You know it don't come Big Easy

If one is of a mind to bear witness to an American city coming apart, bit-by-bit, amid the bitter fruit of great catastrophe, it might be instructive to bear witness to New Orleans' pre-eminent chronicler -- Times-Picayune features columnist Chris Rose.

EXHIBIT 1, from the Columbia Journalism Review:

For the next 4,000 words, Rose described a spiral familiar to many Katrina survivors: the “crying jags and fetal positionings,” the “thousand-yard stare,” the inability to hold conversations. “I’d noodle around on the piano, read weightless fiction, and reach for my kids, always, trying to hold them, touch them, kiss them. Tell them I was still here,” he wrote. “But I was disappearing fast.” Finally, Rose described how the anti-depressant drug Cymbalta helped clear away some of that darkness, enabling him to function again.
In few cities would such a personal account have received such prominent play—or elicited more than 6,000 e-mails. But Katrina has transformed how journalism is practiced at The Times-Picayune. It has blurred the lines between those who suffer and those who chronicle that suffering, and has challenged traditional notions of objectivity. And it has become a better newspaper in the process. Every reporter and editor was directly affected by Katrina, and the Picayune’s pages are suffused every day with outrage and betrayal—and with solid reporting. The paper has relentlessly investigated the Army Corps of Engineers, which built New Orleans’s faulty levees, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, whose response to the storm provoked such frustration and anger. It has sounded the alarm about Louisiana’s disappearing wetlands, which would render New Orleans even more vulnerable during the next hurricane. And it has sent reporters to Japan and the Netherlands to learn what makes successful flood-control systems work.

And the newspaper has bonded with its readers; the Picayune is an essential part of coffee-shop conversation all over the metropolitan area. At a time when dailies are wondering how to hold onto wandering readers, it has proven that a paper that claims a stake in its city’s survival, reporting with passion and voice, can remain an essential part of the civic conversation. “Other papers would kill to be that relevant,” says Harry Shearer, the actor and satirist and part-time New Orleanian.

No Picayune writer epitomizes this transformation more than the forty-seven-year-old Rose, whose journey through breakdown and redemption spurred a communal catharsis. “He bled for us in those columns,” says Linda Ellerbee, the former NBC anchor who covered Katrina’s aftermath for Nick News, a children’s broadcast. “He made it more real than any photo, any TV coverage could—more than Anderson Cooper crying on the air, more than Sean Penn going though the water in his boat. He let us into his dark places. In the old-fashioned, Biblical sense, he bore witness.”

(snip)

In fact, for Rose, recovery was proving harder than just taking a pill. Feeling impatient, he started upping his dose of Cymbalta. Then he added painkillers to the mix. He began withdrawing again, and losing weight, until he weighed what he did in eighth grade. His columns became “unrunnable,” says O’Byrne, who spiked three in a short span of time. “They were just angry, rageful rants against life and the universe.”

Finally, last April, Rose’s wife Kelly arranged for an intervention. She and O’Byrne, along with three neighbors, confronted the columnist at his house and urged him to enter rehab. He didn’t need much persuasion. Not only did Rose understand he was in trouble, but he had an additional incentive: he had also recently learned that he was a bone-marrow match for his sister, who had leukemia. “I thought, ‘I’m gonna save Ellen’s life and then write a story that will blow people away,’” Rose says. “And I get to be the hero.” Rose went into rehab for thirty days, kicking both the painkillers and the antidepressants. But not in time to donate marrow to his sister, who died three months later.

There is no thousand-yard stare on Rose’s face now. He is as transparent in person as his columns are. One afternoon last October, he brought forty copies of 1 Dead in Attic, the best-selling compilation of his post-Katrina columns, to a meeting of the Ladies Leukemia League in suburban Kenner. After a spirited talk—Rose repeatedly mocked the country-club neighborhood where they were meeting—his friend Jacquee Carvin raised her hand. “Is there anything else that you can personally impart to the leukemia society?” she asked. Rose let out a sigh. “You put me on the spot there,” he said.

“Just watch me and you’ll get through it,” Carvin replied.

Rose’s eyes welled up. “My sister died of leukemia in August,” he said, his voice choking. “I was her bone-marrow match, but we never made it.” He told the women about his struggle with depression and slide into drug addiction. “I was killing myself real fast. When I found out I was a bone-marrow donor, I said, ‘I’ve got to fix myself.’ And I went to rehab. So what happened was, instead of saving my sister’s life, she saved mine.”

These days, Rose laughs hard and cries easily. His marriage has dissolved, but he is hanging on. “I’m a work-in-progress,” he says, sitting on his new front porch near Tulane University and watching his children race in and out of the house. “I got these little guys; I gotta take care of them.” And Rose is trying to figure out the next step for his journalism. He’s writing fewer internal monologues and more reported stores. He feels settled into New Orleans for the long haul.

AND NOW . . . EXHIBIT 2, from Sunday's newspaper:

Chris Rose, a columnist for The Times-Picayune, was arrested Friday night and booked in an alleged domestic violence incident.

Rose, 48, caused a disturbance and refused to leave the home of a former girlfriend, according to a New Orleans Police Department report filed in Municipal Court.

Police booked him with a municipal domestic violence charge and disturbing the peace. The police report said Rose refused to leave the woman's home but does not mention physical violence.

The incident took place at about 7:30 p.m. in the 7400 block of Pearl Street, the report says.

Rose allegedly became involved in a dispute with a 34-year-old woman, his former girlfriend, and another man. Responding officers wrote in their report that Rose had a "strong odor of alcohol and slurred speech."

After being booked, Rose posted a $2,800 bond. He is scheduled to appear in Municipal Court on Monday morning, according to court records.

Times-Picayune editor Jim Amoss declined to comment on the incident.

Reached Saturday afternoon by telephone, Rose said he "had the poor judgment to try to have a conversation" with the woman when it was clear she did not want to talk.

Rose said the woman's companion took offense and punched him in the mouth. Rose said he then left and was walking home when he was arrested.

NOBODY GETS out of this life unscarred. Nobody gets out of this life without screwing up big-time sometime.

These days, folks seem to be living that concept large in the City Formerly Known as Big Easy. Especially newspaper columnists of the sensitive type.

Like Ringo says:

It don't come easy,
You know it don't come easy.

Got to pay your dues if you wanna sing the blues,
And you know it don't come easy.

YEP. God help us all.

Calling Radio Free Omaha. Do you read me?

Mood: Sad. :.-(

I've just gotten back from a trip to 1968, and it has hit me exactly how dead radio is in America. Radio is dead in America because -- among other reasons -- nobody is going to ever again start a "progressive rock" radio station as a viable, commercial, over-the-air enterprise.

NOBODY IS going to do this, and then staff it 24 hours a day, seven days a week with live people who might know a little bit about what they were playing. Over the air. On free radio.

I'm sad because this is never going to happen again, and future generations will never understand the concept . . . or why "progressive rock" stations -- "underground" or "freeform," if you will -- gave so many in my generation such joy.

Well, for the short time they existed in any numbers, at least.

I try to do what I can with 3 Chords & the Truth in this new millennium, recording 90 minutes of freeform radio at a time for download on the Internets. It's good. But it's not the same.

Only old farts like me will know why that is.

ANYWAY, at least I can take you, for a brief moment, back to Nov. 5, 1968, with me. There, you can read along in the Gateway, the student newspaper at the newly minted University of Nebraska at Omaha (the former Omaha University), as a fledgling journalist tries to explain this exciting, new "progressive radio" thing to the young people of the great Midwest.

This is the story of KOWH-FM -- Radio Free Omaha:

Progressive rock music, which over a year ego started as a fluke, has now blossomed into a format at the Omaha FM radio station, "Radio Free Omaha."

This station replaced KOWH-FM.

It first went on the air Sep. 16, and plans on expanding its program to a 24-hour basis. As of now, air time is 2 p.m. to 1 a.m.

Currently the station has three disc jockeys. From 2 to 7 p.m.. Harold Lee Roberts leads the way with John Mainelli taking over from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. On weekends the station is disc jockeyed by Kevin Clark.

Progressive program music started over a year ago by Tom Donahue. Donahue, who has sometimes been called 'The voice of Hippie' set the format at radio station KSAN-FM in San Francisco. He is currently operations manager at KSAN.

“Radio Free Omaha” was founded by Program and Music Director, Tom Rambler. The station is located at 94.1 megacycles on the FM dial.

As pointed out by him, the advantage of FM over AM stations is is that it gives full sound stereo and is interference-free. Whereas AM stations lack these qualities.

Rambler said, "This type of radio broadcasting is going to replace AM radio." He continued, "The AM radio announcers and commercial aspects are not the same nowadays."

(snip)

Rambler said, "The key to the success of the progressive rock format is 'loose' . . . be free to experiment with sound ideas. Music will be the only reason for a listener to 'tune in.'

The announcer will be there to take the listener from one experience to another, in an easy going, mature manner. The announcer should he free to bring new ideas to his listener.

Progressive rock stations are so new that nobody knows, yet, what is what, except the theory that has been formed on the music. Progressive rock music means anything new and exciting . . . rock, country, jazz, classical, blues, R&B, every form of music."

Generally this music cannot be played on AM radio.

The music played from 1 a.m. to 2 p.m. is called guru. A guru is a guide who guides you from one music to another. This music takes on all forms. It is anything non-commercial.

(snip)

He said, "Our main support is from the coast. Especially from the 'head shops' and certain Hippie-oriented businesses."

He exuberantly exclaimed, "We're even growing faster than it is on the coast."

Just what type of music does this progressive rock movement air? It covers all areas of music. Some examples are: the Canned Heat, the Steppenwolf, the Wizard of Oz, the Hassels, the Bohemian Vendetta, the Spirit, and the Jiini Hendrix Experience, with many others.

FM stations carrying progressive rock music are: KGRD-FM, Las Cruses, N.M.; KCBH-FM, L.A.; WAVA-FM, Wash.; and many others.

The most elaborating sight is that progressive rock formats are turning many "dead weight" FM facilities into dynamic audience-grabbing radio stations with the potential for making money.

ALAS, Tom Donahue is long dead in San Francisco and, in Omaha, so is KOWH-FM.

And not many people are making money in radio anymore.

Methinks Biden doth protest to excess

OK, I think this Florida anchorwoman is just a little over the top in her questioning of Sen. Joe Biden, Barack Obama's running mate this presidential silly season.

Obviously, the Obama-Biden campaign thought so, too. Angry over "hostile" questioning, the men who aspire to global leadership knocked over the checkerboard and told the Orlando television station they weren't going to play anymore. Ever.

Nanny nanny boo boo to you . . . you meanies!

I THINK Barbara West went into the interview loaded for bear and looking to turn a political hide into a new rug for her Grizzly Adams cabin somewhere in the Everglades. Two problems with that, though.

One, it looked a little like someone had been slipping estrogen into Ted Baxter's coffee cup.

Two, it looked a little like someone had been slipping estrogen into Ted Baxter's coffee cup.

OK . . . three things wrong with Theodora Baxter's interview with Joe Biden.

One, it looked a little like someone had been slipping estrogen into Ted Baxter's coffee cup.

Two, it looked a little like someone had been slipping estrogen into Ted Baxter's coffee cup.

Three, you can't get top dollar for the pelts of pols with hair plugs. Hey, it's a tough market these days.

OTHER THAN THAT, there wasn't a thing wrong with Baxter's West's interview with Biden for WFTV. It was great television.

Her earlier softball interview with GOP presidential hopeful John McCain, on the other hand, sucked. It was dull. It broke no new ground. It was insipid, and it neither forced the senator from Arizona to stretch intellectually nor defend his positions.

Yuck.

But everything that was horribly wrong about West's interview with McCain was pretty right with her Biden interview. Yah, you betcha West was Ted Baxter in drag for both interviews, but at least her hostile goofy questions of Biden totally took the self-assured senator by surprise and knocked him off balance.

He had to engage the issues . . . even if the issues might have seemed like they were straight out of "if Fox News had bought WJM from Wild Jack Monroe."

Engaging the issues. Intelligently defending one's political positions. Gee, isn't that why we pay career pols like Barack Obama and Joe Biden the big bucks, anyway?

I DID MENTION that Obama and Biden seek to lead the United States of America, right?

Geez, if Joe Biden can't handle an unintentionally comical Florida anchorwoman, and Barack Obama's response is to yell "No fair!" and run home, what's their game plan for the Great Enemy Nations Acid Test the Delaware senator's been warning us about?

Vladimir Putin -- for one -- may be many things, but Ted Baxter he is not. And picking up your marbles and going home is not an option when you're playing with the Big Boys.

3 Chords & the Truth: Life on Mars

My new favorite TV show -- and trust me, there are few that I actually even bother with -- is ABC's "Life on Mars."

Being a sucker for both time-travel yarns and cop shows, this tale of a cop catapulted back to 1973 New York City had me at "Peace, man." Or, at least, when the first 8-track was slammed into the car stereo.

Trust me, this has everything to do with this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth.

ANYHOO. . . I remember 1973, though not 1973 New York City. But as far as I can remember, "Life on Mars" has gotten it right . . . although, in the name of full disclosure, 1973 didn't reach Baton Rouge, La., until about 1976.

The show has gotten me to thinking, though. What would I do if I found myself, without warning, back in 1973? What would I have to say to my seventh-grade self if I happened to run across me?

Apart, of course, from "Avoid polyester and wide, wide neckties" and "You look crappy in paisley shirts."

If I had the power to change things in 1973 -- knowing how stuff would work out, big picture, by 2008 -- what would I do? How would I manage to change the things that needed changing while preserving the things society would come to rue losing?

How do you convince people what looks like progress and freedom will come back to bite them -- or, more likely, their children -- hard in the metaphysical tush. Right now, I'm thinking of a whole high-school student body near St. Louis that's undergoing AIDS testing.

How'd we get from 1973 to that? Why would we have wanted to open up that Pandora's Box?

Well, the short answer is . . . we didn't. Who knew the "squares" might be right about a thing or two? Who knew there were worse things out there than what could be cured with a shot of penicillin? Who knew how easily we could blow up the nuclear family?

I'm not being facetious. Who knew?

No one anybody was listening to, that's for certain.

I CAN'T CONVEY, not really, how fascinating a concept time travel is to me. Especially back to a time I remember well. The protagonist of "Life on Mars," Detective Sam Tyler (Jason O'Mara) was four in 1973. Something tells me part of the point of his mysterious time travel will be a profound journey of self-discovery.

I was 12 in 1973. I wonder what I would discover about myself -- and the world in which I grew up -- if I could again see those times . . . and my early-'70s self. This time through adult eyes.

To hell with the rest of society -- what would I change about me? About my interactions with my 1973 family and my 1973 friends and my 1973 world?

And would the revised and "improved" me still have what I hold most dear in 2008? That is, once I got there again.

I'm getting confused now.

OBVIOUSLY, if I had tried to deal with all this in detail during this week's episode of the Big Show, there wouldn't have been much time for all of the cool late-'60s and early '70s music we're playing this week. And that's the point of the show this go 'round -- "reelin' in the years" with some really fine music from Way Back When.

When our "Life on Mars" wasn't "Life on Mars," but instead just the way things were. And, all in all, it was all right.

So, let's go back to Mars this week on 3 Chords & the Truth.

Be there. Aloha.

GOP TV: Merely wires and excrement in a box

This is what it looks like when you turn political slimeballs loose in a video-editing suite.

With its boy in danger of going down in flames in 11 days, the National Republican Congressional Committee is hoping a little GOP firepower -- as in opening the gates of hell with this television commercial -- will save Rep. Lee Terry (or Terry Lee, as he's known to Dick Cheney) in Nebraska's 2nd District.

THE NEWS PEG for Screwtape at play in the editing bay is Democratic challenger Jim Esch's drunken-driving arrest seven years ago. Have you screwed up really bad -- somehow -- in the last decade?

Bet you have.

Do you want your mistakes -- every one of them -- to be held against you for the rest of your life? Especially if you've managed not to repeat them, like Esch, who has had no other DUI arrests?

Is a world without redemption and devoid of new beginnings a world you care to inhabit? Is justice without mercy -- or, indeed, the concept of a debt to society paid in full -- really justice at all?

The Republican ad on behalf of Lee Terry tells me nothing about Jim Esch.

It tells me all I need to know about Terry.

Oh, Lord, giveth unto us Mussolini. Not Hitler.

I'm starting to get rather offended by all this election praying.

I'M ALSO GETTING concerned that all the Catholic instigators of all the election praying allow -- either willingly or ignorantly -- good people to assume they must pray for the triumph of McCain-Palin over Obama-Biden. What good is that?

As I've said before, been there and done that. We ended up with George W. Bush, who has managed to lead the nation into a disastrous and unjust war, as well as authorize both official torture of war prisoners and limited federal funding of legalized cannibalism -- also known as embryonic stem-cell research.

This is what we Catholics prayed for -- and got -- in 2000 . . . all in the name of "life."

Anyway, this is the latest from the Rev. John Corapi, a noted Catholic evangelist:

No other issue, not all other issues taken together, can constitute a proportionate reason for voting for candidates that intend to preserve and defend this holocaust of innocent human life that is abortion.

I strongly urge every one of you to make a Novena and pray the Rosary to Our Lady of Victory between October 27th and Election Day, November 4th. Pray that God’s will be done and the most innocent and utterly vulnerable of our brothers and sisters will be protected from this barbaric and grossly sinful blight on society that is abortion. No woman, and no man, has the right to choose to murder an innocent human being.

I SUPPORT FATHER CORAPI in his call for prayer. I adamantly oppose what it seems he'd have the Almighty pull off in regards to the presidential election. When it comes to casting a vote for the protection and dignity of human life, voting for John McCain over Barack Obama is like picking one method of suicide over another.

What, are we to vote for Mussolini to save ourselves from Hitler? Are we supposed to convince ourselves that ordering one scoop of degradation and death is virtuous but two scoops is the Antichrist Special?

Me, I'd just as soon pray for wisdom, revival and mercy. And for the poor unborn babies who may or may not get slaughtered in the womb. Or worse.

WHAT I REALLY WANT, though, is for the Catholic Church to act like the Catholic Church. I want bishops to be holy and act like shepherds.

I want priests to man up.

I really would rather not, as I leave Mass, be given "voter guides" that are no more than George Soros-funded apologetics for the abomination of desolation.

I just want my church to act like what it says it is. If it had been doing such for the last 50 years, perhaps I wouldn't feel like we're cultural, moral and spiritual paralytics sprawled in the roadside ditch of history.

And, finally, I no longer want to have that sick, sinking feeling that -- at this perilous time in my country's history -- the best advice I'll get from the most orthodox voices in my paralytic church is "Vote for Mussolini. It's important."

Signs of the times

From the Omaha World-Herald, more news of awful parents throwing away their children . . . one way or another:

An Omaha teenager has been put in foster care after trying to turn herself in under the state's safe haven law.

Nebraska's safe haven law protects people from being prosecuted for leaving a child at a hospital, but a parent or guardian didn't leave the child in this case.

Also, a 17-year-old boy was dropped off Wednesday, becoming the 20th youth taken in under the safe haven law.

In the teenage girl's case, according to an affidavit by a hospital social worker that was filed in Douglas County Juvenile Court:

The 16-year-old girl went Friday to Immanuel Medical Center in Omaha to "enact the safe haven law on behalf of herself."

The teen said she had been kicked out of her mother's house the previous night.

She said her mother had pushed and hit her before grabbing her by the hair, pushing her out the door and telling her to "get the hell out of my house."

The teen said her mother has been taking welfare checks and vouchers intended for the teen's 10-month-old son and has refused to buy her necessary items, such as tampons. Two of the teen's aunts have been giving her money for baby supplies and food.

The teen said her mother also had been emotionally abusive, telling the teen she looked like a prostitute and making other demeaning remarks.

The teen and her baby were placed in foster care.

AND FROM THE HILL, it could be an interesting election night. In the Chinese-curse sense of "interesting":

Police departments in cities across the country are beefing up their ranks for Election Day, preparing for possible civil unrest and riots after the historic presidential contest.

Public safety officials said in interviews with The Hill that the election, which will end with either the nation’s first black president or its first female vice president, demanded a stronger police presence.

Some worry that if Barack Obama loses and there is suspicion of foul play in the election, violence could ensue in cities with large black populations. Others based the need for enhanced patrols on past riots in urban areas (following professional sports events) and also on Internet rumors.

Democratic strategists and advocates for black voters say they understand officers wanting to keep the peace, but caution that excessive police presence could intimidate voters.

Sen. Obama (Ill.), the Democratic nominee for president, has seen his lead over rival Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) grow in recent weeks, prompting speculation that there could be a violent backlash if he loses unexpectedly.

Cities that have suffered unrest before, such as Detroit, Chicago, Oakland and Philadelphia, will have extra police deployed.

In Oakland, the police will deploy extra units trained in riot control, as well as extra traffic police, and even put SWAT teams on standby.

“Are we anticipating it will be a riot situation? No. But will we be prepared if it goes awry? Yes,” said Jeff Thomason, spokesman for the Oakland Police Department.

“I think it is a big deal — you got an African-American running and [a] woman running,” he added, in reference to Obama and GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin. “Whoever wins it, it will be a national event. We will have more officers on the street in anticipation that things may go south.”

Pray for war and ruin; it's important?

Bishop Robert W. Finn, ordinary of the Diocese of Kansas City - St. Joseph in Missouri, wants his flock praying about the coming election.

THIS IS EXACTLY the kind of thing I was talking about in the last post. From the bishop's letter, published on the blog of the diocesan newspaper, The Catholic Key:

Our Catholic moral principles teach that a candidate’s promise of economic prosperity is insufficient to justify their constant support of abortion laws, including partial-birth abortion, and infanticide for born-alive infants. Promotion of the Freedom of Choice Act is a pledge to eliminate every single limit on abortions achieved over the last thirty-five years. The real freedom that is ours in Jesus Christ compels us, not to take life, but to defend it.

Together with the other Bishops of Missouri I am calling on all the faithful to make this last week before the election a week of prayer for our nation - a week of prayer for the protection of Human Life.

Join me in calling upon Mary in this month of the rosary. In 1571, in the midst of the Battle of Lepanto, when the future of Christian Europe was in the balance and the odds against them were overwhelming, prayer to Our Lady of the Rosary brought the decisive victory. We ask her now to watch over our country and bring us the victory of life.

I REMEMBER doing just that in 2000 -- EWTN interrupted regular programming to pray in just that manner as the Supreme Court considered Bush v. Gore. And look what's become of us.

Look. What's. Become. Of. Us.

Late-term abortion, in some cases, has been restricted minimally. But embryonic stem-cell research has not. It now occurs with limited federal funding.

We now have government-sanctioned torture of "enemy combatants."

We have a government that spies on its own citizens.

We are fighting two wars -- one patently unjust, as it turns out -- with no end in sight for either.

And do I really need to mention the economy . . . and how it got that way?

I USE EWTN 2000 as a prime illustration of "Watch out what you pray for . . . you might get it."

Back in 2000, in some manner, I think we were trying to somehow stave off divine judgment -- "Elect the 'pro-life' creep! It's important." In my opinion, it looks like judgment is exactly what we got for all our calamity avoidance, and are getting still.

That goes in spades for the Catholic Church.

The implication of Bishop Finn's prayer -- amid any number of episcopal statements just like it -- is clear: "Oh, Lord, please grant unlikely victory to thy avatar of Life, John McCain."

If that's the case, it's just a load of bull. Been there, done that, and I'm not going there again.

IN CASE you haven't noticed, "life" is hosed either way in this election. "Life" is going to have to rely on means other than politics to triumph in this sick land.

John McCain is not the solution to the problem represented by Barack Obama and what he represents. I'll vote for neither, and the Church ought not be praying for the triumph of one of these fools over the other.

I would suggest, instead, "Lord Jesus Christ, son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner."

The real problem we face lies right in front of American Catholics, and it ripples through everything. It's this: The moral authority of American bishops rests at about zero, and the Church they lead is getting there.

Why might that be?

What Bishop Finn and all Catholics need to understand is that the chickens are starting to come home to roost. One sign of that is the bishop demanding that all Catholics pray for something fully half of Catholics no longer believe.

Why is that? Huh?

Just wondering. Is what I'm doing.

We believe in one BRAAAAAAW! . . .

It's a fact of life that when a self-important fool -- or a ship of fools, either real or perceived -- strenuously proclaims objective, countercultural truth, your "Average Joe" is likely to regard that objective truth as just more mush from the simp.

If American Catholics were to make a contemporary film about this phenomenon, we'd have to call it The Bishop's Life.

THAT'S PRETTY MUCH where the Catholic Church finds itself a couple of weeks before the 2008 presidential election, as Catholics (and everybody else) studiously ignore prelates' admonitions against voting for candidates who support intrinsic evil -- in other words, abortion rights -- without equally grave counterbalancing reason. Of course, it doesn't help that the candidate one might logically assume gets the bishes' blessing has his own "intrinsic evil" demerits and belongs to a political party which long has played pro-lifers for suckers.

Not that your average Catholic has much more than a 50-50 chance of actually being pro-life -- a fact that, in large part, may be traced back to the plot line of our mythical film.

And the plot line to our mythical film -- The Bishop's Life -- has everything to do with how (and why) American bishops will be playing host to all kinds of chickens coming home to roost. Which, of course, goes back to American bishops' complete loss of moral authority during the past half century. The last of it disappeared around 2002 in the clerical sex-abuse scandals, when the prelates who seek to tell you that voting for pro-abortion politicians is, depending on your motivation, either "formal cooperation" or "remote material cooperation" in evil were exposed as "formal" or "remote material" hypocrites.

Objectively, why should "Joe the Catholic" listen to a damn thing His Excellency has to say about, well . . . anything amid the ruins of a church where pulpit appeals for the diocesan annual appeal far outnumber any appeals for Catholics to uphold the sanctity of human life?

WHY SHOULD any of us give a damn what says this bench of bloated, bleating bishops when, as one invokes the fires of hell against pro-choice pols and the Catholics who love them, another dithers as parish staffs in his diocese stuff parish bulletins with "Catholic voter guides" produced by the George Soros-funded umbrella group Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, or at least groups affiliated with it?

It's just like what happens to your PC when you load it up with poorly written programs -- garbage in, garbage out.

Sunday evening, I found some garbage stuffed into my church bulletin. Produced by the NETWORK Education Program, a voter chart expanded upon every wonderful thing Barack Obama promises about ending the Iraq War, expanding health services and paid sick-child leave, but had this to say about the Democrat's position on abortion:

Opposes an abortion ban.

IN CONSIDERING John McCain -- and note, please, that I can abide neither John McCain nor his sleazy campaign -- here's the NETWORK party line:

Supports an abortion ban with exceptions in cases of rape, incest and risk to the mother's life. In 2005, voted against expanding health services and education to reduce unintended pregnancy. Will seek ways to promote adoption as a first alternative to abortion.

AFTER LOOKING at this disingenuous piece of goo -- a disingenuous piece of goo with catchphrases like "conscientious Catholics" and "consistent ethic of life" all over it -- I told my Republican wife that I, as an old-fashioned liberal Democrat, was offended. Liberal Democrats used to be a lot of things, but smarmy, devious and disingenuous were not among them.

A "religious" organization that takes money from George Soros (who also funds the pro-abortion, heterodox likes of Catholics for a Free Choice) has no moral right to even utter words such as "conscientious" or "consistent ethic of life." A parish bureaucracy that tries to put an imprimatur on partisan propaganda needs a clear message from the local bishop: Get your heads out of your ass, or find new jobs at Democratic headquarters.

Like THAT will happen. A blind eye can be turned upon any sort of heterodoxy, political shilling or liturgical abuse, it seems, so long as the annual appeal gets pushed hard enough from the pulpit.

After all, at least in Omaha, Feed My Sheep = Pimp My House. Maybe, though, this year's appeal can help add lots of coop space to the chancery and Archbishop Elden Curtiss' pending retirement digs. Maybe all the annual appeals across all of America's dioceses can be tapped to build hundreds . . . thousands . . . millions of coops on church properties all across the land.

All the better to house all those chickens coming home to roost.

ALL THOSE CHICKENS started their long journey when bishops forgot who they were and why they were here. When prelates forgot what they believed and why they should proclaim it, teach it . . . and live it.

Catholics' fowl journey got under way well and good when their leaders lost their faith and proclaimed themselves ever closer to a therapeutic deity. It gained fellow travelers when church bureaucrats decided it might be more "enlightened" to teach children crap and call it catechism.

Er . . . religious education.

Chickens are coming home to roost in a church where Catholics figure they not only don't have to believe any of that mess but don't have to pretend they do, either. In chanceries where, for too long, fat wallets have been equated with a healthy church. And where, for much too long, there has been an unwritten 11th commandment: Do as I say, not as I do.

Chickens are coming home to roost, boys. They will know their shepherds by the chickens*** on the chasubles.

And Bill Clinton really didn't inhale

Irony, ironically, is lost on Ironyland.

The chancellor of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln swears up and down to the Omaha World-Herald that it wasn't political pressure -- nuh uh . . . noooooooooo -- that caused his school to withdraw a lecture invitation to America's Own Domestic Terrorist (TM).

NO . . . uhhhhh, it was the threat posed by domestic terrorists. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Bill Ayers couldn't speak because there was a credible threat that domestic Republican terrorists -- their blood up from feasting on all that red meat dished out by John McCain and Sarah Palin -- would kill the erstwhile domestic hippie terrorist, and maybe any number of well-scrubbed American youth who might be listening to his terroristic lecture at the time.

That's what we're to believe -- that Ayers was in mortal danger, and UNL police, Lincoln police and Nebraska state troopers couldn't be counted on to protect an aging ex-hippie bomber-turned-education professor from some pissed-off good ol' boys with murder in their hearts.

AND REALLY . . . if this is the case, oughtn't the state be pursuing incitement charges of some sort against John McCain and Sarah Palin? Would "domestic terrorist" be considered "fighting words"?

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Chancellor Harvey Perlman said this morning that he did not fold under pressure from the governor or other state officials when canceling William Ayers' speech last week.

He also defended the university's decision to invite Ayers, a 1960's radical-turned-educator, to speak on campus next month before education students.

"Let me be clear: I believe that the invitation to Professor Ayers was appropriate," Perlman said at a press conference. "He is an expert in his field and during the time in February when the invitation was extended, he was not the central figure of a presidential debate."

This morning marked the first time Perlman spoke publicly about the Ayers' flap.

Perlman, who was in China last week, said the university's "threat assessment" group called him Thursday night, after the speech was announced, and spoke of several phone and e-mail threats made to UNL regarding Ayers.

Two professors, including one who is an expert on security and threat assessment, sit on the team. Perlman said the team also consulted with campus police and City of Lincoln police Thursday night.

The chancellor said he was concerned about the safety of Ayers as well as students who may interact with him, and canceled the Nov. 15 speech. Perlman said the university did not announce the cancellation until late Friday because Ayers, who was in Taiwan, needed to be contacted.

Perlman said the Board of Regents and University of Nebraska President J.B. Milliken did not order him to rescind Ayers' invitation to speak.

"If I would have received such an order, I would have resigned," he said.

AMERICA: You can't make this s*** up.

It's OK to look like hell now

Free at last!
Free at last!
Great God Almighty,
they're free at last!

Up on a roof

Here's a fun little YouTube find . . . The Skyliners, up on a roof, in Pittsburgh, at WTAE television in 1960. Is it just me, or was TV more fun back then?

3 Chords & the Truth: Those oldies but goodies

Those oldies but goodies remind me . . . that we used to be a much different people.

Worse in some ways. Better in others. And our hypocrisy -- the hypocrisy we're supposed to be happy we've "grown" out of in these postmodern days -- at least paid a backhanded compliment to truth . . . and goodness.

IT'S AN INTERESTING THING to ponder who we were as we try to figure out who we are now. In a way, that's what we're doing this week on 3 Chords & the Truth.

I don't much like who we seem to be now. We seem to be angrier, quicker to take offense at more and more things. We're more cynical, and we're more casually violent.

Our culture is more casually violent. More blithely materialistic. More shallow. More loud. More . . . more.

We pay more attention to people on the other end of a text message than we do to the people in front of us. Our political campaigns are angry and patronizing. Folks at rallies are crying out for blood . . . and not of the figurative variety.

ON SOME LEVEL, I think I just want to escape. I'd like to flee back to a romanticized version of the past, cleansed of most of the stifling conformity and real ugliness that existed during the "Happy Days."

Well, I can't do that, and neither can you. It sucks to be us.

But we still need a psychological "time out." We need to bask, for a time, in the better angels of our nature . . . and of our culture.

I guess that what the Big Show is about this go 'round. It's a "sanity sick day" of the radio world.

OK, let's do it. Let's bask in the past . . . revel in some fine R&B and doo-wop.

Let's see if those oldies but goodies remind us of us -- at least the better parts of us. Or something.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

Music world cries Levi Stubbs' Tears

Bad news, sad news coming to your doorstep, as reported by USA TODAY:

Levi Stubbs, whose distinctive, rough-hewn voice and pleading vocal style elevated the Four Tops' soul classics to masterpieces, died today at his Detroit home. He was 72.

The Michigan native had been in ill health since being diagnosed with cancer in 1995. A stroke and other health problems led him to stop touring in 2000.

Stubbs was born in Detroit and grew up with the future Tops in the city's North End. Stubbs and Abdul "Duke" Fakir sang together in a group while attending Pershing High School, while Renaldo "Obie" Benson and Lawrence Payton attended Detroit's Northern High.

The group was formed after the four began harmonizing at a birthday party in 1954. They began practicing the next day and soon began calling themselves the Four Aims, performing mostly jazz standards.

Later that year, the Aims had their first gig, $300 for a week of shows at Eddie's Lounge in Flint. They also performed regularly with Stubbs' cousin, Jackie Wilson.

(snip)

Howard Kramer, curatorial director of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which inducted the group in 1990, said the Tops were a polished group by the time Motown came calling. "The Four Tops were seasoned; they had a better world view than kids right out of high school," he told The Detroit News in 2004.

"They also had one lead singer, which gave them more of a distinguishable identity. Levi Stubbs was the first church-based soul shouter and pure singer. James Brown could shout, but Levi was a singer as well. He could invoke so much passion and longing in a voice; he is incredibly expressive."

"Well, I'm rather loud and raw," Stubbs told the Los Angeles Times in 1994. "I don't really even have a style; I just come by the way I sing naturally. When I learn a song, I try to live it as best I can."

I THINK I'll just leave you with this from Billy Bragg -- his 1991 video of "Levi Stubbs' Tears."

Has anybody here seen my old friend Dion?

Dion and the Belmonts. Dick Clark. American Bandstand. Black-and-white television.

Doesn't get much better than that.

Who. Gives. A. S***?

America is reeling during these last 100 days of the reign of King George the Decider.

King George does not rule over a happy land; he rules over a troubled land, an anxious land. Bad King George reigns over a kingdom growing poorer, it seems, by the minute.

AMERICANS NOW are in the midst of a momentous campaign to see who will succeed the monarch who has brought endless war to his kingdom and given torturers free reign over his dungeon. Whomever we pick to rule this uncertain principality will face hard times and mighty challenges.

He will become chief executive of a land no longer respected in lands far across the sea, for its robber barons have brought financial ruin to their shores.

At this perilous hour, what crucial word doth thou bringest unto us, o town crier?

And sayeth the crier, MSNBC:

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Joe the Plumber, America's most famous tradesman, said Thursday he doesn't have a license and doesn't need one.

Joe Wurzelbacher, better known as Joe the Plumber, the nickname Republican John McCain bestowed on him during Wednesday's presidential debate, said he works for a small plumbing company that does residential work. Because he works for someone else, he doesn't need a license, he said.

His boss, Al Newell of Newell Plumbing and Heating Co. of Toledo, is a licensed plumbing contractor in Toledo, records show. But anyone working under Newell should have a journeyman’s plumbing license or an apprenticeship license, officials said.

And the county Wurzelbacher and Newell live in, Lucas County, requires plumbers to have licenses, but neither is licensed there, said Cheryl Schimming of Lucas County Building Regulations, which handles plumber licenses in parts of the county outside Toledo.

Wurzelbacher, who voted in the Republican primary and indicated he backed McCain, was cited by the GOP presidential candidate as an example of someone who wants to buy a plumbing business but would be hurt by Democrat Barack Obama's tax plans. Wurzelbacher said he was surprised that his name was mentioned so many other times.

"That bothered me. I wished that they had talked more about issues that are important to Americans," he told reporters gathered outside his home.

Wurzelbacher, 34, said he doesn't have a good plan put together on how he would buy Newell Plumbing and Heating in nearby Toledo.

He said the business consists of owner Al Newell and him. Wurzelbacher said he's worked there for six years and that the two have talked about his taking it over at some point.

"There's a lot I've got to learn," he said.

YEAH, LIKE WE'RE no longer a serious people, informed by a serious press and, therefore, are screwed. Oh, so screwed.

How about Josephine the Plumber?

Josephine the Plumber is fine with Barack Obama's tax plan. She makes only 67 percent of what Joe the Plumber does and won't get above the Democrat's $250,000 soak 'em threshold.

Tough bounce, John the Panderer.

Pot's been decriminalized in Alaska, right?

Some reality-based journalism from the Telegraph in London:

Sarah Palin's husband was warned by a top police official to stop trying to have her ex-brother-in-law fired, it has emerged.

John Glass, Alaska's deputy commissioner of public safety, told him the move could result in "an extreme amount of discomfort and embarrassment," a state inquiry into the so-called "Troopergate" incident found.

Mrs Palin, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, was found by the inquiry to have abused her power in personally pushing for the dismissal of Mike Wooten, a state trooper and her sister's ex-husband.

The report discloses a warning given to Todd Palin by Mr Glass in the spring that disciplinary action had already been taken against Mr Wooten and that "we could not fire him".

"I also warned him that it was going to cause some extreme amount of discomfort and embarrassment for the governor if they pursued this and it should never have become public," Mr Glass told the inquiry. "That it would just be not good for the governor if it continued, and that they needed to cease and desist."

The inquiry was sparked by Mrs Palin's dismissal of Walt Monegan, Alaska's Public Safety Commissioner, which he claimed was due to his refusal to sack Mr Wooten.

Robbing Peter to play politics

I think some of my fellow Catholics would vote for the devil himself if he said he was "pro-life."

The past couple of elections, we've come close. And the pattern seems to be holding among orthodox Catholics in 2008.

"AHA!" some of you are saying. "This Favog crank is a pro-abort Obama fanatic! A real Catholic in Name Only type."

You haven't read this blog much, have you?

NO, I AGREE with the much-maligned Catholic bishop of Scranton, Joseph Martino, that a Catholic faces some high hurdles indeed before he (or she) can vote for an abortion supporter with a clean conscience. What troubles me greatly, though, is "conservative" Catholics' assumption that means they can vote for John McCain.

Because the same reasons that keep a believing Catholic from blithely voting for the abortion enthusiast, Barack Obama, also keep him from blithely voting for the candidate who supports an unjust war, backtracks on his formerly unequivocal opposition to torturing "enemy combatants," remains silent when supporters cry out for Obama's death . . . and supports embryonic stem-cell research.

Embryonic stem-cell research. The increasingly superfluous "science" you can't carry out without murdered fetuses or cannibalized embryos. McCain's support of that little shop of horrors is kind of like condemning the Holocaust while bathing with a fresh bar of Jew soap.

But that doesn't stop all manner of my fellow Catholics from robbing Peter to play politics . . . badly. I think this slice of life from the Scranton Times-Tribune pretty much sums up the mess Catholics have politicked themselves into. The scene . . . in line outside an arena, waiting to get into a rally featuring GOP vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin:

The line outside Riverfront Sports has dwindled to a a few hundred. Reporters at the scene said it appears that everyone who wants to attend the Palin rally will be able to get in.

One man walked the length of the line shouting out "reminders" to those waiting that " loaded firearms are not allowed inside."

Two vans full of students from St. Gregory's Academy in Elmhurst were juggling and performing as they waited to go through security.

17-year-old Ian Costello, a student from Oklahoma, said that he believed much of the student body was supporting the McCain/Palin ticket.

"McCain, definitely. Everyone is for McCain."

Matthew Schultz, a rhetoric teacher at St. Gregory's, said he had two reasons for bringing the students to the rally.

"To show support for Sarah Palin with regards to her pro-life stance. As Catholics, we support our bishop in his stances. I'd like the boys to see some rhetoric in action."

When asked about some of the anti-Obama outbursts from people at previous Palin/McCain rallies, Mr. Matthews said " It's not what a gentleman or a Christian should do."

I WONDER WHAT Schultz's opinion is of politicians who work the yahoos into a homicidal frenzy? How "pro-life" might that be?

The boisterous crowd, estimated at around 4,500, interrupted her speech several times with chants of, "Sarah! Sarah! Sarah!"

There were no incendiary outbursts from the crowd about Mr. Obama during Mrs. Palin's speech, as there have been during other recent McCain-Palin rallies.

However, someone did shout out, "Kill him!" during Republican congressional candidate Chris Hackett's remarks before Mrs. Palin took the stage.

The outburst came during a round of booing from the crowd after Mr. Hackett said Mr. Obama should come to Pennsylvania and learn what the state's values are.

AT LEAST the McCain-Palin-loving Catholic schoolkids got "to see some rhetoric in action."

And the rest of us got to see how the tomfoolery some Catholics put up with in the name of voting "pro-life" buries that cause under a mountain of hypocrisy and does real, lasting damage to the Church's witness. It does violence to the gospel, and to those who have staked their lives upon it.

It comes down to this: God don't like ugly.

Catholic moral theology posits that we may not do evil in the hope good might come out of it. That applies to voting for abortion enthusiasts.

That also applies to backers of cutting apart frozen human embryos to fix what ails us former embryos . . . who support unjust wars . . . and countenance expressions of hate and homicide from newly minted mobs they've whipped up in the name of acquiring ultimate political power.

"Catholic" schools that can't grasp that aren't worth a dime's tuition, and a Church that compromises its witness for a sack of empty promises may yet prevail against the gates of hell . . . but it's going to be close.

Omaha: You can dump your kid here

I was born to parents who -- by life experience in a grindingly dysfunctional culture of white poverty -- had been rendered uniquely incapable, in many ways, of successfully raising a child.

The process of trying to, however, probably left them with more than a few scars and more than a little heartbreak. I know it left me with a lot more scars and a lifetime of heartbreak. You'd be surprised how far the ripples of sin and stupidity can travel through space, families and time.

MY FOLKS HAD the misfortune of growing up hard. Real hard. That's how many came up during the Depression in the Deep South amid a folk culture where, for example, comets were still terrifying omens and it was "better" for little girls to help around the house than, say . . . go to school.

Not to mention where curing bad coughs often involved eating Vicks salve. (Note: Vicks smells better than it tastes.)

I had the misfortune of growing up at the mercy of parents raised, as it were, by wolves and incapable of admitting -- most notably to themselves -- how messed up that was.

But they did their best with their baby boy. Their best wasn't great, but they muddled through. I'm muddling through still.

For all their struggles, dysfunction and redneck insanity, though, there's one thing Mama and Daddy never did. One thing they never could have conceived of doing, no matter what . . . and no matter what a damn mess their kid might have been (and I was).

They never would have loaded me up in the old Mercury, pulled out onto the highway and drove until they found a city where they thought they could get away with dumping my ass.

They never in a million years would have done what the Omaha World-Herald reports a Detroit-area mother did with her son early Monday:

A Michigan mother drove more than 700 miles to leave her 13-year-old son at an Omaha hospital in the middle of the night - a place where the family had no ties.

What drew her, according to officials with the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, was Nebraska's unique safe haven law.

The teen became the second child from another state to be left at a Nebraska hospital under the law, which sets no age limit on the children who can be left.

A 14-year-old Council Bluffs girl was left last week at Creighton University Medical Center. She has since been returned to her family.

The safe haven law, which took effect July 18, says people cannot be prosecuted in Nebraska for leaving a child with a hospital employee on duty. They can, however, be charged with other acts of abuse and neglect and can lose their parental rights.

In the Michigan case, a woman identifying herself as the boy's mother left him at the Creighton hospital about 1:30 a.m. Monday, said Todd Landry, children and family services director for HHS. The family is from the Detroit area.

Landry said the boy's mother remained in Nebraska at least until Monday afternoon and had talked with state officials at least twice.

HHS officials were still gathering and verifying information, but it appeared the mother came to Nebraska specifically to drop off the teen, who has since been placed at an emergency shelter.

"Just like every other of the instances of safe haven use, the child does not appear to be and was not in any immediate danger of being harmed in any way," Landry said.

He said he could not give information about why the family decided to make use of the safe haven law. He said there was no indication the teen had violent tendencies and that he was not a state ward in Michigan.

THIS IS BECOMING an epidemic. Omaha has become American parents' landfill of choice for abandoning their "flawed" offspring. Or for flawed parents to cast off little people who so unfairly prevent them from hitting the "reset button" on their own out-of-control lives.

Only rarely do the consequences of a flawed law become so shockingly obvious so shockingly quickly. Something is seriously wrong in America . . . and I don't mean the economy or the stock market.

But.

There's been a common denominator in recent coverage of Nebraska's safe-haven debacle that I don't want to hear another word about. The latest example came in a story Monday evening on Omaha's KETV television:

For parents facing that situation, however, getting help can sometimes be extremely difficult.

KETV talked with a local social worker whose goal is keep families together.

She said that while Nebraska’s Safe Haven law seems like an option for troubled youth, it really isn’t helping anyone.

Bonnie Sarton Meirau has spent 15 years working with families and troubled youth and she said she understands why families may be taking advantage of the new law.

"I think they feel like they're out of options, there's a hopelessness and helplessness that unfortunately Safe Haven feeds in to," Mierau said.

I CALL BULLSHIT. If a Michigan mom has the money and the time and the energy to bundle her 13-year-old problem child and drive 12 hours to Omaha Effing Nebraska for the express purpose of abandoning the kid at a hospital emergency room, she has the wherewithal to track down and access whatever help might be available to her in greater Detroit.

Which I will guaran-damn-tee you is far more extensive than what was available to my flawed parents and their flawed kid nearly four decades ago in a Southern backwater. Shockingly -- at least by today's standards, apparently -- no children were thrown away in the telling of my life story.

Oh, today's poor parents. How did they ever manage before the Nebraska Legislature made it possible for them to unburden themselves of their most pressing problems -- which, unfortunately, seem to be their children?

Though I'm sure social services could be better and more accessible all across these United States in this troubled age, this scarred child of whack parents is here to tell America that's not our biggest problem in this whole mess. No matter what Channel 7 says.

No, what we have here is not a social-services crisis. What we have here is an asshole-parents crisis.

Would that it were as easily fixed as bureaucratic shortcomings. Or nonspecific state laws.

Their god is a frightened god

In London, The Telegraph tells the story of an Iranian family suffering for its Christian faith because the god of Islam -- as understood by that country's civil and religious leaders -- is a frightened god to whom free will is a mortal threat.

Or should I say an immortal threat?

A month ago, the Iranian parliament voted in favour of a draft bill, entitled "Islamic Penal Code", which would codify the death penalty for any male Iranian who leaves his Islamic faith. Women would get life imprisonment. The majority in favour of the new law was overwhelming: 196 votes for, with just seven against.

Imposing the death penalty for changing religion blatantly violates one of the most fundamental of all human rights. The right to freedom of religion is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and in the European Convention of Human Rights. It is even enshrined as Article 23 of Iran's own constitution, which states that no one may be molested simply for his beliefs.

And yet few politicians or clerics in Iran see any contradiction between a law mandating the death penalty for changing religion and Iran's constitution. There has been no public protest in Iran against it.

David Miliband, Britain's Foreign Secretary, stands out as one of the few politicians from any Western country who has put on record his opposition to making apostasy a crime punishable by death. The protest from the EU has been distinctly muted; meanwhile, Germany, Iran's largest foreign trading partner, has just increased its business deals with Iran by more than half. Characteristically, the United Nations has said nothing.

It is a sign of how little interest there is in Iran's intention to launch a campaign of religious persecution that its parliamentary vote has still not been reported in the mainstream media.

For one woman living in London, however, the Iranian parliamentary vote cannot be brushed aside. Rashin Soodmand is a 29-year-old Iranian Christian. Her father, Hossein Soodmand, was the last man to be executed in Iran for apostasy, the "crime" of abandoning one's religion. He had converted from Islam to Christianity in 1960, when he was 13 years old. Thirty years later, he was hanged by the Iranian authorities for that decision.

Today, Rashin's brother, Ramtin, is also held in a prison cell in Mashad, Iran's holiest city. He was arrested on August 21. He has not been charged but he is a Christian. And Rashin fears that, just as her father was the last man to be executed for apostasy in Iran, her brother may become one of the first to be killed under Iran's new law.

Not surprisingly, Rashin is desperately worried. "I am terribly anxious about him," she explains. "Even though my brother is not an apostate, because he has never been a Muslim – my father raised us all as Christians – I don't think he is safe. They assume that if you are Iranian, you must be Muslim."

OBVIOUSLY, Iranian Muslims and their leaders have their deity all figured out. And we know what Flannery O'Connor said about such -- "remember that these things are mysteries and that if they were such that we could understand them, they wouldn’t be worth understanding. A God you understood would be less than yourself."

And this is apparently what's understood about Allah in Iran -- that the Muslim deity is a puppetmaster and mankind is a puppet. That Allah fears that man would not, could not love him freely, so man must be forced to do so. That Islam is not so much about knowing, loving and serving Allah as it is being a "soldier" in a Mafia of a billion-plus souls.

Once in, there's only one way to get out -- be rubbed out.

IF JESUS is the good shepherd, the ayatollahs' Allah must be Michael Corleone. And Muhammad is what? Al Neri?

That makes Ramtin Soodmand the Iranian version of Fredo, I'm afraid.

Nice conception of deity you have there, guys.