Asheville Citizen-Times

A couple of week's ago, PJnet pointed out the new experiment from the Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times. In essence, the paper is attempting to ride the wave of "particpatory journalism" whose boundaries may or may not include blogging by inviting readers to join the ranks of the published. This is how Dave Russell, an editorial page editor, put it:

The AC-T is about halfway through our year with this round of citizen journalists (we call them local columnists), and so far, I’d have to say it has been an overwhelming success. Selecting them was wonderfully grueling; one of the hardest things Editorial Page Editor Joy Franklin has ever asked me to be part of.

About 40 people submitted material to us. All four of us here in the editorial corner read each piece and picked eight, then we got together and talked and talked about it. I think we had so many good candidates that we could have picked eight different people out of that 40 and still had a group with similar talent.

Interesting concept, I thought. But the paper is still acting as a gatekeeper -- deciding which columnists see print. I suggested, in a comment on the PJnet board, that the paper publish all 40 entries on their Web site and let readers decide which ones should make newsprint. In an email to Dave, I expanded my thoughts:

Most of the bloggers I read believe that the media carefully shape the message that they deliver and they (the bloggers) resent this power. As for a former newspaperman, I know that I have used (and even abused, honestly) this power myself. By embracing these changes, you'd be the first newspaper to take this criticism seriously and actually do something about it.

He promptly responded:

The answer is "time." The eight local columnists (there are 10, actually; two were hand-picked by by our publisher) we selected submit items that we must fact-check, work to AP style, etc. Just as in print, we are liable for slander and libel on our Web site ... My editor holds everything we put on the Web site to the same standards as our 150-year-old print product. We just wouldn't have time to wade through that much type.

An understandable reason for trepidation. I suggested that perhaps the 40 local columnists could be located behind a firewall and disclaimer that would release the publisher from liability -- although that sounds like a murky legal area. (I'm taking a graduate-level media law class in the fall, perhaps we'll discuss this subject.) Dave's response:

Eventually, I want to establish a "blog ring" around our editorial pages that we would link to from our Web site to allow differing opinions on our content. My editors are older than me and you (probably much older than you; not-so-older than me) and are very cautious about these sorts of things. We'll see.

That sounds like a great idea. Wouldn't take much for a newspaper to add a few blog links to their pages -- except the tacit admission that they no longer hold the monopoly on the printed word. That's a tough sell for many in the business.

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The Amish

While passing through Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, the other day, I realized I knew very little about the Amish. Decided to check out the wikipedia entry. Very enlightening. The short version: The Amish are Mennonites, but they take themselves much more seriously. They can use electricity -- but only in small quantities such as batteries or portable generators, so that they don't get addicted to worldly appliances. They do pay taxes, but are exempt from Social Security. I love wikipedia.

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Chrenkoff

First Bob Geldof, now Alice Cooper.

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ESPN Motion

Check out the new feature on ESPN.com called Motion Video. (No direct link available; it's on the right side of the screen about half way down.) The crew from Baseball Tonight records a few vignettes for broadcast solely on the Web site. Good move. Good stuff today on the Red Sox, Yankees, and Mets. I'm sure they do the same for the other sports, but I don't really pay attention to much else.

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On Rove

Good point. And read the transcript to see what he said. I agree with most of it.

... [A] petition is precisely what Moveon.org did. It was a petition imploring the powers that be" to "use moderation and restraint in responding to the… terrorist attacks against the United States."

I don't know about you, but moderation and restraint is not what I felt as I watched the Twin Towers crumble to the earth; a side of the Pentagon destroyed; and almost 3,000 of our fellow citizens perish in flames and rubble.

Moderation and restraint is not what I felt - and moderation and restraint is not what was called for. It was a moment to summon our national will - and to brandish steel.

MoveOn.Org, Michael Moore and Howard Dean may not have agreed with this, but the American people did. Conservatives saw what happened to us on 9/11 and said: we will defeat our enemies. Liberals saw what happened to us and said: we must understand our enemies. Conservatives see the United States as a great nation engaged in a noble cause; liberals see the United States and they see … Nazi concentration camps, Soviet gulags, and the killing fields of Cambodia.

I think the United States is a noble country. It has many flaws, but it has the fewest flaws of any other country.

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Vacation

Sorry for the continued light blogging. I'm on extended vacation. Now in Elkton, Maryland, on my way up to Westport, Maine. Be back soon...

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Only in the South

Burgaw, N.C.: The tin peeling from the roof, the junk strewn out in the yard, the retired milk truck -- this photo perfectly captures one aspect of the rural South. The fact that there's a cow in the foreground almost makes you think it was staged, eh?

(Click on photo to enlarge.)

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Call Encyclopedia Brown

I have no idea what force of nature is keeping these tires inside the bed of this truck. It's a mystery.

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More on gas prices

I tried to find an article about the effectiveness of Clinton's oil sell-off move in April of 1996. I couldn't find anything difinitive. However, this chart indicates the move had no effect whatsoever on gas prices. I now return to my staunchly held free-market ideals.

I did find this blog post from Larry Kudlow, a respected economist who served under Reagan. He advocated in April that the federal government stop filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to help prick the bubble. That seems to be prudent advice and not necessarily a violation of Adam Smith's principles. In fact, by ending the oil buy, the government would be returning the market to its originally free nature.

Soon, it will all be a moot point. According to this Department of Energy press release, the oil purchase will be complete by August.

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Gas prices

Forgive the light blogging of late. I'm pulling news articles for my thesis from Lexis-Nexis. It's taking longer than it should because I keep reading the old clippings. Here's an interesting New York Times article from 1996:

In an effort to stem an election-year surge in gasoline prices, President Clinton announced today that the Government would seek to bring them down by selling about 12 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

In addition, Mr. Clinton instructed the Energy Secretary, Hazel R. O'Leary, to report to him in 45 days on the factors that led to the recent run-up in pump prices that have raised gasoline to a national average of $1.24 for a gallon of regular, up about 10 percent from a year ago.

Mr. Clinton's move had been authorized by Congress in the budget agreement reached last week and it had envisioned the action more as a deficit-reduction measure to raise $227 million for the Government. The sale would amount to two-thirds of a day's consumption of crude oil.But the President attributed his decision to act immediately to his concern about the surge in gasoline prices, which have emerged as a political issue in Congress and in the Presidential race.

$1.24 per gallon! Outrageous!

Although it's hard for a free-market capitalist to stomach, perhaps it's time for Bush to try such a move.

I don't recall if that move had any long-lasting effect. Other than helping him win the election, of course.

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Power Line: Two Elections

Some good analysis of media coverage of both Lebanon and Iran voting over at Powerline.

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A kind word for Tom

I'm actually impressed with the way Tom Cruise handled this.

UPDATE: Drezner weighs in on the Cruise-Holmes courtship.

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The final cut

I always liked Bob Geldof in Pink Floyd's The Wall. Now, I like him even more as George W. Bush's biggest defender:

America doesn't have a lack of empathy; they just don't know the issues as well. Actually, today I had to defend the Bush Administration in France again. They refuse to accept, because of their political ideology, that he has actually done more than any American President for Africa. But it's empirically so.

By the way, Roger Waters is going to rejoin Pink Floyd at the Live8 concert. After this, will there be any classic rock bands that have yet to mend their fences?

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Serious lack of objectivity

Here's what's wrong with today's news reporting. An entire article about the Iranian elections that doesn't point out anywhere that the entire elections are a sham. Ten paragraphs into the story, this fact is pointed out -- but only as an allegation from our democratically elected president.

A day before the election, Bush sharply denounced the vote, saying it was designed to keep power in the hands of the clerics. But some Iranians said they were motivated to vote to retaliate against Bush's denunciations.

Bush is right, and it's a fact. According to this BBC report, hardliner clerics allowed only 8 candidates from a pool of more than 1,000 to run for office. These are not free elections. The closest admission of the true nature of Iranian politics is a throw-away line in the second-half of this sentence: "Karroubi is a close ally of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who heads the non-elected theocracy that can overrule the president or parliament."

The AP report reads as if the Iranian elections are the epitome of fair voting. Incredibly, there's no mention of the hardliner ban.

Not pointing out crucial facts may produce stories free from judgment -- but that doesn't make them accurate.

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Enchanted By Own Innocence, Michael Jackson Molests Self

Headline from The Onion.

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PostSecret

Well, at least this blog is different.

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Iraq

Powerline amplifies some good Iraq news regarding the capture of a terrorist. I like this line:

I hope he's being questioned by the Iraqis, and that they're not just playing pop music for him.

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Buyer Beware

Friend of mine just called. His trading company just went out of business. They heavily shorted this stock at $12.50 sometime this morning. They were out of business by a little after lunch.

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China Protest

For all the bellyaching about the erosion of America's civil liberties, a look at a country like China should remind us what a lack of freedom really looks like:

Shocking footage of crowd control 'Chinese-style' has been obtained by Sky News.

The film shows dozens of hired thugs running amok in a village just 60 miles from the capital Beijing.

Villagers are shown being beaten with long canes while gunfire can be heard in the background.

Six villagers are reported to have died while 50 were injured.

It is the worst footage of violence to emerge from the secretive country since the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989.

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Inside a major metro paper

Interesting article about a reporter's three-year stint at the Milwaukee newspaper. As a former copy editor at the Boston Herald, I found this amusing:

A critical part of that process was the copy editor. Each story went through two edits, first by the “rimmer,” then by the “slot.” The titles were ancient, harking back to when rimmers sat in a horseshoe arrangement, with the eye shade-wearing top editor or slot in the middle.

The level of detail considered by copy editors was often impressive and at times maddening. Copy editors woke reporters at night to niggle over nuances in a story.

“They’re aliens,” reporter Lee Bergquist raged after one nighttime call. “They’re not like us.”

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Citizen-Times

Interesting post and comments about the citizen journalism efforts of the Ashville (N.C.) Citizen-Times.

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Take Back The Memorial

A blog dedicated to unpoliticizing the 9/11 memorial. Of course, I see it as unpoliticizing, but others would see a memorial without some reference to the wrongs of America as, itself, a political statement. I guess we've got to find a middle ground that we can all agree on.

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Microsoft sells out

A free-market capitalist, I'm usually Microsoft's biggest defender. No one can defend this:

Microsoft Corp.'s new MSN China Internet venture is censoring words such as "freedom," "democracy" and "human rights" on its free online journals, Microsoft said on Tuesday, putting itself in the middle of a major Web controversy.

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Iranian protest

Great photos of women protesting in Iran. Everyone wants freedom.

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Yon in Iraq

Refreshing read from Michael Yon, an independent journalist in Iraq. His reports are not filled with subtle pessimism for our cause and quiet admiration for those killing soldiers and Iraqis.

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Creating knowledge

Here's a good post on Wikipedia and the newfound ability for a community to agree on what is fact.

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More urban legends debunked

I always believed the the nursery rhyme "Ring around the Rosies" was a reference to the Black Death. By the way, "The Wizard of Oz" isn't really a parable on populism.

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Jackson dive

Here's a good reader on how the case against Michael Jackson fell apart. Basically, it's hard for a juror to believe anyone crazy enough to hang out with Michael Jackson.

No matter the verdict, I'll always remember this note that Michael wrote to the child:

I'm your daddy ... I'm very happy to be your daddy. Blanket, Prince Michael Jr., and Paris are your brothers and sister. Love, your daddy

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Governor Calls Special Election

Pretty revolutionary stuff that Schwarzenegger is proposing in California.

The governor wants voters to consider ballot measures that would impose a cap on state spending, redraw legislative districts and increase the time it takes teachers to gain tenure. Perhaps even more important to rival Democrats, however, is an initiative promoted by Schwarzenegger supporters that would restrict the use of union dues for political purposes. If approved, it would dry up a key source of campaign money for Democrats...

... Schwarzenegger has described the looming campaign as “the great battle.” He argues that the issues he is bringing to the voters are critical to fixing the state’s ongoing budget problems and breaking the grip that public employee unions hold on the Capitol.

Polls show that the move is unpopular, a testament to Schwarzenegger's leadership style. When he's done campaigning for the changes, it'll pass comfortably.

I'm not so sure Schwarzenegger won't be president one day. Sure, it'll take a constitutional amendment to elect him. With so many legislatures controlled by the GOP, perhaps the idea is not so far-fetched. If he says he wants to run, and the Congress and legislatures support it, the Constitution can be amended in as little as four months. Who knows?

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Muslim basketball

Great Thought-provoking post.

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Commerce memorial

Great idea from Jeff Jarvis. No museum at the Sept. 11 memorial, just retail shops. An unapologetic celebration of what makes America great.

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Madonna wakes up

Amazing admission from Madonna:

One minute I was saying believe in yourself and the next minute I was saying just be sexually provocative for the sake of being sexually provocative.

I was letting it pump up my ego, thinking aren't I great, they're writing about me, my picture's on the cover of every magazine, I'm so fabulous.

Too bad there's a legion of younger performers sending teens the same message.

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Single payer fraud

Great editorial in the Wall Street Journal about the a Canadian Supreme Court ruling. In essence, the court ruled that the much-lauded "single-payer" health care system doesn't work.

In the ruling, the chief justice wrote: "Access to a waiting list is not access to health care."

The editorial board of the WSJ expands:

There are only two ways to allocate any good or service: through prices, as is done in a market economy, or lines dictated by government, as in Canada's system. The socialist claim is that a single-payer system is more equal than one based on prices, but last week's court decision reveals that as an illusion. Or, to put it another way, Canadian health care is equal only in its shared scarcity.

An important lesson for those who argue that the U.S. system is broken. Yes, our system has major flaws. But, don't point to other systems as the solution if they don't work either.

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Not surprising

Here's the latest circular from my suburban Atlanta mailbox. I never realized that prices at the Dollar Tree were too steep.

Finally, those who think $1 is too much pay for picture frames, CD cases, and assorted bric-a-brac now have an alternative.

I thought I'd found the reason that much of the Muslim world hated us; that distinction may have been supplanted.

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Northwest Passage

Good reader in the Washington Times about the territorial disputes in Canada caused by increasingly accesible water routes:

An open Northwest Passage would cut 5,000 nautical miles from shipping routes between Europe and Asia.

If the passage's deep waters become completely ice-free in summer months, they would be particularly enticing for massive supertankers that are forced to plow around the tip of South America because they are too big to pass through the Panama Canal.

For the record, I've no dispute that global warming is a real phenomenon; I just object to the knee-jerk conclusion that it's caused by humans and their industrialization. The Earth has warmed before -- even when there were no factories to blame.

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Interesting smell you've discovered

Stories like this remind me why I enjoy visiting New York but am glad I don't live there.

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CJR bias

It now appears that the former editor of the Nation, a leading left-wing magazine, has led the Columbia Journalism Review for as long as the last two years. The revelation helps explain the curious response from the CJR to the Dan Rather debacle.

A quick refresher -- a sitting anchorman for one of the big-three networks airs an investigative piece very damaging to the president of the United States a month before a general election. The documents upon which the story is based are extremely suspicious, and the producers of the piece were well aware of the suspicions. The scandal ended with the anchor resigning and the ouster of four staffers. That's the biggest journalism scandal that I've ever witnessed.

How does CJR cover this story? The headline to their piece read: "Yes, CBS screwed up badly in ‘Memogate’ — but so did those who covered the affair." The latter culprits were mainly the bloggers who broke that story. So, CJR essentially ignored the story and focused instead on the alleged errors of those who covered it. Great idea! (I would have enjoyed sitting in on the budget meeting where that idea was floated and ultimately approved. Talk about groupthink.)

With the revelation about who's leading the CJR, the decision becomes a little more understandable. The fox is watching the henhouse.

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Ingrates

Good point from Power Line on how the media has covered the Howard Dean flap. The major outlets have practiced remarkable restraint.

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Give War a Chance

Nobody, and I mean nobody, pokes fun at the anti-war crowd like Tim Blair.

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Guantanamo Bay

Good counterweight to the "Close Gitmo" hysteria.

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Jimmy

Now Ethiopia is rioting over suspicious elections. Of course, Jimmy Carter already gave them his seal of approval. Apparently, the former president enjoys providing a PR boost to shady regimes.

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Have a cigar

In the morally relativistic world which is my university, two of my professors recently spoke ambivalenty about life in Cuba -- a theme echoed by many in academia. I often chuckle at this idyllic view of the Carribean island, especially when news stories like this one pop up.

One never hears tales of Floridians making a boat out a '57 Chevy in an ill-fated bid to escape to Cuba. Of course, Chompsky would argue that's because corporations control the media.

While I'm on the subject, the U.S. refugee policy toward Cuba seems pretty idiotic. If they make it to land, they get to stay; if they get caught at sea they go back to Cuba. Given our newfound emphasis on freedom, perhaps we should allow anyone who gets close stay in our country. Cuba, after all, isn't free.

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The pendulum swings back

This is refreshing:

U.S. fashion experts say a trend toward modesty is evident in new fall styles for clothing aimed at girls in their early teens, and will become more common with spring 2006 designs.

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It's supposed to be a memorial

Great line frmo Jeff Jarvis on efforts to demonize the U.S. on the site of the Twin Towers memorial:

On my grave, please do not build a memorial to the mistakes of my neighbors and ancestors. Don't stand on the grass above me and flagellate. Just let me lie there in peace, please.

Amen.

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CNN tries something new

CNN has decided to starting air news programs. They recently covered the International Criminal Court, the Sudan crisis, Rumsfeld'd trip to Asia, and North Korea instead of Aruba, Michael Jackson and an update on the runaway bride. Color me impressed.

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A Sign of the Times

I visited Southern California with a friend of mine in the early 90s and this road sign was my most vidid memory. Oh, and the food poisoning I got eating $2.99 lobster in Las Vegas. What possessed me to eat lobster in Las Vegas?

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Kids fare

A study says that G-rated films are more profitable that other movies. Maybe this will convince media executives to start making more and better kid fare. There are far too few films out there that I want to take my kids to see. I had to watch Brother Bear a last year. Now, that was a complete waste of 90 minutes.

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A Study in Abuse

Here's a great column on the Koran abuse story:

There can't be a single instance, in all of human history, where the spiritual sensitivities of captured enemy combatants have been so scrupulously regarded. This is borne out by those few cases where "abuse" was actually found; they are, in the words of the often-puzzling cliché, exceptions that prove the rule...

...It seems that the Army--or maybe it's the United States--just can't win. It is almost inconceivable that the Hood report could have been more favorable to the Guantanamo guards and interrogators, yet the international and American press treated it as a confession of wrongdoing, at times with a hint that the Newsweek allegation had proven true after all. Little (frequently, nothing) was made of the fact that it was the Muslim detainees, not American guards or interrogators, who had perpetrated precisely the acts that were the excuse for anti-American riots in the Muslim world.

Does anyone -- who didn't already distrust the military, hate Bush and the oppose the Iraq war -- actually think this is a big deal?

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Blogophobia

Good reaction to type of play blogs get in the mainstream press. Note all the unsourced allegations. I wonder why the press is distrusted?

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Education reform

Article in the New Republic (reg. required) from Kerry's former ed adviser on Democrats and education. Here's a good summation:

... Democrats can only defend the failing status quo or attack any plans that don't involve more blank checks to the current system. Those whom Democrats claim to help (the lower class, minorities, etc.) have to wonder why they continue to vote blue. Many Democrats oppose standards and accountability (which have proven to narrow racial and economic achievement gaps); they oppose combat pay, which would encourage the best teachers to work in the worst schools by providing bonuses (where they are the most desperately needed and have the largest impact); they oppose NCLB as an unfunded mandate on grounds that it requires states to spend more money (or simply because the President supports it, though many Democrats before Bush supported accountability); they oppose choice options that would allow poor students to escape terrible schools--the list goes on ...

Seems like prudent criticism.

(Hat tip: Ann)

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Bias battle moves to K-12

Interesting article about efforts to combat -- or at least publicize -- liberal bias from teachers at the grade-school level.

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Tim Blair

Great analysis from Tim Blair on the Koran coverage.

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Ward Churchill update

The Rocky Mountain News unveiled an investigative series today looking into the allegations against Ward Churchill, the Colorado professor who represents everything that's wrong with academia today. Here's an overview:

University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill fabricated historical facts, published the work of others as his own and repeatedly made false claims about two federal Indian laws, a Rocky Mountain News investigation has found.

The two-month News investigation, carried out at the same time Churchill and his work are being carefully examined by the university, also unearthed fresh genealogical information that casts new doubts on the professor's long-held assertion that he is of American Indian ancestry.

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Plagiarism

A columnist for a small newspaper in Georgia was fired for plagiarizing the work of Leonard Pitts, a Miami Herald columnist. Here's a section of Pitts' open letter to the plagiarist, Chris Cecil:

My words are important to me. I struggle with them, obsess over them. Show me something I wrote and like a mother recounting a child's birth, I can tell you stories of how it came to be, why this adjective here or that colon there.

See, my life's goal is to learn to write. And you cannot cut and paste your way to that. You can only work your way there, sweating out words, wrestling down prose, hammering together poetry. There are no shortcuts.

Look, I hate a plagiarist as much as the next guy, but doesn't Pitts seem to take himself just a tad too seriously?

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Harvard's Diversity Grovel

Interesting analysis of the $50 million Harvard's throwing toward "diversity."

Of gender and race, that is. Not diversity of thought.

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Still Rather biased

Dan Rather on Larry King last night suggested that the National Guard memos may not be fake. This is part of slow creep toward ambiguity that resulted from the CBS panel's inability to rule absolutely that they were forgeries. A small detail that becomes larger everyday.

History will now be rewritten. Perhaps in 10 years, the National Guard story will be taught in journalism school as a right-wing plot that discredited a perfectly accurate story.

Don't forget. These memos were fakes. Ridiculously easy to spot fakes. Journalists and academics that can't admit that are blinded by ideological bias. And they're contributing to the media's credibility problem.

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David Ortiz

David Ortiz hit another game-winning homerun for the Red Sox today. Here's a great quote after the game:

"That's the only way I can get people to know who I am -- going out there and producing," Ortiz said. Asked if he really thought there was anyone in Boston who didn't know him, Ortiz cracked, "A child that's just born today."

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The right balance

Good column from Jeff Jacoby:

What Kerry and the others object to is not that there are only conservative voices in media circles these days but that there are any such voices. The right-of-center Fox News cannot hold a candle to the combined left-of-center output of ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, and PBS. Scaife, Bradley, and Olin money helps leverage Republican messages, but its impact is dwarfed by the Ford, Rockefeller, Pew, Heinz, MacArthur, Carnegie, and Soros fortunes. The Washington Times is conservative? Yes, but The Washington Post is liberal -- and its circulation is eight times as large.

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Blogging from Iraq

This a great report from Michael Yon, a blogger, in northern Iraq. Great, unfiltered information. Obviously, life in Northern Iraq is better than anywhere else (because of the semi-autonomy that existed even under Saddam.) But, I had no idea things were going so well:

I walked with some soldiers to a department store where we passed by the kiddie rides outside. The storefront may well have been in Colorado Springs, or Munich. There were big push-carts for the adults, and little carts for the children.

I liked this line as well: "Checkpoint after checkpoint, the Kurdish police and soldiers searched cars and papers while smiling and waving the Americans through." It's nice to know we're not hated everywhere.

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Have your cake, eat it too

One of my professors recently pointed out that all women's magazines share two common elements on their covers: a weight-loss regimen and a picture of a fantastic dessert. An interesting observation about the mixed signals sent to women in our culture, I thought, although I'm sure she's exagerating how often the tactic can be found. She's not. Start paying attention; I'd say 90 percent of these magazines feature these two elements.

No wonder our kids suffer from eating disorders.

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Expect the best from Slate

What a clever headline.

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CJR

Breaking news from a blog:

This blog has learned that Victor Navasky, publisher, editorial director and apparently co-owner of iconic left wing journal The Nation, is running CJR; however he is not on the masthead.

CJR executive editor Michael Hoyt said in a phone conversation today with this blog, "I think he should be on the masthead as soon as possible."

It's a new era.

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Campaign Finace Reform

This is worrisome:

Web loggers, who pride themselves on freewheeling political activism, might face new federal rules on candidate endorsements, online fundraising and political ads, though bloggers who don't take money from political groups would not be affected.

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Hero or Villain

Very interesting article from Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post on Deep Throat. He sums up my opinion of Watergate's legacy on our profession:

But it must also be said that while Watergate and "All the President's Men" briefly turned journalists into heroes, they may have contributed to the long-term credibility problems of the profession. Too many journalists became sloppy with anonymous sources, some of whom didn't have first-hand knowledge of what they were talking about, and some reporters tried to pump every two-bit scandal into a "-gate." Having been lied to by the Nixon White House, journalists became more confrontational, more prosecutorial and more willing to assume that politicians must be lying. And the news business is still paying the price for some of those excesses.

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