Hey Mom, been looking for time to write
Yeah, I’m getting by all right
How’s Dad? Did he get that East field plowed?
Used to be done by now
Out here it gets cold at night
But the stars are a welcome sight
To me
I pretend it’s the big Nebraska sky
Like the picture in my mind
Is the wind still rollin’ across the plains?
Please say it’s still the same
Follow the sun as it goes
Nothing but endless rows
-- Nebraska SkySteve Gulley
and Tim Stafford
JUSTICE doesn't always happen as we expect, or by ordinary legal means, but it usually occurs. One way or another. On earth or in the great beyond.A 29-year-old man killed in a confrontation with Omaha police officers early Sunday near 30th and Pratt Streets was on a 48-hour furlough from the Community Corrections Center of Lincoln.
Jermaine Lucas of Omaha began serving five to eight years in the Nebraska Department of Corrections on Dec. 7, 2010, for being a felon in possession of a gun. Robert Houston, the director of the Nebraska Department of Corrections, said Lucas started his 11th furlough on Friday.
Houston said it's a rare occurrence for an inmate to run into trouble with the law while on an unsupervised release.
(snip)
Lucas was no stranger to police and had a long arrest record. Police have said in the past that they believed him to be a member of the 29th Street Bloods gang.
In 2006, Lucas and another suspected 29th Street Bloods member, Jimmy Levering, were charged in connection with the fatal shooting of Kenny Miller, 24, outside a convenience store at 24th Street and Redick Avenue.
Levering was charged as the shooter, and Lucas was accused of driving Levering from the scene.
Prosecutors said charges against both men were dropped after witnesses, fearing retaliation, refused to testify.
In 2010, Levering was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison for being a felon in possession of ammunition after police found him with two .45-caliber bullets during a Jan. 29 traffic stop. He died in May 2011 after being shot in the head outside the Club Seville at 30th and Pratt Streets.
The answer is obvious. Even more so if you listen to this week's episode of 3 Chords & the Truth.THE NEW USA Today looks like a website, and the thing read like The Drudge Report even before there was such a thing as the World Wide Web.The broader makeover is part of effort by USA Today’s parent company, Gannett, to blend the resources of all of its television and newspaper assets. The company owns 82 newspapers in the United States, including USA Today, as well as 23 broadcast television stations and some digital media properties. The company is also planning to rebuild its newsroom to create a single national news desk to house staff members from its newspapers and television stations.
Mr. Kramer, who is the founder of MarketWatch and joined USA Today in May, said that starting this fall, Gannett’s newspapers and television stations would share more content on breaking news stories, with a greater blending of video and print on the Web site. Print reporters will be expected to do their own videos and will be given backpacks with video equipment to carry on assignments. He also plans to better pair the papers’ national investigative projects with local coverage; smaller papers will run USA Today investigative stories with sidebars written by reporters about local impact.
“This has to be an orchestra,” said Mr. Kramer. “It can’t be a single instrument anymore.”
(snip)
Analysts have welcomed efforts by all news organizations to blend print, video and digital reporting, and they point out that USA Today’s print makeover is overdue. Alexia S. Quadrani, a media analyst at JPMorgan Chase, noted in a report in July that Gannett’s newspaper advertising revenue declined 8.1 percent in the second quarter, which was worse than she had expected. She said she expected USA Today to remain weak in the third quarter.
Ms. Quadrani pointed out this week that Gannett had benefited recently from all of the television advertising related to the Olympics and political campaign season, temporary bursts of revenue. And she stressed that Gannett still depended heavily on its newspapers.
“A revamp is going to be welcome because I think you do need to do something to reinvigorate that brand,” said Ms. Quadrani. “They’re still more skewed toward print in terms of where their revenue and cash flow comes from.”
Gracia C. Martore, Gannett’s chief executive, said the company’s 5,000 journalists had already started collaborating on stories. During the shootings in July in Aurora, Colo., the company’s network of television stations depended on content from KUSA, the Gannett television station in Denver, until 18 journalists from other Gannett television stations arrived to pitch in and help report the story. During the Olympics, reporters from KUSA who knew Missy Franklin, a swimmer from suburban Denver, shared their contacts with Gannett’s print outlets and other television networks.
“The great thing about Gannett right now is the leveraging of assets that used to be housed in silos,” said Ms. Martore. “That’s how I think you survive and thrive in a digital era.”
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Unsurprisingly, talk-radio blowhards Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity have been leading the charge. From Politico:Hannity blasted Biden as either “callous” or “ignorant beyond belief” for using the word “bittersweet” to discuss the 9/11 anniversary, and Limbaugh told his listeners that “with 9/11, it’s all bitter.”PERHAPS IT'S merely that Hannity's and Limbaugh's minds cannot deal with complexity. Maybe it's that these gentlemen have an insufficient understanding of grace, particularly that which arises from great tragedy or evil, confirming for our hearts that "the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not."
Earlier on Tuesday, Biden addressed a crowd at the United Airlines Flight 93 memorial and said it was a “genuine honor” to be there.
“But like all of the families, we wish we weren’t here. We wish we didn’t have to be here. We wish we didn’t have to commemorate any of this. And it’s a bittersweet moment for the entire nation, for all of the country, but particularly for those family members gathered here today,” Biden said in Shanksville, Pa.
With the “bittersweet” remark, Hannity said that the “vice president buffoon is at it again.”
“Does he even know what the word bittersweet means? What on earth is bittersweet about what happened on 9/11? Explain the sweet part, Mr. Vice President,” Hannity said.
“What happened on 9/11 was unmitigated evil,” he added after playing a clip from Biden’s 9/11 speech. “I don’t see describing it bittersweet. It either means you’re just callous or you’re just ignorant beyond belief and don’t know the meaning of what the term bittersweet is.”
Biden wasn’t the only one to use the word “bittersweet” in his remarks on Tuesday. National Park Service Flight 93 National Memorial superintendent Jeff Reinhold used the term “bittersweet” in his Tuesday address before Biden spoke to the gathering. In a transcript of his prepared remarks, Reinhold said, “and a very special welcome to the families of the 40 passengers and crew of Flight 93. As always, it is bittersweet to have you with us again.”
“As you can imagine, it’s been an incredibly personal and emotional journey,” Reinhold wrote in an email to POLITICO. “The families have been involved in every aspect of the process and I — and our entire staff — have developed wonderful friendships and very close bonds with many of them. We look forward to their visits in September and throughout the year, but always with a tinge of regret as we know it is a tragedy that brought us together. ‘Bittersweet’ seemed very appropriate and is a term that I think many of the families would use to describe their relationship with the staff at the Memorial.”
Hannity also slammed the media’s response to Biden’s “bittersweet” comment.
“And I can say this — and I’m trying to stay away from politics — if a Republican vice president had said this, the criticism, the ridicule, would come on like an avalanche,” he said.
Rarely do I watch Joe Biden give a speech or an interview without looking for some evidence, in his eyes or the lines of his face, of the fact that he lost half of his young family when he was 30 years old. It is inconceivable to me, always has been, but especially in the years since I became a father. For all his goofballism, Biden has gone through a crucible that I cannot imagine. And he did so when he was 30, an adult, already deeply invested in the life he was building.I DISAGREE with the vice president on many things, particularly social issues. But I do well to remember that God loves him just like He does me . . . and that Joe Biden has guts. It takes guts -- and more than a little strength of character -- to survive, as he has, not only shattering grief but the shattering of one's whole world.
That’s not to diminish the tragedies that children endure. But at 30 years old to lose your wife and baby daughter, to almost lose your two toddler sons, and to somehow carry on? It truly baffles me. I know everyone says you do what you have to do. But that’s not really true. You don’t. You could curl up in the fetal position, if not literally then emotionally, and shrivel up. I’m more certain that that’s what I would do than I am confident I would find a way to persevere. But Biden has been through it. He’s seen hell and been back.
That he served his entire 36-year Senate career after that searing experience in December 1972, shortly after winning election, and then went on to become vice president, adds some drama to the story, I suppose. But for me the emotional highlight is just him getting out of bed the next day, and the day after that, and the one after that.
Which brings me to Joe Biden’s speech today in Shanksville, Penn., commemorating the victims of Sept. 11, 2001. The speech is marvelously and sensitively written. But rendered by Biden, drawing on his own life experience, in rhetorical ways that are not ostentatious and which don’t try to elevate his own story above those of the victims’ families, it packs a wallop that still makes me cut him a lot of slack for his sometime inexplicable goofiness.
The blue line in the chart above displays total annual print newspaper advertising revenue (for the categories national, retail and classified) based on actual annual data from 1950 to 2011, and estimated annual revenue for 2012 using quarterly data through the second quarter of this year, from the Newspaper Association of America (NAA). The advertising revenues have been adjusted for inflation, and appear in the chart as millions of constant 2012 dollars. Estimated print advertising revenues of $19.0 billion in 2012 will be the lowest annual amount spent on print newspaper advertising since the NAA started tracking ad revenue in 1950.The decline in print newspaper advertising to a 62-year low is amazing by itself, but the sharp decline in recent years is prettyANY MARKET for those of us with skill sets worthy of the Bronze Age? You know, like newspaper journalism and radio broadcasting? Some of us also have rudimentary skills in hunting and gathering, as well as cave painting.stunning. This year’s ad revenues of $19 billion will be less than half of the $46 billion spent just five years ago in 2007, and a little more than one-third of the $56.5 billion spent in 2004.
Ma'am? Yes, ma'am, I'll get to the point.
LIKEWISE, you may be wondering why I didn't point out that the Register's uncritical, incurious interview wasn't terribly surprising, being that Groeschel was a marquee personality for the Eternal Word Television Network, and that EWTN is owner of the newspaper. Or why I didn't express my bemusement at why EWTN, in announcing Groeschel's "retirement" from television Monday, noted the friar's advanced age and illness, that his comments to the Register were a sign of that . . . but didn't mention it never had a problem with such sentiments when he was a decade younger.
Breaking news: The Baton Rouge campus of Louisiana State University will take another severe budgetary hit next fiscal year, this time reportedly to the tune of $7.2 million.
"I expect they'll make the cuts if they know what's good for them," he will intone . . . somberly. "As a matter of fact, I think we might even find a few million more in efficiencies if the Tigers have a really big year in football."A policy believed to be unique in major college sports that would ensure that the academic mission of LSU would share in the financial success of the LSU athletics program will be considered Friday, Sept. 7, by the LSU Board of Supervisors.LISTEN, it's Louisiana. It's not rocket science.
The LSU Athletics Fund Transfer Policy would formalize an annual transfer of $7.2 million from the Athletic Department to other components of LSU for use in supporting LSU’s academic, research, public service and other missions. In addition, it would establish a revenue sharing component that could provide additional funds to the university’s mission and ensure that all facets of LSU share in the success of the athletics program.
“I am not aware of another university that has formalized a financial agreement such as this one,” said William Jenkins, interim president and chancellor at LSU. “The university has long been a beneficiary of the success of our financially self-sustaining athletics program, but this policy will solidify the connection between athletic success and advancement of the university’s academic mission.”
Over the years, various informal practices have been adopted for the transfer of funds from the Athletic Department to other components of LSU. As LSU has faced increasing budget pressures over recent years, fund transfers from Athletics to other components of LSU have increased. Most recently, the Athletic Department transferred an additional $4 million and assumed financial responsibility for the Academic Center for Student-Athletes at the cost of approximately $1.5 million to help offset a shortage in the university budget, staving off budget cuts and potential faculty and staff layoffs.
“It is important for an athletics program to play a role in the overall success of the university, and this policy breaks new ground in establishing the role of LSU Athletics in the mission of LSU,” said Joe Alleva, vice chancellor and director of athletics. “LSU Athletics has long-been a financially self-sustaining program and has transferred significant funds to the core mission of the university each year. This policy will take that support to an entirely new level.”
Nick Saban is too busy eating the still-beating hearts of children to care about things like commercials. He has no time for your silly human publicity.
Some 92 percent of women have abortions after a Down syndrome diagnosis, so one has to wonder what Joan Vanderhorst's problem was.Joan and Robert Vanderhorst, of Bakersfield, Calif., said they intend to sue American over the "humiliating" incident at Newark Airport, in which they were told their special needs son posed a "flight risk."
"It's defamation," Robert Vanderhorst told the Daily News. "It's a violation of his civil rights and its defamation."
Joan Vanderhorst pulled out her cell phone and started recording the incident on Sunday in which Bede is seen quietly playing with his hat and an American Airlines official warns that she was prohibited from filming "in a security-controlled area."
At one point, Port Authority police were even called on the confused family.
"Nothing like this has ever happened to us before. That's what's so shocking. He's usually our good luck charm. Good things usually happen when Bede is with us," Vanderhorst said.
Bede and his parents had been in Jackson, N.J., visiting family and were eager to make the long return flight home. On a "lark" they had even upgraded their seats to first class, shelling out an extra $625 dollars.
"My wife said, 'oh Bede's never flown first class,' he'll be so excited."
Vanderhorst said Bede, a freshman in high school, has flown "at least 30 times" through his life and has never caused any trouble.
Nothing was different before Sunday's flight, he said. Bede was sticking close to his parents and was not acting unruly, nor was he upset.
But as the family waited to board, an American Airlines official pulled them aside and said the pilot had observed Bede and didn't feel safe allowing him on the plane.
Joan Vanderhorst quickly snapped on her video camera and can be heard sobbing. "We are being singled out," she said. Robert Vanderhorst, an attorney, calmly pleads with the airline official. "He's behaving. He's demonstrating he's not a problem."
The agitated American Airlines employee instead called Port Authority police to escort the family away from the gate.
(snip)
Vanderhorst said he has spoken with his attorneys about a lawsuit, accusing the airline of violating Bede's civil rights and the Americans With Disabilities Act.
"My son cannot defend himself," he said. "I expect that American Airlines will not give their pilots the ability to discriminate against anyone; gay, black disabled," he said.
The family's trip home deteriorated even further when they were loaded into a full United Airlines flight and placed in the very back row.
"For a second time, we were discriminated against. Segregated."
SO? That's what you get when you don't take care of your problems when they're small.
Memorial Stadium, Lincoln, Neb.(May Day in Red Square had nothing
on a Nebraska home football game.)
Brilliant timing is what makes it work . . . flexibility . . . amazing to behold . . . blah blah blah . . . 3 Chords & the Truth.
