Libertarians Say: Privatize Virginia Fine Arts Museum

It seems that I (and six other LP candidates for the General Assembly) suggested way back in 1993 that the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts should be privatized, along with several other museums, libraries, and cultural institutions that suck money from the taxpayers.

Still, it is good to see that someone, even if it is only the leadership of the Libertarian Party of Virginia, is keeping an eye on the state budget for cuts that the House of Delegates and state Senate avoid.

Here's the text of a news release from the LPVA's communications director:

LIBERTARIANS FIND $15 MILLION IN GOVERNMENT WASTE

Privatize the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, state party says

RICHMOND, VA - Libertarians have found another $15 million in the state budget that should be eliminated.

"The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is yet another program that could be handled better by the private sector," comments Steve Damerell, Chairman of the Libertarian Party of Virginia. "This represents a biennial savings of $15 million to taxpayers."

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is a state-supported, privately endowed educational institution created for the benefit of the citizens of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Its purpose is to collect, preserve, exhibit and interpret art, and to encourage the study of the arts.

According to the VMFA's Annual Report (2003-04), individuals gave $6.4 million in gifts to VMFA Foundation for 2003-04, an increase of $1.2 million over 2002-03. Another $3 million came from corporations, foundations and other non-governmental orginizations. Total attendance at VMFA events and galleries increased by 32% to 359,743 attendees in 2003-04. "With significantly increasing donations and attendance, it is clear the private sector could support the VMFA," notes Damerell.

Critics of privitization argue that because of increased fees, the museum would serve fewer people. Libertarians disagree. Damerell notes, "If privatized, the museum would have a greater incentive to keep costs down and expand its membership. More people would be served, not less."

Privitization would also decrease the tax burden on Virginians. Damerell observes, "Lower taxes mean that people will have to work less to fund the government. They will have more time and money to spend on cultural activities like the VMFA."

Even Communist China has realized museum privatization is the best way to preserve history. In 2002, China amended its Cultural Relics Law to allow private ownership. In less than a year, there were over 1,000 new private museums and a thriving trade in relics.

Damerell concludes, "Communist China, after decades of oppression and suffering, finally understands that private, market-based institutions are better than government-supported institutions. It is a sad commentary that Virginia's politicians do not understand this."

One must wonder, however: Why did the LPVA distribute this news release after the General Assembly adjourned, therefore losing any chance of having an impact on deliberations on the state budget in Richmond?

In politics, as in comedy, timing is everything. Not that there is much of a difference between the two.

Conservative(s) for Jaquith?

Waldo Jaquith -- one-time candidate for Charlottesville City Council, founder of the Virginia Family Values PAC, creator of cvillenews.com and other web sites -- has found himself on more than one list of potential candidates to succeed retiring Delegate Mitch Van Yahres (D-57). (Of course, to my surprise, I have found myself on one of those lists, too, but remember: I am not a candidate.)

Waldo is getting support from unexpected quarters: John Behan, who bills himself as the internet's "first elected blogger", says this on Commonwealth Conservative:

At any rate, I’m not sure what to think of a potential Waldo candidacy. On one hand, I’ve had the opportunity to correspond with Jaquith quite a bit, and I like him personally very much. On the other hand, we disagree on nearly every political issue.

Then again, it might be nice to have another elected blogger here in Virginia. Perhaps he’ll make a statement soon; inquiring minds want to know.

I predict the Democrats in the 57th District will choose their candidate by party primary on June 14.

Lloyd Snook, the Charlottesville representative on the 57th District committee, reports: "Since sending out my e-mail a few nights ago to about 400 people, I have received about 30 responses from Charlottesville Democrats; they break 15-15; 15 favor a primary and 15 favor a caucus or convention." No official position has yet been taken by the Charlottesville Democratic Committee (or its executive committee).

At the same time, the Albemarle County Democratic chair's representative to the 57th District committee, Eric Strucko, favors a primary. As Strucko wrote to George Loper on March 10:

The Albemarle County Democratic Party representative to the 57th House of Delegates District Committee (me) voted clearly and without hesitation for a primary to determine the Democratic nominee for Mitch's seat. The county steering committee overwhelmingly endorsed a primary. I left last night's 57th District Committee meeting feeling that Mitch himself endorses the primary method. This is the most open and inclusive way of selecting our nominee, and will offer all candidates the opportunity to hit the campaign trail early, discuss the issues fully, and set the themes for the fall race. A primary is also the method of choosing nominees endorsed by the Democratic Party of Virginia.

We'll see where this goes -- and whether a primary process favors an establishment politician like David Toscano or a more unconventional candidate like Waldo Jaquith, who, by the way, is currently enrolled in the Sorensen Institute’s Political Leaders Program, a launching pad for many successful candidates (including Charlottesville's own Rob Schilling and the late Emily Couric).

Addendum, 6:01 p.m.: As found on George Loper's always up-to-date web site:

"At a 12:15 press conference today the leadership of the Charlottesville and Albemarle Democratic Committees announced that the nomination of a candidate for the 57th District House of Delegates seat should be made by a primary, to be held June 14 in conjunction with the nomination for state offices. . . .

"Prospective candidates must submit petitions containing the signatures of 125 registered voters in the 57th District, together with a filing fee of $352.80, to the registrar of the jurisdiction in which the candidate lives, no later than April 15, 2005." (Press Release, Electronic mail, March 14, 2005)

Metablogging 101

Consider yourself special, Dear Reader, because Americans who read and pay attention to blogs are a narrow elite when compared to the population as a whole.

Sunday's Washington Times reports that "a new Gallup poll finds that most Americans are clueless about blogs, bloggers and blogging."

Blogs are "not yet in the media big leagues," Gallup announced Friday. The poll found that while 76 percent of Americans regularly use the Internet, only 7 percent said they were "very familiar" with blogs. The poll of 1,008 adults was conducted Feb. 25-27.

* * *

The poll also found that only 3 percent of Americans consult blogs on a daily basis. The figure was pared down to 2 percent for political-themed blogs, which tend to resonate most in the mainstream press. CNN, for example, now hosts a daily "blog watch," highlighting piquant fare from a number of sites.

To my surprise, I learned from the Times story that the "term 'blog' is young, coined by pundit and blogger Andrew Sullivan, who called the phenomenon 'democratic journalism' in a 2002 Wired magazine article." (That "blog" is a neologism was not surprising; what surprised me was that Andrew Sullivan coined it.)

Some salient results from the Gallup Poll on blogs and their readers:

* Blog readers are younger than the population at large. Although 17% of the public is aged 18 to 29, a quarter of all blog readers (those who read even occasionally) are in this age bracket. At the older extreme, 17% of Americans are 65 and older, but only 6% of blog readers are this old.

* Said differently, monthly-plus readership of blogs is 21% among 18- to 29-year olds, 16% among those 30 to 49, 14% among those 50 to 64 and just 7% among those 65 and older.

* The age gap in blog reading is particularly noteworthy because it is a complete reversal of the typical age pattern gap for news consumption. Gallup finds Americans' use of all traditional news media to be positively correlated with age. (For instance, only 32% of 18- to 29-year-olds read a local paper every day, versus 61% of those 65 and older.)

* Gallup finds no gender differences in blog readership, or according to party affiliation. There are slight differences by political outlook, as about a quarter of liberals (24%) say they read blogs at least monthly, compared with 15% of conservatives and 12% of moderates.

By way of comparison, a Pew Research Center for the People and the Press report released in June 2004 noted:

Americans' news habits have changed little over the past two years. Network and local TV news viewership has been largely stable since 2002. Daily newspaper readership remains at 42% (it was 41% two years ago). And the percentage of Americans who listen to news on the radio on a typical day is virtually unchanged since the last Pew Research Center media consumption survey (40% now, 41% in 2002).

And, in what might be viewed as a negative- or mirror-image of the recent Gallup poll on blog readership (and pretty much agreeing with Gallup's findings), the Pew Research Center reported:

The decade-long slide in newspaper readership has leveled off. The percentage of Americans reporting that they read a newspaper "yesterday" fell from 58% in 1994 to 47% in 2000, and 41% in 2002. It now stands at 42%.

Newspaper readership among young people continues to be relatively limited. Among those under age 30, just 23% report having read a newspaper yesterday. This is down slightly from 26% in 2002 and stands in marked contrast to the 60% of older Americans who say they read a newspaper yesterday. Young people are more apt to read a magazine or a book for pleasure on a daily basis than they are to pick up a newspaper.

This is not news, of course. Young people are generally disengaged from public affairs, as shown by their lower likelihood to register to vote or to vote even when registered. As people grow older, form families, pay taxes, and contract mortgages, their interest in their communities and current issues grows stronger.

Whether the greater interest of young people and political liberals in blogs will be maintained -- blogging is, after all, still a new phenomenon -- in reference to other types of media remains to be seen. The question of whether blogs can be used to engage otherwise disengaged readers in the political process also remains to be answered. (Although my best guess is most young blog-readers are going to Jossip rather than Instapundit. I would be happy to be proved wrong.)

Considering how much blogs have been in the news lately -- especially during the last presidential campaign -- it's a mystery as to how so many Americans are ignorant of their existence. One explanation that makes sense to me is offered by Jossip's David Hauslaib, who told the Washington Times:

"It's not so surprising that mainstream America doesn't know what a blog is. But they might come upon a blog and not even realize it's a blog. So they could still be influenced by it nevertheless. It works that way, too."

Dear Reader, do you realize you are reading a blog right now? Were you aware of it when you started reading this article? If you are not aware of it by now, are you sure you know how to read at all?

SAT is to X as Y is to Z ... No More

News Item: The College Board has eliminated those vexing verbal analogies from the venerable SAT:

"Analogies are being dropped," confirmed Caren Scoropanos, a spokeswoman for the College Board, the nonprofit association of 4,500 colleges and universities that owns and administers the SAT. "The love-hate relationship with analogies has been removed because it's not something that's taught in high school. All the changes were made to be more reflective of the curriculum."

How disappointing. An SAT without analogies is like a BLT without bacon.

Patti LuPone as Regina but Not as Evita

Thursday evening I was at the Kennedy Center in Washington for the opening night performance of Regina, the 1948 opera by Marc Blitzstein, with Patti LuPone in the title role.

By coincidence, last night I saw a production of Evita -- the show that made Patti LuPone a star -- at Live Arts in Charlottesville. That production of Evita was sadly disappointing, as the director's leftist politics got in the way of his directorial responsibilities. The production was lifeless, static, airless, thin, and, ultimately, weak. You could read disappointment on the faces of the cast as they came out to take their bows at the end of the play.

Regina was another story. I don't know much about opera, but I do know this was well-produced and -directed. As I wrote to a friend yesterday, after he suggested I had a better background than he did to comment on an opera performance:

Please don't attribute more knowledge and experience to me than I actually have. Regina was perhaps the first full-length opera I've ever attended. (I saw Bernstein's "Trouble in Tahiti," a one-act, at PVCC a couple of years ago.)

I'm a musical-theatre guy. I know little about opera and usually depend on my colleague, Tim Hulsey (who accompanied me last night) to write about it and explain it to me. (He covers opera productions at Ash Lawn during the summer for me.)

My main interests in Regina were (a) it's a historical artifact from the 1940s and (b) it had Patti LuPone. Marc Blitzstein is a difficult composer who turns a lot of audiences off (there was, in fact, an unusual amount of attrition between Act I and Act II, with more empty seats after intermission than there were before). His weird dissonance and unmelodic phrasing don't bother me much, but I lack the grounding in musical theory to explain why he's weird and unmelodic.

Like Duke Ellington said, there are only two types of music, good music and bad music. It's up to the listener to decide which is which.

Seeing Evita again -- I last saw it on stage during the national tour following its initial Broadway run, sometime in the late 1970s or '80s -- reminded me that, at the time the movie version Evita (the one with Madonna in the title role) came out, I had written a brief review essay of then-recent books on Eva Peron for The Metro Herald. I dug it up and discovered it had been published in the newspaper in April 1997. Here it is:

Revisiting Eva Perón: A Book Review
Rick Sincere
Metro Herald Entertainment Editor

With "You Must Love Me," the original song by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, winning the Academy Award on March 24, new life has been breathed into the film version of Evita. The film, which received mixed reviews from the critics when it was released on January 1, also was nominated for three other Oscars, in art direction, sound, and cinematography.

Twice before, when the original studio recording of Evita was released and when the opera was transferred to the stage, interest in the life of Eva Perón has been piqued. Previously an obscure figure except in her native Argentina, where she was beloved and remains a national heroine, the fictionalized, musicalized account of her life has kept her persona vivid and vibrant in the popular imagination.

In the wake of the release of Alan Parker's film, boosted by Madonna's star power in the title role, a number of books have been issued to examine and celebrate the life of Eva Maria Duarte de Perón.

Director Alan Parker himself has contributed a coffee-table book called The Making of Evita, with an introduction by Madonna (CollinsPublishers, $40 hardcover, $20 paperback; 130 pages). Like the film itself, this book is filled end-to-end with lush photographs. There is surprisingly little text, and most of that is in captions for the photos. Parker's essay takes up no more than six pages. Tidbits include the news that Madonna begged Parker to cast her as Evita, that she promised to work hard for the role, and that, indeed, while training with a vocal coach "she expanded her vocal range, finding parts of her voice that she had never used before in her own songs." Parker's book will be a nice addition to the libraries of film buffs and Madonna fans.

For information about Eva Perón herself, it is necessary to turn to two more academic volumes, the reissued Evita: The Real Life of Eva Perón, by Nicholas Fraser and Marysa Navarro (W.W. Norton, $11 paperback; 198 pages), which was originally published in 1980, and Alicia Dujovne Ortiz's Eva Perón: A Biography (St. Martin's Press, $25.95 hardcover; 336 pages plus 16 pages of illustrations), which was a bestseller in Argentina and has been translated into English by Shawn Fields.

Ortiz, a respected French and Argentine journalist, had access to Eva's personal memoirs and to people close to Eva and her family who had many reminiscences. She even obtained the confidences of Eva's personal confessor, Father Hernan Benitez. Fraser and Navarro based their account on hundreds of interviews conducted in the mid-1970s, and augmented their study with new revelations that became available in the 1980s, following the end of Argentina's military dictatorship. All three writers make a careful attempt to distinguish between the myth and reality of Eva Perón's life -- a difficult task, to be sure, as Eva herself spent much her life trying to hide the reality and replace it with self-made myths.

That popular entertainment in music or drama can inspire interest in actual historical figures is beneficial to our culture. The high school student who picks up one of these books simply because she admires Madonna and wants to learn more about the character she portrays may be inspired to delve deeper into Argentine or Southern Cone history. It is through such indirection that today's Madonna fan becomes tomorrow's ambassador to Buenos Aires or professor of Latin American studies.

Aaron Carter: Pop-Star Pot-Smoker?

It hasn't been a good month for the Carter brothers. Backstreet Boy Nick Carter got nicked for driving under the influence and -- talk about "Aaron's Party"!-- younger brother Aaron was featured in a photospread the National Enquirer, allegedly smoking pot.

I think everyone agrees that driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol is dangerous activity that puts non-consenting others at risk for injury or death. So Nick Carter, if the allegations against him prove true, should pay the penalty -- whether a fine, loss of license, community service, or jail time.

But should we be looking at Aaron Carter's pot-smoking photos with more than bemusement? (I should add that some think the photos were doctored; in the digital age, photographs should not be admissible as evidence in criminal proceedings.)

If the general War on Drugs is a war on the constitution, isn't the War on Marijuana nothing more than a war on common sense?

Maclean's, the Canadian newsweekly, recently had a cover story on the issue of marijuana laws north of the 49th Parallel.

On March 3, four RCMP officers (we know them as "Mounties," but they're not the doofuses one would expect if your only exposure to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police comes from reruns of Dudley Do-Right cartoons or the Brendan Fraser movie) were gunned down in rural Alberta by a marijuana farmer. The murders have re-lit a nationwide debate on Canada's marijuana laws: The most common question is, Are they too lax?

Not everyone thinks the answer is "yes". Maclean's reports:

In fact, the marijuana trade has always featured relatively low rates of violence, says Neil Boyd, a professor of criminology at Simon Fraser University. He disagrees with those who would use this tragedy to rally public support around a crackdown.

"It's not surprising when you get a horrific crime such as this and a grow op is front and centre in the portrait -- people will use that to jump into the marijuana decriminalization debate," Boyd says. "It's probably more appropriate to look at this individual and what he represents rather than to focus on any policy that ought to come out of such a horrible tragedy. I'm not at all clear that this case has as much to do with grow ops as it does with a person whose own father describes him as evil."

There is often a tendency, in discussions of public-policy issues, to draw broad but unwarranted conclusions from isolated incidents, leading to legislation by emotion rather than reason. In the United States, as in Canada, debates about drug laws are often colored by irrational reactions, urban legends, and unsupported evidence.

Witness the reaction to the RCMP killings by a Canadian cabinet member, Anne McLellan, reported in an accompanying article in the same issue of Maclean's:

Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan strongly suggested some of Canada's judges need to wake up to the fact that big-time marijuana growing is a dangerous crime that calls for serious prison time. Speaking out after the slaying of four Mounties in her home province of Alberta, McLellan pointed to the stiffer penalties for grow-op convictions allowed under the Liberal government's overhaul of marijuana laws. The new legislation would double to 14 years the maximum prison sentence for being convicted of cultivating more than 50 marijuana plants. She said the bill puts "the onus on the courts, the judiciary, in a sense, to take this crime seriously." And if that didn't make her critical view clear, McLellan added: "The judiciary needs to start to reflect the harsh reality of illegal grow ops and the consequences for our communities and society in the sentences they hand out."

Maclean's offers a good corrective to this harsh, reactionary, exaggerated point-of-view in its balanced coverage of the RCMP murder cases. The main article cited above goes on to explain:

But many experts in the drug trade say there is a serious danger that lawmakers and law enforcers will let anger and grief drive their decisions. By raising penalties and cracking down on supply, police may well drive more production into the hands of well-financed and well-armed organized crime gangs, Boyd says.

For example, the North American trade in heroin and cocaine has attracted a much more violent and aggressive brand of criminal element, Boyd says -- largely because the profits associated with those drugs and the penalties resulting from conviction are so much higher. Police cannot reduce demand, and by raising the stakes in the marijuana trade, they may force out small-time, non-violent producers and turn even more of the market over to hard-core gangsters, inevitably leading to an increase in violence associated with the pot trade.

That fear is echoed by Eugene Oscapella, an Ottawa lawyer and long-time critic of Canada's drug policies. Oscapella points out that it is extremely rare for Canadian police officers to die in the course of drug investigations. Rather than increasing efforts to stamp out marijuana, he says, government should be talking more seriously about regulation along the lines of alcohol and tobacco. "The grow ops themselves are a product of prohibition," Oscapella says. "Violence associated with the trade in marijuana stems from the fact that our government in its folly has chosen to deal with this drug through a prohibitory model rather than a regulatory model. There is no violence when you go to the liquor store."

The debate in the United States on marijuana-law reform is not as robust as it ought to be.

Take, for example, a poll on the question of medicinal marijuana from the AARP (the liberal retired persons' lobby group), which was conducted last fall and scheduled for publication in the March/April issue of the organization's magazine. The article was spiked -- although results of the poll appear on the AARP web site -- due to pressure from drug-warriors inside and outside the government. As explained in a news release from the Drug Policy Alliance:

At the beginning of February, AARP posted the findings of a poll they had commissioned on medical marijuana on their website. The poll found that 72% of older Americans (45 and over) support an adult's right to use medical marijuana with a physician's recommendation.

A December 18th Associated Press article discussing the poll mentioned that AARP The Magazine was scheduled to release an article about medical marijuana in its March/April issue. But when the March/April issue reached subscribers in late January, the article was conspicuously absent. The editors had apparently pulled the article in response to malicious attacks by a "media watchdog" organization, Accuracy in Media, and a pressure campaign by fanatical anti-drug groups with a long history of engaging in malicious and dishonest attacks.

"We urge the editors of AARP The Magazine not to cave in to such attacks and to publish the medical marijuana article soon," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. "Ultimately this issue is not about medical marijuana but whether or not free and open discussion of issues that matter to AARP members will be censored and abandoned in the face of coarse attacks by disreputable forces."

Free and open discussion. That should be our aim -- our intermediate aim. Our ultimate aim should be the end of prohibition.

Only then will Aaron Carter and his friends be able to live undisturbed by prying eyes and intrusive laws.

No, I Am Not a Candidate

Someone at cvillenews.com flatters me by suggesting that I might be a candidate on the Republican ticket to succeed retiring Delegate Mitch Van Yahres in the 57th District (which includes all of Charlottesville and several Albemarle County precincts).

The correspondent, who goes by the name "silkyzephyr", writes:

Toscano has long hungered for Van Yahres' place. Meredith Richards aspires to a political comeback. Since both Toscano and Richards are Meadowcreek Parkway supporters the Dem. insiders who 'Borked' Ms. Richards out of her City Council nomination will be hard put to choose between them. Though this time the nominating body will be more than just city voters.

No word as yet from Councillor Caravatti (also a pavement proponent) who in the past has expressed frustration with Richmond and an eagerness to go over there and straighten them out. He and Toscano are buddies. I speculate Toscano will cut a deal. Post-dated political checks to be redeemed in legislation on Caravatti's pet peeves, in exchange for his standing aside.

Will former Mayor Cox come back from teaching in Cambridge and throw his hat in the ring? An African-American representing Charlottesville would be a hard choice to argue with.

It is also an interesting question who the Republicans will run. Rick Sincere probably has more bi-partisan support and electability than Councilor Schilling, whose postering has incited Dems to slavering, frothing-at-the-mouth hatred. And Sincere has free time to spend in Richmond, since the job of public relations flack and Chair of the Elections Commission is undemanding. Ah but will the county Republicans go for a Gay Libertarian? What if the major qualification of the only other Republican candidate is, he's quick with a knife?

Standing back from all this--Van Yahres filled what was once Thomas Jefferson's chair with wisdom, practicality, and gentle temperance and good humor. A statesman trully in the best Jeffersonian tradition. Will any of these have the gravitas to succeed him?

I do not choose to run.

Indeed, I want to state categorically that I am not a candidate for any elective office, including the House of Delegates. "Silkyzephyr" is apparently unaware that Electoral Board members are not permitted to run for office. Section 24.2-106 of the Code of Virginia reads in part:

No member of an electoral board shall be eligible to offer for or hold an office to be filled in whole or in part by qualified voters of his jurisdiction. If a member resigns to offer for or hold such office, the vacancy shall be filled as provided in this section.

No member of an electoral board shall serve as the chairman of a state, local or district level political party committee or as a paid worker in the campaign of a candidate for nomination or election to an office filled by election in whole or in part by the qualified voters of the jurisdiction of the electoral board.

I am quite happy serving the voters of the City of Charlottesville as Chairman of the Electoral Board and have no plans to seek any other office during my term. I really enjoy working on elections and find election law and practice to be what Bob Bork called "an intellectual feast." (He was referring to the U.S. Supreme Court, but as a non-lawyer my aspirations do not run that high.)

Now, perhaps someone should ask Albemarle County Electoral Board member Will Harvey what he is doing by suggesting that he might run for the 57th District seat.

And, just as a matter of clarification, how could Van Yahres hold "what was once Thomas Jefferson's chair" when Rob Bell (R-58) lays that claim, as Paul Harris, Peter Way, and George Allen did before him? Did Mr. Jefferson hold two seats in the House of Delegates? Was his chair split, solomonically, so that both Democrats and Republicans could sit in it simultaneously?

Interesting Election Law Blog

Essentially by chance, this morning I discovered an election law blog produced by Rick Hasen, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. (Those Jesuit institutions are everywhere.)

Professor Hasen is author of The Supreme Court and Election Law and a prolific contributor of articles to law journals.

Hasen's blog provides daily links to informative articles about all aspects of election law around the country -- campaign finance, redistricting, voting equipment decisionmaking, procedural matters -- that are of particular importance to election officials (like myself) but should also be relevant to candidates, political party leaders, and campaign officials.

Based on a cursory review of his own articles linked from his blog, Professor Hasen and I do not see eye-to-eye on every issue, but I am glad to find this easy-to-navigate resource regarding the dense thicket of election law.

New Tax Advocacy Group Enters Fray

Here's the text of a news release that landed in my email box today:

The Charlottesville Taxpayers Association will hold a press conference on Friday, March 11, 2005 at 11:00 A.M. at the East end of the downtown mall.

The Charlottesville Taxpayers Association is an informal group of citizens who have come together to promote the interests of the taxpayers of the City of Charlottesville consistent with the principles of effective and efficient local government.

The Association is dedicated to providing factual tax and budget information to the citizens of Charlottesville.

The purpose of the press conference is to provide information about the organization and to provide some preliminary comments about the proposed Fiscal Year 2006 budget for the City of Charlottesville.

For more information, you may visit our web site at www.cvilletaxpayers.org.

This group looks like a force to reckon with in the annual debate about Charlottesville's tax-and-spend profligacy.

Washington State Vote Fraud Extends to Virginia

I spent most of last weekend at The Homestead, a resort-hotel-spa in Hot Springs, Virginia, for the annual meeting of the Virginia Electoral Board Association. Several hundred Electoral Board members, General Registrars, and other election officials gathered for about two days of speeches, meetings, and meals at which information about election law and practice was discussed and exchanged.

Jean Jensen, secretary of the State Board of Elections (SBE), spoke on Saturday morning. Most of her remarks were of interest only to election officials in the narrowest sense (reports about the new software program developed for the statewide voter registration list, a discussion of legislation that passed the General Assembly, and reviews of budgetary items).

One thing she said really struck a chord with me, however, as I'm sure it did with other people in the audience.

In a review of last year's November General Election, Jensen reported, for instance, that the SBE had fielded more than 10,000 telephone calls on election day, most of them falling into two categories: (1) "where is my polling place?" and (2) "am I registered to vote?" In that latter category, the most amusing call came from a man who didn't show up on the voter registration list. Asked when he had last voted, he said, "I'm not sure. It was either Nixon or Reagan."

But that's not the remark that struck me.

Jensen reported that, shortly after the election, the SBE received 22 provisional ballots from Washington State. None of these ballots were valid in Virginia, of course. So Jensen called Washington State to find out why they had been sent -- indeed, why they had been accepted by Washington election officials in the first place. She was told: "Our mantra is, 'Vote, vote, vote.'"

In other words, Washington State election officials were accepting ballots from voters from out of state who were not, under any circumstances, qualified to vote in that election. Their zeal to expand the electorate overwhelmed their responsibility to ensure the integrity of the electoral process.

Is it any wonder that the Washington gubernatorial election was such a mess, and that Governor Christine Gregoire took office under a dark cloud of allegations of substantial election fraud?

If Dino Rossi and his team are looking for more evidence to bolster their case for a new election, they should call the Virginia State Board of Elections. Concrete evidence of potential fraud is in the Virginia SBE's hands.

Speaking of the Drinking Age ...

In my previous post, I noted that the Moffatt triplets of Canada are now able to drink alcoholic beverages in the United States, because today is their 21st birthday.

Over the years, I have had numerous occasions to comment on the absurdity of the uniform drinking age in the United States. Earlier today, while moving some furniture, I came across a photocopy of an article I wrote, which appeared in the Roanoke Times and World News on August 16, 1991, under the unwieldy headline: "'Forbidden Fruit' / Teen Drinking: Why the problem? Age limit gives booze its allure." (Another article, by Baltimore Evening Sun columnist Dan Rodricks, was coupled with mine, with its own subhead, "Adults send mixed messages.")

While running for the House of Delegates in the 49th District (Arlington County) in 1993, my campaign manager, the late David Morris, came up with the idea of sending a targeted mailing to voters aged 18, 19, and 20, emphasizing my interest in returning to a rational drinking age that corresponds to the age of majority.

I remember clearly that there were precisely 777 voters in that age category. We sent each of them a letter above my signature, urging them to vote for me, and a copy of that Roanoke Times article was enclosed. Whether this tactic gained me any votes, I don't know; at least one prominent Democratic operative told me that her college-age daughter had received my mailing -- so perhaps it had some, minor, psychological effect on our political adversaries.

In searching for a copy of this article on line, I discovered a later version, from June 2001. I am not sure where it was published but someone (not myself) posted it to a Usenet newsgroup, which allows me to crib it for reproduction here:

It's Time for a Rational Drinking Age
Richard E. Sincere, Jr.

The recent misadventures of First Twins Jenna and Barbara Bush with regard to underage drinking have provided much fodder for late-night comics. They also have reopened a debate we thought was closed some 15 years ago: That is, should 18-year-old adults be permitted to drink alcoholic beverages? Or, put another way, should individual states, rather than the federal government, decide what the drinking age should be?

Until the mid-1980s, the drinking age varied from state to state. In New York and California, it was 21; in New Jersey and Arizona, it was 19. In about half the states, it was 18, and in some places, like Washington, D.C., hard liquor was limited to those 21 and over, while those 18 and over could drink beer and wine.

During the Reagan administration, Secretary of Transportation Elizabeth Dole decided to use the heavy hand of the federal government to coerce states to raise their drinking ages, uniformly, to 21. Since the Constitution forbids a simple federal fiat to impose a national drinking age, Dole came upon a precedent-setting idea: Deny federal highway funds to states that refused to go along with the federal government's wishes. Dangling that carrot worked, and Wyoming became the last state to buckle under in 1988. Subsequent administrations have used the same approach on other issues, but that is a subject for another column and another day.

Attempts to control behavior in this manner are futile. Studies have shown that raising the drinking age has done little to curb alcohol consumption among the under-21 crowd. A survey of Virginia college students at eight different campuses reported that 93 percent of students over 21 said they drank alcoholic beverages; of those under 21, 92 percent said they drank.

Besides being an unwarranted governmental intrusion into the private lives and behavior of adult citizens, these laws run the risk of encouraging furtive, irresponsible behavior. As one student leader said, "If anything, [the higher drinking age has] caused these 18- and 19-year-olds to go out and drink more."

This law was motivated primarily by the belief that a higher drinking age will help reduce drunken-driving accidents and deaths. How valid is this reason? According to two economists who have examined the evidence, not very.

Peter Asch of Rutgers University and David Levy of the Federal Trade Commission noted that though there is reason to believe that raising the drinking age does reduce accidents among the affected group, this does not "constitute persuasive evidence that higher drinking ages make the roads safer." In reality, they reported, "higher drinking ages may simply be moving the problem around, rather than solving it."

The researchers pointed out that it is not young drinkers who tend to cause road accidents; it is inexperienced drinkers, however old. By examining statistics from states that have had different drinking ages -- 18, 19, 20, or 21 -- Asch and Levy concluded that accidents occur at a higher rate during the first year of legal drinking than during subsequent years.

This may affect statistics that show a disproportionate number of injuries and fatalities among teenagers, but no genuine improvement will occur: Only the ages of those involved in traffic accidents will change.

The arguments for returning the drinking age to 18 are well-known. In every state, 18-year-olds have reached the age of majority. They are permitted to vote, to marry, to negotiate contracts, and to do all things responsible adults are permitted to do without the consent of a parent or guardian. They work and pay taxes.

The higher drinking age has placed many colleges in the absurd position of baby-sitting for adults. These institutions must devise ways of enforcing laws that are widely perceived as both unfair and unenforceable. It also makes the job of teaching young people how to drink more responsibly more difficult. A perplexed college official asked: "How does a parent, how does a friend, teach a young person responsible drinking when any drinking at all is illegal?"

A good argument can be made even for lowering the drinking age to precede the driving age (14 and 16, or 15 and 17, or 16 and 18). Permission to drink would then be decided by the family, not the state. Young people should learn to drink responsibly under their parents' supervision without substantial danger of drinking and driving. The "learning curve" for people to find their appropriate level of moderate drinking should begin as early as possible to prevent risky behavior.

There is little point in raising the drinking age if it simply postpones highway accidents and undermines society's ability to teach responsible drinking behavior. These types of restrictions undercut efforts to impart traditional values like responsibility and prudence to young people in all aspects of their lives.

Regardless of whether my arguments here are immediately persuasive, we deserve to have a serious debate about the drinking age. We should not consider it to be a settled question, since it involves issues of federalism, personal autonomy, and basing law on reason rather than emotion. Let the discussion begin.

Triplets Celebrate Birthday Milestone

When writing my latest update on Dave Moffatt -- posted yesterday and driving my site traffic through the roof -- I overlooked an important date: today.

It turns out that the Moffatt triplets -- Dave and his brothers Bob and Clint -- were born on March 8, 1984.

That means that the Canadian boys can now legally drink in the United States.

They share their birthdate with actor Freddie Prinze, Jr. (born 1976), singer Little Peggy March ("I Will Follow Him," 1948), actress Lynn Redgrave (1943), and the Skipper from Gilligan's Island, Alan Hale, Jr. (1918).

Happy birthday to the Moffatt brothers!

Eerie Echoes of Kelo: Eminent Domain in Red China

Leave it to NPR's Marketplace to uncover a story about land-grabbing in Communist China that has disturbing parallels to what's going on in our own country.

Not long ago, I wrote about the U.S. Supreme Court's consideration of the case of Kelo v. City of New London. At issue is whether the government can use the power of eminent domain to transfer private property from one private owner to another, justifying it as a "public use" (as required by the Fifth Amendment) on the basis that the new owner will generate jobs, taxes, or other desirables for the local community.

It seems that Chinese government officials have been listening to the lawyers for the City of New London and their developer allies. The only difference is that in Communist China, all land is technically owned by the government, although private individuals and companies can lease the land for long terms of up to 70 years.

On tonight's Marketplace program, correspondent Jocelyn Ford reported the story of a family in central Beijing who had their home stolen from them in a neighborhood she characterizes as "one of China's many urban battle zones. In China, the government owns all the land and has begun letting developers kick out old-time residents so that local authorities can lease the land for a much higher price." She quotes the family's matriarch:

"My husband's grandfather was born here during the last dynasty. Our family has lived here for more than 300 years. We can't move, we have no other home."

The family's eldest son, Ford noted, said that they are not "against gentrification per se":

"Of course we support urban renewal. But they shouldn't send us into exile and turn us into second-class citizens."

The family, though old and poor, is not uneducated or unaware of their rights. Ford reports that

"The family plastered their garden walls with slogans about last year's constitutional amendment protecting private property and about human rights. One son filed suit against the government for illegal eviction orders."

All to no avail, however. One morning the police broke down the door to their house and dragged the elderly couple from their beds, confining them to a hospital, guarded by police and local political operatives.

Ford quotes a political economist whose words eerily echo the attitude and actions of local American authorities:

"You have a developer come into a local neighborhood and just tear down all the buildings and kick people off their property. Even if people have ownership, they'll send gangs and the gangs will negotiate. But of course middle-age, older people they don't have an army of thugs behind them, how can they negotiate with a gang?"

"You have a relationship between the developer, the local government officials, the local branches of the state owned banks who are financing this, and the local planning departments. And of course when you put the formula together you have a kind of a Mafia situation."

Ford ends her report by paraphrasing the family's son's lament: "The government is using the planned economy to take away their land and the private economy to redistribute it, and it's just not fair."

Is it too late to get Justices Kennedy and O'Connor to listen to this radio program? They might learn something important about creeping -- and creepy -- totalitarianism.

Update: I Was Right About Edwards

On February 8, I posted an article entitled "John Edwards Concedes Election," arguing that Roanoke-area state Senator John Edwards had effectively handed the Democratic nomination for Attorney General to fellow state Senator R. Creigh Deeds (D-25) by voting against the anti-gay constitutional amendment on marriage.

Sure enough, the Roanoke Times reported on March 5:

Roanoke state Sen. John Edwards has dropped plans to seek the Democratic nomination for attorney general, concluding that he could not devote enough time to mount a competitive campaign.

Edwards' decision leaves state Sen. Creigh Deeds of Bath County as the lone candidate for the party's nomination, which will be determined in a June 14 primary. Two Republicans, Del. Bob McDonnell of Virginia Beach and Richmond lawyer Steve Baril, also are running for attorney general.

Edwards said Friday morning that the demands of his Roanoke law practice prevent him from making the necessary full-time commitment to the campaign trail.

"I've come to the conclusion that, to do this right, I've got to go full time from now on out, and I don't have the time to do that," Edwards said in a telephone interview Friday morning. "You cannot do this part time in any meaningful way."

Edwards, 61, added that he has "a lot of unfinished work" in the Senate, where he has served for nearly 10 years. His district includes Roanoke, parts of Roanoke, Montgomery and Pulaski counties and all of Craig and Giles counties.

There's a suggestion in that article that money problems were at the root of Edwards' decision:

Deeds had raised more than $433,000 through the end of 2004. McDonnell had raised nearly $1.2 million through the same period and Baril had raised more than $1 million.

Edwards had raised only $82,590, and $36,000 of that was transferred from his Senate campaign committee, according to data compiled by the Virginia Public Access Project.

The lack of money had demonstrable effects: The Edwards campaign did not even have a web site for potential voters (and contributors) to visit.

But what was at the root of the fundraising deficit? My best guess is that Edwards was too liberal for a statewide constituency, while Deeds has been cultivating his image as a right-of-center Democrat who represents a largely rural district. (The largest -- and most liberal -- jurisdiction in Deeds' district is Charlottesville.) So the smart money has been going to Deeds while Edwards lags behind.

Now the question is, if Deeds wins the general election for Attorney General, who will run to succeed him in the 25th state Senate district, which winds from Bath County on the West Virginia border eastward to Albemarle County? Names floated to run in a potential special election in December include former Charlottesville City Councilors Meredith Richards and David Toscano and Albemarle GOP committee chairman Keith Drake. (Toscano, however, is the leading candidate to succeed Delegate Mitch van Yahres, who announced his long-awaited retirement last Saturday in Charlottesville, in this November's General Assembly election.)

And what about candidates from outside the Charlottesville-Albemarle metroplex? The 25th district can't be lacking in ambitious town councilors, county supervisors, and school board members looking to climb the ladder of political success.

"Wiley!" Now Available on Audio CD!

In the spring of 1978, I was privileged to work on the last of a series of original musicals at Georgetown University known by the umbrella name, "Calliope." Calliope XIX was called Wiley!, and it told the story of how Odysseus traveled home from the Trojan War to reclaim his home and his wife, Penelope. This musical version of Homer's Odyssey should not be confused with the failed 1976 Broadway musical, Home Sweet Homer. (Wiley! actually had more performances, as that Yul Brynner vehicle closed after one night.) The title, Wiley!, derives from the formulation "wily Odysseus" so common in classical literature.

Technically, Wiley! was not the final Calliope. The following year, 1979, the Mask & Bauble Dramatic Society revived an earlier Calliope, Senior Prom, which enjoyed an extraordinary success in the early 1970s. Senior Prom was a Fifties musical, set in a Catholic high school. Senior Prom hit on Fifties nostalgia before it was hot (long before Fonzie jumped the shark on Happy Days) and preceded Grease on the stage. In fact, after it concluded its brief set of performances at Georgetown University, Senior Prom played for several months at the Washington Theatre Club (now defunct) and was optioned for Broadway. Unfortunately, the far inferior Grease hit the Great White Way first and the producers who had optioned Senior Prom felt it would be redundant. Meanwhile, Grease -- Mediocrity Writ Large -- went on to become one of the longest-running musicals in Broadway history. (One of the co-creators of Senior Prom, Jack Hofsiss, went on to become the youngest director ever to win a Tony Award, for The Elephant Man.)

But I digress.

Wiley! was written by two Jesuits, William O'Malley and Lawrence Madden. They originally conceived it while they were in the novitiate together. O'Malley wrote the book and lyrics, while Madden composed the music. Father O'Malley is best known for his role as Father Dyer, Jason Miller's drinking buddy/confessor in The Exorcist, but in real life he has been a theologian, author, and teacher at McQuaid Jesuit High School, Fordham University, and Fordham Prep. Larry Madden has been a parish priest, director of campus ministry at Georgetown University, and a leading liturgist, as director of the Georgetown Center for Liturgy. The show's director was the late Denis Moran, S.J., who was artistic director of Mask & Bauble at the time.

The cast of Wiley! was astonishing. It included, in the title role, Helen Hayes Award-winner Lawrence Redmond (listed on the program as "Larry Redmond"), who went on to become one of Washington's most prolific and successful actors, appearing at the Arena Stage, Signature Theatre, Theatre J, and other companies. Zeus was played by Rick Lombardo, now producing artistic director at the New Repertory Theatre near Boston. Scott Pilarz, who played Ares, is now a Jesuit priest who was named president of the University of Scranton in 2003. Maryn McKenna (Penelope) is a science and medical writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and author of the recent book, Beating Back the Devil. Many other actors who appeared on a Georgetown stage for the first time with Wiley! went on to long and intensive associations with Mask & Bauble and other campus theatre groups.

As publicity director for the show (I was also on the lighting crew), I was responsible for bringing in a professional recording company to put Wiley! on vinyl. It only took a bit more than a quarter-century for the songs to be transferred to CD, thanks to the Georgetown Theatre Alumni. The score today sounds as vibrant as it did in 1978. It ranges from anthems to ballads to comic numbers to rock-n-roll pastiche. Hearing Wiley! on CD proves to me that the show deserves a revival. After all, no tale has had such a long life as The Odyssey (except, perhaps, for The Iliad -- but I digress again), and every retelling helps introduce the classic to a new audience.

The CD recording of Wiley!, along with those of a number of other Calliope productions, can be ordered through the Georgetown Theatre Alumni web site.

Now for a guilty secret: I possess an audio cassette recording of Wiley! that includes music that didn't make it, for reasons of space, to the vinyl LP. The recording company we hired did, in fact, put the entire score on tape -- including dance sequences. The audio cassette I have includes, for instance, Maryn McKenna's solo recording of "Facing the Years Alone" (available only as a duet reprise with Lawrence Redmond on the vinyl LP and CD) and several ballet numbers that served as transitions between the locations that Odysseus visits on his long journey home. My best guess is that the GTA volunteers who uncovered and re-recorded Wiley! and the other shows did not know of the existence of this more complete recording. I feel guilty because I could have turned over my secret treasure when the project began.

More on The Moffatts

Specifically, I have more news on Dave Moffatt.

Regular readers will remember my surprise at the popularity of my post about Folkskunde and The Moffatts -- Folkskunde being a band of young Charlottesville musicians, The Moffatts being a band made up of four Canadian brothers.

An astounding percentage of people who find this blog continue to do so while looking for news on Dave Moffatt and his brothers. It is still the single most popular search item leading to Rick Sincere News and Thoughts. (That said, some of my postings on politics develop temporary surges of interest, but none of them are so consistently popular as Dave, Bob, Clint, and Scott Moffatt seem to be.)

While trying to satisfy my own curiosity about this phenomenon, I discovered, as I've noted before, that Dave Moffatt lives in Winnipeg and he will be performing in a local theatre's production of Miss Saigon.

I also found out that he has posed for some rather provocative -- edgy yet artistic -- photographs by a Vancouver-based photographer who goes by the nom de Net "toxicboy." (He's also known by "Mikel.") A look at the photos on his site demonstrates that Toxicboy is extremely talented. He has a great eye for shadow and frame, and he has a unique approach to color (tint, hue, shading). He also works in black-and-white. While I recommend a viewing of Toxicboy's work, be forewarned: His photos are mostly nude and semi-nude males with an erotic destination. Whether that's his primary destination or not, Mikel/Toxicboy is going places.

And to think I never would have discovered all this without Dave Moffatt and his many fans.

More news: Metro, a free newspaper distributed to mass transit riders in Toronto, reported last Friday in an article about "Canadian Idol" auditions in Winnipeg:

Interesting tidbits: Dave Moffat, from the Moffats, made it to the celebrity round. His brothers - he's the middle triplet - are re-forming their band with an alt-rock vibe, but Dave wants a pop career, so he was in Winnipeg trying out. In other news, the Canadian Idol production crew has been spooked and creeped out while staying at the Fort Garry Hotel, which is said to be haunted.

And in the "small world" department (understandable only to those who know Canadian history) the paper goes on to note:

A weird coincidence: Unbeknownst to each other, both the great-great-granddaughter of Louis Riel and the great-great-grandson of Riel's arresting officer turned out for auditions.

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Of Rage and Remembrance (Revisited)

In my post on the upcoming Kennedy Center season, I note Leonard Slatkin's announcement that the National Symphony Orchestra will be performing John Corigliano's First Symphony, and that the NSO had won a Grammy award for its recording of that work several years ago.

I dug into my archives and turned up my review of the NSO's premiere of the Corigliano symphony, written in November 1995. It was only my third piece as The Metro Herald's entertainment editor, and my first attempt at music criticism. That said, I thought it might be interesting to revisit that article in light of the NSO's plans to revive Corigliano's First Symphony as part of its 75th anniversary season.

The article also mentions some other works that may or not be featured in the NSO's new season.

Modern Music Brightens NSO's Future
Rick Sincere
Metro Herald Entertainment Editor

For conductor Leonard Slatkin to choose John Corigliano's Symphony No. 1 as the first piece he records with the National Symphony Orchestra speaks volumes about Slatkin's views about modern music and the direction the NSO should take. It suggests a dedication to modern, and to American, music that should undergird the NSO's entire mission.

Slatkin, who remains Music Director Designate until next year, explained before the Kennedy Center Concert Hall premiere of the Corigliano work that "music through the ages has traditionally been the abstract," but this composer works from the concrete. The symphony, he noted, had its "genesis" in the composer's response to two things: the AIDS epidemic and the famous Names Project Memorial Quilt, which serves as a vivid reminder of those who have lost their lives -- often very young lives -- to AIDS.

Strangely enough, the Corigliano First Symphony has been played by every major orchestra in America, in over 600 performances, since its commissioning by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra five years ago [1990]. Of the country's major orchestras, only the National Symphony waited until now to perform the work for Washington audiences.

Corigliano has written a piece for a huge orchestra. The string sections are full, the horns and woodwinds are double and triple their normal composition, and the percussionists are busier than one ever sees them. The symphony calls for three piccolos, three flutes, three oboes, six clarinets, and three bassoons. The percussion section alone could fill a music store, with some instruments that are positively odd (yet add much to the totality of the work): The percussionists must play rototoms, temple blocks, crotales, a whip, a flexatone, a metal plate, a tam-tam, a brake drum, chimes, an anvil, and a police whistle. Corigliano has also written parts for two pianos, one onstage and one offstage.

Written, as symphonies are, in four movements, the third and fourth movements slide into each other imperceptibly. The first movement ("Of Rage and Remembrance") serves as an introduction of the themes that will predominate throughout the score. The second movement is manic in its form, which technically is a "tarantella," a wild folk dance of Italy. It is meant to represent the slowly building dementia suffered by so many people with AIDS. The third movement, by contrast, is far more lyric. It is dominated by a cello solo (with a bass continuo) that was inspired by a 1962 recording by the composer's good friend, Giulio, who died of AIDS-related causes. The fourth movement returns us to the themes that have been woven throughout the piece, and with "sonic waves" provided by the brass section, the solo cello continues, in dialogue with another cello, ending in a diminuendo that terminates the symphony on the same note with which it began.

The performances of Corigliano's Symphony No. 1 on November 9, 10, and 11 were recorded both by National Public Radio for future broadcast and by RCA Victor Red Seal. In a few months, we will be able to see whether Slatkin's interpretation of Corigliano will stand up against the premiere recording, by the Chicago Symphony under the baton of Daniel Barenboim.

Accompanying the Corigliano work in this set of concerts were three other pieces: Samuel Adler's organ fanfare, "Festive Proclamation," Henry Purcell's Chacony in G minor (orchestrated by Benjamin Britten), and Hector Berlioz's "Les nuits d'été," a song-cycle performed by Dutch mezzo-soprano Jard van Nes.

Slatkin's selection of the Britten/Purcell work is an indication of his tastes in music, too. Britten is seldom performed in the United States. Slatkin, however, has recorded several Britten works as director of the St. Louis Symphony, including the opera A Midsummer Night's Dream (which is available in a video recording in the Kennedy Center gift shop). Britten fans in the Washington area have much to look forward to, as the National Symphony has not offered much of the 20th century British composer's work in recent years.

Adler's organ fanfare is one of 25 fanfares commissioned for the NSO this season by the John and June Hechinger Commissioning Fund. Its driving rhythm, strong contrapuntal technique, and use of all the registers of the organ (including some significant pedalpoint work) will bring this work into the mainstream of organ music. Though written specifically for the NSO's organist, William Neil, it is not hard to believe that this composition will quickly find its way into the repertoires of many church organists throughout the country. It would be appropriate for weddings, ordinations, special celebrations, and even secular events such as theatre dedications or presidential inaugurations.

Will the FEC Ban Political Blogging?

Declan McCullagh interviews Federal Election Commissioner Bradley Smith on CNET, and Smith reveals that his FEC colleagues are ready to regulate the Internet by the same standards they currently regulate TV and radio. The effect, should the FEC succeed in doing so, will be to shut down political bloggers and threaten punishment for anyone who forwards information about a political candidate to a list of email recipients.

Here's how McCullagh -- called by liberal commentator Doug Ireland "an indefatigable and perspicacious" reporter -- summarizes Smith's remarks:

Bradley Smith says that the freewheeling days of political blogging and online punditry are over.

In just a few months, he warns, bloggers and news organizations could risk the wrath of the federal government if they improperly link to a campaign's Web site. Even forwarding a political candidate's press release to a mailing list, depending on the details, could be punished by fines.

Smith should know. He's one of the six commissioners at the Federal Election Commission, which is beginning the perilous process of extending a controversial 2002 campaign finance law to the Internet.

Smith, the author of Unfree Speech: The Folly of Campaign Finance Reform, tells McCullagh, in response to the question, "So if you're using text that the campaign sends you, and you're reproducing it on your blog or forwarding it to a mailing list, you could be in trouble?":

Yes. In fact, the regulations are very specific that reproducing a campaign's material is a reproduction for purpose of triggering the law. That'll count as an expenditure that counts against campaign finance law.

This is an incredible thicket. If someone else doesn't take action, for instance in Congress, we're running a real possibility of serious Internet regulation. It's going to be bizarre.

Smith also notes:

It's going to be a battle, and if nobody in Congress is willing to stand up and say, "Keep your hands off of this, and we'll change the statute to make it clear," then I think grassroots Internet activity is in danger. The impact would affect e-mail lists, especially if there's any sense that they're done in coordination with the campaign. If I forward something from the campaign to my personal list of several hundred people, which is a great grassroots activity, that's what we're talking about having to look at.

Senators McCain and Feingold have argued that we have to regulate the Internet, that we have to regulate e-mail. They sued us in court over this and they won.

This is a situation that deserves vigilant observation. The greatest mistake of George W. Bush as president has been his refusal to veto the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law as unconstitutional regulation of speech. Because Bush has no spine, the Supreme Court was later able to rule, against all logic and the plain language of the Constitution, that McCain-Feingold is somehow permissible despite the First Amendment.

As Ward Churchill might say, the chickens are coming home to roost.

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Kennedy Center Announces 2005-06 Season

Yesterday (Tuesday, March 1), I attended a news conference at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. What follows is the report I filed with The Metro Herald, which should appear in the newspaper's edition of Friday, March 4.

Kennedy Center Announces 2005-06 Season
China, Country Music, NSO's 75th Anniversary Among Highlights
Rick Sincere
Metro Herald Entertainment Editor

(Washington) --- Michael M. Kaiser, president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and National Symphony Orchestra Music Director Leonard Slatikin took the stage of the Terrace Theater on March 1 to announce the programs slated for the Center's 2005-06 season, which will begin on Labor Day with the NSO's annual concert on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol.

Kaiser also announced that two distinguished igures from the performing arts, ballerina/choreographer Suzanne Farrell and Broadway producer-director Harold Prince (a 1994 Kennedy Center Honors recipient), will join the Center as Artistic Advisors. Farrell will bring her expertise in the world of dance while Prince will offer advice on new and revived theatrical works to be produced by the Kennedy Center.

Slatkin noted that, while the NSO strives in every season to be "new and different," an anniversary that ends in "a five or a zero" calls for something "more special" with "artistic excellence" that is "extraordinary." He announced that with the NSO's special gala performance to start its 75th anniversary season, the orchestra will unveil a new arrangement of "The Star-Spangled Banner" by Rob Mathis, after more than 50 years of using an arrangement by the NSO's long-time music director, Antal Dorati.

The NSO will premiere several works and will revisit older works it had earlier commissioned by American composers, including John Corigliano's First Symphony (for which the NSO won its first Grammy award). New works by Roberto Sierra and David Del Tredici will also be featured this year.

One of the biggest undertakings of the new season will be a Festival of China, which will feature music, dance, folk theater, film, and a wide range of other performance pieces.

In addition, Kaiser ananounced that for the first time in Kennedy Center history, it will host a Country Music Festival, in partnership with the Country Music Hall of Fame, co-chaired by Emmylou Harris and Vince Gill. The Center's president confessed over lunch after the news conference that he is himself a particular fan of country music, and he explained that like jazz, which has a long history of support by (and performances at) the Kennedy Center, country music is an indigenous American art form that is admired around the world.

On the theatrical stage, the Kennedy Center will bring to Washington two recent Broadway productions, the Tony-award winning Wicked and a new adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. Additionally, a new revival of the classic musical, Mame, starring Christine Baranski and directed by Signature Theatre's Eric Schaeffer, will premiere in February 2006. Kaiser noted that this will be the first large-scale production of Mame ever to play in Washington.

The Kennedy Center will also be opening a new performance venue. The new Family Theatre will take over the space formerly occupied by the American Film Institute Theater. Its first work will be an adaptation of Alice, a popular 1992 children's book by Oscar-winning actress Whoopi Goldberg, aimed at audiences in the 7- to 12-year-old age group. Other new plays in the Family Theater, under the auspices of the Kennedy Center's education department, will be targeted at older (high-school-aged) audiences as well as the more traditional elementary school audiences. Darrell M. Ayers, the Center's vice president for education, explained that there is a shortage of good theatrical work for seventh- to twelfth-graders, and that with this year's newly commissioned plays and future works, the Center hopes to fill that gap.

Including the free performances at the Millennium Stage, the Kennedy Center is the host to some 2,500-plus performances each year, in addition to about 1,000 other events. On any given day, from 7,500 to 8,000 people pass through the Kennedy Center's doors to enjoy music, dance, drama, or other performing arts. And more than that, through international and domestic outreach programs, the Kennedy Center's educational efforts reach perhaps hundreds of thousands more each year at venues outside Washington.

Too many performances to be listed here are planned for the 2005-06 season. Even Michael Kaiser had to stop short during his news conference in order to avoid comparisons to reading a telephone book. For further information, visit the Kennedy Center's web site.