Oh no! I hurt that publisher's feelings!

Lately I've been less critical of the Sentinel than I once was. For good reason too. Since the new publisher took over, there's just not as much there to be critical of.

So yay for the Sentinel, right? Let's all move on to a happy new day of better newspapers! Let's forget the past crappy publishers and let bygones be bygones!

Or alternately, let's make fun of the hilarious comment the former publisher (or someone cleverly impersonating him) just made on this old post!

Yep, that would be more fun. But doing it on a post from five months ago would be pretty pointless, so I'll bring his long-ass comment to the forefront here, interspersed with my response. Fun!

Mr. Chuck Owen, former publisher of the Sentinel, will have his comments in blockquotes for your protection. I will respond in normal text. Don't get confused! By the way, I'm not going to bother throwing [sic]s in his quotes, because it's such a horrible mess it would probably take me forever. Just pretend there's a big [sic] at the end of the whole thing.

We start our tale with what I assume is a failed attempt at humor regarding my pseudonym. Or he's trying to insult me? Beats me...

Hey Madcow,

You know, I read your comments when you first posted them back a few months ago and I came across them again as I was looking into something on line. Let me offer you something, I am that departed publisher and I still stand by my words from that article. What is interesting is that you were not in the room when I was being interviewed so you wouldn't have a clue about the context of the question.

Yeah, that's not really interesting.

Also, the article was in interview form. Which sort of suggests that the context is right there in the article. Or was there a lot of hand-gesturing and winking that adds context we're not aware of? Maybe it was just edited down from a huge context-filled cornucopia of journalistic brilliance?

Not that it much matters if he stands by those statements anyway...

Oh, I should probably mention what statements we're talking about. The part that I focused on is presented here in full. I will use double-blockquotes so you know it's not something Owen said in his comment, just something he said in the Worcester Business Journal. I'll also bold the part that's particularly of interest/controversy.

What about competition?
Quite frankly there's competitors coming out of the woodwork: the [public access] cable, the [free weekly] Leominster Champions, the Fitchburg Prides of the world. The free newspaper has its niche, and I respect it a great deal, but it doesn't have the news of the day. They can shape it all they want as being flowery and nice news and stuff like that, but you know what, I'll use this analogy: People go to stock car races not so much because they want to watch it go around and around and around. They go to see the car crash. We're reporting on certain pieces of news, news that people may not like, and they may call it negative, but it gets people to respond, to clean up, to take an active role in their community.

So that's what this hubbub is about, and that sort of car-crash journalism is what Mr. Owen stands behind. Incidentally, that statement by Owen also got the attention of the Publisher of the Fitchburg Pride, who wrote about it (and me, slightly) in an op-ed here.

As you'll find throughout this post, Owen isn't big on sticking to any one topic for more than a couple sentences. He defends himself, then makes weird attacks on me, then goes back to defending himself. I will henceforth assume he has poorly-managed rapid-cycling bipolar disorder and his meds are acting up. Or maybe he just can't form a coherent thought. You decide!

Anyway, let's have an attack now!

Like many people who hide behind blogs, is that your an expert on many things but you probably don't have the character to speak with the person directly or go before a group publicly.

In this quote, Mr. Owen is clearly trying to confuse me by cleverly switching the subject in the middle of a sentence that doesn't make any damn sense in the first place. No dice, Chuck!

Anyway, yeah, I'm pseudonymous. Boo-fucking-hoo. Welcome to the internet.

What does come through pretty clearly in your writings is that your a pretty angry person.

Another blow! He thinks I'm angry! I am indeed! I'm glad my writing conveyed that properly.

Now, here's where things start to get extra-confusing. Taking a break from the attack/defend dichotomy, Chuck starts responding to the various comments on that old post. I won't say a lot, but I do encourage the commenters to stick up for themselves in the comments to this post.

Especially you, Mr. Bartender. He's about to move from praising you to insulting you in no time at all...

The bartender hits the nail on the head when he states some of the primary roles of a newspaper is ad sales and circulation of the paper but, to state it as if that's it's only purpose is wrong. Mr. Bartender, I grew up in the newspaper business and have worked in it from the business side for over 20 years, I have a very solid business perspective of the business. So when it comes to my understanding the role of newspapers, why don't you stick to mixing cocktails and pouring Bud's!!

I think the meds must have worn off halfway through that... And yeah, shame on you Bartender! How dare you express an opinion that actually defends what Owen said! He doesn't approve of that!

Continuing (and finally finishing up the first paragraph of his screed), we abruptly back away from praising/insulting commenters and move back to Chuck's stupid car crash.

The content is important to many who buy it and read it on line. When you look at the Sentinel over seven days, there is a whole lot of good positive things covered and they out weigh the negative. That is what was being discussed.

It's a shame that the thing being discussed didn't appear in that article, then. I was only responding to the article itself. I'm not a mind reader, Mr. Owen!

Anyway, Owen's first paragraph is finally over!

The Sentinel has been recognized by it's fellow papers in Massachusetts and N.E, for some of the articles written over the last couple of years winning awards in their category and newspaper size.

That's super. Unfortunately, a shitty paper winning awards because other shitty papers respect it is not a substitute for being a good paper.

You don't get that from the wind [Ed. Huh?], you get those results from very young reporters who are probably working their first full time gig. They are led by a person who cares greatly about how they do their jobs and is passionate about his work, Jeff McMenemy. You may not like Jeff's views in his editorials, I didn't always but, to my point that it gets people to respond, is important. He continues to work with reduced budgets and staffs like many business have to do today and because the these jobs are handled by new fresh out of college kids their average time at the paper is barely over 2 years on average. Many pursue the next level if they can and move on. It's not perfect, if you want a deeper dive into the human tragedy of not being able to afford an XBOX or any presents at all at Christmas, your fortunate you live where you do, pick up the Globe or the T&G and read the deeper dive into it. They have the resources to commit the attention it rightfully deserves.

I'll translate that semi-coherent rambling for you:

Nobody but kids straight out of school will work for us. Jeff McMenemy threw in all that shit about "liberals" in an hilarious attempt to be controversial. Also, he tries hard with the shitty budgets and stuff, he's just not really competent. Most people we hire leave after 2 years (once they find something anything better). It's okay that the Sentinel sucks because the Globe and T&G are slightly better.

Which just boils down to a lot of excuse-making. You're not automatically allowed to be a crappy paper just because nobody wants to work for you. More likely, nobody wants to work for you because you're such a crappy paper. Have some higher standards!

Also, it's not okay to suck just because other newspapers in the area don't suck as bad. What the hell kind of logic was that?

Anyway, we get a new paragraph now, and it's back to addressing commenters and so forth:

Sorry Rachel, the posting of Unicow didn't have a damn thing to do with me leaving. They were between me and my employer. Before you take up the practice of bashing what I did or didn't do, let me tell you a little. I attended many of the debates in Fitchburg from School committee to Mayor, I met with many of the Rotary members at their luncheons, I meet with many business owners in the area and attended openings. I spoke with Lisa Wong on several occasions and to make certain I was fair in my own approach, I spent an afternoon riding around the city with Councilman Donnelly, learning as much as I could and listened. I met with the Mayor of Leominster and other community leaders in both cities. Doing this while trying to lead a sales team as a market was sliding and tend to other aspects of running a newspaper.

Personally, I never thought what I write had a thing to do with Owen leaving. On the other hand, what firing isn't "between me and my employer"?

Also, bragging about doing the things the publisher of the local paper should probably be expected to do? Awesome! Hell, I've done a bunch of those things too and I'm just a cowardly blogger!

Now is around the time that Chuck Owen, former publisher of the Sentinel, starts to get upset with me. Watch out children!

Don't flatter yourself Madcow, you would reach more people standing on a street corner with a megaphone than reading your ranting blog. The only reason I found it back in January was when I happened to google the Sentinel and my name together.

I'm not really sure how knowing how many hits my site gets and judging that number to be bigger than the number of people I could reach yelling on Main St counts as flattering myself, but whatever. Apparently the only websites that exist to Mr. Owen are those he finds when Googling his own name.

And seriously, should he be saying I'm flattering myself then immediately launch into talking about how he's doing Google vanity searches on his own name? I mean, he could at least throw a couple sentences in between to make the irony less obvious!

Then Chuck's meds kick in and he's back to approaching lucidity again!

Let's be clear on something, sensationalism isn't what I was promoting, it's what people most often respond to in papers and click through on news web sites. People use papers for many things and everybody differs on what they like and dislike. The Sentinel isn't the problem in your area, if you insist that it is, your misguided. Poor economy, poor leadership over a stretch of many years, the electricity provider in the area runs like a monopoly. With Lisa Wong in place and a number of new faces on the city council, your headed in the right direction. Your state reps should be pushing for high speed rail to run out through Fitchburg. Shortening the commute to Boston substantially would drive housing in many of the areas, bring in more money into the communities and would help with traffic.

Okay, I don't have a lot to complain about there (aside from the lie that he wasn't promoting sensationalism, because that's exactly what he was doing).

I assume this was in response to my throwaway comment that included: "I've become convinced at this point that the Sentinel is one of the biggest problems facing Fitchburg in its quest for rejuvenation. It's a cancer on this town."

In retrospect, that was pretty hyperbolic. "Biggest" wasn't the right word. Oh, the S&E is a big problem (less so now than back then), but certainly not the biggest. So you win this round, Chuck! I stand by the paper being a cancer on the town, though.

Sadly, the meds didn't last long, and it's back to Angry Chuck Owen!

To be truthful Madcow, I'm not going to judge you based on your writings, [...]

Well, what a sweet sentiment that is. What a nice guy! Now watch while he does precisely the opposite!

[...] clean up your use of the vulgarities it really shows your age, early twenties? If your older than that, grow up. Oh but wait a minute that would infringe on your first amendment rights? The only place you would get published is on your own blog.

I forget where I asked for writing advice, but obviously I must have. Why else would I get this little lecture from a guy who writes at a fifth-grade level?

Worse yet, a former publisher of a shitty paper in an industry I resoundingly despise says I can't get published! Motherfuck! And all my goddamned swearing makes me seem ten cockwaggling years younger than I am!

And umm... something about growing up infringing my First Amendment rights? Huh? If someone tells me to "grow up" I don't think it's a constitutional issue. It's just a sign that that person is an asshole. An asshole who in this case works in publishing but seems to have a negative view of the First Amendment. Which is a bit creepy.

Now the final bit of Chuck's diatribe.

The part that gets me the most is how judgemental you and some of your fellow bloggers are. Don't let the title fool you, I'm more of a regular guy than anything else. I don't pretend to have all the answers and they more than likely don't align with you. When people ask for an opinion, I'll give it. Every body wants to be liked but I'm a big boy and what you or others like you think really doesn't matter. They usually come from people who don't want to put a face to the words, who don't want to get involved with the process from a public service stand point and generally they just want to complain and bitch about things while feeling they have all the answers but not the stones to try and bring them forward.

Oh no! I'm stoneless! We calls them "balls" in the grown-up world, Chuck. Or is that too vulgar?

Shockingly, it's quite true that I've never done any public service using the name "Unicow." Go figure!

For a guy who doesn't care what I think, that was a hell of a long ranty bitchfest about me expressing what I think.

So what have we learned here?

A summary:

• Chuck Owen writes like a fifth-grader.
• Chuck Owen was a worse publisher than I thought.
• Chuck Owen doesn't like bloggers in general, and me in particular.
• Chuck Owen is sort of a dick.
• We are very lucky the Sentinel got a new publisher.

Yeah, I think that's about it!

Something actually fun to do!

Okay, my last post was a little weak. Boring public policy meeting + awesome Guitar Wolf video doesn't necessarily = fun.

Let me cut down the focus this time.

Way back in October of 'ought-seven I made a post in which I casually remarked that I had seen "The super-talented 'Scott Beddia Trio' (oddly composed of five people)".

Well, Mr. Beddia (a Fitchburger) found said post and has mentioned to me that he'll once again be playing at DeStare this Thursday night (May 1). This handily coincides with the Fitchburg "First Thursday" stuff, which ought to draw people downtown anyway.

Should you go?

Yes, you should!

"But why should we go, Mr. Unicow?" you may ask.

That's easy. Let me provide you with a list:

• Supporting Fitchburg artists is good.
• I guarantee it will be cooler than the creepy clown stuff on tap for First Thursday.*
• The dude can really drum.

So yeah, go see him! Support local artists, and have a martini or something!

Note that while that's just a video of Scott, the actual "Scott Beddia Trio" (which also contained an excellent guy on 5- [maybe 6-] string bass and a keyboardist who's good with the banter, plus a small horn section that is also good but maybe isn't part of the trio?) will be playing this week.

I couldn't find any handy online videos of the trio, but take that talent and extrapolate it times three (or five? seven? whatever), and you get an idea. See them!

*Guarantee void in Massachusetts and surrounding states

Exciting public policy meetings ahoy!

More than a month ago a nice lady from the Pioneer Institute sent me an email telling me about this event taking place on April 25th and asking me to plug it.

My attitude at the time was basically "meh, I'm not a fucking clearinghouse for press releases." But I'm fickle and haven't felt like writing much lately, so I'll plug it anyway.

It's the "Center for Economic Opportunity Annual Conference" and Mayor Wong is speaking at it. Per the woman organizing it:

Mayor Wong will be talking about her plans for smart growth in Fitchburg - developing by the river, road, and rail. She will be on a panel with city leaders discussing innovations in the field of economic development.

[...]

The event is part of Pioneer Institute's Middle Cities Initiative. Middle Cities are Massachusetts' older industrial cities that are politically and economically in limbo between the traditional power base of greater Boston and the burgeoning political force of the suburbs, and between their former industrial role and newer market function. Pioneer Institute is launching the Middle Cities Initiative to help the state and cities implement a comprehensive agenda for reviving urban markets and improving city governance. Pioneer is facilitating coalition meetings with mayors, making recommendations to the state for better oversight, and creating benchmarks for performance that can be used by the state and cities alike to gauge progress.

In case you're blind, here's the link to it again.

It's on Friday from 8:30-11:30 AM. So I guess if you're retired or unemployed or something and you're a big policy wonk go and have a super-fun time!

In order to make this post less boring, here's a totally unrelated video for a movie I find myself wanting to see!



Sweet.

Hey bloggers, I need some help!

Hello fellow bloggers and assorted other people. I need your help.

See, I'm interested in starting another blog (not related to this one) and I know there are at least a few of you out there who read me and also run your own blogs.

I'm pretty familiar with the Blogger/Blogspot offerings at this point, and am wondering if there's something better out there I should be using. Blogger's okay, but it's pretty basic and uninspiring. Plus the "make a blog before you can comment" policy is desperately stupid, and in general the commenting system is pretty poor.

So do any of you other bloggers have any advice for me? I'm looking for something that allows a good deal of customization, has a good privacy policy (I love my anonymity!), gets listed reasonably well by search engines, and allows more fine-grained control over the commenting system. I'm no slouch with computers, so ease of use is less of a concern for me than power and the ability to make it work the way I want.

I've read various reviews here and there, but they tend to be by people who've just switched to a new system, and are likely to miss a lot of the frustrations and quirks that a longer-term user would know about.

I'm open to pretty much anything, from sticking to Blogger (or Blogger with a different commenting system) to Wordpress, Movable Type, etc., to just buying some server space and installing an open-source CMS on it. If anyone can provide input on the perks (and especially the drawbacks) of their preferred blogging system it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Vaccination fun!

Earlier I expressed my pleasure with the Fitchburg Pride for having a real reporter who does actual journalism and produced a decent article.

Sadly, the local daily paper can't measure up to the standard set by the free weekly paper.

Case in point: A pox on them: Parents slam school; officials say they are following law, in the Sentinel of course.

This incredibly sloppy and biased piece of stenography (it's certainly not journalism) brings to mind all the things that are wrong not just with the Sentinel, but with so many news outlets in general.

It's a simple story of an incredibly dumb woman who refuses to vaccinate her children and whines that the school treats her unfairly because she's just too stupid to understand what's going on.

Genna and Felix Velazquez made a decision to avoid immunizing their two elementary school-age daughters against Varicella disease, more commonly known as the chicken pox.

The Velazquez family is now concerned their 8-year-old daughter Dianelis Velazquez is being unfairly singled-out by Reingold Elementary School officials because of their decision.

Oh no! Mean old school! They're saying her kid can't be in school because there's an outbreak of Varicella!

The school's decision is based on a state statute that allows schools to quarantine students exempt from immunizations if their [sic] is an "outbreak."

"Basically, it isn't up to the school to determine this policy," Roy said Thursday. "It is the Department of Public Health who dictates the policy."

The law requires a number of immunizations before a child can enter school. If 'sincere religious beliefs' exempt a child from receiving immunizations, the law permits schools to quarantine the student if they are susceptible to an illness.

Oh, I guess it isn't such a mean old school. It's a school that follows the law (and common sense) by not exposing her child to disease and turning her into a likely vector who can then go around infecting everyone else.

I guess we need to change the headline then, because the original was misleading. I suggest: "A pox on them: Parents whine about law; officials follow it".

The whole article is at this same level. Velazquez is bafflingly portrayed as some sort of victim, instead of properly being mocked for being a whiny idiot who chooses to endanger her children because of some moronic religious belief.

Let's look at a few examples.

First is the most obvious one. Velazquez has absolutely no basis for her claim that she's being treated unfairly. Which makes me wonder why the article was even written in the first place. But unfortunately it was, so here are some more examples of sheer ineptitude on behalf of the reporter.

Reingold Elementary officials told the family that Dianelis Velazquez must be out of school from April 11- 22, according to Genna Velazquez.That time would fall in the middle of school vacation, meaning Dianelis Velazquez would be away from school for nearly three weeks in a row.

Huh?

April 11th is this Friday. School vacation takes place from April 21-25. Which means the kid misses a grand total of 6 days of classes. That doesn't sound too bad though, so the reporter chose to focus on the far greater but totally meaningless measure of time "away from school," as if weekends and vacation time should be significant. Even taking that nonsensical measure, the kid's going to be "away from school" from April 11-27, or 17 days. That's two weeks and three days, which no sensible person would call "nearly three weeks."

Velazquez herself is clearly not a very bright woman, and asks lots of questions in the article.

Genna Velazquez knows of two students in her daughter's class that had chicken pox. The family didn't receive notification the first time a student came to school with red pox associated with Varicella, Velazquez said.

"The nurse told me the first case was unconfirmed and that's why they didn't call me," she said. "If this second case is confirmed, why was the student at school today (Wednesday)?"

The reporter didn't bother to find an answer to this question. Nor did she even confirm that the child with the confirmed case (the only one that matters) was actually at school.

If the infected student was at school, s/he probably shouldn't have been. But we have no way of knowing if that's even the case. Not that it matters one bit to Velazquez's crazy-ass claim anyway. It's just irrelevant whining, meant to make you think there's some sort of vast conspiracy to keep Velazquez's daughter out of school.

Another bit from Velazquez that goes without response:

"Anyone who can't prove immunity should go home," Genna Velazquez said. "Why are we protecting students who are immunized if the vaccine works?"

I count three problems in that one quote!

1. Velazquez's kid is the only one who isn't immunized. Everyone else can prove immunity, because doctors keep records!
2. They're not "protecting students who are immunized"! They're protecting your daughter because you failed to do so! They're also protecting anyone your potentially infectious daughter comes into contact with.
3. The "if the vaccine works" bit is clearly meant to make the reader believe the vaccine doesn't work. That's stupid. No vaccine works 100%. The varicella vaccine itself has an efficacy of about 88.5%, and those who do get chicken pox anyway usually only get a mild case. The vaccine works just fine.

As we've come to expect, the stenographer behind the article addressed none of these points.

On to more problems!

Genna Velazquez called the state Board of Health. They simply explained that a child is contagious after six days of being exposed to the chicken pox.

"She has already been exposed to students with chicken pox," she said. "They are making us take her out at the end of next week, it just doesn't make sense."

Another unchallenged quote. If the stenographer had bothered to go to the Mass. Department of Public Health website she could have found the exact recommendation (pdf) that applies here. Which is:

Susceptibles shall be excluded from work or classes from the 10th through the 21st days after their exposure to the case while infectious with rash (not including the prodrome).

So yeah, that's about the right timeframe, dumbasses.

Okay, I've criticized Velazquez a lot in this post. And she deserves it. Not immunizing your child is one step from child abuse, as far as I'm concerned. Not immunizing your child for religious reasons is a half-step. The poor kid gets no say in any of this, she's just the innocent victim of ridiculously stupid parents and a government that allows virtually any stupid behavior to pass if it's part of your religion.

But Velazquez isn't the real problem. She's just a whiny idiot, nobody cares about her. I feel bad for her (and far worse for her unfortunate children).

The problem is the Sentinel's absurdly horrible article about her. It has all the hallmarks of trying to stir up another pointless controversy, it lacks the most basic fact-checking, it's clearly biased in favor of Velazquez, and it should be an embarrassment to the person who wrote it.

Worst of all, the article exists. This is not a news story. Velazquez doesn't have a legitimate complaint worth reporting on. She's a not-very-bright woman who doesn't understand that when you neglect to immunize your children there may be consequences.

The Sentinel should have done the smart thing and never run this story. If Velazquez contacted them, they should have said "We're sorry, but you're terribly confused" and sent her on her way. Instead they wrote a big horrible article about it, presenting her side almost exclusively, and making themselves look like total idiots in the process.

What you don't print is as important as what you do. The Sentinel has a long history of ignoring the actual news and printing this kind of tripe. Sadly, articles like this are in no way a surprise. Just a huge disappointment.

Hey Fitchburg Pride, nice job!

You know, sometimes you have to give credit where credit is due.

In this case, I want to point you to the Fitchburg Pride's quite decent article and editorial about drug treatment options in the area, and specifically the proposed Fitchburg Primary Care Associates clinic (who I've also written about before).

The article's pretty good, and was a pleasant surprise when I read it. Honestly, just seeing that a reporter in Fitchburg did some actual research is incredibly refreshing. Enough to make one "proud?" Meh. But it's enough to make me suggest you go read it instead of just ranting about it.

So umm... Good work!

Now I somehow feel dirty after saying all that. I need to go find something stupid in the S&E now to polish my blackened soul back to its normal sheen...

Phew! That was easy!

Another lousy drug prevention program

Last week there was an article in the Sentinel entitled Drug statistics sobering facts for parents. That was a pretty misleading title, because the article was really just about a regional conference of the National Association of School Resource Officers, but that's not super-important.

Now, the conference focuses on various things, but since the Sentinel decided to focus on the drug element, so will I!

Here's some relevant stuff from the article:

Students need to hear drug prevention messages early and often, said Lacy Lowrey, the manager of national programming and development for Project 7th Grade.

[...]

Project 7th Grade, part of a Phoenix-based youth program, offers free presentations to parents through schools and law enforcement officers.Lowrey gave statistics on youth drug use and exposure, including photographs of illicit drugs that are designed to attract young users and, in some cases, look almost indistinguishable from candy.

Damn pushers, stop making things look like candy!

Anyway, I had never heard of Project 7th Grade. But since they're getting free press in the Sentinel and are making presentations to local educators, I figured it might be a good idea to check them out and see whether they're reputable.

I should probably say from the outset that I think most drug prevention programs suck. The most well-known case of their suckage is probably the ridiculously ineffective waste of money that is the D.A.R.E. program.

Hell, you can even find articles in USA Today dating back to 1993 that talk about how DARE doesn't work. So it shouldn't be news to anyone that it's a waste of time and money. Yet people still support it, and I still got harrassed by some jerkwad in the entryway to Circuit City trying to raise money for it (he didn't like being told the research shows DARE is ineffective, apparently).

DARE is hardly alone in their suckage, though. The government's stupid anti-pot ads on tv may actually increase marijuana use, which frankly isn't surprising. Kids don't tend to listen to you when they can tell you're lying to them. Also, the ads are much funnier to watch when you're high.

So there's a lot of junk out there, and very few programs that work. But how about Project 7th Grade?

Now, I haven't been able to find any research on its efficacy, but it's a pretty new program. I did write to them asking if they could direct me to some research, but got no response. So let's just assume there isn't anything out there indicating their program actually works.

Still, if it's a sound program perhaps they'll pick up some good research down the road. Is it based on sensible ideas? Does it follow sound principles? What is it all about?

Having read over their stuff, it can be distilled down to one phrase from their website: "We recommend that you [drug] test your child frequently and randomly."

Of course, drug testing is generally a bad idea and has many destructive effects, but few positive ones. Even ignoring the erosion of trust and family bonds, there are false positives to be concerned about, not to mention oppositional effects (your parents don't trust you, so you might as well do drugs!). There's also a total lack of evidence that it's an effective deterrent to drug use. And, of course, it in absolutely no way addresses the source of the drug use. So it solves nothing.

Why would anyone put forth such a stupid program?

Well, that bit is easy. You see, Project 7th Grade is a partnership between notMYkid and First Check Diagnostics, LLC.

First Check Diagnostics just happens to be a company that makes and markets home drug testing kits. They have an ad on the front page of Project 7th Grade's website, and you get a free test kit at the completion of the program.

But, much like a 1970's movie where the pusher hooks unsuspecting suburbanites with free joints just to later get them hooked on smack, it's only the first one that's free. After that it's about forty bucks a pop. That's a pricey habit!

Sounds like a great program for putting money into the hands of drug testing companies, but not so great for actually dealing with drug use in kids.

Then again, most parents probably won't do more than a couple of these drug tests before they stop paying the high fees to do it. Which is awesome, because they'll already have managed to screw up their relationship with their kids. Then they'll stop testing and the kids can go off and inject angel dust into their eyeballs without needing to worry!

Now, the information that Project 7th Grade gives out may be truthful (though a perusal of their website suggests they're more in the fearmongering business than in actually taking a serious look at the issues). Perhaps they have other elements of the program that are good. I haven't seen the entire program, so I can't really say.

But it still appears to boil down to "drug test your kids." Which is just a terrible idea. So no, it's not a reputable program. It's a promotion for a home testing kit. Besides that, it's based on bad ideas. And chances are that if it has any effect on drug use at all, it's not a good effect.

Stay away from this one.

Junk I've picked up lately. Seriously.

Being a pretty curious guy, I am perhaps more attentive to the trash strewn in parking lots than many people. Some would argue I'm more attentive to it than any sane person should be. I mean seriously, what kind of nut actually examines the trash floating around in the wind or getting crushed by cars?

But sometimes I find interesting or disturbing stuff. Here's an example of each!

First off, I'm of the opinion that "Super Mario World" for the Super Nintendo was a pretty fantastic game. Apparently not everyone agrees, because someone left a copy sitting in the middle of a parking lot, where it had been run over by several cars.

Which exposed the sweet, sweet innards. Or, depending on your viewpoint, the cold mechanical heart of Mario's super world. Here's what was inside (notably a good deal smaller than the big grey cartridges SNES games came in).

Note: I've conveniently labeled the part you blow on when the game isn't working right. Though that was more of a NES than a SNES problem, I'm betting this particular cartridge could take quite a bit of blowing before it works right again.



So, bit of geekery there. But now we explore the dark side of crap that has been improperly disposed of!

At first glance, it's a simple envelope from a lawyer's office to a recipient who will remain unnamed for his or her own protection. Nothing notable about that.

Or is there?

Let's just say that if you're looking for someone to handle civil rights litigation, you probably don't want to turn to the firm of "Rubin, Rubin & Wilcox"...



Sources indicate that before settling on "Obedience to Law is Liberty" for their postage machine slogan, they also considered "Asking Questions = Treason," "America, Love It Or Leave It!", and the ever-popular "War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength."

A sad announcement

As those of you who've followed me for awhile know, I've been at this blogging thing for about a year and a half. It's been fun, most of the time. But now it's time for me to move on.

This decision may come as a surprise, but it wasn't arrived at lightly. Allow me to explain to you exactly why I've decided to call it quits.

• Writing is hard.
  
  I've been known to mock people who can't write very well, or who riddle their writing with scores of grammatical and spelling errors. But that was unfair of me. Writing is really hard!
  
  As it is, I spend a minimum of 4 hours on every post I make. One hour writing, one hour trying to adjust the flow of the post so it's not just a giant brain fart of words, and two hours fixing my myriad spelling and grammatical errors. I ask trusted confidants for revisions and editing, I go through three different spell-checkers, and I still miss stuf!
  
  I just don't have the time to keep that sort of thing up.


• I've offended too many people.
  
  Sometimes it was purely accidental, other times it was probably intentional, but mostly it was just because I said what I thought without regard for whether or not people would be offended. The shame of this carelessness weighs on me.
  
  Yeah, I pretend like I don't care if people are offended by what I write here, but it's just an act. Sometimes I find it hard to sleep at night, just going over the list of all the people I might have made feel bad. That's no way to live.
  
  Sorry, everyone.


• Public discourse in Fitchburg is too enlightened.
  
  That may seem like an odd thing to say, but it's true! The public is so enlightened and so reasonable that what I have to say pales in comparison to the average person on the street.
  
  Don't believe me? Just check out the Sentinel's reader comments forum! Unlike the internet as a whole, you'll find absolutely no petty bickering over unimportant issues. Nor are there constant racist remarks, nor uninformed diatribes about people on welfare, nor public access tv hosts pretending they're smart, nor lynch mob mentality, nor people just making stuff up and pretending it's true. None of that!
  
  How could I keep up in such an environment? I can't add anything to the conversation, because I'm unable to do the research and provide the necessary footnotes to make the sort of iron-clad arguments that are required to convince the highly erudite and skeptical commentators of Fitchburg of my point. I've been left behind.


• Expressing different views isn't always good.
  
  One thing I've tried to do here is provide a different viewpoint on things than you're likely to hear elsewhere. Perhaps I hoped to shift the Overton window, or perhaps I was just looking for attention I was deprived of as a child. Who knows?
  
  Either way, it doesn't matter. If the public at large doesn't already think the things I do, who am I to go around mouthing off? I'm sure they're plenty well-informed on their own, and giving them a different viewpoint probably just annoys them.
  
  Anyway, the extremely diverse media outlets of this area provide enough differing views to keep anyone interested in such things happy.


• Everybody has figured out who I am.
  
  I started this blog anonymously for a reason. That reason, of course, is that I'm a highly visible public figure with a lot of skeletons in his closet. I didn't want these skeletons coming out.
  
  But I've come to the conclusion that everyone knows who I am! Or they know someone who does. Or their aunt knows.
  
  I've tried to throw out red herrings from time to time. "I'm Matt Straight," "I'm Dan Mylott," "I'm Boots Riley," "I'm Rachel," etc, etc. It's not working anymore.
  
  Oddly, none of these myriad people that know who I am have yet bothered to actually mention it to me. I assume this is because I've offended them (see my second point above).
  
  Regardless, since who I am in real life is obviously super-relevant to this blog, I must bow out.


• The newspaper isn't really that bad.
  
  Yeah, you heard me right. Sure, I've had a lot of complaints about the quality of the Sentinel. And sure, one of the primary reasons I started this blog was to provide a counter to the right-wing claptrap they were consistently putting out. But things have changed.
  
  If you read the S&E now, you'll find it presents a totally fair and well-researched vision of not just Fitchburg, but the world. You'll see deep, meaningful investigative reporting on the issues that matter most. You'll see nary a poorly-reasoned editorial nor the slightest bit of fear-based reporting. It's a standard more papers should live up to.
  
  Also, I'm taking a job with them. I start on the 14th.

So, for all these reasons, I bid you adieu. Thanks for reading!

Note to self: Don't spraypaint churches!

I have to confess, I was a little concerned at the time of my last post. I mean, if the Sentinel was going to write editorials that I agreed with how could I possibly argue against them? It was a terrible quandary.

But never fear, thanks to some idiot with goofy hair and bad taste in music the Sentinel has written another dumb editorial! It's entitled Serious crimes deserve serious bails.

Please note that if you misread that title--as I did--as "Serious crimes deserve serious balls" it's much, much funnier.

Nevertheless, the concept that "serious crimes deserve serious bails" isn't that hard to agree with. I mean, you don't want a murderer getting out on $20 in coupons or anything like that. So what's the supposedly serious crime in question?

Well, it was some dopey teenager spraying graffiti on a bunch of churches, of course. Not just any graffiti, though! "Offensive" graffiti that made some religious folks lose their faith suffer financial hardship feel bad.

What sort of graffiti?

Griffin and an alleged accomplice scrawled messages like, "Jesus didn't rise again," "(Expletive) Jesus," and "You brainwashed zombies," on the churches.

He also confessed to spraypainting a vile message about Mary, who Christians believe is the virgin mother of Jesus Christ, but it is too obscene to print in this community newspaper.

Damn you Sentinel, I want to know what that vile message is! Because the other ones, while not exactly high-caliber works of prose, don't actually seem all that bad to me.

Hell, "Jesus didn't rise again" is one I fully agree with, though I wouldn't go writing it on a church. And "Fuck Jesus" and "You brainwashed zombies" are not really super-substantive. I mean, it's not like he wrote "I'm going to burn your church down" or painted a swastika on a synagogue (which sort of has the same implication).

To put it in perspective, if he wrote "Fuck the principal" on a school or "Hannaford has poor security practices" on a supermarket I really doubt it would be front page news. It would still be pretty dumb, because graffiti is always pretty dumb (with extremely rare exceptions for actual talented graffiti artists).

To wit, he actually did paint on a school, but what he wrote there doesn't seem to have been reported. Because nobody cares, because it's just stupid fucking graffiti made by a dumbass.

Anyway, instead of keeping his mischief-making to those sorts of simple targets that nobody cares about, he went and graffiti-ed up a church. Big mistake! People get freaked out over such things. They take out $1,600 bounties on your head and write editorials and talk about "hate crimes!"

You see, despite being a secular nation (albeit one where open atheists can't get elected) and despite the Founding Fathers' best efforts to keep religion and government totally separate, religions enjoy a privileged place in American society.

If you start criticizing religion, people get very upset. And the big religions have a lot of money and power. Fucking with them is bad news. You don't get a $1,600 bounty on your head by being a dick to just any old group, but you do if you start fucking with Christians (who I thought were supposed to be all about forgiveness, but I guess I was wrong).

The point I'm making here is it's not the crime (petty spraypaint-based vandalism) that has people upset and calling this a "serious crime," it's that he had the nerve and the terrible judgment to go after religion.

This bothers the fuck out of me.

I'm an unabashed liberal. Legislation about "hate crimes" is often put forth by liberal politicians. So that might lead you to think I back "hate crime" legislation.

Wrong!

You can't legislate hate away. You can no more prevent hate with laws that you can fight a war against an emotion (like "terror," for instance). If you try, it leads to a horrifying Orwellian state where we're judging people not on their actions, but on their thoughtcrime. I don't care if your target is religious beliefs or gays or certain racial groups or hippies or whatever. It's a bad idea to let the law consider a person's private beliefs when it should just be dealing with their actions.

Here's a quote from the Sentinel's editorial:

Remarkably, the suspect, Brian Griffin, 19, of 10 Power Mills Road, Phillipston, admitted that he and his alleged accomplice were trying to essentially get a rise out of churchgoers by spraypainting such hateful messages on churches shortly before Easter.

"We decided some sort of religious reference would offend a lot of people," Griffin wrote. "After we left the school, we decided it would be a good prank to do the same to local churches."

But now that he has been arrested, Griffin is claiming he did not intend the anti-Christian graffiti as a hate crime.

Okay, Griffin is a fucking idiot. That's established. But the editorialist seems to believe that just because this fuckwit was trying to get a "rise out of churchgoers" (which I suspect is the point of most graffiti, albeit with different groups targeted), that means he hates Christians.

I don't buy it.

Now, in addition to being a liberal, I'm quite openly an atheist. I don't believe Jesus rose from the dead. I've also almost certainly characterized certain religious zealots as "brainwashed" at times. Most of the world agrees with me about the Jesus thing, and I'm willing to bet a fair number agree about the brainwashing.

So I, and many other people, at least agree with some of the things Dumbfuck McBadhaircut wrote. But that doesn't mean I hate people who believe in God, so I see no reason to believe this guy does either.

Admittedly, I'm not idiot enough to spraypaint churches. Still, I've been known to get into hour-long conversations with those Mormon guys who go door-to-door trying to convert people. They try to sway me towards Jesus, I try to make them question their own belief system, and much fun is had!

Really, as long as they keep it out of my face (and my government) I couldn't care less what they believe. There's no more point in hating religious people than there is in hating people who actually believe what they read in their horoscope, or in hating kids for believing in Santa Claus. I see all these beliefs as pretty stupid, but if people enjoy it then who am I to complain?

Furthermore, Griffin has said "I have nothing against the Christian religion," and while that may seem hard for a lot of people to believe, it's not like you or I can actually know how he feels. Until we can read minds, we have to take him at his word.

Hate doesn't need to factor into things at all. He wanted to provoke a reaction. He knew attacking religion would provoke a reaction (I sort of doubt he actually realized how big a reaction, though). So yeah, he got what he wanted. Of course, then he felt bad and turned himself in. So you have to assume not a whole lot of brainpower went into this action in the first place. There's a lot of stupidity at work, but not a lot of hate.

It boils down to this:

This Griffin guy did something moronic, but it's hardly the huge deal people want to make it out to be. He didn't do something violent, and he didn't do any major property damage. He did some petty vandalism and hurt some people's feelings. The first part is illegal, the second is perfectly legal. It's not a serious crime, it's a fucking stupid one. Nobody's being oppressed, nobody's faith has been shattered, nobody's actually been hurt in any way. So get over it, people! Let the kid learn his lesson and move on, like everyone else who's ever done graffiti.

Still, there's another part to the Sentinel editorial that goes beyond just normal stupidity and enters smack dab into the realm of nearly mythological stupidity:

If Griffin ultimately just gets a slap on the wrist for his desecration of these churches, then other teens will get the clear message that it's okay to vandalize churches, schools or anyplace else they want to.

What are you smoking, Sentinel editorial guy?

Okay, first a minor point before addressing the most profound idiocy; "desecration?" Seriously? Here's the word's definition:

blasphemy, sacrilege (blasphemous behavior; the act of depriving something of its sacred character)

Fine, I'll admit that blasphemy is technically illegal in Massachusetts, but that's an ancient and profoundly unconstitutional blue law that is never enforced (for good reason). You seriously can't prosecute somebody for that. And I fail to see how a little spraypaint deprives a church of its "sacred character." It's not the paint that makes a church sacred, after all. So this is hardly "desecration." It's a nice loaded word though, so nice try!

Far more significant and idiotic is the claim that people will think it's okay to vandalize places if there's not some sort of big bail set. You almost get the feeling that the editorialist truly believes that the reason people don't vandalize churches more often is because they're afraid of having a high bail set, and that if it were legal everyone would be spraying "Fuck Jesus" on churches. Which is deeply, deeply stupid.

Here's some news: Nobody thinks it's okay to vandalize churches, schools, or assorted other places. Griffin didn't. "Other teens" don't. Nobody does! Because it's not!

And that's why they do it! It's a pointless display of adolescent rebellion, not a lack of realization that what they're doing is wrong!

In the end, what point would there be in setting a high bail? It wouldn't prevent anybody from doing anything like this in the future. It wouldn't send any message except that churches get special treatment. It wouldn't clean off the graffiti or mend hurt feelings. So what would it do?

Well, that's obvious. Revenge.

Leviticus 19:18
" 'Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself.

Proverbs 24:29
Do not say, "I'll do to him as he has done to me;
I'll pay that man back for what he did."

1 Thessalonians 5:15
Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always try to be kind to each other and to everyone else.

Disclaimer: Revenge sucks for purely secular reasons. It's just fun to throw bible verses at people who believe them but have apparently never bothered to read and/or follow them.

Is it just me, or is the Sentinel improving?

As is often the case, I've been readings bits of the Sentinel & Enterprise today. I only do this a few times a week, because normally it's an infuriating process. Editorials full of pointless liberal-bashing, horribly biased articles, etc. It's enough to drive one mad.

But today something seemed different. I read editorials and found myself agreeing with many of them! Even more amazing, they seemed to be better-written than what I've seen in the past!

On top of that, the articles weren't all stupid! What's going on?

Well, I do know that they have a new publisher. And he started on March 17th (so a week ago). Here's the Google cache of the article about him, since it's been moved into the S&E's archive of stuff you can't read.

I haven't worked in the newspaper industry, so I don't actually know how much influence a publisher has on content or style, and I have no idea if he's responsible for this week of relative respectability. Perhaps he's the impetus for the paper turning around. Or maybe the writers are just on their best behavior right now because they have a new boss, and things will go back downhill.

Whatever the case, I hope it keeps up.

Stupid mad cow disease...

For whatever reason, I'm now going to ramble on about this Sentinel article about Mad Cow disease and groups demanding more testing for it.

Actually, I'm not sure this article was even written by the S&E staff, and it's not a terrible article. So my complaint is more with people who freak out about Mad Cow disease than anything else. Meh.

By pure coincidence, it happens that this past weekend I watched a terrible and annoying movie called Mad Cowgirl that had Mad Cow disease as part of its theme. Do not under any circumstances watch this movie! It will make you want to never eat beef again just so you won't have to be reminded of this stupid movie!

Anyway, one of the (many, many) problems with the movie was that Mad Cow disease is just not anything anyone should be scared of.

Mad Cow disease is more technically known as Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, or BSE. It's a pretty nasty degenerative brain disease. For cows. Humans don't get BSE, because humans are not bovines (myself excluded, of course).

Unfortunately for humans, there's pretty strong evidence for a causal relationship between BSE and Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD). vCJD is also a nasty degenerative brain disease, but it occurs in humans. Don't get it.

But don't worry either, because you won't. You're probably more likely to choke to death on your toothpaste.

There have been three cows found in the US with BSE. That's it, ever. Yes, the article's headline is correct when it suggests that if you don't test for BSE you won't find it, but chances are you're not going to find much of anything even if you were to test every single cow.

Let's look at some numbers...

Today, about 40,000 -- or 0.1 percent -- of the 37 million U.S. cows slaughtered each year are tested, a number that consumer groups say is too low, especially when compared to testing programs in other countries.

[...]

...two mad cow cases found from tests of the brain tissue of 787,000 cows between 2004 and 2006 -- dimmed fears that the disease had a foothold in the country.

As well they should.

Now, the Consumers Union is complaining that testing 0.1% (or 1 in a thousand) of the cows is too low. Maybe it is. But the incidence of BSE among the cows tested is only about 0.00025% (or 1 in 400 thousand)!

In other words, if that percentage held up uniformly (which is admittedly unlikely) and we tested all 37 million cows at an astronomical cost, we might find 94 cows with BSE. Most of which would be sickly and dying and shouldn't find their way to market anyway (which is a separate issue, but I'm going to assume most cows with BSE aren't going to be food).

You almost certainly have more cows getting struck by lightning (the rate is 1 in 280,000 among humans, and we don't spend all day in a field) or getting abducted for crazy alien cattle mutilations than getting Mad Cow disease.

The CDC information for travelers says this about human risk of acquiring vCJD from eating beef:

A rough estimate of this risk for the UK in the recent past, for example, was about 1 case per 10 billion servings.

Incidentally, the UK has by far the highest rate of BSE in the world. Still, you could eat three servings of beef a day there, every day, for more than nine million years before you'd really need to worry.

So seriously, don't worry about Mad Cow disease. Also, don't watch crappy movies that make you rant about boring things.

How not to promote a propaganda film

So, there's this dumb propaganda film named Expelled coming out next month that will promote Intelligent Design (AKA creationism) and make the ridiculous claim that evolutionary theory leads to Nazis.

Of course, in order to avoid the appearance that they're just a bunch of anti-science nutbags, they couch the film in spurious claims that "Big Science" has unfairly censored ID proponents.

They also got a bunch of respected evolutionary biologists to appear in it by misrepresenting the purpose (and even name) of the film.

Then they held screenings for friendly audiences (read as "church groups").

Then for some reason they held a screening in the same town where the annual American Atheists convention was going on. Oops.

Then one of the biologists who actually was featured in the movie (and thanked in the credits) tried to attend this free screening, but they wouldn't let him in. Oops again, since they're claiming to promote free discourse of dissenting ideas (or something).

Then they really fucked up.

Oh well!

Now here's a totally unrelated video! Happy Good Friday!

Dickbag Watch! The irony is palpable!

Why oh why have I not yet unsubscribed from the RSS feed for Chuck Morse's (AKA "Dickbag's") blog? Do I enjoy suffering? Do I enjoy mentally puzzling out the twisted logic that goes on in the mind of a deranged individual? Do I have a craving for spelling and grammatical errors? Am I just too lazy?

Answer: No, I just love irony.

Today Dickbag is annoyed that Barack Obama's old minister does nasty things like malevolently characterize a diverse and broad group of individuals as if they all have the same terrible views. Indeed, these views may not even exist in many of them at all.

Let us gain wisdom from Dickbag's meanderings!

The left just doesn’t get it.

They just don’t realize that most Americans are simply not burdened with the same malevolent hatred for this country that is the hallmark of their debased outlook. Most Americans don’t damn their country, as did Obama’s minister, or [sic] do they blame their country for the ills that beset other countries, many of which suffer under the stultifying yoke of the very same left-wing systems that are so admired by the elites who dominate the Democratic Party and by the likes of the rabble rousing [sic] spiritual councilor to Barak [sic] Obama.

[...]

The vile speeches of Obama’s minister, like the Wellstone rally, provide rare examples of left-wing arrogance on display for all to see in all of it's [sic] ugliness.

First, bonus points to Dickbag for using the word "stultifying." That word-of-the-day calendar is paying off! Points off for not knowing how to spell "Barack" though.*

And yes, it sure does suck when people characterize a hugely diverse class of the citizenry in a negative and totally inaccurate manner, doesn't it?

Pot, meet kettle.



*Seriously, he doesn't know how to spell Barack Obama's name! He always spells it "Barak," even in the title of the post. Maybe I should call him "Dikbag?"

Finally, creationism makes sense!

(Found via the Angry Astronomer.)

A second chance

If you've been reading me for awhile, you're probably well aware of my stand on the proposed doctor's office specializing in addiction medicine that's looking to move to Fitchburg.

If not, feel free to look here and get caught up. Good? Okay, onward!

It seems that the ill-fated bid of Fitchburg Primary Care Associates to get a zoning exemption has a second chance, per this article in the Sentinel. Expect editorials from the Sentinel once again opposing it in the next couple of weeks. [Update 3/18: That was fast!]

Anyway, most of the article is rehashing the ill-informed opinions of various city councilors who were opposed to the clinic in the first place, and remain opposed to it now. Shocking!

And once again, Jody Joseph is the sole local voice of reason. Thank you, Mr. Joseph!

Why's there another hearing? Well, it seems that the ZBA screwed up the first one:

State law, [Attorney for the practice George] Watts said, requires that a hearing be advertised by public notice 14 days prior to the hearing. Watts said the hearing was posted on Jan. 2, six days before the Jan. 8 hearing.

Okay, so that's pretty simple. They survive on a technicality. It also explains a bit of why the representative of the medical practice is reported to have been somewhat unprepared at the last hearing.

What that means is they have a difficult road ahead of them for getting through this next time (date not set, but expected to be in April or May). People don't like to reverse themselves, and the ignorance and fear that led to the first "no" decision isn't likely to have gone away.

Since I support the opening of this practice, here are a few unsolicited suggestions for the representatives of Fitchburg Primary Care Associates at the next meeting.

• You are a business and you want to come to Fitchburg. That's good! Highlight it!
• People will claim there are enough places in Fitchburg to serve addiction already. Research what these places are, what they do, and what populations they serve. Debunk the myth of there being plenty of treatment options available and highlight how you will bring a new and valuable service to the town.
• Attack the myth of the "dangerous addict" head-on. That's the biggest fear driving people to oppose you and is demonstrably untrue. Don't just rely on research though, consider bringing along a couple of well-spoken patients (or former patients) to demonstrate to everyone that addicts are not what they think they are.
• Demand to be treated as any other business would. If you meet the qualifications, you should get the permit, period.
• See if you can drum up some local doctors or other professionals who deal with addiction to appear with you. Call up HealthAlliance and see if they have anyone willing to come to your aid. It doesn't even necessarily have to be in person, see if you can get doctors to sign a petition. I guarantee you'll find support.
• Research, research, research. If anyone has a question, have a good answer. If anyone has an objection based on ignorance, educate them. Not just anecdotes, give them facts and figures they hadn't heard before.
• Make sure whomever you have representing you at the hearing knows their stuff, inside and out. Also make sure they're ready to face a hostile audience. The Sentinel will do its part to whip up public outrage about something they don't understand, so you're going to have an uphill battle.
• Embrace that you specialize in addiction medicine. If primary care isn't your main focus, don't play it up. Otherwise people will think you're trying to pull something over on them.
• Be prepared for anything.

Well, that's it off the top of my head.

There's absolutely no reason this clinic shouldn't be able to open in Fitchburg. It would benefit the town, it would benefit the population, and it would harm nobody.

Good luck.

Liveblogging pre-recorded television!

I suspect liveblogs are a scam to get extra pagehits. This is something I should be a part of!

As such, I am going to liveblog tonight's "Chronicle" featuring Lisa Wong (and um... Fitchburg). To make it an extra challenge, I'm going to do it on my tiny Eee-PC, which is hard to type on. Also, I never watch television, so it's a little challenging just to find the channel.

Anyway, here goes!

7:29: Hey, I found the right channel! "Inside Edition" is on and has Bush singing. Yuck.
7:31: Is my clock fast? There are a lot of commercials on, but no Fitchburg-lovin'!
7:31: Okay, it's on. And they mentioned the fucking "martini bar" in the first five seconds. Is that the only thing we have? It's nice and all, but I'm sick to death of hearing about it.
7:33: Lack of community pride? Fuck you, Chronicle!
7:33: Hey, Lisa's on! Did you know she's 5'2". Ha, shorty!
7:34: Now they're talking about all Wong's ideas. She said "Fit and Fun in Fitchburg," which is a slogan I'm not crazy about.
7:35: Now some old douchey-looking guy from UMass Lowell is doomsaying. Bad economy, blah blah blah. Go back to Lowell, professor smarty-pants!
7:36: Elm street looks really shitty, but they have a church where grown men with goatees play Connect-4. This is "part of Mayor Wong's vision!"
7:37: Beardy McDouche is back and just said that if Wong can fix the city she "should be president." Wong/Clinton '16!
7:38: Going to a commercial break. Good, I need to pee and grab a beer.
7:39: Holy crap that was a quick commercial break! Luckily I'm quick at peeing and getting drunk (not always in that order).
7:40: Wong just called an old building "both a challenge and an opportunity." Isn't there some urban legend about a Kanji character that means both of those? Or was it crisis and opportunity? Whatever.
7:41: Ron Ansin is on now. He's an okay guy who does a lot of good things for Fitchburg. But doesn't the Ansin family own Channel 7? Traitor!
7:42: Holy crap Fitchburg has geothermal heating/cooling in it? That's awesome!
7:42: Have you heard of Mzeal communications? They're in Putnam Place apparently. I wonder what the hell they do, but apparently the teevee isn't going to tell me.
7:43: Anchors on before the commercial break. They have a pretty sweet gig, like 90 seconds of appearing on camera saying nothing important, then they cut either to a commercial or back to whoever did the actual work coming out to Fitchburg. Lazy-ass anchors.
7:46: We're back! Wong envisions Main Street becoming like Mass Ave or Newbury Street. That would be quite nice. Yes please.
7:47: Hey, Matt Straight is on! People used to accuse me of being him! He apprently owns some fancy hotel/apartment/condo thing in the Johnsonian building that looks pretty nice. Man, now I wish I was him (or at least had his money).
7:48: College students talking!
7:48: "It's not as bad as everyone makes it out to be." Bravo, student!
7:49: Hey, that was awfully brief. There were like 12 people in that panel and they talked to maybe two!
7:49: The Design at 639 lady is on. I've met her before. She's nice, but I can't relate to her.
7:50: There's a total theme of people saying they like Fitchburg but everyone they talk to makes fun of them for being in Fitchburg. Jerks.
7:50: DeStare is on! Martini bar, woohoo!
7:51: "We really wanted to bring a bit of Las Vegas to central Massachusetts." Sorry, DeStare dude, I don't see any strippers in your establishment. Work on that please.
7:52: Yeah, so a bunch of the students plan on leaving Fitchburg after they graduate. Good! That's what college students are supposed to do, dammit!
7:52: Now the anchorheads are talking about how Fitchburg has such great deals in the housing market. Sweet! Please buy my property, Boston-area viewers! And on to the commercials...
7:55: Oh crap, back from commercial and annoying Mike Barnicle is on. I don't care for him.
7:56: "Blah blah blah I'm Mike Barnicle and I'm boring and have no neck."
7:57: Shut up Mike Barnicle! You're too negative and blobby.
7:57: And it's over. Well, that was boring.

Enough with "Experience" already!

Okay, I know the primaries are over in Massachusetts, but I have to get this off my chest.

Hillary Clinton incessantly talks about how she's so super-experienced and Barack Obama "isn't ready" and blah blah blah. I find this more than a little confusing, since it sounds like her primary basis for this claim is that she was First Lady for 8 years during her husband's presidency. And so I guess was super involved in everything he did that was good, and nothing he did that was bad (ahem... NAFTA).

So, I've decided to take a look at the political experience of four political figures: Hillary Clinton (obviously), Barack Obama (also pretty obvious), Nancy Reagan, and Laura Bush. Maybe the last two aren't so obvious, but if Clinton is going to define being First Lady as "experience" then Nancy and Laura may very well have some experience!

Note: I chose both Laura and Nancy because I figured Laura's the most recent first lady, but her president is totally unpopular, while Bill Clinton was popular to the very end. So Nancy represents the crazy-ass wife of a popular (and also crazy-ass) president whose legacy of total incompetence has already been whitewashed! Also, only 2-term first ladies were eligible, because obviously they have twice the experience! Sorry, Barbara Bush!

I'm going to use an elaborate and highly-scientific rating scale I've just made up that scores each candidate on their applicable pre-political life, years in political office, accomplishments, and maybe some other things I'll just make up. It then assigns them an "experienceability" score between 1 and 10. To be fair, I'll go in alphabetical order by last name.

Also, unless otherwise noted, I'm just getting all this information from Wikipedia, which is obviously totally infallible...

Let's begin!

Laura Bush

Pre-politics: Was a teacher and then a librarian. Earlier in life, killed her boyfriend in a car accident after running a stop sign.

Political experience: 6 years as First Lady of Texas, 8 years as First Lady of the country (barring impeachment or assassination). Also:

During her years raising her children, Laura Bush served as a volunteer in a number of organizations, including Friends of the Midland Public Library, the executive board of the Junior League of Midland, the Friends of Dallas Public Library Board Executive Committee, the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) at Preston Hollow Elementary School, and the Community Partners Board of Child Protective Services.

Which sorta counts. I'll assume most of those early volunteer gigs were part-time though, so will just give her 16 years. Not too shabby!

Accomplishments: Launched the "National Book Festival." "became the first person other than a president to deliver the weekly presidential radio address," "was praised by People magazine and others for her elegance and better use of fashion," "appeared on Egypt's version of Sesame Street," suggested a woman (perhaps Harriet Miers?) to her husband for a Supreme Court justice.

Ok, that last one didn't work out so well, but still shows she had power!

Experienceability! 3. I was going to give her a 7 originally because she has 16 years of First-Lady-ness! That's a lot! But it's being a First Lady, which means nothing. Even though apparently she influenced decisions. Still, she has experience killing people, which I'm sure would come in handy!

Hillary Clinton

Jeez, Wikipedia, your entry is too long! But I will resist the lure to use Conservapedia's shorter-and-totally-not-biased entry and slog through!

Pre-politics: Umm... She was a girl scout. Volunteered for Barry Goldwater. Went to Wellesley (hey an ex of mine went there and became a total whore!) and joined the Wellesley Young Republicans. Then worked "sliming salmon in a fish processing cannery in Valdez." (I don't know what "sliming salmon" means but it sounds dirty and possibly lesbionic...) Then she went to Yale Law School and became a lawyer, the end.

Political experience: 12 (not entirely consecutive) years as First Lady of Arkansas, 8 years as First Lady of the US, 7 years as US Senator for New York. That's 7 years of being an elected politician and 20 years of being married to someone who happened to be either governor or president. Not bad!

Accomplishments: As first lady she most notably had that health care reform thing which totally failed to go anywhere or do anything. Does that count? Also she managed some crisis with Sinbad and Sheryl Crow at her side.

In the Senate she's on a bunch of committees. Supported going into Iraq and Afghanistan. Has spent some time bad-mouthing videogames. Also is running for president, which gives her one up on Laura Bush and Nancy Reagan.

Experienceability! 6. Well, she's only been in elected office for 7 years. Sleeping with the president doesn't count, especially when he's getting blowjobs from the interns and all your well-meaning plans go nowhere as First Lady. Still, you're beating Laura Bush!

Barack Obama

Pre-politics: Grew up in Honolulu and Indonesia. Which makes idiots on the internet think he's a Muslim. Went to Occidental College for two years, then Columbia, where he majored in political science "with a specialization in international relations." Was a lecturer on constitutional law from 1993-2004.

Political experience: Illinois State Senate for 8 years, US Senate for 3. Absolutely zero time married to any political bigwigs, which is bound to hurt him.

Accomplishments: As a state politician: ethics reforms, welfare reform, subsidies for children, health care stuff, "led the passage of legislation mandating videotaping of homicide interrogations, and a law to monitor racial profiling by requiring police to record the race of drivers they stopped."

US Senator: Wikipedia is baffling, so here:

Obama successfully introduced two initiatives bearing his name. "Lugar-Obama" expands the Nunn-Lugar cooperative threat reduction concept to conventional weapons, including shoulder-fired missiles and anti-personnel mines. The "Coburn-Obama Transparency Act" provides for the web site USAspending.gov, managed by the Office of Management and Budget. The site lists all organizations receiving Federal funds from 2007 onward and provides breakdowns by the agency allocating the funds, the dollar amount given, and the purpose of the grant or contract. In December 2006, President Bush signed into law the "Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act," marking the first federal legislation to be enacted with Obama as its primary sponsor

So yeah, Nunn-Lugar...

He's on the Foreign Relations Committee too.

And did a bunch of other stuff, but I'm starting to get bored of this post, so just read it yourself if you want.

Experienceability! 7. This was tough to decide. He's got 11 years as an elected official, which beats Clinton's 7 and Bush's none. But some were on the state level, which is sort of wussy. Still, at least we know people vote for him. But he's never fucked a president (as far as we know). Nevertheless, I capriciously give him a 7.

Nancy Reagan

Okay, I admit it. Having Nancy Reagan as a part of this contest was just so I could use this totally awesome picture of her sitting on Mr. T's lap, awkwardly smooching his head.

For that alone, she gets an 11 in my "experienceabilty!" scale.

Nancy Reagan for President!

How to write an editorial for the Sentinel

It must be pretty easy to write editorials for a hack newspaper. You can just make stuff up! As long as it fits with the ideological biases of the paper, anything goes!

There does seem to be one rule that applies at the Sentinel though. No matter how sensible the rest of your editorial is, it's not complete until you throw in a totally unsubstantiated bit of conservative bullshit.

Let's look at a few recent editorials for example!

First, Jeff McMenemy's editorial entitled Fathers deserve more credit than they get.

Pretty dull, uninspired stuff. Just what we've come to expect from the illustrious editor of the Sentinel!

It's also pretty uncontroversial, and is basically about how single fathers are okay guys and shouldn't be written off just based on their gender. Okay, no worries. But for some bizarre reason in the middle of it he throws out this gem:

To suggest, as many in the liberal family court system do, that a child will be harmed by spending equal amounts of time with both parents, is illogical and the worst kind of political correctness.

Whuh?

The family court system is liberal? Liberals think that spending time with both parents is bad? That's somehow "politically correct?" Huh?

I know a lot of liberals. I've discussed politics with a lot of liberals. I'm a liberal myself. Not once do I recall any of us ever having an issue with fathers spending time with their children. What's the point of even throwing this in the editorial, other than to further express the paper's massive conservative bias? It's not like it adds to the argument (which was otherwise not that bad, for McMenemy at least) in any way.

Now, I do worry about McMenemy's kids, but it's not because he's male. It's just because he's a douchebag.

Regardless, it follows the paper's golden rule of always having an unfounded attack on liberals in its editorials, so it passes!

Next, we'll move onto the somewhat less sensible but still okay Judges need more accountability, less secrecy.

Now, this is less of a clear-cut case, because the whole piece is pretty dumb. Personally, I don't feel the need to have judges spend all their time sucking up to the press and explaining their every decision (99% of which are totally uninteresting anyway). I'd rather they spend that time doing judge stuff.

But in general transparency is a good thing, so I'll let it pass.

Yet, once again we get a bit of weirdness:

The judiciary is not under attack; it is simply being scrutinized for fostering in the public's mind a perception that judges are liberal, elitist and arrogant.

Umm...

Damn those elitist liberal judges! Why could the public possibly view them that way? Actually, hold on a second; does the public even view them that way?

I don't. Most people I know don't. I went looking for polling figures saying this is what the public thinks and couldn't find any (maybe I missed something?). Still, I'd be willing to bet that most people generally don't spend a lot of time thinking about the political views or personality foibles of judges, they just want them to interpret the law correctly. Which is their job.

But if we accept that this perception maybe does in fact exist, do you really think it's the judges who are at fault? After all, they're not even the ones talking to the press (which is largely what the editorial is complaining about).

Maybe, just maybe, it's actually the press portraying the judges this way that would make people come to these erroneous conclusions. Case in point: this editorial. Some monkey behind a typewriter says that judges are liberal and elitist and blah blah blah so it must be true!

Never mind the fact that every last bit of legal reporting I've ever seen in a newspaper is totally superficial, doesn't explain the intricacies of the law, and generally belies a total misunderstanding of how the legal system even functions.

Also please disregard the fact that even if every judge in the country is an arrogant liberal elitist, that has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not they're a good judge. Their views and personalities don't matter if they do their job right.

Oh, but liberals are bad! Just like those arrogant elitists (none of which exist in the press corps, nosiree sir!).

So the editorial goes through.

Finally, let's go to the most recent example: State's auto insurance coverage still has a long way to go.

It's about the recent MassPIRG study (warning, that link is a PDF) showing that--in the words of the study--"'How You Drive' Takes a Backseat to 'Who You Are'".

It's an interesting study that I recommend reading (or at least skimming through) if you're interested in seeing the ways in which the insurance companies game the system to use socioeconomic factors in determining rates, despite the state attempting to prevent exactly that.

I don't think the editorialist actually bothered to read the study, but that's hardly surprising.

Anyway, here's the relevant bit from the editorial that had me scratching my head:

We think the report shows what happens when state government gets involved in business: They mess it up.

Well, now I know they didn't read the study.

On the other hand, at least they didn't use the word "liberal" this time. Instead, they just regurgitated a stupid conservative talking point that makes absolutely no sense in this context.

First off, the state is deregulating the auto insurance industry. It's getting less involved in business than it has been, and that's what's fucking things up. How hard is that to understand?

Here's a quote from the MassPIRG report that explains the old system (bold and italics are theirs):

Massachusetts policymakers over the years had become very aware that the competitively rated auto insurance markets in the other states served the interests of insurers – not of consumers – and were notably flawed in one vital respect: The other rating systems unfairly penalized many drivers with good records and rewarded many drivers with bad records. The Massachusetts rating system was highly regulated precisely to avoid the major failings of competitive auto insurance markets – in particular, that these other markets permitted insurers to use countless rating factors having nothing to do with the consumer’s driving record. These other factors dilute the importance of driving record, and to make matters worse, do so by discriminating against drivers based on their socio-economic status. And so, Massachusetts policymakers preserved a rigid rating system because that system gave more weight to driving record than any other rating system in the United States.

Well, that's pretty unequivocal. When the state was highly involved in regulating the auto insurers things were exactly as the Sentinel wants them to be. When the state removed (or lessened, anyway) its involvement we opened ourselves up to the same flaws that exist in the other 49 states. In fact, the whole point of regulation was to prevent this kind of shit from happening.

But somehow the Sentinel interprets that as the state getting involved with business and messing things up. What the hell?

Yeah, the state messed up. It messed up by deregulating. It should have kept the old, more heavily-regulated system in place. But then you'd have papers like the Sentinel writing editorials about how the state shouldn't interfere with business. Which they did anyway!

So there you have it. Three editorials. Three bullshit conservative talking points that are either totally irrelevant to the point of the article, unsubstantiated gibberish, or just plain illogical.

The only conclusion one can reasonably reach from this small sampling is that the Sentinel must have some sort of quota of conservative bullshit it has to include to consider an editorial fit for printing.

Or they're just totally incompetent boobs. Take your pick.