On the podcast: Ding, dong, the I-Man's canned

Your Mighty Favog has returned after an Easter break . . . and a bad case of the springtime viral crud, only to be greeted with The Don Imus Outrage (TM).

Yeah, the corporate hacks canned the I-Man after he said one awful thing too many . . . and somebody finally fought back. Hey, the Rutgers women's basketball team couldn't beat Tenneesee, but it sure kicked the crap out of the big-time shock jock.

Isn't it AMAZING how the suits at MSNBC and CBS Radio were shocked, shocked to find out their money machine was saying sexist and racist things to a nationwide audience?

Umm hmmm . . . .

Demeaning African-Americans and women is OK when it sells. It's a moral outrage when the sponsors start to pull out.

Umm hmmm . . . .

OH . . . I'll bet you want to hear about the music, don't you? We have some tasty stuff this week, including one of Revolution 21's patented thematic sets of . . . . Did you see the last post?

Tune in, and let the music begin!

A song so good . . .

. . . YOUR MIGHTY FAVOG builds a set around it in the just-posted Revolution 21 podcast.

Enjoy this 1968 Grand Ole Opry performance of Johnny Cash's 1963 classic "Ring of Fire." Once upon a time, I was a television cameraman, and there are a couple of great shots in this bit of classic '60s TV production.

Well, ONE'S a great shot and the other is pretty basic and unflashy, but the composition is really nice.

What do you think they are?

CBS Radio . . . the new defenders of civility

AH, YES. CBS RADIO, newest defender of civil discourse over the public airwaves. One of CBS Radio's New York stations, Free FM (92.3 WFNY), features a popular talk-show duo, Opie & Anthony (Gregg Hughes and Anthony Cumia).

BUT OPIE & ANTHONY worked for CBS Radio before (on WNEW-FM), back when it was called Infinity Broadcasting. Like Don Imus, they got themselves fired by the CBS suits. Remember "Sex for Sam"?

Here's some of what that Dynamic Duo was up to in 2002, which garnered the attention of the Federal Communications Commission:

II. BACKGROUND

2. The complainants allege, and Infinity does not
dispute, that Station WNEW(FM) aired the ``Opie & Anthony
Show,'' on August 15, 2002, during which the hosts conducted
a contest entitled ``Sex for Sam'' which involved
participants having sex in ``risky locations'' throughout
New York City, including St. Patrick's Cathedral, a zoo,
Rockefeller Center, the Disney Store, and the FAO Schwarz
toy store. According to the transcript of the broadcast
that Infinity provided to the Enforcement Bureau, the
contest was a competition among five couples who were vying
for the opportunity to accompany station personnel to the
Sam Adams Brewery in Boston, Massachusetts, for a live
broadcast. The object of the contest was for the couples
to earn the most number of points by having sex in as many
of the places specified by the station as possible. Each
couple was accompanied by a station ``spotter,'' who
assigned his couple points based upon the nature of the
location and the activities in which the couple engaged.
For example, two points were awarded for ``a balloon-knot
action,'' and the on-air personalities referred repeatedly
to the accomplishment of achieving those two points for the
``balloon-knot action'' as a ``two-point conversion.''
The station aired the contest over at least a one-hour
period, during which the hosts and the ``spotters'' engaged
in descriptions and discussions of the sexual activities of
five participating couples in a variety of publicly visible
locations.

3. The complainants allege that the broadcast
material contains either obscene and/or indecent references,
that it was intended to titillate, pander to, or shock the
audience, and that the Commission should levy strong
sanctions against Infinity for the station's broadcast of
the subject contest. One complainant submitted a 14-
minute transcript excerpt of the contest portion of the show
and argues that it demonstrates that Station WNEW(FM)'s
program hosts made broadcast references to specific apparent
sexual activity in the Cathedral.

4. The full transcript of the broadcast that Infinity
submitted to the Commission provides the context of this
particular segment and reveals that the hosts of the ``Opie
& Anthony Show'' participated in extended discussions about
sexual activity with the station ``spotters." Of
relevance to the instant complaints, the transcript
indicates that one participating couple engaged in actual or
simulated sexual activity inside St. Patrick's Cathedral
while the program hosts and ``spotter,'' Paul Mercurio,
discussed that activity on the air. The on-air banter and
discussion was a running commentary that continued well
after the sexual activity appears to have ended. Mercurio
described the couple's sexual activity in the Cathedral with
detailed and specific comments. The station also broadcast
dialogue of a confrontation at the Cathedral between a
security or law officer and Mercurio which also included
descriptions of, or references to, sexual activity. The
full transcript also memorializes, among other things, the
commentary of one ``spotter'' describing the sexual activity
of a couple at a zoo and of another spotter observing a
couple preparing for sexual activity in an elevator at
Rockefeller Center when four children entered the
elevator.

5. The Enforcement Bureau sent Infinity a letter of
inquiry on August 22, 2002. In its responses dated
September 20 and October 11, 2002, Infinity acknowledges
that Station WNEW(FM) broadcast the contest in question
during the hours of 3 through 7 p.m. on August 15, 2002, and
aired that broadcast over WNEW(FM) and 12 other affiliated
stations. Infinity also admits that the show's hosts ``at
least made it appear to the listeners that a participating
couple had engaged in some sort of sexual activity in St.
Patrick's Cathedral." Infinity maintains, however, that
the aired material was not obscene and did not contain ``any
description of sexual or excretory activity that would fit
within the Commission's indecency definition.'' Infinity
acknowledges that it found the station's broadcast of the
``Sex for Sam'' program ``fundamentally unacceptable'' and
contrary to its own programming standards. Infinity
represents that, as a result of Station WNEW(FM)'s
broadcast, it immediately cancelled the ``Opie & Anthony
Show'' program and suspended those personnel responsible for
the station's broadcast of the ``Sex for Sam'' contest.

SO . . . if CBS Radio can rehire Opie & Anthony, why not Don Imus when things cool down a bit? Les Moonves can wax poetic about dignity and respect and "the effect language like this has on our young people," but that doesn't make CBS Radio about anything other than the money.

And, remember, the big money today is in programming to our worst vices, not our better instincts.

Also on CBS Radio stations . . . .

We continue our examination of CBS Radio's concern about "the effect language . . . has on our young people, particularly young women of color trying to make their way in this society" in the wake of the company's firing of shock-jock Don Imus this afternoon.

FROM THE PLAYLIST of CBS Radio station X-102.3 (WMBX-FM) in West Palm Beach, Fla.:

Mims
This Is Why I'm Hot

Chorus:
This is why I’m hot(x2)
This is why(x2) uh
This is why I’m hot (uh)
This is why I’m hot(x2)
whoo
This is why(x2)
This is why I’m hot

I’m hot coz I’m fly
(fly)
You ain’t coz you’re not (mims)
This is why x2
This is why I’m hot(x2)

Verse 1:

This is why I’m hot
I dont gotta rap
I can sell a mill sell you nothing on the track
I represent New York
I got it on my back
And they say that we lost it
So I’mma bring it back
I love the dirty dirty
Coz niggas show me love
The ladies start to bounce
As soon as I hit the club
But in the Midwest
They love to take it slow
So when I hit the H
I watch you get it on the floor
And if you needed hyphy
I take it to the bay
Frisco to Sac town
They do it eryday
Coppin a Hollywood
As soon as I hit LA
I’m in that low low
I do it the cali way
And when I hit the Chi
People say that I’m fly
They like the way I dress they like (they like my) my attire
move crowds
from side to side
They ask me how I do it and simply I reply

(Chorus)

Verse 2:
This is why I’m hot
Catch me on the block
Every other day
Another bitch another drop
16 bars, 24 pop
44 songs, nigga gimme what you got
I’m in there driving cars
Push them off the lot
I’m into shutting stores down so I can shop
If you need a bird I can get it chopped
Tell ne what you need you know I get ‘em by the flock
I call my hommie black meet me on the ave
I hit wash heights with
the money in the bag
we into big spinners
See my pimping never dragged
Find me with different women that you niggas never had
For those who say
they know me know I’m focused on my cream
Playa you come between you’d better focus on the beam
I keep it so feen the way you see me lean
And when I say I’m hot my nigga this is what I mean

(Chorus)

Verse
3:
This is why I’m hot
Shorty see the drop
Ask me what I paid and I say yeah I paid a ?quap?
And then I hit the switch that take away the top
So chicks around the way they call me cream of the crop
They hop in the car
I tell them all about
We hit the studio they say they like the way I record
I gave you black train and I did you wrong
So everytime I see them and they tell me that’s their song
They say I’m the bomb
They love the way the charm hanging from the neck
And compliments the arm which
compliments the ear then comes the gear
So when I hit the room the shorties stop and stare
Then niggas start to hate rearrange their face
Little do they know I keep them things by waistside
I reply nobody gotta die
Similar to lil wiz coz I got the fire

(Chorus)

Meanwhile, on CBS Radio stations . . . .

EDITOR'S NOTE: Let me apologize up front for the language in this post. I do not approve, but it is as instructive as it is vile. If you are offended by crass language or are of tender years, know that it is bad and read no further.

“There has been much discussion of the effect language like this has on our young people, particularly young women of color trying to make their way in this society. That consideration has weighed most heavily on our minds as we made our decision.”

-- Leslie Moonves
CBS President and CEO
on firing Don Imus today

***

FROM THE PLAYLIST of CBS Radio station V-103 (WVEE-FM) in Atlanta:

That's That
Snoop Dogg
(feat. R. Kelly)

[Chorus]

[R. Kelly]
I pull up, whip low in the Phantom
With the wheels spinnin'
Ladies like
That's that s***
I'm in the back of the club
Blowin' trees
Hands up, head bobbin' like
That's that s***
In the spot where the girls go wild
Dancing titty bar style
I'm like
That's that s***
Snoop Dizzle (Hey)
Your boy Kells (Hey)
Let me hear you say
That's that s***

[Snoop Dogg]
Let's get this party jumpin'
Me and Kel gone get it bumpin'
They humpin'
Like when it's over
We gone all get into somethin'
The Dog is fresh
Southside without a vest
Nothin on my chest
But these ladies up out the Midwest
I must confess
That in the Chi is so blessed
Leaving nothing on my mind
But Doggy, you and safe sex
This ain't a test
You f****** with a cold mess
Meet me in Chicago
Let me get you to this real west
It's real strong
Real fat and real long
Doggies in the building
Holdin' something they can feel up on
And once they get it
Something they can build up on
Take that skinny nigga home
Work that filling till it's gone
Get that home grown
Put that s*** on Daddy long
I know how you ladies do it
T-shirt with no panties on
Let's get this s*** crackin'
Kell and Doggy Dogg in action
If you in here all alone
You might get this dog bone

[Chorus]

[R. Kelly]
I pull up, whip low in the Phantom
With the wheels spinnin'
Ladies like
That's that s***
I'm in the back of the club
Blowin' trees
Hands up, head bobbin' like
That's that s***
In the spot where the girls go wild
Dancing titty bar style
I'm like
That's that s***
Snoop Dizzle (Hey)
Your boy Kells (Hey)
Let me hear you say
That's that s***

[Snoop Dogg]
Dip low, Six-Four
Hundred spokes and chronic smoke
All these ladies on the floor
Cuz they know what we in here for
Dogg and Kelly came to ball
Get your ass up off the wall
Let that middle wiggle
Now make that s*** fall
Not just one, but all y'all
Move it like you want it all
Let me see you bounce it for me
Work that s*** for Doggy Dogg
You gots to do it
Is that your crew
Bring 'em too
Come here let me take you through it
Then once Kelly get into it
We can get this after party
Poppin' everybody
Got themselves another body
Knockin' out
Without protection though
That's my confession
But at the spot
If you just think
Your gonna listen
You can drop it like it's hot
Hold up
I came to cool out
Lay back and get blown
Maybe Henny, maybe gin
A couple shots of Patron
And if you didn't you missed it
But now it's known
That this cash s***
Kells sing that song

[Chorus]

[R. Kelly]
I pull up, whip low in the Phantom
With the wheels spinnin'
Ladies like
That's that s***
I'm in the back of the club
Blowin' trees
Hands up, head bobbin' like
That's that s***
In the spot where the girls go wild
Dancing titty bar style
I'm like
That's that s***
Snoop Dizzle (Hey)
Your boy Kells (Hey)
Let me hear you say
That's that s***

So if you think you got the bomb s***
(Holla at a playa) [X3]
And if you lookin' for some good sex
(Holla at a playa) [X3]
Girl if you ever in the 3-1-2
(Holla at a playa) [X3]
And if you're ever in the 2-1-3
(Holla at a playa) [X3]

[Chorus X2]
I pull up, whip low in the Phantom
With the wheels spinnin'
Ladies like
That's that s***
I'm in the back of the club
Blowin' trees
Hands up, head bobbin' like
That's that s***
In the spot where the girls go wild
Dancing titty bar style
I'm like
That's that s***
Snoop Dizzle (Hey)
Your boy Kells (Hey)
Let me hear you say
That's that s***

Oh. Freakin'. PLEASE.

“There has been much discussion of the effect language like this has on our young people, particularly young women of color trying to make their way in this society. That consideration has weighed most heavily on our minds as we made our decision.”

-- Leslie Moonves
CBS President and CEO
on firing Don Imus today

* * *

RELATEDLY, I AM SURE Sumner Redstone, chairman of both CBS Corp. and sister corporation Viacom, will order Viacom entities BET and MTV Networks to remove all but the most wholesome rap and hip-hop videos from those networks' programming.

After all, he did order Les Moonves to "do the right thing" in relation to Don Imus and, apparently, ridding the airwaves and cable spectrum of "language like this" is a corporate priority of both companies because of its effect "on our young people, particularly young women of color trying to make their way in this society."

RIIIIIIGHT.

Head buffoon says shut the hell up

From WWL television in New Orleans:

New Orleans Executive Director of Recovery Ed Blakely needs to stick to business and drop his commentary, Mayor Ray Nagin said Thursday.

The mayor said he’d talked to Blakely about interviews he made while out of town regarding the city’s recovery.
Recently, Blakely was quoted in the ‘New York Times’ as saying the city's racial factions were akin to “Shiites and Sunnis,” and later said that newcomers to New Orleans would be impatient with "local buffoons."

IN OTHER WORDS, an unexpected outbreak of truth-telling has really pissed off the buffoon in chief, because the truth is not a pro-administration proposition. And truth-telling about buffoons by Ed Blakely, an employee of the buffoon-administered Chocolate City government, is tantamount to treason.

And even buffoons like Willie Ray Nagin know that treason in service of a functioning civic society is bad . . . for them.

Staging an intervention via the New York Times

This article is the talk of the town in The City That We Forgot. Basically, what has happened is New Orleans' city recovery czar -- wittingly or unwittingly, I can't say -- has staged an intervention for an entire city, if not an entire state.

It's said that the first step toward recovery -- whether you're a drunk or a doper, or whatever your poison be -- is to name the problem, take ownership of the dysfunction. And when you've hit bottom and still can't bring yourself to say "I am a (fill in the blank), and I need help," sometimes it takes somebody -- or somebodies -- to get in your damn face and make you face up to what's killing you.

It looks like -- maybe, just maybe -- that's what Dr. Edward J. Blakely, world-renowned disaster-recovery expert, has just done for the Crescent City. Here are the money grafs from the end of Tuesday's Times piece by Adam Nossiter:

The picture in its entirety is too daunting to be tackled completely. Most acutely, Dr. Blakely has found a polarized racial environment in New Orleans, very different from Oakland, that he says he must work around rather than try to change. Here, race is “the first thing in people’s minds,” said Dr. Blakely, who is black. “It’s a culture of domination rather than participation. So whatever group gets something, they try to dominate the whole turf.”

A second entrenched hurdle is the paper-thin economy. If it is not built up — essentially created wholesale, most promisingly on hopes of redeveloping a downtown medical and bioscience complex here — all of Dr. Blakely’s exercises could be for naught.

“We have an economy entirely made up of T-shirts,” he said in a speech at the University of Sydney this week. “That is our major import and export.”

He sees the moribund economic infrastructure as the result, in part, of the city’s provincialism.

“It’s quite interesting how insular people are here,” Dr. Blakely said. “They don’t know people on Wall Street, they don’t know the big development firms, they’ve not been associated with the kind of urban planning expertise that I take for granted.”

The tone is clipped and California, different from the easygoing drawl of local officials. Dr. Blakely’s skepticism about New Orleans caused a stir last week when he suggested that the city’s prehurricane population levels might have been inflated. He later backed down and apologized after Mayor Nagin disagreed.

Still, the city has a few aces, and Dr. Blakely is banking on them, most notably a “very good” university network of five substantial institutions, and a way of life that cannot be replicated elsewhere.

Newcomers, pioneers willing to put up with the city’s present difficulties, could be the salvation of New Orleans and its future, Dr. Blakely suggested. New Orleans now is “a third-world country,” he said.

“If we get some people here, those 100 million new Americans, they’re going to come here without the same attitudes of the locals,” he said. “I think, if we create the right signals, they’re going to come here, and they’re going to say, ‘Who are these buffoons?’ I’m meeting some who are moving here, and they don’t have time for this stuff.”

AS A LOUISIANA NATIVE, I know what Blakely says is sadly true. As someone who's read the news coverage of that benighted city since Hurricane Katrina, you probably suspect it's true, too.

Pray God that New Orleanians recognize the truth when it slaps them in the face, and summon the courage to overcome their ugly reality.

It's all about us

WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE between this, courtesy of The Associated Press . . .

DAYTONA BEACH -- No hymnals. No pews. No steeple. No stained glass windows. And no women.

This isn't your grandma's church.

Organizers of the Church For Men say that guys are "bored stiff" in many churches today.

"We try to make it interesting for them. We meet in a gym and we talk about issues that mess men up," said Mike Ellis, 46, the church's founder.

The Church For Men meets one Saturday evening a month, drawing about 70 guys dressed in everything but straight-laced shirts and neckties. The service features a rock band, a shot clock to time the preacher's message and a one-hour in-and-out guarantee.

Ellis' church is part of a national movement to reverse what many Christian pastors and ministers are calling a troubling trend. Studies show that men are less likely than women to show up on Sunday mornings, and the reaction has been an emerging testosterone theology of sorts. Churches nationwide are now reaching out to men.

One study found that the average U.S. adult church congregation is 61 percent female, said David Murrow, author of "Why Men Hate Going To Church." The research shows women are more likely to attend church, Sunday school and small church groups.

"Going to church is perceived as womanly behavior," said Murrow, who is based in Anchorage, Alaska, and travels the country lecturing about the issue. "We don't go to church for the same reason we don't wear pink."

Communication skills, public forms of affection, such as hugs and hand holding, and other "soft skills" make many men feel incompetent in church, Murrow said.

Long church services also cause men to leave the fold, said Ellis, who first got the idea for a man-only church six years ago.

"I have the attention span of a flea," he said. "They say that if you don't get a man's attention in six to eight minutes, you lost them."

To that end, followers at Church For Men meet on a basketball court, a large scoreboard with a time clock ensures the preacher's message is delivered in 15 minutes, and the same rock band that opened for Bad Company and the Georgia Satellites a month ago bangs out a three-song set of hard-rockin' tunes.

. . . AND THIS, courtesy of herchurch.org, the website of Ebenezer Lutheran Church in San Francisco:

We are a diverse community, standing firmly within the Christian tradition in order to re-image the divine by claiming her feminine persona in thealogy, liturgy, church structure, art, language, practices, leadership, and acts of justice. Challenging the church’s restricted language of the past, we pay special attention to images and metaphors that attempt to embrace divine fullness and that offer a witness of holy nurture and inclusive justice, both to the church and to the world.

A new form of church is happening at Ebenezer Lutheran Church, 678 Portola Drive in San Francisco. Gather at 10:30 AM Sundays for a lively, engaging, thoroughly inclusive and feminist service of worship. Led by Pastor Stacy Boorn, the liturgy features images and metaphors that will enlarge understanding of and connection with the sacred. Music and readings further reflect this commitment to reclaiming the feminine persona of the divine. Come as you are – you’ll find hope, healing, and community. All are welcome at this table! Worship Sunday mornings at 10:30

Our Christian/Lutheran feminist prayers and liturgy reach back into the storehouse of tradition to bring forth names as Mother, Shaddai, Sophia, Womb, Midwife, Shekinah, She Who Is. They do so out of renewed insights into the nature of the Gospel empowered by the risen Christ-Sophia.

Let your relationship with the Divine be opened and expanded.

Our Mother who is within us
we celebrate your many names.
Your wisdom come.
Your will be done,
unfolding from the depths within us.
Each day you give us all that we need.
You remind us of our limits
and we let go.
You support us in our power
and we act with courage.
For you are the dwelling place within us
the empowerment around us
and the celebration among us
now and for ever. Amen

THE DIFFERENCE between these disparate groups of flakes is . . . not much, actually.

You know, if the word "solipsistic" didn't exist, we'd have to invent it so as to adequately describe our present age. And these Left and Right Coast bunches of self-absorbed, chronologically-challenged adolescents are just so indicative of who we are today, and why we're in such deep doo as a people.

Out there in Florida, we have to resort to making church a pseudo sporting event so that men can be bothered to get off their asses, cut off ESPN and worship the Celestial Bobby Knight to a hard-rock beat. One can only wonder whether they replace the sign of peace with a Folding-Chair Fling-Ding.

Or maybe a fart-and-belch break after the horn blows on the "sermon clock." And Doritos and Budweiser for communion -- which might necessitate moving the fart-and-belch break to later in the service.

Gee, maybe if Jesus had been more "hip" and "with it," the people would have let Pilate cut Him loose instead of Barabbas. Of course, that would have defeated the whole plan of salvation, but what the hey . . . .

AND WHAT CAN ONE SAY about the ovary-obsessed goddess worshippers out there on the Bay?

They take the prevailing solipsism a small step beyond only worshipping a God who can entertain them to only worshipping a God who's just like them. Finding the notion of a patriarchal deity repugnant to their navel-gazing, womyn-centric sensibilities -- and not having the courage to do the intellectually honest thing and become Wiccans, athiests or Satanists -- they find it a simple matter to rewrite nearly 6,000 years of Judeo-Christian tradition and scripture into crone-centric, quasi-pagan glop.

Oh well, so long as their deity does not hurt their tender feelings or challenge them to look beyond their own narcissism. That's the New American Way.

And it's how the Evangelical Right and the Reimagining Left are more alike than they'd care to admit.

It's a free country, and the God-belchers and Sophiaholics may do what they please, but "as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord." Not ourselves.

Hat tip: Mark Shea.

For the lack of gender-feminist sheriff's deputies, girl's initiation into the art of luuuuv is interrupted

I don't understand. Eve Ensler said this was OK.

IT'S WOMYN'S EMPOWERMENT, FOR PITY'S SAKE!!!!!

Haven't these backwoods Southern bumpkins ever read The Vagina Monologues? Heard of V-Day on college campuses everywhere?

Don't they know this teen-age girl and the 23-year old high school teacher are on the cutting edge of cultural evolution, striking a blow against oppression of womyn and for the fondest X-rated fantasies of Beavises and Buttheads across the land?

Haven't these crypto-fascist patriarchal goons heard that f***ing is an entitlement -- even when you're jailbait?

Here is the account of the homophobic oppression from WAFB-TV in Baton Rouge, La.:

A 16-year-old Tara High student left a note saying she was running away. She was found leaving a teacher's apartment, according to detectives and they say both teacher and student say they were involved in a sexual relationship. This is all the result of the 16-year-old's father. About a month ago, he found his daughter's journal that detailed the relationship. Then last Wednesday, the girl left a note saying she was running away.

When the girl was found, she was seen leaving the teacher's apartment complex, Jefferson Heights, which is located on Jefferson Highway. Both the student and the teacher were questioned by East Baton Rouge sheriff's officials, and admitted to having a relationship together. The teacher, 23-year-old Jamie Lynn Armstrong, did not teach the girl. Sheriff's officials say Armstrong told them she thought the student was 17 years old, not 16.

In a statement to the East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office, the 16-year-old says she has visited the teacher's apartment several times, during which she and the defendant engaged in oral sexual intercourse during at least three visits. She says when she ran away from home, she spent the night with the teacher. She also says one sexual encounter occurred at the school.

Oops.

The meeting prompted a series of testy exchanges, and Imus grew visibly frustrated at times. During one exchange, Imus said he can't win with "you people." Sharpton was clearly irritated by that . . . .

FILE UNDER: Things you absolutely DON'T want to say
when you go on The Al Sharpton Show after getting in
trouble for calling African-American women basketball
players "some nappy-headed hos," whilst your producer
saw your slur and raised you by calling 'em "jigaboos."

Dear RIAA: Bang, bang. You're dead.

It would be smashing if all you big-label chaps in the recording industry would stop suing college kids and pre-teens, stop trying to kill internet radio and just be a sport and slink away to die a quiet commercial death.

Thanks so much.

OH, BEFORE YOU GO, did you see this in The Times of London?

A classically trained pianist turned acoustic guitar player who does not even own an iPod is heading for stardom after her homemade album topped the national iTunes chart.

Kate Walsh, 23, described as a British Joni Mitchell, recorded an album of songs inspired by her birthplace, the sailing town of Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex.

Lacking a major record deal, the folk singer recorded an album in her producer’s bedroom and made it available in digital form only. However, she soon won devotees after placing songs on her MySpace web page.

Walsh persuaded iTunes to sell the album, called Tim’s House, and last week it topped the online store’s UK download album chart, displacing Take That and Kaiser Chiefs.

Not that Walsh is a regular iTunes customer. “I don’t actually have an iPod yet,” said the singer, who was invited to perform at Apple’s main London store in celebration of her feat.

This week, the piracy-plagued EMI announced the sale of iTunes downloads without digital “locks”. Yet Walsh’s success demonstrates that talented artists need no longer rely on the music industry’s corporate giants. “I set up my own record label called Blueberry Pie and just got my music out there,” she told The Times. “It’s pretty easy. Anyone can do it. The web response is amazing. Someone I’ve never met called me ‘the new Jane Austen’.”

The hushed, homemade quality of Tim’s House reflects its birth. It was recorded at the Brighton home of Tim Bidwell, who created a sound-insulated vocal booth in his bedroom with luxuriant velvet drapes that he bought for £580 from Debenhams.

There is now an industry “buzz” surrounding Walsh, who cites Debussy as an influence and deferred a place at the London College of Music to pursue her singing career.

She said: “I was a classical pianist until the age of 18. I never thought that I could have a career as a female singer-songwriter.”

She was invited to perform at a talent-spotting convention attended by record company bosses in Austin, Texas, last month but was not impressed. “I didn’t like being part of an industry conveyer belt,” she said. “I prefer the pace of life in Brighton or in Burnham-on-Crouch.”

Although she is selling thousands of albums a week, fame is an unwelcome intrusion. “I want to maintain my privacy and I don’t want to meet my musical heroes,” she said. “It can only shatter your illusions.”

Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed!

Luke

Chapter 24

1
But at daybreak on the first day of the week they took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.
2
They found the stone rolled away from the tomb;
3
but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
4
While they were puzzling over this, behold, two men in dazzling garments appeared to them.
5
They were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground. They said to them, "Why do you seek the living one among the dead?
6
He is not here, but he has been raised. 2 Remember what he said to you while he was still in Galilee,
7
that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners and be crucified, and rise on the third day."
8
And they remembered his words.
9
Then they returned from the tomb and announced all these things to the eleven and to all the others.
10
The women were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James; the others who accompanied them also told this to the apostles,
11
but their story seemed like nonsense and they did not believe them.
12
But Peter got up and ran to the tomb, bent down, and saw the burial cloths alone; then he went home amazed at what had happened.

In case you were wondering . . . .

NO PODCAST THIS WEEK. Taking Easter off, and trying to shake the crud that keeps on giving.

Or taking, as the case may be. Like my voice, off and on.

Happy (cough, cough) Easter (HACK!).

Don Imus, c'est moi. Et toi. Et toi. Et toi . . . .

Newsweek's Mark Starr says all that needs to be said about the latest Don Imus contretemps:

What pretty much anyone watching could see in that women’s final was that Rutgers was overmatched in almost every facet of the game, except possibly grit. And it quickly became clear that the team’s frantic effort—it seemed to be trying too hard—wouldn’t be enough even to keep it close.

But Don Imus apparently saw something else. On his nationally syndicated radio show, “Imus in the Morning” (simulcast on MSNBC TV), the reigning king of the radio talk show empire revealed that instead of game upstarts, he saw in the Rutgers team a bunch of “nappy-haired hos.” Imus, much like the Rutgers team he defamed, was probably just overreaching, trying a little too hard to score with the irreverent and edgy humor that is his trademark. He may even have known, as he continued his tasteless riff, that he had crossed the line; that what he said was inexcusable, shameless, racist claptrap.

But just because it’s inexcusable doesn’t mean it’s inexplicable. And while Imus should not be spared any blame, we are undoubtedly complicit. It is our dubious taste that has spawned America's prevailing entertainment culture. We have countenanced the insult industry into which talk radio has devolved. We have allowed humiliation to become a centerpiece of network TV programming. And we encourage cutting-edge humor, without much concern that women and minorities endure most of those cuts. These dubious entertainments all share one currency: unabashed delight in cruelty and debasement. And we the audience laugh and laugh and laugh until somebody hits us over the head and we realize—or somebody tell us that we should realize—that this time it was way out of line and actually not all that funny.

(snip)

Since that is the sketchy territory where Imus has always operated with great success, he will almost certainly survive this blunder. On Friday morning he got around to the business of a carefully, crafted apology. “It was completely inappropriate, and we can understand why people were offended,” Imus said on his morning show. “Our characterization was thoughtless and stupid, and we are sorry." Imus is savvy enough to offer no excuses where none would wash. But what’s our excuse? Please someone explain to me our insatiable appetite for the tasteless and the mean-spirited that assaults us every day in the guise of entertainment.

The Passion of Jesus Christ

Matthew
Chapter 27

1
When it was morning, all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death.
2
They bound him, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate, the governor.
3
Then Judas, his betrayer, seeing that Jesus had been condemned, deeply regretted what he had done. He returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders,
4
saying, "I have sinned in betraying innocent blood." They said, "What is that to us? Look to it yourself."
5
Flinging the money into the temple, he departed and went off and hanged himself.
6
The chief priests gathered up the money, but said, "It is not lawful to deposit this in the temple treasury, for it is the price of blood."
7
After consultation, they used it to buy the potter's field as a burial place for foreigners.
8
That is why that field even today is called the Field of Blood.
9
Then was fulfilled what had been said through Jeremiah the prophet, "And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the value of a man with a price on his head, a price set by some of the Israelites,
10
and they paid it out for the potter's field just as the Lord had commanded me."
11
Now Jesus stood before the governor, and he questioned him, "Are you the king of the Jews?" Jesus said, "You say so."
12
And when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he made no answer.
13
Then Pilate said to him, "Do you not hear how many things they are testifying against you?"
14
But he did not answer him one word, so that the governor was greatly amazed.
15
Now on the occasion of the feast the governor was accustomed to release to the crowd one prisoner whom they wished.
16
And at that time they had a notorious prisoner called (Jesus) Barabbas.
17
So when they had assembled, Pilate said to them, "Which one do you want me to release to you, (Jesus) Barabbas, or Jesus called Messiah?"
18
For he knew that it was out of envy that they had handed him over.
19
While he was still seated on the bench, his wife sent him a message, "Have nothing to do with that righteous man. I suffered much in a dream today because of him."
20
The chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas but to destroy Jesus.
21
The governor said to them in reply, "Which of the two do you want me to release to you?" They answered, "Barabbas!"
22
Pilate said to them, "Then what shall I do with Jesus called Messiah?" They all said, "Let him be crucified!"
23
But he said, "Why? What evil has he done?" They only shouted the louder, "Let him be crucified!"
24
When Pilate saw that he was not succeeding at all, but that a riot was breaking out instead, he took water and washed his hands in the sight of the crowd, saying, "I am innocent of this man's blood. Look to it yourselves."
25
And the whole people said in reply, "His blood be upon us and upon our children."
26
Then he released Barabbas to them, but after he had Jesus scourged, he handed him over to be crucified.
27
Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus inside the praetorium and gathered the whole cohort around him.
28
They stripped off his clothes and threw a scarlet military cloak about him.
29
Weaving a crown out of thorns, they placed it on his head, and a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, "Hail, King of the Jews!"
30
They spat upon him and took the reed and kept striking him on the head.
31
And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the cloak, dressed him in his own clothes, and led him off to crucify him.
32
As they were going out, they met a Cyrenian named Simon; this man they pressed into service to carry his cross.
33
And when they came to a place called Golgotha (which means Place of the Skull),
34
they gave Jesus wine to drink mixed with gall. But when he had tasted it, he refused to drink.
35
After they had crucified him, they divided his garments by casting lots;
36
then they sat down and kept watch over him there.
37
And they placed over his head the written charge against him: This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.
38
Two revolutionaries were crucified with him, one on his right and the other on his left.
39
Those passing by reviled him, shaking their heads
40
and saying, "You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself, if you are the Son of God, (and) come down from the cross!"
41
Likewise the chief priests with the scribes and elders mocked him and said,
42
"He saved others; he cannot save himself. So he is the king of Israel! Let him come down from the cross now, and we will believe in him.
43
He trusted in God; let him deliver him now if he wants him. For he said, 'I am the Son of God.'"
44
The revolutionaries who were crucified with him also kept abusing him in the same way.
45
From noon onward, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon.
46
And about three o'clock Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" 28 which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
47
Some of the bystanders who heard it said, "This one is calling for Elijah."
48
Immediately one of them ran to get a sponge; he soaked it in wine, and putting it on a reed, gave it to him to drink.
49
But the rest said, "Wait, let us see if Elijah comes to save him."
50
But Jesus cried out again in a loud voice, and gave up his spirit.
51
And behold, the veil of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth quaked, rocks were split,
52
tombs were opened, and the bodies of many saints who had fallen asleep were raised.
53
And coming forth from their tombs after his resurrection, they entered the holy city and appeared to many.
54
The centurion and the men with him who were keeping watch over Jesus feared greatly when they saw the earthquake and all that was happening, and they said, "Truly, this was the Son of God!"
55
There were many women there, looking on from a distance, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him.
56
Among them were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.
57
When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea named Joseph, who was himself a disciple of Jesus.
58
He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus; then Pilate ordered it to be handed over.
59
Taking the body, Joseph wrapped it (in) clean linen
60
and laid it in his new tomb that he had hewn in the rock. Then he rolled a huge stone across the entrance to the tomb and departed.
61
But Mary Magdalene and the other Mary remained sitting there, facing the tomb.
62
The next day, the one following the day of preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate
63
and said, "Sir, we remember that this impostor while still alive said, 'After three days I will be raised up.'
64
Give orders, then, that the grave be secured until the third day, lest his disciples come and steal him and say to the people, 'He has been raised from the dead.' This last imposture would be worse than the first."
65
Pilate said to them, "The guard is yours; go secure it as best you can."
66
So they went and secured the tomb by fixing a seal to the stone and setting the guard.

Psalm 22 . . . again

EDITOR'S NOTE: We end "Psalms for Lent" this Good Friday pretty much where we began more than a month ago. Have a blessed end to Holy Week.

To the chief Musician upon Aijeleth Shahar, A Psalm of David.

1 My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?* why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?
2 O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.
3 But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.
4 Our fathers trusted in thee: they trusted, and thou didst deliver them.
5 They cried unto thee, and were delivered: they trusted in thee, and were not confounded.
6 But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.
7 All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head saying,
8 He trusted on the LORD that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.
9 But thou art he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother’s breasts.
10 I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God from my mother’s belly.
11 Be not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help.
12 Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round.
13 They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion.
14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.
15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.
16 For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.
17 I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me.
18 They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.
19 But be not thou far from me, O LORD: O my strength, haste thee to help me.
20 Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog.
21 Save me from the lion’s mouth: for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns.
22 I will declare thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee.
23 Ye that fear the LORD, praise him; all ye the seed of Jacob, glorify him; and fear him, all ye the seed of Israel.
24 For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither hath he hid his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard.
25 My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation: I will pay my vows before them that fear him.
26 The meek shall eat and be satisfied: they shall praise the LORD that seek him: your heart shall live for ever.
27 All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the LORD: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee.
28 For the kingdom is the LORD’S: and he is the governor among the nations.
29 All they that be fat upon earth shall eat and worship: all they that go down to the dust shall bow before him: and none can keep alive his own soul.
30 A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation.
31 They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this.

* See Matthew 27:46

The highest compliment

College football will never see the likes of Coach Eddie Robinson again.

When the Grambling State University legend died this week at 88, the tributes and accolades began to pour South from a grieving nation. But do tributes mean any more than when they come from your fiercest rival?

If you truly want to know what Eddie Robinson meant to college football, to Louisiana, to African-Americans and to every American, consider that there was an emotional memorial service Thursday for Coach Rob . . . at Southern University in Baton Rouge.

YOU ASK "SO WHAT?" Here's what: Alabama-Auburn, LSU-Tulane, Texas-Oklahoma and Notre Dame-USC have nothing on Grambling-Southern in the annals of college football hate matches. (And in 1981, Tulane students broke LSU's live Bengal-tiger mascot out of his cage to roam the campus overnight.)

Honest to God, when I was in school at LSU, one guy I worked with at the local cable-TV company was a Southern alum. His wife, Grambling. The week before the Bayou Classic, they didn't speak.

So this was the extraordinary scene in Baton Rouge, as reported by The Advocate:

Powerful words flowed easily Thursday when Southern University paid homage to the patriarch of its greatest rival.

But the most powerful sound was silence when former Tigers player and current Jaguars assistant Eric Dooley tried to summon his composure after he stepped up to the microphone to talk about Grambling State University coaching legend Eddie Robinson, who died Tuesday.

“Most of the time you hear about what he meant to all the players coach sent to the NFL,” Dooley said after taking several minutes to collect himself and wipe away tears at a memorial at SU’s Royal Cotillion Ballroom. “For those who were never going to play professionally, he meant more than that. He taught me about life.

“He gave me an opportunity and I am really truly blessed to know I was coached by one of the best coaches and people of all time.”

Dooley was one of several who spoke at the celebration of Robinson’s life and about the impact he had at Grambling, in Louisiana and on young black men around the world. And Dooley’s message was clearly the most poignant.

A former wide receiver for the Tigers, Dooley recalled Robinson’s watchful eye in practice — a trait Dooley has tried to emulate.

“As a coach, I wonder how could he see everything?” Dooley said with a smile. “He would run a (pass) route for you and let you know exactly where you should be and exactly how you should get there.”

The coach Dooley works for now and called a “legend in his own time,” Southern’s Pete Richardson, also recalled his friendship with Robinson.

Richardson’s Jaguars teams never lost to Robinson, who won 408 games and six black college national championships in 57 years at the predominantly black school in a tiny north Louisiana town.

“You think an icon is not supposed to die,” said Richardson, who wiped away tears as Dooley spoke.

Richardson said the enduring message Robinson left with him and just about anybody he came in contact with was simple: “One school, one job, one wife.”

Rev. Jesse Bilberry, a pastor at Baton Rouge’s Mt. Pilgrim Baptist Church and a member of the SU Board of Supervisors, echoed the sentiments of Dooley and Richardson, calling Robinson a “coach for all seasons.”

Bilberry’s touching message typified the mood of the day when Robinson’s biggest rival paid tribute.

“I always rooted for Coach Rob to win, although I wanted to see him lose one game every year,” Billberry said, drawing a ripple of laughter from the crowd of 300.

Yelling 'rat' about McCain's 'utter rubbish'

CBS correspondent Allen Pizzey gives a proper name to political posturing and ideological spin in an interview with The Public Eye on CBSNews.com:

Brian Montopoli: It seems that some reporters, including yourself and CNN's Michael Ware, have really taken umbrage at John McCain's recent comments, essentially saying that there are a lot of neighborhoods where you can walk around relatively safely. Is it fair to say that that really sort of bothered reporters?

Allen Pizzey: Yes. It's disgraceful for a man seeking highest office, I think, to talk utter rubbish. And that is utter rubbish. It's electoral propaganda. It is simply not true. No one in his right mind who has been to Baghdad believes that story.

Now, McCain and some other senators were there on Sunday, and they claimed, "Oh, we walked around for a whole hour…and we drove in from the airport. Gosh, aren't we great, we drove in from the airport." Excuse me, Mr. McCain, you drove in in a large convoy of heavily armed vehicles. The last one had a sign on it saying "Keep back 100 yards. Deadly force authorized." Every single car that they approached or passed pulled over and stopped, because that's the way it is. When one of those security details goes by, every ordinary person gets the hell out of the way, in case they get shot.

If he did walk around that market, and I didn't see him do it, and he didn't announce he was going to do it, you can bet your life there were an awful lot of soldiers deployed to make sure that nobody came near that place. He's talking rubbish. And he should not get away with it.

AND THE RIGHT-WING ECHO CHAMBER -- taking a break from smearing CNN's Michael Ware (see for yourself what didn't happen) -- said . . . Neener, neener, cancel, cancel! Liberal! Liberal! Commie-lib bias! Bush-hater! Bush-hater! Bias! Bias!

If I could, I'd go have a drink with Ware. Hell, if I were stuck in that hellhole watching the aftermath of people getting blown to bits every single day with no end in sight and not knowing whether you'd be next and Republican politicians saying how things were improving -- See! -- I would go have many drinks with Michael Ware.

Psalm 149

1 Praise ye the LORD. Sing unto the LORD a new song, and his praise in the congregation of saints.
2 Let Israel rejoice in him that made him: let the children of Zion be joyful in their King.
3 Let them praise his name in the dance: let them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and harp.
4 For the LORD taketh pleasure in his people: he will beautify the meek with salvation.
5 Let the saints be joyful in glory: let them sing aloud upon their beds.
6 Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a twoedged sword in their hand;
7 To execute vengeance upon the heathen, and punishments upon the people;
8 To bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron;
9 To execute upon them the judgment written: this honour have all his saints. Praise ye the LORD.