Sunday, July 13, 2008

The difference between Chiquita and plantains

At some point, the story below will hit the American newspapers. Some time after that -- perhaps in the library of the federal prison in Oakdale, La. -- former Louisiana Gov. Edwin W. Edwards will see the headline "Bush lobbyist promises access for presidential library cash," throw the paper aside under a guard's wary gaze, then mutter "Son of a bitch!"

And it will occur to the silver-haired old man once again that his big mistake in shaking down casino operators all those years ago was that, in his hubris, he wasn't subtle enough. That he didn't have a distant-enough middle man to give him that certain je ne sais quoi -- Comment tu dit en anglais? -- "plausible deniability."

DAMN THAT George W. Bush and all his Washington money . . . all his Washington lobbyists . . . his damned presidential library. "Why couldn't I have rounded up a lobbyist pal or two?" the erstwhile "Silver Zipper" will think. "Why not a @#$&*!!#$! Edwin W. Edwards Gubernatorial Library?"

Why not, indeed. In today's editions, The Sunday Times (London) outlines how the old grafter could have gotten away with it . . . and stayed out of the federal slammer . . . if he had been Washington slick in addition to Louisiana greedy:

A lobbyist with close ties to the White House is offering access to key figures in George W Bush’s administration in return for six-figure donations to the private library being set up to commemorate Bush’s presidency.

Stephen Payne, who claims to have raised more than $1m for the president’s Republican party in recent years, said he would arrange meetings with Dick Cheney, the vice-president, Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, and other senior officials in return for a payment of $250,000 (£126,000) towards the library in Texas.

Payne, who has accompanied Bush and Cheney on several foreign trips, also said he would try to secure a meeting with the president himself.

(snip)

During an undercover investigation by The Sunday Times, Payne was asked to arrange meetings in Washington for an exiled former central Asian president. He outlined the cost of facilitating such access.

“The exact budget I will come up with, but it will be somewhere between $600,000 and $750,000, with about a third of it going directly to the Bush library,” said Payne, who sits on the US homeland security advisory council.

He said initially that the “family” of the Asian politician should make the donation. He later added that if all the money was paid to him he would make the payment to the Bush library. Publicly, it would appear to have been made in the politician’s name “unless he wants to be anonymous for some reason”.

Payne said the balance of the $750,000 would go to his own lobbying company, Worldwide Strategic Partners (WSP).

Asked by an undercover reporter who the politician would be able to meet for that price, Payne said: “Cheney’s possible, definitely the national security adviser [Stephen Hadley], definitely either Dr Rice or . . . I think a meeting with Dr Rice or the deputy secretary [John Negroponte] is possible . . .

“The main thing is that he [the Asian politician] comes, and he’s well received, that he meets with high-level people . . . and we send positive statements made back from the administration about ‘This guy wasn’t such a bad guy, many people have done worse’.”
WHEN YOU HEAR folks in Washington talk about Louisiana as a "banana republic," what one needs to realize is it's not a slam on the Gret Stet as a corrupt, less-than-democratic kleptocracy where the rich get richer and the poor poorer. Though, of course, the Bayou State is all that.

What your unctuous Washington swell really is saying is "Look at those rubes and bumpkins. They play the game so crudely . . . they are soooooo declassé!"

And the Beltway swell will have a point. At its heart, Louisiana is a country kind of place.

As a banana republic, the Gret Stet is all about Ricky Bobby, two-steps, Chiquita and
Abita Turbodog lager. That'll "git 'er done," but you must admit it's lacking in the panache department.

Washington, on the other hand, is the seat of government of a much better class of banana republic. Inside the Beltway, it's all about the National Symphony at Kennedy Center, the horizontal bop with a $2,000 "escort," fried plantains and Cabernet Sauvignon.

NO, GEORGE W. BUSH has his Stephen Payne, and -- alas -- El Presidente probably won't be dressing in khaki jumpsuits and looking forward to a daily "exercise period" anytime soon.

Damn pity, that.


UPDATE: Don't forget to check out this revealing sidebar on what a little -- OK, a lot -- of cash and the right lobbyist can get you from the White House these days:

What Payne did not know was that the third person at the Lanesborough meeting last Monday was an undercover Sunday Times reporter. Nor did he know that the meeting was being recorded.

The Sunday Times had initially approached Dos earlier for help in investigating corrupt practices in his homeland of Kazakhstan. Many business deals there are said to involve the discreet transfer of money between figures high up in the Kazakh regime and western companies.

Dos is exiled from Kazakhstan after setting up his own political party, Atameken, at the end of 2006. He was forced to flee following threats to his life.

Before that happened, however, he acted as an adviser to Timur Kulibayev, the billionaire son-in-law of Nursultan Nazarbayev, the Kazakh president, and a man of considerable influence within the country.

Dos said that in the autumn of 2005 he had been asked by the Kazakh government, via Kulibayev, to arrange a visit by Cheney. The intention was to improve the country’s international standing.

Dos had spent several days negotiating with Payne. A deal was eventually agreed, he said, and he understood that a payment of $2m was passed, via a Kazakh oil and gas company, to Payne’s firm.

The following May, Cheney made a brief trip to Kazakhstan. His visit was remarked upon in the media at the time, both for the lavish praise which he publicly heaped on Nazarbayev and for the stark contrast between this and a speech he had made just a day earlier at a conference in Lithuania in which he had lambasted Russia for being insufficiently democratic. Now he was lauding Nazarbayev, who has effectively made himself president for life and in whose country it is an offence to criticise him.

“Why did Cheney castigate Russia’s imperfect democracy while saying not a word about Kazakhstan’s shameless travesty of the democratic system?” said one newspaper following the visit. “Cheney’s flattery of the Kazakh regime was sickening,” said another.

Dos believes some of the money paid to WSP may have found its way to “entities” connected to the Bush administration.

In order to test which channels might be available to foreigners seeking influence within the US, Dos agreed to approach Payne, at The Sunday Times’s request, with a fabricated story about Akayev wanting to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of the world. Akayev was not aware of the approach to Payne.

Dos initially contacted Payne, who is based in Houston, Texas, via e-mail, and mentioned the possibility of making payments to “the Republican party or any other institutions affiliated with the Bushes”. Payne responded quickly, saying he was in London the following week.

The meeting at the Lanesborough began with Payne explaining that later that evening he was meeting a Conservative MP, Mark Pritchard, in order to sign him up as a paid “adviser” to WSP. Also due to meet Payne later was Liam Fox, the shadow defence secretary, apparently for separate discussions.

Pritchard’s value to Payne lay in his position as chairman of the House of Commons all- party Russia group. The MP, Payne said, had named his price, and it was acceptable to him.

So certain, in fact, was Payne that Pritchard would “cement the relationship” that night that he had already included him in his latest “confidential” brochure as one of WSP’s consultants.
I PREDICT the Russians and Edwin Edwards are going to become pen pals with an axe to grind.

Well,
probably not. But you'd like to think. Good grief.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Breaking a few eggs to roust a few Mexicans


The problem with representative democracy is that you can't legally keep fools from voting, and you certainly can't keep them from electing even bigger fools to public office.

RIGHT NOW, there's a frightening example of that right in my back yard, a half hour away in Fremont, Neb., as reported by the Omaha World-Herald. Briefly, what's going on just northwest of Omaha is that some Gomers got together in that small city to elect an even bigger Gomer to the city council, one who now proposes an ordinance that would require all prospective renters be licensed by the city.

To get a city renter's license -- which they'd have to obtain before every rental -- residents would have to undergo a background check to determine their legal right to be in the country:

A proposed law aimed at banishing illegal immigrants from Fremont, Neb., would require every renter —whether they were born in the United States or immigrated here — to obtain an occupancy license through the city.

The proposal has sparked an outcry among advocates for Latinos. Nebraska Appleseed attorney Norm Pflanz said he is confident that many Fremont citizens will join in opposition once they understand the full impact of the ordinance — on their lives as well as those of immigrants.

Fremont's is the first city council in the state to propose an ordinance that would ban harboring and renting to illegal immigrants. Lawmakers in other U.S. localities have introduced similar initiatives, often later struck down by the courts, according to national immigration groups.

Bob Warner, the longtime councilman who sponsored Fremont's proposal, said he did so because residents were "sick and tired" of what he said was the federal government's lax enforcement of immigration laws.

He said Fremont residents want their own immigration laws.

"I'll fight to the dying end to do what they want," Warner said. "I don't know why everybody is making a mountain out of something that is very simple."

The proposal that went to the council for a public hearing this week calls for all renters to fill out an application verifying their legal right to be in the United States. The applications would be submitted to local police for verification, and an occupancy license would be issued.

Every person occupying a rented home or apartment would have to hold an occupancy license at a cost of $5 each. A new license would be needed every time a resident relocated to a different rental unit.
THAT'S RIGHT, in the name of rolling back the Mexican tide from Main Street Nebraska, Gomers like Bob Warner are perfectly willing to re-create a little bitty, corn-fed version of Soviet Russia.

If that's how the people of Fremont roll -- and if the city's Supreme Soviet wants the anti-illegal immigrant pogram to be truly effective -- why stop with $5-a-pop renter's licenses? Why not add provisions for internal passports and random police checkpoints to the measure?

How about a network of informants to alert the authorities to "people who don't belong here"?

AND IF the Fremont City Council goes forward with Warner's plan to cut down a forest of rights to get at the Mexican Menace among us, then we can go ahead and change Nebraska's state motto from "Equality Before the Law" to something more apropos.

Like "Your Papers, Please."

Friday, July 11, 2008

Not of this nation, barely of this world

Louisiana is the kind of place where people get baited like animals, and animals get treated like . . . bait.

From the Baiting Humans Like Animals Department,
this from New Orleans City Business:

A pack of Kool cigarettes, a can of Budweiser and a box of Boston Baked Beans sat on the dashboard of an unlocked car with the windows rolled down at 1732 Canal St.

Somewhere nearby two New Orleans Police Department officers watched and waited for someone to reach into the bait car and snatch the items.

They wouldn’t have to wait long, as the police parked the car just one block away from a homeless encampment under the Claiborne Avenue overpass, where dozens of desperate, hungry and addicted people lived in a makeshift village of tents.

The first arrest was made at 12:25 p.m. June 10 when police say the initial suspect took the bait and stole a can of beer. The second arrest was made at 4:05 p.m. when police say a second suspect took the cigarettes, beer and candy.

For stealing less than $6 in items, the police charged the two homeless men with simple burglary, a felony that can carry up to 12 years in prison. Neither suspect had any prior arrests in Orleans Parish.

A month later, the men remain in Orleans Parish Prison awaiting court dates and the possibility they will spend the better part of the next decade in state prison.

“I don’t know what the policing justification is for such an action,” said Pamela Metzger, associate professor of law at Tulane University Law School. “But on a fundamental human level, it smacks of a meanness, a pettiness, a spitefulness that has no place in a city as broken as this one. It’s a way of manufacturing offenses that may not have otherwise existed.”


(snip)

Not only does it take police officers off the street, but it clogs the courts and forces public defenders and the district attorney to use their limited resources and manpower to litigate “trivial offenses” instead of focusing efforts on more serious cases like homicide, said Bill Quigley, a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans.

“People are still dying left and right and yet we’re playing games with baked beans and Kool cigarettes,” Quigley said. “The police officers who did this should be personally embarrassed and their superiors and the elected officials who knew about this should go to confession.”

The NOPD did not respond to requests for comment, but Superintendent Warren Riley has previously defended the practice of arresting people for minor crimes as a useful way of catching habitual offenders.

At a legislative committee hearing in October, Riley said officers will arrest someone for a minor offense such as trespassing if that person has a history of burglary arrests.

But during the car sting, officers not only arrested six people with no prior arrests, they also charged them with felonies.
AND NOW, FROM THAT garden spot of the Deep South, Baton Rouge, we have this dispatch, courtesy of the Using House Pets as Bait Department and The Advocate:

Two men were arrested Wednesday after they allegedly stood by laughing as their pit bull ate a live kitten.

Jeremy Johnson, 17, and Travis Johnson, 23, were arrested in a vacant lot in the 4900 block of Bradley Street after 911 dispatchers received an anonymous tip about the pair, a Baton Rouge police arrest affidavit says.

When police and animal control officers arrived at 11:20 a.m., they saw Jeremy Johnson holding his pet pit bull’s leash while the dog consumed a kitten, according to police spokesman Cpl. L’Jean McKneely and the affidavit.

Animal control officers had to pull the pit bull off the kitten, McKneely said. The officers located another kitten that had been mauled nearby in the grass.

Jeremy Johnson told officers “he was letting the pit bull take care of the kittens because he doesn’t like cats and thinks there are too many of them loose in the area,” McKneely said.


(snip)

The Johnsons, both of 4917 Bradley St., were booked into Parish Prison on two counts of felony aggravated cruelty to animals and one count of criminal trespassing.

Bond was set for both men at $7,500, booking documents show. Their relationship to each other was unclear Thursday.

State law says, in part, that aggravated cruelty to animals includes the torturing, maiming or mutilating any living animal “intentionally or with criminal negligence.”

If convicted, the Johnsons could pay a fine ranging from $5,000 to $25,000 or spend from one to 10 years in prison, or both.

HOW MUCH you want to bet these monsters get off with a slap on the wrist?

Let me tell you a story that explains why I think that.

About three years ago, our elderly schnoodle, Phideaux, had a stroke. Without a second thought, we rushed him to the vet and, after a couple of hundred dollars worth of treatment, he recovered and lived another year. He was 16 when he died, and we miss him desperately still.

About the same time in Louisiana, another dog had a stroke. It was the pet of a friend's sister and brother-in-law, who is a professional kind of guy.

Seeing the dog in distress, the brother-in-law acted quickly. He took the poor creature out back and shot it.

THERE ARE many things I miss about my home state. There are many more I don't miss at all.

It sucks to be second fiddle . . . and falling fast


In the capital city of Louisiana, the mayor is howling at the moon and -- perhaps -- praying for another hurricane.

The Census Bureau's 2007 population estimates are in, and Baton Rouge didn't do so well. The city -- whose population swelled in 2005 with the near loss of New Orleans -- has not been able to hold on to its demographic largesse and now has assumed its historical position. That would be second banana to the Crescent City, which continues to slowly rebuild from its swamping during Katrina and now has a good 12,000 people on Baton Rouge.


NOT ONLY THAT, Baton Rouge's population drop, in sheer numbers, was the third biggest in the nation -- notching another bad-list triumph for Louisiana. In terms of percentage of population lost, the capital city was a solid No. 2, behind front-runner Columbus, Ga.

At least if you believe the federal government's numbers.

According to The (Baton Rouge) Advocate,
Mayor-President Kip Holden doesn't:
New Orleans was the nation’s fastest-growing city during the same period, regaining the title of Louisiana’s most populous city from Baton Rouge for the first time since Hurricane Katrina displaced tens of thousands of people in August 2005.
The estimated 2007 population for New Orleans was 239,124, an increase of 28,926 but still just more than half of the city’s pre-Katrina population of 453,726.

Baton Rouge’s estimated population was 227,071.

Mayor-President Kip Holden said Wednesday that the Census report is a flawed estimate that dramatically underreported the city’s population.

“They take a mathematical extrapolation — that they come up with themselves — and come up with erroneous numbers,” Holden said. “Until we have a full census, they would do us all a favor if they would just go away for a couple of years until we can know the exact population.”

Holden said the report contradicts what he said is clear evidence of Baton Rouge’s ongoing growth: steady school enrollment, climbing sales tax revenue and booming business development.

“You can go virtually all over Baton Rouge and buildings are coming up everywhere,” Holden said. “So if that number was correct, would banks be out here loaning all these people money to build condos and apartments and office buildings and restaurants?”
I'M SURE THE CENSUS PEOPLE would be happy to take Holden's contention under advisement, but first they'll have to carve out a parameter in their database for "buildings are coming up everywhere."

They'll get right on that . . . just as soon as they get their giggles under control.

At least one Louisiana demographer
is surprised that anyone is surprised by the Census Bureau's estimate.
Shreveport demographer and political analyst Elliott Stonecipher said the simultaneous population drop in Baton Rouge and growth in New Orleans was “anything but a surprise” given the ongoing resettling of Katrina victims.

“To me, it’s just very logical; it was very expected,” Stonecipher said.

Greg Rigamer, a New Orleans urban planner with GCR and Associates, said the shifts in both cities are related and most likely the result of major improvements in services in New Orleans during the summer and fall of 2006.

“When you look at when most people came back to New Orleans, it was really in that period,” he said. “Many of the people from New Orleans were clearly in Baton Rouge.”

The Census report is the second this year to estimate a population drop for the Baton Rouge area.

The bureau released population estimates for parishes and counties in March. That report estimated a population drop parishwide and was also criticized by city-parish officials.

East Baton Rouge Parish had an estimated population of 431,278 in July 2006, but that dropped to 430,317 by July 2007, or a loss of 961 residents, that report showed.

Holden said the estimates are “crippling” for Baton Rouge because federal and state funding is often tied to population. He said Congress should come up with a new method for calculating population between censuses.
WHAT MIGHT BE more useful than trying to convince the world -- and convince it on the sketchiest of anecdotal evidence -- that Baton Rouge can hold its population better than a New Orleans levee holds water would be, instead, figuring out why all those folks (presumably New Orleanians) fled after three years in paradise.

Of course, the pull of home is a strong one . . . particularly for natives of as insular a city as New Orleans. Still, we find that people are leaving Baton Rouge to return to a city that has one of the world's worst mayors at the helm.

They're leaving Red Stick for a city with the highest murder rate in the nation. And that race isn't even close.

They're leaving to return to a city where the school system is still a shambles. And where graft is bigger than Rex on Mardi Gras day.

They're leaving to return to a city that's just a direct hit by a Category 2 or 3 hurricane from oblivion. Again. Likely for good next time.

They're leaving for a city that's still largely in ruins, is a municipal-infrastructure nightmare, suffers under sky-high electric rates and needs patrols by National Guardsmen to stave off utter chaos. As opposed to its normal, everyday pre-Katrina chaos.

I KNOW WHAT IT IS to miss home. To miss one's culture . . . familiar foods . . . familiar music . . . familiar sights and sounds. For reasons transcending all good sense, there aren't that many days that I don't miss Baton Rouge.

But that's not enough to make me go back. And I live 1,100 miles distant from there. Have for 20 years now.

Baton Rouge's former exiles from the Big Easy had found refuge less than 90 minutes away from home. They found themselves relocated somewhere with a somewhat similar culture, closely related cuisine and an identical climate. And any onset of Crescent City delirium tremens would be easily "fixed" by a short road trip.

Did I mention the "one direct hit from oblivion . . . again" thing?

THAT'S WHAT Baton Rouge's mayor needs to be worrying about: Why in the name of Buckskin Bill and Tabby Thomas would people want to leave America's Next Great City(TM) for the corrupt, dysfunctional, beaten-down, dangerous basket case that is New Orleans?

Why would people do that if Baton Rouge is sitting there on the first high land on the Mississippi, just ready to launch itself into greatness?

Could it be that Baton Rouge ain't as wonderful as the mayor thinks?

Could it be that the crime isn't that much lower, the murders not that staggeringly fewer, the landscape not that less dilapidated and the public schools not that much better as to be meaningful to a homesick exile?

Could it be that Louisiana's once-again Second City barely outperforms a crippled New Orleans in the essentials that make a city livable while lacking the kind of vibrant, indigenous culture that makes the Crescent City -- in a very real sense -- the spiritual heartbeat of America?

WHEN MY WIFE AND I LEFT Baton Rouge in 1988, it was pretty much the same size it is now . . . perhaps 10,000 or so smaller in population. That kind of anemic population growth doesn't point to a vibrant, fundamentally sound municipality.

When we arrived in Omaha 20 years ago, Nebraska's largest city was about 100,000 people smaller than it is today. And even then, it still was 100,000 people larger than Baton Rouge is now.

What's the difference?

I think it comes down to this: Leaders of "next great cities" don't waste their time (and the taxpayers' money) trying to mau-mau the federal gummint when census figures don't fall their way. Leaders of great cities (those of "next" or "present" greatness) want to find out why the numbers turned against them.

They want to find out why people left -- or why more people aren't moving in. They want to find out where their city falls short.

And once they've done that, leaders of "great" cities -- or even "pretty good" cities -- move heaven and earth to fix what's wrong and improve what's right. That's not what it looks like Baton Rouge's Kip Holden is doing here.

Nobody likes a whiner, Kip. Not even exiled New Orleanians whose only alternative is "Crazy" Ray Nagin.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Surely, it's the video of the year

You know, we can deal with peak oil and the West being put over a 55-gallon barrel by Middle Eastern extortionists by invading one sand sewer after another forever and ever, amen. And we can do that at the cost of thousands and thousands of American lives as we bankrupt the American nation in the name of our quintessentially American petroleum jones.

Or we can go the unconventional-warfare route, putting the whole thing in the hands of the generals Zucker.

I vote for letting Jerry and David Zucker do to OPEC
what they did for the airline industry.

And stop calling me Shirley.

'The man is Ted Baxter.' And was that a threat?


We held back some of this conversation... we didn't feel it had any relevance to the conversation this evening. We are not out to get Jesse Jackson. We are not out to embarrass him and we are not out to make him look bad. If we were, we would have used what we had, which is more damaging than what you have heard. . . .

-- Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly,
airing an off-air, on-mic private remark
by Jesse Jackson on Barack Obama


* * *

Our history will be what we make it. And if there are any historians about fifty or a hundred years from now, and there should be preserved the kinescopes for one week of all three networks, they will there find recorded in black and white, or color, evidence of decadence, escapism and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live. I invite your attention to the television schedules of all networks between the hours of 8 and 11 p.m., Eastern Time. Here you will find only fleeting and spasmodic reference to the fact that this nation is in mortal danger. There are, it is true, occasional informative programs presented in that intellectual ghetto on Sunday afternoons. But during the daily peak viewing periods, television in the main insulates us from the realities of the world in which we live. If this state of affairs continues, we may alter an advertising slogan to read: LOOK NOW, PAY LATER.

For surely we shall pay for using this most powerful instrument of communication to insulate the citizenry from the hard and demanding realities which must be faced if we are to survive. I mean the word survive literally. If there were to be a competition in indifference, or perhaps in insulation from reality, then Nero and his fiddle, Chamberlain and his umbrella, could not find a place on an early afternoon sustaining show. If Hollywood were to run out of Indians, the program schedules would be mangled beyond all recognition. Then some courageous soul with a small budget might be able to do a documentary telling what, in fact, we have done--and are still doing--to the Indians in this country. But that would be unpleasant. And we must at all costs shield the sensitive citizens from anything that is unpleasant.

-- Edward R. Murrow, in an October 1958
speech to radio and TV news directors


* * *

No self-respecting fish would be wrapped in a Murdoch paper.

-- Mike Rokyo, 1984, upon leaving
Rupert Murdoch's Chicago Sun-Times

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

The philosopher cop . . . who knew?

Over at BaRou is the New Bklyn, blogger Colleen Kane tells the story of celebrating the Fourth of July in a foreign land.

Sort of.

COLLEEN DESCRIBES how she and her festive crew -- in a city where everybody else already was engaging in a little celebratory "shock and awe" -- were trying to be considerate by shooting off their illegal (wink wink, nudge nudge) pyrotechnics on the wide-open expanse of the athletic field at Baton Rouge High.

Everything was fine, everybody was having a good time . . . but then something happened. Enter Barney Fife: Philosopher Cop.
The cop asked us our ages and where we were from. "You're too old for this," he said, looking about half as amused as we were. Miraculously none of us laughed when he said, "Maybe they do stupid things in Brooklyn, but here in Baton Rouge, we don't do stupid things." In addition, he informed us this wasn't a rural area where you can shoot off fireworks anywhere, and that was a historic school right over there that we were endangering.
MISS KANE and her cohorts have more self-control than I do. I would have asked the cop -- amid gales of doubled-over, gasping-for-breath, gut-busting laughter -- how the hell, then, did he explain the Metropolitan Council and the School Board. And I would have been arrested.

"Maybe they do stupid things in Brooklyn, but here in Baton Rouge, we don't do stupid things."

No, cops just say stupid things in an attempt to get the rest of us to adopt a new Unifying Theory of Louisiana.

R O S E N B L A T T

All things must pass . . . one more once


One of the beauties of baseball is the tempo of the game. It's relaxed enough for even the casual observer to realize that, at the ballpark, the game is only, say, one-tenth of the action.

Or something like that.

Here we continue our photo essays from the College World Series at Omaha's old Rosenblatt Stadium, where we're counting down the seasons until the old landmark gives way, in 2011, to a brand-new ballpark downtown.

It's the long goodbye. And here are some snapshots of Year One of that process.

The game: Fresno State vs. North Carolina.

The date: June 22, 2008.

She loves the game. It's in her eyes.


















The National Collegiate Athletic Association wants there to be no doubt about what sport is involved in the College World Series. The NCAA is College World Serious about that particular point. It's BASEBALL.


The old park didn't look like this, exactly, when the CWS first came to town in 1950.

































Upstairs, downstairs.

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

To the meager goes the spoiled


After the big storm Friday before last, our electricity was off for a full three days.

We managed to save the bulk of our perishables through a combination of dry ice, an ice-filled cooler and (finally) hauling everything to the fridge and freezer of friends who had power.

STILL, we took a hit in lost food. Not a big one, but a financial hit nevertheless.

But what if you're on food stamps and you lose everything in your refrigerator and freezer? The Omaha World-Herald
reports:
Cerita Gaines lost a mid-size freezer full of food when the June 27 storm hit the metro area. The turkeys she had just purchased at a bargain price, along with the rest of her food, were wasted.

"I lost everything," she said. The 49-year-old was among the hundreds of people today who got in line as early as 5:30 a.m. to receive the emergency ration of food stamps from the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services.

As many as 20,000 to 30,000 Douglas, Sarpy and Saunders County households are expected to apply for the aid that could total $7 million to $10 million, but — for now — families have less than a week to sign up. Long lines also formed Monday, the first day that people could apply for assistance.

One month's worth of food stamps will be provided, which for a single person is valued at $162 and for a family of four, $542. The aid is available to those who lost power, meet income guidelines and have either lost income or have had to spend extra money to recover from the storm.

More than 126,000 households and businesses in the metropolitan area lost power to the storm.

For the second day in a row, the number of food stamp applicants overwhelmed Health and Human Services. At midmorning today, officials were asking those not already in line to wait another day.

"We have waiting lines of several blocks at each location," said spokeswoman Kathie Osterman.

Monday, July 07, 2008

Katrina Shmatrina. They don't need our help.

In Louisiana, this is what's considered a "broken-down vehicle”:


A broken-down vehicle looks a little different here in Nebraska:


AMERICANS NEED to remember that the next time some Louisiana politician or another arrives in Washington, hat in hand, whining about:

* How the state was "wronged" by the federal government over Hurricane Katrina.

* How the state can't possibly pay its 10-percent share of rebuilding New Orleans-area levees.

* How Uncle Sam is "holding back" the rebuilding of New Orleans because Washington has been so unbearably niggardly with federal aid.

* How there's a perfectly good excuse for the latest Bayou State nonsense and -- by the way -- how Louisiana needs to make just one more claim on your federal tax dollar because "We're a poor state."

Right.

And remember that, in such a "poor state," this is a "broken-down car":


AND THIS is what passes for "the crown jewel" of the Louisiana capital's public-education system:


Broken-down car:


Top-of-the-line high school:


ANYTHING ELSE you need to know before opening up that checkbook, America?

Now somebody go inform members of the Louisiana Legislature that ideas -- and the words used to express them -- have consequences. Especially when one's hat spends so much time in one's hand.

All things must pass (the sequel)

Alone . . . all alone. Do I have odor that offends?
















Now, you do have
the tickets, right?

Right? Honey?

I asked whether you
have the tickets.

























Not gonna make it.
Not at this juncture.


Well, yeah, it is kinda hot out here in right field. . . .
But remember, we get the ESPN discount at Pauli's.
Dah duh DAH!
Dah duh DAH!

Heeeeey, batterbatterbatterbatter! Swing, batter!
Heeeeey, batterbatterbatterbatter! Swing, batter!
He can't hit he can't hit he can't hit he can't hit
. . . swinnng, batter!

(The original Rosenblatt Stadium-College World Series post is here.)

Sunday, July 06, 2008

The perils of preprints

The problem with preprinted sections in the newspaper is the very real possibility something will happen between the printing and the distribution that will make you look really, really stupid.

Or worse.

Today, it's
The New York Times' turn to get bitten in the arse:

Correction: July 6, 2008
An article today in Sunday Business about missed opportunities to reduce America’s dependence on imported oil refers to a 1990 effort by Senator Jesse Helms, Republican of North Carolina, to block higher mileage requirements for vehicles and notes that Mr. Helms did not return calls seeking comment. The section went to press on Thursday, before Mr. Helms’s death Friday morning.

All things must pass


A long, long time ago, when my wife was helping her dad put up College World Series posters in Omaha storefronts, those humble advertisements pointed baseball fans and the civic-minded to a city's premier event.


A June rite out here on the Great Plains.

To a spot somewhere over the rainbow where, every year, some college boys of summer would see their dreams come true. Those signs pointed Omahans to Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium, where baseball dreams had come true (and where some others died) every June since 1950.


MY FATHER-IN-LAW had been part of the Omaha team that brought the NCAA championship to a cowtown on the Plains when Harry S. Truman was president. And there it stayed, with Dad at the PR helm for almost 40 years. And here it remains, almost 60 years on . . . long after Omaha traded in market bulls for bull markets and Tech High for high-tech.

In 1950, Municipal Stadium consisted of an average grandstand and a modest press box. Johnny Rosenblatt was on the city council.

In 2008, that same stadium seats more than 23,000 and features a stadium club and an impressive press box. The late Johnny Rosenblatt's name shines upon it in neon lights.

My wife's father has been dead for more than 15 years, but his legacy lives on every June. Right here in Omaha, Neb., where every year, eight colleges' boys of summer come to play.

THE COLLEGE WORLD SERIES ain't what it used to be. Used to be, it was small-town, homespun, hiya neighbor and apple pie. Now, it's still a lot of that . . . but it's also corporate-slick, big-time and big money.

And come the opening pitch of the 2011 series, the CWS will forge a new tradition at a brand-new stadium in downtown Omaha.

So last month's CWS began our city's long goodbye to old Rosenblatt Stadium, where so many memories lie. Where a buddy and I, coworkers at the North Platte Telegraph, sat in our free box seats watching Roger Clemens and Calvin Schiraldi pitch Texas past Alabama for the 1983 national championship.

A nice gal, the Telegraph's copy-desk chief, scored those seats for us. Her dad had connections. He did the PR for the Series.

If a girl has that kind of juice, there's only one thing you can do. Fall in love with her, then marry her. So I did.


That was 25 years ago -- probably the last smart thing I ever did.

Probably not the smartest thing she ever did.

TIME, ALAS, marches on. So does progress.


Our memories will live in our hearts forever, but in three years, Rosenblatt Stadium will be toast, and some cute girl will score great seats in a shiny new stadium for some unworthy lout . . . and who knows what that will lead to.

Apart from a whole new batch of precious memories.

So, as part of a city's long goodbye to an old friend, I lugged my old camera -- and a bunch of rolls of film -- to the old ball yard. What you see here, and undoubtedly will see in coming days on the Blog for the People, is a day in the life of the College World Series . . . and Omaha's Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium.

Sunday, June 22, 2008. Fresno State vs. North Carolina.

Memories were made that day. Some of them, I caught in the viewfinder of an old Canon TX.


Saturday, July 05, 2008

Holy crap! I can't believe in Jesus anymore!

Oh my unLord! Christianity has fallen!

A first-century BNC (Before Not Christ) Hebrew tablet has been found that's shaken my now ex-faith to its now ex-core. Apparently, ancient Jews had an idea the Messiah would be raised from the dead after three days!

THE NOTION is not a Christian exclusive, and I'm headed out in a few to go a drinkin' and a whorin', because it don't matter now.

Really,
it's all in The New York Times:
A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days.

If such a messianic description really is there, it will contribute to a developing re-evaluation of both popular and scholarly views of Jesus, since it suggests that the story of his death and resurrection was not unique but part of a recognized Jewish tradition at the time.

The tablet, probably found near the Dead Sea in Jordan according to some scholars who have studied it, is a rare example of a stone with ink writings from that era — in essence, a Dead Sea Scroll on stone.

It is written, not engraved, across two neat columns, similar to columns in a Torah. But the stone is broken, and some of the text is faded, meaning that much of what it says is open to debate.

Still, its authenticity has so far faced no challenge, so its role in helping to understand the roots of Christianity in the devastating political crisis faced by the Jews of the time seems likely to increase.

Daniel Boyarin, a professor of Talmudic culture at the University of California at Berkeley, said that the stone was part of a growing body of evidence suggesting that Jesus could be best understood through a close reading of the Jewish history of his day.

“Some Christians will find it shocking — a challenge to the uniqueness of their theology — while others will be comforted by the idea of it being a traditional part of Judaism,” Mr. Boyarin said.


(snip)

To whom is the archangel speaking? The next line says “Sar hasarin,” or prince of princes. Since the Book of Daniel, one of the primary sources for the Gabriel text, speaks of Gabriel and of “a prince of princes,” Mr. Knohl contends that the stone’s writings are about the death of a leader of the Jews who will be resurrected in three days.

He says further that such a suffering messiah is very different from the traditional Jewish image of the messiah as a triumphal, powerful descendant of King David.

“This should shake our basic view of Christianity,” he said as he sat in his office of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem where he is a senior fellow in addition to being the Yehezkel Kaufman Professor of Biblical Studies at Hebrew University. “Resurrection after three days becomes a motif developed before Jesus, which runs contrary to nearly all scholarship. What happens in the New Testament was adopted by Jesus and his followers based on an earlier messiah story.”
OH, INSERT Anglo-Saxon expletive here. Jesus and his followers didn't even bother to make this s*** up. They ripped it off from Shlomo the Stone Scribbler. And, come to think of it, the stuff J.C. and the Dubious Dozen were going around preaching sounded an awful lot like some stuff that was in Isaiah, in the Old Testament.

You know, all that
"suffering servant" crapola. House of David, my eye!

The Big Guy was even ripping off
Psalm 22 when he was dying on the cross -- all that "my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me" stuff.

And . . . and . . . the former deity known as "Jesus" -- with all this rising after three days stuff --
was ripping off the Book of Jonah, which the stone scribbler also apparently bastardized into some sort of literary "prefigurement" of the Resurrection. I mean . . . really:
Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.

Therefore, I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.

And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

"Either declare the tree good and its fruit is good, or declare the tree rotten and its fruit is rotten, for a tree is known by its fruit.

You brood of vipers, how can you say good things when you are evil? For from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.

A good person brings forth good out of a store of goodness, but an evil person brings forth evil out of a store of evil.

I tell you, on the day of judgment people will render an account for every careless word they speak.

By your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned."

Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to him, "Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you."

He said to them in reply, "An evil and unfaithful generation seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it except the sign of Jonah the prophet.

Just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.

At the judgment, the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and there is something greater than Jonah here.

At the judgment the queen of the south will arise with this generation and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and there is something greater than Solomon here.
JOHAH. ISAIAH. PSALMS. STONE TABLET. You'd think that what would happen to the "Messiah" was no secret, that ancient Jews had lots of clues in literature and tradition. That all this stuff was of a piece.

That it was prefigurement . . . allegory . . . prophecy. That it all somehow makes sense from a Christian perspective.

Oh, wait . . . it does.

And, while I'm thinking of it, there hasn't been anyone who's come up with a bag of bones six feet under a tombstone reading "Jesus H. Christ, Alleged Son of God."

(Sound of crickets.)

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh . . . perhaps I was a little hasty, Lord.

I can call you "Lord" . . . right?

Sir? Your Almightyness?

TV used to be about the movies. Now it's ESPN


Here's a bit of early Glen Campbell from a 1965 episode of ABC television's Shindig! music program. By today's technical standards, the production is primitive -- black-and-white, graphics limited to simple superimposing of a title card over the main image, analog 525-line NTSC broadcasting instead of high-def digital.

And it's visually stunning. Every camera shot is a masterwork of composition and choreography.

YOU COULD OFFER a similar critique of any number of TV broadcasts from the "old days" of the 1950s and '60s. Here's another clip from the days when TV had nothing to rely on except artistry:


This was what was happening in the mid-'60s over on Hullabaloo on NBC.


And here, The Doors on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1967. They were never on again . . . Jim Morrison said "get much higher."

And, finally, The Killers on MTV's Total Request Live a few years ago. In some respects, live television is still live television, but you'll notice how quick cuts now predominate -- and how crane shots fly like a rocket, instead of float like a balloon.

It's probably overgeneralizing, but I would submit that television -- somewhere along the way, probably starting in the 1970s and '80s -- began to lose the cinematic aesthetic and instead adopted that of big-budget TV sports.

In other words, television -- particularly music television -- doesn't look like the movies. It looks like Monday Night Football. And SportsCenter.

I wonder what that says about us . . . and our culture.


HAT TIP:
The Dawn Patrol.

Friday, July 04, 2008

Lust, license and the pursuit of stuff


Happy Fourth of July!

It is on this day we celebrate the Continental Congress' adoption of the Declaration of Independence and the birth in 1776 of our independent American nation, which actually occurred on July 2 but forget that, we're on a roll.

AND WHEN Lord Cornwallis surrendered his British army to George Washington's American forces and their French allies, it was pretty much all over. The infant nation grew and prospered and, by the 1940s, had become the most powerful the world had ever known. It presided as hegemon of much of the earth, and its people -- through the dual blessings of freedom and prosperity -- dedicated themselves to the pursuit of license and excess.

Secure in our attainment of what we needed, we therefore relentlessly pursued what we wanted. And what we want is stuff. More and more stuff. And bigger places to keep all our stuff.

And governmental policies to help us accumulate that stuff.

Our money says "In God we trust" but that's only constitutional if we don't really mean it. Which we don't, thank God. (And, to be safe. we don't mean that either.)

No, this July 4, we give lip service to self-evident truths and "nature's God" and "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," but we all know what's important, don't we?

Stuff.

The pursuit of stuff is what makes us happy. Until we decide we still don't have enough stuff.

Or a big enough McMansion way out in the 'burbs to keep our stuff. Or enough gas-guzzling horseless carriages to haul our fat asses and our stuff from place to place.

Which requires us to invade hapless Middle Eastern despot states like Iraq under the pretense of self-evident truth and letting freedom ring -- and Mom, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet -- to keep is in enough oil and gas to sate our need for speed.

And stuff.

So, I can't think of a better way to celebrate the birth of our nation than by exercising the God-given right to spit in the eye of America's modern mountebanks who sell us snake oil in the name of "freedom."

And in that spirit, I give you the late, great George Carlin, who really had our number.


NOTE:
Video contains some profanity. Funny profanity, but blue nevertheless.

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

If you don't hear from me. . . .

Here we go again.

Yet another severe thunderstorm is bearing down on Omaha, apparently with quarter-size hail, strong wind, torrential rain. I guess I won't be hoeing and weeding the garden today after all.

Assuming I have a garden left after what's left of my garden gets hammered by this round of crappy weather. And this storm, which just blew up north of town, is drawing a bead on midtown Omaha . . . which is where I live.

This will not be good for limbs and trees that were weakened, but not dropped, by Friday's monster.

Once again, I stepped outside to get the afternoon paper and check the mail . . . only to look up, see a Not Good sky and hear the far-off thunder. Came in, turned on the TV . . . and Channel 7 already was on with wall-to-wall weather coverage.

Dammit. This flipping thing has developed a wall cloud. You can see it on the TV tower cam.

It's official. We're all going to die.

I think I'm joking. Maybe not.


UPDATE: The thing just missed our house . . . it's not a terribly wide storm, just a few miles. I don't think it had tremendous wind, but apparently downtown got the worst of the hail. Perhaps golf-ball size.

Needless to say, we're all a bit gun shy during this storm season that just won't end.

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Dogs don't blow stuff up . . .


But some folks who hate them because they're "ritually impure" will blow you, your kids and Fido, too, to Kingdom Come to feed the bloodlust of "Allah the merciful."

And they'll blow themselves up to take out Western whoremongers, which will make them martyrs of Islam, which will earn them serious freak time in Paradise with 72 virgins.

And they'll blow other Muslims up because they're the wrong sort of Muslims.

And, I suspect, a lot of Muslims will blow themselves (and whatever else) up just because they're bored and aggrieved over some slight suffered yesterday or 700 years ago.

Maybe they'll blow somebody in Scotland up because Scottish cops -- and the Scottish people -- like filth. Which, in the warped world of Islam, equals a cute little puppy:

A postcard featuring a cute puppy sitting in a policeman's hat advertising a Scottish police force's new telephone number has sparked outrage from Muslims.

Tayside Police's new non-emergency phone number has prompted complaints from members of the Islamic community.

The choice of image on the Tayside Police cards - a black dog sitting in a police officer's hat - has now been raised with Chief Constable John Vine.

The advert has upset Muslims because dogs are considered ritually unclean and has sparked such anger that some shopkeepers in Dundee have refused to display the advert.

Dundee councillor Mohammed Asif said: 'My concern was that it's not welcomed by all communities, with the dog on the cards.

'It was probably a waste of resources going to these communities.

'They (the police) should have understood. Since then, the police have explained that it was an oversight on their part, and that if they'd seen it was going to cause upset they wouldn't have done it.'

Councillor Asif, who is a member of the Tayside Joint Police Board, said that the force had a diversity adviser and was generally very aware of such issues.

He raised the matter with Mr Vine at a meeting of the board.

The chief constable said he was unaware of the concerns and that the force had not sought to cause any upset but added he would look into the matter.

Councillor Asif said: 'People who have shops just won't put up the postcard. But the police have said to me that it was simply an oversight and they did not seek to offend or upset.'
COME TO THINK OF IT, I wonder whether the outraged Musselmans are angry because God hates dogs -- a cracked idea that's reason enough to raise grave doubts about Islam -- or because the cute pup featured in the Scottish police ad, Rebel, is training to be a police dog.

I mean, who knows? Rebel could end up being a bomb-sniffing dog.

"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you," Mark Twain once said. "This is the principal difference between a dog and a man. . . ."


That sounds like the exact difference between Rebel and Scotland's caterwauling Mohammedans. Just replace "man" with "Muslim."

And the difference between a man and Scottish authorities is a man would have told Councillor Asif to piss off.