Hijacking a sewer

Posted on January 19, 2011 by hro50ta1

By Joel Thurtell

Nepotism, cronyism, self-dealing, insider-trading.

The every-day workings of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department?

Surprise.

Those pejorative adjectives were applied to a sewerage operation that was uniquely a suburban creation.

I’m thinking of the Western Townships Utilities Authority and the scandal nicknamed “Sewergate” that I set off in 1992 with my Detroit Free Press expose of a crooked sewer scheme in the staunchly Republican and hitherto seemingly squeaky-clean western Wayne County townships of Canton, Northville and Plymouth.

Wait a minute!

Isn’t Plymouth Township the home of newly-elected GOP state Rep. Kurt Heise?

And isn’t Heise the guy who wants to hijack the Detroit water and sewerage works?

His plan: Let Detroit continue operating the mammoth water and sewer system. But let suburban politicos like Heise tell Detroit how to do it.

Let Detroit do the heavy lifting, as always, but give control to the burbs.

He’s proposing that eventually, the whole system would be privatized.

Somehow, he says, that would make the whole operation more transparent.

If you think suburban politicians like Heise will inject honesty and transparency into the sewer, please read my Free Press story about the way suburban Republicans hijacked the system THEY created.

And then, please, somebody explain to me how a private operation, by definition not subject to the disclosure mandated by the Michigan Constitution as well as the Michigan Open Meetings and Freedom of Information Acts, would be more open that a publicly-constituted agaency.

Posted in Bad government | Leave a comment

Guns in Canada

Posted on January 15, 2011 by hro50ta1

Seems timely, with all the carnage in Arizona, to re-run my October 2, 2010 column about Canada’s firearms law:

By Joel Thurtell

Watch out, NRA. My PAL’s gonna get you.

Before I tell you about my PAL, though, I’d like to share the big scare I got today, October 2, 2010, when I opened a letter addressed to me from the National Rifle Association.

The NRA said it’s asking “patriotic Americans like you”  to join their cause.

Did you know that a small cabal of liberal Democratic lawmakers is conspiring against us patriots?

“Unless you act now,” the NRA told me, “your Second Amendment rights are certain to be dismantled and destroyed.”

Wow! That scared me about as much as the black bear that swam near my boat last summer in Georgian Bay.

I know about those bears. They are tough hombres. Well, not hombres, exactly, because that’s the Spanish word for “man.” Tough customers they are. Why, one of those black bears actually broke into a refrigerator at our neighbor’s place in Canada and made off with a half-gallon of strawberry ice cream!

Jiminy Crewcut!

Scary stuff.

Know what’s REALLY scary? Pistol-totin’ people with guns in public places. Like bars. Four states allow pistol-packers in taverns. Now THAT scares me!

But the NRA says we’re losing our gun-totin’ rights. I sat up and paid attention when I read the NRA’s prayer that I join them by paying them $25 (a discount from the regular $35 membership fee!!) for a year of protection from liberal lawmakers poised to steal my prized “Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.”

“Because your firearm freedoms and your hunting and shooting traditions are under attack like never before.”

“THEY WANT TO MAKE FIREARMS OWNERSHIP A PRIVILEGE–NOT A RIGHT!”

Now, that might scare me, except I thought about that black bear who swam near my boat last summer, all the while ignoring my stupid human shouts to attract his attention. When you’ve got strawberry ice cream in mind, humans yelling from boats are of no consequence.

I also thought about those concealed pistols in the bars and wondered which way the firearms erosion is flowing. Seems like Second Amendment buffs are getting MORE rights, not less.

As I listened to my neighbors in Ontario telling stories about their encounters with bears busting into kitchens, I decided it was time to take measures. Gotta protect me and my family. No bear’s gonna heist my ice cream!

Gotta have a gun.

But in Canada, they’ve done what the NRA is so scared of: They made firearms ownership a privilege, rather than a right.

Know what? It’s not a bad idea.

Let me tell you about my PAL.

“PAL” is short for “Possession and Acquisition License.”

In Canada, you can purchase and keep a non-restricted firearm (long guns like rifles and shotguns) if you take a class in firearm safety and pass a written and practical test.

There’s a bit more to it than that. For instance, you can’t have been convicted of a felony. To prove it, you need a certificate of good behavior from your local police department.

You need references from people who will attest that you are a responsible person.

Your spouse, if you have one, must sign that he or she is okay with your possessing firearms.

What’s so bad about that?

Hey, you don’t even have to take the class. You can do what’s called “challenging the exam.” That’s what I did. I studied a book called “Canadian Firearms Safety Course,” and when I was sure I’d learned the basics of firearm safety, I took and passed the test.

Nobody said I can’t have a gun. The Canadians simply want to be sure I’m not likely to turn a firearm against someone else.

They’re also concerned about the high incidence of firearms used to commit suicide. So the PAL form has questions about my mental health.

I’m sane as can be, if you ask me — even if I do yell at bears.

Of course, in the end, the mounties can’t stop someone with a PAL from shooting up a bar or robbing a bank or killing him or herself.

But what’s so bad about insisting that anyone who keeps a firearm be trained in the rudiments of firearm safety?

Make firearms ownership a privilege, not a right?

Sounds reasonable to me.

Drop me a line at joelthurtell@gmail.com

Posted in Bad government, Bay | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Private eye

Posted on January 13, 2011 by hro50ta1
Peppermint Patti

Peppermint Patti

By Peppermint Patti

JOTR columnist

The art of detection, Sophie, is the knack for finding things before anyone else.

Smelling, hearing. seeing — we dogs are the best detectives known to the two-legger class.

Which is why they’re telling me what a great detective I am.

At the same time, they’re painting me as a cold-blooded killer.

Because I found the bush-tail.

The one that snuck into the house.

I tried to tell them.

But you know how no-tailers are.

Deaf, dumb and blind when it comes to noticing things.

They call it detective work.

It was a small bush-tail, as bush-tails go.

A young one with no common sense.

No telling how it got in.

Could be I was sleeping, Sophie — it was that time of day.

Isn’t any time a good time for a snooze?

The two-leggers went nuts.

“A squirrel! A squirrel’s in the house!”

They were frantic!

Me? Oh boy, Sophie, yes, I thought my prayers had been answered.

You know what they say, If you can’t get Mohammed to the mountain?

If you can’t get Patti to the brush-butt, bring the brush-butt to Patti.

Here it was, on my turf — lunch in the raw.

But I reckoned without the help, quote-unquote, I’d be getting from my two-leggers.

First they chased the bush-tail into a corner of the dining room. Fine. But do they let me have at it?

All of a sudden they were on the bush-tail’s side. Didn’t want the dog to hurt the poor thing.

Wait till you hear how things turned out.

Irony, Sophie, irony was the leitmotif.

The bush-tail made a beeline to their bedroom and holed up under a dresser.

Now, how am I supposed to rat the bush-tail out when it’s hunkered down under all that lumber?

Nobody thinks to just let the dog do her job.

The no-tails finally gave up.

All was quiet.

All night, not a peep from the bush-tail.

The two-leggers had their fingers crossed: Maybe the wild creature squirmed out of the house.

Dream on.

A dog knows better.

First, I heard it whimper in the hall closet. By the time I got there, it had skedaddled.

All silent.

I detected a scent in the dining room. Brush-butt, no mistake. And it heard me. It let out a squeak and I knew I had it.

Behind the piano.

Here comes the irony.

The male two-legger took my cue. Rolled the piano out.

Sure enough, the brush-butt was hiding in the woodwork of the piano.

I went at him fast and hard. Couldn’t get my maw on him — he was way down behind a wood rail.

Now the male two-legger got a bright idea. Grabbed a broom. Raked the bristles along the rail. Tipped the bush-tail into the open. I almost had him, but he leapt onto this blanket on the wall and started climbing. The two legger whacked him with the broom. Bush-tail hit the floor, scampered into the kitchen.

I could see he was headed for the basement stairs.

“Not the basement!” shouted our brave two-legger.

Frankly, Sophie, I can’t imagine locating a bush-tail in the mess down there.

So he whacked the bush-tail with the broom.

I grabbed him in my mouth — gently! — and headed for the back door.

Once again, the two-legger made a hash of it.

He pried the brush-butt out of my mouth.

And pronounced it dead on the scene.

Whom do you think they pinned this squirrel-cide on?

It’s what I mean by irony.

The way they tell it, I’m a cold-blooded squirrel killer.

Was I the one who whacked it with a broom?

If they’d kept out of it, I could have chased that pea-brained bush-tush right out of the house.

The squirrel would be alive and heckling me from the treetops.

Why can’t they let a dog do her job?

Posted in Peppermint Patti | Tagged | Leave a comment

Satire

Posted on January 12, 2011 by hro50ta1

By Joel Thurtell

My apologies to Jeff T. Wattrick.

Readers have commented that I mistook his spoof on Ambassador Bridge president Dan Stamper for a straight opinion piece.

According to one commenter, I missed 30 jokes in the Wattrick piece.

Now, with egg on my face, I’m trying to figure out how I went so wrong.

The embarrassment is acute for me, because I often write satirical essays.

As I re-read my own errant piece, “Dan, Dan, the martyr man,” I realized how, in part, I was misled.

In my essay, I suggested that “Jeff T. Wattrick” might be a pseudonym, because no real person would want to stand behind the absurdities expressed in Wattrick’s column.

When I write satire for my blog, I do it under a fake name.

I hope the phony names elicit a chuckle from readers, but humor is not my main reason for using silly names like Melanie Munch for the JOTR food writer or Pete Pizzicato for our music critic.

I’m aware that I don’t know most of the people who check out my blog. And they don’t know me. If I were to write under my own name in a satirical vein, it is more than faintly possible that some readers might take my words seriously.

For instance, sometimes I write about lying, especially as it relates to the media. When I write about these matters, I pretend to be in favor of deceit. I spread rampant praise, sometimes, on media reports that I deem especially misleading.

Some people who don’t know me might think I was seriously advocating behavior that is really opposite to what I believe.

Somehow, I need to signal readers that what they are about to read is intended as satire.

So, when I feel like sending up some piece of duplicitous journalism, I head the column with the name and title of my favorite pseudonymous writer.

That would be “Luke Warm”.

Read by itself, “Luke Warm” might seem like a joke to some. But some might take it seriously. It is an odd name, but there are plenty of odd names out there.

So I append a title to “Luke Warm.”

Luke Warm is identified as a Professor of Mendacity.

Now, that should be enough of a tip that what follows is an argument that is the reverse of what I really believe. Whoever heard of a “professor of mendacity”?

But just to be sure, I add that “Luke Warm” is at the “University of Munchausen”.

A few readers, maybe more, will know that Baron Munchausen was a teller of tall tales regarded by some as the grandest liar of all time.

The top of a “Luke Warm” column will look like this:

By Luke Warm

Professor of Mendacity

University of Munchausen.

You might say, a boldface lie.

But I mean for it to be a strong signal that what follows should be read in reverse. That way, when through the voice of “Luke Warm” I compliment someone for a flagrant lie, the reader will understand, I hope, that I really intend to condemn the behavior.

Tipped off to my tactic, the reader will be in on the joke.

I’ve been writing in this mode on and off for nearly three years, and so far, nobody has complained about feeling duped into taking seriously what I meant as a send-up.

That is important to me. Above all, I want to be considerate of my readers.

I don’t want to cause anybody to feel foolish, as I now feel for having taken Jeff T. Wattrick’s essay at face value.

I missed whatever cues he put out and didn’t realize he was pulling my leg.

Sorry to say, though, but I still don’t find those 30 jokes.

Posted in Joel's J School, Me & Matty | Tagged | 1 Comment

Dan, Dan, the martyr man

Posted on January 12, 2011 by hro50ta1

By Joel Thurtell

Does anybody know Jeff T. Wattrick?

Somebody should tell him an idiot is blogging under his name.

I can’t believe a person with intelligence would equate a flunky like Ambassador Bridge honcho Dan Stamper with luminaries like Henry David Thoreau, Alfred Dreyfus and Nelson Mandela.

No person with an ounce of sense would pretend that a few hours in a Wayne County holding cell could make a martyr of Stamper, mouthpiece and fall guy for billionaire Ambassador Bridge owner Manuel “Matty” Moroun.

The real Jeff T. Wattrick needs to locate this counterfeiter asap and stop the embarrassment.

Here is what the pseudo-Wattrick says:

Detroit International Bridge Company President Dan Stamper emerged from jail yesterday evening, unbroken and unbowed, after six hours of incarceration.

Wow.

“Unbroken and unbowed.”

Wonder what those Wayne County deputies did to poor ol’ Danny boy.

Waterboard?

Probably fed him a baloney sandwich.

It doesn’t happen very often but sometimes a man – maybe not a hero, exactly – but a man of deep conviction must submit to incarceration to expose a great injustice.

Dan’s convictions are about as deep as Matty’s pocket book. Bet those six hours were worth a husky bonus.

One, no doubt, thinks of Henry David Thoreau and his principled opposition to the Spanish-American Mexican War. Or Alfred Dreyfus, whose unjust imprisonment exposed latent Antisemitism lurking in French society. Or Nelson Mandela and his nearly 30-year prison term for opposing South Africa’s Apartheid regime.

Oops, did our fake Wattrick mistake the Spanish-American War for the Mexican-American War? Both wars were were land grabs, so there’s that in common with Matty’s filching of city of Detroit property for his new bridge.

But Thoreau?

Since when was Thoreau the well-paid president of a substandard bridge?

Dreyfus?

Since when was Dreyfus a nonsense-spewing front for a wily trucking tycoon?

And since when was Nelson Mandela a walking, talking smokescreen for a land-stealing oligarch with a private army of bully-boy shotgun-totin’ goons?

Yesterday, Dan Stamper joined the ranks of those noble men who sacrificed personal freedom for a chance to create a freer society.

Decryption: A society policed by Matty’s goons and thugs.

His six-hour stay in the American Gulag that is Wayne County Jail will raise awareness of a nefarious governmental intrusion into the free market known as contract law.

What? “The free market known as contract law”? Can anybody tell me what this garbage is supposed to mean?

Under this dangerous concept, government bureaucrats (known as judges) can force a citizen (at the barrel of a gun) to submit arrangements previously and freely agreed to.

“Submit arrangements previously and freely agreed to”? What in the world does this mean?

Okay, wait a minute. Now I get it. He’s talking about the Matty Moroun-hired hood who tried to arrest me September 22, 2008 in a city of Detroit park for legally photographing the Ambassador Bridge on public property. Matty’s guard had a shotgun and used his company pickup to block my car. Wattrick’s comment about “forc(ing) a citizen (at the barrel of a gun) to submit arrangements previously and freely agreed to” must refer to my citizen’s right to be in a public park without having one of Matty’s army of gofers try to arrest me.

Even worse, in this particular case, Stamper and his shining example of American enterprise are being compelled to assist the government with a road project, as previously agreed to in a contract between MDOT and DIBC.

Compelled to take part in a contract they signed?

I’ve got an idea: He hates government so much, well, what if the state and federal governments stopped supporting I-75 and I-96? Let Matty and his billionaire pals pay for the freeways that bring the toll-paying trucks to his rundown bridge.

You know who else used the government to build roads? The Nazis. And on their “autobahn” the Nazis drove Nazi cars (known as Volkswagens) at dangerously high speeds.

“Wattrick” has got to be a nom de plume. No sane person would be identified with the faker’s absurd claim about the Volkswagen bug. I learned to drive in a 1956 Beetle. It couldn’t attain dangerously LOW speeds.

Is that what we really want for metro Detroit? Nazis driving their Jettas at 90 MPH on I-75 or I-96?

Well, we’ve got Tea Party know-nothings driving on them now.

Dan Stamper would not go gently into that good night and, for six hours, sacrificed his freedom to protect our fragile Republic from such a fate.

Heart-rending, indeed. But this much is true: Dan Stamper did not go gently out of jail. No sooner was he free, than the bridge bureaucrat started spurting the same obstructionist crap — not unlike Wattrick’s — that put him behind bars.

Posted in Me & Matty | Tagged , , , , | 12 Comments

Out of jail, Stamper defiant

Posted on January 11, 2011 by hro50ta1

By Joel Thurtell

Maybe the judge realized, after reading my JOTR column yesterday, that he’d jailed the wrong jackass.

That’s the only reason I can see why Wayne County Circuit Judge Prentis Edwards freed Stamper after the Ambassador Bridge president cooled his heels in jail for six hours.

The judge jailed Stamper on Monday, January 10, 2011, for contempt of court, after ruling that the Detroit International Bridge Company “headed” by Stamper refused to tear down part of a new duty-free store and gas pumps as ordered nearly a year ago by the judge.

I put “headed” in quotes because we all know who really runs the Ambassador Bridge show.

And Matty Moroun, billionaire bridge owner, was definitely NOT cooling his heels anywhere near the jail.

Still, according to press reports, there was no indication Monday why the judge relented.

Minus the arrival of a demolition crew aimed at tearing down the offending structures, built partly on city land and in violation of bridge company agreements with the Michigan Department of Transportation, it’s hard to see what progress Dan and Matty have made towards compliance.

For Dan Stamper to step out of his jail cell and thumb his nose at the judge seems like sound reason to slap his boss’s ass in jail.

Once he was a free man, Moroun minion Phil Frame put out a press release taunting MDOT and the judge, predicting the state “will lose” in trying to stop Matty from building a new bridge beside the old Ambassador span:

The following statement is from Dan Stamper, president of Detroit International Bridge Co., who was released from custody this afternoon after being held since this morning for contempt of court involving a contract dispute between the company and the Michigan Department of Transportation:

“MDOT bureaucrats are doing everything they can to stop our successful 80-year-old private sector business from building our new bridge with our own money. They will lose. This won’t stop us and our new bridge will be built and serve the public well.

“It’s a shame that this situation had to occur and that the court had to order scheduled meetings between our company and MDOT, under the supervision of a court-ordered monitor, so we could move forward to complete the Ambassador Bridge Gateway Project.  We’ve been asking MDOT for these meetings for many months now, with no response.

“Our company recently purchased Lafayette Bait & Tackle, which is the property that was MDOT’s excuse for not opening the completed bridge access ramps from I-75 and I-96. Although we disagreed, the bait shop is no longer an issue standing in the way of finishing the Gateway Project. Nevertheless, as long as MDOT seeks to construct a bridge of its own right next to ours, reasonable discussions are difficult.”

“Reasonable discussions,” indeed. Hard to discuss anything with a megalomaniac who insulates himself with flocks of lawyers and shotgun-totin’ goons.

What Stamper and Boss Matty don’t mention is that the billionaire can’t build his cherished second bridge until he acquires — legally, rather than by theft — part if not all of the city’s public Riverside Park. Matty has been squatting on the part of the park that he needs since he seized it shortly after 9/11 gave him a phony excuse to raze basketball hoops and shade trees and fence off the city-owned area with bogus “Homeland Security” signs. He’s been ordered off city property, but — as with the gas station and store — he has not complied.

Even if Matty had proper permits from the US and Canadian governments (which he does not) to build his second bridge, he’d be stymied for lack of title to the portion of Riverside Park he needs to site the bridge.

Stamper’s bombast aside, I’m curious to see if he and Matty make any real progress toward removing the gas station and duty-free store.

Advice to Judge Edwards: Keep a jail cell ready, and next time, forget Dan. Put Matty in the slammer and keep him there until he’s complied fully with your order.

Posted in Me & Matty | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

How ’bout Matty in cuffs?

Posted on January 10, 2011 by hro50ta1

By Joel Thurtell

The wrong jackass went to jail.

Now, don’t misunderstand: I’m happy Wayne Circuit Judge Prentis Edwards sent Ambassador Bridge president Dan Stamper to jail for contempt of court.

It’s about time the Detroit International Bridge Co. were brought up short in its attempt to steal city property.

But as we all know, the DIBC is really just a shield for a greedy billioniare named Manuel “Matty” Moroun.

Matty won’t feel Danny Boy’s pain unless he, too, is handcuffed and dumped in the slammer.

Want to break the law and get away with it?

Here’s Matty Moroun’s formula: 

First, be a billionaire.

Second, design your corporate structure so that whatever you do, the law won’t touch your person.

Now, feel free to steal whatever your billions can’t buy.

Does the city own a park you’d like as a site for a bridge?

Steal it!

Does the city own property where you’d like to put a duty-free store and a gas station?

No biggie — simply steal it, too.

If somebody objects, hire lawyers.

Lots of lawyers.

Sue everybody in sight.

Stall, stall, stall.

And when you’re cited for contempt, let Dan the Man take the fall.

The judge wants to see some progress on demolishing the gas station and part of the duty-free store before he’ll set Dan free, according to The Detroit News.

According to the Detroit Free Press, Stamper might be freed later today (Monday, January 10, 2011) if the bridge company shows it is moving ahead to comply with the judge’s order.

The judge’s action bodes ill for Matty’s dream of building a new bridge, partly on city-owned Riverside Park, according to the Free Press:

In issuing his contempt ruling today, Edwards also fined the bridge company $7,500 and ordered the company to begin complying immediately with his order to rebuild the approaches as MDOT requires.

Edwards’ order has implications well beyond the Gateway dispute. Moroun hopes to build a new bridge immediately adjacent to the Ambassador, and he has already built the initial piers and decking on both sides of the river even though neither the U.S. nor Canada has given approval. Complying with Edwards’ order seemingly will force Moroun to rip out the Detroit approach, known as Pier 19, to make way for the Gateway ramps as MDOT requires, making it more difficult for him to build a new bridge there even if he wins approval to do so.

Will the predicament of Dan-in-jail move Boss Matty to do what the judge says?

If not, will the judge  toss the billionaire in the cooler?

Posted in Me & Matty | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The best journalists? Historians!

Posted on January 8, 2011 by hro50ta1

By Joel Thurtell

If you are one of the 1,100 people who received PhD diplomas in history last year, let me express my condolences.

You are looking at a pretty bleak future.

According to the American Historical Association, there will be 685 jobs for 1,100 brand-new PhDs.

That works out to 1.61 wannabe profs for every college history job opening.

Pretty depressing, if the newly-minted PhDs only look for academic jobs as history profs.

Also pretty depressing if they wind up selling insurance instead of applying their knowledge of history along with their skills at investigating the past.

I understand the feeling, by the way. I passed my general exams, aka “prelims,” for the Ph.D. in Latin American history at the University of Michigan back in 1970. Had I finished my dissertation, I would have graduated into the job market about 1972 or 1973, when the ratio of history Ph.D.s to jobs was even worse — roughly 2:1.

Ironically, in 1968, when I earned my M.A. in history at UM, I was offered academic history teaching jobs by two four-year colleges. I turned them down after conferring with my draft board, whose secretary assured me there was no deferment for college teachers. It looked like the infantry for me. How I avoided being drafted thanks to Chicago’s finest and the 1968 Democratic National Convention is a story I’ve already written about on this blog.

I was able to finish my graduate course work, pass the prelims and do dissertation research leading to the Ph.D., except that life intervened in the form of a stint driving Yellow Cabs in Ann Arbor followed by service in the Peace Corps followed by farm work, factory work and finally a gig as a radio reporter that led to a career that keeps on going even though, supposedly, I am retired. That career has been — and is, thanks to books and blogging — journalism.

And journalism is the job I’m thinking is the perfect fit for people who have been trained as historians. This is the pitch I’d like to make to historians with those freshly-printed Ph.D.s: Set aside your dream of living out your life in academia. Open your mind to another possibility.

It’s a possibility with a hell of a lot more excitement than languishing on some ivy-infested college campus sipping Starbucks and shooting the bull with self-appointed intellectuals.

Think of the assets you bring to journalism. As a historian, you are highly trained in the evaluation of evidence. You are like Pavlov’s dog when it comes to demanding documentation from anyone trying to convince you that this or that or such and such is fact. You are conditioned to demand exacting proof. Journalists tend to shun records in favor of what radio people call “actualities” and print reporters call “quotes.” Well, the “actualities” and the “quotes” may enliven the sound and brighten the page, but they’re a poor substitute for verifiable fact.

You come equipped, little do you know, with a highly sensitive, thoroughly calibrated bullshit meter.

In short, you have been trained, albeit unwittingly, to be a journalist.

But you say you’ve never studied journalism.

Good for you!

You are light years ahead of those who majored in journalism.

For you not only possess a mental attitude honed for the kind of investigations journalists like to do; you also possess a huge repository of knowledge about the world — history — that few J school majors have. Knowledge can be a filter for accepting or rejecting so-called “ideas” for stories that all too often make their way into mainstream news outlets due to basic knowledge and critical thinking that go wanting with many journalists.

As a history major and later a history PhD, you have not wasted your time learning how to do an activity — reporting — that any literate person can pick up through on-the-job training.

Unlike the J school grad, you as a historian come pre-packaged to think independently. You know automatically how to weigh evidence.

Not only that, but the nation desperately needs people like you who can look at local, regional or world events and analyze them, assign causes and discern effects.

In other words, as a historian, you can help to fill a national dearth of high-quality journalists. Many journalists’ training did not include mastery of knowledge in several fields, reading knowledge, at least, of one or more foreign languages and an ability to analyze evidence and draw rational conclusions on your own.

When you were studying Colonial History of the New World or, say, European intellectual history, the journalist was banging his brain through a course in the Associated Press style. Can you imagine such a waste? You could buy the book for a few bucks on amazon and learn AP style in a couple hours. But why bother? You’d find yourself working on a paper with its own style book, and all that college tuition or self-primed study would be for nothing.

You didn’t waste your time on style. You took classes that taught substance, and along the way, you learned to ask questions and how to think.

Journalism needs you!

So, to that 39 percent of this year’s history PhDs who face no academic job prospects, I say: Take a leap.

Jump-start a career in journalism.

How do you do that?

Hah!

Thought you’d never ask.

No, I’m not suggesting you enroll in classes on wire service style or copy-editing or magazine writing or anything else that will cost you money you don’t have.

Rather, I suggest you spend twenty-five dollars on a short course in starting your career as a journalist.

Simply purchase my book, SHOESTRING REPORTER: HOW I GOT TO BE A BIG CITY REPORTER WITHOUT GOING TO J SCHOOL AND HOW YOU CAN DO IT TOO!

Armed with your historian’s knowledge, together with your well-sharpened critical thinking skills and my book, SHOESTRING REPORTER, you can bypass the J school program and head straight to a career in journalism.

One more thing: Don’t believe all the newspaper-generated hype about journalism being a dying field.

But wait — I discuss all of this in SHOESTRING REPORTER, along with how to start your career in this exciting endeavor.

Enough said: Buy SHOESTRING REPORTER!

Posted in Adventures in history, Hardalee Press, Joel's J School | Leave a comment

Not so sure about you

Posted on January 7, 2011 by hro50ta1

By Ray Judicata

JOTR Legal Expert

This is a speech I gave to the Limpieza de Sangre Society at its national convention in Knownothing, Indiana. I gotta say, some of those Limpieza folks are real kooks. They’re so far to the right, they’re to the left of me. If that makes sense. Does it? I don’t give a flying you-know-what. Their extremism makes Attila the Hun seem as mild as Casper the Ghost. Enough. Here is my speech:

Ladies and gentlemen of the Limpieza de Sangre Society. I can’t find words to express how pleased and honored I am to appear before a group of people who have worked so tirelessly to rid the United States of America of the dregs of humanity.

At last, we are about to have our day.

Finally, courageous people are speaking out against the evil you have preached about lo these many decades.

“Immigrants,” as polite society calls them.

“Wetbacks,” as we know them.

“Greasers.”

“Wops.”

“Spics.”

“Towel-heads.”

At last, we can call them what they are: People who don’t share our right-leaning values.

People who think society ought to protect the weak.

People who proclaim that we ought to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.

People who believe that all men are created equal and all women, too!

Now, thanks to those courageous few, we can call these lamebrains what they are.

Saps. Weak-kneed, lily-livered morons.

Polluters of the body politic.

The heroes I am talking about are calling for a two-track path to citizenship.

At last, we are hearing sense: Just because you are born in the U S of A doesn’t mean you should automatically be deemed a citizen.

We want to have something to say about who gets to be a citizen.

And this is where a legal scholar like myself can have some effect.

I hear self-styled constitutional scholars across the land scoffing at the idea of two-track citizenship.

They say the Constitution guarantees citizenship to anyone who is born within the borders of the U S of A.

So what if it does?

Does that mean we have to abide by it?

Not if we don’t like it and we can muster the power to defy the Constitution at will.

Screw the Constitution, I say, if we can get away with it.

What a marvelous opportunity to dump some miscreants I’ve been dying to de-citizize for years.

Is that a word — de-citizize?

Well, it is now.

I’ve got a little list, folks. I’ve got a little list.

For too long, this nation has labored under the delusion that every racially different, intellectually unsound or politically deviant person must have equal clout.

The time has finally arrived when we real white American men can talk openly about eliminating the wrong-believers in our midst.

As a legal expert, I want to propose something very radical. I want to tell you here today that purifying the blood of America is NOT unconstitutional.

The problem is that people have simply forgotten the most important institution embedded in the original founding document of this great Nation.

What institution am I referring to?

Well, at times, it has been called the “peculiar” institution, as if it somehow were disreputable.

And to be sure, generations of legal do-gooders have largely erased the effect of this constitutional language. But the idea, the very institution itself, remains a vibrant though latent part of our fundamental charter.

And yes, I am referring to that institution that dares not speak its name.

Slavery.

Did not, I ask you, did not the Constitution enshrine this divinely-ordained institution in our Constitution?

It boggles the mind that a Civil War was fought to abolish this heavenly-sanctioned status when slavery was woven into the very fabric of our constitutional system.

Anybody remember the three-fifths compromise?

C’mon — poli sci 101!

Right there in the Constitution. How do you count slaves for calculating the allotment of taxes and members of the U.S. House of Representatives?

A slave counted as three-fifths of a white.

I wouldn’t be a legal expert if I didn’t trot the very wording out for you:

Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3 of the United States Constitution:

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

The precedent is there, folks. All we have to do is revive it and use it.

If the Constitution justifies counting people of different skin color in different ways, why not differentiate when it comes to conferring citizenship?

Now, once we have established that citizenship is not automatically a birth right, thus creating the possibility of excluding pretty much anyone we don’t like, we will have our foot in the legal door.

Having established that citizenship can be diluted capriciously and arbitrarily, there will be nothing to stop us from yanking the citizenship of anyone whose skin color, religion, sexual preference, gender or ideological orientation we don’t appreciate.

Don’t throw that “man without a country” bullshit at me. These people would not be without a country. We need them right here in the good ol’ U S of A.

They will not be citizens, but they will be working for us.

As slaves!

And yes, logically, the selection process of de-citizenizing could lead us to the point were there would only be two citizens left in the good ol’ U S of A.

You and me.

And I’m not so sure about you!

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Right-wing nutcase

Posted on January 6, 2011 by hro50ta1

To: JOTR staff

From: Jimmy Sellbydate, JOTR Marketing Director

We recently passed the three-year anniversary of JOTR, and time has come to take note of opportunities now being missed by a blog that tends all too often to lean all too far leftward.

There just isn’t room right now within JOTR for those whose minds have a rightward bend.

That must change!

Now, full disclosure here: I myself am a Marketing Expert and therefore quite clearly NOT A JOURNALIST.

If I were a JOURNALIST, clearly, based on the imminent demise of various newspapers, I would not know jack about selling things.

Nonetheless, I was directed by management to make this statement.

What with the Tea Party and all, and the implosion of the Democrats, this blog would do well to make room within its stable of leftie writers for a right-wing nut case.

News managers thought they had filled that need a while back by including Ray Judicata’s “new” column about law within the pixels of JOTR.

Just how sincere the JOTR editors are has been amply demonstrated by the fact that Ray’s byline has not appeared since they published his alleged “debut” column.

It is time for Ray Judicata to have a dedicated column.

It is to be hoped that this ultra-conservative whack job — Ray Judicata — will bring some balance to the JOTR newsroom.

It is to be expected that some JOTR staffers will not be pleased that Mr. Judicata, a man with a common touch, a volatile temper and zero reasoning abilities, will be mixing with what hitherto has been something of an elitist and frankly mild-mannered crowd.

But Mr. Judicata with his gruesome views about society can be counted on to reach out to the Tea Party numbskulls and in so doing draw a few of those witless creeps into the JOTR fold.

JOTR must become inclusive if it is to grow its market share!

It is not about news at all.

It’s all about marketing.

Yours truly,

Jimmy Sellbydate, JOTR Marketing Director

Posted in Joel's J School | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment