Friday, January 11, 2008

Fleece my sheep to pimp my house

Every year, we Catholics get the "stewardship homily" at Mass, coinciding with the archdiocesan annual campaign.

And just last Sunday, our parish got the soft sell from a freshly scrubbed seminarian seeking the faithful's help in defraying the high cost of priestly education.

ONE FACT in modern Church life is inescapable: Shepherds gotta have cash to tend to those sheep. In fact, that's just the analogy the Omaha archdiocese used last year for its annual campaign -- "Feed My Sheep."

On the spring day Mrs. Favog and I were received into the Catholic Church back in 1990, the priest, a World War II combat vet, was much more direct -- in that inimitable way old military men have.

"There is no free lunch at Christ the King," he told the congregation. We cringed as we looked at all our very Protestant friends and relatives in the pews, for we had the bad luck of getting confirmed not at Easter Vigil, but instead on the May day devoted to getting congregants to cough up the cash.

I couldn't help but think of what my old man -- a bitter and cynical soul who had not much use for Catholics or the churched in general -- had to say when I told him we were becoming Catholic.

"All they want is your money," is what I heard over the telephone line from 1,100 miles and a couple of planets away. I think my response, in my convert's naivete, went something like "Well, they're welcome to it, then."

THING IS, my father had this knack for saying the most flat-out lunatic things you could imagine -- things that caused his son and daughter-in-law to do regular spit takes -- only to have them validated via some bizarre occurrence. Or when Father, at your confirmation, says "There is no free lunch at Christ the King."

Since, the tact level has increased tremendously. We generally get the soft sell, and lots and lots of talk about "stewardship."

Which I think is fine, actually. We do need to support the work of the Church. We need to tend to the broken and the broken-hearted. We need to feed the hungry and heal the sick and educate the clergy and provide for priests and nuns in their old age.

And I wish the Catholic Church -- or at least the Church in northeastern Nebraska -- would actually exercise a little good stewardship of its own and direct every possible penny toward doing exactly that.

INSTEAD, last Sunday, as we were getting that seminarian sob story designed to get every last mite out of every last widow, all those proverbial widows had to do was shuffle out of church, get into their sensible-but-aging Dodge automobiles and slowly drive the couple of miles or so through the frozen Omaha cityscape to 1024 Sunset Trail to see what "stewardship" means to the chancery bureaucrats in charge of spending what they faithfully drop into the collection plate.

There, about eight blocks from the offices where Archbishop Elden Francis Curtiss oversees his flock, sits a vacant house. A newly-expanded, remodeled and tricked-out $389,000 house fit for a king . . . or a soon-to-be-retired prince of the Church who
approaches his shepherding job rather like Britney Spears approaches motherhood.

Such a bore . . . rather beneath someone as excellent as he.

The Omaha World-Herald has done some further digging about Curtiss' swell future old-bachelor pad and found
it's likely worth every widow's mite the chancery paid:

A house that the Omaha Catholic Archdiocese recently bought as Archbishop Elden Curtiss' future retirement home had undergone a total renovation and a significant expansion, said the prior owner and an archdiocesan official who was involved in the purchase.

Realtor Jeff Rensch and the Rev. Gregory Baxter said in separate interviews that the house, at 1024 Sunset Trail in the Dillon's Fairacres neighborhood, was well worth the $389,000 that the archdiocese paid for it in December.

Among other reasons, they said, an addition and renovation project before the sale expanded the one-story house to 3,100 finished square feet, including the basement.

Rensch's wife, Mari, purchased the house for $155,500 in September 2006. The sale to the archdiocese has sparked controversy since a World-Herald article last week. Many people have asked whether the house was worth the price.

Jeff Rensch, who couldn't be reached for comment before last week's article was published, said this week that the renovation and the neighborhood justified the cost.

"If you have never gone through this type of total renovation, it may sound like (we) made money on this sale," he said, "but with all costs considered, it was break even at best."

The home, Rensch said, was sorely in need of updating when the Rensches purchased it. They intended it to be a home for his elderly mother, Rensch said, but that didn't work out.

They spent more than $200,000 on renovating the house, he said, including building a 230-square- foot addition.

When they started, the house had two bedrooms, one bath and about 1,500 square feet of space on the main level. The basement was partly finished.

By the time the Rensches and their contractor were done, the house had 3,100 square feet of finished space. Of that, about 1,650 square feet is on the main level, and the rest is in the basement.

The house now has four bedrooms and three bathrooms. Rensch said the project included building a 10-by-23-foot main-floor addition, removing many walls and reconfiguring space to make the house more open. They added two basement bedrooms and, to conform to city codes, added windows that could be used to escape a fire.

They replaced the roof, adding two peaks for a better roofline. They replaced all windows and siding. They built a new kitchen with granite countertops. They replaced all wiring and plumbing, added a fireplace and installed a whirlpool bath.

The construction took more than a year.

"We didn't go from terrible to Taj Mahal, but it's basically a new home," said Quintin Bogard, owner of Q's Home Services and co-general contractor on the renovation with Mari Rensch. "It's not extravagant, but it's a beautiful home. You're not going to get a newer home in the middle of town than that one."

(snip)

He added by e-mail that he and his wife, who are Catholics with five children in Catholic schools, were "surprised and honored that the archbishop and his advisers noticed the home, appreciated Mari's work and decided to have him enjoy his retirement in this particular home."

Baxter said the house was worth the price. The Rev. Joseph Taphorn, chancellor of the Omaha archdiocese, said it will be a good investment for the archdiocese.

The Rensches, widely known in the Omaha real estate business, live within a few blocks of the house, which is near 61st Street and Western Avenue. They belong to St. Margaret Mary Catholic Church, where Baxter is the pastor. Baxter also is an archdiocesan official and was assigned to help find a retirement residence for Curtiss.

AT LEAST WE NOW KNOW archdiocesan officials aren't stupid. They just think we are.

We live in an archdiocese where inner-city Catholic parishes are struggling to keep the doors open and their schools from being shuttered. Likewise, we live in a city that has seen violence and hopelessness spike in poor neighborhoods desperately in need of the hope and mercy of Jesus Christ.

We also live in an archdiocese where even large suburban parishes are down to one priest, have plenty of space in the rectory and sure could use the help of a spry retired archbishop.

But I guess the Archdiocese of Omaha, in its infinite wisdom, finds that the spectacle of an archbishop serving anyone other than himself would be entirely too compatible with the example of an itinerant Savior who never had 3,100 square feet of material comfort to crash in after a hard day casting out demons, curing lepers and getting crucified.

Because Jesus, after all, is for those who can't help themselves.

"All they want is your money."

I so freakin' hate it when my old man, now long in the grave, still gets proven right after saying the most damn-fool things.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

It's always the children who pay


Some things are just too awful to contemplate, which makes blogging them, uh . . . difficult. This story from right here in Omaha is one of those things.

There are no fitting words for this. No profound words of understanding, no reassuring words of a rational, divine plan in why a mother apparently dies in her sleep and her baby boy dies horribly of starvation and dehydration. Alone. In an apartment building presumably full of tenants.

The Omaha World-Herald has the story. All I have are questions. Read on, if you dare:
Mike Browning has been thinking about his 21-month-old nephew's last days on earth — thirsty, hungry and forced to fend for himself as his mother lay dead on the couch with the TV on in their Omaha apartment.

"My mind, like anyone else's, goes to the child," he said. "His portion of the story is the tragedy, a humongous tragedy."

The bodies of his sister, Janelle Browning, and her son, Ezekiel Berry, were found Monday at Drake Court Apartments, near 21st and Leavenworth Streets. The pair were discovered after friends alerted apartment managers that they hadn't been seen in several weeks.

Mike Browning said he was told that his sisters' closest neighbor wasn't around very much, which he said may explain why no one noticed anything. Plus, the neighbors there just aren't that close of a group, he said.

Browning said he's taking comfort in believing his sister may have passed away in her sleep and the memories he has of their happier times together.

His sister had lived through some troubled years but was extremely proud of the work she'd done in getting her life back in order, he said.

Janelle Browning had been off methamphetamine for two years, Browning said, and police told him "her place was clean," meaning no drugs were found.

(snip)


Police have said they do not suspect foul play.

Firefighter paramedic Darren Garrean was one of the emergency officials who entered the apartment after the bodies were found.

The mother was lying on the couch and the TV was on, he said. The child was lying on the floor. Some of the lower cupboards were open and things were strewn all over, he said.

Authorities have said there were signs that Zeke had rummaged around the apartment for food.

"Seeing a child on the floor, dead like that, takes your breath away," Garrean said. "It's not something you expect to see."

Dr. Laura Jana, an Omaha author and pediatrician, said typically the longest someone can survive is three days without water and three weeks without food. But the younger a person is, the shorter the survival time, she said.

(snip)

Browning said he was told that when children die of dehydration, they just cry themselves to sleep and never wake up.
A LITTLE BOY, not yet two, cries and cries and cries. Cries until he falls into an eternal sleep. And no one heard that? No one wondered what was wrong?

No, "the neighbors there just aren't that close of a group."

That seems to be the problem with every facet of our modern, industrialized, Western society. We don't know. We don't care.

I'm guilty as hell of that. So are you. Alienation's a bitch.

And a child has died a horrific death because of it.

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Here it is . . . Four Songs

Alrighty then . . . here we go. Available right now, for your downloading and listening pleasure, is the newest program from the Revolution 21 new-media empire.

We call it Four Songs.

AND THAT'S what it is, too. Four songs.

Four Songs is centered on a theme specially picked by your host, the Mighty Favog, for whatever reason known only to himself. And to you, once you listen to this offering from Revolution 21 that's just perfect to entertain you, amaze you and enlighten you during your daily commute, during lunch or whenever you have time for . . . four songs.

The inagural episode of Four Songs, I suppose you could call "When Terrible Things Lead to Good Music." And we begin our musical journey in the early days of the Great Depression, an era of economic and societal tumult that gave us not only great art, but art that endures to this day . . . more than seven decades later.

THAT'S ALL I'm going to tell you here. Blabbing any more than this would be sooooo giving everything away.

Just go to the Revolution 21 program-download page and check Four Songs out for yourself.

C'mon, surely you have time for four songs.

But we'll always have the Superdome

I have GOT to stop reading the gossip columns. Abstinence would be better for my blood pressure and my digestion.

For example, I never ought to have clicked on
Courtney Hazlett's "The Scoop" on
MSNBC just now. Alas, I was suckered in by the headline highlighting Paula Abdul's latest alleged histrionics in an airport terminal.

That was entertaining enough -- and who the hell
is Michael, Sidney and Leslie? -- but, ultimately, all it did was lead me to the next item which, of course, had to do with la famille Spears
.

HERE I WAS, listening to some very tasty Etta James on the stereo and still basking in the glow of LSU's dismantling of
The O-H I-O State University on the way to becoming college football's undisputed national champs. Life was sweet, and I had slipped comfortably into my "God, I wish I was sitting on a front porch back home in Baton Rouge right now, playing 'Hey, Fightin' Tigers' over and over and over"
reverie side of the love-hate relationship I got going with my home state.

And then I open up the gossip column and get visions of double-wides -- Louisiana double-wides -- dancing in my head.

Thank you, Courtney Freakin' Hazlett, and
thank you to the enlightened citizenry of Kentwood, by God, La.:

Residents of Jamie Lynn Spears’ hometown of Kentwood, La., just don’t know what all the fuss is about when it comes to the current state of the youngest Spears’ uterus.

“No one can understand why the media is making such a big deal over Jamie’s pregnancy,” local Mandy Knight told OK! Magazine. “That’s normal for people around here … her pregnancy really isn’t so shocking.”

Tell that to the rest of America. Or Nickelodeon. Regardless, the town has rallied around their celebrity and celebrity baby-daddy, Casey Aldridge. “We’re all so proud of him for doing the right thing,” said Cheryl Rape, the town librarian at the Liberty Library in Liberty, Miss., to the mag. “We all do wish him well.”

ACTUALLY, "normal" historically has involved matrimony before pregnancy, and that even used to be more or less true in many Louisiana towns that aren't Kentwood. That carnal knowledge of a juvenile and the resulting unwed motherhood is viewed as "normal" in Kentwood is only further proof of Favog's Law -- the Bud Light empties don't fall far from the double-wide.

And while -- like the unfortunately named Mississippi librarian (in what, I suspect, just might be one of the more-unused libraries in these United States) -- I am gratified that the Redneck Romeo and Juliet chose to let their child be born, I don't know that meets any sane threshold for being "proud" of the baby-daddy.


Oy.
So many brain cells, so little Pabst Blue Ribbon to kill 'em dead, so's I kin fergit.

But at least we'll always have the Superdome, all us Louisiana expats will. That and the memory of one hell of a Tiger football team.

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Ron Paul: Ididn'twriteitnobodysaw
mewriteityoucan'tproveanything.

"The quotations in The New Republic article are not mine and do
not represent what I believe or have ever believed. I have never
uttered such words and denounce such small-minded thoughts.

"In fact, I have always agreed with Martin Luther King, Jr. that
we should only be concerned with the content of a person's character,
not the color of their skin. As I stated on the floor of the U.S.
House on April 20, 1999: 'I rise in great respect for the courage and
high ideals of Rosa Parks who stood steadfastly for the rights of
individuals against unjust laws and oppressive governmental policies.'

"This story is old news and has been rehashed for over a decade.
It's once again being resurrected for obvious political reasons on the
day of the New Hampshire primary.

"When I was out of Congress and practicing medicine full-time, a
newsletter was published under my name that I did not edit. Several
writers contributed to the product. For over a decade, I have
publically taken moral responsibility for not paying closer attention
to what went out under my name."

-- Ron Paul statement
on New Republic article

Leave it to a libertarian to take a laissez-faire approach to patently racist, nutball pamphleteering done in his name when it hits the national fan in the middle of a Republican presidential bid.

THAT'S RIGHT, free-marketeers and gold-standard campaigners, Ron Paul says he let his name be put on a newsletter and then, for years, had absolutely nothing to do with what was written therein.

He lent his name to a publication that supported David Duke in trying to create a Redneck Reich, said the Los Angeles riots of 1992 were quashed by African-Americans' need to pick up welfare checks and opined that New York ought to be renamed "Welfaria," "Zooville," "Rapetown," "Dirtburg," or "Lazyopolis." In all that time, we are supposed to believe, he was ignorant of all that the author or authors were writing in his name.

Or, alternatively, that he did know some of what others wrote -- wrote intending that true believers would think it all came straight from Paul's pen -- was distressed by it but, for reasons known only to himself, did nothing. That would seem to be taking laissez-faire much too far . . . even for a libertarian.

Paul says he takes "moral responsibility" for what he reputedly never wrote. Or edited. Or knew about.

Sorry, but a long face is no moral disinfectant. And a man who cares so little for his own good name that he cannot repudiate or stop crackpot, racist rants that trade upon it cannot be entrusted with the well-being of a nation.

Goodbye, Ron Paul. And good riddance.

About to give it up for Ron Paul? Don't.

Rule No. 1: Never, ever vote for a libertarian.

Rule No. 2: Rule No. 1 goes double for libertarians from Texas.

JUST WHEN the American media was about to anoint a genuine American eccentric -- that's what polite folks call a bigoted nut -- as the "straight-talking candidate" of the 2008 election cycle, a writer for The New Republic actually engages in some actual journalism and digs years back into the Ron Paul archives.

What not pretty:


If you are a critic of the Bush administration, chances are that, at some point over the past six months, Ron Paul has said something that appealed to you. Paul describes himself as a libertarian, but, since his presidential campaign took off earlier this year, the Republican congressman has attracted donations and plaudits from across the ideological spectrum. Antiwar conservatives, disaffected centrists, even young liberal activists have all flocked to Paul, hailing him as a throwback to an earlier age, when politicians were less mealy-mouthed and American government was more modest in its ambitions, both at home and abroad. In The New York Times Magazine, conservative writer Christopher Caldwell gushed that Paul is a "formidable stander on constitutional principle," while The Nation praised "his full-throated rejection of the imperial project in Iraq." Former TNR editor Andrew Sullivan endorsed Paul for the GOP nomination, and ABC's Jack Tapper described the candidate as "the one true straight-talker in this race." Even The Wall Street Journal, the newspaper of the elite bankers whom Paul detests, recently advised other Republican presidential contenders not to "dismiss the passion he's tapped."

(snip)

Finding the pre-1999 newsletters was no easy task, but I was able to track many of them down at the libraries of the University of Kansas and the Wisconsin Historical Society. Of course, with few bylines, it is difficult to know whether any particular article was written by Paul himself. Some of the earlier newsletters are signed by him, though the vast majority of the editions I saw contain no bylines at all. Complicating matters, many of the unbylined newsletters were written in the first person, implying that Paul was the author.

But, whoever actually wrote them, the newsletters I saw all had one thing in common: They were published under a banner containing Paul's name, and the articles (except for one special edition of a newsletter that contained the byline of another writer) seem designed to create the impression that they were written by him--and reflected his views. What they reveal are decades worth of obsession with conspiracies, sympathy for the right-wing militia movement, and deeply held bigotry against blacks, Jews, and gays. In short, they suggest that Ron Paul is not the plain-speaking antiwar activist his supporters believe they are backing--but rather a member in good standing of some of the oldest and ugliest traditions in American politics.

(snip)

The people surrounding the von Mises Institute--including Paul--may describe themselves as libertarians, but they are nothing like the urbane libertarians who staff the Cato Institute or the libertines at Reason magazine. Instead, they represent a strain of right-wing libertarianism that views the Civil War as a catastrophic turning point in American history--the moment when a tyrannical federal government established its supremacy over the states. As one prominent Washington libertarian told me, "There are too many libertarians in this country ... who, because they are attracted to the great books of Mises, ... find their way to the Mises Institute and then are told that a defense of the Confederacy is part of libertarian thought."

Paul's alliance with neo-Confederates helps explain the views his newsletters have long espoused on race. Take, for instance, a special issue of the Ron Paul Political Report, published in June 1992, dedicated to explaining the Los Angeles riots of that year. "Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks three days after rioting began," read one typical passage. According to the newsletter, the looting was a natural byproduct of government indulging the black community with "'civil rights,' quotas, mandated hiring preferences, set-asides for government contracts, gerrymandered voting districts, black bureaucracies, black mayors, black curricula in schools, black tv shows, black tv anchors, hate crime laws, and public humiliation for anyone who dares question the black agenda." It also denounced "the media" for believing that "America's number one need is an unlimited white checking account for underclass blacks." To be fair, the newsletter did praise Asian merchants in Los Angeles, but only because they had the gumption to resist political correctness and fight back. Koreans were "the only people to act like real Americans," it explained, "mainly because they have not yet been assimilated into our rotten liberal culture, which admonishes whites faced by raging blacks to lie back and think of England."

This "Special Issue on Racial Terrorism" was hardly the first time one of Paul's publications had raised these topics. As early as December 1989, a section of his Investment Letter, titled "What To Expect for the 1990s," predicted that "Racial Violence Will Fill Our Cities" because "mostly black welfare recipients will feel justified in stealing from mostly white 'haves.'" Two months later, a newsletter warned of "The Coming Race War," and, in November 1990, an item advised readers, "If you live in a major city, and can leave, do so. If not, but you can have a rural retreat, for investment and refuge, buy it." In June 1991, an entry on racial disturbances in Washington, DC's Adams Morgan neighborhood was titled, "Animals Take Over the D.C. Zoo." "This is only the first skirmish in the race war of the 1990s," the newsletter predicted. In an October 1992 item about urban crime, the newsletter's author--presumably Paul--wrote, "I've urged everyone in my family to know how to use a gun in self defense. For the animals are coming." That same year, a newsletter described the aftermath of a basketball game in which "blacks poured into the streets of Chicago in celebration. How to celebrate? How else? They broke the windows of stores to loot." The newsletter inveighed against liberals who "want to keep white America from taking action against black crime and welfare," adding, "Jury verdicts, basketball games, and even music are enough to set off black rage, it seems."

Such views on race also inflected the newsletters' commentary on foreign affairs. South Africa's transition to multiracial democracy was portrayed as a "destruction of civilization" that was "the most tragic [to] ever occur on that continent, at least below the Sahara"; and, in March 1994, a month before Nelson Mandela was elected president, one item warned of an impending "South African Holocaust."

Martin Luther King Jr. earned special ire from Paul's newsletters, which attacked the civil rights leader frequently, often to justify opposition to the federal holiday named after him. ("What an infamy Ronald Reagan approved it!" one newsletter complained in 1990. "We can thank him for our annual Hate Whitey Day.") In the early 1990s, a newsletter attacked the "X-Rated Martin Luther King" as a "world-class philanderer who beat up his paramours," "seduced underage girls and boys," and "made a pass at" fellow civil rights leader Ralph Abernathy. One newsletter ridiculed black activists who wanted to rename New York City after King, suggesting that "Welfaria," "Zooville," "Rapetown," "Dirtburg," and "Lazyopolis" were better alternatives. The same year, King was described as "a comsymp, if not an actual party member, and the man who replaced the evil of forced segregation with the evil of forced integration."

While bashing King, the newsletters had kind words for the former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke. In a passage titled "The Duke's Victory," a newsletter celebrated Duke's 44 percent showing in the 1990 Louisiana Republican Senate primary. "Duke lost the election," it said, "but he scared the blazes out of the Establishment." In 1991, a newsletter asked, "Is David Duke's new prominence, despite his losing the gubernatorial election, good for anti-big government forces?" The conclusion was that "our priority should be to take the anti-government, anti-tax, anti-crime, anti-welfare loafers, anti-race privilege, anti-foreign meddling message of Duke, and enclose it in a more consistent package of freedom." Duke is now returning the favor, telling me that, while he will not formally endorse any candidate, he has made information about Ron Paul available on his website.

SO WHILE MANY OF US have delighted in Paul's blistering attacks on the Bush Administration and its Dirty Little War, we need to take a step back and examine where that opposition is coming from. It's not coming from a good place.

And not only do you not want to give hateful cranks your hard-earned money or your precious vote, you also don't want to give anyone affiliated with the kind of hateful agitprop unearthed by The New Republic something just as important -- credibility.

It's bad enough that Paul and his hangers-on have been demonstrated to be race-baiters.
But nooooooo. . . .

Just when you think it's as bad as it can get -- that a lot of Americans have devoted their time and treasure to putting the clinched fist of some pissed-off, antisocial, racist crank firmly on the nuclear launch button -- out come the tinfoil hats:

The newsletters are chock-full of shopworn conspiracies, reflecting Paul's obsession with the "industrial-banking-political elite" and promoting his distrust of a federally regulated monetary system utilizing paper bills. They contain frequent and bristling references to the Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission, and the Council on Foreign Relations--organizations that conspiracy theorists have long accused of seeking world domination. In 1978, a newsletter blamed David Rockefeller, the Trilateral Commission, and "fascist-oriented, international banking and business interests" for the Panama Canal Treaty, which it called "one of the saddest events in the history of the United States." A 1988 newsletter cited a doctor who believed that AIDS was created in a World Health Organization laboratory in Fort Detrick, Maryland. In addition, Ron Paul & Associates sold a video about Waco produced by "patriotic Indiana lawyer Linda Thompson"--as one of the newsletters called her--who maintained that Waco was a conspiracy to kill ATF agents who had previously worked for President Clinton as bodyguards. As with many of the more outlandish theories the newsletters cited over the years, the video received a qualified endorsement: "I can't vouch for every single judgment by the narrator, but the film does show the depths of government perfidy, and the national police's tricks and crimes," the newsletter said, adding, "Send your check for $24.95 to our Houston office, or charge the tape to your credit card at 1-800-RON-PAUL."
TRULY, THIS IS STUFF from the bowels of the darkest of America's malaria-as-politics swamps. And when the mosquitos occasionally swarm out of the heart of darkness, all kinds of folk -- and the institutions they make up -- can get the fevers that wrack the body and cloud the mind.

I've seen it.
Don't go there.



HAT TIP: Boar's Head Tavern.

That's OK, kid. You had lots of company.

'No one should fear LSU.'


I may be jes' a little bit likkered up after the big win by my Tigers, so you're welcome to join me as I just sit back and laugh my (ahem) off at this fool and his fool prediction, which reflects too much fool faith in fool O-H I-O State.

Oh, yes, podna . . . fear LSU.

And the mostly nekkid hootchie mama at the end of the "Black Sports Network" (ahem) production . . . quite uninteresting. Too much skank, too little je ne sais quoi. I seen better.

But it does say a lot about the credibility of the "Black Sports Network" and its ilk. Robert Littal's views on women might be even more whack than Robert Littal's prognostications about college football.

Monday, January 07, 2008

Watch out! Tigers on the loose!







Tonight is THE game.

SORRY, this is gonna be it for posting . . . or much of any sort of work today for this Louisiana State alum. Right now, I'm about ready to make like Glenn Dorsey and run through a freakin' wall.

The Fightin' Tigers are coming. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

An old warrior does his political duty

Agree with George McGovern or not, the man belongs to the old school of politics -- one that recognizes that the ideals of service and duty are indispensable in carrying out the people's business.

In fact, former Sen. McGovern, one could argue, belongs to a dying breed of politicians . . . those who actually believe the governance of the United States really is the people's business. So, here we have the old Democratic warrior -- the long-retired senator from South Dakota who flew bombers during World War II -- emerging from retirement at age 85 to tell his Congressional successors to do their duty.

No matter how much they don't want to.


That duty?
That the House should impeach President Bush and Vice-President Cheney, and that the Senate ought to find more than enough grounds to convict. An excerpt from McGovern's Washington Post op-ed column Sunday:

Impeachment is unlikely, of course. But we must still urge Congress to act. Impeachment, quite simply, is the procedure written into the Constitution to deal with presidents who violate the Constitution and the laws of the land. It is also a way to signal to the American people and the world that some of us feel strongly enough about the present drift of our country to support the impeachment of the false prophets who have led us astray. This, I believe, is the rightful course for an American patriot.

As former representative Elizabeth Holtzman, who played a key role in the Nixon impeachment proceedings, wrote two years ago, "it wasn't until the most recent revelations that President Bush directed the wiretapping of hundreds, possibly thousands, of Americans, in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) -- and argued that, as Commander in Chief, he had the right in the interests of national security to override our country's laws -- that I felt the same sinking feeling in my stomach as I did during Watergate. . . . A President, any President, who maintains that he is above the law -- and repeatedly violates the law -- thereby commits high crimes and misdemeanors."

I believe we have a chance to heal the wounds the nation has suffered in the opening decade of the 21st century. This recovery may take a generation and will depend on the election of a series of rational presidents and Congresses. At age 85, I won't be around to witness the completion of the difficult rebuilding of our sorely damaged country, but I'd like to hold on long enough to see the healing begin.

Amen to that.

Saturday, January 05, 2008

Take. The. Hat. Off.

I'm not embarrassed because of my alma mater. I'm embarrassed for my alma mater.

Oh, Lord, with the national-championship football game coming up . . . why, oh WHY couldn't you have made Britney Spears' daddy a gol-danged Tulane fan?

I'm just astin', is what I'm doin'.

ANYWAY, since every damn Louisianian is embarrassed as bad as we can get already . . . here's the latest episode of The Bud Light Empties Don't Fall Far From the Double-Wide, as aired in London's Evening Standard:

Britney Spears has been banned from seeing her sons after a dramatic breakdown in which she held the two boys hostage.

A judge suspended all her visiting rights and gave sole custody to their father, Kevin Federline.

Miss Spears was reported to be on suicide watch in hospital, where by law she can be held against her will for 72 hours.

The events mark a new low for the 26-year-old, who was once the best-selling female artist on the planet. The drama began after Miss Spears attended the latest court hearing in her custody battle with Federline, early on Thursday.

After staying just a few minutes, she returned home for an approved visit with their sons Sean Preston, two, and Jayden James, one.

Federline had temporary custody of the boys because Miss Spears has failed to comply with court orders.

Inside the house she began drinking vodka, sources report. And when it was time to hand the boys back in the evening, she refused.

When a court-appointed monitor and later Federline's bodyguards were refused entry, the situation rapidly deteriorated and police were called.

Miss Spears then barricaded herself and the children inside the master bedroom's ensuite bathroom, and refused to emerge.

Eventually, her cousin Alli Sims smashed the bathroom door open with a hammer, sources say. Shortly after 10pm, police and paramedics were allowed to enter the home.

By 10.50pm, when the singer emerged on a stretcher, there were five police cars, a fire crew and paramedics outside, with a police helicopter hovering overhead.

La musique d'Edith Piaf: Cher, c'est si bon, oui!


Just trying to add a little class to this joint is all. Enjoy.

Le Revolution 21 podcast n'existe plus


The Revolution 21 podcast is toast. Done dealin'. Finished. Gone. Gesphincto.

Adios, au revoir, auf wiederhesen . . . good night!

The reason there's no new edition of the Big Show posted tonight is because there's no Big Show no mo'. Sorry about that. But the show could not go on.

AFTER ALL, what do you think of when you hear about the "Revolution 21 podcast"? You picture some disheveled crank spewing revolutionary rhetoric into a microphone plugged into his computer in some odd corner of his house. Or, alternatively, getting suspicious looks from the other patrons at Starbucks.

Well . . . I'm here to tell you that it's time for me to nip that pretty much spot-on conception you have of me and the podcast right in the bud. So I'm killing that sucker dead. Bang! (Thud.)

The Big Show needed to transcend podcastery. And it couldn't. It couldn't even draw a fraction of the audience of a podcast that consists of nothing but scratchy-ass old LPs . . . period. And in that case, why try harder?

Not for a friggin' podcast, that's for damn certain.

Goodbye.

WELL, THAT FELT REALLY GOOD . . . in a spiteful, embittered sort of way.

But you're not rid of you
r Mighty Favog that flippin' easily. He's not that bright . . . or in touch with sheer practicality. Actually, he's more in touch with his inner Don Quixote.

And that's why, though the Revolution 21 podcast is deader than a doornail (or than the Geneva Conventions are to the Bush Administration), the Big Show is just morphing into something else pretty damned similar.

Something that doesn't call itself a "podcast." And is a little bit longer. And has a snappier name. And has a weekly companion program that's just the right length for checking out during your morning commute or lunch break. Or whenever.

But they're not podcasts. They're the future of radio . . . at least a future where radio doesn't suck. Kind of like public radio, but without the anthropology lecture by the professor wearing one black shoe and one brown shoe, and this annoying damn blob of two-hour-old oatmeal on his beard which, fortunately, you can't see because it's radio.

SO . . . NEXT WEEK, stay tuned for Revolution 21's new long-form program, 3 Chords & the Truth, and its really brand-new, bite-sized Four Songs (which is exactly what the name tells you).

They'll be right here, same Bat Time, same Bat Channel.

Friday, January 04, 2008

The $389,000 question


The Archdiocese of Omaha just wrapped up its 2007 annual appeal, "Feed My Sheep." I don't know how the sheep are making out in the archdiocese this year, but it looks like the shepherd's doing just fine.

ABOVE, you see the house Archbishop Elden Francis Curtiss will shuffle about in during his retired-prelate dotage, whenever the Vatican gets around to accepting his recent required resignation upon turning 75. The archdiocese bought the house in early December, reportedly a case of "just planning ahead," as an archdiocesan official told the Omaha World-Herald.

Make that $389,000 worth of lodging forethought, to be exact.

I realize that purchase price might not raise eyebrows on the West Coast or in the Northeast. But here in Omaha, Neb., $389,000 for a 1,500 square-foot residence in an average, 1950s-vintage neighborhood gets your attention right quick.


PARTICULARLY WHEN the house was assessed in 2006 at $139,100 and sold that autumn for $155,500. Those owners, according to the newspaper, then added to the structure and made other "extensive renovations that included a front porch plus new plumbing, electrical and heating and cooling work."

Which, we are supposed to believe, makes the house worth $230,000 more than the owners, an Omaha real-estate couple, paid for the archbishop's new digs.
Who does that kind of massive flip-renovation when the housing market is headed south?

That is, unless they absolutely, positively know they have a buyer who'll pay big money for a radically upgraded, formerly average house in a squishy real-estate market. That's a lot of questions, and the World-Herald doesn't have many answers . . . yet:

The two-bedroom, ranch-style house is at 1024 Sunset Trail, in the Dillon's Fairacres neighborhood, northwest of Memorial Park. It's near 61st Street and Western Avenue, eight blocks from the archdiocese's headquarters offices at 62nd and Dodge Streets.

The Sunset Trail house was purchased Dec. 4 by the Catholic archbishop of Omaha for $389,000, according to Douglas County records. Thursday, an Able Locksmith employee was working on the house. An archdiocesan security pickup was parked behind the locksmith's van.

The house is planned to be Curtiss' retirement residence, said the Rev. Joseph Taphorn, chancellor of the Omaha archdiocese. He said archdiocesan savings were used to buy the house.

(snip)

For Curtiss, the chancellor said, archdiocese officials "were looking around for some time for something near the chancery."

The Sunset Trail house fits the archbishop's needs for a retirement residence and also is an investment for the future after he no longer needs it, Taphorn said.

The one-story house, built in 1954, has two bedrooms and one bathroom, according to Douglas County Assessor's Office records. Those records say the house has 1,562 square feet of space, but it's unclear whether that includes an addition added by the previous owners, Mari and Jeff Rensch.
ASSUMING THAT the house is, indeed, worth what the archdiocese paid for it -- and that it happens to be a decent "investment" when the nation's housing bubble has popped spectacularly -- we still are faced with a large and pertinent question here. To wit: "What the HELL?"

Exactly how much house does an old bachelor need? Particularly an old bachelor whose job it is to be a shepherd, worrying more about his flock than how sumptuous his new digs might be.

Particularly a man entrusted by God to care for the poor, educate the young in the faith and provide the sacraments to all the faithful in his archdiocese. And particularly during a time when the archdiocese for which he is responsible -- for a while longer, at least -- is short of priests, is shuttering parishes and is seeing its social services stretched by rising numbers of the homeless, the hungry and the addicted.

Would it be too much to expect that the soon-to-be-retired archbishop might wish to find a modest house near a shorthanded parish and spend his remaining years simply serving the people of God and reveling in the simple joy of such humble communion?

I guess it would.


IN THIS CITY, there are plenty of nice digs -- nice digs in nice neighborhoods . . . even nice condos downtown -- to be had for lots less than the $389,000 the archdiocese is spending on Curtiss' future residence. Excuse me, make that $389,000 of other people's hard-earned money the archdiocese is spending on Curtiss' future old-bachelor pad.

I may be cast into the fiery furnace for saying so, but I don't see how turning "Feed My Sheep" into "Pimp My House" has a damned thing to do with good stewardship of the archbishop's flock's tithed treasure.

Nothing at all.

But that wouldn't be the first time the chancery has flipped the fickle finger of fate at the faithful, now, would it?

Thursday, January 03, 2008

It was different back then

See this old album? Jefferson Airplane's first, from 1966.

Originally, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off -- the LP released before Grace Slick joined the band, when Signe Toly Anderson was the girl singer and Skip Spence hadn't yet bolted for Moby Grape -- had 12 tracks.


AFTER THE INITIAL PRESSING, it had 11 tracks, because the hurriedly deleted "Runnin' Round This World" contained this lyric:
Is it the music in your heart I love so much
Is it the rainbows of your smile I love to touch
There are red flowers in each kiss upon your lips
The times I've spent with you have been fantastic trips
It was a different world in 1966. If the record execs from that day somehow could have been transported to the hip-hop world of the new millennium, they probably would have gotten the vapors.

Still, in 1966, when somebody sang about "fantastic trips," no matter the context, it couldn't be good.

AND IF YOU THOUGHT that was bad, consider the original lyrics to "Run Around," which got a lyrical deep cleansing after that first pressing:
We use to dance out to space without a care
And our laughter come ringing and singing we rolled round the music,
Blinded by colors come crashing from flowers that sway as you lay under me
That got turned into this:
We use to dance out to space without a care
And our laughter come ringing and singing we rolled round the music,
Blinded by colors come crashing from flowers that sway as you stay here by me.
And, of course, there was the filthy song on the album -- "Let Me In." I think you know where this is going:
Oh, let me in
I want to be there
I gotta get in
You know where
Without a word to me
Without a look at me
You turned me down without a care . . .

Oh, let me in honey
Don't tell me you want money
I didn't know that you could
Be that unkind
This was made safe for the shaggy-haired youth of America thusly:
Oh, let me in
I want to be there
You shut your door
Now it ain't there
Without a word to me
Without a look at me
You turned me down without a care . . .

Oh, let me in honey
Don't tell me it's so funny
I didn't know that you could
Be that unkind
I DON'T KNOW. I guess s*** just happens unfortunate developments hold sway when folks are crooked deep down. And all the sanitizing by all the record companies -- or all the mullahs, as the case may be -- only can hold back the tide for a season before the levees break.

It's kind of like just how well creating the New Jerusalem on Earth through Republican politics has worked out for "values voters." Um hmm. You betcha.

Your best life now


From Slate:

Joel Osteen wants you to stand up straight. "Even many good, godly people have gotten into a bad habit of slumping and looking down," Osteen writes in his best-selling self-improvement tract Become a Better You. "[Y]ou need to put your shoulders back, hold your head up high, and communicate strength, determination, and confidence." After all, "We know we're representing Almighty God. Let's learn to walk tall."

Osteen is the pastor of Houston's Lakewood Church, a Pentecostal congregation recently named the largest in the country by Outlook magazine, hosting some 47,000 souls in the former Compaq Center, where the Houston Rockets used to play. Every Sunday, he broadcasts a running string of similar homespun nuggets of wisdom—usually rife with metaphors of automotive and financial trials that resonate with his exurban flock's daily routines—while beaming incandescently before an audience of millions on the Trinity Broadcasting Network and various other cable services. And each of those sermons kicks off with Osteen's patented chant, with those 47,000 voices declaring, "This is my Bible. I am what it says I am. I have what it says I have. I do what it says I can do," and building to an oddly colorful climax: "I am about to receive the incorruptible, indestructible, ever-living seed of God, and I will never be the same. Never, never, never. I will never be the same. In Jesus' name. Amen."

The chant is about as close as Osteen's relentlessly upbeat preaching ever comes to a theological doctrine, and it captures many of the key themes behind his runaway appeal. There's the stark individualist ethos that lies behind the definition of scripture as first and foremost an agent of identity change. There's the curiously infantile quality of both the act of the chant and its diction. (No matter how emphatically an arena full of believers may shout "Never, never, never," they always sound like pouting toddlers.) Most of all, though, there's the vividly sexualized power ascribed to the Word of God, which serves as a sort of skeleton key to the Osteen phenomenon. While Joel Osteen has never formally trained as a minister, he is heir to a theological teaching—the movement known as Word-Faith. Word-Faith holds that believers possess, in divinely sanctioned snatches of scripture, the stuff of miraculous self-healing and prosperity—an odd turn for the Pentecostal movement, which first took root in some of the poorest (and blackest) stretches of the West and Southwest. Then again, the Word-Faith tradition is also part of a much broader movement toward therapeutic healing in American Protestantism—including the Mind Cure and New Thought teachings of the late 19th century that produced Christian Science, the positive thinking homilizing of Norman Vincent Peale, and all manner of New Age folderol, up through The Secret and The Prayer of Jabez.


It's not what they say, it's what they do

Huckabee is the one Republican candidate in the race who has talked often about working class and middle class Americans and the anxieties they have even in an economy that by the numbers looks pretty good. In an interview aboard the Huckabus, the candidate once again discussed the economic situation of "people at the lower ends of the economic scale," who because of rising energy, health care, and education prices "don't have the same level of disposable income they had this time a year ago."

The real story of the Huckabee campaign is that his candidacy contemplates a refashioning of the Republican party to address the concerns of middle and working class Americans. Thus, while it's true that many of these Americans are also religious conservatives--and true, too, that Huckabee leads among Iowa's religious conservatives by a very wide margin--it's a mistake to think that his campaign is narrowly pitched to that group of voters.

Huckabee has yet to fashion economic policies that might appeal to middle and working class voters--"Sam's Club Republicans," as they have been called, in contrast to the old "country club Republicans." But at some point his campaign presumably will have to offer policies to match his rhetoric.

What was striking about the rallies I saw was the extent to which Huckabee hopes to make common cause with people like himself--"who don't necessarily have the right pedigree .  .  . or the right last name .  .  . or all the resources"--in order to defeat his opponents. Thus, in Waterloo, he told the audience, "Nothing more gets to the heart of what we are than to say that no matter where you came from, or what your last name is, or what your parents were, or what they do for a living, you matter. You may not pick where you started from, but you have every opportunity to decide where you end up." That "you" is not an impersonal usage. As he told the audience, "I've lived the life many of you have lived."

-- Terry Eastland in the Weekly Standard,
profiling the Mike Huckabee campaign


The Late Show With David Letterman snagged Hillary Clinton as a last-minute guest for his New York City show tonight. But on the other coast, about 100 striking writers carrying signs saying "Mike Huckabee: What Would Jesus Do?" and "Huckabee: You Can't Deny This Cross" protested the Republican presidential candidate's decision to cross their union's picket line outside NBC Studios in Burbank even though he expressed
"unequivocal" and "absolute" support for the writers' cause earlier in the day. He was the main guest on Leno's first Tonight Show back from strike hiatus after Jay, too, decided to cross the picket line. The strikers have been crowding every entranceway all day, from 8 AM through 6 PM, to ensure they slammed the former Arkansas governor who of all the GOP candidates running for the White House has actively solicited and received union support. “We’re hoping that when he [Huckabee] arrives and sees the picket line he’ll turn around," said WGA West prez Patric Verrone. "We’ll be disappointed if he makes the appearance."

-- Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood Daily


He made the appearance. So much for "a refashioning of the Republican party to address the concerns of middle and working class Americans," eh?

Scab.

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

'Oy veh! Jesus, get over here . . . now!
The neighborhood kids are at it again!'

I'm not getting into this fight though, as a Catholic, I do have my doctrinal sympathies.

These kinds of Catholic-Protestant pissing matches always end up shedding a lot more heat than light, and they usually end up with everyone acting pretty damned un-Christian as an extra-added bonus.
And the smell after a day or so is just stomach-turning.

ON THE OTHER HAND, in my mind's eye, I can picture mother Mary grabbing the Internet Monk (here's his website) and the Paragraph Farmer by the scruffs of the neck and dragging them to her hotshot Son, the rabbi, for some theological instruction and general straightening-out.

Brother Shea would have come to Jesus slightly ahead of the others, however, because Mama (with two hands full of neighborhood disorderliness already) would be propelling him forward via occasional swift kicks to the tuchus.

Come to think of it, though, that's pretty much how we Papists have seen the Mother of God all along, isn't it?

Fat, drunk and dentally-challenged . . .

. . . is no way for a country to go through life.

Who knew that the Brits' famed stiff upper lip got that way from trying to make it to the 'loo before blowing chunks?


FROM THE DAILY MAIL in London, we get this depressing account of the Big Night in the U.K.:
Binge-drinking revellers fuelled a chaotic start to 2008 as over-stretched ambulance workers battled to cope with emergency calls flooding in at a peak of one every eight seconds.

In the capital alone the London Ambulance Service had to deal with its highest number of emergency calls since the Millennium - the majority related to excess alcohol.

As midnight came and went there was mayhem as scores of drunken partygoers around the country tumbled into the streets, some wearing little more than their underwear.

Fights erupted and a string of dishevelled young men and women collapsed on benches and in doorways, too inebriated to remember or care that the night was supposed to be a celebration.

There to mop up the mess were thousands of emergency workers drafted in to provide cover on the busiest night of the year.

In the first four hours of 2008, London Ambulance Service (LAS) dealt with an astonishing 1,825 calls alone, peaking at over 500 calls an hour between 2am and 4am. The volume of 999 calls was up 17 per cent on last year' and four times worse than a normal night.

Meanwhile in the West Midlands the ambulance service fielded 1,400 calls in just five hours - a rate of one every 12 seconds. It was mirrored by the North East Ambulance Service which received 1,860 calls between 11pm and 5am.

Last night the astonishing number of calls to deal with booze-fuelled illness of injury prompted accusations that lives of those in real emergencies were being put at risk and demands for partygoers to wake up the costs of binge-drinking.

LAS spokeswoman Gemma Gidley said: "These calls put the Service under increased pressure to manage demand when we have to ensure we respond quickly to other patients with potentially life-threatening emergencies.

"People need to think about the real consequences of drinking so much that they require treatment."

In the south, the South Central Ambulance Service dealt with three times more incidents that normal.

OR, IN THE WORDS of that English prophet, Johnny Rotten:
God save the queen,
The fascist regime,
They made you a moron,
Potential H-bomb.

God save the queen,
She ain't no human being.
There is no future,
In England's dreaming.

Don't be told what you want,
Don't be told what you need,
There's no future no future,
No future for you!

God save the queen,
We mean it man
We love our queen
God saves.

God save the queen,
'Cos tourists are money
Our figure's head
Is not what she seems.

Oh God save history
God save your mad parade
Oh lord god have mercy
All claims are paid

When there's no future
How can there be sin?
We're the flowers in the dustbin,
We're the poison in your human machine,
We're the future; your future.

God save the queen
We mean it man
We love our queen
God saves.

God save the queen
We mean it man
And there is no future
In England's dreaming.

No future no future
No future for you
No future no future
No future for me.

No future no future
No future for you
No future no future
No future for you
No future no future for you.

Countdown to king cakes


King cakes. Yum.

But only between 12th Night and Mardi Gras. Eating king cake during Lent -- or anytime else, for that matter -- is just so very wrong. The Associated Press tells us all:
In New Orleans people have always known what king cake is and when you should eat it.

These days that certainty is fading. Once a seasonal treat with a certain taste and texture, king cake is now eaten any time of the year by many non-traditionalists, and it takes a variety of forms.

For years, families in this city celebrated the arrival of Carnival season with king cake — an oval-shaped pastry that commemorated 12th Night, the day the three wise men were supposed to have arrived with gifts for the Baby Jesus. The season for king cakes would last through Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday ushers in Lent.

That’s as it should be, said Mardi Gras historian Errol Laborde. Like oysters, Creole tomatoes and crawfish, things are better at the proper time.

“No king cake will touch my lips before 12th Night or after Mardi Gras,” Laborde said.

For years after the early French settlers brought the tradition to New Orleans, king cake was a plain bread-like pastry topped with purple, green and gold sugar.

But, to the dismay of the traditionalists, these days king cakes can be many flavors and shapes and available all year round.

“I’m a purest,” said cookbook author Kit Wohl. “I believe king cake should be what it’s always been, plain and with a baby, but now people have gilded the lily. Now they can be made with stuffing, it can be sweet or savory.”

Some traditions remain. Each king cake contains a token, now its generally a pink, plastic baby, but it was originally a red bean. The person who gets it is supposed to supply the next king cake.

Although New Orleans is the king cake capital, many cities that have a Mardi Gras tradition have bakeries that produce some version during the season. That has meant more business for people like David Haydel Jr., 32, whose family has been baking in New Orleans for three generations. “It gradually expanded out through whole season and now, with the internet, we do king cakes all year.”