Paging M. Voltaire . . . paging M. Voltaire. . . .

OK, it's time for a Voltaire "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" kind of moment here.

Fred Phelps' band of allegedly "Christian" whackadoodles were in Bellevue -- an Omaha suburb and home of the U.S. Strategic Command -- for one of their tasteless hate fests outside the funeral of a local National Guardsman blown up in Iraq.

Apparently, not only does God hate "fags," the Almighty hates American soldiers, too.

Anyway, the nutball daughter of the nutball pastor finally went Too Far (TM) and got herself arrested Tuesday by having her 10-year-old son stomp on an American flag. Despite recent Supreme Court decisions, that's still illegal in Nebraska.

Probably part of an effort to keep idiot "God Hates Fags" troglodytes from doing something that just might get them killed in Bellevue-By-God-Nebraska -- home of Offutt Air Force Base, thousands of airmen and sailors therein, and thousands more Air Force vets who stayed around when their hitch was up.

The Associated Press fills us in:

Shirley Phelps-Roper, 49, will be charged with flag mutilation, disturbing the peace and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, Sarpy County Attorney Lee Polikov said Wednesday.

Phelps-Roper, a member of the Westboro Baptist Church, acknowledged that she allowed her son Jonah to stand on the flag Tuesday — something she says is protected by the U.S. Constitution.

“It’s utter nonsense,” said Phelps-Roper, a lawyer. “I don’t know what else to tell you other than that we’ll see them in federal court.”

Phelps-Roper is a daughter of Westboro’s founder, the Rev. Fred Phelps. Members have protested at more than 280 military funerals in 43 states since June 2005, she said.

The group says the deaths of U.S. soldiers are God’s punishment for a nation that harbors gays and lesbians. Nebraska and 37 other states have laws restricting how close protesters can get to funerals, inspired at least in part by the Westboro protests.

Tuesday’s funeral in suburban Bellevue was for Nebraska Army National Guard Spc. William “Bill” Bailey, who was killed May 25 when an explosive device struck his vehicle in Iraq.

Phelps-Roper was arrested because she was involved in a potentially volatile situation in the presence of Bailey’s friends, relatives and fellow soldiers, Polikov said. Bellevue has a strong military presence, with Offutt Air Force Base located at the south edge of town.

“To come into that environment and communicate what I would call fighting words — provocative language and acts — you can’t do that,” Polikov said. “You might illicit a violent response. That’s against community peace and community law.”

PERSONALLY, I AM DISAPPOINTED that the mourners didn't beat the crap out of her and the rest of the Nut Brigade. Legally, I hope -- and strongly suspect -- she'll ultimately get the flag law tossed.

But I'm not so sure she won't be doing some time in the Sarpy County Jail on disturbing the peace and contributing to the delinquency. "Fighting words" (or actions) are called that for a reason, and if she hadn't been hauled away by the cops, she may have been fighting for her life.

Ordinarily, if she were convicted on disturbing the peace and was contrite as all get out, she'd probably walk away $100 lighter in the pocketbook, but a free woman. But she was trying to disrupt and desecrate the funeral of a local soldier and volunteer fireman.

And she's a first-class jerk.

And her daddy's a jerk.

And their whole church is full of jerks.

And she's spent two days waving a stomped flag in the face of the county attorney and courts.

After -- Did I mention this? -- trying to disrupt and desecrate the funeral of a local soldier and volunteer fireman.

Yep. She, I hope, will beat the rap on the First Amendment issue. But on the rest, let's just say I hope she has a long and extremely unpleasant sojourn in the Pissed Off Veterans cellblock of the Sarpy clink.

Your government at . . . what, exactly?

Half a trillion dollars on a failed war in Iraq.

Millions upon millions upon millions upon millions upon millions of dollars for congressional "earmarks" on the budget bill.

But half a decade overdue, there's still not a penny for a necessary weather satellite. Unbelievable.

That is, such a thing formerly was unbelievable. When it comes to our government at "work" in these times, hell, I'll believe anything. Read this from the Baton Rouge (La.) Advocate and wonder how many this administration's incompetence will kill this time:

A hurricane tracking satellite is about to stop working and supporters of a replacement are trying to cobble together the $375 million needed to build and launch another one.

Without a satellite, hurricane forecasting would be 16 percent less accurate 72 hours before a hurricane’s landfall, and 10 percent less accurate within 48 hours, according to Bill Proenza, director of the National Hurricane Center.

The satellite QuikSCAT is five years past its projected lifespan, Forecasters and congressmen say that makes it vulnerable to failure.

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and Rep. Charles “Charlie” Melancon, D-Napoleonville, have introduced companion legislation in the Senate and House calling for the federal government to replace the current satellite about to die.

“It’s crucial that our nation’s hurricane system be first class,” Landrieu says in a statement. “With 50 percent of our population living within 50 miles of the coast, residents in these communities — in Louisiana, Florida and across the nation — deserve the best technology available to track impending hurricanes.”

In addition to hurricanes, the satellite detects coastal winds, storm surges and other weather-related events, such as “El Niño.”

“We need more advanced warning of storms and can’t afford to slide backward,” Landrieu said. “This requires a long-term solution.”

NASA launched the QuikSCAT satellite in 1999. The tracker was expected to remain in service until 2002.

The probe was built in just 12 months because the previous satellite was lost in 1997. An instrument on the satellite sends pulses of microwave energy through the atmosphere and measures energy that bounces back from the wind on the ocean’s surface.

God uses the 'Dump' button on Giuliani

THE ALMIGHTY don't need no stinkin' eight-second delay. No, He doesn't. Not at all.

And yes, Rudy, you should be worried.

Can New Orleans save America?

What?

Just what I said. Can New Orleans save America?

Or, to be more precise, will America allow New Orleans to survive, so that New Orleans might save America? That just might be the theme of the final post from Dan Baum on The New Yorker's magnificent blog, New Orleans Journal:

But, most of all, I’m lonely. I was in Beaumont, Texas, having vegetarian fajitas at an outpost of the Acapulco Mexican Grill chain, when I noticed a woman at the next table looking at my food. “That looks good,” I heard her whisper to her mother. I kept expecting one of them to lean over and shout, “Hey, babe, what’s that you’re eatin’?,” and for all of us to end up at the same table. But they kept to themselves.

“Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans?” an old song asks; another reminds us, “You don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone.” Since Katrina, I’ve often been asked (though never by someone in New Orleans) why the country should bother rebuilding it. Is it really worth the billions it would take to protect this small, poor, economically inessential city, which is sinking into the delta muck as global warming raises the sea around it? But the question of “whether” has been settled—New Orleans is rebuilding itself, albeit slowly, fitfully, and imperfectly. Now it’s only a matter of how and how long. That is better news than perhaps the rest of America fully understands.

It’s the American way to focus on the future—we are dreamers and schemers, always chasing the horizon. Looking forward has made us great, but it comes at a price. (Mexican immigrants often describe life in the United States as puro reloj, or “nothing but the clock.”) New Orleanians, on the other hand, are excellent at the lost art of living in the moment. Étienne stopped at our house one afternoon to drop off some papers he wanted me to see. No, he said, he couldn’t stay; someone was waiting for him downtown. But we got to talking, and gradually moved to the chairs on the porch. We had a beer. The shadows lengthened as the day cooled, the jasmine across the street smelled sweet, and a few houses away someone was practicing the saxophone. Margaret brought out a dish of almonds. We all had another beer. It was dark by the time Étienne left. And here’s the true miracle of New Orleans: the person waiting for him downtown no doubt had an equally pleasant couple of hours, and Étienne surely paid no social penalty for being late.

When Margaret and I first arrived, in January, I noticed that I kept getting stood up. If I arranged on a Monday to meet people for lunch on the following Thursday, they often wouldn’t show. When I tracked them down later, they’d ask why I hadn’t called that morning. It hadn’t occurred to me to do so; everywhere else in America, people use calendars to manage the future. It took me a while to figure out that in New Orleans the future doesn’t really exist. There is only the present.

Long before the storm, New Orleans’s infrastructure was decrepit; the schools were a shambles; poverty, corruption, and violence were rampant. It was, by most conventional standards, a terrible place. But few who had tasted life there willingly gave it up. Right before Katrina, a Gallup poll found more than half of New Orleanians “extremely satisfied” with their lives, despite the city’s wretched state, a higher percentage than in any other city surveyed. New Orleanians have more time than money, and they like it that way.

The city’s unique appreciation for the present makes life there rich indeed; it’s why people call New Orleans “the Big Easy.” It is not a world view conducive to getting things done, however, which goes a long way toward explaining why New Orleans is having so much trouble recovering from Hurricane Katrina. There are exceptions, but, as a rule, New Orleanians—no matter what color or how wealthy—aren’t great at planning meetings, showing up on time for them, running them in orderly fashion, deciding on a course of action, and then following through. This isn’t simply laziness or fecklessness; it’s a reflection of a commitment to enjoying life instead of merely achieving. You want efficiency and hard work? Go to Minneapolis. Just don’t expect to let the good times roll there.

New Orleans endures as the national repository of the loose-jointed Huck Finn spirit we Americans claim to cherish. While the rest of us pare down our humanity in service to the dollar, New Orleans is a corner of America where efficiency and maximized profit are not the civic religion. As I drive past endless repetitions of Wendy’s, Golden Corral, Ethan Allen furniture, Jiffy Lube, Red Lobster, and the like on my way back to Colorado, I realize that I haven’t spent a dollar anyplace but locally owned business in four months. A long time ago, David Freedman, the general manager of the listener-supported radio station WWOZ, described New Orleans to me as a kind of resistance-army headquarters. “Everyplace else in America, Clear Channel has commodified our music, McDonald’s has commodified our food, and Disney has commodified our fantasies,” he said. “None of that has taken hold in New Orleans.” In the speedy, future-oriented, hyper-productive, and globalized twenty-first century, New Orleans’s refusal to sacrifice the pleasures of the moment amounts to a life style of civil disobedience.

SEE, THE ONLY THING WRONG with New Orleans is Third-World poverty, out-of-control crime and murder, lousy schools and a crumbling economy. Oh, and that Katrina thing.

But there is a joy in living, a sacramental sense of life that remains in that beleaguered culture, in that suffering place. Yeah, that's it. Joy amid the suffering. There is a sense -- imperfectly present, of course, but present more so than in most American locales -- of people as ends in themselves, not means to some almighty commercial end.

If you have that, you're doing all right. And you realize that schools can be fixed, economies grown, crime fought and poverty ameliorated, given the civic will and the nation's resources.

On the other hand, if you lose that sacramental sense of life, the joy one finds in the moment, the realization that your family and your neighbor is what it's all about -- that man does not live by day planner alone -- what do you have?

Even the Beatles knew back in 1964 that "money can't buy me love."

And if you have smarts and more crap than you know what to do with but are a couple quarts low in the "Meaning and Love" department, you start to have a society that mirrors these sad observations -- as reported by Rod Dreher on his Crunchy Con blog -- a Muslim professor's wife made about contemporary American society:

We got to talking, and she said that it astonishes and saddens her and her husband how materially rich but spiritually desolate Americans are -- at least the ones her husband teaches.

"You can't believe how many of them are on antidepressants," she said. She added that they come to her husband desperate for life advice and direction. They're lost, and have been spiritually and emotionally abandoned by their permissive and indulgent parents.

These kids, she said, have everything they could possibly want -- except what they really need.

FCC's F- and S-word jihad total BS, court says

There's such a thing as Doing Right.

But then politicians get involved and end up Going Too Far.

And then the courts get involved, and the baby just might get thrown out with the dirty bath water. Reporteth The Hollywood Reporter:

The federal appeals court in New York City on Monday tossed out a key FCC ruling that said a slip of tongue gets broadcasters a fine for indecency, telling the commission that it failed to give a good reason for its decision and couldn't likely find a good reason if it had to.

"We find the FCC's new policy sanctioning 'fleeting expletives' is arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedures Act for failing to articulate a reasoned basis for its change in policy," the court wrote in a 2-1 opinion.

While a majority of the judges found little to like about the commission's 2006 decision, it sent the order back to Washington, allowing the panel to get another stab at writing the rules.

But even the court's remand came with a catch as it warned the FCC to ensure that "further proceedings" are "consistent" with the court's decision.

"We are doubtful that by merely proffering a reasoned analysis for its new approach to indecency and profanity, the commission can adequately respond to the constitutional and statutory challenges raised by the networks," Judge Rosemary Pooler wrote.

"Nevertheless, because we can decide this case on this narrow ground, we vacate and remand so that the commission can set forth an analysis. While we fully expect the networks to raise the same arguments they have raised to this court if the commission does nothing more on remand than provide additional explanation for its departure from prior precedent we can go not further than this opinion."

FCC chairman Kevin Martin took the decision hard, saying it is the judges who are wrong, not the commission.

"I find it hard to believe that the New York court would tell American families that 's***' and 'f***' are fine to say on broadcast television during the hours when children are most likely to be in the audience," Martin said in a statement. "The court even says the commission is 'divorced from reality.' It is the New York court, not the commission, that is divorced from reality in concluding that the word 'f***' does not invoke a sexual connotation." [Martin used the actual s- and f-words. I took them out. -- R21]

In its decision, the commission decided that language used by Cher and Nicole Richie during the 2002 and 2003 Billboard Music Awards aired by the Fox Broadcasting Co. was indecent and profane.

Opponents of the commission's attempts to regulate speech called the decision a victory.

"Score one for the First Amendment," said Media Access Project president and CEO Andrew Jay Schwartzman. "It's a shame that citizens and broadcasters had to seek protection from the courts, but it is very reassuring to know that one branch of the government can rise above demagogy."

MAP attorneys represented the Center for Creative Voices in Media as intervener in the case. CCV's members include many members of the creative community, and its brief to the court stressed the chilling effect of the FCC's action on writers, directors and other artists.

The decision did not go unnoticed in Hollywood as AFTRA, DGA, SAG, the WGA East and WGA West issued a joint statement applauding the decision.

"Actors, directors, writers and broadcast personnel are pleased that the Second Circuit Court of Appeals today rejected the FCC's effort to expand their authority and influence over creative content," the guilds said.

"The fines imposed have had a chilling effect on free expression over the airwaves. If allowed to stand, these fines would have subjected all programming to arbitrary claims of indecency without regard to context or type of programming. We are united in our opposition to this, or any other, FCC decision to overturn long-standing policy in this area, and replace it with arbitrary decision-making standards that tread on free speech."

DOING RIGHT is hammering broadcasters for willful indecency -- including indecent speech -- over the public airwaves. In other words, I don't care if you write 30,000 articles for your local alternative weekly that feature frequent, flagrant and flamboyant use of f***, s***, m*****f*****, c***, d*** and p****.

Or, for that matter, g****** m************ son-of-a-b****ing rat-faced f****** bastard. Just so long as the creative coupling of expletives is directed at all the right people.

But if you walk into my church and intentionally start using that language in front of a bunch of kids, I'm going to whip your ass.

That's the common-sense distinction most Americans would make in this pluralistic society. Unfortunately, in the wake of Janet Jackson's 2004 Super Bowl "wardrobe malfunction," the Federal Communications Commission decided it was all done with any distinc-to-fyin'.

HEWING TO FCC LOGIC, if cracking down on (ahem) simulated intercourse and R&B singers' ta-tas flopping all over the place on network TV is a good thing, and hammering on Bono's inadvertent F-bomb at the 2002 Golden Globes is better, then making all over-the-air broadcasters terrified to even broadcast football games live -- for fear of someone yelling a Bad Word (TM) too close to a microphone -- must be the Bestest Thing Ever.

Welcome to Going Too Far and, thus, messing up a good thing.

And all God's people said . . . Oy veh!

Boomers of a Lesser God

Call to Action, some 30 years ago, had an epiphany. It discovered a god it could understand, a savior who never utters a discouraging word -- like "Pick up your cross and follow me."

The god of Call to Action tells its members women can be Catholic priests. (Theology be damned! What a bore!)

The god of Call to Action isn't big on authority -- be it that of the pope, the bishops, sacred scripture or 2,000 years of Catholic tradition. (The ancients weren't so clever as you, you aging Baby Boomers you!)

The god of Call to Action talks a lot about herself as Sophia, and she encourages the group's female members to make the deity in their own image, rather than the other way around. The god of Call to Action just can't stand it when the ladies get a patriarchal case of the vapors.

The god of Call to Action tells its members sexuality is a personal thing, and that whatever floats their boat when it comes to artificial birth control and abortion is OK by her.

Oh . . . and the god of Call to Action forgot to consult fetuses everywhere before she told CTAers that last thing.

If you ask me, it must be terribly hard to commit oneself to an eminently understandable Less Than Supreme Being. Or, as Flannery O'Connor once wrote to a friend:

Whatever you do anyway, remember that these things are mysteries and that if they were such that we could understand them, they wouldn’t be worth understanding. A God you understood would be less than yourself.

THAT MAY EXPLAIN why Call to Action is a small, feckless and graying group of alleged Catholics. They've been more concerned with their devotion to the Inconsequential Climax than with breeding, and they've embraced an eternal cause that's smaller than even themselves.

Then again, you have to wonder about folks like those of Call to Action Nebraska, who've actually been excommunicated -- for 11 years, now -- by Lincoln Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz but who just won't vacate the premises. After all -- when tortured by membership in an organization which does violence to all your most cherished beliefs and preconceptions, and when every attempt at "reform" has failed miserably -- isn't the rational response to . . . leave?

As in, "You can't fire me! I quit!"

REALLY, there's not really much at all that Call to Action and the Church agree upon. And that includes basic moral theology and, in some members' cases, the makeup of the Holy Trinity.

Martin Luther never had such a beef with the Vatican.

Yet, there they were last week. Excommunicated -- in other words, ex-Catholic -- members of Call to Action Nebraska protested the beleaguered bishop of Lincoln and his failure to sign onto the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' "safe-environment" audit procedures as they tried to convince the world that they're still Catholic because they have proclaimed Bruskewitz and the Vatican (which upheld the ousters) full of bull.

I guess authority is OK when you're the one wielding it all, huh?

Nine popes trying to nail deliver their 95 Theses petition to the Cathedral door chancery, only to be overwhelmed by more than 100 Lincoln faithful who see God as being greater than themselves and think their shepherd is doing OK.

The Lincoln Journal-Star was there to cover Call to Action's Big Surprise:

Nine members of the group Call to Action stood outside the Cathedral of the Risen Christ Friday to call attention to Lincoln Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz’s refusal to participate in an annual sex abuse audit.

But they were upstaged by more than 100 local Catholics who came together on less than an hour’s notice to show support for the bishop.

Call to Action, a group calling for reforms in the Catholic Church, had petitions signed by more than 1,000 people nationwide asking Bruskewitz to comply with the annual study of whether local dioceses are compliant with church rules to prevent and respond to sex abuse.

But in about a day and a half, the group on the other side collected more than 1,400 signatures on a petition praising the bishop and thanking him for his service.

Rachel Pokora, president of Call to Action-Nebraska, had announced a prayer service for Friday afternoon outside the Catholic Chancery, but the group’s leaders decided to switch to a morning press conference after learning of a counter-demonstration planned by the bishop’s supporters.

Still, Mary Quintero, an organizer of the supporter group, was able to get 116 adults and children to pray and sing while the Call to Action people were talking.

Just as Pokora was starting to speak to reporters, the supporters, many dressed in red, walked by singing the hymn “Ave Maria.”

The Call to Action group joined in the singing for a few moments of unexpected togetherness.

Despite the greater numbers on the other side, Pokora said she believes Call to Action represents the majority of Catholics nationwide who want bishops to fully comply with the annual sex abuse study.

“We are the church, and it is important that the voices of the faithful who are concerned about the children of the diocese are heard,” she said.

Bruskewitz has been identified as the only bishop of a Catholic diocese who declined to participate in the audits.

Bruskewitz has said the Lincoln Diocese is in full compliance with all civil and church laws regarding abuse of minors. The audit is not mandatory, and other bishops have upheld his right to opt out.

“There’s no requirement to do something that isn’t a law,” he said Friday. “If it were a law, we would obey it immediately, of course.”

(snip)

The Call to Action members had planned to deliver the petitions to the bishop’s office, but several police officers were on hand to prevent them from crossing onto church property. Krejci said they would deliver them by mail or a delivery service.

“We were told that if we set foot on church property, we would be arrested,” Pokora said.

Friday afternoon, about 100 supporters gathered again outside the Chancery. Many were still signing petitions, including a number of children who added signatures to the document expressing “our fervent support” for Bruskewitz.

The bishop came out and accepted the petitions, saying, “You are all very kind, more than kind.”

“We love our bishop,” Quintero said.

“I can see that,” Bruskewitz responded.

He asked them to pray for Call to Action members, that they return to the true Catholic faith. Bruskewitz considers the group anti-Catholic, although its members say they are faithful to the church’s teachings.

Doug Vandervort, who headed up the supporters’ petition campaign, noted that signatures came from people in Lincoln and several other states and were collected in 31 hours. Call to Action’s 1,000 signatures were collected over several months, he said.

Heh heh heh.

'Dollar' Bill's Cold Cash Club tees: Wear 'em now before all your fashion choices are day-glo orange

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Will cold cash put 'Dollar' Bill on ice?

A federal grand jury thinks
"Dollar Bill" should spend some time on ice -- just like his money.

U.S. Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.), at long last, has been indicted -- half a year after getting re-elected by his New Orleans-area constituents. The 16 counts covering racketeering, solicitation of bribery, money-laundering, fraud and obstruction of justice come almost two years after raiding federal agents famously found $90,000 in a freezer at his Capitol Hill townhouse.

Cold cash, indeed.

Jail time on all the counts stemming from African business deals Jefferson aimed to broker could add up to 235 years in Uncle Sam's cooler. Two associates already have cut deals, pleaded gulity and been sentenced to eight and seven years in jail, respectively.

The Associated Press has more:

The indictment handed up in federal court in Alexandria., Va., Monday lists 16 alleged violations of federal law with prison terms totaling as much as 235 years. He is charged with racketeering, soliciting bribes, wire fraud, money-laundering, obstruction of justice, conspiracy and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Jefferson is accused of soliciting bribes for himself and his family, and also for bribing a Nigerian official.

"The public deserves, and is entitled to expect, that government officials are free from corruption," Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher said.

Almost two years ago, in August 2005, investigators raided Jefferson's home in Louisiana and found $90,000 in cash stuffed in a box in his freezer.

The 63-year-old Jefferson, whose Louisiana district includes New Orleans, has said little about the case publicly but has maintained his innocence. He was re-elected last year despite the looming investigation.

Jefferson, in Louisiana on Monday, could not immediately be reached for comment. His lawyer was planning an afternoon news conference.

Two of Jefferson's associates have already struck plea bargains with prosecutors and have been sentenced.

Brett Pfeffer, a former congressional aide, admitted soliciting bribes on Jefferson's behalf and was sentenced to eight years in prison.

Another Jefferson associate, Louisville, Ky., telecommunications executive Vernon Jackson, pleaded guilty to paying between $400,000 and $1 million in bribes to Jefferson in exchange for his assistance securing business deals in Nigeria and other African nations. Jackson was sentenced to more than seven years in prison.

Both Pfeffer and Jackson agreed to cooperate in the case against Jefferson in exchange for their pleas.

The impact of the case has stretched across continents and even roiled presidential politics in Nigeria. According to court records, Jefferson told associates he needed cash to pay bribes to the country's vice president, Atiku Abubakar.

Abubakar denied the allegations, which figured prominently in that country's presidential elections in April. He ran for the presidency and finished third.

The indictment does not name Abubakar. But it describes Jefferson's dealings with an unnamed "Nigerian Official A" who was a high-ranking official in Nigeria's executive branch who had a spouse in Potomac, Md. One of Abubakar's wives lived in that Washington suburb.

Court records indicate Jefferson was videotaped taking a $100,000 cash bribe from an FBI informant. Most of that money later turned up in the freezer in Jefferson's home.

Censor fi

The next time some Bush Administration commisar -- or some Bushie media shill -- uses the phrase "The troops in Iraq are putting their lives on the line for our freedom," blow up your TV.

And mail the smoldering parts to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, D.C.

I'm not sure, exactly, what our troops are in Iraq for, but it's not to fight for your freedom or mine. Hell, they can't even secure their own.

BUT THE PROBLEM is neither al Qaida nor any of the Wahoobi suicide jockeys who seek to plunge the world neck deep into the 13th century. No, according to this Washington Post story, the problem is Uncle Sam:

The national commander of the proud, patriotic, 2.4 million strong Veterans of Foreign Wars (motto: "Honor the dead by helping the living") took one look at the mushrooming dispute between three antiwar Marine reservists and the U.S. Marine Corps, and knew where his sympathies lay: with the protesters.

"What the Marine Corps is trying to do is hush up and punish these individuals who served our country," Gary Kurpius, the national commander, said in a telephone interview. "All they're doing is exercising the same democratic voice we're trying to instill over in Iraq right now."

The Marines have accused the three reservists, all members of Iraq Veterans Against the War, of wearing their uniforms during political protests and making "disrespectful" or "disloyal" statements. All three were honorably discharged from active duty, but now face "other than honorable" discharges from the inactive reserve, which could affect future employment and veterans benefits.

The VFW issued a blistering statement on the controversy yesterday. Headline: "VFW to Corps: Don't Stifle Freedom of Speech."

Kurpius, an Army vet who fought in Vietnam, doesn't even agree with the protesters. "We're pretty much on record supporting the troops, and if you're going to support the troops, you're going to have to support their mission," he said. "I may disagree with the message . . . but I and my organization will always defend their right to say it."

The Marines respond that this is not a free-speech case. Adam Kokesh, 25, one of the protesters, "violated Marine Corps uniform regulations and he was disrespectful to a commissioned officer," said Master Sgt. Ronald Spencer, a spokesman for the Marine Corps Mobilization Command in Kansas City, Mo. "That would be the issue. It has nothing to do with free speech."

Kokesh, who fought in Fallujah and now is a graduate student at George Washington University, was wearing parts of his camouflage uniform in March during a demonstration where 13 veterans roamed Capitol Hill and downtown Washington carrying imaginary weapons to mark the fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq.

When Kokesh was contacted by the major assigned to investigate the case, he responded with an e-mail about his service and opposition to the war, and concluded with a profane suggestion about what the major could go do.

While all three reservists wore parts of their uniforms during demonstrations, at least one of the charges seems to involve speech only: Liam Madden, 22, of Boston, is accused of making disloyal statements in a speech where he accused the Bush administration of "war crimes"; said the conflict is a war "of aggression" and "empire building"; and said Bush "betrayed U.S. military personnel." Madden says he was not in uniform during that February speech in New York.

Spencer, after addressing the uniform issue, said he needed a few hours to research questions about the alleged disloyal statements, then did not return messages to answer those questions. Maj. Stewart Upton, a Pentagon spokesman, referred those questions back to Spencer, saying, "I'm unable to speak to the legal reasoning behind the freedom of speech charges issued by the Marine Corps."

NONE OF THE MARINES are on active duty. They're not even in the regular reserves. They're all in the "Individual Ready Reserve" -- a reserve of last resort, for lack of a better description -- membership in which is involuntary and lasts for eight years after discharge from the armed services.

They're all civilians, in other words.

The Marines are going after civilians because the government doesn't like what those veterans are saying about the war. The Marines are going after civilians because they can . . . or so someone in Washington thinks.

That's not freedom. That's Mussolini's Italy -- or Chavez's Venezuela -- fahr'n fahr'n fahr'n auf der Autobahn looking for the "Hitler's Germany" exit. And if these Marine combat veterans haven't earned the right to say Crazy King George's catastrophic little war is full of beans . . . well, then none of us have the First Amendment right to say the God's honest truth in public.

Either wearing fatigues or butt naked.

If Americans can't goad our elected representatives into putting an end to this plague of Mad Bush Disease -- putting an end to the insanity ASAP -- it's going to get worse. Much worse.

The amazing show of miraculous healing

Gather near your computer. Lay hands on your iPod. Do you feel the miracle energy waves, brothers and sisters?

Do you have a deviated septum? Is your colon being cranky? Has your get up and go done got up and went?

Feel the music energy, children! Lay your hands! Lay your hands! Everything's all better now.

What? Oh, hell, no -- you're not physically healed . . . that requires a hefty copay and thousands of dollars in uncovered medical expenses. But I bet you ARE feelin' a bit better, ain'tcha?

And that, my peeps, is the power of Revolution 21.

THIS TIME on The Big Show, we'll be hearing from Joni Mitchell, Rosie Thomas, Sufjan Stevens and Billy Bragg, amid tons of tasty stuff I've neglected to mention thus far.

No, in honor of the 40th anniversary of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, we WON'T be hearing from The Beatles. But we will be hearing something from The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds . . . the album that influenced Sgt. Pepper's mightily.

So there. Get the miracle show on the podcast player atop this page, or go here.

It's a heckuva show, Brownie. Be there. Aloha.

Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs in the Chocolate City

I saw this CNN story, and now I'm not sure whether someone needs to up Hizzonor's meds or switch them to something with fewer psychotic side effects. Really.

Anyway. . . .

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is seriously considering a Louisiana gubernatorial bid, a political intimate of Nagin tells CNN.

According to public records and his campaign treasurer, the two-term Democrat has raised more than a half-million dollars in campaign contributions since he was re-elected in 2006, even though Nagin can't run for mayor again. (New Orleans limits mayors to two terms.)

The mayor's senior staff members say Nagin is often approached on the street and asked if he'll run for governor, but they say he just laughs off the suggestion. At the mayor's State of the City speech Wednesday, many local politicians told CNN they'd heard the rumors.

If Nagin does decide to run for the state's highest office, it could be an uphill battle. A recent Loyola University poll showed Nagin had an approval rating of just 19% in New Orleans.

Good at getting a job vs. good at the job

The indispensible Dan Baum, author of The New Yorker's blog-extraordinaire, New Orleans Journal, gives us an object lesson at something we modern Americans ought to know but don't: You can't judge a book by its cover.

Unfortunately, we're all about The Cover in this day and age. Read on:

We decided to take the car out to the gleaming Toyota dealership in suburban Metairie. Fit men in matching Toyota golf shirts took down information on a complicated form, technicians in spotless uniforms came from the back to puzzle out the repair, and our customer-care representative produced an estimate that represented our dining-out budget for a month. We decided simply to buy a new door handle and have the work done elsewhere. We approached the parts counter, where a man looked up the handle we needed on a computer, printed out a complicated receipt that we had to take to the cashier, and gave us a bubble-wrapped package covered in bar codes and numbers.

One day not long after that, Margaret came home from running errands in Treme and told me about a group of men she’d seen sitting around a funky garage at the corner of Dumaine and North Prieur Streets. “They waved and smiled at me,” she said. “The place had great murals of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X painted on the garage doors.” Those being sufficient criteria for choosing a New Orleans body shop, I drove out to the garage in Treme. Several middle-aged African-American men sat on torn vinyl chairs enjoying the morning sunshine, and a short, bald white guy with tattoos all over his neck was running a sanding wheel over the Bondoed fender of a Mustang GT. Tools lay on the crumbly ground; it looked like the range of equipment didn’t go much beyond the sander than a ball-peen hammer, a couple of socket wrenches, and an old bathtub filled with dirty water, for finding tire leaks.

The tattooed man introduced himself in a banjo-string Florida accent as Juicy. He said he could install the handle, hammer out the dents and scratches around it, paint the door, and touch up all the other dings on the car for two hundred and twenty-five dollars. I watched his eyes as he talked, trying to figure out whether he meant to dismantle my car, sell off the parts, deny he’d ever seen it, and threaten me with an ass-whupping if I complained.

As we were talking under the lurid, stylized figures of Martin Luther King, Jr., exclaiming, “I Have a Dream,” and Malcolm X, exhorting me to “Know Thy Self,” a huge man named Lloyd got up from his chair, walked over to us, and, in a low, rumbling voice, offered to detail the car inside and out—shampoo the seats and rugs and everything—for eighty dollars. This Toyota is the first new car I’ve ever owned, and I’ve long harbored bourgeois dreams of having it “detailed.” I wasn’t even completely sure what the word meant, but I knew it was something my software-executive friends in Boulder do to their cars and I liked the idea.

“We are all Christian people here,” another man called to me from his chair. He knew what buttons to push: “We’ll get it done right. Have your work done right here. Right here in this community.”

I told them I’d be back in a week to have the work done. Margaret and I wanted to wait until the last possible minute before moving back to Boulder, because, between the potholes, lunatic drivers, and narrow streets, New Orleans is hard on automobile exteriors. Juicy and I arranged to meet at the garage the following Thursday at 9 A.M. When he wasn’t there by nine-thirty, Lloyd said, “He’ll be along,” but I began to think about that spotless dealership in Metairie. Juicy finally showed up at nine-forty-five and I handed over the keys. “I need it by five,” I said, because I had an appointment to be on a live radio show at six. Then I rode off on my bike and worried all day.

SO, WHERE DO YOU THINK this story is going? What is your first instinct? What is the rational thing to think . . . to do?

Is Baum a genius or a doofus? Read the whole thing and find out.

Pitch a fit, call it a civil-rights action

Pity poor Linda Carlson of San Francisco. She can't find lesbian love in the nation's gayest city, and it's all the fault of eHarmony, the online matchmaking service.

See, eHarmony, founded by an evangelical Christian, doesn't do the homosexual-dating thing. And, objectively, who the heck cares? If you turn to the classifieds of most any alternative weekly, you'll find an ad (or ads) for gay datelines, etc., etc.

I can only imagine the smorgasbord of such advertised in the gay press.

SO, IF A COMPANY chooses not to enter the men-seeking-men or women-seeking-women market, so what?

Well, it turns out a lot what when the Gaymacht is on its long march through American culture. Resistance is futile and all that.

MSNBC features a dispatch from the front lines by an intrepid Reuters war correspondent:

Lawyers bringing the action said they believed it was the first lawsuit of its kind against eHarmony, which has long rankled the gay community with its failure to offer a “men seeking men” or “women seeking women” option.

They were seeking to make it a class action lawsuit on behalf of gays and lesbians denied access to the dating service.

eHarmony was founded in 2000 by evangelical Christian Dr. Neil Clark Warren and had strong early ties with the influential religious conservative group Focus on the Family.

It has more than 12 million registered users, and heavy television advertising has made it one of the nation’s biggest Internet dating sites.

Carlson, who lives in the San Francisco Bay area, tried to use the site’s dating services in February 2007. When she was denied access, she wrote to eHarmony explaining its anti-gay policy was discriminatory under California law but the company refused to change it, according to the lawsuit.

“Such outright discrimination is hurtful and disappointing for a business open to the public in this day and age,” she said.

eHarmony could not immediately be reached for comment. Commenting in the past on eHarmony’s gay and lesbian policy, Warren has said that he does not know the dynamics of same-sex relationships but he expects the principles to be different.

“This lawsuit is about changing the landscape and making a statement out there that gay people, just like heterosexuals, have the right and desire to meet other people with whom they can fall in love,” said Carlson lawyer Todd Schneider.

ONE QUICKLY LEARNS, when facing any fascist movement, there's absolutely no room for right of conscience -- or patience for those who claim such.

So, it matters not one whit whether eHarmony is steering clear of helping homosexuals hook up on sacred grounds or merely commercial ones. Gays demand not toleration -- which, by any benchmark, they have achieved in American society -- so much as every single American's blessing. Compelled by force of law, if need be.

It's as if we live in a giant supermarket, and every spoiled brat in the store can call 911 and get the cops to force their mean, mean mothers to buy them that damned candy bar. At gunpoint.

Ultimately -- if any semblance of corporate sanity still holds sway in the gay community -- I think they'll find this forced acceptance about as satisfying as "Heil Hitler . . . or else!" or "Convert to Islam or die!"

And the alternative would be . . . ?

Over at The Boar's Head Tavern, moderator Michael Spencer (a.k.a. The Internet Monk) is horrified by the doctrine of Purgatory, the place where you go if you're not spotless enough for Heaven and not despicable enough for Hell.

No disrespect to CS Lewis and others who believe it, but purgatory must be the most obnoxious belief I can imagine. The idea of spending my life on the Gospel of Christ’s perfect mediation, atonement and justification….and then spending 10,000 years in flaming punishment (i.e. “purification.”) Christ’s holiness is insufficiently given to the Christian to avoid this? And once you’re in it, Christians can pray and that will help? Gee…what a God.

If it’s true, count me out. What an amazing doctrine. How can you possibly believe it and face death with anything but horror, knowing you are headed for conscious punishment and not the Father’s House?

FUNNY HOW PERSPECTIVES can differ so wildly, eh? Me, I find the whole idea of Purgatory a great comfort.

My guess -- and I'm not being snarky here -- is that preacher Spencer is a lot holier sort than your humble Favog. I know exactly what a no-count, hypocrite, piss-poor Christian (not to mention Catholic) SOB I happen to be, and I'm counting mightily on the merciful frying pan of Purgatory to keep me out of the fires of Hell.

Jesus told Paul that His grace was sufficient. He never told us that meant purgation wasn't part of the bargain.

Amerika, Amerika, verschüttet Gott Seine Gnade auf Ihnen. . . .

Andrew Sullivan sums up an account of what the Bush Administration has ordered -- and which American personnel carry out -- in your name, which happens to be identical to what Adolf Hitler ordered in the name of the Third Reich.

Critics will no doubt say I am accusing the Bush administration of being Hitler. I'm not. There is no comparison between the political system in Germany in 1937 and the U.S. in 2007. What I am reporting is a simple empirical fact: the interrogation methods approved and defended by this president are not new. Many have been used in the past. The very phrase used by the president to describe torture-that-isn't-somehow-torture - "enhanced interrogation techniques" - is a term originally coined by the Nazis. The techniques are indistinguishable. The methods were clearly understood in 1948 as war-crimes. The punishment for them was death.

WHOA. HE'S RIGHT. Thus, I am here to advocate on President Bush's behalf.

For criminal malfeasance in ignoring -- or, at a minimum, failing to act upon -- intelligence questioning the wisdom of going to war with Iraq and predicting what would happen if we did, the president (and other key figures in his administration) deserves impeachment, removal from office, criminal prosecution and jail time.

For criminal malfeasance in failure to take serious measures -- in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001 -- against the illegal and uncontrolled flow of foreign nationals across our southern border, the president (and other key figures in his administration) deserves impeachment, removal from office, criminal prosecution and jail time.

For war crimes relating to authorizing torture of select "enemy combatants" -- several of whom have died -- in defiance of domestic and international law, it at first glance seems that the president (and other key figures in his administration), according to U.S. law, would be eligible for the death penalty.

AS A CATHOLIC, HOWEVER, I do not believe in applying the death penalty when imprisonment is sufficient to remove the threat from society. So, in the name of mercy, I merely advocate impeaching George Bush, Dick Cheney and other officials as necessary, removing them from office, prosecuting them according to U.S. law and international covenant, then throwing their asses in prison long enough to make a point.

It's less, certainly, than they deserve. But, then again, aren't we betting everything, as Christians, on getting much less than we deserve.

Book him, Danno.



HAT TIP: Mark Shea.

A broken country and a mother's broken heart

Republicans hate Cindy Sheehan.

Now, Democrats hate Cindy Sheehan, too.

Republicans mock, smear and berate Cindy Sheehan.

Now, so do Democrats.

Short of some whacked-out ideologue hunting her down like a varmint and blowing her brains out, is there anything more this broken, polarized nation can take from Cindy Sheehan? Her son, Casey, is dead -- killed in George Bush's calamitous Seinfeldian (a war about nothing) misadventure in Iraq. Her heart is broken. Her marriage is gone.

AND NOW her ultimately quixotic campaign to stop our involvement in an unjust and unwinnable Middle Eastern war has cost Cindy Sheehan her faith in American democracy and any hope for our political future.

I have come to some heartbreaking conclusions this Memorial Day Morning. These are not spur of the moment reflections, but things I have been meditating on for about a year now. The conclusions that I have slowly and very reluctantly come to are very heartbreaking to me.

The first conclusion is that I was the darling of the so-called left as long as I limited my protests to George Bush and the Republican Party. Of course, I was slandered and libeled by the right as a "tool" of the Democratic Party. This label was to marginalize me and my message. How could a woman have an original thought, or be working outside of our "two-party" system?

However, when I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode and the "left" started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used. I guess no one paid attention to me when I said that the issue of peace and people dying for no reason is not a matter of "right or left", but "right and wrong."

I am deemed a radical because I believe that partisan politics should be left to the wayside when hundreds of thousands of people are dying for a war based on lies that is supported by Democrats and Republican alike. It amazes me that people who are sharp on the issues and can zero in like a laser beam on lies, misrepresentations, and political expediency when it comes to one party refuse to recognize it in their own party. Blind party loyalty is dangerous whatever side it occurs on. People of the world look on us Americans as jokes because we allow our political leaders so much murderous latitude and if we don’t find alternatives to this corrupt "two" party system our Representative Republic will die and be replaced with what we are rapidly descending into with nary a check or balance: a fascist corporate wasteland. I am demonized because I don’t see party affiliation or nationality when I look at a person, I see that person’s heart. If someone looks, dresses, acts, talks and votes like a Republican, then why do they deserve support just because he/she calls him/herself a Democrat?

I have also reached the conclusion that if I am doing what I am doing because I am an "attention whore" then I really need to be committed. I have invested everything I have into trying to bring peace with justice to a country that wants neither. If an individual wants both, then normally he/she is not willing to do more than walk in a protest march or sit behind his/her computer criticizing others. I have spent every available cent I got from the money a "grateful" country gave me when they killed my son and every penny that I have received in speaking or book fees since then. I have sacrificed a 29 year marriage and have traveled for extended periods of time away from Casey’s brother and sisters and my health has suffered and my hospital bills from last summer (when I almost died) are in collection because I have used all my energy trying to stop this country from slaughtering innocent human beings. I have been called every despicable name that small minds can think of and have had my life threatened many times.

The most devastating conclusion that I reached this morning, however, was that Casey did indeed die for nothing. His precious lifeblood drained out in a country far away from his family who loves him, killed by his own country which is beholden to and run by a war machine that even controls what we think. I have tried every since he died to make his sacrifice meaningful. Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months while Democrats and Republicans play politics with human lives. It is so painful to me to know that I bought into this system for so many years and Casey paid the price for that allegiance. I failed my boy and that hurts the most.

A SANE, compassionate and just nation -- whether its inhabitants agreed or disagreed with Mrs. Sheehan -- would offer its gratitude for the sacrifice of her son. It would offer her its condolences and its compassion. It would offer her a forum where reasoned, and reasonable, debate might flourish and principled politics predominate.

It would offer its prayers on her behalf . . . and for the repose of her beloved son.

Instead, it has given a grieving mother -- a fellow citizen doing what she thought best as best she could -- the back of its hand. This is a country completely unworthy of Casey Sheehan's sacrifice -- the sacrifices of all 3,455 Casey Sheehans in this damned war -- on its behalf.

LISTEN, I THINK Cindy Sheehan was used by the Democrats and the antiwar movement. I think she was used by President Bush's Praetorian Guard as well, as a useful scapegoat and straw woman.

And now, it appears, she agrees with me on that.

But for all Mrs. Sheehan's missteps and sometimes loopy-sounding rhetoric, and despite all the ways she was a "useful dupe" for this benighted nation's unsavory political entities -- of which there are, God help us, no shortage -- she got the Big Picture exactly right. It is my sad opinion that Cindy Sheehan has the number of this country, its sick institutions and its self-centered populace.

Big time.

"Fascist corporate wasteland." I think that's a pretty damn good description of George Bush's America. And then there's this:

Our brave young men and women in Iraq have been abandoned there indefinitely by their cowardly leaders who move them around like pawns on a chessboard of destruction and the people of Iraq have been doomed to death and fates worse than death by people worried more about elections than people. However, in five, ten, or fifteen years, our troops will come limping home in another abject defeat and ten or twenty years from then, our children’s children will be seeing their loved ones die for no reason, because their grandparents also bought into this corrupt system. George Bush will never be impeached because if the Democrats dig too deeply, they may unearth a few skeletons in their own graves and the system will perpetuate itself in perpetuity.

NOW, IT'S STILL a relatively free country, and you are perfectly free to think Cindy Sheehan, and the Mighty Favog, are nuts. Wack. Fruit Loops. Looney Tunes.

A taco shy of a combination plate.

You likewise are free to believe the Administration's recycled Vietnam-era "Domino Theory" rhetoric that if the United States doesn't prevail in Iraq, al Qaida warriors and every other nutbag jihadi in the Islamic world will be streaming across our borders to turn a city a week into another Hiroshima. But if you do, then ask why our southern border is to controlled access what fishnet stockings are to water-balloon technology.

And then let me know whether that makes Bush & Co., the highest-ranking traitors since Benedict Arnold, or merely actionably incompetent.

Chew 'em up. Spit 'em out. Happy Memorial Day.

In the Age of Conglomeration, you're a commodity, I'm a commodity, and the men and women we sign up to go "make the world safe for" . . . whatever the hell we're making it safe for today, they're commodities, too.

And as that VCR you bought three years ago for $79.95 is disposable when you get that new DVD recorder, we're all disposable -- in this era of corporatization and government of, by and for "the economy" -- when our utility is at an end. In that light, you owe it to yourself to follow the link and read The Associated Press' tale of The Disposable Soldier:

In the three months after Marine Maj. John Ruocco returned from Iraq feeling numb and depressed, he couldn’t sleep. He had lost weight. He had nightmares. He was distracted and withdrawn from his two young sons.

One night, he promised his wife, Kim, that he would get help. The next morning, he was dead. The 40-year-old Cobra helicopter pilot, based at Camp Pendleton, Calif., had hanged himself.

There are others. Army reservist Joshua Omvig. Army Capt. Michael Pelkey. Marines Jonathan Schulze and Jeffrey Lucey. Each came home from tours in Iraq and committed suicide.

Veterans’ groups and families who have lost loved ones say the number of troops struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder or other mental health issues is on the increase and not enough help is being provided by the Pentagon and the Veterans Affairs Department.

For some, there are long waits for appointments at the VA or at military posts. For others, the stigma of a mental health disorder keeps them from seeking help.

Paul Rieckhoff, executive director and founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, says that although suicides among troops returning from the war is a significant problem, the scope is unknown.

“The problem that we face right now is that there’s no method to track veterans coming home,” said Rieckhoff, who served in Iraq as a platoon leader in the first year of the war. “There’s no system. There’s no national registry.”

More than four years into the war, the government has little information on suicides among Iraq war veterans.

“We don’t keep that data,” said Karen Fedele, a VA spokeswoman in Washington. “I’m told that somebody here is going to do an analysis, but there just is nothing right now.”

The Defense Department does track suicides, but only among troops in combat operations such as Iraq and Afghanistan and in surrounding areas. Since the war started four years ago, 107 suicides during Iraq operations have been recorded by the Defense Manpower Data Center, which collects data for the Pentagon. That number, however, usually does not include troops who return home from the war zone and then take their lives.

(snip)

Earlier this month, a Pentagon task force warned that the military health care system is overburdened and not sufficient to meet the needs of troops suffering from PTSD and other psychological problems. The panel called for a fundamental shift in treatment to focus on screening and prevention instead of relying on troops to come forward on their own.

Shortcomings in mental health care were also identified in a recent report by the VA’s inspector general. It found that several of the agency’s hospitals and clinics lacked properly trained workers and had inadequate screening for mental health problems. It said this put Iraq veterans at increased risk of suicide.

Floyd “Shad” Meshad, president and founder of the California-based National Veterans Foundation, has no doubt that military suicides are a growing problem. He said he receives 2 to 3 calls each week from Iraq veterans contemplating suicide — or from their families.

A Vietnam veteran who has counseled other vets for more than 30 years, Meshad runs a toll-free support line based in Los Angeles. He was asked recently to help train counselors at the Suicide Prevention Center in Los Angeles, where a spike in calls from veterans has been reported.

One of the biggest challenges for troubled vets is the stigma of a mental health disorder, said Meshad. “It’s very, very hard for you to reach out and say ’I’m hurting.’ It’s hard for men to do it, but particularly (for) a soldier who’s endured life and death situations.”

Kim Ruocco of Newbury, Mass., said her husband, John, was a role model for the young Marines he led in war. He worried about the ramifications of seeking help, personally and professionally.

“He felt like that was the end of everything for him,” Kim Ruocco recalls. “He felt like his Marines would, you know, be let down.”

Ruocco ended his life in February 2005, a few weeks before he was to redeploy to Iraq.

Joshua Omvig, 22, a member of the Army Reserve from Grundy Center, Iowa, also took his own life. In December 2005, he shot himself in front of his mother after an 11-month tour in Iraq.

His parents, Ellen and Randy Omvig, say Joshua wouldn’t talk much about Iraq. They tried to get him help, but he worried that it would hurt his career if the Army found out, said his father.

Randy Omvig says the military and VA need to offer better readjustment counseling. There should be teams of health professionals, he said, who come to the base to talk to the troops in a comfortable setting with their comrades.

“It’s like you and I going out on that interstate and driving 65 miles an hour and then all of a sudden deciding to put it in first gear,” Omvig said. “What happens? Does the car handle it very well? Some will handle it, a lot of them are going to have problems.”

(snip)

For some troops returning from Iraq, the wait for care is too long.

Army Capt. Michael Pelkey, who suffered from night sweats, anxiety, headaches and exhaustion when he returned, sought help at Fort Sill, Okla. His wife, Stefanie, said the mental health facility there was understaffed and Michael was told he’d have to wait up to two months for an appointment.

He went off-base in Nov. 2004 and a civilian counselor diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder. His wife says it came too late. He shot himself in the living room a week later.

Jonathan Schulze of New Prague, Minn., also tried to get help after he came home from Iraq. His parents say he asked to be admitted to a VA hospital but was turned away twice. The VA disputes that. The Marine hanged himself in January at the age of 25.

For Marine Jeffrey Lucey, the return home from Iraq was followed by months of emotional and mental torment, said his father, Kevin Lucey. The 23-year-old killed himself in June 2004 at his parents’ home in Belchertown, Mass. His father found him dead in the basement, hanging by a garden hose.

Don't piss off your kids; you'll need them someday

"For where your treasure is,

there also will your heart be."

-- Luke 12:34

IF PARENTS ABUSE THEIR CHILDREN, disrespect their children and abjectly refuse to meet the basic needs of their children, they'll surely "get theirs" . . . one way or another.

From a public policy perspective, that goes double for a state or locality and what happens to its children -- how they're cared for, the environment they grow up in, how they're educated.

Louisiana is in it deep, and folks -- by all appearances -- are too damn stupid to realize "payback" lies around the corner, as its next generation grows up to be dead, stupid, shiftless . . . or living somewhere else.

Here, from last fall, is one example of what that particular state thinks (for lack of a better word) about its future. In this case, its best and brightest children. From what I hear, nothing much has changed on that story.

And here's a fresh example from the world of -- such as it is -- "higher education." The (Baton Rouge) Advocate has the damning evidence:

The historic and picturesque French House at LSU is surrounded by oak and palm trees.

On the inside, however, roof leaks, broken floors, wall holes and an unusable third floor paint a different picture for the facility that houses the LSU Honors College.

One interesting juxtaposition is an old French portrait in the “living room” flanked by walls torn up from water damage.

“It’s beautiful on the outside, but really deteriorating on the inside,” said Nancy Clark, dean of the Honors College. “There’s been continuous water damage the past few years.”

That is why Clark is leading the charge to renovate the interior and expand the 72-year-old French House to modernize the facilities and create multimedia classrooms, theater space and a technology lounge for LSU’s brightest students.

But finding the money is a different matter, Clark admitted, when many private donors look to LSU sports before the honors program.

Fortunately for her, LSU System President William Jenkins said the French House is one of his top two fund-raising priorities.

“The LSU Honors College is a fantastic asset for the state,” Jenkins said.

The $6 million to $10 million project would represent part of a proposed “Honors Campus” for the 1,300 students in the Honors College, who need at least a 30 ACT score and 3.5 grade-point average to enter the program.

The nearby honors dormitories, East and West Laville, are to be renovated beginning in January.

Jenkins said he hopes the projects can be completed within three years.

This year, nearly 3,500 students applied to the Honors College, fewer than 1,000 were accepted, and about 500 enrolled, Clark said.

After Clark and some top students presented plans to the LSU Board of Supervisors last month, LSU moved the French House from 31st to sixth on its construction list.

A similar plea last week with the Louisiana Board of Regents was less successful. A day prior, the Regents had decided against placing the French House on the state’s construction list this year because the request came too late, without enough time for analysis.

Even though the Regents, who oversee the state’s higher education, did not prioritize the French House, the Honors College’s successes resulted in glowing praise from the Regents board members.

“Mike the Tiger has a $3 million habitat, but the French House is falling apart,” said Regent Mary Ellen Roy of New Orleans. “We need to focus more on challenging our best and brightest.”

What Would Flannery Do?

IF FLANNERY O'CONNOR had lived to encounter HaugenHass at Mass every week, I wonder what she would have said. Something snarky and delicious, no doubt.

Maybe something like this:

Marty Haugen -- and too many other liturgical lounge lizards to count -- have thrown out 2,000 years of Catholic devotion and culture so they could gather around the altar and warble ditties to a God who's less than ourselves. Hell, to a God who IS ourselves!

Luddite or troglodyte . . . you decide

Sigh.

I popped over to the Crunchy Con blog to see what was up in the world of the utterly unprogressive, and I found this lede to some screed or another of antimaterialist self-loathing:

Matthew finished the first grade on Friday. His school, Providence Christian School of Texas, held their end-of-year school program, which ended with all the children from the lower grades singing the hymns they'd learned that year. I had to get to work and couldn't stay for the entire program, but Julie said there were lots of un-dry eyes listening to those angelic young voices. Julie said these kids were singing with all their hearts, and they knew the words, because each month they study a hymn.

Hymns schmymns. If ever there was a sign of troglodytic antiprogressivism, some fundie academy coercing fundie tots from fundie families -- who no doubt live in fundie squalor -- into singing retrograde fundie hymnody must be pure phantasmagoric neon splendor.

Why didn't they just have little Johnny grab little Susie by the ponytail and drag her off to the Fred Flintstone residence, for Gaia's sake! Maybe Wilma could send out for Bronto Burgers as they all seek to turn back the clock on human self-realization as they pay homage to their hateful patriarchal construct of deity.

I AM A MODERN AMERICAN CATHOLIC. I believe in me. And we -- me -- don't need no stinkin' hymns.

Not when we have Marty Haugen and David Haas.

Here in this place, new light is streaming
Now is the darkness vanished away
See in this space our fears and our dreamings
Brought here to you in the light of this day

Listen, I can't see God -- whomever She might be -- but I can see Me, which Haugen so perceptively realizes in "Gather Us In." This is the modern world, and it is sick that these Texas fundies are teaching their children something as regressive as . . . hymns.

It's 2007, women have the vote and the right to choose, we're all self-actualized and it's time even for fundie kids to wake up and smell the mochacchino, Tondeleo.

We are the young our lives are a mystery
We are the old who yearn for you face
We have been sung throughout all of history
Called to be light to the whole human race

Now that's writing. A breath of fresh air when compared to bellicose Martin Luther hate speech ("A Mighty Fortress is Our God" . . . puh-leez) or ancient Pre-Vatican II cookie worship ("Pange Lingua Gloriosi" . . . yuck) or pious self-hating groveling to a tyrannical Patriarch ("Holy, Holy, Holy" . . . my ass). I mean, get this:

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee;
Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessèd Trinity!

Holy, holy, holy! All the saints adore Thee,
Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
Cherubim and seraphim falling down before Thee,
Who was, and is, and evermore shall be.

Holy, holy, holy! though the darkness hide Thee,
Though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see;
Only Thou art holy; there is none beside Thee,
Perfect in power, in love, and purity.

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
All Thy works shall praise Thy Name, in earth, and sky, and sea;
Holy, holy, holy; merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessèd Trinity!

REALLY AND TRULY, thank Gaia for contemporary spirituality musicians like Marty Haugen!

Not in the dark of buildings confining
Not in some heaven, light-years away
here in this place the new light is shining
Now is the Kingdom, now is the day

Hey, you know what paradise is?
It's a lie, a fantasy we create about people and places as we'd like them to be
But you know what truth is?
It's that little baby you're holding, it's that man you fought with this morning
The same one you're going to make love with tonight
That's truth, that's love . . .

Oh, I've been to Nice and the isle of Greece
when I sipped champagne on a yacht
I moved like Harlow in Monte Carlo
and showed them what I've got
I've been undressed by kings
and I've seen some things that a woman ain't s'pose to see
I've been to paradise but I've never been to me...

I THINK THAT'S THE GIST of the Haugen classic . . . or a song I heard on the "Super Hits of the '70s" FM station today. I forget.

But, hey! It's all good!

Whatever, that is, your construct of "good" happens to be in your reality. It is all about you, after all.