Hunters still rock post-nerf

So after the nerf, I switched from BM to SV.

Here’s a 25-man Vault chart:

The Jowly Lump

I like how Toles draws McCain:

Ride The Tiger!

Anchovy has been level 70 on the Staghelm realm for some time now. Recently, I got the reputation to buy a Swift Winterspring Frostsaber, and here she is hanging out in Ironforge.

From the “I could have told them that” department ....

This is from page 24 of the June 6, 2008, edition of The Inquisitor:

Adam Bryan Giblin, W/M,
DOB: 4/25/67, of
4611 Tibbs St.,
Shreveport, was
arrested by Officer
R. Christian on a
charge of theft and
on an outstanding
Caddo bench warrant
for proper equipment required
on vehicle. Over the last
year, the suspect allegedly took
from his place of employment
compact discs valued from
$5,000 to $15,000 and then sold
them to a local store to cash
them in.

Adam is the former program director at Red River Radio, the referenced place of employment.

I can’t be the only one who worked there who knew what was going on. Five to 15 grand is a lot of CDs! Or maybe something else went down, too. I also know of one occasion when he charged a local organization money to promote an event on the air with a fake “live remote.”

Vote Republican!

Torture & NPR

A couple of things about torture.

First, waterboarding is torture, no ifs, ands or buts. If my word isn’t good enough, consider former P.O.W. John McCain’s:

“All I can say is that it was used in the Spanish Inquisition, it was used in Pol Pot’s genocide in Cambodia, and there are reports that it is being used against Buddhist monks today,” Mr. McCain, who spent more than five years in a North Vietnamese prison camp, said in a telephone interview.

Of presidential candidates like Mr. Giuliani, who say that they are unsure whether waterboarding is torture, Mr. McCain said: “They should know what it is. It is not a complicated procedure. It is torture.”

Therefore, it’s distressing that a potential U.S. Attorney General won’t take a firm stand against waterboarding.

We must do better as a nation.

Second, NPR’s Steve Inskeep and Anne Garrels collaborated on a story that used sources who had been tortured. Instead of focusing on the torture, they focused on the resultant unsurprising confessions. It caused a firestorm of response, and FAIR issued an action alert. Garrels lamely defended herself, and it came off contrived.

We must do better as a nation.

Marshall Fannin Blog Gone Again

Here's what I know about it: bupkus.

Anyone know anything?

IT appears to me that Marshall changed his domain hosting. That means it might be back soon. Or it might not be. The domain wasn't set to expire until next year, so I don't think it's a claim jumper. This is just speculation.

World Vegan Day

War Criminal Escapes Justice

Dammit, he got away!

“Former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld fled France today fearing arrest over charges of ‘ordering and authorizing’ torture of detainees at both the American-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the US military’s detainment facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, unconfirmed reports coming from Paris suggest.”

Philosophy Talk visits KSCL this weekend

Philosophy Talk, the radio show that questions everything except your intelligence, visits KSCL 91.3 FM and Centenary College this weekend.

Saturday, Stanford philosophers Ken Taylor and John Perry will tape a show from 5:00 to 6:30 pm in Anderson Auditorium on the Centenary College campus. They'll be exploring the concept of work with their guest, Al Gini.

Why work? Some argue that work is an unfortunate necessity; others that our jobs add to our lives. Work can make us into better people, teaching discipline, creativity, resourcefulness and other good habits. Some jobs might be degrading, but some kind of meaningful work is necessary for a meaningful life. Do Americans work too much? Do we identify too strongly with work at the expense of family, friends and health? What role should work play in a well-lived life?

Sunday at noon, Taylor and Perry broadcast from the KSCL studios. Beforehand, they'll discuss philosophy, their effort to bring philosophy to the airwaves, and their take on work.

KSCL airs Philosophy Talk at 10:00 am Wednesdays and Sundays.

Missed an episode? You can listen to past shows here.

Diminished Expectations Still Go Unmet at Red River Radio

It’s fundraising time at Red River Radio. Here’s my two cents.

First, they’ve made their goal the lowest I’ve seen in years: $200,000. And they’re still not meeting it.

Let’s do the math. With $200,000 to be raised over a pledge drive of 14 days, Red River Radio needs to get $14,285.71 in donations each day. After nine days, they had only raised $114,210, according to their website. That’s $12,690 a day. At that rate, and barring any large donations being held back for a contrived big finish, Red River Radio’s drive will end with around $177,660, about $22,340 short.

The past several pledge drives have also fallen short -- distressing news for the network which is undergoing digital modernization yet still needs massive infrastructure redevelopment. They need lots of money and they aren’t getting it.

What’s the cause? Simply put, people don’t listen as much as they once did and the general focus is shifting from reliance on public donations to corporate contributions.

Consider these quotes from publications by David Giovannoni’s Audience Research Analysis organization:

Reinvigorating Public Radio’s Public Service & Public Support: INTERIM REPORT 1 APPROACH.

Americans are listening less to public radio today than two years ago. Not coincidentally, their financial support of our industry shows signs of softening.

Reinvigorating Public Radio’s Public Service & Public Support: INTERIM REPORT 6 LOSING OUR GRIP.

Public radio is losing its grip on its own listeners.

Stations that generate almost half of all public radio listening have lost loyalty in the last year. MORNING EDITION, ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, and other programs generating 80 percent of all listening have lost their forward momentum or fallen back.

It doesn’t matter whether public radio has gotten weaker or commercial radio has gotten stronger. Either way, our listeners are listening less to us and more to them.

Reinvigorating Public Radio’s Public Service & Public Support: INTERIM REPORT 4 AN HISTORIC LOSS OF MOMENTUM.

After a 30 year run of virtually uninterrupted audience growth, public radio is no longer increasing its reach into American society or claiming larger shares of radio listening.

It’s not lost listening that portends ill for public radio. It’s the loss of upward momentum – the absence of growth on which we have traditionally relied – that threatens to ripple through our public service economy.

Public radio’s revenues have grown in lockstep with its audience for decades. Station managers could budget on the assumption of financial growth because their assumptions of audience growth typically proved true.

We can no longer assume we’ll have more resources tomorrow than we have today. At many stations, listener-sensitive revenues are poised to level or even decline; the projected gap between expectation and reality will approach or exceed the size of their Community Service Grants.

What’s the solution?

Red River Radio needs to change it’s programming to both increase ratings and boost audience loyalty. The program director should carefully analyze Arbitron data. Programs that perform well in similar markets should air here, replacing poorly performing ones here. That might mean grinding the sacred cows of opera, classical, Hearts Of Space and other programs into hamburger, but the network should find the courage to do it.

Christmas is the traditional time for “format change.” That gives them about two months to complete the analysis and make the changes, and it’s plenty of time. Bumped programming could go onto the digital channels.

Increasing productivity from the sales side would also help, but I can’t knowledgeably comment on how to do that. I do know about ratings and programming, though; I studied it for my degree and professionally.

Finally, I still think LSUS should pony up a sizable sum to rebuild the network. I’ve written about it before, so I won’t go over it again here. Dr. Vincent Marsala should personally champion the network in the legislature to secure increased funding, something he seems loathe to do.

Here’s an excerpt from email Dr. Marsala sent me:

“ ... we have been concerned about the needs of the radio station and for the past two years have included a radio station project in our capital outlay plans. However, it is unlikely that the state will fund such a project without substantial contributions from the public, if at all. Regardless, the project will stay on our capital outlay plan.”

As I said, the network needs a champion in the legislature to get that capital outlay funding. It might take a while, but trying is better than doing nothing.

Rock Fight Update

Hello,

I figured I'd post saying why I haven't been updating ROCK FIGHT! playlists recently.

The KSCL studios have been renovated. The equipment is much more professional and works a whole lot better. As a result, I can do the show better by choosing CDs from the station's massive library. In the past, I burned my own CdS so I had one less worry about what could go wrong. That meant I knew what I was going to play beforehand and I could post the list. Now, the only accurate list is the one that's finished when the show is done.

However, the KSCL control board now has a decent MP3 player input, so in the future I will be playing a few songs from my iPod on ROCK FIGHT! I'll post those, but it will be a far shorter list than what I have been posting.

You really should see KSCL's library. It covers all the walls in two rooms including the studio. There's so much good stuff in it that it would make you weep with music-lover joy. The biggest challenge each week is choosing just 30 or so songs from among several hundred thousand.

ROCK FIGHT! is tonight from 6 to 8 on KSCL 91.3 FM. Tune in if you can! No word yet on streaming.

More pot smokers arrested than violent criminals

Some crazy bad news from NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, made Democracy Now! headlines:

29,000 Arrested in U.S. in 2006 for Marijuana Violations

New government statistics show police arrested a record 829,000 people for marijuana violations last year. According to the group NORML a pot-smoker is now arrested every 38 seconds in the country. The total number of marijuana arrests in the U.S. far exceeded the total number of arrests in the U.S. for all violent crimes combined, including murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault.

Do we really need to be filling our jails with pot smokers? It’s way past time to decriminalize cannabis.

ROCK FIGHT! 09/21/2007 KSCL 91.3 FM 6 to 8

Hello again! A fine Fall Friday it is, so, time for ROCK FIGHT! on KSCL 91.3 FM.

Lots of new music this week. You’ll hear the electronic ecstasy of Ernesto Gonzales, the freak pop of Travis Morrison Hellfighters and garage psych from Wooden Shjips. There’s also songs from Interpol’s and M.I.A.’s new albums. Plenty of other groovy shitake, too.

Here’s the playlist:

Song                                    Artist
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Same Old Drag                           The Apples In Stereo
China My China                          Brian Eno
Listen                                  The Clash
Cool As Kim Deal                        The Dandy Warhols
Shivering King                          Dead Meadow
I'm Sixteen                             Dengue Fever
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction           Devo
Reminisce                               Ernest Gonzales
Cheeseburger                            Gang Of Four
Last Living Souls                       Gorillaz
Purple Haze                             Groove Armada
Not Even Jail (Kessler Remix)           Interpol
No I In Threesome                       Interpol
Paper Planes                            M.I.A.
Hotel California                        The Moog Cookbook
The Needle Has Landed                   Neko Case
Brand New Colony                        The Postal Service
Store Bought Bones                      The Raconteurs
Do You Remember Rock 'n' Roll           The Ramones
Nothing Means Nothing Anymore           River City Tanlines
No Feelings                             Sex Pistols
Giant Kitty                             Shonen Knife
Well Well Well                          Sondre Lerche
The World Looks Red                     Sonic Youth
I Wanna Be Your Dog                     The Stooges
Thank You For Sending Me An Angel       Talking Heads
You Make Me Feel Like A Freak           Travis Morrison Hellfighters
Kiss Off                                Violent Femmes
Always After You                        The Walkmen
We Ask You To Ride                      Wooden Shjips
The World's A Mess, It's In My Kiss     X
Speed Dial No. 2                        Zero 7

ROCK FIGHT! 09/14/2007 KSCL 91.3 FM 6 to 8

Hello again, modern mangoes.

Friday is upon us! Time for another edition of ROCK FIGHT! from 6 to 8 on KSCL 91.3 FM.

Revolutionary exuberance awaits with tracks by M.I.A. and Actitud Maria Marta, along with a new song from Alec Holland’s latest project, Yamones. Who would have thought the boy who hates everything had a love song in him? Plenty of other chills and spills, too, so check it out!

Here’s the playlist:

Song                                Artist
-------------------------------------------------------------
La Base Milagrosa                   Actitud Maria Marta
Love Your Shotgun                   Be Your Own Pet
Luno                                Bloc Party
Dum Dum                             Butthole Surfers
Televised                           Calla
Let The Cool Goddess Rust Away      Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!
Smoke It                            The Dandy Warhols
Sex Me Up                           Datarock
Everything's Goin' On               Dead Meadow
Wrong Time Capsule                  Deerhoof
No Christmas For John Quays         The Fall
Pioneer To The Falls                Interpol
Fortune Of Fame                     The Jacobites
The Sky Is A Landfill               Jeff Buckley
Bamboo Banga                        M.I.A.
Lake Of Fire                        Meat Puppets
Shield Your Eyes....                Melt-Banana
Stranded In The Jungle              The New York Dolls
Mystereality                        OMD
Life & Illusion                     Phaser
Down With Moonlight                 The Rakes
I Can't Make It On Time             The Ramones
Twist Barbie                        Shonen Knife
Angst In My Pants                   Sparks
Nubile Days                         Swan Lake
Into Everything                     Télépopmusik
I Was A Lover                       TV On The Radio
Drive My Car                        Two Gallants
Wide Boys                           Ultravox
Promise                             Violent Femmes
We've Been Had                      The Walkmen
Motto Motto Motto!                  Yamones

The Petraeus Report

General David Petraeus testified to Congress today giving his much anticpated report on "progress" in Iraq. There were no surprises in what it contained.

Once again, John Andrew Prime of The Times asked me to comment on the Iraq issue, specifically Petraeus' testimony.

Here's what I said:

General Petraeus' recommendations are sneaky. His plan would only reduce current post-surge troop levels in Iraq to their pre-surge level within about a year. It's akin to the shameful business practice of raising prices to then have a sale. Further decisions on troop reductions would be deferred at least six months.

The American people don't want that. Poll after poll shows we have lost patience with the war, with the horrible suffering on both sides. Most Americans want out, and we want it to happen starting now. In one CBS/New York Times poll, a majority believe the surge has either had no impact or made matters worse.

I grant that Iraq withdrawal is a challenge. We must find a plan that will disengage us from the Iraq debacle while maximizing chances for an end to violence there and a stable government that can keep the strategically vital oil flowing. Long term, we need a better oil plan for the country that reduces our dependence substantially. And we need to change our focus in the War on Terror from large-scale military engagement of whole countries to smaller, more-focused attacks against only those who truly threaten the country.

We need principled representatives willing to take political risks to resolve this issue. Who will step up to lead? I am not confident in our current leadership to do so.

Ambassador Crocker also testified, but I consider his report the least reliable. While Petraeus I think, despite his slanted statistics, had some independence, Crocker was just carrying Bush's water. There was nothing from him that wasn't standard administration propaganda.

The whole affair is mostly portrayed as a partisan battle. But both parties are ignoring what most people want -- to get out of Iraq now. Instead, Democrats are trying to craft a position that will allow the U.S. to stay in Iraq permanently while somehow "ending the war." Of course, that can't be successful, so it's ridiculous to think of the Democrat party as any real help, despite the admirable positions of a few loners within the party.

Many comments I'm reading are savvy to that. Some urge voting Green or Libertarian to elect people who will end the war. Both of those parties oppose it on principle. It's looking good for alternative parties this year. I know I'll be voting Green.

Oh, oh, I love it so....

Best clip ever ....

ROCK FIGHT! 09/07/2007 KSCL 91.3 FM 6 to 8

Hello again!

Another fantastic Friday it is, so time for ROCK FIGHT! on KSCL 91.3 FM tonight from 6 to 8. Tune in for all the thrills and spills of stunt radio!

Here’s the score:

Song                                Artist
---------------------------------------------------------------------
In The Flat Field                   Bauhaus
Manipulation                        The Black Angels
Dr. Strangeluv                      Blonde Redhead
Picture This                        Blondie
Astral                              Calla
Sleep Over It                       Controller.Controller
Fa-Fa-Fa                            Datarock
Twin Killers                        Deerhoof
Idealistic                          Digitalism
Lexicon Devil                       The Germs
We Need More Power                  Geza X
Rest My Chemistry                   Interpol
Communist China                     Japan
Time To Get Away                    LCD Soundsystem
Lucky Number                        Lene Lovich
Hussel (Feat. Afrikan Boy)          M.I.A.
Roosey Goosey                       Made Out Of Babies
Cat Brain Land                      Melt-Banana
Sell Or Be Sold                     Minutemen
Mental Hopscotch                    Missing Persons
Spider's Web                        Mission Of Burma
Hanging On The Telephone            The Nerves
Little Girls                        Oingo Boingo
Electricity                         Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
Broken Boy Soldier                  The Raconteurs
1 Hour 1/2 Ago                      Rain Parade
Terror!                             The Rakes
Reggie                              The Sounds
No Fun                              The Stooges
300 MPH Torrential Outpour Blues    The White Stripes

Gerritsen Fallout

There’s an article in The Times today about Roy Gerritsen’s outcome: “Man avoids solicitation of minor conviction, pleads to lesser charge.”

Check out some of the comments:

• “How in the hell can you people live with yourself knowing that you let him plead to a lesser charge. I hope and pray if he ever does it again, it isn't my kid because someone will answer for this.”
• “Wow the LA Justice system let a perv walk free!”
• “This is terrible. Why let the pervert get off with a slap on the wrist? Let's send the illegals in our jails back to their own countries and make room in our prisons for some of our homegrown scum...”
• “Just what makes this perv so special that he faces reduced charges and does not have to register as a sex offender. He won't change but you can bet he will be much more careful in the future.”

I’m glad I’m not alone in thinking he was let off too easy.

Gerritsen Gets Slap On Wrist

Gerritsen Gets Slap On Wrist

Roy Geritsen didn't get off entirely free in court today, but he's not been punished much.

Roy, the former GM of Red River Radio, was arrested last October in a sting operation accusing him of soliciting sex from a juvenile over the Internet. He faced charges of computer-aided solicitation of a minor and attempted carnal knowledge of a juvenile. Bossier City police said Gerritsen arranged to meet who he thought was a 14-year-old girl for sex but who was actually a police officer posing as the girl. He was arrested when he arrived at a pre-determined location in Bossier City.

In court today, Gerritsen's computer-aided solicitation of a minor charge was lessened to criminal mischief, according to clerks. He pleaded guilty to that and was ordered to pay $1,000 plus court costs or to serve 30 days. The attempted carnal knowledge charge was dropped.

Gerritsen will not have to register as a sex offender, and he dodged the bullet of two years in jail. He is also now free to move out of the state.

Setting aside my dislike of the man, as a parent of a 14-year-old daughter, I am very disappointed in this outcome. Children today, my daughter included, rely on the internet for a variety of needs -- academic, social and personal. They deserve better protection from predators. I think a stiffer sentence was in order.

Since the cases did not go to trial, it will be problematic trying to get the chat transcripts. I'll see what I can do.