A bunch of people have commented on a terminally silly and self-indulgent article in Salon (which used to be good, by the way, and iconoclastic and surprising), so I sat through the lame Flash ad and read it.

It’s about an author who is unhappy that her books aren’t stacked fifteen deep at airport bookstores (and, by entension, the covers hung on the walls of her place in the Hamptons). Here’s the miserable pittance she earned from writing:

* 1994 – $150,000
* 1997 – She doesn’t say what she got for the celebrity bio she ghostwrote, but friends put these kinds of assignments at about $50,000 – $100,000, so call it $50,000
* 1998 – $10,000
* 2002 – $80,000That’s $290,000 over 10 years – $29K/year, plus a book she thinks she could sell for $50,000, bringing her to $340,000 over 10 years or $34K/year.

In 2002, the median household income in the United States was $42,400. So by writing (assuming the lowest likely sale for the biography and that she sells the current book), she made 80% of the median household income.

Don’t know about you, but that’s pretty good. She’s doing somethng that she loves, actualizes herself, and making a decent living doing it.

But from reading the pity party she wrote for herself, you wouldn’t know it.

Why do I care, you may ask.

For two reasons, one slight and personal and one large and public.

Personally, I know and am friends with about ten people who are or aspire to be writers. I’d bitch-slap any one of them that wrote something this sullen and self-pitying, and consider myself a good friend for doing so.

Publicly, I’ve said all along that we are in a contest that will determine the future of our society. And for me, the kind of corrosive self-pity and anomie that comes with it are a far bigger risk than a bunch of frustrated mullahs with Semtex vests. Because if that attitude wins – anticipating the ‘beautiful destruction’ that is the anodyne to wallowing in negative, hopeless regard of one’s life – the mullahs just have to walk in and they’ll win.

UPDATE: Citizen Smash went to the antiwar demonstrations in San Diego, and filed quite a report. He even interviewed one of the speakers. Go check him out, view this picture, and then read the site linked below…

Here’s some interesting reading from an antiwar Brit who’s disgusted with the antiwar movement and wants it fixed. (Hat Tip to the always excellent Harry’s Place). Essays include, in order:

# A Personal Journey Through the Stop the War Coalition
# Unholy Alliances: The Stop the War Coalition, the Extreme Left and Islamic Fundamentalism
# Sinning by Omission: The Stop the War Coalition and Palestine
# Playing Pontius Pilate: Why Shouting “End the Occupation” Isn’t Helpful
# Stop the War Coalition Rehab: A 7-Step Programme
# Further Online Reading

I’ve read lots of very similar things about our domestic antiwar movement – and seen them myself in some of the older “New Left” era.

In case people wonder why I – a pro-war liberal – would want to see a healthier antiwar movement, the answer’s simple. I don’t think I have a monopoly on truth, and constructive, intelligent dialog is needed to help us all constantly review and check our perceptions of events and the world. I think we need a real debate – because when we have one, we’ll begin to be able to build a common framework from which we can act as a nation and a culture.

We’re a long way from there today.

Look. I’m a lifelong Democrat. I’m desperately trying to get a handle on this election, as I weigh Bush’s foreign policy – which is a lot closer to my beliefs than what I’ve heard from Kerry to date – against his damaging domestic policies.

I’m actually working on the question of what Kerry could say that would convince me – I’m drafting the speech and will put it up here sometime this week.

Now go over and click on today’s Doonesbury, if you haven’t seen it in the paper yet.Look, Trudeau stopped being funny or truly sharp about five or ten years ago. He now takes a cleaver to large and obvious targets, but instead of speaking ‘truth to power’ and looking at the deep problems with the powerful classes that lead our society, he’s joined them in the Hamptons, and is standing there, aperitif in hand, chatting with Babs and skewering Bush – which doubtless makes him feel in touch with his rebellious youth.

In this specific case, it would have been nice to note that Kerry also asked for and received an early discharge from the Navy so he could run for Congress.

Garry, you’re part of the problem, not part of the solution. It’d be nice to see that self-awareness reflected in your work somewhere.

And to the editors of the Los Angeles Times (click here to email Jamie Gold, the reader’s representative): Could we think about moving it to the editorial pages until the election is over? I’m having a hard time explaining to my seven-year old that things aren’t quite so black-and-white as far as the election is concerned. Actually, could we just retire it honorably and find some new talent?

Yasser Arafat Says Gibson Film Not Anti-Semitic

So we’re back from our trip, a few pounds heavier, a lot poorer (time to go get some consulting work!!), and very pleased with the world around us.

We rode motorcycles up to Paso Robles, CA, which has become a center for food and wine since I last looked; we stayed in a superb, romantic B & B with three guest rooms, and while we were there had a rather shocking experience….at breakfast in the B & B yesterday, one of the other two couples staying there was chatting w/us; they are from Sunnyvale; we told them we got married Sat, bla, bla bla, at [secret location redacted], bla bla bla…the woman looks sharply at TG and asks “Were you wearing a gray-blue dress?” TG goes “Um, yes, why?”

She & I are both thinking the woman wondered if TG had chosen it to match the hall. Woman goes on. “And it was all beaded, right?” At this point, I’m looking back and forth between TG and the woman wondering if there is some joke being played that I don’t get yet. “Yes,” TG replies, and I realize she’s as puzzled as I am.

“We saw you right after you got married!! You were standing around with a bunch of people!!” The woman exclaims. Her son was taking her touring in LA, so they wandered up into the garden where we had just been married… So where do you buy LOTTO tickets, again??

Here are some good things that we found while we were there:

Wines

Windward

Pinot Noir – that’s all they make…We had the 2001, which is just incredible. We joined their wine club, and are looking forward to getting their stuff over the year.

Castoro Cellars

Vente Anni blend…a BIG wine.

Barbara 2001. Just good red wine.

Bonny Doon

Fellow Slug Randall Grahm works had to be irreverent and amusing, and also works hard to make interesting wine. Hie ‘Big House Red’ is one of our major dinner wines at our house.

We stopped by their Paso Robles tasting room (a 2.6 mile walk from our B & B – we don’t drink and ride, and we like to walk), and had some cool stuff. The California Viognier, the Cigare A – all good stuff. But the dessert infusions are just amazing. Vanilla ice cream, some chocolate, this stuff, and life is just plain good.

We ate well, too.

Dinner at McPhee’s Grill, Buono Tavola, and Kelly’s …

OK, back to it…

I’m frightened by the events in Spain.

My fear is on several different levels, on several different issues. Each of them is worthy of a much longer essay by someone much smarter than I am, but since I’m what I’ve got and the time I have is what it is, here you go.First, because we’ve shown how easily such little effort can move to such massive tragedy. I’ve believed for a while that we have both an emerging conflict with Islamism and an internal conflict coming from those whose relations to Western culture – hell, to any culture – are fractured by weak philosophical underpinnings. Whether it’s a mad Muslim-American veteran and a teenage boy in search of identity with a rifle, or an angry white Christian veteran and a truckload of fertilizer-based explosives, or a gang of – whoever – with backpacks and construction explosives – the ability and need of the few and weak to kill and terrorize the many and strong seems to be getting stronger.

Second, because we’ve now shown that terrorism works. I don’t know nearly enough about Spanish politics (and, in reality, neither do most of the commentators left and right, weighing in on this) to dissect the cause of the shift – whether it was disgust at the government’s manipulation, craven appeasement, or some complex human combination of these and other reactions – it sure appears clear that the terrorist act toppled a government. That’s a far greater effect than 9/11 – they only toppled two buildings. People are smart creatures because we learn what works and we go back do it more often. People who want to change regimes have been shown they can do it with eleven backpacks and 165kg of explosives.

That means they will do it again.

And finally, and most frighteningly, because reading the news, the columns, and the blogs, I see one thing very clearly. Everyone is looking at the events of 3/11 through the prism of their positions on 3/10. The hawks see what supports their positions, the doves what supports theirs.

I am seeing more simple-minded rationalization around this issue than I think I’ve seen in quite some time, and that frightens me and ought to frighten you all. Because the path through this will come from our ability to reason and plan together – to show solidarity in word and deed, and thereby resolve to pursue whatever path is ultimately chosen. I see very little solidarity, and a deepening fracture.

I think my task in writing for the next little while will be to delineate that fracture and try and suggest some paths back toward the bridges that may span it.

Me:
I chose this ring for you because it sparkles and is brilliant and because I hope that when you look at it every day, it will remind you of how I see you – brilliant and sparkling and precious. But you are more dazzling to me than any jewel, and your love far more precious than gold. Take this ring as a token to remember forever that you are wonderful and that I am so lucky to be yours.

Her:
I present you with this ring because it symbolizes the unique and awesome person you are. You impress me in so many ways. You are my model of strength and determination. Yet, like the lovely swirls of gold and silver on this ring, everything in your life is touched with sweetness and compassion. I am lucky and happy to be a very important part of your life. Take this ring and my love and devotion.

Just talking to a friend in Sacramento, catching up on the latest gossip, and he pointed me to my favorite hypocrite, Don Perata, CA State Senator from Alameda County.

Perata is a mainstream, pro-union, pro-environment, anti-gun Democrat. Who has a CCW (Concealed Weapons Permit – something random citizens like myself basically can’t get unless we live in a rural county). Now there’s nothing immoral about being anti-gun. I certainly don’t think there’s anything immoral about getting a CCW; I don’t doubt that I’d find one handy.

But being a leader in restricting gun rights in the Legislature while demanding those same rights for oneself – that’s pretty creepy no matter which side of the issue you’re on.

But that’s old news.

The new news is even better. It appears that not only has he steered significant business to a local political consulting firm, Staples Associates, owned by local political consultant Timothy Staples – but he’s been on Staples’ payroll at the same time, to the tune of a a hundred-million dollar slush fund, which is being investigated as we speak.

But when I first talked about SkyBox Liberals a long time ago, it was all about “…making sure you and your friends can be very comfortable while you think and write and feel very very seriously about it.

I have to weigh in on one thing in the news (note the great job I’m doing at ignoring news and putting blogging aside…where does that 12-step program meet, again?) – the KCRW/Loh contremps.

I’ve wanted to stay away from it for a variety of meatspace reasons, but got my face rubbed in it just the other day.

One of our commenters, Blackberry, posted a couple of comments which certainly read as pretty offensive, which ended in this thread:

We can even put a sign over the camps, right Blackberry? Something along the lines of “Arbeit Mact Frei”.

That’s been done to death though, I suppose.

Posted by: Porphyrogenitus on March 7, 2004 07:26 PM

No, it will be in English.

Posted by: Blackberry on March 7, 2004 11:58 PM

That made me pretty damn unhappy, and I felt that I needed to do something, so I added:

Blackberry, you’re feeling kind of troll-like to me here. And since by our policy, the post author determines who can comments on posts, I’m going to politely ask you to disassociate yourself from the explicit intent of your last comment – that setting up camps is something you want to do.

A.L.

Posted by: Armed Liberal on March 8, 2004 12:09 AM

So I offered Blackberry an opening to clarify his comments, both here and in email (turns out his email bounces), and he didn’t pick it up and he’s gone.

Which of course goes to the issue of free speech, which is much in the news both here in LA and on the East Coast. The big-league versions of this, with Howard Stern vs. Clear Channel and Sandra Tsing Loh vs KCRW.

First, I ought to note that I’m not unaware of the fact that I just reduced Blackberry’s audience’ that in essence, I challenged his freedom of speech. So I’m not one who believes in absolute freedom of speech. In this case, I see the comments here as important parts of a meaningful conversation, and while I will never yank someone for disagreeing with me, I will yank someone – on either side – who I think is damaging the conversation by driving people away or being gratuitously offensive.

I don’t hold much of a brief for Stern; I’ve heard him once or twice, and while I do like ‘lad’ humor (the UK magazine Superbike is my favorite motorcycle magazine), there’s some deep core of assholery in him that I just don’t find appealing. And I remain mystified why people who trade some shred of their self-respect for a chance to go and be mocked in front of an international audience. Kind of like the people who go on Jerry Springer to confess sleeping with their wives’ sisters…why, exactly, did this strike you as good idea?

And the general coarsening of media life makes me kinda sad. It’s not like I’m some fucking Emily Post (get it?), but there’s an erasing of the line between appropriate and inappropriate that makes me sad.

So on one hand, I’m not very interested in Stern, and I think it’s well within Clear Channel’s rights to carry who they see fit.

But last night, I’m reading Isaacson’s great biography of Ben Franklin, and I just got to the ‘Apology for Printers‘, and here’s a key quote (go read the whole thing, though):

That it is unreasonable to imagine Printers approve of every thing they print, and to censure them on any particular thing accordingly; since in the way of their Business they print such great variety of things opposite and contradictory. It is likewise as unreasonable what some assert, That Printers ought not to print any Thing but what they approve; since if all of that Business should make such a Resolution, and abide by it, an End would thereby be put to Free Writing, and the World would afterwards have nothing to read but what happen’d to be the Opinions of Printers.

I’ve bolded this because it represents a basic truth that we need to remember.

So unless Clear Channel (and Warner/AOL, and Disney/ABC) are willing to ‘print such a great variety of things,’ the only things we’ll hear and know are those which meet their opinions. And that’s not such a good idea. And to have the federal pecksniffs creating the “Broadcast Decency Act of 2004” begins to push too damn far; what is the bright line between socially indecent and politically indecent, I’ll open by asking.

Now it’s easy to rail at corporate repression, and paint careful connections between repressive politics and selective media, but before we talk about the mote in Clear Channel’s eye, let’s talk about the log in KCRW’s. For those of you outside of Southern California, KCRW is the leading NPR station in the region, and possibly in the country, in terms of audience and influence.

It has a button on the Mighty Odyssey dashboard, but I do click away from it usually pretty quickly; the overall air of sanctimony, combined with questionable facts presented as Revealed Gospel.

And, in total keeping with that sanctimony, one of their commentators, local writer (and Friend of Cathy Seipp), Sandra Tsing Loh said ‘fuck’ as a verb on one of her taped shows – and it was repeated – and suddenly she’s a nonperson. There’s nothing on the KCRW website acknowledging the controversy. Her past shows are gone from the archives. It’s like Big Brother’s hand waved, and suddenly she was Photoshopped out of the pictures.

I’m sure you know about it, but I’ll suggest Cathy Seipp’s post (which comes with the added perk of Ruth Seymour’s personal email as well as that of the trustees Ruth Seymour works for) as an overview, along with Matt Welch’s as good political screed on the issue.

Let me start by positioning myself. I’m the guy who doesn’t have a television set. I don’t listen to Rush or to Howard Stern, and when Kevin and Bean (the local corporate alt-rock shock jocks) have their sidekick Ralph give ‘Sex U’, I change the channel.

But I think I’m gonna start listening to all of them now.

Because what’s going on frightens me.

I don’t think that the men in black helicopters are leaving their Illuminati meetings and determining what media we get to listen to.

But I do think that we have a media elite – and Ruth Seymour, the executive director of KCRW-for-life is certainly as much a part of it as Michael Eisner – maybe more so, since her job is more secure.

And that media elite, rather than promoting open discussion, and accepting challenge, as Franklin anticipated, is, to echo Ruth Seymour, not only marginalizing those it finds unpleasant, but working to institutionalize them at the same time. Seipp has some quotes:

The next morning she got a call from programming director Ruth Seymour, who said that KCRW was dropping her show. “She said, ‘It’s unconscionable in these times for you to leave the station without making sure that was bleeped,’” Sandra recalled. “Then she said she’s sending a memo to the station, not using my name for some reason … I don’t understand that part … but saying that the engineer is on probation.”

“And then she said, ‘Sandra, I know this comes at a hard time. I don’t know what’s going on with you. But please, Sandra, get some help!’”

Sorry, Ruth, but the only one who needs help is the increasingly intolerant left.

Look, I swear in writing on this blog a lot, and I am somewhat of a pottymouth in person. But I do believe that what Loh did was wrong, and deserved criticism and possibly even sanction. But KCRW’s actions are just beyond the pale.

I’m old enough to remember when being progressive stood for openness and toleration. So is Ruth Seymour, so there’s just no damn excuse.

I know it’s nitpicky, but no one on Apollo 13 said ‘Houston, we’ve got a problem.’ From the official transcript:

55:55:20 – Swigert: “Okay, Houston, we’ve had a problem here.”

55:55:35 – Lovell: “Houston, we’ve had a problem. We’ve had a main B bus undervolt.”

If it’s not too much to ask the Kerry staff to just spend five minutes checking things like this…c’mon guys, credibility counts.