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June 05, 2009 02:21 PM UTC

Open Line Friday!

  • 108 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“Well, there are many stereotypes of Republicans and conservatives: racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe.  But, you know, you’re right, it is really uncool to be white male today.”

–Rush Limbaugh

Comments

108 thoughts on “Open Line Friday!

    1. Governor, your campaign manager David Kenney serves on the public affairs committee of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, the same political organization that lauded your recent vetoes of two bills to protect firefighters and working families. You also praised the selection of Republican Joe Blake for chancellor of CSU, now the subject of a lawsuit alleging that open process laws were violated. How much influence does Kenney have over you, and are you concerned that you are alienating your base of support by following his advice?

    2. who’s really in charge of Denver.  Is it the MAYOR of Denver or the GOVERNOR of Denver.  I can’t get that org chart clear in my mind.  

      1. He hates Pueblo, Mesa, Weld, Greeley, El Paso, Doug., Arap., Lar., Jeff., … counties?

        Why has he delayed is re-election bid? Is he considering other options?

        Does he agree Hickenlooper would be his replacement?

          1. and apparently the Guv announced his re-election today although the Post isn’t reporting it. “After his next term” is still out for a decision.

      2. that he has big problems with much of his “clarity of mind”.  You may want to try laying off the meth for a while.  Might help clear things up for you.

        “I wish I didn’t have to support guys like Josh Penry.”  – MesaModerate

            1. MesaModerate bellyaches about Ritter and the lege ignoring the tiny constituency of the west slope in one post, then shows why her imagined slight would be justified if it were real with another. Give ’em enough rope, is my motto.

            2. I think vile shit like this and the vile posters that write it should be allowed to post this crap because it just reminds the rest of us what pieces of shit they really are. It’s good to be reminded–it tends to motivate people to remember that bigotry and racism are very much alive and well and need to be actively opposed, every single day.

              It also really helps me gauge whether I should take anything else he says on an issue seriously or not.

          1. Had to come back to the site for this one, y’all.

            Many a straight man likes to say things until they get their ass beat by one of us “fags.” Don’t worry, you’re not worth it, and any discussion on the merits of the use of “gay” as pejorative would go right over your head…

            After my last experience with homophobes, I have no tolerance for fools like you. I fuck guys. Any problem with that is yours, not mine.

            1. This is where us gals are supposed to ask if we can watch, right?  That’s what I always see when it’s the other way around.

              Just joking around.  No problem here.

            2. Well done, Adam. I just love it when homophobes like Mesa show their true colors, don’t you? And they always do. Always. They may hide it for awhile but inevitably, they always show themselves for who they really are.

          2. not only have a meth problem it also appears he has problems with his own sexual identity.  For me, I am perfectly comfortable with my heterosexuality.  I am perfectly comfortable with my friends’ homosexuality.  Luckily, brain dead bigots like MesaMod are easily shown for what they are.  Meanwhile, as MM washes his white sheets and forms his pointy hat in preparation for the cross burnings, the rest of the world just laughs at his insecurity.

            “I wish I didn’t have to support guys like Josh Penry.”- MesaModerate

            1.    She (IIRC, MesaMod identified herself as a “she” at some point in time) has voiced some fairly right wing views.  

                Add to that her homophobia, and I wouldn’t be surprised if M.M. is really Janet “Beastiality” Rowland in disguise.

              1. to be a Democrat.  But if you read his posts, you’ll see they are anything but supportive of Democrats.  That is why I don’t by for a minute anything MM posts.  Including being a woman.  

          3. I don’t believe that Mesa (im)Moderate was bashing homosexuals with this comment. Rather, M(i)M thinks she has figured out the identity of WesternSlopeThought and was attempting to expose WST, using subtlety as only Janet “Bestiality” Rowland knows how.

            For this reason (attempting to expose a contributor to ColoPols) I think M(i)M should be banned. Or waterboarded. Should we have a poll?

              1. To insecure, brain dead idiots like MesaMod, trying to imply a heterosexual is homosexual is juvenile schoolyard joke to them.  Perpetuating the myth that there is something wrong in being Gay.  But they are becoming a fast shrinking minority.  Much like those who opposed the abolition of slavery or a woman’s right to vote.

    3. “According to a local NPR segment this a.m. with the Firefighter’s Union spokesman, you promised to support SB180 and then vetoed it. Can you explain what seems to be a fairly consistent breakdown in communication between you and union organizers? Do you have any ideas in mind for how to improve communication with your base? Thank you.”

      Larimer County Democrat  

    4. 1. Governor, which political blogs do you personally look in on from time to time? I don’t expect you to list ColoradoPols.com., but are you personally active online, at least as a reader, as is, for example, Representative Jared Polis?

      2. Denver lost one of its two newspapers a few weeks ago. How do you see the future of democracy in this state…and in the nation…if the organized press continues to suffer, or even go out of business [while at the same time politicians take no notice of alternative “new press” alternatives such as blogs]?

      3. What percentage of Colorado’s electricity consumption is provided by wind power today as opposed to when you took office? Has the increase in electricity from renewable, non-polluting sources kept pace with population growth–i.e., has wind power obviated the need to burn more coal?

      4. How do you reconcile the desire to exploit oil shale, as an economic boost to the state (new jobs, for example) with environmental concerns?

      4a. Could you quantify the success of your campaign promise to make Colorado the new center of renewable energy production? What is the dollar value of new investments in renewable energy production to the Colorado economy, and how does that compare to investments in exploiting oil shale?

      5. Do you favor allowing tourists to carry concealed weapons in national parks? Would you seek to apply state laws to override that legislation–as the law allows–in order to create “gun free” zones where families vacation?

      6. Speaking in the abstract–i.e., not about your reelection campaign–do you think the Republican Party is still viable in Colorado outside a few counties in the southeast portion of the state?

      7. Thinking back on 2008, Barack Obama carried Colorado by a wide margin thanks in part to his ability to persuade ordinary people that the “old order, old way” of politics could be changed (“Yes We Can”). Is there anything, anything at all, about your campaign that echoes the Obama Wave? Do you think you can plug into the enthusiasm of Obama organizers and campaigners for your campaign, or are you relying on the older model of insider politics?

      8. How concerend are you that your recent vetos of bills favored by labor unions will cause people to think you are cynically kow-towing to the Chamber of Commerce in order to peel off some meaningful portion of the Republican and “conservative” “unaffiliated” vote?

      9. Given that you can’t please all the Democrats all the time, how much passive opposition–i.e., non-voting–can you absorb from labor and the left-wing of your party and still be reelected?

      10. Are you counting on the Republicans to nominate a radical in order to give you claim to the “moderate, reasonable, middle-of-the-road” vote?

      11. In your comments about vetoing the firefighters unionization bill, you mentioned the need to “lead” despite the wishes of your supporters. Can you name any examples of your leadership besides that one?

      12. A poster on ColoradoPols.com named JO has emerged as the universally acknowledged voice of reason, intelligence, and all-encompassing knowledge about all subjects. Would you like me to try to put you in touch with him so that you can learn to change your ways and trod the Path of Enlightenment? Or can you get by with reading his comments on ColoradoPols.com and following his advice to the letter?

    5. 13. Can you share with us your personal involvement in attracting companies to the state? How does that usually work–meeting with CEOs? How important is it to investors that the state be perceived as relatively weak in unionization? Or put another way: Do you think labor unions discourage new investment in Colroado?

      14. If you could wave a wand and accomplish One Big Thing, what would that be?

      15. Do you think TABOR has worked to the advantage of Coloradoans, or to their disadvantage, on balance?

      16. Would you favor legislation or a constitutinal amendment to allow same-sex marriage in Colorado? Do you perceive a growing wave of acceptance for same-sex marriages in the country?

      17. Given the state’s important role in transportation and education, what about the state’s role in promoting low-cost broadband access to the Internet? Should it have a role? Does the Internet represent a next wave in development, as railroads and highways once did?

      18. Would you favor a movement to exert government regulation of Internet access providers, contrary to current FCC regulations? If that isn’t feasible, what about government-financed in-the-air-everywhere free WiFi services for all areas of the state, including small towns and even remote farms? Or should this be left to private providers? If the latter, why should the state provide education but not Internet (the latter having become a key element in the former)?

      19. Should the State of Colorado guarantee every child over 8 a laptop computer of her own as a fundamental part of public education?

      20. What is your proudest achievement in improving public education in Colorado during your administration? Your biggest disappointment?

      21. Several states, notably Massachusetts, have taken health care reform into their hands without waiting for federal legislation. Do you have any plans to move in this direction? And if so, what shape do you think such reform ought to take?

      22. Colorado is a big place and the physical structure of the Front Range practically mandates widespread use of personal automobiles. Do you think the state has a role to play in changing this pattern? Should the state play such a role? What has your administration done, specifically, to reduce consumption of carbon-based energy?

      23. Do state laws governing workplace conditions need to be changed to encourage telecommuting? Should state workers be allowed to work from home, via the Internet, for say, 20% of the time in order to reduce energy consumption?

      24. I understand that you are familiar with JO’s opinions on ColoradoPols.com and that you secretly agree with her most of the time, even if it’s hard to say so in public. Do you think she should enter some public forum, such as Colorado Beauty Queens Who Can Type, to share her perceptions on a wider stage?

          1. …except that it might be hard to ask for an interview on Friday having called him a “flip floppin’, rat fuckin’, Republican-in-Democrats-Shinola-brown-shoes” just 24 hours earlier.

            THAT said, I would emphasize my first two questions as one question in two parts: I have little doubt that he looks at newspapers; I wonder if Ritter himself (as opposed to his PR rypes) recognizes the blogosphere as a successor medium, or whether he still thinks it’s okay to be “ah shucks, don’t know ’bout no modern technology stuff.”

            Be my guest if he agrees to the interview.

    6. I would like to know whether Ritter specifically told the Dems that he would specifically veto the specific union bill(s) he vetoed.  I’ve seen charges flying back and forth about who misled or blindsided whom, and I’d like to know the truth.

      1. a little cultural sidebar.

        I used to work with people from all over the world and “yes” and “no” meant different things, and were communicated differently, depending on where you were from.

        Best example I ever heard was a guy I worked with who had worked in Japan for years.  He said “The Japanese don’t like to say no, not even in business.  Maybe they think it is disrespectful, maybe its their desire to have consensus, but they never say “no.”

        “Even if the bloke (the guy telling me this was an Ausi) hates your idea, he will suck air in through his teeth, shake his head almost imperceptibly and say ‘Maybe can not.’  That is the equivalent of an American ‘Hell No!’

        I suspect that Ritter’s people think they have been saying no, but that is not what listeners are hearing, because perhaps it hasn’t been clear enough.  

        He probably starts by being non committal, but as the ball starts rolling he starts nosing towards resistance and over time it evolves towards “no.”  However, by this time it is very hard for the other side to hear anything but a “maybe” because that is what the speaker started with.  This makes the eventual execution of the ‘No’ seem like a betrayal because intentions were not clearly communicated up front because the governor didn’t want to say a firm ‘No’ at the beginning.

    7. Ask “Tax Ritter”, if he has this years ballot initiatives ready, to save schools, fire departments, police departments, and fix all the roads, because we have no money left in the budget(forced to spend it on more important items)ie;pork not priorities. Then you could follow up with the question about if his green army has built a battery big enough to run a semi-truck? Myself, I would end it with the idle chatter of “why won’t Al Gore debate anyone?” But let me strike that, that is a question for citizens of the World. And finally, Mr. Tax Ritter, when will your green investment in the Center of Renewable Energy approach the $700 Billion we invest in energy from our enemies?

    8. what I’d like to hear is an in-depth explanation/justification of his positions on HB 1170 and SB 180. That may sound redundant, but I mean it an inviting, offering-the-chance-to-really-make-the-case kind of way. As someone who is not a fan of knee-jerk ideology and quick-and-ready supposition, I don’t dismiss the Gov as “a turncoat” (as one labor union lobbyist put it in a private conversation with me recently). I just want him to make the case, and to do so more convincingly than he has yet managed. If he makes a good enough argument, he retains my solid support (for what little that’s worth).

      That’s the way it should work.

      And, in the spirit of Dwyer’s question about accepting the position of Director of the Peace Corps, my Barbara-Waltersesque question is: Governor, if you could be (and had to be) any insect (or arachnid, or, generally, any small and annoying critter), which would you choose to be, and why?

      1. That was not a “what kind of tree” would you be if you were a tree question.  Peace Corps is not the cup scouts.  Right now there are 7500 serving volunteers all over the world….they serve with a living allowance, but not salary…they are unarmed and ungarrisoned…..one was murdered in March in Benin…they need strong  support and the agency has emptied out…

        Obama has not appointed a director of the peace corps…this is the longest time the organization has gone without a director since the Nixon years….why, I don’t know.  What I do know is that this agency needs principled, competent management, absent politics.  I think Ritter is a bust at politics…absolute bust.  But, he spent three years in Africa, his wife is a returned peace corps volunteers….and the agency needs help.  I think he is tailor made for the position.  It was not meant as a joke.

        Quite frankly, I am insulted that you thought it was.

        1. Weren’t we all treated, not that long ago, by  a long post from you about shifting paradigms and saving the world through better social engineering…? Saving and serving and caring, and all that kind of crap.

          I really am pissed.  

        2. I didn’t really give your comment a lot of thought one way or the other. Sorry to have offended you. It was I who made the joke.

          I have something of a relationship myself with the peace corps: As a person who spent years backpacking around the world in my youth, back in the states I found a certain affinity with returned peace corps volunteers, and when I went back to college to finish my BA, for those two years they formed my most intimate circle of friends. I have always admired the peace corps, and its mission, and have regretted that, of the many experiences I have had, a peace corps stint was never among them.

          Though I’m not insulted that you didn’t know all that.

          As for “social engineering”: Humans can face the collective enterprise of life on Earth with any number of attitudes and responses, ranging from absolute fatalism to an oversimplistic faith in the efficacy of human effort. Anyone who eschews fatalism can be accused by anyone to that side of them as advocating “social engineering.” Me, I’m just a person who sees complex systems and recognizes that we participate in them. As such, I recognize that the sophistication of our efforts, including humility about the subtlety and complexity of those systems, affects our success in refining the arrangements by which we live.

          I can’t help it if you have a problem with that. I don’t.

          1. No, I did not know that “some of your best friends are returned peace corps volunteers.”

            Certainly it is not too late to join up, Steve.  One of the things I most admire is when someone has the guts to take their ideas:

            I recognize that the sophistication of our efforts, including humility about the subtlety and complexity of those systems, affects our success in refining the arrangements by which we live.

            and try them out in the real world.  Although for the life of me, I don’t know what it is you would be trying out.

            Now then, I take the Peace Corps very seriously, hence my response.  I also am very concerned about the current state of the organization.  There was no reason for you to make a joke.  That is another thing I don’t understand.

            It should not be focus for a joke.

            I think Ritter would be excellent.  I don’t think he has been a good governor.  There is nothing funny about any of this.  

            1. Have I had the guts to take my ideas and try them out in the real world?

              Just entering into adulthood 30 years ago, I wanted to write a novel that was as fully-informed as possible about the nature of the human drama, so, in order to do that to the best of my ability I spent 8 years traveling, living, and working abroad on three continents; did an army infantry tour of duty; worked in factories, on farms, in offices, with small children, with teens, with the elderly, as an ethnographer in an outreach project with heroin addicts, as a janitor, as a store clerk, and as a door-to-door salesman; studied economics, sociology, political science, world history, world mythology, anthropology, psychology, evolutionary psychology, evolutionary ecology, complex dynamical systems analysis, and a bit of everything else; read as many of the classics of world literature as I possibly could; and then wrote the novel.

              As an expression of my commitment to education, I’ve not only taught college classes, but have also taught at several Denver and Denver area high schools infamous for the challenges they pose, including teaching some of my social studies classes in Spanish to recent immigrants. I created simulations and games to bring home microeconomic and social scientific concepts to kids more familiar with prisoners than with “prisoners’ dilemmas,” and did so with what all involved recognized to be remarkable success. Believing that, to be successful, our schools need to engage parents and the community more, I established and chaired, on my own time, a “Community Outreach Network” for one of the high schools I taught at.

              Deciding that I wanted to be involved in the formation of social policy, I left teaching, got a full scholarship at CU Law, externed at the capitol with the Assistant House Majority Leader, lined up an externship for next session with the Governor’s Office of Legal Counsel, did immigration advocacy work last summer and am working for a small policy LLP this summer.

              Interspersed among all of that I’ve been a Big Brother volunteer, have manned a crisis intervention hotline (dealing with, among other things, one suicide call), and have done various other volunteer work along the way.

              But, your right, what on Earth could I possibly know about the “real world”? When have I ever had the guts to put any of my ideas into action?

              The responses are predictable: Either you’ll excerpt one of the academic endeavors interspersed with the extraordinary range of “real world” experience listed above, and say, in some fashion or another, “you call that real world experience?” or you’ll simply belittle me for listing this flood of real world experience in response to the insinuation that I must not have any real life experience.

              And, you’re mistaken: None of my best friends are returned Peace Corps volunteers. For two and a half years ending almost exactly 20 years ago (in early July 1989, when I moved from Southern Illinois to Connecticut), about 90% of my core circle of friends, who I saw and hung out with on a daily basis, were returned peace corps volunteers (I did not keep in touch with them after moving). That’s a simple fact, and not irrelevant in the context of the “conversation” you intiated with me on precisely that topic. If you somehow find some way to be offended by that fact, or by my mentioning it when you arbitrarily accuse me of being hostile to the Peace Corps and the people involved in it, that’s really an issue you’ll have to deal with on your own.

              I get that you take the Peace Corps seriously, and that you don’t understand why I would make a joke (that wasn’t about the Peace Corps in any way). How seriously you take the Peace Corps has never been an issue for me, nor of any interest to me. The reason I make jokes is pretty much the same as the reason any one else makes jokes. The reason why I mentioned you before making this one is because I hadn’t really read your comment carefully, and, at a glance, interpreted it as something of a non-sequitor. Why you would choose to be so deeply offended by someone who, glancing quickly at one of your comments, didn’t interpret it as you meant it, is a bit beyond me.

              You’re upset because I didn’t pay proper deference to a suggestion you made to someone else that I paid scant attention to, and therefore very passingly referred to in a manner which wasn’t in accord with the gravity you think it merits? Okay. Why don’t you nurse that righteous indignation awhile longer, because, god knows, you just can’t have enough overwrought indignation and hostility in this world! No point in letting it go to waste.

              1. Your resume is quite impressive.  I would not have known that based on your postings.  Quite frankly, when I have asked you or asked generally for historical or legal reference, you have responded well, and I thanked you for that.

                But, you do a lot of jargon on this “social engineering” stuff. I don’t like the jargon.  I asked for a link or a pasting of your legislation, which you did not provide.  Instead, you ascribe to me emotions and motivation, which are not relevant.

                Let me be clear.  I posted the suggestion about Ritter and the peace corps for two reasons. The first was in response to David’s call for questions for Ritter.  The second is that

                evidently a lot of people read the postings and I wanted to put that out.  

                If you would want to disagree with the suggestion and post your reasons, that is what blogging is all about.

                Instead, you were dismissive, in a way that I felt belittled the pc organization.  I care a whole hell of a lot what happens to it.  Hence my response. It is really not about you SH, it really is not.

                1. I probably should have just apologized for the misunderstanding from the outset, but the reference you responded with set in motion a completely different dynamic.

                  Here’s the link to the hypothetical legislation:

                  A Hypothetical Statute

                  I didn’t post the link before because you’ve already seen it, it takes two mouse clicks to get to from any of my posts (click my name, and then click on that diary), and no response I made required direct reference to it.

                  Broadly speaking, jargon can serve one of two purposes: 1) It can either be used to obfuscate the fact that the speaker doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and to create an inflated appearance of knowledge and expertise, or 2) it can be used to condense large amounts of information into small packets. The second use is sometimes absolutely essential when discussing complex information (though somewhat reduced versions for easier consumption can be provided without jargon), though it only works when the terms are all understood by the intended audience.

                  I use jargon for the second purpose. I don’t have that rare and valuable skill of effortlessly taking complex information and rendering it, with relatively little loss, into very simple and straightforward language. I can do so, but it requires a lot of extra time and effort, and posting here is something I do spontaneously, without investing any more time or effort than I would invest in a internal mental conversation with myself. After all, this is a passtime, not a job.

                  Also, the complaint I receive as often as the one about Jargon is the one about length of posts, but the two are somewhat in an inverse relationship regarding the communication of complex information. If I go to the time and trouble of using only plain language, I must expand all of the exposition that could have been reduced by recourse to jargon. In other words, holding substance constant, more jargon means less length, and more length means less jargon. It’s a trade-off. (Of course, since I’m generally trying to get as much information out as I can, I often skimp neither on jargon nor on length).

                  I may be wrong, but I do believe that almost everyone reading this blog understands the meaning of almost every word I use. So the problem isn’t that I am using vocabulary that others don’t understand, which would then truly be a waste of my time and this blog’s space. The main problem is a culturally-generated aesthetic aversion to anything, in the public sphere, that appears, in any way, to hierarchically differentiate human beings. The secondary problem is that we like our intellectual diet to be well-chewed and softened before it is served to us (i.e., we don’t like to have to work too hard at absorbing information, though the absorption of some kinds of information both requires and benefits from working hard at it). But since this is a free-exchange of information, we each take it as it comes, and offer it as we choose.

                  Finally, the reason you “wouldn’t have known” how extensive both my “real-world” and academic resumes are from my postings isn’t because of the content of the postings, but because of popular-but-false assumptions of what real-world experience teaches. The “real world” is complex and subtle, characterized by varying degrees of malleability but constantly changing, and, over time, changing very dramatically. The production of human welfare is clearly a non-zero-sum game: Depending on the social institutions that evolve through the articulation of environmental factors and human actions, to some limited but significant extent directed or affected by conscious human design, we either produce more of it or less of it. And, when discussing the production of human welfare (“wealth,” most broadly conceptualized), the absolute quantity produced is not the only consideration, but also the fairness of its distribution. If everyone in the world worked to divert more wealth than has ever before existed into the hands of one or two people, that would not be a huge success: The distribution of wealth is also a consideration. Finally, it is very important not to overly-devalue the future: We tend to have very short time-horizons, and therefore to “export” problems into the future in order to maximize benefits today. It is vital to seek institutional arrangements which are not only robust and fair, but also sustainable.

                  My posts are all about how to maximize the sustainable and fairly distributed production of human welfare. Neither the ends nor the means are naive: Both are informed by a combination of real world experience and academic exploration.

                  1. Questions:

                    You are proposing replacing specific legislation to protect children from specific neglect and abuse, with a new construct which would be superimposed over family and existing community institutions and would supercede existing legal relationships in order to somehow provide a better environment for children.

                    1) There are many different philosophies on raising children. You propose that an entity called an ADMINISTRATOR would have the legal authority to dictate which philosophies would be followed in a given community. Questions:

                    -What if parents could not find their beliefs and practices within any of the available communities?  

                    -What appeal would parents have to the interpretation of a child raising philosophy by the ADMINISTRATOR and/or the CPSMs?

                    2) Would parents retain any legal rights as parents independent of mandatory membership in one of these communities?

                    3) How would religious institutions interface with the “communities?”

                    1. 1) The hypothetical legislation is not being proposed. It is a thought experiment tackling the question of how to improve our child welfare regime, which is a far bigger, and far more tragic, disaster than most people realize, and one without any easy fixes. Therefore, unless your fond of leaving tens of thousands of children to live out nighmarish scenarios either in horribly abusive birth homes or somewhere in the child welfare system, it behooves us to start thinking outside of the box.

                      2) The statute doesn’t supercede anything. In fact, part of the exercise was to stay within constitutional limits, which define at the most fundamental level the existing legal relationships of which you speak. Parents still enjoy, in this statute, a fundamental right to keep and raise their children as they see fit. The new institution cannot infringe on that right any more readily than current child welfare services can.

                      3) The statute addresses several of the problems in the existing system, including poor flow of information, poor ability to know when and where and how resources are needed, little support in helping families to succeed but plenty of family-destructive intervention once it’s too late.

                      4) In fact, if you studied family law, you would recognize that this statute decreases the degree with which child welfare administrations and courts can dictate to individuals and communities how to raise their children. It provides greater official adaptability to divergent cultural and subcultural norms than is currently the case, only intervening in cases of “unambiguous harm to the child.” As with all laws, the line-drawing is inevitable, and inevitably ambiguous. But the algorithm for drawing the line in this statute, which courts do then follow (once legislated), is far more accommodating to parental diversity than current legislation.

                      5) The degree to which any legal system can accomodate individuality is limited. Afghani refugees whose custom is for fathers to take their baby boys’ penises in their mouth as a non-sexual display of affection, under current law in most states, are guilty of sexual abuse of a child. Not all Americans would either agree or disagree with that outcome. But even if we were enlightened enough to make an exception for Afghani refugees in that instance, the law cannot anticipate all such unique situations. My statute actually goes far further than existing legislation to accommodate such diversity: Parents don’t have to “find” the Community most appropriate to their subcultural variations; they can form it themselves, if their are enough like minded people. But, you ask, what if they want to engage in a divergent parenting practice that violates current child welfare statutes (which are incorporated into this statute as where the default line is drawn), that neither you nor I would consider to be any of the state’s business? Well, then they are screwed both under existing legislation and under my statute. My statute only succeeds in diminishing the number of cases in which people in such a situation would be screwed: It cannot eliminate such cases altogether. The law simply is not capable of such anticipatory lazer-perfect precision.

                      6) If you read the statute carefully (and I’m by no means claiming that you did not read it carefully enough to engage in a conversation such as this: I’m impressed that you read it as thoroughly as you did), you’ll see that it adds nothing to the state’s ability to impose its will on parents; it only improves how well informed it is when it does so, gives parents increased opportunities to prevent or rectify problems that would lead to draconian state intervention or termination of parental rights. The statute specifies appeals processes, and, as a practical matter, such processes have largely been determined by the courts addressing administrative law issues of how much process is due in what circumstances. Again, this statute incorporates the current corpus of administrative and constitutional law in their entirety.

                      7) Parents can opt out of membership in these Communities (I forget the section number, but it’s early in the statute). They do have to meet with the administration one time in order to opt out, and would only be denied that right by the same criteria that the state would begin to intervene in a family under current family law. The only difference is that no families get to avoid that current threshold through invisibility. That, I grant, is the one great limitation on privacy that this statute introduces: Child abuse has less opportunity to hide behind the dark and impenetrable curtain of the family home.

                      8) Members of particular religions, whether formed into churches or not, can form their own Communities, and thus preserve their own distinct parental customs to the same, or greater, extent as that currently permitted by existing child welfare laws.

                      One reason why poor (often minority) families are so overrepresented in our child welfare system, despite some rather compelling statistical studies that show that it is not actually due to greater rates of child abuse and neglect, is because they have less ability to avoid interfacing with the public sphere: They take public transportation more, use public social services more, and so on. And, as a result, instances of suspected abuse are reported far more often. My statute tries to rectify that discrepency not by giving poor abusers more opportunity to hide their abuse, but rather by giving rich abusers less opportunity to do so.

                      But the statute, on the other hand, then diminishes the heavy-handedness of state intervention, providing a thick-layer of local and parent-selected buffer between the family and the state. In this way, parents are supported in their efforts to rectify problems, and are encouraged by decreased invisibility to avoid making them in the first place.

                      Privacy is a legitimate concern, but it is not the only legitimate concern. Not much more than 100 years ago, stopping acts of severe physical violence by fathers and husbands against their children and wives was considered to be an intrusion into the private sphere that the state had no right to make. Few agree with that particular placement of that particular line today. Few who are intimately informed of the realities of child welfare in America, whether in the absence of, prior to, during, or after state intervention, believe that the line is much more effectively drawn today in regards to protecting children from abusive and neglectful situations. This statute attempts to improve the drawing of that line, respecting all concerns, including individuality and privacy, but also including protection of and justice for the most vulnerable members of our society.

                    2. to this debate, and sincerly apologize for the misunderstanding (and for anything that followed that retained a spirit of personal confrontation), I’m going to have to beg off at this point. I hope my posts have addressed the questions you have. If you want the full 25 page exegesis of the statute, I’d be glad to send it to you (just tell me where to send it).

                      I will tell you this: The issues that are foremost on your mind were also foremost on mine while drafting it. It takes a pretty careful reading to see how those concerns were addressed, but they were addressed for more comprehensively than you recognized in your interpretation of the statute. I am telling you quite honestly that the statute, in almost every way, increases rather than decreases personal liberty and parental rights, with only the difference of reducing the “private sphere” in carefully constructed ways in order to reduce the degree to which our current child protection laws are blithely violated to an extent that would probably amaze you.

                      It also, ironically, goes to far greater pains than our current system does to prevent children from being removed from their homes. The only way that can be accomplished is by providing more proactive assistance (of all sorts), and more finely tuned intervention when intervention is needed. This statute goes a long way to providing means of accomplishing those tasks.

                      Finally, the recommendation made in this statute would be quite expensive to implement. Even so, there is considerable evidence that the savings to various state agencies (not to mention to the private sector) of providing more effective, more finely tuned child welfare services in a proactive way would far outweight the costs of doing so. The problem, as always, is creating sufficient political will to make smart investments in our future.

                    3. Are you a parent? Have you ever worked in the child welfare system? Were you an abused child?

                    4. Yes to your first question.

                      No to your second, though I have worked in child care and education from elementary school through college (including middle and high school).

                      I’m afraid I’ll have to decline from answering the third question, for a variety of reasons. But my interest in the precise topic of improving child welfare legislation was ignited by a family law class, not by my own experiences or the experiences of any people with whom I am intimately associated. Of course, my life-long love of children and concern for their welfare is a part of the equation.

                      Thanks for a robust discussion on an important topic.

              2. .

                did Steve just say he is an Army veteran ?  He served as an infantryman in the 1980’s ?  

                One reason I can deal with the “world” so well is because I have created a mental structure (think of the ‘pigeonholes’ of Immanuel Kant) that everything fits neatly into.  

                I had Steve in the “effete snob” pigeonhole.  

                The “Infantryman” pigeonhole is way over on the other side.  

                What do I do now ?  Cut him in half and put one part in each of these two boxes ?  Subdivide the “snob” pigeonhole so there’s a spot for this transcendental category ?  Install a wormhole connecting the backs of these two categories ?

                .

                1. .

                  maybe he did his “infantry” time for Sandline and Executive Outcomes, forerunners of Xe.

                  In which case I have a whole ‘nother pigeonhole for him.

                  C’mon, Steve.  Out with it: what was your unit ?  505th Parachute Infantry Regiment ?  509th ?

                  .

                  1. trained in Fort Benning in the summer of 1982, stationed initially in Wildflecken, W. Germany, though our unit there was deactivated and we were scattered about. I was moved to Aschaffenburg, where I was stationed for the remainder of my two-year tour of duty. I was a TOW gunner, whose MOS designation was 11-something echo-nine (as I recall, 11 bravo is regular infantry, 11 charley airborne, and was it 11 delta that was TOW gunners?). I was trained both on ground launched TOW missile systems, and on ITV systems, which were TOW launchers mounted on APCs. As I pointed out in the discussion on gun regulation, I was an “expert marksman” with an M-16 (not really that difficult to achieve). I also, like every other infantryman, could assemble and disassemble an M-16 in the dark, and had some limited familiarity with other arms as well (including an AK 47 and a colt sidearm).

                    I used some leave time to get an early discharge, which happened to come in the early stages of a major set of maneuvers to train everybody on the brand-new Bradleys. The army decided that it wasn’t worth it to send me on the maneuvers, so I was just hanging out back at base waiting for my ETS. I stayed in Germany after discharge (honorable), and then spent some more years doing what I had done a couple of years before the army: Drifting around the world.

                    I strongly preferred maneuvers and survival and evasion training to the tasks around the base, and I shined on those grittier tasks (though not so much on ITV maintenance and “spit-shining” boots and the like).

                    Does that satisfy your curiosity, Barron?

                2. Your mistake is in thinking that all snobs must be effete. You need a new hole for “active and adventurous snob.”  🙂

                  Of course, the whole “snob” thing might need a bit of refinement in any case. I’m a social analyst with a huge wealth of life experience and academic training to draw on, and my act of drawing on it seems snobbish to you. The problem with conceptual pigeonholes is that they are much more about the person who creates them than about the people who are then distributed into them. That’s a lesson that our nation’s historical experience has gone to great pains to teach us, and one we are well advised to learn.

                  To be fair, it is both necessary and to some extent functional to reduce an infinitely complex reality to managable conceptual categrories. But the goal is to make the categories as flexible as possible, to recognize that they are expedients and not “truths,” and to be prepared to refine your taxonomy to deal with new information. The goal, I think, is to reduce reality as little as necessary, and to maintain as much cognitive flexibility and adaptability as necessary.

                  Cognitive dissonance is a wonderful thing! Embrace the creative force of the destruction of previous certainties!

                  1. .

                    Your pigeonhole also had a subhead “verbose;” but you’ve just reduced 40 pages of Kant to 2 paragraphs.  

                    Anyone notice fire in the sky ?  Any world leader named Gog ?  Has the End of Days come 231 years early ?

                    .

        3. 1) All promulgation of law is, by your definition, “social engineering,” since, like the statute I proposed that so offends your sensibilities, all promulgation of law is the intentional imposition of a designed institutional framework through which to order our lives for mutual benefit.

          2) The most ambitious acts of law-creation are, for the most part, the acts that you probably respect the most, and would be most offended to hear roundly criticized as “social engineering.” Most have been enormous successes; those that have failed have generally failed due to their disregard of how human systems function rather than to their breadth.

          3) Examples of the most audacious acts of such “social engineering in American history are: a) the drafting of the U.S. Constitution, b) the creation of a system of free compulsory universal public education, c) the post-civil war constitutional amendments, and d) the New Deal, e) the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I consider all of these to have been enormous successes, laying the foundation for the enormous prosperity the country has enjoyed in the wake of each individually and all collectively, as well as of the expansion of opportunity they have provided.

          4) The most obvious failure of such an experiment was Prohibition, which was an overly-simplistic attempt to impose a crude, narrow rule on human behavior, in complete disregard of both the structure of desires and incentives it abruptly and ineptly opposed, and of the systemic unintended consequences it catalyzed. The lesson that should be learned from that failure is to design your ambitious policies well, not to avoid designing and implementing them.

          5) The successes didn’t involve, for the most part, the extension of individual liberty, but rather the carefully designed curtailing of individual liberty. The U.S. Constitution greatly reduced the liberties granted under the Articles of Confederation, and, in fact, was necessitated by the over-broad grant of liberties under the Articles. (It is important to recognize that the Bill of Rights only protected individuals from the Federal government, not from the state governments, and that the Articles had provided so little teeth to that individuals and states were both completely liberated from the federal government in any case. The Constitutional Convention was convened to address the problems of undercontrol, not of overcontrol). The post-civil war amendments began the process of subjecting state governments to the same constraints that the Bill of Rights imposed on the Federal government. Free compulsory public education greatly increased the influence of government (initially local) on the development of children’s minds. The New Deal greatly increased the involvement of government in the economy. The Civil Rights Act imposed limitations on individual liberty to discriminate against others on the basis of race.

          6) The statute I had proposed was very much in the spirit of these successes, extending the lessons learned from them, and, in fact, specifically extending and fulfilling the promise of public education, a governmental imposition of enormous breadth and depth and ambition, but one without which the degree of prosperity and breadth of opportunity that currently exists in modern developed nations (as imperfect and incomplete as that development may yet be) would not exist at all.

          7) The term “social engineering,” like many other sloppy and malleable terms used in similar ways, is an empty rhetorical ploy, used to object to those instances of law-making with which the speaker disagrees. If you respect the brilliance of the U.S. Constitution, which was a far more ambitious act of “social engineering” than any I have here suggested, then you really don’t object to “social engineering” per se.

          Maybe it would be more meaningful if you made more precise critiques, based on an analysis of how systems work, and why a certain proposed legislative innovation would adversely affect how those systems operate. Neither the curtailment of human liberty (see my examples above), nor “social engineering,” is anything any thinking social and historical observer could possibly object to without giving more precise reasons why that particular curtailment of human liberty or act of social engineering is more objectionable than the ones most Americans revere.

          I should add, as a footnote, that the statute I proposed did not curtail individual liberty per se, but merely struck a new balance of family engagement with the state, through which liberty can and often is more enhanced than curtailed (as in the availability of free compulsory education, which increases rather than decreases the liberty of those who enjoy it).

          1. Look, why don’t you put a link up to  your proposed legislation.

            should add, as a footnote, that the statute I proposed did not curtail individual liberty per se, but merely struck a new balance of family engagement with the state, through which liberty can and often is more enhanced than curtailed

            You are getting a bit testy.   If I could figure out what you were talking about, i would be glad to be more specific.  For example, one horrific example of attempts to “strike a new balance of family engagement with the state” was the welfare system…which destroyed families.  

            1. You don’t have a clue what I’m talking about. And I have no problem with that.

              So, if you can find an example of “striking a new balance of family engagement with the state” that, in your opinion, destroyed families, you have made an argument against family engagement with the state? “Goodbye” public education? “Goodbye” removing abused and neglected children from dangerous households? “Goodbye” trying not to? “Goodbye” having legally recognized marriages (which is, you know, a form of family-state engagement)? “Goodbye” all laws which regulate the division of property and of parental responsibilities after a divorce?

              What you don’t get is that the state has long been indispensible to families, that families have had a legal status since legal statuses came into being, and that the question isn’t whether the state and the family should be mutually engaged, but rather how to most efficaciously design their mutual engagement.

              I didn’t link up to my hypothetical legislation because I didn’t initiate a conversation here about my hypothetical (not proposed) legislation. I have, however, responded comprehensively here to your vague objections, without having any need to link to my hypothetical legislation, since your objections are based on categorical misconceptualizatons that can be debunked on their own terms.

              1. I can not possibly understand your brilliance and so it is not necessary to provide any specific information on this “new family engagement with the state.” You can just demolish any of my arguments but attacking me and then refuting what I never said.

                How do you spell “straw man”…sh??  I am not going to be yours.

                I seem to have hit a sore spot. Why, I don’t know.

                I can spell jargon, did I get verbose right?  

                1. I merely agreed.

                  As for sore spots, it seems my agreement doesn’t agree with you.

                  I haven’t provided specific information on the statute??!! You mean the statute described in 25 pages which I excerpted as much of as I thought the blog would bear? You mean your “arguments” that my statute is bad because it’s “social engineering,” which I responded to with long, in-depth, precise historically and economically informed arguments?

                  And when, exactly, did I attack you personally, Dwyer? Other than agreeing with you that you don’t understand what I’m talking about, nothing I’ve posted has been about you at all. You, on the other hand, entered into this exhange outraged that I misunderstood one of your posts, and went for the jugular from that moment onward. That’s okay with me: I responded, as I always do, by systematically dismantling your “arguments.” I understand your taking that personally, but it’s not, in reality, personal, nor did I make it personal.

            2. let’s take a deep breath and start all over. From my point of view, this conversation began with your concerns over what you perceive as “social engineering.” Basically, I pointed out that all law-making is as much “social engineering” as my hypothetical statute, giving a list of specific and revered examples of constitutional drafting and legislation that are certainly no less ambitious and extensive than the statute I outlined, nor are they less intrusive into personal liberties. I also pointed out that the state can either take reduce or expand the range of personal liberty, not just by its presence or absence, but also by its affirmative support of personal liberty. I explained how and why this is so.

              When you say that you don’t have a clue what I’m talking about, which aspect is it that is causing the problem?

  1. Ritter’s labor veto benefits Colorado

    Though it could cost him politically, the governor’s veto of Senate Bill 180 shows his independence from special interests.

    By The Denver Post

    ……

    The political cost of his veto could be real. Unions helped elect Ritter in 2006, and their members already are steaming over an earlier veto of a bill that would have rewarded state unemployment benefits to union workers locked out during contract disputes. They’re planning a rally today to voice their disappointment. [where?]

    But SB 180 wasn’t good policy. It’s unfortunate it even made it through the Democrat-controlled legislature and onto Ritter’s desk. [so they did failed Colorado and acted in a politically expedient manner?]

    It would have hurt financially strapped municipalities and special fire districts, and usurped control from towns and cities. In Colorado, local control matters. [just like all the other bills they’ve ushered in that increase spending in a declining environment?]

    The Colorado Municipal League, which opposed the bill, called it an “intrusion of the state into the employment practices and policies of local governments and the citizens who elect them.” [this from the group that collects the other 80% of the taxes you pay?]

    ….

    Had SB 180 become law, they would have lost that voice, which Ritter noted in his veto message. [what about the voice of our first responders, remember 47, 49, 54?]

    Firefighters already are implying the veto would make their dangerous jobs even more dangerous because they won’t have a place at the negotiating table to talk about safety. [ok ???]

    Ritter thinks the safety issues raised by SB 180 should be addressed statewide, not just in the communities affected by the bill. He has since directed the Department of Public Safety to work with the Colorado Professional Firefighters, the Colorado State Fire Chiefs Association, the Colorado Municipal League, and others to develop a statewide certification program for fire department safety and, if necessary, implement legislation for the 2010 legislative session, according to his office. [ok then, this should green light a statewide application for 400-600 new fire rigs that we can pay for with bailout $s, resell the old ones and have over the cash to …. a fund to maintain the new rigs?]

    No one wants our firefighters to go without the equipment they need to keep themselves, and us, safe. But this bill wasn’t about safety; it was about wresting away local control.

    http://www.denverpost.com/opin

  2. Ask the guv if he read the 6 pages of comments on the 9news website article about his announcing his intention to run for re-election. Every single comment was negative. Also, why did he choose the Mike Rosen show to make the announcement?

  3. What his “internal” polling shows.  Maybe we can finally get to the bottom of whether Republican36 was just making stuff up with that comment a few weeks ago or whether Ritter is breaking the law.

  4. What does the Governor think about billions of Coloradans’ tax dollars going to bail out GM and Chrysler.  Does he agree with President Obama on this?

    1. Or is pestering the Governor about things beyond his control the name of the game? Unless you think we can secede, like Rick Parry thinks Texas can do.

      1. This is an issue that has major implications for the economy, jobs and the national debt.  About $50 billion is out the door and another $50 billion (at least) is on the way.  Colorado constitutes roughly 1.5% of the national population, so about $1.5 billion of our money is going to bail out Detroit.  Why is it not a reasonable question?  I’d like to see our Governor stand up and defend Colorado.

        1. What can he do about it? If the answer is “well, nothing really,” THAT’S why it’s not a reasonable question.

          Campaigning for your party’s nominee doesn’t equal responsibility for that nominee’s policies.

        2. Special! Just $9.99. Electronic calculators that have just a minus key. No + or * or ./. Great for the simple-minded! Save even more, buy two for $29.99! For just $4.95 more you git yer own personal Bossy the Flatulating Cow. Listen closely to her cow farts…it’ll be on the political science quiz next week.

          See, the money invested in GM is gone. Hear me? “Out the door.” NOTHING to show for it! No income taxes paid by workers still employed at GM dealers in Colorado. No sales taxes. No savings on unemployment insurance. No chance of recovery and repayment. No upsides whatsoever.

          We don’t like payin’ no stinkin’ taxes cause we ain’t got nothin’ to show for any of it! Just money out the door!

          Now, excuse me while I drive my kid on the road to the public school, then to the library, then to the bank to deposit my social security check and buy a Support the Troops banner. Be back later after I drop by Toys 4 Dumbos.

        3. I have a great idea for your Saturday. Go picket your nearest Chevy dealership. Take MM, Libby, and MDMD with you and make it a party. Wave signs like “NO GM Welfare!” or “U.S. out of Chevrolet!”.

          See how much support you get.

          (And don’t forget to leave your “Buy American” lapel pin at home.)

  5. “The Talented Mr. Duncan” gets above-the-fold treatment about his deception and “new” explanation for things (He’s sorry.)

    Discovering that the people working in my former profession can either be complete dickheads or responsible professionals. I’m shocked by the lack of middle ground.

  6. great article in the HuffPo

    The graphs make it clear that most (almost certainly including the Denver Post and others here) will be gone in 3 – 5 years.

    And he sums up the core problem with:

    Newspaper execs talk with exasperation, as if they’ve tried everything they can. But they define “everything” so narrowly that it renders the word almost meaningless. In reality, as they watch their massive river of money slowly shrink away, they’ve tried almost nothing. They had a couple hundred year head start on Google, and yet they collapse in a heap here at the dawn of a new age.

    Is there any hope for newspaper companies? I’m not sure. But it’d be nice to see them at least go down fighting.

    1. 1. Modern newspapers are not really 200 years old, or anything like that. Two hundred years ago, newspapers were primarily published by political parties. The idea of the “family newspaper” as an evening’s entertainment is much, much more modern. The first real blow to modern newspapers’ business model was radio–it was a claim on peoples’ time and an alternative source of outside information.

      2. Classified ads were a major revenue stream for most newspapers; CraigsList, more than Google, had the major negative impact there. Fact is, newspapers couldn’t follow that model–free ads, free searching–and not see their franchise go poof.

      3. Readership continues to decline. On my suburban block, the delivery person does a U-turn at my house, just three houses in (out of maybe 15 on each side) because no one else on the block subscribes to any newspaper. Reasons abound, but I think the major one is: there is no longer a time set aside to read the paper–not after dinner, not at a sit-down breakfast, certainly not while commuting on a train or bus. Neither is there a perception that one must read the paper in order to be well informed–or even that it’s necessary to be well informed about politics.

      4. Fixed costs remain the major cause of the death spiral. The marginal cost of printing one more copy of the paper is very, very low; the cost of printing the first one is enormous. We’ve already seen some papers go Web only. Hard row to hoe since the fixed cost of a large reporting staff remains daunting, but I suspect this will be the only viable course over time. The emerging replacement for the daily paper is already evident; it’s called Bookmarks, every individual’s unique collection of sites on particular topics that collectively cover a range of subjects, rather than One Paper that Covers All Beats and is delivered to the driveway. We don’t see this model as clearly as we see the demise of papers, since everyone has her/his own set of bookmarks. And, the Web being what it is, even an obscure topic can collect a critical mass of viewers since the entire world is a prospective audience, not just a limited geographical area that can be covered by print-and-distribute.

      5. The fact that retail sellers have their own powerful printing mechanism–the Web, with Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. to direct people to their sites–is strongly suggestive that local retailers, who still depend on newspapers, will go the same way as the papers. One example: local book stores have already evolved into literary coffee houses and entertainment centers, rather than the place you go to buy a book you want. (That’s Amazon; one bookstore serves the entire world; digital readers remove need to manufacture books in advance, knocking out traditional publishers…but that’s another topic) It’s part of the much larger phenomenon represented by the Web (not just Google) that has also transformed the recording industry; is in the process of transforming television industry; book publishing; education; retailing; telecommunications industry (land line telephone service anyone? Didn’t think so.).

      6. We will begin to see this increasingly in government, which is the Really Big Change. Once you’re on the Web, any need to live in a particular place to be part of it? Well, yes and no. Civilized life is possible even in the Far Flung Territories, as long as you have broadband Internet. Hell, the New York City Public Library collection is now, or shortly will be, available to residents of Cheyenne Wells (if anyone there cares). As are live Webcasts of events in London, Paris, Tokyo, Rome. Seeing your family on television, live, isn’t the same as having dinner with them–but increasingly it will become an accepted substitute. So, if we live virtual digital lives on the Web, what’s the real significance of the state government?

      1. Impressive, JO.  Very impressive.  If you continue to step up your game like this, it is going to be really tough on the rest of us to keep up.

        Item #6 points the way to the future.  The implications of which are something we all need to deeply consider.

      2. Lets take item (2) above where the conventional wisdom is that newspapers could not make classified ads free and survive. Yet Google makes search free and is rolling in cash from it. Craigslist is also doing quite well.

        This shows the lack of imagination of the newspapers. There are numerous ways they could provide free classifieds and make money off of it. The problem is to them a reach is doing exactly what they did before – but put it on the web. Anything more is too much of a stretch.

        You make some very good points above, but there are ways to survive in this new world, like the literary coffee houses you mentioned.

        I’ll be sad to see newspapers go because they provide a valuable function and they could have survived.

        1. The little text blocks on the side are paid advertising, which also show up on innumerable other sites as well via AdSense. (And that’s before all the other revenue they get from other things…)

          Craigslist is (apparently) non-profit, and makes money from donations as well as fees charged for job listings in some cities and real estate fees in New York City.

          The Google model might be appropriate, if they could get the eyeballs online – which apparently they’re not getting – and if they could get other sites to buy into an ad network they don’t currently run.

          The Cragslist model isn’t too dissimilar to what some modern blogs have… “reporters” donating their time to make the site better.  But that model only carries so far, and then you have to find revenue.  There are few sites employing more than one or two full-time staffers at present.

          1. Google isn’t a “search” company at heart; it’s an advertising-sales company. The results it provides are influenced by ad sales (i.e., advertisers can “buy” preferred positions in response to searches on specific terms and can pay to be listed at the top of the results list). If it were revealed that Joe’s Jewelers had paid the Post to be mentioned prominently in a feature about the rituals of marriage engagements, it would be seen as a scandal. As it is, Google is primarily a purveyor of nano-advertising. Rather than advertising to everyone who lives in Colorado and who buys a paper–which includes a broad range of people–Pete’s Shoot ‘Em Up Shop can direct Google ad dollars to jus’ plain folk lookin’ for “guns,” “ammo,” and “bare arms.”

            There are a handful of Web sites that are emerging as journalistic institutions. Huffington Post, Politico, Talking Points Memo, possibly Slate, come to mind as sites that support paid editorial staff, but as Phoenix says, these numbers are very small (both in terms of sites and numbers of journo staff). I’m not aware of any sites that match the investment by papers like the NYT, WaPo, and LATimes that are able–or have in the past been able–to pay reporters to work on a single story for weeks before producing a single inch of ink. Ditto supporting foreign bureaus, war correspondents, and the like. Those are huge investments to create a single story that runs in one day’s paper and that may not have any advertising directly connected (i.e., no advertising on the page(s) where the story runs). That threatens to be one of the biggest losses which no Google, Bing, Ba-da-Bing, or Yahoo can replace.

            As it is, newspapers sell hits on their sites. This is the reason I take strong exception to ColoradoPols reproducing via Ctrl-C Ctrl-V block quotes sufficient to remove the need and/or motivation of its readers to click-and-view the source, and in that tiny way make a nano-nano contribution to the institution that created the story in the first place. I easily get vehement, passionate, even carried away on this topic, so I’ll preserve a beautiful Saturday morning and resume listening to Avian Symphony #1 outside my window.

            1. I think it’s a fair question whether Google would actually be making any money if they didn’t have 75% market share or so. When you have that kind of volume, very small payments for ads add up to something significant.

              I don’t know of anyone, newspaper or not, who has been able to make money off local portals.  

              1. …that Google has managed to incorporate vast sources of “content” into its model. Email, for example; GoogleMail scans messages and matches them with advertising, sometimes with surprising (and highly amusing) results. Many would-be Internet publishers start with the content–limited by all manner of factors– and hope for enough ads to pay the bill; Google starts with the ads and looks for ways to link them to available content, for which Google typically pays nothing upfront (at best, sharing ad revenue with the generators, i.e. sites for whom Google is the advertising agent).

                We are already seeing moves by newspapers to charge readers for content. Another defensive move may be to hide content from Google searches unless Google agrees to pay upfront to include a site’s content in its searches for relevant content. How that might be implemented without running afoul of antitrust legislation (among other considerations) is TBD.

                1. and I don’t get it. An individual web site gets much more from Google than Google gets from it. If your journalists wrote a great expose’ on corruption on the Philadelphia City Council, and someone wanted to find the original article, wouldn’t you want to be first when people did a Google search? You get money when people go to your site after searching for it. What does Google get out of that?

                  I really honestly don’t understand why Google would pay any site to be able to index it.  

                  1. Without content to index, would Google have a viable model? I don’t think so either. OR, imagine two search engines, G-1 and G-2. One searches 100,000 sites; the other searches 10,000. Which one do you think would overwhelm the other and quickly get 100% market share?

                    Google is a bit of a benign parasite in this sense. Doesn’t harm its multitude of hosts…maybe even performs a service by directing one-time users to go to their sites…but in the process, Google grows fat while the creators of the content that Google depends upon for its business model are going broke. Does that outcome create an obligation on Google to share its bounty? It’s at least debatable, but so far, Google recognizes that to give a mm would be to face the prospect of losing miles and miles. The email model is a bit different. Google provides a useful, free service (including data storage) to people whose purpose is not to create content for sale in exchange for emailers letting it index their limited-interest content (messages).  

                    This isn’t the only thing ailing newspapers, of course, but it’s an aspect of why newspaper Web sites haven’t proved highly lucrative, while Google rakes in megabucks.

                    1. If all newspapers in the country agreed to forbid Google from indexing their content, they’d have some bargaining power, and Google would probably try to pay them.

                      However, in such an arrangement any individual newspaper would have a huge incentive to break the deal and just give content to Google for free or more cheaply, since they’d get all the traffic from one-time searchers. Thus such a coalition would be unsustainable.

                      You could force it by getting a law on your side, but the only reason to pass such a law would be if you could assert property rights NOT to the content itself but to a LINK to your site. I think people have actually tried to restrict links to their sites legally and have failed miserably, because it sounds (and is) silly.

                      Might be getting too far from the main point though.

                    2. I’ll charge them a nominal fee associated with maintaining a site that large – and then tell them to plonk the GoogleBot in their robots.txt file.

                      The problem the newspapers have is that there are too many sites out there who are giving away the news for free – not valuing it according to the price they paid for it.  That includes their own news co-op, the AP.  They can’t put the genie back in the bottle at this point without triggering an almost-certain anti-trust suit.

                      I think the main problem for them is the use of click-pay advertising on the Internet.  Newspapers charged for ads based on their distribution, not their ability to sell advertised products.  People visiting news sites now are probably coming to read a specific article, funneled to the site by a search engine or blog post.

                      If the newspaper industry wants to survive on the Web, it might consider going “backwards” to a pay-per-view advertising model, charging a very small per-view fee.  People who see ads on pages don’t always click them right off, but rather base future decisions based on the ads.  Another option would be a sort of micro-payment system, if they figure out how to work it.  (No-one has to-date…)

            2. All of the major search engines now clearly delineate paid links from the rest of their search results.  Google does not adjust their page rankings based on paid advertising.  And at least on Google, you are not guaranteed the top position on any given page search – the AdWords results will vary with each returned search based on the AdWords rules.

              So the analogy of including Joe’s Jewelers prominently in a newspaper article doesn’t really hold well – it’s clear that certain areas of search results are ads and others are the “real” search results, more like placing ad blocks in a paper in a section relevant to the advertiser but clearly labeled “this is a paid advertisement”.  (Newspapers already do that, though not to their front page…)

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