Martin Luther King died for this?

I would like to think some prankster pizza guy has been spiking the extra-mushroom pies with psychedelic fungi when he delivers to the New Orleans bureau of The Associated Press.

I would like to think that, but I'd be fooling myself big time.

Anyway, here's a depressing non-hallucinogenic AP dispatch from the City Sanity Forgot:

Supporters of a Democratic congressman charged with bribery and money laundering harkened to their civil rights days on Wednesday as they denounced the allegations against U.S. Rep. William Jefferson.

The group, including ministers and the president of the local chapter of the NAACP, alleged the 16-count corruption indictment was the work of a Republican White House and Justice Department scheming to target black Democratic leaders and shift attention from legal troubles of Republican congressmen.

"When it's all over, Bill Jefferson will stand up like Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver. He will stand up in the South and he will be victorious," said the Rev. Samson "Skip" Alexander.

The news conference attended by about 50 people was a sign Jefferson hasn't lost friends in New Orleans, which re-elected him to a ninth term from Louisiana's 2nd Congressional District in December 2006 despite an FBI probe of his African business dealings.

Prosecutors say Jefferson used his influence as co-chairman of the congressional Africa Investment and Trade Caucus to broker deals in numerous African nations, and that he demanded kickbacks for himself and for family members. He is also charged with bribing a Nigerian official.

He allegedly received more than $500,000 in bribes and demanded millions more between 2000 and 2005. He has pleaded not guilty.

The group said they would raise money for his legal defense and offer public relations help through the Justice for Jefferson Committee.

Washington asked the audience to give Jefferson the benefit of the doubt, the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.

Danatus King, president of the local chapter of the NAACP, said, "it's important that all of us keep our eyes on the prize and that prize is one word, and that one word is justice."

Asked to comment on allegations aired at the news conference, Bryan Sierra, a Justice Department spokesman, said "I'm not even going to dignify that with a response." White House spokesman Blair Jones also declined to comment.

PART OF ME wants an answer to the question "How @#$*!^$ CRAZY can one bunch of people be?"

The other part just doesn't want to know.

That's because the other part knows that, particularly in New Orleans, racism cuts both ways. That's because the other part of me knows there are plenty of folks like this who hate Whitey so damned much they don't give a rat's ass how absolutely bat-s*** crazy that hatred makes them.

All that matters is feeding the grudge, nourishing the hate. No matter how many damn times you cut off your nose to spite your face.

And Sweet Jesus knows that New Orleans' African-American kleptocrats are in more dire straits than Michael Jackson in that department.

I suppose Bill Jefferson really is as pure as the wind-driven -- never mind . . . that would be a WHITE analogy -- and a grand conspiracy of the GOP, the CIA and the KKK digitally faked the videotape and planted the $90,000 of cold cash in "Dollar Bill's" freezer.

IT'S TIME to say goodbye to the Crescent City, God rest her soul. With idiots like these -- and let us not forget C. (for Crazy) Ray Nagin of "Chocolate City" infamy -- increasingly as the public face of New Orleans, that benighted city's problem will not be Congress' unwillingness to give it another dime but instead Washington's ability to fight off fed-up Americans' demands that the Strategic Command drop a nuke on the place and put it (and us) out of its misery.

Listen well, New Orleans. This is not the jeremiad of someone who hates you, but instead the jeremiad of someone who loves you dearly.

***

UPDATE: Before any of you write to denounce me as a racist who hates New Orleans, I suggest you read this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this (particularly this). And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this.

There.

Tell old Pharaoh to let My people go

Some people think George Bush believes he's the king of all he surveys. Some people say America is acting like the Roman Empire.

After seeing this story on the NBC Nightly News tonight, I'm wondering whether ancient Egypt might be a more apt comparison:

A Kuwaiti contractor accused of abusing workers at the new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has also worked on a host of other U.S. projects since the Iraq war began in 2003, according to Defense Department records.

Whistleblowers who worked on the embassy have told officials at the State and Justice departments, as well as NBC News, that the contractor, First Kuwaiti International Trading, had brought workers, mostly South Asians and Filipinos, to Baghdad under false pretenses, then abused and threatened them while there.

The State Department and First Kuwaiti deny the allegations, but State admits it is continuing to monitor human trafficking and abuse allegations and the Justice Department has begun a preliminary inquiry out of its Civil Rights Division.

First Kuwaiti is one of the biggest contractors in the Middle East and the main contractor on the troubled 21-building embassy project, which will cost $600 million to build, making it the most expensive diplomatic quarters in U.S. history. The company has already received nearly $400 million for the embassy project, according to contracting records reviewed by NBC News. It has also been awarded more than a billion dollars in other contracts from the U.S. Army, the Army Corps of Engineers and Halliburton, which hired it as a subcontractor on other projects.

“It is probably the second most influential company in Kuwait,” says a former U.S. intelligence official familiar with First Kuwaiti.

Its chief accuser, Rory Mayberry, signed a contract with First Kuwaiti in March 2006 to work as a medic on the embassy construction site.

Mayberry alleges that when he showed up at the Kuwait airport for his flight into Baghdad, there were 51 Filipino employees of First Kuwaiti also waiting for the same flight — except the Filipinos believed they were going to Dubai. He says the Filipinos were told to proceed to "GATE 26" at the Kuwait airport — but no Gate 26 existed. There was only a door to a staircase that led to a white plane on the tarmac, Mayberry told NBC.

Mayberry says even he was given a boarding pass that was marked for Dubai, though he knew he was going to Baghdad.

“The steward was having problems keeping guys in their seats because they were so upset, wanted to get off the airplane,” says Mayberry. “They were upset they weren’t headed to Dubai where they were promised they were working.”

He says when he arrived in Baghdad he notified the State Department official in charge of the embassy project about what had happened on his flight and she replied "that’s the way they do it."

BUT, HEY, Y'ALL! We're over there in I-raq spreadin' democracy! We're a' teachin' them furriners all about truth, justice and The American Way.

And we're a' doin' it with your tax dollars. Billions of your tax dollars.

Now, take this Revolution 21 quiz about how you feel right now. Check off the statement closest to your take on American involvement in world affairs:

A) I am proud about how we're doing things in Iraq.

B) I think we need to extend the "Axis of Evil" a few
thousand miles west to Washington, D.C.

Oh, Les . . .

Is a radio bit featuring CBS Radio employees cackling as an unfunny comic describes a TV reporter's panties in unflattering terms . . . is that sexist? Because we all know how dead-set against sexism you and your company, CBS Corp., are.

Just wonderin' out loud is all.

NBC 1, CBS 0

Do yourself a favor. Click on the photo.

A Philadelphia "comedian" thought it would be funny to rummage through the underwear drawer of a local TV reporter . . . and then go on the radio to snigger about it, while the idiot host cackled like a hyena in gastric distress.

Of course, this involved a CBS Radio property -- Philadelphia's 94.1 Free FM. Here's the long and shorts of it from the Philadelphia Daily News:

NBC-10's Lu Ann Cahn returned from a Florida vacation to learn that not only had a stranger rifled through her underwear drawer, but he'd made fun of her lingerie on the radio.

Danny Ozark, a regular guest on 94.1 FREE FM's Kidd Chris Show, was on the radio show Wednesday and while sharing stories about sex and drugs, he revealed that at the June 2 Phillies game he met a girl who was house-sitting for Cahn, a longtime NBC-10 investigative reporter. She invited Ozark and another comic to join her at Cahn's Montgomery County home.

Once there, Ozark and his pal rummaged through Cahn's underwear and, Ozark, who admitted, "I'm just a freak," said he hoped to try some on, but he could tell it wouldn't fit him.

"She had government-issued really bad underwear . . . I wish she felt more sexier, because she's beautiful. I feel like I should get her red thong panties," he said."

"I am really upset about this," Cahn told us by phone yesterday.

"We're still trying to figure out exactly what went on," she said.

Asked whether the female house-sitter was someone her family had used before, Cahn said: "It's a personal matter and I can't really talk about her. We don't know what the facts are."

"DANNY OZARK" and the idiot crew of the Kidd Chris show aren't funny. At all. Actually, they're really pathetic and annoying. I know; I listened to the podcast.

This, however, is funny. Behold the Revenge of LuAnn Cahn, as broadcast on Philadelphia's WCAU television.

Going after the double-wide vote

Fading country star Sammy Kershaw announced today he's running for Louisiana lieutenant governor as a Republican. (OK, you can do this. You can get through this post without debilitating laughing jags.)

The thrice-married singer of hits like "Cadillac Style," "She Don't Know She's Beautiful," and "Queen of My Double Wide Trailer" . . . I'm sorry, I can't do this . . . I'm gonna start. . . .

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! HAHAHAHA HAHAHA! HAAAAAAAAAAA!!! HEE HEE HEE HEE!!! WHOOOOOOOOO BOY!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! HA! HA! HA! HAHAHA!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

(gasp)

HAHAHAHAHA!!!! Do . . . . HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! You . . . HAHAHAHAHAHA!! Have . . . HOO! HOO! HOO! Any . . . HAAAAAAAAAAAAA! GAAAAAAAAAAAAAWD AMIGHTY!!! Idea . . . HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWEE!!!!!

(SLAP!) Thanks. I needed that.

As I was trying to say, do you have any idea what Letterman and Leno and Kimmel and Conan are going to do with Mister Queen of My Double Wide Trailer running for lieutenant governor of the Gret Stet of Louisiana?

Oh, Lordy! And God help Kershaw when Dennis Miller gets a hold of it.

It's like pitching underhand to Barry Bonds.

And then there's the matter of what Sammy Kershaw's opponents are going to do to him if he shows any sign of garnering more than 10 votes. For one, incumbent Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu probably will do to pore Sammy what he oughta have done to C. (for Crazy) Ray Nagin but didn't in the New Orleans mayoral race last year.

Really, if you wanted to win a statewide election in the Bible Belt, what would you do with an opponent who:

* Has been married three times,

* Had quite the history of substance-abuse issues before kicking the bad stuff cold turkey in 1988,

* Just filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy this past February in Nashville,

* Oh, and there's that whole has-lived-mostly-in-Nashville-for-most-of-the-past-17-years thang. And had lived in Oklahoma for years before that.

As someone born and raised in the Gret Stet -- and who's familiar with Louisiana politics -- I'm feeling more than a little sorry for pore Sammy. They gonna kiyul hiyum.

ON THE OTHER HAND, Louisianians always have been suckers for a politician who can carry a tune -- I was born during the second administration of Gov. Jimmie Davis. And if Sammy were to win, Lorrie Morgan would be the Gret Stet's second lady.

Fascinating, in an 'Oh, crap!' kind of way

Over at Crunchy Con, Rod Dreher has been doing some reading and has some thoughts on the whole question of "are we Rome?"

The conclusion -- of Dreher and the book, which happens to be Cullen Murphy's Are We Rome? -- seems to be probably. Definitely probably.

The Romans were supremely arrogant, and thought that the world was as they thought it was -- and when it wasn't, they could create reality. Murphy says that attitude clearly informs the US now: "Across the board it fosters the conviction that assertions of will can trump assessments of reality: the world is the way we say it is."

Similarly, the Romans were so impressed by themselves that they not only didn't care what other peoples thought, they didn't think they had much to learn from other peoples. This attitude led the Romans to discount important information. And, when wedded to Rome's sense of having a divinely appointed mission to conquer and civilize the world, Rome tended to see information contrary to its wishes and desires as not only wrong (if it saw the information at all), but as somehow malign.

Yet like us, Rome saw it as possible for all people to become Roman, because it is entirely natural for people, if they understood that their best interests and their own perfected nature, led toward Roman-ness.

This has all kinds of parallels to contemporary America. Murphy: "Human nature, in other words, is basically American. This may be a comforting sentiment, but it can end up enabling just as much ignorance as arrogance or disdain does." This is especially true if your understanding of the American character is warped by sentimentality and idealism -- that is, if you discount the struggles we've had with the better angels of our nature.

(snip)

The Roman government became besotted with patronage, bribery and featherbedding -- a practice that Murphy sees replicated in our political system being awash in campaign contributions buying access and favors. Indeed, here in Istanbul I was talking to a US scholar who has been involved with policymaking circles in Washington. He gave me a couple of examples of cases in which the taxpayer has been fleeced, and US national interests undermined, by the interaction of government with private business, for the sake of enriching business and political friends. If this gets out of hand, says Murphy, you have the fall of Rome.

In the end, Murphy says that we can avoid the fate of Rome through a conscious and determined program of reform, and the reclamation of Republican virtue. We are not fated to end up like Rome. The power to determine our fate rests largely with us Americans. But the signs don't look good.

INTERESTINGLY, Murphy has a Q&A about his book on its promotional website:

Is there a smart way ahead? Can we avoid decline?

We can’t control every variable, shouldn’t even try. The future is a mysterious place. Instead, it makes sense to focus on a handful of big factors that are within our control—and that will contribute to social strength no matter what the future brings. What are some of those things?

For starters, instill an appreciation of the wider world. To drive home the idea that “we are not alone” there is no substitute for fluency in another language. Every educated person in the Roman Empire spoke two languages. So did the strivers among the immigrants. In a globalizing world, Americans need to be like the Romans—and, frankly, like the barbarians.

Second, stop treating government as a necessary evil, and stop selling it off to private interests. Government can be held accountable in ways that the private sector can’t, and government programs—Social Security, student loans, safe food and drugs—promote a sense of common alliance and mutual obligation. Lose these things, and you’ll never get them back.

Third, fortify the institutions that promote assimilation: free schools, free clinics, and a program of national service. We can’t change the way the world works, can’t stop people from wanting to come to America. Our powerfully absorptive domestic culture will turn them into Americans soon enough, if we let it. But we have to bolster the engines of assimilation, not undermine them.

Finally, take some weight off the military. Like Rome, America is caught in a vise: the military is too big to sustain and too small to do everything we ask. Adopting a long-range energy policy—something we ought to do anyway—would at least let America pull away from military oversight of the Middle East. This may be a hundred year project, but a society with pretensions to staying power thinks in those terms. Rome wasn’t built in a day.

But you’re saying this won’t prevent “decline”?

One person’s “decline” is another’s “rise.” America as we know it will melt into history no matter what we do. The important question is: will the world that ensues be better? Whatever comes to pass, the sheer fact of America will weigh on the world for millennia. Like Rome, America is in some ways indistinguishable. The whole planet may someday speak Chinese, but people will probably still be saying “OK.” What we can’t know is which characteristics will be extinguished and which ones won’t. I hope it will be our egalitarianism, our entrepreneurship, and our exuberant impulse to associate in civic groups—and not our hyper-individualism and our moralizing messianic streak.

Here’s the point: the outcome is partly in our own hands. The outcome depends on how we act today.

You're EVIL because you don't watch our crap

Les Moonves has no shame.

The man who brought us:

* Howard Stern, who talked dirty with naked women in the studio, among other outrageous acts . . .

* And then Opie & Anthony, who got fired over encouraging listeners to get it on in places like, ohhhhhhhh, St. Patrick's Cathedral for fame and prizes . . .

* And then Opie & Anthony again after a few years but not firing them from CBS Radio after they chuckled their way -- on their XM show -- through a "guest's" graphic descriptions of how he'd like to rape Condoleezza Rice and Laura Bush . . .

This is the man who's now telling us we're sexist for not watching Katie Couric deliver a dumbed down CBS Evening News. That, my friends, is cojones grande.

From The Financial Times:

“I’m sort of surprised by the vitriol against her. The number of people who don’t want news from a woman was startling,” Mr Moonves said of the audience’s reaction to Ms Couric, who this month brought ratings for the CBS Evening News to a 20-year low.

He reiterated, however, that he was committed to Ms Couric and that he believed her programme would succeed in spite of its last place standing behind rivals ABC and NBC.

Ms Couric’s gender has been a central issue since CBS poached her from NBC’s Today show a year ago and made her the first woman to solo anchor a network newscast, filling the seat of such legends as Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather.

CBS was hoping to draw younger, female viewers to a US television institution whose audience has halved in the past 25 years.

Ms Couric has managed a 2 per cent increase in women age 18 to 49 since her September debut. However, that has been more than offset by an 11 per cent decline among men over 55, who still constitute the bulk of the evening news’ audience.

Mr Moonves has previously chided critics for scrutinising Ms Couric’s wardrobe and personal life. However, his latest remarks, made during a breakfast sponsored by Syracuse’s Newhouse School of Communications, were his most explicit about gender bias.

They come at a time when New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is testing whether Americans are willing to accept a woman in another authority position – as president.

Linda Mason, head of standards at CBS News, last month told the network’s Public Eye blog: “I had no idea that a woman delivering the news would be a handicap,” and that the public seemed to “prefer the news from white guys”.

In the absence of specific research, some analysts took issue with that argument. “People get news from women all the time – on local news, on morning shows. I’m sceptical of his discovery of sexism,” said Andrew Tyndall, whose Tyndall Report monitors newscasts. He and others have criticised the style of Ms Couric’s newscast, which emphasised soft features over hard news – something CBS seemed to acknowledge this year when it replaced the producer.

OL' LES COVERED a lot of ground during his remarks today. Earlier, I blogged on his slimy, self-serving skewering of a straw man when, in the same talk, he went after former CBS anchor Dan Rather for alleged sexism in criticizing the Evening News.

Then we pick up The Financial Times, a British publication, and get a new angle -- that it's not just Rather who's evil and sexist. All of us are . . . or at least almost all of us, considering Couric's woeful ratings.

I'm a sexist, he's a sexist, she's a sexist, we're a sexist, wouldn't you like to be a sexist, too?

If for no other reason that it seems to torture a sleaze like Les Moonves soooooo bad.

Workers' rights Gone With the Wind

Your European retirement jaunt: $25,750.

The travel trailer you always wanted: $75,439.

Season tickets to the symphony: $975.

Somebody to feed you and wipe your ass when you're too old and sick to do it yourself: Oh, about five bucks an hour. No overtime, though!

The Washington Post has the story of the Supreme Court's latest decision. (Oh, before you go, Mellie . . . will you have Mammy come in here to fluff my pillow? Tell her to bring me a julep while she's at it.)

The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that workers in the fast-growing home-care industry are not entitled to overtime pay.

The court unanimously agreed that a 1975 Labor Department regulation exempting workers paid by third parties from minimum-wage and maximum-hour rules was a valid exercise of the power given to the agency by Congress.

(snip)

The home-care case was brought by Evelyn Coke, a 73-year-old retiree who worked for more than 20 years as a home-care provider. She sued her employer, Long Island Care at Home, because she was never paid overtime despite her long hours and sometimes overnight care for clients.

She and her lawyers challenged the Labor Department exemption, saying its development at a time when Congress was including more workers under wage and overtime laws could not be what lawmakers intended.

But the Bush administration said Congress clearly had left the decision up to the agency. Otherwise, the administration contended, wage and overtime provisions for companionship services would have been applied in the law.

The court, in an opinion by Justice Stephen G. Breyer, agreed.

"Where an agency rule sets forth important individual rights and duties . . . and where the rule itself is reasonable, then a court ordinarily assumes that Congress intended it to defer to the agency's determination," Breyer wrote.

The decision set aside a ruling by the Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit that had allowed Coke's lawsuit to go forward.

Home-care workers make up one of the marketplace's fastest-growing occupations, the growth fueled by an aging population and a desire to keep more of the aged in their homes rather than in institutions.

Coke's supporters said the decision will make it even more difficult to find workers to take home-care jobs, which often are low-paying and come without benefits.

"If we are to avert a home-care crisis in America, our leaders must invest in living wages and health-care coverage for home-care workers to ensure that we can meet the home-care needs of our growing elderly population," said Gerry Hudson, executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union, which represents about 400,000 of the estimated 1 million home-care workers.

"Unfortunately, today's Supreme Court ruling is a step in the wrong direction," he said.

But home-care agencies had said an adverse ruling would have meant scores of lawsuits seeking retroactive pay and future wages that would have sent the cost of care skyrocketing. New York City, for instance, told the court that its Medicaid payments for such care would rise by as much as $250 million under the appeals court's decision.

William A. Dombi, vice president for law for the National Association for Home Care and Hospice, welcomed the court's ruling in Long Island Care at Home v. Coke, but said he is sympathetic to the workers and the union.

The decision, he said, "doesn't resolve the underlying problem about proper levels of compensation."

OH, I WOULDN'T WORRY about finding people who'll do awful work for slave wages.

There's a great big country full of desperately poor people just to our south, a big undefended border that's not in the way a-tall and plenty of American businessmen ready and willing to exploit the hell out of every single illegal alien who'll take The Jobs Americans Aren't Willing to Do (TM).

And all we aging Boomers have to do is learn to say "I'm hungry" and "Please come clean me; I've soiled myself" en Espanol.

ALSO: The New York Times has the story here.

Oh, for cryin' out loud!

I am so happy I wasn't drinking coffee just now, 'cause I'd be cleaning off the computer monitor instead of typing this. It would have been Spit Take City.

From The Associated Press:

CBS Corp. Chief Executive Leslie Moonves shot back at former CBS news anchor Dan Rather on Tuesday, saying his characterization of the network "tarting" up its newscast with anchor Katie Couric was "sexist."

Rather, speaking by phone on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program with Joe Scarborough Monday, said CBS had made the mistake of taking the evening news broadcast and "dumbing it down, tarting it up," and playing up topics such as celebrities over war coverage. The comments subsequently appeared in blogs and in a story published Tuesday in the New York Daily News and the New York Post.

While referring to his successor, Couric, as a "nice person," Rather said "the mistake was to try to bring the 'Today' show ethos to the 'Evening News,' and to dumb it down, tart it up in hopes of attracting a younger audience."

Moonves, asked about the remarks at an appearance in New York sponsored by the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, called the remarks "sexist" and said he was surprised at the amount of negative coverage Couric was receiving. Couric, the first solo female news anchor, has been struggling in the ratings.

"She's been on the air for nine months," Moonves said. "Let's give her a break."

Couric started strong but has settled into a distant third in the evening news ratings race. Last month her "CBS Evening News" set a record for its least-watched broadcast for at least two decades, then broke it the very next week.

Rather left as "CBS Evening News" anchor in March 2005 and cut ties to the network a year later. He continued to be dogged by controversy surrounding his role in a discredited story about President Bush's Vietnam-era military service.

Moonves said he "absolutely" had confidence in Couric and the direction that CBS's evening was going, saying it was imperative to reach younger audiences. Evening news broadcasts couldn't continue to have audiences that are mainly over 60, Moonves said, otherwise "the evening news will die."

NO, LES, Rather wasn't being "sexist," he was stating the obvious about your hiring of Couric to present the evening news. He was stating the obvious about the "junk culture" values now driving American broadcast "news" (for lack of a better term).

And by the way, Les, this would be sexist. A typical bit by the guys you have doing the morning show on one of your New York FM stations, and syndicated on several other CBS stations.

They're the sexist ones, Les, not Dan Rather. And you like having them around just fine.

Bring out your dead. . . .

Almost two years -- two years! -- after Hurricane Katrina, 100 unclaimed bodies, victims of the flood, lie in plastic-wrapped coffins in a seedy New Orleans warehouse. Thirty have never been identified.

Why is this? Can New Orleans not even bury its dead?

CNN has a few answers (video is here):

The bodies are in the charge of Dr. Frank Minyard, the city's coroner. Minyard won't let anyone inside the warehouse because he says it would be undignified, but he did show us pictures of the inside. The caskets are wrapped in plastic and sit on a raised platform behind a chain link fence. He says the fence is there as an extra layer of security. Above each casket is a white plaque with a black number, one through 100. Minyard wouldn't give us the pictures to broadcast, but we got our own video from inside the warehouse.

Minyard is trying to raise $1.5 million to build a group of mausoleums for the bodies and a memorial in the swirling shape of a hurricane. But as the second anniversary approaches, it's unlikely those bodies will find a permanent resting place anytime soon. The coroner has raised $250,000 so far, and Charity Hospital has donated an old cemetery for the memorial. But Minyard says they won't be able to break ground until they raise another $150,000.

OH, HOW THE GOOD is derailed in people's quest for the glorious . . . and the glory.

The coroner needs to let those poor drowned souls rest in peace. I think it is possible to build a tasteful mausoleum, or group of small mausoleums, for $250,000. Do it. Then build a tasteful, understated memorial park around that as money becomes available.

AFTER ALL, the Savior of the world was buried in a small cave with a boulder rolled in front of the opening. Fortunately for all of us, He only needed it for a couple of days.

Louisville newspaper forgot to purchase First Amendment rights to super-regional

From the organization that:

* Denied Auburn University permission to bus its football players to a teammate's funeral in the early '90s (the school did it anyway), and
* Denied Louisiana State permission to fly its basketball team to a teammate's funeral in St. Louis in 1980 (Coach Dale Brown gave them the money to go anyway), and
* Denied permission for Georgia fans to fly a Boise State player's father back from Iraq (where he was training Iraqi police) so he could see his son play against the Bulldogs in Athens, Ga., and
* Has given its full cooperation toward turning every national collegiate championship into a veritable whorehouse of corporate sponsorships and rank commercialism . . .

comes this, as told by the victim, The (Louisville) Courier-Journal.

A Courier-Journal sports reporter had his media credential revoked and was ordered to leave the press box during the NCAA baseball super-regional yesterday because of what the NCAA alleged was a violation of its policies prohibiting live Internet updates from its championship events.

Gene McArtor, a representative of the NCAA baseball committee, approached C-J staffer Brian Bennett at the University of Louisville's Jim Patterson Stadium in the bottom of the fifth inning in the U of L-Oklahoma State game. McArtor told him that blogging from an NCAA championship event "is against NCAA policies. We're revoking the credential and need to ask you to leave the stadium."

Courier-Journal executive editor Bennie L. Ivory challenged the NCAA's action last night and said the newspaper would consider an official response.

"It's clearly a First Amendment issue," Ivory said. "This is part of the evolution of how we present the news to our readers. It's what we did during the Orange Bowl. It's what we did during the NCAA basketball tournament. It's what we do."

U of L circulated a memo on the issue from Jeramy Michiaels, the NCAA's manager of broadcasting, before Friday's first super-regional game. It said blogs are considered a "live representation of the game" and that any blog containing action photos or game reports would be prohibited.

"In essence, no blog entries are permitted between the first pitch and the final out of each game," the memo said.

Bennett had filed Internet reports from U of L's NCAA Tournament games at the Columbia (Mo.) Regional and did so from the first two games of the super-regional.

He was told before yesterday's game by U of L assistant sports information director Sean Moth that he was violating NCAA policy by filing periodic reports for The Courier-Journal's Web site, courier-journal.com.

After consulting with his editors, Bennett filed a report at 4:12 p.m. after the top of the first inning and added 15 more reports before he was asked to leave. U of L won 20-2 to advance to the College World Series in Omaha, Neb.

"It's a real question that we're being deprived of our right to report within the First Amendment from a public facility," said Jon L. Fleischaker, the newspaper's attorney.

"Once a player hits a home run, that's a fact. It's on TV. Everybody sees it. (The NCAA) can't copyright that fact. The blog wasn't a simulcast or a recreation of the game. It was an analysis."

During the middle of yesterday's game, Courier-Journal representatives were told by two members of the U of L athletic staff that if the school did not revoke Bennett's credential it would jeopardize the school's chances of hosting another NCAA baseball event.

"If that's true, that's nothing short of extortion and thuggery," Ivory said. "We will be talking to our attorneys (today) to see where we go from here."

I CERTAINLY HOPE that when the Courier-Journal's lawyers get through with the National Collegiate Athletic Association, its NCAA acronym will have an entirely new meaning.

No Cash At All.

Did you know . . . I'm an idiot?

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

On this week's Big Show, I mention The Ramones "53rd & 3rd" as being from 1999, because I was having a brain fart and that was the date of The Ramones Anthology: Hey Ho Let's Go, from which the track came.

Great. Now I've become just like the over-coiffed, empty-headed, local-TV drones who'll read any blame thing the teleprompter puts in front of them . . . and mispronouncing half of it. Because they're not from here and ain't learned much because they won't be here long.

It's embarrassing, really. Of course, while "53rd & 3rd" was released on the 1999 anthology, it first was released on The Ramones' self-titled first album in 1976.

As I said previously . . . GAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Then again, my contemporary exposure to the Ramones in that time period was playing the crud out of the "Blitzkrieg Bop" single on Baton Rouge High's FM station, WBRH, circa early '78.

Woulda played it sooner, 'cept that 'BRH didn't go on the air until September 1977, and I didn't get my FCC license -- you needed one a them to go on the air back then -- until January '78.

And believe me, playing "Blitzkrieg Bop" was dicey enough back then. If we'd had "53rd & 3rd" -- a song about drug dealing -- available to play, we probably would have . . . and then promptly been sent to Siberia by the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board, not noted for being a haven for deep thinkers or cultural mavens.

I mean, this was the bunch who slapped us down for playing the Sex Pistols' "God Save the Queen" in late '77. And that was merely insulting the Queen of England.

Anyway, back to the point: I'm middle-aged and prone to fits of "Old-Timer's Disease" when the brain don't work so good. That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it.

And you can bet I've gone back into iTunes and put the correct original release date on each track from the anthology CD.

Did you know . . . ?

It's another tasty good episode of the Revolution 21 podcast, and it's also time for a game of Did You Know?

Hey! Ho! Let's go!

DID YOU KNOW . . . that Rickie Lee Jones improvised many -- if not all -- the songs on her latest album Sermon on Exposition Boulevard, which is based on her friend Lee Cantelon's book The Words? Cantelon wrote the book as a modern-day paraphrase of the words of Christ in the Gospels, rearranging them by topic.

Originally, Jones was to do readings of passages from the book. But she had an idea. . . .

Jones' idea to do improvised songs based on those passages revolutionized the project, and resulted in a fine album. A fine album. On the Big Show this week, we'll hear "Falling Up," the first single off Sermon.

DID YOU KNOW . . . who the backup vocalist is on Gram Parsons' cover of "Love Hurts"?

Same lady who was his partner in song on all of the legendary Grievous Angel album and for the rest of his career until his untimely death -- the equally legendary Emmylou Harris.

Oh . . . and you might know "Love Hurts" better from Nazareth's cover a year later, in 1975. Originally written by Boudleaux Bryant, it was first cut by the Everly Brothers in 1960. Didn't hit the Top 40 then, though.

The most recent cover? Rod Stewart, last year.

AND, DID YOU KNOW . . . that Rory Gallagher was the Irish rocker who paved the way for the long string of Irish rockers to come? On the show, we hear "Shin Kicker" from Gallagher's 1978 LP Photo-Finish.

Rory Gallagher got his start in the early '60s, I think, then formed the band Taste in 1966. He went on to solo work after Taste broke up in 1970, achieving Guitar God status during his too-short career.

Gallagher died in London on June 14, 1995, at age 47, victim of a staph infection following a liver transplant.

And that's it for Did You Know . . . on The Big Show.

Now go and listen to the podcast, won't 'ya?

If you can't do the time. . . .

Apparently, Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer was as disgusted with "celebrity justice" as the rest of us. He's sent spoiled brat Paris Hilton back to the hoosegow, "medical condition" or no.

And Shakwanda from Compton said "A-MEN!"

Of course, in that fine spoiled brat tradition, the heiress horrible was led from the courtroom Friday weeping and screaming. Yes, screaming.

It's a fine day in America. The Associated Press has all the poop in this early dispatch:

Paris Hilton was escorted from a courtroom screaming and crying on Friday after a judge sent her back to jail to serve out her entire 45-day sentence for a parole violation in a reckless driving case.

“It’s not right!” shouted the weeping Hilton. “Mom!” she called out to her mother in the audience.

Hilton, who was brought to court in handcuffs in a sheriff’s car, came into the courtroom disheveled and weeping. Her hair was askew and she wore a gray fuzzy sweatshirt over slacks. She wore no makeup and she cried throughout the hearing.

Her body also shook constantly as she dabbed at her eyes. Several times she turned to her parents, seated behind her in the courtroom, and mouthed, “I love you.”

Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer was calm but apparently irked by the morning’s developments. He said he had left the courthouse Thursday night having signed an order for Hilton to appear for the hearing.

When he got in his car early Friday, he said, he heard a radio report that he had approved Hilton’s participation in the hearing by telephone, but he had not.

“I at no time condoned the actions of the sheriff and at no time told him I approved the actions,” he said of the decision to release Hilton from jail after three days.

“At no time did I approve the defendant being released from custody to her home on Kings Road,” Sauer said.

Earlier Friday, a weeping Hilton was brought back to court in a police car, apparently handcuffed. She was taken from her home, where she returned yesterday after the sheriff’s department decided she could serve out her sentence in home confinement, with an ankle monitor.

The frenzy began early Thursday when sheriff’s officials released Hilton because of an undisclosed medical condition and sent her home under house arrest. She had been in jail since late Sunday.

Hilton was fitted with an electronic monitoring ankle bracelet and was expected to finish her 45-day sentence for a reckless driving probation violation at her four-bedroom, three-bath home.

The decision by Sheriff Lee Baca to move Hilton chafed prosecutors and Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer, who spelled out during sentencing that Hilton was not allowed to serve house detention.

(snip)

California Attorney General Jerry Brown criticized the Sheriff’s Department for letting Hilton out of jail, saying he believed she should serve out her sentence.

“It does hold up the system to ridicule when the powerful and the famous get special treatment,” Brown told The Associated Press before testifying at a congressional hearing in Washington.

“I’m sure there’s a lot of people who’ve seen their family members go to jail and have various ailments, physical and psychological, that didn’t get them released,” he said. “I’d say it’s time for a course correction.”

I REMEMBER WHEN we used to call Jerry Brown "Governor Moonbeam" when he led California in the '70s. But, you know, I always thought he had a deeply sensible streak in there somewhere. And, boy, is he right on this one. There's a couple of course corrections called for here -- for the system, and for the hysterical heiress.

However satisfying it is to see Paris Hilton get hers (courtesy of the Long Arm of the Law, no less) -- and satisfying it is -- we have to hope that this is that pathetic young woman's Divine Wake-Up Call.

Listen, we're all dirty rotten sinners here, and we all have our pathologies and areas where we might even be bat-s*** crazy. The difference between Miss Hilton and your average struggling, stumbling Christian imperfectly trying to cooperate with God's saving grace is that we know we're screwed up.

We care that we're screwed up.

We don't want to be screwed up.

We're not making millions solely because we're screwed up.

And we're willing to take The Cure.

I hope Paris gets to be sick and tired, and then sick and tired of being sick and tired. And I hope she -- one day -- is willing to take The Cure, too.

But how do you store spare light bulbs?

Ma! I can't turn the light off!

I . . . CAN'T . . . CUT . . . OFF . . . THE . . . LIGHTS!!!!!

From the London Daily Mail:

Scientists have sounded the death knell for the plug and power lead.

In a breakthrough that sounds like something out of Star Trek, they have discovered a way of 'beaming' power across a room into a light bulb, mobile phone or laptop computer without wires or cables.

In the first successful trial of its kind, the team was able to illuminate a 60-watt light bulb 7ft away.

The team from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who call their invention 'WiTricity', believe it could change the way we use electricity and do away with the tangle of cables, plugs and chargers that clutter modern homes.

It could also allow the use of laptops and mobile phones without batteries.

The inspiration came when the lead researcher, Dr Marin Soljacic, was standing in his kitchen at night staring at his mobile phone.

"It was probably the sixth time that month that I was awakened by my cell phone beeping to let me know that I had forgotten to charge it. It occurred to me that it would be so great if the thing took care of its own charging," he said.

To turn this dream into reality, Dr Soljacic needed a way of transmitting power wirelessly.

Scientists have known for nearly two centuries that it is possible to transfer an electrical current from one coil of wire to another without them touching.

The phenomenon, called electromagnetic induction, is used in power transformers and electric motors around the world.

However, the coils in motors and transformers have to be close for power to pass from one to another. Attempting to transfer power over distances is impossible.

The breakthrough came when Dr Soljacic realised there was another way of transferring energy through the air.

Rather than sending power from a transmitter to a receiver as a conventional electromagnetic wave - the same form of radiation as light, radio waves and microwaves - he could use the transmitter to fill a room with a 'non-radiative' electromagnetic field.

Most objects in the room - such as people, desks and carpets - would be unaffected by the electromagnetic field. But any objects designed to resonate with the electromagnetic field would absorb the energy.

It sounds complicated, but the result demonstrated by the American team this month was a dramatic success. Using two coils of copper, the team transmitted power 7ft through the air to a light bulb, which lit up instantly.

OH, OK, you need a receiving coil before the blame scheme will work. But why let something as mundane as facts screw up a good lede and headline, eh?

That there's a Sub-Zero-size job

I thought "Dollar Bill" Jefferson already had frozen his assets. Hmmmmm. . . .

Anyway, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune clarifies the situation:

A federal judge on Thursday froze the assets of Rep. William Jefferson, D-New Orleans, three days after the congressman was indicted on corruption charges.

U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III granted the government's request for a restraining order keeping Jefferson from using nearly $500,000 and about 33 million shares of corporate stock prosecutors say he was paid in bribes.

I WONDER whether the feds are going to have to resort to this to freeze the congressman's financials.

I'm going to throw up now

Paris Hilton gets to go home to here

because she has a "medical condition" -- apparently, she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown -- that precluded her from doing her time here

YEAH, this is exactly the same consideration Shakwanda from Compton would get if she were so "mentally fragile." Give me a friggin' break.

TMZ.com reports:

Psychiatrist Charles Sophy visited Hilton in jail yesterday and the day before. We're told after Sophy's visit yesterday, word was passed to the Sheriff that Hilton's mental state was fragile and she was at risk.

The reason for releasing her had nothing to do with a rash or other physical issues. It was purely in her head.

Last month, on the eve of a trial in which Hilton was accused of slandering socialite Zeta Graph, Dr. Sophy told the judge that Hilton was "emotionally distraught and traumatized" over her jail sentence, which prevented her from participating in a meaningful defense. That trial was put on hold until August.

HEY, SHERIFF! Can I get likkered up, weave around LaLa Land in my Beemer -- or Bentley, or Mercedes, whatever -- get arrested, blow off terms of my probation, then lose my s*** in lockup so I can spend 40 days at Paris Hilton's mansion?

On second thought, solitary is just fine, thankyouverymuch.

Paging M. Voltaire . . . paging M. Voltaire. . . .

OK, it's time for a Voltaire "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" kind of moment here.

Fred Phelps' band of allegedly "Christian" whackadoodles were in Bellevue -- an Omaha suburb and home of the U.S. Strategic Command -- for one of their tasteless hate fests outside the funeral of a local National Guardsman blown up in Iraq.

Apparently, not only does God hate "fags," the Almighty hates American soldiers, too.

Anyway, the nutball daughter of the nutball pastor finally went Too Far (TM) and got herself arrested Tuesday by having her 10-year-old son stomp on an American flag. Despite recent Supreme Court decisions, that's still illegal in Nebraska.

Probably part of an effort to keep idiot "God Hates Fags" troglodytes from doing something that just might get them killed in Bellevue-By-God-Nebraska -- home of Offutt Air Force Base, thousands of airmen and sailors therein, and thousands more Air Force vets who stayed around when their hitch was up.

The Associated Press fills us in:

Shirley Phelps-Roper, 49, will be charged with flag mutilation, disturbing the peace and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, Sarpy County Attorney Lee Polikov said Wednesday.

Phelps-Roper, a member of the Westboro Baptist Church, acknowledged that she allowed her son Jonah to stand on the flag Tuesday — something she says is protected by the U.S. Constitution.

“It’s utter nonsense,” said Phelps-Roper, a lawyer. “I don’t know what else to tell you other than that we’ll see them in federal court.”

Phelps-Roper is a daughter of Westboro’s founder, the Rev. Fred Phelps. Members have protested at more than 280 military funerals in 43 states since June 2005, she said.

The group says the deaths of U.S. soldiers are God’s punishment for a nation that harbors gays and lesbians. Nebraska and 37 other states have laws restricting how close protesters can get to funerals, inspired at least in part by the Westboro protests.

Tuesday’s funeral in suburban Bellevue was for Nebraska Army National Guard Spc. William “Bill” Bailey, who was killed May 25 when an explosive device struck his vehicle in Iraq.

Phelps-Roper was arrested because she was involved in a potentially volatile situation in the presence of Bailey’s friends, relatives and fellow soldiers, Polikov said. Bellevue has a strong military presence, with Offutt Air Force Base located at the south edge of town.

“To come into that environment and communicate what I would call fighting words — provocative language and acts — you can’t do that,” Polikov said. “You might illicit a violent response. That’s against community peace and community law.”

PERSONALLY, I AM DISAPPOINTED that the mourners didn't beat the crap out of her and the rest of the Nut Brigade. Legally, I hope -- and strongly suspect -- she'll ultimately get the flag law tossed.

But I'm not so sure she won't be doing some time in the Sarpy County Jail on disturbing the peace and contributing to the delinquency. "Fighting words" (or actions) are called that for a reason, and if she hadn't been hauled away by the cops, she may have been fighting for her life.

Ordinarily, if she were convicted on disturbing the peace and was contrite as all get out, she'd probably walk away $100 lighter in the pocketbook, but a free woman. But she was trying to disrupt and desecrate the funeral of a local soldier and volunteer fireman.

And she's a first-class jerk.

And her daddy's a jerk.

And their whole church is full of jerks.

And she's spent two days waving a stomped flag in the face of the county attorney and courts.

After -- Did I mention this? -- trying to disrupt and desecrate the funeral of a local soldier and volunteer fireman.

Yep. She, I hope, will beat the rap on the First Amendment issue. But on the rest, let's just say I hope she has a long and extremely unpleasant sojourn in the Pissed Off Veterans cellblock of the Sarpy clink.

Your government at . . . what, exactly?

Half a trillion dollars on a failed war in Iraq.

Millions upon millions upon millions upon millions upon millions of dollars for congressional "earmarks" on the budget bill.

But half a decade overdue, there's still not a penny for a necessary weather satellite. Unbelievable.

That is, such a thing formerly was unbelievable. When it comes to our government at "work" in these times, hell, I'll believe anything. Read this from the Baton Rouge (La.) Advocate and wonder how many this administration's incompetence will kill this time:

A hurricane tracking satellite is about to stop working and supporters of a replacement are trying to cobble together the $375 million needed to build and launch another one.

Without a satellite, hurricane forecasting would be 16 percent less accurate 72 hours before a hurricane’s landfall, and 10 percent less accurate within 48 hours, according to Bill Proenza, director of the National Hurricane Center.

The satellite QuikSCAT is five years past its projected lifespan, Forecasters and congressmen say that makes it vulnerable to failure.

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and Rep. Charles “Charlie” Melancon, D-Napoleonville, have introduced companion legislation in the Senate and House calling for the federal government to replace the current satellite about to die.

“It’s crucial that our nation’s hurricane system be first class,” Landrieu says in a statement. “With 50 percent of our population living within 50 miles of the coast, residents in these communities — in Louisiana, Florida and across the nation — deserve the best technology available to track impending hurricanes.”

In addition to hurricanes, the satellite detects coastal winds, storm surges and other weather-related events, such as “El Niño.”

“We need more advanced warning of storms and can’t afford to slide backward,” Landrieu said. “This requires a long-term solution.”

NASA launched the QuikSCAT satellite in 1999. The tracker was expected to remain in service until 2002.

The probe was built in just 12 months because the previous satellite was lost in 1997. An instrument on the satellite sends pulses of microwave energy through the atmosphere and measures energy that bounces back from the wind on the ocean’s surface.

God uses the 'Dump' button on Giuliani

THE ALMIGHTY don't need no stinkin' eight-second delay. No, He doesn't. Not at all.

And yes, Rudy, you should be worried.

Can New Orleans save America?

What?

Just what I said. Can New Orleans save America?

Or, to be more precise, will America allow New Orleans to survive, so that New Orleans might save America? That just might be the theme of the final post from Dan Baum on The New Yorker's magnificent blog, New Orleans Journal:

But, most of all, I’m lonely. I was in Beaumont, Texas, having vegetarian fajitas at an outpost of the Acapulco Mexican Grill chain, when I noticed a woman at the next table looking at my food. “That looks good,” I heard her whisper to her mother. I kept expecting one of them to lean over and shout, “Hey, babe, what’s that you’re eatin’?,” and for all of us to end up at the same table. But they kept to themselves.

“Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans?” an old song asks; another reminds us, “You don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone.” Since Katrina, I’ve often been asked (though never by someone in New Orleans) why the country should bother rebuilding it. Is it really worth the billions it would take to protect this small, poor, economically inessential city, which is sinking into the delta muck as global warming raises the sea around it? But the question of “whether” has been settled—New Orleans is rebuilding itself, albeit slowly, fitfully, and imperfectly. Now it’s only a matter of how and how long. That is better news than perhaps the rest of America fully understands.

It’s the American way to focus on the future—we are dreamers and schemers, always chasing the horizon. Looking forward has made us great, but it comes at a price. (Mexican immigrants often describe life in the United States as puro reloj, or “nothing but the clock.”) New Orleanians, on the other hand, are excellent at the lost art of living in the moment. Étienne stopped at our house one afternoon to drop off some papers he wanted me to see. No, he said, he couldn’t stay; someone was waiting for him downtown. But we got to talking, and gradually moved to the chairs on the porch. We had a beer. The shadows lengthened as the day cooled, the jasmine across the street smelled sweet, and a few houses away someone was practicing the saxophone. Margaret brought out a dish of almonds. We all had another beer. It was dark by the time Étienne left. And here’s the true miracle of New Orleans: the person waiting for him downtown no doubt had an equally pleasant couple of hours, and Étienne surely paid no social penalty for being late.

When Margaret and I first arrived, in January, I noticed that I kept getting stood up. If I arranged on a Monday to meet people for lunch on the following Thursday, they often wouldn’t show. When I tracked them down later, they’d ask why I hadn’t called that morning. It hadn’t occurred to me to do so; everywhere else in America, people use calendars to manage the future. It took me a while to figure out that in New Orleans the future doesn’t really exist. There is only the present.

Long before the storm, New Orleans’s infrastructure was decrepit; the schools were a shambles; poverty, corruption, and violence were rampant. It was, by most conventional standards, a terrible place. But few who had tasted life there willingly gave it up. Right before Katrina, a Gallup poll found more than half of New Orleanians “extremely satisfied” with their lives, despite the city’s wretched state, a higher percentage than in any other city surveyed. New Orleanians have more time than money, and they like it that way.

The city’s unique appreciation for the present makes life there rich indeed; it’s why people call New Orleans “the Big Easy.” It is not a world view conducive to getting things done, however, which goes a long way toward explaining why New Orleans is having so much trouble recovering from Hurricane Katrina. There are exceptions, but, as a rule, New Orleanians—no matter what color or how wealthy—aren’t great at planning meetings, showing up on time for them, running them in orderly fashion, deciding on a course of action, and then following through. This isn’t simply laziness or fecklessness; it’s a reflection of a commitment to enjoying life instead of merely achieving. You want efficiency and hard work? Go to Minneapolis. Just don’t expect to let the good times roll there.

New Orleans endures as the national repository of the loose-jointed Huck Finn spirit we Americans claim to cherish. While the rest of us pare down our humanity in service to the dollar, New Orleans is a corner of America where efficiency and maximized profit are not the civic religion. As I drive past endless repetitions of Wendy’s, Golden Corral, Ethan Allen furniture, Jiffy Lube, Red Lobster, and the like on my way back to Colorado, I realize that I haven’t spent a dollar anyplace but locally owned business in four months. A long time ago, David Freedman, the general manager of the listener-supported radio station WWOZ, described New Orleans to me as a kind of resistance-army headquarters. “Everyplace else in America, Clear Channel has commodified our music, McDonald’s has commodified our food, and Disney has commodified our fantasies,” he said. “None of that has taken hold in New Orleans.” In the speedy, future-oriented, hyper-productive, and globalized twenty-first century, New Orleans’s refusal to sacrifice the pleasures of the moment amounts to a life style of civil disobedience.

SEE, THE ONLY THING WRONG with New Orleans is Third-World poverty, out-of-control crime and murder, lousy schools and a crumbling economy. Oh, and that Katrina thing.

But there is a joy in living, a sacramental sense of life that remains in that beleaguered culture, in that suffering place. Yeah, that's it. Joy amid the suffering. There is a sense -- imperfectly present, of course, but present more so than in most American locales -- of people as ends in themselves, not means to some almighty commercial end.

If you have that, you're doing all right. And you realize that schools can be fixed, economies grown, crime fought and poverty ameliorated, given the civic will and the nation's resources.

On the other hand, if you lose that sacramental sense of life, the joy one finds in the moment, the realization that your family and your neighbor is what it's all about -- that man does not live by day planner alone -- what do you have?

Even the Beatles knew back in 1964 that "money can't buy me love."

And if you have smarts and more crap than you know what to do with but are a couple quarts low in the "Meaning and Love" department, you start to have a society that mirrors these sad observations -- as reported by Rod Dreher on his Crunchy Con blog -- a Muslim professor's wife made about contemporary American society:

We got to talking, and she said that it astonishes and saddens her and her husband how materially rich but spiritually desolate Americans are -- at least the ones her husband teaches.

"You can't believe how many of them are on antidepressants," she said. She added that they come to her husband desperate for life advice and direction. They're lost, and have been spiritually and emotionally abandoned by their permissive and indulgent parents.

These kids, she said, have everything they could possibly want -- except what they really need.

FCC's F- and S-word jihad total BS, court says

There's such a thing as Doing Right.

But then politicians get involved and end up Going Too Far.

And then the courts get involved, and the baby just might get thrown out with the dirty bath water. Reporteth The Hollywood Reporter:

The federal appeals court in New York City on Monday tossed out a key FCC ruling that said a slip of tongue gets broadcasters a fine for indecency, telling the commission that it failed to give a good reason for its decision and couldn't likely find a good reason if it had to.

"We find the FCC's new policy sanctioning 'fleeting expletives' is arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedures Act for failing to articulate a reasoned basis for its change in policy," the court wrote in a 2-1 opinion.

While a majority of the judges found little to like about the commission's 2006 decision, it sent the order back to Washington, allowing the panel to get another stab at writing the rules.

But even the court's remand came with a catch as it warned the FCC to ensure that "further proceedings" are "consistent" with the court's decision.

"We are doubtful that by merely proffering a reasoned analysis for its new approach to indecency and profanity, the commission can adequately respond to the constitutional and statutory challenges raised by the networks," Judge Rosemary Pooler wrote.

"Nevertheless, because we can decide this case on this narrow ground, we vacate and remand so that the commission can set forth an analysis. While we fully expect the networks to raise the same arguments they have raised to this court if the commission does nothing more on remand than provide additional explanation for its departure from prior precedent we can go not further than this opinion."

FCC chairman Kevin Martin took the decision hard, saying it is the judges who are wrong, not the commission.

"I find it hard to believe that the New York court would tell American families that 's***' and 'f***' are fine to say on broadcast television during the hours when children are most likely to be in the audience," Martin said in a statement. "The court even says the commission is 'divorced from reality.' It is the New York court, not the commission, that is divorced from reality in concluding that the word 'f***' does not invoke a sexual connotation." [Martin used the actual s- and f-words. I took them out. -- R21]

In its decision, the commission decided that language used by Cher and Nicole Richie during the 2002 and 2003 Billboard Music Awards aired by the Fox Broadcasting Co. was indecent and profane.

Opponents of the commission's attempts to regulate speech called the decision a victory.

"Score one for the First Amendment," said Media Access Project president and CEO Andrew Jay Schwartzman. "It's a shame that citizens and broadcasters had to seek protection from the courts, but it is very reassuring to know that one branch of the government can rise above demagogy."

MAP attorneys represented the Center for Creative Voices in Media as intervener in the case. CCV's members include many members of the creative community, and its brief to the court stressed the chilling effect of the FCC's action on writers, directors and other artists.

The decision did not go unnoticed in Hollywood as AFTRA, DGA, SAG, the WGA East and WGA West issued a joint statement applauding the decision.

"Actors, directors, writers and broadcast personnel are pleased that the Second Circuit Court of Appeals today rejected the FCC's effort to expand their authority and influence over creative content," the guilds said.

"The fines imposed have had a chilling effect on free expression over the airwaves. If allowed to stand, these fines would have subjected all programming to arbitrary claims of indecency without regard to context or type of programming. We are united in our opposition to this, or any other, FCC decision to overturn long-standing policy in this area, and replace it with arbitrary decision-making standards that tread on free speech."

DOING RIGHT is hammering broadcasters for willful indecency -- including indecent speech -- over the public airwaves. In other words, I don't care if you write 30,000 articles for your local alternative weekly that feature frequent, flagrant and flamboyant use of f***, s***, m*****f*****, c***, d*** and p****.

Or, for that matter, g****** m************ son-of-a-b****ing rat-faced f****** bastard. Just so long as the creative coupling of expletives is directed at all the right people.

But if you walk into my church and intentionally start using that language in front of a bunch of kids, I'm going to whip your ass.

That's the common-sense distinction most Americans would make in this pluralistic society. Unfortunately, in the wake of Janet Jackson's 2004 Super Bowl "wardrobe malfunction," the Federal Communications Commission decided it was all done with any distinc-to-fyin'.

HEWING TO FCC LOGIC, if cracking down on (ahem) simulated intercourse and R&B singers' ta-tas flopping all over the place on network TV is a good thing, and hammering on Bono's inadvertent F-bomb at the 2002 Golden Globes is better, then making all over-the-air broadcasters terrified to even broadcast football games live -- for fear of someone yelling a Bad Word (TM) too close to a microphone -- must be the Bestest Thing Ever.

Welcome to Going Too Far and, thus, messing up a good thing.

And all God's people said . . . Oy veh!