The Giant Suck . . . or, Get a Horse

A while ago, I was gazing out the kitchen window at the lawn guys a couple of houses down. They were doing what probably was the fall's last mowing, along with some seasonal aerating. I'll bet they used up a gallon and a half of gasoline, easy.

It occurred to me that this ritual of American suburbia in five or 10 years will seem as foreign to us as quilting bees, canning season or making tallow candles to beat back the darkness from your unelectrified cabin.

YOU SEE, the jig is almost up for America Uber Alles and the easy life of the middle-class. The oil is running out, and the phenomenon called "peak oil" is just around the corner, maybe no further off than three years hence.

After that, global oil production will start to slide several percent per year, all in a world of exploding demand for cheap energy. Needless to say, the effect on an entire economy -- an entire way of life predicated on lots of cars running on lots of gas -- will be devastating and will change forever the way we live.

That's not me saying this. It's this, "this" being an analysis in the British magazine Money Week:

The American middle class consumer though indebted still travels to the fry pits and big box retail stores lining the eight lane highways. And they are still spending money with that good old up tempo American resilience to jolts from the outside world. In spite of the fact that they can no longer use their homes as ATM machines by progressively re-mortgaging when property prices were going up.

Sub-prime crisis or not, the Fed will rescue the system and the American way of life will go on as always, with a few temporary tweaks and household budgetary adjustments... won’t it? After all, didn’t George Bush Snr. forcefully declare at the Earth Summit in 1992 that “the American way of life is not negotiable.” And the centrepiece of that way of life is suburbia and has been for 60 years.

It spawned suburban sprawl and the ‘drive-in utopia’ and enabled millions of people to live a long car drive from their work. The ultimate American story has been and is played out in the suburbs to the delight of the Simpsons scriptwriters and makers of dark movies such as David Lynch.

So is American suburbia screwed? Does it represent, in the words of James Howard Kunstler, admittedly a car hating, new Urbanite iconoclast, “the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world’’?

Will much of American suburbia become the “new slums” peopled by the “new and impoverished proletariat”, while others scramble to escape? Are we soon going to be talking about America’s “former middle class”? To quote Sam Goldwyn, it’s a “definite maybe.”

How come? At its root, there’s a simple unvarnished fact. And it’s not about over-stretched borrowers. It’s a crude and brutal fact that the ‘cheap oil fiesta’ is over. And what exactly is the problem? It’s this. Americans remain oblivious to the red light on the fuel gauge, and the long and short of it is that the whole suburban phenomenon was and is built around the car, and the central dogma that oil will remain abundant and cheap for ever and anon. Upon that is predicated the system that has sustained the daily lives of the vast bulk of Americans - the ‘American dream’ - since the late 1940s.

(snip)

Instead, we tend to go with those who see the free market price oil price more likely to hit $100 per barrel than $30 and in any case to stay at $70 and above given geopolitics and demand pressures. We are seeing the growth of bi-lateral or multi-lateral neo-mercantilist oil supply deals between the likes of Russia and China, Angola and Nigeria and China, India and Russia, and Venezuela with various consumers. This is leading to shortfalls of supplies available for the rest of the world via the NYMEX and other bourses.

So if the world is indeed heading down the arc of oil depletion, and if geopolitics and neo-mercantilism bring significant insecurities into US oil supplies, the American suburban lifestyle built round the car will start to destabilise and wobble with deep and wide ramifications.

Just ponder this... the average Caesar salad travels 1,500 miles to the supermarket shelf. And those 12,000 mile supply chains of cheap, if increasingly ‘tainted’, Chinese goods will begin to look uneconomic with a $100 per barrel oil price. Indeed at anything much over $70. Moreover, US agriculture, currently being reshaped by the oil-intensive ethanol-from-crops movement, has been consolidated in a very small fraction of the population, and relies on pumping oil-based products – fertilisers and pesticides - into the soil to yield food crops.

Maybe, to misquote and modify Randy Newman: “if he were alive today, Thomas Jefferson would be rotating in his grave.” Assuming that in some degree or other, the era of American suburbia is ending, at a speed yet to be determined, America will be forced to recalibrate itself to some degree. This could yield a lot of opportunities amidst the turmoil. For example, in general terms, ‘the local’ supplier will bulk larger vs ‘the distant’. There will a ‘made here’ and ‘still made here’ placards reflecting more home grown businesses, and not just restaurants and beauty parlours but textile and auto-parts manufacturers among others. More small towns will be developed and built.

OF WHAT I'VE BEEN READING lately, the above is the rosy view from a Brit who has more faith in American ingenuity than I do. A more prevalent view among those warning that "peak oil" is nigh, is that the economic upheaval brought by the increasing scarcity -- and costliness -- of the lifeblood of Leviathan America may bring about a situation where it's every man for himself, that "state of nature" described by English philosopher Thomas Hobbes in his masterwork, Leviathan.

And, according to Hobbes, life in the state of nature is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

Count Georgetown political theorist Patrick Deneen among the pessimists:

I think there is a growing possibility of severe social and personal pain and dislocation, of societal upheaval and even political chaos. These are not conditions that we have ever experienced and seem implausible, even incredible. But, the bleak scenario we may face is not because human beings - and Americans especially - can't live this better way of life, but because we have organized our lives in ways that make any such easy transition implausible if not impossible.

There are obvious ways in which this is so: take, for instance, the example of banking. The modern capitalist system is built on the health of a banking system. The health of a banking system rests most deeply upon a foundation of economic growth: no one would lend out money at modest interest if they believed first, that there was great risk of default, and second, if the money returned in the future (even with interest) was worth less than money in the present. Our banking system hums along in the backdrop of economic growth; in a backdrop of economic contraction, the banking system would become dysfunctional. Some bankers might succeed by making good bets on individuals, but the systemic backstop that the future will be brighter than the present would disappear (this is the same principle by which we do better betting on the market than necessarily on individual stocks; we can afford to have some losers in our portfolios in the backdrop of a rising market. Just as a rising market makes everyone look like financial geniuses, so too a growing economy makes our high-finance Hampton banker boys look brilliant).

Beyond such specific examples, however, there is a deeper cause for concern which is tied most fundamentally to the very plausibility of the modern liberal system. Modern liberal society is premised on growth - constant, unrelenting growth. Liberal democracies have always and everywhere come under severe stress, and very often have disintegrated under conditions of prolonged economic contraction. Much of modern history records not the stability and "normality" or naturalness of liberal democracy, but its profound fragility. America has come to believe that liberal democracy is its birthright, even that it is the natural condition of mankind. There is much evidence to contradict this belief: liberal democracy has in most cases been a difficult political arrangement to maintain, perhaps above all because it requires belief in its fundamental justness from the populace. In the absence of the prospects of limitless growth, the populace of many liberal democracies have rejected the justness of liberal democracy, and their societies have unravelled, at times descending into conflict, civil war and chaos.

Why should this be so? In a nutshell, liberal democracy contains an internal contradiction: liberalism is a political theory of basic economic inequality; democracy is premised upon the belief in political equality. Democracy exerts an egalitarian pressure upon liberalism, to which liberalism must offer some compensation. The earliest theorists of liberalism understood well that they were commending a theory of economic inequality: in the justly famous Chapter 5 of the Second Treatise on Government, John Locke argued that liberal society allowed and even encouraged increasing economic differentiation between the "industrious and rational" and the "quarrelsome and contentious." Advanced liberal societies permitted the exacerbation of the position between these two sorts of humans: the rights of liberal society required defense of the State, above all, to prevent the assault on wealthy "estates" (or property) by the larger "quarrelsome and contentious" classes. Locke foresaw the potential of proto-Marxist temptations among the poor to deprive the wealthy of property. In the end, the promise of State protection of property was not sufficient: liberal society cannot last if there is a persistent desire on the part of the lower classes to encroach on rights of property. A repressive (Western) liberalism has generally not proven successful.

(snip)

People will not gladly or easily accept sure knowledge of a future of decrease. The idea that we will gradually and easily slip into a "better future" in which the stock market continuously loses value; in which our houses grow less valuable year after year; in which our purchasing power, via our dollar, buys less every passing day; in which our children can expect to make less money, to have a "less successful" future than previous generations; in which we will have to adjust our expectations to accept work of a more manual nature, for less money, and with less leisure - that we will go gladly into that "better life" without a tumultuous political upheaval and a vicious fight over the valuable scraps that remain is implausible if not pure fantasy and dangerous wishful thinking.

OY. If only Deneen were an ill-informed crank making this stuff up out of whole cloth, which he isn't.

As a matter of fact, one of the leading experts on "peak oil" two years ago sounded alarm bells in Washington. But instead of sounding the alarm bells with the American public and industry, our leaders already had taken another tack in 2003 -- invade the country with the world's third-largest oil reserves.

And that may well be exactly why we're in the Iraq quagmire today. But more on that later.

British journalist David Strahan interviewed Dr. Robert Hirsch, author of the 2005 paper Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, and Risk Management -- written at the behest of the Energy Department and commonly known as the Hirsch Report -- about his findings:

When global oil production peaks, the economy is likely to shrink in direct proportion to dwindling fuel supplies, says Dr Robert Hirsch of the think tank SAIC.

Speaking at the Association for the Study of Peak Oil conference in Houston, he also warned that as peak approaches, producer countries including OPEC and Russia are likely to husband their reserves for future generations and limit exports, potentially sharpening the decline in oil available to importing nations.

WHAT THAT MEANS is the topic of a fascinating audio interview with Hirsch conducted by Strahan, author of The Last Oil Shock: A Survival Guide to the Imminent Extinction of Petroleum Man. It's well worth your time.

And, of course, we get back to Iraq. You know, the country with the world's third-largest oil reserves -- greatly undertapped oil reserves, thanks to the sanctions against Saddam Hussein's regime. Again, here's some of an article by Strahan, the British journalist:

But despite the oil majors’ undoubted interest and influence, the decision to attack was not taken in the boardroom. Iraq was indeed all about oil, but in a sense that transcends the interests of individual corporations – however large.

The elephant in the drawing rooms of both the White House and No 10 was the fact that global oil production is likely to ‘peak’ and fall into terminal decline within about a decade - the inevitable result of 40 years of dwindling oil discoveries and ever-rising consumption. Oil production is already on the slide in 60 of the world’s 98 oil producing countries - including the US and Britain. Dr Michael Smith of the oil consultancy Energyfiles forecasts another 14 will join the descent during the next ten years. Aggregate oil production in the OECD has been falling since 1997, and all major forecasters – including noted optimists such as the International Energy Agency and Exxon Mobil - expect output for the entire world except OPEC to peak by the middle of the next decade. From then on everything depends on the cartel, but unfortunately there is growing evidence that its members have been exaggerating the size of their reserves for decades, and that their output could also falter soon.

As I report in The Last Oil Shock, the international oil consultancy PFC Energy briefed Dick Cheney in 2005 that on a more realistic assessment of OPEC’s reserves, its production could peak by 2015. That would tip global output into terminal decline, almost certainly bringing soaring oil prices, deep recession and worse. A report published by the US Department of Energy, also in 2005, concluded that without a crash programme of mitigation 20 years before the event, the economic and social impacts of the oil peak would be “unprecedented”. The evidence suggests that these fears were already weighing heavily with Cheney, Bush and Blair.

In a world of looming oil shortage, Iraq represented a unique opportunity. With 115 billion barrels Iraq had the world’s third biggest reserves, and after years of war and sanctions they were also the most underexploited. In the late 1990s Iraqi oil production averaged about 2 million barrels per day, but with the necessary investment its reserves could support three times that output. Not only were sanctions stopping Iraqi production from growing, but also actively damaging the country’s petroleum geology by denying the national oil company access to essential chemicals and equipment. In one of a series of reports to the Security Council, UN specialist inspectors warned in January 2000 that sanctions had already caused irreversible damage to Iraq’s reservoirs, and would continue to lead to “the permanent loss of huge reserves of oil”. But sanctions could not be lifted with Saddam still in place, so if Iraq’s oil was to help defer the onset of global decline, the monster so long supported by the West would have to go.

As I reveal in The Last Oil Shock, the CIA was also well aware of Iraq’s unique value, having secretly paid for new maps of its petroleum geology to be drawn as early as 1998. Cheney also knew, fretting publicly about global oil depletion at a speech in London the following year, where he noted that “the Middle East with two thirds of the world’s oil and lowest cost is still where the prize ultimately lies”. Blair too had reason to be anxious about oil: British North Sea output had peaked in 1999 - and has been falling ever since - while the petrol protests of 2000 had made the importance of maintaining the fuel supply excruciatingly obvious.

WHICH MIGHT BE WHY Vice-President Dick Cheney has a strikingly different take on the wisdom of invading all of Iraq and occupying it than Defense Secretary Dick Cheney did in the wake of the first Gulf War.

Of course, taking all of Iraq this time, then occupying it, hasn't worked out so well. Nor has the resulting chaos done much for exploiting those Iraqi oil reserves.

And we might only have three more years until the petroleum hits the fan.

Returning for a moment to the dire predictions of Hirsch, the oil-supply expert, here's Deneen again. Just so that we're perfectly clear on what we might be facing much sooner than we think:

The impact of an ongoing negative growth economy in a society that is premised upon ongoing and permanent growth will be catastrophic. Everything we assume about the future would change. Few jobs, few bank loans, difficulty providing goods and services (including food), shrinking numbers of college educations, the evaporation of our national wealth, declining levels of research and innovation across the board, no retirement accounts, the decline of the middle class and devastation of the lower classes, etc.

In answer to a question whether "peak oil" will occur as a gradual plateau or a sudden and drastic decline, Hirsch points to the high likelihood of increased resource nationalism (a phenomenon we are already witnessing around the world). He notes that private oil companies no longer control petroleum resources; national companies do. As awareness of peak oil spreads, there will first be a further spike in oil prices and a growing inclination of resource-rich nations to hold their remaining oil in reserve for domestic production and in expectation of further rises in price. This response will, of course, only accelerate and deepen the crisis.

Hirsch foresees the likelihood of gas rationing as a reactive answer to our current inability to begin cutting back our consumption. Nature will exact her price, whether we are willing to pay for it significantly now or drastically in the near future. Our techno-optimists tell us that technology will come to the rescue. The nice thing about holding this position is that no one has to act responsibly or like an adult. It was once the case that adults acted with prudence, awaiting not the best case scenario but preparing for the possibility of a worse. Our liberals and conservatives alike tell us that technology will save us, but mark my words, when TSHTF they will be the first to blame someone else: the Saudis, the Iranians, the Russians, Hugo Chavez, you name it. Our impressive military will be called upon to secure our vital national interest, wherever it might happen to be buried. And at that point no one will be able to suggest that perhaps we have ourselves to blame, because we did nothing when intelligent but obtuse people knew what was coming at the end of our wild ride down Sunset Boulevard.

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS when a society lives beyond its means. This is the very real consequence of sin, of avarice on a societal scale.

We have gotten what we wished for. It didn't make us happy, nor did it sate our appetite for more, more, more. And now we're going to lose it. All.

A lot of fundamentalist types -- of both the Protestant and Catholic persuasions -- thought they had it figured. The wrath of God will come upon us, borne on the waves and winds of a monster hurricane. Or shake the world with the power of an earthquake.

Engulf the world in a nuclear fire?

INSTEAD, maybe God's just chastisement of His deeply crooked people will come in with the relative quiet of oil wells slowly going dry. One after another, world without end, amen. Maybe the judgment of the Almighty comes, as it always has, in giving rebellious and willful humanity all the rope it needs -- plus free will.

If and when our Western house of cards comes tumbling down upon us, don't blame God. We could have been less avaricious. We could have lived more simply. We, at any time, just could have cut it out.

We didn't have to be our own hangman. We didn't have to take the rope and make a civilizational noose out of it.

IT'S NOT God's fault. It's ours.

Did you really need that $35,000 SUV? Did you really need two of them? Does your family need to be a three- or four-car family?

Did you really need that 4,500 square-foot house in the exurbs? Did you need to live in the exurbs -- or even the suburbs -- at all? Did I?

Does everybody in the family need two cell phones, a BlackBerry, three iPods and a mega sound system in each car?

Do you need Evian, Aquafina or any other kind of bottled water (and the petroleum needed to make the throwaway plastic bottles it comes in) when the stuff out of the tap is the same two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen?

AND WHAT ABOUT the $250 -- a piece -- you just dropped on Hannah Montana tickets for your two preteen daughters, who really, really didn't need to go to a damn Hannah Montana concert? You'd raise holy hell if your county government imposed a $500-a-year tax on you to build and subsidize convenient, low-cost, energy-efficient mass transit.

Yes, you would.

Well, now the conductor is coming down the aisle, announcing the end of the line. Your fare card is spent. Please exit to the back.

HAT TIP: Crunchy Con

When TV was young and people were smart

OK, this is primitive television . . . a videotape of a Dec. 3, 1950, kinescope of Toast of the Town, which would be renamed The Ed Sullivan Show (after its host) in 1955.

This clip, years before television had the opportunity to become completely stupid -- though it always has had its moments -- features Stan Kenton and his orchestra, with a solo by an up-and-coming trumpeter in the band, name of Maynard Ferguson.

Them was the days.

Y'know, I'll respect MTV if it ever features anything -- like this clip, for example -- that stretches its audience beyond the concepts of getting loaded and getting laid.

But that's just me, an old fart who remembers MTV when it actually played, uh . . . music videos.

What's that? "What's a kinescope?" you ask? It's this.

OK, this is a great song

I've always loved Kyu Sakamoto's "Sukiyaki," a song that has absolutely nothing to do with the title, which originally was "Ue o muite arukō" ("I Look Up When I Walk") for its original Japanese release in 1961. The American re-release was all over American Top-40 radio in 1963, when your Mighty Favog was a toddler Favog, and I guess it stuck.

Thing is, the happy melody belies a sad, sad song. Here are the lyrics:

I'll look up while I'm walking
Ue wo muite arukou
上を向いて歩こう

So the tears don't fall from my eyes
Namida ga koborenai youni
涙がこぼれないように

I think back to spring days
Omoidasu haru no hi
思い出す春の日

It's a lonely night
Hitoribocchi no yoru
一人ぼっちの夜

I'll look up while I'm walking
Ue wo muite arukou
上を向いて歩こう

And count the scattered stars
Nijinda hoshi wo kazoete
にじんだ星をかぞえて

I think back to summer days
Omoidasu natsu no hi
思い出す夏の日

It's a lonely night
Hitoribocchi no yoru
一人ぼっちの夜

Happiness is above the clouds
Shiawase wa kumo no ue ni
幸せは雲の上に

Happiness is above the sky
Shiawase wa sora no ue ni
幸せは空の上に

I'll look up while I'm walking
Ue wo muite arukou
上を向いて歩こう

So the tears don't fall from my eyes
Namida ga koborenai youni
涙がこぼれないように

Even while I cry I walk on
Naki nagara aruku
泣きながら歩く

It's a lonely night
Hitoribocchi no yoru
一人ぼっちの夜

Sadness is in the light of the stars
Kanashimi wa hoshi no kage ni
悲しみは星の影に

Sadness is in the light of the moon
Kanashimi wa tsuki no kage ni
悲しみは月の影に

I'll look up while I'm walking
Ue wo muite arukou
上を向いて歩こう

So the tears don't fall from my eyes
Namida ga koborenai youni
涙がこぼれないように

Even while I cry I walk on
Naki nagara aruku
泣きながら歩く

It's a lonely night
Hitoribocchi no yoru
一人ぼっちの夜

It's a lonely night
Hitoribocchi no yoru
一人ぼっちの夜

THIS VIDEO is from a Japanese TV show -- Shall We Meet at Seven? -- broadcast in June 1963. You have to love the quirky -- by American standards -- videography.


HAT TIP: A.J. Lindsey at the KAAY 1090 blog.

Oh, the humanity!

Thanks to Steve Pederson, Nebraska not only surrendered the Big 12 to Texas and Oklahoma . . . and Oklahoma State and Texas A&M . . . and Missouri and Kansas State . . . and Colorado and Texas Tech, but now it's surrendered the state of Nebraska to Nebraska-Omaha.

THAT'S THE Division II University of Nebraska at Omaha Mavericks, ranked No. 28 this week in the Massey computer ratings. The Huskers are No. 53.

In its Wednesday editions -- hitting the streets just before the impending Apocalypse -- the Omaha World-Herald reports on Husker Nation's final humiliation:

There is a team ranked No. 28 by one of the computer formulas used to determine the Bowl Championship Series standings, but it is not angling for a shot at a bowl game.

This team is ranked just behind UCLA, USC and California, and just ahead of Clemson, Penn State, Purdue, Texas A&M and Oklahoma State, and is not complaining about falling seven spots, from No. 21, despite winning last week.

This team is the University of Nebraska . . . at Omaha.

"If that's where they have us, then that must be exactly where we should be," UNO coach Pat Behrns said, laughing.

While UNO, at 7-0, has proven to be one of the top teams in Division II, there aren't many who believe that the Mavericks are playing at a level to compare with college football's heavyweights. That includes Kenneth Massey, whose computer formula currently has UNO among the best teams in the land.

"It's kind of a flaw in the system," he said. "We're not allowed to use margin of victory, just wins and losses, for the BCS. And to be fair, everybody starts out at zero at the beginning of the season — from LSU down to the worst NAIA team. You don't want to assume that a Division II team isn't as good as a I-A team until that's proven on the field, and sometimes it takes more than six or seven weeks, even a whole season, until enough results are in to make it conclusive."

Massey, 30, who earned a mathematics degree from Virginia Tech and is based in Tennessee, began computer ratings as a hobby in the mid-1990s. His ratings have been used as part of the BCS formula since 1999.

He said it wasn't as easy for a Division II team to sneak high into the overall ratings when margin of victory was part of the formula. Using margin of victory, UNO is No. 78 in the Massey Ratings.

Massey said UNO's wins over North Dakota and Northwest Missouri State — two teams that are otherwise unbeaten — have helped push up its rating to No. 28. The next highest Division II team behind UNO is North Alabama at 66. North Dakota is No. 76 and Northwest Missouri State is No. 79.

Staying undefeated against a schedule filled with teams with good records keeps a team's rating high.

"They are propping each other up, but as soon as that house of cards crumbles — and it only takes one upset — things will change," he said. "They'll still be ranked high compared to other Division II teams, but they won't be overly high as they are now."

(snip)

"I've never really seen a Division II team play a (BCS) team," Behrns said. "Most of the Division II teams that have gone out and played I-AA teams have done a decent job, but that's still a heck of a step up."

Just for the record, Nebraska is No. 53 in the Massey Ratings, well below the Mavs. Using margin of victory, the Huskers are at No. 75, three spots better than UNO.

"They're not better (than Nebraska), but they've been more impressive this year," Massey said. "They haven't lost a game, and Nebraska has. In order to say Nebraska is better, you have to have prior knowledge — you have to know that Nebraska is bigger and faster and is a Division I team. But (to the computer) Nebraska hasn't shown anything on the field to indicate it's any better than Omaha."

CAN THERE BE ANY DOUBT that Coach Bill Callahan is just as toast as the fool who hired him? It's just that new athletic director/old legend Tom Osborne is too decent a man to fire his sorry ass before he has well and truly hung himself with all the rope he's been handed.

This is the compromise proposal

When indiscriminate sex becomes an entitlement program and a children's-rights issue, it's not long at all before we start treating our children like animals, and parents start acting like pet owners -- only without the doting -- and health-care professionals become veterinarians for bipeds.

Then again, that would be an insult to the compassionate and professional veterinarians I have known.

Here's a story from the Portland (Maine) Press Herald about a school board member's proposal that is all the more ridiculous for being a compromise measure, as opposed to the undiluted evil of last week's original decision:

A Portland School Committee member wants to give parents the power to keep their children from participating in a controversial new plan to make prescription birth control available to students at King Middle School.

Benjamin Meiklejohn submitted a resolution Monday, to be considered by the committee on Nov. 7. The proposal would give parents the option to block access to prescription contraception if they enroll their children in the King Student Health Center.

Meiklejohn's proposal also would limit access to prescription contraception such as "the pill" and "the patch" to students who are at least 14 years old.

The committee's 7-2 vote last week would make King the first middle school in Maine to offer a full range of contraception in grades 6 to 8, when students are 11 to 15 years old, school officials said.

Meiklejohn said some committee members urged him to delay submitting his resolution, fearing it would fan the flames of a national media frenzy over the committee's decision. But Meiklejohn said it would be a mistake to put off action on an issue that has divided the community.

"We should bring some resolution to this issue as soon as possible," said Meiklejohn, who voted against providing prescription birth control at King.

Although students need written parental permission to be treated at King's health center, state law allows them to receive confidential care for reproductive health, mental health and substance abuse issues. So parents who allow their children to be treated there may never know whether their children receive the pill or the patch or any other reproductive health care.

King's health center, which is operated by the city's Public Health Division, has provided condoms as part of comprehensive reproductive health care since it opened in 2000.

John Coyne, School Committee chairman, said he supports the general ideas behind Meiklejohn's proposal, but he wants to make sure it wouldn't break state laws that ensure access to health care and privacy of minors. Coyne also voted against offering prescription contraception at King.

"I would never want to put out something for the board to vote on that is illegal," Coyne said. "If we can figure out the legal issues around this decision, maybe we can come up with something a little more palatable to me and others."

Committee members Rebecca Minnick and Susan Hopkins said they probably wouldn't vote to reduce the scope of reproductive health services provided at King. Other committee members couldn't be reached for comment Monday.

"If it saves one girl from getting pregnant too soon, it's worth it," Minnick said.

OR, AS DOSTOEVSKY once wrote:

Now assume there is no God or immortality of the soul. Now tell me, why should I live righteously and do good deeds if I am to die entirely on earth?. . . And if that is so, why shouldn't I (as long as I can rely on my cleverness and agility to avoid being caught by the law) cut another man's throat , rob, and steal.

Or, for that matter, give birth-control pills and patches to 11-year-old girls. After all, in Portland, they're already giving rubbers to 11-year-old boys.

It's been my experience that people generally act like animals only when those in power assume that they are, then treat them accordingly. And that includes the realm of lowered, or nonexistent, expectations.

Our dignity lies in He who created us. Otherwise, we're somewhat smarter than Fido, but about half as pleasant to be around.

It takes a voter to put a crook into office

Or, in this case, alleged crook.

Anyway, in today's latest lesson on "Crooked politicians don't just grow on trees on the capitol grounds," we have the latest Louisiana politician in the feds' crosshairs: state Sen. Derrick Shepherd.

I COULD GO ON AND ON, but The Times-Picayune in New Orleans tells the story so well:

An FBI agent testified in open court Monday that state Sen. Derrick Shepherd helped a twice-convicted felon launder nearly $141,000 in fraudulently generated bond fees last year, keeping close to half the money as part of the arrangement.

Shepherd was easily re-elected to the state Senate on Saturday, winning 61 percent of the vote. Last year, he finished a strong third in a 2006 run for Congress and then endorsed the embattled incumbent, U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, helping him secure a ninth term.

Special Agent Peter Smith testified that Shepherd, a lawyer who often handles personal-injury cases, attempted to make his dealings with bond broker Gwendolyn Joseph Moyo appear legitimate by writing the words "settlement proceeds" on the memo lines of the checks.

However, investigators have found no evidence that Shepherd did any legal work for Moyo, Smith said, although he said that Shepherd had delivered a "vague invoice" to a federal grand jury to explain the payments. The document was basically illegible, Smith said.

"To me, it looks like he was trying to disguise it, to make it look like this was for a personal-injury case," Smith said of the notations in the checks' memo lines.

"I suppose the government takes the position that it's money laundering?" Moyo's attorney, Pat Fanning, asked Smith.

"Yes," Smith testified.

In a telephone interview, Shepherd strongly denied committing a crime.

"At no time have I ever testified before a grand jury, nor at any time have I ever committed any crime whatsoever -- state, local or federal -- in my life," Shepherd said.

"To all of the rest of your questions, no comment," he said.

The allegations involving Shepherd burst into public view during what would normally be a low-key proceeding: a detention hearing for Moyo, who investigators say sold a series of bogus construction bonds.

Moyo, 52, who owns a home in the Eastover subdivision of eastern New Orleans, was arrested at the federal courthouse Thursday after she arrived at the grand jury room without any of the documents she was ordered to bring.

While Moyo is at the center of the government's case, it was clear at Monday's hearing that the government is investigating Shepherd's involvement. Smith said Shepherd has already been interviewed by FBI agents in connection with the inquiry.

They still have questions for him, Smith indicated at another point, saying with a grin that Shepherd has "been invited to the grand jury."

Fanning suggested that prosecutors' desire to jail Moyo was partially borne of a desire to pressure her to "flip" on Shepherd. He noted pointedly that Moyo would not agree to "wear a wire" when the FBI first interviewed her in July.

"Do you remember my client being asked to cooperate against Derrick Shepherd?" Fanning asked Smith.

"I don't remember specifically saying that, but I probably did," the agent said.

Moyo has yet to be charged with a crime, but Assistant U.S. Attorney Mike Magner told U.S. Magistrate Judge Alma Chasez that he expects a grand jury will indict her this week. Moyo was arrested based on a complaint filed by Smith last week.

Moyo's first conviction, for issuing false contractor bonds, came in Arizona in 1989.

She won some notoriety in the Washington, D.C., area when she offered the following year to testify against Mayor Marion Barry, a friend of hers, regarding what the Washington Post described as "alleged drug use and contracting irregularities."

But her attorney said that prosecutors couldn't meet her terms, and she never turned state's evidence. The following year, Moyo was convicted of using a fake Social Security number.

After her first conviction, she was banned by law from the insurance business. But she didn't stay away from it for good.

YOU KNOW, politicians in my home state may have the equivalent of a Ph.D in crooked, but Louisiana voters are definitely riding the short bus. Which goes a long way in explaining a lot.

“It’s just brazen down here. In Louisiana,
they skim the cream, steal the milk,
hijack the bottle and look for the cow.”

-- James Bernazzani, the FBI's guy in New Orleans

Because, no doubt, it's in Hell

Louisiana Hearts Kids . . . the story continues

From the New Orleans Times-Picayune:

Alice Harte to close Tuesday

Posted by West Bank bureau October 22, 2007 5:15PM

Alice Harte Charter School in Algiers will be closed Tuesday, due to roof leaks and flooding caused by today's severe rainstorms.

Officials regret the inconvenience and are doing everything they can to get students back into the facility as soon as possible, said Brian Riedlinger, chief executive officer of the Algiers Charter School Association.

"Unfortunately, this building has a lot of problems, and weather like this really illustrates the need to upgrade our school facilities," he said.

Parents should monitor the news for information on the possibility of resuming classes Wednesday.

Earlier this year, officials condemned two classrooms at Harte, due to severe mold infestations. They relocated some students to a church across the street to await remediation and repairs.

Harte currently serves students in kindergarten through eighth grade.

For more information, parents can call the ACSA's Central Office at (504) 393-0926. Teachers and staff are expected to report to school Tuesday.

The answer is 'No!'

Some people got a lot of nerve. Here's a good one from The Associated Press:

President Bush asked Congress on Monday for another $46 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and finance other national security needs. "We must provide our troops with the help and support they need to get the job done," Bush said.

The figure brings to $196.4 billion the total requested by the administration for operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere for the budget year that started Oct. 1. It includes $189.3 billion for the Defense Department, $6.9 billion for the State Department and $200 million for other agencies.

To date, Congress has already provided more than $455 billion for the Iraq war, with stepped-up military operations running about $10 billion a month. The war has claimed the lives of more than 3,830 members of the U.S. military and more than 73,000 Iraqi civilians.

Bush made his request in the Roosevelt Room after meeting in the Oval Office with leaders of veterans service organizations, a fallen Marine's family and military personnel who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The White House originally asked for $141.7 billion for the Pentagon to prosecute the Iraq and Afghanistan missions and asked for $5.3 billion more in July. The latest request includes $42.3 billion more for the Pentagon - already revealed in summary last month - and is accompanied by a modified State Department request bringing that agency's total for the 2008 budget year to almost $7 billion.

Bush said any member of Congress who wants to see success in Iraq, and see U.S. troops return home, should strongly support the request.

"I know some in Congress are against the war and are seeking ways to demonstrate that opposition," Bush said. "I recognize their position and they should make their views heard. But they ought to make sure our troops have what it takes to succeed. Our men and women on the front lines should not be caught the middle of partisan disagreements in Washington, D.C."

Democrats were not swayed.

"We've been fighting for America's priorities while the president continues investing only in his failed war strategy - and wants us to come up with another $200 billion and just sign off on it?" said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "President Bush should not expect Congress to rubber stamp his latest supplemental request. We're not going to do that."

So far, President Bush has spent the better part of a trillion dollars just to dig a deeper and deeper hole. And we all know what they say about the definition of insanity. . . .

No.

No, Mr. President, no more money for your stupid little war. Bring the troops home before they get in the way of the Turks taking care of their own War Against Terror against our terrorist friends, the Kurds. Bring the troops home before you and your crazy-ass vice president get any more bright ideas. No more money. No, no and hell no.

The proper congressional response to Bush's latest mau-mauing, ideally, would lie in drawing up articles of impeachment.

Not likely, but we can dream.

Dear Auburn: Sucks to be you

By the way, the ESPN announcers were being melodramatic. Look at the clock: Barring an interception, the worst-case scenario would be the receiver bobbling the ball for a second or two, and Louisiana State having to kick a field goal with a second left.

That's because the refs WOULD have had to put time back on the clock after an incompletion. Again, look at the video. Demetrius Byrd catches that ball with four seconds left, maybe three and a half.

There would have been time for a field goal.

But the Tigers didn't need it, now, did they?

Carl Dubois of The Advocate in Baton Rouge has much, much more.

What the hell . . . ?

What IS it with Matt Drudge and his "hell" fixation?

Louisiana elects a Band-Aid, buys a little time

A New Orleans blogger apologizes for saying Louisiana governor-elect Bobby Jindal was "a right-wing nut job." He, apparently, should have said Jindal "seems like a right-wing nut job."

Well, we all have our opinions. And calling somebody a nut job, in the realm of politics, is definitely a venial sin.

Me, I think -- looking south from up here in Omaha, Neb. -- that Jindal might be a lot of things, but "nut job" isn't one of them.

I am not a right-winger, and I'm not even a Republican. The last New Deal Democrat standing . . . maybe.

BUT IF YOU ASK ME -- which you haven't -- Louisiana is in such bad shape that I don't think standard politics, or standard political thinking, cuts it anymore. I mean, I pretty much deplore how Jindal toes the Bush party line in Congress on many things. And I say this as someone who's the oddest of political birds, the Socially Conservative Political Progressive.

Jindal, however, passed the Who'll Run Louisiana Test on three counts:

1) He has a brain . . . and something of a plan,

2) He has a strong reputation of not being "ethically challenged," and ran on an ethics-reform platform,

3) He's not your typical Louisiana knuckle-dragging, good-ole-boy incompetent.

IN THE SHAPE LOUISIANA'S IN, that's all that matters.

The Crescent City blogger (Editor B, whose site I greatly enjoy, by the way) is disturbed by Jindal's seeming support for the "intelligent design" approach to "origin studies"-- which, by the way, is distinct from "creationism" ("science" slathered over a literalistic approach to the Genesis account of creation).

I can appreciate how that might be of interest. On the other hand . . . so what? As a Catholic, I (with my Church) am agnostic on how God created the universe and life on earth. If scientific evidence points toward evolution over billions of years, fine.

(My problem with "intelligent design" isn't that I think it ultimately is untrue, it's that I think it's philosophy, not hard science.)

BUT I DIGRESS. "Intelligent design" isn't an issue, because it's not gonna be taught (the courts will see to that), and Jindal has bigger fish to fry than trying to make it so.

The bottom line is whether Jindal can make any difference in bringing effective governance to what pretty clearly is a failed state. The problem with Louisiana is the same as it was 140 years ago (and more) -- a deeply deviant civic culture.

Simply, Louisianians have had serious, serious problems figuring out this self-governance thing ever since Thomas Jefferson bought the place and imposed democratic rule. Louisianians, I am ashamed and sad to say, have had serious, serious problems in crafting government capable of fostering an overall standard of living on a par with the rest of the First World.

FOR A WHILE NOW, I have referred to my home state as high-functioning Third World. And New Orleans might not even be that.

In a situation as desperate as that, all the fine points of political haggling go out the window.

There is no such thing as a messiah in politics, but Louisiana simply has no chance whatsoever (and it is down to its last chance before descending to some sort of permanent American Chechnya) without a critical mass of competent, visionary and honest leaders.

I think Jindal came closest to that standard, and I'm glad that Mitch Landrieu will keep his job as lieutenant governor. Frankly, faded country-music star Sammy Kershaw would have been an embarrassment the state hardly could have afforded.

BUT EVEN WITH SOMEONE like Jindal as governor, I think the state still faces extremely long odds. And I think I've found the near-perfect "little story" that illustrates the "big story." (You've heard this before, but it's worth repeating over . . . and over . . . and over again.)

Go to these links:

* Home is where the heartbreak is

* More scenes from 'America's next great city'

* Disbelief in Omaha, or No Frame of Reference

* When we let our kids' schools deteriorate into dumps, is it a human-rights violation?

THESE POSTS contain pictures of my alma mater, Baton Rouge Magnet High, that I took last month when I was back home on vacation. I suspect there are schools all over Baton Rouge -- all over Louisiana -- that don't look much different.

This doesn't look like the United States. This looks like a rural school in a poor Chinese province -- I know; I just saw one last week on the NBC Nightly News. That poor Chinese school looked like a tiny version of Baton Rouge High.

What does it say about Baton Rouge, or Louisiana, when conditions most American communities would deem unfit for stray animals are thought to be perfectly OK for children? And when such has been deemed OK for children for a very long time?

After all, it takes a couple of decades of complete neglect for a school to turn into the kind of dump BRMHS is now.

Trust me. When I graduated from Baton Rouge High in 1979, it was the nicest public school I'd ever attended. (My entire school career was spent in Baton Rouge.) Back then, BRMHS was nice. All the other public schools I'd gone to were varying degrees of dumps.

Now, this is what the city's "flagship" public school looks like.

And this is exactly what a failed state looks like.

If the electorate doesn't care any more than that for public-school children -- for their own children, and for the children of every family that can't afford private school -- all is lost.

BOBBY JINDAL CAN'T FIX THAT. He can't make Louisianians give a damn or even pretend like they belong to a functioning civilization. Only Louisianians themselves can do that.

But until they do, Jindal is the only slim hope of even postponing the day when the rest of the country gives up on Louisiana for good.

Download the Big Show now and get a free. . . .

Sometimes, you just don't know what to write about your own aural extravaganza. That's "podcast" to you and me.

I get sick and tired of saying "It's hip! It's hep! It's eclectic! It rocks!" every week. It is all those things every week, but you just get damned tired of saying that over and over and over again.

But you have to write something for these stupid program descriptions and blog posts, you know?

So maybe I'll just say, "Listen and you'll get rich beyond your wildest dreams! You'll achieve enlightenment! Your relationships will be so much richer! Your maleness will be enhanced! Your man's maleness will be enhanced! Your woman will be enhanced!!! Your woman will be hottt!!! Download the Revolution 21 podcast and receive a free iPhone!"

And, unlike the spam in your inbox, this won't cost you a dime.

C'mon, cut a Favog a break and listen, huh?

Make time to watch this

Sometimes, it's all about the head fake.

You think you're watching a brilliant, funny and poignant "last lecture" by Carnegie Mellon computer-science professor Randy Pausch -- one that really was his last lecture. He's dying of pancreatic cancer, and only has months to live.

That's what you think. Because it's all about the head fake.

Here's part of a Wall Street Journal Online column by Jeff Zaslow:

The 46-year-old father of three has pancreatic cancer and expects to live for just a few months. His lecture, using images on a giant screen, turned out to be a rollicking and riveting journey through the lessons of his life.

He began by showing his CT scans, revealing 10 tumors on his liver. But after that, he talked about living. If anyone expected him to be morose, he said, "I'm sorry to disappoint you." He then dropped to the floor and did one-handed push ups.

Clicking through photos of himself as a boy, he talked about his childhood dreams: to win giant stuffed animals at carnivals, to walk in zero gravity, to design Disney rides, to write a World Book entry. By adulthood, he had achieved each goal. As proof, he had students carry out all the huge stuffed animals he'd won in his life, which he gave to audience members. After all, he doesn't need them anymore.

He paid tribute to his techie background. "I've experienced a deathbed conversion," he said, smiling. "I just bought a Macintosh." Flashing his rejection letters on the screen, he talked about setbacks in his career, repeating: "Brick walls are there for a reason. They let us prove how badly we want things." He encouraged us to be patient with others. "Wait long enough, and people will surprise and impress you." After showing photos of his childhood bedroom, decorated with mathematical notations he'd drawn on the walls, he said: "If your kids want to paint their bedrooms, as a favor to me, let 'em do it."

While displaying photos of his bosses and students over the years, he said that helping others fulfill their dreams is even more fun than achieving your own. He talked of requiring his students to create video games without sex and violence. "You'd be surprised how many 19-year-old boys run out of ideas when you take those possibilities away," he said, but they all rose to the challenge.

He also saluted his parents, who let him make his childhood bedroom his domain, even if his wall etchings hurt the home's resale value. He knew his mom was proud of him when he got his Ph.D, he said, despite how she'd introduce him: "This is my son. He's a doctor, but not the kind who helps people."

He then spoke about his legacy. Considered one of the nation's foremost teachers of video game and virtual-reality technology, he helped develop "Alice," a Carnegie Mellon software project that allows people to easily create 3-D animations. It had one million downloads in the past year, and usage is expected to soar.

"Like Moses, I get to see the Promised Land, but I don't get to step foot in it," Dr. Pausch said. "That's OK. I will live on in Alice."

SEE, PAUSCH'S LECTURE was far more than just a dying professor's parting words of wisdom to his students and colleagues. That, he said at the end, was the head fake. This was a dying father giving life lessons to his three small children, lessons they will see someday on an old DVD, delivered by a long-dead father they barely remember.

And they will be enveloped by his love. Death can separate a man's body and soul, but it holds no sway over love. Love defeats death every time.

There's a final head fake, though.

You get to the end of the hour-plus lecture, and something else hits you. And you are shattered by the realization.

Pausch's final lecture -- this tender message from father to children -- was a tender mesage from a Father to His children. He just needed to apply a little head fake to get us to listen to what He had to say.

The trouble with cause célèbres

KALB television in Alexandria, La., asks viewers what they think of two Jena Six defendants going to the BET Hip Hop Awards:

Should the “Jena Six” be celebrated?

Two members of the “Jena Six” spent the weekend basking in the glow of being celebrities.

Bryant Purvis and Carwin Jones are two of the teens with court action pending in the beating of fellow student Justin Barker in Jena High School last year. The case has become a lightning rod for discussion on race relations around the nation ever since a rally attended by thousands was held last month.

I'LL BET you can guess what folks thought.

The trouble with cause célèbres is that sometimes those who have been wronged aren't exactly sympathetic characters . . . or just aren't very bright. And then people lose sight of the fundamental issue because, well, who wants to back a jackass?

Which is why whoever told these two Jena Sixers it was acceptable to go to the BET gala and preen for the paparazzi and press ought to have his head examined. Assuming there's anything in there to examine.

If I were their lawyer -- already looking at the prospect of another trial by all-white jury in the home of the "white tree" -- I would be needing a fresh pair of BVDs right now.

Before you succumb to fashion . . . .

Before you follow the crowd and surrender your aesthetic sense to the latest ridiculous fashion in clothing, body piercing, tattoos, home decor, music or . . . eye wear, look upon this 1977 advertisement for Texas State Optical.

OY VEH. These Diane Von Furstenberg glasses were fashionable. They were popular. Lots of women in 1977 wore eyeglasses that looked a lot like this.

Is it a hottie, or is it a guppy? I can't exactly tell. Let me get my glasses.

Or, as the Spanish poet, novelist and philosopher George Santayana famously advised us, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

So, before you abandon all common sense and follow the crowd, remember those hideous, hideous eyeglasses.

And don't get me started on some of the awful clothes we wore back then.

What hath Bubba wrought?!?

More and more, it looks like when three little redneck bigots in Jena, La., hung nooses from their high school's "white tree," what they really did was light a long fuse.

That fuse, thus far, has led to and set off various small racial bombs. And the fuse yet burns. We know not where the last bomb lay, nor do we know its size.

YESTERDAY'S U.S. House Judiciary Committee hearing on the Jena Six, however, gives us some clues. The Politico reports:

The House Judiciary Committee hearing would have drawn a packed audience regardless — a crowd that is, by Capitol Hill standards, remarkably diverse — because the topic involves the Jena Six, a half-dozen African-American kids whose moniker has become the rallying cry of a resurgent civil rights movement.

(snip)

The room has a tense and excited feel to it. Two representatives of the Justice Department, Donald Washington, a U.S. attorney from the Western District of Louisiana, and Lisa Krigsten, representing the civil rights division, must defend the department for its decision not to press hate crime charges against teenage noose hangers in Jena, La., and for not doing enough to intervene in a racially disparate prosecution. Washington, an African-American, will draw the most heat from the committee.

“I’m sure we’re all familiar with the alleged facts,” says Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), though he and several Democrats enumerate them anyway:

On Aug. 31, 2006, “all Hades broke loose,” as Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) puts it. Three nooses were hung from what was known as the “white tree” at Jena High School after a black student requested the principal’s permission to sit under it. No charges were filed, and the culpable students, initially expelled, had their punishment reduced to a suspension and family counseling.

Tensions rose, and white District Attorney Reed Walters — who doubled as the school’s attorney — reportedly told students to cool it or he would “erase their lives with the stroke of a pen.”

Later that fall, one of the Jena Six, Robert Bailey Jr., had a gun pulled on him by a white student. Bailey wrestled the gun from him and was charged with stealing it; the white student was charged with nothing. Tensions rose further and white students were “calling folks niggers out in the school yard,” says Johnson.

Then in December, six black students beat up a white kid, Justin Barker. “There was a small degree of physical injury to the white student who attended a party,” says Johnson. The six were charged with attempted murder, and the story went national 10 months later when Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson Jr. got involved.

(snip)

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) also stands up for Barker and says that the beating is more significant than the hanging of the noose. Although, he concedes, “I know I come from a part of the country where there’s less sensitivity to that.”

“We see things different,” agrees Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.). She goes on to point out that while Democrats are talking about racial injustice, GOP members are “talking about single-parent families.”

By 11 a.m., the man most likely to do some disagreeing still isn’t here, and that’s just fine with Rep. Howard Coble (R-N.C.). “If I were compiling a group of witnesses” with the goal of racial harmony, he says, “I don’t know if Mr. Sharpton would make the cut.”

“He may be here shortly,” warns Conyers.

“He may be looking for me,” worries Coble. Indeed, a few moments later, chatter fills the courtroom as Sharpton makes his way to his center chair and cameras flash.

Conyers recognizes Sharpton, who apologizes, claiming his flight from New York was delayed two hours. Sharpton draws press attention, but he also draws scrutiny: During recess, a Washington Post reporter goes online to fact-check flight departure and arrival times.

Sharpton, though, for all his star power, ends up a minor player in the hearing, overshadowed by the emotion filling the room. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) betrays some of the sensitivity King referred to as she questions the Justice Department witnesses.

“I am almost in tears. Mychal Bell is now in jail. ... The tragedy of this case is that it called out for federal intervention for the protection of children,” she says. “Shame on you.”

Krigsten struggles to maintain a half-smile as Jackson Lee grows louder, directing her anger now at Washington, who she pointedly notes is the first black western district attorney. “I’m asking you to find a way to release Mychal Bell and the Jena Six,” Jackson Lee cries. “What are you doing now?!”

The room erupts in applause and shouts. At Washington’s answer — that he did what he could — the crowd hisses as Conyers tries to regain control.

The next to pile onto Washington is Waters, who adds that she is disappointed that the district attorney, who was invited to the hearing, chose not to show. The crowd breaks out in repeated shouts of “Subpoena!”

“You do have the power of the subpoena,” Waters reminds Conyers, reigniting the crowd: “Use it! Use it! Subpoena!” Conyers sits through the outburst but makes no indication of whether he will subpoena Walters.

THE CONGRESSMAN FROM IOWA, Steve King, is from just across the river from here. He is somewhere to the right of . . . well, probably everybody not already in some Idaho enclave. And, like many Midwesterners, he is clueless about race in America.

Where and when I grew up -- in the Deep South, in the '60s and '70s -- white people often were malicious about race. Here of most white Midwesterners like King just don't get it and, in the absence of a tradition of de jure segregation, are nevertheless still happy with de facto segregation.

And unless they are hit in the face -- over and over again -- with the rank inequity of how white malefactors in Jena got a wink and a wrist slap while black ones are looking at hard time in the state pen, they probably aren't going to get it.

The passions unleashed by the sins of Jena, however, make "not getting it" an exceedingly perilous proposition across a nation not nearly so well-off, tolerant, fair-minded and progressive as it thinks.

UPDATE: And there's this, in New York.

When we (thought we) was fab

I was a teen-ager in the 1960s, having come into this world in the Year of Our Lord, 1961.

Those of you who are not now or never have been journalism majors are thinking, "That does not compute."

I'm from Baton Rouge.

"Ohhhhhhhhhhh . . . OK. Yeah, that makes sense."

I knew you would understand. Time moves at a leisurely pace in my hometown, and if I'm remembering correctly, 1967 hit Baton Rouge about 1974. Roughly.

Before the '60s hit Baton Rouge, I had heard of its appearance elsewhere on TV. One time, a long-haired Canadian nephew of my British aunt rode his motorcycle to Baton Rouge for a visit, and I recall that we treated him politely enough.

But there was just the one of him, he didn't seem to be plotting the violent overthrow of Separate but Equal and, besides, he'd already gotten hauled in for being foreign (and a "beatnik") somewhere in Tennessee.

Overall, though, it seemed that rednecks and old money held sway over my hometown, and "the revolution" would have to wait for another day. And the closest we came to the counterculture were star-spangled bell bottoms and the end of legally segregated schools . . . in 1970.

But the '60s did arrive by the mid-'70s, and to a teen-ager, Baton Rouge was starting to look like a happening place. Kind of.

BY THE TIME I was in high school, all that was symbolized by the existence of the city's only "alternative" newsweekly, Gris Gris. Gris Gris was what you read from cover to cover if you wanted to be hip and in the know.

Gris Gris opened young minds to a strange and enticing world -- side by side with yet light years removed from petrochemical row, hard hats, pick-up trucks and work shirts with your name embroidered above the pocket. It was a world of progressive rock, civil rights, head shops and laughing at The Man.

It was where you learned what a head shop was, along with some of the best (and snarkiest) political coverage in the state.

At my high school, there was a group of us journalism types who wanted to BE Gris Gris. Looking back at a bunch of old issues I've saved over the decades, I've come to the conclusion that Gris Gris was good, but not that good.

It was a little pretentious, in that way that young people in a redneck burg are when they realize what they are and are horrified by the revelation. It wasn't as slick as what you would have found in the Big City, but it also was a hell of a lot more down home.

In that way young people are when they realize they're somewhat embarrassed at living in a redneck burg but like it too much to just up and haul ass. And realized they weren't so cool that they stopped saying "Hey, how ya doin' today?" to folks at the grocery store.

Kind of the Baton Rouge version of New Orleans' "Hey, cap! Where y'at?" Which, of course, is never said to yo' mama an dem, because you respect your elders.

ANYWAY, we thought we were hip when the '60s hit Baton Rouge -- as I said -- sometime around 1974. We thought that everything we were just "discovering" was hip, happenin' and now.

We had no idea that, yes, our discoveries were all that. On the coasts. In 1967 -- if not earlier.

Here's a small example, some of a Gris Gris item from the issue of Aug. 31-Sept. 5, 1977:

Making Waves at WAIL

Growing pains are far from over and personality composition definitely a variable factor at BR's "AM alternative," WAIL. As we were going to press with our back-to-school issue last week, researchers were already compiling material for this Gris Gris. One of the lead stories in "After Dark" was to be the apparent success of sound in the "alternative" format at WAIL, and in particular the avid following of one Becky [Y]ates, who had developed the "Mother Nature" air character into one of the more positive forces that station has seen in some time. She was also Music Director, with responsibilities for the station's playlist.

You recall the "was" tense in that sentence. [Y]ates and Program Director/Station Manager Bonnie Hagstrom were in the process of resigning as we called to confirm photo dates. They are no longer with the station.

(snip)

WAIL, on the bottom of the Baton Rouge ARB ratings the last year, had shown some gains under the FM-style programming combination of Hagstrom and [Y]ates. They had developed five personalities, or named characters, rotating through the day's shifts as DJ, and in that way assuring continuity of the character, if not the person behind the character.

[Y]ates "Mother Earth" [sic] was the longest-lived of the experiment. She had originally been assigned duties as a weatherperson and part-time news announcer, but the character developed such an audience that she finally became the mainstay of the prime drive-time slots. The only other jock to maintain his position for any length of time is ex-English major Darrell Ardison, known on the air as "Scratch."

Hagstrom is now Media Director for the Rub Group, an advertising agency. [Y]ates was unavailable for comment last week.

At WAIL life goes on. Both sides go to lengths to make the break an easy one, at least for the public. The actual dispute that caused the eruption is rapidly becoming only a faint murmur in the reverb coil of time . . . time . . . "Time? 4:57, here in Boss Rouge on Boss Radio."

Those changes.

BOSS ROUGE? BOSS RADIO? Just think, it only took 12 years for the Big BR to become "boss" -- with its own "Boss Radio" -- after KHJ created a nationwide splash by becoming "Boss Radio in Boss Angeles" . . . one fine spring day in 1965.

Those changes, indeed.