Showing posts with label Omaha World-Herald. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Omaha World-Herald. Show all posts

Monday, October 08, 2012

Yep, this is Bo's team, all right




You know how a football team ostensibly takes on the personality of the head coach?

Well, I think this little moment at Saturday night's 63-38 Husker implosion at Ohio State explains a lot -- about both the personality thing and why Nebraska's big-game meltdowns just keep coming and never get fixed. Long story short, this is Bo Pelini's team, and Bo's boys are just as clueless as their coach.

Who, for pity's sake, goes out on the field to warm up while the marching band is still playing . . . and marching? 

Who in the world takes the field to practice field goals when the Buckeye marching band is doing the sacred "Script Ohio" to close its halftime performance?

Who, for the love of Johnny Rodgers, is that clueless? Or maybe arrogant? Or, most likely, arrogantly and willfully clueless?


Bo's boys.

WHAT'S a little interfering with your opponent's most revered tradition on its home field when your coach can say this about the hiring of Nebraska's new athletic director: "You know, I've been concentrating on Ohio State. I don't know anything about that."

No, why should Bo know anything about that after serving on the chancellor's AD-search advisory committee? More importantly, though, what kind of clueless idiot fails to even fake some sincere enthusiasm for the guy who will have the power to fire his underperforming self?

That would be Bo Pelini. I'm a little surprised it took the Omaha World-Herald's Lee Barfknecht until this morning to put in print what Husker fans have been saying since Clueless Bo stepped in it Thursday afternoon.



I SWEAR, letting that man in front of a live microphone is like handing Barney Fife a loaded gun. Or letting Bo's boys on the field for a big game on national TV. Or, for that matter, letting 'em anywhere near Ohio Stadium when the Buckeye band is practicing its scarlet-and-gray penmanship.

"Look, Daddy! Teacher says every time a gunshot's fired, one of Bo's boys needs a new pair of shoes."

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Men in suits do what Katrina couldn't


You'll likely never notice the moment you were saved from the abyss -- or were cast into it.

For a couple of cities and their daily newspapers, that moment came in 1962. And a half century later, the
Omaha World-Herald is still standing, still locally owned and the flagship of a chain of dailies and weeklies across Nebraska and -- now -- across the country.

The other newspaper,
The Times-Picayune of New Orleans, has not been so fortunate. In 1962, what had been locally owned since its founding in 1837 (cover price, one picayune) became part of Newhouse Newspapers, a division of S.I. Newhouse's Advance Publications. And now the New York-based corporation has decided New Orleans doesn't need a daily newspaper anymore. Or the Alabama cities of Birmingham, Huntsville and Mobile, either.

Instead, the
Picayune, for one, will publish only three times a week -- Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Speculation is that at least 50 people in the newsroom will lose their jobs. That's what it means when spin like this comes down from on high:
Amoss acknowledged that for those who rely upon the newspaper as an integral part of their lives, the transition to three days a week would be difficult. But as emphasis in coverage moved online, he vowed that the essential journalism of The Times-Picayune would endure.

"We will continue our 175-year commitment to covering the communities we serve," Amoss said. "We will deliver our journalism in print, through NOLA.com and on our mobile platforms 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and we invite our readers to become a part of the conversation."

Mathews said details of the new digitally focused company are still being worked out, but the transition will be difficult. While many employees will have the opportunity to grow with the new organization, Mathews said, the need to
reallocate resources to accelerate the digital growth of NOLA Media Group will result in a reduction in the size of the workforce.
"ESSENTIAL journalism" does not endure when you fire dozens of the people who produce it. And you cannot "reallocate resources" that you have just discarded like yesterday's newspaper.

"Yesterday's newspaper." That pretty much describes
The Times-Picayune now.

Instead, what New Orleans will get come autumn is less news on a crappy website. What the city will receive three times a week in print is less news reported by fewer local journalists.

Corporate may or may not try to put a little lipstick on that particular pig, but if Advance follows the path it trailblazed in Ann Arbor, Mich., it will end up just cutting the pretense and butchering the pig. Like Ann Arbor, that would leave New Orleans as a no-newspaper town.

With a crappy website.


I WAS born in south Louisiana, grew up there, too -- in Baton Rouge. I grew up reading the State-Times and later worked there for a while.

But when I was in junior high and high school, most days I would hop on my bicycle (or into my old man's '67 Mercury) in the evening, go down to Villa Oaks grocery store and pick up an afternoon
State-Times . . . and a New Orleans States-Item . . . and the old gray lady of the bayou morning, The Times-Picayune. From them, I learned about the world.

And from them, I learned what little I know about writing. It was an ink-stained apprenticeship of a fashion.

I had been married for the better part of a decade and had lived in Omaha for three years already when the
State-Times died 21 years ago, and it broke my heart. I had always considered it the better (and livelier) of Baton Rouge's newspapers -- for whatever that is worth -- and I know the city is diminished by the loss of its voice, and by the loss of the internecine journalistic free-for-all with its sister publication, the Morning Advocate . . . now just The Advocate.

As I contemplate a struggling, rebuilding New Orleans without the Picayune -- having only a crappy website and whatever the hell the "print edition" is going to be -- I find myself thinking there but for the grace of Peter Kiewit goes Omaha. That's Peter Kiewit's picture above.

In October 1962, as America endured the nuclear brinkmanship of the Cuban Missile Crisis, newspaper titan S.I. Newhouse offered $40.1 million for the World Publishing Co., then-owner of the Omaha World-Herald. The board of directors liked the money, and the deal was almost done.

Kiewit, president of Peter Kiewit Sons', Inc., the family construction business, didn't like anything about what he had read in the
Wall Street Journal. The World-Herald deal, as opposed to the Cuba thing.
During an Oct. 12, 1962, layover at the Denver airport, Kiewit learned from a story in the Wall Street Journal that his hometown newspaper was about to be sold to New York publisher Samuel I. Newhouse.

World-Herald directors were willing to sell the paper to prevent the stock, largely held by heirs of founder Gilbert Hitchcock, from being diffused.

Four days later, Kiewit called a friend, banker W. Dale Clark, who also was chairman of the newspaper board, and asked to see the newspaper's balance sheet. Clark told Kiewit that the board had a buyer and was satisfied with the offer.

The newspaper's directors weren't interested in other offers, Clark told Kiewit, who later said he realized Clark felt a moral obligation to Newhouse.

But Kiewit persevered. Unknown to him at the time, Kiewit had a strong ally in his wish to keep The World-Herald in local hands. Martha Hitchcock, widow of founder Gilbert Hitchcock, felt strongly that ownership should remain in Omaha.

Kiewit spent nine days gathering the financial information he wanted. He was impressed with what he found.

Kiewit called Clark again on Oct. 26, saying he had the necessary information.

"Fine," Kiewit later quoted Clark as saying. "You had better come down and see me.''

Two days later, Kiewit and company colleague Homer Scott met World-Herald directors in an all-day Sunday meeting.

Monday night, Kiewit worked out an offer of $40.4 million. Newhouse's bid was $40.1 million.

Tuesday morning, Kiewit was the owner.
HAD KIEWIT hated the idea of his hometown paper being run from a New York office any less, the name of the World-Herald's anniversary website -- 125 Years and Counting -- might sound rather mordantly ironic about now.

Kiewit, who died in 1979, understood what few in business or the public understand today: Newspapers are not just another business. Newspapers are in the business of earning more dollars and cents than they spend, yes . . . but they also are in the business of community. And the business of democracy. And the business of education. And the business of accountability.

When a newspaper -- whether it appears in printed form every day or not -- is diminished, as Advance Publications proposes to diminish the Times-Picayune and its other Southern papers, it's never just the newspaper's light that grows dimmer. There will be vitally important stories in New Orleans that won't get told now.

There will be vital information that New Orleanians won't get, and good decisions won't be made because of that. Corruption will become even easier in the Crescent City, because there will be dozens fewer journalists keeping vigil over the public's funny business.

And a city that loves its traditions will be at a loss over the radical wreckovation of a big one in town.

I guess New Orleans just hasn't suffered enough, what with all the crime, killing, poverty, ignorance, corruption . . . and Katrina.

FINALLY, let's not even get into the foolhardiness of Advance putting all the Picayune's eggs -- this in the age of foundering Facebook IPOs and a soft online-advertising market -- in a highly uncertain digital basket.

Obviously, there are good ways to make money in the digital universe. There are ways for newspapers to profit online. I just don't trust the Picayune's corporate masters to look for them . . . or to look much beyond the shaky Internet-advertising model.

What could go wrong?

In New Orleans? Pretty much everything. And today, as a newspaper's employees and its city stare into the abyss, it's becoming clear who gets to pay S.I. Newhouse's bill from May 1962 that just came due.

Here in Omaha, I think it would be appropriate if the employees of the Omaha World-Herald -- and the citizens of the city it calls home -- spring for a giant spray of flowers for Peter Kiewit's grave, God bless him.

Monday, October 10, 2011

How to be publicly pissed off


You're a head football coach. You have a beef with a member of the fourth estate.

And
boy howdy are you pissed.

Listen, it's not just that somebody wrote a column you didn't like. It's not even that somebody questioned your manhood in print.

That's just sticks-and-stones stuff. For the smart coach, that's no big whoop.


ON DEC. 1, 2007,
though, Kirk Herbstreit of ESPN erroneously reported that LSU's Les Miles was about to jump ship to his alma mater, Michigan. In hours, Miles and his Tigers were going to play Tennessee for the SEC championship and a slot in the national-championship game.

And then this:
A source has told ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit that barring any unforeseen circumstances, Michigan will announce early next week it has reached an agreement with LSU coach Les Miles to be its next head football coach.

Herbstreit is also reporting that Miles will make Georgia Tech defensive coordinator and interim head coach Jon Tenuta part of his staff at Michigan.

Miles, who played at Michigan and served two stints as an assistant under the late Bo Schembechler, will succeed Lloyd Carr, who stepped down after the Wolverines' loss to Ohio State last month.

Miles has been head coach at LSU since 2005. LSU is 32-6 with Miles at the helm, including 22 wins in his first 26 games as coach, and won 11 games in 2005 and 2006. The No. 7 Tigers (10-2), whose two losses this season both came in triple overtime, will play Tennessee in the SEC Championship Game on Saturday.

Miles also coached at Oklahoma State, posting a 28-21 record between 2001 and 2004, and was tight ends coach for the Dallas Cowboys between 1998 and 2000.

Miles has a 60-27 overall record in seven seasons as a head coach.
A STORY like that, on a day like that, just might blow up everything.

One can imagine exactly how furious Miles must have been. The man also had to be the next best thing to panic-stricken.

And it was absolutely imperative that he talk to the press right then. The coach barely had the luxury of counting to 10 before opening his mouth.

Look at the video. If you're totally pissed off, but go before the assembled sports press you must . . . that is how you do it.

THE THING about Nebraska Coach Bo Pelini's petulant performance Saturday night after beating Ohio State was that his moment of crisis had passed. He had won the game. He ought to have been ecstatic.

Instead, he chose a very public venue to take very public shots at an Omaha World-Herald columnist who had the gall to have an opinion Pelini didn't like. About a column that, in light of Nebraska's win and its quarterback's second-half play, had just become a moot point.

IN 2007, Bo Pelini was Les Miles' defensive coordinator. The man learned nothing.

I wonder how long he'd keep around a player that willfully dense.

Saturday, October 08, 2011

If looks could kill. . . .

Go to 4:45 in the video for the fireworks

You watched the press conference. You figure it out, huh? What do you think?

Well, Bo Pelini, I'll tell you. You seemed really angry at the Omaha World-Herald's Dirk Chatelain over what he's written about you and your quarterback, Taylor Martinez, the past week. If looks could kill, Coach, you'd be in jail right now.

But that's what the man gets paid to do, Bo. The state's biggest newspaper sends him out there to cover the Huskers -- and you (!!!) -- and then share his analysis with readers.

Sometimes you won't like that. Neither will Martinez. On the other hand, if the University of Nebraska-Lincoln wants to pay me about $2.775 million a year to take s*** from sportswriters when life hits a speed bump, I would not only take it like a man, I would write the columns for him.

After all, nobody knows what a true f***-up you are better than you, right?

Actually, I take that back. If NU only
would pay me $2.775 million to take s*** from Dirk Chatelain, I would have my wife write the columns for him. I'm sure there would be some really good stuff in there.

Meantime, Dirk and I would be eating onion rings and knocking back a few cold ones at Lazlo's.


COACH, times are tough. Some professors at the university have lost their jobs due to budget cuts. I'll bet most of them were damned good at what they do . . . uh, did.

You, on the other hand, get to toil away in the sandbox of higher education, you get paid about 40 or 50 times better that those profs do --
did -- and you get a multiyear contract with annual raises as the cherry atop the ice-cream sundae of life.

If Dirk Chatelain gets really furious at you . . . and if he does his job really, really well and harnesses the full arsenal of his persuasive weaponry . . . and if Nebraska Athletic Director Tom Osborne picks up the World-Herald and -- upon reading Chatelain's vicious, Pulitzer-winning column about how you're the biggest putz ever to stumble out of Youngstown, Ohio, and quoting Bob Stoops as saying he always thought you were an idiot and a girlie man -- thinks "You know, Dirk's right! I've been a fool!" . . . and if T.O. then calls you into his palatial office and fires your sorry ass, triggering a bunch of boosters to buy out your contract . . . and if you've been living halfway frugally . . . you get to retire long before you hit the big 5-0.

You will find that you're pretty much set for life, and that's before you hire on as an outraged sports-talk radio host, where you actually
will be paid reasonably well to be a gigantic d*** to people. Right now, you're doing that on the side, gratis.

Bo, for a man who likes to accuse sportswriters of having no perspective, you seem to have precious little yourself. You can't see that you're like the proverbial chef who can't stand the heat of the kitchen. You're a poor, angry millionaire whining that you're being repressed by an evil cabal of five-digit thousandaires.

You want to legitimately complain about all the pressure on your 21-year-old quarterback? Then kick him off the team, get him kicked out of school, hand him a crapload of student-loan debt, a wife and three kids, and then tell him to have a nice life as he scrambles right into the maw of the Great Recession.

Perhaps you can get GOP presidential hopeful Herman Cain to heckle him, telling the kid it's his own damned fault that he's not rich yet.

ALTERNATIVELY, Coach, you could just lose the glare, lose the 'tude, shut your mouth and get a clue.

Assuming you wish to continue as a college head football coach, someday you'll have to learn there's no percentage in being an a-hole. Not with the press, not with anybody.

See, nobody's perfect. Everybody screws up. At some point in life -- or at many points -- the bag of tricks comes up empty, the heavy artillery is firing blanks, the Answer Man just shrugs his shoulders, and we're forced to throw ourselves on the mercy of the court.

For you, Bo, that moment almost came Saturday night against a not-that-good Ohio State team. (You do realize your team won 34-27, right? Right?)

Soon enough, though, you'll be singing a tune different from your usual Johnny Rotten karaoke. You'll fake your best "Hey . . . GUYYYYS!" smile as you plead your case in the court of public opinion . . . presided over by the folks you've just spent years abusing.

And you'll pray the verdict -- that of folks just like Dirk Chatelain -- doesn't come back "No future, no future, no future for you."

Good luck with that.


P.S.: Don't think I don't understand a little bit about the Nebraska football coach. My wife probably is going to laugh really hard after reading this post.

Tuesday, September 07, 2010

Last (re)call for alcohol!


You want to know why reporters drink?

It's because the jackasses they often have to cover make their brains hurt, and alcohol helps to deaden the pain. A little.

Take the
Omaha World-Herald's Maggie O'Brien, for instance. She covers city government . . . and the people who try to blow up city government whenever they get in a toot about something. Usually, it's taxes.

LOOK AT what the poor girl has to deal with daily. If she's not at The Dubliner swilling black-and-tans right now, she's a totally amazing woman:
A group exploring the possibility of recalling Omaha Mayor Jim Suttle has launched a website that will take donations.

The site, mayorsuttlerecall.com, was launched Tuesday. Organizers said donations will be accepted online by Tuesday afternoon.

Last month, the Mayor Suttle Recall Committee announced it had raised $5,000 by Aug. 17, triggering the group to file with the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission. The group plans to take out recall affidavits later this month.
IN CASE you've not apprehended the irony here, let me help.

The Mayor Suttle Recall Committee wants people who allegedly are so strapped that they can't pay another farthing in any kind of a tax -- no matter how dire the city's financial situation -- to donate money to them to recall the mayor. For raising taxes.

Because we're all broke.

But not too broke to give what you'd likely spend in higher taxes to a bunch of well-off cranks and cynics to blow up city government because you don't want to pay higher taxes.

Because you're broke.

Destitute. A $15 wheel-tax hike from losing your car to the repo guy, losing your house to the bank and being reduced to wandering the streets of River City filling a hijacked grocery cart with castoff aluminum cans -- which you desperately hope you can turn into enough cash to buy a Big Mac and a Budweiser tall boy.

JUST REMEMBER this one important thing, all ye poor, desperate, taxed-into-nothingness wretches of Omaha:
If you are concerned about having your name attached to the recall, donations of $249.00 or less do NOT have to be reported to the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission.

Wednesday, September 01, 2010

Waxing eloquent on Glo-Coat


Waded through all the gay cyber-picketers to get to the Omaha World-Herald's website so I could check out what Rainbow Rowell was writing about today.

Found the poor gal on there talking about Mad Men as she tried to clean all the rotten eggs and scrawled obscenities off the floor with Glo-Coat. A couple more protesters showed up, not having heard that the paper announced it will print notices for gay engagements and weddings from locales that recognize same-sex marriages.

Anyway, Rainbow had to stop cleaning the floor to explain that Glo-Coat was a nifty old-time floor wax -- not something one might wear to the Max on Saturday nights. The protesters left, downcast.



PERSONALLY, as a Southerner, I relate more to this Glo-Coat ad featuring Loretta Lynn . . . a famous person who actually has waxed a floor or seven in her life.

And if somebody were protesting MY publication, they might get something else. Hit it, Loretty:


BUT THAT'S not important now.

What I really want to know is what's so damned special about Glo-Coat? Why buy such a one-dimensional household product when there's a product out there that's a floor wax
and a dessert topping?

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

The Lincoln is weird. I do not like the Lincoln.


I likes sweet pertaters. I had me a hankerin' fer sweet pertaters when I gots off the Greyhound bus in this place called the Lincoln in this other place called Nebrasky, but it might be the other way around because this place is funny, because I ain't seen nothin' likes it before.

I never been out of Pumpkin Center before but I tol' Mama that they was a big world out there and I wanted to see it and I was 34 years old -- because Papa said I was bornded when Jerrald Forde was president and that was 1976 and Miss Hilda at the center said that was 34 years ago, and that's how old I am. That is old enough to go see the world, and I had some money saved up from delivering the Hammond Daily Star, so I tol' Mama I was going to see the world and maybe I would go to Omaha where Jerrald Forde was bornded, and that's in Nebrasky, too, you know, or maybe in Lincoln, because I sometimes get things backwards and get confuseded, so I packed my bag and rode my bicycle to Hammond and I got on the Greyhound that the man said would go to Nebrasky where Jerrald Forde was bornded.

THE BUS got to Lincoln today, and people said Lincoln was real close to Nebrasky, and you can walk to Omaha from there to see where Jerrald Forde was bornded. Anyways, I decided I would stay in the Lincoln for a while because it is interesting, and the people are real different here, and I ain't never seen nothing likes that before. They talk funny and everything, and they seem to be a lot more white but people looked at me funny and somebody with long hair and glasses like my grammaw and a little sack on his back -- or maybe it was a she because I get confuseded -- cussed me when I axed them where was all the nigras and did they know where I could get me some sweet pertaters.

Then a passed by this building that was way taller than anything in Pumpkin Center, and it might be as tall as the state capitol in Baton Rouge but I don't know because I ain't never been there, but I asked somebody and they said it was the state capitol and I said no it ain't because this ain't Baton Rouge, and they said yes it was, too, because this was Lincoln and it was the capitol building of Nebrasky. And then I said I thought it lookded likes a big dick, and they got all flustered and walked off, and I axed them what's the matter, ain't they seen a big dick before and they said they was going to call the police and I got scared and runded away. I sure wish I had me some sweet pertaters.

I kept walking but I would hide when I saw a police car because I didn't want to get throwded in jail, because Mama always said that was where they kept the nigras and the justice of the peace always said you didn't want to mess with them people. But I kept gettin' hungrier and hungrier, and I really wished I had me some sweet pertaters, and I forgot where the bus station was exactly but it was gettin' dark and I saw this building called the Chamber of Commercial, that's what the man I axed to read the sign told me it was, and it sounded like a fancy eatin' place Daddy told me about once that he went to in Baton Rouge, so I went in because I figgerd that if anyplace in the Lincoln had sweet pertaters, maybe this would be the place and I still had $3 left not counting my bus ticket and a savings bond I got for delivering the Hammond Daily Star to people in Pumpkin Center, and that ought to be enough to get me a nice mess of sweet pertaters. And maybe a RC Cola, too.

And I was right that it was a fancy eatin' place because they was all these people in there dressed all fancy and they was all eatin' them fancy little sammiches and them little weenies with toothpicks through 'em and they was drinkin fancy wine but they was all watchin' the TV but they wadn't no football game on, it was the news show and they was showin' numbers all across the bottom of the TV and some people was even lookin' at these little computer books on tables, and I axed where the waiter was and where was all the nigras but them people just looked at me funney like they just pooted in their pants a little bit and they walked away from me, but they ought not a did that because I didn't poot in my pants or nothin' and I tried to tell 'em that but then somebody said can't somebody do somethin' about the homeless people comin' in there, and I said I didn't see no nigras, what the hell was they talkin' about?

I think these people in the Lincoln are a little bit odd ducks and I for the life of me don't know how Jerrald Forde come from such a weirdo place because my Daddy said he was the last normal president we ever had except for President Raygun, because Bill Klinton would screw everything that wore a skirt and Bamack Obamer was a damn communiss Muslin. But it's true, these peoples in the Lincoln and I guess in Nebrasky too is all weirdos because they act likes they ain't seen no normal Americans before like we have in Louisiana.

I even seen the mayor of the Lincoln in the Chamber of Commercial restaurant place and he was the weirdest of all them weirdos because I think he was one a them hermorphadites what was dressed just like a damn woman, and his wife was dressed like a g**damn truck driver, that's what daddy woulda said about her back home, that she was dressed like a g**damn truck driver, only she looked like even more a he-she that the mayor did in his dress and long hair and lipstick, only a opposite he-she, maybe it is that the mayor Chris Biteler is a she-he and his wife is a he-she, I don't know, because I think that all the people in the Lincoln is a bunch of damn oddballs.


This is a picshure of Biteler the mayor.

This is a picshure of Mrs. Biteler his he-she wife.

They was happy about a arena passing but I said it didn't look like no ESPN was on the TV, and they all looked at me like I was stupid or somethin'. I never did get my sweet pertaters and I think I messed up coming to this Nebrasky place where all the peoples is freaks and he-shes and she-hes, and I can't understand where they hiding all their nigras, I guess it ain't no wonder a body can't get no damn sweet pertaters here.

I want to go home to Pumpkin Center people are not weirdos there and I ain't never seed no he-shes and she-hes there. I will go back there as soon as I can find the Greyhound station, I do not like Jerrald Forde no more, and I miss home. The Lincoln can go to hell.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Dear Diary: Of Irishmen and their car bombs


EDITOR'S NOTE: Revolution 21's Blog for the People continues an occasional series of dispatches recorded some years ago in the trenches of Catholic radio. The names aren't real, nor are the places, but the stories are -- and it's a snapshot picture of what happens when "Their zeal consumes them" meets "Sinners sacrifice for the institution, not vice versa."

In other words, there has to be a better way.


This look back at my dysfunctional life at Pope FM requires a little stage setting.

In other words, it's all Josefina Loza's fault, what with her mentioning in the Omaha World-Herald that, indeed, there is such a drink as an "Irish Car Bomb," and that people,
you know . . . drink them.

This caused howls of protest from some members of the local Irish-American community, and a persistent mau-mauing campaign on the part of some local outfit, the Irish American Cultural Institute.


HERE'S PART of the story in today's World-Herald:
Today, when you're wearing your green, crawling through pubs and downing an Irish Car Bomb cocktail or two, here's something to keep in mind:

That drink will make some heads explode. And probably not yours.

The 31-year-old concoction made up of Guinness stout, Bailey's Irish Cream and Irish whiskey makes many traditional Irish-Americans crazy. They hate all it stands for: The name makes light of serious historical and current events, and the potent cocktail glorifies drinking on a holiday they say has somber significance.

St. Patrick's Day drinks described as Irish Car Bombs are “tasteless” and “culturally insensitive,” said Chuck Real of the Irish American Cultural Institute in Omaha. He was shocked that such a cocktail existed in Irish-American pubs. He also isn't happy that people make Irish Car Bomb cupcakes and cakes such as those featured on today's Living cover.

To Real, the name conjures up memories of unrest in Northern Ireland. Car bombs sometimes were the weapon of choice, and many believe that the Provisional Irish Republican Army was responsible. Bombings still occasionally happen Real cited three bomb threats in the past five years. They aren't funny, he said. They're lethal.

“St. Patrick's Day to the older generations and to those in Ireland has always been a day of obligation,” Real said.


(snip)

After last week's reference to the drink, Real received a handful of calls and e-mails from members of his group. Kathleen McEvoy became so upset and short of breath that she had to use her oxygen tank to finish her conversation, he said.

“Don't you know that this could hurt people's feelings,” McEvoy, 80, later told The World-Herald. “It makes it seem that all Irish people were terrorists.”

What if cocktails were called “The 9-11” or “Afghan bomber,” she asked. “How would people feel then?”
I'LL TELL YOU how I feel now. I feel like I've just waded through one of the biggest piles of bulls*** I've ever encountered, what with all these Irish eyes a-cryin'.

No, a comparable argument here would be that al-Qaida or the Taliban would be upset if we named a drink for their proudest accomplishment. So long as the drink were a Shirley Temple, they'd probably be elated.

Basically, here, local Irishmen are playing the victim card because their long-lost cousins back in Ulster became so notorious for being al-Qaida before al-Qaida was al-Qaida that some enterprising Connecticut barkeep, back in 1979, named a concoction of Guinness, Irish cream and Irish whiskey after the Irish Republican Army's marquee weapon.


Remind me to shed a tear as I play the world's smallest violin in honor of bruised Irish sensibilities.

ANYWAY, that's the inspiration for this latest installment from my, er . . . interesting radio past at Pope FM, a time and place that seems like an alternate universe far, far away.

You won't believe it, but I swear to God it's true. The names, etc., have been changed . . . to protect the guilty.




MONDAY, FEB. 24, 2003



Dear Diary,

About a month or so ago, our program director, "Manic" Don
Lawlor (note the last name), cold-cocked me by dumping a phone call on me to schedule an interview taping. The call was from Mike O'Malley, local contact for the Irish Northern Aid Committee, which was sponsoring a fund-raiser for the Sacred Heart Girls Primary School in North Belfast.

"What is it about that group?" I recall thinking at the time, "It rings a bell." Anyway, Father Seamus Boyle, Passionist pastor of the parish, was going to be in Kansas City to receive an award from the Ancient Order of Hibernians, and "the Irish Northern Aid Committee" was bringing him up here to raise money for his school, which you may remember was the focus of violent protests by Protestants, who were trying to keep the children from accessing the school through a Protestant neighborhood.

I smelled a rat somewhere, so I told the guy I'd tentatively pencil them in for today at 1 and refer the matter back to the program director.


So after I got off the phone, I did a Google search for the "Irish Northern Aid Committee" and came up with its more well-known moniker, Noraid. And various news items, etc., indicating that Noraid had been forced in the mid-'80s by the U.S. government to register as an American agent for the . . . IRA.


And that Noraid has been accused widely of funneling money and weapons directly to IRA terrorists. Etcetera, etcetera and so on and so on.

So, I dutifully printed all this stuff out, plus some background articles about the protests and told the program director, Manic Don, that Noraid stank to high heaven, was an IRA front, and that while Father Boyle and his school certainly were of interest, under no circumstances should there be an uncritical, PR puff-piece interview. I said that it might even be useful to include a Protestant churchman knowledgeable about Northern Ireland in the interview and turn it into a challenging dialog.


But under no circumstances, I said, should we be turned into an uncritical PR conduit for terrorist sympathizers and the ethnic and spiritual poison that breeds them.


Predictably, my idiot program director shoved all the cautionary material into a drawer and blew me off.

Fast forward to Friday. The Noraid flack shows up at the station unannounced and asks Manic Don whether the interview is still on. He says yes, and O'Malley, the Noraid flack, gives him a Noraid flier for the fundraising event, which Manic throws on my desk.


I come in to work a few minutes later, find this on my desk and very nearly blow a gasket. I write IRA on it in black magic marker and give it back to him, once again advising that we not allow IRA sympathizers uncritical PR on Pope FM, even though they've found a useful idiot to legitimize them in this beleaguered priest.


So, when I came into work today, I pretty much knew what I would have to do.

So, about 1:30, in comes the Noraid guy with Father Boyle in tow. I recognized him from TV and the Internet stories. Manic Don Lawlor and our development and public-relations director give them the nickel tour and go in to talk about the interview.


I hear Manic Don telling them that we "don't want to ruffle any feathers" and "don't want to get into politics."


So, after a while, Lawlor comes into my production room and starts setting up for the interview, trying to smooth things over with me by saying that they weren't going to get into politics but wanted to do the interview so as not to "insult the priest." He also said we might interview the Noraid guy to be polite, but that it "won't see the light of day." (Like I was about to believe this guy???)


I said the fact that Noraid was sponsoring the priest's visit couldn't be ignored, and asked what kind of "peace prize" was going to go to a priest who'd associated himself with reputed IRA gunrunners. I asked him whether the Hibernians would give Father a "peace prize" if he'd been protecting little Protestant girls from a Catholic mob, of which there were just as many in Ulster.


Finally, I told him that, in conscience, I could not and would not engineer for the interview, and that I already had enough to answer for before the Judgment Seat and didn't want to add that to the list. I also told him that, as a convert with Scots-Irish ancestors on my father's side by the name of McShane, IRA thugs probably had killed at least a few of my distant kin.


I then walked off, leaving Manic to engineer the interview (which would be conducted by our development guy) himself. So, I spent 30 or 45 minutes in the lobby talking to our contractor's foreman and our secretary, who seemed genuinely troubled when I told her the score. I added that if I were in Northern Ireland, I'd likely be dead meat if I crossed the Tiber (converted) in one direction or the other.


Later, Manic Don and our development guy complained to the GM about my refusal to engineer the interview. So the GM, Ken, tried to smooth things over and said the station might use the interview on our soon-to-be-resurrected talk show Living in Grace, but that they'd have one of our Irish diocesan priests on to talk about the situation in Northern Ireland.


I told him the same thing I'd told the program director, adding that as a convert, I thought I had a different and valuable take on the subject and that
, in the wake of 9/11, we should keep 10,000 miles away from any group that had any ties to terrorists past or present.

He then moved on to trying to allay some other concerns I'd had about our underwriting practices.


But then -- damn! -- he just had to go. So I caught him before he walked out the door and told him that by wanting to run that interview, we were in the political and moral quicksand now, and that any airing of that had to be as part of an honest, critical, hard-news look at the situation or I wasn't going to be having anything to do with that particular
Living in Grace, either.

He said he had to run, but that he'd "have a talk" with me about it.


I'll just bet.

Friday, March 05, 2010

Neo-nazi junk rebels against 'clean' Mayer


John Mayer, freshly tired of being an "a**hole," tells anybody who'll listen -- and folks had better, being that they paid, like, a bazillion dollars for the privilege -- that "It's a clean me now, people, clean me."

That well may be.

David Duke's c***, on the other hand, was spotted gettin' down and dirty at an Omaha strip club Wednesday night, a day before his show at the Qwest Center. Josefina Loza's story in this morning's Omaha World-Herald, however, didn't say whether Mayer knew where his neo-Nazi junk was hangin' all night:
Mayer — or someone who looks just like him — kicked it at The 20’s, an exotic dance club in midtown. He performed at the Qwest Center on Thursday.

Terry O’Halloran, longtime owner of Omaha bars — but not The 20’s — tipped me off in an e-mail: “Did you hear Mayer was allegedly at The 20’s last night? Not quite sure what to make of that guy.”

The 20’s dancers typically wear a mixture of bikinis and fantasy lingerie outfits. Guess Mayer — or his doppelgänger — was there to discover many wonderlands — more to tell Playboy.

Several sources at the club who wanted to remain anonymous confirmed that the pop-blues star was there — and was a generous tipper.
BACK IN THE DARK AGES, when my home away from home was a newspaper newsroom, one particular city editor was fond of saying someone had been "thinking with his little head and not his big one." True, that happens all the time.

John Mayer, on the other hand, may be the first person ever to have his little head -- in a fit of pique born of sexual frustration and boredom with the Sackcloth & Ashes '10 World Tour -- declare absolute autonomy from the "clean me" and head off to a titty bar . . . alone.

Wednesday night in Omaha wasn't the first time.

IN FACT, no sooner than Mayer had proclaimed himself the "clean me" at New York's Madison Square Garden a week ago, David Duke's c*** ran screaming into a nightclub and started
talking dirty to all the ladies. At least that's what the Daily News says:
Mayer [The newspaper was confused because David Duke's c*** bears an uncanny resemblance to its former host, Mayer -- R21] spent the weekend partying at NoLita hot spot La Esquina - which is near the 2,500-square-foot SoHo apartment he owns - and acting, well, less-than-gentlemanly.

"He was drinking and saying vulgar things to the girls at the bar," says a spy. "He was hitting on one pretty brunette in particular, but she found him slimy because he was being so over-the-top."

We hear women aren't the only challenge the crooner can't seem to navigate: Friends say that even before the Playboy fiasco, he was having a love-hate relationship with the media.

"After every interview he gave, John would agonize over it and mentally kick himself over everything he said," says an insider. "He would swear it would be the last time, but it never was, and it became a never-ending cycle."
POOR JOHN. He goes to the trouble of apologizing and apologizing -- not to mention proclaiming his new "clean me" and letting 11-year-olds up on stage to play guitar with him for a number -- and look what happens. Done in by adolescent rebellion on the part of David Duke's c***.

As Uncle Jed used to say about Jethro on The Beverly Hillbillies, Mayer is "gonna have to have a looooong talk with that boy."



P.S.:
I don't know about these things, so could someone tell me whether The '20s features an all-white crew of exotic dancers?

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

Come around and retweet me sometime

Robert Nelson, alas, is not "crushing it."

Neither has he been living his best life now.

Nor has the newspaper columnist been "livin' the life" . . . or "rockin' the town." And his personal branding has left something to be desired.

Today, when the totality of one's existence is reduced to "branding" -- and unabashed self-promotion is as much a part of "getting ahead" as continuing to breathe in and out (and suppressing one's inner Rip Torn) -- you explain a monthslong sabbatical as "an opportunity for personal growth" . . . or as "working on an exciting new project."

BUT YOU DON'T begin your first column since returning to the Omaha World-Herald this way:

You may or may not have noticed that this column hasn’t appeared in The World-Herald for quite a while.

For the last three months, I have been on a sabbatical.

Part of me would love to leave it at that. But the journalist, the part of me that seeks full disclosure from everyone else, feels I had better come clean with the reason behind my absence, no matter how embarrassing.

And besides, there are some interesting rumors out there that may or may not be as interesting as the truth.

How to say it? I went off the deep end? A screw came loose? I was off my rocker?

Actually, in all seriousness, I’ve clearly been grinding through life for quite some time with what I now know are some significant mental-health issues.

It’s estimated that one in every four Americans struggles with some diagnosable form of mental-health problem. It’s somewhat comforting knowing there are so many of us out there — so many people who know what an uncomfortable journey it can be to feel right again.

Over the last year, I increasingly had found myself struggling with depression and, at times, anger and anxiety. Some of it was simple midlife-crisis stuff.

Some, as it turns out, was more serious.
NELSON GOES ON to describe a harrowing journey to the dark side of . . . himself. An editor talked him out of committing murder. The authorities were called. A shrink took charge.

Unless your name happens to be Andy Dick, there's not much "branding" gold to be mined here. And come to think of it, what's the last job Andy Dick has held down since News Radio? Making license plates?

Oh, Lord. What would
Gary Vaynerchuk do?

How do you "tweet" yourself into the national consciousness when your daily triumph is as simple -- and humble -- as "I didn't get sh*tfaced today." Or, "Taking my meds. So far, so good. No psychotic breaks! Yay!"

This is America, dammit! Half the country is broke, the other half is worried, and the third half is making out like a bandit and bragging about it all on Twitter, Facebook and Blogger.

A nation devoted to shameless self-promotion -- to style over substance, to personality cults for profit and success -- is a nation that increasingly doesn't add up.

This nation full of failure demands we construct sunny, self-serving narratives of our lives, then sell the world on our version of the Big Lie. This nation full of tragedies writ large and small doesn't want to hear about it.

BUT NO. Robert Nelson outed himself as a fallen, broken human being, one completely average in his brokenness. One utterly unremarkable in his misery.

You want to see the one unforgivable sin in America today? That's it -- honesty. How the hell do you "crush" that?

I'm sure some folk will applaud the columnist for opening a vein in the pages of the local rag. They'll say he's brave. They'll say he's showing other suffering souls that there's hope.

Maybe.

These people are called "activists." Their goal in life is to harsh your mellow, which might pull the plug on the power of your positive thinking and detract from your living "your best life today." I would tend to agree with these "activists."

Then again, I think Debbie Downer is a hottie. Mwah mwaaaaaaaaaah.

The rest of you, I am sure, are saying "I knew something was wrong with that Nelson boy." Like you're not f***ed up, too -- in your own special, morally superior way, of course.

Promote that brand via social media.

RT @Revolution_21 Robert Nelson's honesty about affliction making us think of our own. Not cool. No marketing in that.
MONDAY, the "career diva" of MSNBC.com, Eve Tahmincioglu (please don't ask me to pronounce Tahmincioglu), asked via Twitter (of course), "have we all become a bunch of self-promoting whores?"

You know, I think we have. Mostly of the "two-bit" variety.


And if you'll excuse me, I need to tweet up this post. Facebook it, too. If I'm really lucky, maybe a couple hundred people will be blessed by my deep thoughts on this matter of great importance.

Please retweet!

Because I am a whore for the postmodern ages. It's what I do. Now, how do I take that and "crush it"?

Thursday, August 13, 2009

You can get anything you want . . . .


I've been scarce around these cyberparts, off fighting another skirmish in the ongoing war against cyberobsolescence. Mine.

Or, more precisely, my computer's.

A flat-screen monitor Mrs. Favog and I found at an estate sale for $40 suddenly decided the other day to follow its former owner to the Great Beyond. Or to Florida -- whatever.

Having been burned by our quest to get some LCD magic for (next to) nothing, my better half and I trekked to Nebraska Furniture Mart in search of some brand-new monitor goodness . . . some 22-inch widescreen goodness. As if we had a choice.

Computer-monitor makers still might be cranking out 4x3 displays these days, but the Mart and Best Buy weren't selling them. When in Rome, and all that, you know.

And I love me some wide-format computing. You used to have to hook up multiple monitors to get this kind of virtual workspace.

And the picture. . . . oh, dear me, can a Blu-Ray burner for the old Dell be far behind?


OF COURSE, being that we're talking computers -- particularly 4-year-old ones -- you know the path to widescreen goodness had to be a bumpy one. Very. The road to planned obsolescence is never an Autobahn experience for the poor consumer, who just wants a lot for a little.

Like me and that estate-sale flat-screen.

First, the fargin' integrated video controller, I discover when I hook up the new monitor, wouldn't support widescreen monitors. So everything had that funhouse-mirror look -- the video version of getting the news from home via a phone call from Mama.

Well, I figured that might happen. So I head down to Best Buy to get me an inexpensive video card. Excuse me . . . graphics card.

I can put it in. I can put anything in a computer. Hell, since we got our first one in 1993, I've replaced everything there is to replace inside a computer tower except the power supply and motherboard.

But there's a problem. My Dell Dimension 3000, which I didn't think was that old or decrepit . . . is. And it features an undersized (by today's standards) 250-watt power supply. Most video -- er, graphics -- cards won't give you a crappy black-and-white kinescope view of the world for under 350-watts of the Omaha Public Power District's finest.

ON THE OTHER HAND, it might cause your computer to melt down.

And not only that, most of the graphics cards Dell says are compatible with my model of computer most certainly aren't compatible with the tiny-ass power supply they put in my computer. Power supply, anyone?

To go along with the new monitor and a new video -- OK, graphics, GRAPHICS!!! -- card.

What was a $40 estate-sale bargain so far had turned into a $192 Nebraska Furniture Mart shopping trip. It was threatening to ring up another $65 for a video card and at least that much for a bigger power supply.

Face it, if we all had to constantly rebuild our automobiles just to be allowed on the Interstate, we'd all be taking the bus. But that's the "world of personal computing" in a world that eats the computer-deprived for lunch.

AFTER A DAY of back and forth on the graphics-card issue, I opened up the Dell to see who was full of it -- the folks in Round Rock, Tejas, and their system specs and upgrade recommendations, or . . . the folks in Round Rock, Tejas, who maybe put more power supply in my "old" Dimension 3000 than I thought.

As it turns out, the folks in Round Rock, Tejas, were full of it. And they did put a puny 250-watt power supply in the computer . . . as promised. And it looked like not just any off-the-shelf power supply would fit in that thing.

And it looked like the only place I'd find a graphics card that wouldn't suck up more juice than old Dell could give was online. Trouble is, I was sick of messing with the damned thing -- which was lying half taken apart on the dining-room table.

So we went to the one place in town that carried a 250-watt card and happily paid too much for it. And here I sit, in widescreen bliss . . . $250-odd poorer.

BUT THIS ISN'T about my computer.

It's about how the city of Omaha has gutted the public library system -- and is about to gut God knows what else -- all because some loud taxpayers, and some feckless city council members, think you can run a city on $40 estate-sale, flat-screen computer monitors and not have to pay the piper at some point.

It's about how folks still expect the city to cut, cut and cut some more even when the budgetary fat is gone and the muscle ain't looking so good anymore.

It's about how cops aren't being hired, one library branch will close for the rest of the year (at least) while others slash their hours (and staff) and youth-recreation programs in poor neighborhoods are being axed (great combination, eh?) all because a bunch of loud-mouthed, right-wing yahoos are raising holy hell from somewhere east of Eden and west of the 'hood. Because it would just be completely scandalous and unreasonable to expect people who live in $100,000 houses to pay $25 more a year in property tax.

From the Omaha World-Herald on Wednesday:
Although libraries and other services drew strong support, Festersen said he thought the common theme for many average citizens was their opposition to tax increases.

Council members are cool to Suttle's proposed entertainment tax and property tax hike, and they are looking for ways to cut spending further. They are set to vote on the budget Sept. 1.

Suttle and the council face a projected $11 million shortfall next year. The mayor also is trying to close a $12 million revenue gap in the current budget.

The hearing followed weeks of bad news on the city budget: The temporary closing of Florence Library, and cuts in library hours at other branches. Layoffs of 130 civilian employees. The grounding of the police helicopter for the rest of the year. Swimming pools closing early for the season.

Earlier Tuesday, Suttle announced furloughs in the Mayor's Office, saying all members of his staff will take eight unpaid leave days before the end of the year.


(snip)

Doug Kagan, chairman of the Nebraska Taxpayers for Freedom, urged the council to cut spending.

“Don't tell us about sacred cows that cannot be touched. Sacred cows make the best hamburger,” Kagan said.
IT SEEMS we have a couple of dynamics at work here in the "don't tax you, don't tax me" contingent.

One group wants a really great computer monitor but sees no real need to pay for it. The other, exemplified by the Nebraska Grumblers for Screw You, already has a computer monitor and figures a Big Chief tablet is good enough for everybody else.

The common good is not a popular notion these days. Obviously.

Which brings us back to, you guessed it . . . computers. In Wednesday's Omaha paper.
Really.
Florence is part of northeast Omaha, lying within an area bounded by the Missouri River, Redick Avenue, 45th Street and the Washington County line. It includes the Ponca Hills area.

The decision to close the library has upset residents of all ages.

Teresa Miller, 20, and her brother Jonas, 15, were checking out story and music CDs when they heard the news Tuesday.

“That's weird to close a library,” Jonas said. “I mean, you need books, right?”

It never occurred to Teresa that her childhood library had a shortage of customers. She said the Florence library probably has fewer visitors because it is smaller than most branches.

“I like the small things,” she said, adding that she's frustrated that she'll have to use more gas to drive to a different branch.

For Craig and Deborah Johnson, a stroll to their public library is a family affair they hate to see end.

As a reporter approached the couple, they already were asking, why Florence?

“Things are going downhill real fast,” said Craig. “A snowball effect.”

Both he and his wife have been laid off from jobs as, respectively, equipment operator and office clerk. Tuesday, the couple walked to the library — their 2-year-old and 6-year-old in tow — to search for employment via library computers. The little ones also signed on to a computer.

The older Johnson children use the library as well, often taking a break to go across the hall to play basketball or participate in some other activity at the Florence recreation center. A senior center also is in the complex that contains the library.

Paying for bus fare to go elsewhere is an expense the Johnsons said they didn't need.

Hartline on Tuesday was at the senior center arranging a volunteer visit. She is a frequent library customer and also stops weekly at the post office a few blocks away.

“It's very upsetting,” said Hartline. “We are just as deserving of community facilities as any other part of Omaha.”
SURE YOU ARE. But Doug Kagan would rather you have this really cool $40 estate-sale, flat-screen computer monitor.

Just don't expect him to throw in a couple of bucks toward fixing it.