It looks as though the Associated Press is firing the first shots in what we might look back on as the Great Content Wars of the Aughts. They’re after the aggregators and search engines, mainly, not individual bloggers, although the story isn’t that clear. They want permissions and revenue-sharing, and I for one will be watching this one closely. I think this fight is long overdue, and if we’re going to have it, then let’s bloody well have it.

The initial response is about what you’d expect — most are taking the wait-and-see approach, with a few trumpeting the sort of swaggering arrogance the web does so well:

The last time they TRIED, it was a public relations nightmare for them and we in The Blogospheres had thought they had arrived at their senses — guess not. Again — JUST BRING IT ON.

“A public relations nightmare” — that’s a good one. Because if there’s one thing the AP must have, it’s good PR. They wouldn’t want a bunch of ignorant bloggers pissed at them or anything. Because, you know, the people who are stealing their content (always providing a link back in tribute) must be kept happy.

We need to have this fight, if only to establish what eyeballs are worth (my guess: nothing), what links are worth (a fraction of nothing), and finally, what content is worth. It may well be a losing battle, but it’s time to go beyond the usual response (information wants to be free nyah nyah) and actually have a reasoned discussion about free lunches.

The aggregator’s defense is that they reproduce no more than a “fair use” portion and always provide a link back (which is sort of like being paid in invisible money). The problem is, frequently that’s all the eyeballs are interested in. A friend of mine told me a few years ago, “I went from reading the paper to reading the paper online to reading a few blogs that tell me what the interesting stories are, and even then, I just read the summaries.” Broadcast news has known this for a generation at least. Why provide depth, perspective and context when you can get the gist in two or three paragraphs? Particularly when you’re gathering your audience via their political biases, all you need is the fair-use segment. You use it to touch off a getta-loada-this blog post, in and out in a couple hundred words, and on to the next one. Most people don’t want anything more, so why bother?

The AP, however, doesn’t exist to provide blogfodder. It exists to serve its dwindling list of clients, and this is where I start rolling my eyes at the stunning ignorance of most of the online commentariat. The AP is a co-op; it has its own staff reporters, but most of its content is provided by member papers, which then take the AP’s versions of other members’ stories in return. Everybody who’s done time on a news desk knows the drill — after deadline, the slot editor sends three or four of the day’s best stories to the AP, where editors trim and rewrite, then send them back out to member clients. If someone stands up at a Fort Wayne City Council meeting and shoots its august members a moon, they’ll be reading about it in Evansville a day later, not because the AP had someone there, but because they took the local papers’ stories and passed them along to the state wire.

Of course, nowadays, if such a thing happened, they’d be reading about it in Evansville via the web, via links to the Fort Wayne papers. At least, for a knee-slapper story like that. For less amusing material, maybe not. My point is, however: The AP is producing something of value, and we need to figure out what its value is. So if a big ugly lawsuit is the way to find out, time for the big ugly lawsuit.

There’s also a reckoning coming in advertising value. It’s often noted that many newspapers are being read by more people than ever before, and yet still can’t support themselves through advertising. Huh. I wonder why. Let’s take a few sports-section ad stalwarts — tires and tits. (If you’re in the market for new radials or wondering which porn star is stripping at which club, Sports is your go-to section.) Imagine being the ad salesman trying to convince the tire-store owner of the great deal he’s getting, because of all the new eyeballs. Pistons fans in Tokyo can read the Detroit News online, and keep up with the best local coverage of their favorite team! But the tires are being sold in Detroit, not Tokyo. Or San Diego, or Cincinnati. The internet has been a great boon for readers. But the strip club is unlikely to draw patrons from the Sun Belt. Some eyeballs are more valuable than others.

So, a bit of bloggage, never exceeding fair use:

As creepy as this story is, the video is worse.

The game last night was the expected blowout, and Mitch Albom sprained his syntaxes capturing it in his purplest prose. No link — go find that shit y’self.

Another incredible Sweet Juniper post, capturing blight on a Detroit “ghost street.” This, my friends, is multimedia reporting. Don’t expect the papers to figure it out.

Off to the gym to battle gravity.

Detroit loves nothing better than hosting a huge sporting event. The city is really at its rowdy, friendly best when thousands of out-of-towners drop in for a Super Bowl, or an All-Star Game, or a Final Four.

Of course, it would be nice if the weather cooperated, too.

Eh, I guess it could be worse. The forecasts called for anywhere from one to 10 inches — talk about hedging your bets — and it seems we fell well into the short end of that zone. It won’t last, but it’ll leave a lot of North Carolinians convinced they made the right call in moving south. I suppose I’m backing the home team, although truth be told I have no interest. No one in the house does. Guess what my husband said Saturday night: “Until I saw it spelled out, I thought Michigan State was playing a team from Alaska.” UConn, Yukon — what’s the difference, really?

OK, so: On to today.

Let’s start with a stipulation: Everyone is blind to their own side’s faults. And so the argument that starts “If (my guy, whom you hate) and done the same thing as (your guy), you’d be screaming bloody murder” just isn’t worth having.

Or if it is worth having, at some point someone is going to say, “Well, he started it.”

So there’s the stipulation. Ideas have consequences, the right lectured the left for, oh, years and years and years. The inventor of the birth-control pill envisioned it being used by married women in their 40s who wanted no more children, and whoops, he touched off the sexual revolution. And so on. To this day, you can still find conservatives trying to link whatever they disapprove of to a “culture” that encourages it, everything from sexy Bratz dolls to gay marriage to whatever has a bug up their butt at any given moment.

Only here’s something they’re strangely silent on: Our current trend of mass murders and shootings. Guy bursts into a Unitarian church, says he wants to kill liberals. Silence. Guy kills three cops, friends say he fears “the coming Obama gun ban.” Crickets, also caviling. Who, us? Encourage an atmosphere of fear and suspicion? I don’t know who you’re talking about. Certainly not us.

I knew the cold-dead-fingers contingent had passed a milestone when, after one of these slaughters, the talking points became “well, if only one of the potential victims had been packing, s/he could have expertly returned fire and taken the maniac out.” (This isn’t something you heard after the guy shot up the nursing home last week, I noted.) Not so much soul-searching, however.

Of course, if there was, it would be easy to miss. I recommend Eric Boehlert’s excellent column for Media Matters, “Rampage Nation,” about the steadily declining interest in the steadily increasing number of massacres nationwide:

Killing sprees, especially the ones that have erupted since the Virginia Tech massacre of 2007, just don’t hold journalists’ attention like they used to.

Even more telling was the way the press avoided addressing the issue of gun control in connection with the Alabama rampage. There was a virtual media ban on the topic last week. And that’s become the media’s trademark pattern when covering the mass murders that stain the country — they’re treated as though they’re isolated incidents and as though there is no larger public policy issue that ties them together. The press has pretty much embraced the old NRA mantra: Guns don’t kill people. People do.

That I would disagree with. Rather, I think gun control doesn’t come up because gun control is absolutely a lost cause in this country. As I have been cynically telling people for years, America has made its bloody bed, and now it has to lie in it. What’s more, any talk of gun control, no matter how reasonable or incremental, only serves to make things worse, as we saw in Pittsburgh this weekend. There’s nothing like a tentative policy statement made by some C-list legislator somewhere for firing up the troops, and before you know it some lunatic is taking out cops because the president is coming for his guns.

How good is this sort of talk for the gun business? Very, very good.

Meanwhile, Dave Cullen has produced what sounds like an excellent book on Columbine, 10 years later. Seems a long time ago, doesn’t it?

OK, so the week begins with snow, but somewhere in here we have baseball and, by week’s end, spring again. So fingers crossed.

From the way the right-wing blogs are reacting, you’d think the president gave the queen of England a Magic Wand, instead of an iPod and a rare songbook signed by Richard Rodgers. Coming in the same week as Hillary’s “gaffe” — allegedly asking a Mexican priest “who painted” Juan Diego’s “miraculous” cloak, and that remains a one-source story, so buyer beware — and followed by his gift of DVDs to the British prime minister, well, you can just imagine. Rule of three, worstpresidentever, game over.

Yes, I’m sure HRH would have enjoyed a nice crystal bowl, or perhaps a gift basket from Hickory Farms.

Gift-giving is an art that not everyone does well. Take the Queen, for instance — her gift to the O’s was a framed photo of herself, her default gift for visiting dignitaries and, frankly, the sort of thing that makes an iPod look like a deed to one’s own private island. Diplomatic gift-giving is another breed of cat, as there are all sorts of nuances to consider. I agree the DVD set of classic American movies was pretty tacky in comparison to Gordon Brown’s gift to the president, an ornamental pen holder crafted from the timbers of a Victorian anti-slave ship. That’s a perfect diplomatic gift, acknowledging history and the relationship between nations, while being nothing more difficult to find room for in a home than an ornamental pen holder.

Obama needs a better gifting advisor, maybe. But I disagree that the iPod was off-the-charts awful. The key to great gift-giving is empathy, asking yourself, “If I were this person, what would I like to have?” Put yourself in the Queen’s shoes, your daily life a damp ordeal of Duty, Protocol and accepting bouquets from schoolchildren. Maybe you’d like a nifty gadget that would allow you to pop in those earbuds and escape from it all for a while, a symbol of American ingenuity, rather than a tapestry or one more proper token of national esteem. Maybe you wouldn’t. But at some point everything gets logged and shoved in a closet somewhere, so what’s the dif?

Ronald Reagan was a horseman, and over the course of his presidency someone was always handing him the halter rope leading to a magnificent steed. One, I think, actually made it to the ranch in California. Now there’s a gift.

The queen should have given the Obamas a Corgi puppy from her own kennels. Failing that, maybe she deserves an iPod.

Over the years, LAMary has entertained us with many tales of her ex’s lousy gift-giving, but I’m calling on the rest of you: What’s the worst gift you’ve ever given or gotten? Herpes, a praise-music CD, a signed copy of a book by an author you hate? I cannot participate. My husband gives the best gifts ever. He remembers an offhand remark I made in July and it finds its way under my Christmas tree in December. A marvel of thoughtfulness I do not deserve. Oh, wait, there’s probably one, during a bad breakup when a boyfriend said, “Let’s go shopping and buy you something expensive.” Unspoken: So I can then be shut of this relationship guilt-free. I refused to go.

So, bloggage:

I tried to make time to read this story all day yesterday, and failed, so you take a stab at it. Once before I die, I’d like to attend a full production of Wagner’s Ring cycle, which is why it caught my eye. I didn’t realize Wagner has a cast of hangers-on not unlike the Grateful Dead, or Phish. Now I do.

Short shrift today, I know, but that’s why I depend on you guys. Maybe something later. Ciao.

Thanks to all of you who made Day 1 of the Amazon store such a success. I earned $15.43! This is better than Google has done me in a single day, ever, and while I know it can’t last, I’m pleased to know how many of you are willing to do me this small favor.

I’m equally pleased to see my report from Amazon tells me what you bought. No names attached, alas, although some of you announced your purchases in comments. So I know Del is probably the one behind “The McCleers and the Birneys;: Irish immigrant families-into Michigan and the California gold fields, 1820-1893,” but I have no idea who might have picked up “Strip To It: Core Moves and Fantasies Sexy Striptease (exotic dancing)” on DVD. Although I have my ideas ::koff::BrianStouder::koff::. And truly, I am delighted, because it would seem to indicate we’re drawing a younger demographic. Money in the bank!

One of these days J.C. and I will put together a proper button for the sidebar, but for now click either the current On the Nightstand book or the link below. Oh, and Laura Lippman, if you’re reading this, we also sold a copy of “Life Sentences.” Onward to the bestseller list.

So. I haven’t said much about the General Motors situation, mainly because the more I read, the less I know about this company — or know that I know, anyway. I don’t want to be one of those pundits whose advice to the company boils down to “duh, make cars people want to drive,” as though running the largest industrial corporation in the world, with a few hundred thousand employees, plants all over the globe, a product line that takes years to develop and produce, that’s expensive and prone to the vagaries of commodity and labor prices, trends and a fickle public — all this is no more difficult than running a cupcake bakery somewhere.

Fortunately, in Detroit, there are lots of people who know more about this than I do. I e-mailed one and asked him his take on the Wagoner business. I don’t think he’d mind if I pasted his thoughts:

I think Wagoner got a raw deal. But I also think GM could use a little outside agitation. It’s a huge company. And huge companies are hard to turn around. Maybe a new face at the top will help. Certainly the government has the right to call some shots.

But two of the biggest problems of GM were created a long time ago – shitty cars and bloated union contracts. The third – healthcare costs – is out of their hands. Wagoner went a long way to turning quality around. (It’s ironic that he’s out a week after Buick officially ended Lexus’ 14-year run at the top of JD Powers “Most Dependable” list.) And he took a huge step in bringing union costs in line with the last contract. He certainly blew it when they decided not to build a Prius-like hybrid when Toyota did. But he’s admitted that mistake and GM is catching up. (And he gets no credit for the fact that GM was developing that technology as fast as Toyota and Honda. They just made the strategic mistake of not thinking the market was ready for it … a mistake that must be viewed in the context of the fact that GM struggles to make money with small cars under the weight of their staggering health care costs.)

True to Wagoner form, he didn’t stamp his feet and make a fuss. He is the rarest of birds – a CEO with very little ego. GM is in trouble, much of it by their own hand. But that trouble started a long time ago. Rick Wagoner was the guy turning it around … until a banking and credit crisis clipped him from behind.

…One more thought. I made this prediction late last year, and this latest news makes me think it’s more likely that this scenario will unfold: The government overseers will, with support from Nancy Pelosi et al, righteously force GM to shift its focus to smaller, more fuel efficient cars. Not much will be done about health care costs, of course. So these cars won’t make money. Toyota and Honda, meanwhile, continue to invest billions in their truck fleet, fighting for a spot in this sector. With Detroit money sucked away from truck development – Chevy’s new Silverado gets better gas mileage with its V8 than Toyota can get with its V6 – Toyota and Honda will rush in and seize this highly profitable high ground. And that, my friends, will be all she wrote.

I might add: While gas prices remain low, lots of Priuses are sitting on lots, too. And Toyota sales are down as much as the domestic companies’. When people are losing jobs and can’t get credit, a car that flies would be a tough sell, let alone a Volt. Although Toyota saw something in hybrids that GM didn’t, and was willing to carry the Prius for a good long time until it wormed its way into the zeitgeist. And now when people think of Toyota, they think Prius, not Sequoia, Highlander or Tundra. And GM will forever be the makers of the Suburban. (Which I still see a lot of on the streets, btw.)

A bit of bloggage before we depart? OK:

Detroitblog unearths another great story, about a old-time west-side schvitz patronized mainly by Russian geezers, but on weekends? It’s an orgy venue. More pix (nothing spicy) at the first link, easier-on-the-eyes black-on-white text here.

Oh, it’s so cute when newspapers have April Fool’s Day stories, isn’t it? I’m amazed they’re toying with subscription cancellations at a time like this, frankly.

I am stupid and law-abiding, because my first question, reading this, was, “Why not sell at a loss?” I know nothing.

But I have a lot of work to do. So off I go.

It seems half the people I know are going gluten-free. Gluten is the new sugar, no, the new lactose — something you can claim a vague “sensitivity” to and give up, thereafter proclaiming you never felt better. While I know that celiac disease is real and that people actually suffer from it, I’m a little dubious about many of my newly gluten-free friends’ health claims. But I have a prejudice. When I was in fourth grade, the teacher asked us to speculate on what is meant when bread is called “the staff of life.”

I raised my hand. “That you’ll die without it?” The teacher chuckled and called on someone else, but I stand by my contention. Life without bread not only lacks a staff, but a point.

Alan was a health reporter for a time, and brought his deep skepticism to the job. It’s his contention that 99 percent of all self-diagnosed food allergies and sensitivities are b.s., that for every person who goes into anaphylactic shock after eating peanuts or shellfish, there are 99 who claim “allergies” that basically boil down to being a picky eater. If ice cream makes you fart, that does not mean you’re lactose intolerant. (Bloody diarrhea is another matter, and yes, you’re welcome for that observation. I suppose there’s a middle ground where you’re confined to your room until you stop smelling like a dairy that’s been abandoned during a heat wave, but everything’s a spectrum.)

But this gluten thing is sweepin’ the nation. Just a brief scan of the celiac disease entry on Wikipedia makes it sound nearly crippling, and no one in my circle who’s given up gluten can really claim to have had it, but may I digress and gross you out some more? From the wiki:

The diarrhoea characteristic of coeliac disease is pale, voluminous and malodorous.

That’s as opposed to the scant, sweet-smelling diarrhea, I guess. Ha ha.

Crunchy Rod, between posts on economic catastrophe, the Benedict Option and the usual mania, posted a while back that his house has given up gluten and casein (milk protein) and they’re all feeling better. (I only wish this was reflected in his writing.) The post attracted the usual comments, wherein some people claimed that making one change in their diet led to clearer thinking, retraction of an autism diagnosis, etc.

Speaking as one who has always had a cast-iron stomach, who can eat virtually anything with no ill effects whatsoever, who has never even experienced heartburn, whose sum total of bad dietary outcomes boils down to “no matter how good it sounds at 2 a.m., White Castles at closing time are almost never worth the morning-after misery,” it is perhaps hard for me to empathize. If one doesn’t have celiac disease, how can cutting one food from one’s diet make that big a change? Maybe if you replace it with something healthier, more complex carbs or whole grains, I can see it. Otherwise, I’m still skeptical. I note how many people are diagnosed with these conditions by “alternative” doctors, and trash the AMA all you want, but I used to sit next to an alt-medicine crackpot at work, and I formed my own opinions, particularly about iridology.

The U.S. is a far more diverse place than it was when I was a kid. Different ethnicities bring different genes into the mix. I’ve heard it said that Asians can actually smell white people, that we reek like aged Cheddar to noses that don’t mess with milk past the breast-feeding stage. So I won’t rule it out. But can anyone tell me what a mixed-bag-of-European-genes person like me has to gain from giving up her twice-weekly loaf of rustic Italian bread?

The question to the crowd today: Gluten — threat or menace?

So, bloggage:

One of the trainers at my gym is trying to sell two Final Four tickets. Great seats (he says), all three games, $2,000. Yesterday it was $2,500. I don’t know what this means — the price reduction, that is — but I hear through the grapevine that there are still seats available. Everyone blames The Economy, but if you’re in the market, yo, I can hook you up.

Jeff TMMO posted this to Facebook, and as of five minutes ago, so had two others, so heads up for the hey-martha story of the week and probably the month. The headline alone is a classic: Police charge man with OVI after he crashed motorized bar stool. And there’s a picture!

Brian mentioned Google’s invasion of privacy a few days ago. A too-perfect story along those lines, that we won’t bother to check out further.

Hey, John Rich: Screw you, too. Love, Detroit.

Off to the gym. Times like these require all my strength.

Today starts the Grand Experiment, i.e., no Detroit paper-made-of-paper on my doorstep today. Our progress so far…yesterday I got the Sunday Free Press, and no New York Times. On Sunday, this is like getting the bill and the mints at the cash register, but no breakfast. I actually had to read Albom. Alan insisted on calling for our copy, and it was delivered six hours later by an old man in a battered car. He walked with a limp as he made his way up the walk, but his manner was courtly and his apology, sincere. A new company is doing the delivery, he said, and this was an early glitch. So sorry.

Today there was a New York Times, but no Wall Street Journal. Since I can’t speak English until after my coffee, I opted to handle it online. In red type on the Services page:

Due to some delays in your area today, you may experience late or missed delivery of The Wall Street Journal. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

It’s sad when the old world meets the new. Nothing but blood on the floor. And yes, the ironies have occurred to me: This is happening on a day when the biggest local story in months is breaking. Also, that the person who pays more than $700 a year for newspapers is the one being inconvenienced, so we can cater to the freeloaders. (Jeff TMMO linked to something Jim Lileks had to say on this subject today, but I won’t, because as usual he buries his point in several hundred words of blather about what he had for dinner Friday night. Kind of like, oh, me.)

But it’s Monday, it’s cold and there’s snow on the ground. Let’s turn our thoughts to happier subjects, shall we? Not what I had for dinner Friday, but what I made for dessert two weeks ago. Speaking of newspapers, the New York Times food-front main story a few weeks ago was about whoopie pies. Nothing like a picture like this to get your mouth watering. Normally my baking runs toward more traditional fare, but it looked like something Kate would enjoy making with me, and so we gave it a whirl.

Ours did not resemble the Times’:

But they were quite tasty, although if you’re planning to follow the same recipe, a word of advice: The cakes are fine, but drop the preposterously rich buttercream filling and just go ahead and whip up a bowl of plain old cream, with lots of powdered sugar and vanilla. The recipe is adapted from Zingerman’s Bakehouse in Ann Arbor, and once you look under the hood of one of their concoctions, you see how they justify their prices. There’s just no reason for every one of those suckers to have the equivalent of a half-stick of butter in it. Use whipped cream, refrigerate briefly and hand them out at a child’s birthday party. Yum.

A housekeeping note: Starting today, I’m introducing some small steps toward a modest monetization of this site. Oy, you don’t know the time I’ve grappled with this, but what I’m groping toward is a few little trickles that might add up to a stream someday. Today, I’m reviving my old Amazon Associates store, which I’m embedding in the “On the Nightstand” link. Click on Ms. Lippman’s latest, and instead of being taken to some review of her work — all of which have been very complimentary, by the way — you’ll go to my Amazon store, Nance’s Kickback Lounge. If you buy the book, or anything else, through me, I get four whole percent of your purchase. But you can buy anything there, not just “Life Sentences.” I’ve highlighted a few of my favorite current books, movies and so on, but if you simply access the greater Amazon site via my store, it all goes back to me. (Click on the “Powered by Amazon” logo to access their main page.)

In coming weeks and months, I’ll try a few more things, most of which will be unobtrusive and that which isn’t, I hope, will be something you’ll enjoy. My working model is, if it’s in yo’ face, it’s gotta be something extra. We’ll see.

I mentioned snow on the ground. It came through last night, a little squall that when it started delivered flakes the size of coasters, it seemed. We all stared out the window, resenting the hell out of it, even though it won’t stick and won’t last past 10 a.m. today. I resented it even more for being so pretty — the big flakes were very Hallmark. At least they were last night. Today, they’re just sort of…Monday. Enjoy yours.

Every so often I wonder what the fallout will be from all these newspaper journalists being thrown from the train. A few will drown themselves in drink and self-pity, a few more will find their rightful calling in a tollbooth somewhere, a few more will land on their feet in other media outlets, but most will leave the business entirely, and I wonder how that will work out.

(Shout-out to one of my old editors, Carolyn Focht, for the tollbooth reference. She once used it to dismiss a particularly low-performing copy editor — “that guy should be working in a tollbooth” — and I don’t think I’ve yet heard a more succinct dismissal of a certain sort of office dullard. She was always funny. When she was a reporter, a disgruntled reader sued her and the paper for libel, seeking $6 million in damages. A reporter from the other daily asked her for a comment. She said, “I don’t have six million dollars.” The case was dismissed.)

One of the things about newspaper work is, it’s the best job possible for a generalist. If you’re interested in a little bit of everything, if you can hold up your end at a cocktail party discussing everything from ophthalmology to opera, a newsroom is paradise for you. So while you might expect reporters and editors to disproportionately end up in fields that require communication skills and running one’s mouth — i.e., law school — I’m not so sure. Plenty are too old to make that sort of 90 degree turn, for one. I think ex-journalists are going to be widely scattered throughout the economy, doing everything from police work to teaching to cooking. When I talk to my bought-out colleagues, most of them solidly middle-aged but still years from retirement, I’m always interested in what they really want to do. Many want to write novels, but more than a few want to water plants in a greenhouse. Or run a little beer joint with bowls of nuts on the bar. Or advocate for the oppressed and underserved via a non-profit.

What I think is going to be really interesting is how the skills from both jobs mesh, or don’t mesh. I wouldn’t hire a journalist if I were running a Ponzi scheme, for instance. They’re such nosy employees, and they have all the law-enforcement phone numbers on speed-dial. I also wouldn’t seek out an ex-reporter if I wanted a sir-yes-sir type; it kind of runs contrary to the DNA. But you might want an ex-reporter if you needed a bird dog; my luckiest bought-out pal segued gracefully from investigative reporting to just plain investigating, for a state government office, and now has subpoena power, and let me tell you, that is a man to be feared.

If nothing else, we might get some good bloggers out of the Great Delamination. Meet Heather Lalley, former features reporter in Spokane, now bought-out and headed for culinary school in Chicago, specializing in baking. Check out her blog, Flour Girl, about the journey, with a recipe in nearly every entry.

Here’s something else I’m thinking about of late: Populist rage. Everyone I know is walking around in a state of low simmer, hoping someone wearing a T-shirt emblazoned Lehman Brothers Team Building 2003: Bon jour, Monte Carlo! wanders through their field of vision, just to give them something to punch besides the wall and sofa cushions. But the thing about rage is, sometimes it gets a little unfocused. So I was intrigued by this WSJ story today, about the reaction to the spreading ubiquity of red-light cameras:

The village of Schaumburg, Ill., installed a camera at Woodfield Mall last November to film cars that were running red lights, then used the footage to issue citations. Results were astonishing. The town issued $1 million in fines in just three months.

But drivers caught by the unforgiving enforcement — which mainly snared those who didn’t come to a full stop before turning right on red — exploded in anger. Many vowed to stop shopping at the mall unless the camera was turned off. The village stopped monitoring right turns at the intersection in January.

The story goes on to point out this is one more municipal service that’s been privatized. The cameras are frequently run by private companies that take a cut of the haul, as much as $5,000 per month per camera. And so the argument about having nothing to fear from the law if you keep your nose clean tends to fall apart in the face of such obvious money-grubbing. Note this detail, too:

Municipalities are establishing ever-more-clever snares. Last month, in a push to collect overdue taxes, the City Council in New Britain, Conn., approved the purchase of a $17,000 infrared-camera called “Plate Hunter.” Mounted on a police car, the device automatically reads the license plates of every passing car and alerts the officer if the owner has failed to pay traffic tickets or is delinquent on car taxes. Police can then pull the cars over and impound them.

New Britain was inspired by nearby New Haven, where four of the cameras brought in $2.8 million in just three months last year. New Haven has also put license-plate readers on tow trucks. They now roam the streets searching for cars owned by people who haven’t paid their parking tickets or car-property taxes. Last year 91% of the city’s vehicle taxes were collected, up from “the upper 70s” before it acquired the technology, says city tax collector C.J. Cuticello.

This is dangerous stuff. One of the conservative movement’s many shivs to the body politic has been the demonization of government in all cases, undermining we-the-people in favor of them-the-low-bidding-corporation, which, we’re told, always does the job better than some lazy public employee, who probably has a really good health plan, too. Municipalities that privatize their dirty work, particularly for such offenses as rolling through a right turn on red, are breeding a culture of resentment and discontent among their own residents, and that’s a nasty chicken that will be coming home to roost one of these days.

However, until it does, we have spring, full sunshine and a lovely-but-chilly day to look forward to. That’s how it is in Michigan, anyway. So I’m going to make beds, drink one more cup of French Roast, write two stories, rewrite another and go to a meeting. Woo, Friday!

Because I spread my newspaper reading throughout the day, I didn’t see this gem from yesterday’s WSJ until after I’d posted for the day. Besides, as it’s a WSJ story, I don’t even know if many of you can get to it. It’s about a pair of Bernard Madoff’s more unusual victims; I’ll try to clip judiciously and summarize efficiently.

Hed: Couple’s Dreams of Immortality at Death’s Door, Thanks to Madoff / Artists Who Design Homes to Prolong Life Lost Their Life Savings; Undulating Floors

Of all the dreams that were crushed by Mr. Madoff’s crime, perhaps none was more unusual than (Arakawa and Madeline Gins’), of achieving everlasting life through architecture. Mr. Arakawa (he uses only his last name) and Ms. Gins design structures they say can enable inhabitants to “counteract the usual human destiny of having to die.”

The pair’s work, based loosely on a movement known as “transhumanism,” is premised on the idea that people degenerate and die in part because they live in spaces that are too comfortable. The artists’ solution: construct abodes that leave people disoriented, challenged and feeling anything but comfortable.

They build buildings with no doors inside. They place rooms far apart. They put windows near the ceiling or near the floor. Between rooms are sloping, bumpy moonscape-like floors designed to throw occupants off balance. These features, they argue, stimulate the body and mind, thus prolonging life. “You become like a baby,” says Mr. Arakawa.

Yes, what Japanese designers are to fashion, so too are Arakawa (who is himself Japanese) and Gins to architecture — insane. The slideshow of the couple’s work is simply hilarious; the description of “sloping, bumpy, moonscape-like floors” doesn’t really do justice to the real article, which look as though even a crawling baby would have problems negotiating them. The story quotes a curator at the Guggenheim, who says “many of their supporters don’t literally accept the couple’s message on immortality but appreciate it in a ‘metaphorical’ way.”

Well, that’s comforting. And what about the clients?

At least one tenant says he feels a little younger already. Nobutaka Yamaoka, who moved in with his wife and two children about two years ago, says he has lost more than 20 pounds and no longer suffers from hay fever, though he isn’t sure whether it was cured by the loft.

There is no closet, and Mr. Yamaoka can’t buy furniture for the living room or kitchen because the floor is too uneven, but he relishes the lifestyle. “I feel a completely different kind of comfort here,” says the 43-year-old video director. His wife, however, complains that the apartment is too cold. Also, the window to the balcony is near the floor, and she keeps bumping her head against the frame when she crawls out to hang up laundry, he says. (“That’s one of the exercises,” says Ms. Gins.)

Alas, however, this architectural fountain of youth is at risk of drying up, as the couple invested their life savings with Madoff, and you know how that story ends. They’re trying to sell their “seminal work,” a series of 84 eight-foot-high panels, for $17 million, but failing that, their dream of building a “‘reversible destiny’ village with homes and parks that would combine their theories of life into one community,” alas, will, dare I say, die.

Which I can say I appreciate in a metaphorical way.

(Peter’s going to show up to lecture me for being a Philistine any minute now, I’m sure.)

Actually, I’m sorry to see Arakawa and Gins’ work be compromised. When the only people Madoff was stealing from were run-of-the-mill greedheads, you could make an argument for complicity. But when he came for the artists? To quote Bugs Bunny: This means…war!)

As I looked at the slideshow of Arakawa and Gins’ work, I thought about the purposes of the avant-garde, not just in architecture, but elsewhere. Are they cultural stalking horses or just…Bjork? Take Newt Gingrich, embryonic Catholic. I vote, in this case, for “just an asshole.”

The morning is slipping away and I have a 39-page bolus of copy to plow through, part of a new project I’m working on, which I’ll tell you about in due time. (It’s not a book.) There will also be some minor housekeeping announcements here and there, but nothing that will change your NN.C experience, except in the sense that I’ll be spread even thinner and more easily distracted. However, I’ve learned over time that when that happens, it’s rarely the blog that suffers, mainly because I have so many supporters who keep me at it. Take, for example, my webmaster J.C., who sent an e-mail yesterday announcing he’d been messing around with “SQL queries, and had identified the times I’ve duplicated headlines for a post, followed by a damn list:

(Groan.) (2 times.)
A day away. (2 times.)
Can’t talk now… (2 times.)
Cancel my subscription. (2 times.)
Caught up. (2 times.)
Discuss. (2 times.)
Dry. (2 times.)
Excuses, excuses. (2 times.)
Following up. (2 times.)
For your consideration. (3 times.)
Good news, bad news. (2 times.)
Grr. (2 times.)
Happy Halloween. (2 times.)
Happy new year. (2 times.)
Homework. (2 times.)
I ask you. (2 times.)
It’s a tough town. (6 times.)
Link salad. (2 times.)
Memento mori. (2 times.)
Monday, Monday. (2 times.)
Moving on. (2 times.)
My back pages. (2 times.)
No comment. (4 times.)
Ouch. (2 times.)
P.S. (2 times.)
Proud to be an American. (2 times.)
Recommended. (2 times.)
Ripped from the headlines. (2 times.)
Saturday morning market. (3 times.)
Sigh. (2 times.)
Snicker. (2 times.)
State fair. (2 times.)
Teevee. (2 times.)
The tyranny of choice. (3 times.)
Thinner. (2 times.)
Tids & bits (2 times.)
Tuesday night pie. (2 times.)
Update. (2 times.)
What’s it worth to you? (2 times.)
Wrong number. (2 times.)
Yawn. (2 times.)

This is sort of comforting, because I thought it would have been more. “It’s a tough town” is actually an old Knight Ridder joke, so obscure I don’t dare detail it here. But now you know.

A few weeks ago I got an e-mail from the folks at Pom Wonderful, the super-expensive fruit juice in the Mae West bottle. Apparently they trawl the web looking for food bloggers, and the souffle post came up in the net. They asked if they could send me a free case. I didn’t reply. But I did Google the woman’s name on the e-mail, to see what turned up, and what ho, there were several blog posts that ran something like this: “The Pom Wonderful arrived today! It sure is delicious! Yum yum! Thanks, Pom Wonderful!”

Welcome to the future of journalism. Which is a lot like the past, only maybe with a bit more transparency.

Here’s how the 20th century Journalism Ethics 101 class would analyze my offer from Pom Wonderful: Turn it down. I’m not a food blogger, and even if I were, if I wanted to write about pomegranate juice, I should buy my own. That way, my opinions are not influenced by the fact they sent me a case free of charge — about $22 for an eight-pack of eight-ounce bottles.

In reality, it doesn’t work like that, mainly because companies don’t ask first. If I had an office with a publicly listed address, I’m sure they would have just sent it with a press release, and once it’s in the office, it’s too much trouble to send back. Every newsroom in America gets piles of freebies, most of slight value, sent in the hopes the product might turn up, by name, in a story down the road. Among the things in my own house that I didn’t pay for: An apron with the “Hell’s Kitchen” logo on it, a blue bowl and a single spoon (part of a cereal promotion), T-shirts galore, an airline-size bottle of Chivas Regal, books, bookazines, oh my the list goes on.

Different newsrooms have different distribution policies for this stuff. In Columbus, it all went into a drawer, and when we had enough for everyone in the department to get one or two pieces, we drew lots on a Friday and distributed it amongst ourselves. In Fort Wayne, whoever opened the mail would stand up and say, “Anyone want a bowl and a spoon?” or “Anyone want a banana bread mix?” or “Anyone want a T-shirt?” and if no one said yes, it went into a pile and either found a home later or went into the trash. The other paper held a semiannual sale, and the money went to a good cause, or maybe the newsroom flower fund, I can’t recall. Later, we had an editor who thought that, ethically, she was beyond reproach, and the rule became: All gifts, no matter how small and crappy, must be donated to charity. And so every quarter or so someone would have to drag a box of junk, most of it useless, to the United Way office. Sources say they rarely smiled when they saw us coming, as I doubt there was a pressing need among their client base for giant buttons that played the Purdue fight song.

You may notice something: No one ever opened the bowl-and-spoon box and said, “Wow! Great idea! Let’s do a story on cereal!” or “You know, this banana bread mix is just the thing for the busy homemaker with no time to smash ripe bananas! Get right on it, cub reporter!” It is safe to say we are thoroughly jaded about this crap. (Although mainly that’s a matter of degree. I’ve been on fashion-writer outings where there were drawings for diamond jewelry or designer clothes, and there was no jadedness there, I regret to say.)

I should pause here to note that this applies only to newspapers. Magazines are another breed of cat, particularly fashion magazines, which have a much cozier relationship with their advertisers. We all saw “The Devil Wears Prada.” I’m told the movie oversold the legendary Vogue sample closet, but only in the sense that it implied staffers were free to plunder it at will. They are not.

Anyway, here’s my point, a few hundred words later: Bloggers, some of whom are amateur journalists, are the new recipients of the banana bread mix and pomegranate juice, and some of whom don’t know you’re supposed to disclose how it came into your kitchen, as well as noting that they didn’t give it to you because they like your smiling face. Someone on Facebook noted the other day that the travel-writing game is already filling with professional PR people who have no qualms whatsoever about recommending a resort with crummy food or dirty bathrooms, because hey, they got a free vacation. It’s buyer beware all over again.

That said, there’s a restaurant in Sterling Heights here with a signature drink — the pomegranate martini. God, is it good. I don’t know what they make it with.

Bloggage:

There’s a new resident at Coozledad’s Vegetarian Farm and Petting Zoo, and lordy, is he ever cute. I think his difficulty coming into the world was due to that adorable Disneyesque punkin head of his. Also, watch the YouTube link, just in case you’re called upon to assist a laboring Holstein.

Roy drops in on Brother Dreher, and finds his readers discussing where to move when they abandon Obama’s Amerikkka. Remember all that right-wing jeering about Alec Baldwin’s threat to move to Canada? Yeah, me too.

Oh, and just in case you missed this when Moe posted it in comments over the weekend: Extreme shepherding. Really entertaining video.

Me, I’m off to edit citizen journalism. Because I’m crazy that way.

The pay-per-view choices on Saturday night at our house came down to “Milk” or “Pineapple Express.” I know I’ve been saying I want to see “Milk,” but I was kinda sorta hoping Alan would be lured into the Pineapple camp by the presence of Danny McBride, star of our new favorite HBO comedy, “Eastbound & Down.” Alas, he voted for “Milk,” and so “Milk” it was.

And it wasn’t bad, if you don’t count against it that it prompted a new vow from my corner of the couch: No more biopics, at least not of people whose story I already know. I don’t know how many more two-hour chunks of my life I want to give over to these earnest, medicinal stories squashed into standard three-act structure, perhaps tarted up with a few invented anecdotes or imagined juxtapositions. (Milk, dying, looks poignantly out the window of City Hall at the opera house where he’d seen “Tosca,” another operatic assassination tragedy, only the night before. Oh yeah, I’m down with that.) Or maybe it’s just that it’s difficult to make politics cinematic. All those maps and papers and clipboards. Directors and writers fall back on the most movie-like thing about politics — a man leading a march and/or delivering a speech through a bullhorn before a cheering crowd — until you get sick of the story entirely and start appreciating things like the set design and wardrobe. Loved Emile Hirsch’s glasses — I had my own pair, back in the day. Loved the ringer T-shirts, a look I could never endorse. Loved the 501s and flannel shirts. Loved Josh Brolin, and loved that the script didn’t dwell overmuch on Milk’s theories about Dan White’s closet status. In the end, there’s nothing more dangerous than a failure with a gun.

And as someone whose initial awareness of San Francisco, as a child, was as the center of the hippie movement and the necessity of wearing flowers in one’s hair, it was interesting to see what that replaced, the city’s working-class roots, now thoroughly buried by yuppification. Milk’s voiceover mentioned in passing that the Castro was once an Irish-Catholic neighborhood, and I’m all, really? I had no idea. And perhaps because the political story wasn’t exactly a page-turner, I started thinking about cities like that. White represented the resentful long-time residents being pushed aside by the wave of the future, Harvey’s people, the gay men who colonized a place where they could kiss their lovers on the street and not get their asses kicked for it. I thought of a comment I read on a blog recently, from a religious conservative in San Francisco who feels persecuted because he has four children and another on the way, and, I dunno, people glower at his double stroller, or something.

I thought of the hundreds of places in the U.S. where a person like that might feel right at home, but of course it’s unlikely that person would want to move to Salt Lake City or Fort Wayne or Holland, Mich., because a) it’s not home; and b) there’s a strong possibility he likes feeling persecuted, just like Jesus. I guess what we all want is to feel at home wherever we live, whether we’re there because of corporate vicissitudes, family obligations or choice.

I also thought of the people on the short end of all such gentrification, who wake up one day to find their neighborhood is filling with people radically different from them, who move in and say, “Finally, I have found my true home.” My guess is they’d feel like Palestinians.

And then I reconnected with the thread of the movie, and discovered the Briggs amendment was still keeping Harvey Milk awake at night. Tried not to think, I could be laughing at potheads right about now.

Lance Mannion spent Saturday night being disappointed by another holiday movie release. It was that kind of weekend.

Sigh. I’m thinking about movies to avoid thinking about the economy. I’m trying very hard not to despair. But I am starting to wonder where we’ll be in a year. We’re both working hard — everyone I know is working hard — and you have to believe work leads to something good, but of late I’m starting to consider lighting a match to the whole place and going on welfare somewhere with a sunny climate. Kind of like AIG.

A little bloggage for you to bat around on a Monday? Let’s see what we can do:

I found this via Memeorandum, as I don’t usually read the Sun-Times. Most of you are aware that the big trend in city management these days is to sell off the assets to private concerns. These schemes are easy to sell, because the numbers are so eye-popping and it fits in with the general idea that government can’t do anything right and private business will find new efficiencies. Yes, we’re told, the price may go up in the short term, but service will be hugely improved.

This worked with the Indiana Toll Road. Nine-figure sum to maintain/improve other roads in the state, followed by toll increases. But the plazas were improved, and lanes added, and regular commuters would find the roads easier to use.

But what can you do with a parking meter? How can you improve service at a parking meter? Well, you can’t. Chicago privatized its meters last month; Carol Marin explains:

…A month ago, when the City of Chicago privatized parking meters, rates were immediately jacked way up, and you now have to feed 28 quarters into the meter to park a car in the Loop for two hours. In exchange for a 75-year lease, the city got $1.2 billion to help plug its budget holes.

But by handing over municipal parking meters to a private company, the city has given its citizens a colossal case of sticker shock. The cost of most meters will quadruple by 2013.

Detroit parking meters take plastic, btw. I love it so much I don’t even pay attention to the per-hour cost.

Just for laffs: One of Josh Marshall’s readers finds a small tragedy deep within the Madoff victim statements, submitted by e-mail.

Something I read in the Free Press this morning: The annual exhibit of work by students and staffers at Pewabic Pottery has been attracting metro Detroiters since the ’70s. The just-opened show is loaded with edgy and provocative creations… All in favor of banning the words “edgy” and “provocative,” especially as they describe ceramic, raise your hand.

(You wait. I’ll go to this show, and find a display of dinner plates with giant holes in the middle.)

And so it is Monday, which for me means: Time to study irregular Russian plurals. Dosvidanya.