Do the Freddy

We bid a fond farewell to Mad Men in a manner that we hope might earn Roger Sterling's enthusiastic approval. Sal Romano certainly would have loved it.

So let's all do the Freddy.

Well, not literally. Eww.

Today's listening

This afternoon's LP listening (and digitizing) -- a 1972 British repressing of Emerson, Lake & Palmer's 1970 debut album.

Though manufactured in the United Kingdom, this album was released for the West German market. If you couldn't figure that out from the album number, it would be hard to miss the German price tag . . . in Deutschmarks.

I'M ALWAYS finding stuff like this here in Omaha, a.k.a., Ground Zero, a.k.a., home of the U.S. Strategic Command. If you have an Army or Air Force base in your town, I'd imagine the used-record pickings are equally good.

What would you say the chances are this will show up on some future edition of 3 Chords & the Truth? Me, I'd put the odds at 100 percent.

3 Chords & the Truth: It's a secret

You'll never know how much I really loved it. You'll never know how much I really cared.

Listen . . . do you want to know a secret? Do you promise not to tell?

Closer . . . let me whisper in your ear. Say the words you long to hear -- what the Big Show's paying tribute to.

Listen . . . do you want to know a secret? Do you promise not to tell?

CLOSER . . . let me whisper in your ear. Say the words you long to hear -- screw it, I can't tell you.

I've known  the secret for a week or two. And nobody knows, not even you.

Listen . . . do you want to know a secret? Do you promise not to tell?

Closer . . . let me whisper in your ear. Say the words you long to hear . . . nope. Still not telling you.

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

The times of your life

This week on 3 Chords & the Truth we remember the times of your life . . . our life. Somebody's life. Or at least a pop-culture approximation thereof.

Cryptic? Yes. So I guess you'll have to listen to the Big Show to figure out what we're up to.

That is all. Be there on the Carousel. Aloha.

3 Chords & the Truth: Making you glad you're alive

This week's 3 Chords & the Truth is the kind of show that will make you glad that you're alive.

With that said, just dance where you might be -- and push back against the world's darkness harder than it pushes on you. Because we should be glad that we're alive.

ME, I'm just glad you're listening to the Big Show.

So let's dance, shall we? Life's too short to waste on anger, despair, paranoia and finger-pointing . . . and that's just what we see on Facebook.

Eschew that. Listen to this.

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

An up-and-coming epic fail

Repeat after me, Omaha World-Herald online person in charge of Facebook updates:

"This is s***. This is Shinola.

"This is s***. This is Shinola.

"This is s***. This is Shinola."

On the other hand, that unknown editor probably is too young to know any more about Shinola than he or she knows about Garth Brooks.

ON THE third hand, one commenter is "pretty sure" the up-and-coming thing was a joke. To me, that doesn't matter. A newspaper's credibility can be trashed one lame ironic remark at a time just as well as it can by one glaring display of cluelessness at a time.

And credibility is about the only weapon "legacy media" like newspapers have left in their arsenals, particularly when they're counting on people to purchase access to their "product," which is reliable information. After all, if it's bulls*** you want, you can have your social-media fill of that for free.

3 Chords & the Truth: Better than a million apes

A million monkeys trying to come up with Shakespeare . . . or an average episode of 3 Chords & the Truth . . . will come up with something akin to this.

Wpojkerp' oerjesf;pooj p'kqrw'pkqw P'WQKEK ;lsmcp[sek wkfsk aw[pksa[pk aw[psls[plk [pqienmcdls sa[pkfa[s ;;ws[ w[q qw[poer[20wioerw a[wpoda's las'dl'asld a's;kda'sp 

X['ofl'sa; l;alkdas;k as'lda'spold][w poq-02148909218 qpowiruwpqokd aljq[p39r08c[pc  [oqew9r8[09w 0qew[98 r0[9qwe [0qwer9i  [w0e9fq8 03[2qw0[r980 23r823q0 p;owaiafi'pa fio'w  .

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aw' ;aow 'paew
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THAT DIDN'T work out so well, did it?

So don't monkey around -- leave the quality music programming to your Mighty Favog, not a bunch of apes . . . or your local radio station, for that matter. We'll all be happier.

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

Found at your local Goodwill

Oh, the things you find at your local thrift store.

Or, in this case, at the Goodwill in North Platte, Neb. That's why it never hurts to hit the Goodwill when you're traveling -- in this case, on an overnight trip last week to west-central Nebraska.

There I found not only this autographed Loretta Lynn LP, but three more of hers as well, two of them autographed like the one above. The cost for the whole stash was about what you'd pay for a large espresso drink at your local coffee emporium.

And if anybody tries to take 'em from me, we're gonna be goin' to Fist City.

'We must be strategic in how we riot'

When a major cable network lets fools like Marc Lamont Hill on its air to say things like "We must be strategic in how we riot," you know with absolute certainty that the last grown-up in television news has died or retired.

President Obama wasn't kidding the other night at the White House Correspondents Dinner when he "joked" that "usually the only people impersonating journalists on CNN are journalists on CNN."

As I watched rioters rule the streets of Baltimore last night on CNN, with police standing by observing as thugs looted liquor stores and set buildings alight not 50 yards away, I thought "This is a civilization refusing to defend itself." It seems to me there is a hierarchy of imperatives, and just above "Police should neither kill nor brutalize ordinary citizens or suspects in custody" is "Society must not be allowed to descend into violent mayhem."

Last night, Baltimore descended into violent mayhem. Last night, its elected leaders fiddled while Baltimore burned. And on a national "news" network, some damn-fool commentator lamented that the oppressed needed to be more "strategic" in their rioting.

Marc Lamont Hill

FORGET "two wrongs don't make a right." Forget that by looting and burning the stores of merchants, burning a church's senior-housing project that was under construction, assaulting bystanders and journalists for the crime of being white and endangering the lives of innocent residents of their own neighborhoods the rioters threw away any claim to the moral high ground. Forget every single thing that should be self-evident in any society not intent on suicide.

Forget all that.

Instead, let's focus on the strategic value of being "strategic" in your rioting.

The moneyed and powerful may no longer possess the will to preserve public order or defend a teetering civilization, but I will guaran-damn-tee you that the moneyed and powerful -- in other words, the ruling class -- does have the will to defend its money and its power. So what then happens when "strategic" rioters head downtown, or to affluent neighborhoods, to strategically riot, burn, kill and loot? What happens when city hall and Camden Yards, home of baseball's Baltimore Orioles, go up in flames?

ME, I'm thinking that when Stuff White People Like start to be consumed by the all-encompassing rage and "strategic" rioting of the underclass, those who might be indifferent to the ongoing immolation of the ghetto suddenly will embrace the tactical efficiency of helicopter gunships and Bradley Fighting Vehicles. If and when that comes to pass, I wonder what academic rabble-rouser Marc Lamont Hill -- more commonly known in the 'hood as "p***y-ass toilet fodder" -- then might think of being "strategic in how we riot."

Ultimately, when a minority suffers injustice and abuse by those in power, moral authority is the only authority it possesses and moral suasion is the only weapon it can count on. When people who are vastly outnumbered and, in Fortress America, vastly outgunned as well start to believe that two wrongs do make a right, at some point they will find the "oppressors" think that three just might.

3 Chords & the Truth: We're ba-aaack!

Look in the sky!

It's a bird!
 
It's a plane!

It's a frog!

A frog???

Not plane, nor bird, nor even frog . . .

It's just 3 Chords & the Truth -- back from a break and found on this blog!

In other words . . . never fear! The Big Show is here!

Railtown, U.S.A.

I've been away from the keys . . . and 3 Chords & the Truth . . . and the blog . . . and lots of stuff for the past three weeks. Time to get back to it -- them.

So, I'll do just that by posting this, some pictures from an overnight trip to North Platte, Neb., my old stomping grounds that's simply known as Railtown, U.S.A. North Platte is the Union Pacific Railroad. The U.P. is the largest employer in the city of 25,000 in west-central Nebraska, and North Platte is home to the largest rail yard in the world -- Bailey Yards.

Bailey Yards is where the railroad repairs trains, classifies rail cars and puts them together into east- and westbound trains. The yard is massive -- more than eight miles long and 3 1/2 miles wide at its widest point. The locomotive repair shop works on some 300 engines a day and handles thousands upon thousands of rail cars daily as well.

SO, WHEN I was in town the other day, a visit to the yard's visitor center in the Golden Spike Tower was a must.  You get a helluva view from eight stories up.

See, I told you the place was massive. Below is just a small part of Bailey Yards. A small part. Small.

ON THE other hand, you can get in some quality trainspotting, too, in downtown North Platte, down by where the city's old train depot once stood.

FINALLY, being that this is the Great Plains, ye shall know a town by its grain elevator.

3 Chords & the Truth is coming up next at its usual bat time on this same bat channel. Be there, aloha. That is all.

3 Chords & the Truth: Spring cleaning

Today is April 1. Time for some spring cleaning at 3 Chords & the Truth.

The first thing to be cleaned from the program . . . hard rock. For us at the flagship program of the Revolution 21 universe, it's going to be nothing but good music. We're going with pop, jazz and easy listening -- music that calms the savage breast . . . and makes your world a safer, nicer place.

That's why you're going to notice a change in 3 Chords & the Truth. We like to call the approach "The Velvet Sound," and it's going to sound as smooth as a fine swath of blue velvet.

I URGE you to check out the new sound of the finest music podcast on the Internet. I think you'll agree with us when we say to hard rock 'n' roll mayhem "We're not missing you at all."

The program is all about good music, and good music is what you'll get from us at 3 Chords & the Truth. And that's all your Mighty Favog has to say about that, because the proof is in the hearing.

Try it. We guarantee you'll like it.

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

And that's your program news -- and your program -- for Wednesday, April 1, 2015.

3 Chords & the Truth: The gift of music

 
This week's edition of the Big Show is about precious gifts.

One of my earliest was the gift of music. The gift of a love of music, and records . . . and ultimately a love of sharing that great bequest with others.

That gift -- music -- I got from my mother at a young age. I remember as a little kid, maybe 4 years old, playing my parents' 78s and 45s and even LPs on the big Silvertone console and thinking it was one of the coolest things ever. And I've been doing it ever since.

IT'S A GIFT that has enriched my life and ultimately led me to the radio -- and being on the radio. And it has reached its fruition, so far, in this little endeavor we call 3 Chords & the Truth.

The gift of music came from my mother some 50 years ago now. It's probably the greatest thing she ever gave me, apart from life itself.

Mama passed away in a hospital here in Omaha early the morning of March 21, three days before my 54th birthday. This episode of the Big Show is for her.

God bless you, Mama. And thank you for the music.

And the English ate Irish babies because of Jonathan Swift's essay

"I believe this has crossed the line where we are endangering lives of those who wear a uniform to protect us. How can we expect a criminal – a potential criminal – who might want to commit a gun crime or any kind of crime against law enforcement, to read a transcript and try to understand context or hyperbole? Words matter. And Sen. Chambers said these words."

-- Nebraska Sen. Beau McCoy

Chambers' controversial remarks run from 51:06 to 58:36

Nearly a week after he said it, Nebraskans have decided to be outraged, horrified and morally offended by Sen. Ernie Chambers, who pointed out in a legislative committee meeting that ISIS wasn't a threat to ordinary folk in his district, but the police were.

In more than one case recently, this has been demonstrably true.

But something being demonstrably true in a nation that's seen a spate of unarmed civilians -- many of them black -- being killed by heavily armed police is no deterrent to Nebraskans when it's yet again time to hate on the outspoken man who for decades was the state's only African-American legislator, and now is one of only two.

And did I mention that it took people almost a week to get outraged over widely reported "outrageous" comments?

What people are saying is that Chambers said he'd shoot a cop because the cops are the equivalent of the worst sort of Islamic terrorists. What Chambers actually said is quite different.

State senators confronted Sen. Ernie Chambers Thursday during an extraordinary two-hour discussion about his remarks last week comparing police interaction with black citizens to ISIS treatment of its victims in the Mideast.

One freshman legislator, Sen. David Schnoor of Scribner, demanded the Omaha senator resign from the Legislature.

But Chambers dismissed insistent calls that he apologize or retract statements he made during a committee hearing last week.

His critics focused their criticism on a brief remark by Chambers that if he carried a gun -- which he doesn't -- and found himself confronted by a police officer, he'd want to shoot first and ask questions later, "like they say the cop ought to do."

Gov. Pete Ricketts weighed in on the discussion from outside the legislative chamber by issuing a news release urging Chambers to "issue a full apology for his remarks (and) condemn all violence against law enforcement."

During an interview after the Legislature adjourned for the week, Chambers said "there's not a person in my (legislative) district who thinks I would want to shoot a cop."

"The kids in my community are too smart to put that interpretation on those words," he said.

During the debate, Chambers said he's "used to be being piled on" after growing up as a black youth in a white culture and later during a public career of confronting senators in a Legislature in which he usually was the sole black senator. Two of the 49 current senators are black.

"I don't expect you to understand what I'm talking about," he said.

A number of senators who took exception to Chambers' comments last week defended his right to express his views even if they disagreed with him.

"It's a wonderful opportunity to pile onto Sen. Chambers," Sen. Dave Bloomfield of Hoskins said after the flood of criticism had begun.

"I do not condone what Sen. Chambers said, (but) let those among us who are without sin cast the first stone."

Chambers, he said, has "done a great service to this body for 40 years."

Sen. Bob Krist of Omaha said he now regrets that he didn't "nudge Senator Chambers and express my disappointment" when he made the remarks during last week's Judiciary Committee hearing, but he said he also needs to be prepared to call a colleague to account the next time he hears a reference to "a retard."

Sen. Ken Haar of Malcolm said he has heard a senator refer to people who receive public assistance as "leeches," and he reminded colleagues that Sen. Beau McCoy of Omaha, who initiated Thursday's debate, dismissively knocked a bobblehead doll rendition of President Barack Obama off a fence post in one of his 2014 gubernatorial campaign TV ads.

THIS AD.  I wonder whether McCoy regrets his symbolic act of violence against the president of the United States.

I wonder whether he wonders whether he planted a seed in the fertile soil of a future assassin's warped mind. Because, after all, actions matter. And Sen. McCoy whacked that Obama bobblehead.

I'm seeing people from politicians to regular slobs on Facebook demand that people like Ernie Chambers "walk a mile in cops' shoes." Bullshit.

You don't get to say that unless you equally insist that cops -- and Republican politicians, for that matter -- walk a mile in the shoes of Chambers' north Omaha constituents. So far, I haven't heard anybody meekly suggest that cops might, if they have time someday, and if it really isn't too much trouble, walk a block in the shoes of ordinary black folk in the 'hood.

Like people say, "Fair is fair." Unless that depends on what the definition of "is" is.

FOR THE RECORD, here is what Chambers actually said a week ago. Unedited for political effect or for outrage generation in the Internet age:

My ISIS is the police. And you know what the county attorney said, Don Kleine: If the officer makes a mistake, if he's wrong but he had reason to think that he was right, then he's clear. I cannot get away with that and shoot you and say, well, I thought he was going to do something. They say, uh-uh, buddy, that doesn't work. 

Well, now we presume that these officers are trained. To show how little their training means and how they hide behind it, some guy out east was fired because he was dealing with a guy who had a mental problem and wound up...he was on duty, shot the guy 14 times, and he was fired. Now he's trying to get his job back. And you know what the lawyer is arguing? And he's justified in view of the not finding any fault in what these cops are doing. He said, yes, he shot the man 14 times, but it was within his training. 

So now, if the police are trained to shoot somebody in the back, then the cop who shoots in the back says, it was pursuant to my training, and he's home free. That's what's happening. I would tell young people: If you tell somebody to go across the world to fight for ISIS, they can put you in jail if you just talk about it. If you want to fight injustice, don't...you don't have to go around the world to find the ISIS mentality. Your ISIS is in America and you're likely to die over there, one way or the other. So if you're going to die, die making your home safe. My home is not threatened by ISIS. Mine is threatened by the police. The police are licensed to kill us, children, old people. 

They showed a guy on a highway. The highway trooper, he had this elderly black woman down on the ground, just beating the stew out of her, and nothing was done to him. That's what I see. Now suppose somebody told me somebody from ISIS did that. Then everybody is up in arms: See what cowards they are? They beat women in broad daylight. But when a cop does it, it's all right. I don't feel that way. 

And if I were going to do something -- but I'm not a man of violence -- I wouldn't go to Syria, I wouldn't go to Iraq, I wouldn't go to Afghanistan, I wouldn't go to Yemen, I wouldn't go to Tunisia, I wouldn't go to Lebanon, I wouldn't go to Jordan. I would do it right here. 

Nobody from ISIS ever terrorized us as a people, as the police do daily. And they get away with it and they've been given the license now. And people don't like me to say this. Then you rein in your cops. And you know what they say, the racism of the cops is merely reflective of the racism in this society and they accept the existence of racism to excuse the cop. 

But then when I say there is racism in the society, they say, you're playing the race card, your talking about it makes it happen. But when they want to justify the cop, they say, he's merely reflective of the community where there is white racism. And that's what I look . . . you don't have to deal with that. You're privileged. You're free of that. You don't have to think about it every day. If I was going to carry a weapon, it wouldn't be against you, it wouldn't be against these people who come here that I might have a dispute with.

Mine would be for the police. And if I carried a gun, I'd want to shoot him first and then ask questions later, like they say the cop ought to do. But could I get away with it? You know I couldn't get away with it. They'd better hope I never lose my mind and find out that I'm on my way out of here. 

(Laughter)

NOW, WOULD I have made this point in the manner the senator made it? No. No, I wouldn't have.I always get into trouble when exercising my right to hyperbole. On the other hand, I suck at attracting attention, too.

But I will say this. If somebody shoots Ernie Chambers because of this latest God 'n' country "two-minute hate," I hope that when people riot, they burn city hall and the police headquarters in Omaha, and then the state capitol in Lincoln rather than lay waste to their own neighborhoods.

You never want to be your own ISIS.

3 Chords & the Truth: For me to know . . . .

This week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth is for me to know about and you to find out about.

You can find out all about it by trekking here.

Or, you can just click on any of the podcast players splattered all around here and call it good. When it comes to the Big Show, you have all sorts of options.

OK, I'll tell you this: The show starts with E.L.O. and closes with The Three Suns. And there are other songs in between.

Now go. Listen.

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

It's always 1939 in Ponchatoula

Because the South, because Louisiana, because rural Tangipahoa Parish, because the fraught racial history of the South, and of Louisiana, and of rural Tangipahoa Parish, I am pretty much speechless that this is the poster for the Ponchatoula Strawberry Festival.

But here it is, going to a place Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemima have never gone before. That place is Pickaninnyville.

According to a story in the Advocate, the south Louisiana daily newspaper, the creator of the poster drew upon the work of a late Ponchatoula artist known for his stylistic portrayals of rural blacks in the Deep South.

The festival board’s publicist Shelley Matherne told WBRZ that the painting for the poster was selected in an open contest in which two entries were submitted.

“Art is subjective; there was no intent other than to pay tribute to the festival and the strawberry industry,” she said in a statement. “This is Kalle’s interpretation of a similar world-renowned local Ponchatoula artist, now deceased, who he drew his inspiration from.”

WELL, THAT'S fair enough, and it would be pure knee-jerk speculation to say there was any malevolent intent on the part of the artist, Kalle Siekkinen, but I think it does show an abject cluelessness on the part of Siekkinen and festival organizers about the minefield that is race in the South.

From what I can see of the late artist Bill Hemmerling's original work, the style of the poster is pitch-perfect in representing Hemmerling's style, but managed to hit all the wrong chords with the execution. It's rather like when Yosemite Sam tries to blow up Bugs Bunny with a booby-trapped piano.

Bugs hits the wrong note and lives. A frustrated Yosemite Sam, angrily showing Bugs how to correctly play the melody, hits the right note . . . and blows himself to bits.



WHO KNEW Yosemite Sam was from Ponchatoula?

I don't think it's the poster's use of African-American children is necessarily problematic,  per se. It's just the little things in the artwork that turned it into something close to the perfect stereotype, and it's troubling that no one involved could see that. And that may well speak to deep-seated problems of culture and race that would merit a post unto itself . . . if not a very, very thick book.

If only the poster had depicted the kids in a different pose. If only the kids' skin wasn't absolutely, positively coal black -- which wasn't necessary to mimic a significant portion of Hemmerling's work. If only the little girl had a different hairstyle -- even just a little different, which might have been truer to Hemmerling's originals. If only the kids had been wearing hats, which would have been even truer to much of Hemmerling's paintings.

If only, if only, if only.

Even so, some folks still might have been offended. But it wouldn't have been so condescendingly, head-shakingly, "Holy crap!" stereotypical.

As it stands, the poster for the Ponchatoula Strawberry Festival only could have been worse if it were for the Ponchatoula Watermelon Festival.

It says nothing good for Louisiana, or for the state of racial understanding in the South, that one is rather relieved that Ponchatoula doesn't have a watermelon festival.

3 Chords & the Truth: Best if played by . . .

. . . big speakers.

Really big speakers.

For that matter, if you're an audiophile, this week's 3 Chords & the Truth might be a hell of a way to test out that new setup you've been bragging to people about. Play it loud. Play it proud.

And if someone calls the cops, my work here is done.

Actually, that's not true. My work here is done if your neighbors come rushing over to ask you about that wonderful music you're listening to . . . loud.

I GUARANTEE there's one part of the show that will give your goosebumps goosebumps. You'll be amazed at what you're hearing, and at the incredible -- and incredibly unlikely -- mix of music. Note well, however: It's only unlikely before you think about it a minute, or if you don't listen to the Big Show much.

For regulars, it makes perfect sense. That's freeform radio for you -- even if its on the Internet.

OK, I'm done teasing you for now with this foray into high-fidelity click bait. Click on the links to the show . . . or on one of the embedded players for the show . . . and you'll hear the Big Show, and all will be well with the world.

And your curiosity.

It really is amazing, though.

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

One standard or two? We report; you decide.

It had to happen.

Protesters took to the street outside the Dallas home of the N-word spewing SAE frat boys at Oklahoma, chanting slogans and, according to one neighbor, accusing the entire neighborhood of being a hotbed of racism.

Accompanying the protest were a couple dozen reporters and several cops. From CBS News:

Dozens of protesters took to the street in front of the home of a former University of Oklahoma student and fraternity member who was shown in a video leading a racist chant aboard a bus.

Dozens of demonstrators Wednesday evening marched up and down the North Dallas residential street in front of the home of Parker Rice. Watching them were about two dozen news media representatives and six police officers.

The protesters chanted, "Racism is taught," and, "Racism is a choice."

CBS Dallas reported that the group, Next Generation Action Network, says Rice and Highland Park-graduate Levi Pettit, another SAE member seen in the OU video and now also expelled from the university, made a bold statement that was caught on tape and now it time for protesters to make theirs.

Their numbers didn't pack the street, but their message was heard loud and clear. "This is what democracy looks like," they chanted. "Teach your kids another way, no modern day KKK!"

THOUGHT EXPERIMENT: Is this Dallas protest proper, or is it harassment -- the creating of the same sort of "hostile environment" that University of Oklahoma officials alleged in kicking two (so far) Sigma Alpha Epsilon members out of school.

Would your answer to the question change if this were a bunch of anti-abortion protesters marching in the street outside the home of an abortionist? If so, why?

"Because one is bad and the other is good" is not an acceptable answer -- not before the law and not in today's morally relativistic philosophical soup, in which your "truth" may not be others' "truth."

Are we getting blind drunk on outrage?

The fraternity-from-hell-gift-that-keeps-on-giving now is giving me flashbacks.

This is the now-former Sigma Alpha Epsilon housemother at the University of Oklahoma, caught on video saying That Word over and over again as she laughs, with loud rap music playing in the background. The Internet Outrage Machine tells me this is Beauton Gilbow, who hypocritically lamented the sad state of affairs on the Norman campus and said she knew nothink, NOTHINK about any racist goings-on at the SAE house.

The Internet Outrage Machine, as it is wont to do -- and let me emphasize there's plenty to be outraged about in this whole outrageous mess -- takes just one sliver of a story, the one most likely to cause good people to lose their s***, and runs with it. That's because the Internet Outrage Machine's collective mental age is no greater than the chronological age of the World Wide Web itself, and young people usually aren't good at perceiving nuance.

So, we're told this is Beauton Gilbow, bigot and evil frat-boy enabler.

I know better.  This is Beauton Gilbow, a vision from my youth. Beauton Gilbow, someone who reminds me of my parents and any number of aunts, uncles, cousins and acquaintances as I grew up in the Deep South as Jim Crow faded away and whatever we have now started to take shape.

Gilbow, from the sound of her, probably grew up in Oklahoma or the South. And I know a little bit about the culture that formed her and imprinted on her heart and mind a whole host of attitudes, assumptions, unthinking Pavlovian reactions and expectations.

If her upbringing was anything like mine -- and at age 79, I assume her experience was mine on steroids -- she had been well-marinaded in a thoroughly toxic culture before she even reached the age of reason. I'm sure it's possible to completely undo that kind of psychological imprinting, but I'm not sure it's possible without violating many of the Geneva conventions.



AS I SAID, this whole thing is giving me flashbacks. I don't like them. I don't like reflecting on how many of my childhood memories, how many of the silly schoolyard songs we sang, how much of The Way Things Were was thoroughly, unthinkingly and hatefully racist.

Here's a blast from my Red Oaks Elementary past, what we thought was a hilarious takeoff on the Daniel Boone theme song from TV:

Daniel Boone was a man, he was a big man,
But when the bear was bigger, he ran like a n***** up a tree

Folks who grew up in the North -- or should I say grew up in the North and didn't hear the N-word 200 times a day amid a culture where racism and segregation, both de jure and de facto, was as pervasive as the air you breathed? -- generally get to remember their silly childhood songs and rhymes with a certain wistful fondness. If you're a Southerner seeking to rise above your upbringing, trying to do like Jesus said and love your neighbor as yourself, that luxury is forever denied you. You get to remember with a sense of regret and shame. 

Double that if you forget yourself and find a silver of wistful fondness trying to climb over the wall you've built around it over the decades.

Truly, if you're under 40 and not from where I'm from, you have no idea how pervasive -- how normal -- that word, the N-word, was. It's true enough that many white folks in the South were raised by parents who forbade them from using that word because it wasn't nice . . . because polite people didn't talk like that. I was not among that fortunate number.

And even for those who were, "n*****" was everywhere. In the air, in the culture, in the hearts of too many.

FOR FOLKS of a certain age and from a certain place, "rising above your upbringing" isn't something that happens. It's a life-and-death struggle forever. When you have a certain thing pounded into your consciousness from birth, deprogramming is a lifelong task. Some see the need to look hard into the mirror every day that God in heaven sends. Some drift along, thinking they're just fine -- or not thinking much about it at all.

And then one day at an Oklahoma frat house in 2013, somebody sticks a smartphone in your face and you try to be funny and hip for the young idiots you're supposed to be watching over.

(Insert mushroom cloud here.)

Suddenly -- maybe -- it dawns on you that you should have spent a lot more time looking hard in the mirror than trying to impress a bunch of college kids who, having been born sometime during the Clinton Administration, have no damned excuse that I can think of.

Today when I saw that video of Beauton Gilbow, septuagenarian, I saw my childhood and a bunch of people I knew and loved. And I wanted to cry.

I wish I saw more tears over this and less click-bait exploitation of this from the Internet Outrage Machine. Hateful, racist college kids don't come from nowhere.

It would be a lot more helpful, actually, if we took some of the energy required to be exploitatively outraged and put that toward figuring out why we're no further from Selma, 1965, that we seem to be a half century on.

The True Gentleman Experience

According to its national website, Sigma Alpha Epsilon is all about the "True Gentleman Experience."

One brother from the Oklahoma Mu chapter at Oklahoma State University tells us all about it.

Soooooo . . . considering what happened with the SAEs at the University of Oklahoma, the student newspaper at Oklahoma State took a look at that school's chapter. And found this in a member's room, visible from the street:

O'Colly photograph

Oops.

Please tell me that's not how you win SAE's John O. Moseley Zeal Award, which "recognizes the chapter that best exemplifies a model chapter in Sigma Alpha Epsilon. This chapter excels in its operations and brotherhood, fulfilling the vision of our Founding Fathers and its members and by living the life of a true gentleman."

I'm guessing that being in PR for a fraternity is just a Lost Cause.