Postings from October 2002
[Note: Some now-dead links have been removed from archived items.]

WHERE WAS I? Inquiring readers want to know. From Friday through Monday, I was in Minneapolis, where I spoke at a conference of the American Institute of Graphic Arts. You can read a pre-conference interview I did with the AIGA online magazine here.

I got off the plane, got in a cab, and heard the radio news about the plane crash that killed Paul Wellstone and so many others. Needless to say, the local news was completely dominated by the crash and its political aftermath. (The Star Tribune has loads of coverage here if you're interested.) Wellstone was, by all accounts, a nice guy driven by genuine concern for improving people's lives. James Lileks did a masterful job on the nuances of the politics in his Bleat here.

Lileks is right that Wellstone's attackers overreached, but, hearing the news, I got awfully tired of hearing the unexamined claim that his views represented "the little guy," as if ordinary people would really be better off in Wellstone's highly regulated economy. In evaluating policy, if not character, consequences ought to matter at least as much as intentions. [Posted 10/30.]

CATS & DOGS, LIVING TOGETHER: Mickey Kaus praises a column by Robert Kuttner!

In this Boston Globe piece, Kuttner argues that slotting in Frank Lautenberg, 78, and Walter Mondale, 74, demonstrates just how unimaginative and backward-looking today's Democratic party is. The party will, he says, "soon run out of 70-year-old issues and 70-year-old ex-senators. They had better start generating more Wellstones." Of course, Mickey notes that Kuttner's idea of a new issue—national health insurance—dates back to the Truman administration.

Paul Wellstone's freshness had nothing to do with his policy ideas, which were hoary socialist populism. It was his personality that was fresh. "Passionate" is what everybody in Minnesota was calling him. In America's own little piece of Sweden, he delivered politics with "ethnic" emotion.

But Wellstone's ballot successor is, as Kuttner and Kaus agree, anything but fresh. Jesse Ventura's surprise victory in 1998 effectively ended the career of showboating attorney general Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III. In a parallel universe with no Jesse Ventura, HHHIII might have been Dems' logical choice to fill an open Senate seat. [Posted 10/30.]

WHERE WAS I, PART 2: I've been recovering from superduper eye-dilating drugs, administered as part of a pre-LASIK exam. They made it impossible to read or write yesterday. I'll have surgery in January. [Posted 10/30.]

CAPITALISM II: Anyone know anything about this game? [Posted 10/30.]

TEXAS RACE: Mickey Kaus's Democratic sources keep telling him Ron Kirk is gaining ground in the Senate race. That seems plausible to me, though a Kirk victory is still a long shot. Kirk said some really stupid, even offensive, things about attacking Iraq, but that was a while back and it didn't get traction. Republican John Cornyn is a singularly uninspiring candidate. I can't imagine people getting excited to turn out for him, while Kirk gets the advantages of an ethnic base without the disadvantages of a racially charged campaign.

But I can't claim to understand Texas politics. There are yard signs for candidates of both parties all over the place. People seem to care more than you'd think. [Posted 10/30.]

MEMORY VIAGRA: The Scientist devotes its current cover package to research on memory-enhancement drugs. (Registration may be required. I don't remember, no joke.) Inevitably, ethicists worry that people might use them to treat unwanted conditions that aren't exactly "disease."

The ethical implications of enhancers get especially tricky as the diagnoses get fuzzy. For instance, should drugs be used to treat so-called age-associated memory impairment? Steven H. Ferris, executive director of New York University's Silberstein Aging and Dementia Research Center, suggests that, like hypertension or hair loss, normal aging should be targeted for treatment. There's no in-principle reason why the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would not approve such treatments, says Ferris, who was part of a National Institutes of Mental Health panel that addressed the issue in the mid-1980s. The major arguments: a physician cannot treat such a condition because it's not a disease, and; the FDA has regulatory barriers in place for such syndromes, or collections of symptoms that characterize a condition.

An FDA spokeswoman explains that if a product's developer is making a medical claim—regardless if the drug is meant for a healthy person or otherwise—then the developer must submit the drug for the approval process. And, this process is exactly the same as for any other drug development program: namely, the target indication must be properly defined, the target subjects identified and properly evaluated, and the study design appropriate.

Many approved drugs treat symptoms or various conditions; Viagra is a case in point. Though ostensibly for erectile dysfunction, Viagra is used as an enhancer and taken by persons other than the elderly. Labeling, prescribing and marketing become key to identifying the target population—even though such a population might become expanded. The same is possible with cognitive enhancers. "Like everything else, even if the target population in the study is people in their 70s and 80s," says Ferris, "this is a treatment that will be used at the very least starting in the 40s." Caplan also argues that cognitive enhancement, if deemed safe, has a status no different than, for example, private schooling. Perhaps expensive enhancers will create a so-called cognitive divide that separates rich from poor.

What the egalitarians always forget is that we already have a cognitive divide, thanks to the genetic lottery. Most of the people who worry that markets might yield drugs or other treatments to change the distribution of mental gifts are themselves very big winners in that lottery. "Expensive enhancers" are likely to be a lot cheaper than private schooling, and they'll certainly be more widely available than the right parents. [Posted 10/30.]

CITY SLOGANS: DFW isn't the only metro area with bad taste in marketing slogans. In response to Xavier Lewis's tale below, leader Cynthia Froning writes:

Your reader from Wolverhampton reminds me of Baltimore's hilarious choice of slogan, emblazoned on city trucks, park benches, etc.: The city that reads.

The television show Homicide sent that up neatly when they entitled one of their episodes "The City that Bleeds."

Utahan Allen Thorpe recalls one of the dumbest state slogans ever:

Utah used to have the slogan, "A pretty, great state." Of course, the comma was crucial to its meaning and nobody got it. But even if they had, it still was a dumb slogan. They also use "The greatest snow on earth" but had to withstand a lawsuit from Barnum and Bailey.

Some Utahns would favor "Utah, Holier than thou." Most of us would prefer "We aren't Amish."

Alex Bensky of Detroit suggests North Texasan should count our blessings:

It could be worse and even more pointless. The City of Detroit spent $400,000 for a new slogan and came up with: "It's a Great Time in Detroit."

$400,000! Let me spend an afternoon at one of our good local brewpubs and for the price of a few beers I could have come up with something just as good. The city seems to be short of money for such trivialities as maintaining play fields, but it's nice to know we can drop a cool 400 thou on something like this.

The slogan was going to boost tourism but I haven't noticed any huge influx of people lured to spend money here by our slogan.

But Dan Bigelow tops them all with this bad-real-slogan entry:

I've read a lot of suggestions for bad city slogans inspired by your DFW contest, but none, I think, approach the motto of my hometown of Cathlamet, WA—the creepily ambiguous "Cathlamet: A Unique Welcome Awaits You."

And now what you've been waiting for... the last word on DFW slogans (see next item). [Posted 10/23.]

MORE SLOGANS: In deference to readers who missed the original entry deadline, here's another (and the last) batch of DFW slogan ideas. David Bower writes:

I have just tuned in to your site and I am very sorry I missed the DFW Slogan Contest. When I first moved to Dallas (from Chicago) some 22 years ago, a Texas expatriate told me that Dallas was "24 shopping centers in search of a city." She had a worse impression of Houston: close your eyes, she said, and imagine LA with the climate of Calcutta. [There they go again, dissing my favorite city.—vp]

On the subject of slogans, I lived for a year in Manhattan and felt that the perfect slogan would be: "Welcome to NY, where everybody is more important then everybody else."

I have acclimated well and my native Texas wife tells me I should be up for citizenship in just another year or two.

Patrick Hoffman of Wylie, Texas, suggests:

"Heat! It's what's for weather!"
" Dallas: the other white hot heat!"
" Dallas: Large and landlocked!"
" Dallas: uniquely indistinguishable."

Former DFW local Joel Bush, an Austinite by choice, suggests:

Dallas - "Home of the $50k-a-year Millionaire"
Dallas - "It Just Cliques!"
DFW - "If you can't find a job in Austin, we're kinda close."
DFW - "Doubling Franchises Weekly!"
Dallas - "So Depressing Even Despair, Inc. Moved To Austin!"

I should also state that I find it slightly arrogant of Dallas and Fort Worth to claim naming rights for the entire region when in reality there are many other important communities that have their own Taco Bells, Starbucks, Chili's, Blockbusters, and Olive Gardens. They may all look the same, but they do have different names—like Arlington, Irving, Lewisville, Euless, Carrollton, Oak Cliff, Richardson, Plano, Bedford, River Oaks, and Grand Prairie. I think an acronym overhaul is in order. If we want to use the above cities and include Dallas and Fort Worth, how about: FAILEDCORPBRG?

As football fans know, the Texas-Oklahoma rivalry is intense (and the game is good for the DFW economy). My friend John Pinkerton, who lives in the DC area but hails from Tulsa, suggests: "DFW - We're more than just south of OK!" And reader Bob Strauss writes:

Reminds me when I lived in Texas, and thought the license plates should respond to Oklahoma:
" Oklahoma is OK"
with "But Texas is Terrific!"

Unqualified Offerings blogger Jim Henley proposes:

Dallas-Fort Worth: There's no there _here_ either.
Dallas-Fort Worth: When better schoolbooks are made, better schoolbook depositories will deposit them.
Dallas-Fort Worth: No, you don't get a third choice.

You can tell which of better-or-worse slogans I was going for. In truth, I have nothing against the place, having bought my first Alejandro Escovedo CD at a record store in Irving.

Finally, Mark Kleiman appeals to what is, in my experience, truly best and worst about DFW (in both senses of DFW): "Centrally located, equidistant from anywhere you want to be." Except for the wacko TV schedule, the Central time zone is a pleasure—no more living three hours behind the East Coast—and it's a joy to be able to fly to New York and Washington without spending a whole day on the plane. But I wouldn't want to try walking to UCLA. [Posted 10/23.]

AMERICAN APATHY? Reader Dave Roberts writes in response to my Bali postings below:

My brother and sister live in Adelaide (since 1970) and lost several football friends in the blasts. I spent a couple of months at Kuta beach as far back as 1970 as well, so I know the area and the people very well. My sister was visiting me in California the week of the explosions and she was astonished at the apparent lack of concern in the news media. I'm actually glad she went back to South Australia since she would have been even more dismayed by the further diminishment of coverage due to the sniper incident. I'm sure you're right about the lack of foreign reporters being important, but I think your letter writer hit the nail on the head. We frankly don't much give a damn about anything but ourselves. It's not a pretty picture, particularly when this specific issue has been thrown out as a problem in our dealings in the past. Whether it's nation building in Afghanistan or caring for our allies, the best face of America is not being shown to the world. I don't blame the average citizen. They are just being woefully misinformed by the CNNs, Fox'es, etc. Too much sniper, not enough world. I'm not holding my breath that things will change.

What's particularly striking to me about the lack of coverage of the Bali bombing is that it's the sort of story that could get good ratings: lots of human drama, an American angle (the war on terror), largely English speaking victims from an advanced industrial country Americans identify with. This isn't esoteric stuff of the "dull but important" sort news organizations pat themselves on the back for covering. Oprah's audience would be interested. But first they'd have to know what happened. [Posted 10/23.]

MEMORIAL SERVICE: Reader Rich Norris writes to alert DC-area readers to a memorial service for the victims of the Bali bombing:

I couldn't agree more with your call for more attention and sympathy to the suffering of Australia as a result of the Bali bombing. In that regard, I hope you might make known to your Washington area readers a memorial service being held at the National Cathedral tomorrow (Thursday the 24th). It's open to the public, and it would be a great show of solidarity with our excellent friends the Australians if a huge crowd showed up. Here's the announcement from the Aussie embassy:

A Memorial Service for the Australian community and friends to honour the large number of Australians who lost their lives in the October 12 bombing attacks will be held at 11.00am on Thursday 24 October 2002 at the Washington National Cathedral, Massachusetts and Wisconsin Avenues NW, Washington, DC. The event is open to all.

I hope you might make that known.

If you're in the Washington area, please try to attend. [Posted 10/23.]

BALI, CONT'D: Reader Joseph Britt writes:

I see Howard Kurtz picked up your comment on the Kuta Beach bombing. Because I used to live in the Washington area I'm sensitive to the sniper story, but I do wish the major media outlets had more of a sense of proportion. One of their major problems is that they have many fewer foreign correspondents than they did decades ago. I don't think many people at the New York Times or CBS could tell you where Bali is in relation to Australia without looking at a map. Because of the time I've spent in both Australia and Bali I'm a little touchy about the obvious things our media missed about this.

You only have to read the stories in the Australian press to understand what an impact this disaster has made in that country. In fairness, though after the bombing ABC News led with coverage of the sniper it actually devoted more time to the Kuta Beach story. But though this coverage was timely it missed a key point, reporting that 20-odd people ("mostly foreigners") had been killed with a much larger number of people reported as missing. In fact, the nature of the explosion and fire meant that almost all the missing and many others not registered as such were dead, and the profile of the "foreigners" who travel to that part of Bali meant that the vast majority of the dead were Australians. Another part of the story—that unlike New York on 9/11 this attack left many wounded, most with severe burns—was missed too.

It all reminds me of the Nairobi bombing four years ago, which was a story briefly here because only a dozen or so Americans died. Kenya, though, was devastated, with close to 200 dead. One would think that a similar disaster striking a country with which we have as much in common as we do with Australia, and after 9/11, would make more of an impression on the people who write for our newspapers and produce our television news programs. The fact that it doesn't cannot but leave an unfavorable impression overseas at a time when we need all the friends we can get.

The following letter appeared in Sunday's Dallas Morning News, which inexplicably doesn't seem to have it on the website:

Our family has recently moved from Australia to live in Dallas for a three-year period and have been overwhelmed by the warmth of the welcome that we have received in our neighborhood and local school community.

Unfortunately, on a more general level, we are suddenly feeling puzzled, sad and angry about America's attitude to Australia.

Australia is one of America's strongest and longest-standing political allies, Australia having fought alongside America in World War II and supported American actions in Korea, Vietnam (regrettably) and in the Gulf War. Our nation shed many tears with and for America in its grief and outrage over last year's tragic events on Sept. 11 and our country has been one of America's most vocal supporters in its "war against terrorism." And culturally, the United States and Australia share much and have a rich exchange in film, music, the arts, science and academia.

We are therefore very hurt and fail to understand the indifference of America's media and politicians to the current suffering of our people. Nearly 200 innocent young Australians have lost their lives in the terrorist bombing in Bali and hardly a word of sympathy or empathy for these people and their families has been expressed in the media over here. Rather, news reports have referred to the dead as "foreigners, mostly Australians" and focused on the two Americans killed, the political implications for Indonesia and debated the potential impact on American economic interests. Many commentators in Australia and the United Kingdom (whose coverage of the events has been in stark contrast to the unemotional reportage here) have expressed the view that the bombing was a deliberate attack on Australia to punish us for our vocal support for the United States in its "war on terror" and its potential action against Iraq. This issue, and the wider context of Australia's relationship with America, has also been completely ignored here.

If this is the level of public support that is offered to such long-standing international friends and allies who share with your country a common language and culture, it is little wonder that people from different cultures to yours feel alienated and misunderstood by the self-absorption and cultural imperialism of the United States.

Sue Hurley, Dallas

The media—especially television news—really screwed up on this one. They've deprived their audiences of important information (and gripping human stories), and they've made the whole country look indifferent. There are exceptions, of course. The NYT has done its usual newspaper-of-record thing. And, as reader Joshua Munn notes, The Washington Post did put this moving account on its front page last week. If the Post, whose readers live right in the middle of sniper country, can manage to convey the impact of the bombing, surely the 24/7 news shows could have given it a trifle more attention. [Posted 10/21.]

TRUDEAU VS. BLOGS: In an email with the subject line "Media Snob Alert," reader Michael Gushulak sends this link to what "looks like the first of at least a week of strips on Garry Trudeau's judgment of blogs. [Posted 10/21.]

"ZEAL FOR JESUS": Here's a headline you won't see in an coastal newspaper, "A Zeal for Jesus Fills Youngest Generation". The feature ran across the top of the Sunday Dallas Morning News front page, as part of the week's wall-to-wall coverage of Billy Graham's Crusade here. (His decades-old term for his revivals wouldn't go over well in the Muslim world.) I've never approved of news accounts that referred to Graham as the "Protestant Pope," which is a contradiction in terms and suggests that Graham's appeal lies in authority. But his visit to Dallas did take on a certain papal quality, attracting huge and enthusiastic crowds despite torrential rains.

A lot of reporters would understand American culture better if they read the DMN's religion coverage, which treats religion as a normal part of human affairs, like business, sports, fashion, or politics. The oddities, controversies, and scandals occur in a larger context; they don't define the entire endeavor. Covering American religion as it really exists means quoting sources whose assumptions strike nonbelievers as weird, but the alternative—pretending America is a secular country (or a Catholic one, another media illusion)—is simply inaccurate. [Posted 10/21.]

SLOGANS: My friend Xavier Lewis, who lives in Brussels but hails from England, writes:

Thanks for your - and your other readers' - posts on slogans for Dallas. You provided a great deal of amusement.

I was reminded of the pathetic attempts of Wolverhampton, my home town in England to give itself an exciting brand or stimulating slogan. Because the town had been famous for its manufacturing industry (e.g. Sunbeam and Norton Villiers motorcycles), it tried "Workshop to the world". When unemployment rose to something like 20%, that didn't seem so cool. What was left was its geography. So, "The Heartland of Britain" was tried. But references to the heart attracted the wags. I recall one billboard which carried the slogan "The Heartland of Britain" but sprayed underneath was "Waiting for a transplant" and another which had written underneath "It needs a by-pass".

It seems that slogans have now been abandoned.

I know I promised more DFW slogans over the weekend, but I'm still sorting through them. I'll get more posted tonight. [Posted 10/21.]

TEXAS POLL: Contrary to the hopes of both Democrats and horserace-politics fans, the latest DMN poll shows that Republican candidates have established comfortable leads. [Posted 10/21.]

SITE REDESIGN: Now that I've got the cool, but not yet public, design for the Look and Feel book jacket, I can start thinking seriously about a redesign of this site—which means I'm looking for would-be designers. I've already gotten several proposals, but if you're interested please send me an email with some background. In case you're wondering, I do expect to pay for these services. [Posted 10/18.]

MORE SLOGANS: Since my DFW slogans post below elicited another batch of entries, I'll post another list over the weekend. This is your last chance to get your ideas in. [Posted 10/18.]

NIKE SPEECH, CONT'D: I should have known that Walter Olson's Overlawyered.com would have covered that ridiculous Nike speech case. But I didn't, and he was kind enough to send the links (which include a link to a .pdf file of the court ruling): February and May. [Posted 10/18.]

NAMING BUREAUCRACY: Dan Pink, the new father of Saul Lerner Pink (congratulations!), devotes today's "Just One Thing" post to the District of Columbia's unbelievably bossy regulations of babies' last names. The regs offer depressing/offensive aspects for libertarians, conservatives, and liberals alike—which raises the interesting political economy question of how they got established in the first place. [Posted 10/18.]

VOLOKH SPEAKS: In response to the item below, Eugene Volokh writes that he's way ahead of me (and USA Today) on the Nike speech case: "We actually had a short item on Kasky v. Nike right after the Cal. Sup. Ct. decision....Hardly definitive by any means, but I think it lays out the issue in what I hope is an interesting light." [Posted 10/17.]

BALI BOMBING: In response to the item below, Sean Kinsell writes from Japan:

"The Bali bombing, by contrast, is both a horrible tragedy and a huge international story, with major implications for the war on terrorism. This attack, like 9/11, was brutal, indiscriminate, and aimed at our culture and civilization. And on the other side of the world, it has had similar emotional effects."

Damned straight, it has. CNN Asia covered it very thoroughly last weekend, when there were only sporadic updates and the death toll was steadily climbing from "about 140 people, some of whom may have been foreigners" to what we now know. I can't claim to know a representative sample of Westerners in the Pacific Rim, but even among the diehard (as it were) pacifists I encounter frequently, the reaction is very charged. The WTC represented capitalism. That meant that even though in reality it gave jobs to thousands of poor immigrants, both the left and the right who think the money economy evil could see it as an attack on a particular aspect of our civilization that they dislike. And of course, the Pentagon is central command for the Military-Industrial Complex.

But Bali to a lot of people still represents an art-centered, peaceful paradise in the middle of contentious Indonesia. It's where backpacker types averse to the money culture can indulge their soulful side while providing a living for the nice natives. And it definitely isn't the place to go looking for victims if your issues are specifically with America. Japan's equivalent to the distracting sniper story is the bitterly hilarious ineptitude with which the kidnappings by North Korea have been handled, but people who travel frequently in Southeast Asia are rattled.

On Reason Online, Sara Rimensnyder has some good, depressing reflections on what the Bali bombing says about Islamic terrorism. And on Shoutin' Across the Pacific (a.k.a. "Charles Oliver's blog," even though it's really a three-man operation), Ron Campbell reports from Japan on the latest twists in the truly horrifying North Korea kidnapping story: Five of the surviving abductees have been allowed to return to Japan, but North Korea is holding their kids hostage to make sure they come back. And sophisticated types thought Bush was primitive to call North Korea "evil." [Posted 10/17.]

SNIPER COVERAGE: If you haven't overdosed on sniper coverage, or just would like to see something you haven't heard 64 times already, check out Jim Henley's Unqualified Offerings. [Posted 10/17.]

DALLAS SLOGANS: And now, what you've all been waiting for...the results of our alternative DFW slogan contest. You're a creative bunch, certainly more capable than the folks who decided to plug our metro area with the catchy slogan: DFW - The Where, With All."

Unlike the locals who submitted slogans here, you're also not exactly Dallas boosters—though reader Michael Bissell (not a local) did submit a couple of serious ideas: "DFW - Opportunities are Many, Taxes are Few" (judging from the bill that arrived today, that's not true of property taxes) and "Dallas - Fort Worth, Your Money's Worth."

Quite a few people made the obvious comparison. Julia Hayden suggests, "DFW: Not nearly as vulgar as Houston," while Jeff Taylor goes for my favorite angle: "Less Humid Than Houston"

Gavin Lemieux hits all the highlights:

"Dallas/Fort Worth: Oh well, we could be Houston"
" Dallas/Fort Worth: JFK would have killed to live here"
" Dallas/Fort Worth: Don't worry, Jerry Jones doesn't run the city"

And Joseph Britt wants "truth in advertising," suggesting "Dallas: It's Hot." Or "Dallas: It's Very Hot." Or "Dallas: It's Very Hot, But Has Air Conditioning in Most Buildings."

A few people reached outside Texas for comparisons. Steven Ehrbar suggested, "DFW: Detroit Charm, Washington Efficiency, LA Community." (Hey, I have a lot of friends in L.A.!—vp)

Blogger Shiloh Bucher suggests "DFW—It's Bigger than Manhattan, Yet With Worse Public Transport!" She also notes that another city already has the best bad slogan: "They could always steal Midland's bad slogan, 'Midland, In the Middle of Somewhere!' They're not fooling anyone there."

Echoing Shiloh, Houstonian Raymund Eich writes, "It's a shame Midland/Odessa, TX, have already claimed 'In the Middle of Somewhere' as their slogan, or that would be a worthy nominee for bad slogan. Instead, I'll suggest 'DFW: The 'plex is in Texas.'"

Almost as bad (or good) is Donald Rintala's understated idea: "Dallas-Ft. Worth—for what it's worth."

Noting that cities don't need slogans, Tim Virkkala went for "terrible" ones:

"We Like It - for what it's worth"
"More than a dream, a nightmare"
"As Wholesome as Mother's Milk"
"Surprisingly Civilized" [That one could catch on.--vp]
"When One City Just Isn't Enough"
"More Than Enough of Texas"
...and then I decided to not send you the truly awful ideas!

Jesse Walker, a sometime Texan, suggests:

"Just 180 miles from Abilene."
" We've got Fort Worth, too!"
" Dallas: It's not just a soap opera anymore."

And then there's my favorite letter:

Virginia,

I always thought "DFW" sounded more like some bizarre amalgam of the DAR and VFW—"Daughters of Foreign Wars". The youngest members would be primarily American-Vietnamese, but the older ones would be American-French and American-German, making for an interesting dynamic at their meetings...

Possible slogans:

"Welcome to DFW - Gateway to Arlington"
" The Twin Cities - Texas Style!"
" DFW - Where Bugs Eat Bats"
" DFW - Two Cities For The Price Of One"
" Dallas - City of Concrete"
" Fort Worth - We're Not Dallas"
" DFW - It's A Dry Heat"
" Welcome to Downtown Dallas/Fort Worth" - scratch that, neither has a downtown...
" Work in Dallas, Play in Fort Worth, Live in Plano"
" Come Back To Dallas - Larry Hagman's Gone"
" DFW - The Real Texas" - wait, that one's not snide! Scratch it...
> grin<

My uncle used to live there in the 80s-90s and I spent quite a bit of time down there, but I've not been back in 8-9 years. I enjoyed the area quite a bit, but the downtown was just BARREN... not as bad as downtown Atlanta (what a pit), but close.

—Brian "Loyal reader" Erst

Finally, a number of readers, including a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, sent in responses that illustrated the biggest problem of branding DFW: Everybody knows DFW isn't a city. It's a big, inconvenient, annoying airport.

That may or may not be what my frequent correspondent "Gene 6-Pack" was getting at with his slogan: "DFW - Ain't Dallas, Ain't Fort Worth." But it's definitely what blogger Alan Henderson meant when he hit one of my pet peeves in his response:

I looked at the reader suggestions linked in the KXAS news report on the DFW Airport marketing slogan and was stunned to find that they were all upbeat. You are probably familiar with the Wright Amendment, the Berlin Wall that prevents municipal airports—like Dallas Love Field—from competing with international airports for direct flights to nonadjacent states (and, of course, foreign destinations).

In a conversation with fellow blogger Jay Manifold, I once referred to then-CEO of American Airlines Robert Crandall, a man who fought vehemently against plans to allow Love-based Southwest Airlines to offer direct flights to Cleveland (I don't remember how that eventually turned out) as "Dr. Loveless." In that spirit I offer this slogan:

"Give up on Love: Fly DFW"

Dilan Esper, who'd never call his area LAX, suggests: "DFW: Equally inconvenient to both Dallas and Fort Worth"? or "DFW: There sure ain't any Love here".

Virginia—
As one who has attempted to change planes there WAY too often (defined as "more than once") I think the slogan should be:

"DFW — A great place to SLOGAN CANCELED SEE AGENT"

Best,
Dave Barry

I'd say Dallas/Fort Worth/DFW has a p.r. problem. But you'll never read about it in The Dallas Morning News--unless, of course, they can come up with a downtown real estate subsidy to solve it. [Posted 10/16.]

BALI BLACKOUT: If you're an American who gets most of your news from television, you probably think of the bombing in Bali in the same category as an earthquake in Armenia—a tragedy with no effect on your life. After all, if it were important to Americans, wouldn't the TV news play it up more? Instead, we've been getting 24-7 sniper coverage (including about five minutes worth of new information in every four or five hours), with occasional nods to the importance of Cuba and the oh-so-surprising results of the Iraqi elections. And while the newspapers and magazines have done a better job, they're still sniper obsessed.

The sniper story is legitimate, of course. It's scary, it's a mystery, and it's close to home, especially for the Washington-based press corps. But it doesn't deserve wall-to-wall coverage, especially when there's nothing new and intelligent to say. The Bali bombing, by contrast, is both a horrible tragedy and a huge international story, with major implications for the war on terrorism. This attack, like 9/11, was brutal, indiscriminate, and aimed at our culture and civilization. And on the other side of the world, it has had similar emotional effects.

In case you're one of the surprisingly many people I know who don't read Instapundit every few hours, be sure to take a look there and also at the sites of Aussie bloggers Tim Blair (Bali info central, with lots of links) and Jason Soon. Here's a post from Tim:

AT KEN LAYNE'S wedding last year, in Mexico, a bunch of guests spoke of the moment when the shock and rage over September 11 gave way to tears. Matt Welch, I think, dealt with almost a whole week of anger before a particular song on the radio prompted something, and he wept. Others mentioned certain obituaries, or wrenching stories of children losing parents, or the couple who leapt from the World Trade Center hand-in-hand.

I don't cry. A lot of Australian men don't. I get through funerals without crying. I've sat beside beloved relatives as they've died in hospital, and I've coped. Or not coped, I guess, depending on your theories about crying.

So I'm watching the news at 5pm and suddenly, out of nowhere, start crying.

A reporter had gone to the airport to cover the arrival of survivors from Bali, and stumbled upon another story. A girl was walking around the airport with a photograph of her older brother. She'd been there for hours. She was walking up to every passenger getting off planes from Bali, and was asking if they'd seen him.

"This is my brother," she said, in an unwavering voice that was somehow also shot through with grief, and fear. And love. She held up another picture: "This is his friend. Have you seen them? They were together."

Nobody had. Nobody could help her. Her little voice was the saddest sound I've ever heard.

Just typing that, I'm crying again.

Hey big media, cover the damn story! It's relevant, it's heart-rending, and it deserves more attention. Not everyone spends hours a day reading blogs. Besides, all that sniper coverage only encourages more shooting. [Posted 10/16.]

BACK STORY: David Warsh has a terrific column on the growth of experimental economics. (Via Lynne Kiesling.) I used to enjoy David's Boston Globe columns but didn't know he'd moved online until I saw him at the ISNIE conference. If you're interested in economics, bookmark his site. [Posted 10/16.]

SHUT UP SUIT: This USA Today article was news to me. The California Supreme Court has declared war on free speech. Here's the nub of the story:

After the criticism of Nike reached a crescendo in 1996, Nike began to fight back with a series of news releases, advertisements and even letters to newspapers. Chief Executive Phil Knight defended the wages paid at his factories and pointed to a positive report prepared by former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young. Far from exploiting workers, Knight argued, Nike was providing a path out of poverty for depressed Third World economies.

Nike's public-relations campaign rankled a California community activist, Marc Kasky, who filed a complaint under a California law that prohibits false and misleading advertising—a law designed to punish used-car salesmen who pitch clunkers as dreamboats, or manufacturers who bill foreign-made goods as "made in the USA." Violations of the law can be punished by forcing companies to "disgorge" their profits and correct their misstatements. Even though Nike was offering its side of the story in an important public-policy debate, Kasky argued that Nike was doing nothing more than selling sneakers—and in a misleading way.

Astonishingly, the California Supreme Court agreed.

Nike has appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme court. (This story is via Google News, which I highly recommend as both a news site and a search engine for recent news stories.)

I eagerly await the Volokh Conspiracy's comments on the case. [Posted 10/16.]

BOOK NEWS: This time the book is really, really done (well, except for a couple of small TKs in the end notes). I sent the whole thing in this morning. It even has a title and subtitle: Look and Feel: How Style Became Substance. My editor says there's a cool cover in the works.

Thanks to everyone who's cheered me on or sent in ideas, answers to questions, virtual clippings, etc. You've been a huge help.

I'll be speaking at a conference of the American Institute for Graphic Arts next weekend, which means I'm working on a PowerPoint slide show that won't turn graphic designers' stomachs. (You should see the great presentations they do at this conference, which I attended last year as research for the book.) You can read an interview I gave to the AIGA magazine, GAIN, here.

Blogging will resume tonight. Among other topics, I'll be posting your ideas for better DFW slogans. I'm still accepting entries. [Posted 10/16.]

DFW SLOGANS: In response to the challenge below, reader Kirk Parker writes: "I, too, think the new slogan is about as lame as they come. So where's the challenge in thinking up a better one? If you want to give your readers a real challange, how about a contest to come up with a worse one?" Either way, send in your favorites. [Posted 10/11.]

MORE ON VERNON SMITH: Lynne Kiesling looked at the implications of experimental economics in yesterday's WSJ. Her article is available to non-WSJ.com subscribers here. On her site, she has more about how experimental economics can inform electricity markets. [Posted 10/11.]

LENS OF CONTRACT: My latest NYT column looks at the New Institutional Economics, which, among other approaches, applies the "lens of contract" to economic phenomena. Unfortunately, the headline is deeply misleading. The point isn't to denigrate contract law, which is one of the great inventions of our civilization. It's to look at how that contract law developed out of other, less-efficient institutions and also to suggest that one way to understand how contracts work is to look at cases where they have problems. [Posted 10/10.]

EXPERIMENTAL ECON: Reason interviews Vernon Smith, who just won the Nobel prize in economics for his pioneering work in experimental economics, here.

The Journal and Courier, published in West Lafayette, Indiana, looks at Smith's years at Purdue here. The story's local angle has a "one who got away" feeling, but it's not nearly as bad as Arizona Daily Star report, which starts, "'Brain drain' cost the University of Arizona a Nobel Wednesday" and explores the public university's persistent problems in keeping good faculty, including researchers much younger than Smith. [Posted 10/10.]

SLOGANEERING: Cities in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area have decided they need a good slogan to build the DFW brand and attract businesses. They've chosen "DFW - The Where, With All," which is the lamest "brand" I've ever seen. A local news report asks, "Can you write a better one?" Send your suggestions and I'll post the best and/or most entertaining. [Posted 10/10.]

SNIPER HUNT: Unqualified Offerings has a good roundup of sniper coverage, along with personal observations about the effect of the attacks on his young son. I don't tend to think these attacks are "terrorism," if that's a synonym for Islamacist violence, but they're certainly terrifying a lot of people. UO is also by far the best place to read honest, coherent arguments against an attack on Iraq. [Posted 10/9.]

BIOTECH DEBATE: Wednesday evening, philosopher bloggers Will Wilkinson and Julian Sanchez will debate genetic engineering with Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review, and Justin Torres of the America's Future Foundation's Doublethink magazine at the Fund for American Studies in DC. The particulars are:

Where:
Fund for American Studies
1706 New Hampshire Ave. NW
Washington, DC
(Metro: DuPont Circle, North Exit, right from elevator down Q St, left on NH, I think)
When:
Wednesday, October 9th
7:00 drinks
7:30 dinner and discussion
RSVP to matthew@americasfuture.org<

Will has more information on his blog. (Read down the page, not just the first item.) It should be a good discussion. Too bad I'm leaving Washington (and this lousy dial-up Internet service) just as it starts.

By the way, what were they thinking when they would named that magazine Doublethink? [Posted 10/8.]

PLAIN SPEAKING: As predicted, Bush's Monday night speech didn't contain new information—at least not for viewers who've been playing close attention to the issues. But the speech was aimed not at policy wonks but at the general public.

In laying out his case, the president once again demonstrated that he's found his voice. He's great at calmly walking people through the facts and arguments that shape his decisions. Bush may not be any good at soaring rhetoric and he may get tongue-tangled when spontaneously answering questions, but his ability to educate and explain—always treating the audience as his intellectual equal—is, right now, a more important talent. [Posted 10/8.]

CALVINBALL CONT'D: The legal fight is over, but New Jersey's experiment in Calvinball election rules continues to inspire cynicism. Eugene Volokh and Mark Kleiman have followed the story's twists. The preference for Calvinball knows no party.

On a more cheerful note, Alan Henderson imagines how Calvinball might produce genuinely popular candidates. [Posted 10/8.]

MINSTREL ANN: Reason's Sara Rimensnyder has taken a lot of flack for her on-target article about Ann Coulter. Coulter has a lot of conservative fans who can't imagine why anyone would criticize their girl, even tongue-in-cheek. Some find her entertaining, but others foolishly believe she's bravely challenging their adversaries.

To the contrary, she's giving her opponents exactly what they want: a shrill, silly conservative who's careless with the facts and telegenic to boot. By focusing on her, they get to feel superior and smear everyone to the right of the NYT editorial page. In exchange, Coulter gets oodles of free publicity and the sales it brings. Not a bad racket. Coulter's act is, as a (male, non-pundit) friend of mine recently observed, rather like the minstrelry in Spike Lee's Bamboozled. The performer is rewarded handsomely for confirming a negative stereotype.

My favorite Ann Coulter moment was a fairly trivial one. Flipping channels, I came across her plugging her book on Judith Regan's Fox News Channel show. "You say liberals want to turn women into men," said Regan. "What do you mean?" Coulter replied with an example: the movie G.I. Jane. "I haven't seen it," she practically boasted. But she's read about it. If, of course, she'd seen the film (maybe by taking the trouble to rent it as research), she'd have known its villain was a liberal feminist senator who callously used a dedicated, honorable servicewoman for her crass political purposes.

G.I. Jane says more about Ridley Scott's admiration for bellicose women than it does about "liberals." For a more complex analysis of both the film and the issues, see my Reason editorial here. [Posted 10/8.]

ARCHITECTURE AND MEANING: The great Chuck Freund skewers Leon Wieseltier's claim that a memorial on the World Trade Center site would capitulate to "the rampant teleology of materialism." I won't summarize Chuck's short and convincing argument, because you should read it yourself. Plus he's got lots of links. [Posted 10/3.]

GENUINE ELECTION? If they're so worried about giving the voters "the choice they deserve," where were the New Jersey Supreme Court and the NYT in 1984, when my ballot offered the choice (I am not making this up) between Tip O'Neill and a Communist? [Posted 10/3.]

CALVIN BALL: Unlike Eugene Volokh and his esteemed colleagues, I don't know much about election law. But that wouldn't matter in New Jersey. There is no election law. They run politics like Calvin Ball. A person could become cynical. [Posted 10/3.]

SELECTIVE READING: It's bad enough that Slate has never deemed Reason worthy of inclusion in its "In Other Magazines" feature, an omission that (like countless other media slights) used to piss me off when I was Reason's editor. But I know all too well that editing means selection, which means leaving stuff out and, yes, pissing people off.

But how do we explain Slate's sudden inclusion of Pat Buchanan's American Conservative on its oh-so-exclusive list? AmCon doesn't lack for publicity, and its articles are hardly the sort of thing that would appeal to Slate's core audience. The American Conservative's debut might deserve a critical article, but "In These Magazines" is pure publicity, just a summary of what's in magazines. Which raises a question I've long wondered about: What is the point of "In Other Magazines" anyway? It tells mostly tells readers about things they'd see anyway, as if I were running summaries of InstaPundit. If you want to know about good articles you might otherwise miss, you've got to check out Arts & Letters Daily or, of course, youre favorite blogs. [Posted 10/3.]

THE RICE DOCTRINE: In an article addressed to the Financial Times's spooked European readers, Walter Russell Mead makes an interesting case that the Bush administration's foreign policy is consistent, predictable (Condi Rice wrote it up in 2000), and not fundamentally new in American statecraft. To the contrary, it's "a traditional and conservative foreign policy - very much in the mainstream of US thinking throughout the 20th century." Read the piece. (Via John Ellis.) [Posted 10/3.]