Give me liberty or give me . . . Thorazine!

What scares me about Tea Partiers isn't that they're pissed about what's become of their country -- hell, I'm pissed too (though for somewhat different reasons).

What scares me about Tea Partiers is that they're akin to unguided nuclear missiles -- God only knows who, what or where will be consumed by the fireball. This is not a "smart bomb."

WHAT ALSO scares me is that the last time the country was in this kind of turmoil, all we had to worry about were the Hippies, the Yippies, the Weathermen and the Black Panthers. This go around, I fear there are a lot more nuts like those described in this New York Times article than we had Hippies, Yippies, Weathermen and Black Panthers combined the last go 'round:

The ebbs and flows of the Tea Party ferment are hardly uniform. It is an amorphous, factionalized uprising with no clear leadership and no centralized structure. Not everyone flocking to the Tea Party movement is worried about dictatorship. Some have a basic aversion to big government, or Mr. Obama, or progressives in general. What’s more, some Tea Party groups are essentially appendages of the local Republican Party.

But most are not. They are frequently led by political neophytes who prize independence and tell strikingly similar stories of having been awakened by the recession. Their families upended by lost jobs, foreclosed homes and depleted retirement funds, they said they wanted to know why it happened and whom to blame.
That is often the point when Tea Party supporters say they began listening to Glenn Beck. With his guidance, they explored the Federalist Papers, exposés on the Federal Reserve, the work of Ayn Rand and George Orwell. Some went to constitutional seminars. Online, they discovered radical critiques of Washington on Web sites like ResistNet.com (“Home of the Patriotic Resistance”) and Infowars.com (“Because there is a war on for your mind.”).

Many describe emerging from their research as if reborn to a new reality. Some have gone so far as to stock up on ammunition, gold and survival food in anticipation of the worst. For others, though, transformation seems to amount to trying on a new ideological outfit — embracing the rhetoric and buying the books.

Tea Party leaders say they know their complaints about shredded constitutional principles and excessive spending ring hollow to some, given their relative passivity through the Bush years. In some ways, though, their main answer — strict adherence to the Constitution — would comfort every card-carrying A.C.L.U. member.

But their vision of the federal government is frequently at odds with the one that both parties have constructed. Tea Party gatherings are full of people who say they would do away with the Federal Reserve, the federal income tax and countless agencies, not to mention bailouts and stimulus packages. Nor is it unusual to hear calls to eliminate Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. A remarkable number say this despite having recently lost jobs or health coverage. Some of the prescriptions they are debating — secession, tax boycotts, states “nullifying” federal laws, forming citizen militias — are outside the mainstream, too.

At a recent meeting of the Sandpoint Tea Party, Mrs. Stout presided with brisk efficiency until a member interrupted with urgent news. Because of the stimulus bill, he insisted, private medical records were being shipped to federal bureaucrats. A woman said her doctor had told her the same thing. There were gasps of rage. Everyone already viewed health reform as a ruse to control their medical choices and drive them into the grip of insurance conglomerates. Debate erupted. Could state medical authorities intervene? Should they call Congress?

As the meeting ended, Carolyn L. Whaley, 76, held up her copy of the Constitution. She carries it everywhere, she explained, and she was prepared to lay down her life to protect it from the likes of Mr. Obama.

“I would not hesitate,” she said, perfectly calm.

TWO THINGS: First off, you know Glenn Beck's 9/12 Project? I'm betting what it really refers to is the size of the padded cell waiting for Beck.

This is the de facto leader of these folks.

Secondly, the trouble with basing one's "revolution" in part on the collected works of Ayn Rand is that every Randian fancies himself the real-life Howard Roark or John Galt. Unfortunately, all those übermen in waiting from sea to shining sea really are a lot more like Peter Keating.

Only dumber and less presentable.

And these delusional souls would be among the first to be eaten alive by the Darwinist social order they so desperately seek to build amid the hoped-for ruins of President Obama's "socialist order."

These self-styled "patriots" would have us think what they're up to is a new American Revolution against the forces of "tyranny." Evidence, however, would suggest something more akin to the French one.

And a lunatic Robespierre shall be their guiding light -- weekdays at 4 on the Fox News Channel.

Never trust any Conor over 30

Conor Oberst, the angst-stricken Omaha indie icon of Bright Eyes fame, turned 30 today.

And, alas, the world still sucks. Only harder, because now he no longer can trust his over-30 bourgeois, establishment self.

LOOK AT IT this way, the teen age wunderkind of 1993, the one selling cassette albums of his youthful songs of teen-age angst and helping to birth the Omaha indie scene. . . . Well, that was more than half a lifetime ago, now, wasn't it?

Now the music world ponders the question it dare not openly ask. Namely, what will Conor Oberst write about now as he hurtles toward middle age?

I have my spies, and they tell me what follows is a rough draft of Conor's latest anthem for life past Bright Eyes.

A life on the backside of 30:

The world has sucked . . . since 1980
The world has sucked . . . since 1980
Some say it sucked before then, but I don't care
I don't care it sucked; I wasn't around then
I wasn't around then
I wasn't around then
I wasn't around then

But I got here . . . in 1980
In 1980
In 1980
And I have suffered from all the suckage, since 1980
Since 1980
Since 1980

And you joined me here . . . in 1982
In 1982
In 1982
And you have done nothing to stop the sucking
To stop the sucking
To stop the sucking

And the world has taken to conspire against us
It takes aim at us
It tries to destroy us
And I greet the despair with a fifth of Old Crow
With a fifth of Old Crow
I'll give you some, and you'll give me some
And we'll get us some to fight this suckage
To fight this suckage
Oh f*** this suckage

And I feel the burning inside my esophagus
The liquor burns hot inside my esophagus
I can't rhyme esophagus
I can't rhyme esophagus
The liquor warms me
The liquor warms me
The liquor warms me

But I'm still 30; I cannot trust me
Not this old me
Not this bourgeois me
And you're here with me; you're only 28
You cannot trust me
You cannot trust me
You cannot trust me

The Old Crow has reached the depths of my stomach
It makes a glow there
I'm getting drunk there
Because the world sucks here
My life is despair here
I am still 30
And you can't trust me
And you still can't. . . .

3 Chords & the Truth: Party in New Orleans

Oh my Gawd, dawl!

What's dey to say about dis week's 3 Cawds & da Troot?

Of cahws, udda dan dat da Saints won da Supah Bowl, Mahdi Gras is almoss heah, an we gonna pawty hawdy, baby.

Translation for those of you hailing from somewhere above the 30th parallel, and east or west of the 90th meridian:

Goodness, friend! What is there to say about this week's episode of 3 Chords & the Truth?

Of course, other than that the Saints won the Super Bowl, Mardi Gras is upon us . . . and we're going to party hearty on the Big Show -- it's a New Orleans-flavored edition of 3 Chords & the Truth this week!

AND IT rocks. Hard.

That's about all there is to say, frankly. Of course, other than that if you're not boogying your way through the whole 90 minutes, you may want to schedule a visit with your health-care provider.

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

And . . . "WHO DAT!?!"

The trouble with Google

The problem with smart people is they can be so dumb.

Take the techie wunderkinds at Google. They thought it would be a fine idea to combine Gmail with elements of Twitter and Facebook, thus giving themselves the chance to be the Masters of All Social Media.

BUT NONE of these scary-smart people thought combining the exhibitionism of Twitter and Facebook with the inherently "private" nature of electronic mail (even if it is web based like Gmail) might be a problem. And could, for some people, be a full-blown privacy nightmare from which they'd be hard-pressed to wake up.

(Note that the last link is not kid- or workplace-friendly . . . the title is "F U Google," only spelled out in all its Anglo-Saxon glory. And the post gets more bitter from there.)

Reuters explains it all here:

Google touted its 176 million Gmail users as a key advantage in its latest attempt to break into the red-hot social networking market, dominated by the likes of Facebook and Twitter. But email may turn out to be Google’s Achilles heel.

Less than four days after introducing Google Buzz, a social networking service that is built-in to Gmail, the company is already moving to address a growing privacy backlash.
At issue is the network of contacts that Buzz automatically creates for new users based on their existing email contacts, saving people the laborious chore of manually building a social graph from scratch.

The problem is that Google’s ready-made social network is composed of people’s frequent email contacts – which are not necessarily the folks you want to receive regular status updates and random musings from (e.g. your landlord).

But the bigger problem – as many blogs and online publications have pointed out in recent days – is that people’s email contacts are in inherently private and the mere fact of making them publicly accessible can be dangerous.

FAIL.

Who needs the National Security Agency to comb the Internet for every detail about us when Corporate America so helpfully encourages us to out ourselves? And then we're shocked, shocked when an abusive ex-husband shows up on the stoop with a shotgun. Or when an employer takes a dim view of that picture of you . . . well, prudence dictates that I not elaborate upon that one.

Thing is, it's not just Buzz in Google's quiver of poison-tipped arrows aimed right at the stuff formerly known as "None of Your Beeswax."

See the above screenshot.

If you have Google Chrome as a web browser, you might want to be extremely careful about who you let use your computer. Or about using any remote-desktop software.

You might even want to set up various user accounts on your PC, and then banish Chrome from all but your own. Then again, you just might want to uninstall the whole thing and resign yourself to surfing the web more slowly.

That's because all it takes for someone to steal every saved password you have is to open Chrome, click on the "wrench" icon on the toolbar, go to "options" and . . . voila!


AND IT WILL show them all to you, too. Or anyone else. Oops.

The trouble is you're likely to look at that and think, at first, "That's handy. I can't keep up with all the damned things. Can't remember half of them." Only later -- if ever -- do you get around to thinking that if you can look up all your passwords. . . .

Pity. I like Chrome. It really is sleek and fast.

But I like lots of things that, sooner or later, could land me in a world of hurt. The question is whether you can afford to indulge in them.

And that question, the way things are going, could be the death of Google.

They don't call it 'self-love' for nothing

If you want to see the poster child for the death of us, look no further than John Mayer.

Look no further than this blabbermouthed archetype of the self-absorbed schmuck, devoted to "self-soothing" above all else and incapable of finding a woman half as neato-keen as himself.

John Mayer is how the world will end -- living in its own demented head, drinking single-malt scotch and ending up late for the apocalypse because it was otherwise occupied whacking off to The Playboy Channel.

Really. I'm not kidding here.

IF YOU don't believe me, the sad evidence is in Mayer's Playboy interview. Weep for yourselves, not the supercilious superstar, because this 32-year-old adolescent is far from one of a kind in the America of 2010.

It's a good thing there's words in there, I guess, because I'm sure the nekkid pictures in Hugh Hefner's soft-core mag aren't nearly "hot" enough for the self-lovin' singing sensation:

MAYER: I’m a self-soother. The Internet, DVR, Netflix, Twitter—all these things are moments in time throughout your day when you’re able to soothe yourself. We have an autonomy of comfort and pleasure. By the way, pornography? It’s a new synaptic pathway. You wake up in the morning, open a thumbnail page, and it leads to a Pandora’s box of visuals. There have probably been days when I saw 300 vaginas before I got out of bed.

PLAYBOY: What’s your point about porn and relationships?

MAYER: Internet pornography has absolutely changed my generation’s expectations. How could you be constantly synthesizing an orgasm based on dozens of shots? You’re looking for the one photo out of 100 you swear is going to be the one you finish to, and you still don’t finish. Twenty seconds ago you thought that photo was the hottest thing you ever saw, but you throw it back and continue your shot hunt and continue to make yourself late for work. How does that not affect the psychology of having a relationship with somebody? It’s got to.

PLAYBOY: You seem very fond of pornography.

MAYER: When I watch porn, if it’s not hot enough, I’ll make up backstories in my mind. My biggest dream is to write pornography.

PLAYBOY: How did you become a self-soother?

MAYER: I grew up in my own head. As soon as I lose that control, once I have to deal with someone else’s desires, I cut and run. I’m pretty culpable about being hard to live with. I have had a good run of imagining things into reality. I’ve got a huge streak of successes based on my own inventions. If you tell me I’m wrong or that I’m overthinking something, well, overthinking has given me everything in my career. I have a hard time not looking at anxiety disorder as being like an ATM. I can invent things really well. I mean, I have unbelievable orgasms alone. They’re always the best. They always end the way I want them to end. And I have such an ability to make believe, I can almost project something onto my wall, watch it and get off to it: sexually, musically, it doesn’t matter. When I meet somebody, I’m in a situation in which I can’t run it because another person is involved. That means letting someone else talk, not waiting for them to remind you of something interesting you had in mind.

PLAYBOY: Masturbation for you is as good as sex?

MAYER: Absolutely, because during sex, I’m just going to run a filmstrip. I’m still masturbating. That’s what you do when you’re 30, 31, 32. This is my problem now: Rather than meet somebody new, I would rather go home and replay the amazing experiences I’ve already had.

PLAYBOY: You’d rather jerk off to an ex-girlfriend than meet someone new?

MAYER: Yeah. What that explains is that I’m more comfortable in my imagination than I am in actual human discovery. The best days of my life are when I’ve dreamed about a sexual encounter with someone I’ve already been with. When that happens, I cannot lay off myself.

IT SUCKS to be you, ladies. There's no way you're going to compete with Photoshop, an airbrush . . . and John Mayer's right hand. I wonder if he's given it a name -- Jennifer? Jessica?

And speaking of Jennifer. . . .

PLAYBOY: What does the word womanizer mean to you?

MAYER: Well, wouldn’t a womanizer have dated more than two girls in two years?

PLAYBOY: You and Aniston got back together and broke up again in 2009. How many women did you sleep with in the eight months after the breakup?

MAYER: I’m going to say four or five. No more.

PLAYBOY: That’s a reasonable number.

MAYER: But even if I said 12, that’s a reasonable number. So is 15. Here’s the thing: I get less ass now than I did when I was in a local band. Because now I don’t like jumping through hoops. It’s been so long since I’ve taken a random girl home. I don’t want to have to submit myself for approval. I don’t want to audition. I’d rather come home and edge my s*** out for 90 minutes. At this point, before I can have sex I need to know somebody. Unless she’s a 14 out of 10.

PLAYBOY: You have been very up front about your fondness for masturbation.

MAYER: It’s like a vacation — my brain gets to go free. It’s a walk in the park for my brain. Pull the shades and let your mind go without having to answer for it.

PLAYBOY: The way you talk about being 32 sounds as though you were too immature for Aniston.

MAYER: No, the actual day-to-day was fantastic. I have to explain this so people don’t say, “Sure, you’re 32, and you want to f*** other chicks.” If you say I’m not adult and stable, it sounds as though I’m someone who’s watching football and playing Xbox. I have this bond with infinite possibility — when I go out to dinner, I bring another shirt, a flashlight, a knife, a hard drive, a camera. It’s not like I wanted to be with somebody else. I want to be with myself, still, and lie in bed only with the infinite unknown. That’s 32, man.

I SUPPOSE you can go to the Playboy site and read the whole thing but, frankly, you should feel like you've been slimed reading just this much of it. And these are the excerpts I figured I could lift and still come away feeling only moderately guilty.

Let's just say there are depths to Mr. Mayer's depravity. And to our own depraved alienation as we bask in the auto-beatific vision of our "infinite unknown."

Alone. Utterly, despairingly alone.

I have witnessed The End. It sounds like a John Mayer song.

No, you're still a douche

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

John Mayer is sorry he tried to be "clever" with the media.

He likewise says he's going to "take a break" from projectile-vomiting what passes for his thoughts into reporters' recorders.

That is what we call "totally missing the point." What the oversexed, under-IQed singer really needs is his very own chapter of Narcissists Anonymous, judging by MSNBC's reporting here.

WELL, THAT and to "take a break" from being a thoroughly contemptible human being:

Despite being dubbed a womanizer in the media for relationships with Hollywood stars such as Simpson, Aniston and Jennifer Love Hewitt, Mayer told Playboy that he was not open to having sex with black women.

When asked if “black women throw themselves at you,” he replied with, “I don’t think I open myself to it. My d--- is sort of like a white supremacist. I’ve got a Benetton heart and a f-----’ David Duke c---. I’m going to start dating separately from my d---.”

But he also said that black people love him, and tried to sum up what it means to be black: "It's making the most of your life, not taking a single moment for granted. Taking something that's seen as a struggle and making it work for you, or you'll die inside. Not to say that my struggle is like the collective struggle of black America. But maybe my struggle is similar to one black dude's."

He also used the N-word in the revealing interview.

"wow if this stuff is true...John Mayer just lost a whole heap of cool points...and i really likes him too..." commented jnyfer on Twitter.

In the interview for Playboy's March edition, some of which reportedly took place as Mayer downed malt whisky, the singer sought to refute the media image of him as a womanizer and "douchebag."

"I've been trying to prove to people I'm not a douchebag by not dating, by keeping my name out of 'Us Weekly'," he said. The singer also noted that his "biggest dream is to write pornography."

WOW. That Jennifer Aniston and Jessica Simpson saw anything whatsoever in this guy certainly doesn't speak glowing volumes about them.

And that whole "prove to people I'm not a douchebag" thing is sooooooo not working out for young Mr. Mayer, he of neo-Nazi penis fame.

Creating a negative buzz

Who in the world, upon hearing the premise of Google Buzz, ever could have thought privacy issues might come into play for all those early adopters getting their "buzz" on?

Really, what in the world could be the problem when you, in effect, combine Twitter and Facebook with your clunky old G-Mail account?

WELL, this, according to Business Insider:

There is a huge privacy flaw in Google's new Twitter/Facebook competitor, Google Buzz.

When you first go into Google Buzz, it automatically sets you up with followers and people to follow.

A Google spokesperson tells us these people are chosen based on whom the users emails and chats with most using Gmail.

That's fine.

The problem is that -- by default -- the people you follow and the people that follow you are made public to anyone who looks at your profile.

In other words, before you change any settings in Google Buzz, someone could go into your profile and see who are the people you email and chat with most.

(Freaking out already? Here's how to IMMEDIATELY stop following someone >)

YOU ARE NOW FRIENDS with that cheap barfly from the Cougar Lounge in the Bide-a-Wee Motel. Boy, you E-mail her a lot. Thirty-seven people like this.

Your wife does not.

Personally, I try to avoid "friending" loose women from local drinking establishments. That's one reason I've been married almost 27 years now.

See, there are things that I electronically share only with a specific person or persons. That is called E-mail -- it's not perfectly private, but it's about as private as you get in cyberspace.

Then there are things I care to share with friends, acquaintances, friends of friends and friends of acquaintances. That is called Facebook -- it's a great tool for finding folks, catching up and keeping up.

Finally, there's this thing I use to spew out pithy little tidbits to whomever wants to read them. I also use it to, in a matter of speaking, keep my electronic ear to the ground. That is called Twitter.

I GUESS if I were someone who just couldn't manage to keep three applications straight in my head -- and on my computer -- I'd be interested in Google Buzz. But I bet if that were the case, I'd be someone you'd figure you couldn't trust with a secret.

Oh, the weather inside is frightful. . . .

And in a bid to prove Charlie Brooker's point, the local Fox-o-maniacs in New York City decided this morning to sling some snow . . . in addition to what they are more accustomed to slinging in their viewers' direction.

Charlie Brooker explains it all

Is it still media criticism if you're rolling on the floor, gasping for breath with tears in your eyes, all because you haven't laughed this hard in ages?

Whatever it is, it's pretty much the God's honest truth as Charlie Brooker unloads via his Newswipe program programme on the BBC.

HE DOESN'T MIND his language -- and God knows Bill O'Reilly didn't in the clip below on differences between Brit and Yank TV news -- so you probably don't want to watch this if you're working in a church office right now. But it's safe to say Brooker has television's number, particularly regarding what happens when you mix the telly and a good snowstorm (above).

DO WATCH this segment, which features the best take on Glenn Beck ever, until the very end. Cheers!

Glory bound

In the beginning (OK . . . 1983), there was the "Who Dat" song.

Now, the creators of dat have brought you dis Saints anthem -- "Glory Bound," featuring a couple of true New Orleans musical treasures, Theresa Andersson and Aaron Neville.

AREN'T YOU happy the Saints won the Super Bowl? After all, what could Indianapolis come up with for the Colts?

Anyone? Anyone?

I guess Indianapolis could have brought in Johnny Cougar John Cougar Mellencamp John Mellencamp to do "I Fight the Saints and the Saints Always Win," but what the hell fun would that have been? No, you're really glad the Saints won, and that you have New Orleans folk providing the Super Bowl soundtrack.

And if you buy the single, part of the proceeds go to the New Orleans Musicians' Clinic. Dat's cool, bra!

Go to the Lombardi Gras

You thought Mardi Gras day was big in New Orleans.

The Saints' victory parade on Dat Tuesday dwarfed anything the Crescent City ever has seen. Hell, this is something longtime fans thought -- on our darker days -- that we might never see.


Pardon us if we're freaking out . . . but damn! I mean, that's Saints Coach Sean Payton holding the Lombardi Trophy over his head.

"World champions" and "Saints" are words we're not used to putting together.

Yet.

Who dat!?!

Happy Dat Tuesday

In other words, "never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never -- in nothing, great or small, large or petty -- never give in."

How ta save dem noospapah, dawlin'

Cher, we awl know tings fo' dem noospapah industry is bad bad.

Dey ain't sellin' no noospapah no mo', and da advuhtisah is advahtisin' on da Intanets, but not da noospapahs' Intanets. It hard hard, cher.

But dey hope, Cap!

I TINK I foun' a way ta save da noospapah industry, baby. Yeah, you right!

Now, all you got ta do ta save dem noospapah in your town is to win da Supah Bowl every damn day uh da year. You get da team in your town ta do dat on a regulah basis, baby, and money goin' ta be growin' on dem trees.

Why am I tawkin' lak dis? I don' know, Cap. But dat ain't impotant now.

Look at dis from Editah & Publishah -- which was dead but now it not, because some trade papah company done bought it an' fiyah haff dah staff, but dat ain't impotant now, eidah:

By noon Monday, The Times-Picayune had printed at least 200,000 copies over its ordinary number of single-copy papers -- and the printing presses were still running to keep up with the extraordinary demand for newspapers proclaiming the New Orleans Saints Super Bowl victory.

"It's a totally moving target," Times-Picayune Editor Jim Amoss said of the ever-growing press run. "The presses are still going and we are trying to satisfy a demand which doesn't seem to slack." A normal press run for single-copy sales would be about 25,000.

When Amoss arrived for work at the paper Monday morning, he said, the line of people waiting to buy copies stretched all the way around its imposing building. "When I drove up this morning," he said, "I literally gasped. I've never seen anything like this."

Waiting in line was a cross-section of New Orleans of all occupations and races. Walking away were buyers with bundles of 20 or 30 papers, Amoss added.

The coveted front page pictures a triumphant Saints quarterback Drew Brees under a five-inch single word headline: "AMEN!"

IT AS "BIG EASY" as dat, bra. Get you a team, win you a Supah Bowl aftah fawty-three year.

Now, I know you gonna lose you azz fo' 42 year, but you gonna clean up aftah dat, podnah. I promiss you dat.

Another Super Bowl the Colts couldn't lose

Oops.

Never give in

Pigs flew. Hell froze over. The world came to an end. Baptists drank their own beer.

God Almighty, the New Orleans Saints just won the Super Bowl!

Tears were shed.

For 43 years, people like me -- people from the Gret Stet of Loosiana -- have been settling for picking a temporary favorite team in the Super Bowl because the Super Bowl was no place for our team, the oft-woeful Saints. For the likes of us, the NFL experience often was best taken in through the eye holes of a paper bag.

The one with "Ain'ts" written on the outside.

FOR 43 YEARS, more often than not, when you told somebody who wasn't from your neck of the woods that you were a Saints fan, the response was laughter. Or condolences. One was as bad as the other.

We done wid all dat now. Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints? Not a damn body, dat who!

Louisiana is a poor state, one where the schools weren't good enough, and the government wasn't honest enough, and the jobs didn't pay enough, and our expectations weren't high enough. Sometimes, we figured we were just born to lose.

Born to lose on the pro gridiron, and born to lose in the greater scheme of America. No. 1? That's where Louisiana finished in all the bad national rankings -- illiteracy . . . poverty . . . corruption . . . whatever.

YEARS AGO, a favorite New Orleans sportscaster said he'd parade down Bourbon Street in a fancy dress if the Saints ever made it to the Super Bowl. Last week, thousands -- tens of thousands -- of cross-dressing New Orleans men paraded down Bourbon in honor of Buddy Diliberto, who never lived to make good on his promise.

This week . . .

Pigs flew. Hell froze over. The world came to an end. And Baptists drank their own damn beer.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph! There is hope. The impossible is possible.

Who knows? In another 43 years, Louisiana may be on top of all the good lists and the bottom of all the bad.

Who knows? Louisiana might be a rich state, one where the schools are the best anywhere, and the government surpasses Scandinavian levels of orderliness and efficiency, and the jobs pay well indeed, and our expectation is one of excellence.

IN THE WAKE of this most improbable of nights, my mind keeps drifting to what Winston Churchill told his battered, bloodied, frightened nation in 1941 after Nazi Germany had failed -- just -- to bomb it into oblivion:

You cannot tell from appearances how things will go. Sometimes imagination makes things out far worse than they are; yet without imagination not much can be done. Those people who are imaginative see many more dangers than perhaps exist; certainly many more than will happen; but then they must also pray to be given that extra courage to carry this far-reaching imagination. But for everyone, surely, what we have gone through in this period - I am addressing myself to the School - surely from this period of ten months this is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. We stood all alone a year ago, and to many countries it seemed that our account was closed, we were finished. All this tradition of ours, our songs, our School history, this part of the history of this country, were gone and finished and liquidated.

BACK TO the unlikely present, it seems to me we can take the same lesson from this football band of free agents, late-round draft picks, castoffs and reclamation projects: "[N]ever give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy."

It might look hopeless. It might take 43 damn years. But never give in . . . "never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in."

Amen.

Trig Palin: Political football

Sarah Palin not only isn't fit to be president, I'm starting to have second thoughts about whether she's fit to be Trig's mom.

The mother of a Down Syndrome child thinks Rahm Emanuel, President Obama's chief of staff, isn't fit to hold the job because -- in a fit of pique -- he called Obama's critics on the left "f***ing retarded."

IN FACT, Palin was in high dudgeon over the whole thing:

PALIN: Special-needs parents reached out to me and obviously they know me well enough to know that I am sincere in my efforts to make this world a more welcoming place for those with special needs. I made that commitment during the GOP convention speech. They knew that they could come to me and ask and I was happy to do it, I'd do it again in a heartbeat and I'm not politically correct, I am not a word police person but there are some things, especially coming from the most powerful office in the world, in the free world, the chief of staff in that office being so demeaning and degrading to those with special needs. And remember too it's not as benign as the White House wants to spin this into. He didn't just use the r-word applying it to a plan, he called opponents of a plan f'ing retards. That's demeaning, degrading, it's beneath the dignity of the White House. That alone should I think make the president ask for that do-over with his chief of staff.

Q: Obama made a Special Olympics crack about a year ago.

PALIN: Yeah he did, and so that pattern there --

Q: Did you say anything then?

PALIN: I sure did, I did. I was the governor then and I made a statement saying you know, insensitive, come on, coming from the most powerful man in the free world, you should do better than that, Mr. President. Yeah I made a statement about that and was criticized for that too, but I don't care -- I ‘m not gonna sit down and shut up. I'm gonna tell people that this pattern of not just the insensitivity, but the flippant way of perhaps looking at those who are less fortunate and are not part of that elite crowd there in Washington I'm sick of it and I'm gonna stand up and I'm gonna say something about it because I think I'm speaking on behalf of others who are concerned about it.

ON THE OTHER HAND, she also thinks conservative talk-show emperor Rush Limbaugh was doin' just fine when, after full reflection and deliberation, he said this:

I think the big news is the crackup going on. Our politically correct society is acting like some giant insult has taken place by calling a bunch of people who are retards, retards.

I mean, these liberal activists are kooks. They are loony tunes. And I'm not going to apologize for it, I'm just quoting Emanuel. It's in the news. I think the news is that he's out there calling Obama's number one supporters effing retards. So now there's going to be a meeting. There's going to be a retard summit at the White House, much like the beer summit between Obama and Gates and that cop in Cambridge.

IT'S NICE TO KNOW up front when a politician is so craven that she'll sell out her own child's honor to avoid offending someone she thinks it's important she not offend.

Trig is her child; he suffers from a condition marked by mental retardation -- now more commonly referred to as "developmental disability." But in the warped moral universe of Sarah Palin, using "retarded" as an insult is a bad thing only for Democrats.

Prominent Republicans -- well, at least the ones she thinks are of use to her -- can use the term, as well as the even nastier "retard," and it magically becomes brilliant satire.

Someone here is retarded, and it's not liberal Democrats, cynical radio talkers or even baby Trig. The only "retard" in all this -- a profound moral "retard" -- would be the woman who just might want to be president.

God help us.

3 Chords & the Truth: Black & gold, baby!

They're throwing a Super Bowl in Miami, and my long-suffering Saints are in it.

I've only been waiting for this since . . . oh . . . 1967. That was the year the NFL came to New Orleans. I was 6.

So what have I been doing today? Lying on South Beach?

MORE LIKE splitting my time in snowy Omaha between shoveling wet, leaden frozen precipitation and putting together this episode of 3 Chords & the Truth. Well, that's OK -- so long as I have some good music and a hot cup of tea, I can cope.

And I'll bet you can, too.

In honor of the Saints being in the Big Game, the Big Show features some Louisiana artists this week (though, truth be told, that's not exactly an unusual thing around here). Good is good, and there's a lot of good music around my home state.

Anyway, I'll just leave you with this simple thought: WHO DAT?

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

Find Uncle Lionel's bass drum!

An entry from the Offbeat magazine Facebook page, in an odd kind of way, demonstrates why there always must be a New Orleans.

Uncle Lionel [Batiste's] Black Bass Drum was stolen after Krewe de Vieux Saturday Night. Just talked to Uncle Lionel, we are looking for his BLACK Bass drum, not the yellow, it was stolen after Krewe Du Vieux outside the port o johns after parade by Elysian Fields and Decatur, some dude said he would watch while Uncle Lionel was in the port....came out they were both gone... He just told "I would rather lose all my women than this bass drum"....and he really appreciates all the concern. This should be enough info to know what hood the drums in, I know there are peeps out there who deal with "The Element" or know someone who does...REACH OUT NOW!!!! Any info call Jeff at 504-943-0743 or Jerry at 504-201-2202

GOD BLESS a city where an old black bass drum -- not the yellow -- is that important. That kind of soul just don't grow on no trees, Cap.

And whoever run off with Uncle Lionel's drum, I hope dey get dey azz kick good.

Oh . . . and look at the poster for this year's Jazz and Heritage Festival. It honors Louis Prima, and you want to know who painted such a gorgeous thing?

Tony Bennett.

That is so cool.

Bad beer, funny ad

If it's cheap beer you must drink -- and who isn't in that boat nowadays, right? -- I'm a PBR and Schlitz guy.

Long ago and far away, the old man drank Dixie and Schlitz, and I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree (or whatever cliché you happen to prefer). Then again, if you're falling off the Bud Light tree, I don't know how much solace you can take even from a commercial as funny as this one.

I MEAN, if somebody gave me a case of Bud Light, I reckon I'd drink it, but I'd be bending an elbow and thinking of England. OK, Abita . . . but you get the idea.

So, Budweiser, just so you know, you know? I'll give some virtual airtime to your funny ad for bad beer, but Tokyo Rose used to spin the hottest Western hits in service of Tojo's war machine, too.

And that guy that looks kind of like me? I'll give him a Guinness to put his damn clothes back on.

I'm just sayin'.

The world's second-oldest profession

The next time you hear a Republican say his party is looking out for ordinary folk just like you, remind yourself that he's a damned liar.

Also remind yourself that you don't matter, that the whole political system is set up to screw you and screw you good, and that there will be no meaningful reform of, well . . . anything if there's big money on the side of the status quo.

HONEST TO GOD, Republicans are so shameless they don't even go off the record when they talk to The Wall Street Journal about workin' hard to stay the bankers' bitch:

In discussions with Wall Street executives, Republicans are striving to make the case that they are banks' best hope of preventing President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats from cracking down on Wall Street.

GOP strategists hope to benefit from the reaction to the White House's populist rhetoric and proposals, which range from sharp critiques of bonuses to a tax on big Wall Street banks, caps on executive pay and curbs on business practices deemed too risky.

Democrats have dominated Wall Street's fund-raising circles in recent elections. Mr. Obama himself raised millions of dollars from employees of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Citigroup Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and other Wall Street firms.

Now, at least some Wall Street executives have reduced their political contributions to the Democratic Party and its candidates, according to fund-raising reports and interviews with executives at financial-services firms.

Last week, House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio made a pitch to Democratic contributor James Dimon, the chairman and chief executive of J.P. Morgan, over drinks at a Capitol Hill restaurant, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Boehner told Mr. Dimon congressional Republicans had stood up to Mr. Obama's efforts to curb pay and impose new regulations. The Republican leader also said he was disappointed many on Wall Street continue to donate their money to Democrats, according to the people familiar with the matter.

A spokeswoman for J.P. Morgan declined to comment.

"I sense a lot of dissatisfaction and a lot of buyer's remorse on Wall Street," said Rep. Eric Cantor (R., Va.), the second-ranking House Republican and a top Wall Street fund-raiser for his party.

THE DEMOCRATS, of course, wasted no time in going all Huey P. Long on the GOP -- that is, if the Kingfish had used words like "symbiotic":

The White House referred calls seeking comment on Wall Street donors to the Democratic National Committee. A DNC spokesman said: "It's not surprising that Republicans are seeking money from the same banking industry they are the champions of. The relationship between Wall Street and Republicans is symbiotic."

THIS WOULD be funny if it weren't so Orwellian. Think 1984, Ministry of Truth.

The Democrats, you see, took home most of the Wall Street money during the 2008 campaign. And if the DNC spokesman's name happened to be Winston Smith, I'm reaching for the Early Times right now.