Saturday, May 19, 2007

Bo Diddley, Bo Diddley have you heard. . . .

Bo Diddley came to town this past week.

Then he had a stroke, as mentioned in an earlier post. So he's still here . . . in the hospital.

Thanks be to God, he's doing much better now, and doctors seem to think that -- with speech therapy -- he'll be able to return to performing. But we came too close to losing another rock / soul / R&B legend, here.

SOOOOOOO . . . how's about we do something novel this week? We're going to celebrate a great artist while he's still around to hear the applause. Bo Diddley, here's to you!

We're going to hear several Diddley delights on The Big Show, and if you listen closely, you'll hear a little bit of Diddley in a lot of the musical lineup. And your Mighty Favog is -- with tongue slightly in cheek -- doing it up in '50s Screamin' Top-40 DJ style.

And, boy, does his imperial throat hurt.

Bo Diddley. Doesn't get much better than that.


Download the show from the player at the top right of the page. Or go here.

Be there. Aloha.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

'I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up
. . . not me'
Not now. Not ever. No way. Never.

What if Peter Pan were a dirty old man?

Well, for one thing, he'd probably be on the radio, talking about "nappy-headed hos" and how he and Captain Hook were going to have some fun (Arrrrrrrrrrrrrr . . . she shiver me timber!) with Condi Rice.

And when some mean old grownup tried to "censor" his "free speech" -- which, by the way, is full of the F-word and glorifies aggravated rape -- he'd just "Think happy thoughts. They lift you into the air."

Or he'd have his Lost Boys throw a collective temper tantrum in protest of the fascist grownups. Whatever.


AYE, IT'S A TALE TO BE TOLD, that's for certain. But it's not J.M. Barrie,
it's the Los Angeles Times:
Satellite radio bills itself as the Wild West of the airwaves, an uncensored outpost beyond the reach of federal regulators where expletives fly with impunity and the banter can get as raunchy as at a strip club.

But the decision this week by XM Satellite Radio to suspend shock jocks Opie and Anthony for 30 days for crude sexual comments about First Lady Laura Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Queen Elizabeth II has listeners wondering whether there's a new sheriff in town.

Some XM listeners were outraged — not at the comments but at XM's reaction.

"I signed up for XM because it's uncensored. I like these guys because they are so unfiltered," said Placentia resident Paul Hebert, who canceled his $12.95 monthly XM subscription Tuesday in protest.

He wasn't alone. Hundreds of angry subscribers have flooded XM's operators with calls to cancel since the suspension was announced Tuesday. About 60 listeners smashed their XM receivers Wednesday outside the WFNY-FM studios in New York, where Gregg "Opie" Hughes and Anthony Cumia continued to air their tamer, over-the-air broadcast for CBS Radio.

"The reaction is mind-blowing," said Ryan Saghir of North Branford, Conn., who runs a blog about satellite radio called Orbitcast. "One of the main attractors to satellite radio is the unregulated content. Once you take away that … you're going to have some upset subscribers."

But industry observers said XM might have been more worried about offending federal regulators, who can block the company's proposed merger with its only rival, Sirius Satellite Radio, than staying true to its slogan, "Beyond AM. Beyond FM. XM."

Sensitivities have been heightened in Washington since the controversy over veteran shock jock Don Imus' racially offensive comments about the Rutgers University women's basketball team, which led to his firing last month by CBS Radio.

"It's hard to read anything into it other than that they're catering to federal officials," said William Kidd, a media analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities in Los Angeles.

XM spokesman Nathaniel Brown would not comment on whether the pending merger was a factor in the suspension and would not say how many people had canceled their subscriptions. XM has suspended on-air personalities before, he said, but none with as high a profile as Hughes and Cumia.


(snip)


Satellite radio followers said the suspension was unprecedented. Some XM listeners were stunned and angry when they heard about it.

Ed L. Kelley of Wagoner, Okla., said he spent six hours on the phone Tuesday night trying to cancel. He's talking to an attorney about a class-action suit, saying that because "The Opie & Anthony Show" appears on one of XM's "explicit-language" channels, the company has violated its promise to deliver uncensored content.

"These guys make me laugh and they make fun of everybody equally," Kelley said.

Debbie Wolf, co-founder of People Against Censorship, called the suspension "outrageous" and organized the demonstration outside CBS Radio's studios. Christopher Lewis of Glenmoore, Penn., quickly registered http://www.cancelxm.com , and the message boards there and on other satellite radio sites have filled up with dozens of angry comments.

"I will not support a company that has decided the one true reason they exist no longer matters," wrote one poster on Orbitcast.
IT'S THE NEW AMERICA, don't you see? The land of the Everlasting Adolescent Id. We'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up, not us.

It's my party, and I'll say (expletive deleted) if I want to!

After first reading the Los Angeles Times piece, I called up WFNY radio in New York to see whether I could get some further comment from Opie and Anthony. And whadda you know? I got them on the phone for a minute or so.

Here's a partial transcript:

O&A: Why do you have to spoil everything? We have fun, don't we? I taught you to fly and to fight. What more could there be?

R21: There is so much more.

O&A: What? What else is there?

R21: I don't know. I guess it becomes clearer when you grow up.

O&A: Well, I will not grow up. You can not make me!

WELL, I guess they have me there. I can't make them grow up. For that matter, I can't make their fans grow up, either. Nor can I make anyone who thinks Opie and Anthony's shtick is funny -- or Howard Stern's shtick is funny -- grow up.

Neither I nor anybody else can make Juvenile Nation grow up and do the right thing.

All I can do is say that -- even though perpetual adolescence might be fun for a while, even for an entire nation -- there are consequences. Ultimately, you won't like what those are.

Bad news on the doorstep



IF YOU'RE A MUSIC FAN, you're not going to like what's in your morning paper.

Bo Diddley is in intensive care here in Omaha after suffering a stroke Monday. The Omaha World-Herald
has the story:

Bo Diddley let his audience know Saturday night that he wasn't feeling well, but few in attendance at Harrah's Horseshoe Casino would have guessed that the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer would be hospitalized for a stroke the next day.

Susan Clary, a publicist for Diddley's management team, said Wednesday that the 78-year-old musician was listed in guarded condition in the intensive care unit at Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha.

Tests indicate that Diddley - who has a history of hypertension and diabetes - had a stroke that affected the left side of his brain, impairing his speech and speech recognition, Clary said.

Clary said she has no other details on Diddley's condition or how long he would be in intensive care.

In August 2004, the bluesman had a toe amputated in Gainesville, Fla., due to complications from his hypoglycemic condition.

Katie Hansen, a spokeswoman for Harrah's in Council Bluffs
[Iowa -- R21]
, said Diddley performed shows at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Saturday in the Whiskey Roadhouse club.

At one point, she said, Diddley announced from the stage that he wasn't feeling the best and that he had been coughing a lot during the past week. The next morning on the way to the airport, Diddley became ill and was taken to Creighton.

Diddley, with his black glasses and low-slung guitar, has been an icon in the music industry since he topped the R&B charts with "Bo Diddley" in 1955. His other hits include "Who Do You Love," "Before You Accuse Me," "Mona" and "I'm a Man."

Diddley was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 and was given a lifetime achievement Grammy in 1998.

Diddley was born Ellas Bates on Dec. 30, 1928, on a small farm near the town of McComb, Miss.

He moved with his family to the south side of Chicago in the mid-1930s. He studied the violin for 12 years, composing two concertos for the instrument.

For Christmas in 1940, his sister Lucille bought him his first guitar. That's when he acquired the nickname "Bo Diddley" from his fellow high school students.

After more than a decade of playing on street corners and in clubs around Chicago, Diddley recorded "Uncle John" and "I'm a Man" in the spring of 1955. He took the recordings to brothers Leonard and Phil Chess, owners of Chess Records in Chicago.

The two songs were re-recorded and released as a double A-side disc "Bo Diddley"/"I'm a Man" on the Chess Records subsidiary label Checker Records. It went straight to the top of the rhythm-and-blues chart. It was later hailed as one of the most influential debut singles in history and one of the cornerstones of rock music.
ABOVE, YOU'LL SEE a video of Bo Diddley, whose real name is Ellas McDaniel, on The Big T.N.T. Show, a 1966 rock 'n' roll extravaganza that later was turned into a concert film. Watch it, and know that you're seeing a legend in his prime.

Know, too, that Bo Diddley had a lot to do with just about everything you hear on the Revolution 21 podcast.

And do you have faith in God above? Then say a prayer for his speedy -- and full -- recovery.

Man, I dig those rhythm and blues.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

CBS bringing Congress to prime-time sked!

This is stunning and encouraging news.

It seems CBS television is taking over operation of C-SPAN -- which has offered live coverage of the U.S. House and Senate, etc., for a quarter century -- and apparently will make public-service broadcasting the mainstay of its network sked.

Finally, sanity reigns in network television, and ordinary Americans will get a prime-time education in How Our Government Works.

Kudos to CBS!

From Variety, the show-biz daily:

CBS is ready to unleash a reality take on "Lord of the Flies," quietly wrapping filming on a new skein in which a group of 8- to 15-year-olds will create their own society.
Tom Forman, showrunner on "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," is behind the 13-episode project, tentatively titled "Kid Nation."

Eye is expected to unveil the show Wednesday at its upfront presentation. It's unclear if "Kids' Nation" will land on the fall sked, but it wouldn't be surprising if it did.

Project was originally pegged for a summer debut but was held for the 2007-08 season after CBS execs became excited about its breakout potential. Eye's other reality staples -- "Survivor" and "Amazing Race" -- have been greenlit for two cycles and one cycle, respectively.

CBS reality guru Ghen Maynard has been feverishly working on nearly two dozen unscripted concepts for the Eye and cousin net the CW.

With "Survivor" and "Amazing Race" both aging, execs at CBS have made finding the next big reality hit a huge priority. Effort begins in earnest later this month with "Pirate Master," premiering on the same date "Survivor" originally bowed.

As for "Kid Nation," skein will follow 40 kids for 40 days, observing them as they attempt to build a new society from scratch.

Rather than surviving on an island, the kiddies relocated to Bonanza City, N.M., a ghost town abandoned more than a century ago. Prodigal children live without parental supervision and modern comforts.

Goal for the kids is to build a functional society. They have to pass laws, choose leaders and build an economy. People familiar with the project said the kids may also be given choices between things they need (food and supplies) and things they want (think Nintendo Wii).

Chill! It's not like they said 'nappy-headed ho.' . . .

Calling African-American basketball players "nappy headed hos": Bad. Very bad. Fire-Don-Imus bad.

Airing vulgar rape fantasy about African-American secretary of state: Not so bad. Just suspending bad.


Or not, if you're CBS Radio.

If the normative American family were run like the normative American broadcast entity, the other nuclear powers of the world would have to obliterate the United States out of sheer self-defense.


Why, you ask?

Because they'd be faced with 300 million sociopaths with zero impulse control. And some of them would have the nuclear launch codes and nothing else to keep them amused. And we have legitimized the concept of preemptive war, you know.

From The New York Times:

XM Radio, the satellite provider, announced yesterday that it had imposed 30-day suspensions on the hosts known as Opie and Anthony after the pair participated in an on-air discussion last Wednesday that imagined sexual assaults on Condoleezza Rice and Laura Bush.

Though the hosts, Gregg Hughes and Anthony Cumia, had read apologies on Friday on their shows on both XM and CBS Radio, XM said in a statement yesterday that subsequent comments they had made “put into question whether they appreciate the seriousness of the matter.”

“The management of XM Radio decided to suspend Opie and Anthony to make clear that our on-air talent must take seriously the responsibility that creative freedom requires of them,” the XM statement said.

CBS Radio broadcasts a different version of “Opie & Anthony” that precedes the XM show, and did not carry the rape discussion. CBS said yesterday that it would broadcast today’s show as scheduled. The hosts’ producer did not respond to a request for comment yesterday afternoon.
AS ONE of my college newspaper editors used to say, "Kill me now!"

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Well, at least they didn't damn you
to the fires of Hell . . . or did they?

I haven't read Good News, Bad News: Evangelization, Conversion, and The Crisis of Faith, a recent offering from Ignatius Press by a couple of Catholic heavy hitters, Russell Shaw and the Rev. C. John McCloskey III.

There are lots of staggeringly good testimonials for it on the Ignatius website from other Catholic swells -- mostly of the conservative Republican stripe. Folks say Father McCloskey, an Opus Dei priest, is quite the convert-maker.


But from the way Ignatius is marketing the book, you have to wonder whether a) Father has a problem relating to Democrats and Regular Joes, or b) some converts, and their endorsements, are better than others. That's just me, probably. The Original Mr. Non-Conformist Proletarian Guy.

Anyway, like I said, I haven't read the thing. But whatever approach has worked for Shaw and McCloskey, I'll garon-damn-tee you these guys have a better idea.

I'LL BET THE INTERNET MONK, Michael Spencer, would think so, too.


The Southern Baptist preacher and campus minister has read Good News, Bad News. He is not amused, as evidenced by
his post on the Boar's Head Tavern blog:
Having read dozens of books on evangelism, I’ve never read anything like this. I’m trying to avoid the words I almost feel compelled to use.

I was frankly stunned with the caricaturing, insulting, shallow portrayals and straw man examples of Protestants that filled this book. I can’t imagine a contemporary mainstream evangelical book that would portray Catholics in such a biased manner. I’m not talking about [Joel Hunter], I mean mainstream Christianity Today evangelicals. This had all the flavor of the anti-catholic propaganda I hear from the ignorant preachers in the mountains. I try to do better and thought I wasn’t alone. Naive me.

This book took me behind the polite veneer and let me hear the real deal. Separated “brethren?” That’s a mild way to put it. Confused. Stubborn. Unspiritual. Unable to think clearly. No serious contribution. Biblio-dolatrous. Empty. Chaotic. Ugly buildings. (I’ll admit that a lot of this is true, but ever looked on the other side of the fence as well? Hello.)

I’d never think of telling my staff here that RC kids that won’t go Protestant are just not “getting it” because they’re just too thick and confused. Well, I should learn a thing or two.
SPENCER POINTED OUT one little detail from the slim volume that told me all I needed to know about where Good News, Bad News registers on the BS-O-Meter, though:
The little tips were good, too. Get ‘em to mass a lot, so they will know what they are missing.
The short theological exegesis of that "helpful tip" is as follows if you live in one of the great majority of Catholic parishes in these United States: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHA! HAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The long version is as follows: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHA! HA! HA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOO HOO HOO HOO!!!! HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE!!!!!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!! HAAAAAAAA!!! GAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!! (Thud.)

Now, I will admit to having gone to, for example, Presbyterian (sorry!) services and telling Mrs. Favog afterward that "There's no there there." But that's because I buy into the whole Catholic thing already.

How can a church service not seem lacking when you believe that, even at the crappiest, most rote, most non-reverent, Haugen-ditty-filled Catholic Mass, you have seen the priest make Jesus Christ -- Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity -- truly present on the altar? When you, despite all the worst modernity has wrought upon my suffering Church, still get to -- as Walker Percy would say -- "eat Christ," doing exactly what Jesus, in John 6, said we must do to have life within us?

LIKE I SAID, I know what I would be missing because I'm already Catholic. I've already signed up for the Roman Life Assurance policy.

Your woebegone Protestant conversion target hasn't yet. Get it?

All your average evangelical probably sees is a lackluster homily, music that's at least as bad as their "praise and worship" stuff, most of the congregation going through the motions -- at best -- and little to no fellowship after all is said and "celebrated."

Such as it is.

THE JOURNEY into Catholicism for many today is a journey precipitated by marriage or a relentlessly seeking intellect homing in on the Original Source Material of Christendom. Both are good things, very good things. Fine reasons to join the Church.

But you'll probably end up frustrated if you're really on fire for Christ. After all, how many converts are touting the vibrance of Catholic parish life or the extraordinary witness of most lay Catholics as being this mysterious, mighty, irresistable riptide that pulled them out into the Living Waters and toward that far bank of the Tiber River?

Until you get acclimated -- and I really don't know whether acclimated is a good thing or not -- the serious convert barely may be restraining himself from jumping atop the pew (and be careful about this if you're in a parish with chair-pews or movable pews) and screaming at his fellow parishioners.
"WHAT THE HELL IS THE MATTER WITH YOU PEOPLE!?! Don't you realize the riches this Church possesses? Don't you know that's JESUS on the altar there? And with 2,000 years of Gregorian and Byzantine chant, and hundreds of years of classical hymnody, WHY ARE YOU SINGING THIS ST. LOUIS JESUITS S***?????

"Oh . . . pardon my French, Lord. Please forgive me." (Slinks silently out of the sanctuary as people stare and Father shakes his head.)

ON THE OTHER HAND, I quite literally have been brought to tears of joy by the Holy Spirit at the most humble of Masses, liturgies unremarkable except for the humility and love with which they were celebrated.

On one occasion -- it was on the road, in the cathedral in Jackson, Miss. -- the Spirit, I am convinced, used just such a liturgy to let me endure, by unceasingly praying for my accuser, what I absolutely, positively know I could not have withstood through my own strength or will. At least not in a spirit of prayer, and not without unleashing a verbal hell on earth toward the other party.


Who happened to be my dying father.

But the Lord does what He will, where He will, when He will.

SWERVING BACK toward the subject of this post, I think what so rankled Michael Spencer in his reading of Good News, Bad News is an ugly encounter with bad, old-fashioned Catholic Triumphalism. In other words, it's the Holy Roman version of the invective a lot of Reformed and evangelical types like to sling at us devotees of Popery.

Obviously, Shaw and McCloskey never got the memo about two wrongs not making a right.

The Internet Monk continues in his post:

The section on Episcopalians and Evangelicals was worth the price of admission. ECUSA is just destroying themselves with heresy. We knew that. But evangelicals? What a zany bunch of Bible thumpers we’ve got there. Not a systematic, serious theology in sight.

I know this is preaching to the choir, but all this needed were jokes and funny faces right in the margin.

How do you deal with a family member whose Protestant family doesn’t want them to convert? “….so what?”

So what? What if it’s my FAMILY and my MARRIAGE that you’re dividing? “So What?”
WHAT CAN I SAY? Spencer is right. He's right, and -- going by Spencer's account -- "my side" is shockingly, insensitively wrong, wrong, wrong. You'd think that adult Christians with at least a drop of empathy could do better than that.

A divided marriage, a divided family is no trifling thing. It is serious, gravely serious, and people can get hurt. Badly.

Ask a friend of mine who became disenchanted with the Southern Baptist faith she was reared in. She became interested in Catholicism in college, hit some major speed bumps along the road of life, then -- still drawn toward the Catholic faith -- ended up taking instruction and converting.

On the eve of her confirmation, her father sat her down and gravely, sadly told her she was damning herself to Hell. Talk about your major buzz-kills.


A couple of years later, when she married another Catholic, her parents attended the wedding (which, out of deference, they decided to make a simple service and not a Mass) but absolutely, positively refused to take wedding photos anywhere near the altar.

Nor did they attend either of their granddaughters' baptisms. There's no intrafamilial religious cleansing going on -- no harsh words or infighting, per se -- but it's a detente, not a full blown outbreak of peace and harmony.

"So what?" indeed.

I would never tell anyone to turn away from what one's conscience tells him (or her) is true. Or The Truth, to be exact. But there's a hell of a lot more to it that a shrug and a blithe "So what?"

YEP, I'M A CATHOLIC, and I believe the following without reservation -- the Southern Baptist preacher is right. My side is nowhere NEAR schmuck-free. Not even in the same zip code as schmuck-resistant, even.

I'll probably be burned as a heretic by all the Catholic True Believers now. Even though I are one, just without the italics and capital letters.

Oy veh.

***

P.S.: If I were Ignatius Press, I'd be thinking twice about the testimonial by the Rev. Peter Stravinskas, who came to Omaha for a while, got himself embroiled in a great big s***storm (involving a police probe) then just disappeared one day . . . along with the controversy. Inquiring minds want to know. You know?

Yeah, reason for triumphalism abounds.

Paris. Boil. Butt. Humanity.

One thing I do regret is that Jerry Falwell did not live long enough to kick the ass of this snobby, spoiled little B-I-itch.

Paris Hilton needs Jesus. Well, she needed better parents to start off with, but now what she really needs is Jesus.

Before she's "in a good place" for the Holy Spirit to do that voodoo that He do, however, someone is just going to have to kick her ass, because right now she's acting like nothing more than a boil on the collective buttocks of the human race.
From The Daily Mail of London:

Just when she thought things couldn't possibly get any worse, pictures have surfaced of Paris Hilton surreptitiously smoking cannabis.

The 26-year-old heiress was photographed allegedly smoking a joint while backstage at last month's Coachella music festival.

Paris attended the event with a group of pals weeks before her court hearing, but clearly wasn't concerned about keeping out of trouble ahead of the case.

Hilton now faces a 45-day jail term for for driving while her licence was suspended.

As it stands, Hilton - who has appealed to the Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger for a pardon via an online petition - is scheduled to be admitted to jail on June 5.

The online Free Paris Hilton petition has gathered more than 25,000 signatures - but unfortunately for the reality TV star, a rival campaign, Jail Paris Hilton, is twice as popular, with more than 60,000 supporters.

Hilton can expect tough conditions at LA's Century Regional Detention Center where is set to serve her time.

Her cell will be approximately 12 feet by 8 feet and feature very basic amenities such as a sink, toilet and mirror.

According to reports, inmates are forbidden from wearing makeup and hair extensions, and are allowed only two pairs of socks and underpants.

PERSONALLY, what with a disjointed Paris flipping her lid all over Creation, I was rooting for the Joe Arpaio 12-Step Program to straighten that girl out, but good. Alas, it isn't to be.

Damn.

Jerry Falwell, RIP


The great tragedy of the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who died today at 73, is that he lived to see his "Moral Majority" rode hard and put away wet by the Republican politicians with whom he cast his lot -- and evangelicals' lot.

Apart from a hard lesson in politics and the Law of Unintended Consequences that all of us religious and social conservatives have been learning in this new millennium, I can only fault Falwell over matters of style and focus, not real meat-and-potatoes substance. Come to think of it . . . make that one big thing about which I can hit the late reverend.

He was so totally wrong about rock 'n' roll. It ain't the music that's the problem, it's what you do with it that can be the problem.

You probably can figure out the matters of style and focus where I differed with Preacher Falwell, and I've talked about the perils of trying to sanctify politics here. I'm not going to dwell on it now, and I have no desire to add to the postmortem trashing this basically good man now is going to get from basically classless ones.

I have no doubt that Jerry Falwell loved the Lord and did his best. That's pretty much all any one of us can do in a lifetime in this vale of tears, and I commend his soul to a merciful God.

Monday, May 14, 2007

Er . . . then again, maybe not


"I'm going to run a terrific campaign today!
And I'm gonna help people! Because
I'm good enough, I'm smart enough,
and, doggone it, people like me!"


SO FAR, Minnesota voters answering pollsters' questions are not giving TV-comic-turned-U.S.-Senate-candidate Al Franken his Daily Affirmation.

From Minnesota Public Radio:

St. Paul, Minn. — Fewer than half of the people interviewed in the MPR polls last week -- 48 percent -- said they think Norm Coleman is doing a "good" or "excellent" job as Minnesota's U.S. senator. Additionally just 43 percent of the respondents had a favorable opinion of Coleman a quarter of have an unfavorable opinion.

Moorhead State University political science professor Barbara Headrick says the numbers confirm what Democrats and political analysts have been claiming: Coleman is vunerable going into his campaign for a second term in the Senate.

"Any incumbent who's below 50 percent should see himself or herself as in trouble," according to Headrick.

In January 2004, Coleman enjoyed a 52 percent "good" or "excellent" job-performance rating. Voters' favorable opinions of Coleman have also slipped over the past three years.

Mason Dixon Polling and Research conducted the latest poll. They interviewed 625 registered voters last week. Their results have a 4 percentage point margin of error.

Brad Coker, who directs Mason-Dixon, says Coleman's drop may have more to do with national politics than with Coleman himself.

"I suspect that has a lot to do with the fact that Republicans have fallen out of favor nationally across the board over the last couple of years due to the Bush administration's problems in Iraq and elsewhere," Coker said.

Following a speech at the University of Minnesota on Monday, Sen. Coleman talked about the new poll and didn't dispute the numbers.

"It's a tough political environment," he said. "I'm just going to concentrate on doing my job. You know, one month that number is at 53 percent, then at 48, so I really don't worry about the numbers and what I worry about is whether I am getting things done for Minnesotans and I hope they see that."

While Coleman says he doesn't worry too much about poll numbers, he liked questions in the MPR poll about how he would fair in head-to-head match-ups against Mike Ciresi or Al Franken if the election were held today.

Ciresi and Franken are the two Democrats hoping to run against Coleman next fall.

According to the poll, Coleman would beat either by a comfortable margin.

Matched up again Franken, Coleman would win 54 to 32 percent. Against Ciresi, he would win 52 to 29 percent.

While Coleman is struggling with popularity, his negative ratings are well below those of Al Franken. According to the poll, nearly 8 of 10 Minnesotans know who Franken is and, of them, nearly a third have an unfavorable opinion of him.

"I think Al Franken starts out with baggage," said University of Minnesota political scientist Lawrence Jacobs. "There's no doubt that his past career as a comedian is dogging him a bit."
ON THE OTHER HAND, Al Franken does have one thing going for him, as addressed by the story: By late 2008, George Bush is sure to make the GOP even more wildly unpopular than it is now.

So, doggone it, there's always hope. Even for washed-up comedians.

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Dying to make Rudy look 'can do'

After Hurricane Katrina, there was a lot of comparing of Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco to Rudy Giuliani going on. Naturally, the dithering, hang-dog Governor Mee Maw lost that Politician Taste Test.

Rudy went down a lot smoother after 9/11 than Mee Maw did after Katrina hit and the federal levees crumbled, drowning New Orleans. No doubt, people died senselessly due to the dithering of Blanco and the rank indifference and incompetence of President Bush and his crony-ized federal government.

And it all made "America's Mayor" look even better by comparison.

* * *

AS IT TURNS OUT, a look at this article in the New York Times strongly suggests Giuliani just might have been gung-ho like Gen. George Custer was gung-ho. And people died -- are dying -- because of it:

Anyone who watched Rudolph W. Giuliani preside over ground zero in the days after 9/11 glimpsed elements of his strength: decisiveness, determination, self-confidence.

Those qualities were also on display over the months he directed the cleanup of the collapsed World Trade Center. But today, with evidence that thousands of people who worked at ground zero have become sick, many regard Mr. Giuliani’s triumph of leadership as having come with a human cost.

An examination of Mr. Giuliani’s handling of the extraordinary recovery operation during his last months in office shows that he seized control and largely limited the influence of experienced federal agencies. In doing that, according to some experts and many of those who worked in the trade center’s ruins, Mr. Giuliani might have allowed his sense of purpose to trump caution in the rush to prove that his city was not crippled by the attack.

Administration documents and thousands of pages of legal testimony filed in a lawsuit against New York City, along with more than two dozen interviews with people involved in the events of the last four months of Mr. Giuliani’s administration, show that while the city had a safety plan for workers, it never meaningfully enforced federal requirements that those at the site wear respirators.

At the same time, the administration warned companies working on the pile that they would face penalties or be fired if work slowed. And according to public hearing transcripts and unpublished administration records, officials also on some occasions gave flawed public representations of the nature of the health threat, even as they privately worried about exposure to lawsuits by sickened workers.

“The city ran a generally slipshod, haphazard, uncoordinated, unfocused response to environmental concerns,” said David Newman, an industrial hygienist with the New York Committee on Occupational Safety and Health, a labor group.

City officials and a range of medical experts are now convinced that the dust and toxic materials in the air around the site were a menace. More than 2,000 New York City firefighters have been treated for serious respiratory problems. Seventy percent of nearly 10,000 recovery workers screened at Mount Sinai Medical Center have trouble breathing. City officials estimate that health care costs related to the air at ground zero have already run into the hundreds of millions of dollars, and no one knows whether other illnesses, like cancers, will emerge.

The question of who, if anyone, is to blame for not adequately protecting the workers could finally be decided in United States District Court in Manhattan, where thousands of firefighters, police officers and other recovery workers are suing the city for negligence.
City officials have always maintained that they acted in good faith to protect everyone at the site but that many workers chose not to wear available safety equipment, for a variety of reasons.

Mr. Giuliani has said very little publicly about how his leadership might have influenced the behavior of the men and women who worked at ground zero. Mr. Giuliani, whose image as a 9/11 hero has been a focus of his run for president, declined to be interviewed for this article. His representatives did not respond to specific questions about the pace of the cleanup, the hazards at the site and Mr. Giuliani’s reticence about the workers’ illnesses.

Moreover, many of the people who ran agencies for Mr. Giuliani or who handled responsibility for the health issues after he left office would not comment, citing the pending litigation.

In the past, Mr. Giuliani has said that quickly reopening the financial district was essential for healing New York and the nation. The cost of Wall Street’s going dark was enormous, and Mr. Giuliani has said he was forced to balance competing interests as he confronted a never-imagined emergency, and he acknowledged that he and others made mistakes.

From the beginning, there was no doubt that Mr. Giuliani and his team ruled the hellish disaster site. Officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, all with extensive disaster response experience, arrived almost immediately, only to be placed on the sideline. One Army Corps official said Mr. Giuliani acted like a “benevolent dictator.”

Despite the presence of those federal experts, Mr. Giuliani assigned the ground zero cleanup to a largely unknown city agency, the Department of Design and Construction. Kenneth Holden, the department’s commissioner until January 2004, said in a deposition in the federal lawsuit against the city that he initially expected FEMA or the Army Corps to try to take over the cleanup operation. Mr. Giuliani never let them.

In this environment, the mayor’s take-charge attitude produced two clear results, according to records and interviews. One, work moved quickly. Although the cleanup was expected to last 30 months, the pit was cleared by June 2002, nine months after the attack.

And second, the city ultimately became responsible for thousands of workers and volunteers while, critics say, its health and safety standards went lacking.

“I would describe it as a conspiracy of purpose,” said Suzanne Mattei, director of the New York office of the Sierra Club, which has been critical of how the cleanup was handled. “It wasn’t people running around saying, ‘Don’t do this safely.’ But there was a unified attempt to do everything as fast as possible, to get everything up and running as fast as possible. Anything in the way of that just tended to be ignored.”

Records show that the city was aware of the danger in the ground zero dust from the start. In a federal court deposition, Kelly R. McKinney, associate commissioner at the city’s health department in 2001, said the agency issued an advisory on the night of Sept. 11 stating that asbestos in the air made the site hazardous and that everyone should wear masks.

Many workers refused. No one wanted to be slowed down while there was still a chance of rescuing people. Later on, workers said that the available respirators were cumbersome and made it difficult for them to talk.

Violations of federal safety rules abounded, and no one strictly enforced them. OSHA did not play an active role during the rescue phase, which is usually the case in emergency operations. But the agency remained in a strictly advisory position long after there was any hope of finding any survivors and at the point when, in other circumstances, it would have enforced safety requirements.

Agency officials said that enforcing rules and issuing fines would have delayed the cleanup, and contractors could have passed along the cost of the fines to the city.

With the city in charge, municipal employees were given video cameras to record recovery workers who were not wearing respirators. Violations were reported at daily safety meetings.

An official who was then with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, who asked not to be quoted by name because he was not authorized to speak for the agency, said the focus in safety discussions was always on preventing accidents, not protecting workers from the toxic dust.

(snip)

In their defense against the negligence lawsuit, city officials have maintained that they cooperated with federal officials to develop an effective safety plan. On Nov. 20, well into the cleanup, contractors and city agencies agreed to follow safety rules, and OSHA agreed not to fine them if violations occurred.

The agency ended up distributing more than 130,000 respirators. Workers’ unions tried to get members to wear them, but usage remained spotty without strict enforcement of the rules.

“What they were doing on paper wasn’t what they were doing in practice,” said Paul J. Napoli, one of the lawyers representing the more than 8,000 workers who have sued the city for negligence. He said that the construction companies were billing the city for their time and materials, and “safety slows things down.”

HAVEN'T WE SEEN this kind of thing before? Like when a president who shall remain nameless threw caution to the wind, went on intel that was "good enough" and broke all the stultifying rules to run "lean and mean" and whip an Arab despot faster than anybody thought possible?

At the time, President X was hailed as a gung-ho, can-do, "Hell of a job, Chief" kind of guy.

How did that one turn out, again?

And now, Rudy Giuliani is running for president based on -- we are learning -- effectively marshalling, in the aftermath of 9/11, all of the qualities that ultimately did in George Bu . . . uh, President X in the run-up to Iraq and afterward.

How stupid do they think . . . never mind.

"AMERICA'S MAYOR" might have The Right Stuff to take a close Politburo race for Beijing party boss, but God save us all if we're dumb enough to elect the guy president of the United States.

From the 'Dog House' to the outhouse


Well, that took entirely too long.

Nevertheless, "The Dog House with JV and Elvis" has left the building, capping off an indefinite suspension with a pink slip in the wake of Asian-Americans' anger over the duo's on-air slurs.

Says the New York Daily News:

The Don Imus effect took down more shock jocks yesterday after an Asian-mocking joke left CBS radio execs with another hole in their schedule.

CBS confirmed "The Dog House with JV and Elvis" show was canned permanently after an on-air prank call three weeks ago ordered "slimp flied lice" from a Chinese restaurant.

The show's on-air hosts, Jeff Vandergrift and Dan Lay, were suspended as CBS decided their future.

"'The Dog House with JV and Elvis' will no longer be broadcast," said CBS Radio spokeswoman Karen Mateo.

"In the wake of the Imus case, it would have been maddening to the community if these idiots did not get fired," said Queens City Councilman John Liu.
ON THE OTHER HAND, no one -- either at CBS Radio or at XM satellite radio -- is showing any signs of pulling off a similar hatchet job against Big Media depravity's poster children, Opie and Anthony, following a crude segment focused on musings about raping Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and First Lady Laura Bush.

The segment aired on the XM-only portion of their morning show Wednesday, and the pair issued a lame apology Friday.

Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap. . . .

That's the sound of foot-tapping impatience as we wait for the pool man to remove a couple of turds from the radio waters, then do whatever he does to make it safe for the rest of us to go back in.

Saturday, May 12, 2007

Six of one, half a dozen of the other

The New York Times reports on Rudy Giuliani's bold speech to Texas Kool-Aid drinkers conservatives, during which he told a Houston Baptist College audience Republicans must be tolerant of "views that are different" on abortion, gay marriage, yada yada yada so that The Party of Greed might remain in power and save us all from terrorism, amen.

Here's the scoop from the Nuremberg rally Houston speech:
But Mr. Giuliani argued that there were even greater matters at stake in the election, starting with which party would better protect the nation from terrorism. Mr. Giuliani suggested that his record in New York -- leading the city after the attacks of Sept. 11 and overseeing a decline in violent crime during his eight years in office – made him the most electable of the Republican candidates, no matter his stand on social issues like abortion.

“If we don’t find a way of uniting around broad principles that will appeal to a large segment of this country, if we can’t figure that out, we are going to lose this election,” he said. The speech by Mr. Giuliani reflected a decision – other campaigns suggested gamble might be a better word -- to address head on a fundamental obstacle to his winning the nomination: his long history as a moderate Northeast Republican in a party increasingly dominated by Southern and Midwestern conservatives. As such, it loomed as a potentially important moment in the party’s efforts to decide how to compete against the Democrats in 2008 and what it should stand for in a post-Bush era.

“The mere fact that I am standing here running for president of the United States with the views that I have, that are different in some respects on some of these issues, shows that we much more adequately represent the length and breadth and the opinions of America than the other party does,” Mr. Giuliani said.

Since the late 1970’s, national Republican candidates have increasingly taken conservative positions on social issues. In that sense, Mr. Giuliani is bucking what many members of his party consider to be a powerful trend and confronting what is often assumed to be a wall of opposition among Christian conservatives, among other constituencies that play influential roles in the nominating process.

Both his leading opponents – Senator John McCain of Arizona and Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts – oppose abortion rights. Mr. McCain regularly referrers to his life-time opposition to abortion rights. Mr. Romney also regularly talks about his opposition to abortion rights, though he is more perhaps politically constrained because he supported abortion right through much of his political career in Massachusetts.


(snip)


Mr. Giuliani’s speech came a week after he gave a convoluted answer to questions at a debate about his view on abortion rights, setting off a storm of criticism by conservative groups and raising questions. On Friday, he offered a lengthy explanation of his view on abortions, saying he personally opposed it but that government should not prohibit it, while acknowledging that views differed from many of those in the audience.

“Where people of good faith, people who are equally decent, equally moral and equally religious, when they come to different conclusions about this, about something so very very personal, I believe you have to respect their viewpoint,” he said. “You give them a level of choice here.” Mr. Giuliani asserted that his differences with his audience on gun control and gay rights were probably less sharp. He defended his advocacy for tough gun control measures while he was mayor of New York, but said that was central to his strategy to reduce crime in the city. He described himself as an advocate of a view of the 2nd Amendment which holds that it permits citizens to bear arms. Mr. Giuliani said that he supported allowing gay and lesbians to enter into domestic partnerships, but opposed allowing them to marry.

Mr. Giuliani’s speech appeared to reflect two calculations by his campaign. The first was that Republicans were so alarmed at the prospect of losing the White House, particularly after Democrats took over Congress last year, that they would be willing to overlook differences on issues like abortion. The second is that voters often reward politicians who disagree with them on issues for candor and independence.

He drew a standing ovation from his audience, many of whom, in interviews after the remarks, praised Mr. Giuliani for what they described as his candor in presenting his position on difficult issues. But leaders of some evangelical and conservative groups quickly denounced Mr. Giuliani and predicted that it would lead to his downfall.
WHAT GIULIANI is really saying to pro-life voters is pretty straightforward: Sacrifice your babies, your weak, your deformed to the Great God Choice (a.k.a. Baal) so that the born, the fit and the well-off might be spared from the Terrorist Menace (TM).

But if you ask me, to the unborn, the weak and the deformed -- and to anyone else at risk of falling afoul of the doctrine of Life Unworthy of Life -- the Giuliani-sanctioned Clean-Cut Respectable American Terrorists look pretty much the same as the Wild-Eyed Turban-Wearing Allahu Akbar-Chanting Islamofascists.

DEATH IS CALLING on America, and we're OK with that. The only thing we're really worried about is whose ox is getting -- or will get -- gored.

If you think that's crazy Romish tomfoolery. . . .

Francis Beckwith continues to spray Flit into the Reformational hornet's nest just by minding his own spiritual business and coming home to Rome . . . which, it seems, is about the only thing capable of giving scandal in a Christian universe of 20,000 different versions of divine truth and counting.

I can understand disappointment or even dismay. When someone you respect turns his back on your deepest beliefs, it hurts.

But at some point the s*** fit has got to stop, lest it utterly compromise one's own Christian witness. This is doubly true when one's tantrum is nothing more than an excuse for ignorant bigoted ranting.

Christopher Hitchens, as well as the Blasphemy Challenge folks, have the anti-Christian bigoted ranting market cornered, anyway.

THE LATEST DISTURBANCE in the intemperate zone of the Gulf of Luther (or, in this case, the Straits of Calvin) comes from the Riddleblog, run by Reformed minister Kim Riddlebarger. In a post titled "The Reality of Romanism," Riddlebarger proceeds to point out just how ridiculous we Catholics -- and our traditions and beliefs -- be, saying that:
". . . if you 'return home' to Rome, you get the whole ball of wax, including the beatification of saints who give out Tic-Tac size rice-paper pills which supposedly heal. And Pope Benedict XVI will be there to bless it all."
My first reaction: Hey, miraculous rice-paper pills are a definite technological step up from spitting in the dirt and rubbing the mud on a blind man's eyes.

On the other hand, rice-paper pills aren't quite as trouble-free as getting healed just because Peter's shadow falls on you.

Anyway, here's what so offends our dear Reformed brother (as reported by The Associated Press):

Holding up Friar Antonio de Sant’Anna Galvao as a model of rectitude and humility “in an age so full of hedonism,” Benedict said the world needs clear souls and pure minds, adding: “It is necessary to oppose those elements of the media that ridicule the sanctity of marriage and virginity before marriage.”

(snip)

Benedict pronounced the sainthood of Galvao, a Franciscan monk credited by the church with 5,000 miracle cures, while he sat on a throne of Brazilian hardwood, surrounded by Latin American bishops and choirs of hundreds.

Galvao is the first native-born saint from Brazil, home to more than 120 million of the planet’s 1.1 billion Catholics, and the 10th to be canonized by Benedict.

His canonization continues a push for saints in Latin America and elsewhere in the developing world that began under John Paul II, who sought role models as part of the church’s worldwide reach. John Paul canonized more saints than all of his predecessors combined.

“Do you realize how big this is?” asked Herminia Fernandes, who joined the multitude at the airfield for the open-air Mass. “It’s huge, this pope is visiting Brazil for the first time and at the same time he is giving us a saint. It’s a blessing.”

Galvao, who died in 1822, began a tradition among Brazilian Catholics of handing out tiny rice-paper pills, inscribed with a Latin prayer, to people seeking cures for everything from cancer to kidney stones.

Although doctors and even some Catholic clergy dismiss the pills as placebos or superstitious fakery, cloistered nuns still toil in the Sao Paulo monastery where Galvao is buried, preparing thousands of the pills for free daily distribution. Each one carries these words: “After birth, the Virgin remained intact. Mother of God, intercede on our behalf.”

After canonizing Galvao, the pope hugged Sandra Grossi de Almeida, 37, and her son Enzo, 7. She is one of two Brazilian women certified by the Vatican as divinely inspired miracles justifying the sainthood. She had a uterine malformation that should have made it impossible for her to carry a child for more than four months, but after taking the pills, she gave birth to Enzo.

“I have faith,” Grossi recently told
The Associated Press. “I believe in God, and the proof is right here.”

BUT METHINKS DR. RIDDLEBARGER aims too low if his point is to point out how bat-s*** crazy Catholics are. As a Papist insider, I know we dupes of the Whore of Babylon believe a lot crazier stuff than getting healed through rice-paper pills.

And as part of my striving to be helpful to one and all -- just part of trying to Eddie Haskell my way into Heaven by doing the works-justification shuffle for the Selection Committee (in other words, a bribe) -- I will save the good professor a lot of time and point out the A-No. 1 Most Insane Thing Believing Catholics Believe. I'll even quote directly from the utterly lunatic source material (John 6).

Got your notepad? Great. Here goes:

27
Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him the Father, God, has set his seal."
28
So they said to him, "What can we do to accomplish the works of God?"
29
Jesus answered and said to them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent."
30
So they said to him, "What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you? What can you do?
31
Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written: 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'"
32
So Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.
33
For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."
34
So they said to him, "Sir, give us this bread always."
35
Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.
36
But I told you that although you have seen (me), you do not believe.
37
Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me,
38
because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me.
39
And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it (on) the last day.
40
For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him (on) the last day."
41
The Jews murmured about him because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven,"
42
and they said, "Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph? Do we not know his father and mother? Then how can he say, 'I have come down from heaven'?"
43
Jesus answered and said to them, "Stop murmuring among yourselves.
44
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him on the last day.
45
It is written in the prophets: 'They shall all be taught by God.' Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me.
46
Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father.
47
Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.
48
I am the bread of life.
49
Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died;
50
this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die.
51
I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world."
52
The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us (his) flesh to eat?"
53
Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.
54
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.
55
For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.
56
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.
57
Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.
58
This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever."
59
These things he said while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
60
Then many of his disciples who were listening said, "This saying is hard; who can accept it?"
61
Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, "Does this shock you?
62
What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?
63
It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
64
But there are some of you who do not believe." Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him.
65
And he said, "For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father."
66
As a result of this, many (of) his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.
67
Jesus then said to the Twelve, "Do you also want to leave?"
68
Simon Peter answered him, "Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.
69
We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God."

PRETTY WACK, HUH? We're cannibals. And not even run-of-the-mill, ordinary cannibals who put jungle explorers into pots and boil 'em until they're melt-in-your-mouth tender and delicious.

Hell, no. We eat God. The Big JC Himself. Drink His blood, too.

We're Dracula cannibals. And we don't mess around with the small stuff.

If Marty Haugen gets his way, your average parishioner at Our Lady of Sam's Club will, by next summer, be singing "Yummy, yummy, yummy, I got God in my tummy, and I feel like a-lovin' Him. . . ."

We even have a Big Chief Medicine Man who can conjure up a tasty-delicious, heapin' helpin' of Jesus at every Mass. Yep, Father Oogabooga can do a standard incantation, and ordinary bread and wine turn into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. Been doing it for 2,000 years, almost.

AND KIM RIDDLEBARGER THOUGHT prayer-inscribed, rice-paper pills were a scandal and a joke. How slow on the uptake can one get?

Now, I am sure that if the Riddleblog got wind of the truly nefarious and nutso things Catholics believe and do, the entire world -- or at least 257 people (372 on Sundays) would see such screaming headlines as "BLASPHEMY!" and "SCANDAL!" Not to mention "KILL THE ROMISH HORDES . . . IT'S THAT SERIOUS!"

Before I am hauled off and disemboweled for being a grave threat to the Reformation, however, allow me to ask a simple question. If it's no gigantic scandal for rock-ribbed Fundamentalists to interpret Genesis as saying God created the heavens and the earth in six 24-hour periods some 6,000-odd years ago, and for them to believe that every shred of scientific evidence steering one toward a more figurative reading of that book is bogus . . . why, then, is it horrific for Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans, Lutherans, etc., to be totally Fundamentalist about John 6?

I mean, if you ask me, the author of the Gospel of John is being a heck of a lot more explicit about what Jesus said -- and what Jesus meant about what He said -- than the author of Genesis is about the Creation story.

The Jews murmured about him because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven," and they said, "Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph? Do we not know his father and mother? Then how can he say, 'I have come down from heaven'?" . . .

The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us (his) flesh to eat?" . . .

Then many of his disciples who were listening said, "This saying is hard; who can accept it?" . . .

As a result of this, many (of) his disciples returned to their former way of life and
no longer accompanied him.
IS THIS THE REACTION of folks who thought that Jesus meant anything other than what He said, that the Lord was speaking figuratively . . . or symbolically . . . or that He was just yanking their chain?

How come Catholics, for one, can't be fundies about something that seems pretty plain as written? Why isn't it reasonable to believe that the meaning of John 6 was exactly what Jesus says in John 6?

And if accepting that we must eat the Body and drink the Blood to have everlasting life, and that (re: Jesus' words at the Last Supper) the bread and wine become His Body and Blood, given up for us . . . if that is a reasonable position for a Bible-believing Christian, what the hell is the big deal about God's grace flowing through rice-paper pills with prayers inscribed upon them?

HONESTLY, it's amazing that the Almighty can get anything done while locked in that box the Reformational hardliners threw Him in.


HAT TIP: Boar's Head Tavern

Friday, May 11, 2007

Or maybe it just gave him a taste for hash

Last month, Steinberg quoted
Williams as saying his interest in
Eastern philosophy had overcome
his desire for mind-altering substances.

From The Associated Press, via MSNBC:

Former NFL rushing champion Ricky Williams tested positive again for marijuana last month, delaying his return to the league until at least September, a person familiar with the case said Friday.

Williams sought to end a one-year drug suspension last month when he asked to rejoin the Miami Dolphins. But following the positive drug test, clinicians in the program advised NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to delay reinstatement, the person close to the case said.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity because of the confidential nature of the testing program.

The Dolphins and the NFL declined comment. Before Williams’ latest setback, new Miami coach Cam Cameron repeatedly declined to say whether he would welcome Williams back.

Leigh Steinberg, Williams’ agent, did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment.

Williams’ latest positive test first was reported by ESPN.com.

Williams, who turns 30 on May 21, was suspended in April 2006 by the NFL after violating the league’s drug policy for the fourth time. He played last year in the Canadian Football League, then taught yoga in California.

Last month, Steinberg quoted Williams as saying his interest in Eastern philosophy had overcome his desire for mind-altering substances.

Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. . . .

Dispatches from the outer circles of the Inferno

The trouble with being depraved is you either don't realize it's you who is seriously screwed up, or you don't care that you're seriously screwed up.

Opie & Anthony are making a name for themselves by being the most depraved residents of the sewer that is American radio. XM and CBS Radio would get around to firing these deviants . . .
except that might interfere with all the money the suits are raking in by programming to our foulest vices instead of our better natures.

This week, the broadcasting equivalent of public defecation aired a segment on their XM show musing and laughing about what it would be like to rape Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. And Laura Bush.

You can well imagine the language they used to paint that picture.

God help us. Really.

Here's the story
from the New York Post:

During Wednesday's show, a guest named "Homeless Charlie" told the deejays he wanted to have sex with Rice.

Anthony Cumia interrupted to say he "could just imagine the horror on Condoleezza Rice's face when she realized that you were holding her down and f****** her."

"Punching her in the f****** face and f****** her," added a laughing "Charlie," before saying he also wanted to force himself on First Lady Laura Bush.

The obscene exchange took place on XM, a satellite radio station. But a recording of the Wednesday broadcast appeared on The Drudge Report yesterday, circulating the comments far beyond XM's relatively modest audience.

A portion of Opie & Anthony's show is also heard on CBS-owned 92.3 "Free FM," though the Rice-rape jokes were not made during that segment.

CBS said it had no plans to take "Opie & Anthony" off Free FM.
I'VE HEARD THE BIT. The newspaper does some sanitizing. And they insulted Queen Elizabeth, too.

There's a reason we say the following at Mass (either in Latin or in the vernacular):

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis,
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us,
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us,
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, grant us peace

LET'S HOPE the Almighty has been feeling particularly charitable of late.

Avoid the run before the hurricane
. . . get the R21 podcast right now

OK, this week we're early posting The Big Show. Let's just chalk it up to this week's early yang balancing out last week's day-late yin in the metaphysical reality of the Revolution 21 podcast.

And speakin' of early . . . . It's not even June -- the start of hurricane season -- and already we're getting "subtropical storms" off Florida's Atlantic coast. Andrea was her name, I believe.

What are we to make of that? I'll tell you what . . . it's global warming! We're all gonna roast or get drowned, depending.

AND THERE'S NO DOUBT in my mind that this will be the year that a hell storm -- a Category 5 monster -- is going to make it all the way to Nebraska. I know this.

So I'm boarding up. I'm installing hurricane shutters on the Mighty Favog's imperial residence. We will be prepared for come what may, because we know what may come ain't gonna be good.

I did manage to put together a podcast amid the urgent preparations, and you'll be hearing fine stuff from Lucinda Williams (her new release), the Pixies, Matisyahu, Paul Simon and the New Orleans Social Club.

Not to mention Traffic and Ben Kweller.

SO COME ON IN and ride the storm out with us. You bring the flashlights and the snacks; I've got the music covered.


Download it from the player at the top right of this page, or go to www.revolution21.org and click on "Podcast."