ScaifeNet because we can't let Soros have all the fun...

Talk is cheap, but it can cost. Three takes on the matter, with apologies in advance for the somewhat rambling nature of what follows:

First, let's consider the observations of Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds, writing in the Washington Examiner, concerning the rantings of James Lee, the charming fellow who took hostages at the Discovery Channel's offices:

In contemporary America, no respectable person would advocate, say, the involuntary sterilization of blacks or Jews. Why, then, should it be any more respectable to advocate the involuntary sterilization of everyone? Or even of those who cause “social deterioration?”

Likewise, references to particular ethnic or religious groups as “viruses” or “cancers” in need of extirpation are socially unacceptable, triggering immediate thoughts of genocide and mass murder.

Why, then, should it be acceptable to refer to all humanity in this fashion? Does widening the circle of eliminationist rhetoric somehow make it better?

Meanwhile, John Hinderaker at Powerline ponders the deep thoughts of Karel de Gucht, the European Trade Commissioner, who had offered the following:


On Thursday, with the Middle East peace process in the news, Mr. De Gucht picked yet another fight. Jews, he told Belgian radio, have a "belief" that they are "always right." He described his frustration at debating the Middle East because "it is not easy even with a moderate Jew to have a conversation."

He continued: "Don't underestimate the power of the Jewish lobby in the capital. That is best organized lobby in the states. And they have an influence on politicians, Republicans and Democrats."

Very nice. As Hinderaker observes, this led to criticism, which lead to the usual non-apology apology from de Gucht:

"I gave an interview yesterday to the Flemish radio. I was also asked about the Middle East peace talks. I gave my personal point of view. I regret that the comments that I made have been interpreted in a sense that I did not intend. I did not mean in any possible way to cause offense or stigmatize the Jewish Community. I want to make clear that anti-Semitism has no place in today's world and is fundamentally against our European values."
A hanging curveball, that statement. Hinderaker then smashes the hanging curve ball deep into the bleachers:

I suppose Jews can be excused for questioning whether history supports the claim that anti-Semitism is "fundamentally against...European values."
But then Hinderaker makes an observation that doesn't necessarily follow:

For whatever reason, we don't seem to see the same resurgence in the U.S. that is happening in Europe. I would say with considerably more confidence that anti-Semitism is fundamentally against American values.

This is why Pat Buchanan and Jesse Jackson never have any difficulty getting air time on CNN, of course. But I digress

Here's the thing. I'm guessing that Reynolds had his tongue somewhat in cheek when he wrote his piece for the Examiner. It's a goof on the notion that somehow conservative commenters are responsible for any violence that happens when a crazy person acts crazy. Both Lee and Ted Kaczynski, a/k/a the Unabomber, were fans of Al Gore. That doesn't make Al Gore responsible for what they did, though.

De Gucht is a different matter, because he wields actual power. As does John Holdren, the man Barack Obama appointed as his "science czar." As Reynolds notes:

[O]ne need only look to the writings of President Obama’s “science czar,” John Holdren to find something similar. Seeing humanity as destructive, Holdren wrote in favor of forced abortion and putting sterilizing agents in the drinking water, and in particular of sterilizing people who cause “social deterioration.”

And here is the serious point Reynolds wants to make. No one wants "social deterioration," of course. The key is looking back at what (or who) is asserted to cause "social deterioration." And equally important is asking hard questions. Why does John Holdren believe what he believes? And an even better question -- why would he have the President's ear?

Meanwhile, our good friend Gino wrote something very interesting on his blog:

In my last discussion, I intentionally self-Godwined.

Trying to compare an illegal alien dishwasher to a convicted murderer, and then using this comparison to justifying taking from his innocent children the only grace the roulette wheel of life may ever offer them, was just more than this two-fingered typist (and mediocre intellect) serving as your host was able to deal with while keeping his honor intact.

Rather than continue, I turned the knife and thrust backward.

You win.

A little background: Gino had an earlier post up about the plight of "anchor babies," children born in the United States of parents in the country illegally. Gino decries (rightly, in my view) the idea that a kid who has grown up in the United States could end up being deported to the country of his parent's origin, especially if the child knows nothing of that country. Gino also has a pretty contentious comments section and because he became so disgusted with some of the comments, he played the Hitler card, which of course pretty much ended the thread.

I understand why Gino did this -- reading through the comments on his post, I picture him pacing the floor like Popeye, saying "that's all I can stand, I can't stand no more." And therein lies the challenge we face. Those who would prefer to silence us, those who are motivated by hatred and anger, want us to give up. Facing the provocations every damned day wears on a person. It's unpleasant as hell.

If I could do it, I'd never write about politics. But as long as there are people like de Gucht and Holdren out there, you have to keep up the fight. Gino called off a fight on his blog because he wanted to fight another day. Whether we choose to engage or not, we are involved.

We love civilized discourse, at least in theory. Sometimes I don't think there's much of it really on offer, though. Every day I have various people who are quite charming in real life posting incredibly nasty political stuff on my Facebook feed. I can't go a day without a reference to "that stupid bitch Caribou Barbie" or "batshit crazy Michele Bachmann" with some tangentially related link to a HuffPo article.

Glenn Beck really seems to have become the new Emmanuel Goldstein for many politically liberal individuals these days. I'm not sure why; perhaps it means that Rush Limbaugh needs to step up his game or something. But I'll tell you -- there's some incredibly nasty stuff that gets said about the guy. For example, these loving sentiments offered by Lizz Winstead, who has been a fairly prominent comedy writer for over a decade now, on a program with excitable Ed Schultz:

LIZZ WINSTEAD (28:59): Ed, I've always wished that somebody would invent, maybe you and I could go into business and do this, if somebody would invent, you know the shock collars that you put on the dog (Schultz laughs) and when they bark they get jarred? If we could make one that actually fact checked and we just put it around Glenn Beck's neck and when he spoke (pause), or just fake tears, if it could detect when tears were actually crocodile tears, and then you just get electrocuted by the water and jarred, like, that would be awesome!

Force him to wear it.

Well, we could applaud Winstead for her entrepreneurial instincts, I guess -- given the state of the economy these days, start up businesses are certainly necessary. But let's think about this for a minute.

I'm going to assume that she really didn't mean Beck should be electrocuted, since that would mean she wants him dead. But really -- a shock collar? Do you remember the outrage we heard from the Left when a few rogue soldiers put dog collars on Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib? That behavior was rightly condemned. So how is it that the idea of putting a shock collar on Beck is amusing?

Guess I just don't get comedy these days.

I know, it's really mean to do this, but I thought we ought to share this little bit of information:

Two-thirds of New York City residents want a planned Muslim community center and mosque to be relocated to a less controversial site farther away from ground zero in Lower Manhattan, including many who describe themselves as supporters of the project, according to a New York Times poll.Oh, snap. There's more:

Nearly nine years after the Sept. 11 attacks ignited a wave of anxiety about Muslims, many in the country’s biggest and arguably most cosmopolitan city still have an uneasy relationship with Islam. One-fifth of New Yorkers acknowledged animosity toward Muslims. Thirty-three percent said that compared with other American citizens, Muslims were more sympathetic to terrorists. And nearly 60 percent said people they know had negative feelings toward Muslims because of 9/11.And there's this:

“Freedom of religion is one of the guarantees we give in this country, so they are free to worship where they chose,” Mr. Merton said. “I just think it’s very bad manners on their part to be so insensitive as to put a mosque in that area.”To be fair, there's also this:

While a majority said politicians in New York should take a stand on the issue, most disapprove of those outside the city weighing in: Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin, among others, have tried to rally opposition to the center.So what does all this tell us? Just a guess -- the New Yorkers who oppose construction of the mosque in its proposed location aren't really being "Islamaphobic," which would imply that they are reacting in an irrational manner. They are thinking through all the implications involved.

It's yet another round of that ever-popular game, use the politician's kid as a weapon against the politician:

Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer said Thursday his 20-year-old son made a serious mistake when he was cited for under-age drinking in July, and that the family is dealing with it seriously.

Tom Emmer Jr., who goes by the nickname Tripp, pled guilty to the misdemeanor citation and was fined $100, plus $85 in court fees. The case came to light Thursday in a City Pages article, which included Facebook photo's of Tripp Emmer holding beer cans and bottles at parties last year.

Ooh, can't have that! Two observations:

• I'll only start to worry about this if Tripp Emmer starts hanging around with the Hatch girls; and
• Will the first person on the City Pages staff who refrained from drinking before the age of 21 please pick up the white courtesy phone?

And lots of it tonight. Many of the local high schools begin their seasons tonight, as do the Gophers, while the Vikings wrap up their preseason against somebody over at the Artist Formerly Known as the Metrodome.

Perhaps the most interesting development is the way the Big Ten decided to split their football programs into two divisions. One division is as follows:

Minnesota
Iowa
Nebraska
Michigan
Michigan State
Northwestern

The other is:

Indiana
Purdue
Illinois
Ohio State
Penn State
Wisconsin

When it comes to college football, I'm a Badger fan, so I'm a little disappointed that the Badgers didn't end up in the same division as Minnesota and Iowa. The alignment is designed for competitive balance and living in the same place with Ohio State and Penn State will be a challenge, but I think one that the Badgers can handle. Apparently the Badgers will continue to play the Gophers every year, even though they are in different divisions. They will rotate among the other schools, which means that some years they won't play Iowa. That's too bad, as the Iowa-Wisconsin rivalry is a good one and has been pretty entertaining since the Badgers returned to prominence in the 1990s. The other downside is that it's hard to get too excited about annual games against Indiana and Purdue. Maybe the Badger-Illini series will get more heated, too. There's always been ample reason to hate Illinois, the cheatin' weasels of the Big Ten.

I was also hoping that the Badgers would get to play Nebraska more often, but it turns out that might not happen. All of this could change if the Big Ten expands further, which is likely. The latest rumors are that the conference is looking east and thinking about Rutgers and Maryland. Both would make a lot of sense.

Meanwhile, look for more appearances from our resident prognosticator, Benster, in the coming weeks. He's a year older and has even more opinions than before. I know, I didn't think that was possible, either.

As richly as the Democrats deserve the butt-kicking that will come in two months, that doesn't necessarily mean that Republicans, or at least the old bull Republicans in Washington, deserve success. Rob Port makes the point well in this piece from the Washington Examiner:

During an election cycle in which its clear that the American electorate wants change, you would think that the Republicans would embrace change within their own party. At a time when Americans are sick and tired of the status quo in Washington DC, Miller’s victory in Alaska represents voters demanding that change with their votes.

What business do national Republicans have being hostile toward the candidate Republican voters in Alaska voted to represent them in the election? That there is apparent hostility speaks to the fact that Republicans still aren’t getting it.

The Democrats are absolutely on the run this election season, but that doesn’t mean Republicans are on the rise. We are whip-sawing back and forth between the two parties - from Republican majorities under Bush to Democrat majorities and Obama and now, apparently, back to Republicans again - because Americans aren’t satisfied with how either of the two parties are governing.

Nor should they be satisfied. Republicans have a great opportunity, but it's not because of anything they've done to this point. You can win by saying "I'm not like them" for an election cycle or two -- that's what the Democrats did in 2006 or 2008. But eventually people get to know what you are like. And I'm not sure that the sparkling personalities of John Boehner or John Cornyn are going to wear that well. They aren't wearing well with me right now.

While it's always problematic to look at polls before Labor Day, the latest from Minnesota Public Radio on the governor's race shows a dead heat between Tom Emmer and Mark Dayton. Both have the support of 34%, with Tom Horner checking in at 13% and 19% not offering an answer.

You can look at this a number of ways. Here are a few things I'd suggest:

• Dayton and his minions (and I would include Matt Entenza in that collection) have spent millions of dollars demonizing Tom Emmer all summer long, with very little response from the Emmer camp. If the best they are able to do is get a tie, that doesn't bode well for Dayton.
• There's no point in pretending that Emmer's campaign hasn't had a few hiccups up to this point. The tip credit flap was an unforced error and he's been slow to respond to some of the calumnies that have been heaped upon him thus far. While it's good to see him starting to respond now, his passivity has been puzzling and often maddening. It's not what we saw in the primary.
• The current economic conditions in Minnesota aren't as dire as they are in, say, Nevada, which has allowed Dayton to run the sort of campaign that would have been laughed off elsewhere. That could change, though. One thing worth remembering is that many voters will start seeing the first fruits of Obamacare in October, when they get the bad news about their insurance premiums going up. That won't help the standard-bearer of the party that is responsible for these increases.
• Some observers think that Horner will be a big factor, but I'm not convinced of that. He has the same problem that Jesse Ventura has: even if he could get elected, he'd have no friends in St. Paul and would have very little ability to move the debate. While it's been nearly a decade since ol' Jesse was in office, there are enough Minnesotans who remember what that was like and won't relish a repeat.
  

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius might want to hit the rewind button on this one:


“Unfortunately, there still is a great deal of confusion about what is in [the reform law] and what isn’t,” Sebelius told ABC News Radio in an interview Monday.

“So, we have a lot of reeducation to do,” Sebelius said.

I believe they call that inartful phrasing.

It occurred to me this morning. The key thing about the scurrilous ads that Mark Dayton has subcontracted Alliance for a Better Minnesota is this: the attacks on Emmer have more to do with Dayton's flaws than Emmer's. The two best examples:

• If you keep hammering Emmer about drunk driving arrests from 20 and 30 years ago, it makes it more difficult for Emmer's campaign to mention that Dayton's problems with the bottle are far more extensive, and far more recent, than anything Emmer has faced.
• If you hammer Emmer about missing votes in the Legislature (side note: how many votes did Barack Obama miss while he was running for president?), it makes it far more difficult for Emmer's campaign to mention that Dayton shut down his offices in 2004.

You have to give the Dayton people credit for figuring that out.

We refer to August as the Month of Ghosts around here, because August is the month that both of my parents died. Monday marks the 20th anniversary of my father's death.

I wrote extensively about Dad's death last year and doubt that I can improve upon what I wrote then. Mrs. D and I have done a fair amount of the work involved in raising our own family in the 20 years since my father passed away and that has been the most important thing that we have done. While it's sad that Benster and Fearless Maria never knew their grandfather, I see facets of his personality in them nearly every day.

My dad was a very funny man, but he was quite serious about the things he believed. He was probably the most generous guy I've ever seen. And he was always honest about what he believed, sometimes in inadvertently hilarious ways.

A favorite family story: while I was in college, he had taken my younger siblings to Mass with him, but he fell asleep during the homily. The homilist was a missionary who was a bit of a Liberation Theologian and his presentation was riddled with leftist bromides. At some point during the homily, Dad stirred but apparently forgot where he was. In a half-awake way, he said out loud, quite loud enough for the congregation to hear, "that's the biggest bunch of bullshit I ever heard." I'm guessing it was a little awkward.

Breaches of decorum pass. The many positive examples that Dad gave us in his all-too-brief life remain.

Two takes on the question of honor:

First, Doctor Zero, over at Hot Air:

We dishonor ourselves when we create massive obligations with unsustainable financing. This shows disrespect to the future, and a craven refusal to face the realities of today. If time is money, then madcap deficit spending steals the time of the future… draining it away like so much sand down the neck of a broken hourglass. As parents love their children, we should be mindful of the future, and eager to shoulder our current burdens instead of passing them along, with interest. We cannot know the shape of tomorrow, or what hardships they may be facing when the bills for our indulgences come due.

Both political parties own that one, no doubt about it. And he also says this:

We reclaim our honor by turning away from those who believe the great mass of us are beneath their contempt, and compassion is best expressed through domination. They have no power we didn’t give them, which means they have no power we cannot take away. Let us begin.

Meanwhile, consider these comments from David Zuwarik, writing in the Baltimore Sun:

The brand of American history taught by Glenn Beck Saturday at his rally would not pass muster in a mediocre middle school. And in terms of what came across on TV, there were no moments of great emotional resonance or release until perhaps the finale of bagpipes playing "Amazing Grace" and a closing prayer.

And yet, beyond the huge crowd that attended the event in Washington, something important and even profound was taking place at Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally: The Fox News host was attempting to seize a mantle of moral authority earned and ultimately paid for with his life by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. And, sadly, I think in the eyes of some viewers, Beck might have succeeded.

But how might Beck have succeeded in doing that? Because nature abhors a vacuum. Zuwarik:

As I watched this specatcle Saturday, I started thinking how much recent American history has been about the struggle for moral authority since the death of King and Robert Kennedy. When LBJ lost his moral authority over Vietnam, he lost his ability to govern -- and he knew it. Richard Nixon never had moral authority, and Gerald Ford lost his when he pardoned Nixon. And so on and so on to Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton and then the election that many feel was stolen in the so-called Florida recount by the friends of George W. Bush.

That's what what was so powerful about November 2008 in Grant Park when Barack Obama took the stage on election night: Millions of Americans thought they were finally watching someone who brought moral authority to the White House and the land. I know I did. Sadly, millions now feel Obama has since lost it with too many morning-after flip-flops on moral issues, entertainment TV show appearances, and days on the golf course as the economy struggles.

We are a saner, more focused and calmer nation when we feel as if we have someone we can look to for moral authority. Glenn Beck understands that, and that is what makes what happened in Washington Saturday worth thinking about long and hard.

A couple of points:

• It's easy to get a little nervous when you start to hear the rhetoric get ratcheted up, especially the blood of patriots evocation that Doc Zero provides in his piece. We aren't at that point, really -- while I fully agree that many of those who would govern us would prefer to rule instead, there is still a rule of law in this country and it's built on a strong foundation. We aren't at the point where we need to start thinking about a revolution. Yet.
• Zuwarik is on to something, but he's missing the point. King's moral authority didn't come from his own personality; rather, it came from the evident rightness of his cause and because he ground his message in both the ideals of the Founders and his own faith tradition. Because he was consistent in his approach, he was able to reach people.
• It's easy to laugh at the idea that a Chicago politician would have any moral authority, but I take Zuwarik at his word about his belief. During the 2008 election cycle I wrote more than once about the notion that people were looking for a reason to believe. There were clearly more people than Zuwarik who wanted to believe a new day was dawning. I knew that there would be great disappointment about Obama for that reason. Some of those people are in the Tea Party movement now. I'd be willing to wager that some of the people in Grant Park on that night in November, 2008 were in Washington yesterday.
• But here's the thing: it never goes well when we see an individual as a source of moral authority. Individuals are fallible. We are all sinners. King's moral authority didn't come from who he was -- the historical record provides ample evidence that he was prone to sin in myriad ways. King's moral authority came from his willingness, at the most important times, set aside his own appetites for a cause that was greater than his own self-interest. Very few people do that. There was never any reason to believe that Barack Obama would do that. But there were a lot of people who were prepared to believe otherwise.

We aren't going to be able to impose honor from an address at the Lincoln Memorial. If we are to restore the honor we have lost, and the moral authority that comes with it, it's a job that has to start a lot closer to home than Washington, D.C.

I've managed to get to this point without actually watching an entire episode of a Glenn Beck show, although I've seen some excerpts here and there. Apparently he has an audience, though, based on the image of the crowd that gathered to hear him, Sarah Palin and a few other speakers yesterday.

When times are tough, people are looking for an answer and Beck appears to supply an answer for a lot of people. He spoke about things that we all think are important, especially the idea of honor. We're in an interesting place right now, because there doesn't seem to be much agreement about what constitutes honor and, for that matter, what is honorable behavior. I would like it very much if Beck's detractors would tell us what they believe honor is. It would be helpful to know that now.

Have you noticed that a lot of people who are angry about anti-mosque protests are equally angry about whatever the hell Glenn Beck has planned for this weekend? Wonder what that's all about....

Charles Krauthammer explains it better than I did:

The Democrats are going to get beaten badly in November. Not just because the economy is ailing. And not just because Obama over-read his mandate in governing too far left. But because a comeuppance is due the arrogant elites whose undisguised contempt for the great unwashed prevents them from conceding a modicum of serious thought to those who dare oppose them.Yepper. Read the whole thing.

Apparently, it was a hell of a concert:

After Eric Clapton's set was finished, over a ear-deafening applause, Clapton introduced "the best guitar players in the entire world." One by one, Buddy Guy, Stevie, Robert Cray, and Jimmie Vaughan all strolled on stage with their Fender Stratocasters for an encore jam to Robert Johnson's "Sweet Home Chicago", a fitting tune as all of the musicians were home-ridden to "Windy City". After 20 minutes, they finished off the tune, the lights went up, and the musicians strolled off stage. Stevie was last off stage, as he gave a wink before he disappeared backstage.My sister was there that night, 20 years ago, at Alpine Valley Music Theatre in East Troy, Wisconsin. The Stevie mentioned here was Stevie Ray Vaughan, of course, the brilliant guitarist who had faced and conquered his demons and was playing the best music of his life. Unfortunately, he didn't know that this concert would be his last.

Tour manager Skip Rickert had reserved helicopters from Omni Flights to circumvent congested highway traffic. The helicopters chosen were Bell 260B Jet Rangers, which were enough for five people to be seated, including the pilot. Seats were reserved on the third Bell 260B Jet Ranger for Stevie, Jimmie and his wife, Connie. However, it is inferred that a miscommunication between Stevie's and Eric Clapton's management happened, as three members of Clapton's management took three seats. This meant that there would be one seat on the helicopter. Stevie was anxious to get back to Chicago, so, as the helicopters were starting their engines, he asked his brother, Jimmie, if he could take the last seat on the third helicopter. Since he didn't want to be separated from his wife, Jimmie told him that was fine. Jimmie and Connie would just catch the next flight.

In the pitch-black night, in very dense fog, the helicopters were clear for lift off at 12:40 a.m. Just past the lift-off zone was a 300-foot hill. Vaughan's helicopter was piloted by Jeffrey Browne, who was unfamiliar with the flight pattern for exiting the area over a high altitude and in dense fog. The helicopter was guided off the landing zone, flying at a high speed about a half-mile from take-off. It then, however, veered off to one side, disappeared into the darkness, and the helicopter crashed into the hill. Everyone on the rest of the helicopters made it to Chicago safely, unaware that one of the helicopters failed to return. The only people who were aware of the crash were officials at the Federal Aviation Administration, who had been notified that a helicopter was down.

At 7:00 a.m., sheriff's deputies arrived at the site and located the wreckage. According to observations, the helicopter had slammed into the hill at such a high rate of speed and it happened so quickly that Stevie and the passengers never knew what hit them. Their bodies were thrown across a 200-foot slope.
It wasn't the first time a talented performer had died in Wisconsin airspace -- Otis Redding had met his maker in the frigid waters of Lake Monona in 1968. I was just a kid then and it didn't mean much to me. Death means more when you are old enough to understand its implications. And we would have to contemplate the implications in a much greater way a few days later. But that's another post.

It's hard for me to believe that 20 years have passed since this tragedy. You can still hear plenty of Vaughan's music at our house. One of the songs he recorded with his brother Jimmie, only weeks before, contained the following simple chorus:

Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock people, time's tickin' away
Remember that
Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock people, time's tickin' awayAnd we don't know the half of it. Better not take things for granted, because it can all disappear in a hurry.

I've been writing a lot, probably too much, about the things that divide us. Sometimes it's worth remembering things that we share. Music, for example.

I've read two very good books about American popular music this year: the first was a book that Night Writer tipped me to, Lone Star Swing, a funny and affectionate travelogue written by a Scotsman, Duncan McLean, who is a huge fan of the devoted style of music that is best known as Western Swing. The most notable figure in Western Swing was Bob Wills, who performed for many years with a group of musicians known as the Texas Playboys. While much of Wills's music, especially to the modern ear, sounds like country and western, it was actually a lot more than that, as Wills had tastes as vast and the Texas plains he traveled throughout his career. If you doubt that, try this one:

Bob Wills Boogie

You can hear the jump blues of Louis Jordan quite clearly. This version of the song was recorded back in 1946, in a time when the music industry was as segregated as the rest of society and a band with the cowboy credentials of the Texas Playboys would have seemed an unlikely source for such a rollicking beat. But Wills wasn't one to sit in a musical silo and because he was adventurous enough to integrate influences beyond what might have been expected, he helped to get sounds into the ears of his audience that they might not have accepted otherwise.

I just finished reading a book about a very different group of musical figures, the habitues of the Brill Building in New York. The book, titled Always Magic in the Air by Ken Emerson, is more of a history of the era and is written in much more scholarly fashion than McLean's somewhat picaresque adventure, but it's equally instructive. Emerson details the lives of a group of individuals who held sway over much of American popular culture for a brief period in between the peak of Elvis and the arrival of the Beatles. Some of these songwriters, particularly Burt Bacharach, remain in the public eye all these years later, but many of them are now mostly forgotten, even though they made some very important records and their songs are now part of the Great American Songbook. Think about how well these songs have held up over the years:

Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller wrote songs of astonishing variety, with everything from the raucous rock of Elvis singing Hound Dog, the elegance of the Drifters with There Goes My Baby and the Kurt Weill-decadent reading of Is That All There Is that was the last great hit of Peggy Lee, a performer who was over a generation older than either Lieber or Stoller.

Burt Bacharach and Hal David went from working with Marty Robbins (The Story of My Life) to the precise, tricky readings of Dionne Warwick (I Say a Little Prayer), the cartoonish Tom Jones (What's New, Pussycat?) and the dulcet MOR of The Carpenters (Close to You).

Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil wrote three songs that would probably fit into the top 100 songs of the rock era, for three very different acts: the Drifters' version of On Broadway (the George Benson version is pretty good, too), the Animals' classic We Gotta Get Out of This Place and the greatest moment of the careers of Mann-Weil, Phil Spector and the Righteous Brothers, You've Lost That Loving Feeling.

Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman gave us classics from Dion and the Belmonts (A Teenager in Love), the Drifters (This Magic Moment and Save the Last Dance for Me) and fun kitsch for Elvis (Viva Las Vegas).

Carole King and Gerry Goffin, skewing younger, asked the eternal question (the Shirelles' Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow), threw us a dance craze big enough for Little Eva and Grand Funk Railroad (The Locomotion) and even helped get the Monkees off the ground (Pleasant Valley Sunday). King later went on to become an exemplar of the singer-songwriter movement with her album Tapestry in 1971.

Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich became the go-to songwriters for Phil Spector and his Wall of Sound, feeding the beast on behalf of the Crystals (The He Kissed Me), the Ronettes (Be My Baby) and even Ike and Tina Turner (River Deep, Mountain High), while also feeding the British Invasion (Manfred Mann's Do Wah Diddy) and some tough chicks from the Bronx (the Shangri-Las Leader of the Pack).

The book also spends time detailing the career of Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield, who were successful but more of a self-contained unit than the other teams.

There were two things that I think matter about these songwriting teams:

• They were professionals, in the best sense of the term. They all saw their business as making people happy through entertainment. While it would be churlish to denigrate the brilliance of a songwriter like Bob Dylan, even in his moments of absolute brilliance there was always a hint of self-indulgence in Dylan's music and when lesser performers emulated Dylan, the results got worse over time. The Brill Building songwriters didn't have time for that. They didn't want to make a statement -- they wanted to make people happy. There's a lot of value in that.


• They were multicultural, in the best sense of the term. What you had were a bunch of Jewish kids, mostly from New York, writing songs that absorbed the influences of what they heard and saw. It is not coincidental that some of the most transcendant sides recorded here were for the Drifters, an African-American group with a constantly changing roster of singers, who managed to maintain an astonishing level of quality despite the repeated roster shifts. You also heard in many of these songs a recurring rhythmic motif, the Afro-Cuban beat known as the baion. Even though the nation was still suffering from the ravages of segregation during the early part of the 1960s, the music coming from New York was an amalgam of various life experiences, written to speak to people universally. The notion that this music would be something any racial or ethnic group couldn't understand is completely alien to what these people produced.

Even as we approach a half century of desegregation and civil rights for all, we find our culture balkanized in many ways. I think we could use the forward thinking of people like Bob Wills and the songwriters of the Brill Building. Music can reach anyone, if we are open enough to listen.

Christopher Hitchens, writing in Slate:

Emboldened by the crass nature of the opposition to the center, its defenders have started to talk as if it represented no problem at all and as if the question were solely one of religious tolerance. It would be nice if this were true. But tolerance is one of the first and most awkward questions raised by any examination of Islamism. We are wrong to talk as if the only subject was that of terrorism. As Western Europe has already found to its cost, local Muslim leaders have a habit, once they feel strong enough, of making demands of the most intolerant kind. Sometimes it will be calls for censorship of anything "offensive" to Islam. Sometimes it will be demands for sexual segregation in schools and swimming pools. The script is becoming a very familiar one. And those who make such demands are of course usually quite careful to avoid any association with violence. They merely hint that, if their demands are not taken seriously, there just might be a teeny smidgeon of violence from some other unnamed quarter …

As for the gorgeous mosaic of religious pluralism, it's easy enough to find mosque Web sites and DVDs that peddle the most disgusting attacks on Jews, Hindus, Christians, unbelievers, and other Muslims—to say nothing of insane diatribes about women and homosexuals. This is why the fake term Islamophobia is so dangerous: It insinuates that any reservations about Islam must ipso facto be "phobic." A phobia is an irrational fear or dislike. Islamic preaching very often manifests precisely this feature, which is why suspicion of it is by no means irrational.

Is he right? Is he wrong? Discuss. And read the whole thing -- as is usually the case with Hitchens, there's something to offend everyone.

People are still talking about the proposed mosque near the World Trade Center. One of the best columns I've read about the issue is this one, from the Anchoress over at First Things. The key observations (emphases in original):

Resistance to a proposed Islamic cultural center and mosque two blocks from Ground Zero is not about bigotry or xenophobia; the demonstrated tolerance of Americans during the last nine years belies those unhelpful charges. Rather, the rancor is an amalgam; it is constructed of built-up feelings of anger, powerlessness, indignation and—most potently—disillusioned self-awareness and resentment against ham-handed, disdainful leadership.

Anger alone would be manageable. In our therapeutic culture we know that before a psych patient can get well, he needs to touch a needle to the crux of what is eating at him, like an interior boil-lancing, and sometimes it takes a lot of roundabout discourse and venting to locate it. Until the thing is touched upon, though, there is no chance of healing, just a general sense of disease, failure, and hurt.

We could find it, lance it, and start healing. But America is are being told—by the very people who have spent decades promoting the primacy of “feelings,” over thought, and who have declared that “a feeling is neither right or wrong”—to shut up, to not express its feelings, to not even have feelings, because those feelings are bad, stupid ones that are very, very wrong.While I'm not sure about the notion of a "therapeutic culture," the sense I get is that a lot of people are finding the pedantry of the governing/ruling class quite tiresome. As the Anchoress notes:

Surrendering ones circumstance to a loving, trust-worthy God in challenging times is quite different from being nagged into acquiescence by people who you no longer believe even like you, or have your best interests at heart. President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and the press are no longer credible enough to convince the angry 65 percent of the country that Park51 could ultimately mean something good for America.That's a huge issue right now. Read the whole thing.

Ann Althouse marks a grim anniversary. It was 40 years ago that radicals bombed Sterling Hall on the University of Wisconsin campus, killing a researcher who was working inside.

I barely remember this incident, as I was only 6 years old at the time, but I do remember the fear that it caused throughout the state of Wisconsin and my father's anger at the people who had done this deed. It's very easy to forget now, but 1970 was a very violent time in this country. Althouse quotes an editorial that ran in the Wisconsin State Journal following the event which holds up well, 40 years on.

They've been playing with murder for years.

Now they've achieved it.

It wasn't the "military-industrial" complex that was attacked here Monday morning. It wasn't cement and steel beams and equipment.

It was innocent human beings. It was a father who was killed. It was a fellow researcher who was injured, and it was a student, a working man, and a hospital patient.

It is always very easy to turn your political opponents into abstractions and straw men. It is equally easy to use hatred as a motivating agent. We do these things at our peril.

Really fast.

• Tom Emmer's first ad is here. It's straightforward and uses his telegenic family to good effect. Smart way to approach the matter, especially given the amount of demonization he's faced up to now.
• On the other hand, there's Tom Horner's new ad. I agree with the assessment of Luke Hellier over at MDE -- creepy.
• Heard some old dude was playing football last night, but that it didn't matter much.