I admit

I admit it: I prefer listening to KUT than to the Maine Public Broadcasting Network, not for the NPR/news/talk stuff, but because the music is way, way better. Classical music rules the airwaves here.

I also admit that of the two local papers I check every day online, I check the Statesman before the Portland Press Herald. Why? Probably because the Press Herald is a little duller, a little more obvious. Also because the Statesman feeds me such a regular diet of death, traffic accidents, crime, and weather reports that I need the Press Herald's soothing balm.

Private Use of Public Land

This is a good step: making all private businesses, including fitness trainers, to pay to use the parks. Yet it's a sign of how much our sense of the commons have eroded to read comments like this:

"Where did the taxes go that I am already paying for parkland? They should go towards using parks however I'd like, whether it's for flying kites or walking dogs or doing push-ups," said Michelle Persica, a personal trainer with 20 years of experience who sometimes holds classes in Pease Park.

Well, Michelle Persica, if I can come join your class in Pease Park whenever I like, and for no charge, then I guess I'd be happy to let you count your taxes toward a private use fee. Oh...I can't? I have to sign up ahead of time...and pay? Then I guess you're exploiting the commons, aren't you? I guess you're using my contributions to the parklands for your own personal gain.

My friend Roger calls this the "free rider" syndrome, and the free riders "Snopes" (after the family in Faulkner's novels of rising working class Southern whites who "were more interested in avaricious commercial gain than honor or pride" (well put from here)). He describes the phenomenon more:

The Snopes hate the Hoover thing – hate the idea of paying for something when they have figured out how to get it free. And of course they hate the Roosevelt thing of tolerance and enlightenment and blacks moving in next door and marrying their kids. But what they hate most is the idea that the progressives they are conning don't understand what is happening. The progressive harping on the ignorance or bad consciousness or brainwashing of the Snopes class has to stop. Far from being ignorant or unaware of their self advantage, they have had a free ride that has given them the luxury of being able to indulge in reactionary hate while being bankrolled by progressive legislation and opened up to the world through Civil Rights. Everything they hate has supported everything they love: credit cards, big trucks, big motor boats leaking oil over various federally funded dammed lakes, etc., etc. It is no wonder they feel like God's remnant on earth. They have the satisfaction of knowing who is conning who in the great progressive deal, and what they really can't stand is that the liberals that are being suckered don't know who is suckering them.

No free riding, Michelle Persica Snopes.

How to get to the Nomad?

The Nomad got a good review the other day in the Statesman. Good for Miguel. It beats out Spiderhouse, even, which is a major feat. But Dina Guidubaldi, the Statesman writer, put the Nomad "around 51st, behind Target," which is, of course, wrong. I don't know whether to laugh at this moronic sense of place or to celebrate it, because if the Nomad is that good, we'll want to keep it to ourselves. (Notice that I haven't given the correct location here.)

Coffee Rumor

Richard Yu writes to the WP listserv that he's looking into a coffee shop. But Richard! Windsor Park has a new....bar.