voters who think this president deserves another term.

    A little more than two weeks ago, the Obama administration released rules mandating a near-doubling of gas mileage standards for cars sold in the U.S. The mandate will not be met at no expense.

    The industry can’t magically build fleets that average 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025 without steep cost increases just because politicians and bureaucrats demand that it does.

    If automakers are to comply with the more restrictive rules, they will have no choice but to build more electric cars, such as the Chevrolet Volt, a plug-in hybrid that gets 60 miles a gallon.

    While that might satisfy the environmentalist lobby and most Democrats, it isn’t practical.

    If GM is losing nearly $50,000 on each Volt it makes, how much will all the carmakers be required to lose when Volt-like cars have to be the main models in their fleets in order to obey strict, new mileage standards?

    Or, more appropriately, how much will taxpayers be forced to lose to subsidize the administration’s unwise but politically correct fuel economy rules? …

    A record number were sold in August. But those sales numbers were inflated by: Two-year, $5,050 leases for a car that costs about $89,000 to build; loans to risky buyers, which GM is offering in a desperate effort to boost sales; and a $7,500 federal tax credit for the Volt that’s part of the administration’s green energy initiative.

    Another sign that the Volt is a problem for GM: With Chevrolet falling well off the pace to sell its target of 40,000 cars this year — only about 13,500 have been sold — GM has shut down Volt production for the second time this year. The latest stoppage begins Sept. 17 and will continue for four weeks. …

    Obama’s Government Motors needs to shut down the Volt line indefinitely, not for a mere month. Only when it makes money off the cars should it place them back into production.

    A better version of that last sentence is that GM should shut down the Volt until it can figure out how to make and sell the Volt at a profit. That’s not happening in the foreseeable future when the profit margin of the car is minus-50 percent.

    In fact, the Volt debacle helps prove the prediction that GM is headed toward another bankruptcy. (GM probably should be happy it’s selling so few Volts at a $46,000 loss each.) GM profitably sells pickup trucks, SUVs and Corvettes. Those are all vehicles going away with the aforementioned 54.5-mpg standard. GM can sell small cars, but GM cannot make them at a profit. After one bailout in an era where people keep cars longer and in an economy that may never return to where it was in the 1990s, GM’s priority from the beginning should have been how to make fewer cars at a higher profit margin.

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  • Democrats vs. the middle class

    September 12, 2012
    Culture, US politics

    Jeffrey Lord writes in the American Spectator that Democrats …

    Hate that middle class with a visceral contempt. A contempt that has been repeatedly and vividly documented over the course of the last five decades in venues as varied as movies, music, politics and culture.

    It is a contempt so powerful that the backlash from the American middle class has provided not only huge and repeated election majorities for conservatives and Republicans over the decades. The backlash to this vitriol has powered one of the biggest revolutions in American communications history — providing an enthusiastic audience for Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Mark Levin not to mention an entire talk radio industry. And, of course, Fox News.

    Mr. Limbaugh himself emphatically agrees that his audience is composed of the American middle class that is so disdained by liberals, telling The American Spectator that “My audience is comprised of the people who make this country work.” …

    Without the middle class, Democrats cannot possibly win a presidential election. Or, for that matter, most elections. Which means in turn that it is critical, in a political sense, for Democrats to always be seen as courteously if not warmly and lovingly, courting the middle class.

    Thus, under no circumstances can the mask that hides that very real contempt towards the middle class ever be allowed to drop.

    Yet for one-heart stopping moment in Charlotte last week — that mask did drop. And it was panic city.

    God was removed from the Democrats’ platform. …

    Middle class Americans may be Catholic. They may be Baptists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Lutherans or Jews. They may be Evangelicals. Or fundamentalists. They may be… hmmmm… Mormon. Yes they may even be Islamic non-fundamentalists. But whatever their faith may be — and we’ve only touched the surface by naming the above faiths — what they all have in common besides their middle-class status is God. Not to mention a belief system, a value hierarchy of morals, hard work and patriotism that revolves around God.

    So it was no accident last week that President Obama and former President Bill Clinton took pains to say some version of exactly the same thing: Democrats just luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuvvvvvvv the American middle class. Really. Honest. No kidding. Democrats have all these exciting, especially-designed-for-the-middle-class programs old and new, you see, and…

    Stop. Stop.

    Politely put, this is not just another round of your average political snowjob. The inevitable wooing and mooing by one group of partisans designed to win an election.

    This is grimacing, clenched-teeth-with-a-forced-smile political BS. BS designed to get must-have votes from a group of Americans today’s Democrats — the embodiment of the American Left — hate.

    Why do they hate the American middle-class, whether lower, middle-middle or upper?

    They hate the American middle class — hate it passionately and precisely because it embodies the three values of religion, capitalism and, oh yes, love of country — patriotism. …

    Here’s footage of the 1967 Detroit riots, going after middle class Americans — many of them black — with looting and arson. Interesting, the reference to “Governor Romney” is Mitt Romney’s father George Romney, then the Governor of Michigan.

    Here’s the anti-middle class values set rioting at the Democratic National Convention in 1968.

    Here’s Bill Ayers — the man in whose living room Barack Obama began his political career — explaining the strategy of 1969 Chicago’s “Days of Rage” in which there were three days of violence attacking banks and business — the middle class value of capitalism. One lawyer in the clip — on the streets to advise the Chicago police — was paralyzed for life as a result of all this anti-middle class rage.

    Here’s footage of the November, 1969 march on Washington to protest the Vietnam War — deliberately yanking the chains of middle class American patriotism by flying the U.S. flag upside down — and waving the North Vietnamese flag.

    Here’s an audio of actress Jane Fonda applauding the fact that B-52’s in the Vietnam War — piloted by middle-class American kids — are being shot down. This “speaks well for socialism” she says. And who can forget the famous still picture, seen at the beginning of the clip, of Ms. Fonda with those North Vietnamese gunners whose job it was to kill those middle-class American kids?

    Lest there be any doubt, this kind of vitriolic anti-middle class behavior from the Left continues through today. Here’s the “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence” — a group of gays masquerading as nuns with names like “Sister Porn Again” — lining up to mock Catholics a while back by taking communion from an unsuspecting Catholic Archbishop in a Catholic church in San Francisco. The Archbishop was embarrassed — the goal. The mocked middle class parishioners enraged. …

    And just the other day, as previously noted in this space, there was NBC’s Chris Matthews attacking the middle class with this play of the race card:

    “[T]hey keep saying Chicago, by the way. Have you noticed? That sends that message: This guy’s helping the poor people in the bad neighborhoods and screwing us in the ‘burbs.”

    Screwing who in the ‘burbs?

    That’s right. Matthews means the middle class. He is saying the American middle class is racist.

    By 1968 the reaction by middle class Americans to this constant assault by the political and cultural left was already evident. Suffice to say, the middle class was both horrified and furious. And the instant place to register middle class fury was at the ballot box.

    The assault on middle class values made Richard Nixon president, not Democrat Hubert Humphrey.

    Here’s Ronald Reagan as a candidate for governor of California delivering a blistering attack on the law-breaking anti-middle class crowd at the University of California at Berkeley. This particular assault at Berkeley on middle class values made Reagan governor — and launched him eventually into the White House. …

    Every time you hear Barack Obama or Joe Biden or Bill Clinton sing the praises of the middle class it’s because they are scared witless there are millions of that American middle class who are long on to the Democrats’ game.

    Americans who understand in detail that when God is booted from the Democrats’ platform it is not just an attack on God.

    It is yet another liberal attack in a five decades-long liberal war on the values of an American middle class that believes in God, country, and capitalism.

    A war on the very people, in Rush Limbaugh’s words, “who make this country work.”

    Want a demonstration of the difference between Mitt Romney’s values and Barack Obama’s values? Consider the first two tweets from each candidate yesterday:

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  • Presty the DJ for Sept. 12

    September 12, 2012
    Music

    Britain’s number one song today in 1963:

    Today in 1966, NBC-TV premiered a show about four Beatle-like musicians:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiHGQnIVHoQ

    Britain’s number one song today in 1979:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ldyx3KHOFXw

    The number one album today in 1981 was from Journey:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lLmYLw0WRI

    Birthdays begin with George Jones:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Onfce-UNmmE

    One-hit-wonder Maria Muldaur …

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3tHYb4_bAg

    … was born one year before Barry White:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bfdt7Bd_urg

    Gerry Beckley of America (the country and the rock group):

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5I0d29s6GCc

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk-7n1hdK3M

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sD6Rdrf4vSo

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g5ZEPI50yw

    Neal Peart plays drums for Rush:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VcswhBy9tk

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpCASVFyQoE

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu9Ycq64Gy4

    Brian Robertson of Thin Lizzy:

    One death anniversary of note: Johnny Cash died today in 2003:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=It7107ELQvY

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T7sU3A2m18

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWHniL8MyMM

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Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog

The thoughts of a journalist/libertarian–conservative/Christian husband, father, Eagle Scout and aficionado of obscure rock music. Thoughts herein are only the author’s and not necessarily the opinions of his family, friends, neighbors, church members or past, present or future employers.

  • Steve
    • About, or, Who is this man?
    • Facebook
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    • Adventures in ruralu0026nbsp;inkBack in June 2009, I was driving somewhere through a rural area. And for some reason, I had a flashback to two experiences in my career about that time of year many years ago. In 1988, eight days after graduating from the University of Wisconsin, I started work at the Grant County Herald Independent in Lancaster as a — well, the — reporter. Four years after that, on my 27th birthday, I purchased, with a business partner, the Tri-County Press in Cuba City, my first business venture. Both were experiences about which Wisconsin author Michael Perry might write. I thought about all this after reading a novel, The Deadline, written by a former newspaper editor and publisher. (Now who would write a novel about a weekly newspaper?) As a former newspaper owner, I picked at some of it — why finance a newspaper purchase through the bank if the seller is willing to finance it? Because the mean bank lender is a plot point! — and it is much more interesting than reality, but it is very well written, with a nicely twisting plot, and quite entertaining, again more so than reality. There is something about that first job out of college that makes you remember it perhaps more…
    • Adventures in radioI’ve been in the full-time work world half my life. For that same amount of time I’ve been broadcasting sports as a side interest, something I had wanted to since I started listening to games on radio and watching on TV, and then actually attending games. If you ask someone who’s worked in radio for some time about the late ’70s TV series “WKRP in Cincinnati,” most of them will tell you that, if anything, the series understated how wacky working in radio can be. Perhaps the funniest episode in the history of TV is the “WKRP” episode, based on a true story, about the fictional radio station’s Thanksgiving promotion — throwing live turkeys out of a helicopter under the mistaken belief that, in the words of WKRP owner Arthur Carlson, “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.” [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ST01bZJPuE0] I’ve never been involved in anything like that. I have announced games from the roofs of press boxes (once on a nice day, and once in 50-mph winds), from a Mississippi River bluff (more on that later), and from the front row of the second balcony of the University of Wisconsin Fieldhouse (great view, but not a place to go if…
    • “Good morning/afternoon/evening, ________ fans …”
    • My biggest storyEarlier this week, while looking for something else, I came upon some of my own work. (I’m going to write a blog someday called “Things I Found While Looking for Something Else.” This is not that blog.) The Grant County Sheriff’s Department, in the county where I used to live, has a tribute page to the two officers in county history who died in the line of duty. One is William Loud, a deputy marshal in Cassville, shot to death by two bank robbers in 1912. The other is Tom Reuter, a Grant County deputy sheriff who was shot to death at the end of his 4 p.m.-to-midnight shift March 18, 1990. Gregory Coulthard, then a 19-year-old farmhand, was convicted of first-degree intentional homicide and is serving a life sentence, with his first eligibility for parole on March 18, 2015, just 3½ years from now. I’ve written a lot over the years. I think this, from my first two years in the full-time journalism world, will go down as the story I remember the most. For journalists, big stories contain a paradox, which was pointed out in CBS-TV’s interview of Andy Rooney on his last “60 Minutes” Sunday. Morley Safer said something along the line…
  • Food and drink
    • The Roesch/Prestegard familyu0026nbsp;cookbookFrom the family cookbook(s) All the families I’m associated with love to eat, so it’s a good thing we enjoy cooking. The first out-of-my-house food memory I have is of my grandmother’s cooking for Christmas or other family occasions. According to my mother, my grandmother had a baked beans recipe that she would make for my mother. Unfortunately, the recipe seems to have  disappeared. Also unfortunately, my early days as a picky, though voluminous, eater meant I missed a lot of those recipes made from such wholesome ingredients as lard and meat fat. I particularly remember a couple of meals that involve my family. The day of Super Bowl XXXI, my parents, my brother, my aunt and uncle and a group of their friends got together to share lots of food and cheer on the Packers to their first NFL title in 29 years. (After which Jannan and I drove to Lambeau Field in the snow,  but that’s another story.) Then, on Dec. 31, 1999, my parents, my brother, my aunt and uncle and Jannan and I (along with Michael in utero) had a one-course-per-hour meal to appropriately end years beginning with the number 1. Unfortunately I can’t remember what we…
    • SkålI was the editor of Marketplace Magazine for 10 years. If I had to point to one thing that demonstrates improved quality of life since I came to Northeast Wisconsin in 1994, it would be … … the growth of breweries and  wineries in Northeast Wisconsin. The former of those two facts makes sense, given our heritage as a brewing state. The latter is less self-evident, since no one thinks of Wisconsin as having a good grape-growing climate. Some snobs claim that apple or cherry wines aren’t really wines at all. But one of the great facets of free enterprise is the opportunity to make your own choice of what food and drink to drink. (At least for now, though some wish to restrict our food and drink choices.) Wisconsin’s historically predominant ethnic group (and our family’s) is German. Our German ancestors did unfortunately bring large government and high taxes with them, but they also brought beer. Europeans brought wine with them, since they came from countries with poor-quality drinking water. Within 50 years of a wave of mid-19th-century German immigration, brewing had become the fifth largest industry in the U.S., according to Maureen Ogle, author of Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer. Beer and wine have…
  • Wheels
    • America’s sports carMy birthday in June dawned without a Chevrolet Corvette in front of my house. (The Corvette at the top of the page was featured at the 2007 Greater Milwaukee Auto Show. The copilot is my oldest son, Michael.) Which isn’t surprising. I have three young children, and I have a house with a one-car garage. (Then again, this would be more practical, though a blatant pluck-your-eyes-out violation of the Corvette ethos. Of course, so was this.) The reality is that I’m likely to be able to own a Corvette only if I get a visit from the Corvette Fairy, whose office is next door to the Easter Bunny. (I hope this isn’t foreshadowing: When I interviewed Dave Richter of Valley Corvette for a car enthusiast story in the late great Marketplace Magazine, he said that the most popular Corvette in most fans’ minds was a Corvette built during their days in high school. This would be a problem for me in that I graduated from high school in 1983, when no Corvette was built.) The Corvette is one of those cars whose existence may be difficult to understand within General Motors Corp. The Corvette is what is known as a “halo car,” a car that drives people into showrooms, even if…
    • Barges on fouru0026nbsp;wheelsI originally wrote this in September 2008.  At the Fox Cities Business Expo Tuesday, a Smart car was displayed at the United Way Fox Cities booth. I reported that I once owned a car into which trunk, I believe, the Smart could be placed, with the trunk lid shut. This is said car — a 1975 Chevrolet Caprice coupe (ours was dark red), whose doors are, I believe, longer than the entire Smart. The Caprice, built down Interstate 90 from us Madisonians in Janesville (a neighbor of ours who worked at the plant probably helped put it together) was the flagship of Chevy’s full-size fleet (which included the stripper Bel Air and middle-of-the-road Impala), featuring popular-for-the-time vinyl roofs, better sound insulation, an upgraded cloth interior, rear fender skirts and fancy Caprice badges. The Caprice was 18 feet 1 inch long and weighed 4,300 pounds. For comparison: The midsize Chevrolet of the ear was the Malibu, which was the same approximate size as the Caprice after its 1977 downsizing. The compact Chevrolet of the era was the Nova, which was 200 inches long — four inches longer than a current Cadillac STS. Wikipedia’s entry on the Caprice has this amusing sentence: “As fuel economy became a bigger priority among Americans…
    • Behind the wheel
    • Collecting only dust or rust
    • Coooooooooooupe!
    • Corvettes on the screen
    • The garage of misfit cars
    • 100 years (and one day) of our Chevrolets
    • They built Excitement, sort of, once in a while
    • A wagon by any otheru0026nbsp;nameFirst written in 2008. You will see more don’t-call-them-station-wagons as you drive today. Readers around my age have probably had some experience with a vehicle increasingly rare on the road — the station wagon. If you were a Boy Scout or Girl Scout, or were a member of some kind of youth athletic team, or had a large dog, or had relatives approximately your age, or had friends who needed to be transported somewhere, or had parents who occasionally had to haul (either in the back or in a trailer) more than what could be fit inside a car trunk, you (or, actually, your parents) were the target demographic for the station wagon. “Station wagons came to be like covered wagons — so much family activity happened in those cars,” said Tim Cleary, president of the American Station Wagon Owners Association, in Country Living magazine. Wagons “were used for everything from daily runs to the grocery store to long summer driving trips, and while many men and women might have wanted a fancier or sportier car, a station wagon was something they knew they needed for the family.” The “station wagon” originally was a vehicle with a covered seating area to take people between train stations…
    • Wheels on theu0026nbsp;screenBetween my former and current blogs, I wrote a lot about automobiles and TV and movies. Think of this post as killing two birds (Thunderbirds? Firebirds? Skylarks?) with one stone. Most movies and TV series view cars the same way most people view cars — as A-to-B transportation. (That’s not counting the movies or series where the car is the plot, like the haunted “Christine” or “Knight Rider” or the “Back to the Future” movies.) The philosophy here, of course, is that cars are not merely A-to-B transportation. Which disqualifies most police shows from what you’re about to read, even though I’ve watched more police video than anything else, because police cars are plain Jane vehicles. The highlight in a sense is in the beginning: The car chase in my favorite movie, “Bullitt,” featuring Steve McQueen’s 1968 Ford Mustang against the bad guys’ 1968 Dodge Charger: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMc2RdFuOxIu0026amp;fmt=18] One year before that (but I didn’t see this until we got Telemundo on cable a couple of years ago) was a movie called “Operación 67,” featuring (I kid you not) a masked professional wrestler, his unmasked sidekick, and some sort of secret agent plot. (Since I don’t know Spanish and it’s not…
    • While riding in my Cadillac …
  • Entertainments
    • Brass rocksThose who read my former blog last year at this time, or have read this blog over the past months, know that I am a big fan of the rock group Chicago. (Back when they were a rock group and not a singer of sappy ballads, that is.) Since rock music began from elements of country music, jazz and the blues, brass rock would seem a natural subgenre of rock music. A lot of ’50s musical acts had saxophone players, and some played with full orchestras … [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CPS-WuUKUE] … but it wasn’t until the more-or-less simultaneous appearances of Chicago and Blood Sweat u0026amp; Tears on the musical scene (both groups formed in 1967, both had their first charting singles in 1969, and they had the same producer) that the usual guitar/bass/keyboard/drum grouping was augmented by one or more trumpets, a sax player and a trombone player. While Chicago is my favorite group (but you knew that already), the first brass rock song I remember hearing was BSu0026amp;T’s “Spinning Wheel” — not in its original form, but on “Sesame Street,” accompanied by, yes, a giant spinning wheel. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi9sLkyhhlE] [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxWSOuNsN20] [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9U34uPjz-g] I remember liking Chicago’s “Just You ‘n Me” when it was released as a single, and…
    • Drive and Eat au0026nbsp;RockThe first UW home football game of each season also is the opener for the University of Wisconsin Marching Band, the world’s finest college marching band. (How the UW Band has not gotten the Sudler Trophy, which is to honor the country’s premier college marching bands, is beyond my comprehension.) I know this because I am an alumnus of the UW Band. I played five years (in the last rank of the band, Rank 25, motto: “Where Men Are Tall and Run-On Is Short”), marching in 39 football games at Camp Randall Stadium, the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis, Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, Memorial Stadium at the University of Illinois (worst artificial turf I had ever seen), the University of Nevada–Las Vegas’ Sam Boyd Silver Bowl, the former Dyche Stadium at Northwestern University, five high school fields and, in my one bowl game, Legion Field in Birmingham, Ala., site of the 1984 Hall of Fame Bowl. The UW Band was, without question, the most memorable experience of my college days, and one of the most meaningful experiences of my lifetime. It was the most physical experience of my lifetime, to be sure. Fifteen minutes into my first Registration…
    • Keep on rockin’ in the freeu0026nbsp;worldOne of my first ambitions in communications was to be a radio disc jockey, and to possibly reach the level of the greats I used to listen to from WLS radio in Chicago, which used to be one of the great 50,000-watt AM rock stations of the country, back when they still existed. (Those who are aficionados of that time in music and radio history enjoyed a trip to that wayback machine when WLS a Memorial Day Big 89 Rewind, excerpts of which can be found on their Web site.) My vision was to be WLS’ afternoon DJ, playing the best in rock music between 2 and 6, which meant I wouldn’t have to get up before the crack of dawn to do the morning show, yet have my nights free to do whatever glamorous things big-city DJs did. Then I learned about the realities of radio — low pay, long hours, zero job security — and though I have dabbled in radio sports, I’ve pretty much cured myself of the idea of working in radio, even if, to quote WAPL’s Len Nelson, “You come to work every day just like everybody else does, but we’re playing rock ’n’ roll songs, we’re cuttin’ up.…
    • Monday on the flight line, not Saturday in the park
    • Music to drive by
    • The rock ofu0026nbsp;WisconsinWikipedia begins its item “Music of Wisconsin” thusly: Wisconsin was settled largely by European immigrants in the late 19th century. This immigration led to the popularization of galops, schottisches, waltzes, and, especially, polkas. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yl7wCczgNUc] So when I first sought to write a blog piece about rock musicians from Wisconsin, that seemed like a forlorn venture. Turned out it wasn’t, because when I first wrote about rock musicians from Wisconsin, so many of them that I hadn’t mentioned came up in the first few days that I had to write a second blog entry fixing the omissions of the first. This list is about rock music, so it will not include, for instance, Milwaukee native and Ripon College graduate Al Jarreau, who in addition to having recorded a boatload of music for the jazz and adult contemporary/easy listening fan, also recorded the theme music for the ’80s TV series “Moonlighting.” Nor will it include Milwaukee native Eric Benet, who was for a while known more for his former wife, Halle Berry, than for his music, which includes four number one singles on the Ru0026amp;B charts, “Spend My Life with You” with Tamia, “Hurricane,” “Pretty Baby” and “You’re the Only One.” Nor will it include Wisconsin’s sizable contributions to big…
    • Steve TV: All Steve, All the Time
    • “Super Steve, Man of Action!”
    • Too much TV
    • The worst music of allu0026nbsp;timeThe rock group Jefferson Airplane titled its first greatest-hits compilation “The Worst of Jefferson Airplane.” Rolling Stone magazine was not being ironic when it polled its readers to decide the 10 worst songs of the 1990s. I’m not sure I agree with all of Rolling Stone’s list, but that shouldn’t be surprising; such lists are meant for debate, after all. To determine the “worst,” songs appropriate for the “Vinyl from Hell” segment that used to be on a Madison FM rock station, requires some criteria, which does not include mere overexposure (for instance, “Macarena,” the video of which I find amusing since it looks like two bankers are singing it). Before we go on: Blog posts like this one require multimedia, so if you find a song you hate on this blog, I apologize. These are also songs that I almost never listen to because my sound system has a zero-tolerance policy — if I’m listening to the radio or a CD and I hear a song I don’t like, it’s, to quote Bad Company, gone gone gone. My blonde wife won’t be happy to read that one of her favorite ’90s songs, 4 Non Blondes’ “What’s Up,” starts the list. (However,…
    • “You have the right to remain silent …”
  • Madison
    • Blasts from the Madison media past
    • Blasts from my Madison past
    • Blasts from our Madison past
    • What’s the matter with Madison?
    • Wisconsin – Madison = ?
  • Sports
    • Athletic aesthetics, or “cardinal” vs. “Big Red”
    • Choose your own announcer
    • La Follette state 1982 (u0022It was 30 years ago todayu0022)
    • The North Dakota–Wisconsin Hockey Fight of 1982
    • Packers vs. Brewers
  • Hall of Fame
    • The case(s) against teacher unions
    • The Class of 1983
    • A hairy subject, or face the face
    • It’s worse than you think
    • It’s worse than you think, 2010–11 edition
    • My favorite interview subject of all time
    • Oh look! Rural people!
    • Prestegard for president!
    • Unions vs. the facts, or Hiding in plain sight
    • When rhetoric goes too far
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