Look For the Good in Others and They'll See the Good in You

Again, aimless drifting around YouTube turned up a video for one of my all-time, Top Ten favorite songs, Look For the Good in Others and They'll See the Good in You by New Zealand band The Chills. This video is from the late Eighties and features one of the band's best line-ups. I got to see them here in Memphis around 1990, when they played the Antenna. One of my most favorite shows. The sound is a bit light on the keyboards, which add a carnival midway feel to the song. But it's an energetic, speedy performance that's completely winning.




Because you asked nicely and I like y'all so much, here are the lyrics:

I used to be in love but that is long since through.
You know we used to be one living thing, now we're back to two.
Oh, I was driven for a while, now I know it's true:
Look for the good in others and they'll see the good in you.
Fa fa fa faaaaa.

I used to look for too much in the people that we are.
You know we used to have a reason for doing things the way we do.
Sorrow's my reward 'cause I'm unhappy with me too.
I've learned that I am me and me is not the same as you.
Fa fa fa faaaaa.

Last week just for a while, I thought I'd found someone at last.
The woman in my future was a child from my past.
Oh that was cruel of fate to give me hope -- first time in two years!
But I've learned just who my friends are and no one really cares.

I trade away my loving soul; filled me with despair.
The dreams they all seem pointless and the talent cupboard bare.
Through all this there's still one thing, sometimes sets me free:
How it's good to be an adult and still believe the child in me, ohhhh --
Fa fa fa faaaaa.

Probably three of the most transcendent minutes I'll ever know in this life. You can hear echoes of the Buzzcocks and the Beach Boys there, with a wonderful South Pacific breeziness.

And then, this murder song with a chilling twist, Pink Frost. It's the first time I've ever seen this appropriately atmospheric video.





There are plenty more links available to more Chills music. Check 'em out.

Random Web Comment of the Day

i love this song it reminds me when me and my boyfriend first met this song was on weve been together 3 mnths on sunday x

Sigh... teenagers.

From the comments to a video posted to YouTube. (Poison by Alice Cooper, if you must know. Don't laugh!)

INSTANT UPDATE: While digging up Alice, I ran across the video to Elected, from the mid-Seventies. Gotta love the YouTube. And the song seems appropriate to the season here in Memphis.

Faces to Names

Earlier tonight, I was at a meeting here in Midtown and got to talking with a guy named Roy. I mentioned my name and starting to say, "I'm with Main Street-- " when he jumped in with, "Half-Bakered!" Turns out he is The Gates of Memphis!

Small world here in Midtown, indeed. We seem to be infested with bloggers. I was in Otherlands a month or so ago and as I was walking out, there was Paul Ryburn!

Actually, I guess I should say Memphis is infested with bloggers. At last month's Dutch Treat Luncheon, the moderator asked how many in the crowd were bloggers and I think about a dozen hands went up. Wow.

Roy and I talked of this, that and the other. Turns out we share a mutual skepticism of the whole "Creative Class" concept, but for differing reasons. I really like Roy's blog, though I don't read it often enough. We also have a mutual love of the history of this city, something I like about his blog. Anyway, he turned out to be a thoughful and intelligent person, surprise, surprise.

As always, it's nice to put faces to the bloggers of Memphis.

Better News Than the Paper!

Lots and lots of news about closing and opening businesses in this thread on the Goner Records board. Seems there's a flurry of activity in my little area of Midtown of late.

The info about "Hung" of Pho Hoa Binh is amusing to me, as on my block (right around the corner!) it's widely assumed he's the big drug kingpin for the crack dealers in the area. I've heard this several times now from a variety of people. We see him all the time just walking the block, watching everything that's going on. Sometimes he'll wander back into the apartments and just stand there., looking around and watching Sometimes he'll just stand on the corner (Monroe & Avalon) for hours, watching the street. He never speaks to anyone.

I'm sorry to hear about the closing of PHB, as they make a killer curry-potato soup. The first time I ate there, I was halfway into a plate of the lunch buffet before I realised it was tofu!

Link via Mixmaster Mark.

Neologism of the Day

Frenemy: A conflation of friend and enemy. Derived from the Sun Tzu maxim: "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer." Implies a false veneer of friendship over a watchful, distrusting actuality.

First heard: Kyle XY. (More on Kyle XY another day.)

The Counter-Majoritarian Difficulty

Via Instapundit, comes an intructory essay on a legal and constitutional principle called The Counter-Majoritarian Difficulty. Basically, it's the idea that courts (and especially the Supreme Court) are and operate as anti-majority anomalies within a constitutional system. It's a very short essay but it launches a lot of deep thinking on a vital issue.

One corrolary issue with courts is the anti-democratic idea of serving for life. Yours truly is a deep appreciator of the basic democratic impulse of our constitutional representative republic. (That's what we are, and not a democracy. It's a very important distinction to make and one most folks just can't quite grasp.) Responsiveness to the will of the people is very important to our form of government. By definition, a judge appointed for life becomes unresponsive to the people as he's increasingly shielded from them politically.

When our Republic was launched, it wasn't quite such a problem, as people just didn't live that long and politicians tended to appoint older men to the job. But as science has progressed, it's not at all unlikely for someone to serve forty years or more. That's just too long.

I support the idea of making high judicial terms of office. Say twenty years, then the person must step down and someone new appointed; no re-appointment. Or twenty years and then a simple up-or-down vote on retention. Tennessee does this with some judges and if you remember the last election, it led to a huge roster of judges needing reconfirmation. So, there's downside, or an place to rethink who and how many and how.

There's also the idea of judicial review. That's where the Supreme Court usurped the role of arbiter of constitutionality. The very first Supreme Court announced it would (and did) review the constitutionality of any laws passed by Congress that came before it. And it's been that way every since, unchallenged.

The Founders didn't give the Supreme Court that power, but almost all of them were alive when it happened and don't seem to have been seriously angered by it. There's a good argument for its check-and-balance role in a constitutional system but it also works to remove the Supreme Court from the rest of the interlocking roles of the Executive and Legislative branches.

Quick question (and one of my favorite bar challenges): what is the center of power of the US constitutional system of government? You'd be surprised how many say, "The President." That's horrifying to me, as it's evidence of latent authoritarianism and willingness to submit to a king. (Yeah, I worry about such things.) The President was never meant to be more than the executor of the will of Congress, slightly removed so that the blunt force of Congressional power could be hamstrung just a bit for the protection of the People.

No, the correct answer is the House of Representatives! Yep, the lowly House. It's members are all put up for election every two years, so turnover is (at least in theory) guaranteed and responsiveness to the will of the people is increased. Look at the important powers vested solely in it. (Go ahead, read for yourself. It's your government, you ought to know how it works.)

The Senate exists as a brake on the volcanic, protean power of the House. Its job is to slow down and even stop the actions of the House so that passions can cool and clearer heads get a look in. Same for the President. By having him separate, the actions of the House are once again blunted and a level of difficulty in unified action introduced.

The Founders were strong believers in democratic principles. In some ways much more than we are today. But they also realised that the people are also very emotional and quick to action. Something must happened to give reason a chance to enter the discussion meaningfully. (Because those guys were all devotees and student of ... The Age of Reason! How 'bout that?)

So having the Supreme Court (and other courts in imitation) set itself aside, and having judges hold themselves apart, tends to break our system in ways that we have to deal with today.

Anyway. This post is nearly as long as the essay now. Go read it and think about this today. No exam, but we'll discuss it further one day soon.

Lincoln: Conservative, Radical, Revolutionary

Very absorbing essay from James Livingston on Lincoln the Revolutionary. He argues that Lincoln's strictly conservative reading of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as regards the proposition that "all men are created equal" and that slavery is guaranteed in those states that already have it, came to a clash in his belief that slavery be stopped from spreading and strenously contained to only those areas of the nation where it existed.

Some quotes:

Here he spoke the language of radicalism: "Equal justice to the south, it is said, requires us to consent to the extending of slavery to new countries. That is to say, inasmuch as you do not object to my taking my hog to Nebraska, therefore, I must not object to you taking your slave. Now, I admit this is perfectly logical, if there is no difference between hogs and negroes. . . .But if the negro is a man, is it not to that extent, a total destruction of self-government, to say that he too shall not govern himself? If the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that `all men are created equal,' and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another."

Later:

But Republican Party leaders and ideologues, most notably Salmon P. Chase, founding father of the Free Soil Party, and Horace Greeley, the editor of the New York Tribune, seized on this rift in the Democratic Party to promote Douglas as their perfect presidential nominee in 1860: he was the Western moderate who would carry Illinois and Indiana and maybe even Buchanan's home state of Pennsylvania.

Chase and Greeley were the mainstream of the Republican Party in 1858. They weren't interested in questions of equality between black and white folk, and they avoided the moral issues that slavery presented because they knew that the sanctimony of the abolitionists got them nowhere with voters. Like most adherents of the Republican Party, they were ideological descendents of the Free Soil Party of 1848, which proposed to limit the spread of slavery and to limit the influence of Southern Democrats in the Congress. In their view, the prospect of Douglas as the Republican nominee had no drawbacks.

Such political calculations sound familiar, do they not? And the descriptions of the parties' views?

This blending of radicalism and conservatism made Lincoln a revolutionary, perhaps even a revolutionary despot on the order of Cromwell, Robespierre, Lenin, and Mao. He did carefully observe constitutional scruple in defining the Emancipation Proclamation as a necessary war measure in his capacity as "Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States" (notice: not of the people as such). But that proclamation made the end of slavery the condition of Southern re-entry into the Union and revoked the possibility that, short of Confederate victory, slavery could be restored or salvaged by some compromise between North and South. It also enabled total war against the South-that is, war against the civilian population-and begged the slaves to enlarge their "General Strike" by fleeing to Union lines.

Moreover, before the war commenced, Lincoln had dispersed the pro-secessionist Missouri state legislature at gunpoint; had placed Baltimore and Maryland under martial law; and had guaranteed an anti-secessionist vote in Kentucky by smuggling guns to pro-Union forces and stationing Union troops at the polls. By the time the war closed, Lincoln had suspended the writ of habeus corpus throughout the North.

He had also used the Union Army to suspend the publication of 60 anti-war periodicals; to jail at least 80 pro-Democrat editors on the eve of elections; to keep a Republican majority in the House in 1862 by suppressing Democratic turnout in the border states, including Delaware; and to prevent the election of an anti-war "Copperhead," Clement Vallandigham, in the Ohio gubernatorial race of 1863, by court-martialing him.

Kinda puts the bleatings of modern Democrats about George Bush into perspective, yes? Can you imagine him trying to exile Cindy Sheehan to Canada, as Lincoln did with Vallandigham?

Like I said, a thought-provoking essay with good lessons for us today. Well worth the time to read.

Fun With Numbers: Memphis Mayor's Race Department

FOX13 just released their own poll on the Memphis mayor's race but it is, as the two previous Commercial Appeal polls were, generally useless.

If you look at the only piece of hard data on the poll, it's a +/- 7% margin of error (MoE). Such a large error margin is usually not a good sign, so I called Yacoubian Market Research, the folks hired to conduct the poll, to get more information. Turns out, the sample size (the number of people asked the poll questions) was just 300. That's a very small sample size, one prone to a lot of error in its results. Hence, the 7 percent MoE.

Berje Yacoubian was satisfied by it. He pointed out that the only real result you could draw from the poll, the FOX13 story notwithstanding, was that Herenton was in trouble. His support has slipped dramatically. "Over a year, his popularity is low and sinking."

He said that this poll was meant primarily as a baseline against which polls between now and election day can be compared. "I'm not trying to figure out who is going to win or lose."

The numbers in the poll that matter (outside of the "Who would do a better job?" stuff)

He did offer some interesting observations based both on his thirty years of polling and what he's learned in this election cycle:

1. White voters break out 52% for Chumney and 20% for Morris. As the number of undecideds dwindles as we approach the election, that's bad news for Morris.

2. Chumney seems to be the choice of the not-Herenton voter. Morris isn't getting what Yacoubian considers his "expected level of support."

3. Conversely, he notes that as Chumney weakens, a possible trend in the flawed Commercial Appeal polls, Morris does benefit, although that's an obvious "last man standing" artefact.

4. Yacoubian expects Herenton to wait until September to launch a "four week campaign." It will dramatically change the race, and not to Herenton's benefit as voters will be forced to consider what Herenton's done up to now.

The poll did find that Morris is the second choice of most voters, some encouraging news to Morris supporters. Anything that cripples Herenton or Chumney stands to benefit him. But with such a large MoE, Herenton and Chumney are in a dead heat (something the Commercial Appeal poll found) and Morris is just below the MoE compared to both. Without a larger, better poll, it's pretty much anyone's game right now.

Yacoubian also didn't have kind words for the Commercial Appeal polls. He felt they traded their "neutrality for cheerleading. They made news so they could report it."

I agree with him. Wharton was not a candidate. He did not pull an application at any time. He had expressly stated he wasn't a candidate and wouldn't stab his good friend Herenton in the back. He was very happy as County Mayor, a position he felt (with some justification) was superior to the City Mayor. He and Herenton had a long personal history that Wharton would have had to callously jettison and then repudiate in order to run a campaign. For the Commercial Appeal to have pushed him as a possible candidate was partisanship of the strongest kind.

For the Commercial Appeal to have included him in the polls was just the worst kind of pot-stirring, a kind of underhanded journalistic story-making that Chris Peck should deplore. At a past Dutch Treat Luncheon, editor Blake Fontenay defended it as just reflecting the public's stated wishes. I didn't buy it then, and would be harder pressed today to buy it. They were ginning up a slim, dim fantasy.

The Commercial Appeal always claims to "tell the stories of Greater Memphis." But it has absolutely turned a blind eye to the most obvious story of all. For all that the campaign coverage has focused on the foibles and follies of Mayor Herenton, and for all the coverage given to his erstwhile opponents -- both real and imagined -- Herenton is still the man to beat. The story is his strength as the incumbent. Barring surprise or shock, he's going to win. But you don't see too much of that in the Commercial Appeal, do you?

You should wonder why.

It has bothered me to no end to see the reporters in this city make the most absurd statements about some of these polls. Jackson Baker and Richard Thompson have been among the worst, but let's not leave out the Commercial Appeal editorial staff.

Even when a poll's margin of error is 4%, Baker and Thompson have both referred to changes of less than the MoE as if they were actual evidence of real, concretely measured, results. Jackson Baker I know should know better because we've previously discussed this very thing. But no, he'll happily cheerlead for Carol Chumney anyway:

I had just seen a report on Fox 13 News about a fresh poll taken by my friend Berje Yacoubian showing Chumney to be leading a second-place Herenton and a third-place Herman Morris.

Nope. As we've just discussed, her "lead" is only half of the MoE, meaning it's anyone's guess who is ahead in that poll.

I mean really, is it so hard, so expensive for these folks to head on down to any bookstore and just pick up a standard text on statistics? They don't even have to read the whole thing! Just the first few chapters should give them enough understanding to make their analysis useful instead of ridiculous. Heck, eve a good used bookstore ought to have something, if money's an issue. Or do I have to embarrass them by making a gift of a book and then posting a picture of me making the presentation here on Half-Bakered?

Because you know I will.

Political Self-Image

Interesting numbers in this Rasmussen Report poll. It provides some insight into how Democrats and Republicans veiw themselves and makes plain some voter confusion.

Rasmussen found that 61% of Republicans found "conservative" a positive term of description. That rose to 74% for "like Reagan. That seems to show a clear self-identification among Republicans, and some clarity of ideology.

Among Democrats, only 32% consider "liberal" a positive descriptor, although it climbs to 42% if you apply "progressive." It makes you wonder what a Democrat considers a good self-description. Or it may be decades of demonisation of "liberal" by Republicans is paying off to an incredible degree.

What's weird is that 26% of Republicans think progressive is a positive description! In the immortal words of Fezzik, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

Historically, (capital-p) Progressive has a specific meaning, in that it refers to failed defunct political parties. It also refers to the political movement dating back to the 19th century, started by Christian reformers. It later morphed into a political movement in the Twenties and Thirties dominated by Communist dupes and Soviet agents.

I guess we're far enough along that those meanings are largely forgotten by enough people to make a safe haven for modern Democrats to adopt it. But why Republicans like it? I can't say. Maybe there's a new latent strain of activist conservatism waiting to bloom in reaction to the piggery and elitism of the current Republican leadership?

Why I Hate Registration

Having to register with a website so they can prevent spam comments is understandable, but when the folks making you register then turn around and use their database to spam you, well, that's a circle of hell I hope these marketers get well acquainted with.

It's been annoying in recent weeks to have Memphis Flyer spam showing up in my mailbox unasked for. For folks who love to trade off the image of young, hip and alternative it's so very uncaring corporate tool for them to do this. If I want to read your website, I'll go there. You'll know it because my little cookie will tell you so.

Quit sending me unasked-for email like some desperate street corner whore flashing her wares. Even the Commercial Appeal doesn't do it. Sheesh.

Minimum Wage, Maximum FUD

Since I've been on hiatus, the minimum wage hike has been in the news. I only have a couple of comments on it by this point, so I'll peg them to this Commercial Appeal editorial from local activist Rebekah Jordan.

She conveniently uses some distorted numbers, for one:

According to the Economic Policy Institute, about 153,000 Tennesseans will directly benefit from the raise, and another 294,000 workers in our state will benefit overall, because of pay raises many companies are likely to make in order to retain workers who are already earning around $7.25 an hour.

The actual numbers of people affected looks more like this:

In truth, very few Tennesseans actually have to live on a wage of $5.15 an hour. Only 1.5% of the state’s workforce—approximately 40,000 workers—is employed at minimum wage levels. Furthermore, the majority of Tennessee’s minimum wage earners are either teenagers living at home and working for weekend pocket money or married individuals working part-time to supplement their spouse’s income....

Of Tennessee’s 40,000 minimum wage earners, fewer than 4,800 are single parents.

Speaking as someone who has worked in the minimum wage world most of his life (both as an hourly and as management) I can tell you that very few fast food workers only get paid the minimum wage. Most wages start at $7 and hour and go up from there. Most warehouse, general labor jobs start at $10, or more.

So why all the self-serving misdirection from folks like Jordan? Simple: election year politics.

Nearly every union in America has its wage structures pegged to the minimum wage. Raise the minimum and you raise their wages. That's where Jordan's numbers come from, union workers who will benefit from the hike.

That's why, in the political announcements last week from legislators on the minimum wage hike, you saw so many union workers sharing the stage and union banners hanging behind podiums. It's all about placating and paying off the base.

The Presumption of Guilt?

LeftWingCracker falls into a common trap in this post about Michael Vick, the NFL player who is indicted for running a pit bull fighting ring.

He says:

The first thing you have to do is remember that, like all defendants, Michael Vick is innocent until PROVEN guilty by a jury of his peers.

Then, go read the indictment, and THEN tell me that. OK, it's only an indictment....

In a word: No. In a court of law, yes, you are entitled to the presumption of innocence. It's a deeply rooted principle of American justice because at one time English justice meant bringing charges was a presumption of guilt (else why the charges?) and you had to prove your innocence. That led to all kinds of abuses.

It's also a protection. Protecting citizens from government action (which is often incontestable) based on pre-trial feelings is important. Otherwise, possibly innocent people can lose pensions, benefits, jobs, careers, etc. You can literally lose your freedom and your life.

For example, a lot of folks wanted to toss Edmund Ford from the City Council as soon as indictments against him were handed down. The voters of Ed Ford's district would lose representation for the time between his being removed from office and a new person being voted in. That's an unaddressable wrong.

But in the court of public opinion, the First Amendment reigns. We are free to think and say whatever we want based on what's in front of us and how we feel about it.

Vick's employers and sponsors are perfectly free to disassociate themselves, as it's all private contracts. No need to wait. If it turns out they did so wrongly, or prematurely, then Vick is free to pursue redress in a court of law and get compensated. It is, as they say, only money.

LWC doesn't need to twist himself all up and make insincere genuflection to some misunderstood principle. This is America and he's free to say what he wants here.

But LWC seemingly wants to punish Vick NOW. He seemingly wants to waste no time in condemning Vick's actions, rather than waiting to see what's what. He wants to abhor not just with the force of his indignation, nor the force of public condemnation, but with something more. Something like the force of law, which LWC apparently thinks is too slow and hesitant.

Thank goodness for that! Conflating personal outrage with legal consequences is a very dangerous and volatile weapon. I'd hate to be in Vick's position and have someone like LWC leading the prosecution.

Coolest Picture You'll See Today

Hanging the moon in the sky.

Link via Instapundit.

Herenton Confirms Public Perceptions

Mayor Herenton is widely cast as someone who stays within the safe walls of his hard-to-access office downtown and his home in a gated community out east. His antipathy for the media is sometimes put away for limited interviews in controlled circumstances, usually in response to some high-profile situation involving City government.

And in this Commercial Appeal story:

"Is the mayor soft on crime? If you want to find a mayor who's tough on crime then you want Willie Herenton."

Herenton, who is running for a fifth term on Oct. 4, said he will be attending more such press conferences than he has in the past and that he will continue to do so after the election.

"You're going to see a lot of me," the mayor said.

I also find it very interesting that he's confirming public fears of drug crime, and tacitly admitting he's in a campaign. He must have some kind of nervousness if he's actually out there touting himself now, instead of continuing with his prior behavior.

I believe we can call this the first crack in the wall.

Your Shin Chan for Today

Shin Chan's parents are having a paper blow-dart competition and are trying to decide who goes first:

Mom: I defer. After all, I'm using to waiting for you.

Dad: So ... we're playing by bedroom rules, are we?

Headline, Meet Story

The "new" Commercial Appeal has long had a problem with information-free headlines, but this, I think, is a new one: the headline contradicts the story!

Price tag may scuttle Liberty Bowl rehab dreams it says boldy at the top. That's why I clicked. Has something come up that will force either a new stadium to be built, or will we just have to make do with the current one for those two or three games a year when we need it?

But then the story bafflingly continues:

When University of Memphis officials met with national consultants to present their wish list for a new football stadium, "It was like being with Santa Claus," said athletic director R.C. Johnson. "They said, 'What do you want?' "

But Johnson knows Christmas may not come -- the city's proposed new stadium on the Mid-South Fairgrounds could be financially doomed by such factors as the skyrocketing cost of steel and strong sentiment against building anything less than a state-of-the-art facility....

"We may end up having to rehab" 42-year-old Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium.

It seems that the story and the headline should at least have a passing acquaintance, yes?

Separated at Birth?

Phyllis Diller and Bill Buckley:





Diller image via James Lileks.

Magic Trick

Found this picture online and the caption came to me immediately:





And now, with just the power of my mind, I will make this bulb glow! Wait for it ... wait for it ... wait for it ....

Main Street Journal Presents: July Dutch Treat Luncheon

When: Saturday, July 21; 11:30 AM - 12:45
Where: The Butcher Shop, Cordova (Germantown Parkway & Walnut Grove)
July Theme: The Role of New Media (Internet & Blogging) in Memphis Politics

July Panel:
Cameron Harper (Anchor and blogger, ABC24 and CW30)
Richard Thompson (former Commercial Appeal reporter and media blogger at Mediaverse-Memphis)
Steve Steffens (Blogger at Left-Wing Cracker)
Tom Jones (Blogger at Smart City Memphis)

Moderator: Jonathan Lindberg, Publisher, Main Street Journal


The oldest and most influential political gathering in Memphis for over 50 years. Come be a part of the dialogue that is shaping Greater Memphis.

Open to all. Great food. Shared community. Meaningful discussion.

Sponsored by the Main Street Journal
For more information about the luncheon visit http://www.mainstreetj.com.

Thought for the Day

Most people who smugly criticize America from abroad are European. If they angrily criticize America for what it did to their country, they're from South America or the Middle East. If they laugh at how much money they make off stupid Americans, they're from Asia.

From a fascinating discussion on high fructose corn syrup on Slashdot.