Dying for sex

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No matter how we try and try, and then try again, to make ourselves into figurative tubs of Chiffon -- remember Chiffon? -- we crash and burn upon the rock-hard realities of "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature."

Oftentimes, this principle is demonstrated most starkly and tragically when it comes into conflict with the modern-day dogma of universal autonomy, which holds that "f***ing is an entitlement." NBC News unveiled the latest chapter of an interminable tale of hubris and woe this morning on Today (above) and on MSNBC:

Pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson may have known years ago about the deadly risks of its birth control patch Ortho Evra, according to internal documents obtained by NBC News.

Patient reports between 2002 and 2004 show that Ortho Evra was 12 times more likely to cause strokes and 18 times more likely to cause blood clots than the conventional birth control pill, NBC News' TODAY show revealed Wednesday.

When Ortho Evra first hit the market in 2002, it was a big hit. "Time" magazine called it one of the best inventions of the year and doctors have written nearly 40 million prescriptions for it. But as sales surged, so did claims of injury and even death.

Some experts say the patch is problematic because it delivers a continuous and high level of estrogen — 60 percent more estrogen than the pill. When a birth control pill is swallowed, it quickly dissolves into the system. But with the patch, estrogen keeps flowing into the bloodstream for an entire week.

"With the patch… there's no relief of the body of the woman from getting estrogen," Dr. Sidney Wolfe, Medical Director of watchdog group Public Citizen, told NBC.

Concern over the patch has led to high-level resignations at Johnson & Johnson.

In 2005, Johnson & Johnson Vice President Dr. Patrick Caubel suddenly quit, saying in his resignation letter, "I have been involved in the safety evaluation of Ortho Evra since its introduction on the market. … The estrogenic exposure [of the patch] was unusually high, as was the rate of fatalities."

His letter, which was obtained by NBC, said the research was "compelling evidence" that the company ignored. Therefore, he wrote, "it became impossible for me to stay in my position as VP."

NBC's investigation also found a lawsuit by another Johnson & Johnson vice president, Dr. Joel Lippman, who is suing the company for unlawful termination after he says he blew the whistle on the patch's dangerously high levels of estrogen, even before it came to market.

The company, he says, "disregarded his concerns and launched the product anyway."

"The company knew about much of it, if not all of it," said Dr. Wolfe. "They thought correctly that it wouldn't sell as well if you told people how dangerous it was."

NATURAL LAW isn't a popular concept in the postmodern West, but that doesn't make it any less valid. Everything has a purpose. Natural systems, and this includes Homo sapiens, have a certain economy.

Certain plants grow best within a certain environment, and humans thrive only within certain parameters -- physiologically, sociologically and morally. We don't want to hear this, however, because being fallen creatures, we want to do what we want to do.

(For that matter, we don't want to hear that we're fallen, either.)

And we'll find ways to deny the consequences of our doing exactly what we want to do. Which brings us into direct conflict with the one immutable reality of earthly existence -- "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature."


THERE WILL be consequences when you violate the law -- moral and physical. Most of them will be ugly.

In every instance, though, we're going to keep trying our damnedest (in every sense of "damnedest") to do just that. You see, in this sad case, we find that the corollary to "f***ing is an entitlement" is more important than the main point itself:

"Making billions of dollars off 'f***ing is an entitlement' is far greater entitlement than f***ing. And we'll kill you to do it."

Building empires upon the ether

In 1954, there was no brighter star on the Omaha broadcasting scene than Todd Storz' KOWH.

Back then, it was pioneering -- right here in the middle of the Middle West -- a revolutionary music format that we'd come, eventually, to know as Top-40. And everybody (or so it seemed back then) had his radio tuned to 660 on the AM dial.

KOWH was it. One KOWH contest back then had listeners searching for prize money hidden in a book at an Omaha Public Library branch. Station devotees ripped the branches -- and their books -- apart looking for the cash.

The compensation the station paid to the unamused librarians was a small price to pay for a big, big PR buzz.

Amazing stuff for a little AM station that had to sign off at sundown every day.

STORZ SOLD the little station that could in 1957. He, by now, had much bigger radio fish to fry -- 24-hour radio fish to fry -- in much bigger radio markets.

KOWH was never the same. In Omaha, the Mighty 1290 KOIL became the home of Top-40 goodness. Twenty-four hours a day.

And KOWH became KMEO. And then KOWH again. Before it was KOZN. And now it's KCRO, talking about Jesus all day long to a minuscule audience.

Jesus never gets the good formats . . . or the ratings.

Neither does 660 on your AM dial in Omaha. Because nothing lasts forever, and we're all tap dancing on thin ice.

Because it's cooler to make fun of the 'fundies'

And the question, says Carnac, is "Why are the Democrats going to lose it all?"

Seconds before tearing open an envelope bearing the question, the magnificent one had received an answer from the universal consciousness: "Because pointing out why the tea-party pol might be a crook is boring, and it won't make Democrats look cool to the bohos in SoHo."

Cue the jokes about the witch who refuses to conjure up self-love potions.

AS REPORTED in The Washington Times -- the Moonie-owned, right-wing Washington Times! -- here's the real toil and trouble allegedly bubbling in the tea-party darling's cauldron. It's a real witches' brew, and it's at risk of dematerializing amid the progressive snarkfest over the religious-right "freak":

In one of the strongest condemnations yet against the "tea party"-backed Ms. O'Donnell, the nonpartisan Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) Monday filed complaints with the U.S. attorney's office in Delaware and the Federal Election Commission accusing her of using campaign funds to pay for personal expenses and then lying about her expenditures on forms she filed with the FEC.

CREW has asked the U.S. attorney's office to start an immediate criminal inquiry and asked the FEC to conduct a full audit of all of Ms. O'Donnell's campaign expenses.

"Christine O'Donnell is clearly a criminal, and like any crook, she should be prosecuted," Melanie Sloan, CREW executive director, said in a written statement. "Ms. O'Donnell has spent years embezzling money from her campaign to cover her personal expenses. Republicans and Democrats don't agree on much these days, but both sides should agree on one point: Thieves belong in jail, not the United States Senate."

The O'Donnell campaign didn't respond to several telephone and e-mail requests for comment regarding CREW's accusations, but her campaign manager, Matt Moran, told CNN that he was "very confident that [the CREW accusations] will be dismissed as frivolous."

"And for the charges that need to be articulated fully, we have some lawyers that will be looking at that and addressing those concerns," he said.

PROVING THAT it's much better to be lucky than smart, the angry right is learning fast that with enemies like "progressives," who needs friends?

Mesmerized by Three Chord City

I know a place where me and you can go
Can't go too fast but we really shouldn't go too slow
It's just around the corner, all the gang'll be there
Don't have to dress too fancy cause nobody cares
Check your progressive chords at the door
'cause it's time to hit the floor.
Going to Three Chord City
I really want to take you there.

-- Three Chord City,
The Cold

If you want to know, I'm sick of 2010.

I think it's a crock of something. Rhymes with "fit."

I'm sick of the tea party. I'm sick of the Republicans. I'm sick of the Democrats.

I'm sick of the Great Recession, which they say is over . . . all except for everybody being out of work and all.

I'm sick of President Obama, and I'm even more sick of the people who hate him because he's supposedly a Nazi/socialist/Kenyan-not-American/godless/Muslim. Or "Muslin," according to one illiterate soul who must have been thinking of his wardrobe for the "political meeting."

I'M SICK of Fox. I'm sick of Drudge, sick of Rush, sick of Beck (Glenn, not the musician), and sick of the Internet, which is to paranoia what Miracle-Gro is to your tomato plants.

I'm sick of the fear, sick of the hate, sick of the posturing and sick of being sick. And I'm sick of feeling the need to tweet about how sick I am of it all.

In the immortal words of former LSU football coach Nick Saban during an unfortunate game at Virginia Tech some years back . . . well, I can't exactly repeat those words here.

So, if you don't see me around, I'm here.


IT'S 1981, and I'll be in Three Chord City with The Cold, the New Orleans new-wave band that shoulda hit it big but . . . didn't exactly.

"Going to Three Chord City; I really want to take you there."

The Red Scare: It's baaaaaack!

I was born into a world in the process of losing its . . . stuff.

We refer to this period of American history as the Red Scare. We were scared of Stalin -- and then Khrushchev -- over in the Soviet Union. We were scared of Castro in Cuba. We were scared of "infiltrator" Alger Hiss in the State Department.

The beatniks? Commies. Civil-rights "agitators?" Commies. Martin Luther King Jr.? Dangerous commie troublemaker. Race riots? Instigated by . . . commies.

The media were commies, college professors were commies, folk singers were commies, and the labor unions were commie through and through.

We were obsessed by The Bomb -- which we invented and first used -- because the commies had obtained it, too. In their nefarious, murderous Red hands, it was a weapon of mass terror.

In our hands, it was how God kept the world in line . . . and capitalism safe.

In the world of the Red Scare, rock 'n' roll was a communist plot -- the pinko sons of bitches invented the teenager, after all -- and Mick Jagger was the devil. (No, look at the man!)

HERE'S where we stood somewhere around 1963:




TODAY, the Soviet Union is no more. The Iron Curtain has fallen, and capitalism has seized the day. Even in "Red China." Markets are global, and the bankers really do have more money than God.

And the Red Scare is back.

Who is the Red Menace today? Well, I can tell you we seem to be quite concerned -- to put it mildly -- about the president of the United States. Who is a Kenyan Muslim communist tribesman (or something like that).

We likewise worry about the secretary of state, who's a fellow traveler. And the Justice Department. And, of course, we still get lower GI disturbances at the mention of those venerable pinko warhorses of modern history -- Castro, the media and the labor unions.

The Red Menace has been enshrined. It has ascended.

THEY TRIED to tell us in 1947. And 1957. And even 1967.

I guess we didn't listen.

Now it's up to tea-party members and other apoplexy victims like Glenn Beck -- he of the only non-commie TV channel out there, the Fox News Channel -- to lead the resistance. Lead the resistance against the government the commies and their fellow travelers TRICKED us into ELECTING in 2008.




ARE YOU STARTING to think you're seeing déja vu all over again?

Glenn Beck is to the Red Scare what the new Hawaii Five-O is to the old Hawaii Five-O, only with angry conspiracy theorists.

I withdraw that statement. The new Hawaii Five-O, I am told, has new scripts. The producers of the show aren't planning on a word-for-word rehash.

And nobody's trying to elect Dano to the U.S. Senate.

The frightening thing about this new Red Scare is the same frightening thing about the last one. The panicked, angry masses and their cynical zealots-in-chief are ready, willing and able to burn down this entire village in order to "save" it.

In their minds -- or at least in their tea-party rhetoric -- "socialism" is so God-awful that we ought to be willing to burn down the framework of constitutional rule and the civilizing influences of commonweal in order to protect a notion of "God-given" liberty that, in the fever swamp of the angry-mob mindset, comes out more like "Do what thou wilt . . . except what we don't like." And your mileage may vary.

"Communism" is so godless and evil that any extreme action to oppose it is not only justified, but perhaps mandatory. Ask J. Edgar Hoover.

LIKE THE paranoid times of my entry into this mortal coil, this present Red-baiting moment finds angry people making idols of what they see as the opposite of their devil. The "commie" devil.

If "socialism" is bad, doing away with all "government-run" programs and social safety nets must be good. If "welfarism" is bad, a laissez-faire dose of social Darwinism must be virtuous and right -- especially as we languish amid the worst economy since the Great Depression.

Not only that, but the Red Scare becomes cover for all our demons and prejudices. Civil-rights "agitators" were, back in the day, a bunch of America-hating Reds, after all. And kicking a man while he's down can be seen as some sort of virtuous act, because we all know that "social justice" and "social religion" are just snooty names for . . . communism!

Thus, condoning racism can be just another manner of expressing one's innate "Americanism." Ees thees gret country or vhat?

Commies bad. Saying the N-word 11 times straight on nationwide radio good, because you're just combating "political correctness."

Face it, when you're up against the Other, and the Other is a freedom-hating, pinko, commie godless Muslim, and you're fighting for your life -- literally, you've been told by that man on the television -- it's war.

And we all know what they say about love and war.

But that's OK. There are no atheists in foxholes -- especially not in this foxhole -- and the patriot surveys the carnage he has wrought upon civil society and the body politic, and he is at peace in the knowledge that God is on his side.

How to make your dog go nuts . . . WOOF!

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Stay!

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Good boy! Good girl!

Almost -- BAAAAAAAAAWK! -- heaven

"It's 3 a.m. Announcers, do you know where your mynah birds are?"

Why yes, mine is right here, mimicking the Conelrad alert tone. If this were an actual Russian air raid, your announcer's feathery friend would not be saying "Hey, good looking! Give Cletus some bird seed!"

It's July 7, 1958, in Charleston, W.Va.

Louisiana: The state it's in

Here's some good ol' Cajun cooking for you.

It's a popular dish where I come from, and it's taken from the perennial cookbook, Louisiana: Recipe for Disaster. And here's how you make Endemic Toxic Stew:

-- Take 300 years of a deviant civic culture out of the bayous of Louisiana. Check to make sure the tolerance of corruption and the get-rich-quick scheme has ripened sufficiently.

-- Add a significantly uneducated and compliant population.

-- Make a roux with BP crude oil and contaminated sediments.

-- Simmer in a cracked pot for many generations in befouled water over tropical heat.

-- Add oil- and dispersant-contaminated seafood. (If you desire, add a number of Louisiana state deadheads for a more robust flavor.)

-- Season to taste with complacency, corrupt politicians, waste, incompetent government and a Gallic shrug.

-- Serve with dirty rice, cancer sticks and too much booze.

(Makes enough to serve as many legislators' brothers-in-law as possible. Serves fewer "unconnected" citizens every year. Eat at your own risk.)

Submitted by WVUE television in New Orleans

Musical youth

Just sittin' here thinkin' early on a Sunday morning. And for no particular reason, here's a brief timeline . . . of my musical youth.

1966: "Dem goddamn Beatles say dey bigger den Jesus Christ. Dey muss be a bunch a commerniss."

I am 5 and easily bullied by parental units. Original copy of "Meet the Beatles' given to me by Aunt Sybil ends up busted up and pitched into the garbage as some sort of religious act. As opposed to . . . going to church?

1966-67: Take to playing the phonograph in the 1949 Silvertone console, cutting musical teeth on old 78s by Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five, Ivory Joe Hunter, Hank Williams and (yes) Elvis Presley (quite rare, as it turns out). Burn through vintage 45s by the Everly Brothers, Elvis (again), Jerry Lee Lewis, The Kingston Trio, et al.

Unfamiliar enough with the concept of "irony" not to appreciate it in the context of what I've just been listening to from my folks' 1940s and '50s records as compared to their rants about "n****r music."


1971: "C'mon Mama, it's the Carpenters. The Carpenters ain't hippie music."

"Oh, all right."


1971: Out at camp in Head of Island, stay awake half the night under the covers, earphone in ear, listening to acid rock on the "Chad Noga Choo-Choo" on Rampart 102 in New Orleans.

1972: Score 45s by Joe Tex, Dr. Hook, Edgar Winter Group and Gallery, among others, at Howard Bros.


1973: Score 45s by George Harrison, Paul Simon, Billy Preston, Wings, Clarence Carter, Dobie Gray, Elton John and Three Dog Night, among others, at TG&Y.

Have a knack for winning stuff on the phone from WLCS.

1975: Divide listening time between WLCS and Loose Radio.

1976: Skip lunch a lot to spend lunch money on LPs. All "hippie music."

Regular midnight announcement from parents' bedroom -- "CUT THAT S*** OFF!"


SUMMER 1977: "It's the Sex Pistols. So what?"

FALL 1977: Radio teacher John Dobbs bans from the WBRH airwaves (and confiscates) the copy of "God Save the Queen" my Aunt Ailsa brought back from London that summer -- just as I begged her to. I get my 45 back after promising never to bring it to school again.

Thus ends the last time ever that Baton Rouge was a trendsetter.

NOVEMBER 1977: Special trek to Musicland at Cortana Mall to buy "Never Mind the Bollocks." Lustily sing the chorus to Bruce Springsteen's "Badlands" while playing air guitar.

For the ones who had a notion, a notion deep inside
That it aint no sin to be glad you're alive
I wanna find one face that aint looking through me
I wanna find one place, I wanna spit in the face of these Badlands
You got to live it every day
Let the broken hearts stand
As the price you got to pay
We'll keep pushing till it's understood
And these badlands start treating us good

1979: Find now-rare "fire cover" of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Street Survivors" (complete with concert-schedule insert) hiding in the bins of the little-visited Sears record department. Also find "Let It Be" with a rare red-apple label.

1980: Finally get around to replacing that copy of "Meet the Beatles."

40 years ago today

Forty years gone, Jimi Hendrix is today.

I think of what could have been. And what never was.


A year before, however, we see what was in this appearance on The Lulu Show on the BBC.

You take what you have left, you know? Especially after 40 years.

We leave you now with this 1969 appearance on The Dick Cavett Show:

Alone with her thought

Such is life for Molly the Dog, ensconced -- as usual -- in the Big Blue Chair in the living room.

As you can see, things haven't changed much since July.

1959: TV 's marching through Georgia

They got a name for the winners in the world
I want a name when I lose
They call Alabama the Crimson Tide
Call me Deacon Blues

-- Steely Dan

From the June 29, 1959, edition of Broadcasting magazine, we have printed evidence that the 1950s were a strange era, and stranger yet south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

I can understand mythologizing a lost rebellion in defense of a discredited institution and exploitation as a way of life -- I am from the Deep South, after all. I suspect people in the Balkans understand this primal impulse as well.

WHAT I'M more loathe to understand is the use of the Lost Cause and a catastrophically failed military adventure as fodder for an advertising campaign . . . one ostensibly intended to convey the notion that you're conquering a market and winning sales for your advertisers. I mean, really?

For a TV station in . . . Georgia?

Why not just bang out some ad copy along the lines of this?

We're WRBL -- Wee ReBeL in Columbus -- and our half-starved, underequipped (and underage) advertising staff is going to run out of ammunition right when you need it most and let your competition blaze through Georgia just like Sherman's army!

WELL, maybe it sold some fried chicken for Lester Maddox up in Atlanta.

Probably all catering jobs for Klan rallies.

I wish I had grown up in Omaha . . .

. . . because, in Baton Rouge, Dr. Shock never could have gotten away with what Dr. San Guinary did in Omaha.

Masturbatory politics: Losing never felt so good

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Scratch many "progressives," and what you'll find is . . . Glenn Beck tripping on Viagra.

Replace the "Ground Zero imam," Feisal Abdul Rauf with Christine O'Donnell, the Republicans' nominee for U.S. Senate in Delaware, and you basically have folks like Media Matters and MSNBC's Rachel Maddow doing Glenn Beck's schtick -- just not quite so craziliciously well as Beck does it.

O'Donnell is a tea-party candidate. She has Sarah Palin as a patron. She has a financially checkered past, with allegations of lying, hypocrisy and cheating former campaign workers thrown in for good measure.

That's a lot for a liberal to work with, politically.

SO WHAT do "progressives" think O'Donnell's Achilles' heel is? She's against masturbation.

Well, so is the pope. It's called Catholic moral theology. In fact, lots of Christians are foursquare against pleasuring oneself, and fornication of all sorts. So are Muslims.

But you don't see Maddow, or Media Matters -- or, in fact, any other "progressive" voice -- crying out against Muslims' horrible intolerance of whacking off. What you instead hear is a cacophony of "progressive" voices condemning the likes of Beck, Newt Gingrich and all manner of tea-party nutjobs for their bigotry toward American Muslims.

You hear them condemning the intolerant right for holding Muslims, and their faith, in the same sort of contempt "progressives" reserve for the long-established, orthodox Christian approach to sexual ethics.

Americans, it seems to me, might take the left's pleas for tolerance a lot more seriously if "progressives" weren't such contemptible hypocrites.

Piyush 'em back! Piyush 'em back! Waaaaay back!

If what René Descartes said is true -- "I think, therefore I am" -- does it follow that morons are an endangered species?

If so, say goodbye to Louisiana which, during tough times, will give away the fiscal farm to land an iron- and steel mill as it systematically starves higher education and research.

The latest blow to what passes for intellectual capital in the state came Wednesday, when we found out what it would mean to LSU if it cut $12 million less than what state budget officials asked it to plan for. What it would mean is carnage.

Job carnage.

Academic carnage.

Student carnage.

Enrollment carnage.

And, ultimately, economic carnage for Baton Rouge and the rest of Louisiana.

YOU KNOW what, though? Any state that sows the kind of carnage on its flagship university described in this Advocate story today deserves every bad thing it will reap:

LSU would axe nearly 700 employees and lose close to 8,000 students if forced to cut about $62 million from the flagship campus’ coffers next year, according to an LSU estimate.

The hypothetical budget cuts released late Wednesday are part of a state-mandated, budget-cutting exercise of higher education and other state agencies in preparation for the loss of federal stimulus dollars and some state revenues next summer.

The $62 million represents about 32 percent — reduced from 38 percent by the state — of state general funds and stimulus dollars going to the flagship LSU campus.

Higher education statewide would lose nearly $437 million.

“It would be a catastrophic impact,” LSU Chancellor Michael Martin said. “The (academic) core would be seriously harmed.”

In July, LSU released a budget scenario featuring $45.8 million in cuts and the loss of more than 260 jobs.

The additional $17 million cut in the latest scenario almost all comes directly out of classrooms and the faculty ranks, increasing the amount of lost jobs all the way up to 690, nearly 630 of which are currently filled.

About half of the hypothetical layoffs would be faculty.

AT THIS RATE, we need to start calling Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal by his given name, Piyush. As in "Piyush the state right off a cliff, gubna!" LSU's student paper, The Daily Reveille continues the tale of a state's intellectual deleveraging:

If the scenario becomes reality, then 154,299 undergraduate credit hours and 31,506 graduate credit hours will be eliminated.

Chancellor Michael Martin said he doesn’t know the likelihood of the cuts materializing because the projections were created at request of the state.

“If it actually came to pass, it would be catastrophic,” Martin said. “The very conversations we’re having will do some harm because the conversation causes people to look for other jobs elsewhere.”

Among Wednesday’s predictions, the University did not specify what faculty and departments would suffer, but it did announce general material effects.

“Roughly 50 degrees will be lost, impacting approximately 8,000 students, almost one-third of degree programs,” according to reduction descriptions prepared by the Budget Crisis Committee. “Diversity in career opportunities will be severely limited; campus buildings will be closed.”

Martin said residence halls, dining halls, classrooms and labs would be closed because fewer faculty and students require fewer facilities. Martin did not mention any specific buildings.

The Level Three description also indicated revenue from grants, contracts and tuition will suffer from the cuts, and a reduction in the student population will have a “dramatic impact on the viability of auxiliary units such as athletics, residence halls and the Student Union.”

Martin said the budget cuts will have a cyclical effect, and the University hasn’t even looked into the future effects of losing so many faculty and students.

“How many hamburgers wouldn’t be sold, how many gas stations wouldn’t sell?” Martin asked. “Just start thinking about the multiplier effect of that number of jobs lost and the spending in the community. This will reverberate not just in this campus, but across the community and the state.”

Martin said the effects among degree programs will be severe. While some students will simply change their majors if their degrees are cut, many students will transfer or not come to the University, Martin said.

“No matter how you cut this, you’re going to be forcing upon the students an education of lesser value,” Martin said. “A university has to have a certain breadth, hence the term university and not ‘monoversity.’ It will not only be a much narrower institution, it will be a much more mediocre one.”

"MUCH more mediocre?" Why, that sounds right up Louisiana's alley!

Because if it follows that stupid is as stupid does, then the Gret Stet will keep Piyushing until it's the most mediocre of 'em all. And when you're good at bad, that ain't good.

GOP belles party like it's 1862

How do Republican women pass a good time when they have their national convention in Charleston, S.C.?

Oh, something along the lines of a Kappa Alpha nightmare at a Southern college. Only when I was a student at LSU, I don't remember hearing that the frat-boy Old South devotees actually stooped to hiring "happy darkie" minstrels for any of their ridiculous Lost Cause formals.

Then again, I could have missed something. The Republican belles of Charleston, however, didn't miss a thing.

By "miss a thing," I mean miss a single opportunity to be as clueless and offensive as humanly possible.

The National Federation of Republican Women called the social event "The Southern Experience," according to South Caroline political website FITSnews.com. The rest of the country calls it "What the hell were you thinking?"

OBVIOUSLY, they were thinking it's 1862. And that they used to be Democrats . . . before they seceded and declared war on the United States.

Because they wanted to defend their "peculiar institution."

Which would be slavery.

That unavoidably adds a certain ominous je ne sais quoi to what NFRW President Sue Lynch (no, really . . . you can't make this stuff up) said in the call for its national meet:

This Fall Board Meeting has an exciting agenda. With election season upon us, it is vital that we continue to support Republican candidates who will bring our country back to the core values and principles that we hold dear. Let’s work together to Take Back America this November! We have already begun to see a shift in our direction, with outstanding and competitive primary races across the nation that prove that Americans are ready for a change.
This is our opportunity to regain control of the House and Senate, as well as important Governorships, and we are ready for the challenge! This Board Meeting will give us the opportunity to get focused and energized for the months ahead, and provide us the tools we need to be successful in November.

I welcome you to what will be a productive and exciting Board of Directors’ Meeting. This election cycle is critical, and we must take the tools and knowledge we gain here and use them to reach our goal — to Take Back America!

TAKE BACK America from whom? And taken back by whom?

That a major GOP organization will go down to the heart of the Confederacy and play along with Lost Cause homages to America's original sin -- a traditional "ode to evil" favored by a certain sort of in-denial Southerner -- makes those questions tragically pertinent.

Holy crap.

LSU: 'It's toast(ed)'

Once again, the first episode of Mad Men explains everything. Or at least many things.

Take the new marketing campaign of my college alma mater, Louisiana State University.

The university -- and I assume we can still call it a university for now -- has taken grievous budget hits over the past 20 months or so as Louisiana continues to slash its bloated budget . . . in all the places it cannot afford to slash. As it turns out, the $42 million in cuts is just a warm-up for the $75 million butchering the state demands it outline by today.

And now, with all this going on, LSU is trying to figure out how to sell a shell of its former self . . . which, frankly, already was puny compared to many state universities around the country. They're calling it "Love purple, live gold."

In other words, university leaders are rolling out a new ad campaign designed not only to use purple prose to spray paint a dessicated turd gold, but also convince prospective students all over America to take a big bite out of what just might hurt their post-collegiate prospects.


NO, REALLY. After reading this story in The Daily Reveille, the LSU student newspaper, I'm thinking they better have found someone as sharp as Don Draper to sell a suspecting public the academic equivalent of cancer sticks:

People often associate budget cuts with the University, but administrators are looking to create a new, hopeful image to brand the University: “Love purple, live gold.”

Herb Vincent, University associate vice chancellor for University Relations and senior associate athletic director, said the campaign was focused on the color gold, which represents excellence, achievement and prestige.

“Purple, passion — we love what we do, and we’re excited about research. Band is excited about sporting events,” said Jewel Hampton, University art director, who coordinated task force efforts for the campaign. “Gold is about hitting the gold standard of excellence. It’s more focused on presenting who we are to prospective students.”

In such a difficult economic time, Vincent said it’s difficult but necessary to brand the University with a new image now.

“The campaign is mostly about who LSU is and trying to define LSU based on the community that makes up this University,” Hampton said. “In that sense, the challenge we have in communicating for LSU every day is this private market of 16- to 20-year-old prospective students.”

Chancellor Michael Martin said it’s an ideal time to brand the University with a new message.

“People are trapped with old images and old phrases,” Martin said. “[The new campaign] is to recognize the place is always changing.”

Martin said once people mull over “love purple, live gold,” they’ll reflect on what it means to them.

“To me, if you embrace and invest yourself here, you’ll live better as a result of it,” Martin said. “Invest in a great education experience, and every part of life will be enriched.”

"AND YOU KNOW what happiness is? Happiness is . . . a billboard on the side of the road that screams with reassurance that whatever you're doing, it's OK."

Crazy loves company

Move over, David Duke.

Company's coming . . . from way up yonder in New York state.

And now the Gret Stet of Louisiana -- infamous for almost electing a neo-Nazi nut two decades ago -- can muster enough people for some kind of crazy-politician 12-step meeting.

After which, of course, the Bubbas from Louisiana and the angry white suburban people from New York will go to a Nazi biker bar to solve the problem of the Black Menace. Or the Mexican menace.

Whatever.

HERE ARE the details from The New York Times on how -- if there is a God -- things are looking a little brighter for the Obama Administration tonight, what with all the tea-party victories in all those Republican primaries. (It's not that I'm thrilled with Barack Obama, it's just that the alternative is soooooo much worse.)

Carl P. Paladino, a wealthy Buffalo businessman and political neophyte, won a stunning victory over his rival, former Representative Rick A. Lazio, in New York’s Republican gubernatorial primary on Tuesday night.

The victory for Mr. Paladino, whose agitating campaign strategy and attacks against Albany earned him a late surge in the polls, marked the second major triumph on Tuesday night for the Tea Party movement, which backed the businessman against Mr. Lazio, a dyed-in-the-wool Republican mainstay.

The result was a potentially destabilizing blow for New York Republicans. It put at the top of the party’s ticket a volatile newcomer who has forwarded e-mails to friends containing racist jokes and pornographic images, espoused turning prisons into dormitories where welfare recipients could be given classes on hygiene, and defended an ally’s comparison of the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, who is Jewish, to “an Antichrist or a Hitler.”

Taking America back!

Are you suffering from a Jimmy Carteresque "malaise"?

Are you experiencing discomfort of the lower gastrointestinal tract brought on by excessive exposure to conservative talk radio? Did watching Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin at the Lincoln Memorial have the same effect on your system as Colon Blow -- the tasty cereal with all the prunes and twice the fiber?

Is John Boehner's tan making you a little queasy, Bunkie?

Have you had it with "socialists" . . . and "patriots"? And wasn't it you who swore she saw Keith Olbermann's head do a complete 360 during a "special comment"?

Is that what's getting you down, ma cher 'tit fille?


WELL, BUBBELA . . . you're looking at the answer. Right here. Right now.

It's simple. We can cure what ails us -- and "take America back," too -- by convincing the networks to adopt a simple format change for various talking-head programs, which tend to attract a high proportion of policy wonks and policymakers.

And I have reason to believe it would lead to an exponential increase in viewing audiences for broadcasters and cable networks, which itself would prove attractive to them in a Diana Christensen kind of way.

Three words, Sweetums: the Farm Film Report. (Don't count the "the.")

Just adopt the Farm Film Report format for Meet the Press, This Week, Face the Nation . . . and every program on the Fox News Channel.

OVER ON CNN, Larry King Live would become a deliciously ironic title. And -- at long last -- we'd get to see MSNBC's Keith Olbermann really blow his top.

Think about it. Write a letter to the network. Start a petition.

I'll get back to you. Don't call me . . . I'll call you.