That's the way it was, Sunday, April 17, 1955

There was a time when network TV news was better than local TV news today.

But it was a lot worse than network TV news today, which itself isn't as good as network TV news 30 years ago.

Welcome to NBC's Plymouth News Caravan with John Cameron Swayze, April 17, 1955. There's a reason why, over at the Columbia Broadcasting System, Edward R. Murrow spent so much of his television tenure fighting "The Man." Then, like now, championing journalistic ethics and pushing for solid content is akin to dancing on the edge of a cliff.

Love 'em or hate 'em, the 1960s happened for a reason. Leaving the 1950s sounding stilted. Very, very stilted.

For idiot WorldNutDaily columnists and misanthropic 'Catholic' bloggers

I let loose on the following hateful anti-New Orleans post by Relapsed Catholic's Kathy Shaidle a few days ago, but I thought this video (above) truly put her misanthropy in context, so I'm revisiting the matter now.

IT'S GOOD that we be absolutely clear about things, so watch the video, then read this by Shaidle:

Nice to see that other people are finally saying what I was saying the first week, two years ago.

Like V-Tech, Katrina revealed a lot about so-called conservative bloggers, who mostly fell all over themselves about New Orleans and what a shame it was that it was being destroyed.

Now, I expect liberals, libertines and progressives to mourn the loss of a cheap hotbed of public drunkeness, murder, laziness and corruption. Oh and don't forget the great food! Liberals are obsessed with "all those great restaurants", as we know from every debate about multiculturalism.

However, I expect (stupidly, as I continue to discover) conservatives to be a little more sober, to be able to see beyond their base appetites and be realistic about sending money to people so stupid they live in a bowl in a flood zone, how they'd spend all your donations on lap dancers, so primitive they couldn't control themselves during a crisis. Then they re-elected the mayor responsible for their misery. Because he's black, of course!

I saw all this clearly. You didn't. I really don't know how some of you make it through each day without falling down a manhole.

HAT TIP: Ashley Morris: the blog

Fit hits the shan where the rubbers meet the road

Take what happened when the idiots who run Washington, D.C., decided to buy defective -- imagine that! -- Chinese condoms for free giveaways, supersize it, and you start to get some idea of what happens when an entire society starts thinking with its little head instead of its big one.

The Washington Post gets the facts but misses the irony:

Tens of thousands of condoms provided free by the District to curb HIV-AIDS have been returned to the health department because of complaints that their paper packaging is easily torn and could render the condoms ineffective.

Demand at two distribution sites in Southeast set up by groups combating AIDS plummeted more than 80 percent after the condoms, in a mustard-yellow and purple wrapper, were introduced this year. More than 2,000 packets a week were scooped up in mid-March, but by late May, only 400 were being given away each week.

Volunteers concerned about why interest had dropped began asking people who had picked up the condoms. They were told about packets ripping in purses or bursting open in pockets. As a result, many recipients said they had little confidence that the condoms would offer protection.

In addition, expiration dates on some of the Chinese-made condoms were illegible.

"People were saying, 'These packets aren't any good,' " said Franck DeRose, executive director of an educational organization called the Condom Project, one of those involved in the grass-roots distribution system. A coalition that includes the Condom Project sent back 100,000 condoms to the city, about 15 percent of what the city says has been passed out to groups.

The city's effort to dispense up to 1 million condoms this year has drawn praise, but there has been little applause for the packets. The wrapper is emblazoned with the slogan "Coming Together to Stop HIV in D.C."

Concerns arose almost immediately. In interviews yesterday, officials at nearly half a dozen organizations that had been dispensing the condoms said they had received negative feedback from clients. Many said that the packaging seemed shoddy, they said.

"We're using them mostly for demonstration programs," said Cyndee Clay, executive director of HIPS, which helps sex workers in the city.

Some people were suspicious about the way the wrappers look. Even before reports of ripping, youths involved with the group Metro TeenAIDS wondered why the wrappers weren't plastic or foil, like those sold in stores.

"They doubted the authenticity of the condoms" and balked at taking them, executive director Adam Tenner said. "Distribution of those condoms has been really difficult," he said, and the nonprofit diverted funding from other programs to buy its own. "The question becomes, how do we fix this?"

We do tears, too

From The Associated Press:

WASHINGTON --Under that famously self-confident exterior is a president who weeps - a lot.

President Bush told the author of a new book on his presidency that "I try not to wear my worries on my sleeve" or show anything less than steadfastness in public, especially in a time of war.

"I fully understand that the enemy watches me, the Iraqis are watching me, the troops watch me, and the people watch me," he said. Yet, he said, "I do tears."

"I've got God's shoulder to cry on. And I cry a lot. I do a lot of crying in this job. I'll bet I've shed more tears than you can count, as president. I'll shed some tomorrow."

Bush granted journalist Robert Draper several extended interviews in late 2006 and early 2007, as well as unusual access to his aides, for the book "Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush," which went on sale Tuesday.

I'LL BET THE LOVED ONES of the 3,752 American soldiers killed in the crier-in-chief's dirty little war have cried a lot more tears than the self-absorbed instigator of their Iraq agony.

Maybe he can think about that -- maybe even shed a few more crocodile tears -- when he's out there "replenishing the ol' coffers" after Jan. 20, 2009. I'm sure there'll be at least a few remaining "true believers" who'll throw good money after bad to hear how one of the worst presidents in history royally screwed up America . . . or, perhaps by then, what's left of it.

We whored ourselves, but all we got was screwed

Feeling "rode hard and put away wet" yet, fellow pro-life Christian types?

For the better part of 30 years, orthodox Christians and others against killing babies in the womb supply-sided their Christian witness, added a party-line gospel that had nothing -- absolutely nothing -- to do with Jesus Christ crucified, risen and coming again . . . and all we got was a lousy ban on partial-birth abortion.

Which dedicated abortionists now have found a way around.

Meanwhile, we've stuck the nation with the likes of David Vitter, Larry Craig and the torturer-in-chief, George W. Bush -- a man for whom no delusion about a failed war in a Middle Eastern dung heap is too insane to be held tight.

Do you think God is trying to tell us something?

FOR 30 YEARS, we believed that a bunch of conservative politicians whose basic assumptions about economics and society tend to violate Christian ethics in one key aspect or another -- starting with "blessed are the poor" -- had the power to save a society sick unto death. Meanwhile, we lost confidence in the power of the Savior of the world to redeem a shallow, oversexed and avaricious culture.

We have rendered ourselves unto Caesar -- or Reagan, Bush, Dole and Bush . . . whatever -- and all we got was this lousy job at Burger King, a bumper sticker and a campaign T-shirt. And that unjust, stupid little war in Iraq that's killing our young men and women while smashing our military to bits for . . . ?

Here's the abortion story from The Boston Globe, via the Omaha World-Herald:

In response to the Supreme Court decision last spring upholding the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, many abortion providers around the country have adopted a defensive tactic: To avoid any chance of partly delivering a live infant, they are injecting fetuses with lethal drugs before procedures.

That shift in late-term abortions goes deeply against the grain, some doctors say: It poses a slight risk to the woman and offers her no medical benefit.

"We do not believe that our patients should take a risk for which the only clear benefit is a legal one to the physician," Dr. Philip Darney, chief of obstetrics at San Francisco General Hospital, wrote in an e-mail. He has chosen not to use the injections.

But others feel compelled to do all they can to protect themselves and their staff from the possibility of being accused.

Upheld in April, the federal ban is broadly written, does not specify an age for the fetus, and carries a two-year prison sentence. It forbids partly delivering a live fetus, then intentionally causing its death.

Even before the ban, the method known medically as intact dilation and extraction — typically involving removal of a fetus as far as the skull, which then is punctured and drained to ease its passage through the cervix — was rare, accounting for less than 1 percent of all abortions.

Instead, doctors usually use the method known as dilation and evacuation, in which the fetus is killed surgically while still inside the uterus before removal.

Now, if a fetus is not dead as it is removed, a provider might be accused of violating the law. So the lethal injections beforehand, carefully documented, are aimed at precluding any accusation.

Bellevue abortion provider Dr. LeRoy Carhart did not return repeated calls from The World-Herald seeking comment on whether he uses such injections.

A spokeswoman for the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights, whose attorneys have represented Carhart, declined to comment.

In a 2004 court case, Carhart testified that, in abortions after 18 weeks, he first anesthetizes and then kills the fetus inside the uterus with drugs. Asked whether he thought such injections were safe for his patients, Carhart replied yes.

Dr. Michael Greene, director of obstetrics at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, said that in experienced hands, the injections add no risk and are "trivially simple" compared with other obstetrical procedures. The main drawback, he said, is that "it is yet another procedure that the patient has to endure."

Patients have not objected to the injections, Greene said.

"They all are appreciative of what we do for them and understand the circumstances under which we work," he said.

The injections are generally used in abortions after 18 or 20 weeks of gestation. Medical staff inject the heart drug digoxin or potassium chloride.

Dr. Mark Nichols, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Oregon Health & Science University, said his impression is that most providers of later-term abortions are making injections routine.

At his own clinic, he said, the new rule is that any patient with a fetus over 20 weeks' gestation must have an injection.

YOU HAVE TO WONDER what might have been had pro-life Evangelicals, Southern Baptists, Catholics and their fellow travelers had put all the time and treasure they squandered on the Republican Party on evangelizing a lost people and transforming a debased culture.

How many of our slaughtered little brothers and sisters might be here with us today had we given George W. Bush less and the poor more?

How many abortionists might be looking for honest work today had we loved power less and loved our children more?

How many souls might have been rescued from the wickedness and snares of the devil had we retreated to Christian ghettos less and impacted the American culture more? Would we be having this highly unsatisfying conversation today if we loved Jesus Christ more than Jesus Junk?

IT TAKES A SPECIAL BUNCH of self-righteous idiots to act like a bunch of two-bit whores, then be utterly surprised when they get nothing but screwed.

Sad thing is, when we get screwed, it's our neighbors -- and our kids -- who catch that nasty STD.

A 39 is an 'F' on anybody's grade scale

The Associated Press reports President Bush once again has been blowing smoke up the collective butt of the American people when it comes to Iraq.

Actually, the AP didn't say exactly that. But that's what is plain from what the wire service does report. I am soooooo shocked:

WASHINGTON - Baghdad has not met 11 of its 18 political and security goals, according to a new independent report on Iraq that challenges President Bush’s assessment on the war.

The study, conducted by the Government Accountability Office, was slightly more upbeat than initially planned. After receiving substantial resistance from the White House, the GAO determined that four benchmarks — instead of two — had been partially met.

But GAO stuck with its original contention that only three goals out of the 18 had been achieved. The goals met include establishing joint security stations in Baghdad, ensuring minority rights in the Iraqi legislature and creating support committees for the Baghdad security plan.

“Overall key legislation has not been passed, violence remains high, and it is unclear whether the Iraqi government will spend $10 billion in reconstruction funds,” said U.S. Comptroller David Walker in prepared remarks for a Senate hearing on Tuesday.

An advance copy of the 100-page report and Walker’s testimony was obtained by The Associated Press.

GAO’s findings paint a bleaker view of progress in Iraq than offered by Bush in July and comes at a critical time in the Iraq debate. So far, Republicans have stuck by Bush and staved off Democratic legislation ordering troops home. But many, who have grown uneasy about the unpopularity of the war, say they want to see substantial improvement in Iraq by September.

Next week the top military commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, and U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, are scheduled to brief Congress.

“While the Baghdad security plan was intended to reduce sectarian violence, measuring such violence may be difficult since the perpetrator’s intent is not clearly known,” GAO states in its report. “Other measures of violence, such as the number of enemy-initiated attacks, show that violence has remained high through July 2007.”

Republican leaders on Tuesday showed no signs of wavering in their support for Bush.

“The GAO report really amounts to asking someone to kick an 80-yard field goal and criticizing them when they came up 20 or 25 yards short,” said House GOP leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters he would like to ensure a long-term U.S. presence in the Middle East to fight al-Qaida and deter aggression from Iran.

“And I hope that this reaction to Iraq and the highly politicized nature of dealing with Iraq this year doesn’t end up in a situation where we just bring all the troops back home and thereby expose us, once again, to the kind of attacks we’ve had here in the homeland or on American facilities,” said McConnell, R-Ky.

Democrats said the GAO report showed that Bush’s decision to send more troops to Iraq was failing because Baghdad was not making the political progress needed to tamp down sectarian violence.

“No matter what spin we may hear in the coming days, this independent assessment is a failing grade for a policy that simply isn’t working,” said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.

The report does not make any substantial policy recommendations, but says future administration reports “would be more useful to the Congress” if they provided more detailed information.

If God is dead, WTF is the only thing left

Methinks John Carroll is onto something big. If you don't know who John Carroll is, go here, as Rod Dreher can fill you in on Carroll's Big Idea -- contained in this book -- over on Crunchy Con.

Once you've been briefed, I can relate a couple of thoughts Rod's post sparked in the Imperial Brain.

A BRIEF
INTERMISSION
for BACKSTORY
BRIEFING . . .
WILL BE BACK
PRESENTLY

And the Mighty Favog's take on this begins in three . . .

Two . . .

One . . .

START.

* * *

IT SEEMS THAT WESTERN CULTURE has gone off the tracks in two significant ways simultaneously. Secular humanism basically posits that we are our own end and make up our own morality, if indeed the collective concept of morality is possible at all.

Without any "eternal vision" to guide us, there really is no reason to behave well -- to work and play well with others. I think this is clear even from a purely behavioralist perspective: Absent eternal reward and punishment, why should we behave well, whatever "well" might be? Absent any trancendental truths, or deity to enforce them, who has the authority to make the rules, anyway -- much less enforce them?

Then everything quickly devolves to "might makes right," and anything is permissable in creating the "might" to enforce your individual concept of "right."

But even among those of a trancendental mindset -- those who believe man is created in the image of God -- over the past 500 or so years, we more and more have gone from a self-concept of being "in the image of God" to that of being a god . . . or resembling a God whose image we created just the other day to suit our own purposes.

This, I think, ties right into what Carroll is saying about churches failing to draw upon 2,000 years of Jesus stories for our defining narrative. Since the life, Passion and resurrection of Christ, Western civilization has had this narrative of who we are, where we fit into The Story and what our job is here on earth. And the Christian story dovetails into the Hebrew narrative going back almost 6,000 years.

So despite this 6,000-year collective memory of Who We Are, Why We're Here and What We Must Do, for the past few hundred years we've been trying to "reimagine" the whole shebang when it hardly was necessary.

AND WHEN YOU GET to Carroll's questioning of traditional Christianity resorting to mere doctrine, it is easy to see his point about doctrine's ineffectiveness in combating a new "tradition" that solipsistically references nothing higher than the individual.

I'm just spitballing here, but perhaps what needs to happen is to start answering questions and challenges with even bigger questions. Wonderfully Jewish, eh?

For example, instead of just automatically reverting to a recitation of doctrine, we need to rediscover the "why" behind the doctrine, leading to the big question of "What does it mean to be made in the image of God -- what are the responsibilities we bear from being made in the image of God?"

And they wonder why circulation's in free fall

Last week, this was deemed by The Washington Post and 20-odd other American newspapers to be unfit material for consumption by American readers, because editors thought it might cause adherents of the Religion of Peace (TM) to get their burkas in a bunch and become violently offended.

Isn't this what they call the "soft racism of lowered expectations"?

Furthermore, if a group is regularly pandered to for fear it will become violent, isn't that the same as conditioning a group to employ violence -- or the threat thereof -- to achieve its goals? Isn't that conditioning every special interest to employ violence -- or the threat thereof -- to get what it wants?

And isn't that the death knell of democracy and a civil society?

In other words, by treating people with kid gloves for fear of creating another Iraq . . . you end up with another Iraq.

HAT TIP: Crunchy Con

Stay up and watch the stars come out

I've been watching the Jerry Lewis muscular dystrophy telethon since 1971 or so, when we got a TV station that carried it in Baton Rouge.

I don't know what that says about me, but there you go.

Yeah, the show's full of has-beens and corporate hacks who can't read cue cards, and did I mention has-beens? And, of course, activists say Lewis is exploiting disabled people, which always leads this never-was to wonder every year how it's exploitation when you're trying to cure diseases that kill many of the "exploited."

But, as I said, there you go.

It's hokey and cloying and sometimes borderline torture to watch . . . but it works, and I love it. Somehow, it's so unreal it's real.

And how can you hate an effort to eradicate an awful group of neuromuscular diseases and help out the folks -- many of them children -- who suffer from them? Not to mention the man who's been hosting Muscular Dystrophy Association telethons since 1952, and annually on Labor Day since 1966.

It's a good cause. Think about parting with some scratch for it, eh?

And now I'm going back to watch.

Oh, yeah . . . the videos above are from some early telethons, and then the Dean Martin-Jerry Lewis reunion -- on the telethon, of course -- in 1976. And, yes, I was watching.

Out of the Blue! 7.9 quake rocks Michigan

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (R21) -- A massive earthquake, initially pegged as magnitude 7.9 on the Richter Scale, rocked the Ann Arbor area Saturday following the University of Michigan's improbable home football loss to 1-AA Appalachian State.

The temblor rocked Wolverine fans already reeling in the aftermath of the No. 5 Wolverines' stunning 34-32 defeat at the hands of the North Carolinians and the seeming end of Michigan's national-title dreams. Information on injuries remains sketchy, and there has been no word on property damage from the quake, which geologists believe was centered on Ann Arbor's Forest Hill Cemetery.

A severely injured cemetery groundskeeper, interviewed at University Hospital by Detroit's WXYZ television, reported hearing a loud whirring sound at the gravesite of former Michigan Coach Bo Schembechler seconds before the ground began violently shaking, with a deep fissure splitting the earth mere seconds later.

Ann Arbor police reported panic in the streets before the earthquake struck, forcing an unruly mob of more than 100,000 to run for safety.

"I've never seen anything like it," said Ann Arbor police Sgt. Rufus Szyszic. "And then the earthquake hit, which was something of a relief for us, because I never want to see such a horrible thing again on that football field.

"Maybe the damage will be bad enough to cancel the rest of the season, so we can have some time to emotionally recover from the game," he added, sobbing.

===========
MORE TO COME

Making sure you die . . . next time

Dissatisfied that it was unable to kill enough Americans through rank incompetence in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is taking steps to make sure disaster victims it wasn't able to mismanage into an early grave last time almost surely will croak next time.

And there's always a next time, just like there's always another way for the Bush Administration to screw over the American people.

From The Associated Press:

NEW YORK (AP) -- After the terror attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11th, regular people rushed down to the site to volunteer any way they could.

It might not be so easy the next time disaster strikes.

In an effort to provide better control and coordination, the federal government is launching an ID program for rescue workers to keep everyday people from swarming to a disaster scene.

A prototype identification card has already being issued to fire and police personnel in the Washington, D.C. area.

Proponents say the system will get professionals on scene quicker and keep untrained volunteers from making tough work more difficult.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency came up with the idea after the World Trade Center attack and Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when countless Americans rushed to help - unasked, undirected, and sometimes unwanted.

THAT'S RIGHT, BOYS AND GIRLS, in Katrina's watery wake -- after the New Orleans cops had hauled ass, the Army never showed up, FEMA couldn't find its ass with both hands and half the National Guard was in Iraq -- the only people left to save desperate New Orleanians were . . . fellow Louisianians.

Many of those fellow Louisianians belonged to an ad-hoc civilian outfit that came to be known as the "Cajun Navy," hundreds upon hundreds of ordinary folk who hitched up their trailers and hauled their bass boats and bateaus to the flooded city and started pulling people off rooftops. People who probably would have died because of the "heckuva job" Brownie was doing at the time.

In fact the journal Homeland Security Affairs (a publication of the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security) called the Cajun Navy an astonishing example of what it terms "swarm intelligence":

Three characteristics of “swarm intelligence” particularly relevant to emergency management are flexibility, robustness, and self-organization. Most people would agree that all three of those characteristics were missing from the governmental response to Katrina.

The single noteworthy agency exempted from the criticism of governmental response was the U.S. Coast Guard, whose Gulf Coast units did not wait for express authorization to begin search and rescue operations. According to a Government Accountability Office report, “… underpinning these efforts were factors such as the [Coast Guard’s] operational principles. These principles promote leadership, accountability, and enable personnel to take responsibility and action, based on relevant authorities and guidance.”
Similarly, on 9/11 the only effective response was a classic example of swarm intelligence. A group of total strangers on Flight 93 coalesced (in circumstances when no one would have blamed them for instead dissolving into hysterics) to thwart the hijackers’ plan to crash the plane into the Capitol or White House. They exhibited all three characteristics of swarm intelligence in abundance.

Another example is how individuals came together via the Internet to provide a variety of invaluable and reliable information to victims of the tsunami, and, more recently, of Hurricane Katrina. In particular, some of these people took it upon themselves to create the tsunamihelp blog and wiki. Later, a core group of those people took the lead in creating the Katrinahelp wiki. As one of the tsunamihelp volunteers, Dina Mehta, wrote:

We experienced a near-magical interdependence as we were setting up and establishing this blog. It’s not just about the people who were blogging; there [were] a whole lot of volunteers who fed us with links, sent us letters from affected people reaching out for help, others who took on the mantle of editing, sub-groups working on design and template issues, still others quietly contributing by buying up bandwidth and applications and offering up mirror servers, that made the blog more effective.

Mehta accurately describes how individuals participating in a situation that evokes swarm intelligence produce results that are far greater than the sum of their parts. In the case of Katrina, still others spontaneously came together to craft imaginative Google Map mashups (applications combining information from multiple sources) to allow identification of homes in New Orleans and to create unified databases of those needing assistance.

Perhaps the most astonishing examples of swarm intelligence in a recent disaster response situation were the variety of ad hoc rescue efforts in New Orleans that Douglas Brinkley described in The Great Deluge. Spurred by word of mouth, hundreds of Cajuns spontaneously navigated their small boats to New Orleans in an ad hoc citizens’ flotilla, the “Cajun Navy,” which rescued nearly 4,000 survivors. Reggae singer Michael Knight and his wife Deonne saved approximately 250 people by themselves. Richard Zuschlag, co-founder of Acadian Ambulance Service, used his 200 ambulances, plus medivac helicopters, to evacuate 7,000, while also providing the only reliable emergency communications system.

IN OTHER WORDS, FEMA wants to take the only thing that went right in Katrina's aftermath and squash it like a bug next time.

But I have a better idea. Let's, by all means, rigorously check IDs in disaster zones when next the unspeakable happens.

And if an ordinary citizen trying to actually help his fellow man were to find someone with FEMA identification, they would be empowered to shoot that individual immediately to prevent hindrance of ongoing rescue operations.

See if you can guess what I am now

Click on picture for video.

Kathy Shaidle of Relapsed Catholic thinks this creep is right on the money with his Web misanthropy:

Nice to see that other people are finally saying what I was saying the first week, two years ago.

Like V-Tech, Katrina revealed a lot about so-called conservative bloggers, who mostly fell all over themselves about New Orleans and what a shame it was that it was being destroyed.

Now, I expect liberals, libertines and progressives to mourn the loss of a cheap hotbed of public drunkeness, murder, laziness and corruption. Oh and don't forget the great food! Liberals are obsessed with "all those great restaurants", as we know from every debate about multiculturalism.

However, I expect (stupidly, as I continue to discover) conservatives to be a little more sober, to be able to see beyond their base appetites and be realistic about sending money to people so stupid they live in a bowl in a flood zone, how they'd spend all your donations on lap dancers, so primitive they couldn't control themselves during a crisis. Then they re-elected the mayor responsible for their misery. Because he's black, of course!

I saw all this clearly. You didn't. I really don't know how some of you make it through each day without falling down a manhole.

WHAT I WANT TO KNOW is whether "relapsed" Catholics read the same Bible as the rest of us Catholics?

Or do they at all?

In Kathy's Bible, does she find the standard wording for the Beatitudes, for example, or does it go more like "Blessed are the a**holes, for they're smarter than the rest of you f***ers"? And how would such a savior differ much from Islam's prophet, for whom she has such vociferous disdain?

Actually, Kathy more and more just sounds like another Ayn Rand disciple imbibing of the Kook-Aid and eager to tell us "You're all worthless and weak!"

Perhaps so. But Kathy, see if you can guess what I am now.

Two, four, six, eight! Kristy, give us an update!

OK, a few weeks ago, I posted this update on Kristy Dusseau, who's had a hell of a time the past couple of years after undergoing cancer treatment.

You know how that goes; sometimes the cure is just this much less awful than the disease. That's certainly been the case for Kristy.

The good news is that, despite another recent hospital stay, she seems to be making slow-but-sure progress in recovering from the cancer cure. But the deal is, when we want to hear how she's doing, we hear . . . crickets. Or tree frogs, if you grew up in South Louisiana like I did.

So I'm a callin' Miss Kristy out! I'm a wantin' details, and I'm a wantin' 'em now! And I'm a wantin' another Life With Kristy video on her web site.

And I'm a wantin' 'em soon, so's I can post them here, too. Wouldn't it be kewl if Kristy would write the update herself, considering how busy her brother/webmaster Rob has been?

Leave Kristy a message on her website and tell her to get on the stick. She can mail her update here, and I'll post it tout de suite.

As always, inquiring minds want to know!

Help us help the children . . . with music!

When the staff of Revolution 21 found her in a shanty town under the Interstate 480 bridge in Omaha, little Stefania was covered with lice, suffering from rickets and listening to awful Top-40 music on Channel 94-1.

Yet she still managed to smile for a visitor to her encampment, a crooked smile that displayed her dirty brown teeth. She looked much older than her 14 years -- sort of like a munchkin charwoman in an asphalt jungle.

One could hardly believe that only a few blocks away were burgeoning and popular condominium developments in the growing downtown of this bustling Midwestern city. Such deprivation amid this expanse of plenty!

Stefania could represent all of the deprived youth shoved aside, denied access to the banquet table of this capitalist society. She could represent all of those who could be just like you and me . . . if only.

BUT THROUGH YOUR DONATIONS, we at Revolution 21 will buy a corporate jet to fly our executives from one charity even to another across the fruited plain . . . and we'll be able to buy more commercial airtime to keep those donations rolling in. Unfortunately, we won't be able to provide little Stefania a nutritious diet and sufficient Vitamin D to get rid of her rickets.

The Learjet payment is due next week, and you know how that goes!

We will, however, will be able to provide Stefania access to the Revolution 21 podcast, enabling her to leave the cultural deprivation of commercial contemporary-hits radio behind forever and instead bask in the richness of the best in contemporary musical genius. All thanks to your generous donations.

Stefania would give you a standing ovation for your generosity . . . if she could stand any longer.

FOR YOUR GENEROSITY, allow us to offer you free access to our award-winning Revolution 21 podcast here. May the wonderful music it provides warm your heart and enliven your senses!

The Almighty is gonna kick our ass . . . and it won't be because of the gays

My first, visceral reaction to hateful literary diarrhea such as this by little-noted online Neanderthal John Hawkins is to find the creep, lay into him with a baseball bat and then -- while he's laying there moaning and calling for help -- tell him "It sucks to be you" and to get off his lazy ass.

But that would be wrong.

Yet, that's pretty much what has happened to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast after Katrina, with conservative scumbuckets like Hawkins leading the way.

IN NEW ORLEANS, defective levees and floodwalls -- constructed by the federal government -- were the baseball bat. The "whiners" Hawkins and countless Angry Men of the Comboxes fulminate over are the recipients of the assault. And for the bastard children of David Stockman to crack on New Orleans after being accessories to its destruction is akin to Charles Manson telling the Sharon Tate family to "get over it."

You'd just as well make me read swill like this, and expect me not to develop an overpowering urge toward projectile vomiting:

Two years after Katrina, everywhere you turn, there are people carping, whining, and kvetching. Just why hasn't the pity party for the citizens of New Orleans run out of booze and chips yet?

It's not as if hurricanes are a once a millennium event in the United States. In fact, residents of Florida have so many of them that they don't even cancel a barbecue for anything under a Category 3.

Moreover, people lose their homes in this country every day of the year. If it isn't a hurricane, it's an earthquake. If it isn't an earthquake, it's a tornado. If it isn't a tornado, it's a fire. If it isn't a fire, it's a flood. Yet nobody sits and frets about John Doe, age 58, who lost his house in a flash flood two years ago or Jane Doe, age 60, who had her house blown away by a twister back in 2005.

But, we're all supposed to eternally sit around and weep tiny little tears of sadness for the people who really took it on the chin in a hurricane because they chose to live in a city shaped like a soup bowl on the coast. Let me tell all the citizens of New Orleans something that should have been told to them 18 months ago: it's time to stop playing the sympathy card and get over it.

Nobody is owed a living for the rest of his life because he had a bad break two years ago. Yet, we still have people affected by Katrina who have FEMA paying their rent. How sad and pathetic is it that these shiftless people are still leaching off their fellow citizens? Since when is being in the path of a hurricane supposed to give you a permanent "Get Out of Work Free" card?

Is that just too honest for some people? Is it just “too mean?" Well, if your house burns down tomorrow and you're still living on the dole two years from now, are your real friends going to pat you on the back and tell you that you should keep suckling at the government teat for as long as you can or are they going to give you a kick in the behind and tell you to get a job? A real friend would be honest enough to tell you the truth and more people should do the same for Katrina victims.

Want to know another person who needs to be told the truth? It's New Orleans resident Erick Ventura, who said this,

"America really doesn't give a s*** about New Orleans. We forget. The bridge that collapsed [in Minnesota] -- it's gone, it's yesterday's news. The miners -- if they're not digging a sixth hole, we forget about them. We as a society, we really don't give a d*mn."

Guess what, buddy? You're right; nobody does "give a s*** about New Orleans" any more other than a few saints and a lot of manipulative Democrats looking for a political issue they can exploit. That's the nature of life. Today you're here, tomorrow you are gone, and 99% of the time everyone other than your closest family members have practically forgotten that you existed two weeks later -- but at least New Orleans got $127 billion, more than we spent on the Marshall Plan, before people moved on to something else. That's more than most of us get to say after something bad happens to us and it's why the citizens of New Orleans should be thanking the rest of America for our generosity instead of griping.

AND SOME OF THE COMMENTS are even worse. As are many of the comments from fine 'Merkuns out there -- who either need more antacids or a real life -- whenever anyone posts a Katrina-related article on the Web.

Apparently, this is what conservatism has come to in the United States -- not that liberalism has acquitted itself any better, really, on other hot-button issues. And it is precisely because American conservatism has taken "the Cain excuse" to heart is why I cannot be an American conservative.

See, I try to be a Catholic Christian. I'm crappy at it, but I try. And I have determined that to be a Rush Limbaugh-John Hawkins conservative would do to my immortal soul what the U.S. government's piss-poor civil engineering did to New Orleans.

The Limbaughs and the Hawkinses of the world are all about "Am I my brother's keeper?" In fact, they are all about trying to convince the rest of us that we're not our brother's keepers. That is a lie.

IT'S ONE OF THE BIGGEST LIES Satan ever spawned and set loose upon the earth to ravage lives and consign souls to hell.

I don't want to go to hell. Neither should you. And we all should avoid hateful, selfish, self-righteous venom -- and attitudes -- such as Mr. Hawkins' like the deadly plague they represent.

Hey, hey, whadda ya say? Let's bring back the WPA!

Why not bring back a new Works Progress Administration to rebuild the Gulf Coast and New Orleans? Probably because the idea makes too much sense to make it through Congress.

And because many Americans really, truly hate those who aren't prosperous and perfect in every way. (Which, of course, would include themselves. But they haven't gotten around to thinking things through that far.)

KGO television in San Francisco has the details here:

A group of San Jose State University students are trying to help New Orleans rebuild by reviving a 72-year-old work program. The students want to bring back the depression era Work Projects Administration - the WPA.

Thirty or so San Jose State University students, faculty and Katrina survivors are marching today to commemorate the second anniversary of the devastation hurricane Katrina caused to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. CC Campbell is a Katrina survivor who last week visited her home town.

"It's virtually like it was after Katrina sans the water," hurricane Katrina survivor C.C Campbell said.

Campbell is here because the students have formed the Gulf Coast Civic Works Project. It's a form of the WPA created during the depression 72 years ago. The proposed project is now a national effort to try and create 100,000 jobs for gulf coast residents. CC Campbell thinks it'll help.

"Thats what the federal government did not compensate for is loss of jobs and loss of income. If I don't have a job why am I going home?" Campbell said.

Campbell says she will go home after she and her husband rebuild, she also was surprised at what President Bush said today.

"This town is better today than it was yesterday," President Bush said.

"That's mayhem and foolishness is what that is. That is pure hogwash," Campbell said.

And how's that working out for you?

School leaders at Holy Family say their school

is all about inclusiveness. It is in the school's

motto and in the spirit of their teachings.

* * *

SOMEDAY, WHEN IT IS TOO LATE, Catholics will learn that "be nice" and "inclusiveness" is no substitute for the Cross and the Ten Commandments.

Until then, whatever Catholic schools and religious-education programs are preaching instead of the gospel and Christ crucified will have little power to save even themselves, and they'll keep turning out little hedonists, materialists . . . and Nazis.

OK, we don't know that Holy Family High School in Broomfield, Colo., is turning out actual Nazis. But we do know that they're turning out some pretty vocal white supremacists and bigots. White power, anyone?

And the Holy Family administrators are quite surprised by the development. Who'd a thunk it???

KUSA television in Denver reports:

BROOMFIELD – It started with a simple question and ended with at least one student chanting "white power" in a classroom.

It happened Tuesday in a classroom at Holy Family High School, the Catholic school that sits at the corner of 144th Avenue and Sheridan Boulevard in Broomfield.

The classroom discussion started with the question: Why do students need to learn Spanish?

According to the Archdiocese of Denver, the conversation soon became about immigration and it turned ugly.

"It became a heated discussion and some rhetoric was used that was inappropriate for the classroom," said Jeanette DeMelo, spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Denver.

At least one e-mail sent to 9NEWS said that at least one student started a chant of "white power" and some said that all Mexicans should go back to Mexico.

"Immigration is an explosive topic right now. It seeped into the classroom," she said.

The Archdiocese says they did not expect something like this to happen in their system, which has embraced its Hispanic students. Archbishop Charles Chaput has come forward several times in support of the Mexican community.

"I think the teacher was a little bit unprepared for that type of discussion in a language classroom," said DeMelo.

The archdiocese says the four students who instigated the whole thing have been talked to and supposedly are remorseful. The Spanish teacher also met with administrators.

An e-mail sent to 9NEWS states the Hispanic students in the class at the time asked to leave, but were forced to stay in the classroom.

Holy Family Principal Sr. Mary Rose Lieb, O.S.F. released a statement on Thursday evening about the incident:

"On Tuesday in a Spanish-language class at Holy Family High School, a single handful of students used heated and inappropriate rhetoric in a discussion on immigration. In a class of approximately 30 students, fewer than six students voiced strong anti-immigration opinions. The remaining two-thirds of the class were silent or voiced support for immigrants. At the end of the discussion, one student inappropriately said "white power," two or three times. Most of the students in the class did not hear the comments. Contrary to media reports, there were no chants by more than one student. Two students, who were offended, asked to leave the classroom and were given permission to leave. However, the discussion ended when other students realized how these students were affected and all of the students remained until the end of class."

"When the administration received a complaint regarding this discussion, interviews were conducted of the students in the classroom as well as the teacher. The student who acted inappropriately was disciplined and the situation has been addressed with the teacher."

"The administration treated this situation as a teaching moment - an opportunity to reaffirm that respect and charity should be the foundation of every dialogue and encounter with another."

(snip)

School leaders at Holy Family say their school is all about inclusiveness. It is in the school's motto and in the spirit of their teachings.

"Holy Family is precisely what its name is: a family. And they've always prided themselves on the diversity," said DeMelo.

Dear Bobby: Shut up! You're looking like part of the problem, not part of the solution

From the WAFB television website:

WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. Representative Bobby Jindal has joined a growing number of Republicans calling for the resignation of Idaho Senator Larry Craig.

Craig is finding himself increasingly isolated from his political allies after his arrest in an airport men's room.

Jindal is among a handful of Republican House members calling for Craig to step down. Others include Jeff Miller and Ginny Brown-Waite of Florida, Mark Souder of Indiana, and Ron Lewis of Kentucky.

Jindal is running for governor in Louisiana.

A spokesman for Craig denied widespread speculation in Washington that the three-term senator, who is up for re-election next year, was preparing to quit.

REP. JINDAL JUST NEEDS TO SHUT UP.

Why is that? I'm glad you asked.

Bobby Jindal needs to shut the !@#& up because the more he engages in such rank, self-righteous hypocrisy, the more he looks like a kept man. A party shill. A follower, not a leader.

Louisiana has had enough of followers. It's had enough of grafters, incompetents and lemmings who specialize in following their political patrons right over the cliff -- in turn, leading all their lower-light Louisiana followers over the edge and into the abyss.

I had thought better of Jindal than that . . . despite the disturbing signs of party-line toadyism he has manifested in the U.S. House. Whadda you know? Wrong again.

WHAT'S MORE DISTURBING, however, is that a smart fellow like Jindal apparently is convinced Louisianians are so damned stupid they won't start asking "But what about Vitter?" That Jindal thinks he can get away with such morally inconsistent pandering -- that he needs to engage in such a display of hypocritical moral inconsistency, as opposed to just shutting the !@#& up -- is a disturbing sign Louisianians just might be that damned stupid.

I, however, am not.

So, congressman, what about Sen. David Vitter, R-La.?

Bobby Jindal is a genius. Literally. He certainly knows that the only difference between Vitter and Larry Craig is the statute of limitations . . . and the gender of their booty-call targets. David Vitter is a john who didn't get caught fast enough; Larry Craig is an old poofter who got arrested while looking for a cheap thrill in an airport john.

What's the diff?

Jindal also is an amateur Catholic apologist. Certainly, he ought to be able to answer this: Apart from the fact that Vitter's naughty bits complemented the hooker's quite nicely, what is the difference -- sinwise, that is -- between Diaperman's heterosexual immorality and Craig's apparent homosexual immorality?

THE WAY I SEE IT, Craig is alleged to have committed crimes against God, crimes against his wife and crimes against nature. Vitter has admitted to committing crimes against God and crimes against his marital bond.

So, morally, Jindal is saying rank sexual morality and betrayal of a spouse is tolerable, but that crime against nature thang is the killer?

Homosexual acts aren't the only crimes against nature. And if the congressman is stating "unnatural acts" constitute the straw that breaks a senator's back -- moral wretchedness and legal transgression being the same -- I think he needs to tell teen-age American males, quite clearly, "You're on notice, buckos! Think twice! You may be putting a political career at risk!"

That's just nuts.

And Jindal is engaging in nutty thinking. That, or incredibly cynical thinking.

Louisiana has had enough nuts and cynics on the fourth floor of the state capitol. I had been hoping this election cycle might break the pattern.

Oops! I did it again!

Not eating makes you look like a bobblehead

From The (London) Daily Mail:

Keira Knightley may have arrived in Venice to promote her latest film, but it is her shrinking frame that is attracting all the attention.

The actress looked tinier than ever as she attended a press conference before then attending the opening of Atonement at the Venice Film Festival.

Knightley, who adamantly denied reports of an eating disorder last year, looked shockingly gaunt as she posed for photographers in a full length white and navy gown.

Later, the 22-year-old actress took to the red carpet in a stunning silver diamante Chanel gown with a pink sash around the waist for the world premiere of Atonement, for which she has already been tipped for an Oscar.

From the 'Sent Mail': Get back to class!

From: The Mighty Favog
To: **** ******
Sent: Monday, September 05, 2005 01:19
Subject: Here's why classes need to resume

Prior to Chancellor O’Keefe’s town hall meeting on Friday, I had serious doubts that LSU would be ready to resume classes on Tuesday. I’m now convinced the university will attempt to start again, but now I’m unsure of the wisdom of that idea.

There remains a massive triage operation and special needs shelter on LSU’s campus. Helicopters, buses and wailing ambulances bearing evacuees are still coming in frequently. This operation will be going on for weeks at the very least.

Dear ****,


Here's why classes need to resume this week at LSU: The future of Louisiana. Hurricane Katrina wasn't a catastrophe for just New Orleans; it will have untold effects on all of Louisiana and, indeed, the nation. That's not even looking at the unfathomable human suffering, which isn't my point in this E-mail.

The point of this E-mail is what will happen in terms of "How will we live out our economic and civic lives, then?" In those terms, Louisiana will suffer grievously. Consider: A tremendous blow has been dealt to Louisiana's economy at a time of ongoing budgetary hardship. Really, you don't want to even think of the budgetary hit the state began to take, starting last Sunday, when New Orleans became an economic non-factor.

Louisiana lives by the sales tax, and it is about to die by the sales tax. The tourism industry just shrank to a dim shadow of its former self. No longer can the Gret Stet make a even a hard-scrabble living while remaining one of the most pathetically uneducated and unindustrious of these United States.

A population that remains inordinately poor and ignorant -- and I am not referring to just poor African-Americans in New Orleans, there are far too many white Louisianians who possess far more educational and economic opportunities yet possess even less interest in exploiting them -- just ain't that charming absent a good drenching of Old World charm in dishabille and Jack Daniels. Excitement-starved Ohioans will pay thousands to vomit in a Bourbon Street gutter because it is colorful and exotic spewing.

Throwing up on Chimes Street is just throwing up on Chimes Street. (God, how I miss The Bayou. Don't miss the throwing up or making an ass of myself, though.)

Someone leaving a handbill reading "Good jazz too-nite. Sho start at Elevn O-clok" posted at Tipitina's will leave color-starved tourists with the warm fuzzies about the "local flavor." A similar sign at Val's Marina in Head of Island just makes Yankees think "Deliverance" and "Squeeeeeeal like a pig, boy!"

See?

I think Jonathan Alter put it exceptionally well in the latest issue of Newsweek online:

I haven't seen them yet on TV, but vultures may have already descended on the carcass of New Orleans. We know that human vultures are swooping in. And the hangman prepared his noose this year, when the Bush budgeteers cut the Army Corps of Engineers' request for fixing the levees by two thirds. For the antitax conservatives who rule so much of the Gulf Coast and Washington, this is a comeuppance. Remember Mumford's history: Government matters. Not entertainment.

To survive, New Orleans must rewire its insouciance into seriousness. The city is at once enchanting and exasperating, romantic and fatalistic. Will the Big Easy learn to work hard enough to resurrect itself? Or is it, for all practical purposes, gone—a place on the map and not much more? History can make the argument either way.

The first week augurs ill. If House Speaker Dennis Hastert is saying now—with sympathy at its peak—that pumping billions of federal dollars into restoring a city below sea level "doesn't make sense," then aid from Washington will plummet in a few months when attention turns elsewhere. Some wealthier refugees are saying privately that they've all but given up on the place. The pictures of looting seemed to burst a psychic dam inside them. Invest in this? Pay more taxes for them? That's a recipe for white flight—overnight. On the other side are blacks—well over half the city's population—who are fed up with a power structure that could not keep them alive, much less house and educate them. Whites and blacks in New Orleans were swimming in a fetid swamp of racial tensions long before Katrina showed up.

The "before" is critical. Experts in urban recovery say that the most important factor in how a city fares is not the extent of the damage but the pre-existing trend lines. Chicago was mostly destroyed by fire in 1871 and San Francisco by earthquake and fire in 1906. But both cities had been on the way up beforehand. So while the rubble still smoldered, entrepreneurs were already getting loans to rebuild. Almost overnight, San Francisco constructed 8,000 barrackslike "refugee houses," with six to eight families in each. Within seven years it had recovered enough to host a world's fair.

The same dynamic applies to more recent disasters. Los Angeles, built on a fault line, is as geographically nonsensical as New Orleans. But it bounced back from an earthquake and riots in the early 1990s. The difference this time is that New Orleans has been in decline for decades. The headquarters of almost every energy company in town has moved away, usually to Houston. Its business establishment lacks the entrepreneurial dynamism of other Southern cities. Its work force is largely poor and uneducated.

The good news is that Mumford's litany of doomed cities is less relevant in modern times. "In the last 200 years, city rebuilding has been almost ubiquitous," says Lawrence Vale, professor of urban studies at MIT. "There's a deeply rooted necessity to turn disaster into opportunity." Vale says it was only a few days after 9/11 that he first saw that word — "opportunity" — in The New York Times.

I was amazed to read this today. The man nailed it. My wife and I, as well as old Baton Rouge friends (none living in Louisiana any longer) have spoken of JUST THIS many times. And not only in relation to New Orleans -- the unfortunate phenomenon isn't confined to what was the Big Easy. It's also a large part of why my wife (an Omaha native) and I no longer live in Baton Rouge.

Compared with the Gret Stet, life in Omaha lacks a degree of color. But it possesses more quality. That requires a certain degree of seriousness, and it damned well requires a level of taxation that Louisianians never have been willing to endure. Good schools and a functional infrastructure cost money.

Sacrifice is a virtue, not just a bummer.

We were in Baton Rouge for a week a little more than a month ago. The positive changes downtown impressed us. The remodeled J-school building amazed us. The growth of Tiger Stadium awed us.

But after spending a week of near strokes every time my mother uttered the words "damn niggers" (all the while sweetly patronizing an African-American professional who had been extraordinarily kind to her . . . and possessed 475 times more education, by the way), after a week of driving past bombed-out looking storefronts on Florida Boulevard, after a week of reading about the troubled state of the East Baton Rouge Parish public schools (primarily because well-off and middle-class whites hauled ass starting in '81), well. . . .

Let me put it this way: As my wife and I sat, and sat, and sat in traffic on Bluebonnet Road, I finally turned to Betsie and asked "Why in the HELL would anyone want to live here?" A month ago, Baton Rouge was a little more than half the size of Omaha but had twice the traffic problems.

Now it's bigger than Omaha. Uh-oh.

What capital does the state of Louisiana have to deal with the challenges the future brings -- a future indefinitely without a New Orleans? Great infrastructure that will make growth easier? A diversified economic base, one with many well-paying jobs? A well-educated population that values intellectual pursuits? A public and a government which will spare no expense or bypass any opportunity to build up and educate its most disadvantaged and vulnerable citizens?

No, no, no and no. Absent an influx of federal aid unparalleled in American history, y'all in big trouble.

Bottom line: The culture matters. It matters on, oh, so many fronts.

It matters if New Orleans is to be reborn. It matters if Louisiana is to survive this catastrophic blow to its economy and its spirit.

The key to Louisiana's surviving and prospering in the future is finding a way to preserve what is charming, enlivening and beautiful in its civic culture while changing what has been shackling and destructive. The job of your generation of Louisianians is to do just that.

Day One of your job is Tuesday. Tuesday is the first day of rebuilding New Orleans and saving Louisiana. Your job lies in the classrooms of Louisiana State University.

The best thing LSU students can do for New Orleans and Louisiana is to get back to work. Don't let the dead of Katrina have perished in vain.


-- Favog