In Lehmann's Terms

Gov. Bluto?

What the fook is up with my new governor's eyebrows?

It seemed to be a pretty pitiful performance, as his pacing was shot to hell, he put emphasis on all the wrong lines, and all the while, he's beaming like Mr. Guy Smiley even when discussing starving grandmas who can't get their drugs  (though I guess that's no worse than Dubya's omnipresent smirk, even when discussing dead Iraq veterans.)

But I'll be damned if I could really pay attention to any of it, as I was kept in a total state of rapture by his Belushi-esque left eyebrow. The damned thing kept floating so far up his forehead, I thought it was gonna finally make a break for it and crawl under his hairline for protection.

Caplan on Media Bias

Bryan Caplan  links to a paper by Tim Groseclose and Jeff Milyo, "A Measure of Media Bias," that proposes to measure media bias by comparing how often media stories cite ostensibly "left wing" or "right wing" think tanks with how often those same sources are cited by members of Congress.

Leaving aside some of the survey's bizarre choices in methodology -- such as excluding from consideration any citation that labels a given sources as "conservative" or "liberal" -- its base assumption is just ridiculous. Whatever one thinks about the merits or practicality of the journalistic goal of objectivity, the bottom line is that this goal is most emphatically NOT seeking to replicate the same amount of bias that would be held by some "median" member of Congress, or even a median member of the reading public. The goal is to be "balanced."

Since Congress is not balanced (both houses are dominated by Republicans) then a media corps that met its own goal of perfect objectivity should be to the left of Congress. That would be what one ought expect. Similarly, a media displaying perfect objectivity in, say, Venezuela ought to be to the right of the Chavez government.

Nonetheless, as a measure of general media bias, even this deeply flawed experiment is preferable to the one Caplan would opt for instead:

While I love this paper, I want to propose a much more straightforward test of media bias: Simply by reading the title of the article, can you tell what the reader is supposed to think about the story?  This is amusingly easy.

Amusingly easy? Yes. Indicative of a tendency worth pondering? Certainly. Relevant to the broader subject at hand? I think not.

What I think Caplan's test displays -- and it's a valid concern that I've long-shared -- is that headlines are more likely to display bias than the stories to which they are attached. There are a few notable reasons for this tendency, and they're all related:

1. Headlines aren't typically written by an article's author. They usually come from the copy desk, who may or may not consult with the writer on the headline's appropriateness. In my day, I've seen some pretty "out-there" heads attached to pieces I've written, to the extent that I've been left in some cases wondering if the editor even read the piece.

2. Headlines are constrained by space. Granted, so are stories, but in headline writing, the space is so small that conveying nuance becomes a virtual impossibility. Of course, even if it weren't, that would still leave the problem that...

3.  Headlines are supposed to be punchy. They have to draw the reader into a piece. Perfect balance is a laudable goal, but if it's a choice between punchy but biased, or balanced and dull, the headline writer is going to opt for the latter every time.

Mind you, none of this excuses biased headlines, but it wouldn't generally be appropriate to make broad generalizations about a piece's slant just from reading the head. Although one potential experiment to judge the bias of various copy desks -- if that's something of tremendous importance to you -- could be to compare how the heads they give to syndicated and wire pieces differ from publication to publication.

My New Favorite Bank

I just may have to switch accounts, after this news:

BB&T Corporation today said it will not lend to commercial developers that plan to build condominiums, shopping malls and other private projects on land taken from private citizens by government entities using eminent domain.

“The idea that a citizen’s property can be taken by the government solely for private use is extremely misguided, in fact it’s just plain wrong,” said BB&T Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John Allison.

“One of the most basic rights of every citizen is to keep what they own. As an institution dedicated to helping our clients achieve economic success and financial security, we won’t help any entity or company that would undermine that mission and threaten the hard-earned American dream of property ownership.”

Now THIS is the kind of "socially responsible investing" I can get behind!

The WC?

Sadly, no. Despite being presented with the tantalizing prospect of naming a television station after a toilet, the planned combination of the WB and CBS' UPN network will, instead, invert the initials and go by the moniker "The CW." Which is a truly craptacular name. It brings to mind "the Country & Western network" or, just simply, "The CoW." Though since one-half of the partnership did spend the better part of a decade trying to get viewers to refer to it as "The Frog," I guess the latter option might be right up their alley.

The combination apparently surprised some, but it is clearly a long-overdue move...so long-overdue that it probably comes about five years too late. The WB's once-extensive stable of youth-oriented cult favorites (Buffy, Dawson's, Felicity) is now mostly depleted, and what few franchises they have left with even a modicum of success (Gilmores, Smalville, Charmed) are all either on their very last legs, or getting darned close to it. UPN, meanwhile, was built on Star Trek and wrestling, with the former franchise having petered out quickly in its last incarnation, and the latter seemingly headed into another downward trough in its multi-decadal cycle of popularity.

Nonetheless, merging what have long-been two "half-networks" into one whole does hold substantial advantages. The most notable of these is that, by converting affiliates in the many markets that currently only have one or the other, and by picking and choosing the best flagships in each market where they currently compete, the CW will finally be positioned to have something like 95% market penetration. Finally granted that scale, and with a combined line-up that could be every bit as respectable in terms of quality as Fox or, these days, NBC, there just might be a chance for this to catch fire.

Taking a gander at the properties the CW will be inheriting, here's how I'd configure the line-up, were I in Dawn Ostroff's shoes:

Monday
8 p.m. - Smallville
9 p.m. - Veronica Mars

This one seems to me like a no-brainer pairing. The first is the most commercially successful property the new station will own, despite its position in that crowded Thursday night competition. The second is the most artistically successful property, but it has yet to find its audience. And both appeal to much the same demographic. So you put them together, and hope Clark fans discover Ronnie. And since Veronica Mars tilts a bit more female in audience, it also makes decent counter-program during the half of the year when it would be up against Monday Night Football. Can't be any worse than going up against Lost week after week.

Tuesday
8 p.m. - Gilmore Girls
9 p.m. - One Tree Hill

Keep the Lorelais where they are. After Smallville, it's the second-most successful WB franchise, so there's no need to muck with it. But OTH does certainly seem a more appropriate pairing than its current partner, Supernatural. But this is probably the last season for both the denizens of Stars Hollow, Conn. and Tree Hill, N.C., so the new network is going to have to milk them for all they can.

Wednesday

8 p.m. Supernatural
9 p.m. Beauty and the Geek

Perhaps an odd pairing, but it serves a purpose. Supernatural can draw some Lost fans who currently have to sit through weak lead-ins. Beauty and the Geek, meanwhile, is great, dumb fun, and perfect counter-programming for those viewers who don't find ponderous shaggy dog stories to be their cup of tea.

Thursday

8 p.m. - Everybody Hates Chris
8:30 p.m. - Reba
9 p.m. - Everwood

Yes, I know what you're thinking. How the hell can those three shows be matched together? Well, my observation is that it's been years since Thursday nights have had a strong block of family-friendly faire. While CBS continues to ride the Survivor/CSI juggernaut, and NBC hopes the adult humor of My Name Is Earl and The Office leads them back to the promised land, why not steal a page from the late Brandon Tartikoff -- the man who invented "must see TV" -- and put together a slate of culturally diverse shows that kids and their parents wouldn't be embarrassed to watch together? Two decades ago, it was the Huxtables, followed by the Keatons. Today, it can be the Rocks, followed by the Harts -- the two most successful sitcoms ever produced by  UPN and the WB, respectively -- followed by the most traditional family-oriented drama left in the WB stable, now that the Camden clan will (thankfully) be going off to the REAL 7th Heaven.

Friday

8 p.m. - WWE Smackdown!

'Nuff said.

Sunday

7 p.m. - Love Inc.
7:30 p.m. - One on One
8 p.m. - Girlfriends
8:30 pm. - All of Us
9 p.m. - America's Top Model

It would be unprecedented, but I think it makes total sense. On the night when all the other networks are looking to cater to middle-aged, upper middle class white women, take advantage of UPN's slate of "urban" programming by concentrating just the best and most commercial successful into one big three hour block designed to appeal to young black women.

Getting the shitcan: All of Us, Blue Collar TV, Charmed, Cuts, Eve, Half & Half, Living With Fran, Related, South Beach, Twins, What I Like About You. No great losses there.

Now, of course, this assumes no NEW programming, which obviously isn't very likely. If Ostroff wants to break some ground here, she might want to finally abandon the old protectionist saw that dictates that British shows can only be imported by PBS, or else must be remade for American audiences. If Americans can accept Hugh Grant and Kate Beckinsale at the movies, then why wouldn't they accept Ricky Gervais and Sarah Alexander in their homes? Similarly, if Friends and Buffy the Vampire Slayer can play on that side of the pond, then why couldn't Peep Show or Marion & Geoff do well on this side?

Or, if she wants to be even bolder, she might take notice of the fact the number one rated network last summer wasn't ABC or CBS. It was Univision, a station that still routinely beats both UPN and the WB. HBO experimented this past year with an import of the Argentinian drama Epitafios. Might this be the time for a Spanish-language show on regular American network T.V.? When you're sitting in a distant fifth place, it might not hurt to try.

Addendum: The Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan offers her own version of the ideal CW hybrid line-up here.

Curb Rage

D.C. residents are (justifiably) unhappy with Mayor Williams' plan to address the city's parking shortage by capping the number of permits issued per residence to three. Though, unfortunately, the hue and cry were he and the council to take the steps the situation would seem to demand (privatizing curb rights, or at least allowing permits to be transferable in an open market) would likely be deafening.

I do, however, have a more existential question:

Citizens criticized the new proposed legislation as punishing law-abiding D.C. residents while not focusing on the real problems -- commuters and residents with out-of-state tags.

Don't you actually have to be IN a state before you can call anything else "out of state?"

 

Freddie the Beetle

Speaking of Ted, on my way to his asbestos symposium at AEI today, I met Fred Barnes in the elevator, and actually had a decent little conversation about his new book on the way up. Yes, it's perhaps not the most starlicious encounter one could have, and no, I'm not generally one to be terribly star-struck to begin with (Well, I must admit I was quite jelly-kneed when I met Angelina Jolie at a hotel in Georgetown last April, but that's a whole 'nuther story -- even stars are star-struck by Angelina Jolie...I'm sure there are times when even Brad Pitt takes a moment mid-coitus to think to himself "holy shit, that's Angelina Jolie!")

But I digress. As I was saying, it's not that Fred Barnes is a big star, or even that I'm such a tremendous fan of his work. I'm not. It's just that it brought me back for a moment, in my head, to being the 12 year old geek who'd actually get excited about waking up Sunday mornings so I could A) nosh on some bagels and B) watch the McLaughlin Group. I remember seeing those faces every week -- Fred's included -- with their bona fides listed at the bottom of the screen (Jack Germond - Baltimore Sun) and having the first germinations of the thought that maybe I'd like to be a journalist someday.

So flash forward 20 years, and here I am, riding in an elevator, exchanging business cards with Fred Barnes. If nothing else, it is an interesting life, from time to time. I think I'll keep it.

Four on the floor

With a h/t to Ted Frank, I thought this was a neat little meme. He didn't tag anyone, so I'm just gonna steal it.

Four Jobs You've Had
Real estate salesman
Barnes & Noble info desk guy
Public pool tester/lab geek
Flak for the mamma-jamma of corporate welfare queens

Four Movies You Could Watch Over and Over
The Big Lebowski
Groundhog Day
Big Night
Airplane

Four Places You've Lived
Newark, N.J.
West Palm Beach, Fla.
Palo Alto, Calif.
Syracuse, N.Y.

Four TV Shows You Like to Watch
Scrubs
Arrested Development
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Beauty and the Geek

Four Places You've Been on Vacation
Cabo San Lucas
Kamloops, B.C.
Lucerne, Switzerland
Ocho Rios, Jamaica

Four Websites You Visit Daily
Marginal Revolution
Snopes -- What's New
Poynter
Actuary.net

Four of My Favorite Foods
Clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl from Boudin Bakery in San Francisco
Paella à valenciana at Tony Da Caneca's in Newark
Chicken saltimbocca, Carmine's, NYC
Kotopoulo me Damaskina, at Taverna Cretekou right here in Alexandria

Four Places I'd Rather Be
Hamilton, Bermuda
Monterrey, Calif.
Charleston, S.C.
Miami Beach, Fla.

Four Albums I Can't Live Without
Astral Weeks, by Van Morrison
The Harder They Come, by Jimmy Cliff, et al
Giant Steps, by John Coltrane
The Low End Theory, by A Tribe Called Quest

5 Questions with Bob Higgs

Nearly two decades after the publication of his landmark Crisis and Leviathan, economic historian Robert Higgs' chief thesis in the book -- that, to quote Randolph Bourne, "War is the health of the state" -- seems more relevant than ever. Thus it's only fitting that he should revisit some of those same themes in the excellent new volume, Resurgence of the Warfare State: The Crisis Since 9/11, a collection of essays on the myriad ways we have seen, once again, government exploiting public fear in the wake of crisis to engage in shameless ratcheting up of state power.

I caught up with Higgs, a senior fellow in political economy with the Independent Institute and editor of The Independent Review, for a little round of five questions.

In Lehmann's Terms: The subtitle for Crisis and Leviathan was "Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government." How does the episode we've been living through since 9/11 differ from those of the past?
 
HIGGS: The current episode is smaller, but its basic structure is the same as that of the preceding ones: public fright and insecurity; reliance on government to "do something" to save the day; rush of all sorts of opportunists--political, economic, ideological, even religious--to seize the day, especially to grab the keys to the Treasury; massive government propaganda to grease the skids, leverage the crisis and, in this case, make it permanent.
 
ILT: I credit you with inventing the slogan "God save us from great presidents." In light of the past five years, should that prayer be amended to include doltish, incompetent ones, as well?
 
HIGGS: God save us from all presidents (with the possible exception of Grover Cleveland).
 
ILT: Libertarians typically oppose campaign finance reform as an unjustified infringement upon free speech. But given that there has developed a symbiotic relationship between a permanent class of government contractors -- particularly with the DoD -- and the lawmakers who feed them, what about a rule banning any company (or trade union) that has donated to a campaign or a political action committee from receiving any contract from the federal government for, say, five years?
 
HIGGS: This might help, but where there's a will, there's a way. So long as government has the power to convey massive benefits or to impose massive costs, people are going to do whatever it takes to gain some control or influence over the people who hold the control levers of that terrifying machine.

ILT: You live in the Bayou state. What sorts of ratcheting up in government power have you seen in the wake of Hurricane Katrina?

HIGGS: Besides various seizures of control (most of them temporary, thank God) over everything from garbage dumps to motel accommodations, this area is now awash in federal money. Naturally, we wily Cajuns, good old boys, and canny black race hustlers who rule the roost hereabouts are having a field day pocketing said loot, utilizing all our usual corrupt devices (which to us are just politics as usual). The outcome of this activity will be not only massive waste and stupid actions of all sorts, but residual of government control--over such things as urban and regional development--that did not exist before. Mainly, though, Katrina has been turned into a serviceable excuse to loot the U.S. Treasury big time.
 
ILT: Other than the Independent Review -- where, clearly, you have a bias -- what other academic journals do you read regularly and which do regard as the best?

HIGGS: I read some professional literature in economics, such as the Journal of Economic Literature and the Journal of Economic History, to see what the profession is doing, but truth be known, I don't read any academic journals regularly any more. I go to particular articles when they pertain to projects I'm working on. Otherwise, the academic journals are not worth my time.

Thanks again, Bob!

Buzzwords 3.0

Back before the Y2K switch, many of my fellow Xers sought to transcend the  brick-and-mortar bottleneck by leveraging their core competencies and pushing the envelope in one particularly burgeoning field of virtual enterprise management: the fine art of buzzword creation.

You see, in mission critical tasks, you had to be capable not only of seeing the bigger picture, but of thinking outside the box and spotting the synergistic value-add in any given paradigm shift. In other words, what was important was not just brainstorming about scalable turnkey back office solutions with seamless interface, but actually getting in there to see where the bodies are buried.

Those who succeeded…became best of breed. It was a win-win, I tell ya.

Then, thankfully, the Nasdaq tanked, Silicon Valley became overrun with stampeding herds of programmers set free by all the bankrupt venture capitalists who opened the pens on their Asperger farms, and, best of all…people started talking like human beings again.

What a glorious thing a recession can be.

Alas, it couldn’t last. The bulls are back, and they’ve brought a whole new lexicon of gibberish with them. So pull out your mission statements, as I present you with Buzzwords 3.0: Seven Cliches of Highly Gag-Inducing Consultants.

1. Disruptive Technology – This is the Bigfoot of buzzwords, in that it gets an awful lot of attention for something no one’s ever seen. In theory, a “disruptive” technology is a substandard but nonetheless affordable product or service that draws critical market share away from some competitor that, left to its own devices, would have presented the better option (for whom?) in the long run. Making this term particularly cringe-worthy are the long-discredited notions about “path dependence” used in association with it to justify rent-seeking, such as the pleas for ridiculously broad application of patent, or for monopoly privilege granted by way of regulatory fiat.

2. Google Play – As in “what’s the Google play on this?” Most commonly, it’s used to refer to a firm’s entire Internet marketing strategy, and not just the parts that deal with Google. Having already become a verb, Google is now fast becoming a proprietary eponym, as ubiquitous as Band-Aid, Kleenex, or Jell-O.

3. Infosnacking – This one could have been a ‘Sniglet. It describes employees’ brief bursts of dicking around on the Web and e-mail, just taking a sampling of slacker hors d’oueuvres, rather than gorging on a full banquet of uselessness. The ascendant H.R. theory is that some degree of infosnacking should be tolerated, as the ill will engendered by a crackdown tends to be more destructive than the mild productivity losses of just leaving them to eBay in peace here and there.

4. Unfair Advantage – The first time I heard this one, it struck me as akin to the straight white guy’s version of the “queer rights” movement, or black folk calling each other “niggaz” – inverting a derogatory term into a badge of pride. Yes, an ordinary advantage is apparently no longer sufficient, because God forbid anyone actually have to engage in honest-to-goodness competition. Today, investor relations directors all want to brag about their company’s “unfair” advantage. That is, unless Eliot Spitzer happens to be on the line.

5. Take(ing) Accountability -- ©Every contestant in the history of The Apprentice. In some ways, this is a descendent of the dot-com cliché “take(ing) ownership,” but really… it’s just an old-fashioned malaprop that, for whatever reason, has spread like wildfire. Just as it is physically impossible for anything to “center around” anything else -- a bastardized mash-up of “center on” and “revolve around” – you can either take responsibility, or you can be accountable. You can’t “take accountability” for anything.   

6. Skin in the Game – Not a new phrase, technically, but I’ve been seeing and hearing it with mind-numbing frequency of late. It just means “to show a commitment by bearing risk.” When Warren Buffett first used it, oh, 30 years ago, it was clever. It was witty. Now, it’s just yet one more chalk dust torture.

7. Granularity – It takes a special kind of hubris to a) import an obscure term from the statistician’s lexicon and then to b)widely misapply it to mean something that c) can be easily described using the regular old English word “detailed.” But this is exactly the sort of hubris that buzzword originators possess in spades.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go finish up my next best-selling opus, Chicken Soup for the Chicken’s Soul: A Daybook of Comfort and Cannibalism.

The Rational Skepticism of Hanna-Barbera

Tom Bell -- Glen's co-blogger over at Agoraphilia -- picks up on a point that has long bugged me about so much children's literature: its prediliction to preach blind faith as a virtue:

Children's fiction employs this trope so often that it fits a formula. A wise character tries to convince the protagonist that something wonderful will happen if only he or she will earnestly believe an improbability. Consider, for instance, how Yoda tells Luke to cast aside all doubt if he wants to levitate his x-wing from the swamps of Dagobah. "Do, or do not. There is no try," Yoda explains. Following the usual script, Luke resists, courting disaster, before he finally embraces faith and wins its rewards.

But I'd like to put in a good word for one of my favorite childhood television characters, who for close to four decades has served as an important counter-weight to this theme  -- the incomparable Scooby Doo.

Once you get past the obviously fantastical notion of a talking Great Dane, what I've always felt was great about Scooby's gang was that the way they inculcated in young viewers a healthy dose of subversive skepticism. Week after week, through application of science and reason, the Scooby gang face down their fears and discover that, once you look closely enough, what appear to be super-natural events and ghostly apparitions inevitably reveal themselves to be the work of charlatans and hucksters with sinister motivations.

Yes, the plot was so repetitive as to almost constitute a Zen koan, but that scenario repeats itself (ad infinitum) in real life, as well. From Jeanne Dixon to Uri Gellar to James Van Pragh to John Edward and Sylvia Browne, the song remains the same.

And this, in my humble opinion, is one of the many reasons why the recent and quite shitty live action movie versions so badly missed the heart and soul of the show. In both 2002's Scooby Doo and its ill-conceived sequel, the filmmakers thought it cute to pit the Mystery Machine gang "real" super-natural baddies. As if making fans suffer Freddie Prinze Jr. in any context weren't betrayal enough.

And on that, I close with a quote from that most eminent wit, Eddie Izzard, on the international significance of Shaggy and Scooby:

Shaggy and Scooby are interesting characters. They're two of the most major characters in American literature. Because, and I mean this sincerely, and I think it's fantastic, because they are cowards. They are cowardly characters - they believe in cowardice and sandwiches. And can you think of any in the whole realm of the English-speaking literature that are characters like that? Cowardly characters that you identify with. ‘Cause you identify with them, you're with them all the way! "Go Shaggy! Go Scooby!"...

...the only other character -- I mean, tell me now if you can think of any character ‘cause I'm willing to learn -- but somebody mentioned Falstaff. A Shakespearean character! It's that level of greatness! Falstaff, you sort of identify with him, but he has a melancholy with him. But Shaggy and Scooby are upbeat all the time, saying "ruh ruh ruh roo." And you love 'em! You're with 'em! There's part of us that are Shaggy and Scooby at every stage of the way.

So if you travel around the world, and, you know, ‘cause your American foreign policy does give you a difficult time to exist around the world, two tricks: one, say you're Canadian, that helps. It works in Europe, it's very good! And the second is just say, "Shaggy and Scooby." And they'll go "Raggy and Rooby!" International credit card, I think!