Immense tragedy makes you do odd things

I am one of those people who notes the little absurdities and oddities amid great tragedy, how sheer urgency and a little panic makes people do odd things.

This is one of those moments and -- though I'm skating along the thin edge of propriety amid the horror of the previously unthinkable -- I did want to note one bit of media pretense and stodginess crashing to the ground and breaking into a million pieces. Because when it all hits the fan, you've got to do what you've got to do.

Like use the word "blog."

This happened at the Omaha World-Herald, which has been notoriously suspicious of this Internet thing . . . particularly the phenomenon of weblogs. In fact, "blog" (a.k.a. "live update," when the paper absolutely, positively had to commit blogging) was that Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken.

Until today, when immense tragedy pushed the trivial and the petty to the side, as old media and new did what they had to do. Today, instead, all of us were forced to focus on the Big Things in life.

And death.

Lone gunman, police think

The full horror of what hit this big small town -- hit it out of the blue this Christmas season, evil descending upon unsuspecting shoppers at the area's biggest mall -- is just starting to sink in as authorities begin to sort out just what the hell happened in Omaha this afternoon.

Right now, police say they think the shooter acted alone, then killed himself. At least 14 people were shot; nine are dead, including the gunman.

Asked about the camo-clad man arrested at a Westroads Mall transit center, a police spokeswoman said officers were rounding up anyone who fit early descriptions of the gunman. If the bus-stop man actually was trying to hide under a bench, and why, we don't know.

ALL WE KNOW is the cops think the shooter was alone. And dead.

According to one television report, the mass shooting may have been a murder-suicide writ large. From KETV, Channel 7:

At 4:30 p.m., Rollie Yost, in the Sarpy County Sheriff's Office, said shortly after the shooting, a woman walked into its office with a note that "could be interpreted as suicidal." Yost said the note is believed to be connected to the Westroads shooting. Yost said the note contained information from a 19-year-old man.

Yost said Sarpy County is working with Omaha police.

A REPORTER on KMTV, Channel 3 spoke of the enormity of what he'd just witnessed just now starting to hit him. I think the same is happening right now for most of the 425,000 residents of this relatively prosperous, relatively peaceful city on the edge of the Great Plains.

Stuff like this doesn't happen here. But now it has, and we have to deal with it.

Merry Christmas.

Newspaper: Nine dead at Omaha mall

The Omaha World-Herald reports nine dead in the wake of a shooting spree at Omaha's Westroads Mall. Police just confirmed this.

VARIOUS TV REPORTS still have one gunman dead inside Von Maur department store, and at least one suspect arrested outside the mall, apparently after attempting to hide under a bus-stop bench.

The suspect arrested fit the description of the shooter -- a black man wearing a camouflage jacket. Police are saying the shooter is among the nine dead.

All hell breaks loose a mile down the road

A sniper's gunshots shredded "peace on Earth and goodwill to men" in an Omaha mall filled with Christmas shoppers today, not long after President Bush flew out of this Midwestern city.

SHOTS STARTED ringing out in the Von Maur department store at Westroads Mall about 1:30 this afternoon . . . roughly. The Omaha World-Herald is reporting five dead and at least a dozen wounded.

Various television reports say either one or two suspected gunmen have been arrested, with police radio traffic indicating there also might be a gunman dead inside the store, shot by his own hand. Naturally, all is chaos at the moment, all reports are pretty sketchy, and no one knows precisely what we're dealing with, here.

I do know this: One gunman equals a nut; two equal a plot. And where there's a plot, there might be an incident of terrorism. Maybe.

May God have mercy on the souls of the dead, and grant peace and consolation to their families. And may He grant healing and peace to the wounded.

People are stupid

In case you had any lingering illusions that people might be smarter than they actually are, you need to read this post.

That means you, dear.

YES, Mrs. Favog, Kellie Pickler really is as with it as a sack of sand -- it's not an act -- and her number is legion. And apparently quite a few short-bus riders live in and around Rayville, La.

Here is a story from Tuesday's edition of the Monroe News-Star and neither they, nor I, are making this stuff up:

A Rayville man was sentenced to more than four years in prison after he helped his wife pose as a CIA agent and they swindled more than half a million dollars from friends and family.

Brent Eric Finley, 38, of Rayville, was sentenced Monday in federal court in Monroe to serve 51 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release.

His wife, Stacey Finley, was sentenced in August to spend 63 months in prison and both are ordered to jointly pay restitution in the amount of $873,786.94. Both were convicted on wire fraud charges.

U.S. Attorney Donald W. Washington said the case began after officials received information that the Finley’s had devised a scheme to defraud their friends and family of money.

The couple reportedly convinced numerous people that Stacey Finley was a CIA agent and with her contacts she could schedule a medical scan of the victims’ bodies by satellite imaging that would detect any hidden medical problems.

After the medical problems were detected, the Finley’s convinced their victims that secret agents would administer medicine to them as they slept in exchange for payment.

F*** The Golden Compass

I don't want to hear another thing about the evils of the flick aimed at making your kid an atheist -- namely The Golden Compass.

Oh, no. I'm not defending the film. Philip Pullman has been quite explicit in what he's all about. To wit, "My books are about killing God." And The Golden Compass is based on the first in a trilogy of Pullman's God-killing books.

If you're a Christian, and you have kids, and you send them off to see The Golden Compass, that's what you're getting.

"My books are about killing God." And about portraying a fictionalized, twisted version of the Catholic Church in a horrible light. That's what I'm saying.

Still, it's a free country, and New Line Cinema is free to make toxic films about toxic subject matter -- just as Americans are free to poison their minds and their souls. Willingly or ignorantly.

Free will reigns supreme. Free will . . . a gift to mankind by the deity Phil Pullman thinks he can "kill," because He's already dead or, more precisely, never existed.

BUT I'M NOT HERE to talk about that. I'm here to rip the boycotters a new one.

Like I said, I don't want to hear another thing about The Golden Compass. Especially from Christians.

Why is that?

That's because being against stuff is not enough -- our faith is no mere negation of whatever peeves Christians at the moment.

That's also because Christians -- and their denuded culture -- have been too dense, shortsighted, narrow-minded and intellectually sclerotic to come up with much that's any better for the past 20 years, ever since Walker Percy penned his last novel, The Thanatos Syndrome.

Even then, I've had a Catholic bookstore manager tell me a priest once warned him not to stock those "dirty" Percy novels. Ah, Jansenism . . . the heresy that keeps on puckering you up, Buttercup.

Likewise, when Flannery O'Connor was still cranking out masterpiece short stories, all the little old ladies wanted to know why she couldn't write something "nice."

Well, Christians can't create stuff that's uniformly "nice" and inoffensive because that inevitably leads to a flaccid catalog of mediocre crap. Propaganda for Jesus, as it were. And if Jesus needs an army of hack propagandists to do His bidding, He isn't worthy of our worship.

CHRISTIANS ARE OBLIGED to illuminate the truth, which will lead to the Truth.

I say "obliged" quite deliberately. We are "obliged" to be witnesses to the truth, which often neither is nice nor inoffensive, because He Who was Truth hung on a cross until He was dead to ransom our sorry asses out of a Hell of our own choosing.

And I guess -- so far as our sins ended up being the death of Jesus . . . each and every one of us, Christ killers all -- Philip Pullman really is "killing God" with every book he foists off on a lemminglike public. But he couldn't -- and can't -- stop Easter Sunday. The tomb is still empty.

Mr. Pullman is obliged to create art which reflects the truth. Instead, he spins clever tales of the Big Lie.

Christians are obliged to create beautiful things, provocative works, great art that is true to themselves and true to the Truth. Instead, by and large, the world gets vapid junk in the name of Jesus.

FRANKLY, I think crap for Christ is way worse than broadsides against Christ. With broadsides against Christ, at least you can consider the source.

But when you have Christians' cultural defecations in Christ's holy name -- Left Behind, anyone? Or those truly pious and truly awful "classic" Catholic films on EWTN? -- it's easy for people to get the idea that Christ is shit. Philip Pullman couldn't pull that one off in his wildest atheist dreams.

Of course, you won't be hearing a recitation of this particular rant on Catholic radio. Or on your local evangelical "praise and worship" station. Or on the Catholic News Service wire.

See, I said a bad word. I wasn't being pleasant. Some superannuated citizen might be taken with the vapors . . . no matter how therapeutic those vapors might ultimately be.

Walker Percy, pray for us.

Flannery O'Connor, you pray, too.

A matter of perspective

This from The Washington Post is enough perspective to put me squarely on the side of the world on this question.

Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? Are You Dumber Than a Box of Rocks?

Bless her heart, I'm sure past American Idol finalist Kellie Pickler is a fine singer and a sweet girl. And her life story is an inspiring tale of overcoming long, long odds.

BUT GODAMIGHTY, how did that girl graduate from North Stanly High School in New London, N.C.?

Seriously, y'all, somethin' ain't right there. And after watching this clip from Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, I'm thinking love child of Ernest T. Bass and Charlene Darling.

Or somethin' like that.

Beer makes you stupid

It's official: According to this Associated Press story, college students really are stupider than a bunch of chimpanzees.

One memory test included three 5-year-old chimps who'd been taught the order of Arabic numerals 1 through 9, and a dozen human volunteers.

They saw nine numbers displayed on a computer screen. When they touched the first number, the other eight turned into white squares. The test was to touch all these squares in the order of the numbers that used to be there.

Results showed that the chimps, while no more accurate than the people, could do this faster.

One chimp, Ayumu, did the best. Researchers included him and nine college students in a second test.

This time, five numbers flashed on the screen only briefly before they were replaced by white squares. The challenge, again, was to touch these squares in the proper sequence.

When the numbers were displayed for about seven-tenths of a second, Ayumu and the college students were both able to do this correctly about 80 percent of the time.

But when the numbers were displayed for just four-tenths or two-tenths of a second, the chimp was the champ. The briefer of those times is too short to allow a look around the screen, and in those tests Ayumu still scored about 80 percent, while humans plunged to 40 percent.

That indicates Ayumu was better at taking in the whole pattern of numbers at a glance, the researchers wrote.

"It's amazing what this chimpanzee is able to do," said Elizabeth Lonsdorf, director of the Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. The center studies the mental abilities of apes, but Lonsdorf didn't participate in the new study.

BUT LET'S SEE how smart that chimp would be if he'd downed half a bottle of wine, 11 beers and two mixed drinks today.

Uh huh. Damn straight.

Video of the week

Pick the version of events in the Saga of the Michigan Man you care to believe, but what it all came down to was LSU Coach Les Miles pulling the plug on an old, dear dream that was threatening to sink the football dream of a bunch of young men. His young men -- LSU Men.

And their dream did not die amid an ESPN hellstorm, nor did it die when a crippled up Louisiana State squad took on Tennessee in the Southeastern Conference title game.

NOW THE MICHIGAN MAN and his LSU Men -- after the most improbable chain of insane events during a wild and woolly season-finale weekend -- chase a renewed dream. A national championship. A dream so far out of reach that its sudden resurrection was marginally less stunning than ol' Lazarus stumbling out of his tomb a couple of millennia ago.

On one hand, the old Michigan Man can't go home again. Neither can many of us.

Things change, dreams die painful deaths and, sometimes, better ones show up after the funeral is concluded and the dearly departed's memory has been toasted.

Les Miles has a national championship to win against -- deliciously for an old Michigan Man -- the Ohio State University. And win it he just might.

As an LSU Man. Geaux Tigers.

Fans have Miles to go to be worthy of Les

MSNBC news item:

Les Miles insists he will remain LSU’s football coach despite all the speculation he would bolt for Michigan.

“I am the head coach at LSU. I will be the head coach at LSU,” Miles said Saturday. “I have no interest in talking to anybody else.”

LSU athletic director Skip Bertman said Miles and LSU chancellor Sean O’Keefe already have worked out a contract “they’re happy with,” but it has not yet been signed.

Wearing a purple tie, standing and gesturing, Miles angrily made his announcement two hours before the No. 5 Tigers played No. 14 Tennessee in the Southeastern Conference championship game.

“I’ve got a championship game to play, and I’m excited about the opportunity of my damn strong football team to play,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that I had to address my team with that information this morning.

Miles said an erroneous ESPN report that he was going to Michigan prompted him to speak to his players and the media.

“I represent me in this issue, please ask me after. I’m busy,” he said.

Here are some selected comments following the Times-Picayune story about Miles staying:

* DAMN..DAMN YOU SKIP!!! LET HIM GO ..DAMN!!

* he only wins because he has sabans recruits ...... you give him a new contract and then he starts losing ....... idiots .....

* OH NOOOOOOOOOOOO, Let Him GOOOOOOOOOOOOO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

* Big Frank , as others, that , ley's face it, when Saban's recruits are gone, so is the dream! Miles is NOT a Coach by any means. He is where he is because he has been able to get 110% out of Saban's guys. Predictions are no better than 7-5 next year and that's on the high end. One more thing, Saban or Spurrier was here. Perrilloux's Hoodlum azz would be GONE!

GOOD GRIEF. I'll say here what I said over on the T-P:

How come no one ever bitched about Nick Saban winning with Gerry DiNardo's recruits? All some gobstopperingly moronic LSU fans want to do is run off a coach who has put together three straight 10-win seasons, something that even the Almighty Saban couldn't do.

If that's how you treat Les Miles, who the hell with any sense would WANT to come to LSU . . . except to get a sweet contract, make some money, bolster the resume and gut it out in a Third World country for three years before hauling butt to greener pastures.

Miles is displaying a little loyalty to Louisiana -- probably foolishly, being the man DOES have a wife and school-age kids to worry about. Any look at all the good rankings and the bad ones will tell you that Louisianians regularly manage to do what even a dog won't -- s*** in his own bed.

And the coach you want to run off still sticks with LSU and with Louisiana. I hope his compensation package amply takes that into account.

Frankly, as a Louisiana native and LSU grad who in 1988 hauled butt to Nebraska (where government generally works and people generally care), I am thrilled that my "other team" is getting Bo Pelini. Y'all didn't want him, but he's going to go to work for Tom Osborne down in Lincoln, and he's going to win, and win, and win, and win some more.

Suckers.

The tragedy of Louisiana is that people who are so idiotic as to want to run off a perennial 10-win coach probably aren't a tiny group of fringe lunatics.

The bigger tragedy of Louisiana is that people that damn stupid are allowed to vote. And it shows.

Jena: The gift that keeps on giving

The latest installment in Nooses Across America, this time from the Omaha World-Herald:

The U.S. Army Reserve is investigating allegations that an officer hung a noose in the Council Bluffs office of an African-American sergeant and Iraq war veteran, Army officials said Friday.

Sgt. Tiffany Robinson filed a complaint alleging that her commander, 1st Lt. Harold Hessig, a part-time reservist who also works as a Bellevue police detective, left a rope tied in a noose hanging from a pipe in their office in October.

Robinson, who served in Iraq with the Reserve's 784th Transportation Company, requested transfer to a new assignment, saying she felt that her civil rights had been violated.

"I felt it very offensive and psychologically damaging. I don't feel safe," she wrote in the complaint sent to Army Reserve officials.

Except to confirm that an investigation is in progress, Reserve officials declined to comment Friday.

"There is a formal investigation into these allegations that is currently under way. Until that is complete, we can't comment on the case," said Lt. Col. Kathy Klein, spokeswoman for the Reserve's 89th Regional Readiness Command in Wichita, Kan., which oversees Nebraska Reserve units.

Hessig did not return calls to the Bellevue Police Department seeking comment. A home phone listing for him had been disconnected.

Bellevue Police Chief John Stacey said that in light of the Army investigation, the department has opened an internal investigation into Hessig's actions. He remains on duty while the inquiry continues, Stacey said.

In Hessig's 7½ years with the Police Department, no complaints have been lodged against him, Stacey said. He said Hessig had compiled an "exemplary record."

Stacey said Hessig left the department in 2004 to serve with the Army Reserve in Afghanistan, returning in 2006.

"I'm a little shocked they'd consider him at the center of this," the chief said. "I think they'll probably find out they've got the wrong guy, but that's what investigations are for. We'll find out."

According to her complaint, Robinson walked into her Reserve office in October to find Hessig and another soldier fashioning a noose out of a piece of rope that Robinson had found earlier in a file cabinet.

Robinson said she felt uncomfortable and left the office but "brushed it off" after she returned and didn't see the noose anywhere.

She said she found the noose hanging from a heating pipe in the office the following Monday.

"I don't know what the intentions were behind it or if it was racial at all, but I am very offended. I don't feel safe at home or at work," Robinson wrote in her complaint. "I don't think Lt. Hessig would intentionally do anything to hurt me, but under the circumstances I can't be 100 percent sure."

Robinson said she received several apologies from Hessig but that his attempts at reconciliation began to worry her when he showed up unannounced at her home.

Oh, the weather outside is frightful . . .

But the music inside's delightful. So what the hell do we care? Let it sleet, let it snow, let everything ice over.

BUT NOT the power lines. We need the juice to listen to the Revolution 21 podcast, right?

And heat. Heat is good as we go into December, here.

That's right, we're bracing for an ice storm here in Omaha, but your Mighty Favog has got enough good music to keep us all warm.

Again . . . so long as the electricty and the Internet connection holds out. Let us pray. . . .

Don't feed us a line, show us the pictures

Omaha's police chief says nuh uhhhh, one of his officers did too shoot a teen-age suspect in the front of the leg, not the back, because the kid did too aim his gun at the pursuing policeman.

Marcel Davis Jr.'s lawyer, Bill Gallup, had alleged the Omaha cop gunned his client down from behind, saying the teen reported having thrown the gun away before he got shot. Here's the latest report from the Omaha World-Herald:

Photos from a medical examination of the gunshot wound sustained by a 14-year-old boy showed the bullet entered the front of the boy's leg, not the back, Police Chief Thomas Warren said today.

Warren offered the information in light of a statement made Thursday by J. William Gallup, the attorney for Marcel Davis Jr. Davis was in court after he was accused of pointing a gun at a police officer as he was being chased from a car that police had stopped near 48th and Boyd Streets.

The police officer, Nicholas Andrews, fired at Davis, hitting him once in the leg. A loaded 9 mm pistol was found at the scene. The gun was reported stolen June 2.

Davis was charged Thursday with attempted first-degree assault on an officer, use of a firearm to commit a felony and possession of a stolen firearm. Douglas County Judge Stephen Swartz set bail at $100,000. Davis would have to post 10 percent, or $10,000, to be released.

Gallup, after Thursday's court hearing for Davis, said his client told him that the bullet pierced his right calf. "He was shot in the back of the leg, not front," Gallup said.

Warren said today that's not what crime lab photographs from the medical exam show.

According to the photos, Warren said, "the entry was to the front of the leg, to the shin area, approximately 4 inches below the kneecap . . . There was no entry sustained to the rear or the calf area.

"There is no injury to the rear of his leg."

Gallup, when contacted today, said he isn't disputing the medical report. "My client said he got hit in the rear area of the leg," he said. "His position is that he was running away. He did not point a gun at the policeman."

Gallup said that Davis told him he threw the gun in some bushes as he got out of the car because he didn't want to get caught with a gun. Gallup said witnesses would confirm that account.

Officer Bill Dropinski, a police spokesman, said today that the gun was found near Davis when he was apprehended, "not back by the car."

Gallup said police are taught to shoot assailants in the chest because that's the biggest target. Andrews, he said, shot Davis in the leg "either because he's a poor shot or he was simply trying to stop a guy he was chasing . . . He did not perceive the kid to be a threat, he was just hitting him in the leg to halt his flight."

I LOVE THE SMELL of a good pissing match in the afternoon. Then again, no, I guess I don't . . . ewww. Whom do you believe?

In one corner, we have one of the best criminal-defense attorneys in the Midwest, working like hell on behalf of a client who screwed up but good. You pretty much know the kid is guilty of something.

A good defense attorney usually doesn't go off half-cocked when it matters. Or if he does, it's usually calculatingly half-cocked. And he says he has witnesses, who at the time also complained to local TV reporters that the officer had no reason to shoot the kid.

In the opposite corner, you have Tom Warren, chief of the troubled Omaha Police Department. Bill Gallup is a better lawyer than Tom Warren is a police chief.

Warren presides over a department that's had a problem with rogue cops and a culture of intimidating minorities and, sometimes, brutality. More than one -- more than two . . . more than three -- African-Americans in Omaha have been shot and killed by police under questionable circumstances over the past 35 years or so.

And recently, one Omaha cop was convicted of sexual assault on a local prostitute.

Despite all this, Warren and the mayor's office are quick to completely exonerate police whenever anyone complains about their actions and completely demonize the complainer. All before anyone -- even OPD internal-affairs officers -- has had a chance to thoroughly investigate anything.

THE OMAHA COP SHOP has problems. The teen-aged knucklehead has problems -- big ones -- not counting the two he's had since conception. Whom do you believe?

Is "None of the above" an option?

Here's the bottom line: If Tom Warren wants us to believe his version of the truth, he needs to pony up the medical report and the accompanying pictures. He also needs a third-party investigation to vouch for his officer's actions.

Because while a little hoodlum who got on the wrong end of some hot lead from an Omaha cop may have little to no credibility, what emanates from Omaha police headquarters nowadays scarcely has more.

Back. Of. The. Leg.

Click on picture for video.

Whadda you know. Baby might have been telling the truth, after all.

And the Omaha Police Department just might have stepped in it. Again. Because it's starting to look like some officers just might think they have Negro-hunting licenses. Maybe.

According to the attorney representing Marcel Davis, Jr., police shot the 14-year-old in the back of the calf. Davis said he was running from the cops and had thrown his stolen gun away after bailing from the vehicle in which he rode.

Omaha cops and the county attorney say he pulled a gun on the officer, and the cop did what he had to do.

PERHAPS IT'S POSSIBLE to get shot in the back of the leg by a cop while you're pointing your handgun at him, but only if you're really, really into yoga or happen to be Nadia Comăneci. Or, at least, so it seems to me.

The Omaha World-Herald covers Davis' first court appearance:

Davis was shot in the leg by Officer Nicholas Andrews near 48th and Boyd Streets. Davis had run from a Chrysler Cirrus that Andrews and Officer Alan Peatrowsky stopped after they spotted the car being driven without its headlights on and with an expired license plate.

During the foot chase, police said, Davis turned and pointed a gun at Andrews, and Andrews fired at Davis hitting him once in the leg. He was treated at Creighton University Medical Center.

The firearm that Davis is accused of carrying is a Smith & Wesson 9 mm pistol that was reported stolen on June 2.

Gallup said Davis told him that he had tossed the gun in the bushes and ran from police. He also told Gallup that the bullet pierced his right calf.

"He was shot in the back of the leg, not front," Gallup said.

IT'S NOT LIKE Omaha police have a great track record in this area, with fatal shootings that sparked a major riot back in the day and almost got us there a decade ago. Not to mention this, of course.

Oh, before I go, I just wanted to note that Baby's daddy's baby mama is still a freakin' piece of work. And the rest of that fractured whateveryoucallit, too:

Before the court hearing, Alethea Goynes, the boy's mother, got into a shouting argument with the girlfriend of Marcel Davis Sr. just outside the courtroom. Security escorted the girlfriend outside.

POOR KID probably never had a chance. And now look at him. I almost wish that, instead of locking up Baby, we could instead lock up the pair who sired and whelped him, then called it good.

And then maybe the court could send that benighted duo's most unfortunate offspring to Girls and Boys Town for a chance at a do-over.

The public airwaves: Existing so that petty people can do some score-settling

Guglielmo Marconi would be so proud. I know I am.

WHICH WILL EXPLAIN my projectile vomiting the next time I hear anyone allude to radio operating in the public interest. It'll probably also explain that person's nose growing longer and longer, right before your very eyes.

Here's the vomitous sludge from the New York Post's "Page Six" column:

All those politically correct types who piled on last April when Don Imus went down for making his bad "nappy-headed ho's" joke had better duck and cover on Monday, when the I-Man goes back to work on WABC Radio.

"I think he will have some scores to settle," the station's general manager, Phil Boyce, told Page Six yesterday.

It is doubtful Imus will ever forgive CBS chief Les Moonves, who fired him, or regular guest Tim Russert, the host of NBC's "Meet the Press," who was "an invisible man" while Imus was under attack.

Private eye Bo Dietl, who will join Imus in the 8 a.m. hour on Monday, also named Harold Ford Jr. and Al Roker as two Imus regulars who abandoned him in his hour of need. "They turned their backs on him so fast," Dietl said yesterday. "Al Roker had his stomach stapled - he should have had his mouth stapled."

One longtime listener wondered, "Will Imus ever give Newsweek editors another chance to plug their books on his show since they cut and ran when Al Sharpton started his crusade to get him off the air?"

Dietl said Imus' controversial remark "brought attention to that Rutgers basketball team. They really benefited. It turned out to be a positive thing." Dietl expects "a kinder, gentler Imus" next week, "but I don't know how long that will last."

It's beginning to look a lot like . . .

Christmas!

Victory! This just in:

WBRZ Channel 2 has learned that LSU has decided to change the name of its annual holiday centerpiece back to "Christmas Tree."

The university had chosen to change the name to "Holiday Tree" to be as "inclusive as possible of all cultures and religions, as the LSU community is very diverse," according to a statement issued by Kristine Calongne, director of media relations at LSU.

"However, it is true that the tree is, in fact, a Christmas tree, and we are happy to call it such," the statement said.

'Twas the night before Holiday. . . .

As usual, Louisiana is behind the rest of the country. This time in rank politically correct idiocy -- the "Holiday Tree" finally has come to LSU.

See, this is how it is in America today: You can dip a crucifix in a jar of piss.

You can cover pictures of the Virgin Mary with dung.

You can shove a cross up someone's butt and call it art.

All of this is free expression, and it is zealously protected by government types, lawyers and academics everywhere on First Amendment grounds.

But if a public institution puts up a Christmas tree and actually calls it what it is . . . well, that's something entirely different. Someone might be offended by the mere mention of Christ. Now, we're not talking establishment of a state religion or forcing faith on anyone.

We're talking about calling a Christmas tree a Christmas tree.

Christmas. The 25th day of December. Only reason we have to bother with a "holiday" tree.

The Daily Reveille at LSU has a story about this insanity, something so nutty that only academics and other fearful cyphers can remain completely blind to the sheer absurdity of it all:

"For Christians who take their religion seriously, I think those wreaths and those Christmas trees have a significant religious meaning to them," said Stuart Green, law professor. "State universities - particularly state law schools - ought not to be endorsing or promoting any particular religion."

Green, who is not a Christian, said he does not celebrate Christmas. He said he respects others' rights to celebrate the holiday but does not feel it is appropriate for the University to display decorations.

Green said the University could technically be held legally responsible if the decorations offend people. He said he believes the decorations violate the First Amendment's establishment clause, which states the government shall neither establish nor endorse a particular religion.

"Adding symbols of Jewish practices or Hindu or Buddhist [holidays], I think, compounds the problem rather than solves [it]," Green said. "I think the solution is that universities shouldn't be in the business of putting up really any kind of religious symbols at all."

Kristine Calongne, director of public affairs, said the University will hold the annual candlelight celebration Tuesday night. She said the celebration will incorporate Kwanzaa and will include the lighting of the Hanukkah Menorah.

"We're very aware of diversity here at LSU, and that's a big part of our Flagship Agenda," Calongne said. "I think the decorations are just to be in the holiday spirit. I don't think it's anything beyond that."

I EAGERLY AWAIT the federal lawsuit Professor Green surely will file against the President of the United States before it's too late, being that George Bush "could technically be held legally responsible" if the official White House CHRISTMAS tree offends someone . . . which I'm sure it does.

And look at this, the federal government is using taxpayer dollars to promote the White House CHRISTMAS tree on the Internet, which we all know was invented by former Vice-President Al Gore. Furthermore, President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush actually refer to "the Christmas season" in their official holiday greeting to the nation.

Can they do that?

Unbelievable. I'm sure the folks at LSU would understand if everyone were to yell "Jesus Christ!" upon receiving the shocking news.

But only if they were taking the Lord's name in vain.

IN THE REVEILLE STORY, meanwhile, it takes a Jew to point out the true ridiculousness of both the war on the word "Christmas" and of the laughable impact Christians have had on American culture:

Daniel Novak, interim director of Jewish studies and faculty adviser of the Jewish student organization Hillel, said he is not offended by Christmas decorations because the holiday has become "largely devoid of religion."

"But you do realize you're not part of the mainstream in some way [when you see Christmas decorations]," Novak said. "The fact that they're decorating does indicate a bias towards a majority Christian orientation."

Novak said Hanukkah is not as important of a holiday in Judaism as Christmas is in the Christian faith, and he would like to see the University adapt celebrations of the more important Jewish holidays - such as Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah - rather than promote the less important holidays occurring near Christmas.

"It's a nice gesture, and it comes from a really good place that people want to include other faiths in the decorations and in the recognition of the holiday season," Novak said. "But I'd rather that well-meaning energy and well-meaning recognition of diversity be better directed."

EXACTLY. Why is it that, in this country, "diversity" always involves gutting important things, leaving only the ability to make a buck off of them standing amid the carnage? It's not enough that Christmas is devoid of cultural substance. No, now it's That Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken.

Why can't we let Christmas be Christmas? And also let Yom Kippur, Easter, Passover and Rosh Hashanah be what they are as well?

Besides, I like to eat me some latkes. Lots and lots of latkes.

Mazel tov, y'all!

Can you sit in the 'bacolny' . . . or not?

I just got a comment on this post, one pointing out how much my old high school resembled a notoriously ramshackle and crime-ridden Baton Rouge, La., motel. The anonymous commenter took issue with the picture above, and with my saying the auditorium balcony no longer was in use. I will repost that comment below, and then I'll have my say in response.
ANONYMOUS WRITES:

"Instead of holding students at assemblies or the public for community events, the balcony of the school's grand old auditorium now holds junk. Not people." While your post raises a lot of interesting points, this one simply is not true. I graduated this past May, as a member of the class of 2007, and I know from personal experience that the balcony is used for seating during events. The picture you placed immediately before this description is also misleading -- the "No public seating on balcony" sign is only used when an event doesn't draw enough people to fill up the downstairs portion of the auditorium. Since it doesn't make sense to have some people sitting downstairs and some people sitting upstairs when the downstairs is not completely filled, this sign is used.

ACTUALLY, the sign says "No public seating in the bacolny," and it is what it is. That is what I found there years after I graduated -- it's not like I planted the sign . . . or the junk in both balcony entrances. In one entrance, there was no way to squeeze past the discarded desks, etc., to get into the balcony -- or "bacolny," as the case may be. In the other second-floor entrance, I was able to squeeze -- barely -- past the junk to get to the balcony. So, you're telling me that the school staff has to remove all that crap and find somewhere to put it whenever there's a large assembly at Baton Rouge High? Again, the pictures are what they are. And the junk-filled balcony entrances are the LEAST of the school's problems. YOU SAY the post "raises a lot of interesting points," and this is what you seize upon in order to get your knickers in a twist? I'm not raising "interesting points." I'm screaming at the top of my lungs that your old school and mine has been allowed to become a f***ing dump! As in "unfit for human habitation." And that the school board -- and the taxpayers, too -- let it get that way, blithely sending their kids and others' to school there as the place crumbles around them. But dat's Looziana for ya'! And I'm horribly sorry if I misrepresented the usage status of the auditorium "bacolny." Coulda fooled me, and perhaps did.

It's beginning to look a lot like . . . yowza!

I was reading an item on Crunchy Con about how folks aren't letting the prospect of an awful 2008 turn them thrifty for Christmas 2007. It linked to a Dallas Morning News article about how materialistic Americans are going Neener neener neener! Cancel! Cancel! in the face of a definite buzzkill.

But what should take over my Internet Explorer before I'm allowed to see the news story?

We live in an ironic world.

Rudy's taxpayer-funded hoochie mama

If you can't beat Bill Clinton, nominate a guy who's just like him to run against Hillary. Only worse, and whom you really wouldn't care to have a beer with in your neighborhood watering hole.

Unlike Bill.

Really, with Rudy Giuliani, you get all the following and a more-or-less fascist state, too. At least Bill did his messing around in the Oval Office, at no added expense to the American taxpayer.

THE POLITICO has all the Big Nasty details here:

As New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani billed obscure city agencies for tens of thousands of dollars in security expenses amassed during the time when he was beginning an extramarital relationship with future wife Judith Nathan in the Hamptons, according to previously undisclosed government records.

The documents, obtained by Politico under New York’s Freedom of Information Law, show that the mayoral costs had nothing to do with the functions of the little-known city offices that defrayed his tabs, including agencies responsible for regulating loft apartments, aiding the disabled and providing lawyers for indigent defendants.

At the time, the mayor’s office refused to explain the accounting to city auditors, citing “security.”

The Hamptons visits resulted in hotel, gas and other costs for Giuliani’s New York Police Department security detail.

Giuliani’s relationship with Nathan is old news now, and Giuliani regularly asks voters on the campaign trail to forgive his "mistakes."

It’s also impossible to know whether the purpose of all the Hamptons trips was to see Nathan. A Giuliani spokeswoman declined to discuss any aspect of this story, which was explained in detail to her earlier this week.

But the practice of transferring the travel expenses of Giuliani's security detail to the accounts of obscure mayoral offices has never been brought to light, despite behind-the-scenes criticism from the city comptroller weeks after Giuliani left office.

The expenses first surfaced as Giuliani's two terms as mayor of New York drew to a close in 2001, when a city auditor stumbled across something unusual: $34,000 worth of travel expenses buried in the accounts of the New York City Loft Board.

When the city's fiscal monitor asked for an explanation, Giuliani's aides refused, citing "security," said Jeff Simmons, a spokesman for the city comptroller.

But American Express bills and travel documents obtained by Politico suggest another reason City Hall may have considered the documents sensitive: They detail three summers of visits to Southampton, the Long Island town where Nathan had an apartment.

Growing up feral

It's a damn shame that some parents can't be thrown in jail alongside their feral offspring.

Yeah, I realize that some parents don't deserve such a fate, because they do what they can and just can't overcome the odds. But on the other hand, something tells me this, as reported in the Omaha World-Herald, ain't one of those cases:

The 14-year-old boy accused of pointing a gun at a police officer has been charged as an adult, Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine said today.

Marcel Davis, who turns 15 next month, was charged today with attempted first-degree assault on an officer, use of a firearm to commit a felony and possession of a stolen firearm, Kleine said.

Davis was shot in the leg by Officer Nicholas Andrews early Tuesday near 48th and Boyd Streets. Davis had fled from a Chrysler Cirrus that Andrews and Officer Alan Peatrowsky stopped after they spotted the car driving without headlights on and with an expired license plate.

During the foot chase, police said, Davis turned and pointed a gun at Andrews and Andrews fired at him, hitting him once in the leg. Davis was treated at Creighton University Medical Center and was released. He then was booked into the Douglas County Youth Center.

Alethea Goynes, 31, Davis' mother, said her son gave her a different account: He tossed the gun as he got out of the car and didn't point it at anyone.

Goynes said police told her they found the gun in some nearby bushes. She said she thinks Davis ran away because he was scared.

"If he admitted to having a gun, then why wouldn't he admit to pointing it at the police," Goynes said. "I believe my son. I think there's more to it."

Andrews has been placed on administrative duty pending the outcome of an investigation.

Police say Davis admitted to possessing the gun. A check of the gun's serial number found that it was reported stolen June 2.

Kleine said Davis is fortunate that he sustained only a leg wound in the incident.

"Obviously, the circumstances are such that with his use of a firearm in the manner that he did, he's fortunate that he's still alive."

Kleine said he considered Davis' age when deciding whether to file charges in district court. "But, again, the juvenile court can only maintain jurisdiction until they're 18." District court, he said, offers much the same services, but can maintain oversight over someone into adulthood.

"Threatening a police officer with that firearm, I believe it should be in an adult court," Kleine said.

Davis is a ninth-grader at North High School. He has been in the Omaha Public Schools since the second grade, an OPS spokeswoman said.

YOU HAVE TO WONDER about the mind-numbing idiocy and breathtakingly willful suspension of disbelief of an alleged "parent" so sure Baby didn't do nothin' when, before he allegedly pulled a gun on a cop, already had been facing charges in juvenile court after being found in a stolen car eight days before he failed to outdraw a cop in the wee, small hours of Tuesday morning.

Naw, Baby didn't do nothin'. What the hell was Baby doing out of the house anyway -- much less out on the streets long after a 14-year-old ought to have been in bed?

I suspect this will be easy enough to sort out. If Baby got shot in the back of the leg, bad news for the cop.

If Baby was shot in the front of the leg, chances are he wheeled on the cop, gun in hand, and it really, really sucks to be him.

BUT HAVING BEEN BORN to a 16-year-old mother of a different last name, one who let him run the streets a week after he already had gotten pinched by The Man -- a mother who will instantly take the word of her feral baby boy despite the fact that he was running from the cops and packing heat. . . .

Well, I guess it has sucked to be Baby for a long, long time.

Oom papa oom papa oom papa mau-mau

In case you didn't have reason enough to surmise that Hell lies at 30 degress north latitude and 90 degress west longitude, all you have to do is watch its inhabitants get in a knock-down, drag-out, race-baiting fight over . . . garbage.

Because the Devil's in the details, you know.

This Times-Picayune report may read a bit like a review of a bad country-music concert, because there's enough mau-mauing going on to keep the Oak Ridge Boys singing "Elvira" until Hades starts to look like not-so-bad a deal by comparison:

A debate that started simmering last month over whether New Orleans' two highest-paid trash vendors are complying with the terms of their contracts boiled over Monday into a racial clash as dozens of black ministers and civil rights activists alleged that the City Council has singled out the deals because they are held by minority-owned firms.

Supporters of Richard's Disposal and Metro Disposal, both New Orleans companies owned and run by African-Americans, told council members during a hearing in advance of Friday's vote on the city's 2008 budget that any attempt by the council to change terms of the agreements, which Mayor Ray Nagin signed last year, would amount to racism and could incite activists to abandon the city in the throes of the winter tourism season.

"What is out of compliance if these men are doing their job?" Spiver Gordon, national treasurer of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, asked the council. "We don't need to come back here and dance around your cash registers. We're talking about economic boycott."

During a rally before the hearing on the steps of City Hall that drew about 100 supporters, including dozens of sanitation workers, SCLC regional Vice President the Rev. Byron Clay said the matter is not limited to the firms in question.

"For anyone to question the ethics and the honesty of either company is not only an assault to that company but to the entire community. They have done an excellent job of cleaning this city up," he said.

Last month, city officials acknowledged that a provision of the contract that Richard's and Metro signed calls for collecting "unlimited bulky waste," including demolition material. The city, however, is not requiring the contractors to pick up construction debris generated at properties under renovation because of Hurricane Katrina.

Instead, Nagin's sanitation director, Veronica White, has said the city requires the vendors to collect only debris that conforms with limits laid out in an ordinance adopted five months after Nagin signed the deals. She also has said that the contract's inclusion of an option for emergency collection of storm debris implies that such waste is not covered by the regular terms.

The companies' owners, Alvin Richard and Jimmie Woods, reiterated Monday a point they have made throughout the debate: that in bidding on the contracts last summer, they assumed city officials were following industry norms when they called for "unlimited bulky waste" collection. That refers to debris created in the course of ordinary life and by minor construction projects, they said, not the mountains of waste generated by a flood.

The Revolution will not be in Gather.

The Revolution will not be in your Gather hymnal.

The Revolution will not have a soundtrack written by Marty Haugen or warbled by the St. Louis Jesuits.

THE REVOLUTION will not be proclaimed on felt banners, nor will how it makes me feel be discussed in small groups.

The Revolution will have no liturgical dancers.

The Revolution will not be banalized, will not be banalized, will not be banalized, will not be banalized, will not be banalized.

The Revolution will help you figure out just who the hell we are.

Saturday's Washington Post proclaims The Revolution -- started this year by Pope Benedict XVI:

Parts of it are 1,500 years old, it's difficult to understand, and it's even more challenging to watch. And it's catching on among young Catholics.

It's the traditional Latin Mass, a formal worship service that is making a comeback after more than 40 years of moldering in the Vatican basement.

In September, Pope Benedict XVI relaxed restrictions on celebrating Latin Mass, frequently called the Tridentine Mass, citing "a new and renewed" interest in the ancient Latin liturgy, especially among younger Catholics.

Spoken or sung entirely in sometimes inaudible Latin by priests who face the altar instead of the congregation, it is a radical departure for most Catholics, who grew up attending a more informal Mass celebrated in their native tongue.

"It's the opposite of the cacophony that comes with the [modern] Mass," said Ken Wolfe, 34, a federal government worker who goes to up to four Latin Masses a week in the Washington area. "There's no guitars and handshaking and breaks in the Mass where people talk to each other. It's a very serious liturgy."

And it is a hit with younger priests and their parishioners.

Attendance at the Sunday noon Mass at St. John the Beloved in McLean has doubled to 400 people since it began celebrating in Latin. Most of the worshipers are under 40, said the Rev. Franklyn McAfee.

Younger parishioners "are more reflective," McAfee said. "They want something uplifting when they go to church. They don't want something they can get outside."

(snip)

Priests, musicians and laypeople are snapping up how-to videos and books, signing up for workshops and viewing online tutorials with step-by-step instructions on the elaborately choreographed liturgy. For example, the rubrics dictate that a priest must hold together the thumb and index finger of each hand for much of the Canon of the Mass, the central part of the liturgy that culminates with the consecration of bread and wine.

"I knew there would be some interest, but I didn't know how quickly it would spread and how really deep the interest was," said the Rev. Scott Haynes, a priest in the Archdiocese of Chicago who started a Web site in August offering instructions in celebrating the Mass.

So far, the Web site, http://www.sanctamissa.org, has received 1 million hits, Haynes said, adding that he receives several hundred e-mails a day from fans of the service. "I was surprised by how many people have latched on to this," he said.

Portions of the Tridentine Mass date back to the sixth century, but it was standardized at the Council of Trent in 1570 -- hence the name Tridentine. It was largely supplanted by the reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, which modernized the Mass liturgy and translated it into modern languages.

The modern Mass, or Novus Ordo, can be said in Latin, but it is a radically different service from the Tridentine Mass. Until September, when the pope issued his Motu Proprio allowing greater freedom in celebrating the Tridentine Mass, priests who wanted to celebrate it needed special permission from their bishop, and it was celebrated at only a few churches in the Washington area.

In the Diocese of Arlington, where the bishop and priests are considered more conservative than in Washington, the number of churches where the service is celebrated has increased from two to seven since the Motu Proprio. The Arlington diocese, which stretches from Northern Virginia south to Lancaster and west to the Shenandoah, has sent six priests to a training center in Nebraska, at the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter seminary, for an intensive seminar.