Across the Great Divide

Weekend'S nooze.

Two NWA pilots ignored radio transmissions for more than an hour, overshot their airport by 150 miles, and the first officer on the flight says, "I can assure you none of us was asleep,"

"Honey, it's not what you think," says the husband pulling on his pants while the sister-in-law pulls the covers over her head.

*****

Okay, maybe it's true Albert Einstein, Mozart and Shakespeare didn't watch "educational videos" when they were kids. But now they're saying "Baby Einstein" videos didn't turn kids into geniuses? How can that be, when rap CDs have turned so many white boys into gangstas?

Next thing you know, they'll be telling us fizzy sugar water is unhealthy and Wonder bread doesn't build strong bodies 13 ways.

Oh, they have?

*****

Gov. Pawlenty has again seized the reins of state government, ordering the sex offender program his administration runs to transfer new flat screen TVs to veteran's homes. (They can still enjoy suggestive televised imagery in the privacy of their rooms.)

The costs of a few TVs pales in comparison to the cost growth from Pawlenty's campaign to lock up more sex offenders, and to keep them locked up after they have served their sentences. For example, more than a third of the emergency funding in the governor's 2006 supplemental budget recommendations went "to fund sex offender commitment growth." And it continues, as we continue to hold people because of their potential to commit crimes.

*****

Meanwhile, Hennepin County Commissioner Mike Opat wants to know why homeless and chronic drinkers are getting free $60 Vikings tickets. To a Twins fan, $60 tickets sound steep, but a quick look at the Mall of America (!) Stadium map shows that they'll put you in the end zone upper deck.

Putting chronic drinkers in seats next to binge drinkers may work as aversion therapy, as long as the tickets are for early season games. I'd advise against playoff tickets, however. The chances of relapse on the field might trigger similar behavior in the seats.

*****

For wonks only: Are national polls indicating voter preferences stacked against Republicans? Or is GOP party identification in decline? You could just ask Sarah Palin.

*****

Adrian Monck (with h/t to Hal Davis) extracts this gem from a Harvard Business School working paper:

"Another possibility for decreasing such behavior [justifying and rationalizing questionable preferences] is to make people accountable for their decisions, requiring them to explain the reasons underlying their choices (Lerner & Tetlock, 1999). Given people’s demonstrated desire to seek out acceptable justifications for questionable preferences, however, accountability pressures may simply motivate people to look even harder for justifications, rather than stop them from behaving poorly. In fact, in some situations accountability can enhance bias, as with its amplifying effect on commitment to decisions (Simonson & Staw, 1992). Indeed, when Norton et al. (2004) made participants accountable for their decisions in choosing between a Black and White high school student for admission to college, not only did requiring participants to explain themselves fail to decrease preferences based on racial bias, it made them look even more carefully through the resumes to find additional evidence in favor of their questionable decisions. "

Looking Without Seeing.

Jan. 5, 2009: ''There is a woman there that gives me a certain look every time I am there."

– George Sodini

His home tour video makes me sad.

How Should Baseball Honor the Fourth?

The Twins beat the Tigers today wearing caps that honored the five U.S. military services. We will now proceed to a new paragraph to make one thing very clear.

I am all in favor of professional sports teams honoring the armed services, active military and veterans.

And baseball, especially, should do all it can to remain America's game and retain its anti-trust exemption.

Veterans Day falls too late for a baseball observance. But the entire month of May was National Military Appreciation Month, followed by Flag Day on June 14th.

So why now, should Independence Day weekend be devoted to armed services appreciation?

Shouldn't the country's birthday honor more than the military? Perhaps the Twins promotion department could show some imagination next year and include caps for: Peace Corps. Americorps. ACLU. NAACP. Federalist Society. Or maybe: Washington. Lincoln. Parks. King. Norquist.

But if they insist it has to be a military promo, how about: Jobs. Education. Housing. Mental Health. Peace.

They'd have the entire month of May to build up to it.

If Texas Seceded...

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is only posturing about secession, but Texas Congressman Ron Paul says secession is as American as shooting your quail hunting buddy in the face.

I can think of a few reasons why leaving the union might not be all that peachy for Texas.

• Texas will have to get over its obsession with size once and for all and accept that it ranks between Zambia and Myanmar.
• "Lone Star Nation" doesn't have the same ring.
• Six Flags Over Texas would have to rebrand.
• We'd see how well Texas gets along without an income tax once it has to provision an Army, monitor borders, deliver mail, etc.
• At least we'd be done with that Dallas Cowboys are America's Team nonsense.

And there are some unanswered questions, too.

• What will Palin do in 2012 if there's no Texas?
• Will Texas need an extradition treaty with Oklahoma to bring back runaway legislators?
• Will the U.S. be allowed to keep its bases there?
• Will Texas want the bomb?
• Will the official currency remain the dollar, or will Texas adopt the .22, .38, .45, and .50 API standard?
• Will South by Southwest move to Santa Fe?
• Would Alberto Gonzales seek asylum, and would President Delay grant it?

Who Deserves Help When Disaster Strikes?

With the Red River still yet to crest, the Strib commenters rush in. One theme is that some people "deserve" help and others don't.

No need to guess who's who. The comments start off with this exchange [click link above for full comment]:

People should be able to live where they want and be responsible for where they live as long as they don't look to the Feds for help. If the North Dakota government wants to provide assistance for their own people for the choices they have made, so bet [sic] it.

posted by nomeds on Mar. 27, 09 at 7:48 AM

[...] At least the people along the Red River use the fed money to fortify their flood defenses. New Orleans used the fed money to build river boat gambling operations and yacht slips. Also, there will be no blame of Obama for the flooding along the Red like Bush was blamed for Katrina. The people along the Red are fighting the disaster to save their cities. The people of New Orleans used the Katrina disaster to riot, loot, rape and murder. If anyone deserves federal aid, it's the people along the Red - they've earned the right to get help.

posted by pdempsey on Mar. 27, 09 at 8:00 AM

There's a morality play in pdempsey's version of the two floods. New Orleans spent money on playtime for the rich, while the 9th Ward poor rioted; the good people of the Red River Valley suited up and stacked sand bags. The subtext of race and class is inescapable.

I won't try to untangle everything in that comparison — including his statements about crime that even Michelle Malkin says are false — but... there's a significant difference between:

• self-organizing defense against a rising river on the edge of farm country — and doing it in a poor urban community in the face of a Category 4 hurricane where the ocean meets the largest river in America.
• driving to safety where your neighbors look like you do — and having your escape on foot blocked by suburban police who don't want you to enter.
• being able to reach a functioning store when you need food and water — and being caught where aid isn't coming, stores are abandoned and remaining law enforcement is busy protecting the casinos.
• living middle class in a well-run state — and living poor in a corrupt state.

Last week, I saw Trouble the Water, a documentary of Katrina's arrival in New Orleans and the aftermath. It challenges assumptions about people in the 9th Ward, by providing depth and texture that simply can't be conveyed through a TV news camera.

One moment that stuck with me. A well-meaning National Guardsman from Oregon reclining with his unit outside an abandoned school building tells the camera,  "No offense to civilian people, but they have no idea how to survive."

On one level, he may have a point. But he's saying it in front of people we have watched surviving without the backing of the government, without guns and vehicles, without any of the resources that keep him comfortable and them barred from an empty, decommissioned military base inside the city.

No offense to military people, but their training on how to survive relates to a different set of problems.

From relative comfort, it's easy to spot the unworthy. Out here in Colorado, we see stories about people who head into the back country without sufficient preparation and think they are idiots when they require rescue. We insured non-smokers have trouble mustering sympathy for uninsured smokers who face the high costs of cancer treatment. Secure in our homes, we herd those who face foreclosure into the not-okay corral.

This is natural. Our "tribe" gets smaller under scarcity and stress. Some people stock up on ammo, but just about everyone will start mentally counting the cans on the shelf, the gallons in the tank and the dollars under the mattress.

From the distant sidelines of the Red River flood, it's worth reflecting: Will America have to decide who has "earned the right" to get help? And how would we know?

One List We Don't Need to Make.

If you're a successful, discreet, discerning, selectively single man, chances are you're finding it difficult to meet the right woman.

Minnesota generally ranks high on quality of life and all over the map on various business climate lists and state rankings. On perhaps the most vapid of these surveys, Minneapolis ranked near the bottom. In October, researchers asked of the 30 largest metro areas: "Would you want to live in this city or its surrounding metropolitan area or not want to live there?"

And guess what? Results largely sorted themselves out by geographical location and weather.

Yesterday, as I was flying home from the number-one city in that survey, I finished my book prematurely. As a result, I may have discovered yet another index on which my adopted city is a non-factor.

I'm just not sure of the reason.

Dipping into the in-flight magazine — its odes to the obvious in out-of-the way places interspersed with ads targeting people with too much disposable income — I found two full-page ads for services specializing in romantic contracts. (Although the search companies say they use executive recruiting techniques, I suppose it would be rude to call them booty hunters.) 

Selective Search boasts offices in 23 cities where it trolls for high class babes and executive males who can't find them. Kelleher & Associates has only 17 offices, but it is "the only privately owned matchmaking firm with offices across the country and in Europe." (No, none of those offices are in Russia, Thailand or Liberia.)

And, you guessed it — no offices in Minneapolis, St. Paul or even Wayzata. What's worse, two other last-cities-on-earth, Detroit and Cleveland, do have offices.

Are we really the dregs of desirability? Or does it mean we have fewer inept men and desperate women?

Number of the Day: Almost.

One of the things I'm doing on this trip to Colorado is researching suicides in the Colorado National Monument. When I arrived in town yesterday, the main story was about a man who drove off a cliff in the Colorado National Monument.

His van caught a rock ledge 120 feet below the edge, which kept it from falling another 180 feet to the bottom of a canyon, which would've meant certain death.

He survived.

This is the paranoid fear of flatlanders driving the road, but authorities believe the driver went over the cliff intentionally. Still, he was grateful to be saved.

It's a point often lost when gun proponents tangle with suicide prevention advocates and say, "if they didn't have guns, they'd just find another way."

Sometimes.

But this man stayed in the van and called 911.

Many attempts are the result of transient impulses. A suicide method that is ineffective or takes too long to carry out may result in a victim like this one, thanking his rescuers.

Guns don't leave the same margin for second acts.

Daily Sentinel photo. More here.

The Samaritan.

What kind of town doesn't have a grocery store?

What kind of man does something about it all by himself?

And what kind of people kill him?

Abe Farkas was a native of Czechoslovakia, served in Vietnam and met my brother- and sister-in-law in Chile. But he died in the United States of America.

End of an Error?

Translation error, typo or political commentary?

Feeling the Love.

The Strib website apparently has two different comment threads in response to my piece, based on where someone clicks into it. Some agreed but these guys didn't like it so much:

"What about social security and medicaid Charlie?"

"Also, if you hate people so much, just take yourself out. One less person using up resources."

"It always makes me laugh when I see someone chastising us for living in a way that they feel may jeapordize life on earth 300 years from now."

Meanwhile, I had a letter to the editor in the local paper that has already sparked an angry call from a retail small businessman who insists the Obama tax plan will imperil his business. He asked for the name of my accountant and I asked for him to send me his numbers that show a much bigger hit on his income than I suggested would happen. We both declined.

For today, though, I'm operating on the advice of not getting into arguments with mad conservatives.