Sunday through the camera lens

On a Sunday evening out and about in Omaha, it's fun to take along a camera, because you never know what you'll run across.

Like summer boaters in the Missouri River, as seen from Lewis and Clark Landing downtown.


OR THE TOWERS and curves of the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge, which spans the river to join Omaha and Council Bluffs, Iowa.


Or leisure boats passing beneath you.


Or, as you stand on the Council Bluffs levee, spying the sun beginning to set behind the trees along the Iowa river bank.


You never know when the sunset will turn out to be absolutely spectacular.


Like this.


See what I mean.


Pedal power amid the hoofing-it crowd.


Moonrise over the city.

Sunset over the site of the new downtown ballpark.


And then we make our way back to the car, parked in the lot under the I-480 ramps.


One-half second exposure, F 3.1, 25 m.p.h. For what it's worth.


The view downtown.


And amid more fun with slow shutter speeds, we're headed homeward down Farnam past the lighting-display store. Say good night, Gracie.

Leadership today

This one sentence from an Omaha World-Herald story today about the city's budget crisis (and one lonely councilman's quest for a necessary property-tax hike) sums up, I think, exactly why we are so hosed:

[Mayor Jim] Suttle said today that he would support Gray's proposal if the rest of the council gets behind it.

I DON'T KNOW what more to say about a guy who would run for mayor of a large city, presumably because he wanted to make the hard decisions . . . but only if the city council makes them for him.

Pardon-toi mon Français, but that's just chickens***. Totally, staggeringly, irrevocably chickens***.

Omaha deserves better than this. Even if, as proven by election results, it doesn't want any better than this.

Digital news on magic tablets? Who knew?

The day every computer user knew was coming a decade and a half ago is just about here -- 10 years later than we thought.

It would have been nice had newspapers spent that time developing the kind of product predicted in this 1994 video from the Knight-Ridder Information Design Lab. Instead, print journalists -- and broadcasters, too -- decided it would be a far better thing to operate as if there were no tomorrow . . . as if their past would be their future, forever and ever, amen.

Newspapermen and broadcasters turned their buggy whips into more buggy whips, and then took their 30-percent returns and turned them into massive debt as big corporations acquired other big corporations. Meantime, local publishers sank money into bigger and better buggy-whip factories erected as monuments to their business acumen.

The "digital newspaper" could wait. Half-assed efforts on this "Internet" thing would have to do.

Pared-down electronic versions of print ads would suffice as a digital business model as well. What would you expect on a medium capable of text, audio, video and instant connectivity -- instant shopping without even having to click away from the Daily Blab's website?

THE TROUBLE IS, the "information superhighway" had ideas of its own. More precisely, the billions of people using it had distinct ideas of their own, ideas that didn't jibe at all with publishers' or broadcasters'.

Newspaper people -- as reflected in the above video -- thought the digital revolution would be the equivalent of an electronic newspaper vending machine. When they put their own product out on the World Wide Web for free, it had to have been with the assumption that the genie could be put back into the bottle.

Also, there must have been a like assumption that few would seek to become digital "publishers" and, furthermore, couldn't make a buck at it if they dared to try. Because -- in the ossified minds of the ossified types in ossified "mainstream media" boardrooms everywhere -- the thought of "new media" philistines making a digital go of it without the expense of a sprawling buggy-whip infrastructure and 19th-century distribution network was just crazy talk.

NOW, 15 years later, the newspaper industry's "bright idea" is to make readers pay for online content they now get for free -- and for which the "new media" philistines happily will continue to charge the low, low price of . . . nothing. The new "crazy talk" is someone pointing out that readers never have "paid" for news content, that advertisers always have been the ones bankrolling newspapers' journalistic undertakings.

No, it's not publishers who are crazy for not providing advertisers a decent return on a hefty investment, thus exploding the entire business model of newspapering. The "loons" are the folks pointing out plain facts.

Want to hear something crazy? Newspaper advertising revenue is at its lowest level since 1965, and newsrooms all across the country are starting to look a little like postwar Dresden. The average denuded newspaper of 2009 probably would be able to implement the Knight-Ridder Information Design Lab's digital vision of 1994 about the same time -- give or take a few years -- hell freezes over.

AS IT TURNS OUT, the above video was the last hurrah for the Knight-Ridder Information Design Lab. Knight-Ridder closed it in 1995.

Knight-Ridder itself ceased to exist in 2006, having been swallowed whole by McClatchy Newspapers. McClatchy, of course, is choking on the $2 billion in debt it took on in the process.

A major problem for the chain has been a 30-percent drop in advertising sales. I'm sure that can be remedied by expanding readership by charging folks for online content.

HAT TIP: Mashable

3 Chords & the Truth: All funked up

Just in case you're not seeing my note very well, the upshot of it is this: Listen to 3 Chords & the Truth. It's good.

(Apologies to Barq's root beer for pilfering their advertising slogan.)

Brother, can you spare a book?

Because the mayor is feckless, the city council is spineless and Omaha taxpayers are shameless, the city's library system has been decimated.

And that same level of public non-service will be creeping across all of city government. Soon.

From a story this evening on KETV, Channel 7:

A day after the cuts are finalized, the reality is made clear for the libraries --the downtown branch will no longer be open on the weekend. Homeless shelter outreach programs disappear. Book trading between branches is severely curtailed. The Florence branch closes. Homework Hot Spots program disappears.

Mary Mollner is one of 53 to lose a job. More than a mentor, Mollner helped senior citizens connect to a 21st century world and she helped the jobless reform their resumes and find work.

"We bring the world of information to them and they come to us," Mollner said, fighting back tears.

Mollner's ideals of educating and enlightening aren't lost.

"During this time off, I'll go out and volunteer," Mollner said.

Teenagers like Samantha English turned to the library after school for homework help and book clubs.

"The programs here are fun. They actually get you out of trouble," English said.

ONE BRANCH'S HOURS are being reduced by 19 hours a week. Another's by 14.

And on the reductions in service go -- another 19 hours here. Four hours there. Two hours over there.

And at the main library downtown, a 21-hour cut per week. It will be closed all weekend starting Sept. 8.

I would suggest that high-school teachers start accepting Wikipedia as a legitimate reference source.

MEANWHILE, the head of Omaha's firefighters union has grudgingly negotiated a two-year pay freeze with the mayor. The deal stipulates that firefighters will get a raise in Year Three no matter what happens with the economy.

It also says they'll get makeup raises on top of their regularly scheduled raises if the fiscal picture improves. Would that my wife -- who had to take, without benefit of negotiation, a 5-percent pay cut plus five days' furlough -- could get to "sacrifice" to such an extent as our firefighters.

About the only thing hard times are showing us in the 21st century is to what extent we all figure every man -- and woman -- is indeed an island, contra John Donne. Librarians get fired, city services get slashed and the little (and big) things that make up a city's quality of life take a beating, all because people who damn well have enough money to live in a six-figure house say they'll be damned if they pay another $25 . . . or $50 . . . or $100 a year in property tax.

And because the best other alternative the mayor could come up with was a Rube Goldberg "entertainment tax." One that would hurt a struggling industry enough -- and thus garner enough angry opposition -- that its demise at the city council's hands was a given.

And because Mayor Jim Suttle doesn't have the cojones to implement an occupation tax that's been on the books since the early 1980s.

And because the city council ran out of creative alternative ideas before it even had a one. That is, apart from a recent proposals to furlough every city worker still standing for two-weeks.

BASICALLY, hard times came and no one stepped up. No one -- not government, not business, not taxpayers.

No one.

And we're officially hosed. Except, ironically, for the hose jockeys. They're making out just fine.

Thanks for sharing

Among all of the tributes to John Hughes -- and his films -- after the director's death, last week's in Omaha's City Weekly just might be . . . uh . . . unique.

In the piece, editor Jim Minge shares his teen-age angst -- and some other stuff we really didn't need to know:

Did I masturbate to Molly Ringwald? You bet I did. And I’m not ashamed to admit it.

Blame John Hughes. Actually, I should thank him. Sadly, though, there’s no chance of me being able to do that in person anymore. The once-in-a-lifetime filmmaker who led Generation X through a glorious ’80s romp of teen coming-of-age comedies died last week at the age of 59.

“Sixteen Candles” (1984), “The Breakfast Club” (1985), “Pretty in Pink” (1986) – Hughes’ Ringwald hat trick. Puberty would not have been the same without ginger-haired Molly.

Of course, there were other ’80s films from Hughes: “National Lampoon’s Vacation” (1983), “European Vacation” (1985), “Weird Science” (1985), “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” (1986), “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” (1987), “She’s Having A Baby” (1988), “The Great Outdoors” (1988), “Uncle Buck” (1989) and “Christmas Vacation” (1989).

Anyone else seeing flashes of girls with big hair and guys wearing bright-colored polo shirts with popped collars?

Hughes, a writer, director and producer, kicked off the ’90s with “Home Alone” (1990). But it’s Hughes’ ’80s films that I, and most everyone else in my Gen X troop, so passionately adore, and so often quote:

“Good talk, Russ.”

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once and a while, you could miss it.”

“No more yankie my wankie. The Donger needs food.”

SOMETIMES it can be difficult to navigate that line dividing edgy and ewww. Sometimes, it's even tougher than steering away from what would have been a too-obvious pun in that last sentence.

Minge, however, apparently lacks the mental filter that keeps normal people from putting their byline on shlock-and-awe ledes that grossly overshare about "yankie my wankie." Emphasis on "gross."

It seems to be an alternative-press thang in these postmodern times.

Pity. What could be a smart, edgy and truly "alternative" voice in the increasingly hoarse world of newspapering insists instead on convincing the reading public that it's just another bunch of wankers.

Ve haff veys uff makink you cheer

While the Neanderthal-right foes of "socialized medicine" are busy packing heat, screaming "Heil Hitler" at Jews and generally scaring the crap out of the nation, Louisiana's Nicholls State University is otherwise occupied terrifying its students and alums with a redesigned mascot.

Before, "Colonel Tillou" was an ancient Confederate officer who evoked no-longer-amusing visions of the Lost Cause. Now, to the horror of, well . . . everybody, the modernized Colonel Tillou looks like a Nazi SS officer cleaning out the Warsaw ghetto.

LAST WEEK, the New Orleans Times-Picayune took note of the recent mascot unpleasantness over in Thibodaux:

With his chiseled face, military-style cap and saber poised for action, the recently unveiled mascot at Nicholls State University was supposed to convey a new and improved public image, signaling a break from the past and an end to the mascot controversy that has dogged the Thibodaux campus for years.

Instead, the updated Col. Tillou mascot, named for the university's founder, former Louisiana governor and Confederate officer Francis Redding Tillou Nicholls, has stirred up a firestorm within the university's community.

Outraged by the image's "menacing" appearance, hundreds of people have flooded social networking sites and college sports forums to vent their concerns about the revamped logo design, with a number likening the black, red and gray-hued colonel to a soldier from Adolf Hitler's Third Reich or a member of Soviet Russia's Red Army.

"It looked like a Nazi soldier -- a very angry Nazi soldier," said Nicholls alumna Hollie Garrison, 27, who saw the logo online for the first time this month. "My jaw dropped. I was speechless. I kind of thought it was a joke."

Garrison, who lives in Lafayette, has started a group on Facebook called "I hate the new Tillou a.k.a. 'Nicholls the Nazi.'¤" As of Saturday afternoon, the site had attracted more than 275 members.

Matthew Marant, a 2009 graduate, was similarly stunned after his first glimpse of the logo.

"I was appalled," said Marant, 23, who lives in Houma. "The new image seems evil, faceless and inhuman."

NOW, LOTS of folks in Louisiana -- particularly those who didn't go to Nicholls -- will tell you the school's administration was on the right track but picked the wrong Nazi.

Thus, in the spirit of friendship, I give you a redesign of the redesigned Nicholls State logo:


RECOGNIZE the guy?

How about now?

Stupid is as stupid says

Dumb comment of the week, courtesy of -- naturally -- a protester at Barney Frank's health-care town hall . . . as told to The Associated Press:

At least two dozen protesters gathered in small groups outside, handing out pamphlets and holding signs criticizing the overhaul, Obama and Frank. Some of the posters read: "It's the economy stupid, stop the spending" and "Healthcare reform yes, government takeover, no. Tort Reform Now"

Audrey Steele, 82, from New Bedford, said she does not want the government to get involved with health care because "they just make a mess of everything," referring to the $700 billion bailout of financial institutions that was used to pay for lavish conferences and hefty executive compensation.

ALRIGHTY THEN . . . no more Medicare for grandma. I'm sure she won't mind, being how "they just make a mess of everything."

Rush Limbaugh likes this.

I made the mistake today of not turning the radio off when Rush Limbaugh came on.

For the next half hour or so, I listened in horrified fascination as the right-wing blowhard waxed eloquently in defense of the Massachusetts town-hall moonbat who marched into Barney Frank's Q-and-A armed with a picture of Barack Obama sporting a Hitler moustache, then asked the Jewish congressman why he was supporting "Nazi policies."

Really.

IN THE LONG, strange acid trip that is the Great Conservative Meltdown, bad behavior constitutes not being over the top and offensive but, instead, being offended by over-the-top offensiveness.

Normally, I am not a Barney Frank fan. Today, I am.

Meanwhile, in Las Vegas, here's what happened to a Jewish man from Israel when he talked to a reporter about his admiration for that country's national health-care system:

I'm telling you, something is very, very wrong here. Mass insanity wrong.

Another giant of television falls

Another giant of television journalism has died -- Don Hewitt, of cancer at 86.

We know him as the founding producer of 60 Minutes on CBS, or perhaps as the producer and director of the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon debate. What is less known is that Hewitt was one of the men who helped to create television journalism, starting in 1948 as an associate director of Douglas Edwards With the News.

OR THAT, according to his CBS obituary, he was behind so much else that gave TV news its shape and character:

He was the executive producer of the first half-hour network newscast when the "CBS Evening News With Walter Cronkite" became the first to go to a 30-minute format on Sept. 2, 1963. Among Hewitt's innovations was the use of cue cards for newsreaders, the electronic version of which, the TelePrompTer, is still used today. He was the first to use "supers" - putting type in the lower third of the television screen. Another invention of Hewitt's was the film "double" - cutting back and forth between two projectors - an editing breakthrough that re-shaped television news. Hewitt also helped develop the positioning of cameras and reporters still used to cover news events, especially political conventions.

IN HIS OBIT on The Associated Press wires, there's a quote from Hewitt's memoir. This really says it all:

Hewitt often said the accepted wisdom for television news writers before “60 Minutes” was to put words to pictures. He believed that was backward.

A Sunday evening fixture, “60 Minutes” was television’s top-rated show four times, most recently in 1992-93. While no longer a regular in the top 10 in Hewitt’s later years, it was still TV’s most popular newsmagazine.

Upon the launch of “60 Minutes,” Hewitt recalled that news executive Bill Leonard told him to “make us proud.”

“Which may well be the last time anyone ever said ‘make us proud’ to anyone else in television,” he wrote in his memoir. “Because Leonard said ‘make us proud’ and not ‘make us money,’ we were able to do both, which I think makes us unique in the annals of television.”

DON HEWITT is dead. And with the passing of each member of his generation of video journalists, television comes just a little bit closer to fulfilling the dire warning about its future, sounded in 1958 by an old CBS colleague, Edward R. Murrow:

This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful.

Stonewall Jackson, who knew something about the use of weapons, is reported to have said, "When war comes, you must draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." The trouble with television is that it is rusting in the scabbard during a battle for survival.

Angry, unbalanced . . . and armed

Welcome to a little exhibit I'm curating. I call it Art by Nuts.

During this age of the Great Conservative Freakout -- after the nation has elected its first African-American president amid a historic economic meltdown and as Congress attempts reform of the nation's broken health-care system -- my exhibit covers some of the "popular" political art found in right-wing crevasses and cubby holes all across the Internet.

Vilifying our political opponents is an American tradition of long standing. Ask Alexander Hamilton, who got himself shot dead in a duel with Aaron Burr. Or Abraham Lincoln, gunned down by a Confederate sympathizer at the end of a four-year national bloodletting.

Thing is, we're not even the worst of the world's political animals. Ask your average Iraqi . . . between suicide bombings.

But we are fallen humans, predisposed to bad behavior. We also are masters, coming from tens of thousands of years of practice, at trumping up reasons to justify our bad behavior.

AND JUDGING by the reasons the American right is manufacturing at present -- reasons based on who conservatives presume President Obama to be as opposed to any real grievances they might have, being that the man scarcely has had time to "wrong" them yet -- I shudder to think of what bad behavior some unhinged zealots might find themselves capable.

Let me just put it out there: Given the extreme rhetoric being pumped out by the demagogic likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, the health-insurance profiteers industry, the "Birthers" and those behind the "tea party" movement, I fear for the president's safety.

Zealots and nuts are always looking for self-righteous excuses to act badly, and any number of people on the American right are dishing them out by the bushel.

See the yahoo to the left. He's outside an Obama town hall meeting in New Hampshire -- packing heat and carrying a sign referencing a Thomas Jefferson's quote from 1787:

And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

THE PISTOL-PACKIN' PROTESTER downloaded his sign, advertised as a "Tea Party Poster," from Restore the Republic.com. Nice . . . "I'm pissed about taxes, we elected a black guy president . . . let's throw a revolution!"


I wonder what Jefferson would have thought of the Civil War.

From 1861 to 1865, the tree of liberty got a good drenching from the blood of 620,000 Union and Confederate dead. Note that the Gatling gun wasn't invented until 1861 and saw only extremely limited use by the Union army in that conflict. Now we have tanks, roadside bombs, anthrax and ordinary "citizens" legally packing around their own miniaturized, high-tech "Gatling guns."

I bet if we tried nowadays, we could water a whole damned "Liberty forest."

All over higher taxes on the rich and "socialized medicine."

What we have here is not a failure to communicate, as Strother Martin famously said and some now suggest, but instead a significant segment of American conservatism communicating quite clearly that it has lost its f***ing mind.

All this over a Democrat president of color who scarcely has had enough time in office to good and piss them off. As I said, I shudder to think what some Rush Limbaugh fanatic or World Net Daily whack job might try when they are good and pissed off.

I shudder because the unhinged right has been anything but coy. Look at my gallery of political "art." Look at the picture of the well-armed New Hampshire protester.


LOOK AT THIS Associated Press story today about the kinds of conservative nuts drawn to an Obama speech in Phoenix:

About a dozen people carrying guns, including one with a military-style rifle, milled among protesters outside the convention center where President Barack Obama was giving a speech Monday — the latest incident in which protesters have openly displayed firearms near the president.

Gun-rights advocates say they're exercising their constitutional right to bear arms and protest, while those who argue for more gun control say it could be a disaster waiting to happen.

Phoenix police said the gun-toters at Monday's event, including the man carrying an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle slung over his shoulder, didn't need permits. No crimes were committed, and no one was arrested.

The man with the rifle declined to be identified but told The Arizona Republic that he was carrying the assault weapon because he could. "In Arizona, I still have some freedoms," he said.

Phoenix police Detective J. Oliver, who monitored the man at the downtown protest, said police also wanted to make sure no one decided to harm him.

"Just by his presence and people seeing the rifle and people knowing the president was in town, it sparked a lot of emotions," Oliver said. "We were keeping peace on both ends."

(snip)

Fred Solop, a Northern Arizona University political scientist, said the incidents in New Hampshire and Arizona could signal the beginning of a disturbing trend.

"When you start to bring guns to political rallies, it does layer on another level of concern and significance," Solop said. "It actually becomes quite scary for many people. It creates a chilling effect in the ability of our society to carry on honest communication."

He said he's never heard of someone bringing an assault weapon near a presidential event. "The larger the gun, the more menacing the situation," he said.

I CAN IMAGINE that more than a couple of these whack jobs of the überright, with no sense of irony, count among their carefully nurtured grievances the fact that the president is an "apostle of the culture of death." In other words, he's an active supporter of legalized abortion.

But what they fail to understand is they already have dehumanized -- in their hearts, in their minds and in their rhetoric -- the already-born Barack Obama just as much as the most ardent Planned Parenthood activist has dehumanized the tiniest human embryo.

To them, the president -- or all "liberals," for that matter -- aren't fellow human beings, much less fellow Americans or their figurative brothers and sisters. (Brothers and sisters? That's crazy commerniss talk!) They are "socialists" and "communists."

And we all remember from the Cold War days what we do with communists and socialists, don't we?

It's the stuff of vile dehumanization and objectification. It's just like an abortionist calling a fetus the "products of conception," because it's a lot easier to take a human life if you can plausibly deny its humanity.


ALREADY, too many conservative critics of the president have murdered him in their hearts and with their words. I think Jesus, Whom many of these folk claim to follow, may have had something to say about their tactics:

21
"You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, 'You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment.'
22
But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment, and whoever says to his brother, 'Raqa,' will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, 'You fool,' will be liable to fiery Gehenna.
23
Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you,
24
leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift.
25
Settle with your opponent quickly while on the way to court with him. Otherwise your opponent will hand you over to the judge, and the judge will hand you over to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison.
26
Amen, I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny.
27
"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.'
28
But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
29
If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body thrown into Gehenna.
30
And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body go into Gehenna.

THE CHOICE LIES with conservatives during this uneasy stretch of American history.

They can stop the madness and withdraw from the abyss. Or, some particularly unbalanced few of them might decide to move from "murder in the heart" to something a bit more bold.

In that horrifying event, chances are we'll all find ourselves amid the hottest flames of Gehenna.

I live in Omaha. . . .

I live in Omaha . . .






. . . because it's photogenic.

If only he'd stayed forever young

If only Bob Dylan had stayed forever young, maybe the New Jersey cops would have recognized who the hell they were about to run in.

As it is, a scruffy looking old man walking through a neighborhood is enough to cause homeowners to freak out and have cops ready to arrest America's greatest living songwriter for vagrancy. Ironic that this story breaks on the 40th anniversary of Woodstock.

The hippies grew up, got sober -- more or less -- sold out . . . and now we're almost arresting freakin' Bob Dylan for being a bum. Kind of like how Omaha cops have been known to harass church ladies for feeding the animals homeless in a downtown park.

Thing is, the theory -- an entirely reasonable one -- some folks float in this ABC News story about why Dylan was in that particular Jersey neighborhood is kind of sweet:

Was Bob Dylan looking for the home where Bruce Springsteen wrote "Born to Run" in 1974 when he was detained by police near the Jersey shore last month?

The 68-year-old music legend was picked up one Thursday last month by a 24-year-old cop who failed to recognize him as he walked the streets of Long Branch, N.J. in the pouring rain.

It may have been as simple as it appears: Dylan told police he was talking a walk and looking at a home for sale.

But the area where Dylan was picked up was just a couple blocks from the beachside bungalow where Bruce Springsteen wrote the material for his landmark 1975 album "Born to Run."

In the past nine months, Dylan has visited the childhood homes of Neil Young and John Lennon, in both cases appearing without fanfare and barely identifying himself after he was recognized.

Last November, Winnipeg homeowner John Kiernan told Sun Media's Simon Fuller that Dylan and a friend arrived unannounced in a taxi to his Grosvenor Ave. home, where songwriter Neil Young grew up.

Dylan, Kiernan said, was unshaved and had the brim of his hat pulled down over his head. He asked for a look inside and inquired about Young's bedroom and where he would have played his guitar.

Dylan has shown a deep affinity for the Canadian rocker over the years, most recently in his 2001 song "Highlands." And Young said at a Nashville concert in 2005 that he once lent Dylan one of his most precious musical treasures -- Hank Williams' guitar, for which Young wrote the ballad "This Old Guitar." Both men revere Williams, a country music legend.

In May, Dylan joined a public tour of John Lennon's childhood home, according to the BBC. A spokeswoman for the National Trust, which runs the home as London landmark, said Dylan "took one of our general minibus tours.

"People on the minibus did not recognize him apparently," the spokeswoman told the British news agency. "He could have booked a private tour, but he was happy to go on the bus with everyone else."

(snip)

While it remains unclear whether Dylan was looking for Springsteen's old home in this case, and he never mentioned that he was to Buble, the description that the Winnipeg homeowner gave of Dylan when the singer visited Neil Young's home last year was similar Buble's story.

"So these guys were standing at the front of the house about to get back into their taxi,'' Kiernan, the homeowner, said of Dylan and his friend in Canada. "I noticed he was wearing these expensive-looking leather pants tucked inside these world-class boots. Then I studied his face and tried to keep cool."

It was Bob Dylan, who'd grown up just over the U.S./Canadian border, in Hibbing, Minn., Kiernan said.

"When he said, 'Would Neil have looked out this window when he played his guitar?'," said Kiernan, "I realized what a spiritual experience he was having at that moment, knowing that he would have been doing the same thing at the same time in Minnesota.

GEEZ. Where's Chris Crocker when you need him?

Britney, hell. LEAVE BOB DYLAN ALONE!

3 Chords & the Truth: Aquarian flashback

During the Age of Aquarius, Uncle Favog was the coolest cat I knew.

He drove the coolest VW microbus, he wore the coolest beads, and he had the coolest bell bottoms adorned with the coolest peace-and-love patches.

Uncle Favog protested the war, expanded his mind and got all the groovy chicks. And he played groovy music all night on Radio Free Omaha . . . master of his own fate (at least so long as he didn't cause The Man to come down on the station, bourgeois capitalist convention being what it was, man) and host of 3 Chords & the Truth. This present 3 Chords & the Truth on the Internets is a tribute to that wonderful show of Uncle Favog's four decades ago on the FM airwaves.

Remember when FM was hip, cool, happenin' and now?

Didn't think you did.

ANYWAY, I was rummaging through a box of old reel-to-reel tapes, and I came up with this Big Show gem from 40 years ago this week. Anybody remember what was going on then?

Yeah, you may have seen the news stories featuring aging hippies remembering a certain "happening" in New York state. Uncle Favog, though, would not have been one of them.

Oh, of course he's an aging hippie, but he also was right here in Omaha, playing the musical "guru" as he spun the righteous tunes over the Radio Free Omaha airwaves.

Back in the day . . . when we had problems, but still held out hope, all the while groovin' to the music that could move our souls.

It was -- and is -- 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

The father of modern music, more or Les

In the beginning of music -- and recording -- as we know it today, there was Les Paul. That's all you need to know.

Oh . . . and he was a hell of guitar player, too.

Les Paul died Thursday at 94, leaving behind an entire world of music as his legacy. Not bad for your life's work. Not bad at all.

May God rest his soul.

'This could be Guatemala'

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Opponents of the health-care "reform" in Congress are correct when they portray it as a mess.

The Congressional Budget Office is probably correct when it says the plan won't contain costs.

And for anyone who cares about the value of unborn human life, the plan is a non-starter if it isn't going to keep in place the strictures against federal funding of abortion.

But faced with scenes like these from Los Angeles this week, the conservative opponents' alternative to our present logistical and moral nightmare would be . . . ? It is obvious to the world that America's present health-care delivery system is a broken, bureaucratic mess.

IT IS EQUALLY CLEAR that medical rationing is going on now, with no government meddling to blame. For the "lucky" insured, this rationing goes on at the corporate level -- at the insurance companies. And the motive isn't "cost-control," it's profit maximization.

On a societal level, rationing goes on when the uninsured just don't go to the doctor or dentist. A wildly unsuccessful scheme -- unless they croak before someone can get them to an insanely expensive emergency room to deal with a problem that could have been dealt with much more cheaply before it became a full-blown crisis.

Lots of nations in the Western world have health-care systems that work, and work well. You'd think someone might study those and pick one -- France, for example, ranked No. 1 in the world -- and set about creating an American version of it.

PROPOSE THAT, however, and you'll get called an idiot and a socialist by the outraged right (a group which seems not to be taking advantage of all its insurers' mental-health benefits).

Then again, I'd rather be an idiot socialist that to look at scenes like those broadcast tonight on the NBC Nightly News and be just fine with that.

You can get anything you want . . . .

I've been scarce around these cyberparts, off fighting another skirmish in the ongoing war against cyberobsolescence. Mine.

Or, more precisely, my computer's.

A flat-screen monitor Mrs. Favog and I found at an estate sale for $40 suddenly decided the other day to follow its former owner to the Great Beyond. Or to Florida -- whatever.

Having been burned by our quest to get some LCD magic for (next to) nothing, my better half and I trekked to Nebraska Furniture Mart in search of some brand-new monitor goodness . . . some 22-inch widescreen goodness. As if we had a choice.

Computer-monitor makers still might be cranking out 4x3 displays these days, but the Mart and Best Buy weren't selling them. When in Rome, and all that, you know.

And I love me some wide-format computing. You used to have to hook up multiple monitors to get this kind of virtual workspace.

And the picture. . . . oh, dear me, can a Blu-Ray burner for the old Dell be far behind?

OF COURSE, being that we're talking computers -- particularly 4-year-old ones -- you know the path to widescreen goodness had to be a bumpy one. Very. The road to planned obsolescence is never an Autobahn experience for the poor consumer, who just wants a lot for a little.

Like me and that estate-sale flat-screen.

First, the fargin' integrated video controller, I discover when I hook up the new monitor, wouldn't support widescreen monitors. So everything had that funhouse-mirror look -- the video version of getting the news from home via a phone call from Mama.

Well, I figured that might happen. So I head down to Best Buy to get me an inexpensive video card. Excuse me . . . graphics card.

I can put it in. I can put anything in a computer. Hell, since we got our first one in 1993, I've replaced everything there is to replace inside a computer tower except the power supply and motherboard.

But there's a problem. My Dell Dimension 3000, which I didn't think was that old or decrepit . . . is. And it features an undersized (by today's standards) 250-watt power supply. Most video -- er, graphics -- cards won't give you a crappy black-and-white kinescope view of the world for under 350-watts of the Omaha Public Power District's finest.

ON THE OTHER HAND, it might cause your computer to melt down.

And not only that, most of the graphics cards Dell says are compatible with my model of computer most certainly aren't compatible with the tiny-ass power supply they put in my computer. Power supply, anyone?

To go along with the new monitor and a new video -- OK, graphics, GRAPHICS!!! -- card.

What was a $40 estate-sale bargain so far had turned into a $192 Nebraska Furniture Mart shopping trip. It was threatening to ring up another $65 for a video card and at least that much for a bigger power supply.

Face it, if we all had to constantly rebuild our automobiles just to be allowed on the Interstate, we'd all be taking the bus. But that's the "world of personal computing" in a world that eats the computer-deprived for lunch.

AFTER A DAY of back and forth on the graphics-card issue, I opened up the Dell to see who was full of it -- the folks in Round Rock, Tejas, and their system specs and upgrade recommendations, or . . . the folks in Round Rock, Tejas, who maybe put more power supply in my "old" Dimension 3000 than I thought.

As it turns out, the folks in Round Rock, Tejas, were full of it. And they did put a puny 250-watt power supply in the computer . . . as promised. And it looked like not just any off-the-shelf power supply would fit in that thing.

And it looked like the only place I'd find a graphics card that wouldn't suck up more juice than old Dell could give was online. Trouble is, I was sick of messing with the damned thing -- which was lying half taken apart on the dining-room table.

So we went to the one place in town that carried a 250-watt card and happily paid too much for it. And here I sit, in widescreen bliss . . . $250-odd poorer.

BUT THIS ISN'T about my computer.

It's about how the city of Omaha has gutted the public library system -- and is about to gut God knows what else -- all because some loud taxpayers, and some feckless city council members, think you can run a city on $40 estate-sale, flat-screen computer monitors and not have to pay the piper at some point.

It's about how folks still expect the city to cut, cut and cut some more even when the budgetary fat is gone and the muscle ain't looking so good anymore.

It's about how cops aren't being hired, one library branch will close for the rest of the year (at least) while others slash their hours (and staff) and youth-recreation programs in poor neighborhoods are being axed (great combination, eh?) all because a bunch of loud-mouthed, right-wing yahoos are raising holy hell from somewhere east of Eden and west of the 'hood. Because it would just be completely scandalous and unreasonable to expect people who live in $100,000 houses to pay $25 more a year in property tax.

From the Omaha World-Herald on Wednesday:

Although libraries and other services drew strong support, Festersen said he thought the common theme for many average citizens was their opposition to tax increases.

Council members are cool to Suttle's proposed entertainment tax and property tax hike, and they are looking for ways to cut spending further. They are set to vote on the budget Sept. 1.

Suttle and the council face a projected $11 million shortfall next year. The mayor also is trying to close a $12 million revenue gap in the current budget.

The hearing followed weeks of bad news on the city budget: The temporary closing of Florence Library, and cuts in library hours at other branches. Layoffs of 130 civilian employees. The grounding of the police helicopter for the rest of the year. Swimming pools closing early for the season.

Earlier Tuesday, Suttle announced furloughs in the Mayor's Office, saying all members of his staff will take eight unpaid leave days before the end of the year.

(snip)

Doug Kagan, chairman of the Nebraska Taxpayers for Freedom, urged the council to cut spending.

“Don't tell us about sacred cows that cannot be touched. Sacred cows make the best hamburger,” Kagan said.

IT SEEMS we have a couple of dynamics at work here in the "don't tax you, don't tax me" contingent.

One group wants a really great computer monitor but sees no real need to pay for it. The other, exemplified by the Nebraska Grumblers for Screw You, already has a computer monitor and figures a Big Chief tablet is good enough for everybody else.

The common good is not a popular notion these days. Obviously.

Which brings us back to, you guessed it . . . computers. In Wednesday's Omaha paper. Really.

Florence is part of northeast Omaha, lying within an area bounded by the Missouri River, Redick Avenue, 45th Street and the Washington County line. It includes the Ponca Hills area.

The decision to close the library has upset residents of all ages.

Teresa Miller, 20, and her brother Jonas, 15, were checking out story and music CDs when they heard the news Tuesday.

“That's weird to close a library,” Jonas said. “I mean, you need books, right?”

It never occurred to Teresa that her childhood library had a shortage of customers. She said the Florence library probably has fewer visitors because it is smaller than most branches.

“I like the small things,” she said, adding that she's frustrated that she'll have to use more gas to drive to a different branch.

For Craig and Deborah Johnson, a stroll to their public library is a family affair they hate to see end.

As a reporter approached the couple, they already were asking, why Florence?

“Things are going downhill real fast,” said Craig. “A snowball effect.”

Both he and his wife have been laid off from jobs as, respectively, equipment operator and office clerk. Tuesday, the couple walked to the library — their 2-year-old and 6-year-old in tow — to search for employment via library computers. The little ones also signed on to a computer.

The older Johnson children use the library as well, often taking a break to go across the hall to play basketball or participate in some other activity at the Florence recreation center. A senior center also is in the complex that contains the library.

Paying for bus fare to go elsewhere is an expense the Johnsons said they didn't need.

Hartline on Tuesday was at the senior center arranging a volunteer visit. She is a frequent library customer and also stops weekly at the post office a few blocks away.

“It's very upsetting,” said Hartline. “We are just as deserving of community facilities as any other part of Omaha.”

SURE YOU ARE. But Doug Kagan would rather you have this really cool $40 estate-sale, flat-screen computer monitor.

Just don't expect him to throw in a couple of bucks toward fixing it.

Tempus fugit, man

I came upon a child of god
He was walking along the road
And I asked him, where are you going
And this he told me
I'm going on down to Yasgur's farm
I'm going to join in a rock n roll band
I'm going to camp out on the land
I'm going to try an get my soul free

We are stardust
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

-- Joni Mitchell

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