Interview With MOB Mayor King Banaian
The honorable position of Mayor of the Minnesota Organization of Bloggers (MOB) has been passed from Andy A. Aplikowski (a.k.a. AAA) who runs the blog Residual Forces, to the patron of SCSU Scholars, Professor King Banaian. Today we welcome him to his first interview here at the Brigham compound in Northern Plymouth.
Chief: Thanks for coming out on a Saturday, Mayor.
King:You're welcome, Chief. My pleasure, I had to come down for the show anyway. Gosh, what dreadful driving weather this morning. Hey, I love what you’ve done with the place. I see you’ve taken my advice and dug that trench around your shelter to let the water drain off.”
Chief: I gotta cut corners where I can, these 46” monitors ain’t cheap.
Well, let’s get the formalities out of the way. It may be known that King is head of SCSU scholars, but his bona fides may not be known. From his bio: Professor King Banaian is professor and chairman of the Department of Economics at St. Cloud State University. He holds the Ph.D. in economics from the Claremont Graduate School. He has consulted at the central banks of Ukraine, Egypt and Macedonia and the ministries of finance of Indonesia, Macedonia and Armenia. He is author of The Ukrainian Economy since Independence (Edward Elgar, 1998) and more than thirty articles and book chapters discussing monetary policy and political economy. He is also the co-author of the St. Cloud Quarterly Business Report. He lives in St. Cloud, Minnesota, with his wife and two children. Phew!
A scholar to be sure, but he is not a hard to follow academic windbag — well, most of the time anyway. He can be heard every Saturday as the golden-toned talk radio host doing the diligent work of covering politics in the state of Minnesota as the co-host with Michael Brodkorb of the Final Word of the Northern Alliance Radio Network.
King, you’re the third person to hold this position — first Doug Williams of Bogus Gold, followed by Aplikowski. This position has been largely ceremonial in the past, and I was wondering if our new mayor had any plans for his first 100 days for a more pro-active outlook as the leader of the MOB.
King: [raising his left eyebrow and rubbing his hands around his steaming fresh coffee brought out from my wife] Big plans!
Chief: Great. So how about a few casual get to know you questions before getting to the stuff of empire building... King, I’ve heard you are a bit of a music aficionado. If you had to put your finger on your favorite genre, where would it fall and what would your desert island juke box have on it?
King:My musical tastes are quite international. I like my rock from Scotland (e.g., Teenage Fanclub), my dance music from Europe (yes, that jukebox has lots of lounge and chillout), jazz from America (I lost an hour the other week when Rocket posted a Sonny Rollins video, Indian ragas, Tuvan throat singers, and Armenian folk-rock. I'm Radiohead over U2.
Chief: I gotta agree with the northern songs, my copies of Bandwagonesque and Thirteen would all be worn out if they were vinyl.
King:They make Alex Chilton proud.
Chief: OK, time for some “This or That” quick answers, You gotta be ready for this stuff as the mayor, You nervous?
King:I’ve got bigger pieces of reporters in my stool than you, short stack!
Chief: Haw!
King:Get with it!
Chief: Right then, Boxers of briefs?
King:Tidy whities
Chief: Downhill or cross country?
King:No skis
Chief: Ale or stout?
King:Dark beer
Chief: Good man, Coulter or Noonan?
King: Noonan
Chief: Dark or milk chocolate?
King:White chocolate
Chief: Ford or Chevy?
King:GM
Chief: Szechuan or Thai?
King:Definitely Thai!
Chief: Friedman or Hayek
King:Selma Hayek
Chief: Heh, ever the diplomat, Coffee or green tea?
King:Macchiato
Chief: Blondes, red heads or brunettes?
King: Brunettes (dated exactly one blonde -- boring! -- and one redhead -- cannot talk about her)
Chief: The red pill or the blue pill?
King:Blue pills
Chief: Heh. Gotta keep that brunette happy. Maple syrup or honey?
King:Maple syrup on Mickey's French toast
Chief: Zeppelin or Sabbath?
King:Sabbath
Chief: Hockey or football?
King:Football, The Elder be damned.
Chief: Liberty or death?
King:Yes!
Chief: Beatles or Stones?
King:Stones
Chief: Ginger or Mary Ann?
King:Mary Ann is hot.
Chief: Right, then. On to somewhat more serious stuff, The Lady Logician wanted me to ask about the ladies. Let’s face it, the MOB is largely a bunch of guys. Good for you for having the eloquent have Janet Beihoffer writing on your blog, Lassie writing a lot at FD is a priceless addition, and there are a few others but clearly a minority. Do you have any plans to reach out to the women and bring more conservative ladies to the table?
King:I expect that the men of MOB should work to be manly enough to attract conservative women. Women will tell you they want SNAGs, but this is rubbish. Act like a man already!
Chief: Reverend!
King:We will have Swiftee sit with his motorcycle outside the Como entrance at the Fair; women who ask to sit on the back will be given full Moveable Type installations of blogs and a year of hosting free.
Chief: I remember a while back Hugh Hewitt would do symposiums and giveaways that yielded some pretty strong content. Any plans for competitions inside or outside the MOB?
King:This is an excellent suggestion. MOBswarms will commence soon. The first question will concern what we should do with Buttercup's overconsumption of air and its, um, aftereffects. Seriously, we will do this. Links provided at Scholars, and best three answers invited to call in for a segment of Final Word. Watch this space.
Chief: Any plans to get busy scheduling some MOB events, or will you sit around all day in front of a sandwich shop sunning yourself like Paulie Wallnuts?
King:I would like to announce today a MOB Traveling Road Show like none other. A multi-city tour will commence this spring. We have threatened this in the past but previous Mayors have been somehow unable to conceive of an I-94 past Rogers; word is Bogus Doug tried to get to Duluth for a road event but was pulled in by a sign from Grand Casino for a Wayne Newton concert. One a month, at as many places as we can get to, culminating with the great Minnesota blog get-together at the Fair.
Chief: Fellow Northwestern Blogger Gary Gross asked me to inquire what kind of reforms do you plan to implement? Will you help make drinking more affordable?
King:That governs best which governs least. The innkeeper does not owe you cheap drink, Gary. Be entertaining and he may pour you a freebie in return. See the next point, though, for a reform we intend.
Chief: A bit of tough love from Dr. Jonz who echoes a sentiment I’ve heard from more than one person. He asks, if you might encourage people to consolidate blogs if possible like TN, TvM, FD and AntiStrib have done. How about appointing someone to maintain the MOB blogroll — weed out the crappier blogs because the MOB is too big. Set a limit of posting at least once a month for the love of God!
King:Please note: We believe in freedom. Freedom to blog and freedom not to blog. We have had Minnesota blog aggregators in the past and one still exists. The market will provide.
However, we hope to institute during my administration a feature in the MOBroll that has it appear in order of last update rather than alphabetically. If you do not post, you're still on the MOBroll, but you're down by Spitbull.
Chief: A good compromise. Time for a bit of wonkery. Our own Policy Guy inquires: Some people are able to parlay blogging into income, whether it's through advertising, job offers, or other means. Yet most receive no financial compensation for blogging. Even those who do turn unpaid blogging into an income stream are likely still blogging for peanuts when their hours spend blogging prior to picking up money from ads or paid work are considered. Since you're an economist, how do you explain this phenomenon?
King:The thought that somebody, somewhere, is reading what you wrote is scary. Since all the stuff that is really scary is being regulated out of existence, thrill-seekers are blogging instead.
Chief: If you could perform a census of all the output of bloggers, how much of it is 'quality' work? How would you even go about answering that question?
King:Good work is always plagiarized. This is what we pay our crack legal team at Dewey, Cheatum and Foot to investigate.
Chief: Wow, we just lost 50 readers with those last 2 questions. Back to the red meat. Sgt. at arms Thomas Swift asks if there be a smoking ban in the MOB anytime soon?
King:Yes, there will be a ban -- there will be no non-smoking at MOB events. Everyone must smoke at least one of those little Panters that Lileks is fond of.
Chief: [lighting up a Punch Maduro quickly] Puff puff. Considering that the, puff, usual capacity of a mayor is to oversee public works projects within an actual physical city, do you plan on doing anything toward promoting construction within our virtual city of a virtual superhighway, virtual plumbing and sewer systems, virtual garbage removal, virtual open season game licenses on trolls. Surely no virtual sports stadiums?
King:There will be MOB fantasy sports leagues in the following sports: baseball; football; college hockey (Chad has to win something for goodness sakes!); golf (winner gets a three-stroke advantage at the following year's MilF); and a special Twin Cities media dead pool (pick any five figures in the media --print, radio or TV--and receive a point for each one who loses his or her job that year. Double points for non-Monkey.)
Chief: How ‘bout a virtual solid gold statue of you in crown and underpants ala King Homer?
King:I like! gotta have a cigar though. Can you pull this off before today's show?
Chief: We may have to add a red cape to cover the back hair. but yes.
Effective leadership is often improved by the leader who knows well how to delegate authority with a strong cabinet. Do you have in mind any people or positions in your office?
King:We have already announced that the aforementioned Buttercup will be chief of staff. She already barks at me whenever I come home; this has saved Mrs. S much time in pointing out my flaws and has made the marriage thereby more harmonious.
I am today declaring that all members of NARN will now serve as the Mayor's Council to provide advice on issues pertaining to MOB. I am also declaring today that Garcia's MOB Evil Council must meet at least every eight weeks, and that I will be consulted for names, or else the brand will not be permitted on the Garcia broadcast.
Other positions:
Secretary of the Army: Paintball Ecker
Secretary of the Navy: Fishsticks (if he'll just return to blogging)
Attorney General: Foot
Director of Communications: The Chief
Other positions available. Send cigars.
Chief: Actually, Fishsticks is back, He’s hitched his wagon to Strom’s MN Free Market Institute and will be pitching them to True North too.
Let’s leave with something right up your alley. You’re an economist, a numbers wonk who now finds himself now in an executive position. Can you name any similar figures from recent or ancient history who did a good job in this transition, and do you see yourself following their example?
King:To be serious again for a moment, yes there's one: Ludwig Erhard. The best part of him was that he didn't listen to economists. He waited until a Sunday, June 20, 1948, when the occupying American military would be out of the office, to write an order eliminating price controls. On Monday, General Lucius Clay returned to tell Erhard that his economic experts were very worried about scrapping the controls. Erhard replied, "Funny, so are mine." Of course, what happened afterwards was known as the Wirtschaftwunder or economic miracle of West Germany. Erhard went on to become prime minister in the 1960s.
The point is, don't take economic experts too seriously. I should do so well!
Chief: Thanks so much for stopping by, King, Good luck on a great term, and may it be free of scandal.
King:Thanks Chief, now I gotta get to the IHOP and stop Brodkorb before he eats himself into a coma.
Cross-posted at Freedom Dogs. Comments and ashes welcome.
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