The Rake Magazine

Here is the first sentence of today's Star Tribune editorial on "Aiding Baby Boomers' Search for Meaning": "The nation's supernumerary baby-boomers have reached what's being gently called "the second half of life," but the big generation is still doing what it has done since its diaper days: It's demanding notice and altering the contours of every phase of life it touches."

Yuk.

And not only for the mawkishness. "Supernumerary" means superfluous, not numerous.

Of course, maybe the editorial writer is superannuated, which means "too old to work."

John Ashcroft, the predecessor of Alberto Gonzales and former title holder of “Craziest Attorney General since John Mitchell” has an op-ed piece in today’s NY Times. In it he argues that the telecommunication companies who provided access for the Bush administration’s illegal wiretaps should be held immune from lawsuits.

As he says, “Whatever one feels about the underlying intelligence activities or the legal basis on which they were initially established, it would be unfair and contrary to the interests of the United States to allow litigation that tries to hold private telecommunications companies liable for them.”

I can see his point. Because if the administration can blithely get away with breaking the law, why shouldn’t the companies who helped the do it get away with it too? It wouldn’t be fair to stick them with the blame just because they didn’t listen to their mother when she said, “Well, just because George or Dick or John or Alberto jumps off the bridge, that doesn’t mean you have to jump off the bridge, too.”

It’s easy to see why Ashcroft is advocating the immunity. After all, since leaving the Attorney General’s office, he’s made his living as a consultant—and op-ed writer—for, you guessed it, telecom companies.

But, whatever his motives, I’m going to have to agree with him on this one, although not for the reasons he cites. No, revealing procedures of our intelligence community during the discovery process is not the most dangerous possible outcome of these lawsuits. (I mean, c’mon, do you think the guys who outed Valerie Plame really give a damn about that?) Not granting immunity from lawsuits to the telecoms is far more dangerous than letting the lawsuits proceed for the reason that this suit would inevitably end up in the Supreme Court.

Imagine what would happen there. If you can’t, let me help you. What if the Court decided that it’s alright for people to break black-letter law if the president says so? Because if it came to that, that’s the only logical way to let the telecoms off the legal hook.

And if we had the highest court deciding that it’s okay to break the law, pretty soon we’re gonna be hearing things like “Freedom is Slavery” or “War is Peace” or “Ignorance is Strength.”

It’s not that far fetched. After all, Big Brother is already watching.

I like the rodent.

Gotta love the beautiful turn of phrase in a blog. Jeff Horwich over at MPR got off a good one about MinnPost's staff yesterday in his piece on the pending competition between MinnPost and The Daily Mole. He described them thus: "[the staff list] reads like the manifest of lifeboats from the "Titanic" that appears to be the Twin Cities' newspaper industry."

I can't comment much on MinnPost because I haven't seen anything yet more than the almost daily announcements of how serious they're going to be: "A Thoughtful Approach to the News"?

Well maybe I can comment on that...

The Strib, the Pioneer Press aren't thoughtful? Here's a hint: not everybody jumped overboard. Some brains are still on the boat over there. They're just younger brains who weren't eligible for the buyouts and so have to stay and bail furiously. (Here's another hint: their owners aren't going to sit around and let you steal their online audience without a fight, but that's for another day and another post.)

Steve Perry over at The Mole noticed the "Thoughtful" tagline, too. He put a motto up on The Mole the other day: "A Think-y Talk-y Approach to the News."

The comparison between MinnPost and Daily Mole is spurious, sort of like the difference between what's looking a lot like oatmeal and what is already mindful of spicy Thai food. One will be good for you, if you can choke it down, and the other will be good for you too, and make you happy you ate it, and it goes really well with beer.

The Daily Mole is, of course, out there already being thinky and talky, and Steve tells me that there's a lot more to come. Right now the staff is basically Steve and a weather guy who is a whole lot better than Paul Douglas. He's got a couple of really good posts today: a conversation with Margaret Kelliher and a disection of the Strib's bridge story.

People have asked me what I think the difference between MinnPost and The Mole is going to be. So far, I've been saying that I have no idea--other than I know Perry a lot better (we worked together at City Pages for ten years) and I would never underestimate his ability to come up with provocative and spot on commentary.

But as of yesterday, I've got even a better answer. Here it is.

Did I mention that Perry is also one of the funniest people I know?

If you are reading this, you are at The Rake's new web site. And you are looking at the result of a lot of work by Cristina Córdova, our web editor, Matt Bartel, our web geek, Brad Richter of Codewarp, and Erika Stenrick and Ronan Dowling of Gorton Studios. Kraig Larson of Ciceron did the design heavy lifting. I'd be remiss, too, if I neglected to mention FAMFAMFAM for their creative commons icons.

I won't go into too much detail except to say that writing the Oxford English Dictionary probably was easier than integrating our old inflexible content management system into a new one.

The only thing harder than actually doing it, was thinking of all the things we wanted to do. For that, I'm going to give yet one more prop to Cristina Córdova.

And, of course, a big one to all the talented writers and artists and editors who've contributed their wonderful thoughts to The Rake for almost six years now. (One of the neat features of the new site is the author index. Click on any story byline and see what happens.)

We hope the new format will provide a better experience for you.

We know it's better for us. It will be even better for us when the memory of the birthing pains subsides.

So, tonight we're having a couple of drinks.

Thanks for reading rakemag.com.

Tom Bartel