matthearn.com

One of the problems with podcasting (something I am VERY in favor of, in general) is that since it’s usually produced by amateurs with inexpensive equipment, the sound quality is frequently bad. It’s not something you notice a lot of the time because they’re talking, not making music, but if you are trying to listen in circumstances where fidelity is otherwise affected, you’ll pick up on it.

For example, I enjoy listening to podcasts when I mow the lawn. It makes the time fairly fly by, I really enjoy it. The podcast I’m most likely to listen to is “The BS Report,” by the inimitable Bill Simmons; he produces 2-4 of them a week, averaging 45 minutes, and since it takes me about 45 minutes to mow my lawn, it’s ideal. The problem is, I’m walking behind what is essentially an unmuffled internal combustion engine. It’s loud. Even with headphones on, I often have to turn the volume on the podcast all the way up. It’s probably not good for my ears, but I justify it by saying my eardrums have already stiffened to protect themselves from the noise of the lawnmower. (Didn’t know they did that, did you? They do. When faced with a barrage of noise, your ears will adjust to prevent damage. It’s why someone surprising you by yelling in your ear hurts, but someone yelling in your ear to be heard over top of a Justin Timberlake concert is fine.)

The problem comes in the fact that whoever is in charge of mixing Bill’s podcasts down sets the EQ such that sibilants, specifically S, are insanely loud. This is not something that’s difficult to fix, even if Bill is using a headset to record instead of, say, a quality microphone with a pop filter. Just pull down a specific frequency, and boom. Done.

Another of my favorite podcasts, “On The DL with Dan Levy,” suffers from a bizarre growl problem. Dan always sounds a bit like a chainsaw. The worst, however, is “Real Time with Bill Maher,” a podcast made from the regular HBO show. There, the problems aren’t EQ, but levels: Bill is always audible, but frequently his guests are not, and invariably the ambient mics they set up to get audience reactions are ear-blowing loud. Not just when I’ve the volume cranked to hear over my lawnmower, but also when I’m in my car, aka the most common place that people listen to podcasts. This is just laziness, really.

Excuses abound: Bill Maher’s techs are undoubtedly setting the fidelity for TV broadcast, not podcasting; the others are limited by the settings they use to try and get the size of the podcast under 10MB, the limit imposed by Apple and AT&T for downloading items over the 3G network.

Bull.

First of all, most of these podcasts aren’t under 10MB. Simmons has actually split some longer podcasts in two, supposedly to get under the limit, and they’re still 15MB chunks that I can’t enjoy until I go somewhere that has a wifi connection for my phone to access. The Bill Maher podcasts are routinely 15MB.

Second: somehow, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow‘s podcasts of their live MSNBC shows (each about 45 minutes long) somehow manage to get quality EQ and proper levelling of mics for hosts and guests, achieve a decent audio fidelity (no scratchiness), get the filesizes at around 9.8MB, and have them online by the morning after (unlike Bill Maher’s show, which is on 4 days later at the earliest, and often goes weeks without posting anything and then throws 3 or 4 shows up at once).

Sure, Maddow and Olbermann have quality recording equipment and professional engineers on staff to handle it, but I guarantee Maher does as well. And as a further counterpoint, James Lileks’s “Diner” podcasts always had fantastic sound, with what I assume to be a “prosumer”-level setup run by the journalist himself. (Lileks’s biggest problem at the moment is that, if he’s still doing diners [he may have stopped when he got busy being the all-media journalist for the Star-Tribune], they aren’t available on iTunes, and haven’t been for years.)

C’mon, guys, put a little effort into your podcasts. None of them need to be longer than 45 minutes, the perfect size to get a nicely adjusted recording under 10MB. Get on it.

Sigh.

A man who used a four-letter word to describe to his neighbors how their cat left feces in his yard was acquitted Tuesday of a disorderly conduct citation.

“A little piece of America died today when a jury of six says it’s OK to curse in front of a 13-year-old when asked not to,” Rainey said.

Really?

“It’s a sad day for morality, that this type of behavior is condoned,” Rainey said.

“We work hard to teach our children morals and teach them right from wrong.”

A little cursing is hurting the fabric of America? Given this fellows tenuous grasp of “morals,” one wonders what his opinion would be of Americans who order the torture of prisoners.

Andrew Sullivan is often my source for political analysis; I should probably look around for more pundits, but he tends to wrap up analysis from all over the spectrum, whether he agrees with it or not. I say this just to point out why, for roughly the 7,000th day in a row, I’m linking to him again, on the topic of this nifty gallup poll:

Andrew’s take:

If gays are really serious about marriage rights, they need to accelerate the process of coming out…

Yes, donate and campaign and blog. But for all of those of you out there who are gay and do none of this, one simple political act can do much more: let your family, friends and co-workers know who you are. If you don’t, please quit complaining about your lack of civil rights.

As a straight dude, I don’t quite have Andrew’s perspective. But he and I both live in parts of the country where homosexuality is more than tolerated; it is often embraced. I have dozens of gay friends; I like to say I was raised by a collection of gay “aunts.” If my son were to come out as gay, I’d be all for it. It’s not like that in every family on the east coast, but a gay man is certainly going to have an easier time coming out in New York or Philadelphia than, say, Patonga, Oklahoma. (I should point out that I know nothing about Patonga, Oklahoma; it might be the West Hollywood of Blaine County, for all I know. I literally went to Google Maps and found a random city in central Oklahoma.)

Any place where the majority of the population knows no homosexuals (either because they simply don’t live there, or are closeted) is a place where a gay man or woman is least likely to want to come out. So while Andrew’s solution, “Come out, dammit,” would probably do good things over the long-term, it carries with it a pretty high personal cost for the homosexual individuals themselves.

One problem with being a parent is that you occasionally find yourself semi-responsible for the acts of other people’s children. When your kid plays, he tends to play with other kids, whose parents may not be as…attentive as you are. You’re just trying to keep your kid from eating mulch, and suddnely a bunch of other halfwit rugrats are digging through trash cans and throwing old “forty” bottles at each other.

A few weeks ago, I took Charles to the park near our house, which has a nice little jungle gym with a couple slides. It’s usually a nice place to go because he gets bored with it quickly and wants to go home. On this occasion, while we were playing, we were descended upon by about a dozen children, ranging from a few months to 9 or 10 years old, and their grandmother, who was very friendly and nice but clearly overwhelmed. She focused mostly on the baby, while the rest of the terrors ran around injuring themselves and each other. One odd child decided the fun thing to do was to wait until my back was turned and throw a frisbee at my head. It was a pity that Granny was there, as I would have enjoyed dropping the kid out of a tree.

Charles played nicely, as is his usual wont, aside from occasionally trying to “borrow” toys from other children, which I corrected as needed. At one point, however, the older kids wandered to some nearby trees and started climbing them. Fine by me, they were 9 or 10, I was climbing trees when I was younger than that. Peer dynamics being what they are, however, most of the other kids wandered over to see what was going on. I convinced Charles that he was too small to climb trees, but by then the kids were picking up sticks off the ground and swinging them haphazardly. Hey, not my kids, not my problem, unless they came near Charles, in which case I’d start kicking butt and taking names. They didn’t, so I didn’t interfere.

This, of course, was when Granny swooped in, yelling at the kids to stop beating each other with flora, and giving me a nasty look for, I assume, having permitted her malignant seed to do such dangerous things. Because it’s my fault she showed up to a park with a plethora of idiots she couldn’t control.

I dislike other people.

Yesterday’s murder of an abortion doctor has thrust the debate back into the national headlines. (One wonders whether the killer did so to affect the confirmation process of Sonia Sotomayor, but given the fact that he chose to advance his pro-life agenda by taking a life doesn’t seem to indicate a lot of intellectual depth.) Andrew Sullivan has been all over it, posting reader responses and emotionally draining stories about couples who have chosen to end a pregnancy despite their personal misgivings. One such story can be found here: Catholic Doctrine and Merciful Choice.

At 17 weeks gestation our baby had been diagnosed with major heart defects requiring a minimum of three risky open-heart surgeries beginning at birth, and would later require a heart transplant. At 19 weeks we were finally given our amnio results which revealed our baby also had Trisomy 21. A surgeon at the major teaching hospital where we’d had our fetal echocardiogram informed us that even if our baby somehow survived his palliative surgeries, this latest diagnosis meant he would not ever be eligible for a heart transplant.

As we sat talking quietly in our living room, our priest shared with us that he’d spent time at the same hospital where we’d had our fetal echocardiogram and where our son would have had surgery. He was there to support the family of a three-month-old who was having heart surgery. In the three weeks or so that he tended to this family, he also met 10 other families in the waiting room, each of whom also had young babies undergoing heart surgery. Sadly, within the short space of time our priest was there, every single one of those babies died.

Our priest came away from that experience feeling that this world-renowned children’s hospital was basically experimenting on babies. He saw their futile suffering and likened it to being crucified. The family he had gone there to support later told him that if they had only known what their baby would be forced to go through before dying, they would never have chosen surgery.

Our priest told us that he believed we were not choosing our son’s death, only choosing the timing of his death in order to spare him a great deal of suffering. Something he said that brought us great comfort was “God knows what is in your hearts.” God knows our choice was based on mercy and compassion. Who would better understand our hearts than God, who made the choice for His own Son to die?

I’ve made about a 105-degree turn on the topic of abortion, caused mainly by the births of my own kids. I had always believed that a fetus was little more than an organ, part of a woman’s body, to be discarded at her whim and without my or my government’s interference. But once you feel your baby move inside your wife’s belly, there’s no way to consider that as anything but a child. (Interestingly, I’m told that historically, the Jewish standard for “life” was when the fetus could be felt moving.)

I still think abortion should be legal in almost all situations (although I’m very, very squeamish about late-term abortions).

This contradiction stems from the fact that in the end, it’s both a woman’s body and a child. If I were a woman, I couldn’t end my own pregnancy (unless, perhaps, I was faced with the above situation). But I have no business forcing that position on a woman than someone else would have telling me I can’t eat meat on Fridays. Each person has to have their own conscience on the subject.

I pose the following query: which is the more compassionate action? Ending a pregnancy, or subjecting an infant to a month of suffering before letting it die on its own?

It’s hard to tell how accurate they are, considering I don’t know much about statistics (I barely passed that course) and I’m far too lazy to check any of the cited sources, but here are some interesting figures on divorce among Christian fundamentalists. It would be hypocritical of me to point out the hypocrisy of others, but I can at least allude to it, right? Right.

This has obvious ramifications in light of the California Supreme Court’s decision upholding Proposition 8. (Those of you who are completely incensed by it, by the way, read John Scalzi on the subject; if the decision is a setback at all, it’s a pretty minor one. Andrew Sullivan, somewhat an authority, believes that seeking to affirm gay marriage rights through the courts is a mistake: it’s too easy for the conservative pundits to shout “activist judges!” Let each state, and the federal government in turn, see the light on its own. It’s better to wait 3 or 4 years and either convince enough people that gay marriage is a good thing, or wait for the bigots to die off, as they inevitably will. When the courts get involved, the conservative base tends to get riled up and do things like enact constitutional amendments, which are much harder to get rid of down the road. But back to the topic at hand.)

Does it matter if fundamentalist Christians are marginally more likely to get divorced than other demographics? Well…no. The only real bonus to it is that when someone rants about the “Death of the American Family” or some other bull, you can point out that Fundamentalism seems to be the greatest threat of all. That’s satisfying, but counter-productive: you don’t convince people that way.

In my opinion the easiest way to argue with someone who is against gay marriage is to demand specificity. When they say, “Gay marriage is bad,” ask why. When they say, “Well, because it damages the institution of marriage,” ask how. If they say “The bible says homosexuality is wrong,” ask what that has to do with secular policy. You probably won’t convince all of them, but you don’t have to: you just have to convince enough.

Go Maine!

If you ignore the fact that the federal government still refuses to recognize gay marriage, 5 out of 50 states now allow it (plus the District of Columbia). We’re getting there, people. We totally are. Sadly, Delaware may take a little while, but at least last month the General Assembly shot down a constitutional amendment to ban civil marriage, so my home state’s not entirely bass ackwards.

Even if you don’t care much for basketball, this article by the inimitable Malcolm Gladwell is worth a read. The basic gist of the story is: even if you aren’t particularly good at something, you will be more successful than those who are by simple effort. This is something we tell our kids but tend not to believe ourselves; it’s nice to see it examined and proved.

Great job, “fans.”

Here’s the rule I propose: if you’re at a home game, don’t mess with the opposing fans. They’re the insurgents; you’re the US Army. Screwing with them is just like torture. It just pisses them off.

Let’s face it: Mets fans aren’t that bright. If they were, they wouldn’t be Mets fans. (Ha ha! Just kidding, Mets fan who might be reading this! Please don’t torch my car!) Now we’ll have thousands of them showing up at the Vault all season, rolling 15-20 deep, just itching to beat the crap out of someone. And some poor guy in a Cole Hamels jersey who’s taking his daughter to her first baseball game, and asked an idiot in a cheap David Wright knockoff jersey to stop dropping F-bombs, is gonna end up in the hospital. That’s gonna be so…great.

Some schmuck “fan” just created a baseball environment in which somebody’s going to get maimed. Thanks, douchenozzle.

It really was, I tell you. We reorganized our pantry, people. Reorganized our pantry. Because that is how we roll.

Friday night I managed to fit in my last organ lesson for a few weeks, since we’re having a baby in four days and everything. Then I went home and entertained my existing offspring so my wife wouldn’t go all My Lai on the neighborhood (too soon?).

Saturday we spent the day, and I mean the entirety of the daylight hours, cleaning and organizing. Sarah’s homey Jeanmarie brought her daughter over, so she and Charles played while we cleaned up the nursery, ate donuts, did some yardwork, buried a hobo, and cleaned out my car. Major productivity, people.

Saturday night I sang in one of the better concerts I’ve ever done, with the Mastersingers of Wilmington. We performed a few old “chestnuts,” such as three selections from Randall Thompson’s Frostiana, along with some classic renaissance and baroque motets. We also did a lot of modern works, particularly some Italian madrigals by William Hawley (I hope and pray he owns a pet of some kind named “Smoot“), some fun anthems by Craig Phillips, and the pièce de résistance, “Cloth’d In Holy Robes” by Judith Bingham, one of the hardest pieces of music I’ve ever put in a folder. I actually had to bang out intervals at the piano to learn the piece, something I haven’t had to do in years due to my awesomeness (note: I am also the picture of modesty).

Sunday I had church per usual, followed by a trip to Infants Be We to pick up some little clips to make the infant carseat base fit in my whip. Then home for naps, more cleaning, and a complete and utter rebuild of our pantry, which, I swear to The Deity Of Your Choice, contained an item with an expiration date in the Clinton administration, which you may recall preceded the Eight Years Of Darkness covering most of this decade.

It was a box of rice, or something, and it had been moved, by us, from house to house, at least twice. Given the shelf-life of rice, it’s entirely possible I bought it when I lived in an apartment prior to our marriage. We hoped that just simply reorganizing things would make everything fit better, but you know what really did the job was throwing away two-thirds of the food on the shelves. The rice, or whatever it was, was not an isolated instance: the average expiration date of the stuff we threw out was mid-2007.

Just another wild and woolly weekend at Hearndom II. Keep on rockin’, Amurica.