Talk Like a Human, Not a PR Drone

Late kudos to Crystal-Pierz Marine, which announced layoffs and store closings Friday. The whole boat industry, like anything dealing with fuel, is hurting. I bought a boat from them a few years ago (on deep discount as it was the previous year’s model, so I didn’t help them much) and liked their service. Now they’re [...]

Minnesota Profiles in Courage & Ego

Ron Erhardt and Jesse Ventura. Which of these politicians is trying to do the right thing?
Erhardt is a victim of party discipline. A Republican, he voted with the DFL in the Minnesota House to overturn Gov. Pawlenty’s veto of the transportation bill. Erhardt, a nine-termer representing Edina, was stripped of committee leadership and denied Republican endorsement because he [...]

George Carlin’s Last Interview

My friend Rob Zeiger, an old newsie from Michigan, sent this link to George Carlin’s last interview for Psychology Today (how appropriate is that?).
Rob is a student of writing, life, the universe and everything. He says in his email: “A magnificent, I mean absolutely maginificent, exploration of a writer’s mind. One of the best I’ve [...]

Michelle Obama, RFK and America

Michelle Obama is still getting hammered for saying, as her husband started winning primaries, that this was the “first time in my adult life that I have been really proud of my country because it seems like hope is making a comeback.”
I’ve been reading The Last Campaign, by Thurston Clarke (excerpted also in last month’s [...]

Jesse — Fools & Shame

Fool me once, shame on you. Send Jesse to the senate… good god, can you imagine?
1998. I voted for Jesse Ventura. Skip Humphrey and some chameleon named Coleman were the other candidates, and you couldn’t get either of them to answer a direct question with a straight answer to save their lives. “What’s the weather [...]

National Conference on Media Reform — Reinan’s Blogging It

John Reinan, longtime outstanding journalist who now works in marketing at our friend Jorg Pierach’s cool firm Fast Horse, is going to be blogging from the National Conference on Media Reform, starting today. It’s a group of smart people looking at what’s going on in media today — Bill Moyers, Amy Goodman, more.
Read Reinan’s blog [...]

Pawlenty Shows His Chops as VP Hatchetman

Gov. Tim Pawlenty is auditioning for the traditional role of VP nominee — the guy with the hatchet. In the Strib this morning he’s quoted saying this: “He said Obama ‘is someone who continues to show a lack of experience and judgment’ and belittled his resume as including ‘a professor of some type and a [...]

Throw Back the Ring

(My wife, Lisa Dewey Joycechild, has been saying some intriguing things about Hillary Clinton, and I asked her to write her thoughts for the Crowd. -Bruce Benidt)
My 20-year-old Master’s Degree in Women’s Studies & I disagree with three of my friends and their Women’s Studies degrees about who to support for president. It’s been [...]

That Creaking Noise is My Mind Opening

Ouch. I find myself having to give credit to someone I viscerally disagree with.
Koryne Horbal of Columbia Heights is quoted in a story in the Strib today saying “I don’t care” if the petition drive she’s part of — to get feminists to pledge not to vote for Obama if the full delegations of [...]

The Worst and the Dullest

David Halberstam’s brilliant book about decision-making in government — The Best and the Brightest — is consistently misunderstood by pundits. Halberstam’s title is ironic — even with the best and the brightest Ivy Leaguers in JFK’s inner circle, terrible decisions were made that sunk us in the quagmire of Vietnam.
So what are the chances of [...]