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Blogcritics Author: Ed Rust
A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously.

• Announcement: Short-content feeds
  Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.
• Periodically Speaking: Family Motor Coaching
  You've seen them on the interstate highways, those big colorful buses with odd window configurations and without company markings. If you glance at the driver, you see he's no harried Ralph Kramden, but a carefree-looking middle-aged guy in a golf shirt. He's probably a reader of Family Motor Coaching, a monthly for people seeking the good life on the road. The publication is put out by the Family Motor Coach Association, an organization based in Cincinnati with 120,000 member families.Those private buses represent the high end of the industry, and their cost can run into the upper six figures. Some of the interiors of those motor coaches are truly spectacular, and in the pages of the magazine you'll find ads for luxury housing developments that feature gigantic carports for the family bus.But the bulk of the membership and readership rides in more modest recreational vehicles. They tend to be retired, they seek warmth in the winter, and they apparently love to congregate together.The tone of the magazine is practical, with articles on vehicle maintenance and recipes that take into account the limited storage and access to cooking ingredients when on the road.A good deal of the March issue of Family Motor Coaching is devoted to the Association's 77th International Convention later that month at the Georgia National Fairgrounds in Perry. With thousands of motor homes converging on Perry, the magazine contains a slew of articles about nearby attractions.The list of companies exhibiting their products and services at the convention provides insight into the concerns of motorhome owners: on-board air conditioning and sanitation systems, RV insurance and financing, hot water heaters, awnings, kitchen appliances, towing systems, low-maintenance travel clothing, massage units, and, of course, RV-friendly resorts and motorhome manufacturers.The issue contains a dozen pages of small-type listings of gatherings of RV enthusiasts around the country over the next few months.There's an interesting column in each issue called "Full-Timer's Primer." A full-timer is someone who has bravely cut off ties to a stationary home and lives only on the road. This month's column warns readers that it's getting harder to register vehicles and make financial transactions if your only address is a post office box. A couple reports that they've found some RV parks where they can work for a few hours a week and get to stay for free.Each issue carries a column by the Association's executive director, Don Eversmann. His March column reports that membership growth has slowed recently, and he attributes it to the dip in the birth rate during World War II. This makes sense, for the average age of members is 62 to 66 years.Eversmann dismisses "one notion that is being circulated," the idea that baby boomers are not joiners of organizations, unlike the "silent generation" that preceded it.Family Motor Coaching is sent to members of the organization. Membership benefits are wide-ranging, and include access to numerous conventions and other gatherings, mail forwarding and group-rate emergency road service and motorhome insurance. Subscriptions are also available to non-members. The magazine is a bit staid and old-fashioned in design, but executive director Eversmann promises "a more modern, lighter format starting in May."Ed Rust runs MagSampler.com, an Internet newsstand of hundreds of magazines on all subjects. MagSampler.com offers sample copies of any of its publications for $2.59 each. Publishers use MagSampler.com to get copies into the hands of potential subscribers.
• Periodically Speaking: The New Republic
  Faced with rising costs of postage and newsstand distribution, a number of publications have decided to cut back on the frequency of issues, relying on their websites for news reports and focusing on “think pieces” for their print versions.The liberal weekly The New Republic has joined this trend. The March 19 issue, with an arresting painting of Barack Obama by Dana Schutz on the cover, is its first biweekly issue. It will publish 24 issues a year, each thicker than in the past, and with a redesign that features better paper stock and more art and photography.The “new” New Republic has retained its sharp wit. You encounter it early on in the “TRB” column, which for many years had no byline. Now it does, and Jonathan Chait sifts accusations by Republican presidential hopefuls that their opponents have changed their positions on issues such as abortion, tax cuts and health care reform as they appeal to red state voters. Chait comments gleefully, “Watching the next year’s worth of flip-flop attacks is going to be like watching hemophiliacs go at one another with chainsaws.”Speaking of blood and Republicans, Michelle Cottle follows with an exploration of the state of mind and body of Vice-President Dick Cheney. She reports that speculation is rampant in Washington that Cheney may be losing his marbles, and segues into an elaborate analysis of how heart and circulation problems — Cheney has had four heart attacks since 1978 — can cause dementia, mood swings and depression.Leaving the Republicans bloodied, bruised, and depressed, we now arrive at the cover story, Ryan Lizza’s account of Barack Obama’s four years as a community organizer in Chicago starting in 1985.Obama had graduated from Columbia University the year before, and answered an ad in The New York Times for a community organizer to work in Chicago’s South Side. The ad was put in the paper by the Calumet Community Religious Conference (CCRC), an activist group heavily influenced by the late and legendary organizer Saul Alinsky that wanted to convert black churches into “agents of social change.”Obama met in New York with Gerald Kellman, a white representative of the CCRC. Lizza writes that “while Obama was in search of an authentic African American experience, Kellman was simply in search of an authentic African American.” The organization had found that its white organizers could make no headway with suspicious black pastors.The heart of the article is an exploration of Saul Alinsky’s philosophy of community organization and how it provided Obama with a postgraduate education in the pursuit and use of power. Two elements in the Alinsky game plan are fundamental: getting power is all-important, and self-interest is the only principle around which to organize people. The organization’s instruction manual advises trainers in block letters: “GET RID OF DO-GOODERS IN YOUR CHURCH AND YOUR ORGANIZATION.”Lizza concludes that Obama, despite his image as a cool-headed, serene appealer for common ground in an age of political polarization, is no babe in the woods, no Jerry Brown or John Kerry. He knows how to play country hardball, and in fact won his first race for the Illinois State Senate by getting the incumbent, a venerable South Side activist named Alice Palmer, ruled off the ballot because of invalid petitions.It’s interesting that Hillary Rodham did an undergraduate thesis on Saul Alinsky’s organizing activities and philosophy. Is Hemophiliacs With Chain Saws to be a double feature next year?Other articles of note in the issue are an eye-opening report on William Buckley’s re-emergence from semi-retirement at the age of 81 as an opponent of the Bush Iraq war policy, and a somewhat overlong examination of exaggeration and perhaps mendacity in the humorous autobiographical musings of David Sedaris, author of several books (Naked, Me Talk Pretty Some Day) and frequent contributor to National Public Radio’s “This American Life.”Ed Rust runs MagSampler.com, an Internet newsstand of hundreds of magazines on all subjects. MagSampler.com offers sample copies of any of its publications for $2.59 each. Publishers use MagSampler.com to get copies into the hands of potential subscribers.