Last (re)call for alcohol!

You want to know why reporters drink?

It's because the jackasses they often have to cover make their brains hurt, and alcohol helps to deaden the pain. A little.

Take the Omaha World-Herald's Maggie O'Brien, for instance. She covers city government . . . and the people who try to blow up city government whenever they get in a toot about something. Usually, it's taxes.

LOOK AT what the poor girl has to deal with daily. If she's not at The Dubliner swilling black-and-tans right now, she's a totally amazing woman:

A group exploring the possibility of recalling Omaha Mayor Jim Suttle has launched a website that will take donations.

The site, mayorsuttlerecall.com, was launched Tuesday. Organizers said donations will be accepted online by Tuesday afternoon.

Last month, the Mayor Suttle Recall Committee announced it had raised $5,000 by Aug. 17, triggering the group to file with the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission. The group plans to take out recall affidavits later this month.

IN CASE you've not apprehended the irony here, let me help.

The Mayor Suttle Recall Committee wants people who allegedly are so strapped that they can't pay another farthing in any kind of a tax -- no matter how dire the city's financial situation -- to donate money to them to recall the mayor. For raising taxes.

Because we're all broke.

But not too broke to give what you'd likely spend in higher taxes to a bunch of well-off cranks and cynics to blow up city government because you don't want to pay higher taxes.

Because you're broke.

Destitute. A $15 wheel-tax hike from losing your car to the repo guy, losing your house to the bank and being reduced to wandering the streets of River City filling a hijacked grocery cart with castoff aluminum cans -- which you desperately hope you can turn into enough cash to buy a Big Mac and a Budweiser tall boy.

JUST REMEMBER this one important thing, all ye poor, desperate, taxed-into-nothingness wretches of Omaha:

If you are concerned about having your name attached to the recall, donations of $249.00 or less do NOT have to be reported to the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission.

Now, a word from our contestants

If you think you're having a bad day, think again.

You could be a participant in the cattle judging at the Nebraska State Fair, trying to send out telepathic waves to everyone you encounter -- mental images that impart a simple message:

Eat mor chikin.

Because for a cow at the state fair, if you win, you lose.

ON THE other hand, life at the fair ain't exactly a bowl of cherries for the sheep, either.

They get paraded around. They get stretched. They get lambhandled by teenagers.

They get poked, pulled, prodded, gawked at and ogled.

All they want to say is "Hey, you @#&%+*$! Go pick on somebody your own size! Some creature with opposable thumbs and a discernible IQ! Leave. Me. Alone."

But can the sheep say that? No, they can't.

They try, but all that comes out is "BAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

And you think you're having a crap-o day, huh, Bunkie?

IN THE WORDS of that great philosopher Travis Tritt, "Here's a quarter. Call someone who cares."

We are Midwesterners. We have perspective. Now, get away from me before I make you march behind the draft horses. Blindfolded.

And barefoot.

IT'LL HAVE to be next year, though, for the state fair has ended its 2010 run at its new home out in Grand Island.

Pray for Bossie. And for Beauregard, too.

And remember . . . eat mor chikin.

The hit record labels missed

Here is the story of a crime that led to an impassioned soliloquy from the victim's brother that led to the most awesomest use of Auto-Tune ever (OK, the one awesome use of Auto-Tune ever) that led to one of the awesomest viral videos ever that led to an iTunes single that led to . . . the Billboard Hot 100.

Outstanding!

Is this a great country or what? I mean, great if you don't have to live in the projects, which I'm hoping Antoine Dodson's family will be able to leave with all the money to be made on the "Bed Intruder Song."

Oh . . . I hereby pronounce record labels irrelevant. That is all.

Of crackers and s***holes

S***hole isn't a geological process.

S***hole is a state of mind that -- eventually -- becomes a geographical reality.

That's my explanation for places like St. Helena Parish, La., and I'm sticking to it. And, frankly, all the evidence is on my side.

Last week, I noted the parish's crumbling -- no, literally crumbling -- schools. That goes along with already collapsed educational achievement, refusal of voters to financially support the school system and how they are content to warehouse students, 95.5 percent of whom are black, under conditions that would get someone cited for animal cruelty if it were dogs we were talking about.

Let me clarify -- animal cruelty anywhere else in these United States apart from Louisiana.

Earlier, I cited this as an example of Tea Party America, which it is. I didn't hit the racial angle hard, because I couldn't be sure, despite my suspicions as a Louisiana native.

One thing is clear, though. Whites, who make up about half the parish's population, abandoned the public schools at some point during the federally mandated racial-integration life cycle in St. Helena, which has been going on for 57 years now. Fifty-seven years!

Same thing happened in my hometown, Baton Rouge. Its federal desegregation case dragged on nearly that long. And by the time it was put to rest, it was pointless; there weren't enough whites left to "desegregate" much of anything.

OF COURSE, the argument goes that taxpayers refuse to see their tax dollars be flushed down the toilet of a dysfunctional school system, long on corruption and short on results. Is that the "chicken" part or the "egg" part of the whole "What came first?" argument?

And no matter how much these spiritual children of Leander Perez and Willie Rainach protest it's "not racial," it's clear it all boils down to "Nigger ain't getting no tax money." When you hear Louisiana people -- or most Americans, actually -- protest long and loudly that something's not about race . . . it's all about race.

And where the news coverage of the sad state of St. Helena schools (and a federal judge's mulling whether to raise school taxes there by decree) left some doubt concerning motivations, the comments box doesn't. People can restrain themselves only for so long.

Then true colors start to show. As does the attitude that "liberals" are just ignorant if they can't see why the racist position is the utterly logical one.

Saturday's article in The Advocate went like this:

A federal judge is scheduled to try on Wednesday to sort out what to do about St. Helena Parish’s dilapidated public schools.

Reports from three state agencies and an architect show that the problems with the buildings go deeper than the cosmetic blemishes visible to a visitor.

Likewise, difficulties between the school system and the community, which is almost equally divided racially, are also deep-rooted, say people involved in the case.

U.S. Census Bureau statistics show that the population of the parish is 51.3 percent black and 47.8 percent white. A walk through the halls of St. Helena Central High School shows few white faces.

The population of the parish’s public schools is 95 percent black, Superintendent of Schools Daisy Slan said in an interview.

Voters have rejected four school-improvement property tax proposals in three years, and race is playing an issue, according to a court filing submitted by School Board attorney Nelson Taylor.

“The white community not only abandoned the public school system physically, it withdrew its financial support as well,” Taylor wrote in requesting the judge to order a pair of taxes put in place without a vote of the electorate.

One of the proposed property taxes would pay to put the wages of St. Helena teachers and staff on par with their counterparts in neighboring parishes. The other tax would fund a bond issue to build new schools.

Alton Travis, who is one of two white members of the six-member St. Helena School Board, said the board is split on the issue of whether a federal judge should impose new taxes by court order. Travis said he opposes the idea.

Nelson’s implication that white voters alone are killing school tax proposals is wrong, Travis said.

The majority of the parish’s population is black and about 60 percent of the people voting have opposed an additional school tax, he said.

“The board attorney makes this tax issue appear to be a racial issue and it’s not,” Travis said.

THEN the Baton Rouge paper went on to report this:

Asked about the matter, attorney Jonathan “Jay” Augustine, who made the request, said his main objective is to get St. Helena students into a better environment and “to give the court more options, not less.”

The tax issue also will be on the table during Wednesday’s hearing.

One of the taxes the School Board is asking the judge to order, without a vote by the electorate, is a 62.3-mill property tax to increase employee salaries, which Slan said are well below those of surrounding parishes. The second is a tax large enough to fund $27.5 million in new school construction.

“I’m totally against a tax without a vote,” Travis, one of the two white School Board members, said.

Travis said that while he doesn’t dispute the need for improvements in the schools, he thinks the imposition of a tax without a vote of the people “is wrong.”

Taylor, the School Board attorney, said in an interview there is “reasonable precedent” for a federal judge to give the School Board authority to levy such a tax.

The school system doesn’t have the funds to operate schools that provide students a safe place in which to learn, the School Board attorney said.

“Public schools require public support,” Taylor said.

Without the support of the most influential voters in the parish, there isn’t much of a chance of a school tax gaining approval in parishwide balloting, he said.

Most of the white population left the school system after schools were desegregated in the 1960s, Taylor said.

FUNNY, isn't it, how it's "wrong" to impose taxes without a vote, but it's perfectly OK for whites to abandon public schools en masse, then be the linchpin of a withdrawal of public support for those same public schools?

Alton Travis is damned lucky I'm not on the federal bench in Baton Rouge. It would not go well for the good, white Christian people of St. Helena Parish.

Why? For that answer, let's go to the Advocate's comments section.

Boilerroom53 kicks things off by sticking to the "race is not an issue" party line:

Race is not an issue Mr. Taylor. As a proud resident of St. Helena parish who also happens to be white, I am in the minority in this parish. A majority of voters are required to pass the taxes which have repeatedly been voted down over the past three years. I would remind you that insanity is defined by doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. It is clear that the people of our parish are not in favor of a property tax to fund the school system. Perhaps another and more equitable tax should be considered rather than simply placing the same property tax before the voters again. It is alarming that this property tax which has been voted down by a majority of people may simply be imposed by a single judge over the will of the voters.

MR. ROOM (Mr. 53?) may think this argument is novel. I heard the same 40 years ago when the "tyrannical" federal judge ordered neighborhood schools as a desegregation plan.

We have a republic, not a mobocracy. Minorities have rights, and white folks can't do whatever they want by majority vote.

But at least we don't have to endure the facade of faux enlightenment for long. Truth1 says what he or she (it?) really thinks. And remember, boys and girls, raseizm maykez yew smrot:

Taxation w/o representation??? Sounds familiar dont it. Also proves whites dont want to associate w/blacks... why do you think that might be??? School taxes should be put on property by the state w/the proceeds alocated to the school boards by student population. Also shows the blacks are not a self sustaining culture w/o dragging down other peoples w/them... both economicly & socialy. We no longer have a sustainable civilization in this country. Degenerative diversity is destroying our civilization.

TommyRucker tries a more sophisticated approach, however. I call this the "Black Folk Tear S*** Up" gambit:

The real issue is that the schools are TRASHED. Why should people give up their little hard earned money when pupils and students are NOT taking care of the school property. Most of the tax money is going into the hands of employees, teachers and administrators as they have unbelievable PERKS. People will support systems that are well run and when they TRUST that their tax money is not going to be WASTED. Many of these school administrators allow their schools to be trashed so they can use them politically to gain PERSONALLY. Many of these "educators" are using these kids as that is what demagogues have always done, they USE members of the MOB to enrich themselves personally and blame their failures on someone else (a scapegoat). They have learned well from other demagogues as they practice the principles that characterize demagogues.

AND ON . . . and on . . . and on it goes:

daisy/scarlet

Looks like we need to introduce another "option" for the Judge Brady....what if the school was cleaned up...really cleaned....doesn't look like the problems are all structural....maybe the janitorial staff needs to be replaced with a few maintenance employees and people who know that their job is to clean. Many of the problems look to be cleanliness related....hmmmm....not popular....wonder why? And, what does the state say about the condition of the middle school that was taken over? Are they complaining, too? I haven't heard anything from them about this. Didn't they just take over this last year or two? It might be worth it if Judge Brady imposed a tax, dismissed all of the St. Helena School Staff - supt. to custodian - and replaced them with staff that worked and operated like Livingston or Zachary educators. I'm certain there would be instructional improvement even if the kids had to remaiin in the old schools.

silverrose

The La Dept of Ed website reports the parish gets $10,076.00 per student compared to the state average of $9,781.00 for 2008-2009 school year. And if you do the math, it comes to $12,000,000 plus just as previously commented on. This is additionally shocking when you see that Livingston and Tangi schools got $8220.00 and $8229.00 per pupil. The question is where is this money going? By their own admission, St Helena teachers are paid less than surrounding parishes. It certainly isn't going to the facilities as evidenced by inspections of the buildings. So, one is left to wonder how much is being paid to the "non-teaching" staff and what is the relationship of these people to members of the parish school board. The race card is a red herring to deflect attention away from how the funds are being used. A child has one chance at an education and if the local public school is unable to provide it year after year, responsible parents have to look at alternatives. Address the issue of a quality education and this school will have the support of the parish.

bluedogdemocrat

The St. Helena School System (the only parish of all parishes with only three schools to take care of) situation is nothing new. Let's sum it up, timber is the only tax base in a parish with one red light, high minority population, low socio-economic background, ignorance, corruption, vote buying from my understanding including not passing a tax, flight to Tangipahoa and Livingston. As with anything, it has come to a catharsis, a climax after the rising action, to a halt... These conditions didn't start, it is a combination of poor management and an eroding tax base unwilling to pay for the ignorant fieldhands caring only for Hawks football.

newzjunkie

Mr. Taylor wants a federal judge to impose a tax that a vote of the people failed to approve?! Obviously another Southern Law graduate who fell asleep during the Constitutional law class. We fought a little thing called the Revolutionary War over this issue, counselor. Face it. Until the voters of St. Helena take responsibility for the education and future of their children, they remain doomed to live in an environment of welfare, unwed motherhood and incarceration. Then again, it's easier for some to play the race card and blame everyone but those who live the welfare mentality. The majority of parish voters, regardless of race, are obviously tired of their tax dollars being flushed into a system that seems (and likely is) helpless and hopeless. Build all the new schools you want in the parish. Come back in three years and they'll look like a bomb hit them. Can you imagine what a day at that high school must be like? Dixon Correctional likely has fewer problems.

CAN YOU IMAGINE what a day living in St. Helena Parish must be like? Life in a Third World country likely would seem like an improvement over such a gigantic s***hole.

The last out

That's it.

The Omaha Royals played their last home game of the season Thursday night, and that means those of us who were at Rosenblatt Stadium saw the last baseball game played at the beloved old ballyard.

Ever.

After 62 years and thousands and thousands of games, Rosenblatt will be torn down, and the baseball legacy of Omaha will shift to the new downtown T.D. Ameritrade Park.

But we Omahans have spent a lot of the big moments of our lives in that old stadium on the hill, and there a piece of our heart will remain.

And as longtime groundskeeper Jesse Cuevas told the crowd Thursday -- in ceremonies after the last out had been made -- they can tear down Rosenblatt, but it will stand forever in our memories.




Goodbye, old friend.

3 Chords & the Truth: Summer's last blast

Think of this episode of the Big Show as the last fling of summer. It is Labor Day weekend, after all.

But it's more than that.

It's a party, a celebration of all that's ending -- summer, for one . . . can't you feel the first chill of fall in the air? But around these parts, here in Omaha, we've also just had a hell of a wake for our old ballyard, Rosenblatt Stadium.

WE DID our crying Thursday night at the last game -- an Omaha Royals win over Round Rock -- and now, what with the holiday and all, we at 3 Chords & the Truth just want to party like it's . . . Labor Day.

Duh. What'd you think I was going to say? 1999?

No thinking allowed this week. And after last week''s pensive edition of the show, it's just time to jam. And groove. And tap your foot.

Party on , Garth. And try not to get sunburned.

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

When a D+ equals an epic fail

Never, ever hire a design firm from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to do an important job.

And remember from this Associated Press story, children, that the only possible PR spin for an Iowa-sized screw-up is "Boy! Are we dumb or what? We must have signed off on this before we went into rehab for our meth addiction."

Leaders at the Des Moines school say regardless of how people react, they are reacting and that's what they wanted to accomplish.The Des Moines Register reported Friday that Drake hired [a] Cedar Rapids-based company to help develop the new "Drake Advantage" recruitment campaign. The university recently unveiled it to prospective students through brochures and its website.

Drake spokesman Tom Delahunt says while the "D+" comes across as a grade at first glance, it's meant to represent all the opportunities Drake offers students.

YEAH, that's the ticket. Opportunities. Right.

Terry Bradshaw: My Hero

The nut from the north

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Who's America's biggest political rock star right now?

Who's the woman good Christian people are counting on to swoop in and make America more good . . . and Christian?

Why, it's an unhinged dingbat diva with a violent temper, a reputation for ruining people who get on her expansive bad side and a growing army of brownshirts to help her do it. It's kind of like if Richard Nixon were meaner, ignorant and people were hopelessly devoted to him.

We learn all this from a blockbuster profile by Michael Joseph Gross in the latest Vanity Fair. Palinistas are calling it a hit piece; the author is saying it's anything but -- he actually wanted to like the woman and went into the story with some sympathy for her, but facts quickly dictated another narrative.

HERE'S an excerpt (and, according to Gross in the MSNBC interview above, the really shocking stuff got left out):

The intensity of Palin’s temper was first described to me in such extreme terms that I couldn’t help but wonder if it might be exaggerated, until I heard corroborating tales of outbursts dating back to her days as mayor of Wasilla and before. One friend of the Palins’ remembers an argument between Sarah and Todd: “They took all the canned goods out of the pantry, then proceeded to throw them at each other. By the time they got done, the stainless-steel fridge looked like it had got shot up with a shotgun. Todd said, ‘I don’t know why I even waste my time trying to get nice things for you if you’re just going to ruin them.’ ” This friend adds, “As soon as she enters her property and the door closes, even the insects in that house cringe. She has a horrible temper, but she has gotten away with it because she is a pretty woman.” (The friend elaborated on this last point: “Once, while Sarah was preparing for a city-council meeting, she said, ‘I’m gonna put on one of my push-up bras so I can get what I want tonight.’ That’s how she rolls.”) When Palin was mayor, she made life for one low-level municipal employee so miserable that the woman quit her job, sought psychiatric counseling, and then left the state altogether to escape Palin’s sphere of influence—this according to one person with firsthand knowledge of the situation. The woman did not want to be found. When I finally tracked her down, her husband, who answered the phone, at first pretended that I had dialed the wrong number and that the word “Wasilla” had no meaning to him. Palin’s former personal assistants all refused to comment on the record for this story, some citing a fear of reprisal. Others who have worked with Palin recall that, when she feels threatened, she does not hesitate to wield some version of a signature threat: “I have the power to ruin you.”

Palin’s public voice is an instrument of great versatility. In a few moments, she can turn from kind to hateful, rational to unhinged. At her best Palin can be folksy and pungent. But she needs outside help to give her voice its national range. For messaging strategy, Palin relies on William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, and Fred Malek, who was an aide to Presidents Richard Nixon and George H. W. Bush. The lawyer Robert Barnett, the most successful literary agent in Washington—his clients range from Hillary Clinton to Dick Cheney to Tony Blair—negotiated Palin’s reported $7 million advance for Going Rogue, and he helps oversee her speaking schedule, which is arranged by the Washington Speakers Bureau. The small inner circle that shapes Palin’s voice day to day includes lobbyist Randy Scheunemann, a director of the neoconservative think tank Project for the New American Century, who advises Palin on foreign affairs, and Kim Daniels, a lawyer with the Thomas More Law Center, which has been called “the Christian answer to the A.C.L.U.,” who advises her on domestic issues. Palin’s speechwriter is Lindsay Hayes. Doug McMarlin and Jason Recher, both of whom did advance work for George W. Bush, serve as body men and confidants. Both Hayes and Recher were on Palin’s 2008-campaign road team, and both were known for indulging her whims, according to their colleagues. (When John McCain decided to pull out of Michigan, a decision Palin disagreed with, Recher and Palin hatched a plan one day to make an early-morning drive to Michigan anyway. The Secret Service, becoming aware of the plan, asked the McCain campaign what it should do. The answer came: “Shoot out the tires.”) Campaign e-mails indicate that Recher was disrespectful of field staff and support workers. “Our volunteers don’t want to do Palin trips because of the way they are treated by Recher,” wrote one of his supervisors. Of all those who have professional relationships with Palin, only Robert Barnett is generally considered to be at the top of his game, and he is basically just cutting deals, as he would for any client.

Palin’s most unconventional hire is a novice media consultant, Rebecca Mansour, a 36-year-old Los Angeles resident who has been identified in news stories as a screenwriter. Mansour has said that she volunteered for Obama early in the 2008 campaign and then became disillusioned. Not long after the election, with Joseph Russo, a then 23-year-old college student from New Jersey, who would also go to work for Palin, she co-founded the most popular pro-Palin blog, Conservatives4Palin, known informally as C4P (and not to be confused with the “adult swingers” Web site of that name). C4P functions as a hybrid news service, discussion board, and field headquarters for a virtual army of Palin supporters, who pride themselves on brute devotion. “Who We Are and What We Stand For,” a post written by Mansour, declares, “We’re ordinary barbarians here. No one controls us. We’re a horde.” A prominent C4P contributor, Nicole Coulter, told CBS.com this summer, “We would literally walk across hot broken glass for this woman… She’s our family, and you protect your family; it’s like the mafia.”

On C4P, any journalist or public figure who questions Palin in any way is flicked off as a “creep,” a “hack,” a “loser,” a “storm trooper,” a “liar,” or as just plain “slime.” “I assumed the governor was above that,” says Jay Ramras, an Alaska state legislator who has been a frequent target of the site. “Or at least that there was a Chinese wall between her and these people. But then they crossed over—she hired them.” Mansour’s words have continued to appear on the site occasionally, even after she was formally taken on board by SarahPAC. She used to police C4P message boards for dissenters from the party line and, under the name RAM (her initials, shortened from her earlier, more descriptive handle, RAM Hammer), rip them mercilessly: “Now you are banned for life, you sick son of a bitch.” In one comment string, a woman named Sandra wrote, “I wish Sarah would tell us more about what is involved with caring for Trig. I understand there are many professionals involved in his education and training. If we knew more about this there would be more support for organizations that are involved.” Mansour shot back, “Sandra, what are you implying?,” and the comment string went dead. The nastiness on C4P exists alongside an idealization of the former governor, as displayed in the closing lines of “Who is Sarah Palin?,” an 8,000-word posting by Mansour: “C4P has your back, Governor. And when you finally ride out from the north with your banner lifted high, we’ll rally.”

Wee hav are pryareatees

Word is, Les Miles had better win nine games this season at LSU, or he might get that chance to coach at Michigan after all.

Says Peter Finney at The Times-Picayune, the booster community could be ready to come up with the cash for a big buyout:

Now one script tells us, three years after winning a national championship, after going 8-5 and 9-4, Miles needs a 9-3 regular-season record to maintain employment at LSU.

An 8-4 regular season, says one script, and the Tiger Athletic Foundation is prepared to come up with the money necessary to buy out the head coach.

COMMON KNOWLEDGE is, Tiger Nation is going to go apes*** if Les comes away with a loss against North Carolina in Hotlanta on Saturday night.

Meanwhile, buried in the pages of newspapers many Louisianians are too damned illiterate to read, is word of this little "budget exercise" Gov. Bobby Jindal is insisting LSU embark upon -- as in immediately -- to let the Capitol gang know what would have to go if, say, another $74 million disappeared from the university's annual budget.

As it turns out, lots.

But that's not important now. Getting all geared up for a snit fit that will end with the firing of their $3 million football coach is the thing weighing on Tiger fans' minds. Such as they are.

Dat's Loosiana for you: Lose 33 percent of your football games when you're "on the hot seat" three years after winning the national championship, and you're likely going to get cussed . . . and vilified . . . and have your wife called ugly names . . . and your manhood questioned . . . and be booed every Saturday night through November . . . before you're unceremoniously fired.

On the other hand, be the governor who cripples higher education with a 35-percent budget cut -- driving your state even further into a Third Worldish economic and cultural malaise -- and you're probably a sure bet to get re-elected by a wide margin.

IF EVERYTHING plays out like I suspect it will, Les Miles will be hitching up the U-Haul as he contemplates the Mega-Millions severance check he just stuffed into his billfold. And then he and Kathy will kiss, step into the Family Truckster and hit the road.

After a while on the road, as Les dodges a pothole, and then another, he'll glance at Baton Rouge in his rearview mirror. And he'll smile.

Did you know?

Know what?

Know that you can embed the Big Show on your blog or something if you really, really like it.

The things people think of on the Internets.



THAT IS ALL. Above, you'll find the latest episode, which I call "Heck of a Job." You can read about it here.

As always, it's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all.

Be there.

Aloha.

Waxing eloquent on Glo-Coat

Waded through all the gay cyber-picketers to get to the Omaha World-Herald's website so I could check out what Rainbow Rowell was writing about today.

Found the poor gal on there talking about Mad Men as she tried to clean all the rotten eggs and scrawled obscenities off the floor with Glo-Coat. A couple more protesters showed up, not having heard that the paper announced it will print notices for gay engagements and weddings from locales that recognize same-sex marriages.

Anyway, Rainbow had to stop cleaning the floor to explain that Glo-Coat was a nifty old-time floor wax -- not something one might wear to the Max on Saturday nights. The protesters left, downcast.


PERSONALLY, as a Southerner, I relate more to this Glo-Coat ad featuring Loretta Lynn . . . a famous person who actually has waxed a floor or seven in her life.

And if somebody were protesting MY publication, they might get something else. Hit it, Loretty:


BUT THAT'S not important now.

What I really want to know is what's so damned special about Glo-Coat? Why buy such a one-dimensional household product when there's a product out there that's a floor wax and a dessert topping?

The world of tomorrow!

Funny how history happens while you're waiting on the future.

Somehow, I don't think the world turned out future-perfect as "progress" might have dictated.


Still, does that stop us from daydreaming -- and loving world's fairs? Nah, not really.


And if someone, someday manages to find and resurrect an ancient server from something called "the Google," we from the ancient past salute you. Just like they did in 1939.

Yell loudly . . . and carry a big scare quote

Karl Marx's defining statement about communism, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need," demonstrates precisely the problem with what passes for politics in America today.

All we have the ability to offer is fear. Fear is the last thing anyone needs anymore.

Above, we see a bit of The Drudge Report's front page. As the right-wing news aggregator is wont to do, he's thrown in a random "scare quote" on a link to a story about President Obama's makeover of the Oval Office.

You see, the president had some favorite quotes woven around the edges of the new office rug. One -- which Drudge no doubt highlighted to highlight Obama's "socialist" bonafides (What other purpose could it serve, when you think about it?) -- was as follows:

"The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally on the welfare of all of us."

YOU MIGHT like to know who was responsible for this scary socialist saying so beloved of our scary socialist president. People like Barack Hussein Obama come from somewhere, and it's only right that you, the "real patriots" of America, deserve nothing less than the truth.

As H.L. Mencken said, "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."

Well, here you go. The identity of the scary socialist whose pinko sayings our Islamist-Communist-Socialist-Nazi-Athiest president so loves as to have them woven into the Oval Office rug is . . .

Theodore Roosevelt.

Roosevelt -- whose visage adorns Mount Rushmore along with those of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln -- said this subversive, un-American thing way back in 1903, in a speech at the New York State Agricultural Association's fair.

HERE IS an excerpt from that radical address, being that context is important . . . and that you, the common man, deserve it good and hard:

If circumstances are such that thrift, energy, industry, and forethought enable the farmer, the tiller of the soil, on the one hand, and the wage-worker on the other, to keep themselves, their wives, and their children in reasonable comfort, then the State is well off, and we can be assured that the other classes in the community will likewise prosper. On the other hand, if there is in the long run a lack of prosperity among the two classes named, then all other prosperity is sure to be more seeming than real.

It has been our profound good fortune as a nation that hitherto, disregarding exceptional periods of depression and the normal and inevitable fluctuations, there has been on the whole from the beginning of our government to the present day a progressive betterment alike in the condition of the tiller of the soil and in the condition of the man who, by his manual skill and labor, supports himself and his family, and endeavors to bring up his children so that they may be at least as well off as, and, if possible, better off than, he himself has been. There are, of course, exceptions, but as a whole the standard of living among the farmers of our country has risen from generation to generation, and the wealth represented on the farms has steadily increased, while the wages of labor have likewise risen, both as regards the actual money paid and as regards the purchasing power which that money represents.

Side by side with this increase in the prosperity of the wage-worker and the tiller of the soil has gone on a great increase in prosperity among the business men and among certain classes of professional men; and the prosperity of these men has been partly the cause and partly the consequence of the prosperity of farmer and wage-worker. It cannot be too often repeated that in this country, in the long run, we all of us tend to go up or go down together. If the average of well-being is high, it means that the average wage-worker, the average farmer, and the average business man are all alike well-off. If the average shrinks, there is not one of these classes which will not feel the shrinkage. Of course, there are always some men who are not affected by good times, just as there are some men who are not affected by bad times. But speaking broadly, it is true that if prosperity comes, all of us tend to share more or less therein, and that if adversity comes each of us, to a greater or less extent, feels the tension.

Unfortunately, in this world the innocent frequently find themselves obliged to pay some of the penalty for the misdeeds of the guilty; and so if hard times come, whether they be due to our own fault or to our misfortune, whether they be due to some burst of speculative frenzy that has caused a portion of the business world to lose its head -- a loss which no legislation can possibly supply -- or whether they be due to any lack of wisdom in a portion of the world of labor--in each case, the trouble once started is felt more or less in every walk of life.

It is all-essential to the continuance of our healthy national life that we should recognize this community of interest among our people. The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us, and therefore in public life that man is the best representative of each of us who seeks to do good to each by doing good to all; in other words, whose endeavor it is not to represent any special class and promote merely that class's selfish interests, but to represent all true and honest men of all sections and all classes and to work for their interests by working for our common country. We can keep our government on a sane and healthy basis, we can make and keep our social system what it should be, only on condition of judging each man, not as a member of a class, but on his worth as a man. It is an infamous thing in our American life, and fundamentally treacherous to our institutions, to apply to any man any test save that of his personal worth, or to draw between two sets of men any distinction save the distinction of conduct, the distinction that marks off those who do well and wisely from those who do ill and foolishly. There are good citizens and bad citizens in every class as in every locality, and the attitude of decent people toward great public and social questions should be determined, not by the accidental questions of employment or locality, but by those deep-set principles which represent the innermost souls of men.

The failure in public and in private life thus to treat each man on his own merits, the recognition of this government as being either for the poor as such or for the rich as such, would prove fatal to our Republic, as such failure and such recognition have always proved fatal in the past to other republics. A healthy republican government must rest upon individuals, not upon classes or sections. As soon as it becomes government by a class or by a section, it departs from the old American ideal.

A song for our times?

You know, change around a few lines here and there, and this Nina Simone classic could be a song for the times.

Again.

Schools aren't St. Helena's cup of tea

Welcome to Tea Party America.

When Mr. Beck goes to Washington to proclaim a Christian revival and preach the gospel of self-reliance and responsibility, in places like St. Helena Parish, La., that translates into "God helps those who help themselves." And in Louisiana, that may not mean what you think it does.

For example, in St. Helena Parish, God helps white parents who "help themselves" -- and their kids -- to private-school educations, oftentimes across the parish line. The Almighty also helps blacks -- who make up 95.1 percent of public-school enrollment despite comprising 53 percent the parish's population -- to facilities with crumbling walls, exposed wiring, filthy lunchrooms, sewer lines lying in open trenches . . . and snakes in the restroom.

Conditions are so bad that a federal judge has ordered parts of the parish's three schools cordoned off. And the state fire marshal wants fire alarms and electrical wiring fixed in 30 days.


THE PARISH'S civic culture (if you can call it that) is so dysfunctional that voters have shot down four school-tax measures in three years. This has led U.S. District Judge James J. Brady to consider raising the property tax by fiat.

Tea-party types are, of course, outraged. Not about children attending class in fetid, dangerous conditions, but instead about "taxation without representation," says the Lincoln Parish News Online blog:

St. Helena Parish is about to form a tea party to fight precisely what our forefathers fought over 200 years ago – taxation without representation. Alton Travis, a 12-year St. Helena school board member, has begun preliminary efforts to organize a group. “I’ve made some phone calls and I’m putting together a contact list,” Travis said.

Mr. Travis spoke earlier today with Lincoln Parish News Online (LPNO) from his home near Kentwood.

Last week, LPNO had reported about U. S. District Judge James Brady’s plans to impose a tax upon St. Helena residents without a vote. Brady is the former chairman of the Louisiana Democratic Party.

Travis said he has been in contact with the Baton Rouge Tea Party (BRTP) for help in organizing a group in St. Helena Parish. “I really don’t know why we’re talking about this,” said Travis in reference to taxes imposed by a judge contrary to voter’s wishes. “Things like that shouldn’t even be contemplated.”

Parish voters had previously turned down several attempts to pass new school taxes. On May 1, parish voters rejected a 55 mil property tax by a 62% margin. The tax issue has gone back over twenty years, according to Travis, and has been voted upon at least a dozen times.

Some have tried to portray a negative vote on school taxes as a racist vote, but as the parish is 52% black, it is clear that many blacks voted no on the tax. LPNO readers will recall how last fall’s defeat of a Baton Rouge tax was painted as “racist” by The (Baton Rouge) Advocate.

LEAVE IT to tea partiers to talk of "responsibility" to others while abdicating responsibility wholesale in their own back yards. The problem here is not a rogue federal judge potentially usurping beleaguered citizens' constitutional rights; the problem here is that selfish, irresponsible citizens hide behind self-government guarantees to carry out racially disproportionate child neglect, and do so with impunity.

The problem in Southern cesspools like St. Helena Parish, La., is not that the constitutional order has been usurped. The problem is that, in the wake of the Civil War, the feds ended Reconstruction about 50 years too soon.

Shame is a scarce commodity in St. Helena, and the latest story from The Advocate is proof:

A report from the fire marshal is one of three reports from state agencies citing problems in St. Helena Parish public schools.

Air vents are causing contamination in the cafeteria of St. Helena Central Elementary School, a report by the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals states.

A state Department of Environmental Quality report cites problems of asbestos, mold-like substances and ceiling leaks in parish schools.

Earlier this month, a federal judge ordered inspections and reports on the schools.

The condition of the schools has become an issue in a 57-year-old desegregation lawsuit involving the St. Helena Parish school system.

Daisy Slan, the superintendent of parish schools, said Monday afternoon she needs help — mainly in the form of modular classrooms — as quickly as possible.

She said she is trying to get contractor quotes, but doesn’t see how she can meet the Fire Marshal’s deadline.

In addition to the age and condition of the main high-school structure, Slan said, “the problem is that we have buildings scattered all across the campus.”

Some of those buildings aren’t suitable for use as classrooms in their current condition, Fire Marshal H. “Butch” Browning said Monday.

The fire alarms and electrical issues are serious problems, he said.

The high school is being allowed to continue to operate for 30 days as long as it conducts regular fire watches and keeps logs of those fire watches, Browning said.

LISTEN NOT to what Glenn Beck and Friends proclaimed on the same Lincoln Memorial steps Martin Luther King spoke from 47 years before. Watch instead what the audience to whom they pander does when no one is looking.

Like neglect its own children -- or at least black children -- leaving them to languish in rotting buildings, amid all manner of contamination and be taught by grossly underpaid teachers.

Unsurprisingly, test scores are in the toilet. Along with the snakes.

Down there in Tea Party America.

Not 'recognizing his version of Christianity'

Mighty big talk for an alcoholic Mormon former pot- and cokehead, whose religion is a mishmash of at least two of the big early-Christian heresies filtered through -- according to Joseph Smith, at least -- a resurrected ancient Indian in New York state:

Conservative commentator Glenn Beck voiced sharper criticism of President Obama's religious beliefs on Sunday than he and other speakers offered from the podium of the rally Beck organized at the Lincoln Memorial a day earlier.

During an interview on "Fox News Sunday," which was filmed after Saturday's rally, Beck claimed that Obama "is a guy who understands the world through liberation theology, which is oppressor-and-victim."

"People aren't recognizing his version of Christianity," Beck added.

THAT'S THE first part of a piece in today's Washington Post outlining exactly how much nerve the crew-cutted one possesses. But wait . . . it gets better:

Beck, on his Fox News show last Tuesday, said that liberation theology is at the core of Obama's "belief structure."

"You see, it's all about victims and victimhood; oppressors and the oppressed; reparations, not repentance; collectivism, not individual salvation. I don't know what that is, other than it's not Muslim, it's not Christian. It's a perversion of the gospel of Jesus Christ as most Christians know it," Beck said.

YEAH . . . and if Mr. Beck keeps up his cable-TV perversion of Christianity in the name of ratings, profit and politics, he may just find out that hell is a lot more permanent than his religion would have us believe.


BY THE WAY, if Hurricane Earl smacks into Washington, D.C., and drowns the whole place under a 25-foot storm surge right up the gut of the Potomac, can we assume it's because God is quite irate over Beck's little "revival"? You know, just like He wiped out New Orleans because of its debauchery.

Just asking.

. . . and if the Gulf don't rise

This is a storm surge.

This was what Katrina was like in St. Bernard Parish, La. -- Aug. 29, 2005.

This is why, when the authorities tell you to get your ass out of Dodge, you get your ass out of Dodge. And as we allow the Louisiana coastal wetlands to disappear, this is the fate awaiting some people who never took an inch of water from Katrina.

THERE ALWAYS will be another Katrina. Just like there was another Betsy, and another Camille.

And the next one just might blow through the wetlands that are no more and take out the port that delivers a third of the oil and gas to which you are currently addicted.

Happy motoring, America.

You can't make this up, people

Parody has died a horrible death, authorities say, allegedly done in by the queen of Sammy Kershaw's double-wide trailer before she hightailed it out of Vermillion Parish in a beat-up F-150.

An all-points bulletin has been circulated to police at the sites of Tea Party Patriots rallies nationwide.

Spokesmen for the tea-party movement denied knowledge of the slaying. They said they had no idea who this "Pear Roadie" feller was, but speculated he might have been a backstage hand for Kershaw, who has busied himself running for lieutenant governor of Louisiana in recent decades as he waits for his next country hit.