Daughters of Jerusalem . . . weep instead for yourselves and for your children. . . .

Well, yeah, unclaimed corpses are piling up in Detroit and half the city has been abandoned, but at least it's not facing a Miley Cyrus crisis.

Think what could happen to such a place if such a horror befell it at a time when bodies are already stacked like cordwood.

Here in Omaha, brave souls set their faces like flint against the horror of preteens cut down and crestfallen at Hannah Montana's strep-throat crisis. Yet . . . and yet . . . one walks these eerily quiet streets and feels that this city is acutely on edge -- at the breaking point despite a steely determination to soldier on in the face of a pop-culture apocalypse.

Parents are being brave . . . mostly. But one wonders what horror may come with the morning sun. How long can this brave and scrappy city hold it together in the face of such cruelly delayed bourgeois diversion?

Oh, Miley! Say it ain't so.

I THINK this from KETV television is the kind of thing Edward R. Murrow might have reported had he covered Omaha, fall 2009 instead of bombed-out London, fall 1940:

Sweet and Sassy Salon, Spa and Celebrations for Girls was gearing up to be pre-concert headquarters Friday night, then the star got sick.

"Unfortunately, we were the news breakers for some people, so we had one woman cry; one woman called us a liar. Some reactions weren't good," salon owner Marie Yakes said.

Other moms took the news in stride, changing their plans to the new date.

"Tuesday night's really not bad for us, but a little inconvenient the next morning for her to get up and get ready for school," parent Annie Kircher said.

Parents immediately have concerns about how they'd deal with the new schedule. When Cyrus performs, as herself or as Hanna Montana, she draws big crowds. But Tuesday is a school night, and it may put her legions of fans into flux.

Still more parents respected the performer's decision to postpone the show.

"Miley is only what, 16-years-old? I'm amazed at the schedules they keep anyways. They're just going to get sick like the rest of us sometimes, so we'll just deal with it and be glad to go on the 13th," mother Karen Sumpter said.

Yakes said most moms eventually learn to deal with it.

"They calm down, then they reschedule, and I would say 90 percent (reschedule,)" Yakes said.

AND FOLKS in Detroit think they have it tough. Our new Chinese overlords have no idea the kind of dis-feng-shui-nal situation they're getting into.