A poem for New Orleans

The president said,

'I'll fix levees like new,'

But talk is cheap,

And your lives are, too.

From The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune:

WASHINGTON — President Bush is expected to shift $1.3 billion away from raising and armoring levees, installing flood gates and building permanent pumping in Southeast Louisiana to plug long-anticipated funding shortfalls in other hurricane-protection projects, a move Sen. David Vitter describes as a retreat from the president’s commitment to protect the whole New Orleans area

Vitter, R-La., who unveiled Bush’s plans Thursday, condemned the move in a strongly worded letter to the president and called on him to ask Congress for more money to complete work that he promised would be done - and Congress financed - in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina

“I believe your fiscal 2008 budget proposal would be a step back from that commitment, however unintended,“ Vitter wrote. “I am deathly afraid that this vital emergency post-Katrina work is now being treated like typical (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) projects that take decades to complete. We will not recover if this happens

John Paul Woodley Jr., assistant secretary of the Army for Public Works, said that the money will go toward critically needed hurricane protection on the West Bank that has left residents vulnerable. Without it, he said, work would have to stop in a matter of months when financing dries up

“We will come to a point later in spring when we will have to stop issuing contracts unless the additional funding is made available by some other means,“ Woodley said. “There is no question, as the senator says, of our commitment. It should not be seen as a step back from that commitment.“

It has been anticipated for months that there would not be enough money to finish long-planned hurricane-protection work on the West Bank, including raising levees to
withstand a 100-year storm and building flood walls on the east side of the Harvey Canal. Bush’s budget appears to be an attempt to finally complete those projects without asking Congress for additional hurricane-protection money.

Instead, his fiscal 2008 budget is expected to “reallocate“ $1.3 billion from what Congress appropriated last year to fix the failings of the region’s hurricane-protection system exposed by Hurricane Katrina, the costliest natural disaster in American history.

Had enough, New Orleans?

Had enough, Louisiana?

Had enough, Mississippi Gulf Coast?

Had enough, America?

This one's for Molly

Syndicated columnist Molly Ivins – a true red-hot mama and Texas liberal firebrand – died Wednesday. She was 62.

I didn’t agree with her half the time, but I couldn’t fault her style. But in her final column, published Jan. 11, Molly nailed it with her final words to her readers:

We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. Raise hell. Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. Make our troops know we’re for them and trying to get them out of there. Hit the streets to protest Bush’s proposed surge. If you can, go to the peace march in Washington on Jan. 27. We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, “Stop it, now!”

AIIGHT, MA'AM. This one’s for you, from The Mighty Favog. May God rest your soul.

* * *

The Hon. Lee Terry
Representative, Nebraska 2nd District
1524 Longworth House Office Building

Washington, DC 20515

Representative Terry:


I will not take up much of your time – or, more accurately, your staffer’s – for what I have to say is simple:

Impeach President Bush. Impeach Vice-President Cheney.

These two men, it is plain, have lied and miscalculated us into a tragic, calamitous war in Iraq that (it is now clear to all) we had no business starting. There were no weapons of mass destruction; there was no nuclear-weapons program; there was no call to oust that country’s despotic president because that responsibility properly belonged with the Iraqi people, not with an American hegemon.

This unjust war is not about “freedom and democracy.” This unjust war IS about the stupidity and pride bedeviling the two fools who pilot our ship of state. Indeed, all we have done in Iraq is create the conditions for the rise of Shia mob-ocracy.

Tell me, sir, what kind of “freedom” is possible when you’re getting blown up daily by terrorist bombs or killed by sectarian death squads? We, at the instigation of President Bush and Vice-President Cheney, are the perpetuators of a grotesque and catastrophic farce, for which the consequences have been -- and will continue to be -- dire.

The blood of nearly 3,100 American troops (and God only knows how many Iraqis) is on the hands of these two miscreants. And, by extension, the blood also is on your hands and mine.

In the run-up to the Iraq war, I (like you) believed President Bush and the “intelligence” he presented us. I thought Saddam’s Iraq presented enough of a threat that a pre-emptive war might be justifiable; I thought there was an Iraq-al Qaida link.

In retrospect, I was a damned fool. And so were you.

I now am trying to make amends for that; are you now willing to do the same? Are you now willing to hold a dangerously incompetent and mendacious administration accountable for its misdeeds and incompetence?

We have an administration that is systematically degrading our military and eroding our geostrategic interests in a deeply stupid, highly costly war -– a war that was unjustly waged from the start.

We have an administration that cannot and will not secure our southern border or seriously enforce immigration law in the American workplace. This has contributed to the suppression of American blue-collar wages, as well as to the plight of our most vulnerable fellow citizens.

We have an administration that utterly bungled the response to the biggest natural disaster in more than a century – the destruction of a large swath of the Gulf Coast in Hurricane Katrina.

We have an administration that has shown utter contempt for the Bill of Rights, as well as for the legitimate rights and powers of Congress.

If this is not –- at a minimum -– official malfeasance, what is, pray tell?

Sir, I write as someone who is not politically conservative but who most certainly is socially conservative . . . and ardently pro-life. I used to be a reluctant Republican; the Bush Administration has turned me into a disaffected Democrat.

Even as a Democrat, I do not relish the thought of President Pelosi. In all likelihood, she would pursue a social agenda I would oppose vigorously.

But this is what we have come to: the point where the presidential calamity that might be is preferable to the utter presidential catastrophe that most certainly is.

The war must end. Bush and Cheney must go.

And may God have mercy on us all.

Now, if the project were in Sadr City . . . or done by 'guest workers,' this idea might have a chance

In case you hadn't heard (and if this is the case, thank GOD you awoke from that vegetative state . . . IT'S A MIRACLE, I tells ya!), the federal government has been quite diligent about throwing good money after bad on a calamitous expeditionary war in Iraq and pork-barrel "earmarked" projects.

It has not been diligent at all about rebuilding the devastated Gulf Coast, including the New Orleans area, which was drowned by the Army Corps of Engineers' breakaway levee system. Nor has it been diligent about chipping away at pernicious poverty and social breakdown, even after Katrina laid bare the festering sores on America's body politic.

The government, and America's business leaders, instead found the economy can be kept limping along upon the backs of illegal Mexican immigrants, who demand little in the way of living wages, benefits or compliance with Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations. (All they ask is no one call la Migra.)

IN FACT, it seems to me that the federal government's official jobs policy goes something like: If illegal aliens can't do the job here, the Chinese can. In China.

In other words, screw America's poor, screw America's working class, and screw America's middle class.

And, still, the Gulf Coast molders.

As a certified neo-New Deal Democrat, your Mighty Favog has, from Day One, thought that the displaced and jobless of the Gulf Coast region ought to be put to work rebuilding their cities and towns in a full-fledged Works Progress Administration-style jobs program. In the process, the ill-educated could be educated, and the dysfunctional could be counseled.

But every able-bodied participant would know the dignity of honest and meaningful work.

FINALLY, BY GOD, someone -- a San Jose State professor -- has come up with just such a proposal. And someone in Congress has called for such a thing, too.

Amazing.

It probably doesn't stand a snowball's chance in Hell. This is the New America, after all.

Still, if you're like me and can't resist tilting at windmills, you can go here and tell your congressman and senators in Washington to DO THE RIGHT THING.

It would cost a hell of a lot less than our Perpetual Meat Grinder in Iraq.

Best Little Whorehouse in Toronto?

If both people are getting paid to have sex with one another, is it still prostitution? Or, if a crowd of people are watching, is it an illegal sex show at an unlicensed strip joint?

Or . . . are the Louisiana state and Ontario provincial governments just in the bidness of granting tax incentives for porno flicks? 'Cause if you're actually doing it, it ain't acting.

Those are just a few of the questions that come to mind after reading a particularly juicy gossip item in the New York Daily News about Factory Girl, which shot in Shreveport and north of the border in Toronto:

Sienna Miller and Hayden Christensen treat us to some utterly convincing lovemaking in their new movie, "Factory Girl." And it's no wonder: We hear the costars actually coupled on camera.

"It's not simulated," an insider tells us. "They're really doing it."

In the movie, Miller plays doomed Andy Warhol protégé Edie Sedgwick. Christensen plays a folk rocker modeled after Bob Dylan.

It was during the film's Louisiana shoot that Miller ran into another squall in her stormy romance with Jude Law -- and turned for comfort to Christensen, the "Star Wars" heartthrob.

"They spent about a month hanging out," says one pal of Christensen. "But then she decided she didn't want a relationship. Hayden was devastated. He really fell for her."

Added a friend of Miller, "Sienna wanted to try to make another go of it with Jude. But, again, it didn't work out. At the end of last summer, she and Hayden ended up in Toronto for more shooting. They hadn't talked in six months. But it turned out to be a great reunion."

Apparently. When it came time to shoot the love scene, word is the former lovers dispensed with the flesh-colored socks and pads favored by actors on less familiar terms. And, once the cameras were rolling, the two 25-year-olds fell into old habits.

At the movie's premiere on Monday, director George Hickenlooper would tell us only: "Sienna and Hayden grew close during the filming. It was an emotional experience for all of us." As for the sex, he said, "We tried to portray it tastefully."

And was congress actually in session during the shooting?

"I can't comment," Hickenlooper answered. "You'll have to ask Sienna about it."

Miller left the Chelsea Hotel after-party before we could ask about the love scene - and where she now stands with Christensen, who wasn't at the premiere. Yesterday, Miller's publicist said the sex wasn't bona fide: "She's just a really good actress."

I'll bet.

ONCE UPON A TIME, folks in Louisiana could express pretty clearly what is alleged to have transpired here. But today, it would be politically incorrect to speak of "white trash up to no good."

So I won't talk about what the hell kind of trashy people get their freak on in front of God and everybody . . . including "mainstream" movie audiences. Sex between a husband and wife is special -- sacramental, even.

This -- if it actually happened as alleged -- is people with no shame and no decency rutting in the name of Debbie Does Dallas and The Devil in Miss Jones, which used to be known as "smut," not "art."

And this episode of Brats Behaving Badly was subsidized by somebody's tax dollars.

One, two, three . . . what are we fightin' for? Don't ask me, I don't give a damn . . .

NEXT STOP'S GONNA BE I-RAN!

And it's five, six, seven,

Open up the pearly gates,

Well there ain't no time to wonder why

Whoopee! we're all gonna die.

As we all prepare for an even worse quagmire in the Middle East -- not to mention really, really expensive gasoline (as opposed to the mundanely expensive gas we've been dealing with on and off again the past couple of years) -- the CNN story excerpted below has gotten me thinking about the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964.

That and President Bush's bamboozle-us-into-Iraq track record, that is. Read on:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The Pentagon is investigating whether a recent attack on a military compound in Karbala was carried out by Iranians or Iranian-trained operatives, two officials from separate U.S. government agencies said.

"People are looking at it seriously," one of the officials said.

That official added the Iranian connection was a leading theory in the investigation into the January 20 attack that killed five soldiers.

The second official said: "We believe it's possible the executors of the attack were Iranian or Iranian-trained."

Five U.S. soldiers were abducted and killed in the sophisticated attack by men wearing U.S.-style uniforms, according to U.S. military reports. (Watch how attackers got into the compound )

Both officials stressed the Iranian-involvement theory is a preliminary view, and there is no final conclusion. They agreed this possibility is being looked at because of the sophistication of the attack and the level of coordination.

"This was beyond what we have seen militias or foreign fighters do," the second official said. The investigation has led some officials to conclude the attack was an "inside job" -- that people inside the compound helped the attackers enter unstopped.

Investigators are looking particularly at how the attackers got U.S.-style military uniforms and SUVs similar to those used by U.S. troops. (Watch what could happen if the U.S. opts to strike Iran )

"'Who was behind it all?' was the fundamental question," the first official said.

The U.S. military on Friday confirmed accounts that the soldiers had been abducted and driven away from their compound. The military had said in a January 20 press release only that "five U.S. soldiers were killed and three wounded while repelling the attack."

Some Iraqis speculate that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps carried out the attack in retaliation for the capture by U.S. forces of five of its members in Irbil, Iraq, on January 11, according to a Time.com article published Tuesday. (Read the article)

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has a reputation for taking harsh and unrelenting revenge on its enemies, the Time.com article says.

The five Iranians are still in U.S. custody.

The U.S.-led coalition has said a preliminary investigation found links between the detainees and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which has provided funds, weapons, bomb technology and training to extremist groups in Iraq.

ONE THING IS FOR CERTAIN. The average American teen-ager's protests against having to study "boring old history that I'll never use anyway" has lost whatever cachet it might have possessed.

And, though I'd never vote for the guy, you have to hand it to dark-horse, libertarian-leaning GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul:

Rumors are flying about when, not if, Iran will be bombed by either Israel or the U.S.-- possibly with nuclear weapons. Our CIA says Iran is ten years away from producing a nuclear bomb and has no delivery system, but this does not impede our plans to keep “everything on the table” when dealing with Iran.

We should remember that Iran, like Iraq, is a third-world nation without a significant military. Nothing in history hints that she is likely to invade a neighboring country, let alone do anything to America or Israel. I am concerned, however, that a contrived Gulf of Tonkin-type incident may occur to gain popular support for an attack on Iran.

Where girls are first but Jesus is scarce

Jesus.

Jesus.

Jesus.

Jesus.

Jesus.

THERE. AS FAR AS I CAN TELL, I am now even with the very extensive website of Marian High School in Omaha, Neb., in mentioning Jesus Christ.

Remember Him?

If that's any indication of how prominent Jesus Christ and the authentic teaching of His Church is at the all-girls high school run by the Servants of Mary, a Catholic parent could do just as well in their daughter's faith formation by sending her to the local public high school -- which, generally, you can count on to be an excellent one, by the way.

And that Catholic parent of a teen-age girl could save quite a wad of Benjamins every year as well. Certainly enough to go a very long way toward financing four years at, say, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Which has a nationally lauded Catholic student center, by the way.

Mrs. Favog and I have been volunteering in parish youth ministry in Omaha for a long time now. As in, many of the first kids we worked with are now in their 30s.

Not to pick on Marian (because, God knows, it is more the rule than the exception in the Catholic high school world, from what I hear), but in our experience, if there's some serious teen-age, angst-ridden challenging to be done of some really basic, really plain teachings of the Catholic Church in youth group, there's a Marian girl behind it somewhere.

Or a Creighton Prep boy.

SO, YOU HAVE TO ASK . . . what is up with this Catholic School Thang? Are parents that clueless about schools that faithless, or are kids being kids and there ain't no dang thing that can be done about it?

Or is it all about prestige and tradition with a lot of parents, and not so much about Jesus? If at all.

I don't think it's unreasonable, as an adult Roman Catholic, to really wonder what Catholic schools are about anymore, and whether that happens to matter to anyone in charge. If spiritual results could be quantified, tested and reported -- and if Catholic parents and Catholic clerics worried about them at all -- my years-long observation leads me to suspect there would be a massive uproar and subsequent "No Christ Left Behind" initiative from the U.S. bishops.

Naw . . . instead we get annual PR campaigns and fund-raising appeals. In other words: You can bulls*** some of the people most of the time, but most of the people don't give a rip.

Amy Welborn, over at Open Book, has a thread going about Catholic-school angst. It's WAAAAAAAY more active than a similar one for I Heart Catholic Schools. F'rinstance:

I attended a Catholic high School, Schulte HS in Terre haute IN. The school was staffed in part by the Sisters of Providence. We were taught that it was undesirable and supersticious to pray before the Blessed Sacrament. We were discouraged from saying the Rosary. In religion Class the Priest, Fr. Godecker, told us that healing from the Anointing of the Sick was "too magical" and that sacraments sybolized community concern. We voted on the Real Presence and Transubstanciation, and they lost. The school was closed for financial reasons, people weren't sending their kids there. That's also where I learned to smoke pot, drink alcohol and commit several sins of the flesh. It too, was a classist institution.

My Kids went to Holy Family in New Albany. They are now Adults, in their early twenties. They didn't know why we would venerate relics. They didn't know to invoke the intercession of saints. They had no concept of the Eucharist as more than a community memorial feast. They were there on tuition assistance, and were treated a second class by teachers and other students, who somehow found out that they required assistance. More classism.

I dis-recommend Catholic Schools now. There are some good ones, but very few.

Posted by: Mitch S. at Jan 29, 2007 9:29:52 AM

Dear Diary: Why I almost quit Pope FM yesterday

EDITOR'S NOTE: Here's another in the occasional series of dispatches recorded some years ago from the front lines of Catholic radio -- Pope FM.

* * *

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 31, 2001

Dear Diary,


I didn't mention one thing that hap-pened earlier in the day yesterday. Probably because I was still too all-out furious about it.

The background (as if I didn't know, but humor me, Me):

We've been having trouble with the reliability of our teen-age hosts of Holy Spirit Rock, a music show that follows the Saturday rerun of Keys to the Kingdom. When they don't show, I've been substituting the computer-generated voices of John (an American PC) and his "lawfully-wedded co-processor" the British Marsha. I use a couple of text-to-speech demos on the Web to generate the voices.

Actually, I think John and Marsha are better than the "organics." I have a great deal of fun putting the show together -- actually, I put together the human-hosted show, too, by voice tracking the kids and then assembling the show with the music, bumper music, "shotgun" show IDs and sound effects. And it's commercial-radio slick, too.

But something happened that really, really pissed me off and damn near caused me to quit on the spot:

Yesterday, in a production meeting with the general manager, Mary said she was about to cancel the show if the kids didn't take it more seriously. I told her I thought the show was an important outreach to youth and to cancel the present hosts, not the show, if they didn't clean up their act.

I added that I thought the show had great potential and eventually could be syndicated nationwide.

She said youth programming wasn't "a priority" at this time, and that she didn't want me spending so much time putting Holy Spirit Rock together. She's starting a daily series of five-minute reflections by local priests, and wants me to concentrate on stuff like that.

I responded that I was seriously worn out and burned out by the long hours and constant technical crises, and that doing Holy Spirit Rock was the only thing keeping me engaged right now. She repeated that HSR wasn't a priority, and that people wanted to hear their priests on the air.

Besides, she added, "youth don't contribute to the station" monetarily.

Well, Me, I've always heard the expression "seeing red," but I thought it was just that . . . an expression (but, once again, ah reckon you knew that). But I think I really did "see red" yesterday when Mary said what she said.

It took every bit of my strength to control myself. I almost bit a hole in my tongue to keep from calling her a g**damn Pharisee and quitting.

Instead, I repeated that youth programming was important and that all the production work was getting done, despite the time I spent on Holy Spirit Rock. The rest of the day I alternated between intense anger and being near tears. I could not believe what I had just heard.

Then again, maybe I'm just naive.

Today, the development guy and I were talking about youth programming, and how many experienced media professionals had been offering to help out with things like Keys to the Kingdom. He agreed with me totally about last night's KTK blunder, and then I told him what Mary told me about kids "not contributing" to Pope FM.

This guy is the best money hustler I've ever seen, and his jaw literally dropped. His expression was one of total shock. He said "If youth programming isn't a priority, what is? That's the future." He couldn't believe she really meant what she said. Then he urged me to stick to my guns and keep hammering away on the subject.

But you know, it's not just Pope FM. There's a pattern of the Church as a whole not committing the attention and resources to its youth. And if you look at every other Catholic radio station in the country, I'll bet that what little Pope FM does in that area (generally badly) is pretty close to average nationwide (as far as radio goes . . . on the Web, there's AlphaMegaRock.com -- full time, yes, but it's just a jukebox and has low-budget written all over it).

The Church bitches and bitches about the Culture of Death, but I contend we're a part of it so long as we ignore our children.

I am just soooooooo tired. And I'm soooooo tired of how frigging Pharisaical and evangelism-incompetent "orthodox" Catholicism is.

Nighty-night.


-- Me

Hell on earth

Some people think Hell is somewhere in the nether reaches of the Earth's gastrointestinal system, and that you get there when the Big Man springs His divine trap door.

I think Hell can, and does, erupt in the bowels of Baghdad. Or New Orleans.

Or at 12410 Westwood Lane in suburban Omaha, Neb.

Here's some of a story that made the national Associated Press wire today, from MSNBC:

OMAHA, Neb. - Omaha police believed a 62-year-old man fatally shot his daughter, her husband and her two young sons before turning the gun on himself early Sunday.

Police responded to a radio call just before 1 a.m. and found five people shot inside a west Omaha home. All were dead except Jamie Lee, 26, who died later at a hospital.

Investigators believe Lee’s father, Richard Wilkinson, shot her and her family before committing suicide, police Sgt. Teresa Negron said.

“We’re continuing the investigation to attempt to determine what occurred in that
residence,” said Negron.

KMTV television in Omaha picks up the story from there:

Neighbors tell Action 3 News they heard shots coming from the house and when police arrived, neighbors were asked to stay in their homes, "I heard people yelling, then my mom said she heard a gunshot and we all went outside and started looking and the police told us to get back in the house."

Late Sunday afternoon, Omaha police spokesman Officer Chuck Casey said this is now a murder-suicide investigation and they believe the owner of the home, Richard Wilkinson, killed his daughter, her husband and her two children. Friends of the family say there had been ongoing problems in the home, and Jamie Lee recently moved out with her family, but returned Saturday.

Darrell Lee is listed on Nebraska's Sex Offender Registry as a Level 3 Offender, who was twice convicted on sexual assault on a child.

(Video)

Hell on earth. It's not just a saying; it's what fallen humanity is capable of, what Satan desires of us, and it's what we refuse to acknowledge until it slaps us in the face.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Dear Diary: Dear Rage Against the Machine . . .

EDITOR'S NOTE: Here's another in the occasional series of dispatches from the front lines of Catholic radio -- Pope FM.

* * *

TUESDAY, OCT. 30, 2001

Dear Diary,


I decided it would be unconscionable for me to bitch about the Keys to the Kingdom kids and not respond myself to the guy who E-mailed the show. So I did.

Here's the letter. I'm going to bed. It's late.

-- Me

* * *

Dear Rage Against the Machine,


Thanks for your question to Keys to the Kingdom last evening. I thought it was a valid one, and it cuts to the very heart of Christianity. As a Pope FM staffer, I was in the control room for the show, and I thought that maybe the panelists gave answers that were a little more complicated, peripheral and long-winded than they needed to be.

Then again, I've got a few years on the kids, have been through the School of
Hard Knocks and used to be in the newspaper business. I have a lot of years of experience at chiseling away bulls*** and cutting to the chase.

Bottom line: What has God done for me lately? The same thing He's done for you. Jesus Christ -- God come to earth, the second person of the Trinity -- has allowed himself to be insulted, tortured, beaten and hanged on a cross until He was dead. All this in order to be a perfect sacrifice to atone for all our sins, yours and mine (and I've committed some doozies in my life), so that we don't have to get what perfect
justice requires we have coming.

God, the Creator of the universe in the person of Jesus Christ, allowed Himself to be killed by His own creation because He was the only sacrifice good enough to make up for every s***, crappy, unspeakably awful thing that humanity had done, is doing or ever will do. And, as Catholics, we believe that one-time, perfect act of perfect love is brought into our presence, through time and space, at every Mass during the consecration. In that way, yes, giving His very life at Calvary is something Jesus has done for you lately.

Even now, it's hard for me to fathom that. My old man never cut me a bit of slack -- and nothing I ever did was good enough for him -- so I still have a hard time understanding that the Creator of the universe loved me so much he died so I might have everlasting life. He died for me. He rose again on the third day in a final conquest of death. And He waits for all the prodigal sons and daughters to come home, when He will wipe the slate clean.

Even so, we still suffer on this earth. The world still suffers from the effects of sin, and we suffer also. We have free will -- God loves us too much to make us mindless robots -- and that means we have the freedom to do what is wrong as well as what is right.

But that is here. Now. Because Christ died to atone for our sins, if we accept that great gift, the suffering one day will end for us and we will have eternal joy in the presence of our Savior.

And in that here-and-now suffering, God will grant us comfort and peace. He's the Father, brother and friend who doesn't care what you are but instead loves you BECAUSE you are. He's the one person who knows the most awful thing you've ever done and loves you despite it all.

So you're pissed off at God. Well, I've been pissed at God, too. So, tell God EXACTLY how pissed off you are. Tell Him you don't think he's done jack s*** for you. Ask Him what He has to say about that.

He's God. I think He can take it.

Then, listen to see exactly what He has to say about it.

You hate God. God loves you. I think you're getting the better end of the deal, frankly.

Listen, I don't know what parish you live in or even whether you're Catholic. But you're certainly welcome to come to our youth group at St. Matthew's most Sunday nights at 6:30. Our youth minister is a great guy.

And there's more than a few of us (alleged) adult volunteers who've been there, done that, got the T-shirt and by the grace of God lived to tell about it.

Just don't end up like my old man. He died of brain cancer in May at age 80, and he died a bitter and scared man. I still hear him on his death bed crying out -- just out of the blue -- "Lord have mercy." But I don't know that he really believed the Lord would have mercy. In other words, I fear he died without hope.

I'm not sure you fully understand what an awful thing that is. It haunts me.

In your heart of hearts, is that how you want to end up? You don't have to, you know.


God bless,

Me

Dear Diary: Life at Pope FM

EDITOR'S NOTE: Today, Revolution 21's Blog for the People starts 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.

Here, then, is the first snapshot from Pope FM.

* * *

TUESDAY, OCT. 30, 2001

Dear Diary,

I was training some student "engineers" during tonight's Keys to the Kingdom, our teen call-in show at Pope FM.

The topic was vocations, and the archdiocesan vocations director was the guest. We received the following E-mail, which was not on topic, but was utterly foundational to the faith and to why Pope FM is supposed to exist (reprinted verbatim, typos and all):

Ok, number one, paschal access code? WTF? I just thought I'd 'shoot you an email'. Just heard about your program and thought Id give it a listen. I am looking for something more in my life, its either god or jack daniels and figured you could help. Before you tell me to accept god into my heart tell me, whats he done for you lately? He aint done jack s*** for me.

Oh the stories I could tell. So in short...here is a motto I love and believe in: If God hates you then just hate him back more . . . it works for me.

Rage Against the Machine

P.S. WHeres the cool music? No Butthole Surfers or Jesus Lizard? Break out the classics baby!

OUT OF THREE TEEN-AGERS and the vocations director, not one gave him a clear, simple answer. Indeed, no one answered his question at all.

I nearly was jumping up and down in the control room, holding a dry-erase board with "Jesus -- God -- willingly got on a cross and died for your sins, so that you might have everlasting life."

Then, I was holding up a sign with "John 3:16" on it. Still, no clear, simple answer.

The father of one of the student engineers was in the office, and I walked out to the lobby, despondent. Mr. Klause, a Lutheran, met me before I could say a word, saying "They didn't answer his question!"

I told him what my answer would have been, and he agreed wholeheartedly. And I told the kids they absolutely had to have a short, clear answer to that sort of E-mail, because it was utterly foundational. E-mails like that are why we exist as a Catholic radio station, and if we have no answers, we might as well unplug the transmitter.

I don't think Mona, the 20-something producer, appreciated that. I'll probably hear about my "attitude" from the boss.

Tonight, I am deeply ashamed to be Catholic. No, ashamed isn't the right word. Just heartbroken.

I told the wife that probably eight out of 10 evangelical youth-group kids could have witnessed cogently to this guy.

I JUST WANT TO CRY AND NEVER STOP. In 65 years, this guy will be my old man on his deathbed. Virtually the last thing my father ever said to me was to ask me how much money I made.

I refused to tell him.


-- Me

Alcohol and pills . . . and the mystery of life

ON THE LATEST REVOLUTION 21 PODCAST, Fred Eaglesmith makes an important point in his song, Alcohol & Pills:

Alcohol and pills, it's a cryin' shame
You think they might have been happy with the glory and the fame
But fame doesn't take away the pain, it only pays the bills
And you wind up on alcohol and pills

I guess that's what happens sometimes when the mystery of life switches to the "suck" setting, and we just can't make sense of it all. Of course, like the song says, we certainly can make things even worse.

But what if we're not SUPPOSED to make complete sense of it? What if we're just supposed to hold onto the cross of Jesus, endure the bad, rejoice in the good and learn from all of it?

I'm just sayin'.

Seems to me, there isn't any hiding from the pain of life's hard knocks or plain tragedies. You can embrace the pain as Christ embraced the cross, then plow through it with His help.

Or, alternatively, you can hide from it by crawling into the bottle. Or try to dull it through better pharmaceuticals. Or distract yourself from it through stuff, or money, or sex, or notoriety . . . or any number of things.

But it's still there. And how's that working out for folks you know? Really.

Alcohol and pills, it's a cryin' shame
You think they might have been happy with the glory and the fame
But fame doesn't take away the pain, it only pays the bills
And you wind up on alcohol and pills

Seems to me there's a harder -- but better -- way.

I'm just sayin'.

Jesus saves

Now, if Simon Cowell had been the bank teller in this remarkable story, it could have gotten real ugly real fast. From the Opelousas (La.) Daily World:

PORT BARRE — A kiss on the hand and Jesus are credited with preventing a bank robbery in here Thursday morning.

Police are currently seeking a petite black woman, roughly 20 years of age, standing about 4 feet, 6 to 10 inches tall, who attempted to rob the Port Barre branch of the St. Landry Bank and Trust on Saizan Street just before 11 a.m.

The brown-eyed suspect was last seen wearing a blue, zippered sweater with her medium-black hair pulled back into a ponytail.

The suspect was last seen driving a fairly new model, small, black, hatch-back car, possibly a PT Cruiser or Ford Focus.

“The car was full of dirt and mud. The teller couldn’t read the license plate,” said Port Barre Police Chief David Richard.

Richard is alerting neighboring communities to be on the lookout for the woman and her car as he doesn’t believes the suspect is from the Port Barre area.

“We are a small town. If she had been form here, the tellers would have known her,” Richard said.

According to Richard, police received a 911 call at 10:54 a.m. about a person issuing worthless checks at the bank. As a police cruiser was on patrol in the area, the first officers were on the scene within seconds of receiving the call.

“When we arrived, we discovered it was an attempted robbery,” Richard said.

According to Richard, the suspect approached a teller at the bank and presented her with a note that read: “Give me $100s and $50. I have a gun and I will kill you.”

Richard said the teller told the suspect she couldn’t give her any money and that the police were on the way.

“The teller told the suspect that what she was doing was going to ruin her life,” Richard said. “She then gave the suspect a $20 bill out of her own pocket and told her Jesus loves her.”

According to Richard, the suspect then began to cry, kissed the teller’s hand and said she needed to hear that. She then left the bank.

And the Lebanese civil war begins . . . again

From MSNBC:

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Government and opposition supporters clashed at a Beirut university campus Thursday, battering each other with sticks, stones and even pieces of furniture in new violence spilling over from Lebanon’s political crisis. Four people were killed, security sources told Reuters.

Two opposition students and two other people were shot dead and 100 were injured, many by gunfire, at Beirut's Arab University, the sources said.

Other news outlets reported at least two deaths and up to 35 people wounded in the clashes. NBN, an opposition-run television station, said two of the dead were students loyal to the opposition, which includes the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah and Amal groups.

Black smoke poured into the sky from cars engulfed in flames as armored vehicles full of troops moved in to try to keep the two sides apart. But the riot spread into the nearby streets around Beirut Arab University as students smashed parked cars and battled for hours.

The battle grew out out of a argument between pro-government Sunni Muslims and supporters of the Shiite Hezbollah opposition movement in the university cafeteria, students said.

As the melee grew, Hezbollah supporters called in help, and residents from the surrounding Sunni neighborhood joined in. Dozens of vigilantes wearing blue and red construction hats and carrying makeshift weapons — chair legs, pipes, garden tools, sticks and chains — converged on the university and started clashing with the police.

The army was called in with armored vehicles and fired tear gas and live fire in the air to disperse the crowd.

Earlier, Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV reported one of the Shiite group’s supporters was killed. Security officials could not confirm the death.

The fighting already had been ongoing in Tripoli.

I'M NOT REALLY SURE what intelligent I can say about this, other than I wonder how long it will be before Georgius Caesar ignores the folly of Ronaldus Maximus 25 years past and sends American troops to Beirut.

Other than that, all I can say is the news goes down much better when you're listening to Diana Krall. Specifically, her When I Look in Your Eyes CD.

Declan MacManus is a lucky man. But then again, so am I.

Your call to Nineveh cannot be completed . . . .

Mark Shea writes today about the contratemps over Dinesh D'Souza's new book, The Enemy At Home:

I likewise think it pretty obvious that what any sensible Catholic who considers the problem must really say is that you cannot fight an inflamed spirituality like Radical Islam with the watery anemic spirituality that constitutes, say, Andrew Sullivan's vision of the Faith. What is necessary is a healthy spirituality: one that fully embodies not only a right understanding of God, but a right understanding of Man. In the end, only the Faith revealed by the one who is both fully God and fully man can do that.

Yep.

IN OTHER WORDS, something beats nothing every single time. Yes, it does.

I blogged on the subject here -- before the D'Souza blow-up -- last month.

Perverted 'art' = Art perverted

The perfect take on l'affaire "Boys will be boys and livestock will be nervous" resides here.

I am become Death: 2nd verse, same as the 1st

As Saints fans get back home, the accounts of how they were treated in Chicago just get more appalling. As in, the only way it could have gotten worse is an all-out pogrom of "The Other."

It would seem that what blows through the Windy City is an ill wind, indeed. Or, to put it in language even Mike Ditka could understand: What a bunch of a-holes!

From a story Monday evening on WAFB-TV in Baton Rouge:

One Saints fan says she has a memory she can't bleep out. This is what she says a Bears fan had to say at her hotel.

Susan Joly says a Bears fan said, "'Oh yeah, you thought Katrina was bad' and just really not giving them any chance to say, you know, the man lost his wife and child in Katrina and they were ragging him over that and it was just terrible."

And here's the video.

Chicago: What a classy place. If you're some sort of clinically insane Klingon or something.

Really. When you're trying to instill in your children how to treat people, you might want to have them emulate that knuckle-dragger doing the Hurricane Katrina Rag to a man whose wife and child died in the storm.

And we talk about the wack jobs in the Middle East. As if we had any room . . . .

'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds'

What the hell is wrong with us?

Well . . . glad you asked.

I think J. Robert Oppenheimer didn't know how right he was almost 62 years ago, when he opened his mouth after the first atomic bomb blew its top in Alamogordo, N.M. Gazing upon the fireball and the mushroom cloud, Oppenheimer remembered a quote from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita:

Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.

Today in the United States -- indeed, across most of what once was Christendom -- we have "become death, the destroyer of worlds." And that's without having set of a nuke in anger since 1945, though that well may change presently.

No, we kill babies in the womb. In our cities, we slaughter one another like market cattle. On our television and radio shows, and in our movies, we murder the human spirit and debase the human soul on a depressingly regular basis -- "reality TV" is one big freak show, and it has been for years.

Did I mention that a radio station in Sacramento, Calif., actually killed a contestant in one of its twisted contests?

According to the Talmud, the books of ancient rabbinical commentary on Jewish scripture:

"Therefore man was created on his own, to teach you that whoever destroys one soul is regarded by the Torah as if he had destroyed a whole world and whoever saves one soul, is regarded as if he had saved a whole world.

(Mishna Sanhedrin 37a)

WHAT DOES THAT SAY about us moderns, aborting and debasing and murdering right here in the USA? Or (to bring this around to the topic of the day) what does this Talmudic insight say about Chicago Bears fans who would taunt New Orleans fans about the destruction of their city during Hurricane Katrina in 2005?

What does it say about someone who, in the name of a flippin' FOOTBALL GAME, would ask a Saints fan whether he lived in New Orleans, then comment "'Well, too bad you didn't drown"?

What kind of human being -- to use the term loosely -- wishes a complete stranger dead to his face? Over a football game.

What kind of a country do we live in? What kind of society have we created? This kind of behavior -- at Soldier Field, or (to be entirely fair) among drunken LSU football fans throwing beer bottles and cursing Tennessee faithful in September 2005 -- doesn't come out of nowhere.

Again, what the hell is wrong with us?

Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.

And, mark my words, we are reaping what we have sown. And we will continue to reap that bitter harvest in spades.

(To see the WGNO video, click on the pictures.)

Learning nothing from Mrs. O'Leary's cow

"Well, I mean these guys have been taunting us about Katrina the entire time. In my section, somebody asked -- we had somebody ask me 'Oh, did you live down there?' I said 'Yeah, I had 11 feet of water in my house.'

"He said, 'Well, too bad you didn't drown,' and that guy has not been the exception. This has been going on before the game, during the game. I mean, these guys have been violent with our fans. You know, throwin' beers at people . . . ."

See the entire WGNO-TV report here on NOLA.com.

Da Jerks

Classy fans they got there at Soldier Field, as demonstrated by this picture from The Dead Pelican.

Go Colts!

You can't make this stuff up. I know. I tried to once, but it didn't work out.

Nope, not even a trivial matter like, uh . . . death can keep some people from being in that number when the Saints have a miracle season. Let's let the New Orleans Times-Picayune's inimitable Chris Rose tell all about it:

Wood Brown III was a lifelong Saints fan. The former president of the Louisiana Bar Association was the type of stubborn old codger who would stay in his seats, first at Tulane Stadium, then at the Dome, until the end of every game -- decades of crappy games -- despite the implorings from his two sons: "Please, Dad, can we leave now?"

"No," he would tell them. Something might happen."

We all know a million guys like this. The determined, delusional and unbreakable backbone of this community. Guys who stay in their seats and continue to believe against all odds.

As you well know, that elusive "something" that Wood Brown III -- who lived up to his name with his lifelong penchant for saying "knock on wood!" while rapping his forehead -- waited for all his life never happened over all those years. And now something has finally happened -- something big -- but it's too late for Wood.

Robbed of the ability to attend games several years ago because of Parkinson's disease, he finally succumbed to it this past May.

His body was cremated and his family planned to bury his urn in a plot at St. Joseph's Abbey in Covington last Saturday, Jan. 13, on what would have been Wood's 71st birthday.

"My brother and I had tickets to the game against the Eagles that night," Wood's son, Chuck Brown, told me this week. "I said: Wait a minute! We can't put dad in the ground while the Saints are still alive. He would have loved this!"

Thus, over their mother's halfhearted objection, the family did indeed bury Wood in his urn last weekend, but not before his sons dipped an empty tin from his favorite cigar brand -- Romeo y Julieta -- and scooped up a tube full of their dad's ashes.

"Mom wasn't real happy about this, but she let it happen," Chuck said. "The old man would have absolutely loved what is happening with this team. He waited his whole life for this moment. You can't discount that."

And so Chuck and his brother Clay brought their dad to the game last Saturday night at the Superdome. Wood Brown III was securely tamped into a cigar tube in Chuck's shirt pocket and when times got tense during the game, he and his brother would look at each other and say: "Knock on Wood!"

And that's what they would do, patting Chuck's breast pocket for luck. Other fans seated around them picked up on what was happening and pretty soon an entire section of fans was knocking on Wood and it must have worked because look what happened.

And here we are.

You just never know in what form you are going to encounter an American football fan gone crazy, in the back of a cab in Chicago or in some crazy dude's shirt pocket; the unlikeliest of people in the unlikeliest of places.

Currently, what's left of Wood Brown III is on the mantle at Chuck's mom's house, resting in the cigar tube on top of the playoff ticket stubs. He didn't make the trip to Chicago this week because, quite frankly, Chuck couldn't get the money together.

It costs a lot to do this, to be here. A whole lot. If I had known this story before I left, I would have offered to bring Wood with me because I'm pretty sure he's the kind of guy I would have liked -- although I do wonder how all that would go down at the airport security checkpoint.

Anyway. Too late now.

As for Miami, should that glorious day come, Chuck Brown says he'll see what resources he can manage.

"Maybe we'll hitch up the FEMA trailer and head south," he said. "That's something I could seriously consider. Because I sure would like my dad to see this."

OK, cher, dis is too much fun, yeah!

WHO DAT SAY DEY
GON' BEAT DEM SAINTS?
WHO DAT?! WHO DAT?!

How to tell the gifted 'You suck!'

Rod Dreher has a fascinating post over at Crunchy Cons surveying a series of OpinionJournal.com columns by Charles Murray on education and intelligence. I won't blather on about it here, for Rod does a more-than-reasonable job of blathering over on his blog.

HOWEVER . . . there's one point I'd like to make about Murray's last column, about the importance of properly educating America's gifted-and-talented students. Murray's right -- this is an incredibly important endeavor, and hardly a popular one.

It all goes back to populism. Populism has many positive attributes, and I'd have to (mostly) self-identify as a populist. It is, however, populism's pronounced Green Monster of envy that endangers any effort to allow the brilliant and the motivated to achieve their full potential as humans . . . or as future drivers of our economy, our sciences and our body politic.

That Green Monster, of course, produces the "Crab Bucket Syndrome."

The gifted are the crabs trying to climb out of the bucket and make it back to the water. The rest of our American society, by and large, is the majority of metaphorical crabs who find the bucket, all-in-all, mighty fine.

And here lies the rub. The "Bucket Is Fine" crabs resent the hell out of the "Must . . . Reach . . . Water" crabs, and they'll be damned if they're going to help the "Water" crabs reach their full potential of wetness.

As a matter of fact, they'll try their damnedest to pull the "smarty-pants" crabs back into the bucket.

I know this. To grow up academically gifted in Louisiana "back in the day" was to be well acquainted with the Crab Bucket Syndrome.

We who yearned for, and made it into, Baton Rouge Magnet High School universally were known to our "regular-school" confreres as "Maggots" and derided as freaks. Uppity.

We went to "The Maggot School."

I wonder how much of that kind of sentiment is at play nationwide. Says Murray in Thursday's column:

How assiduously does our federal government work to see that this precious raw material is properly developed? In 2006, the Department of Education spent about $84 billion. The only program to improve the education of the gifted got $9.6 million, one-hundredth of 1% of expenditures. In the 2007 budget, President Bush zeroed it out.

(snip)

We live in an age when it is unfashionable to talk about the special responsibility of being gifted, because to do so acknowledges inequality of ability, which is elitist, and inequality of responsibilities, which is also elitist. And so children who know they are smarter than the other kids tend, in a most human reaction, to think of themselves as superior to them. Because giftedness is not to be talked about, no one tells high-IQ children explicitly, forcefully and repeatedly that their intellectual talent is a gift. That they are not superior human beings, but lucky ones. That the gift brings with it obligations to be worthy of it. That among those obligations, the most important and most difficult is to aim not just at academic accomplishment, but at wisdom.

I also wonder how much some version of the Green Monster, the "Crab Bucket Syndrome" -- whatever you want to call it -- might be at play in the long physical deterioration of my alma mater, Baton Rouge Magnet High, into Third World . . . shall we say dishabille? And, brother, talk about speaking euphemistically . . . .

Let's just say it's the ghost of Huey Long giving The Man (to be) the ol' middle-finger salute. Just a decaying community's way of telling The Elite "You suck!"

Let's just say that's an outlandishly counterproductive thing to do in a state that, according to all the pertinent statistics, is on the bottom and still sinking. Today's scorned and neglected "student elites" are the people Beavis and Butthead will be counting on to pull their chestnuts out of the fire tomorrow.

But the "maggots" either will be long gone (to places where things generally work and people generally care) or giving some "Fickle Finger of Fate" salutes of their own.

Lower. The. Boom.

The family of Jennifer Strange -- who died of water intoxication in a Sacramento radio station's "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" contest -- is suing. I hope they take Entercom's KDND 107.9 FM for every penny the broadcast chain has.

The family's lawyers are right: Enough is enough, and a message must be sent.

Now, we just need the local district attorney and the Federal Communications Commission to fall into line . . . and lower the boom. Is it really too much to expect radio stations, for example, not to hold their "customers" in such contempt that they help kill them off?

LOWER. THE. BOOM.

NOW.

From AllAccess.com:

"This family has been devastated by a shameful, irresponsible and negligent act of premeditated recklessness," said ROGER DREYER, senior partner of the SACRAMENTO law firm of DREYER, BABICH, BUCCOLA & CALLAHAM. "The station knew this was a dangerous and potentially deadly stunt, but flippantly dismissed the dangers. Now three young children have lost their mother, and their father has lost his wife, because a radio station wanted to boost its ratings and increase its advertising revenue by taking advantage of a young woman who simply wanted to win a prize for her family."

DREYER said the suit should be a "wake-up call" for other stations sponsoring similar stunts. "Outrageousness at any cost has become the industry standard -- the trashier and more humiliating, the better," he said. "It's time to stop this recklessness."

As ALL ACCESS reported yesterday (NET NEWS 1/17) the SACRAMENTO COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT is launching a criminal probe and formal investigation into the death because of the now-dismissed MORNING RAVE's on-air comments, which seem to indicate awareness of the dangers of drinking too much water.

"Hearing the tape, it's very clear they knew of the dangers and could foresee that this could lead to JENNIFER's death," DREYER said. "They knew the health risks of drinking too much water, they knew JENNIFER was feeling ill, and yet they let her leave the station without warning her to call someone for help or seek medical attention. Their brazen disregard for her personal safety is numbing and inexcusable."