Cum On Feel the Noize

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Slade was a 1970s British band that could wake up any audience. As a teen, I was mesmerized by Noddy Holder's raspy voice, his onstage penguin steps with mirrored stove pipe hat and the sound of Slades' instruments. One track called, "Cum On Feel the Noize" (yes, they had a penchant for deliberate misspellings with song titles like, "Look Wot You Dun") still warms my nostalgic heart. I thought of that song today while listening to an NPR podcast about Trump's recent NATO comments.

There were two parts to Trump's NATO invective. The first should be ignored as "noise" and the other should be heeded as a "signal". First, the ridiculous assertion that he'd invite Putin to invade NATO countries that don't pay their bills should be ignored, but the second one about NATO members not paying their "bills" requires closer examination as a signal.

One problem with the American Left, is that they fail to understand why Trump was elected in 2016 and instead they focus on Trump's hyperbolic noise which, to be fair, is often preposterous or dangerous. However, I believe that most Trump barbs and threats are designed to agitate others, fire up the base and keep him in the headlines.

In this case, I heard a podcast commentator -- obsessed with Trump's use of the noun "bills" -- remind listeners that NATO "is not a country club" with its members getting billed. That observation is noise. Of course, no administrative entity issues invoices to 31 member nations, but members have agreed to fund a minimum of 2% of their GDP to pay for their own defense.

In the last report by the NATO Secretary General (the 2022 report was issued before Finland became a member in 2023) just 7 of the 30 NATO member nations met their minimum 2% of GDP military spend commitment. That's the signal.

Most NATO countries are not paying their share. The rest is just noise.

Blessed with friends on the other side

Wikipedia image This post contains excerpts from an April 10 e-mail response to a dear friend of mine (edited for emphasis and anonymity). “Dear Mortimer, I’ll say hello to the guys for you and I’ll be thinking about you this evening. As for politics, yes, we tend to gravitate toward sources that share our views. However, I also read the New York Times Op-ed pages and watch MSNBC (as hard as those tasks are for me). I suppose you watch Fox on occasion and I know you read the WSJ – so good for both of us. We try. The state-sponsored education you cite that we both benefited from, came largely from our parents' sweat equity – translated into tax dollars – that funded the University of Wisconsin system. True, my friend. But, I'm not arguing for zero taxation, or zero government involvement in our lives. When Progressives argue in favor of entitlement programs, they'll sometimes cite Social Security (under-...

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Freepik image This week there was controversy stemming from a publisher's decision to edit versions of children's stories written by the late Roald Dahl . The edits, whether inspired by Netflix (who according to Forbes purchased the rights to Dahl's work) or the publisher Puffin Books , sparked a public outcry and PR nightmare. The publisher curated an alternative version to the original work from Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, (a story later adapted to make the film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory ), ostensibly to remove insensitive terms. There are several reasons why this ill-conceived, if well-intentioned attempt at inclusiveness -- a term becoming increasingly elastic -- failed miserably. I'm not discussing the evils of censorship today. Altering original art work to appeal to others is ill advised for another reason.....it's not theirs to change (and doing so can backfire). One ...

john maddente | midwestern clarity

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