To Title IX or not to Title IX, that is the #^#%!@& question

Click on the top-left speaker icon for audio, which is NSFW

At Louisiana State University, this will not get you arrested:

LSU students hurled obscenities, ice and objects during and immediately after the Tigers’ 77-75 loss in men’s basketball Saturday against No. 1-ranked Oklahoma.

Obscene chants directed at Oklahoma star shooting guard Buddy Hield rose from the packed student section on two or three occasions during the game. After the game, students booed and threw ice and towels as the Sooners left the court on a corner of the court at the end where the student section is located.

The actions drew denouncements from national media as well as LSU athletic director Joe Alleva.

“I am very disappointed with the language used by our students,” Alleva said Monday. “They should act with class and respect our opponents. Their language is embarrassing and motivates our opponent.”

A request for comment Monday morning from LSU President F. King Alexander did not immediately draw a response.

According to LSU police, there were no arrests or charges filed associated with behavior at Saturday's game.

AT LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY, exercising one's First Amendment right as a holy roller preacher to tell college students they're going to the lake of fire for their fornicatin', whoremongerin' ways sure as H-E-double-toothpicks will get you busted by campus cops -- or at least threatened with arrest. This at the now-ironically titled Free Speech Alley in front of the LSU Student Union.

The PC scofflaw here was an "intern" of Brother Jed Smock, who is no stranger to LSU -- or many other U.S. campuses. Jed and his wife, Sister Cindy Lassiter Smock, have been damning American college students to hell since I was an LSU student in the late 1970s and early 1980s. At least.

Back then, there was no question that Brother Jed and Sister Cindy had an absolute right to call us whores, whoremongers, fornicators, blasphemers or any other sort of wretch offensive to the Almighty's sensibilities.

Sister Cindy at LSU, early 1980s

Or at least those of Brother Jed and Sister Cindy's seriously fundamentalist brand of Christianity.

And that's OK. There was little doubt that many of us, in fact, were whores, whoremongers, fornicators, blasphemers and general offenders against right judgment and God's Word.

There also was little doubt that LSU students of my era gave as good as we got. In fact, Sister Cindy once whacked yours truly upside the head with her Bible for offending her as grievously as she offended me. Thirty-something years on, I can say with great confidence that I royally deserved it.

I did not, however, call the cops. Some precious little LSU snowflake, on the other hand, did just that the other week after a mean Mini Jed -- Brother Joshua -- offended her delicate sensibilities. Because he apparently said the most dangerous place in America today was in a black woman's womb, referencing the proportionally high incidence of abortion in the African-American community.

Judging by the response of campus police, the second most dangerous place in America today is Louisiana State University -- at least if you intend to loudly say impolite things while not in Tiger Stadium or the Pete Maravich Assembly Center. Within the safe confines of athletic venues, however, chant "F*** YOU, SABAN!" or "F*** YOU, BUDDY!" as loudly and as often as you like.

But for the LSU po-po, apparently, it's just gender- or race-referencing Bible-thumping in a "free speech" zone that's a no-no. Because of Title IX which, according to these constitutional lawyers in blue, trumps the First Amendment.

FRANKLY,  if I were in the preacher's shoes and the cop had told me something as ridiculous as that, I would have been tempted to reply with the Assembly Center version of what passes for "protected speech" at LSU. Which, of course, would have gotten me handcuffed as surely as Louisiana's state budget turns a bright red every spring.

To be clear, I don't much care for Brother Jed's brand of Christianity or his not-so-merry band's evangelistic tactics. I think they do more to retard than advance the Kingdom of God. I think they're obnoxious, self-righteous and theologically messed up in many ways.

I know that my opinion means less than nothing to them because, for one thing, I'm Catholic. And the more faithful of a Catholic I become, the more Jed, Cindy and Joshua would be convinced that I will burn in the LAKE . . . OF . . .  FIIIRRRRRRRE! 

But, again, that's OK. It's a free country -- well, at least if you're not at LSU or many other American universities. The First Amendment, which last I heard has not been trumped by a mere act of Congress, exists for those times when people really, really don't want to hear what you have to say.

Like this: The LSU administration is a bunch of f***ing hypocrites. (I trust the F-word makes this protected speech in the eyes of the Ol' War Skule.) You know, the kind who tolerate loutish students hurling vulgar abuse upon a black Oklahoma basketball star but want to lock up a street preacher for saying the womb has become a dangerous place for black babies.

And for non-vulgarly accusing students of being what they regularly present themselves as on national TV.

#TheJimReaper cometh for Omaha

People aren't happy seeing me on the @Delta flight to Omaha. pic.twitter.com/9cwQaVWPMj

— Jim Cantore (@JimCantore) January 31, 2016

Snowy death descendeth upon us, bald headed and flying Delta. May God have mercy on our souls.

Snowpocalypse is ready when you are.

Public schools fail . . . to fail as badly as private sector

Public policy in education has come to this in Louisiana -- and too much of the rest of America.

What is "this"? "This" is a Brookings Institute report on research showing students who "win" Louisiana's school-voucher lottery and escape their "failing" public schools . . . lose. Big time.

From Brookings:

The affected students had won a voucher to attend, at no cost, a private school in Louisiana. Nineteen states have such voucher programs, with Louisiana’s the fifth-largest in the country. The vouchers, averaging $5,311 per student, must be accepted as full tuition at the private schools that participate in the program; schools are not allowed to ask students to “top-up” their vouchers if the school has a higher sticker price. Further, schools can’t pick and choose among the voucher winners. Instead, they have to take any student who holds a voucher.[ii]

Nationwide, 141,000 students use a voucher to attend a private school.[iii] Louisiana’s voucher program launched in New Orleans in 2008. It was expanded to include the entire state in 2012. Students from families with incomes below 250 percent of the federal poverty threshold are eligible for the voucher as long as they attend a public school the state has labeled as low-performing. Over half of Louisiana’s public schools fall into this category.

Researchers have long attempted to understand the effectiveness of private schools. It’s a difficult task, because parents choose their children’s schools, either by living in a certain school district or by applying to a private or charter school. The challenges are identical to those in evaluations of charter-school effectiveness: kids who attend private school are different from those who attend a public, neighborhood school, who in turn are different from those who attend a charter school.[iv] When comparing school performance, researchers struggle to distinguish differences in schools’ effectiveness from variation in the types of students who choose those schools.

A voucher lottery provides an unusual opportunity to measure the effectiveness of private schools. The lottery serves as a randomized trial, which is the gold standard of research methods. Random selection means that lottery winners and losers are identical, on average, when they apply for the voucher. Any differences that emerge after the lottery can therefore be attributed to the private-school attendance of the winners.

The results were startling. The researchers, a team of economists from Berkeley, Duke, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, found that the scores of the lottery winners dropped precipitously in their first year of attending private school, compared to the performance of the lottery losers. The effects were very large: roughly a quarter of a standard deviation in math, social studies, and science. There were no effects on reading scores. On a per-year basis, these negative effects are as large as the positive effects that a similarly-designed study found for charter schools in Boston (the authors of the Louisiana study are my collaborators in the charter research).[v]

HERE'S HOW you get to the abject cluster(expletive) that exemlifies "this," and here's where you like go from "this":

1) We declare public education a failure, blaming it for not magically taking the sociological deviance amid the student population and turning it, alchemist-style, into 24-karat gold. And MIT scholarships.

2) We take a page from our highly successful Vietnam playbook: We must destroy this village in order to save it.

3) As part of the destroy-to-save process, we starve public schools of funds so we can give it to a motley crew of private and charter schools . . . because private sector.

4) We sit back and watch the chaos ensue as the private sector f***s the whole thing up worse than the public sector at $5,500 a head, if not more.

5) Wait! A solution to make the whole thing work just like we know it can! Double down -- with taxpayer money -- on what hasn't yet worked.

6) Look! A liberal! Git a rope!

7) Pay no attention to that social scientist aggregating data sets.

8) Look! Pinko-commie-fag academics talkin' trash about free enterprise and educational choice! Grab your guns!

9) We'll surely get the right charter- and private-school partners this time!

10) Well, shit.

11) Pay no attention to the poverty, chaotic lives and toxic culture of "that part of town." Public schools! Bad!

12) Avoid "that part of town."

13) MY kid's private school is pretty good -- a bargain at $9,500 a year!

14) Raise property tax on my house by $100 to fund those failed government schools?!? What, I'm made of money???

ON THE other hand . . . don't worry. Be happy. Donald Trump will fix it all.

3 Chords & the Truth: . . . and Myron Floren is his prophet

In the Age of Trump, when bomb squads are poring over band rooms because of apparent IEAs -- improvised explosive accordions -- it is time to take drastic measures.

Repeat after me on 3 Chords & the Truth. . . .

There is no Welk but Welk, and Myron Floren is his prophet.

Again. . . .

There is no Welk but Welk, and Myron Floren is his prophet.
There is no Welk but Welk, and Myron Floren is his prophet.
There is no Welk but Welk, and Myron Floren is his prophet.
There is no Welk but Welk, and Myron Floren is his prophet.
There is no Welk but Welk, and Myron Floren is his prophet.
There is no Welk but Welk, and Myron Floren is his prophet.
There is no Welk but Welk, and Myron Floren is his prophet.
There is no Welk but Welk, and Myron Floren is his prophet.
There is no Welk but Welk, and Myron Floren is his prophet.
There is no Welk but Welk, and Myron Floren is his prophet.
There is no Welk but Welk, and Myron Floren is his prophet.
There is no Welk but Welk, and Myron Floren is his prophet.

Now. . . .

This is a bomb; this is an accordion.

AGAIN. . . .

This is a bomb; this is an accordion. 
This is a bomb; this is an accordion.
This is a bomb; this is an accordion.
This is a bomb; this is an accordion.
This is a bomb; this is an accordion.
This is a bomb; this is an accordion.
This is a bomb; this is an accordion.
This is a bomb; this is an accordion.
This is a bomb; this is an accordion.
This is a bomb; this is an accordion.
This is a bomb; this is an accordion.
This is a bomb; this is an accordion.

THIS WEEK on the Big Show, we step away from the stupid. And while we're at it, we'll step toward the calm, the cultured and the classy.

Apparently, we are in great need of that.

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

There's always an add in the land of --30--

Guelph

Favog

In the days of typewriters -- and of newsrooms that more resembled Clancy's Bar than they did an insurance-company cubicle farm -- you would start your story with a slug line and byline in the upper right-hand corner of the page. That way, the copy editors would know at a glance what the story was about . . . and what semi-illiterate wretch wrote it.

Then, when you got to the end of the first page of your copy -- and you never ever ended a page in the middle of a paragraph or, Hildy Johnson forbid, a sentence -- you would pick up your No. 1 soft pencil and scribble "MORE" at the bottom.

At the top of the next page, you'd put something like:

Guelph

add one

Today in Ontario, there are no more "adds" for the Guelph Mercury. There is only --30--.

End of story.

End of newspaper.

End of a 149-year history -- one going as far back as the confederation of Canada itself.

End of 26 jobs.

End of a love affair between a people and its hometown paper. At the urging of Guelph's mayor, scores of citizens came out to say goodbye. Some even hugged the building. It's enough to make a grown man cry -- especially an old onetime newspaper reporter and editor.

For those of us of a certain age, it's just another reminder that the we'll see more --30-- than we will adds. And that's as depressing as a front-page hed bust. (Ask an aging newspaper type what that means if you don't get the ink-stained slang.)

Anyway, I agree with the story on the Poynter website: This was the perfect front page for a final final edition of a newspaper, God bless its newsprint soul.

--30--

30 years

Three decades ago today, my wife and I were on the road somewhere on U.S. 60 in south-central Missouri, on our way to Washington, D.C., from Springfield, Mo.

We turned on the radio. There was network special coverage on. The space shuttle? What happened?

Then the punch in the gut. It's a cliché because it's true.

This just in from Nova Scotia

Well, crap.

That's it for us, then. So long, it's been good to know 'ya.

Frankly, I trust this guy more than The Weather Channel. That Frankie, he generally calls 'em, and in this case is aligning himself with the ECMWF model, which suggests Omaha, by God, Nebraska is in trouble deep Monday night and Tuesday. 

Christmas blizzard of '09

As in foot-of-snow deep. As in blizzard deep.

In other words, we're all gonna die.

That is all before I stock up on beer and gumbo fixins.

3 Chords & the Truth: The sad café

There's a new kid in town in rock 'n' roll heaven, and we're not feeling too good ourselves.

So, yes, we'll be playing some Eagles -- and, thus, Glenn Frey -- on 3 Chords & the Truth this week as we chug Geritol as the records play. Because old. And tired blood.

Apart from that, I just don't know what to say about the Big Show. There's the Eagles stuff, and there's lots of good music, as always, and we have a nifty set from the ladies of jazz.

THERE probably is more to be said about the program this go around, but I lack the energy to say it.

Really. I mean, are you unpoopular? Do you pop out at parties? Then pass the nutritional supplements from the left hand side. That is all.

No, really. I'm tired. And old. Just listen to the show, will ya?

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Life on Mars

It's on Amerika's tortured brow . . .

That Mickey Mouse
has grown up a cow
Now the workers
have struck for fame
'Cause Lennon's on sale again
See the mice in their million hordes
From Ibeza to the Norfolk Broads
Rule Britannia is out of bounds
To my mother, my dog, and clowns
But the film is a saddening bore
'Cause I wrote it
ten times or more
It's about to be writ again
As I ask you to focus on

Sailors fighting in the dance hall
Oh man!
Look at those cavemen go
It's the freakiest show
Take a look at the Lawman
Beating up the wrong guy
Oh man! Wonder if he'll ever know
He's in the best selling show
Is there life on Mars?
 
GOOD QUESTION. I got no answer, but then again we've all been feeling a little lost this week.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, and this week we're all about what you probably think we're about. Remembering David Bowie. And wondering whether there's life on Mars.

Be there. Aloha.

Yesterday and today

Bostwick-Frohardt Collection/The Durham Museum

January 1905, 11th and Howard in Omaha's Old Market.

 

January 2016, 11th and Howard in Omaha's Old Market.

Where have all Papa's heroes gone?

Ain't there a pen that will write before they die?
Ain't you proud that you've still got faces?
Ain't there one damn song that can make me break down and cry?

One? 

Any more, yeah. Lots.

My generation ain't no young Americans no more, and David Bowie is dead.

"We live for just these twenty years
Do we have to die for the fifty more?"

3 Chords & the Truth: Take it easy

Re-entry's a bitch.

Re-entry, as in the holidays are done, pretty much, and it's time to get back to the daily grind . . . AND I DON'T WANNA!

That's where we are here in 3 Chords & the Truth land, so here's the game plan: Gonna ease into it. Gonna be mellow.

Have you never been mellow?

Have you never tried to find a comfort from inside you?

Have you never been happy just to hear your song?

Have you never let someone else be strong?

 

WAIT . . .  hang on. That's Olivia Newton-John, No. 1 on the pop chart, March 1975. Well, we're not playing Olivia this week. But we are chilling out to some  great, great music.

So, won't you join me on the Big Show? We can be mellow. Or whatever. Can't rush these re-entry things.

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

You can't take a selfie with a Super 8

First it was vinyl.

Then audiophiles rediscovered reel-to-reel tape decks. (I never forgot them.)

Some folks have fallen back in love with typewriters, (I have two . . . still.)

Gizmodo

And now Kodak is bringing back Super 8 movies. (Heh . . . I have two Polaroid instant cameras, some 35 millimeter cameras, a couple of Kodak Brownies and my late mother's 1930s box camera. Did you know no one makes flash cubes anymore -- or consumer-grade flash bulbs, for that matter. Ebay is my friend here.)

It would seem that we're discovering that our brave new digitized world is lacking a certain je ne sais quoi. That we're missing something. That maybe, just maybe, our digital, instantaneous, effortlessly expressed, omnipresent selves, thrust upon the world with nary a thought . . . maybe that's not our best selves.

MAYBE we're thinking that our music ought to be touched and not just summoned. Savored and not just hop-scotched through on a smartphone.

Maybe we think our words should be put onto paper with some effort -- and editing marks and Wite-Out -- instead of emoted onto Facebook with abandon and oftentimes without thought. (Dear World: Please stop oversharing. It really is none of my business.)

And maybe if videos, those things we used to call "movies," were a little harder to make, cost us the price of a film cartridge and took us a week to see, we'd be more hesitant to record ourselves at our worst and more likely to spend that time and effort on ourselves at our best.

Maybe, just maybe, we're coming to some sort of subconscious realization that nobody likes an egomaniac, and our instant-on world of digital proliferation is turning us all into narcissistic whack jobs. I admit, typing this with trembling fingers on a computer keyboard, that as I point a finger at the world, three more are pointing back at myself.

Let's call them Blog, Twitter and Podcast. You'll note that I've hyperlinked everything, because we're not only narcissists, but whores as well.

ON THE other hand, maybe I'm just bloody overthinking it all.

Perhaps folks find records a lot more fun than CDs or downloads. I know I do. And at my age, I certainly can read the liner notes a lot better on a great, big LP cover.

It could be that typewriters are just more aesthetically pleasing than your flippin' laptop, which has just frozen the f*** up yet again and I HATE WINDOWS I HATE WINDOWS I HATE WINDOWS!!! I must say that I never had to reboot a typewriter, nor reinstall anything more complicated than a ribbon.

And it could be that Super 8 just gives us all the warm fuzzies. (Though the missus does give YouTube props for Puppy Christmas, which is pretty damned adorable.)

And, thinking about reel-to-reel tape, it is a hell of a lot of fun, as evidenced by the video above from the electronic home of 3 Chords & the Truth. (WHORE ALERT: There will be a new episode of the Big Show this week.)

SO ENJOY, thanks to our digital world, the video of my 1969 reel-to-reel deck playing back the local AM oldies station, which I recorded on 50-year-old tape -- a tribute to the Wonderful World of Analog and times gone by . . . when expressing yourself took a little time, a little effort and a lot more thought.

Does anybody else think that Facebook  should force you to wad up a post and throw it in the garbage can, rewrite it, throw it in the garbage can, rewrite it, throw it in the garbage can and then rewrite it a lot less stupidly before the "Post" button will work?

Maybe that's just me.

Laughing ourselves to death

You think your editor is tough on you? You don't know tough. (from the wonderful vol.2 of @LettersOfNote) pic.twitter.com/N8Tke8xxce

— John Dalton (@johndalton) January 5, 2016

Click on the image for readable version

That I laughed and laughed and laughed at this letter from Hunter S. Thompson made me realize that I totally understand the political appeal of Donald Trump, mad as that might be.

The Donald shows appropriate disrespect for our political system, the feckless weenies in charge of his own political party and the Stalinist pall of political correctness that's stifling our debate and rotting our minds.

Unfortunately, though, with the satisfying comes the strychnine -- the malicious stereotyping of Mexicans and Muslims . . . his willingness to ban people from the United States solely on religious grounds . . . egging on a mob mentality at his rallies and among his supporters . . . the nasty remarks about a female fellow candidate and a disabled journalist.


IT ALL demonstrates Trump's uncomfortable shouting distance to the over-the-top epithet Gore Vidal hung on William F. Buckley in an infamous 1968 television debate -- "pro-crypto-Nazi."

Hunter S. Thompson was entertaining -- warped and high as a kite but entertaining. Sometimes, he skewered those who sorely asked for the insertion of a spit. Sometimes, it all was quite satisfying. I can see how some might feel that way about Trump, taken out of his particular toxic context.

But it would have been a horrible mistake to let Thompson anywhere near political power on any national scale. Ditto for Donald Trump. Not all that entertains us is good for us, particularly when it feeds upon what's bad in us.

The waning days of Christmas

Around here at least, Christmas fades but is not gone.

We're Catholic. Christmas ain't over until Sunday, with the feast of The Baptism of the Lord. The tree stays until then.

I'm dreaming of a white, feathered Christmas

It may not be a Christmas miracle, but it's close enough.

This morning, I awoke to a) the white Christmas -- the very white Christmas, as it turns out -- we weren't supposed to have this year and b) an extremely excited spousal unit telling me there was a flock of turkeys in the front yard.

All told, there were seven gobblers out there. I think I'll have an extra little smile on my face this afternoon for the Making of the Christmas Gumbo.

Ho! Ho! Ho! And a very merry Christmas to one and all.

3 Chords & the Truth: Put a bow on it

It's the day before Christmas and all through this space, gorgeous music fills every little place.

Not a discordant note will be found on the show . . . not a stinker or a clunker or a misplaced fanfare.

3 Chords & the Truth has been uploaded with care, and if you love Christmas music, there's no cause to despair.

The Big Show nestles sweetly in your ear, and  good cheer will carry you to the New Year.

And out on the Internet you'll hear clever patter, and all the fine tunes that we can gather.

ON AARON, on Harry, on Tony and Bing . . . on with the songs that you sing! To the top of the charts, to the heights of our culture!

Spread holiday cheer . . . joy you will nurture!

Etcetera and so on, this poem grows more tortured. Lo, I'm painting myself into a corner!

So dash away, dash away, dash away all! Seek out the Big Show, oh, answer my call!

That's it . . . I'm done . . . no more shall I write. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

3 Chords & the Truth: Tunes and egg nog

Listen, it's almost Christmas. Give your brain a rest, your ears a treat and your egg-nog receptors what is necessary at this time of the year.

No, this isn't the official Christmas episode of 3 Chords & the Truth, but we're getting there. This is the warm-up episode for the Yuletide edition, but it's right nice in its own way.

That is why your Mighty Favog strongly recommends that you de-stress, chill out, don't think (too much, at least) and let the music wash over you this holiday season.

And that's  how we warm up for the big Christmas edition of the Big Show just days away from the event.

TRUST ME. You're gonna love the show this week.

And you're really gonna love it next week.

And if you haven't listened to the last show (or three), you'll bloody well love them, too.

So just do it. Egg nog. Good music. Chill . . . in a warm and cozy way.

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

The Donald has no hate but ours

Donald Trump's racket these days is outrage.

He keeps saying outrageous things. He keeps doing outrageous things. He keeps proposing outrageous things.

Downright un-American things. Downright inhuman things. And it's working for him -- big time.

Some say the Republican presidential candidate, reality-show host, Chapter 11 specialist and all-around boor is an American fascist. Others say he's merely George Wallace with a bad comb-over.

Many agree Donald Trump is a problem.

I disagree. Donald Trump is a rich blowhard with more money than scruples . . . and seriously bad hair. The problem is us.

We're the ones cheering his Mexicans-as-rapists-and-drug-lords meme.

We're the ones treating his "I'll build a 2,000-mile wall" twaddle as an actual policy proposal on illegal immigration.

We're the ones roughing up a campaign-rally protester when The Donald orders the mob -- er, crowd -- to “Get him the hell out of here, will you please?”

We're the ones who believe Trump's regular exaggerations, swear to the veracity of his outright lies and laugh and nod when he disparages the appearance of a woman candidate and makes fun of the physical disability of a newspaper reporter.




WE'RE THE ones who cheer when he proposes a religious test for entry into the United States, advocating banning Muslims from entering this country "until we figure out what the hell is going on." Well, I have some thoughts on that.

Donald Trump has no army or paramilitary force at his disposal -- yet. He's not putting a gun to anyone's head to force their complicity in his David Duke act. That, we're doing of our own free will -- because we are the problem.

We are the one feeding the monster with our fear, our hatreds, our paranoia and our sheer stupidity.

We are the ones giving the devil his due, and a lot more. Indeed, we're the ones doing the devil's bidding and calling it the Lord's work. We bury hope and replace it with fear. We banish love from our hearts and replace it with hatred. We can find no room for empathy with our fellow man, but we have plenty of heart-and-mind space for petty resentments, rampant stereotyping and rank selfishness.

The all-American clusterf*** that is Trump 2016 is powered solely by the devil sitting on our shoulder. It is an all-out war on the better angels of our nature. Donald Trump's bad behavior is feeding off our own, not the other way around.

TODAY, for Catholics, is the feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It's the national feast day of the United States of America. The first reading my wife and I heard this afternoon at Mass was from Genesis 3:9-15, 20:

After the man, Adam, had eaten of the tree,
the LORD God called to the man and asked him, “Where are you?”
He answered, “I heard you in the garden;
but I was afraid, because I was naked,
so I hid myself.”
Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked?
You have eaten, then,
from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat!”
The man replied, “The woman whom you put here with me,
she gave me fruit from the tree, and so I ate it.”
The LORD God then asked the woman,
“Why did you do such a thing?”
The woman answered, “The serpent tricked me into it, so I ate it.”

Then the LORD God said to the serpent:
“Because you have done this, you shall be banned
from all the animals
and from all the wild creatures;
on your belly shall you crawl,
and dirt shall you eat
all the days of your life.
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will strike at your head,
while you strike at his heel.”

The man called his wife Eve,
because she became the mother of all the living.

THE BLAME GAME has been with us from the beginning. Eve knew better than to eat the forbidden fruit, but the serpent gave her an excuse. So she did.

Adam knew better, too, but Eve gave him an excuse.

Eve blamed the serpent, Adam blamed Eve, Trump blames the Other, and pundits blame Trump. We, meantime, pretend to be blameless.

So, go ahead. Vote for the fascist . . . or the demagogue . . . or the fascist demagogue . . . whatever the hell Donald J. Trump is, that monster of our own making in this land of malcontent. Vote for him. On your belly shall you crawl to the polls.

And dirt shall we all eat all the days of what life is left for what used to be a great nation. May God have mercy on us, for history will have none.

3 Chords & the Truth: Dead on target

This week on the Big Show, we take dead aim on who and what we are as Americans.

And I think we've picked some songs that hit the target.

Of course 3 Chords & the Truth, hits the musical bullseye every week, but this episode draws a bead on something specific about American culture these days. Something we just love to death.

Or is it that we love death? Oh, well. Whatever.

ALSO ON the program this week, we have a little of this and a little of that, and we also start rolling out the Christmas music now that we have achieved bleak midwinter-ish.

And that's all we have to say about that. The Big Show, that is.

So. . . .

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