Ink-stained cynical chickens***s

The mighty voice of the capitalist Bottom Line resorts to GOP frat-boy snarkiness while Americans die in an American city. From The Wall Street Journal's online Opinion Journal.com:

Crescent Quagmire

The troops were supposed to be home by now, but instead, faced with increasing
violence, political leaders are planning a surge. Iraq? Nah, New Orleans. The Times-Picayune reports from Baton Rouge:

The state will temporarily deploy additional state troopers in the New Orleans area for the Carnival season but will not increase the 360 police
and National Guard troops that have been on duty in the city since a murderous crime wave began last summer, Gov. Kathleen Blanco said Tuesday.

Blanco told reporters at an informal news conference after addressing the annual meeting of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, the state's largest business lobbying organization, that despite a rash of killings in the city in recent weeks, she will not order a long-term increase in the 60 troopers and 300 Guard troops assigned to New Orleans.

She said that she has asked State Police and National Guard officials to review the security needs of the city, but "right now we are keeping it at the same level. . . . For Mardi Gras, we normally will bulk up; I expect that will be the same this year." . . .

The 300 Guard forces and 60 troopers were supposed to be pulled out of the city by the end of 2006, but city officials asked that they remain and the state extended the tour of duty through June.

They said New Orleans was supposed to be a cakewalk; some neocons even called it "the Big Easy." They sold us a bill of goods, promising the natives would greet us with beads and celebratory parades. Instead we got murder and mayhem. Cindy Sheehan was right: U.S. out of New Orleans!

OpinionJournal.com Editor James Taranto fails to understand there is a profound difference between fighting a futile war waged on spurious grounds in a foreign land and utter mayhem in an American city that was all-but-destroyed due to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers incompetence. That's the charitable explanation for the above pile of guano in the website's Best of the Web feature.

The more likely explanation is that the poor man just isn't sharp enough to apprehend the dwindling percentage in kissing increasingly isolated, unpopular Bush Administration arses. Thus, Mr. Taranto chooses to "stay the course" and expose himself as a chickens*** suck-up to chickens*** politicians with blood on their hands, and in the process plays dying Americans in a dying American city for laughs.

Welcome to the post-American era of the United States, in which we find a land where some cities and some states (and some Americans) have more intrinsic value than others. And just about all of them have more value than the poor wretches of New Orleans.

Pity the Crescent City, who "respectable" Americans used to ring up when they wanted to let their ya-yas out (away from prying hometown eyes, of course). Alas, the Capitol Hill and Wall Street boys now have as much use for her as they do a 500-dollar whore who's lost her looks and found a crack pipe.

From Luke, Chapter 18

The Lord said, "Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says.
7
Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night? Will he be slow to answer them?
8
I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily. But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"
9
He then addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else.
10
"Two people went up to the temple area to pray; one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector.
11
The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself, 'O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity -- greedy, dishonest, adulterous -- or even like this tax collector.
12
I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.'
13
But the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed, 'O God, be merciful to me a sinner.'
14
I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted."

We have met the enemy . . . and he is me II

AND I AM SERIOUS about becoming the queen of France.

Roll 'em!

Speed!

ACTION!

We have met the enemy . . . and he is me

The problem with America is that I'm linking to THIS on this blog. Even though it's because I WANT THEM TO GO AWAY.

Iranian nuclear site. Rosie. The Donald. Israeli tactical nuclear strike.

Sounds like a game plan.

(NOTE: No obnoxious, not-so-funny lesbian comics or egomaniacal, bad-comb-over, serial-groom billionaires were actually harmed in the writing of this post. Just channeling my inner Id.)

Misery is a warm gun

The New Orleans Times-Picayune's indispensible Chris Rose is at it again:

I hear the shots.

During late night walks in my neighborhood, sometimes I hear the not-so-distant reports of gunfire.

I wait for the sirens and lights to come, but they don't. In the morning, I tear through the Metro section of this paper, looking for the news, but there isn't any.

It's like the tree falling in the woods, I guess. If no one is killed or injured, it didn't really happen.

It's only a statistic when a victim bites the asphalt, a piece of steel buried in his chest or leg or head.

Everyone I know hears the shots. They get muffled by the sound of fireworks this time of year, but soon the fireworks will stop. The gunshots will not.

My neighborhood is the quietest of them all. Safe, in a relative sense. Very relative.

Down in the 7th, the 8th and the 9th, it's part of the aural fabric of the darkness, rat-tat-tat, the deadly game played on street corners by the Children of the Night.

They play a game called Somebody Dies Tonight. Question is, will it be someone you know -- a doctor, an artist, a musician -- so you'll get all up in arms about it and march on City Hall? Or will it be another nameless, faceless child of the streets, a killer at 17, dead himself at 18?

Should we mourn them any less?

I did not tell my wife about the shots I sometimes hear on my walks until this weekend because I don't want to move away from New Orleans. This is neither the time nor the place to dwell on the many reasons I don't want to go. For the sake of argument, it's just a given.

But how close to my house do I allow the shots to come before I claim no mas? How many more friends and acquaintances will die stupidly in their cars and yards and doorways before I realize that I have become more afraid of and for my city than ever before and am bordering on a siege mentality?

I've written about this before -- the pervasive predatory element of New Orleans -- and truth to tell, I don't have anything new to contribute to the conversation. But then again, I can't sit here at my desk and write about anything else -- the Saints, the weather, the Road Home, trash collection, whatever -- without thinking that it's all kind of moot when the cloud of murder descends over the city.

Again. And again. And again. And again.

We rise up, we get mad, we yell about it at City Council meetings and preachers decry it from the pulpits and the cops get down and dirty for a few weeks and then . . .

And then?

Then it gets quiet, except for the gunshots at night that are trees falling in the woods and we wait until the cycle starts again and then we get all a-tizzy about it again and then rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat.

READ. REFLECT. Consider that this is America, not Baghdad.

Get angry. Get very angry.

Stupid police tricks

Note to New Orleans' (ahem) finest: If you absolutely must commit police brutality, it would be useful to keep a couple of things in mind. First, make sure you have the right person in custody before you beat the . . . er, before you severely thrash the suspect.

And second . . . MAKE SURE HE IS NOT A LAWYER. Thank you.

"I heard, 'New Orleans Police!' so I immediately turned around," Coleman said in a telephone interview. "I didn't know who it was or what was going on. I put my hands up. They came toward me and immediately started punching me and took me to the ground."

Coleman said he suffered a mild concussion, cuts to the face, lumps on his head and bruised ribs.

He said officers told him they were looking for a pickpocket in the area, a "black man wearing black."

Coleman - who is African American and describes himself 5' 8" and 140 lbs. - said he was dressed in navy blue.

Marlon Defillo, deputy chief of the New Orleans Police Department's Public Integrity Bureau, said his office has opened an investigation and reassigned two department staffers.

"Based on the complaint and the ongoing investigation, we feel it is necessary at this time to reassign them," Defillo said.

The other five officers involved in the incident have not been reassigned, and the investigation is ongoing, said Defillo, who did not release their names.

Officer Reynolds Rigney Jr., who joined the police force in 2004, has been reassigned to technical support, Defillo said. He has an unblemished record with the police department, according to records with the city' Civil Service Commission.

Sgt. Jake Schnapp Jr., a 17-year-department veteran, also has been reassigned to desk duty and camera surveillance, Defillo said. Schnapp, however, has an extensive history of sanctions for on-the-job offenses.

(snip)

The alleged beating took place around 11 p.m. in the 700 block of Conti Street, according to a police incident list.

Coleman's alleged beating came as a group of seven officers from the First District were patrolling the French Quarter, part of increased policing efforts during New Year's Eve and the Sugar Bowl. Coleman said he was returning to his car, which was parked on Conti Street, when the officers pounced on him.

"I said to them, 'What is this? I didn't do anything, I didn't do anything,' " Coleman recalled. "They were yelling, 'Stop resisting.' " Coleman said he sustained punches while handcuffed.

"I started yelling out that I'm a lawyer," he said. "Then the punches stopped."

The officers realized their mistake, according to Coleman, when they ran his identification through records.

Coleman said he filed his complaint with the NOPD's Public Integrity Bureau just hours after the incident.

Both the FBI and District Attorney Eddie Jordan's office are aiding in the investigation, which is ongoing, Defillo said. There is no timeline for a ruling on the matter. Coleman said he has also filed a complaint with the NAACP.

The complaint is being followed closely by U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu's office, where Coleman was an intern in 2005, said an office spokesman.

Oops.

MEANWHILE, IN THE CITY AMERICA FORGOT . . . .

Please, Please, Please . . . listen to the podcast

Well, we're back from a holiday break on the Revolution 21 podcast but, unfortunately, we have another tribute show. This week, we say goodbye to the "Godfather of Soul," James Brown.

Brown not only was "the hardest-working man in show business," he also was one of the most innovative. Hell, he was doing funk in 1965.

We lost Brown on Christmas Day. Some present. But we can pray that James Brown's Christmas present was life eternal with his Lord.

One of the best things about the Godfather I've seen is a column by the Boston Globe's Derrick Z. Jackson. Here's a snippet:

Before writing this column, I asked my 16-year-old son if there was an equivalent to James Brown in his generation. He flatly said no. There are a handful of artists who make the uplift of black people the subject of a handful of songs. But self-pride largely is drowned by recordings corrupted by the N-word, misogyny and glorification of violence. Instead of preaching about earning it in schools and the workplace, the symbols of making it are too often gold chains, gold rings and gold teeth.

James Brown once sang, "I got somethin' that makes me wanna shout; I got somethin' that tells me what it's all about. I got soul and I'm superbad!" Even though his soul was troubled, he nourished mine and those of countless black youth. The best tribute we can give him is another musician with the soul to inspire another generation to get what they deserve.

On chickens***s and breaking eggs

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal.

But store up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal.

For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.

"The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light; but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be in darkness. And if the light in you is darkness, how great will the darkness be.

"No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat (or drink), or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?

Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they?

Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span?

Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin.

But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them.

If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith?

So do not worry and say, 'What are we to eat?' or 'What are we to drink?' or 'What are we to wear?'

All these things the pagans seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.

But seek first the kingdom (of God) and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides.

Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil.

-- Matthew 6:19-34

ROD DREHER HAS AN IMPORTANT POST on his Crunchy Con blog over on Beliefnet, and I agree with it wholeheartedly. But I think I can simplify a bit and link it to college football in one swell foop, er, fell swoop.

And that's a good thing fer a recovering redneck like moi. (See, no self-respectin' Bubba would EVER use the French for "me." I must be making progress.)

AIIGHT, see the posts I have on Alabama's new coach, Nick Saban, late of Toledo, Cleveland, Michigan State, LSU and the Miami Dolphins (the last two teams he [expletive deleted] around and mind-gamed to death before haulin' butt for more lucrative gridirons)?

Good.

So, now you're familiar with the concept of being chickens***. The trouble with the Church -- and the reason it has lost a couple of generations for Christ and His faith -- is because it, like the rest of society, has made chickens***tery normative. At least for The People Who Matter.

Once upon a time -- in my middle-aged lifetime, actually -- there was little percentage in being a chickens***. Chickens***s were looked down upon and mistrusted profoundly. Chickens***tery was such a vice that it earned the unflattering term "chickens***."

BUT NOW . . . behavior like Nick Saban's may earn scorn and provoke epithets from the Great Unwashed (at least when the Great Unwashed are the ones being -- ahem -- upon), but it is highly effective where it counts.

Alabama Athletic Director Mal Moore got a highly skilled football coach by being a chickens*** and pursuing a coach who still had three years left on his contract with the 'Fins and who had promised Miami fans and his employer that he could -- and would -- turn the team around. After all, owner Wayne Huizenga had given Saban scads of money and unprecedented authority to do just that.

And the job remained quite unfinished. And, initially, Saban told the world he wasn't interested in the 'Bama job. (Hey, this part kinda sounds familiar to LSU fans!) But Mal Moore was undeterred . . . and Nick Saban obviously was interested in seeing how undeterred the Alabama AD was.

It's sort of like an episode of Desperate Housewives, truth be told.

So, as the credits are about to roll on this episode of How the Chickens***s Spin, we have a happy coach (that Miami gig was getting kinda tough, don'tcha know?) and a happy AD and happy Alabama fans. The coach has scads more money, and the AD and fans have visions of victories dancing in their heads.

And the last two parts of this happy equation haven't been -- ahem -- upon. Yet.

NOW LET'S APPLY THAT MODEL to the Catholic Church . . . though it also works well for other denominations.

First, realize that it's ALL ABOUT YOU, the Hoity Toity power structure, and not the hoi polloi in the pews. Then "realize" that God is on YOUR side, as opposed to the proletarian concept of you being on God's side.

Then, stick with people like yourself. That is, not "common" like those pedestrian schmucks in the pews. That is, exceptional. Aren't we neato?

BUT . . . only stick with those people so far as they are useful to your own divine self. We must be pragmatic, right? And screw the proles . . . except in the unlikely event that they become useful to oneself, and thus beneficial within the complicated politics of Making the World a Better Place (TM).

Now, certainly it is easier for one to see how "overreacting" to the problems of the Unimportant could harm the Important, and thus wreck the Work of Christ on earth, right? If we started "giving scandal" by making a scene over, say, perv priests . . . well, THAT would give our Enemies (TM) ammunition with which to obliterate Our Important Work.

And you know what Stalin apologist Walter Duranty said about "breaking a few eggs to make an omelet."

Then again, neither Duranty nor Stalin were eggs. They were the chickens***s.

The eggs were not amused. And soon enough, eggs are going to start staying the hell away from the kitchen (Church), because Bad Things (or at least not many good things) happen to you in the kitchen.

Right now, both our capitalist society at large and our Catholic Church seem to be all about the omelet, and not at all about the eggs. And the eggs -- who are humble yolk but not stupid -- are fast losing faith in the Omelet Makers.

'Principles and values' . . . at $4 million per

Our mission statement here is to create an atmosphere and environment for everyone to be able to succeed, first of all as a person. We want players to be more successful in life because they were involved in our program, by the principles and values that we're able to develop with them so that they can be successful relative to the character and attitude they have as a football player here at this institution.

-- "Bubbles" Saban, in his remarks after his introduction

as Alabama's new football coach after leaving the Dolphins

with three years left on his contract . . . for a better "rate"

BUBBLES IS AVAILABLE to entertain at your "function" at the reasonable rate of $4 million a year . . . or $1,000/hour.

LSU 41, Notre Dame 14

Read all about the Bayou Bengals' glorious Sugar Bowl victory over the Fighting (snicker, guffaw) Irish here. Or here.

Or just CRANK IT UP!

Meanwhile, all together now -- with gusto . . .

Where stately oaks and broad
magnolias shade inspiring halls,
There stands our dear Old Alma Mater who to us recalls
Fond memories that waken in our hearts a tender glow,
And make us happy for the love that we have learned to know.

All hail to thee our Alma Mater, molder of mankind,
May greater glory, love unending be forever thine.
Our worth in life will be thy worth we pray to keep it true,
And may thy spirit live in us, forever L-S-U.

Despicable scumbags from the pit of Hell . . . as opposed to Gitmo's poor Islamist schmucks

Will no one rid us of this troublesome administration?

Will no one consider that -- in the War on Terror -- we have become Terror? Read this from the Washington Post and vomit, before becoming really, really enraged:

In them, FBI employees said they had witnessed 26 incidents of possible mistreatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, including previously reported cases in which prisoners were shackled to the floor for extended periods of time or subjected to sexually suggestive tactics by female interrogators.

In a previously unreported allegation, one interrogator bragged to an FBI agent that he had forced a prisoner to listen to "Satanic black metal music for hours," then dressed as a Catholic priest before "baptizing" him.

One agent reported being told that while questioning male captives, female interrogators would sometimes wet their hands and touch detainees' faces in order to interrupt their prayers. Such actions would make some Muslims consider themselves unclean and unable to continue praying.

Lt. Cmdr. Joe Carpenter, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement last night that "the issues and facts raised" in the documents "are not new" and that 12 reviews have showed there were no Defense Department policies that condoned abuse.

"The Department of Defense policy is clear -- we treat detainees humanely," Carpenter said. "The United States operates safe, humane and professional detention operations for enemy combatants who are providing valuable information in the war on terror."

FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said all the information from the survey has been turned over to the Defense Department's inspector general.

This would be unbelievable . . . if the previous antics of the Bush Administration hadn't given us such ample reason to believe anything.

Think a sec, here. It is not the jihadis at Guantanamo who have blasphemed against God and slandered the Catholic Church. Is is Our Government. Paid for with Our Tax Dollars.

Now, where are the prosecutions? Now, where are the Catholics who are upset about both torture and the defamation of their own religion?

(Hat tip: Mark Shea)

This is what happens when you value some right things as a civic culture

And how do the states rank in that "Quality Counts 2007" education survey?

Like this:

Virginia

Connecticut

Minnesota

New Jersey

Maryland

Massachusetts

New Hampshire

Wisconsin

Nebraska

Vermont

Iowa

Illinois

Kansas

North Dakota

Pennsylvania

Colorado

South Dakota

Delaware

New York

Rhode Island

Utah

Washington

Maine

Wyoming

Hawaii

Michigan

Montana

Ohio

Alaska

Indiana

District of Columbia

Florida

Missouri

California

Idaho

North Carolina

Oregon

Georgia

Arkansas

Oklahoma

Kentucky

South Carolina

Nevada

West Virginia

Alabama

Mississippi

Tennessee

Texas

Arizona

Louisiana

New Mexico

Hint to the low-ranking states . . . good schools take two things, which must go hand-in-hand:

1) Money. And that means taxes. In our Omaha school district, we pay more than $2,800 in property taxes on our very average residence. More than $1,600 of that goes to the school district.

2) Education has to be important to John and Jane Doe. They have to care about it; they have to support their public schools, which means holding them accountable; they have to stay on their kids' butts to learn and achieve. That's hard, but necessary, slogging.

This is what happens when you have the wrong priorities for a long, long time

From the Lafayette (La.) Daily Advertiser:

There is only one state in the nation in which a student is less likely to succeed than in Louisiana, according to an Education Research Center report released today.

The Quality Counts 2007 report ranks all 50 states on matters from parental education, family income, test scores, graduation rates and school enrollment to determine where a child is most likely to succeed in life.

Scores for the study were calculated using success indicators.

Louisiana received two positive indicators, 10 negatives and one neutral. According to the report, preschool enrollment is 4.1 percent above the national average, linguistic integration is 12.8 percent above the national average and kindergarten enrollment is 1.2 percent, while the state fell 10 percent below the national percentage in the following areas: Parent education, parental employment and middle school math.

This is what people say when you don't practice what you preach

Miami Dolphins Coach Nick Saban broke his "all this, and the moon, too" contract Wednesday to take over the Alabama football program after the Crimson Tide threw in the sun as a deal sweetener.

This, exactly two years after Saban left Louisiana State for the greener palm trees of South Beach. Feh!

This Dan Le Batard column in The Miami Herald is what people generally say about those who so blatantly don't practice what they preach to their charges.

Or, as we used to cheer in the LSU student section way back when, "Around the bowl and down the hole! Roll! Tide, roll!"

Here 'tis:

The punctuation on the Nick Saban Error is greasy and greedy. You know what he was as Dolphins coach? A failure. A loser. A gasbag. And one of the worst investments Dolphins owner Wayne Huizenga has ever made. He was less of a success than Dave Wannstedt and more of a traitor than Ricky Williams. There has been very little in franchise history that came with more expectations and fewer results than this hypocrite who at the end avoided the hard questions one last time.

Talk like a warrior. Behave like a weasel.

Maybe Saban would be better off in college. Because, in the pros the last few days, he has looked like a complete and utter amateur.

He will be remembered in these parts as a quitter and a liar. He leaves the franchise in last place, with what used to be his good name somehow far lower than that. And for this he'll get a $25 million raise and more job security in Alabama. Makes you wonder what USC's Pete Carroll or Ohio State's Jim Tressel are worth, doesn't it?

Larry Coker, a decent man, gets fired for his one championship. Saban, a duplicitous one, gets the most lucrative job in college football.

Saban could have fixed his reputation today if he had that mental toughness he is always sermonizing about. We have the meandering spiel memorized by now. About
''competitive character'' and ''overcoming adversity'' and blah, blah, blah. You preach it, Nick. But you don't live it. Not when it's easier to run away and hide.

Such a pity. Saban was a good coach at LSU, and he turned around a decidedly mediocre program there. He preached good values to his players; he stressed good priorities and work habits.

In the end, though, it was All About Nick. I wonder whether he'll have any credibility with his new players at 'Bama when he gives them what's now been proven to be just another load of bull****.

Geaux Tigers! Beat the Irish. Give more for Les!

Heroes and villains

From MSNBC:

The Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS -- Seven policemen charged in a deadly bridge shooting in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina turned themselves in Tuesday at the city jail, where more than 200 emotional supporters met them in a show of solidarity.

Each of the indicted men faces at least one charge of murder or attempted murder in the Sept. 4, 2005, shootings on the Danziger Bridge less than a week after the hurricane hit New Orleans. Two people died, and four people were wounded.

Defense attorneys say the seven officers are innocent of the charges.

As the men arrived at the jail, supporters lined the street, stepping forward to embrace the seven men and shake their hands. One sign in the crowd read “Support the Danziger 7.” Another read “Thanks for protecting our city.”

One protester shouted “Police killings must stop” and “Racism must go” but was shouted down by the crowd yelling: “Heroes, Heroes.”

“These men stayed here to protect our city and protect us, and this is the thanks that is given to them,” said Ryan Maher, 34, of New Orleans, who described himself as a civilian with friends in the police department.

“It’s a serious injustice,” said Sgt. Henry Kuhn of the Harahan Police Department, one of several uniformed officers from the suburbs who joined the crowd.

Sgts. Kenneth Bowen and Robert Gisevius, officer Anthony Villavaso and former officer Robert Faulcon were charged with first-degree murder. Officers Robert Barrios and Mike Hunter were charged with attempted first-degree murder, and Ignatius Hills was charged with attempted second-degree murder.

A judge said there would be no bail for the four accused of first-degree murder. Bail will be $100,000 per count for the other three officers.

Hunter posted bail Tuesday; a spokesman for the Fraternal Order of Police said the others couldn’t in part because banks were closed for the national day of mourning for President Gerald Ford.

The officers are scheduled to be arraigned Friday.

Defense lawyers said they were assured that the men would be kept separate from the general population of the jail.

Hills’ brother Darren Hills was among those outside the jail Tuesday morning.

“It took everybody by surprise. Totally blindsided by the decision,” he said of the charges.

A first-degree murder conviction carries a possible death sentence. A spokesman for District Attorney Eddie Jordan said Monday that prosecutors haven’t decided whether to seek the death penalty in the case.

The facts of what happened on the bridge, which crosses the Industrial Canal between the Gentilly neighborhood and eastern New Orleans, remain murky.

Police say the officers were responding to a report of other officers down, and that they thought one of the men, Ronald Madison, was reaching for a gun. Madison, a 40-year-old mentally retarded man, and James Brissette, 19, were killed on the bridge. The coroner said Madison was shot seven times, with five wounds in the back.

AIN'T IT FUNNY SOMETIMES how when the cops bust some gang-banger in the 'hood for blasting away just 'cause, they have just apprehended the biggest, scummiest, lowlife vermin that ever scurried out of the shadows of the trash pile . . . but when it's one of their own -- or seven of their own -- indicted for blasting away at unarmed black folk on a bridge, suddenly the alleged perps are "heroes"?

I'll not be the man to defend the nobility of scummy, lowlife gang-bangers in the 'hood. But, somehow, I've never considered shooting a 40-year-old, unarmed retarded man in the back particularly heroic.

And, indeed, it is all but certain that somebody -- or bodies -- in that group of seven New Orleans cops fatally shot that unarmed retarded man, as well as fatally shot a 19-year-old and wounded several other innocent, unarmed people on the Danziger Bridge in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. If they are found innocent of first- and second-degree murder and attempted-murder charges, it will be because jurors find the whole mess was a massive, yet understandable, screw-up in the post-Katrina chaos of New Orleans on Sept. 4, 2005.

That would make for a gaggle of tragic screw-ups, not a cadre of gallant heroes. Best case.

Worst case: That crowd of New Orleans-area cops demonstrating for their accused brethren -- in the face of the kind of evidence that gets "vermin" thrown into central lockup with nary a second thought about their scumbag status . . . or guilt -- have decided that it's different when you're a police officer. Murder is something only civilians can commit.

SCREW IRAQ. Bring the troops home and send them to Louisiana, where it's obvious that some "nation-building" is needed here in the United States -- the nation in which we actually have to live.

OK, so we're taking the holidays off

I had wanted to do a New Year's edition of the Revolution 21 podcast but, alas, festivities and some sort of weird bug have put the Mighty Favog down for the count(down).

We (the imperial "we," don'tcha know) will be back next Friday, OK? OK.

OH . . . did I mention that I thought I might be having the Big One early Tuesday morning? And Mrs. Favog's name is Elizabeth, so I really could say "AHHHHHH! This is it! I'm havin' the Big One, Elizabeth!"

But I didn't. And apologies for the gratuitous Sanford and Son references.

I, HOWEVER, DIGRESS. Late, late night Christmas (or early, early morning Boxing Day, as the case may be) I fell asleep on the couch watching old movies after a late supper of a couple of bowls of the Favog's Famous Christmas Eve Chicken and Sausage Gumbo. Woke up about 3 a.m. with a heck of a chest pain.

Your Mighty Favog was concerned. After I described the symptoms to the doctor on call at our medical group, she was concerned, too.

Thus began an eight-hour trip to the emergency room, where the Mighty Favog was injected, inspected, stress-tested and IV-fitted more than Arlo Guthrie on the Group W bench. The verdict: Something else was doing a damned fine impression of a heart attack.

The Mighty Favog is fine. Woefully out of shape, but not a cardiac case.

Even Friday's gastrointestinal X-ray-palooza didn't turn up anything . . . and I was certain it would. Musta been a bug going around that dramatically lowered my spicy-gumbo tolerance . . . and pretty much had me down for the count for the next day or so.

Still, funny what you think about when the doctor thinks you COULD be having a heart attack. And it wasn't any big fear of death.

It was more along the lines of:

1) I'm not done here yet. There's more I can do to make the world just a little better than I found it. Please, God, I want to finish my job here on earth. And . . .

2) Damn! I really need to drop about 50 pounds or so.

Pass the Splenda.

A Blessed Christmas to you

It came upon the midnight clear, That glorious song of old, From angels bending near the earth, To touch their harps of gold! "Peace on the earth, good will to men, From heaven's all gracious King! The world in solemn stillness lay, To hear the angels sing.

Still through the cloven skies they come, With peaceful wings unfurled, And still their heavenly music floats, O'er all the weary world; Above its sad and lowly plains,
They bend on hovering wing. And ever o'er its Babel sounds, The blessed angels sing.

Yet with the woes of sin and strife, The world hath suffered long; Beneath the angel-strain have rolled, Two thousand years of wrong; And man, at war with man, hears not, The love song which they bring: O hush the noise, ye men of strife, And hear the angels sing.

For lo! the days are hastening on, By prophet bards foretold, When, with the ever-circling years, Shall come the Age of Gold; When peace shall over all the earth, Its ancient splendors fling, And all the world give back the song, Which now the angels sing.

Live from 1969, it's the Munchkin Favog

As noted in the previous post, I did do a Christmas edition of the Revolution 21 podcast . . . it's just that, for the most part, I recorded it 37 years ago.

No, I'm not going to go into a long exegesis about the artistic -- and psychological and philosophical -- roots and ramifications of the show. That would be kind of self-important and dumb, wouldn't it?

If you get it, you get it. If not . . . maybe you'll enjoy the next show. Just thought it would be a different take on the whole Christmas-program thang, you know?

Anyway, I was just thinking about how you get older, Christmas becomes kind of bittersweet, as you remember all those people who aren't around anymore and the far-away places (both physically and metaphysically) of your childhood. They're . . . gone. But they're not.

And they're never so Not Gone as at Christmastime, when the communion of saints becomes so truly, tangibly here that sometimes it gets eerie. You know?

OH . . . . Little Favog, age eight, says hey from Baton Rouge, La. So does Mama and Daddy. (Daddy also says "CUT IT OFF!") And the aunts and uncles. And Grandma.

To listen, go to the podcast player to the right, at the top of the page. Also, go back to the Revolution 21 homepage and click on "Podcast." That will take you to the podcast page on podOmatic.

Be there. Alohohohoha.

OK, here's the lineup for the Christmas show

You know, you turn the show over to your eight-year-old self, and nothing gets done right. The little bugger won't stop counting into the microphone -- whoa, THAT's never been done before -- and he won't announce any of the songs.

And it's not like Mama and Daddy were being helpful in any way. OK, OK, Daddy! I know . . . cut it off!

ANYWAY . . . in order, here's the musical lineup from the Big Show for Christmas 2006:

Blind Boys of Alabama
In the Bleak Midwinter (w/ Chrissie Hynde & Richard Thompson)
2003

Bing Crosby
White Christmas
1947

Elvis Presley
Santa Bring My Baby Back (to Me)
1957

Elvis Presley
Santa Claus Is Back in Town
1957

Bing Crosby
I'll Be Home for Christmas
1943

Bing Crosby
Adeste Fideles
1942

Bing Crosby and David Bowie
Peace On Earth; The Little Drummer Boy
1977

Heidi Joy
Do You Hear What I Hear?
2000

Carla Thomas
Gee Whiz, It's Christmas
1963

Otis Redding
Merry Christmas Baby
1968

Ray Charles
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
(w/ Stefanie Minatee and the Voices of Jubilation)
2004

Ray Charles
Silent Night
2004

Nat "King" Cole
The Christmas Song
1946

Harry Connick, Jr.
When My Heart Finds Christmas
1993

Brian Wilson
Joy to the World
2005

Bruce Springsteen
Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town
(Live at Winterland 1978)
1978

Jackson 5
Someday at Christmas
1970

Aaron Neville
Please Come Home for Christmas
1993

Leroy Anderson
Sleigh Ride
1951

Platters
Winter Wonderland
1963

Santo & Johnny
Twistin' Bells
1959

Elvis Presley
I'll Be Home for Christmas
1957

Then again, on the other hand . . .

Of course, the previous post IS NOT to say that SOMETHING won't have to be done about Iran and its nutwagon president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. To wit:

Iran is now a "nuclear power," its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, delcared Wednesday, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency.

During a speech delivered in the Western Iranian province of Javanroud, Ahmadinejad said: "The Islamic Republic of Iran is now a nuclear power, thanks to the hard work of the Iranian people and authorities."

The announcement of Iran as a "nuclear power" is bound to significantly escalate tensions between the West and Iran, and marks a dramatic stage in the Islamic Republic's nuclear campaign.

In recent days, the US military has begun to build up forces around the Gulf, in what is being seen as as a warning to Iran.

Ahmadinejad was also reported to have announced that "Iranian young scientists reached the zenith of science and technology and gained access to the nuclear fuel cycle without the help of big powers."

And, of course, there's this . . . for the umpteenth time. I think President Looney Tunes (theirs, not ours) has said it enough to assume he's serious:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad launched another attack of Israel and its allies the United States and Britain in a speech Wednesday morning.

The Iranian news agency reported that, during his speech in western Iran, the Iranian president said that the US, Britain and Israel are doomed to disappear.

"The aggressive forces will vanish, while the Iranian people will survive – since all who chose God will survive and those who distance themselves from God vanish like Pharaoh," said Ahmadinejad in his speech.

"The US, Britain, and the Zionist regime will vanish since they have distanced themselves from God. This is a divine promise," he added.

Ahmadinejad also referred to the international motion towards imposing sanctions on Iran for refusing to put an end to it's nuclear program. "They threaten us with punishments. But they must know that nuclear energy is the Iranian people's right, and they will insist on that right," he explained.

On Tuesday, Iran demanded that the UN Security Council condemn what it said was Israel 's clandestine development of nuclear weapons and "compel" it to place all its nuclear facilities under UN inspection.

You know, the frustrating thing about Ahmadinejad is that he occasionally drops small kernels of spot-on observation and truth amid the most insane rantings. For instance . . . yes, nations that turn their backs on God and divine truth ultimately are going to be in deep doo, one way or another.

But, no, Mahmoud's notion of what the one true God is is pretty damned whack. And, no, God Almighty DID NOT appoint His Nutty Buddyship to be the worldwide Divine Justice police.

Unless, of course, Mahmoud is to be our 21st-century Nebuchadnezzar. In which case, we are in very deep divine doo, indeed. But even if that were to be the case, the Iranian president needs to beware . . . 24 years after Nebuchadnezzar died, Babylon was gone, gone, gone.

Fell to the Persian, Cyrus.

And the Jews, of course, are still around, despite the Babylonians' best effort. As is their nation, Israel.

YEP, something has to be done about Ahmadinejad's Iran. But Godamighty, I don't trust George W. Bush to do it.

Ayatollah! You sank my battleship! And my cruisers! And my aircraft carriers . . . and my assault craft!

If you have a halfway long memory, you have to be thinking "Uh-oh" about now. From CBSNews.com:

The Pentagon is planning to bolster its presence in the Persian Gulf as a warning to Iran's continuously defiant government, CBS News reports.

CBS News national security correspondent David Martin says the U.S. military build-up, which would include adding a second aircraft carrier to the one already in the Gulf, is being proposed as a response to what U.S. officials view as an increasingly provocative Iranian leadership.

Recent Iranian naval exercises, support for Shiite militias in Iraq, and Tehran's allegedly peaceful nuclear enrichment program — which U.S. intelligence believes is designed to produce a bomb — have all lead to the planned changes, Martin reports.

Military officers say the build-up would take place after the first of the year, not with the aim of actually attacking Iran, but strictly as a deterent.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may be nuts, but I suspect he may be smarter than the entire Bush Administration, and he has the home-field advantage. And his naval commanders surely have thought of this and this (which is where the halfway long memory part comes in).

See, in 2002 war games representing an invasion of Iraq -- right next door to Iran and with a tiny Persian Gulf coastline (unlike Iran's long Gulf coastline) -- a retired Marine general wiped out an entire American armada:

In the first few days of the exercise, using surprise and unorthodox tactics, the wily 64-year-old Vietnam veteran sank most of the US expeditionary fleet in the Persian Gulf, bringing the US assault to a halt. What happened next will be familiar to anyone who ever played soldiers in the playground. Faced with an abrupt and embarrassing end to the most expensive and sophisticated military exercise in US history, the Pentagon top brass simply pretended the whole thing had not happened. They ordered their dead troops back to life and "refloated" the sunken fleet. Then they instructed the enemy forces to look the other way as their marines performed amphibious landings. Eventually, Van Riper got so fed up with all this cheating that he refused to play any more. Instead, he sat on the sidelines making abrasive remarks until the three-week war game - grandiosely entitled Millennium Challenge - staggered to a star-spangled conclusion on August 15, with a US "victory".

If the Pentagon thought it could keep its mishap quiet, it underestimated Van Riper. A classic marine - straight-talking and fearless, with a purple heart from Vietnam to prove it - his retirement means he no longer has to put up with the bureaucratic niceties of the defence department. So he blew the whistle.

As at Pearl Harbor, you don't get "do overs" in real life when your fleet ends up on the bottom of the deep blue sea. If the Iranians have enough explosive-packed aerial drones, rocket-powered torpedoes and speedboats with suicide jockeys at the helm, all of Rome's jet fighters and all of Rome's high-tech defense systems won't be able to save George W. Bush, head in hands, from crying "He sank my battleship! And my carriers! And my cruisers . . . ."

King George's know-nothing hubris has just about broken our Army and Marines in the Iraqi desert. Is he aiming to finish the job (and maybe cripple the Navy, too) in Iran?

'O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity . . .'

And if you were wondering what the previous post about Louisiana 1970 has to do with anything concerning America 2006 . . . keep reading. And it's not always purely a matter of black and white. Here's part of a Sunday article in The (Baton Rouge, La.) Advocate about the city's perception -- and reception -- of Katrina evacuees from New Orleans:

But 51-year-old Charlotte McGee, a New Orleans evacuee now living in FEMA’s Renaissance Village trailer park, still bristles at the mayor’s initial comment.

“When your black mayor, who looks like me, makes racist comments, it hurts,” she said. “He doesn’t want us here, and now no one does.”

For the evacuees of the costliest hurricane in American history, the past year has been a crash course on how to radically adapt to new homes, jobs and schools.

They desperately cling to and still defend the reputation of their native city. Some feel persecuted, blamed for crime in Baton Rouge.

“I’ve read about racism, I’ve heard people talk about it, but I never saw it,” McGee said. “It hurts me to the core. You hate me because I am black, because I am from the city of New Orleans. I am not an illegal alien. I am your neighbor. I am an American.”

Margaret Chopin, a 56-year-old from Gentilly, said that on a recent trip to Wal-Mart she heard a group of people talking about how the “good blacks have to suffer for the bad blacks from New Orleans.”

It’s the kind of comment that might rub nerves raw. But Chopin, who said she’s been insulted repeatedly the past 15 months, chooses to pray instead.

“Usually I don’t say anything,” said Chopin, who lives in Renaissance Village. “I don’t want to be ignorant like them. I pray, I thank God for what I do have.”

Chopin said the perception that the evacuees are simply criminals overrunning Baton Rouge is wrong.

“That’s how everybody thinks up here,” Chopin said. “Some of us are professionals. I have a bachelor’s degree in political science, but you don’t hear about those people. Sure, more people is more crime, but is it us? Is it the evacuees? No.”

Unlike McGee and Chopin, 38-year-old Percy Clennon did not spend weeks of sleepless nights inside the River Center. He spent them sleeping on the floor with his wife at a relative’s home in Old South Baton Rouge.

Clennon knew the move would be tough but didn’t expect to be treated harshly in the food stamp line and at grocery stores. More than a year later, the dirty looks and nasty comments persist, he said.

“Where’s the Southern hospitality?” asks Clennon, who is from the Third Ward of New Orleans. “I am shocked. I didn’t think my own race would treat me this way. I am not racist, but I thought the white people would have been doing this. In the end I actually got more love and support from them.”

And there's this from Bob Herbert's New York Times column:

BATON ROUGE, LA. -- They look for all the world like internment camps. The long rows of identical white trailers sit on flat, grim, barren expanses of land that are enclosed by metal fences. Armed guards are stationed at the entrances around the clock.

More than a year after the catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina, thousands of the poorest victims from New Orleans still are living in these trailer parks run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. They have ironic names, like Mount Olive Gardens and Renaissance Village. A more accurate name would be Camp Depression, after the state of mind of most of the residents.

The "parks" are nothing more than vast, dusty, gravel-strewn lots filled with trailers that were designed to be hitched to cars for brief vacations or weekend getaways. The trailers, about 200 square feet each, were never meant to serve as homes for entire families. But in these FEMA parks, it's common for families of five or six, or even more, to be jammed into one trailer.

I stood outside a trailer at the Mount Olive encampment last Monday afternoon, talking with Geraldine Craig and her 21-yearold daughter, Danielle Craig. The women, who have been unable to find jobs, seemed baffled and depleted by their long ordeal. As we talked, Danielle's 2-year-old son, Javonta, scampered around in the dust and gravel.

Danielle's daughter, Miracle, was 5 months old when Katrina struck. The baby was ill and receiving oxygen when it became clear that the family had to evacuate. "The doctors were taking care of her, and she couldn't hardly breathe," Danielle said. "After we left, we ended up in a shelter. I said that my baby needed oxygen, but they told us we had to wait.

"They finally sent us to a medical building, and they put her on oxygen for about two hours. But the doctor said there was nothing wrong with her."

Like so many thousands of others left destitute and all but despondent by Katrina, the family moved on - to Texas, back to Louisiana, eventually to Baton Rouge. It was too much for Miracle, who never got the proper medical treatment. She died last March. Her heart disease wasn't accurately diagnosed until an autopsy was performed.

(snip)

[Irwin] Redlener, the author of "Americans at Risk: Why We Are Not Prepared for Megadisasters and What We Can Do," said he was outraged that so many thousands of the poorest victims of Hurricane Katrina are still stuck in limbo - unable to find jobs or permanent housing, denied adequate medical and educational services and with no idea when, or if, they will be able to return to New Orleans.

"The recovery of this catastrophe in the Gulf has been as badly mangled by the government as the initial response," Redlener said. "Fifteen months have gone by, and you still have these thousands of people who in essence are either American refugees living in other states who have no idea what's going to happen to them, or they are living in these trailer camps or in isolated trailers on their old property, which has been destroyed. They're just waiting for something to happen. And the wait is interminable."

Geraldine Craig said: "We just recently went down to New Orleans, and they got nothing going yet, not in our neighborhood. So we're going to be here a while."

The residents of Mount Olive Gardens and the even larger trailer camp at Renaissance Village in nearby Baker, La., face challenges that seem almost insurmountable. Even minimum wage jobs are very difficult to find and difficult to get to because there is little public transportation. Many of the residents are elderly, disabled or illiterate. Some are mentally handicapped.

See, America's racial cesspool is just a manifestation of a much larger human problem: We think it's quite acceptable to throw some people away. In our affluent American society, we find it easy to throw people away because they're the "wrong" color . . . or class.

In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina swept tens of thousands of people into the Baton Rouge area from "the slums of New Orleans." At least that's how New Orleans was perceived when I was a child in Louisiana's capital city. To folks like my mother, "New Orleans" always required the modifier "da slums a."

"Da slums a Noo Orluns."

Looks like things down there haven't changed so much in the past four decades.

Oh, that everyone were light, bright and had never been near a slum! (Especially "Da slums a Noo Orluns.") How happy we'd all be then!

But if everyone were wealthy, brilliant, suave, debonair and had never done anything unseemly in his or her entire life . . . he or she would hardly be human. Jesus Christ never would have had to be born of Mary -- or sacrificed at Calvary -- and we wouldn't be celebrating Christmas in a few days.

We'd be celebrating our eternal UberHumanity in the Garden of Eden. Eternally.

But that's not how it has all worked out for us, has it? We needed that first Christmas Day, and we needed that first Good Friday, too. And that first Easter Sunday sealed the deal . . . that we might have hope despite our status as hopeless screw-ups.

If "those people" are screwed up beyond all telling, guess what. You are, too.

And if they're screwed up, you're screwed up and I'm screwed up, I guess that makes us all in this together, sorely in need of being washed clean by the blood of the Lamb of God.

But we as Christians can't remember our dignity. Nor can we remember our neighbor's. And the government can't remember anybody's.

Which is a sad damn commentary as we prepare to celebrate the birth of the little God-Man, Jesus, who was born to die as the perfect Passover sacrifice so that death wouldn't be the Final Answer for a bunch of schmucks such as ourselves.