Maybe this guy will pop up on the Big Show

And if Tony Bennett can't make it, maybe we'll get that Anthony Benedetto cat.

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

It's not about the paper. It's about the news.

Michael Rosenblum talks common sense to some British newspaper editors. Are they listening? Who knows?

Meanwhile, back on this side of the Atlantic. . . .

Let's just say if we're looking at an "innovate or die" scenario for American newspapers, "die" is entering the final straightaway ahead by three lengths. Let's hope people like Rosenblum can spur "innovate" before it's too late.

(Note: Rosenblum's language gets, uh, colorful in a couple of spots.)

HAT TIP: The Journalism Iconoclast.

The Unifying Theory of Louisiana

The truth pops up in the damnedest places sometimes.

Like in the mouth of a Louisiana legislator.

IN THIS CASE, it was state Rep. Austin Badon Jr., D-New Orleans, who accidentally stumbled upon the Unifying Theory of Louisiana. That's the theory, heretofore little discussed in the Gret Stet, that explains why things are so bad there . . . and getting worse.

Let's see if you can spot where the Unifying Theory of Louisiana pops up in this excerpt from a Baton Rouge Advocate story about high-school graduation standards:

Roughly four in 10 ninth-graders fail to earn a high school diploma in four years in Louisiana. About 190,000 students attend public high schools.

Fannin said traditional math, English and science classes have failed to keep many students in school.

But Badon said students with no plans to attend college already have high school options.

Most students enroll in a college-prep curriculum.

However, those who finish the 10th grade, with the permission of parents or guardians, can opt to follow a different curriculum that helps train them for careers.

Badon said there are other ways to tackle the high school dropout problem without making major changes for a “select few.”

“One of the main things that we need to do is to educate parents that it is not acceptable for your children to drop out,” he said.

IF YOU PICKED Badon's uttering “One of the main things that we need to do is to educate parents that it is not acceptable for your children to drop out,” you win a 35-year-old can of Pop Rouge. I don't know if Badon realizes what he said, but the important thing is that he said it.

That's the problem of Louisiana -- it's a state where legislators find a pressing need to convince parents their kids really ought to stay in school.

Everything boils down to culture, not politics. Culture precedes politics . . . precedes all issues of governance. If you have a culture where you really have to work hard to convince Mama and Daddy it's really best that Junior not go through life uneducated, you start out behind the eight ball.

It's a vicious cycle. Because Louisianians never have found it that important for Tee Dummy to know his ass from his elbow -- academically, at least -- they never, for 300 years, have realized they're behind the eight ball because they don't consider education important.

Sometimes, the definition of insanity (doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results this time) intersects with the definition of stupidity.

IT'S THE CULTURE, STUPID. But because the culture is stupid, the culture doesn't recognize its stupidity, which keeps the culture stupid, which means the culture never recognizes its stupidity, which keeps the culture stupid, which means. . . .

Rinse, repeat, and get the hell out of Louisiana while you still can.

Snopes is as Snopes tries to justify

From the comments on the white riot preceding Louisiana State home football games:

At least we dont [sic] riot and kill people like Euro-trash soccer fans. Everything that goes on is in good fun. No one is forced to come out and experiance [sic] SEC football.

OH, WELL . . . that's different, then. Assault, sexual assault, indecent exposure, public drunkenness and disorderly conduct all "in good fun" is so much better than your run-of-the-mill assault, sexual assault, indecent exposure, public drunkenness and disorderly conduct.

Tonight, I think I'll call Mrs. Favog a c*** and a bitch -- all in good fun, of course. Then, I expect her to respond -- in equally good fun -- by smashing a cast-iron skillet into my cranium. That would precede her channeling the Ginsu-y spirit of Lorena Bobbitt.

All, once again, "in good fun." Just like at LSU.

IF ONLY Adolf Hitler had had more LSU football fans on his general staff, perhaps the world could have seen the Holocaust in a much more benevolent light. Because, frankly, there isn't any foolishness -- or worse -- these folks can't justify.

Or, at least, whose justification they won't give the ol' college try.

Dear LSU: Take out the (white) trash

Click on the frat boy's butt for video.

I wonder what Noël Coward -- famous for noting "Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun" -- would have made of Saturday nights in Tiger Stadium?

If he had happened upon the LSU gridiron scene today (or, really, any time in the last 40 years), bon mots about how "white trash and drunken men come out on a football night" would have been flowing from his pen.

It's come to this. A state known for feeding on the bottom of every index of societal success manages to find world-class acclaim in the field of loutish behavior by sports fans.

Even the English football hooligans are starting to get nervous.

THE LATEST DOCUMENTATION of some very, very bad behavior on the part of Tiger fans comes from . . . Louisiana State's student newspaper (and my old stomping grounds), The Daily Reveille. The student paper did quite an ingenious thing -- two female staffers went tailgating Nov. 8 for the Alabama game in Baton Rouge.

With a video camera.

Dressed as Crimson Tide fans.

What they could show on a website not run by Larry Flynt, Al Goldstein or Hugh Hefner is not a pretty sight. What they couldn't show was exponentially worse.

But one of the brave -- and calling her "brave" isn't just whistlin' "Dixie" here -- student journalists who posed as 'Bama fans did write about it in a Reveille editorial Nov. 11. Editorial board member Gerri Sax didn't shy away from recounting some of the language she was subjected to, either.

I shall. When you see asterisks in this excerpt, assume the worst:

The final video of our experiences on lsureveille.com is an accurate depiction of what we encountered, but it was only the tip of the iceberg. Here are a few things we couldn’t fit in the video.

Vulgar language has never really bothered me, and the incessant “Tiger-baiting” and “Around the bowl and down the hole, Roll Tide, Roll” mocking were the least of my worries.

Almost every tailgate spot we visited greeted us with the same expressions. The women called us “bitches,” and the men called us “c***s” followed by the traditional “Rip. Rip. Rip. Rap. Rap. Rap. You ‘Bama girls got the clap, clap, clap!” cheer.

And if that wasn’t enough, the amount of times we were spit on also struck a nerve.

Spitting on someone is one of the most degrading things a human being can do to another.

Verbal abuse is powerful, but when things get physical, that’s a little more effective.

The most significant physical encounters were from male Tiger fans. And they all involved some kind of inappropriate gestures. We were groped and squeezed by just about every guy we interviewed.

Not only did things get physical for us personally, our camera equipment also has some bruises as well. I can’t even count the number of times a Tiger fan ran up to the camera and shouted expletives or just yelled at the lens.

LET'S SEE. In a pregame afternoon and evening of seeing "how the other half lives," the two young ladies from the Reveille were witness to -- or victim of -- disturbing the peace, assault, public drunkenness, drunk and disorderly conduct, terroristic threats, lewd conduct and sexual assault. And I may have missed a few.

That's entertainment.

That's also the kind of behavior Louisiana's "flagship" university puts up with -- on its property, in its name, by its students and football fans. It's particularly disheartening to see a state's "best and brightest" reveling in acting like anything but.

Note to LSU's Greek community: Dressing like preppies for the big game is no prophylactic against "common" if you get drunk, become even more obnoxious than usual, then proceed to act like . . . white trash. Snopes is as Snopes does.

And if "family night at the Snopeses" is what visitors to a major state university can expect amid its "stately oaks and broad magnolias," the scene inside the halls they shade must be something less than inspiring these days. You are what you tolerate. Six or seven Saturdays every autumn, the top university in Louisiana tolerates behavior that will land you in jail in Nebraska.

Or in Louisiana, if you do it at the mall, instead of on the LSU campus.

THIS KIND of loutish, criminal foolishness not only is met with grudging acceptance in Louisiana -- in the shadow of what passes for an ivory tower in the Gret Stet -- it's become a perverse source of pride. It's the pride of the ignorant redneck who knows he's doomed to lose at schoolin', and at work, and pretty much at life, but is satisfied if he can win the fistfight.

It's likewise the pride of the 'hood, where hopelessness and death is to be accepted, and even embraced . . . but never, ever "disrespect."

But respect cannot be gained at the point of a gun. Or by a right cross to the eye.

Or by a bunch of foul-mouthed drunks who think a good time on a Saturday night is to go out in public and let their Id hang out. Among other things.

And woe unto the school -- or the state -- of which this is the best that can be expected when company comes calling, because you're making a horrible first (second, third and fourth) impression. That, people don't easily forget.

Bad kid? Don't get stuck. Act now!

I told you so.

I told you there'd be the biggest land rush to Nebraska since the Homestead Act -- this one by parents with dysfunctional teens and tykes in tow -- once the governor announced a special session to fix the state's latest foray into the jungle of unintended consequences, otherwise known as the state's "safe haven" law.

AND NOW look at what the Omaha World-Herald has found. I'm so surprised:

The pace of safe haven drop-offs nearly doubled after the announcement of the special legislative session to limit the law to infants, a World-Herald analysis shows.

Nebraska's unique safe haven law was intended to let mothers leave babies at hospitals without being prosecuted for child abandonment, but the law did not specify an age limit for children.

In the last two months, 25 parents and guardians have dropped off 34 children at hospitals - none of them newborns. Most were ages 11 to 17, many with psychiatric and behavioral disorders.

Since the law was used for the first time Sept. 13, parents and guardians dropped off children once nearly every three days.

The number of children - including several brought from other states - prompted Gov. Dave Heineman on Oct. 29 to announce an emergency session of the Legislature specifically to set an age limit.

Since Oct. 29, the pace has jumped to one new case every day and a half.

No children have been dropped off since the Legislature went into session Friday, even though the law remains in effect until revisions are passed when the session ends this Friday.

A proposal introduced at Heineman's request would limit the safe haven provision to babies no older than 72 hours.

Another proposal to create a system for older children gets a public hearing today, even though the Nebraska attorney general issued an opinion Sunday that the bill falls outside the limited purpose designated for the special session.

I WONDER WHAT will turn out to have been worse -- overmatched or neglectful parents dumping their broken kids on the state of Nebraska . . . or their no longer dumping their broken kids on the state of Nebraska?

You suin' me? YOU . . . suin' . . . ME???

At long last!

The joyous news is carried unto us by The Associated Press:

The music industry's courtroom campaign against people who share songs online is coming under counterattack.

A Harvard Law School professor has launched a constitutional assault against a federal copyright law at the heart of the industry's aggressive strategy, which has wrung payments from thousands of song-swappers since 2003.

The professor, Charles Nesson, has come to the defense of a Boston University graduate student targeted in one of the music industry's lawsuits. By taking on the case, Nesson hopes to challenge the basis for the suit, and all others like it.

Nesson argues that the Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Improvement Act of 1999 is unconstitutional because it effectively lets a private group - the Recording Industry Association of America, or RIAA - carry out civil enforcement of a criminal law. He also says the music industry group abused the legal process by brandishing the prospects of lengthy and costly lawsuits in an effort to intimidate people into settling cases out of court.

Nesson, the founder of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, said in an interview that his goal is to "turn the courts away from allowing themselves to be used like a low-grade collection agency."

Nesson is best known for defending the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers and for consulting on the case against chemical companies that was depicted in the film "A Civil Action." His challenge against the music labels, made in U.S. District Court in Boston, is one of the most determined attempts to derail the industry's flurry of litigation.

The initiative has generated more than 30,000 complaints against people accused of sharing songs online. Only one case has gone to trial; nearly everyone else settled out of court to avoid damages and limit the attorney fees and legal costs that escalate over time.

Nesson intervened after a federal judge in Boston asked his office to represent Joel Tenenbaum, who was among dozens of people who appeared in court in RIAA cases without legal help.

The 24-year-old Tenenbaum is a graduate student accused by the RIAA of downloading at least seven songs and making 816 music files available for distribution on the Kazaa file-sharing network in 2004. He offered to settle the case for $500, but music companies rejected that, demanding $12,000.

The Digital Theft Deterrence Act, the law at issue in the case, sets damages of $750 to $30,000 for each infringement, and as much as $150,000 for a willful violation. That means Tenenbaum could be forced to pay $1 million if it is determined that his alleged actions were willful.

Poppin' Fresh pwns the Great Brown Hope

Bobby Jindal talks big.

Sunday, Louisiana's wunderkind governor -- the Republican Party's last best dope . . . er, hope -- went on CBS's Face the Nation to offer a three-point critique of what the problem was with the GOP brand.

ECHOING COMMENTS he made last week in Miami at the Republican Governor's Association meeting, Jindal told newsman Bob Schieffer that "we've got to stop defending the kinds of corruption we would rightfully criticize in the other party. The week before the election, our most senior senator is convicted on federal charges - and that's only the latest example."

What does this mean for the Republican Party? Is the GOP ready to clean house . . . and the Senate?

For the answer to this, let's turn to a story in Saturday's editions of the Omaha World-Herald:

Gov. Dave Heineman put his fellow GOP governors on the spot this week, urging them to take a stand against party corruption by turning against one of their own.

The Nebraska governor asked his fellow governors at a meeting in Miami to publicly urge U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska to immediately resign.

No one took Heineman up on his challenge.

Stevens was convicted of felony corruption charges last month. His re-election effort remains up in the air, as he and Democrat Mark Begich are locked in a tight contest with thousands of ballots left to count.

"I knew everybody was going to be a little uncomfortable. But the fact of the matter is, we ought to be a party that stands up against corruption," Heineman said in a telephone interview from Miami, where the Republican Governors Association was meeting.

"And I said we should call for Ted Stevens to resign. He should resign today."

Heineman's request came as some Republicans in Miami acknowledged that the GOP brand took a hit in the national elections.

He said Republicans in Washington strayed from their values, ratcheting up the national debt and failing to address critical issues such as the energy crisis.

Heineman said the GOP has had too many corruption cases in recent years, feeding into people's perception that the party had been in power too long.

Republicans have faced their share of scandals, including those of jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff and former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham of California, who is in prison on conspiracy and tax evasion convictions.

At the Miami meeting, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana told the group that his party must "stop making excuses for corruption."

When Jindal finished, Heineman responded that he believed Stevens should resign, and he asked whether his fellow governors wanted to make a similar statement. He said he wanted to take the discussion beyond the talking stages.

"Do we have the courage to do that?" Heineman said.

There was silence at the conference table, according to the Washington Post.

THERE'S YOUR ANSWER. Talk is cheap. And Bobby Jindal -- as evidenced by his own inaction when Nebraska's governor (a.k.a., Poppin' Fresh) called his bluff -- isn't willing to put his money where his own mouth is. But he was able to go on television and tell Schieffer, "We've got to match our actions with our rhetoric."

Or not. Whatever.

Today, I have strange new respect for a Nebraska pol I've never supported. He has a pair! Who knew?

And my suspicion that Jindal was all about gamesmanship, as opposed to leadership, has been confirmed. I tell you true, cher . . . if the Republican Party is in such bad shape that it's looking to a fast-talking Louisiana politician for redemption, its chances for survival well might be closer to "none" than "slim."

I ga-ron-tee.

3 Chords & the Truth: It's mind expanding

Lionel Hampton. Great stuff, eh?

We'll be hearing from Lionel Hampton and his quartet -- only with Lionel on his famous vibraphone this time -- on today's episode of 3 Chords & the Truth.

JIMI HENDRIX from 1967. Amazing.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience is on this week's show, too. We're paying tribute to the drummer of the trio, Mitch Mitchell, whom we lost this past week at age 61. They're all gone now -- Hendrix, bassist Noel Redding and Mitchell.

But they all live through their recordings, and this week on the Big Show.

PARLIAMENT'S on 3 Chords & the Truth this time, too. If you can't groove to George Clinton, Bootsy Collins and the boys . . . well, there's something wrong with you.

NINA SIMONE? Yep. On the show this week, too.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. We're Catholic . . . and catholic. You can't put the Big Show in a tidy little box, because you can't put great music -- and a rich culture -- in a box, either.

Good is good, and that's all that matters. That's what 3 Chords & the Truth is about.

Hope you'll drop by this week and every week. It's mind expanding. Be there. Aloha.

Coming up on 3 Chords & the Truth

We'll be hearing from these brothers -- and their band -- on the next edition of 3 Chords & the Truth.

The first person who calls into Pennsylvania 6-5000 with the right answer probably will get hung up on.

Red Skelton previews the boob tube

In the movie "Ziegfield Follies," released in 1946, Red Skelton tries to warn us about "When Television Comes."

Come to think of it, I think I'll have me a double of that Guzzler's Gin.

Good night, and God bless.

Puppet wars

Statler and Waldorf, like during Muppet Show days of old, sat through the program and didn't much like what they saw.

BECAUSE OF a non-compete clause in their Muppet contract, though, they had to catcall at puppeteer Loren Feldman under the pseudonym of "Brian Hogg."

Here at Hoggworks Studios, we take the making of puppets very seriously. We put a lot of effort into it, and in fact we’re looking forward to devoting our creative and professional lives to the medium. We slave over our puppets, agonize over the performances, over the writing, and everything else down the line. We know we’re always improving, and we hope that everything we do will make the thing we did previous seem smaller.

We want to look back and see not just a progression, but such a stark progression that our previous work never reflects what we’re capable of now.

As we look online at the work of other puppeteers, surfing here and there, from the Muppet Central Forums to Puppet Hub to Flickr searches, we stumble upon some really great work, and some work that is being made by people who are clearly new at the puppetry game, but who appear to be putting in real effort. And then we stumble across things like monochrom, and Loren Feldman’s puppet shows.

This latter character irks us — irks me specifically, and here I break from the royal we to descend into the specific, into the I, because I am irked by these productions. I, speaking as a puppeteer, as a person who would modestly suggest that am putting in the effort, am annoyed by this type of work. These people are buying low-end puppets (which there’s nothing wrong with), and filming a show. Now, certainly, I’d never suggest that a person should dedicate themselves to the profession as a lifelong endeavor before putting puppet to hand: that’s not how I got into it. I decided to make dotBoom as a puppet show rather on a whim, made some puppets, and started recording. But I am a person — here’s where I sound terribly vain, and while I do apologize if it is offputting, I can’t apologize for the vanity, because it’s as sincere a statement as you’re going to get from me — who puts in the effort to get good at something. I’ve heard it said that the difference between a person who plays chess and a grand master isn’t the quantity of time spent playing, but the quality of the time spent playing.

To put it another way, it’s less important the amount of time you spend studying a subject, then it is how you spend your time studying.

I take it all very seriously, and I respect others who do, too. I wouldn’t say that we’re doing things perfectly here, and there are a huge number of ways I want us to improve our craft, both from a technical standpoint and a creative one. There are some insanely talented puppet builders and performers out there, and I am both inspired by their work and driven to match and exceed it, if I’m able.

(snip)

Maybe I’m being oversensitive. Maybe a person goofing off isn’t a big deal. Maybe that I’m the abberation for pushing myself so hard, for being so over-critical. Maybe these people who irk me are just trying to have fun, and aren’t simply projecting an air of superiority for their minimal efforts.

Maybe nobody cares. After all, Loren Feldman’s work is becoming increasingly popular. Much of the most popular work online in places like Youtube have the lowest production values, because the content is striking a chord with the viewers, irrespective of the polish or intent of the creators.

I don’t actually care if nobody else cares, because I do. It’s important to me to take it so seriously, and to improve continuously. It matters. And puppetry is an artform, and it should be respected as such. No matter how much of a curmudgeon or a killjoy it may make me seem to say it, if you don’t take this seriously but are presenting it in a way that suggests you are, all you’re doing is insulting those people who do take it seriously.

HERE'S THE THING. Loren Feldman of 1938 Media, it seems, is really Oscar the Grouch. And Oscar can't take criticism. At all.

Worse than that -- and please, children, cover your ears -- Oscar the Grouch has developed quite the potty mouth. Today's show is brought to you by the letter "F."

And the letter "U."

OH, MY! What would Kermit do?

Well, for starters, I think Kermit would turn Miss Piggy loose on Oscar the Potty Mouth Grouch -- a.k.a., Loren Feldman. (Whose stuff really isn't that funny, by the way.)

I also think Kermit would wonder what has become of the wonderful world of puppetry, and how it has become just as debased, angry, unfunny and sad as the world from which it once gave us momentary refuge. (Nice job, by the way, in having one of your cloth characters call Barack Obama a "Schvartze" during a skit.)

This shaygetz knows his Yiddish slurs, and I'll bet President-Elect Obama does, too.

Maybe Feldman's outraged response to his puppeteer critic was part of his shtick. If so, his performance art is about as unfunny as his puppets.

If Feldman is seriously outraged, however, that may be even more disturbing.

AT WHAT POINT in American cultural history did our default response to criticism reset to "unhinged"? When did we decide it was appropriate to bypass cool reason, sarcasm or wit and go straight for bad impressions of 2 a.m. at the Dewdrop Inn when somebody's just told Bubba his woman is ugly?

Just when did we slip the tenuous bonds of culture and become an anticulture?

Of which Loren Feldman would seem to be the unhinged Id.

I suppose if he reads this, Feldman might post a video in which he calls me bad and awful things as his blood pressure redlines. Whatever.

I'LL BE WATCHING some funny puppetry. Like this.

OR THIS:

Tolerance and diversity on the march

When an angry mob attacks a grandma, rips a cross out of her hands and stomps it to splinters, then sets upon her and the TV crew trying to interview her. . . . Well, I don't know about you, but in contemporary parlance, I think that's called a "hate crime."


HAT TIP: Catholic and Enjoying It.

Tales from home: Sin makes you stupid

Talked to Mama on the phone this afternoon.

"Your Uncle (deleted to protect the guilty) was supposed to be back in the hospital today."

"What for?"

"They was gonna give him a colonoptomy [That's colonoscopy everywhere else in the English-speaking world. -- R21], but he refuse to go."

"Why is that?"

"He said he wadn't gonna let no damn n****r put they hands on him. Your cousin said that's on him, they cain't force him to go."

"Well, you know there's gonna be a black president now. Is Uncle (deleted) gonna give up his citizenship?"

Confirm us in our trespasses, and deliver us from African-American proctologists. Amen.

UNCLE DELETED IS 88 years old, and he'd been in the hospital a week or so ago because he needed a blood transfusion because he was bleeding internally somewhere. The colonoscopy was to find out where.

But he won't have it done because the doctor who was supposed to perform the procedure is black. This in the Age of Obama.

America needn't get its hopes up unnecessarily or pat itself on the back prematurely. In lots of places -- most especially the South -- the ugly past not only hasn't been forgotten, it's not really past. William Faulkner knew of what he wrote.

Likewise, there are reasons my home state of Louisiana was a backwater, is a backwater and seemingly will forever doom itself to being a backwater. One big reason is that Uncle Deleted isn't all that unusual there -- still. Another is that folks down there still think his kind of s*** is normal.

To be tolerated, even.

Unlike African-American proctologists sticking scopes up white butts.

THERE'S A REASON why my home state is on the bottom of all the good lists, at the top of all the bad lists and nowhere to be found on the short lists of corporate America. There's a reason why the public schools in my hometown, Baton Rouge, are 83-percent minority.

There's a reason why literacy and high-school graduation rates there lag behind almost every other state. (And the even worse scofflaws are likewise all in the South.)

There's a reason so many people are poor there.

The reason? Sin makes you stupid.

Its wake swamps all of history and extends well into the future. It has consequences for every segment of society, and it can turn its victims into sinners, too. (See New Orleans, City of.)

Imagine someone who'd rather -- perhaps -- die before his time rather than let a black physician mess with his colon. Imagine a whole society built upon that premise.

Imagine the mess my home state perpetually is . . . and why some of us find that "We shall overcome" sadly coincides with "We have left for good."

War and gallant lies

The Hero

'Jack fell as he'd have wished,' the mother said,
And folded up the letter that she'd read.
'The Colonel writes so nicely.' Something broke
In the tired voice that quivered to a choke.
She half looked up. 'We mothers are so proud
Of our dead soldiers.' Then her face was bowed.

Quietly the Brother Officer went out.
He'd told the poor old dear some gallant lies
That she would nourish all her days, no doubt
For while he coughed and mumbled, her weak eyes
Had shone with gentle triumph, brimmed with joy,
Because he'd been so brave, her glorious boy.

He thought how 'Jack', cold-footed, useless swine,
Had panicked down the trench that night the mine
Went up at Wicked Corner; how he'd tried
To get sent home, and how, at last, he died,
Blown to small bits. And no one seemed to care
Except that lonely woman with white hair.

-- Lt. Siegfried Sassoon,
British Army, 1917

Armistice Day + 90

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

-- John McCrae

Adam Smith: A great (honorary) American

And a Brummie beheld a new day dawning in America, had a pint -- or six -- and, yea, he spaketh unto his newspaper across the waters, the Birmingham Mail.

"F*** you. I quit," sayeth Adam Smith -- a.k.a., Steve Zacharanda . . . a.k.a., "Mate, could you spare a quid?" -- and, behold, a Dutch-American web journalist presenteth his message unto YouTube, and YouTube speaketh unto Smith's masters at the Birmingham Mail.

It is written: "You can't quit; you're fired."

OF COURSE, the rest of the British press is having a jolly good time with all of this. The Times of London, for one:

Sometimes, you wake up following a drunken night out and realise you have sent an inappropriate text to an ex-girlfriend or your boss.

And sometimes you realise you have drunkenly admitted to plagiarism to camera, and spectacularly resigned from your job, shouting "F**k you' to your boss.

This is what happened to Birmingham Mail reporter Adam Smith on Wednesday morning, as footage appeared on YouTube of him writing a report on the US election, slumped on a Miami pavement, and barely able to speak.

Mr Smith, who also calls himself Steve Zacharanda in the hit video which was viewed almost 20,000 times in 48 hours, had taken a week's holiday to go to Miami to volunteer for the Barack Obama election campaign.

After the victory, and very much the worse for wear and drink, Smith was caught flopped against a set of railings, a laptop on his lap, filing an article about Mr Obama's victory for the Mail.

The maker of the video, a Dutch amateur journalist from Couscous Global, had stumbled across Smith by the roadside, and asked him what he was doing.

"I jumped on a plane on Friday to volunteer for the Barack Obama campaign," Mr Smith explained in a strong, if rather slurred, Brummie accent. "As an ill-advised promise, I've decided to say to my paper back home that I'd write about the American election.

"I wanted to be here because I'm here for history. The trouble is, the readers of the Birmingham Mail are going to get my version of history. And I'm just a little bit pissed..."

With a laugh and a clap of the hands, he added: "And thank god for the BBC, because I'm cutting and pasting, oh, baby!"

Not wanting to seem too unprofessional, he added: "I'm a proper news journalist."

To pile further misery on his ignominy, Mr Smith ended the video by announcing: "My name is Adam Smith, also known as Steve Zacharanda, who has just resigned from the Birmingham Mail, the Birmingham Post and the Birmingham Sunday Mercury, to set up my own magazine…F**k you, I'm doing what I want."

Mr Smith's employment status remains unclear today within a company which is undergoing significant restructuring.

Steve Dyson, editor of the Birmingham Mail, said: "This is an internal matter, so we cannot discuss it."

Asked about the company's attitude towards plagarism, he added: "Whilst we cannot discuss internal matters, plagarism will not be tolerated in any form by BTM Media Limited - although we do not believe that any has been taking place."

DEAR NEW YORK POST, I think you've just found Steve Dunleavy's replacement.

Meantime, Smith was "a bit scared to speak to work." No doubt.

"There's been words like outrageous, bringing the company into disrepute," he told the amateur videographer/reporter for Couscous Global. Actually, I found Smith to be a breath of fresh air.

Usually, you don't find reporters who are that honest and, frankly, hilarious. Give me a Brummie scribbler who's just a bit pissed (in the tipsy Brit sense of the word) any day, instead of 47 self-important, faux-objective "contributors" on American cable networks.

Disrepute? My ass.

Adam Smith took vacation time to come to America and volunteer for Barack Obama's campaign in Miami. His editors -- despite this -- prevailed upon him to write an election piece for the Birmingham News. Sans editor's note or "opinion" tag.

Who, then, ought to take ownership of the disrepute?

And, really, Smith didn't put together so bad a piece for being three sheets to the wind. Could have been much better, yes. But fairly remarkable for being that tanked.

The newspaper -- imagine! -- has taken down Smith's election piece, which (as far as I can tell) shows no sign of having been a "cut and paste" job at the BBC's expense. But you can find it here:

BIRMINGHAM Mail reporter Adam Smith is in America as Barack Obama is named as the next president. Here is his take on the atmosphere in the US:

A NEW chapter in world history has begun, and whatever happens, people in America will never forget this moment.

The people of the USA have elected the remarkable Barack Obama as their first African-American President.

Barack Hussein Obama, the son of a black Kenyan student and a white American woman, swept to power after millions of voters gave him a mandate for change.

Just 52 years after Rosa Parks started the Civil Rights movement by refusing to give up her bus seat, millions of Americans from all different races flocked to polls to elect Mr Obama.

In what will be regarded as one of the greatest political speeches in history, Barack Obama today reawakened the ‘American dream’.

In front of a crowd of 125,000 in Chicago, the President elect said: “I believe in the America that says to every challenge ‘‘Yes We Can’.

“The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there.

“And I promise you we as a people will get there.”

OK, Obama's speech was quite good. But "one of the greatest political speeches in history" is pretty far over the top. Even for an Obama volunteer.

I attribute the hyperbole to breaking the four-pint barrier.

On the other hand, is Smith's piece much more gushing than that of "objective" American journalists who weren't -- at least officially -- volunteering for Obama-Biden '08? And the guy, as evidenced by the second video, has a love of America that even Sarah Palin couldn't call into question.

Just for that, as a colonist, you have to love the bloke.

SO, LET ME make this official. Adam Smith is my new journalistic hero. And I'd be proud to down a pint or three with him any day.

HAT TIP: Crunchy Con.

Don't Bogart that mic, my friend

That's funny, I almost could swear that "I smell just a little bit of weed in the air" every time I turn on what passes for television news anymore.

The terminal state

tri·age
Pronunciation: \trē-ˈäzh, ˈtrē-ˌ\
Function: noun

1 a: the sorting of and allocation of treatment to patients and especially battle and disaster victims according to a system of priorities designed to maximize the number of survivors b: the sorting of patients (as in an emergency room) according to the urgency of their need for care

2: the assigning of priority order to projects on the basis of where funds and other resources can be best used, are most needed, or are most likely to achieve success.

(Merriam-Webster Online dictionary)

THE IDEA OF DIVERTING scarce resources, either medical or economic, from the hopelessly sick to those who have a fighting chance -- that is, with the added help -- isn't exactly new. If you've ever watched old M*A*S*H reruns, you understand the concept, as well as its application.

For an even longer time than the concept of "triage" has been around, Louisiana has been the Poor Man of America. The Sick Man of America, too.

In the late 1920s and early '30s, Huey Long thought a little all-American socialism funded by the Standard Oil and Refining Co., could cure what ailed his (Every Man a) Kingdom. It couldn't.

Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal couldn't make Louisiana look like a functioning, prosperous democracy, either. Nor, later on, could Huey's little brother, Earl.

More than a half-century down the timeline, Louisiana remains a place that's sicker, poorer and more uneducated than your average state. Crookeder and more licentious, too, as illustrated by this Associated Press report on the saga of indicted congressman William "Dollar Bill" Jefferson:

Despite the indictment, Jefferson won 56 percent of the vote in Tuesday's election, a primary runoff against former television reporter Helena Moreno. Jefferson, a stalwart Democrat who became Louisiana's first black congressman since Reconstruction when he took office in 1991, won more than 92,000 votes to Moreno's 70,159.

Moreno is white and struggled for support in a district where black registration is roughly 60 percent and where Jefferson has been a powerful political presence for nearly three decades.

(snip)

But Jefferson has shown remarkable political resiliency though his fund-raising and support from political officials have waned. He survived a challenge from a dozen opponents two years ago after news broke that he was under investigation and that federal agents said they found $90,000 in alleged bribe money hidden in his freezer. He drew fewer challengers and won just as easily this year, even after the 2007 indictment.
State Democratic Party leaders, asked for a comment, issued a statement through spokesman Scott Jordan: "The Democratic voters of the 2nd District have spoken, and the Louisiana Democratic Party respects their choice and supports Bill Jefferson."

Jefferson, on Tuesday, scoffed at political opponents and pundits who, he said, "are perplexed" at his success.

"We work hard for the people we represent and we deliver for them day in and day out. . . . That's why we win elections," he said.

MEANWHILE, 80 miles up the Mississippi River in the capital, Baton Rouge, voters decided against taxing themselves to fix infrastructure and expand its convention and tourism base.

And on a more meat-and-potatoes level, says The Advocate newspaper, Baton Rougeans also said no to building a new parish prison, replacing a police headquarters that's literally crumbling around the city's cops and rebuilding 38 dangerously substandard bridges.

Holden said many of the projects that were proposed as part of his half-cent sales tax and 9.9-mill sales tax are desperately needed.

As an example, Holden pointed to the $35 million needed to replace 38 bridges that are rated the same or worse as the bridge that collapse in Minnesota last year.

“We are not going to play Russian Roulette in this parish with those 38 bridges,” Holden said.

But Holden said that problems with the bridges and drainage are so severe because of past neglect that a new revenue source is needed to address them.

(snip)

The mayor-president said the proposal would have qualified for an additional $137 million in matching federal funds.

Although Holden’s proposal did not receive any organized opposition, there was some criticism that the $989 million program benefited mostly the city of Baton Rouge.

Two of the biggest projects, a $247.5 million Audubon museum and a $144 million expansion of the River Center and its parking, were both in downtown Baton Rouge. If the River Center expansion had been approved, a Virginia developer had pledged to spend $100 million in private money to build two hotels there.

Holden’s proposal included a $135 million parish prison, a $43.5 million juvenile justice center, $89.7 million for a public safety complex, and $26.2 million to replace eight aging fire stations.

Also included was $45 million to modernize and synchronize more than 200 traffic signals and $49 million to convert the Governmental Building into a City Hall after the 19th Judicial District Court moves into the new courthouse that is under construction.

WHAT WE HAVE HERE, obviously, is a state that's grown accustomed to lying in its own feces. Its residents refuse to invest today to prosper tomorrow . . . or to pull together for the common good. At all.

Hell, whole segments of the Louisiana citizenry refuse even to deny high office to the obviously, and embarrassingly, corrupt. (Ninety grand in cold cash, anyone?)

What we also have here, particularly since Hurricane Katrina, is a state with its hand perpetually outstretched to the American taxpayer, seeking a quick infusion of cheap grace.

But with the national economy in shambles, the financial system in ruins and the federal till emptied by intractable foreign wars and immense domestic bailouts, Uncle Sam increasingly will reach into his pocket for a little something for the beggar . . . and pull out a whole lot of nothing.

Welcome to the Age of Limits. Welcome to the age when the federal government might be able to pull some chestnuts out of various fires, but not all.

WHO TO SAVE? How to decide? Triage. You save the ones you can. You don't waste time or money on the ones you can't.

The question for Louisiana is "Can this patient be saved?"

If you ask this expatriate who knows the patient well, the answer would be "Probably not. No will to live."

Mein Gott im Himmel!

Sarah Palin thought Africa was a country. And John McCain is 72 and had cancer twice!