Showing posts with label money. Show all posts
Showing posts with label money. Show all posts

Friday, December 28, 2012

Congressional cliff diving


This country, at least on a national level, has really, truly become ungovernable.

And we are Thelma and Louise, putting the pedal to the metal as we steer straight for the edge. Here's some of the story of Congress' fascination with the abyss from CBS News:
"[W]e'll see what the President has to propose," McConnell said in a statement. "Members on both sides of the aisle will review it, and then we'll decide how best to proceed. Hopefully there is still time for an agreement of some kind that saves the taxpayers from a wholly preventable economic crisis."

Meantime, on a conference call with the House GOP Conference this afternoon, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., told Republican lawmakers to be prepared for votes on Sunday night.

All of this action is not indicative that progress is being made on the tax hikes and dramatic budget cuts set to go into effect next Tuesday, however.

On the same conference call, Boehner reiterated to his conference that the ball is in the Senate's court. He called on Senate Democrats to pass legislation the Republican-led House passed earlier this year that would extend tax rates for all wage earners and another measure that would replace the across-the-board spending cuts to domestic and defense programs with targeted cuts.

"The House will take this action on whatever the Senate can pass - but the Senate must act," Boehner said.

But Reid had a similar message for Boehner earlier in the day: "Take the escape hatch we left you."

Reid called on Boehner to take up a bill the Senate passed weeks ago that would extend current tax rates for all wage earners making less than $250,000. "The way to avoid the 'fiscal cliff' has been right in the face of Republican leaders for days and days and days...," he said.

On the floor of the Senate this morning, Reid said Boehner "seems to care more about keeping his speakership" than avoiding the tax hikes and federal spending cuts set to go into place in just five days.
ON ONE LEVEL, one sees the outraged secessionist petition-signers' reasoning, such as it is, in wanting out of a country that no longer can organize a one-car cortege, much less manage the decline of a morally, intellectually, militarily and economically spent empire.

On a more realistic level, do you really think a country whose leaders can't control the urge to jump off a "fiscal cliff" -- despite all that would mean for a shaky economy and future unemployment -- could manage letting various states go their own uncertain ways without a river of blood and a sea of ruin?

Even if such a thing were constitutionally possible, that is?

In such a country, I suppose it's also pointless to think that we the people might consider for a second, as we behold this pathetic spectacle staged by politicians we put into high office, that we have exactly the kind of self-destructive, chaotic and silly governance we so richly deserve.

Of course it is. We're Americans. Pointless is what we do these days.

Monday, April 23, 2012

They shoot franchises, don't they?


If any shred of the latest Saints scandal talk is true, given the trouble the team already is in, the NFL may need to exercise the nuclear option.

No, the real nuclear option. Not the kinda nuclear option it unleashed against New Orleans over Bountygate.

Is what I'm saying. Because if you're Commissioner Roger Goodell, you only need to take so much of this s*** -- if you know what's good for your league.

That's right,
ladies and germs, ESPN has broken yet another sordid story involving the National Football League's rags-to-riches-to-cautionary-tale poster children:
The U.S. Attorney's Office in the Eastern District of Louisiana was told Friday that New Orleans Saints general manager Mickey Loomis had an electronic device in his Superdome suite that had been secretly re-wired to enable him to eavesdrop on visiting coaching staffs for nearly three NFL seasons, "Outside the Lines" has learned.

Sources familiar with Saints game-day operations told "Outside the Lines" that Loomis, who faces an eight-game suspension from the NFL for his role in the recent bounty scandal, had the ability to secretly listen for most of the 2002 season, his first as general manager of the Saints, and all of the 2003 and 2004 seasons. The sources spoke with "Outside the Lines" under the condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisals from members of the Saints organization.

Jim Letten, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana, acknowledged being told of the allegations Friday. Sources said he has briefed the FBI in New Orleans about Loomis' alleged activity. If proved, the allegations could be both a violation of NFL rules and potentially a federal crime, according to legal sources. The federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) of 1986 prohibits any person from intercepting communications from another person using an electronic or mechanical device.

"I can say that we were just made aware of that on Friday, at least of these allegations," Letten said. "Anything beyond that I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to comment."

Greg Bensel, Saints vice president of communications, said Monday afternoon on behalf of the Saints and Loomis: "This is 1,000 percent false. This is 1,000 percent inaccurate."

NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said the league was unaware of the allegations.

Sources told "Outside the Lines" the listening device was first installed in the general manager's suite in 2000, when Loomis' predecessor, Randy Mueller, served as Saints GM. At that time, according to sources, Mueller had the ability to use the device to monitor only the game-day communications of the Saints' coaching staff, not the opposing coaches. Mueller, now a senior executive with the San Diego Chargers (he also was an ESPN.com NFL analyst from 2002 to '05), declined to comment when contacted by "Outside the Lines."

After the transition from Mueller to Loomis, the electronic device was re-wired to listen only to opposing coaches and could no longer be used to listen to any game-day communications between members of the Saints' coaching staff, one source said.

"There was a switch, and the switch accessed offense and defense," said the source. "When Randy was there, it was the Saints offense or defense, and when Mickey was there it changed over so it was the visiting offense or defense," the source said.
NEW ORLEANS should be so proud. Then again, knowing the Crescent City, it probably is.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Calling Oliver Stone. . . .


Bobby Hebert is a paillasse.

"Spud" McConnell, too. And when you're un paillasse -- a clown en français -- you say crazy s***. Like this March 6 conspiracy theory from the WWL radio hosts about how the NFL is out to get the Saints because everybody's jealous of the team -- and New Orleans.

Cher, ça c'est fou! That's just nuts.

I am from Louisiana. I am -- was? -- a Saints fan from the beginning in 1967. And I have lived away from there for a long time now.

I ASSURE everyone in the Crescent City that no one is jealous of Louisiana. No one.

No one is jealous of the Saints now. No one.

I said in January, in relation to another of the former New Orleans quarterback's antics, that sometimes it takes a couyon, which is a lot like a paillasse. This is not one of those times.

Now is time for a team, and a city and a state, to acknowledge that bad actions have bad consequences, not make crazy-ass excuses and spin stupid-ass conspiracy theories in a sad effort to evade what's plainly evident to everybody else -- the Saints were a dirty, crooked outfit.

I realize, of course, that for Louisianians like Hebert, a 300-year habit can be difficult to break. But now is as good a time as any to give it a try.


SEE, that wasn't so hard, was it, Bobby? From March 6 to Wednesday, almost a 55-percent reduction in crazy and nobody spontaneously combusted or anything. Good job. Keep it up.

Now, I'm not gonna be holding my breath, now. . . .

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Law of the jungle . . . and Saints fans


The NFL commish hammered the New Orleans Saints today for general crookedness and lying through their teeth.

Saints fans are shocked, shocked that Roger Goodell would suspend Coach Sean Payton for a year, among other stiff penalties levied against the team, after the league uncovered a ongoing "bounty" for taking out targeted opposing players. This is because Louisiana's famously formerly incarcerated former governor, Edwin Edwards, didn't just happen and wasn't some sort of isolated historical freak of nature.

Culture matters. Sometimes, it has a funny way of manifesting itself. Like now.

Former pro defensive lineman Warren Sapp, now an analyst on the NFL Network, today "reported" that former Saint receiver Jeremy Shockey was the "snitch" who blew the whistle on the team's scheme. That was all outraged New Orleans fans -- in website comboxes and all over Facebook -- needed for them to go all ghetto on Shockey for "snitching," no matter the veracity of Sapp's "sources":
* Shame Shame Shame....I had heard it was Fujuta, which really upset me...Shockey sounds about right.... :( Glad he's gone

* Somehow, if it is him, I am sadly not surprised. We all saw the way he acted towards our players when the saints played the panthers. Such a poor sport. [No, "sportsmanship" is Jonathan Vilma offering $10,000 to anyone knocking the Vikings' Brett Favre out of the 2010 NFC Championship Game. Yeah, that's the ticket.-- R21]

* People knew it was Shockey from day 1. & no one's career was ended. It's football not freaking line dancing. They were not out to kill players perhaps reaggravate injuries already bothering players.

* Inspiration for a new t-shirt! No one likes a snitchy Shockey!! His face on a neutra rat's body.

* I KNEW IT. As soon as the story broke I said he was the snitch. Bottom line, it happens all over the NFL - it is not right - we got caught and are being made an example of.

* Its wide open, its reported and its been verified by vets. So if you think the Saints should be the personal Jesus for every team that did this and played like its not real then I cant understand your opinion. There was only two illegal hits in that nfc championship and one was the vikings hitting Brees late.
Even with the bounty the players kept the hits clean. I can think of a lot more dirty hits that were bounties. How bout Montana, 91 Championship, Gannon in the Playoff game where Saragusa surfed him like a west coast wave.....Rodney Harrisons entire dirty career... lol. If you are going to judge then judge em all, dont cherry pick the Saints.
The penalty is too much. Fines and draft picks maybe but suspension for years is ridiculous. The league has officially went wuss trying to duck these ex-players lawsuits. The nfl is a crap company. If they are going to penalize the Saints then they need to start paying those old guys who cant talk.... Plain and simple. Lets go ahead and get all the dirty laundry out.
This hole thing is about lawsuits, lameness, and political correctness. Don't buy into it and throw rocks at the Saints by themselves. The nfl has a lot of nerve to duck out on this and point the finger at the Saints. Its a scapegoat, plain and simple.


*
Hey Warran, Thanks for telling us who the snitch was We pulled his butt out of NY and gave him a chance to become something .. this is the thanks you get

* C I L L Jeremy Shockey.
I THOUGHT I had said my piece March 7 after Sports Illustrated came out with a damning article about the Saints' bounty scheme. After wasting too much time and too many brain cells being reminded today about why I'm damn well rid of the Gret Stet, I think I have one last thing to say to my fellow Saints fans.

Make that
former fellow Saints fans.

Anyway, here it is:
Dear Outraged Saints Fans:

Wow, it seems you folks like your football exactly the way you like your politics -- crooked. I look forward to y'all praising those who refuse to tell the cops a damned thing about New Orleans' 199 murders last year . . .
because nobody likes a "snitch," right?

The Saints broke a major rule of the league -- intentionally trying to injure targeted opposing players for cash rewards -- and they did it flagrantly, brazenly and repeatedly. Then the players and coaches covered it up. And all you outraged moral cyphers think the National Football League, Commissioner Roger Goodell and the "snitch" are the problem here.

Come to think of it, that explains a hell of a lot about Louisiana and its place on the bottom of all the good lists and the top of all the bad ones.

If you ask me, the Saints got off easy. I would have given Sean Payton what Gregg Williams got. I would have banned Williams for life, and I would have given General Manager Mickey Loomis what Payton got. I would have fined the team $1 million, and I would have thought hard about banning the franchise from competition for a year.

That would be a message no franchise could ignore.

And I don't want to hear another word about "everybody else was doing it, too." That bulls*** didn't fly with your mama, and it sure as hell won't fly anywhere else, either.

Ultimately, that's not what really gives me the reds. What gives me the reds is that -- just like Louisiana voters -- Saints fans like those on display here today are too damned stupid -- too damned lacking in self-respect -- to realize that, ultimately, it is themselves who have been conned, toyed with and dishonored.

You stuck with a crappy-ass team for four and a half decades, put your faith in it as a symbol of renewal after Katrina and, finally, cried tears of joy when the Saints won the Super Bowl . . .
and it was all a sham. As it turns out, there was a good reason that 2009 defense was so salty, a good reason the Saints won it all -- several coaches and many players were dirty. They cheated like hell.

They gave the NFL rule book
(not to mention gullible ol' you) the finger. The bird. The middle-digit salute.

Suckers.

And for what it's worth, I include myself among the Saints' suckers . . . ever since 1967. Fool me once. . . .
HERE IS the short version: Stop your sobbing, because America isn't listening. You get no sympathy for your NFL team being as crooked as your politicians.

And, apparently, you.

Good night, and good luck. You'll need it.

Wednesday, March 07, 2012

Ain'ts that a shame


I have been a New Orleans Saints fan since the Saints came to be in 1967.

Throughout most of the NFL franchise's history, wins were few, far between and usually gotten by hook or by crook.
Well, what you gonna do, Cap? Dem's the Ain'ts for you.

Then came Katrina. We weren't sure we'd have New Orleans to kick around anymore, much less the Ain'ts. And after a disastrous 2005 season played entirely on the road, after all the rumors that owner Tom Benson was going to take the franchise to San Antonio, after the dicey proposition that was the Crescent City itself, we weren't sure we gave a damn.

Then something happened.

The Saints stayed . . . got a new coach and a new quarterback. The newly repaired and renovated Superdome reopened.

The reopening of the dome became a metaphor for the rebuilding of a city. And when the Saints won that 2006 home opener against the archrival Atlanta Falcons, it was pure catharsis for anyone who ever called south Louisiana home.

And when "Dem Boys" kept winning, well. . . .

And during that magical season three years later --
that championship 2009 season -- we thought it was some kind of miracle of God. Some kind of salve for the years of suffering by a city defined as much by its agonies as its ecstasies.

Long-suffering fans shed tears of joy when the Saints beat the Vikings and pigs flew. When hell froze over. When "Saints" and "Super Bowl" could coexist in a sentence devoid of both irony and the word "never."

And on a February day in 2010, many of us wept for joy as time expired on four-plus decades of futility. New Orleans 31, Indianapolis 17. Saints . . .
Super Bowl champs.

But I'm from Louisiana. I should have known better, formed as I was by a land where "crook" was far more common than "hook."




THESE DAYS, redemption songs and impossible dreams are as likely as anything else to be nothing more than just another g**damned lie.

Peter King, in the latest issue of
Sports Illustrated, disavows us of our illusions:
On Saturday nights during the 2009 NFL season, Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, the lightning-rod leader of a feisty unit, would stand in front of his men holding white envelopes filled with cash—bonuses for their performances the previous week. As Williams called up player after player, handing them envelopes with amounts ranging from $100 for a special teams tackle inside the opponents' 20-yard line to $1,500 for knocking a foe out of the game, a chant would rise up from the fired-up defenders: "Give it back! Give it back! Give it back!"

Many players would do just that, to beef up the pot and make the stakes bigger as the season went on. The NFL alleges that by the time New Orleans reached the NFC Championship Game against the Vikings on Jan. 24, 2010, the stakes had risen to the point that middle linebacker and defensive captain Jonathan Vilma personally offered a $10,000 bounty to any player who knocked Minnesota quarterback Brett Favre out of the game. (SI's attempts to reach Vilma were unsuccessful.)

Over four quarters that Sunday at the Superdome, Favre was hit repeatedly and hard. The league later fined Saints defensive linemen Bobby McCray and Anthony Hargrove a total of $25,000 for three separate improper hits, and NFL vice president of officiating Mike Pereira said the Saints should have been flagged for a brutal high-low mashing by McCray and defensive lineman Remi Ayodele in the third quarter. Favre suffered a badly sprained left ankle on that play and had to be helped off the field. On the New Orleans sideline, Hargrove excitedly slapped hands with teammates, saying, "Favre is out of the game! Favre is done! Favre is done!"

An on-field microphone directed toward the sideline caught an unidentified defender saying, "Pay me my money!"

Favre returned to the game but was hobbled. The Saints won 31–28 in overtime, and two weeks later they defeated the Colts 31–17 in Super Bowl XLIV, a victory for an embattled city that was one of the most uplifting moments in recent NFL history. But the excessive hits on Favre in the title game, and on Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner a week earlier in New Orleans's 45–14 divisional playoff victory, prompted an off-and-on two-year league investigation that culminated last Friday in a caustic and blistering report implicating Williams and Saints players in a pay-for-performance program that operated far outside the bounds of league rules. The report also said that general manager Mickey Loomis was made aware of the allegations about the program in early 2010, denied knowledge of it and said he would ensure that no such program was in place, and that coach Sean Payton was also aware of the allegations but failed to look into them. (Loomis and Payton did not respond to repeated requests for comment over the weekend.)

The discipline handed down to Williams, Payton, Loomis and several players will likely dwarf the Patriots' punishment in the infamous Spygate scandal in 2007. In that case the league fined the Patriots and coach Bill Belichick $750,000 and docked New England a first-round pick for illegally videotaping opposing sidelines. Judging by the outrage emanating from the NFL's New York City offices over the weekend, the Saints' sanctions could be closer to the yearlong suspensions given to stars Alex Karras and Paul Hornung in 1963 for gambling. Discipline is expected to be announced within the month.

For commissioner Roger Goodell, player safety has become a top priority, and nothing could undermine that more than cash incentives for players to injure their opponents. One source close to Goodell said the commissioner's reaction to the initial reports of the bounties in the 2009 playoffs was, "God forbid this is true. This will be earth-shattering."

In football circles, it is. The NFL charges that over the past three seasons, between 22 and 27 Saints participated in a bounty program administered by Williams and by leading players that paid defenders for specific achievements on the field, including injuring opponents. The program reportedly paid $1,500 for knocking a player out of a game and $1,000 for a "cart-off"—forcing a player to be helped off the field—as well as lesser rewards for individual plays. During the playoffs, the league said, the sums increased. Such bounties not only circumvent the NFL's salary cap, as extra off-the-books compensation, but also violate the NFL's constitution and by-laws and the collective bargaining agreement, all of which state, "No bonuses or awards may be offered or paid for on-field misconduct (for example, personal fouls to, or injuries inflicted on, opposing players)."

In a statement on Friday, Goodell said, "It is our responsibility to protect player safety and the integrity of our game, and this type of conduct will not be tolerated. We have made significant progress in changing the culture with respect to player safety, and we are not going to relent."


YOU KNOW, it wasn't just fair play, player safety and the National Football League that the Saints betrayed here. They betrayed a city, too.

But wait! There's more!

Not only that, the likes of Williams, Payton, Loomis, Vilma and the rest betrayed generations of fans who had suffered with decades of their lovable-loser forebears. They betrayed our dreams and our loyalty.

They, for good measure, betrayed the power of metaphor. And finally, they betrayed the virtue of hope.

Why am I not surprised that the "home team" bears a striking resemblance to generations of crooked Louisiana pols who have taken a state with enormous natural riches and left it the poor man of America? Time after time -- generation after generation -- it has been the fate of Louisiana's sons and daughters to bear yet another betrayal and vow yet again that we won't be fooled again.

Just another brick in a wall of g**damned lies, alas.

I GUESS we could hope that Goodell might mete out penalties worthy of the crime -- of the betrayal -- but, after all, we are from Louisiana, and justice would be too much to hope for.

If coaches were banned for life and the Saints front office got what it truly deserved, too many people would lose too much money. And if growing up in the Gret Stet has taught us anything. . . .

Man up, Drew. Something tells me you're gonna get Favred this season -- for free.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

'Does a fat puppy poot?'


Dogs bark, cows moo, Weebles wobble and Paula Deen has Type 2 diabetes.


Who knew?


Ah . . . the Today show knows what darkness lies in the pancreata of celebrity cooks:
Queen of comfort cuisine Paula Deen confirmed to Al Roker Tuesday that she has type-2 diabetes.

In her first broadcast interview discussing the disease, Deen said she intentionally kept the diagnosis secret after discovering she had it during a routine physical three years ago. “I came home, I told my children, I told my husband, I said, ‘I’m gonna keep this close to my chest for the time being’ because I had to figure out things in my own head,” she told Roker on TODAY.
I GUESS Paula "figured" it out:
“I’m here today to let the world know that it is not a death sentence,” said the Food Network star, who is now being paid as a spokesperson for Novo Nordisk, the pharmaceutical company that supplies her diabetes medication. Coinciding with her announcement, Deen and her family are appearing in a new ad campaign for the company this month.

The news puts a spotlight on Deen, who has been criticized for promoting the type of high-fat, high-sugar diet that leads to weight gain – a major factor believed to cause type-2 diabetes. Deen said her reputation wasn't the reason she kept the diagnosis under wraps. "I wanted to bring something to the table when I came forward," she explained.
EXCUSE ME while I go cogitate about how to make enough money whoring off of my arthritic ankle and lower-leg edema to buy myself a really badass Mac Pro computer.


OR . . . as Dr. Zachary Smith once said,
"The pain! The pain!"

Wednesday, December 07, 2011

Coach of the year


When you have a football coach capable of shocking NFL players, the cynics of sports-talk radio and the sports bloggers of the Internet, too, it might be the start of something big.

Or maybe it's just another football coach in it for himself and no one else -- the perfect hard-ass coach for hard-ass times in a country all about getting the hardware and not about the humans who get it for you.

Of course we're talking about Nick Saban.

The scene of our story: the 2005 Miami Dolphins training camp. The guy who was there: ex-Dolphin Heath Evans. Where we get to hear it: an interview with Jorge Sedano on Miami sports-talk station
The Ticket, as related on Sports by Brooks.
During the interview, Evans was asked by Sedano to describe Nick Saban at Dolphins training camp in 2005 when Saban was in his first year as Miami’s head coach and Evans was a player on the squad.

SEDANO: Give me an example of something he did to someone while you were there that made you shake your head, you’re like, ‘That stuff doesn’t work here’.

EVANS: Well, the first day of two-a-days. We had about a three-hour-plus practice in the morning in that south Florida sun. You guys know what it’s like down there in late July, early August. And then that night we had another practice under the lights, if I recall I think it was about from 6 to 9.

Jeno James, our best offensive lineman at the time, comes in and collapses after practice, uh, vomiting all kinds of stuff that would make a billygoat puke, eyes rolled in the back of his head. Myself, about four other lineman are trying to carry him from the locker room, to the training room.

Obviously it’s a moment of panic, everyone, you know, we don’t know if this guy’s, you know, gonna die, I mean, the whole deal. But he’s so big and sweaty and heavy that we actually have to set him down in the hallway between the locker room and the training room.

Nick Saban literally just starts walking in, steps over Jeno James convulsing, doesn’t say a word, doesn’t try to help, goes upstairs, I don’t know what he does. But then obviously they get Jeno trauma-offed to the hospital.

Saban calls a team meeting about 10:30 that night, comes down and says, ‘You know, the captain of the ship can never show fear or indecision, we’ve always gotta have an answer, and so I had to go upstairs, that’s why I walked over Geno like that, I had to collect my thoughts and decide what’s best for our team.’

And I’m thinking to myself, I think along with Jason Taylor and Zach Thomas and Yeremiah Bell and all these other guys going, ‘Did he, does he really believe what he’s just saying?’ He showed no human emotion for one of his best players. He literally stepped over him when four or five grown men are trying to carry Jeno to the training room.
COME TO think of it, I'm shocked that people are shocked. What's the difference between Saban, now the Alabama football coach, and the Wall Street investment bankers who step over the convulsing American economy to collect their thoughts and decide what's best for the firm's bottom line . . . and theirs?

What's the difference between Saban and any number of CEOs of American corporations, who make about 300 times what the workers they're about to lay off make?

Saban's behavior is just the distilled, small-enough-to-grasp version of the kind of crap from which we've been averting our eyes for a long time now. The macroculture of America sometime near its fall is too all-encompassing for us to comprehend -- much like the proverbial blind men, each one of them running his hands across a different part of an elephant and "seeing" vastly different things.

The erstwhile coach of the Miami Dolphins stepping over the convulsing body of one of his star players to go "
collect my thoughts and decide what’s best for our team" is small enough -- and personally callous enough for us to recognize a deeply self-important, self-involved, self-serving and self-deluded man.

In other words, Saban's exactly the kind of guy we're happy to put in charge of a college football team of impressionable young men, ages 18 to 23. The kind of guy Alabama is happy to have a statue of outside Bryant-Denny Stadium. God knows LSU loved him . . . until it didn't.

Then again, it's amazing the things we're willing not to notice so long as there are games to win and money to make. Ask Penn State.


P.S.: Oh . . . and there's this:
SEDANO: I mean, are you serious? Well, listen, I know for a fact that people in that office, they weren’t even allowed to look at him, for God’s sake! Like, I heard a story about his secretary telling him he had a nice haircut, he kind of like grunted at her and kept walking. And then someone later, this Scotty O’Brien, that hatchet man that he had, came up to her and says, ‘You’re not allowed to speak to the coach! Don’t you dare speak to the coach!’ Just nonsense that Scotty O’Brien - he had a hatchet man! What coach has a hatchet man?

P.P.S.: And, really, isn't there a discussion to be had in this country about the journalistic responsibility of sportswriters, who often end up "feeding the kitty" with coverage that plays right into the various fan-friendly -- and bank-account friendly -- myths of college and pro athletics?

For example, don't you think that people were talking, and talking a lot, about Saban's behavior around the Dolphins training camp? Don't you think that sportswriters and TV reporters heard some of it? Don't you think that an average reporter might consider that news?

Yes, there's a conversation to be had among (and about) sports journalists -- and others in the press as well -- about what doesn't get reported in the quest to keep people happy . . . and not get frozen out due to telling the public important, yet unflattering, facts about people like Nick Saban.

Monday, November 28, 2011

Weaponizing the law for fun and profit


Do you want to know what can happen when America has the best government Big Money can buy (and you can't)?

This. And it's about to happen.

Of course, not being communist China, the U.S. government will not throw a monkey wrench into the Internet because it does not like the politics of any particular website. That would be illiberal.

But if some website might be the slightest threat to big contributors making maximum money, well, that's another thing. That's capitalism, and if you say some things are more important than money . . .
we know where you live.

WHAT AM I talking about? This, as explained in Forbes by Larry Downes:
When Congress introduced the Stop Online Piracy Act on October 26th, its sponsors hardly expected a tidal wave of opposition from Silicon Valley. After all, SOPA was billed as a corrected version of the Senate’s Protect IP Act, passed out of committee earlier this year.

SOPA and Protect IP are the latest proposals for combating so-called “rogue” websites–criminal enterprises operating outside the U.S. that traffic in counterfeit goods and unlicensed entertainment. Many pretend to be legitimate outlets for movies, music, prescription drugs, and luxury goods, often selling dangerous or defective products to U.S. consumers.

Unfortunately, SOPA, also known colorfully as the E-PARASITE Act, was no corrective. SOPA is a sweeping new law, effecting a radical change to how governments and private parties could police Internet content and business innovation in the name of protecting copyrights and trademarks.
While SOPA did correct a few technical errors in Protect IP, it also introduced new definitions, new standards of liability for third parties, a deeply flawed system of private enforcement, and a provision that makes a felony of posting YouTube videos with copyrighted music—even playing in the background. The House version was nearly twice as long as its Senate counterpart.

(snip)

No one but the criminals, of course, would defend the brazen rip-off of copyright and trademark holders. Unfortunately, legislation touted as targeting only the “worst of the worst” has morphed into something far broader. If passed in their current forms, Protect IP and even more so SOPA would effect a dramatic redesign of the Internet, making it a much smaller and decidedly less innovative place for entrepreneurs and consumers. Neither bill should become law.

For example, SOPA would allow the U.S. government to condemn “foreign infringing sites” by forcing Internet service providers to misdirect requests from consumers attempting to access them. Leading Internet engineers rightly note this provision won’t actually stop users from finding infringing content. It will, however, wreak havoc on crucial international efforts to make the global domain name system more secure, as former National Security Agency general counsel Stewart Baker recently pointed out.

But that’s nothing compared to the most unsettling provision of both bills, which creates a new private right of action for rightsholders to force ad networks and payment processors to shut down websites “dedicated to the theft of U.S. property.” While that sounds simple enough, SOPA’s version of this “market based mechanism” is over 30 pages long. Read carefully, it gives copyright and trademark owners sweeping new powers to cut off websites—foreign and domestic—whose business models they dislike.

For example, based on nothing more than a good faith belief that infringement is taking place on even “a portion of” a website and a failure by the operator to confirm “a high probability of the use of the site” to commit infringement, SOPA allows private parties can order payment processors and ad networks to cut all ties to the site simply by sending a letter.
WHAT WE HAVE today is a nation of perpetual conflict where brute force is the only possible resolution when disputes arise -- be it in the ghetto where gangbangers settle beefs with bullets, on American streets and college campuses where police shut down peaceful protests with billy clubs and pepper spray . . . or in Congress where moneyed interests pay lawmakers to weaponize the U.S. Code on their behalf.

What could go wrong?

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Listen and win!


Ladies and gentlemen, I present our last best hope for financial security amid our present economic desolation and tribulation.

Unfortunately, that cash train left the station in 1978. Our Lady of Listen and Win on the Big 910, pray for us.

Wednesday, November 02, 2011

The Big (not so) Easy


If this surprises you, you don't know much about New Orleans (or the South), do you?

And I'll bet you missed the media coverage of that whole Katrina thing six years ago. You probably were partying in the Hamptons and didn't have time for TV or newspapers.

A lot of people think this is the iconic view of the Crescent City:


Not me. For my little bit of money, I think the iconic picture of New Orleans is the one at the top of this post.

I guess your mileage could vary.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

One of these things is not like the other


I write to you from a time near the end of our world.

I write to you from a time close to the tortured end of our ability to play both the Id and the superego against the middle --
and by "we," I mean Western civilization, for whatever that label is worth anymore. The hour is late, our world is crumbling, and the time has come for us to choose.

I suppose I could go on world without end about this, but I doubt I could shed much more light on the subject than I'm fixing to do very simply. You see, I am not a sophisticated man. Then again, our choice is not a sophisticated one.


Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

BASICALLY, we can choose to submit -- to God, to grace, to love and to each other. We can choose to live in truth and the light. We can choose to die to ourselves and to live for something -- Someone -- much greater.

This story (above) from the
NBC Nightly News is kind of what that looks like.


ALTERNATIVELY, we can choose the way of non servium -- I will not serve . . . you. Or God. Or truth. Or the light.

We can choose to serve only ourselves. And when my serving myself conflicts with you serving yourself, the law of the jungle must prevail. In a "top of the food chain" kind of world, he who belches last, belches best.

This interview from the BBC is kind of what that looks like.

When morality is fluid, God is Self and love has conditions, our fate is left to lawyers, guns and money.
For the s*** has hit the fan.

Choose wisely.

Thursday, September 08, 2011

Protesting in the key of Z


I am unsure what is the bigger offense -- New Orleans talk-show host Garland Robinette running down his landfill-owning pal's landfill enemies on the radio and then accepting a $250,000 no-interest loan from the dumpmeister . . . or some outraged, off-key "Yat" making a protest-parody to the tune of Barry Manilow's "Mandy."

"Mandy"? And this guy gets paid to do this? On the radio?

If New Orleanians were as good at enacting cultural and political change as they are bad at topical parody vids, the Crescent City might be getting somewhere. But they ain't, and it's not.

I have an idea. Lock Robinette in a room. Make him listen to this damn thing, over and over and over again. Then take pity on the man and just waterboard him instead.


And please . . . make sure that room is soundproof, OK?

Wednesday, September 07, 2011

If everybody's crooked, is wrong all right?

Garland Robinette, in most every way, has been the face -- or, more precisely, the voice -- of post-Katrina New Orleans.

And for being too representative in one important way, the WWL radio host -- who before that was a TV-news fixture in the Crescent City from the time I was in elementary school to well past when I married and moved away from Louisiana -- ought to be fired.

No matter who you are or how good you are at what you do, sometimes you do something for which there's no excuse -- or at least no good excuse. And for Robinette, who's been around the block more than once as a journalist, covering Louisiana scoundrels grand and petty, there's just no excuse for not knowing a massive conflict of interest when it presented itself.

Indeed, there's just no way a longtime radio and TV reporter and anchor could not have known what he was doing was, shall we say, both ethically challenged and fatally toxic to both his and his employer's credibility. There's just no way.


WHAT did he do? Here's what the Times-Picayune says he did:
WWL talk radio host Garland Robinette received $250,000 from the owner of the River Birch Landfill in October 2007, after Robinette routinely used his show to criticize the reopening of the rival Old Gentilly Landfill to dispose of Hurricane Katrina debris, his attorney confirmed. Federal authorities investigating River Birch flagged the monetary transfer and interviewed Robinette several times late last year, said Robinette's attorney Dane Ciolino, who said the money was a loan.

"They asked him a lot of questions, and he has cooperated fully," Ciolino said Friday. "He has been told that he is not a subject or target of the investigation."

Embattled River Birch owner Fred Heebe loaned Robinette the money through a company Heebe owns, Ciolino said.

"Fred Heebe is a personal friend of Garland's" he said, "and it was a personal loan."

Ciolino said the loan was to be repaid once Robinette and his wife sold a vacant lot they own in St. Tammany Parish. He said he believed Robinette, an avid painter, used the money to build an art studio.

Ciolino said he did not know whether Robinette has repaid the loan or whether he has been paying interest.

The disclosure involving one of New Orleans' most prominent media figures is the latest development in the 20-month investigation of River Birch, which allegedly paid $460,000 in bribes to a former state official to lobby for closing Old Gentilly.

The loan was made during the post-Katrina landfill wars as Heebe and his associates sought to shutter the Old Gentilly Landfill and the new Chef Menteur Landfill to increase River Birch's share of more than $175 million in disposal fees for at least 38 million cubic yards of hurricane debris.

From mid-2006 through mid-2007, Robinette frequently raised environmental concerns about disposing of debris at Old Gentilly and the new Chef Menteur Landfill in eastern New Orleans on his "Think Tank" talk show.

THIS WEEK, Robinette took to the WWL airwaves to defend himself:

"I can look my wife and my daughter in the eye and tell you the public I have done absolutely nothing wrong," Robinette said.

Entercom Corp., WWL's Pennsylvania-based owner, backed Robinette, saying

company officials "do not expect this matter to affect Garland's status with WWL."

From 2006 until at least May 2007, Robinette frequently raised environmental concerns on his show about disposing of hurricane debris at Old Gentilly, a former city dump in eastern New Orleans that reopened two months after Katrina.

The payment to Robinette, first reported Saturday in The Times-Picayune, came as Heebe and his associates were trying to shut down the Old Gentilly Landfill and the Chef Menteur Landfill -- both of which were opened in the wake of Hurricane Katrina to deal with the huge volume of trash.

Robinette said his coverage of the landfill issue was not influenced by the money from Heebe.

"My opinions are not and have not ever been for sale. I would never dishonor your trust nor my family's," he said.

HE CAN LOOK his wife and daughter in the eye and tell us he's "done nothing wrong"? No joke?

If Robinette believes that --
really believes that in his heart and mind -- he obviously operates within the context of a depraved worldview, likely formed by the corrosive forces of an depraved civic culture, one with a completely deviant view of such concepts as "right," "wrong" and "normal." (This also applies to Robinette's corporate boss, Entercom, which is blind -- as American corporations are wont to be -- to everything but the bottom line.)

Dat's Loosiana for you!

That's a place where "on the make" and "on the take" are such a part of "normal" civic life as to be unexceptional -- and unprosecuted if not for the U.S. Justice Department. There you have a society where businessmen are giving, officials are taking and -- now -- at least one prominent figure in the mass media is "borrowing."

While talking up his friend and creditor's shady interests by running down the "competition."

THIS is what passes for "absolutely nothing wrong" in the mind of a man who emerged as one of New Orleans' preeminent post-Katrina crusaders for what he'd have us believe was "truth, justice and the American Way." Now he's a man making himself into a different, yet much more familiar, face of "the Big Easy" -- the ethically pockmarked face of an American banana republic.

Answer me this: In the Gret Stet, what institution can the public really trust?


That Garland Robinette now has added to the long, deafening silence that accompanies that question is reason enough to "kill his mic" . . . and his long broadcasting career with it.

Monday, August 22, 2011

Help! Help! They're being repressed!


I am one of those Catholics who believes in God, not cultural self-identification.

I believe that God exercises a "preferential option for the poor." I believe that's in the Bible -- somewhere toward the back.

I believe that how we govern ourselves, and how our governing structures implement a basic vision of social justice, is a direct reflection on a democracy's citizenry, which grants consent to its agents.

I believe that God does not sleep, that nations come under judgment and that we are in big, big trouble.


I ALSO BELIEVE that Louisiana -- my home state -- is working hard to sink from mere banana republicanism to fascistic banana republicanism, and that this stinking turd some self-righteous collegiate twerp left on the opinion pages of LSU's student newspaper is Exhibit A. From the soiled July 28 edition of my old stomping grounds, The Daily Reveille:
Obama and the Democrats love to paint a picture of the "poor" as innocent people "just trying to stretch every dollar as far as it will go."

I wonder how many Democrats have ever been to a Third World country to see what poor really means. For two weeks I stayed with a family in Costa Rica who had no air conditioning, no hot water, no washer or dryer, and the roof of the house was raised above the walls so that air could circulate in and out. And yet they washed all my clothes, gave me meals every day and never complained about it.

There are definitely some Americans who are truly needy, but it would be ridiculous to think the 47 percent of Americans not paying federal income tax are eating food out of dumpsters.

It's sickening to hear Obama and the Democrats portray the poor as blameless people in dire need of government help when our poor live lives of luxury in comparison to the poor of other countries.

It isn't the rich who are paying less than their fair share in taxes. To the contrary, they're paying much more than everyone else. It's America's poor who get free health care and new SUVs who aren't sharing the sacrifice.

And if we don't start taxing the rich, Obama wants to withhold Social Security checks. How about the government withholds welfare checks from the "poor" instead of Social Security to those who have actually paid their fair share?

It's about time the so-called poor Americans share the sacrifice and pay their fair share of taxes.

BACK IN MY DAY, the "f*** the poor" crowd complained about "welfare Cadillacs" and ghetto dwellers buying bottles of Mad Dog and Colt 45 tall boys with food stamps. Now, apparently, it's "free health care" and "new SUVs" that are the problem.

My assumption, though, is that the faces behind the stereotype are still brown ones.

What I don't understand is why the smug Reveille columnist, Austin Casey, didn't aim lower for whom he considers real poor people. Why not starving Somalians instead of Costa Rican peasants?

That could have made him feel even better -- or worse, depending -- about how rich America's poor are in the grand scheme of things. After all, it doesn't look quite so bad that the richest 1 percent of Americans controls 40 percent of its wealth and takes home a fourth of its annual income if we get to put quotation marks around our poor.

Sorry, make that "poor."

OF COURSE, the whole construct of inequality in the United States is unique to "socialists" like . . . well, me. I actually give a rat's ass about stuff like this. Austin Casey and the rest of Tea Party America don't.

When Austin Casey encountered the poor of Costa Rica, they sheltered him, fed him and wished him well. When Austin Casey encounters the poor -- sorry, "poor" -- of America, he pouts, stamps his feet and screams "Help! Help! I'm being repressed!"

Tea Party America is not the land of e pluribus unum -- out of many, one. Instead, it is the land of ad te sorbet -- it sucks to be you.

Jesus has an opinion on that. It's in the Bible -- somewhere toward the back.