Nothing sacred

What's all the fuss about "socialism" among the tea-bag crowd?

They think socialism is supposed to be somehow more inherently evil than a capitalist system that takes the shattering, sickening tragedy of a talented, vain and self-centered man blowing up his family because he can't keep it in his pants, then uses it as commercial fodder to sell people swoosh-bedecked, overpriced s*** they don't really need anyway?

This -- this sainted capitalism -- is the foundation of what it means to be moral, God-fearing and 100-percent American? Really?

WE'RE SUPPOSED to buy the notion that there's something foundational about an amoral, materialist system that, at its heart, is based on the motivating power of greed to encourage productivity and creation of wealth? In the 1950s, the American Way gave us doctors vouching for the superiority of Camels and the rise of the military-industrial complex.

Today, capitalism carried to its logical marketing extreme gives us a hypersexualized culture, then finds a way to profit off of one of the more notable tragedies arising from a society organized around a quest for the eternal G-spot.

Tiger Woods is a wreck. His family is a bigger wreck because of Tiger's appetite for fresh meat. And now Nike gets the perpetrator in a tabloid tragedy to trade on his sins against his wife and children -- and even drags his dead father into the sewer for good measure -- just so it can sell you s***.

Hell, it'll probably work. Because we Americans, after all, will walk a mile for a Camel. Or sell our souls to a Tiger.

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?

They don't call it 'self-love' for nothing

If you want to see the poster child for the death of us, look no further than John Mayer.

Look no further than this blabbermouthed archetype of the self-absorbed schmuck, devoted to "self-soothing" above all else and incapable of finding a woman half as neato-keen as himself.

John Mayer is how the world will end -- living in its own demented head, drinking single-malt scotch and ending up late for the apocalypse because it was otherwise occupied whacking off to The Playboy Channel.

Really. I'm not kidding here.

IF YOU don't believe me, the sad evidence is in Mayer's Playboy interview. Weep for yourselves, not the supercilious superstar, because this 32-year-old adolescent is far from one of a kind in the America of 2010.

It's a good thing there's words in there, I guess, because I'm sure the nekkid pictures in Hugh Hefner's soft-core mag aren't nearly "hot" enough for the self-lovin' singing sensation:

MAYER: I’m a self-soother. The Internet, DVR, Netflix, Twitter—all these things are moments in time throughout your day when you’re able to soothe yourself. We have an autonomy of comfort and pleasure. By the way, pornography? It’s a new synaptic pathway. You wake up in the morning, open a thumbnail page, and it leads to a Pandora’s box of visuals. There have probably been days when I saw 300 vaginas before I got out of bed.

PLAYBOY: What’s your point about porn and relationships?

MAYER: Internet pornography has absolutely changed my generation’s expectations. How could you be constantly synthesizing an orgasm based on dozens of shots? You’re looking for the one photo out of 100 you swear is going to be the one you finish to, and you still don’t finish. Twenty seconds ago you thought that photo was the hottest thing you ever saw, but you throw it back and continue your shot hunt and continue to make yourself late for work. How does that not affect the psychology of having a relationship with somebody? It’s got to.

PLAYBOY: You seem very fond of pornography.

MAYER: When I watch porn, if it’s not hot enough, I’ll make up backstories in my mind. My biggest dream is to write pornography.

PLAYBOY: How did you become a self-soother?

MAYER: I grew up in my own head. As soon as I lose that control, once I have to deal with someone else’s desires, I cut and run. I’m pretty culpable about being hard to live with. I have had a good run of imagining things into reality. I’ve got a huge streak of successes based on my own inventions. If you tell me I’m wrong or that I’m overthinking something, well, overthinking has given me everything in my career. I have a hard time not looking at anxiety disorder as being like an ATM. I can invent things really well. I mean, I have unbelievable orgasms alone. They’re always the best. They always end the way I want them to end. And I have such an ability to make believe, I can almost project something onto my wall, watch it and get off to it: sexually, musically, it doesn’t matter. When I meet somebody, I’m in a situation in which I can’t run it because another person is involved. That means letting someone else talk, not waiting for them to remind you of something interesting you had in mind.

PLAYBOY: Masturbation for you is as good as sex?

MAYER: Absolutely, because during sex, I’m just going to run a filmstrip. I’m still masturbating. That’s what you do when you’re 30, 31, 32. This is my problem now: Rather than meet somebody new, I would rather go home and replay the amazing experiences I’ve already had.

PLAYBOY: You’d rather jerk off to an ex-girlfriend than meet someone new?

MAYER: Yeah. What that explains is that I’m more comfortable in my imagination than I am in actual human discovery. The best days of my life are when I’ve dreamed about a sexual encounter with someone I’ve already been with. When that happens, I cannot lay off myself.

IT SUCKS to be you, ladies. There's no way you're going to compete with Photoshop, an airbrush . . . and John Mayer's right hand. I wonder if he's given it a name -- Jennifer? Jessica?

And speaking of Jennifer. . . .

PLAYBOY: What does the word womanizer mean to you?

MAYER: Well, wouldn’t a womanizer have dated more than two girls in two years?

PLAYBOY: You and Aniston got back together and broke up again in 2009. How many women did you sleep with in the eight months after the breakup?

MAYER: I’m going to say four or five. No more.

PLAYBOY: That’s a reasonable number.

MAYER: But even if I said 12, that’s a reasonable number. So is 15. Here’s the thing: I get less ass now than I did when I was in a local band. Because now I don’t like jumping through hoops. It’s been so long since I’ve taken a random girl home. I don’t want to have to submit myself for approval. I don’t want to audition. I’d rather come home and edge my s*** out for 90 minutes. At this point, before I can have sex I need to know somebody. Unless she’s a 14 out of 10.

PLAYBOY: You have been very up front about your fondness for masturbation.

MAYER: It’s like a vacation — my brain gets to go free. It’s a walk in the park for my brain. Pull the shades and let your mind go without having to answer for it.

PLAYBOY: The way you talk about being 32 sounds as though you were too immature for Aniston.

MAYER: No, the actual day-to-day was fantastic. I have to explain this so people don’t say, “Sure, you’re 32, and you want to f*** other chicks.” If you say I’m not adult and stable, it sounds as though I’m someone who’s watching football and playing Xbox. I have this bond with infinite possibility — when I go out to dinner, I bring another shirt, a flashlight, a knife, a hard drive, a camera. It’s not like I wanted to be with somebody else. I want to be with myself, still, and lie in bed only with the infinite unknown. That’s 32, man.

I SUPPOSE you can go to the Playboy site and read the whole thing but, frankly, you should feel like you've been slimed reading just this much of it. And these are the excerpts I figured I could lift and still come away feeling only moderately guilty.

Let's just say there are depths to Mr. Mayer's depravity. And to our own depraved alienation as we bask in the auto-beatific vision of our "infinite unknown."

Alone. Utterly, despairingly alone.

I have witnessed The End. It sounds like a John Mayer song.

No, you're still a douche

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

John Mayer is sorry he tried to be "clever" with the media.

He likewise says he's going to "take a break" from projectile-vomiting what passes for his thoughts into reporters' recorders.

That is what we call "totally missing the point." What the oversexed, under-IQed singer really needs is his very own chapter of Narcissists Anonymous, judging by MSNBC's reporting here.

WELL, THAT and to "take a break" from being a thoroughly contemptible human being:

Despite being dubbed a womanizer in the media for relationships with Hollywood stars such as Simpson, Aniston and Jennifer Love Hewitt, Mayer told Playboy that he was not open to having sex with black women.

When asked if “black women throw themselves at you,” he replied with, “I don’t think I open myself to it. My d--- is sort of like a white supremacist. I’ve got a Benetton heart and a f-----’ David Duke c---. I’m going to start dating separately from my d---.”

But he also said that black people love him, and tried to sum up what it means to be black: "It's making the most of your life, not taking a single moment for granted. Taking something that's seen as a struggle and making it work for you, or you'll die inside. Not to say that my struggle is like the collective struggle of black America. But maybe my struggle is similar to one black dude's."

He also used the N-word in the revealing interview.

"wow if this stuff is true...John Mayer just lost a whole heap of cool points...and i really likes him too..." commented jnyfer on Twitter.

In the interview for Playboy's March edition, some of which reportedly took place as Mayer downed malt whisky, the singer sought to refute the media image of him as a womanizer and "douchebag."

"I've been trying to prove to people I'm not a douchebag by not dating, by keeping my name out of 'Us Weekly'," he said. The singer also noted that his "biggest dream is to write pornography."

WOW. That Jennifer Aniston and Jessica Simpson saw anything whatsoever in this guy certainly doesn't speak glowing volumes about them.

And that whole "prove to people I'm not a douchebag" thing is sooooooo not working out for young Mr. Mayer, he of neo-Nazi penis fame.

Quote of the week

“I would probably need to apologize to her and hope she uses a driver next time instead of a 3-iron.”

-- Jesper Parnevik . . . the Swedish
golfer who introduced Elin Nordegren
to her future husband, Tiger Woods

Mind your divots when using the driver

What happens in Vegas sometimes ends up in Us.

And in the New York Daily News.

And in the Telegraph in London.

And in the Sydney Morning Herald.

And on CBS, ABC and NBC.

PITY TIGER WOODS, he shoulda known better -- if what an allegedly scorned woman in Los Angeles says is true, not to mention another one on deck in Vegas (in addition to other anonymous-source teases on the Strip) -- than to cheat on his supermodel wife.

No, don't pity Tiger Woods. If someone has the hubris to screw around on a supermodel with a cocktail waitress, he deserves all the hell he's about to get. Including being given advice by John Daly:

On Tuesday, golfer John Daly said, “the thing that Tiger needs to look at is, whatever happened, just tell the truth.”

Daly also thinks Woods will be able to survive this controversy. “He’ll get over this. The family will get over it. They’ll move on. Golf needs him,” he said.

WHAT MAKES it worse for Tiger is that Daly kind of makes sense. Ouch.

Avant le déluge. . . .

Avant le déluge, our popular culture regularly turned out beautiful songs about bittersweet affairs of the heart.

Exhibit A would be this "standard," recorded by the likes of Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald, Lou Rawls . . . and on and on. The beautiful version above was by the late Phyllis Hyman:

Here's That Rainy Day (1953)
Music: Jimmy Van Heusen
Lyrics: Johnny Burke

Maybe I should have saved
those left-over dreams
funny, but here's that rainy day!

Here's that rainy day
they told me about
and I laughed at the thought
that it might turn out this way!

Where is that worn-out wish
that I threw aside,
after it brought my lover near?

Funny how love becomes
a cold rainy day
funny, that rainy day is here!

Funny how love becomes
a cold rainy day
funny . . . that rainy day is here!

APRÉS LE DÉLUGE, a marginalized few turn out work as beautiful as Jimmy Van Heusen's and Johnny Burke's, but in today's popular anti-culture, the vulgar rutting of barbarians has proven much more popular.

I say this as someone who was an early adopter of the Sex Pistols back in the day. Alas, Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious were George and Ira Gershwin, compared with vulgarian cretins such as Yo Gotti, who's moving up the hip-hop charts with pop-culture diarrhea such as this:

5-Star Bitch (2009)
Vile misogynistic illiteracy: Yo Gotti

If ya credit score high
And ya nails stay fly
If ya juice box wet
And ya head sumin fly
Dats a 5 star bitch
I wanna 5 star bitch
I need a 5 star bitch
I wanna 5 star bitch

I am top notch nigga
I do grade A s***
I'm a keep it 100
I wanna 5 star bitch
Talkin mouth game serious and can ride dat d***
Shawty walk like she talk like she kno dat she da s***
You dnt live witcha momma plus u moved up out da hood
Couple years on ya own and ya still doin good
You ain't fightin in da club u ain't on dat stupid s***
You ain't worried he got money you ain't on dat groupie s***
But still money make ya c**
Gotcha swagg game together
Gucci dis louie dat u gotcha bag game together
Gotta mean pump game and a sick shoe fetish
Say you left ya last nigga cause his ass was too petty

If ya baby daddy left ya
Raised ya kids on ya own
And you need a real nigga put my numba in ya phone
If you never left da city
Neva been up outta MEMPHIS
I can be dat thug genie
Give ya three lil wishes
She a stone cold freak
She can get a nigga right
She can cook she can clean
Know how to treat a nigga right
Dats a 5 star bitch
Red bone so thick
Long hair don't care
Dereon outfit
Go to church every sunday
She a teacher at da school
Ya did it big last night
I had her drunker than a fool
Say she had to call in she could'nt even go to work
Told her come and let me put a couple hundreds in her purse

You went to school to be a nurse
She's a AKA
Shawty fresh up out da hood but went to TENNESSEE STATE
And friend jus as fine swere to god I ain't lyin
She a DELTA she be throwin dat dynasty sign I
Pay for both of they tuition
Pay for both of they beautician
Coogi dis
Bb dat
And she luv tru religion
Dats a 5 star chick cause her future so bright
She gotta a cool sense of humor
And her attitude right
She go to real estate school
She do hair on da side
Went to school to practice law
I need her on my side
Dats a 5 star chick you a fool not to keep her
I'm a show u what to do if I eva get to meet her

BE STILL, my heart. Forgive me if I don't have the stomach to show you the video.

Somewhere in Chicago -- where the 'hood is descending into real anarchy, mayhem and murder -- some hip-hop radio station likely is promoting efforts to "stop the violence," taking shout-outs to the dearly (and violently) departed and running public-service announcements about HIV testing.

They're "keepin' it real." And then it's back to the jamz, and a little (bleepified) Yo Gotti action.

Just another day on the mean streets, where the first ass to get capped was Irony's.

Nothing to see here. Move along.

The mayor-elect came. The mayor-elect blathered. The mayor-elect hauled ass.

(Sigh.)

Omaha's incoming chief executive, Jim Suttle, called a press conference to say his "community chief of staff" is out amid allegations the aide had a homosexual affair with an underage boy in the 1990s.

"I have asked Matt Samp to separate himself from my administration," Suttle said. "He will not be my community chief of staff; he will not serve in my administration."

Suttle spent the next couple of minutes saying a criminal background check wouldn't have uncovered the allegations against Samp, that too many challenges face Omaha to worry about a single blah blah blah, blahblah, blah, blah blah blah blah, blahblahblah, blah.

Nothing to see here. Move along. No questions. I'm out of here.

And then Suttle was gone.

THE QUESTIONS about the mayor-elect's intelligence and judgment remained, however, along with an angry press corps and a besieged Suttle press aide, Ron Gerard.

During his no-questions "press conference," Suttle spoke about trust and how it's "important to maintain faith among our citizens that we will not be deterred from the mission we have in the Mayor’s office." The first "mission" for any public official, though, is not to squander the people's trust by acting in a recklessly stupid manner.

Jim Suttle's first big test came before he even has taken office, and the result was an epic fail.

The mayor-elect is being disingenuous in saying no background check would have turned up problems with his prospective co-chief of staff; Suttle didn't need a criminal-records check to unveil what was stinking to high heaven right under his nose.

FOR EXAMPLE, one commenter on an earlier post maintains Samp's practice of "'mentoring' male teenagers" is no secret in local Democratic circles. I don't find that hard to believe, being that Omaha is the big-city version of a small town -- everybody knows everybody else, and people talk.

And mayors-to-be don't have the luxury of dismissing scandalous gossip when it comes to hiring a staff to do the public's business, as opposed to pubic business. Suttle had a duty -- an obligation of trust, as it were -- to get to the bottom of those "ugly rumors." That probably would have required one phone call from the mayor-elect to the police chief.

Furthermore, it wasn't just talk. Democrats had been warned about Samp by Nebraska's attorney general. From Monday's Omaha World-Herald story:

Nebraska attorney General Jon Bruning wants Suttle to rescind his offer to hire Samp.

"We can't have someone like that working in government," he said of Samp.

Bruning said an Omaha father contacted him earlier this year, concerned about e-mails and other communication that his 16-year-old son recently had been receiving from Samp. Although the interaction was not criminal, Bruning, a Republican, said he notified two Democratic leaders about the complaint.

When Bruning heard about Samp's city job last month, "I was sick to my stomach and angry," Bruning said. "The citizens of Omaha deserve better."

BRUNING WAS even more explicit today with KETV television:

Bruning said he thought Samp's relationship with the teen was immoral, but there was no evidence of criminal conduct. [The age of consent in Nebraska is 16 -- R21.]

"If Matt Samp can explain why he's calling a 16-year old at 1:30 in the morning and e-mailing him sexually explicit emails, then I'd like to see that explanation. But I can't imagine there's anything that I or the citizens of Nebraska are going to buy," Bruning told KETV.

He said the latest complaint doesn't warrant criminal charges but he will investigate any further allegations that may come to his attention.

CRIMINAL-BACKGROUND check, my eye. The whole stinking heap . . . right under Jim Suttle's nose. But he couldn't be bothered with such unpleasantness.

There's a word for that kind of indifference. It's negligence. Just the thing we're looking for in a mayor. Especially now.

"The mission of the next administration is important and the challenges facing city government are too numerous to focus our energies on one news story," Suttle said before fleeing from the assembled news media. In other words, having demonstrated his incompetence and negligence in the little things, Suttle wants us to "move on" and not worry that he's now in charge of the Really Big Things.

The mayor-elect is not only stupid, he thinks we're nuts.

Kaboom!

It takes a special kind of stupid. . . .

* To, if you're the incoming mayor, not conduct background checks on people you're appointing to key jobs in your administration. Like chief of staff.

* To tell the local newspaper that background checks represent a "suspicious, punitive system, and that's not something I build on. . . . What goes on in private lives is private business. I don't sit down with anybody and say, 'Tell me about your past.'"

* To refuse to ask police for documents detailing accusations that your designated "community chief of staff" began a homosexual relationship with a 14-year-old boy and kept it up for two years. (A law-enforcement source told the Omaha World-Herald the teen, who killed himself after going to the police, "was credible and the investigation of the first-degree sexual assault allegations he made when he was 19 would have been pursued if he hadn't died.")

* To dismiss the allegations about the aide, Matthew Samp, out of hand as "character assassination" and tell a reporter something as dumb as "You have to set (rumors) aside and just look at whom is trying to embarrass whom. I've seen this, and this happens."

UNFORTUNATELY for Omaha, alas, it looks like Jim Suttle is going to be a "special" kind of mayor. God help us all.

Imagine for a moment that we're not talking about the chief executive of a city of 435,000. Imagine instead that we're talking about a Catholic bishop who has just named a new chancellor for his diocese.

And say there were credible allegations that the priest picked as chancellor had initiated a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old boy, who five years later reported the underage relationship to police, who found the teen "credible" and initiated an investigation, but then this tormented youth killed himself.

Furthermore, let's say the new bishop was taking a leisurely swim down the River of Denial and publicly refused to even consider looking into the matter himself. And let's just imagine His Excellency then proclaimed that he didn't believe in conducting background checks, calling them a "suspicious, punitive system, and that's not something I build on."

How do you think that would go over?

ME, I THINK an enraged public would be burning the chancery down by now -- and not totally without justification, given the recent history of these kinds of things. In fact, a Catholic priest facing "credible" allegations of the sort now dogging Samp would be immediately removed from active ministry pending a complete investigation.

What, is it somehow more dangerous (or unseemly, or unjust, or whatever) when sexual-abuse scandals occur in the Catholic Church than when they hit city hall?

But that's a rhetorical question. Here's something more concrete: Your average forklift driver probably undergoes more pre-employment scrutiny than Jim Suttle's average chief of staff.

According to this morning's World-Herald, we are not amused:

Some angry and appalled leaders and residents want Omaha Mayor-elect Jim Suttle to look further into allegations that a top aide had a sexual relationship with a teenager in the late 1990s.

The World-Herald reported Sunday that a 19-year-old Omahan told police in 2001 that he had a sexual relationship, starting when he was 14, with Matthew Samp. Samp, now Suttle's co-chief of staff, was about 23 at the time.

It is illegal for an adult to have sex with someone under 16.

Suttle said Saturday, while out of town on vacation, that he did not plan to ask police for more information and did not do background checks on employees.

Suttle, who could not be reached Sunday, plans a statement today at a 1:30 p.m. press conference, spokesman Ron Gerard said. Suttle, a Democrat, takes office June 8.

Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning wants Suttle to rescind his offer to hire Samp.

"We can't have someone like that working in government," he said of Samp.

(snip)

A 2001 police investigation into the report about Samp stalled when the youth, Brad Fuglei, killed himself a week after filing a police report. Fuglei was 19.

Patlan said Samp, expected to handle communication with external groups such as neighborhood associations, will have no credibility unless he is cleared.

"If the kid was still alive," Patlan said, "the question remains: Where would Samp be now? Would he be in prison? There's too many questions."

Omaha resident Amy Adams, who attended high school with Fuglei, was incensed to hear that Suttle wasn't investigating further.

"That disgusts me," she said. "If allegations come up and you don't look into it, that seems ridiculous."

THAT SEEMS ridiculous because it is ridiculous. I guess Jim Suttle is just a ridiculous kind of guy.

Who is going to be our next mayor.

I think we're about to learn the hard way that not being Hal Daub is no good reason to elect somebody mayor.

Speaking of f***. . . .

The "community chief of staff" for Omaha's mayor-elect apparently has a rather low opinion of the city's daily newspaper, the World-Herald.

Matthew Samp, on his Twitter account, had some choice words for the newspaper -- which endorsed former mayor Hal Daub -- after the returns were all in and Samp's guy, Jim Suttle, had been elected Omaha's next mayor.

"Love me some Jim Suttle. F*** the World-Herald," the Democratic political operative tweeted after the May 12 election.

WELL, as it turns out, the World-Herald is reporting Samp may know a little something about f***:

A top appointee to Mayor-elect Jim Suttle's administration faced an investigation in 2001 into whether he had sex with a 14-year-old boy.

The teenager, who championed gay rights in high school, killed himself a week after telling police about his sex with two men, including Matthew Samp, who has been named Suttle's co-chief of staff.

SOMETHING TELLS ME this morning's Sunday World-Herald will be burning a hole in our driveway. Which is nothing compared to the impact it will have at the Suttle residence.

"F*** the World-Herald"?

Matt Samp just may have learned his last lesson in politics: That which f***s last f***s well, indeed.

UPDATE: The teen-ager involved in the story, says the World-Herald, was Brad Matthew Fuglei. Here's an excerpt from a 1998 feature in the newspaper on the then-North High School student.

Note who figures prominently in the piece:

Brad Matthew, the son of Nancy Fuglei of Omaha and Bruce Fuglei of Montana, is a member of North's Student Council and show choir. He volunteers for the Nebraska AIDS Project and recruited friends to help out with Teens Educated to Combat AIDS.

When he is not working at the men's department at Younkers, hanging out with friends or doing homework, Brad likes to play the piano and write music. His lyrics often reflect his thought about God, he said.

"He's a total free spirit. He doesn't care what others think," said Matthew Samp, an older friend who is like an older brother to Brad Matthew. "He's every parent's dream child -- strong, intelligent and dependable. He's completely against smoking, drinking and drug use. He doesn't need a baby sitter."

The murder of Shepard hit Brad Matthew hard. The idea for a vigil came to him around 2 o'clock one morning while he was talking online and doing homework. The next day he called Samp, who had been an events coordinator in Minneapolis, for help. Samp outlined a plan for Brad Matthew, who went right to work.

Between classes, he called gay and lesbian support groups seeking speakers and spreading the word. He selected Memorial Park because it was built, he said, in honor of those who have died in battle. It seemed appropriate.

Brad Matthew wrote press releases, selected the music and outlined the program. He asked Brink to speak because he knew members of her youth group.

"I think he showed a lot of initiative," said Bruce Fuglei. "I was amazed he did it. But then I'm often amazed by him. He's always been a unique kid. He thinks of others before himself."

Samp said Brad Matthew's natural charm and charisma make people enjoy being around him. He knows who he is and what he wants out of life.

OF COURSE, we won't know a lot until the World-Herald story actually hits the street in a bit. But I think it might be safe to say that the sound you just heard was a nuclear bomb going off in the middle of Omaha politics.

Woody Allen no match for Dov's bar

It takes a freak.

To make one feel intense sympathy for Woody Allen.

Briefly, American Apparel for a week supplemented its advertising menu of oversexed, barely-clad youths with New York and Los Angeles billboards featuring a still of Allen, dressed as an Hasidic rabbi, from his 1977 film "Annie Hall." Allen, who never gave his permission for his image to be used in the ads, took umbrage and sued for $10 million.

American Apparel -- caught dead to rights in what would seem a pretty straightforward copyright transgression -- has opted upon a scorched-earth defense, centering on the premise that Allen's image isn't worth much because the old perv ruined it himself.

HERE'S THE STORY from The Associated Press:

Now the company plans to make Allen’s relationships to actress Mia Farrow and her adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn the focus of a trial scheduled to begin in federal court in Manhattan on May 18, according to the company’s lawyer, Stuart Slotnick.

“Woody Allen expects $10 million for use of his image on billboards that were up and down in less than one week. I think Woody Allen overestimates the value of his image,” Slotnick said.

“Certainly, our belief is that after the various sex scandals that Woody Allen has been associated with, corporate America’s desire to have Woody Allen endorse their product is not what he may believe it is.”

(snip)

Slotnick said it was not a cheap shot to bring up Allen’s sex life in a lawsuit over the billboard and Internet ads.

“It’s certainly relevant in assessing the value of an endorsement,” he said, noting that Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps lost endorsement power after a photograph surfaced of him using marijuana.

OY VEH. One is tempted to think the eccentric-yet-genius director has it coming . . . until you realize that even dirty old men have the right not to have giant garment companies profit off their image gratis.

And when you go to the trouble to learn a little about American Apparel and its horndog founder, Dov Charney, you are suddenly and strangely compelled to make a hysterical YouTube video demanding everybody "LEAVE WOODY ALONE!"

Let's put it this way: If it's sexual ethics we're worried about, Woody Allen may be Miles Monroe with youngish tastes, but Dov Charney is Pee-wee Herman with a hunger for his female employees. Among other things.

You need to be eased into the weird, wild world of the World's Biggest Hypocrite, so let us start here:

Mary Nelson is one of three women who filed sexual harassment lawsuits against Charney last year. Keith Fink is often on the other side of this debate, hired by companies trying to ward off harassment litigation.

Josh Mankiewicz, Dateline correspondent: You do workshops for employers telling them how to avoid sexual harassment cases.

Keith Fink, attorney for Mary Nelson: Quite often. I’m a pretty entertaining guy.

Mankiewicz: And you give out a bunch of guidelines for people to sort of live by if they wanna stay out of a courtroom.

Fink: Absolutely.

Mankiewicz: How many of those guidelines were broken at American Apparel?

Fink: Every single one of them.

(snip)

Mankiewicz: Mr. Charny’s been pretty open about the fact that he’s been involved personally with a number of his employees.

Fink: Open. Brazen. Yes.

Charney has talked to reporters from the New York Times, Business Week and Jane magazine about his intimate relationships with women who work for him. “I’m not saying I want to screw all the girls at work,” he was quoted as saying in Jane, “But if I fall in love at work it’s going to be beautiful and sexual.”

By all accounts, the women who have sued Dov Charney for sexual harassment—including Fink’s client Mary Nelson—were not intimately involved with him. But Nelson and the two others claimed the boss shocked and disgusted them with dirty talk and gestures, creating what some lawyers call a phrase you’ve heard before, “a hostile work environment.”

Mary Nelson started working as a wholesale salesperson at American Apparel in 2003 when she was 31. Over the next year and a half, she claims in her complaint, her boss made her work life miserable with unwelcome sexual comments and suggestive signals. And she says she was dismissed after she complained.

In the videotaped deposition, over several days, her lawyer grilled Charney about all of it.

Fink (deposition): Did you ever, at work, refer to women as “sluts”?

Charney: In private conversations, where such language was generally welcome.

Fink: Do you view "slut" to be a derogatory term?

Charney: You know, there are some of us that love sluts. You know, it’s not necessarily—it could be also be an endearing term.

Fink: An endearing term. Is that something you call your mother?

Charney: No. But it’s maybe something that you call your lover.

Fink (Dateline interview): I’m very difficult to floor me. That floored me when I heard his explanation that “slut” is an endearing term.

Charney freely admits using a number of explicit terms for female body parts—including the “C” word.

Charney: During the period when she worked, did I use the word c***?

Fink: In the workplace?

Charney: Absolutely, as she did.

Fink: I didn’t ask you if she did.

Charney: I’m telling you a little more. I’m volunteering a little more ha ha [sticks out tongue].

The company argues in the freewheeling creative environment of American Apparel, it’s not inappropriate to use foul language.

And in fact, a recent court decision might back that up: this spring the California Supreme Court ruled that an assistant scriptwriter on the NBC sitcom "Friends" could not proceed with a sexual harassment lawsuit. The court ruled that lewd language was permissible in a creative workplace generating scripts with sexual themes.

Charney hangs explicit vintage magazines on the walls of his retail stores. He even posed for one ad himself in the magazine “Sweet Action.” To Charney, it’s all part of an unconventional vibe he says is the very essence of his hip young company.

Charney: I believe that we work hard to create an environment of freedom.

And in the world of Dov Charney, freedom can sometimes mean dressing down at the office.

Fink: At the workplace in the years 2003 and 2004 how often in the work week would you be in your underwear?

Charney: There were months I was in my underwear all the time. It became very common.

I THINK, in reference to American Apparel's defense against Woody Allen's lawsuit, that is commonly referred to as "the pot calling the kettle black." But this -- again, from Dateline NBC -- is where the concept breaks new ground:

If you think it’s outlandish that a boss would make that comment, even in jest, consider this: when Claudine Ko, a reporter for Jane magazine was spending time with Charney in 2004 to research a profile, she says the CEO pleasured himself in front of her.

Claudine Ko, reporter for Jane magazine: On one hand, I was shocked. But, on the other hand—no, I—I was shocked.

Ko says it happened several times, always at Charney’s apartment after a few drinks. She makes no apologies for her decision not to excuse herself when her interview subject pulled down his pants. She says she was just trying to show readers the real Dov Charney, and she says she was a willing observer.

Ko: I did not feel sexually harassed. You know I knew -- I felt comfortable knowing that if I asked ‘em to stop it, he would.

And that’s not the only thing she reported seeing Charney do outside the office.

Fink: Do you remember [bleep] giving you oral sex in front of the reporter?

Charney’s lawyer: Objection; privacy. Direct the witness not to answer.

Ko: He and his—one of his assistants engaged in sexual relations. You know, at no point did I ever think I’m gonna walk out of this room or I am uncomfortable. I just thought, “This is gonna be a fantastic story.”

American Apparel describes what happened between the reporter and Charney as “consensual sexual exchanges” and says that Charney and his assistant with whom he was involved at the time thought their activities would be kept private. The company calls it “a social situation which...unfortunately was exploited in order to sell magazines.”
The reporter says that’s wrong, saying Charney was well aware the whole thing could end up in print.

Ko: You can do what you want but just remember, I’m a reporter and I’m going to be writing a story at the end of all of this.

In her story, Ko reported that the sexual encounter she witnessed between Charney and his assistant appeared to be entirely consensual. She also says she interviewed many American Apparel employees, who all seemed happy with their jobs and didn’t consider their boss a pervert.

Ko: If you go to the headquarters, it’s not like you go and you see people having sex on the production floors. It’s not just, like, you know, all out debauchery.

But of all the strange things that may or may not have happened between Dov Charney and his subordinates, perhaps the strangest involves what he wore for part of a business meeting at his L.A. home which plaintiff Mary Nelson says she attended.

Fink: He recalled you wearing a sock on your penis while Ms. Nelson was in your home is that correct?

Charney: The product is called a [bleep] sock.

For the record, Charney says he doesn’t recall whether Mary Nelson was present at the infamous sock meeting, but he says there wouldn’t be anything wrong with wearing the item in front of her. He says he was simply modeling a potential new product.

Fink: Does it cover the entire buttocks?

Charney: No. But neither does a thong.

BELIEVE ME, the NBC report was a sanitized version of the Weird, Wild World of Dov Charney. Here are some excerpts from the actual article in Jane, courtesy of the Jewilicious blog:

I asked him how he relaxed. Oral sex he says, settling into a chair behind a cloud of smoke. “I love it . . . I am a bit of a dirty guy, but people like that right now.”

Explaining exactly how the rest of the night unraveled is somewhat difficult. Let’s just say, the female employee helped him “put on a show” for me. I watched, trying to be objective, detached -- sorta like a . . . war reporter?

Ko goes to Charney’s pad late one evening for an interview session:

Soon enough he loosens his Pierre Cardin belt.
“Are you going to do it again?” I ask.

“Can I?” he says adjusting himself in his chair.

And thus begins another compulsive episode of what Dov likes to call “self-pleasure,” during which we casually carry on our interview, discussing things like business models, hiring practices and the stupidity of focus groups.

“Masturbation in front of women is underrated,” Dov explains to me later over the phone. “It’s much easier on the woman. She gets to watch, it’s a sensual experience that doesn’t involve a man violating a woman, yet once the man has his release, it’s over and you can talk to the guy.”

Ko claims that in the month she spent with Charney, she watched him pleasure himself eight or so times. She ends the article by describing how she leaves Charney in New York, interview completed, and hails a cab. “Then as I step into the depths of the backseat, I realize I don’t want this trip to end just yet.”

AMERICAN APPAREL'S lawyers have a lot of damn nerve. Just like Dov Charney has a lot of damn problems -- the first of which is being a pervert.

Suddenly, poor old Woody Allen is starting to look a lot more normal. And like a much more sympathetic character.

Leave Woody ALONE!!!

Barbarians in the Quad

Just what today's kids need. More porn.

AND IT'S THEIR colleges and universities giving it to them. Like the University of Maryland, for just one, as reported by the Baltimore Sun:

The student union at the University of Maryland, College Park, will be showing a hard-core pornographic film this weekend, causing some to worry that the university is promoting the degradation of women.

Pirates II: Stagnetti's Revenge will be shown at midnight Saturday in a campus theater usually home to tamer fare such as independent and foreign films. The distributor of the film, Digital Playground, offered it to the student union for free, so student activities fees are not being used to finance it. A student programming committee voted to screen the film, billed as a "XXX blockbuster."

But the chaplain of the Catholic Student Center at Maryland, the Rev. Kyle Ingels, said screening pornographic films does not lead to a positive atmosphere on campus. "We're trying to promote greater respect on campus of all people and something like a pornographic film is not contributing to the buildup of the human person," Ingels said. "It's degrading to the human person. It really runs counter to our efforts to try to form people to be men and women who will go out and contribute to society."

University officials acknowledge that the film is "not for everyone" but say the idea was to provide students with an alternative to late-night drinking and other dangerous activities. The student union screens a wide variety of films for a wide variety of audiences, they said.

"We thought this would be something fun for the students to do, especially since we're getting close to the end of the semester," said Lisa Cunningham, program coordinator for the Hoff Theater, which is showing the film. "We're a college movie theater and we thought it would bring out the students."

A university spokesman, Lee Tune, said the administration was aware that the film had been scheduled and would not block its screening.

The admission cost of $4 will cover the expense of staffing the film. About 60 advance tickets had been sold as of Wednesday. The 138-minute film, released last fall, was the most expensive hard-core porn film ever made, at $10 million, according to Digital Playground. The story centers on a group of pirates seeking revenge on another pirate.

An R-rated version of the film is also available, but Maryland chose to screen the XXX version because it would generate greater student interest, Cunningham said.

IN A SOCIETY SATURATED in every conceivable manner with the premise that human beings are mere pieces of meat, the University of Maryland proposes to reinforce the idea with porno screenings in the name of good, not-so-clean fun. Oh joy.

Out of one side of their mouths, members of this country's educational establishment decry "sexting," sexual assault and sexual harassment, but from the other spews pornographic films that contribute to the degradation of sex -- and of the humans who have it.

Educators, make up your minds. Can what's really, really, really bad for the 17-year-old really be all that good for the 18- and 19-year-old?

When we actively -- or passively, out of moral and educational cowardice -- tell young people they are objects, mere humanoid sex toys to use and be used for giggles and orgasms, we ought not be surprised with what we ultimately get. Dysfunctional relationships, for one thing. Illegitimacy, for another.

Abortion, sexually transmitted diseases, sexual abuse, sexual harassment and divorce, just to name a few more.

Ultimately, as this cultural toxic waste filters down to the hoi polloi, we end up with stuff like this. Gee, I wonder where that idea came from?

Kids today

Funny -- isn't it? -- how we wait, amid these uncertain and trying times, for our figurative "end of days" and the arrival of the postmodern-day equivalent of the Huns.

We wait for a secular Pope Leo the Great to meet Attila at the gates of Rome -- or somewhere -- and convince him to leave us in peace. Leave us be so we might continue driving our oversized cars, continue chatting about nothing on our ubiquitous cell phones and continue being pampered at our favorite spa.

I fear we wait in vain. The economy will lay waste to "livin' large," and the spiritual successors of Leo the Great scarcely can deal with the Catholics, much less the barbarians.

THE BARBARIANS . . . who happen to be us. And our children, now perfecting the whole looting, raping, killing and pillaging thing.

From The Advocate in Baton Rouge, La. (sigh):

A 15-year-old girl was shot in the face early today after she refused to have sex with the shooter, Baton Rouge police said.

The shooting, which occurred in the 2500 block of Jura Street, happened at 4:20 a.m., police spokesman Cpl. L’Jean Mckneely Jr. said in a news release.

The suspect, along with two other boys, fled the scene, McKneely said.

The victim was talking with several boys with whom she was acquainted, when one asked her to perform a sex act, McKneely said.

The girl refused and one of the boys pulled out a gun and shot her, McKneely said.

Police officers found and apprehended a 14-year-old boy at 8 a.m. at the home of a relative in the 400 block of St. Rose, McKneely said.

UPDATE: Oh, and there's also this:

A 7-year-old girl was reportedly raped at Park Forest Elementary School on March 13, police said today.

Baton Rouge Police spokesman Sgt. Don Kelly said the girl told a family member Sunday that one boy raped her while several older boys pinned her down.

Park Forest Elementary is located at 10717 Elain Drive.

Sex crimes detectives are currently investigating the incident, and no arrests have been made yet, Kelly said.

It's just like straight marriage, only bizarre

Gay-marriage advocates want the straight world to think there's no real difference between Mr. and Mrs. Jones and Mrs. and Mrs. Jones.

Or Mr. and Mr. Jones.

This is not true. First, of course, you have same-sex matrimony's complete departure from any previously known concept of marriage. And second, the parts don't fit -- there's no biological, natural-law purpose for it.

THEN, YOU HAVE its complete susceptibility to every dysfunction common to hetero marriage . . . except you know it's all going to turn out much, much weirder. Exhibit A is from Pittsfield, Mass., courtesy of The Berkshire Eagle:

A woman who allegedly intended to artificially inseminate her wife with her brother's semen has been charged with domestic assault and battery.
Pittsfield police responded to a call shortly before 4:30 p.m. Tuesday in the city's Morningside neighborhood, where the assault allegedly occurred.

Stephanie K. Lighten, 26, was released on personal recognizance after denying the allegations in Central Berkshire District Court Wednesday morning.

Jennifer A. Lighten, 33, told police that Stephanie Lighten, her wife, was "all liquored up" when she returned to their Lincoln Street apartment, where the defendant then allegedly tried to use a syringe to inseminate her, according to a police report.

Jennifer told investigating officers that Stephanie "has been talking about trying to impregnate (her) for some time," police said.

According to a report by Pittsfield Police Officer Kipp D. Steinman: "Jennifer said that Stephanie had a 'turkey baster and her brother's semen in a sealed container.' Jennifer said she told Stephanie that she didn't want to get pregnant." The device was actually a large syringe with a catheter tip, police said, and it was still in its original package when officers confiscated the item.

That's allegedly when Stephanie threw Jennifer on the couch, grabbed at her clothes and threatened to impregnate her, police said.

BUT WAIT . . . there's more!

The episode finally lurched to an end with the syringe-packin' mama hanging on to the door of the couple's SUV as her battered wife barely missed hitting a tree as she tried to escape.

Police found Stephanie Lighten near an intersection. Officers also confiscated the container of semen and some tinfoil it was wrapped in. Ewwww.

We can only hope God is laughing too hard to smite us.

How desperate are newspapers?

This desperate.

The Omaha World-Herald -- which recently raised the ire of gay activists everywhere by refusing a same-sex wedding announcement for "business reasons" -- nevertheless seems to have found "business reasons" aplenty to run a rather (ahem) large ad for horny-making strips in its Thursday "Money" section.

BACK IN MY DAY, the high-school set was afire with tales of the miraculous properties of Spanish fly -- a magical potion that could get even the most zit-infested adolescent male laid. The tale less told, of course, was that it also could kill you.

But Spanish fly is so 1970s, you know? And even in the '70s, you'd be (cough) hard pressed to find display ads for the stuff in even the wildest alternative rags. You know, the ones that had all the advertising for abortion clinics and concerts sponsored by NORML.

The times, they are a-changin'. Now it's the formerly staid old maid of Nebraska journalism that's making money off Americans' utter desperation to get their freak on. The newspaper that won't run words like s***, f***, a**, d***, P**** or even "poop" has discovered the go$pel of Stimul-x (TM), the postmillennial aphrodisiac that supposedly gives you all the horn dog with half the kidney damage, tummy rumbles, convulsions or death.

THE BUSINESS of newspapers -- especially now -- is business, and if there's a buck to be made, it's in telling Americans how to get laid. Or, at least, in selling them the belief they're going to finally get laid.

Oh, the taboos that tumble when the high and mighty realize they have a business model that's truly f***ed.

Onward Christian soldiers. . . .

Instead of teaching the children and renewing a culture, a group of Christian jihadists finds it's much easier to just make asses of themselves railing against nekkid mermaids.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune has the scoop on Starbucks' morning cup o' ho:

Seems that one person's smut is another person's morning latte.

A Christian group out of San Diego has found grounds for outrage over the new retro-style logo for Starbucks Coffee.

The Resistance says the new image "has a naked woman on it with her legs spread like a prostitute," Mark Dice, founder of the group, said in a news release. "Need I say more? It's extremely poor taste, and the company might as well call themselves Slutbucks."

The group, which claims more than 3,000 members nationwide and has found a place advancing various conspiracy theories, is calling for a national boycott of the coffee-selling giant.

The logo will run on Starbucks cups for "several more weeks," said company spokeswoman Bridget Baker, and will live on as the logo for Pike Place bags of coffee.

The image is a less-revealing throw-back version of what the chain used for many years starting when it first opened in Seattle in 1971. That original logo was resurrected in its Pacific Northwest outlets for a time in 2006 to mark the chain's 35th anniversary.

(snip)

The explanation for that initial logo design is explained in the book "Pour Your Heart into It : How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time," written by company founder Howard Schultz:

"[Creative partner Terry Heckler] poured [sic] over old marine books until he came up with a logo based on an old sixteenth-century Norse woodcut: a two-tailed mermaid, or siren, encircled by the store's original name, Starbucks Coffee, Tea, and Spice. That early siren, bare-breasted and Rubenesque, was supposed to be as seductive as coffee itself."

OF COURSE, while our brave and fearless Christian soldiers are defending against the expected onslaught at Pas-de-Calais, the enemy has been having its way with the Normandy sector of the cultural landscape.

Our hapless army has lost its children and surrendered all the parts of the culture that matter. Better, I suppose, to rail against the Starbucks mermaid's bodacious tatas, then beat a hasty retreat into a cultural ghetto that leaves most right-minded folks hungry for "the good stuff" over at Satan's Place.

Sounds like a winning battle plan to me.

FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH, I suppose we're fortunate that Starbucks didn't bring back its original 1971 logo, pictured at right.