Wednesday, February 13, 2008

On dem first day of Christmas. . . .

I think there's pretty much two things you deserve when you die.

First, you ought not die alone. Second, if the newspaper does a story about your passing, the least it can do is try to get the facts straight.

SADLY, a broadcasting professor from my days at the Louisiana State journalism school -- now the Manship School of Mass Communication -- came up empty on both counts when he left this world Thursday.

That someone would have no close family left is awful, but largely uncontrollable. But for someone as accomplished as Jules d'Hemecourt -- he was a professor, a past print and television newsman, and a lawyer, too -- that the local paper couldn't get some basic facts straight seems somehow fundamentally unjust.

When reading his obit from The Advocate in Baton Rouge, note that the name of the novelty record he made as "Tee Jules" really is "The Cajun 12 Days of Christmas." Note also that d'Hemecourt was a TV news director in Alexandria and Baton Rouge, not just an anchorman.

IF I CAN REMEMBER THAT, surely someone at the Baton Rouge paper could have:

Jules d’Hemecourt IV, a retired LSU journalism professor and the voice behind “The 12 Cajun Days of Christmas,” has died, friends confirmed Monday. He was 64.

Jim Engster, general manager of Louisiana Network and d’Hemecourt’s co-worker for several years, said d’Hemecourt died Thursday, one day after being hospitalized from a brief illness.

Engster said funeral arrangements were pending for d’Hemecourt, a native of New Orleans who had no immediate family members.

Engster said doctors summoned him to the hospital shortly before d’Hemecourt passed away.

“It was somewhat ironic that a man who influenced thousands of students through the years … had very few family members, and no one really knew he was deathly ill,” Engster said.

D’Hemecourt was a decorated journalist whose career spanned TV, print and radio news, as well as law.

According to biographical information provided by LSU, d’Hemecourt served as news director of WJBO-AM before working in the early 1970s as a TV news anchor for KALB in Alexandria and WRBT, now WVLA, in Baton Rouge.
I KNEW OF Jules d'Hemecourt long before I enrolled at LSU in the fall of 1979. I first heard the name in the early 1970s, when I read an article in TV Guide, I think it was, about this hotshot small-town news director at Channel 5 in Alexandria. And soon enough, he was running the brand-new news department at Baton Rouge's relatively new Channel 33, WRBT.

Soon, being a little media freak, I was catching "33 News" whenever I could. One, I was a sucker for an underdog newscast going against the old-timers, Channels 2 and 9.

Two, I liked Jules' style.

Part of that style was an alter ego who occasionally popped out on 45 RPM novelty records. "Tee Jules" (colloquial French for "Little Jules") was the impish Cajun kid within who came out with local classics like "The Cajun 12 Days of Christmas" and "The Cajun Night Before Christmas."

In the two degrees of separation that is my hometown, the musical director and arranger was my junior-high band director, Lance Chauvin.

WHEN I HEARD of d'Hemecourt's death the other day, I remembered that I had, as a 12-year-old kid, recorded Tee Jules' "Cajun 12 Days of Christmas" from a holiday newscast on WRBT. I think it must have been Christmas 1973. Maybe 1974.

You can listen to it here, though I must say that the quality isn't the greatest, given that TV audio wasn't the greatest back then (and neither were portable tape recorders) . . . and that the reel-to-reel tape is over 34 years old.

Still, what comes through loud and clear, across the years, is how charming local TV could be.

What else comes across is that broadcast news used to be so much better written. Listen to d'Hemecourt's intro to "The Cajun 12 Days." It's . . . it's . . . literate. Sort of literary, even. And it may represent the last time the phrase "to wit" ever was used on a local TV news show.

Rest in peace, Tee Jules. And God bless you, Dr. d'Hemecourt.


UPDATE: From the comments, an object lesson for every newspaper or web-site obit writer -- when you don't get it straight, the deceased don't get their due . . . and the survivors can be hurt.

There wasn't much The Advocate did get straight in its story on Jules d'Hemecourt's death -- and life. And now a relative writes to set the record straight:
They also got the fact wrong about Jules not having any living family. I am Julia d'Hemecourt, daughter of John d'Hemecourt. Jules was our cousin. My family (my parents, brothers and sister) reconnected with him when my siblings and cousins (also d'Hemecourt's and Jules's relatives) started taking his classes at LSU. He was a part of our holiday celebrations, and we visited him every time we went up to Baton Rouge. He would call a few times a month and tell my mom, who he loved, jokes (usually Boudreaux and Thibodeaux ones). We loved him, and we miss him.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

I'm governor because my state is racist

Beautiful. Pennsylvania's governor just admitted that he got the job because his state is full of racist rednecks.

I wonder how that one's going to go over? The Associated Press reports:

Gov. Ed Rendell, one of Hillary Rodham Clinton's most visible supporters, said some white Pennsylvanians are likely to vote against her rival Barack Obama because he is black.

"You've got conservative whites here, and I think there are some whites who are probably not ready to vote for an African-American candidate," Rendell told the editorial board of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in remarks that appeared in Tuesday's paper.

To buttress his point, Rendell cited his 2006 re-election campaign, in which he defeated Republican challenger Lynn Swann, the former Pittsburgh Steelers star, by a margin of more than 60 percent to less than 40 percent.

"I believe, looking at the returns in my election, that had Lynn Swann been the identical candidate that he was — well-spoken, charismatic, good-looking — but white instead of black, instead of winning by 22 points, I would have won by 17 or so," he said. "And that (attitude) exists. But on the other hand, that is counterbalanced by Obama's ability to bring new voters into the electoral pool."
AND ONE ASSUMES that Hillary Clinton would be just fine with using the nation's vestigial racism to her utmost advantage.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

It is better that Britney should die. . . .


It was the high priest Caiaphas who decided "it is better for you that one man should die instead of the people, so that the whole nation may not perish."

He was worried this Jesus character was becoming too popular, that the Jews would come to worship Him as a god, and that would bring the terrible might of the Roman Empire down on all their heads. So the math was easy -- Jesus had to go. Better Him than many thousands.

Caiaphas obviously was a man after 21st-century America's heart. Trouble is, the Romans wiped out Israel anyway . . . albeit a few decades down the road. And not because of the Jesus Thing.

I WONDER how much -- in our own postmodern American Way -- we have determined that it is better that now-famous-for-being-famously-troubled Britney Spears should die so that the whole nation may not . . . what? Call it "Psychotherapy Is Not Enough."

The thought occurred to me tonight as I was browsing yet another volume in the library of Britney Goes Mental coverage --
this one from Rolling Stone -- consuming the worldwide press nowadays. It's really beyond debate that this poor child is likely to die, probably fairly soon, due to whatever usually befalls famous, psychologically troubled addicts living life on the edge in the company of the People Who Prey Upon Them.

And the best that we, as a society, can muster is to stand around and gawk at the spectacle of it all. It's as if we have stumbled upon a bad car crash, there's horribly injured young people trapped inside the ball of twisted metal and broken glass, and the whole mess is starting to catch fire.

No cops yet. No fire truck or paramedics, either.

So what do we do? Pose next to the broken bodies of the dying victims while the significant other takes pictures with the camera phone . . . of course.

And Junior -- a pragmatic lad, he -- grabs a bag of marshmallows, snaps off the antenna from the burning, wrecked car, and starts making delicious, roasted treats for the gathering crowd. At a quarter a marshmallow.

LIKE I SAID, that's what occurred to me as I read
this excerpt of an upcoming Rolling Stone article:
In person, Britney is shockingly beautiful — clear skin, ruby lips, a perfectly proportioned twenty-six-year-old porcelain doll with a nasty weave. She cuts through the crowd swiftly, the way she used to when 20,000 adoring fans mobbed her outside a concert, with her paparazzi boyfriend, Adnan Ghalib, trailing behind.

Only a few kids are in the store, a young girl with her brother and two blondes checking out fake-gold charm bracelets. Britney rifles the racks as the Cure's "Pictures of You" blasts into the airless pink boutique, grabbing a pink lace dress, a few tight black numbers and a frilly red crop top, the kind of shirt that Britney used to wear all the time at seventeen but isn't really appropriate for anyone over that age. Then she ducks into the dressing room with Ghalib. He emerges with her black Am Ex.

The card won't go through, but they keep trying it.

"Please," begs Ghalib, "get this done quickly."

One of the girls runs to Britney's dressing room, explaining the situation through a pink gauze curtain.

A wail emerges from the cubby — guttural, vile, the kind of base animalistic shriek only heard at a family member's deathbed. "F*** these bitches," screams Britney, each word ringing out between sobs. "These idiots can't do anything right!"

Ghalib dashes over to console her, but she's already spitting, growling, throwing a big bottle of soda on the floor so that it begins to spill underneath the curtain, and then she's got a box of tissues and is throwing them on top of the wet floor along with piles of discarded merchandise. A new card finally goes through, but by then Britney is out the door, leaving her shirt on the ground and replacing it with the red top. "F*** you, f*** people, f*** , f*** , f*** ," she keeps screaming, her face splotchy and red as she crosses the interminable mall floor, the crowd behind her growing larger and larger. "Leave us alone!" yells Ghalib.

The siblings run after Britney to get a video to put up on YouTube, and some of the shopgirls run after her to hand off the merchandise she left behind, and there's an entire bridal party wearing yellow T-shirts who have pulled out camera phones too. A crush of managers in black shirts and gold name tags try to keep the peace, but the crowd running after Britney gets larger, and now the shopgirls have ­started to catch up to her, one of them slipping spectacularly in her platform shoes, grazing her elbow. She pulls herself up, mustering the strength to tap Britney's shoulder. "Um, I'm from the South too," she mumbles, "and I was wondering if I could get a picture with you for my little sister."

Britney turns to Ghalib and grabs his arm. "I don't want her talking to me!" she screams. She whirls around and stares the girl deep in the eyes, her lips almost vibrating with anger. "I don't know who you think I am, bitch," she snarls, "but I'm not that person."
BRIT MUST DIE. Because we demand it.

We won't admit that, any of us, but it doesn't make it any less so. If the bitch lives, the narrative is dramatically compromised. And even reality TV needs a compelling dramatic narrative . . . and redemption is so f-ing Bing Crosby playing yet another Catholic priest in an old black-and-white movie, you know?

Nope. The ho gotta go.

It is better for us that one Britney should die instead of the people, so that the whole nation may not perish. See, if this Greek tragedy in a modern Rome doesn't conclude with a media riot in a cemetery in Kentwood, La., we shall not be spared.

There will be a defective morality play to deal with. Then there will be ourselves to deal with.

If Brit doesn't die, then we're not any better than her, ultimately. Losers die while people laugh. We're not dead, and we're unaware of the laughter, so we're not losers. Or at least not as bad a loser as Britney Spears, who could not overcome being hillbilly trailer trash, alas.

Which is why she couldn't deal with all the drink, drugs, divorce, promiscuity, selfishness and extreme materialism. Or with the mental illness.

Unlike ourselves, who have a pretty good handle on things. That is why we can fake a long face for the benefit of Brit, even though
the economy depends on her remaining miserable . . . at a bare minimum.

YEP, WE'RE DOING FINE right here in America, the New Jerusalem. And we think we can well afford our crocodile tears, as did a people long ago and far away.

Yet, there is that Cassandra's cry, drifting across millennia, settling -- unsettling, actually -- somewhere on the fringe of our consciousness as we ever more desperately try to overwhelm it with cacophony:

"Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep instead for yourselves and for your children, for indeed, the days are coming when people will say, 'Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed.' "

Friday, February 08, 2008

3 Chords & the Truth: Here's the thing

OK, the direct sell.

Here's what's on
3 Chords & the Truth this week. This is the kind of stuff we play.

IF YOU LIKE THIS, you'll love the show. If you love the show . . . listen.

Is that direct enough? Here's the lineup:

Kentucky Rain
Elvis Presley (1970)

It Never Rains In Southern California
Albert Hammond (1972)

Another Rainy Day in New York City
Chicago (1976)

Louisiana Rain
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (1979)

Tears of a Clown
English Beat (1980)

I Am Going Home
The Wailers (1963)

Ride Captain Ride
Blues Image (1970)

Slide
Goo Goo Dolls (1998)

A Child Like Grace
Michelle Shocked (1996)

Time Is a Healer
Eva Cassidy (1998)

Hang On To Your Ego
Beach Boys (1966)

Cruel to Be Kind
Nick Lowe (1979)

Girl of My Dreams
Bram Tchaikovsky (1979)

It's Over
Boz Scaggs (1976)

In a Car
Solid Jackson (1996)

Forget Myself
Elbow (2006)

Get Right with God
Lucinda Williams (2001)

Jesus Is God
Scarecrow & Tinmen (2000)

Jerusalem
Matisyahu (2006)

Romulus
Sufjan Stevens (2003)

Bohemian Rhapsody
Grey DeLisle (2005)

Mr. Tambourine Man
The Byrds (1965)

Thursday, February 07, 2008

Their own Bobby Kennedy

Confronted with a presidential candidate who challenges them to be more than the sum total of their desires, some young Americans have become unhinged, mistaking the messenger for the Messiah.

Or
so says ABC's Jake Tapper:
Inspiration is nice. But some folks seem to be getting out of hand.

It's as if Tom Daschle descended from on high saying, "Be not afraid; for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all the people: for there is born to you this day in the city of Chicago a Savior, who is Barack the Democrat."

Obama supporter Kathleen Geier writes that she's "getting increasingly weirded out by some of Obama's supporters. On listservs I'm on, some people who should know better – hard-bitten, not-so-young cynics, even – are gushing about Barack…

Describing various encounters with Obama supporters, she writes, "Excuse me, but this sounds more like a cult than a political campaign. The language used here is the language of evangelical Christianity – the Obama volunteers speak of 'coming to Obama' in the same way born-again Christians talk about 'coming to Jesus.'...So I say, we should all get a grip, stop all this unseemly mooning over Barack, see him and the political landscape he is a part of in a cooler, clearer, and more realistic light, and get to work."

Joe Klein, writing at Time, notes "something just a wee bit creepy about the mass messianism" he sees in Obama's Super Tuesday speech.

"We are the ones we've been waiting for," Obama said. "This time can be different because this campaign for the presidency of the United States of America is different. It's different not because of me. It's different because of you."

Says Klein: "That is not just maddeningly vague but also disingenuous: the campaign is entirely about Obama and his ability to inspire. Rather than focusing on any specific issue or cause — other than an amorphous desire for change — the message is becoming dangerously self-referential. The Obama campaign all too often is about how wonderful the Obama campaign is.“
IF I'M BARACK OBAMA, this kind of nonsense is messing with my mind. Then again, I think your mind already has to be pretty well messed with to go into politics.

Still . . . whose fault is it that some 21st century Americans are mistaking the first coming of Obama with the second one of Jesus Christ? I say it's our own damn fault, all of us.

We Baby Boomers, having thrown over God, family and tradition -- by and large -- seem to think we can raise up a new generation in a transcendental vacuum. God and family have been replaced with cynicism and stuff.

And the world we've created in our own image spiritlessly slinks off toward Sodom.

Until. . . .

The quadrennial silly season begins, and comes upon the political horizon a Democratic candidate who looks like America -- looks like America in all its messy, polyglot glory. And this candidate, Barack Obama, talks of creating a government that sticks up for the little people, while declaring to the world that our ends do not justify George Bush's torturing means.

WHEN MODERN AMERICANS once again hear rhetoric based upon enduring principles and not a laundry list of unpayable bribes . . . well, they can get discombobulated. Really, we haven't heard such unbridled apparent idealism since the spring of '68, when Bobby Kennedy appealed to the better angels of Americans' nature and got killed for his trouble.

In a nation unfamiliar with the audacity of Christian belief and praxis -- in a nation where many Christian churches are unfamiliar with the audacity of Christian doctrine and practice -- we do not know how to deal with the idealistic. When someone calls us to look beyond ourselves as the source and summit of whatever the hell it is we're looking for, why are we surprised when some who stumble in the darkness mistake the formerly normative for the supernatural?

We created Seinfeld Nation -- a country about nothing. So we have to deal with it when the ingenuous overreact to Something . . . especially when Something comes in the form of a presidential candidate.

So far, I don't think even "gimlet-eyed" journalists like Time's Joe Klein know how to deal with it and, in fact, are partially misreading it -- accustomed as journalists are to a different kind of political rhetoric. A recap from the Tapper excerpt above:

"We are the ones we've been waiting for," Obama said. "This time can be different because this campaign for the presidency of the United States of America is different. It's different not because of me. It's different because of you."

Says Klein: "That is not just maddeningly vague but also disingenuous: the campaign is entirely about Obama and his ability to inspire. Rather than focusing on any specific issue or cause — other than an amorphous desire for change — the message is becoming dangerously self-referential. The Obama campaign all too often is about how wonderful the Obama campaign is.“
WELL, that's one interpretation . . . the cynical one.

On the other hand, what Obama just might have been saying -- in a more upbeat manner -- is:
"The change agent you have been waiting for is you. You have the power, not me. So get off your asses and effect some change."
Of course, that messianic scenario has the power to throw several sectors of American society into their own conniption narrative.

He gets it



David Freedman of
WWOZ -- New Orleans' jazz-and-heritage community FM station -- gets it. Commercial radio doesn't.

It's not about the transmitter, or about HD Radio. It's about the content, and how to best deliver lots of content in various forms to your audience.

Which is kind of what we're about at Revolution 21 -- just on a grass-roots scale.

Our capricious, sadistic deity?

Meteorological horrors happen, and one supernatural entity or another ends up getting the blame. But the weather never does.

The pattern holds with some poor, grieving Arkansans trying to make sense of what one can't make sense of, as reported by The Associated Press:
Tonya Selken's home sat in a dip along a ridge on Dog Mountain, where they had a sweeping view of rolling horse pasture and the misty Ozark foothills in the distance. But she didn't choose these two of her grandfather's 210 acres just for the scenery.

This was one of several places the family mapped out for their protection from tornadoes. In the nearly 60 years since the family bought the place on Shady Grove road, they had seen several twisters hop over this spot and touch down harmlessly on the ridge beyond.

"She was in the house once when one went right over the top of her," said her father, Jerry Simpkins.

But on Tuesday, the family's luck ran out.

The 36-year-old letter carrier and mother of four was one of three Van Buren County residents killed in a monster storm that ground a path across the Southeast, claiming more than 50 lives in several states. Her husband Raymond, 38, and their 14-year-old daughter, Ellise, were also seriously injured.

Standing Wednesday amid the debris field of twisted metal and pink insulation, Carmon Lagunes struggled to grasp why God would take her sister.

"That's his wrath," she said, looking toward the wreckage. "For some reason, he's not happy right now and this is. ... Nobody understands God's will. I sure as hell don't understand it.

Said Anita Goodnight, the sisters' aunt: "God didn't do it. Satan did."

Looking around the valley, where locals raise cattle and cultivate shiitake mushrooms, it is hard not to marvel at the capricious of nature. As workers cleared toppled trees and replaced snapped power poles, cows grazed lazily beside barns whose tin roofs proclaim "Jesus Saves."
THE QUESTION is not "Why did God kill somebody with this big ol' tornado?" And it's not a lock that the devil had anything to do with it, either.

S*** happens. And so do bad, bad tornadoes and other deadly meterological phenomena.

If you ask me -- and you didn't -- the proper question is "Why did God permit nature to take its course in such a cruel manner?"

"Why did God, who knows all, choose not to grant a saving miracle in this case, when He has in others?"

The answer goes something like . . . beats me. God's will is a mystery, and so is the interplay between the awesome power of nature and the randomness of dumb luck . . . or dumb misfortune.

We don't understand it, and we never will. At least, not this side of eternity.

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Four Songs: Dust for Lent

Remember, man, that thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return.

IT'S LENT, and that's one of two things the faithful might hear on Ash Wednesday as they receive ashes on their foreheads. The other would be "Repent, and believe in the Gospel!"

Dust. Ashes. Repentance. Mortality. Lent is not about warm fuzzies and attaboys. It confronts us with the reality of our fallen existence and ends by reminding us of The Way Out.

And the price Jesus paid to make it so.

So, this episode of Four Songs
is about dust. And that's all I'm sayin'. It just seemed appropriate.

Download it now. You have to do something for Lent.

Louisiana's eternal hangover

If you reside in the Gret Stet, this depressing bit of reading should humble you mightily, thus rendering you capable of the kind of mortification required of this Lenten season.

IN OTHER WORDS . . . remember, Tee Fats, you are dust, and dust you never quite rise above.

Appropriately for its Ash Wednesday edition, The (Baton Rouge) Advocate went to some national industry-site consultants and asked the question, "No, really. How are we doing?"

On Sunday, lawmakers will gather for a special session on ethics that Gov. Bobby Jindal is billing as the linchpin to building a stronger economy.

However, half-a-dozen out-of-state industry site consultants contacted by The Advocate said the state has more pressing hurdles than political graft.

The biggest problems are that company executives consider Louisianans to be poorly educated, poorly trained and in poor health, the consultants said.

“If I have a client that says we need to set up an operation in the South somewhere, Louisiana’s not going to pop to the top of our chart,” said Ron Pollina, president and founder of Pollina Corporate Real Estate Inc. in Chicago.

Andrew Shapiro with Biggins Lacy Shapiro & Co. in Princeton, N.J., said he mostly represents white collar projects — financial services, headquarters, research and development and pharmaceutical companies — that would not think of looking at the state.

“I haven’t considered Louisiana in years because it’s redlined by clients,” he said, which means it is essentially kept off any list of potential sites.

(snip)


For 2007, the top 10 “pro-business” states were Virginia, South Carolina, Florida, North Carolina, Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota, Alabama, Georgia and Nebraska.

Where did Louisiana fall? The state was in the bottom 25, finishing better than lowest-ranked California but still keeping company with the states with sputtering economic engines.

Pollina began doing the study in 2004 — long before federal agents found U.S. Rep. William Jefferson’s bundle of money on ice. In four years, Louisiana has never crept into the top 25.

Shapiro said Louisiana’s education problems begin at the elementary level and build from there.

To have a skilled labor force, preparation must begin the moment future workers enter the school system, he said.

“(Louisiana) is not creating a capable work force that can compete,” Shapiro said.

WHILE THE NEWSPAPER reports a positive buzz out there about Louisiana's new governor, what Pollina says in conclusion ought to be enough -- especially with the last round of Mardi Gras hurricanes still clouding the brain -- to sober up even the most slap-happy "Bobby Jindal is the Messiah" die-hard.

I'll give you a minute to embrace the porcelain deity and prepare for your offering.

OK, here we go:

Pollina, whose father grew up on a Louisiana strawberry farm, points out that Jindal has a lot of obstacles to overcome, including a legacy of lackluster qualities associated with the state.

“Various governors come in. They go out. They do things to try to stimulate business in the state. We have not seen any consistency in their efforts,” he said.
YEP, that's about the historical shape of things. But did all y'all Louisianians really need a Yankee from Chicago to tell you that?

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Mardi Gras . . . here and there


THIS IS MARDI GRAS in New Orleans, with the Golden Band from Tigerland (that's the LSU band for you infidels) marching in Rex, the grandest parade of Carnival.

THIS (left) is Mardi Gras in Omaha, where people call it Fat Tuesday, for they are infidels.

No one is parading in Omaha. That's because it's snowing, it's 21 degrees, the wind is blowing like a son of a gun, and the snow is drifting all over.

My big Carnival fun has been shoveling the walk and driveway. Maybe I'll try shoveling again while drinking beer.


THEN AGAIN, the @#$&*!$ bottle probably would freeze to my lips.

On days like today, this Louisiana boy soooooooo wants to go home.

Poopy drawers. Butt cheek. Piss. DAMNATION!

Bollocks.

Sh*t.

F***.

THERE, now I'll never have to bear the horrible burden of Dr. James Dobson ever endorsing me for anything, anytime:
"I'm deeply disappointed the Republican Party seems poised to select a nominee who did not support a Constitutional amendment to protect the institution of marriage, who voted for embryonic stem cell research to kill nascent human beings, who opposed tax cuts that ended the marriage penalty, and who has little regard for freedom of speech, who organized the Gang of 14 to preserve filibusters, and has a legendary temper and often uses foul and obscene language.

"I am convinced Sen. McCain is not a conservative, and in fact, has gone out of his way to stick his thumb in the eyes of those who are. He has at times sounded more like a member of the other party. McCain actually considered leaving the GOP in 2001, and approached John Kerry about being Kerry's running mate in 2004. McCain also said publicly that Hillary Clinton would make a good president. Given these and many other concerns, a spoonful of sugar does not make the medicine go down. I cannot, and I will not vote for Sen. John McCain, as a matter of conscience."
NOBODY deserves to have that done to them -- a Dobson endorsement, that is. You could be looked upon as a power-hungry, misguided prig purely by involuntary association.


HAT TIP: Crunchy Con.

Godwin's Law goes way of Geneva Conventions


You know, it's impossible to abide by Godwin's Law -- the unofficial law of argument that he who calls someone a Nazi automatically loses -- when so many people in this country are acting like Nazis.

First in the ranks of goosestepping disciples of evil would be
the government of the United States of America. Specifically the Bush Administration and the Central Intelligence Agency.

Consider, for example, this testimony before Congress by CIA Director Michael Hayden, as reported by MSNBC:
Congress is considering a bill that would restrict the CIA to only those methods authorized by the Army's field manual for interrogation. Hayden said that would make no sense. The Army's interrogators are young people with limited training, while the CIA's interrogators are highly trained, he said.

The Army interrogates a broad range of people, while the CIA's program is tailored to a specific group of terrorists. It would make no more sense to apply the Army's interrogation manual to the CIA than it would to apply the Army's grooming standards or its rules on sexual orientation, Hayden said.
YES, THE CIA has goons quite skilled in the black art of torture. They can do this, because they are highly trained for it.

Just like the SS.

Monday, February 04, 2008

Isn't 'Boortz' Dutch for hemorrhoid?

I saw, in the New Orleans blogs, rumblings of a particularly odious diatribe against that "city of parasites" by libertarian radio ranter Neal Boortz.

Then I heard excerpts of it for myself over at Media Matters.

Obviously, "boortz" is Dutch for hemorrhoid.

LISTENING TO BOORTZ' ill-tempered broadside against poor, predominantly black New Orleanians who didn't get out of the way of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, I began to hear things other than Boortz' dyspeptic rhetoric.

I began to hear echoes. Ugly echoes.

Here's Boortz, from his Jan. 30 program:

You have a hurricane descending on them and they sit on their fat asses and wait for somebody else to come rescue them. "It's somebody else's job to get me out of here. It's somebody else's job to save my life. Not mine. Send me a bus, send me a limo, send me a boat, send me a helicopter, send me a taxi, send me something. But you certainly don't expect me to actually work to get myself out of this situation, do you? Haven't you been watching me for generations? I've never done anything to improve my own lot in life. I've never done anything to rescue myself. Why do you expect me to do that now, just because a levee broke?"
That, however, wasn't the worst of it:

Listen, listen. When these Katrina so-called refugees were scattered about the country, it was just a glorified episode of putting out the garbage.
NOW, THOSE ECHOES I was talking about. Here is an excerpt from the official program accompanying "Der ewige Jude" ("The Eternal Jew"), a 1940 Nazi propaganda film directed by Fritz Hippler. The program came from Joseph Goebbels' Minsitry of Propaganda:

The film begins with an impressive expedition through the Jewish ghettoes in Poland. We are shown Jewish living quarters, which in our view cannot be called houses. In these dirty rooms lives and prays a race, which earns its living not by work but by haggling and swindling. From the little urchin to the old man, they stand in the streets, trading and bargaining. Using trick photography, we are shown how the Jewish racial mixture in Asia Minor developed and flooded the entire world. We see a parallel to this in the itinerant routes of rats, which are the parasites and bacillus-carriers among animals, just as the Jews occupy the same position among mankind. The Jew has always known how to assimilate his external appearance to that of his host. Contrasted are the same Jewish types, first the Eastern Jew with his kaftan, beard, and sideburns, and then the clean-shaven, Western European Jew. This strikingly demonstrates how he has deceived the Aryan people. Under this mask he increased his influence more and more in Aryan nations and climbed to higher-ranking positions. But he could not change his inner being.
DO YOU HEAR them now? Do you hear the echoes of Goebbels coming from the mouth of a modern-day, right-wing American radio blatherer?

Here is a snippet of narration from "The Eternal Jew" itself:

Here at the Wailing Wall, Jews gather and mourn the fall of Jerusalem. But their homelessness is of their own choosing and in keeping with their entire history.
And now, Boortz:

But I am fed up with this conventional wisdom that Katrina and the disaster that followed was George Bush's fault. It was not. The primary blame goes on the worthless parasites who lived in New Orleans who you -- couldn't even wipe themselves, let alone get out of the way of the water when that levee broke.
Nazis:
Wherever rats appear they bring ruin, by destroying mankind's goods and foodstuffs. In this way, they (the rats) spread disease, plague, leprosy, typhoid fever, cholera, dysentery, and so on.

They are cunning, cowardly, and cruel, and are found mostly in large packs. Among the animals, they represent the rudiment of an insidious and underground destruction -- just like the Jews among human beings.

This parasitical Jewish race is responsible for most international crime. In 1932, Jews, only 1 percent of the world's population, accounted for . . . 47 percent of crooked games of chance, 82 percent of international crime organizations, 98 percent of prostitution.
Boortz (from June 6, 2006):

I love talking to you about these Katrina refugees. I mean, so many of them have turned out to be complete bums, just debris. Debris that Hurricane Katrina washed across the country.
TELL ME, NOW. Please. What's the difference between Neal Boortz' hateful demonization and stereotyping of every Katrina evacuee from New Orleans and the Nazi propagandists' hateful demonization and stereotyping of every Jew in the entire world?

Other, of course, than the more than six million Jews missing from that world by the time the Allies put an end to Goebbels' -- and his pal, Adolf's -- little global scheme.

The likes of Neal Boortz represent what we've come to in this country. What the media -- particularly radio -- have come to in this country.

The bloviating, racist pustule from Atlanta needs to be surgically removed from his microphone -- and his advertising-supported soapbox on the public's airwaves -- for good. And then we ought to hang our heads in shame that we handed him that bully pulpit . . . on radio spectrum that is part and parcel of the public trust.

In a country that fought a bloody world war to rid the world of people like Joseph Goebbels.


HAT TIP:
Your Right Hand Thief.

Sunday, February 03, 2008

Go to bat for Omaha


We're in the middle of an epic debate here in Omaha, the kind that only comes around every decade or three. We're trying to decide how to best keep the College World Series in town.

Do we build a new baseball stadium downtown? Or do we completely redo 60-year-old Rosenblatt Stadium . . . which lies Not Downtown.

HERE'S A FEW WORDS of wisdom to ponder before we proceed to disemboweling one another: You don't tug on Superman's cape; you don't spit into the wind.

You don't put lipstick on a pig, and you don't do yet another patchwork redesign of a stadium. Omaha has done that once -- remember the Civic Auditorium remodel? -- and we still ended up building the Qwest Center Omaha arena and convention center.

And a good thing we did.

Now, we're supposed to think fixing up old Rosenblatt Stadium is the way to go to keep the College World Series in Omaha forever and ever, amen. That probably would work OK if we didn't have to worry about a few things.

One, that the National Collegiate Athletic Association is a demanding mistress. A very, very demanding mistress. You give her a Buick, and she's gonna want a Mercedes as soon as she can get away with demanding another new car -- which, in the case of the NCAA, would be when the new "extended" contract is up for renewal in 15 years or so.

Just like when it's time to buy a new home computer, buying less than what you need never is a wise long-term decision. And for so many reasons, losing the CWS is not an option for the Big O.

Another consideration -- a big one -- is economic development. Where is the boost to the region's economic development in fixing up Rosenblatt Stadium?

Bueller . . . ? Bueller . . . ? Bueller . . . ? Bueller . . . ?

THE FACT IS, there is no boost. Renovating Rosenblatt and keeping the College World Series down on 13th Street -- assuming that fixing up the old stadium can keep the CWS down on 13th Street for the long term -- is, at best, a status quo proposition economically.

The prospects for economic development down on South 13th lie not in an old municipal baseball stadium, but instead in the nationally acclaimed Henry Doorly Zoo. There, we find the state's No. 1 paid attraction hemmed in by the old ball yard -- unable to expand and short of parking when the CWS is in town.

For the average fan seeking to kill time before, after or between CWS games, there is no shopping or sit-down dining within walking distance of the stadium. Hotel rooms are few near the venue.

You do have a couple of bars, a beer garden and some otherwise vacant old houses turned into whatever for two weeks out of the year. Parking, naturally, is a nightmare, and South 13th isn't exactly a mass-transit hub for the greater Omaha area.

Nor could it be made into a mass-transit hub, assuming anyone wanted to. And why? For two weeks a year?

Building downtown . . . even building downtown at twice the cost of renovation, you have the probability of collateral development and business growth far outpacing the extra money the city shells out. I think someone once dubbed that phenomemon "You gotta spend money to make money."

The impact on downtown Omaha would rival that of replacing a century-old lead smelter with a riverfront park and the Qwest Center Omaha. A new stadium would be a natural anchor for new retail and restaurant development, while serving as a boost to existing downtown businesses.

And a lot of visiting fans who formerly had to load up the car and drive to the Series would instead walk out of their hotel, saunter down the street a ways and walk in the stadium gate. As would a lot of people already downtown . . . because they work there.

SPEAKING OF DOWNTOWN, how'd you like Omaha's "King Corn" image from the recent American Idol episode taped here?

With the CWS at Rosenblatt, ESPN's exterior shots on game broadcasts can center on a congested 13th Street lined by repurposed, semi-dumpy old houses. Or you can get a shot or three of the zoo. Or fans grabbing some burgers and malts at Zesto's.

Perhaps a nice shot of fans milling around the parking lot.

Did I mention the zoo and Zesto's?

How, pray tell, does that advance Omaha's "branding," shifting it toward the cosmopolitan and away from cows and corn? Or corn and cows?

Short answer: It doesn't.

The easy, natural visuals from downtown would belie the stereotype, no matter how hard network crews might try to perpetuate it. Every wide shot would include Omaha's growing skyline.

And surrounding the new stadium, within range of roving camera crews, would lie the spruced-up Missouri River landing. The towering new pedestrian bridge across the Missouri. The charming Old Market. The emerging North Downtown (NoDo) entertainment district, including Saddle Creek Records' Slowdown club, with all its indie-rock cred.

What else could the TV cameras show the nation, without crews much breaking a sweat?

How about street musicians, pub crawlers and people solving the problems of the Free World at cafes and coffee shops?

The green space and lagoon of the Gene Leahy Mall. Horse-drawn carriages filled with young lovers and smiling tourists. Century-old Central High School.

The Joslyn Art Museum and the Durham Western Heritage Museum.

An emerging cosmopolitan city.

No cows. No corn.

Unless, of course, the Nebraska Cornhuskers made it to college baseball's big dance. Then you might see a few "cornheads."

I think most marketing types would call a downtown stadium's PR value to Omaha a "home run."

I CAN ENVISION a new stadium somewhere in NoDo giving the whole district a big dose of NoDoz. Imagine a stadium busy year round because it would have "storefront" eateries and retail incorporated into its design. A public plaza, too. And a Zesto's.

Picture Johnny Rosenblatt Field at . . . Cabela's Stadium. With a scaled-down Cabela's as the anchor storefront retail tenant, specializing in jerseys, fan apparel and basic sporting goods. Like balls, bats and gloves.

Imagine the marketing tie-in potential . . . and the growth potential for a Nebraska corporation. As in "Official Retailer of the NCAA's Men's College World Series."

Not too bad, eh? Or if Cabela's didn't want to go there, "there" being far afield from the "outdoorsman" thing, what about Dick's? Or whatever?

Being that Omaha now has a choice to make, it's useful -- necessary, actually -- to give the possibilities of What Might Be equal consideration to the nostalgia Rosenblatt backers Wish Still Was.

BUT HERE'S THE THING. The College World Series of Mom, apple pie, hot dogs, the "Twizzler Man" and a big small town has been all but killed dead by the Two Horsemen of the Apocalypse -- Progress and Money.

Yes, I know you THINK there's supposed to be a full Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. But when you have Progress and Money on the horizon, riding at you, any more would just be overkill.

So, trust me. The CWS my father-in-law helped bring to Omaha, the one he tirelessly promoted for more than three decades . . . that CWS is part of Omaha's history. Already, it's been written out of this city's future, Rosenblatt or no Rosenblatt.

Long gone are the days when my wife and her siblings helped her dad put up CWS posters in store windows and big promotional signs in hotel lobbies.

There is no more "Dingerville," the ad-hoc summertime small town of recreational vehicles, cold beer and good cheer. Its mayor, die-hard Louisiana State fan Glenarp Allmendinger died some years back, and what was left of his "municipality" got relocated and, finally, evicted for good.

Likewise, the Twizzler Man now roams the left-field bleachers only in our memories. Only in our sweet dreams of bright June afternoons do we still hear his credo, recited by all after another of his dozens of bags of red Twizzers had been passed among the sunburned baseball faithful:

"Share with your neighbor, and don't be stingy."

SEE, you can't bring food into the stadium anymore. Not even Twizzlers. Cops search your stuff to make sure. That, and to make sure you're not toting a "dirty bomb" in this post-9/11 world.

And bottled water is three bucks. That's enough to make a person stingy.

It's also enough to make clear that what we loved about the College World Series, and Rosenblatt Stadium, hasn't existed for some years now. At least not within the NCAA-governed confines of the old ballpark. What we have inside the concourses and below the grandstands has come to more closely resemble the big-time, big-money, Big Media worlds of college football's BCS Championship Game and college basketball's Final Four.

There, there's no room for the Twizzler Man. No accomodation for a Midwestern city's nostalgia for the more innocent days of a cherished local institution.

My father-in-law -- Mr. CWS if ever there was a Mr. CWS -- died before my alma mater, LSU, won the second of its five national titles in 1993 . . . an eternity ago. There are no more signs in hotel lobbies, and my wife slapped her last CWS poster in her last storefront window more than three decades ago.

Money and Progress are telling us, in all likelihood, that we can hold on to the relic that is Rosenblatt or we can hold on to the College World Series. The NCAA can't take the memories we hold so close to our hearts as Omahans, but it can pack up the series and move it to Money's new favorite getaway.

It's time to do what we must. Let the College World Series become what it's bound to become, but let it do it at a shiny new home in cosmopolitan downtown Omaha. As opposed to cosmopolitan downtown Indianapolis . . . or wherever.

The venue may change, but that can't stop Omahans from still being who they are, or from making brand-new memories in a brand-new ballyard. Memories, one hopes, just as sweet as the ones we have from the old place, back in the day.

Just different.

Saturday, February 02, 2008

The best little whorehouse in Hooterville?

If you tuned in to American Idol on Tuesday, and if you don't live here, you probably think Omaha is a big cornfield. You probably think we're all a bunch of rubes.

YOU PROBABLY think that to get to City Hall, you cross the Missouri River via pole boat, head east down dusty Farnam Trail and hang a right at the third silo.

Idiot.

That silo's been gone for years now. You turn right at the John Deere dealership to get to City Hall.

Likewise, if all you know about our fair cow town is what Ryan Seacrest showed you, I'll bet you think that, for a big time on a Saturday night, we're all about square dancing and Ultimate Cow Chip flingin'. That is, when the magic-lantern show's not in town.

Think again, bubbie.

The reality is, Omahans have discovered the modern way "
to be stress free, relax and enjoy themselves without everyday life worries."

CALL IT the Best Little Whorehouse in Hooterville . . . uh, Omaha. Hey, they don't call us the "Big O" for nothing, as
this story from the hardy frontier journalists of the Omaha World-Herald will prove to a woefully misinformed nation:
Makayla M. Peters, 26, who advertised her Web site on Craigslist.com as "a massage/masseuse therapy business," was booked Wednesday into the Omaha city jail on three prostitution-related misdemeanors. She was released after posting 10 percent of her $8,500 bail.

On Thursday, she posted something else: a lengthy defense on her sexually explicit Web site.

"Some of the men I have seen I've had sexual relations with, some merely dinner or a cocktail," she wrote. "Some of these men are even prominent people, some just an average guy, but all are middle to upper class middle aged men who are just looking for some time to be stress free, relax and enjoy themselves without everyday life worries."

In a phone interview early Friday, she called herself as a "call girl" who is paid by her customers for companionship and time.

Police, prosecutors and some of Peters' neighbors have a different take.

Officer Bill Dropinski, an Omaha police spokesman, said the Peters case marks the first time in several years that police have busted someone accused of running a prostitution service out of his or her home.

"This is the first kind of case that I can remember of this nature," Dropinski said. "This is definitely unusual to have a house of prostitution in this part of the city. It's something we don't see that often."

Peters was arrested on suspicion of committing three misdemeanor crimes within her home near 151st and Z Streets: prostitution, keeping a house of prostitution and operating a massage parlor without a license.

(snip)

Peters operated her business under the moniker "Valerie Omaha" and sought customers from a multistate region. Her Web site even boasted that she operated her business from the confines of a mostly secluded neighborhood outside of metro Omaha.

Her elaborate Web site included intimate details of various acts and sexual fantasies in which Peters was willing to participate with her customers, plus a breakdown of costs.

According to information Peters had on her Web site Thursday, some intimate overnight stays with Peters could cost several thousand dollars, depending on the rendezvous and type of fantasy. She also arranged transportation for her paying customers, if needed.

She included detailed information about her looks, plus home phone numbers and personal e-mail addresses for customers to contact. She also included lengthy answers to specific questions about various sex acts.

In recent weeks, the Omaha police vice squad conducted an undercover investigation into Peters' business. The investigation determined that Peters gave much more than massages or back rubs, Dropinski said.

"We believe she was offering more of a full-service-type activity, and the investigation led us to verify those complaints," Dropinski said. "Our officers acted fairly quickly. This kind of prostitution, in this part of the city, from someone's house, that's something we don't mess around with."

Some residents along Peters' street applauded Omaha police for taking action.

"I did not know her, and I did not have any idea of who she is," said Lee Epstein, who lives a block away from Peters' home. "I have lived here 20 years, and we have never had anything like this. Just get her out of here."

SIGH. There's always a moralist around. Even in hardy frontier towns in the middle of miles and miles of cornfields.

But don't let those snooty city slickers on the coasts tell you Omaha's all about corn. And don't let 'em make you think that we rubes in flyover country can't be as horny as Britney Spears at the Spanish Fly bottling plant.

Or that we can't make gratuitous Britney Spears jokes.

Just don't delay in gettin' one last "massage" before Marshal Dillon and the circuit-ridin' preacher come back around these parts.

Friday, February 01, 2008

3 Chords & the Truth: The right spot

You've got to know when to pick your spots.

Like knowing when to play a song that makes a hell of a point -- and strongly so -- but that also will give some listeners of a "faith-based" program a royal case of the reds. That's what we're doing on this edition of 3 Chords & the Truth, because there's a point to be made.

I CALL IT "The Truth" half of 3 Chords & the Truth.

What is it? Not gonna tell you that, because that would just be a great big "spoiler," now, wouldn't it.

So what you're going to have to do is go here -- or just use the pod-O-matic player on this page -- and listen to the Big Show for yourself. I guarantee, it's worth your time.

And while you're at it, download 3C&T's bite-sized companion program, Four Songs. Both, especially this week, exemplify "music with a message."

Be there. Aloha.