Pandora, meet the hounds of hell

The world has gone mad.

What else can it be when whack jobs decide to use death as a weapon against the "Culture of Death," and when a Kansas state judge says the whack job can argue that killing Dr. George Tiller wasn't first-degree murder because the whack job really and truly thought he was saving babies?

Uh huh. And I really and truly think I'm the queen of France.

And I really and truly think I can go around saying "let them eat cake," and there will be no consequences -- like revolution and the "Reign of Terror."

IF THE KANSAS JUDGE really and truly thinks stretching criminal law to include an almost-justifiable homicide defense won't -- in one respect or another -- unleash the hounds of hell, then we're all about to have another think coming. The story so far, via The Associated Press:

On a balmy Sunday morning, Scott Roeder got up from a pew at Reformation Lutheran Church at the start of services and walked to the foyer, where two ushers were chatting around a table. Wordlessly, he pressed the barrel of a .22-caliber handgun to the forehead of Dr. George Tiller, one of the ushers, and pulled the trigger.

As his premeditated, first-degree murder trial begins Wednesday, no one — not even Roeder himself — disputes that he killed one of the nation's few late-term abortion providers.

But what had been expected to be an open-and-shut murder trial was upended Friday when a judge decided to let Roeder argue he should be convicted of voluntary manslaughter because he believed the May 31 slaying would save unborn children. Suddenly, the case has taken on a new significance that has galvanized both sides of the nation's abortion debate.

Prosecutors on Monday challenged the ruling, arguing that such a defense is not appropriately considered with premeditated first-degree murder when there is no evidence of an imminent attack at the time of the killing, and jury selection was delayed. A hearing was scheduled for Tuesday afternoon to give the defense time to respond.

"The State encourages this Court to not be the first to enable a defendant to justify premeditated murder because of an emotionally charged political belief," the prosecution wrote. "Such a ruling has far reaching consequences and would be contrary to Kansas law."

(snip)

A man who runs a Web site supporting violence against abortion providers said in the wake of the judge's decision that he has changed his mind about attending Roeder's trial.

The Rev. Don Spitz of Chesapeake, Va., said he and other activists from the Army of God plan to observe the court proceedings quietly next week.

"I am flabbergasted, but in a good way," Spitz said of the judge's decision.

Spitz acknowledged that the possibility of a voluntary manslaughter defense may influence some people who in the past wouldn't kill abortion providers because of the prospect of a sentence of death or life imprisonment. "It may increase the number of people who may be willing to take that risk," he said.

NOTE TO JUDGE: If the Army of God is happy, you should be afraid . . . very afraid.

I have heard others use the "justifiable homicide/defense of the innocent" argument, and it is nothing more than fallen angels dancing on the head of a semantic pin. And when all is said and done -- when the philosophy of nuts like Scott Roeder, the Army of God and its abortionist-killing acolyte Paul Hill escapes the fever swamps and the body count starts to rise -- you won't have legions of undead babies, a redeemed culture or anything approaching divine justice.

All you'll have is more and more death.

All you'll have is a discredited pro-life movement.

All you'll have is a divided country several steps closer to a homegrown Bosnia.

NO MATTER how "justified" the use of extralegal lethal force to stop legalized lethal force, what people like Roeder really have done is declare war. And justifying something as horrific as war is a tall order. Civilization demands no less, as does the God in Whose name these demons claim to commit murder.

It's called "just war doctrine," and I think you can apply it here as well as you can to Iraq and Afghanistan. From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:

the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;

all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;

there must be serious prospects of success;

the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the "just war" doctrine.

The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.

ON WHAT PLANET does assassinating abortionists meet any of these strict benchmarks for just violence? In whose reality does the common application of "justifiable homicide" as a "cure" for abortion lead to anything but an American bloodbath -- one which not only wouldn't spare the unborn but absolutely would consume untold legions of the already-born?

We live in a land of madness in a world of madness. And some who call themselves enemies of that madness just might be the maddest of all.

3 Chords & the Truth: Will DJ for heat

On a day like this, maybe I should have played Springsteen's "10th Avenue Freeze-Out."

But I'm not playing it. My brain was too dang cold to think of it at the time.

Everything's cold. Twenty-below cold. We rely on the warmth of hearth, furnace, wool cap and wonderful music -- like the tunes on this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth.

I will gladly share the warm fuzzies of the music. My wool cap, you cannot have.

ALSO ON this edition of the Big Show you'll find out how many good songs are in the Bible -- and we ain't talking church hymns or something by Sister Janet Mead. If you remember Sister Janet Mead and her Top-40 hit, you may be middle-aged.


ANYWAY, it's a fine show this go 'round; give it a listen. That's about it . . . my fingers are freezing up here and, at any rate, you can't type with gloves on.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

Shutting up the fools

Some people were hating on the trailer for the upcoming A-Team movie.

Of course, this called for someone to step up and be Mr. T. The following comment is all you need to know about the pending action-flick bliss coming to a cinema near you:

They just had a Tank fall out of an exploding plane and then proceed to -- while still in mid air -- blow up a fighter jet. I'm sorry, but that is f****** awesome.

Five months

Oh, how a mere five months (and a little bit) fly by.

Oh, what changes a mere five months can bring here on the Great Plains.

Above is the wheelbarrow garden bed in our back yard, as pictured July 28. Back then, it was in full flower despite the cooler-than-normal summer, and we were picking messes of mustard greens every week or two.

BUT ALL GARDENS come to an end, and both of ours were done by Oct. 10 (above). It was the first of many snows this fall and winter.

AND NOW, our little wheelbarrow garden bed as seen an hour or so ago. Yesterday's snow is blowing, and the mercury is dropping like a rock.

The forecast, according to Channel 7: Low tonight will be minus-13. High Friday will be minus-5. Low Friday night -- 23 below zero.

Once again, the pioneers were not wimps. Come to think of it, neither are we.

All right, let's go. Bundle up and git 'er done!

Must-see TV

Before we all repair to Lost Cove, Tenn., to await the apocalypse our culture is working itself up to -- because, of course, the center did not hold -- we can take a moment to watch this on our local public-television station when it comes out later in the year.

Because Walker Percy wasn't just a hell of a writer (and one of the last residents of my home state to make any damn sense), he was a prophet.

HAT TIP: Rod Dreher.

Stay South, young man!

Omaha, Nebraska -- a snowy hell.

Its citizens hang on to the tattered threads of their sanity as the wintry apocalypse proceeds apace. It's ice cold out. Worse than ice-cold out. It's worse than Greenland out. As cold as the South Pole out.

And it's snowing. It hasn't stopped snowing for a month now. Nearly 3 feet of the white plague is on the ground.

We're all going to die. But no one will find us until spring -- if it comes this year -- because we will have been drifted over. Goodbye, cruel world.

TAKE HEED, Californians! Listen up, Texans! If you are looking to escape the Sun Belt hell of your own making, this is not the place. We have hell of our own -- snowy hell.

If you come, you will freeze and die.

Take this friendly advice, you Southerners in search of Heartland charm and Midwestern wholesomeness. American Gothic froze over after Grant Wood died of frostbite. In other words, "Stay South, young man!"

Horace Greeley said that before he died of frostbite, too. And then his desiccated carcass was blown away by a tornado when June came around.

REALLY, you people don't want to come here. This land is only fit for hardy Nebraskans; we're used to this stuff.

The preceding message has come to you courtesy of the Keep Nebraska for Nebraskans Committee -- M. Favog, treasurer.

Brit Hume: Christian jihadist?

Poor Brit Hume.

The retired Fox News Channel anchor offers an opinion on a talk show -- an opinion that happens to be one of the least crazy things said on Fox in the last five years -- and all the usual suspects act like he's some kind of Jesus-y Osama bin Laden.

And what was this crazy opinion that threatens not only Western religious tolerance but liberal democracy itself? It was this:

Tiger Woods will recover as a golfer. Whether he can recover as a person, I think, is a very open question and it's a tragic situation with him. I think he's lost his family. It's not clear to me whether he'll be able to have a relationship with his children. But the Tiger Woods that emerges once the news value dies out of this scandal, the extent to which he can recover seems to me depends on his faith. He’s said to be a Buddhist. I don't think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So my message to Tiger would be, Tiger, turn your faith, to the Christian faith, and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.

WOW. If the republic cannot withstand a Christian going on television and saying (kinda awkwardly, actually) that he thinks poor, messed-up, ruined Tiger Woods might find solace, forgiveness and redemption in -- AAAIIIIIEEEEEE! -- Jesus Christ, you're looking at a country that not only won't survive but has no business surviving.

Especially when it's a country in which some faiths are more equal than others. I think it goes without saying that in the circles Keith Olbermann inhabits, a Muslim advocating for Muhammad would be just okely dokely. Even if it wasn't the preferred cup of tea for confirmed secularists.

I would wager that's because, when you get right down to it, the Keith Olbermanns and Dan Savages of the world are just culturally imperialistic enough to see Muslims as just "Other" enough (or perhaps as just primitive enough) to be utterly non-threatening, save the odd suicide bomber.

But Christians . . . there still are a lot of those in America, aren't there? And they're just a little too familiar -- one could be your next-door neighbor, for Madalyn Murray O'Hair's sake!

And if they all started taking that Jesus guy at His word -- and if they all actually started following His word -- why, the capitalist, materialist foundations of the modern consumerist-lemming state might crumble! And where would that leave MSNBC and its capitalist raison d'être?

Really, if people did as poor Brit Hume advised and started following the God, that might mean everybody couldn't be a god. And then Dan Savage not only would start to look as stupid and uncouth as he actually is, he'd also be out of business straightaway.

Which, ironically, probably would bring Olbermann and Savage to their knees.

HAT TIP: Our Sunday Visitor.

Spam by any other name. . . .

Newspapers and other dying media are contemplating a social-media strategy for getting advertisers' messages in front of consumer eyeballs.

They're eyeing Twitter, and they call the concept "paid tweets." But I think we all are familiar with the practice under a different name -- spam. Because if a publication's Twitter feed has a similar ratio of ads to "content" as the print product, what Joe Public is going to get in The Daily Blab's feed is upward of 60 percent advertising.

Ad Age can shade this anyway it wants, but when you take an advertiser's money, then use Twitter's infrastructure (on Twitter's dime) to clog up a captive audience's Twitter feed, that makes you a spammer. The only difference, in that case, between The Daily Blab and HootchieMama0896 would be that more of the audience would be more interested in the latter's wares (as opposed to "wears," which would be non-existent).

I MEAN, really:

When Kim Kardashian can ask $10,000 just for sending a marketer's tweet to her 2.8 million followers on Twitter, traditional news companies have to wonder whether they can cash in too.

Many news sites have successfully harnessed Twitter to distribute their stories and build their audiences, after all, but they aren't making money from news tweets yet. Now, though, early exploration is emerging from Los Angeles to New York to Montreal.
Paid-tweet purveyor Ad.ly, the 4-month-old Los Angeles startup, has pitched its services for the most obvious approach, inserting paid tweets among news tweets. So far the big takers are individuals such as Ms. Kardashian, but Ad.ly says major publishers are coming to the table, too.

The New York Times isn't ready to try paid tweets, despite nearly 2.3 million followers for its main Twitter feed -- heady enough territory to ape Ms. Kardashian if it wanted to. "We're taking a bit of a wait-and-see approach on that one," said Denise Warren, senior VP-chief advertising officer at The New York Times Media Group. "We want to be sure that audiences really understand the difference between the paid tweet and the real tweet."

Instead, however, The New York Times Online has started selling packages of ads that appear specifically for visitors who arrive through social media such as Twitter and Facebook. Advertisers can buy certain shares of such readers, typically around 25%, so a page receiving a million visitors via social media would show a participating marketer's ad to 250,000 of them.

The effort, begun last fall, is still too young to gauge. "I couldn't give you projections yet for what we think this is going to yield," Ms. Warren said, declining to identify advertisers that have bought the program. "What we've seen, like most publishers, is that there's more of an acceptance by marketers to embrace these kinds of tools. We're definitely seeing much more interest in these programs."

THE OLD MEDIA, as most anachronisms without a clue are wont to do, are looking for a cheap and dirty way to avoid fundamental change. Usually, that just leads to profound embarrassment before the inevitable -- and ignoble -- demise.

Yes, newspapers (and magazines, and broadcasters) need to find new ways to get the message -- and the ads -- in front of consumers' eyeballs (and ears). But that process is going to be a lot more involved than hijacking Twitter's bandwidth and, in the process, annoying the crud out of the public.

A d-d-d-d-day in the l-l-l-l-life

I saw a film today, oh boy.

The English army had just . . . taken a wrong turn, ended up in Omaha and froze solid.

Sorry, Your Majesty. Bad colonists!

YOU GO AHEAD and read what's in today's World-Herald. I'm going to put on another pot of hot tea and curl up into a fetal position:

Snowfall is forecast to resume tonight, with about 4 inches possible.
If you want to warm up, you might consider heading to northernmost Alaska; or to Thule, Greenland; or even Moscow.

None of those places was as cold Monday morning as Omaha.

Shortly after daybreak, the mercury plunged to 20 degrees below zero at Eppley Airfield.

And there's more chilling news ahead.

Winds are expected to pick up Wednesday afternoon, meaning blizzard conditions are briefly possible. Blowing snow could limit visibility for the Wednesday evening and Thursday morning rush hours.

After a slight respite today and Wednesday, dangerously cold conditions are expected to last until Saturday, according to the National Weather Service and AccuWeather, The World-Herald's weather consultant.

Once the arctic air arrives Wednesday evening, forecasters say, it's likely that temperatures won't rise above zero until Saturday. By Friday morning, wind chills could plunge to 30 below, or worse.

In places like Moscow, Thule, and Barrow, Alaska, the lows on Monday ranged from 10 below to 10 above zero. The forecast for Reykjavik, Iceland — highs in the 30s all week — looks like a walk on the beach compared to Nebraska and Iowa.

Oh! The wonders you'll see!

Is it just me, or has the new millennium been all about taking away free stuff we all took for granted, then putting a "digital" label on it and charging us a pretty penny to get back a convoluted version?

According to the Wall Street Journal -- whose "paywall" you can avoid here, thanks to the Scourge of Murdoch (a.k.a. Google) -- the next big thing is going to be watching local TV channels on "mobile devices."

Kind of like the one I got for Christmas . . . in 1970.

YOU THINK they'll call these tech wonders something really hip and cool . . . like "portable TV"? Or maybe Sony will make one of these new-fangled thingies and call it a "Watchman."

Watching live television broadcasts on mobile devices is common in some countries, but not the U.S. A new effort is taking shape to change that.

A group of broadcasters plans to use this week's Consumer Electronics Show to promote their plans to deliver news, sports, weather and other local content to users on the go. While cellphones are an obvious target, backers of the effort also expect users to receive local programming on laptop computers, portable DVD players and devices in cars.

Results may not come quickly, or easily. Competition for users' attention is stiff, including an array of on-demand video offerings for mobile devices as well as another mobile broadcasting network that is trying to build a U.S. audience.

DO TELL, how much of our dwindling income will we have to part with to acquire this "mobile TV" cornucopia of Oprah and Everybody Loves Raymond reruns?

The transition from analog to digital-only television broadcasts, completed last June, spurred the new effort. Compression technologies associated with digital transmission allow local broadcasters to offer high-definition TV service and still have extra channels for mobile services, too.

With most television viewers receiving signals over cable-TV or satellite services, backers see Mobile DTV as one way to keep a direct connection with viewers.

"We're looking five, 10 years down the road—how do we stay viable?" says James F. Goodmon Jr., a member of the coalition and vice president of Capitol Broadcasting Co., owner of station WRAL in Raleigh, N.C. "Last thing we want is to be behind the curve," he says.

(snip)

In South Korea, consumers since 2005 have watched television on cellphones using a technology called DMB, for digital multimedia broadcasting. Qualcomm Inc., the San Diego cellphone-chip maker, has lined up programming for a mobile broadcast service called FLO TV that is sold in the U.S. by AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone PLC. AT&T's service starts at $9.99 a month.

Though most FLO TV users purchase specially modified cellphones, Qualcomm plans to market a special device for receiving the broadcast service along with an $8.99 monthly service fee.

Brandon Burgess, chairman of the broadcasters' coalition, argues that FLO TV is too expensive. The coalition hopes to differentiate Mobile DTV with free local content.

Consumers also may be able to watch simulcasts of national programming carried by the networks, though rights to some content may have to be negotiated by broadcasters, the coalition says. Over time, premium services also may be added.

"Having premium content like ESPN available on a mobile device is great, but it's not our starting point," Mr. Burgess says. "We'll start with local broadcasts to try to educate consumers."

Mobile DTV requires new equipment for broadcasters, as well as new hardware for consumers. Among the products to be unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is the Tivit, an accessory from Valups Corp. that receives Mobile DTV signals and transfers them to devices that have Wi-Fi connections, including laptop personal computers or Apple Inc.'s iPhone. Pricing is expected to range from $90 to $120.

TRULY, an infinitesimal price to pay for such staples of local-broadcasting goodness such as Ken and Barbie Mangle the News, old Billy Mays infomercials and Live With Regis and Kelly.

I hope you feel blessed to live in a gilded age such as this.

Perhaps, if we're extra-special lucky, somebody will offer a "mobile live-audio entertainment" device so we can hear a real-time music guru thoughtfully putting together sets of music listeners might enjoy, then providing commentary about the songs and other miscellany.

And if we're super-duper extra-special lucky, it'll only cost us something like $29.95 a month.

This . . . is f***in' CNN

Note: R-rated language
Because we're stupid -- and getting stupider by the day -- alleged news operations like CNN figure the road to ratings success is best navigated by the short bus.

ANDERSON COOPER and alleged comedienne Kathy Griffin are the ones in the back seat, smoking cigarettes and throwing spitballs. Their New Year's Eve performance (a return engagement of the "fool me twice" variety) blessedly escaped my notice until now but, alas, did not elude the gaze of The Canadian Press:

For the second straight year, comedian Kathy Griffin ushered in the new year by saying something vulgar on CNN.

During the network's live New Year's Eve broadcast from Times Square, Griffin was joking with co-host Anderson Cooper about how to pronounce the first name of "balloon boy" Falcon Heene when she mumbled something that sounded a little like "Falcon" and a lot like the F-word.

Cooper hung his head, shook it and said "You're terrible," before resuming his banter.

The network said in a statement Friday that it "regrets that profanity was used during our New Year's Eve coverage."

During the same show a year ago, Griffin gleefully shouted at a heckler in the crowd and made a joke implying that the man performed gay sex acts for a living.

CNN REGRETS Kathy Griffin's F-bomb like Al Sharpton regrets the persistence of racism among Caucasians. But for foul-mouthed X-listers and white folk behaving badly, we'd be paying precious little attention to either.

Otherwise, how do you explain the "news" outlet putting Griffin back on the air, on New Year's Eve, after this last year (and, yes, note the "blue" language here, too):

3 Chords & the Truth: Aquarius redux

EDITOR'S NOTE: Your Mighty Favog is kicking back for a week, so he thought he'd start a New Year's tradition by reposting his favorite show of the previous year. For 2009, that would be the Woodstock 40th-anniversary show.

Favog doesn't know whether that was the best show of the year, but he knows it was the most fun to do. So, once again, let's travel back to the age of Aquarius . . . on the Big Show.

During the Age of Aquarius, Uncle Favog was the coolest cat I knew.

He drove the coolest VW microbus, he wore the coolest beads, and he had the coolest bell bottoms adorned with the coolest peace-and-love patches.

Uncle Favog protested the war, expanded his mind and got all the groovy chicks. And he played groovy music all night on Radio Free Omaha . . . master of his own fate (at least so long as he didn't cause The Man to come down on the station, bourgeois capitalist convention being what it was, man) and host of 3 Chords & the Truth.

This present 3 Chords & the Truth on the Internets is a tribute to that wonderful show of Uncle Favog's four decades ago on the FM airwaves.

Remember when FM was hip, cool, happenin' and now?

Didn't think you did.

ANYWAY, I was rummaging through a box of old reel-to-reel tapes, and I came up with this Big Show gem from 40 years ago this week. Anybody remember what was going on then?

Yeah, you may have seen the news stories featuring aging hippies remembering a certain "happening" in New York state. Uncle Favog, though, would not have been one of them.

Oh, of course he's an aging hippie, but he also was right here in Omaha, playing the musical "guru" as he spun the righteous tunes over the Radio Free Omaha airwaves.
Back in the day . . . when we had problems, but still held out hope, all the while groovin' to the music that could move our souls.

It was -- and is -- 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

Return of the Washington Bullets

Word on the grapevine is that the National Basketball Association is going to a new championship format this year.

Best-of-seven drive-by shootings.

I jest. I think.

FORTUNATELY for The Associated Press, however, its writers and editors don't have to make any of this s*** up. Because they couldn't.

Washington Wizards teammates Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton reportedly drew guns on each other during a locker-room argument over a gambling debt.

Law enforcement is investigating the presence of weapons in the locker room, and the league is not taking action now.

The Wizards said Friday they are cooperating with authorities and the NBA and “take this situation and the ongoing investigation very seriously.” The team had no further comment.

Arenas, a three-time All Star, tweeted Friday about the developments.

“i wake up this morning and seen i was the new JOHN WAYNE. ... Media is too funny,” he wrote.

About 2½ hours later, his tweet was more straightforward: “i understand this is serious..but if u ever met me you know i dont do serious things im a goof ball this story today dont sound goofy to me.”
The investigation into possible firearms in the locker room at the Verizon Center revealed the alleged Dec. 21 dispute between Arenas and Crittenton, Yahoo! Sports reported Friday, citing unidentified sources.

IS THERE anymore reason for any sports fan to take the NBA seriously? It's Rollerball with hoops and nets. It's a work-release program for athletically inclined offenders.

It's where college pimp-daddies send their top-flight talent when they've wrung all the cash they can out of "students" who write sentences like "i wake up this morning and seen i was the new JOHN WAYNE."

Oh, it's also a sign of cultural apocalypse. But that's not important now, is it?

Should old acquaintance. . . .

This is how the holidays roll in my city, Omaha.

Downtown, we have the Holiday Lights Festival. But at the Durham Museum in the old Union Station, you'll find the Mother of All Christmas Trees (above).

Yes, Omaha is an old railroad and cow town. Then again, that isn't -- and wasn't -- necessarily a bad thing.


THERE WAS grandeur in old cow towns, if only you looked for it. In Omaha, a good place to start was the fabulous art-deco Union Station.

And what's great about old railroad and cow towns all grown up is that, sometimes, we remember the grandeur in our midst and preserve it . . . restore it to its full measure.

Then, especially at Christmastime, we revel in glories past -- glories restored for the present and the future.

To many Americans on the coasts, cities like mine are "flyover country," hardly worth a mention or a thought.

Their loss.

THERE ARE many reasons to visit the Durham Museum all through the year -- in January, it's wrapping up a fantastic Smithsonian exhibit of the poster art of Nashville's Hatch Show Print from the past century.

It's not a poster show; it's the cultural history of the South and the country displayed through hand-set advertisements run off one by one on the printers' old letterpresses.

Ernest Tubb. Minstrel shows. Stock-car races. Johnny Cash. Porter Wagoner. Elvis Presley at the beginning.

But I digress.

THE REAL STAR at the Durham -- at the old Omaha Union Station -- when the cold wind blows and the days grow pitifully short . . . is Christmas. The whole holiday season, where the past is present and its glories point toward the future, too.

It's grand. It's parents introducing their children to the magic, and those children introducing their children to the magic some fine day when the present has faded into the rosy glow of "when I was your age."

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind ?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and old lang syne ?

For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we'll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
And surely you’ll buy your pint cup !
and surely I’ll buy mine !
And we'll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

Happy New Year.

Give me some peanuts and Cracker Jack

Old Rosenblatt Stadium ain't dead yet, but the family's thinking about the wake.

The wake, of course, will be the 2010 College World Series -- an oddity, being that the wake will precede the old baseball stadium's actual demise sometime in September, with the end of the Omaha Royals season.

MEANTIME, Omaha already can see the flashy downtown slickster that's going to replace the old girl in South O, starting with the 2011 CWS. At left is the view from 13th and Cuming streets of the new TD Ameritrade Park.

What's amazing -- at least to me -- is how quickly the site has gone from a Qwest Center Omaha parking lot to an excavation site . . . to this. "This thing really is gonna happen" quickly has gone from an intellectual exercise to a concrete-and-steel reality.


AND HERE'S the view from beyond what will be the right-field seats, while below is a close up of the work on the grandstands and luxury suites.

YOU KNOW, it's starting to look like a real city around these parts. Play ball!

In the year 2025 . . . will K-Yuck and the Daily Blab still be alive?

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

The past 10 years has been the decade of "disruptive technology."

And the easier the tech is for your average clod to use, the more disruptive it has been, is and will be in the decade to come. See "search engine, Google" and "iPod, Apple."

FROM A series that began Sunday in the Omaha World-Herald:

“In the year two thousaaaaaaand!”

That cry heralded one of Conan O'Brien's recurring late-night gags in the '90s, in which he listed ludicrous predictions of how the world would change in the new millennium.

In the year 2000, O'Brien said, political correctness would dictate that the term “homo-sapiens” be changed to “alternative lifestyle-sapiens.” Also, for no apparent reason, the color green would be renamed yellowy-blue.

Who could've guessed he wasn't being absurd enough?

Just 10 years ago, we lived in a world that didn't recognize the phrase “reality TV.” A world in which, for all we knew, Paris Hilton was a French hotel. It was a time before steroids killed baseball, before iPods killed CDs.

It's not just the simple stuff that's changed. Terrorism, war, political battles and financial struggle indelibly affected every aspect of our culture, even — or especially — the parts traditionally considered entertainment.

But the question is: What cultural elements will come to define the years 2000 through 2009?

(snip)

1. Google

You know what another good name for Google would be? The Internet's oxygen.

Google, the Internet search engine founded in 1998, is about as omnipresent as things get online — it's always around, it's absolutely essential, and like that odorless gas we breathe, its importance is pretty easily ignored if you're not paying attention.

Beginning with its fast, accurate and thorough search, the GooglEmpire (it's not a word, but it should be) has grown to include Google Maps, Gmail, Google Earth, Google News and endless other incarnations, innovations and creations.

Face it, it's Google's Earth. We just live on it.

2. iPod

It's a simple gadget, basically an empty — albeit pretty — hard drive and some white headphones. And yet, in just a few short years, Apple's iPod (first released in 2001) has staged a cultural coup and completely changed the way we listen to music.

As much a feat of marketing (joyous, bright musical commercials) and marketplace genius (iTunes, the most convenient music store ever) as it is beautiful hardware, the iPod forced the music industry to change its focus from albums to singles, and from CDs to online digital files. Two-hundred twenty-five million sold, and music may never be the same.

MAYBE I should revise my lede on this post. What if we only think the "noughts" have been the decade of disruptive tech? What if the first tenth of the 21st century only has set the table for the real disruption to come?

What if 2000-2009 has been high-tech's figurative working over of traditional media's midsection, with the odd jab here and there to newspaper's snout and broadcasting's swollen right eye?

And what if the next 10 years delivers the uppercut that finishes the job that started with the last 10 years of "softening up"?

Muhammad Ali, meet Steve Jobs.

Jobs, the brain behind Apple, bloodied and staggered radio and the record industry with the iPod and iTunes. And now, it looks like he's about to either save or kill off newspapers and magazines with Apple's long-rumored "tablet" computer.

Personally, I wouldn't even consider that Apple's tablet will save newspapers, but I mention the possibility because the analyst in the MSNBC video above did. He apparently has much more faith in traditional media's ability to embrace and adapt than I do.

DID I mention the age of tablet computing probably will be the death of radio, too? Just ask former radio man Jerry Del Colliano:

In my opinion when this device is debuted -- not if -- it will be the most successful consolidation of media ever -- far more successful than radio consolidation.

Apple will likely allow music, movies, email and web browsing. Some call it a potential Kindle killer because it is likely to compete in the book reader category that Amazon's Kindle has started.

This is purely out of the Apple playbook.

Let someone else test the market and they come in with a cooler, more intuitive device with a back structure that includes Apple's massive and growing iTunes store.

I've heard that the new device may also include a PDF reader making it a phenomenal choice for professional people (doctors, lawyers, disc jockeys -- sorry, I'm partial to radio djs) as well as an ideal replacement for student textbooks.

How popular do you think Apple will be if municipalities everywhere could stop ordering textbooks and have students access digital books through the iTunes store?

(snip)

Let me be blunt.

If radio is not actively engaged in iPad content, it is over even sooner than the ten year life radio has left.

Why?

Older consumers will also migrate to the iPad. They showed a willingness to embrace the next generation's new tools when they adopted email, texting, Facebook and iPods to name a few. This will be no different.

The new iPad will be their own personal media device. Their bookstore. Their TV.

And radio's answer to simply stream terrestrial audio won't work here. In fact, radio needs to get video. And I'm not talking about a studio cam aimed at the morning dj (if they still have one).

The iPad is something very exciting and the only industry that has talent in place to occupy that space is the one industry that is firing all its talent.

You know who.

The iPad will be bigger than the iPod and iPhone but for radio and the music business it will be the iPlop if they don't get into the future right.

AMEN.

What we have today -- and what already is wreaking havoc on traditional media -- are version 1.2 devices, essentially. An Apple tablet will be cheaper than a good laptop, as capable as a netbook (and far more capable than a Kindle), easier to carry around than a newspaper and will offer a far more compelling multimedia experience than an iPhone or other "smart phone."

It will be like jumping directly to a version 3.0 device.

Unfortunately, broadcasting and newspapers -- at least those still working in broadcasting and newspapers -- by and large are partying like it's 1999.

Watch out where the huskies go. . . .

Have a houseful of dogs, especially those of the yappy variety? Has your locality just been smacked good by a blizzard?

Are the drifts in your back yard deep enough for Fido to disappear into, never to be seen again . . . at least until spring?

Well, Bucko, Revolution 21's Blog for the People and 3 Chords & the Truth have the helpful hints you needed yesterday.

Follow your host, the Mighty Favog, as he shows off the Wintertime Canine Superhighway of Bidness Doing. All you need to keep your furry friends happy, dry and . . . alive . . . is a snow shovel and the basic knowledge one can gain from listening to Frank Zappa's 1974 album Apostrophe(').

AND ALL you need to remember is "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow":

Dreamed I was an Eskimo
(Bop-bop ta-da-da bop-bop Ta-da-da)
Frozen wind began to blow
(Bop-bop ta-da-da bop-bop Ta-da-da)
Under my boots 'n around my toe
(Bop-bop ta-da-da bop-bop Ta-da-da)
Frost had bit the ground below
(Boop-boop aiee-ay-ah!)
Was a hundred degrees below zero
(Booh!)
(Bop-bop ta-da-da bop-bop Ta-da-da)
And my momma cried:
Boo-a-hoo hoo-ooo
And my momma cried:
Nanook-a, no no (no no . . . )
Nanook-a, no no (no no . . . )
Don't be a naughty Eskimo-wo-oh
(Bop-bop ta-da-da bop-bop Ta-da-da)
Save your money: don't go to the show
Well I turned around an' I said:
HO HO
(Booh!)
Well I turned around an' I said:
HO HO
(Booh!)
Well I turned around an' I said:
HO HO
An' the Northern Lites commenced t' glow
An' she said
(Bop-bop ta-da-da bop . . . )
With a tear in her eye:
WATCH OUT WHERE THE HUSKIES GO
AN' DON'T YOU EAT THAT YELLOW SNOW
WATCH OUT WHERE THE HUSKIES GO
AN' DON'T YOU EAT THAT YELLOW SNOW

WELL, THAT'S ALL your fearless leader has for you right now, my children. So, until next time, this is Mighty (Nanook) Favog signing off.

I-I-I-I'm d-d-d-d-d-d-dreaming of a w-w-white C-C-Christmas

It's brutal out there -- a full-blown Plains blizzard.

So far, though, God's whole "Enough! Be still and be at peace" initiative through better meteorology is going OK this Christmastide. After a busy day posting the Christmas edition of 3 Chords & the Truth and shoveling the walk and driveway several times, I'm a good kind of tired and remarkably unstressed.

Maybe that's because the blizzard has taken away all the wild expectations surrounding the holiday. It has been stripped to its essentials . . . and so have our lives, for just these few days.

FOR US, at least, the rush to get presents wrapped, etcetera and so on, has been diminished. Holiday entertaining, too.

Today was a day of getting done what needed to be done, managing to get to Christmas vigil Mass while the getting was . . . possible . . . and then making a pot of our traditional Christmas Eve chicken-and-sausage gumbo for a late-night supper for two.

Even though the simple act of getting to Mass involved the driveway-shoveling equivalent of a forced march, it was all good. And the snowy drive to church, truth be told, fell under the category of Things Guys Like.

IN OTHER WORDS, a good challenge. And I don't think God minded that I showed up to Christmas Mass in snow boots and two pairs of sweatpants.

You don't shovel in finery, is what I'm saying.

But now it's really late, I'm exhausted, and it's time to go to bed. Tomorrow -- today now -- is another day, Christmas Day, when we will continue to be still as we scramble to beat back the elements howling outside the door. And suit up to shovel away enough drifts for the poor dogs to go outside and do what dogs do.

JUST CALL me Nanook of the North.

Merry Christmas from snowy, blowy Omaha, by God, Nebraska.

A blessed Christmas to all

O holy night! The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of Our dear Saviour's birth.
Long lay the world In sin and error pining,
'Til He appear'd And the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope The weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks A new and glorious morn.

-- John Sullivan Dwight

3 Chords & the Truth: Merry Christmas!

'Twas the day before the night before Christmas, when all through the house, the dogs were barking, which scared the dang mouse.


I've done the Big Show with the utmost of care, so at a mere click, 3 Chords & the Truth soon will be there.

The sleet and the snow are blowing, by Ned, while visions of chiropractors dance through my head.

And Bing in his sweater and Elvis in his leather, live again in tunes that fend off the weather.

I PUT ON a record and heard such a clatter . . . they're rocking around the tree, that's what's the matter! So to the hi-fi I ran like a flash, and turned the thing up for the big bash.

It's blowing outside on this white Christmas, but you can have your tropical isthmus. I'll take the cold and the wind and the snow, so long as I can just do the Big Show.

But it's time to stop with the useless chatter, it's music we need -- that's what's the matter. So I'll leave you 3 Chords & the Truth -- Yule cheer, Yule dance, Yule cry . . . just like a youth!

And as I leave you to shovel, here's a wish for 'ya -- that your Christmas is merry, and you'll "Be there. Aloha!"