I'm just sayin'

Stupid human tricks: X-treme Weather Edition

Click on photo for video.

It's storming again tonight in the Big O, but not like Monday night.

Then, Mother Nature opened up a can of Whoop-Ass on Omaha, and parts of town are still cleaning up from it. Now, when you click on the KMTV television video above this post, make sure you watch the whole thing -- a little more than halfway through, you will get a good illustration of why it's not a good idea to stand outside in the middle of a severe thunderstorm with 70 mph wind.

You'd think some people would intuitively know that. But I guess not.

Maybe there's something to the idea that teen-agers are naturally clinically insane. Just watch.

Now, that's good listenin'

Damn The Avett Brothers for making it difficult to put together this week's edition of the Revolution 21 podcast. I can't put the whole dadgum Emotionalism album on the show, and it's hard to decide what cut to use.

Everything on the CD is that good.

What's wrong with them boys from Greenville, N.C.? Bands just aren't THAT GOOD anymore.

OK, Arcade Fire is, but not many more are.

HERE'S THE THING . . . look at the top 50 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. See the Avett Brothers there? No, of course you don't.

Do you reckon that 80 percent of the stuff on there is crap, with some of it toxic waste, even? Of course. No debate.

No, to The Avett Brothers are found on the indie charts . . . and here, on the Internet. The record companies, of course, want to sue their file-sharing customers into oblivion and bleed Web radio to death.

The crap is easy to find. It's on your local contemporary-hits radio station.

IT'S ALL VERY BIBLICAL, isn't it? What we embrace in popular culture -- and what the mainstream rejects -- is kind of analogous to what Paul says about sin in Romans, Chapter 7:

15 What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate.
16 Now if I do what I do not want, I concur that the law is good.
17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
18 For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh. The willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not.
19 For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want.
20 Now if (I) do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
21 So, then, I discover the principle that when I want to do right, evil is at hand.
22 For I take delight in the law of God, in my inner self,
23 but I see in my members another principle at war with the law of my mind, taking me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
24 Miserable one that I am! Who will deliver me from this mortal body?
25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Therefore, I myself, with my mind, serve the law of God but, with my flesh, the law of sin.

GO FIGURE. You know?

Louisiana: It all adds up

THIS

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THIS

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THIS

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THIS

From WWL television:

After spending her whole life in New Orleans, Tina Coulon is putting her River Ridge home on the market and trading the Big Easy for Music City.

“We went up to Nashville and it was just so clean, had a lot of things really liked about it, when we decided you know what this is really where we need to be,” Coulon said.

A new study commissioned by a Jefferson Parish business group found thousands like her are packing up.

Using change of address forms, researchers found at least 14,000 Jefferson families left Louisiana – a higher percentage than the state average.

“A number of upper and upper middle income people are moving out, those issues are directly related to quality of life because those people have choices,” said researcher Greg Rigamer.

It’s flooded the real estate market this year: 5,000 homes have been put on the market in Jefferson Parish – twice as many as in 2004.

“Since 1989 it hasn’t been this bad, there are so many houses for sale,” said realtor Eileen Traficante.

Researchers say many families aren’t seeing a fast enough turn-around and are growing impatient with old problems.

They said residents are frustrated with public schools to a lack of healthcare to overall cleanliness.

The study has already motivated parish leaders to make improvements, with officers recently cracking down on blight and crime.

“If you don’t see everything fixed yet, but the momentum of where we have been, and from whence we came and where we are today, certainly shows that we’ve created a very solid momentum,” said Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard.

An all night wait in an emergency room is what finally convinced Tina Coulon to go - she’s now looking forward to cheaper insurance and not spending thousands of dollars to put her kids in private schools.

“We’re moving just to have a better quality of life,” Coulon says. “Just kind of have a little bit better future for our kids.”

By their quotes ye shall know them

So, while the Louisiana Democratic Party is busy trying to smear GOP gubernatorial candidate Bobby Jindal by taking his published words on religion several zip codes (at least) out of context -- that is, when not flat-out lying about what the man wrote -- what have Jindal's two biggest Democratic opponents been doing?

Apparently, hoping dirty tricks can accomplish what their lagging campaigns haven't been able to.

According to The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune:

The two leading Democratic candidates also refused to denounce the commercial, even as they moved to disassociate themselves from it.

"I have not seen the ad in question. However, if the quotes about various religions attributed to Mr. Jindal are in fact his writings, I firmly believe that he should retract his comments," state Sen. Walter Boasso, D-Arabi, said.

Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell also said he hasn't seen the ads but said he has little sympathy for Jindal if the words used in the ads come from the candidate's own writings.

"If he said that and it's documented, then he's going to have to live with it or sue the Democratic Party and make them stop it," Campbell said.

He accused Jindal of putting out false commercials of his own, citing an ad that premiered this week accusing Boasso and Campbell of being soft on government ethics.

"He's put ads out on me that says I haven't done anything on ethics. I don't think that's fair because I have done something on ethics," Campbell said.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, the problem with Louisiana -- and let's not kid ourselves, here, with America as well -- is that we put up with it when politicians campaign as mountebanks and poltroons but then are horribly shocked and disillusioned when we find out they govern as mountebanks and poltroons, too.

What Boasso and Campbell need to do is cut the crap. They knew some smear ads against Jindal were in the works -- if they didn't, and if they didn't know what the ads would say, they are too flippin' incompetent and stupid to be governor of an American state.

And Lord knows, Louisiana now suffers horribly from just that.

FOR TWO WEEKS, Jindal has known that the state Democrats were about to reach into the bottom of the septic tank for something stinky enough to maybe stop the Republican's electoral juggernaut. For two weeks, the media have known that the state Democrats were reaching into the bottom of the septic tank for campaign ads.

Hell, for two weeks I've known the state Dems were trolling around the bottom of the political septic tank in an effort to smear Jindal and use his Catholic faith as a bogeyman to either scare the bejeezus out of Protestants and secularists or, alternatively, make them crazy mad. And I live 1,100 miles from where the action is.

I don't know . . . maybe Walt Boasso has been cleaning out those shipping containers with paint thinner or somethin'. And maybe Foster Campbell is just Uncle Earl: The Mandeville Story.

Not that it really matters what the Dems' standard bearers' deal is, whether they're lying or whether they're just stuck on stupid. Neither scenario seems to me to be an attractive trait in a gubernatorial candidate -- standing back, doing nothing as evil is committed on your behalf or loping gape-mouthed through your campaign promising hard-up Louisianians, in effect, "DUUHHHHHHH!"

"DUUHHHHHHH!" they have plenty of now. Not to mention the sheer evil they've put up with from their crooked-ass political class forever. Or so it would seem.

Is that what Louisiana voters really want? More morally-challenged leaders who'll do anything to get elected, or turn their heads and feign ignorance as others do anything to get them elected?

Do Louisiana voters really think Boasso and Campbell -- given their lack of scruples in the face of a moral and political outrage committed in their names -- represent what's needed to bury a toxic tradition of civic outrages against the citizenry by its "servants"?

Well, looking at the gubernatorial polls, you'd hope they don't think so.

Then again, I was pretty hopeful New Orleanians wouldn't be gobstopperingly stupid enough to re-elect Ray Nagin, either.

What La. Dems don't want you to read

Oh, and here are the closing paragraphs of gubernatorial candidate Bobby Jindal's New Oxford Review article that the Louisiana Democratic Party didn't mention in its commercial . . . and likely weren't counting on anyone reading:

I trust I have provided enough evidence to indicate that the Catholic Church deserves a careful examination by non-Catholics. It is not intellectually honest to ignore an institution with such a long and distinguished history and with such an impressively global reach. I am not asking non-Catholics to investigate the claims of my neighborhood minister, but rather am presenting a 2,000-year-old tradition, encompassing giants like Aquinas and Newman, with almost a billion living members, including modern prophets like Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II.

Nonetheless, the Catholic Church must live up to her name by incorporating the many Spirit-led movements found outside her walls. For example, the energy and fervor that animate the Baptist and Pentecostal denominations, the stirring biblical preaching of the Lutherans and Calvinists, and the liturgical solemnity of the Anglicans must find expression within Catholicism.

I am thrilled by the recent ecumenical discussions that have resulted in Catholics and Evangelicals discovering what they have in common, in terms of both theology and morality, and as exemplified by joining to oppose abortion and other fruits of an increasingly secular society, but I do not want our Evangelical friends to overlook those beliefs that make Catholicism unique. The challenge is for all Christians to follow Jesus wherever He leads; one significant part of that challenge is to consider seriously the claims of the Catholic Church.

Oh, what the hell . . .

. . . TWO CAN PLAY the game of Wild Political Smears and Distortions. To wit:

Lies, damned lies and political ads

Here's what the Louisiana Democratic Party wants North Louisiana Protestants to think gubernatorial candidate Bobby Jindal said:


HERE'S WHAT JINDAL really wrote in the New Oxford Review:

Just as C.S. Lewis removed any room for comfortable opposition to Jesus by identifying Him as either "Lord, liar, or lunatic," so the Catholic Church leaves little room for complacent opposition to her doctrines. Without inflating the issues that separate Catholics from Protestants, for we do worship the same Trinitarian God who died for our sins, I want to refute the notion that Catholicism is merely another denomination with no more merit than any other.

The Reformers who left the Catholic Church rejected, to varying degrees, five beliefs which continue to be upheld by the Catholic Church. The Church claims that these points are found in Scripture, and they have been consistently and clearly taught throughout the Church's history. I will support the Church's claims here.

(1) SCRIPTURE AND TRADITION: Is sola scriptura (the Bible alone) a sufficient basis for the modern Christian to understand God's will?

The Bible does not contain either the claim that it is comprehensive or a listing of its contents, but does describe how it should be used. Scripture and Tradition, not the Bible alone, transmit God's revelation. Tradition is reflected in the Church's authority to interpret Scripture.

+ The meaning of Scripture is not self-evident. One cannot discern its intended meaning through prayerful reading alone, for Scripture is "hard to understand" and individual misinterpretation can lead "to our own destruction" (2 Pet. 3:15-6; see also Acts 8:30-34). The Holy Spirit's guidance, acting through the Church, "the pillar and foundation of truth" (1 Tim. 3:15), is necessary to avoid error since "there is no prophecy of Scripture that is a matter of personal interpretation" (2 Pet. 1:20; see also Mt. 18:17; 1 Tim. 6:3; Rev. 2:17). It is nearly impossible to derive the orthodox understanding of the Trinity, and other teachings which were disputed in the early Christian community, from Scripture alone without recourse to Church teachings. Sincerely motivated Christians studying the same texts have disagreed on the fundamentals of the faith, thereby dividing not only Protestants from Catholics, but also particular Protestant denominations from each other. Post-Reformation history does not reflect the unity and harmony of the "one flock" instituted by Christ (Jn. 10:16; see also Jn. 17:11, 17:21-23; Acts 4:32; Eph. 4:3-6, 4:13; Rom. 12:5, 16:17-18; 1 Cor. 1:10-11, 3:4, 12:12-13; Phil. 1:27, 2:2), but rather a scandalous series of divisions and new denominations, including some that can hardly be called Christian. Yet Christ would not have demanded unity without providing the necessary leadership to maintain it. The same Catholic Church which infallibly determined the canon of the Bible must be trusted to interpret her handiwork; the alternative is to trust individual Christians, burdened with, as Calvin termed it, their "utterly depraved" minds, to overcome their tendency to rationalize, their selfish desires, and other effects of original sin. The choice is between Catholicism's authoritative Magisterium and subjective interpretation which leads to anarchy and heresy. All churches follow their own traditions, but the Catholic Church claims a continuous link to the oral tradition which preceded and formed the canon of Scripture, the same apostolic (Acts 2:42) Tradition St. Paul commanded us to abide by (2 Thess. 2:15; 2 Tim. 2:2).

WHAT JINDAL WAS DOING was using Reformation figure John Calvin's own arguments (and his own words, i.e. "utterly depraved") to make a case for why there needs to be one authoritative body -- the Catholic Church -- in charge of interpreting sacred scripture and codifying Christian doctrine.

And, by the way, Calvin thought we were all utterly depraved, Catholics and Protestants alike. As a Catholic, I think Calvin overstates the case with the word "utterly," but there is some sliver of truth in his position concerning The Fall -- here's what the Catechism of the Catholic Church has to say about man's fall from grace and original sin.*

You might not agree with Jindal -- and Christians not agreeing with one another is why we have something like 20,000 or 30,000 different Christian denominations today -- but you can hardly say the man was hurling epithets here.

And shame on Louisiana Democrats for resorting to a level of demagoguery and distortion that's . . . well . . . about par for the course for the state party machinery.

Really, if the state's Democrats are that bereft of electable candidates and that wanting for serious political argumentation -- and there's much fodder for such argumentation if they could demonstrate that Jindal intended to govern as a Bush-Rove Republican -- they just need to quit insulting American democracy, quit wasting their donors' money and go home.

THE DEMOCRATS' REAL PROBLEM isn't that Jindal has bad ideas, it's that they have no ideas. And no candidates for governor who promise to be half as competent and/or corruption-free as Jindal does.

And they have no credibility left. Sigh.

* POSTSCRIPT -- Here's the Catechism paragraph that most directly deals with Calvin's idea of the "utter depravity" of man:

Although it is proper to each individual, original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam's descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it; subject to ignorance, suffering, and the dominion of death; and inclined to sin—an inclination to evil that is called "concupiscence." Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ's grace, erases original sin and turns a man back toward God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle.

Iraq. Surge. Straw. Army. Back. Broken.

It's a fine mess the Bush-Cheney Wrecking Crew has gotten us into. The Army is officially all but broken. Worn out. Shot. Insufficient for the mission anymore.

If the Joint Chiefs snapped one day and said enough is enough, and the tanks started rolling up Pennsylvania Avenue, would ordinary Americans greet the shock troops of the junta as liberators?

The president and vice-president have been big on people seeing American troops as "liberators," don't you know?

From The Associated Press:

Sapped by nearly six years of war, the Army has nearly exhausted its fighting force and its options if the Bush administration decides to extend the Iraq buildup beyond next spring.

The Army's 38 available combat units are deployed, just returning home or already tapped to go to Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere, leaving no fresh troops to replace five extra brigades that President Bush sent to Baghdad this year, according to interviews and military documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

That presents the Pentagon with several painful choices if the U.S. wants to maintain higher troop levels beyond the spring of 2008:

* Using National Guard units on an accelerated schedule.

* Breaking the military's pledge to keep soldiers in Iraq for no longer than 15 months.

* Breaching a commitment to give soldiers a full year at home before sending them back to war.

For a war-fatigued nation and a Congress bent on bringing troops home, none of those is desirable.

In Iraq, there are 18 Army brigades, each with about 3,500 soldiers. At least 13 more brigades are scheduled to rotate in. Two others are in Afghanistan and two additional ones are set to rotate in there. Also, several other brigades either are set for a future deployment or are scattered around the globe.

The few units that are not at war, in transformation or in their 12-months home time already are penciled in for deployments later in 2008 or into 2009. Shifting them would create problems in the long-term schedule.

Most Army brigades have completed two or three tours in Iraq or Afghanistan; some assignments have lasted as long as 15 months. The 2nd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, has done four tours.

Two Marine regiments - each roughly the same size as an Army brigade - also in Iraq,- bringing the total number of brigades in the country to 20.

When asked what units will fill the void in the coming spring if any need to be replaced, officials give a grim shake of the head, shrug of the shoulders or a palms-up, empty-handed gesture.

"The demand for our forces exceeds the sustainable supply," the Army chief of staff, Gen. George Casey, said last week. "Right now we have in place deployment and mobilization policies that allow us to meet the current demands. If the demands don't go down over time, it will become increasingly difficult for us to provide the trained and ready forces" for other missions.

Casey said he would not be comfortable extending troops beyond their 15-month deployments. But other military officials acknowledge privately that option is on the table.

Pentagon leaders hope there is enough progress in Iraq to allow them to scale back at least part of the nearly 30,000-strong buildup when soldiers begin leaving Iraq around March and April.

There are 162,000 U.S. troops in Iraq now, the highest level since the war began in 2003. That figure is expected to hit 171,000 this fall as fresh troops rotate in.

Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq who will deliver a much anticipated progress report to Congress in September, said Wednesday he is considering possible troop cuts and believes the U.S. will have fewer forces in Iraq by next summer.

Other commanders have said the security situation is improving, which would allow U.S. troops to be shifted from combat and lead to an eventual force reduction.

Still, Petraeus and other military leaders have warned against drawing down too quickly. In fact, an upbeat progress report in September may solidify arguments that additional troops should stay longer to ensure that positive changes stick.

"The longer that you keep American forces there, the longer you give this process to solidify and to make sure that it's not going to slide back," said Frederick Kagan, an American Enterprise Institute analyst who recently returned from an eight-day visit to Iraq. "The sooner you take them out, the more you run the risk that enemies will come in and try to disrupt."

Kagan, a leading supporter of the current buildup strategy, said any decision to maintain force levels would have to take into account the effects on the Army. That would include, he said, the strains of sending Guard units back to Iraq more rapidly than Pentagon policy allows or keeping active duty units there longer than 15 months.

"You have the same tradeoff at every moment in this process, which is the institutional well-being of the Army versus what is felt is necessary to win the war," Kagan said.

Dear Louisiana: A carton of Get-a-Clue for you

For all the political dolts in my home state who still think slathering tax money around for short-term political gain is any way to run a government, here's an example of what can happen when you spend money strategically in areas where you'll get the biggest bang for the buck.

And that example is in your own back yard. And it's just made big news all around the world. And maybe some people who don't know better might be thinking Louisiana is being run by way smarter people than it actually is.

Hard to believe anyone could be that gullible, but who knows what might happen PR-wise if the state -- and its voters -- began to value knowledge instead of acting all pissy toward those who have some? Here's some of an article by Agence France-Presse, which is based in France, which is across the sea:

A common virus that causes colds can be a factor in obesity, according to a study released Monday offering further evidence that a weight problem may be contagious.

The adenovirus-36 (Ad 36) has already been implicated as the cause of weight gain in animals, but with this study researchers showed for the first time that it can also cause humans to pile on the pounds.

The findings could accelerate the development of a vaccine or an antiviral medication to help fight the battle of the bulge alongside diet and exercise.

"We're not saying that a virus is the only cause of obesity, but this study provides stronger evidence that some obesity cases may involve viral infections," said Magdalena Pasarica, an obesity researcher at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

A previous study found that almost a third of obese people are infected with the virus compared to around one in 10 of their leaner counterparts.

In laboratory experiments, the Louisana State University researchers found that the bug appeared to promote the formation of fat cells from stem cells.

The team took adult stem cells from fatty tissue left over from patients who had undergone liposuction, a procedure to remove fat, and exposed some of it to Ad-36, leaving the rest untreated.

After a week of growth in tissue culture, most of the virus-infected adult stem cells developed into fat cells, whereas the untreated cells did not.

It's not clear what drives the transformation, how long the virus lingers in the human system or whether its fat-enhancing effect continues after the body has cleared the virus, the researchers said.

A study in animals found that they remained obese up to six months after the infection had cleared.

The Louisiana State University team is working on further studies to try and establish why some people with the virus develop obesity while others don't.

EMBALMED ALIVE! PINKO PJ PLAGUE!

The Horrific Hell Regime in Beijing has unleashed yet another component of its evil scheme to wreak its Commie blitzkrieg to subdue the Free World in a tidal wave of Death Thru Defects.

Oh, sorry about that. Something unleashed my inner Drudge when I saw the following Financial Times story linked to on . . . uh . . . Drudge:

The safety problems affecting Chinese goods spread from toys to textiles on Monday as New Zealand said it would investigate allegations that imported children’s clothes contained dangerous levels of formaldehyde.

The government ordered the probe after scientists hired by a consumer watchdog programme discovered formaldehyde in Chinese clothes at levels of up to 900 times regarded as safe. Manufacturers sometimes apply formaldehyde to clothes to prevent mildew. It can cause skin rashes, irritation to the eyes and throat and allergic reactions.

The Warehouse, a New Zealand retailer, issued a recall at the weekend for children’s pyjamas made in China after two children were burned when their flannelette nightclothes caught fire.

The New Zealand investigation is the first time that the safety of Chinese clothes has been called into question; concerns have been raised over a series of Chinese products in recent months, including toys, food and toothpaste. Last week, Mattel said it was recalling 18.2m toys globally because of hazards such as the use of lead paint.

COME TO THINK OF IT, the sheer amount of dangerously defective crap being unleashed from Chinese factories certainly is worthy of a good conspiracy theory or three.

Scooby Doo wants to be the new Buckskin Bill

Click on photo for video.

When I was in college at Louisiana State, there was only one proper greeting if you ran across broadcasting instructor Bill Black, say, eating lunch at Mickey D's.

"Hey, Buckskin!"

For a whole generation of kids born and raised in Baton Rouge, La., the man was -- is -- Buckskin Bill. For 35 years on WAFB television, he would lead us young'uns in "The Monday Morning March" and tell us to sit up straight when we were slouching in front of the TV set.

I didn't know how he knew.

WHEN I WAS REALLY LITTLE, I thought Buckskin lived in the television. By the time I sat on Buckskin's lap -- on his show for my fourth birthday and terrified of the gigantic TV cameras -- I knew he lived at the WAFB studios and obviously was omniscient. That day in 1965, he was in the middle of a drive to collect aspirin for the medicine-poor Amazon region of Brazil. I brought some to drop into the big barrel of Bayer.

Likewise, Buckskin would remind us at the end of every morning Storyland or afternoon Buckskin Bill Show that Baton Rouge needed a zoo.

In 1969, he'd have kids march before the cameras, dropping their pennies into a safe to buy the first two elephants for the new Greater Baton Rouge Zoo.

Buckskin Bill was on WAFB -- first on Channel 28 and then after it moved to Channel 9 -- from 1955 to 1990. By the time new owners of Channel 9 yanked Storyland in favor of Regis and Kathie Lee, I had been married for seven years and living here in Omaha for two.

I may have cried when I heard the news. I know I wrote a scathing and outraged letter to the station manager.

See, a whole generation of us had grown up on Buckskin Bill and had continued to watch, from time to time, all the way into adulthood. You don't turn your back on family just because you're no longer in the targeted demographic, you know?

Family. That's what Buckskin Bill was. In some ways, he was more family for some of us than family was.

ALL OF THIS IS TO SAY that a couple of Baton Rouge media types -- one of whom happens to be the latest voice of Scooby Doo -- have some mighty humongous shoes to fill if they aspire to be the new Buckskin Bill. Here's the story from 225 magazine:

The program Buckskin Bill’s Storyland was the last locally-produced children’s TV show, which means no one in Baton Rouge under 35 has grown up with a hometown TV hero.

Enter two distinctly local costumed characters—Hollywood Hal and Rhinestone Al. They’re the goofy, affable singing duo of Hollywood Hal and Rhinestone Al and the Wannabees. They entertain preschoolers with jokes and educational video clips each weekday at 7:30 a.m. on Cox Channel 4.

“It’s educational, motivational and inspirational,” says Jim Hogg, the show’s co-creator and the man inside the Rhinestone Al suit.

Radio DJ Scott Innes plays Hollywood Hal. He was Hogg’s co-anchor on local radio station WYNK-FM for years. Hogg left the station last year to devote his efforts full-time to the kids’ show, while Innes still takes the WYNK mic for afternoon drive time.

Like most shows that target viewers under the age of eight, the show is short on plot. The pair doesn’t really do much except sing a handful of twangy tunes, which cover everything from barnyard animals to the importance of saying no to drugs. The Wannabees are their backup singers, a trio of fuzzy yellow jacket puppets.

“The Wannabees are really all the kids in America who want to be something when they grow up,” Innes says.

YOU'VE GOT TO WISH these folks good luck for even trying to do local children's programming once again. But if you ask this Baby Boomer who was privileged to tap into the signal of "big, booming, powerful Channel 9" a couple of times a day, every day, to be entertained and taught by "Buckskin Bill" Black . . . well, no kiddie show is complete without Candy the Chimpanzee or Señor Puppet.

"And remember kids, you're never completely dressed until you put on a smile."

* * *

To learn more about Buckskin Bill, go here and here. Here, too.

Bush prepares for Dean's onslaught

NEWS ITEM:

CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) -- President Bush, who was criticized for a slow federal response to Hurricane Katrina, took a pre-emptive strike Saturday against Hurricane Dean blowing through the Caribbean and threatening the Texas coast.

Thanks to the president's quick action, Dean should not be a problem that FEMA and the United States government can't handle with ease:

Omaha . . . a city in three acts

I've been thinking I need to post something else today (tonight, now), but I don't feel like expounding on anything. So instead of doing something constructive, I've put the Grand Ole Opry on my 1936 Zenith tombstone radio and have been looking at YouTube videos. (Old farts can multitask, too.)

And I've come up with three very different videos about my city, Omaha. So I thought I'd put them all here -- Omaha, a city in three acts.

Enjoy.

HYSTERICAL HELL HEADLINE SET FOR WEB

I'm just wonderin' here . . . once you've gone the "Historic Hell Storm" route with your headline and hurricane coverage, where is there left to go if the thing gets REALLY bad?

And heads for the U.S. Gulf coast.

IN THAT EVENT, if we surfed on over to Drudge, perhaps we'd we find something like:


DEATH IS BLOWIN' IN THE WIND

APOCALYPSE NOW!

BIBLICAL HELL CATACLYSM STALKS GULF COAST

Or perhaps we'd awake one morning, turn on the computer and simply read:

Inquiring minds want to know.

It's Dolly, that's who

Mathilda, I'm leaving it up to you to listen to the Revolution 21 podcast. Sweet dreams.

Ever spend most of the summer in South Louisiana, at a camp between the river and the swamp?

Just down the road from an honest-to-god honky tonk?

I have.

I'M NOT SURE what's more memorable, the reeeeeeeeeoww reeeeeeeeeoww reeeeeeeeeoww all-night song of the tree frogs. The droning of the locusts and chirping of the crickets. Perhaps the haunting hooooooooooooooOW of an owl, up in the gum tree by the porch.

Maybe it's the sticky-hot night air of the Louisiana summer, made up of something like one-fifth oxygen and four-fifths water vapor -- an atmosphere more suited to drinking than breathing. Certainly not suited to sleeping, because it's half-past midnight, you're still awake, you're stripped down to your Fruit of the Looms, and you're still sweating.

Sleep being futile for your adolescent self, you kneel in the bed and gaze out the window toward the bright lights of The Barn, the juke joint on the river and down the gravel road. There's an old man, full of whiskey, puking into the weed patch behind the club.

And there's the doom BOO doo doot DOOM, BOO doo doot DOOM coming fron the smoke-filled, beer-soaked interior of Juke Joint Central, penetrating the walls that hide its middle-of-the-night mysteries from teen-aged eyes, peering from down the road. That wonderful swamp-pop bass line surfing the sultry waves of the South Louisiana air to my bedroom window, out by the Petite Amite River in a place called Head of Island.

The Big Show tonight ain't The Barn, and I hope no one's "spellin' Noo Yawk" out by the weed patch, but the music's fine, and I hope you enjoy it.

It's the Revolution 21 podcast, and it's on the player at the top of this page. And it's here, too.

* * *

OH, ALMOST FORGOT about the mystery band we're featuring on Revolution 21 this week. It's Cookie & the Cupcakes, who gave us "the swamp-pop national anthem," "Mathilda." That's them in the picture atop this post.

And while we're at it . . .

Who dis?

HINT: This publicity photo is from her child-singer days. Now, she's about as famous as you can get.

Qui est dans la photo?

The band in this photograph will be featured on the next Revolution 21 podcast, to be posted tonight. Who is it?

Anyone?

Anyone?

Pokey will have to learn that nyet means nyet

WAFB television in Baton Rouge reports that former Louisiana State women's basketball coach Pokey Chatman is taking over as coach of a premier Russian pro team.

Funny, I kind of thought she might take some kind of job with the East German Olympic swim team. Shows to go 'ya.

Here's the scoop:

Former LSU Lady Tigers Head Coach Pokey Chatman has accepted a lucrative coaching position with Spartak, a professional basketball team based in Russia, WAFB's Greg Meriwether reports.

Chatman says she accepted the job Thursday and plans to begin work in October. Chatman says she will be living in Russia about six months out of the year.

Chatman resigned from LSU last March amid allegations she had an inappropriate relationship with a former player. Chatman was a highly successful and decorated coach at LSU, having taken the Lady Tigers to three consecutive Final Fours beginning in 2004.

I'm walking in Memphis, 30 years ago today

If you weren't around 30 years ago today, now you can be.

Go here, to the WMC television web site, and sit down to watch the shocking, awful news from Graceland, over on South Bellevue Boulevard. Yes, South Bellevue.

It's Aug. 16, 1977. And you . . . are there.

Speaking of bleeding Louisiana dry. . . .

Add New Orleans' racist and incompetent district attorney, Eddie Jordan, to the list of wretched politicians who not only embarrass Louisianians everywhere but bleed their constituents like nuclear leeches.

In Jordan's case, he's going to be bleeding tax money from a city that literally can't spare a dime.

But now because Jordan decided to replace a bunch of white people in the DA's office with a bunch of African-American political cronies -- for no other reason than the canned staffers were white . . . and not cronies -- either the city of New Orleans or the Louisiana Legislature is going to be on the hook for $3.5 million federal jury award. Thus sayeth a federal appeals court, as reported in today's New Orleans Times-Picayune:

A federal appeals court Wednesday upheld the verdict that Orleans Parish District Attorney Eddie Jordan violated civil rights law by firing dozens of white employees after taking office, marking the final automatic appeal of a jury award that now tops $3.5 million after accruing interest for two years.

In 2003, days after becoming the city's first black district attorney, Jordan fired dozens of longtime employees -- including clerks, typists, investigators and other support staff -- to make room for loyalists and others who worked on his campaign.

While Jordan said he was applying his political prerogative to build his own staff after taking the helm of an office led for decades by Harry Connick, a federal jury in 2005 found him liable for employment discrimination for firing all white people and replacing them with black people.

Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judges Will Garwood, Emilio Garza and Rhesa Barksdale heard Jordan's appeal in April and ruled against him Wednesday, finding that the jury had enough evidence to determine that race was a motivating factor in firing the 43 people who later sued him. Forty-two were white and one was Hispanic.

"This was a complete vindication of the jury's verdict," said attorney Clement Donelon, who led the plaintiffs to a victory at trial. "And we are ecstatic over the decision of the 5th Circuit, which is a complete affirmation of the judgments of the trial court. Mr. Jordan's options are very, very few at this point."

The jury in U.S. District Court two years ago awarded $1.9 million in back pay and damages to 35 of the 43 former workers who sued Jordan. But interest and attorney fees, which Jordan must pay, have accumulated during the appeals process.

Unless Jordan persuades the 5th Circuit to review the case yet again, or it becomes one of the rare cases that the U.S. Supreme Court picks up in its limited scope of purely constitutional issues, the bill comes due in about three months.

Jordan was sued as the district attorney and not personally, so he must request the money from either the state Legislature or the New Orleans City Council.

"When a race discrimination claim has been fully tried, as has this one, this court need not 'parse the evidence into discrete segments,' " Barksdale wrote for the court, quoting case law. Instead, the court needed only to review whether the jury had sufficient evidence to make its decision.

The court also ordered that Jordan pay the plaintiffs' attorneys -- Donelon, Vaughn Cimini, Lisa Brener and Richard Leefe -- for the appeals process.

Jordan, through his spokesman Dalton Savwoir, said he is disappointed with the decision and will review his "appellate options."

But this was his last appeal afforded by the legal system.

At the April hearing before the 5th Circuit, Jordan enlisted two of his staff attorneys, Donna Andrieu and Graham Bosworth, to argue the case instead of the Chaffe McCall law firm's attorneys who represented him at the federal jury trial. Jordan's lead attorney at that trial was Philip Shuler.

During the hearing, Barksdale repeatedly told Jordan's prosecutors that they could not simply rehash the arguments given to the jury in 2005. The jury had already weighed and decided the racial discrimination question, the judges told Jordan's team.

Despite Jordan's insistence that he did not consider race when replacing the staff, the jury was convinced of discrimination in part by the sheer numbers presented by the plaintiffs. Within 72 days of taking office, Jordan's staff changed from 77 white people and 56 black people to 27 white people and 130 black people.

Fired along the way were 53 white people, one Hispanic and two black people. All except one investigator were replaced by black people. Of the 20 white investigators who had worked under 29-year incumbent Connick, Jordan fired all of them but retained five black investigators and hired 10 black people into the jobs.

The point was to staff his office with those who supported him, Jordan repeated throughout the case, and most happened to be African-American.

AND YET THIS CLOWN REMAINS in office, continuing to suckle at the taxpayer teat, continuing to not convict criminals, continuing to drop charges against murder suspects, continuing to point the finger of blame at anyone but himself.

Just how far gone is an electorate that's utterly incapable of getting sick and tired of being sick and tired?

Louisiana . . . a place where sociologists can make their careers.

Elvis: The way he was

Thirty years ago today, we lost "The King," Elvis Presley. Here's Elvis at his peak, in 1957 -- before the overexposure, before one too many crappy movies, before one too many peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches, before the drugs, before Vegas.

Here is the King of Rock 'n' Roll on The Ed Sullivan Show, singing the best version of the gospel song "Peace in the Valley," well . . . ever. And The Jordanaires kick butt.

Big time.

Well, you can do what you want to us. . . .

From a yellow-dog Democrat fan back home in Louisiana:

Ladies and gentlemen, I'll be brief.

The issue here is not whether we broke a few rules or took a few liberties with our female party guests.

We did.

But you can't hold a whole fraternity responsible for the behavior of a few sick, perverted individuals.

If you do, shouldn't we blame the whole fraternity system?

And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn't this an indictment of our educational institutions in general?

(Cheering)

I put it to you, Greg.

Isn't this an indictment of our entire American society?

Well, you can do what you want to us, but we won't sit here . . . and listen to you badmouth the United States of America!

Gentlemen!

(Stalking out, humming the national anthem)

OH, I'M SORRY . . . wrong indignant speech. That was from Animal House, not from Louisiana's defenders of the indefensible. Here's the faux-outraged bleat, in response to this, from one LA Media Watch (as in, "Watch for truth, squash it like a bug"):

First, as a point of reference, Bruce Fein, the constitutional lawyer who wrote the first articles of impeachment against Bill Clinton, is now also calling for the impeachment of Cheney and Bush. It is noteworthy that you have joined a chorus of many others, myself included, who believe impeachment is now a necessary course of acton, but this stance, in and of itself, does little to justify the ridiculous arguments you are leveling against Louisiana Democrats as well as the entire State of Louisiana, as you sit behind your computer in Douglas Country, Nebraska.

Ripping a page out of Ann Coulter's playbook, you have attempted to conflate the notion of loyalty or alligiance to a cause as analogous to totalitarian obedience; referencing "Nazis" and "communists" is a tired, weak, and intellectually dishonest rhetorical trope that is only employed by those who cannot withstand the rigors of a serious debate. And this is what you have done.

You have denounced those who have read and questioned Mr. Jindal's early work, yet when confronted, you attempted to scuttle the issue into an argument about your own political identity.

But what is even more insulting are your crude and reckless statements about my home, Louisiana. Your fetishization of Louisiana culture is undermined by your rabid attacks against a State that has suffered tremendous injustice at the hands of the man you would like to be impeached, President Bush. Perhaps, sitting as you are in Douglas County, it is difficult for you to empathize or even recognize the struggles this State has had to endure, but the notion that failures and shortcomings are the principal responsibility of the Louisiana Democratic Party is both vile and ignorant, displaying a predilection for selective memory. Certainly Democrats in Louisiana have engaged in corruption but so have Republicans in Louisiana and so have Democrats and Republicans in Nebraska. Those with a shred of honesty recognize this and understand corruption should not be tolerated, regardless of one's party affiliation.

Your statement about Louisiana "teetering on the cusp of oblivion" demonstrates the height of vapid, self-righteous arrogance, and it is an insult to all Louisianans, Republicans and Democrats, who are working every single day to recover and restore our State.

Sir, we are proud of our State, and though the hurricanes may have destroyed much, they did not destroy our spirit. For someone like yourself to sanctimoniously spit on us, while grandstanding about a tradition of which you obviously know nothing, is truly deplorable.

I hope you enjoyed your po boy sandwich. They're a speciality down here.

FIRST OFF, PODNA, you seem not to get that I'm a Louisianian. I was born there; I was raised there; I was educated there. I can trace half of my family tree to Louisiana when it was a Spanish colony. Some of those ancestors came from Paris, others from Quebec.

Another great-great-great-great-great grandfather -- on the other side of the family -- was otherwise occupied fighting the British in South Carolina as a captain under Gen. Francis Marion, the "Swamp Fox."

I know a hell of a lot about your "tradition," half of which is wonderful and which I miss very much. It's the other half -- the ignorant, bigoted, lazy-ass, insouciant "Id" half -- that I deplore, and from which I fled in 1988 during the oil bust.

Unfortunately, it's the Louisiana "Id" you (and your party) celebrate, and have celebrated for generations as you enable, elevate and elect grafters and incompetents that bleed and bleed and bleed my home state, all the while entrenching a culture of criminality and fatalism. A culture that tells poor and working-class Louisianians that excellence is for suckers, that the key to getting ahead is "knowing somebody."

Or bribing somebody.

The "tradition" you celebrate stares back at a state that's at the rock bottom of all the good rankings and the top of all the bad ones, and that "tradition" has the face of Edwin Edwards, now sitting in the federal pen at Oakdale. It has the face of agriculture commissioner Bob Odom, who is fighting like hell to keep out of some pen's geriatric ward. It has the face of former Edwards aide Clyde Vidrine, whose son went to my Baton Rouge school. That kid's notable quote from Broadmoor Junior High, circa 1974, was "Mr. Carlos is a nice man."

That would be Carlos Marcello, then Mafia boss of New Orleans.

That tradition you say I know nothing about stares back on the ruins of my home with the face of U.S. Rep. William "Dollar Bill" Jefferson, awaiting trial on federal bribery charges. It wears the ugly, deformed face of an endless line of lower-light Louisiana pols, overwhelmigly Democrats -- can you say Oliver Thomas? -- whose corruption and kleptomaniac ways have taken money from schools, money from roads, money from hospitals and money from the poor.

And the most damnable thing about that is your sainted "tradition" has, by and large, gotten its countless Louisiana victims to be pretty much OK with that.

Don't tell me I know nothing of your "tradition." I know too damned much about Louisiana "tradition."

About how my mother's family was dirt poor during the Great Depression. About how my grandparents got 11 of 15 kids to adulthood amid tenuous circumstances, spotty employment and a long stint as sharecroppers. Exactly one of those kids managed to graduate from what little high school Louisiana offered back then.

And local school officials didn't exactly bust a gut to ensure that my mother ever actually went to school. No, the Louisiana "tradition" was OK with her growing up illiterate because it was her lot in life to be the family flunky, working in the fields and helping raise the younger kids.

This all was accomplished with the nonexistent "help" of the state, as "good Democrats" Huey Long, O.K. Allen, Richard Leche and their ilk bled Standard Oil, only to give the people third-rate leftovers from that largesse.

People tell me that was "populism," and that that "populist legacy" is Louisiana's problem.

Me, I hardly equate operating a rump kleptocracy with populism. Populism is not addicting a whole state to the idea of something for nothing and then leaving it for bitter history to point out that you can't fool all of the people all of the time, but that Louisiana pols came close.

With every dilapidated school with pathetic test scores, with every crumbling state highway, with every politician being "perp walked" before the TV cameras, Louisianians learn that they didn't pay much for their Third World government, and they pretty much got what they paid for.

On the other hand, you could argue they've paid a lot. They've paid with the jobs that aren't there, because the employers aren't there, because too many Louisianians are too ignorant to hold jobs in the modern marketplace.

They've paid with their taxes, though they pretty much get squat for their money. They pay with a high crime rate. They pay with their humiliation as the rest of the country looks at Louisiana and laughs. That is, when they aren't looking at Louisiana with pity.

They pay in sorrow, as they watch their children -- the ones who somehow managed to prosper amid the wreckage of an education system, having navigated crumbling buildings and endured official neglect -- look around, figure "I can do better than this," and flee as soon as they're able.

They pay with the violence done to their souls and consciences amid a culture of cronyism and corruption. They pay every time they come out on the short end of "It's not what you know, it's who you know."

I TAKE IT BACK. Louisianians have paid a lot. They have gotten much in return. Much of nothing in exchange for their well being, their self-respect and their human dignity.

Furthermore, don't you DARE mau-mau me with that stuff about how Louisiana "has suffered tremendous injustice" at the hands of George W. Bush and the feds. I know that's true. You know that's true. Hell, probably even George W. Bush knows that's true.

Don't mau-mau me with that because, frankly, it doesn't matter. Get this straight . . . most Americans don't give a rat's ass that the feds have screwed you over. It's wrong, it's evil, it's not fair . . . but it is what it is.

But most of all, don't you dare hand me that fragrant load because many of the fools you so indignantly defend -- historically, overwhelmingly Democratic fools -- screwed over Louisiana first. Locals made it into the Poor Man of America, a basket-case failed state with a deeply deviant civic culture that, for all intents and purposes, wore a gigantic "KICK ME" sign as a target for Washington reprobates like Bush.

Yeah, Louisiana has been used, screwed and tattooed. But before it was a case of rape, it was a case of incest.

And now my home state has to live with that . . . or die from it.

The choice is yours.

In 'n' out of the hospital. Emphasis on the 'out'

Here's another Kristy Dusseau update from her brother Rob:

8-13-07

This morning Kristy was discharged from the hospital and was home soon after eating lunch. I spent the day before with filming while we walked around the hospital and talked. She's looking better. I'll try and get to the footage this weekend, but I may need a week or two. Sorry I have to go now. Thanks everyone for your thoughts and prayers.

DON'T FORGET KRISTY, Y'ALL. Cancer is a tough slog -- even when you're rid of it. Read more about her story (and follow the links) here.

But there's only one thing to be said about her being out of the hospital: WOO HOO!

OK, two things. Add "Thank God."

The Onion as prophecy? Go figure.

In 2005, The Onion published an article it thought was pretty hysterical satire. Yes, it was hysterical, but was it satire?

I fear we live in a satire-proof age, considering how close to reality this sendup of the RIAA's war against its customer base would end up being in 2007:

RIAA Bans Telling Friends About Songs

LOS ANGELES — The Recording Industry Association of America announced Tuesday that it will be taking legal action against anyone discovered telling friends, acquaintances, or associates about new songs, artists, or albums. "We are merely exercising our right to defend our intellectual properties from unauthorized peer-to-peer notification of the existence of copyrighted material," a press release signed by RIAA anti-piracy director Brad Buckles read. "We will aggressively prosecute those individuals who attempt to pirate our property by generating 'buzz' about any proprietary music, movies, or software, or enjoy same in the company of anyone other than themselves." RIAA attorneys said they were also looking into the legality of word-of-mouth "favorites-sharing" sites, such as coffee shops, universities, and living rooms.

HAT TIP: Radio and Internet Newsletter.