We who hate good and love evil

If a kid walks into religious-ed class or youth group wearing a Hollister tee while drinking a "Cocaine" energy drink, I swear I am gonna do a full Micah. If not a full Jeremiah.

Cocaine the energy drink. Funny. Heh heh heh.

NOT.

Hollister and Abercrombie. Just as bad: "Buy our $#!* while we tell the world it's cool to act like pimps, hos and sundry oversexed ignoramuses!"

AND TEENS DO. WITH THEIR PARENTS' MONEY AND APPROVAL.

I figure if you combined cocaine -- the deadly drug glorified by the energy drink -- with some of the crap sold at Hollister, you'd probably end up with something like the picture at right.

Lights off, please. And then run screaming into the night.

And who, pray tell, is this Micah person?

This guy:

Chapter 3

1
And I said: Hear, you leaders of Jacob, rulers of the house of Israel! Is it not your duty to know what is right,
2
you who hate what is good, and love evil? You who tear their skin from them, and their flesh from their bones!
3
They eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from them, and break their bones. They chop them in pieces like flesh in a kettle, and like meat in a caldron.
4
When they cry to the LORD, he shall not answer them; Rather shall he hide his face from them at that time, because of the evil they have done.
5
Thus says the LORD regarding the prophets who lead my people astray; Who, when their teeth have something to bite, announce peace, But when one fails to put something in their mouth, proclaim war against him.
6
Therefore you shall have night, not vision, darkness, not divination; The sun shall go down upon the prophets, and the day shall be dark for them.
7
Then shall the seers be put to shame, and the diviners confounded; They shall cover their lips, all of them, because there is no answer from God.
8
But as for me, I am filled with power, with the spirit of the LORD, with authority and with might; To declare to Jacob his crimes and to Israel his sins.
9
Hear this, you leaders of the house of Jacob, you rulers of the house of Israel! You who abhor what is just, and pervert all that is right;
10
Who build up Zion with bloodshed, and Jerusalem with wickedness!
11
Her leaders render judgment for a bribe, her priests give decisions for a salary, her prophets divine for money, While they rely on the LORD, saying, "Is not the LORD in the
midst of us? No evil can come upon us!"
12
Therefore, because of you, Zion shall be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem reduced to rubble, And the mount of the temple to a forest ridge.

You ever see a brain scan of him just now? Whew!

John Spencer, who's running against Sen. Hillary Clinton this fall, sometimes references being a recovering alcoholic. After reading Monday's account in the New York Daily News, it wouldn't be unreasonable to ask whether the Republican challenger took up crack when he gave up booze.

Hillary Clinton's Republican challenger is getting personal and it's not pretty: He says the senator used to be ugly -- and speculates she got "millions of dollars" in plastic surgery.

"You ever see a picture of her back then? Whew," said John Spencer of Clinton's younger days.

"I don't know why Bill married her," he said of the Clintons, who celebrated their 31st anniversary this month.

Noting Hillary Clinton looks much different now, he chalked it up to "millions of dollars" of "work" -- plastic surgery.

"She looks good now," he said.

Spencer's bizarre comments came during a conversation with a reporter seated beside him and his wife, Kathy, on the 10:30 a.m. JetBlue flight Friday to Rochester, the site of the race's first debate.

You have to wonder how Mrs. Spencer feels about her husband's overarching criteria for women as marrying material -- that they incontrovertibly be a "hottie," to make plain what the GOP Senate wannabe really meant.

Bet that'll go over really well with "values voters."

That said, above is a picture of Hillary Rodham, the future first lady and U.S. senator, at Wellesley College in 1967. She looks all right to me, and obviously she looked all right to Bill, whom I defer to as a far greater expert than myself in such matters.

I've never been a particular fan of either Clinton politically (though I'd like to imagine I'd have a perfectly pleasant time knocking back a beer or two -- or a breve or two -- with either as we solved the problems of the world). But Spencer's remarks not only were gobstopperingly idiotic, they were cruel and unworthy of a grade-school playground, much less a candidate for United States Senate.

But, hell. I'm sure Spencer has the "stuff" to fit right in among the past greats of the institution. Like Gary Hart and Wilbur Mills.

WWJCD?

What Would Jesus Camp Do? Apparently, nothing that has much to do with what Jesus actually told us to do.

You see, one of the directors of the controversial documentary Jesus Camp has some interesting things to say about the making of the film. Look here, but I'll give you a taste right now from the Catholic News Service article:

"My one disturbing encounter was at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs (Colo.) with Pastor Ted Haggard," head of the National Association of Evangelicals, who is "the senior minister of the church," [co-director Heidi] Ewing said.

"I was in the service, and we had three cameras rolling, and there were 3,000 people in the church, and my cameraman was on the stage shooting him, and Pastor Ted started teasing the cameraman: 'Where are you from? England? Do you go to church?'" she recounted.

When the cameraman told Rev. Haggard that he goes to church when he's in England, the minister said, "So you're in the Church of England." The cameraman replied, "No, I'm Catholic," according to Ewing. "Pastor Ted turned to the congregation -- and I have this on tape -- in a very mocking tone, he said, 'Oh, we l-o-o-o-ve the Catholics, don't we?' and people started laughing.

"Why would he whack another religion?" she asked. "There was a disparaging way about how everyone reacted. As the leader of the National Association of Evangelicals, he is a representative of 30 million people and a religiously respected person in the movement. For him to joke like that, I was pretty alarmed.

"In a statement on the group's Web site, Rev. Haggard said, "This movie manipulates facts like a Michael Moore film and works the camera like 'The Blair Witch Project.' It's one more 'documentary' that seems to miss the point intentionally.

"Moore has produced a number of documentaries including the controversial 2004 film "Fahrenheit 9/11." "The Blair Witch Project" was a 1999 low-budget horror movie presented as documentary.

Ewing said she was also disturbed by the comic-book tracts published by Jack Chick Publications in Chino, Calif., which have been a staple among some strains of Protestant proselytizers for decades.

"I did start reading the little Bible tracts the kids would pass out. and we ordered a bunch because the kids always passed them out," Ewing told Catholic News Service in a telephone interview.

"There were like 30 of them that described the pope as the anti-Christ," she said. "I was struck by that. I called Becky Fischer and I asked her about that. She said, 'I have no idea why' (they would be so anti-Catholic). I called Levi's father and Rachael's father, and they said they had no idea, and they would stop ordering Chick tracts. [They] were extremely upset and apologetic about that."

We Catholics l-o-o-o-ve you, too, Pastor Ted. This Catholic thinks you're an egotistical, posturing, vapid Pharisee, but that can be fixed.

"Repent and believe in the Gospel." There's a nice commentary on doing so here, Pastor Ted.

Read it. You won't catch cooties; I promise.

Sandy West, 1959-2006

Sad news today. Sandy West, drummer of the seminal all-girl punk group The Runaways, died Saturday after a long fight with cancer.

If you're a woman in rock 'n' roll, or if you're in a punk band -- or if you're a punk fan -- you owe this lady. Big time. You owe all The Runaways -- Sandy West, Lita Ford, Joan Jett and Cherie Currie.

They were, indeed, the Queens of Noise. Rest in peace, Sandy.

From the website:

Sandy West, drummer for the influential 70s band The Runaways, has died after a long battle with lung cancer. She left an indelible mark on rock music as a founding member of The Runaways, which featured fellow rockers Joan Jett, Lita Ford and Cherie Currie, and as a leading inspiration for a number of notable musicians, both male and female. Many young musicians can trace their inspiration directly to the first time they heard "Cherry Bomb." She will be remembered by more than one generation of fans as a strong part of their musical landscape. But Sandy's impact was felt far outside of the music industry as a loyal friend, loving confidante and strong defender of those she loved most. Her strength as a player, passion as a person, and dedication as a friend will be remembered always by friends, fans and fellow musicians alike.

Runaways vocalist and life-long friend, Cherie Currie had this to say, "Sandy
West was by far, the greatest female drummer in the history of rock and roll. No
one could compete or even come close to her, but the most important was her
heart. Sandy West loved her fans, her friends and family almost to a fault. She
would do absolutely anything for the people she loved. It will never be the same
for me again to step on a stage, because Sandy West was the best and I will miss
her forever."

Pat Tillman's brother has something to say

Now out of the service, former Army Ranger Kevin Tillman -- whose brother, former NFL player Pat Tillman, was killed by friendly fire as they served together in Afghanistan -- has something to say about the war in Iraq . . . and about what we've become as a nation. Agree with him or not, it's worthwhile reading.

And, Lord knows, he's earned the right to say it. As loudly as he wants.

Here is the money passage, from Truthdig.com:

Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.

Somehow the most reasonable, trusted and respected country in the world has become one of the most irrational, belligerent, feared, and distrusted countries in the world.

Somehow being politically informed, diligent, and skeptical has been replaced by apathy
through active ignorance.

Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country.

Somehow this is tolerated.

Somehow nobody is accountable for this.

In a democracy, the policy of the leaders is the policy of the people. So don’t be shocked when our grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity. Most likely, they will come to know that “somehow” was nurtured by fear, insecurity and indifference, leaving the country vulnerable to unchecked, unchallenged parasites.

'Fallen' defined . . . in a land far east of Eden

I don't want this to seem like the "all Louisiana, all the time" blog (but, dammit, there are so many oddball and interesting stories there), but try as I might, I keep getting sucked back by stories like this one. It has haunted me all week.

In a society, in an age so horribly fallen -- so far from the long-lost earthly paradise of the Garden of Eden -- it is ironically difficult to get the concept of "fallenness" across to a people so unconvinced of things such as "wrong" and "right," "sin" and "holiness."

People. Look. The painful and tragic (somehow, "tragic" just doesn't seem to cover what happened here a-tall) saga of Zackery Bowen and "Addie" Hall is what fallenness looks like, albeit in extremis.

Strangling your on-again, off-again live-in girlfriend, committing necrophilia, butchering her corpse and cooking the body parts, then living it up for a week or so before taking a flying leap into eternity is undoubtedly extreme. And it is extremely fallen . . . extremely far from any sane definition of paradise. Or even imperfect normality.

But what is fascinating , in its own grim way, is how they got to the abyss. There lies the story. There lie the little stories that illustrate the big story of what The Fall has meant for humanity -- the tragedy of free will, when freedom means the ability to freely choose evil. To be the victim of others' willing embrace of darkness. To wander rudderless through an out-of-whack world that sometimes drives us to spectacular descents into madness.

From the New Orleans Times-Picayune's website, NOLA.com:

From the suicide note found on Bowen’s body....

“This is not accidental. I had to take my own life to pay for the one I took. If you send a patrol to 826 N. Rampart, you will find the dismembered corpse of my girlfriend Addie in the oven, on the stove, and in the fridge along with full documentation on the both of us and a full signed confession from myself.... Zack Bowen.”

From a five-page letter left by Bowen in the couple’s residence on Rampart Street...

“I scared myself not by the action of calmly strangling the woman I’ve loved for one and a half years, and then (decimating) her body but by my entire lack of remorse. I’ve known for ever how horrible of a person I am — ask anyone — and decided to quit my jobs and spend the 1,500 dollars cash I had being happy until I killed myself. So, that’s what I did: good food, good drugs, good strippers, good friends and any loose ends I may have had. I didn’t contact any of my family. So that’ll explain the shock. And had a fantastic time living out my days...It’s just about time now.”

May God have mercy on their souls . . . the bruised and battered souls of Zack Bowen and Addie Hall. Requiescent in pace.

I shot the toilet, but I did not shoot the urinal

1. File this under "Some people are not bright."

2. P.S.: I am not making this up. You CAN'T make this stuff up.

3. Did I mention to file this under "Some people are not bright"?

4. Dat's Louisiana for you.

From The (Baton Rouge) Advocate:

East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Deputies arrested a 16-year-old male student Wednesday in connection with the loaded gun found at Woodlawn High School on Tuesday, according to Fred Raiford of the Sheriff’s Office.

The student was charged with illegal use of a firearm in a firearm-free zone and aggravated assault.

The 16-year-old was in the boys’ restroom trying to flush a .22 automatic handgun down the toilet when another student entered and saw him. The gun discharged during the attempted flushing, and the other student reported to the school principal what had happened, Raiford said.

The arrested juvenile was taken to the Juvenile Detention Center, Raiford said.

Ain't it funny how one bad flush can shoot your whole day to . . . ah, never mind.

Just remember this simple safety tip from the Mighty Favog: ALWAYS make sure your handgun is unloaded before trying to flush it down the toilet. Then, flush your ammo separately.

This public service announcement is brought to you by the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office and Revolution 21.

AOL to 1,300 employees: Goodbye!

The Associated Press reports the ax is falling at AOL:

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- AOL announced Wednesday it will lay off 1,300 employees by closing call centers in New Mexico and Arizona as part of a previously announced restructuring plan.

AOL, the Time Warner Inc. online unit formerly known as America Online, also plans to sell its call center in Ogden, Utah.

The cuts include 900 layoffs at the Albuquerque call center and 400 jobs at the center in Tucson, Ariz., AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham said. The Arizona and New Mexico call centers each have operated for 10 years.

Now, let me get this straight. The powers that be at AOL are trying to get rid of their customer-service people. Well . . . good luck to them on that (snicker, snort, guffaw).

AOL manager: Cory, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but we're letting you go.

Customer-service guy: Now, may I ask why you're considering letting me go? We have some excellent incentive packages in place if you keep me on.

AOL manager: Cory, you're not understanding, here. The center is closing. You're fired. Your job is gone in two weeks. The decision has been made.

Customer-service guy: Is there a specific reason why you're dissatisfied with my service today? Let me just renew my contract for another six months right now, and I think we have a one-month free offer in place if you keep me on.

AOL manager: Listen! Cut the bait-and-switch crap! You. Are. Out. Of. Here. Fired. Canned. Gesphincto. Toast. Disconnected. Done dealin'. We will be giving you two weeks' severance pay upon your separation.

Customer-service guy: Let's not be hasty. You've had my service, according to our records, for three years now. Obviously you have received some value from that association. So, let's see what we can work out. Now, at what point did you become dissatisfied with the association. I'm sure this matter is easily rectifiable.

AOL manager: Get out! You are fired! Get out! GET OUT, DAMN YOU! BE GONE! SECURITY! SECURITY!

Customer-sevice guy: I understand that you may be upset . . . .

AOL manager: Get . . . the . . . &*%$ . . . outta here!!! SECURITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Security guard: Yes sir?

AOL manager: This man has been laid off but won't leave. Could you please remove him from the premises immediately?

Security guard: May I ask what the nature of your complaint is? I understand Cory has an excellent incentive package in place . . . .

War on Terror ends; Terror wins

Didn't my old man fight in a war against this kind of thing?

From MSNBC:

I want to start by asking you about a specific part of this act that lists one of the definitions of an unlawful enemy combatant as, quote, “a person who, before, on, or after the date of the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, has been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant by a combatant status review tribunal or another competent tribunal established under the authority of the president or the secretary of defense.”

Does that not basically mean that if Mr. Bush or Mr. Rumsfeld say so, anybody in this country, citizen or not, innocent or not, can end up being an unlawful enemy combatant?

JONATHAN TURLEY, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY CONSTITUTIONAL LAW PROFESSOR: It certainly does. In fact, later on, it says that if you even give material support to an organization that the president deems connected to one of these groups, you too can be an enemy combatant.

And the fact that he appoints this tribunal is meaningless. You know, standing behind him at the signing ceremony was his attorney general, who signed a memo that said that you could torture people, that you could do harm to them to the point of organ failure or death.

So if he appoints someone like that to be attorney general, you can imagine who he’s going be putting on this board.

IF, FOR EXAMPLE, someone were to say a hypothetical U.S. president were doing a frighteningly good impression of Il Duce, it would seem that whether that someone went to Guantanamo or not would be entirely dependent on how mad that hypothetical U.S. president was over being compared to Benito Mussolini.

So we must channel our inner cowering peasant and not be unduly critical of our betters. It could get real fatal, real fast.

I'm just sayin' that we appear to have pretty much become what we profess to hate. God help us.

Cheap grace for politicians

From the Omaha World-Herald (free registration required):

The Omaha City Council voted 4-2 today to pass Councilman Frank Brown's resolution asking radio station KFAB to apologize for a 30-second parody that
satirizes violence in north Omaha.

Talk show host Tom Becka had produced the spot, which no longer is running.

Voting to pass the resolution were city councilmen Franklin Thompson, Jim Vokal, Frank Brown and Chuck Sigerson. Voting against it were Garry Gernandt and Dan Welch. Gernandt had been a sponsor of the resolution. Councilman Jim Suttle was absent.

The council debated for nearly an hour over whether it was proper for the council to ask a private business to apologize. A number of north Omaha residents spoke out against the apology and in support of KFAB.

Tom Becka's spot, the chief mau-mau'ers say, was "insensitive" and in "poor taste." It showed the North O community "in a bad light."

Hmmmmmmm . . . let's examine what the parody said:

Discover miles of mayhem. Discover drive-bys. Discover gang violence.

Discover North Omaha.

We've got a real sense of community here. When there's a shooting, we all stick together and don't rat on the suspects.

I'm a police officer and north Omaha was nice enough to give me plenty of extra overtime.

Arson, abductions, assaults. Everything that makes a community exciting.

Discover North Omaha. After all, it's safer than Baghdad.

Gang violence. Check.

Drive-by shootings. Check.

Arson. Check. Abductions. Check. Assaults. Check.

And it IS safer than Baghdad.

Councilman Frank Brown sponsored the resolution. From KETV:

Brown said he introduced the resolution because the spoof paints all residents
of north Omaha as criminals. He said the parody hurt the good people of north
Omaha. He also said the council was already working with police to crack down on
violence in north Omaha.

"This shed a light on nothing new. One month ago, the council went to Chief (Tom) Warren and asked for something to happen, and it did. Violence occurs everywhere, but you don't hear parodies on other parts of the city," Brown said.

So Brown admits the substance of the parody is true. Becka's crime was just in the saying, then.

And the "good people" of North O spoke in favor of Becka at the council meeting. They seemed to be happy that the talk-show host was capable of getting the city's attention, when years of anguished pleas from the "good people" had gotten scant results from city fathers.

But finally aroused from their slumber, the leaders of fair Omaha have stood tall to defend the honor of our brothers and sisters in the 'hood. Tom Becka must repent!

And now that that's done, we can return to our regularly scheduled program of throwing Omaha Public Schools to the wolves and making it as easy as possible for well-to-do white Omahans to become well-to-do white Extreme West Omahans, well-to-do white Elkhorn residents and upper-crust white Gretnans.

We can continue not providing effective job-training programs. We can keep on "doing a heckuva job" (in the full Brownie sense of the word) providing cheap and accessible mass transit to the north side.

We can continue letting the cops blow off inner-city parents when they report their kids missing. And we can continue to go all Tabloid TV when the next Amber Harris never does come home . . . at least come home alive, that is.

We can rest easy in our self-satisfaction as folks on the near north side continue to lack decent grocery stores with fresh produce and reasonable prices. Let them eat Cheetos. Or walk to West Omaha.

And hope the cops don't harrass them too much for Walking While Black While in White Area.

We can continue not doing all kinds of stuff, because we have proven our righteousness. We have spoken. We have forever, and forcefully, labeled Tom Becka a mean, nasty, insensitive, racist smart-ass.

Hallelujah! Praise Warren Buffett! Condomania be thy name!

Cheap. Effing. Grace. For everyone except the suffering souls in North Omaha.

Houston cops mistake band, clubgoers for New Orleanians

A Houston police officer allegedly went on a rampage at a popular music venue Friday night, attacking the band Two Gallants and numerous members of the audience.

Several persons were tasered and arrested at Walter's on Washington, including drummer Tyson Vogel of the San Francisco-based indie country-rock duo. A 14-year-old boy was among those stun-gunned.

You can read about it here, here, here and here.

All we're waiting for now is for upright Houstonians to "X" out "New Orleans Deadbeats" on their "Deport New Orleans Deadbeats NOW!" protest signs and write in "Hippie Freaks."

Looks like somebody down there needs to open up a can o' Virgil Tibbs on the Houston Police Department.

Ask not for whom the red light glows

Or . . . we turned tricks for the Republican Party and all we got was this lousy . . . .

HEY!!! What DID we get in return for, well, you know?

David Kuo is a brave, and exceptionally honest, man. Read about it here. No wonder all the talk-radio shills for the Party of Greed (d.b.a. The Party of God) had the long knives out this morning. (At least the Party of Lust also is d.b.a. The Party of Lust.)

Or, as Someone very famous once said:

When he saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him.
2
He began to teach them, saying:
3
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4
Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted.
5
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land.
6
Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.
7
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
8
Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God.
9
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
10
Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11
Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you (falsely) because of me.
12
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven. Thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Matthew 5:1-12

I found nothin' to believe

On this week's Revolution 21 podcast, I play "Mother, I Climbed," written by the late Dave Carter and featured on Tracy Grammer's Flowers of Avalon album. The melody is absolutely beautiful; the lyrics, absolutely haunting.

It struck me as utterly appropriate in a week that saw a friend announcing he and his family had been scandalized right out of the Catholic Church. My church. A sampling of the lyrics illustrates the appropriateness:

on tomorrow’s painted wagon, in a yester-dreamin' day
i rode to heaven never thinkin' i’d be back this way
now i’m standin' at your doorstep with my halo turnin' grey
open up your gate, marianna

lay me down in the dark womb of your love
mother i sought the chosen people, but i found no one to comfort me
lay me down in the dark womb of your love
mother i climbed the highest steeple, i found nothin' to believe

when they called my faults against the wall, i took my place in line
and put my trust in priestly men to break the ties that bind
but their straight and narrow highway’s just a row of billboard signs
open up your gate, marianna

lay me down in the dark womb of your love
mother i sang the sacred psalter but no savior came to comfort me
lay me down in the dark womb of your love
i went naked to the altar, i found nothin' to believe

so i set my feet to walkin' from the sidewalk to the sand
in search of any saint or sage who knew the master plan
yeah, i wandered every backroad in that broken promise land
open up your gate, marianna

lay me down in the dark womb of your love
mother i kept the plain and simple, but no shepherd came to comfort me
lay me down in the dark womb of your love
i stood shiv’rin' in the temple, i found nothin' to believe

And I think of all the young people we run across at church, mainly in religious education and youth ministry. I think about how, yes, they're there . . . but still, they're not.

They may or may not actually go to Mass on Sunday. Many have so little knowledge of what the Church believes -- so little about even the basic nature of Who we worship -- they scarcely, in any objective manner, could be called Christian . . . at least in terms of actual belief.

They're there. They call themselves Catholic. But that has so little impact on how they live. I don't see that young Catholics drink, drug or (ahem!) at much different rates than committed secularist youth.

One youth-minister friend once told me he thinks there might be more drug abuse at Catholic high schools than at the (cue menacing organ music) eeeevvvillll public schools.

Yes, all of us -- even the most committed Christians -- screw up. We fall. We're, as Derek Webb sings, crooked deep down.

But increasingly, it seems to your Mighty Favog, there is a disconnect between professed faith and actual life. There is a meltdown in what we know -- what we care to know -- about what we say we believe.

That's nuts. But there we are. We've gone naked to the altar, we found nothin to believe.

And whose fault is that?

Not God's, I don't suspect. And not the kids', I don't reckon.

sticks and stones might break this body and words might wound my soul
and phantom visions fly me where the faithful fear to go
but when this story’s over and my sun is sinkin' low
open up your gate, marianna

lay me down in the dark womb of your love
mother the years pass outta countin' but no prophet comes to comfort me
lay me down in the dark womb of your love
mother i climbed the holy mountain, i found nothin' to believe
mother i climbed the holy mountain, i found nothin' to believe

[Lyrics: Copyright 2000, Dave Carter/Dave Carter Music (BMI)]

Give me the beat, boys, and free my soul . . . .

Yet another great American record-store chain is going under. Tower Records, RIP.

Here's a bit from the Associated Press story that sums it up pretty well, I think:

At the New York store, Larry Kirwan, lead singer of the Irish band Black 47, was scouring the rock bins and mourning Tower’s imminent loss.

“It’s a bad day for music,” Kirwan said. “It’s a bad day for independent bands. ... Right
from the beginning, even before we were signed with labels they carried us. They’ve been good to musicians.” Kirwan said taking music off the Internet is not the same as buying a vinyl LP or even a CD.

An LP or CD is “something real that’s not virtual,” he said. “It’s like music itself. I’m not sure music is virtual. It’s real and it’s powerful, and I don’t think you quite get the same thing from downloading.”

I have iTunes, and I download my share of stuff -- both for use on Revolution 21 and to fill in the occasional hole in my music collection. But it definitely isn't the same as putting a CD in the player and, for a Boomer like your Mighty Favog, it sure as hell doesn't equal the tactile pleasure of pulling an LP out of the sleeve and gently lowering stylus onto fresh vinyl.

And nothing equals the sheer coolness -- even today -- of a punk band on a 45 RPM single. Seven-inch vinyl ruuuuuuuuuules.

Or, as Dobie Gray sings on one of my favorite slabs of vintage wax (to you non-Boomers, that means really old 7-inch vinyl single), "Give me the beat, boys, and free my soul / I want to get lost in your rock 'n' roll and drift away . . . ."

So long, Tower. Miss 'ya, Wherehouse. You were the record store of my misspent college years, Leisure Landing. Please hang on, Homer's and Drastic Plastic.

Whine is fine, but (blaming) liquor is quicker

I wasn't aware that the Surgeon General had determined that Jack Daniels -- or Jose Cuervo -- makes you a crook . . . or an anti-Semite. Though it may help release the inner crook . . . or inner anti-Semite.

Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) is a convicted crook who drinks. Mel Gibson is an alcoholic who really, really, really needs to talk to a good therapist about his dad . . . the noted Holocaust denier.

When it comes to high-profile malefactors looking for cheap grace and a handy excuse, the whiskey ain't workin' anymore. Not in my book, at least.

She'd Walk a Mile for a . . . OH MY GAWD!!!

We men used to could count on womenfolk to "sivilize" us.

We are now doomed. Enter the Red State world of the "Passion Party."

From MSNBC:

Reinertsen, a no-nonsense 30-year-old suburban mom from Shawnee, Kan., goes on to demonstrate “Gigi,” . . . (snip) . . . by squeezing a generous amount of lubricant into it, then sliding and twisting it up and down the . . . (snip -- you get the picture).

“This is going to make your job so much easier!” she says, sounding a lot like a vacuum salesman who’s just spread topsoil on the carpet.

At that, 15 women turn to look at me, as if to say, “Well?” It's then I realize that being the only man at a Passion Party can be uncomfortable.

But in this room, I'm the only one blushing, which is saying something because Cathy Pearson, 44, is here with her two daughters, 18 and 24. Not only is she not embarrassed, she regards the sex toy party as a chance for some mother-daughter bonding, a deliberate effort to change the sexual conversation she heard as a girl.

“I was so sheltered … I was very naïve,” she tells me. Like many in the area, she grew up Southern Baptist, got married out of high school and “all I knew was this little world. When I got divorced 10 years ago, I felt so stupid.” She doesn’t want her daughters to feel the same way.

Five things pop into my brain, in no particular order:

1) Where are the Babdiss now when we need 'em?

2) Where's my late Aunt Sybil when we need her? (That's jus' not right, dahlin'! Put that stuff away! You tell them young gals to get married.)

3) I have no polite word for a mother who sees a sex-toy party as a means of bonding with her daughters.

4) Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions and at least one mortal sin.

5) If you need this crap, something's wrong.

Tacky, tacky, tacky.

Couldn't he just have called Frasier Crane?

If you make a name for yourself as an Inside Baseball critic of all that is wrong inside the Catholic Church, it makes people wonder when you up and leave. That's what Rod Dreher has done. After half a decade of chronicling sex scandals and rotten prelates, he's converted to Orthodoxy.

And that leaves folks wondering whether Catholicism is just so crooked deep down that it's irredeemable, whether Dreher had some Eureka! moment when he realized that what he had so enthusiastically embraced as a "Pre-Scandals" Catholic was just so much bunk, or whether he still thinks that what the Church proclaims is true . . . but just not "true enough" to stand and fight for.

Given that the Church is a hospital for sinners, one can assume that goes for everyone in it, including its priests, bishops, cardinals and pope. Face it, in a family of more than a billion souls, there's enough true bastards in the bunch to do a lot of damage to the Body of Christ. And the clerics of that bunch can do much damage, indeed.

That's plenty justification for righteous anger. Lord knows, Rod -- and many others of us -- had plenty of that. Adding to that anger was the unfortunate tendency of many "clericalist" Catholics to put tribe above Truth and spend the past five years going "Neener, neener . . . cancel, cancel, cancel!" as they blamed the press (as opposed to Rampant Original Sin) for the Church's problems.

But there comes a time when righteous anger has to be transformed. It must become something positive, something that leads to greater love and commitment, or it will devolve into an all-consuming bile that will cause you to do exquisitely stupid things.

The Mighty Favog (who considers himself a friend of Mr. Dreher) does not know a lot of things, and he is in no position to judge Rod Dreher, despite the grave nature of walking away from what Catholics believe was founded by Christ and possesses the fullness of truth. The Mighty Favog has been tempted to that himself but has been stopped by two questions (raised by Rod himself once or twice): Where then shall I go? If I believe Truth, and Christ, is here, how can I not be where Truth resides?

Even if I think some of the guys in red caps might be more justly attired in orange jumpsuits.

We, as Catholics, are called to Truth, not to where we're least pissed off. We are called to be faithful, not comfortable. We, as Catholics, are called to stand with Christ and His Church.

Even if the homilies suck and the music is lame.

Why? Because it's not all about you. Or me.

It's about Jesus, and it's about family. It's about the Body of Christ being diminished when any one of us careens off the tracks.

Sick of cursing the darkness in the Church? Try getting off your ass and lighting a few candles. Start at your parish.

Combat evil by striving to be holy. Even if, most days, it doesn't work out so good.

Fight your inner hopelessness by loving as if you had hope. Perhaps soon enough you will.

Let's pray that Rod and his family embrace what they believe to be true in the depths of their souls, not what they find most peaceful and pleasing. May the grace of God lead them back home and strengthen them to cheerfully cope with all the family's messiness, dysfunctionality . . . and occasional Crazy Aunt in the attic.

P.S.: Mark Shea says it all much better than I just did here.

Just another piece of asset to Abercrombie

I happen to think young people have pretty good BS detectors. That's why it puzzles me that they're so taken in by so much of our idiotic popular culture . . . but I guess our human need to "belong" is just that powerful.

Guess that's why so many adults are such lemmings, too.

But I will never cease to be amazed and dismayed by Catholic youth-group teens across the land decked out in -- to pick on the most flagrant offenders -- Abercrombie & Fitch and Hollister garb. With a straight face and lacking the slightest sense of irony. Presumably, the kids are in youth groups because they have at least some small interest in living their lives as Catholic Christians.

Alternatively, they're there because their parents are forcing them to come. Presumably because Mom and Dad have at least some small interest in their kids living life as Catholic Christians.

So, if the kids are there because they want, on some level, to be disciples of Christ Crucified and Risen, why do they so willingly embrace what Christ would hate -- overpriced apparel sold solely on the basis of snobbery and sex? I mean, until recently, the Abercrombie catalog would have to be covered by a brown paper wrapper if it were sold at the corner Quickie Mart. (Sorry, unfortunate choice of words, considering.)

Meanwhile, Hollister -- owned by Abercrombie -- today is noted for selling such classy attire as "Bumper to Bump Her on the Threeway" T-shirts. And the website is, uh, shall we say "hormonally infused"?

St. Leo the Great, the fifth-century pope who famously turned back Attila the Hun from the gates of Rome, exhorts his flock still: “Christian, remember your dignity!” You have to wonder how a parent with enough clout to force a teen to come to youth group can't get in their kid's face with that eternal truth.

I mean, really.

I think it's because the more affluent America gets, the more schizo we get. We're culturally and morally deranged, if truth be told. Nutso. Whack. Gone. How else does one describe a people so compartmentalized that they see no disconnect between what they profess on Sunday and what they do Monday through Saturday?

The Mighty Favog does not wish to sound like a cranky old Favog here. But, alas, the Mighty Favog has been around the block a time or three. And the Mighty Favog knows that young people kind of like being treated like adults.

My children, I shall grant you your wish.

Gentlemen, do you know what most people would call a Favog-aged man who goes around in a "Grin If You're Not Wearing Any Panties" T-shirt? There are several possibilities (pick one):

* Dirty Old Man.

* Perv.

* Trashy.

* Pathetic.

* "Ohmygawd, Henry! Call the police! There's a pedophile going in there with the youth-group kids!"

And ladies, there's really only a few choice names for 40-something women dressed in an “I KNOW WHAT BOYS WANT” tee. I think you know what they are.

Outfits like Abercrombie and Hollister are marketing to you based upon one single, solitary, small part of who you are. It has you believing that infinitesimal part of your complete self is the totality of who you are.

What then do you do when you're 35? Or 45? Or 55? Or whenever the six-pack-abs and Anorexia Chic things just ain't cutting it anymore? (Age happens. So does flab.)

Who will you be then? Just asking.

The Sex Pistols, race relations and the Voice of Baton Rouge High

The previous post about Louisiana got me to thinking. Thinking about growing up blue collar in Baton Rouge and the world of possibility that, for the first time, blew wide open in a Technicolor frenzy of Dreaming Big for an oddball teen-ager at the Maggot School.

The Maggot School is what White Trash Nation called Baton Rouge Magnet High School throughout my tenure there from 1976-79. It was the place where all the geeks, brainiacs, musicians and thespians could be weirdos together in relative harmony and contentment. Hey, at BRHS it was good to be a Thespian.

If Student X had admitted to being a thespian at Broadmoor Junior High, I garon-damn-tee you someone would have beat that person up and administered an enthusiastic version of the Toilet Water Taste Test. And the boys would have been even more vicious.

Shiiiiiiiii podna, you just as well had put on an ascot and admitted to being a Homo sapiens. Or, better yet, called Junior Martinez (pronounced Marton-ez) a Homo sapiens.

Anyway, Baton Rouge High, by the 1975-76 school year, was a struggling inner-city school whose halcyon days had gone the way of poodle skirts, B-52s (the hairdo, not the band) and "separate but equal." Then someone had an idea.

First, take an inner-city school.

Add:

* Admission requirements.
* High grades required to stay.
* College-style declared majors.
* Diverse student body.
* Focus on academics and performing arts.
* College-prep curriculum.
* Policy to ship discipline problems back to High School Hell.

Then mix well. Let settle. Result: Damn fine school.

Nevertheless, my parents were leery (I'll bet you can guess why), but I got to go. Miracle of miracles!

Well, Baton Rouge High had -- and still has -- a radio station. A real, honest-to-God, student-operated, over-the-air FM radio station -- WBRH. And thus, the Mighty Favog learned everything he needed to know in high school.

But the college degree was nice nevertheless.

ANYWAY . . . let me tell you about when WBRH introduced Baton Rouge to punk rock in 1977.

I found out about the Sex Pistols on Weekend, the NBC newsmagazine that preempted Saturday Night Live once a month back in the day. In this case, "back in the day" was, I reckon, spring 1977. Anyway, it seemed that the Pistols were about as pissed at the world as my teen-age self, they could rock and -- best of all -- they terrified polite society as much as anything I had seen in my 16 years.

Unfortunately, they had no American releases. And their new British single, "God Save the Queen," had been banned by the BBC. "God save the queen, the fascist regime / They made you a moron, a potential H-bomb . . ." I can't understand why the BBC would do that. The ban had to have just killed the great BBC host John Peel.

I didn't care, I didn't know how, but I had to have the new Sex Pistols 45 (for those of you under 30, that's 45 vinyl record, not .45-caliber handgun). Today, you'd just go online and get it from Amazon.co.uk. Back then . . . no Internet.

For that matter, no PCs, either, unless you had money (lots) and electronics skills (lots).

But I did have an ace in the hole: Aunt Ailsa. The war bride (WWII) from England. Who was going back there on vacation. Who bought me the UK single of "God Save the Queen" (B-side: "Did You No Wrong"), possibly in a "Do you got the stuff?" transaction at some back-alley British record store. At least I'd like to think so.

That fall, I was enrolled in Radio I. I wasn't allowed an air shift yet; back then you first had to get a federal license -- by passing an exam. But I knew bunches of people in Radio II who were on-air. Soon, the Sex Pistols were on the Baton Rouge airwaves, via the 20-watt blowtorch signal at 90.1 FM.

One fall afternoon, I was sitting in with Charles, a junior, during the afternoon rock show. He was skeptical of the Sex Pistols, but played it and asked for listener feedback. What feedback you get from a high-school FM blowtorch (that is, not a bunch) was decidedly mixed.

After a week or so of playing Baton Rouge's one copy of a Sex Pistols record, we did get some strong feedback. It was from the licensee of WBRH, the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board. And it went something like this: We don't know what the hell that is you've been playing on the radio station, but we want you to cut it out. NOW!

The radio instructor and general manager, John Dobbs, liked his teaching gig. The 45 was confiscated, and the Sex Pistols faced the same fate at WBRH that the lads did at the BBC. Banned.

I did retrieve my record from The Iron Fist of the Oppressor, but only after I agreed never to bring it back. It sits, carefully preserved in its famous picture sleeve, right behind me in a plastic file box, along with all my other 45s from Back in the Day (and a few from Right Now).

Now, Charles was -- is? -- an interesting guy. Think of Alex P. Keaton from Family Ties a good five years before there was a Family Ties. Only African-American . . . or, as was the polite term then, black.

It was probably in the spring of '78 that I was again hanging out with Charles in the WBRH studio, playing the likes of David Gilmour, The Fabulous Poodles, Toto, the Cars, Journey and Queen. Maybe some Commodores -- Brick House, baby! -- and Parliament/Funkadelic.

Well, that day, obviously not enough "Brick House" or "P-Funk."

(Flash. Flash. Flash. Hey, radio-studio phones flash; they don't ring. OK?)

Charles: WBRH!

Caller: Hey, man, why don't you play some n****r music, man! ("N****r" = Not Polite Term for African-American -- then, now or ever.)

Charles: Uhhhhh, excuse me, but I happen to be black.

Caller: Oh, uhhh, oh . . . oh, I'm sorry, man! How about playin' some BLACK music for me, man!

Charles: I'll see what I can do. (Slams phone down.) Redneck son of a bitch!

I don't think the guy got his "n****r music" played, man.

I wonder whatever happened to Charles. Last I heard, he was living with a gal in Vegas. And Charles, a committed Objectivist and atheist, apparently had an almost-brother-in-law who was a Catholic priest.

Always thought I was a smart ass, I did. Seems God has me beat, though.

Now, I think there was a point to this post when I started it. But now it will have to do as a "slice of life" musing.

Maybe it's just like life, particularly the Christian life. The point -- and the fun -- isn't always in where we end up in this world, but rather in how we get there. Heaven, ah reckon, is the only "Don't miss!" destination out there.


P.S.: WBRH and its (relatively) new AM sister station, KBRH (the old 1260 WAIL), really, really need a decent website. And web streams. Then again, the school board really needs to make the women's room in the gym look Not Bombed Out, and to figure out it has a responsibility to buy the school such trivialities as, oh, I don't know . . . DESKS?!? The BRHS Alumni Association website has the damning pictures, as an inducement for alumni to pony up.

I wish it were more of an inducement for alumni to shame the EBR School Board into doing its job and shame Baton Rouge taxpayers into caring about public education.

But that's just me.

This is your brain. This is your brain on sin.

"Again you have heard that it was said to your ancestors, 'Do not take a false oath, but make good to the Lord all that you vow.'

But I say to you, do not swear at all; not by heaven, for it is God's throne; nor by the earth, for it is his footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King.

Do not swear by your head, for you cannot make a single hair white or black.

Let your 'Yes' mean 'Yes,' and your 'No' mean 'No.' Anything more is from the evil one."

-- Matthew 5:33-37

If you require proof that not even a hurricane of biblical proportions can provide an "attitude adjustment" for some people, let us coinsider this recent dispatch from the New Orleans Times-Picayune:

BATON ROUGE -- The process House members use to change their votes after a
bill passes or fails is lax and needs to be improved, House Clerk Alfred "Butch"
Speer told a legislative panel Wednesday.

Speer told the House Committee on House and Governmental Affairs, the panel
that oversees the daily mechanics of how the chamber operates, that he or his
staff received requests for "more than 500 vote changes" from House members at
the last legislative session. "That is remarkable," he said.

Speer, the House chief record-keeper and administrative officer, said some of
the requests for vote changes in the recent session were written on "little cube
pieces of paper. . . . It is too easy, in my opinion" to change a
vote.

Speer said one member approached him during this year's session with more
than a dozen recorded votes and asked him to change them to show the lawmaker
had voted for or against bills even though he was absent from the
chamber.

The practice of vote-changing has increased over the years. He said when he
became clerk 24 years ago, allowing a House member to change a vote was a
rarity.

Under existing procedure, a House member must inform Speer of a desire to
change a vote, get routine permission of the House to do it, and the vote is
changed. The Senate does not allow a member to change a vote after a final vote
is taken, but if a senator mistakenly votes a certain way, he or she can submit
a form to Senate officials to include in the official Senate journal attesting
to the error.

In theory, Speer said, a House member can cast a vote on the first day of a
session and ask to have it changed just before adjournment on the last day of
the same session.

Speer recommended that House members who want to change their votes submit a
signed form to him or his staff making the request, a document that would be a
public record. "We would formalize the process a little more this way," he
said.

Ah, but it gets better, my children! Again, from the Times-Picayune:

Rep. M.J. "Mert" Smiley, R-St. Amant, complained that the letters seeking
permission to change a vote could be used against a lawmaker by a campaign
opponent and would make it easier for reporters to follow who changes votes
and on which issues.

Rep. Smiley is either more of an honest man than his policy position -- such as it is -- would indicate, or he is dumb even by Louisiana Legislature standards.

Your benevolent Favog, however, was born and raised in Louisiana. Let me assure you; it's the latter. As we often said in the Gret Stet -- usually just before loading the U-Haul and aiming it toward the state line -- "Oy veh!"

With the accidental release of honesty emissions from Baton Rouge committee chambers nowadays, it is easy to see why the state ethics board put this on the agenda:

G30. Docket No. 06-699
Consideration of a request for an advisory opinion concerning the regulation of web-blogs (sic) and blog sites and the placement of political campaign signs.

What? And not newspapers and TV, too? If Louisiana public servants were as competent as they are venal, we'd have big problems "way down yonder." As in Saddam Bros. on the Bayou. (OK, not all Louisiana pols and bureaucrats are petty, ill-willed or crooked. But enough are, and Louisianians have a long history of not having a problem with that.)

George Bush would be trying to justify an invasion. And he'd probably be right this time.

Listen, Katrina was horrific. So was Hurricane Rita. That the feds can't build a decent levee is worse. (That FEMA is incompetent is par for the course.) And the Mighty Favog understands that it's a bitch being, basically, high-functioning Third World.

But if you're gonna take our tax money to build back what was laid waste, is it really too much to ask that you follow our Constitution? Particularly that whole First Amendment Thang.

Oy veh, indeed. It's true, there is no place like Nebraska . . . .

(Hat tip: The Dead Pelican, Emily Metzgar)

Welcome to the Revolution

Greetings. The Mighty Favog here. Welcome to Revolution 21.

Let's get something straight right now, O huddled masses: Revolution 21 ain't your grandma's radio podcast. It ain't your typical Catholic radio thing, and it ain't your typical corporate, over-researched, same-boring-playlist rock radio thing, either.

But is it really useful to define Revolution 21 by what it's not? So sorry, my plebes! My bad.

Let's just say -- plainly -- what Revolution 21 is. Revolution 21 is radio that aims to reflect life as it is lived by screwed-up, struggling, inspired-yet-bumbling children of God sorely in need of His grace and forgiveness.

Revolution 21 realizes that Catholics like the Mighty Favog -- your host and the master of dysfunctionality -- live life with one foot in Heaven and the other in the gutter with all the other schmucks called Humanity. We strive for holiness, we occasionally achieve it, and sometimes the best we can muster is Holier Than Thou.

Oh, well. Blame it on Eve and that damned apple.

For his part, the Mighty Favog -- though a great and mighty Favog -- is a Bad Catholic. It is to be hoped, however, that he is capable of decent radio . . . and a stellar podcast.

And he's trying most mightily to become, at the least, a Mediocre Catholic.

So, like us believing schmucks, Revolution 21 is a mixture of the sacred and the secular. The serious and the foolish. Rock . . . and roll. And blues in the night.

But Revolution 21 has a problem with our oversecularized, materialist and ultimately shallow culture. We figure schizo is the only thing you get out of putting faith waaaaaaaaaaaaaay over in one corner of your life and "real life" waaaaaaaaaaaaaay over in another corner so the two never touch (probably out of fear of some Matter-Antimatter cataclysm).

Or something like that.

Well, Revolution 21 LIKES IT when things get blowed up good. We say put that Faith Thing and that Life Thing in a bag, shake it the hell up and see what happens.

I mean, ain't that a lot more fun than alienation, ennui and life in Schizo City? Or, if not always fun, at least always a lot more interesting and, ultimately, rewarding.

But then again, it's not All About Me -- or All About You -- is it, now?

Enough blather, proclaims the Mighty Favog, your potentate of New Media! Let us now proceed with trashing preconceived notions of radio formatting and stale bourgeois convention.

Let us now do radio like we ought to be living -- faith and life together, recognizing only two kinds of music. That would be Good and Bad.

The bad, we don't mess with.