No Perfect Example

I wanted to write something about the Imus case, but after reading my own words, realized they were just too inflammatory. It is a volatile topic – there’s no way around that.

My question is, should the treatment of Imus become the standard for all public misogynists and racists?

Back when I was hosting PM Magazine, I quickly learned, you can never find the perfect example for your story – never. Is the Imus case the perfect example of how punishment should be meted? Is Imus the perfect example of the new value of apologies?

There are already people using Imus as an example to call for the heads of such diverse figures as Rush Limbaugh and Jesse Jackson. Could there be two more dissimilar people?

Is Imus’ expulsion from the airwaves the beginning of the healing or the beginning of a bitter battle?

Enough With The Horse Race

The talk on NPR’s Talk of the Nation today was all about politics and the next presidential election. Their political junkie, Ken Rudin, was front and center.

I had MSNBC on while getting dressed for work. It was also a discussion of the ’08 presidential race.

That’s November ’08 they’re discussing. I haven’t thought about what I want for dinner tonight. Maybe November ’08 is just a little too far ahead for me.

I have no idea what any of the candidates stand for, outside a very few hot button issues. I do know Hillary Clinton is not Tammy Wynette, Barack Obama did not attend a Maddrassa while growing up in Indonesia, Bill Richardson has a lead foot and Connecticut’s Senator Chris Dodd has the softest hands I’ve ever shaken.

I attended a dinner in 1972 where I sat next to current Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich for a few hours. I don’t even remember if he was a neat or sloppy diner. I have no idea where he stands on anything. Ditto for most of the other declared candidates.

Let’s get back to the MSNBC conversation for a moment. What it didn’t contain was meat. It was totally about the horse race. Who cares!

The headline on Drudge as I write this is, “TIME POLL: HILLARY 19-POINTS AHEAD OF OBAMA.” But in that same poll a significant portion of the electorate said they’d never heard of Obama.

I hate to quote Ann Coulter (but I will):

In January, two years before the 2000 presidential election, the leading Republican candidate in New Hampshire was … Liddy Dole (WMUR-TV/CNN poll, Jan. 12, 1999). In the end, Liddy Dole’s most successful run turned out to be a mad dash from her husband Bob after he accidentally popped two Viagras.

At this stage before the 1992 presidential election, the three leading Democratic candidates were, in order: Mario Cuomo,

Jesse Jackson and Lloyd Bentsen (Public Opinion Online, Feb. 21, 1991).

Only three months before the 1988 election, William Schneider cheerfully reported in The National Journal that Michael Dukakis beat George Herbert Walker Bush in 22 of 25 polls taken since April of that year. Bush did considerably better in the poll taken on Election Day.

Lord help me – she’s right. I can’t believe I even wrote that.

This early jockeying is reported because no news organization wants to run ‘bars and tone.’ It’s cheap and easy to discuss who is ahead. But, it’s meaningless.

At this point it’s more important to know where people stand, what they believe in. Or, maybe, we should let the recently elected congress wrangle with the currently serving president. Isn’t that the important story now?

November ’08 will come soon enough. Why rush it?

Why Do People Come Here?

That anyone, other than my dad, looks at this site, always astounds me. Lots of what I do, I do for my own gratification and satisfaction. It was fun setting up this blogging software, and some of the other more esoteric parts of the website, like weather graphing, computer models and tides.

I have learned enough about Linux servers to be dangerous. But, I don’t exactly write about Earth shattering topics.

I know some people (and it really is a small number, in the low hundreds daily) get here through searches. I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s got to be a really unusual search, just the right combination of words, to bring someone here. Being a 3 on Google’s 1-10 scale, I don’t get any hits from ‘common’ searches.

Tonight, I was looking at my logs, seeing how people got here, and discovered a bunch of hits from http://www.moskalyuk.com/. If you look in his right hand columns, I am listed in a group of 17 “people.” I am last in the list. One entry is in Cyrillic characters. Much of the site is in Russian.

As it turns out, the site seems to be in Spokane and is on a server with 3 other domains (two running and one displaying an unfinished software installation).

I have no idea how I got on his page. Does he find my writing interesting? Did he see me posted somewhere, like on Slashdot, and mistake me for someone with “Geek Chic?” I don’t know. But, I’m glad he’s linking to me.

As far as search engines are concerned, “hurricane photo” tops the list for October (and considering the competition in this term, I’d like to thank the Academy for this award) and Scotty Crowe, who is John Mayer’s road manager and a semi-celeb in his own right, comes in second.

Here are some unexpected search terms. I don’t know why they brought someone to this site, but they did:

edumacation

record deer

fixing driving record

new business opens in rogers ark september 2003

liza minelli david gest split

how tall is jesse jackson?

las vegas cheap prime rib harrahs

mississippi state university meteorology test answers

information on exercises that will helo me lose my butt (my favorite)

How I met Rev. Jesse Jackson

I get my hair cut at work. I know. That’s one of the most decadent priveleges my job affords me. In the last 15 years my hair has been cut outside of this building once; on the morning of my daughter’s bat mitzvah,

Today, I was sitting in the men’s dressing room with Francine (Queen of Hair) giving me a little trim.

By the way, if given half the opportunity, Francine would work on my hair for hours at a time, until each individual folicle was where it belonged. But, even when I rush her, she’s unreal.

So, Francine is clipping away and the door is open to the hallway. I tend to look at the mirror and call out to people who are passing by. A tall figure walks by, stops, and sticks his head in.

Jesse Jackson.

So, what do you do when you’re sitting, with a ‘bib’ on, trying to keep hair off your clothes with a woman spraying water on your hair? Is there anything clever to be said at all?

The Reverend Jackson and I do not see eye-to-eye on all issues… in fact, maybe not on most issues. However, I must admit he is a charming man… very approachable and seemingly without pretense (in our short meeting). There is no doubt, he is one of the most recognizable, revered, and reviled, people alive today.

I am astounded by the number of people at the station who say they’ve met him before. He is a person who makes loads of one-on-one contacts. That’s a major strength.

He is tall and a little rumpled in his dress. He was accompanied by, though not surrounded by, a group of tall and large black men.

I’m sure he needs bodyguard protection, he is a controversial figure with a lot of enemies. But his ‘protectors’ were not at all menacing or threatening or even overly cautious here in the television station. But, they were big. I’d feel safer.

I wonder if he’ll remember meeting me? I will remember meeting him.