I welcome the passage of the “iTune’s Law” in France. The measure would compel Apple Computer to open its iPods to competing music formats. It’s a step in the right direction (even though Apple may react by pulling out of the French market).

Music players should either allow the use of all file formats, or all online music stores should sell their tracks in the same format. Falling short of those goals hurts both consumers and the industry. It’s ridiculous that, as an iPod user, I can’t buy songs from Artist A on-line because his record label made a deal with Sony, not Apple. If I preferred Sony’s music store selection, but would rather own an iPod for its simplicity, I’d be rightfully miffed.

Let’s put this in the context of the long-gone good-ol’ days. Would it have made sense if a CD I bought at Brick-And-Mortar Tunes ‘R Us could only play on certain, specially equipped stereos? I don’t think so.

And for those who say, Why don’t you just convert everything to mp3? I do. Still, that puts an unnecessary burden on the consumer. Remember him? He’s the one you want buying your products.

If on-line distribution is the model of the future (and it is), let’s settle on a good, high-quality format, knock off the proprietary bullshit and get on with enjoying the music.

“Mainstream media,” or the “MSM” for shorthand, falls into the retronym category. Once, we had only the media, which morphed into the “mass media” as niche mediums multiplied. Then, the niche mediums felt the need for a weighty counterbalance and the “MSM,” in all its apparent wickedness, was born.

I’m also guilty of using the term on occasion, but it gets worn out quickly. Let’s take a closer, albeit reasoned, look.

From Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 10th ed.:

Mainstream, n., adj., a prevailing current or direction of activity or influence.

Media, n., a medium of cultivation, conveyance or expression.

Apply the former to the latter, and a combined definition sounds something like: a prevailing method of expression. By the book, it is the mode in which the largest percentage of the population experiences news and events. That’s a start, but that definition ranges far from what those using the term often mean. It disparages, and its beauty lies in the fact that it can disparage from right or left of the political spectrum.

On the left, it connotes rebelliousness. Liberal users of the word seem to link the MSM with the spectre of The Man. See? I’m just this little blogger poking a stick in the eye of the behemoth establishment machine.

On the right, it connotes strict contempt. Conservative users tend to link the MSM to elitist rhetoric as in, You won’t read this in the MSM. The MSM covers up good news from Iraq; The MSM treacherously exposes state secrets in the war on terrorism; et al.

Both sides employ MSM to their own reactionary ends. It’s a useful straw dog. While its utility makes it an appealing term, it paradoxically empties it of its original useful meaning. The term instead conveys a point its user desperately wants to make: I’m on your side. And, if I’m on your side, the corollary must be true: You’re on my side. It acts as a rhetorical in-joke.

Remember that whenever a speaker or writer lazily throws out the term or its too-cool-for-school acronym. Their true meaning likely goes something like this: I’ve picked my side, have you?

Remember also that dividing is a shortcut to conquering.

Every metro locality likes to boast that its traffic/drivers outshine other areas in sheer frustration/stupidity. I hear the complaint often here: Florida driver’s are awful. The confluence of non-native residents (who drive by the rules of their roads of origin) and retirees does make driving an adventure in this state.

The awful traffic in this area rears its ugly bumper more often on the other side of the Bay, in Tampa, which has a highway interchange affectionally known as “dysfunction junction.” I abhor driving through Tampa.

But, today I want to vent about blinkers. Use them - it’s not that difficult. Here’s how it works, at least on my Saturn:

1. Decide which lane you want to occupy or turn you want to make.

2. Give a gentle nudge to your indicator lever. Hint: it’s usually the same level that turns on the headlamps. If the lever clicks, you can release, confident that it will remain on through your turn and magically turn off when you right the wheel. If you nudge the level without it clicking, the indicator remains on as long as you nudge it. That feature’s usually reserved for changing lanes. Push the lever down to make a left turn or move left, and up to make a right move right.

3. Check that no drivers or pedestrians are in the way, and turn or change lanes.

4. Make sure your blinker is off, so you’re not misleading pedestrians or other drivers as to you intent. Elderly, “cotton-tipped” drivers are famous for this, earning Florida the moniker “Land of the Perpetual Blinker.”

I don’t know how blinkers work on other vehicles that are newer and more high-tech than my Saturn. In the evolution of automobile technology, though, I’ve noticed that those basic steps haven’t changed since I owned my first Chevette.

The driver that inspired this post was in a newer Acura, and I guess blinker technology in that model had outstripped his or her ability to learn. A technically challenged driver impatiently weaving in an out of lanes can prove a danger to everyone around.

It speaks volumes that the Senate debated and, ultimately shot down (again), a measure that would have empowered Congress to push toward a constitutional amendment to ban desecration of the U.S. flag. The vote tally: 66-34, the closest margin the measure has seen.

Debate happens in this open and representative democracy - arguably the most successful on in modern history. That debate shows the power of symbolism over symbols.

I seems that, in a non-election year vacuum, much of this ongoing debate revolves around whether flag burning falls into the category of political speech. The Supreme Court has ruled yes twice: in 1989’s Texas v. Johnson decision, and again in 1990’s U.S. v. Eichman decision. The former rebuffed a state law, and the latter shot down the 1989 Flag Protection Act passed at the federal level. Both were 5-4 decisions, what one of my professors used to term “bad law” because such decisions can change with the prevailing wind.

Are symbolic actions a form of political statement? Let me answer rhetoric with rhetoric: If a flag burns in protest, do people pay attention?

The Supreme Court’s makeup has changed quite a bit in 16 years. It’s possibly that, had Congress passed this most recent resolution, inevitable challenges would have met with less legal sympathy.

Does that mean the Flag Desecration Amendment should have passed? The measure enjoys wide support, with all 50 states having passed resolutions that support its intent. Is wide support justification enough?

Let me come back to weighing symbols v. symbolism. Which gives us the platform on which to enjoy this debate, the flag or what it represents?

One the media, from the other side of the brightly beaming headlights. Could it be that pack journalism not only debases the subjects, but also the audience?

This just in, Mark Cuban doesn’t seem to use basic grammar and spelling. Let’s get the skinny from his grade-school teacher…

I thought this was novel. It’s a play on the Lord’s Prayer designed for beer drinkers. It’s posted on the wall in Fido’s (fee-doz), one of the more touristy bars that Miss K and I visited on our recent Belize trip. Cheers.

The Beer Prayer

Our lager,
which art in barrels,
hallowed be thy drink.
Thy will be drunk,
at home, as in the tavern.
Give us this day our foamy head,
and forgive us our spillages,
as we forgive those who spill
against us.
And lead us not into incarceration,
but deliver us from hangovers.
For thine is the beer,
the bitter and the lager,
for ever and ever,
Barmen.

I used to call it a mixed tape. I’d spend hours with a two-deck casette boom box getting just the right tracks in just the right order. Then, I’d play the hell out it until that blessed Memorex magnetic tape pulled out of shape and warped.

But enough “back in my day” bullshit. Here are 10 tracks in high rotation on my iPods.

• “Comatose” by Pearl Jam. A rocker that can actually follow “World Wide Suicide” on the band’s new LP Pearl Jam.
• “There for You” by Damien Marley, from the release Welcome to Jamrock. Haunting. Thanks Miss K.
• “Desecration Smile,” which leads the Mars side on the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Stadium Arcadium.It reminds me a lot of their big 90s hit “Breaking the Girl.”
• “Mary-Christ” from Sonic Youth’s 1990 album Goo. If this song doesn’t rock you, it ain’t the song that’s wrong.
• “Let’s Push Things Forward” from the Streets’ Original Pirate Material. “Let’s put on the classics and we’ll have a little dance, shall we?” Thanks BT-Killah.
• “The Number of the Beast” from Iron Maiden’s 1982 LP of the same name. Could that song really be almost 25 years old? Rocks like new.
• “Pump Up the Volume” by M.A.R.R.S. I provides the answer to the eternal question, what happens when you launch a club track into orbit.
• “Truth is Out of Style” by MC 900 Ft. Jesus. It’s both dated and prescient.
• “Makiballilia” by Aceyalone, from his limited release Grand Imperial. It’s live and large, and puts the beat from “Billy Jean” to work.
• “From the Ritz to the Rubble” from Arctic Monkey’s debut Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not. Again, a catchy rocker, even though the cockney’s dense as fog.

I don’t read Right Wing Howler as a matter of course, but the blog is part of a ring this site also belongs to. Now, I support the First Amendment at least as much as anyone dubbing him or herself with such a moniker. However, I find this at best unproductive and, at worst, disgusting. The blog reprints a twist on the lyrics to John Lennon’s “Imagine” to visualize a world without Muslims.

Aside from just plain hateful, the lyrics scream ignorance. I hesitate to even link to the post, but it’s short-sightedness struck me as grandiose. The lyrics’ author even ends with the clever and imaginative line “So let’s kill them and be done.”

Remember the “ayatollah asshola” shirts from the late 70s and early 80s, and how knee-jerk creative those were. How about the UAW organized events in the 80s where shop workers could get their frustrations and kicks out by taking bats to Japanese cars. Look where those got us. Iran is still piloted by ayatollahs, and Japan’s still serving the U.S. its ass in the car market.

Free speech is great and should enjoy the highest levels of protection. That plateau of reverence, however, comes with the responsibility to use that speech with reason and wisdom.

Flinging feces is what chimps do. I’d hope we’d evolved beyond that by now. But, you may say I’m a dreamer.

PS: The RWH’s permalink for that post take’s you to a huh-could-not-process-the-request page, so the link above is to the main site.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the current Esquire issue on the state of the American male, in particular Tom Chiarella’s piece “The Problem With Boys“. He posits that school dropout rates (for both high school and college), low reading rates and high suicide rates among young American men belie a crisis. This generation, and possibly the next, have issues.

People disagree, but I see an iota of truth. I can’t speak to the dropout or suicide rates, but the reading deficit struck me as true (and addressing a reading deficit might dent the dropout rates).

Chiarella relates a story about a boy he knows shrugging at having to read Jane Eyre for a school assignment. I would too. It reminded me of when I shrugged off The Scarlet Letter in 9th grade. Boring! I read three pages, and put it down with glazed eyes. It didn’t matter to me that I got an “F” on the assignment. Books about nuanced interpersonal relationships numbed me to tears in school, and still do for the most part. That’s not to say that I don’t read books. I still read more than your average American (okay, that’s not saying much). But, as in movies, this boy finds more interest in action-packed subject matter.

I chewed through Macbeth. I devoured Beowulf. I must’ve read the Lord of the Rings trilogy three times between ages 12 and 16 — without being prompted by a school assignment. All have carnage or swords or fights or whatever. All still rank high among great literature.

The women’s movement added value to America, as it tends to for the economies and societies of countries that embrace women as equals. That movement fostered the idea that, ultimately, women are no different from men in capability. In theory and practice, that’s true. A woman could rise to the presidency

Tropical Storm Alberto brushed the St. Petersburg area bringing buckets of rain riding gusts of wind, but no significant damage. It rained all yesterday, and I suspect the winds reached 30-40 mph. Overall, it wasn’t as bad as a squall the area got three months ago — where eight inches of rain fell in about four hours and the roof of a Bed, Bath & Beyond caved in.

I cross my fingers and hope Alberto is the worst hurricane season brings to St. Petersburg. I haven’t lived in this $#%@* state for three and a half years only to get wiped out this summer. Got plans — can’t go quietly (or loudly) quite yet.

Which brings me to the weekend. The Divine Miss K and I leave Wednesday (tomorrow) for Belize on a reconnaissance trip. We’re hoping to get ducks in a row for the wedding next year. And maybe soak up a bit of sun.

Again, I’ll publicly commit to writing more in this space. Maybe this time it’ll stick…