Maybe it's time you tried, Baton Rouge

One has to wonder whether the animating political instinct of my hometown, Baton Rouge, is spite.

Confronted with pictures -- in his own magazine, no less -- of a public high school crumbling around the children and faculty within, the publisher of the Baton Rouge Business Report is foursquare against renewing a sales tax that could fix all that. And give raises to teachers, too.

IN SHORT, Rolfe McCollister is calling on his readers to put a bullet in the head of a school system that has come up lame:

I had a neighbor tell me last week, “I have never voted against a school tax, but I am going to have to vote no this time.” I think that’s the conclusion many folks have come to for the special March 8 election. I certainly have.

“Outrageous,” you say.

No, what is outrageous is what my neighbor said to me after he proclaimed his position. He said, “We have become the New Orleans school system.” Now that should make the hair on your neck stand up. Fact is, he is referring to the old New Orleans system characterized by poor performance, declining enrollment, resistance to change and a constant hunger for more money. New Orleans, as a whole, has been innovative about its school system since Katrina and drawn lots of attention. It still has issues and is struggling, but it has signs of new life and hope. Can you say the same for East Baton Rouge schools? This election is your opportunity to answer that question and speak out so the school board and the community can hear you loud and clear.

So why would folks oppose the school taxes?

It’s not because we think education isn’t important. It is very important. And many of us opposing the taxes have been involved in supporting education in many ways for many years.

It’s not because we aren’t concerned with the needs of children, particularly lower-income children. They are the ones who have been denied a choice and stuck in our failing system. More of the same provides them with no hope and no way out.

It’s not because we don’t appreciate teachers and the tough job they have. We have supported teachers and pay has increased—but are teachers and the classroom a priority for funds? Have the best teachers been rewarded and the worst removed?

It’s not because we aren’t patient enough. We have allowed time and supported previous taxes. We have watched for progress for years and passed millions in new taxes [property and sales taxes] and renewals. And what are the results we have to show for that commitment and investment?

GOT IT? The school system is failing. Ergo, let's take away the money to fix and rebuild crumbling schools, let's make sure teachers are paid less than surrounding school systems, let's give the school board a symbolic fickle finger of fate and see whether things get any better.

That's what we have to assume is McCollister's line of "thinking" since, unfortunately, he doesn't tell us what, exactly, he proposes to do about the quite live children crawling around inside the carcass of a school system euthanized by denying it nutrition and hydration.

The ballot will have three propositions funded by renewal of a sales tax. While the tax was previously authorized for a five-year period, this time they are asking for a 10-year tax which would generate $870 million total. Proposition 1 funds construction and technology, Proposition 2 is for discipline and truancy and Proposition 3 maintains salaries of teachers and school workers.

The school board points out they have done well in the last 10 years and built seven new schools, with three more under construction. They have repaired 40 schools, spent millions on technology and created six new alternative schools. So with all these millions spent, these accomplishments, facilities and new assets, we still have an F system, we’re losing students and now the state is even taking our schools away.

And the school board is asking us to sign up for 10 more years and spend $870 million more. For what? More of the same?

This is exactly why a tax is set up for a limited duration: So you can decide if it generated the desired results and if you want to re-invest. I would conclude we got little return on our investment, and we need to look for something new to invest in. This system is broken down like a car with no engine. Why would you paint the body and hire a driver when it is going nowhere?

WHAT DOES McCOLLISTER propose Baton Rouge invest in after it again cuts off its nose to spite its face? U-Haul? Ryder? Mayflower Van Lines?

Perhaps the citizenry might choose, instead, to invest in more prisons. Of course, McCollister might object to a new prison tax -- being that the recidivism rate never came down -- so Baton Rougeans might want to just invest in guns and ammo.

In 1981, white Baton Rougeans invested in private schools so their darlings wouldn't have to be bused across town to attend school with the Negroes. In time, Baton Rougeans also invested in new homes in neighboring parishes so their children wouldn't have to go to crappy public schools that really weren't any more mediocre than they were at 65 percent white -- just much poorer and much blacker, with all the baggage that connotes.

And, by and large, the East Baton Rouge Parish schools have been awful for decades, with some glaring exceptions . . . like Baton Rouge Magnet High, my alma mater and one of the schools most desperately depending on that tax getting renewed.

Part of the reason the parish's public schools have been so substandard for so long is that Baton Rougeans have been OK with that. After all, until voters approved the penny sales tax in 1998 -- the one up for renewal -- no school-construction tax had passed in three decades.

Indeed, most of the Baton Rouge schools I attended more than three decades ago were, shall we say, dumps. Except for Baton Rouge High. Now, it may be the biggest one of all.

IF INCOMPETENCE were a capital offense, the East Baton Rouge school system ought to have been executed years ago, when it was still mostly white and the public still was paying attention. Not properly funding it, mind you, but still paying attention.

But no. The Rolfe McCollisters of Baton Rouge only want to "pull the switch" after the public and "civic leaders" have really let it go to hell . . . and have let it become 83 percent minority, and largely poor.

Now it's time for the blindfold and last cigarette -- now that those who have better options largely have exercised them and those "left behind" have no better option at all. But only if we're sure there's no Plan B for doing this public-education thing.

But say there were a Plan B -- which there isn't. If there were a Plan B, a knight in shining armor to magically fix the school system and make every poor, ill-educated child suddenly above average . . . if there were such a savior on the horizon, where would these miracles be performed?

In the same old crumbling facilities, decrepit schools unfit for dogs but not for Baton Rouge's kids? Would that make the miraculous all the more . . . miraculous?

DOES ROLFE McCOLLISTER'S public-policy prescription include making children sit in squalor to atone for the sins of the school board? Or is it possible that the city might embrace an imperfect plan to fix up facilities in anticipation of a coming push to fix the problems with education administration and student achievement?

Baton Rouge never has been, is not now nor ever will be "America's Next Great City (TM)" so long as it is dominated by reactionary, spite-driven, race-tinged politics. It will never progress beyond "Southern backwater" in the eyes of the nation until folks down there figure out that they're all going to pull together or fly to pieces.

That starts with public education. Building a capable, literate and skilled workforce for a state that currently doesn't have one is a lot easier if you don't -- in a fit of pique -- throw your school system back to Square Zero in the name of "reform."

But then again, we are talking about my hometown, Baton Rouge.

They say that a dog won't crap in its own bed. That may be true for Phideaux, but not for the Baton Rouge that I know and love . . . and hate. (They get complicated, my feelings do.)

The Baton Rouge I know -- and the Baton Rouge evidenced by the deplorable conditions at my alma mater, and by that anti-tax McCollister column -- not only will crap in its own bed, it'll then plop its children in the stinking pile.

Change you can believe in (to steal a slogan) is a city overcoming a crappy legacy. A big part of that would be renewing the school sales tax to fix dilapidated school buildings and raise teachers' pay -- a first step on a challenging journey toward a better future for Baton Rouge's children.

In Baton Rouge, for a change.

The tragedy of Elden Francis Curtiss

The great tragedy of Elden Francis Curtiss, Catholic archbishop of Omaha, Neb., is that he could write this column unironically:

There seems to be a growing number of people in our society who place a high value on spirituality, but a low value on religion, especially organized religion. It is like saying that they place a high value on democracy, but disparage democratic institutions. But how do we maintain democracy without any structures that make it possible? How do we keep a religious spirit alive in our country without any structures to support it?

Recently, I was reading some comments by Flannery O'Connor, the Catholic novelist who died in 1963 during the Second Vatican Council. In her collected letters, edited after her death under the title "The Habit of Being," Flannery writes about her experience as a Catholic with her church. She valued the church highly but was quite aware of the short-comings of some of her members. She observed that sometimes "you have to suffer as much from the church as for it. The only thing that makes the church endurable is that somehow it is the body of Christ, and on this we are fed."

Flannery O'Connor understood that the operation of the church is set-up for the sake of sinners, which creates all kinds of problems for those who are self-righteous. We do not easily accept the notion that God is as patient with the entire church as he is with each lost sheep. Some people expect the church, especially her leaders, to be perfect. The reality is that the church is holy only because Jesus stands at the center of her life. But all the members who make up the church are imperfect and sinful. This causes some people to be critical of the Catholic Church.

(snip)

Flannery did not hesitate to point out the faults she found with the church: 45 years ago she complained about the smugness she found in some clergy and laity - "do not take credit for possessing the true religion if you do not live that truth; and do not be glib in answering honest questions - a sense of mystery should give Catholic apologists a sense of humility rather than pride."

She pointed out the lack of depth in some Catholics who want to keep things nice, shallow, cute and safe - "but we are challenged at all times by the cross." And there is that perennial self-righteous on the part of some that disdains human weakness and questions any in-depth discussions about the doctrines of our faith - "the church for some people is not the body of Christ" Flannery wrote, "but a poor man's insurance policy." People need to wrestle with the church in order to refine their faith and their commitment to the Gospel message.

In addressing the need to develop a mature faith based on study and prayer, Flannery wrote that "conviction without experience makes for harshness." But experience not grounded in solid faith tends to go off on tangents. She was convinced that Christians have to struggle with their own demons in order to show compassion to other people who are struggling with their demons. The only thing worse than Christians who will not, under any circumstances, challenge bad behavior in others, are Christians who see evil in everyone else but not in themselves.

Flannery O'Connor had a remarkable insight into modern, sanitized, "empty" religion that was beginning to make inroads into society in the 1960s. This is what she wrote: "One of the effects of modern liberal Christianity is to turn, gradually, religion into poetry and therapy, to make truth vaguer and vaguer and more and more relative, to banish intellectual distinctions, to depend on feeling instead of thought, and gradually to come to believe that God has no power, that he cannot communicate with us, cannot reveal himself to us, indeed has not done so, and that religion is our own sweet invention."

I think the insights of Flannery O'Connor, writing half a century ago, were remarkably accurate. She lived and died a committed Catholic who knew that, despite the failures of her members, the Catholic Church was able to preserve the Gospel and her sacred tradition through every century. She knew that the living Christ revealed himself in the Scriptures and in the sacraments. She knew that despite its sordid history at times, and the scandal caused by some of her leaders, the church was the gift of Jesus to us - and that we should always rejoice in her continuity throughout the ages, and in the Lord's promises that the church would last to the end of time.

(snip)

It is all right to find fault with the human church, her leaders and members, when there is need for honesty and correction. Our criticism has legitimacy when we love the church and recognize that it is the presence of Jesus in our midst that is at the heart of the church's life. We need to defend the church against her detractors who want to undermine and weaken her with their own agenda.

Spirituality without religion is vague and tenuous. Religion without a church to guide it produces self-fulfilling prophecies and division. A church without continuity from Christ and the apostles lacks cohesiveness and authority. This is the reason that we are Catholics.

We should thank God everyday for the gift of the church that manages to keep Jesus at the very center of her life despite the foibles of her members. The church is weak only when we are weak. It is up to us to help keep her strong by focusing on the Lord who is always present in her midst. He is the reason for the holiness of the church despite the sinfulness of her members.

A GREAT COLUMN. I wonder whether His Excellency is aware he was making a fine argument -- with the help of Flannery O'Connor -- for sticking with a flawed institution when jackasses like himself are the ones making you want to run screaming into that dark night of the soul.

A few years ago, I was almost out the door myself because of people who were obsessed with the externals of the faith but less so with living that faith when doing so would make life a lot more untidy. Like what would happen if you called the cops on a kiddie-porn obsessed priest.

For more than a year -- daily -- I professionally inhabited a world where the most pious of Catholics covered for, sucked up to and rationalized a chancery that allowed such a priest to continue to work with kids. That is, until the cops finally arrested Father.

These people did not think something was wrong with Curtiss for valuing the "company" over Catholic children. But they did think something was quite wrong with the "secular, anti-Catholic media" for pointing out the problem.

Let me tell you, that does mess with your faith. When you are looked upon as a Bad Catholic for choosing right over wrong, and your bishop is The Embodiment of Wrong, you begin to furiously reevaluate a lot of stuff.

Ultimately, I chose to remain Catholic on quite O'Connoresque grounds. Basically, just because I worked with a bunch of hyperpious Catholics and my "shepherd" was a jackass playing chicken with an obstruction-of-justice indictment, it didn't mean the Catholic faith was a big lie.

It just meant I worked with a bunch of hyperpious Catholics and my archbishop was a jackass.

An amazingly non-introspective jackass who can write an objectively fine column that -- in the context of Curtiss' dysfunctional little see on the prairie -- is just another Holy S*** Moment in the collective life of his Bad Catholic flock.

Oh, and since the archbishop says it's OK to criticize the Church, now . . . he needs to sell that $389,000 retirement flop the archdiocese bought for him and use the proceeds to help the poor. It's a scandal and an outrage.

Imprudent . . . and un-Christian, too

Do you want to give a man who wishes others dead the raw power to make it so?

From Agence France-Presse:

Presumptive Republican nominee John McCain Friday said he hoped Fidel Castro's resignation would be followed by his speedy demise, and rapped Democrat Barack Obama for offering talks with Cuba's next leader.

"Fidel Castro announced that he would not remain as president -- whatever that means," McCain said in Indianapolis.

"And I hope that he has the opportunity to meet Karl Marx very soon.

"But the point is, the point is that apparently he's trying to groom his brother Raul. My friends, Raul is worse in many respects than Fidel was."

In a formal written statement, McCain also took a shot at Obama, the Democratic front-runner who renewed his offer to speak to leaders of US foes without preconditions in a campaign debate with rival Hillary Clinton in Texas.

"So Raul Castro gets an audience with an American president, and all the prestige such a meeting confers, without having to release political prisoners, allow free media, political parties, and labor unions, or schedule internationally monitored free elections," McCain said.

"Senator Obama says he would meet Cuba's dictator without any such steps in the hope that talk will make things better for Cuba's oppressed people.

"Meet, talk, and hope may be a sound approach in a state legislature, but it is dangerously naive in international diplomacy where the oppressed look to America for hope and adversaries wish us ill."

I MEAN, my God! Isn't not wishing others dead something most people's mamas teach them by the time they're five?

I'm starting to think something is seriously wrong with John McCain. Seriously wrong.

This I do know: It would seem McCain is working overtime to be mean enough, deceitful enough, shady enough and just plain unhinged enough to make it possible for pro-life Catholics like myself to vote for Barack Obama with a clear conscience.

Lord have mercy on us all.

And on Fidel Castro, too.

Cough. Here's the (sniffle) show. Achoo!

Sometimes, you got to suck it up. And offer it up.

Your suffering, that is. Trust that your suffering will be joined to Christ's suffering to make crooked lines straight . . . somehow.

The past week, I've felt like crap. Lethargic, even. I've felt bad enough that I couldn't muster the energy to do Four Songs this week.

But there comes a time when you just have to suck it up. I decided that if 3 Chords & the Truth were worth doing at all, it was worth doing even when I'd really rather just slump in the big blue chair and become a sniffling, coughing, snorting vidhead.

So here you go . . . this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth, which certainly must be the audio version of a viral video.

Cough.

I don't understand. . . .

I don't understand. This isn't New Orleans, and none of these people are poor and black.

It can't be! I'll bet this was just staged on a Hollywood set by some God-hatin' lib'ruls to perpetuate their politically correct lies.

JUST LIKE the "moon landings" in 1969. And 1970.

And 1971.

And 1972.

I just don't get it. This, they say, is not New Orleans. It's some place called "Serbia."

That must be some foreign-language word for "white n****rs." It's got to be.

Neal Boortz said.

Our kids. We must be so proud.

When a New Orleans-area mall dealt with a rash of teen-age unruliness and vandalism by requiring chaperones for the under-17 crowd after 4 on weekends, some teens responded in the manner common to our times.

They went on MySpace and threatened to shoot the place up. According to The Associated Press:

The Times-Picayune reported that at least two groups of teens formed MySpace sites this week, after Clearview Mall in Metairie announced a weekend curfew for anyone under age 17.

On one site, members suggested violent protests, with one posting saying "we should all take our guns and go in and kill everyone," the newspaper reported Friday on its Web site.

TODAY, The Times-Picayune reports sheriff's deputies have busted two teens in connection with the threats:

Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand on Friday afternoon announced the arrests of two teens for terrorizing, after the pair allegedly threatened to shoot up the Clearview Mall on the MySpace website.

The announcement of the arrests came about an hour before officials at Clearview were to begin a second weekend of a new curfew only allowing teens 16 and under into the mall with an adult.

Arrested were Joseph Madsen, 17, of Metairie and Cory Odenwald, 17, of River Ridge, officials said.

Normand, who announced the arrests during a press conference Friday at the East Bank Lockup in Metairie alongside members of the FBI, and also said that several guns, belonging to the Madsen's father, were confiscated by police.

"We will not tolerate intimidation or fear placed on any of the patrons at Clearview," Normand said.

He announced that all corners of the mall will be under video surveillance and that the deputy presence at Clearview will be significantly beefed up this weekend.

I AM A BOOMER. My generation was going to change the world.

Well, looks like we succeeded. Us and the little monsters we've failed to raise.

Cud'n Walker Percy nailed it way back in 1971 when he published "Love in the Ruins." He knew what ought to have been obvious to everybody but wasn't.

And now the center has not held, and the s*** has hit the fan.

"The work of a madman!"

Would you buy a used lobbyist from this man?

Would this be an example of Sen. John McCain being "imprudent," like what one of his friends mentioned to The New York Times in that story the GOP presidential candidate so hotly denies?

Newsweek reports:

A sworn deposition that Sen. John McCain gave in a lawsuit more than five years ago appears to contradict one part of a sweeping denial that his campaign issued this week to rebut a New York Times story about his ties to a Washington lobbyist.

On Wednesday night the Times published a story suggesting that McCain might have done legislative favors for the clients of the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, who worked for the firm of Alcalde & Fay. One example it cited were two letters McCain wrote in late 1999 demanding that the Federal Communications Commission act on a long-stalled bid by one of Iseman's clients, Florida-based Paxson Communications, to purchase a Pittsburgh television station.

Just hours after the Times's story was posted, the McCain campaign issued a point-by-point response that depicted the letters as routine correspondence handled by his staff—and insisted that McCain had never even spoken with anybody from Paxson or Alcalde & Fay about the matter. "No representative of Paxson or Alcalde & Fay personally asked Senator McCain to send a letter to the FCC," the campaign said in a statement e-mailed to reporters.

But that flat claim seems to be contradicted by an impeccable source: McCain himself. "I was contacted by Mr. Paxson on this issue," McCain said in the Sept. 25, 2002, deposition obtained by NEWSWEEK. "He wanted their approval very bad for purposes of his business. I believe that Mr. Paxson had a legitimate complaint."

While McCain said "I don't recall" if he ever directly spoke to the firm's lobbyist about the issue—an apparent reference to Iseman, though she is not named—"I'm sure I spoke to [Paxson]." McCain agreed that his letters on behalf of Paxson, a campaign contributor, could "possibly be an appearance of corruption"—even though McCain denied doing anything improper.

McCain's subsequent letters to the FCC—coming around the same time that Paxson's firm was flying the senator to campaign events aboard its corporate jet and contributing $20,000 to his campaign—first surfaced as an issue during his unsuccessful 2000 presidential bid. William Kennard, the FCC chair at the time, described the sharply worded letters from McCain, then chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, as "highly unusual."

The issue erupted again this week when the New York Times reported that McCain's top campaign strategist at the time, John Weaver, was so concerned about what Iseman (who was representing Paxson) was saying about her access to McCain that he personally confronted her at a Washington restaurant and told her to stay away from the senator.

GIVING THE strong impression that you're on the take is imprudent. Galavanting around the country with a hot lobbyist not your wife is imprudent.

Vowing to keep our overstretched armed forces in a Middle Eastern cesspool for 50, 100 or 10,000 years "if need be" is imprudent. Flat-out asserting "there will be other wars" is imprudent, if for no other reason than tipping your hand in a high-stakes international poker game.

Unless you're bluffing. Which -- given the stakes and your opponents' willingness to call your bluff in the name of Allah -- is damned imprudent right there.

What's really imprudent, though, is telling bald-face lies to a press corps that more than has the means, the skill and the motivation to conclusively prove you're a damned liar tout de suite. If McCain, on the verge of securing the Republican nomination, is that contemptuous of the truth then follows up by completely underestimating the press corps, he is a man who has no business in the Oval Office.

We've had a gullet full of just the same -- with catastrophic results -- from its present occupant.

My contribution to the world

I'm sick as a dog with the viral crud that's sweeping across Omaha like W. T. Sherman across Georgia.

And the viral crud, of course, is distinct from the flu that's sweeping across Omaha -- the difference being that you can more or less function (kind of) with the crud. . . . Sorry for running off. I had to get up and blow my nose.

It's a miserable thing. Last night, I slept in the big blue chair next to the heat vent in the dining room. All the better to keep from choking on my own snot.

Now that's a pretty picture, isn't it? My apologies if you're reading this while eating breakfast or lunch.

If I'm feeling somewhat acceptable, there will be a new 3 Chords & the Truth posted late tonight. If not . . . pray for me.

Anyway, being sick is the time when I partake of my contribution to the world -- medicinal cold hooch. Normal people call it a toddy, but mine is an exceptional toddy. And I now share it with a sneezing, plugged up, achy, suffering world.

One caveat: If you're under 21, stick to TheraFlu.

OK, here we go:

* One to 1 1/2 shots of Early Times in a 12-ounce coffee mug.
* One tablespoon honey.
* Two teaspoons sugar.
* One tablespoon lemon juice.
* A spritz of water.
* Fill mug to top with orange juice.

THEN STIR thoroughly and heat in microwave for a couple of minutes, or to just short of boiling. When hooch is good and hot, stir again to make sure ingredients are thoroughly blended.

Self-medicate.

Favog's Famous Cold Hooch may or may not cure what ails you but, then again, you might find you no longer care. (Sneeze) enjoy (cough).

Get that man a top hat and a monocle

WWL television in New Orleans promos the above story . . . and Mayor Ray Nagin goes nuts:

Nagin: . . . Our local newspaper for example had me pointing a gun at the police chief, this got all over the internet, all over the nation, and is now sitting on the most racist web sites in America, hate groups now have that picture, so now I am personally more at risk, my family is more at risk.

And I’m a little upset with this station cause you advertising about the ratings, about what’s getting ready to happen with my schedule, you put my personal schedule out there, I am coming back to the station and me and your news director are going to be out in the parking lot having a good one on one.

You do not put my family at risk.

Paulsen: This was a schedule from last year.

Nagin: I don’t care. That schedule has formal stuff on it. It has patterns on it and now you have these Aryan race people focused on me and you have some mental cases out in this community and you’re getting ready to put my schedule out there. Where are the other elected official’s schedule? Are you going to do a follow up on that? This has gone beyond the point of reasonableness.

Paulsen: You have to understand that you’ve been a lightning rod.

Nagin: I am sick of this. I have busting my butt bringing this city back. We’re getting ready to get into 2008 and it’s going to be more than a tipping point. This city will go to the next level. This is ridiculous. It’s personal. It’s vindictive. The election is over. If you supported somebody else, get over it.

Paulsen: Would you do anything different, looking back?

Nagin: I don’t know. Nobody has ever done this. Nobody has taken a city from being totally devastated to where we are now. I don’t know. All I know is that I’ve alienated some people who have significant influence in this community and they are relentlessly trying to destroy and undermine me and I don’t appreciate it.

Roberts: People who are listening to you speak, people who care about you, may be worried about you because of your emotional state.

Nagin: Because it’s crossed the line Sally, it’s gotten personal now. I don’t appreciate the fact that I’m being exposed and my family is being exposed now. That was not part of this deal.

Paulsen: You’ve gotten a lot of heat over the past couple of years. I’ve never seen you this emotional.

Nagin: Well because, your newscast, the local newspapers, are feeding these awful, ugly talk shows that are feeding these blogs. If you go look at some of these blogs out there and some of the stories that come from the paper and you read the comments, it’s some of the most vile, angry, people that I’ve ever seen in this community.

Paulsen: Are you concerned about your safety.

Nagin: I’ve got coverage. If somebody approach me wrong, I’m going to cold cock them. That’s the bottom line. You can come with that foolishness if you want, but you’ll see a side of Ray Nagin that you haven’t seen.

A LARGER-SCREEN version of the video, sans transcript, is here.

Hizzoner says "This is just crazy." Nuts, to the mayor of New Orleans, is questioning how much time he actually spends doing the job he was foolishly elected to do.

Nuts, to the mayor, is examining his official work schedule from last year to see how much time he spent in New Orleans, actually doing the job the half-witted voters foolishly elected him to do. Now, Nagin allegedly is convinced the Nazis and the Kluxers will be able to set up an ambush for him.

All because of Lee Zurik's investigative piece on Channel 4.

The mayor thinks the press has gone nuts. But we all know exactly where the jar of Planters is, now, don't we?

You have to admire his taste in lobbyists

Presumptive GOP presidential nominee John McCain seems to be picking an interesting way to spark some Bill Clinton-style crossover appeal in the general election.

According to The New York Times, the old goat has been acting more than a little like Bubba Himself the past decade or so. Special-interest soft money to keep the "Straight Talk Express" rolling along, zipping from sea to shining sea on other people's dime, lobbyists . . . a hot chick on his arm who wasn't Mrs. McCain.

But who was a lobbyist. A special lobbyist.

Well, you do have to admire the senator's taste in lobbyists. He'll be ready to something on Day One:

Early in Senator John McCain’s first run for the White House eight years ago, waves of anxiety swept through his small circle of advisers.

A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.

When news organizations reported that Mr. McCain had written letters to government regulators on behalf of the lobbyist’s client, the former campaign associates said, some aides feared for a time that attention would fall on her involvement.

Mr. McCain, 71, and the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, 40, both say they never had a romantic relationship. But to his advisers, even the appearance of a close bond with a lobbyist whose clients often had business before the Senate committee Mr. McCain led threatened the story of redemption and rectitude that defined his political identity.

It had been just a decade since an official favor for a friend with regulatory problems had nearly ended Mr. McCain’s political career by ensnaring him in the Keating Five scandal. In the years that followed, he reinvented himself as the scourge of special interests, a crusader for stricter ethics and campaign finance rules, a man of honor chastened by a brush with shame.

But the concerns about Mr. McCain’s relationship with Ms. Iseman underscored an enduring paradox of his post-Keating career. Even as he has vowed to hold himself to the highest ethical standards, his confidence in his own integrity has sometimes seemed to blind him to potentially embarrassing conflicts of interest.

Mr. McCain promised, for example, never to fly directly from Washington to Phoenix, his hometown, to avoid the impression of self-interest because he sponsored a law that opened the route nearly a decade ago. But like other lawmakers, he often flew on the corporate jets of business executives seeking his support, including the media moguls Rupert Murdoch, Michael R. Bloomberg and Lowell W. Paxson, Ms. Iseman’s client. (Last year he voted to end the practice.)

Mr. McCain helped found a nonprofit group to promote his personal battle for tighter campaign finance rules. But he later resigned as its chairman after news reports disclosed that the group was tapping the same kinds of unlimited corporate contributions he opposed, including those from companies seeking his favor. He has criticized the cozy ties between lawmakers and lobbyists, but is relying on corporate lobbyists to donate their time running his presidential race and recently hired a lobbyist to run his Senate office.

“He is essentially an honorable person,” said William P. Cheshire, a friend of Mr. McCain who as editorial page editor of The Arizona Republic defended him during the Keating Five scandal. “But he can be imprudent.”

IMPRUDENT. Just the quality I'm looking for in a president.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

Didja ever notice that radio-station commercials really suck? And didja ever notice that the stations themselves aren't much better?

Why is it that in a medium that used to be called "the theater of the mind," commercials for radio stations are all pretty much the same . . . just playing lame music from a lame station in a most uncreative way? Is it a function of being cheap or, alternatively, of a lack of creativity that you see a lot of the same commercials in different markets, with just the station name changed to indict the guilty?

What's up with that?

ON THE OTHER HAND, you hear a lot of the same stations in different markets, with just the call letters changed to convict the corporate consolidators.

The first video is from my hometown, Baton Rouge, La.

The year: 1980.

I was in college.

Sandwiched between a couple of vintage station IDs for Channel 9, we find a commercial for WAFB television's then-sister station, Stereo 98, WAFB-FM. Snazzy animation for 28 years ago, but the format -- a music sweep of represenative artists -- was hoary then and is worse now.

Yes, now. Because you'll see the same old knockoff ads more than a quarter-century later -- note the second video, which is a commercial for Omaha's hip-hop station. The only thing that's different is the pervasiveness of music videos to rip off for video . . . thus saving you the expense of snazzy animation.

Well, that and that, in 1980, "hip-hop" was what you did when you hurt your foot . . . or were dancing the Hokey Pokey.

IS IT ANY WONDER that radio is in the toilet, running on creative fumes that were stinking up the joint 28 years ago?

Nevertheless, it was nice to see a snippet of vintage Channel 9. And, with that last "legal ID" on the video, it sure was nice to hear Sid Crocker do a station break one more time.

A Mad education in life

Click on the comics for a larger view.

We Baby Boomers pretty much learned everything we needed to know about life from Mad magazine.

Sometimes, though, it was the wrong lesson. The panel above, by the late and great Dave Berg, was part of "The Lighter Side of . . . HAIR," from Mad Special Number Seven in 1972. These things really did happen back then.

In 1977, it happened to me.

One weekend, I was at our "camp" on the river with my folks -- "camp," in Louisiana-speak, being your little place out in the woods or on a river somewhere. Ours was on the Petite Amite River out in Head of Island, La.

BACK THEN, my 16-year-old smartass self was sporting shoulder-length hair, and my old man was not amused. And one day, out at camp, I was informed that I was a g**damned, hippie, communist dope fiend and that I needed to cut my g**damned beatnik hair.

I was offended. I had not yet taken up smoking dope, and I only was communist in the sense that sometimes you pretended to be to get a rise out of your teachers.

Anyway, when the old man said what he said -- a few meticulously Vitalised stray hairs atop his shiny dome -- Mad 1972 bubbled up from the depths of my subconscious:

"You're just jealous because YOU DON'T HAVE ANY!" said the foolish young man. The one with burgeoning locks.

That . . . was a mistake.

My next memory is of being pinned -- forcefully -- against the wood-paneled wall, while learning new vocabulary words that I shall not repeat here. And by the time I was 17 and change, my hair was several inches shorter.

Thirty-one years later, the old man is long gone, but his gene pool is giving him the last laugh. I scarcely have more hair than he did in 1977. This brings me to another, more positive, lesson I learned well from that same 1972 issue of Mad:

NEVER, EVER do a comb-over. Never.

Ever.

You're not fooling anybody -- except yourself. Anyway, I find my No. 2 buzz cut -- No. 1 on the sides -- extremely low maintenance, and my wife likes to rub what's left of my hair. I guess it's some sort of middle-aged aphrodisiac, and at almost 47, I'll take what I can get.

Hubba hubba.

Does that make Hal Daub 'Mini Me'?

You'll laugh! You'll cry! You'll be amazed!

Then you'll watch the College World Series leave Omaha after 60 years and hightail it to Indianapolis . . . or Oklahoma City . . . or Orlando as David Sokol -- starring as "Dr. Evil" -- uses his frightening MECA weapon to vaporize an event thousands of Omahans have busted their rumps to build over generations.

Because the parking lots are his. And don't you forget it.

Chances are you won't.

It's Dr. Evil and the Lots of Doom . . . now playing downtown.

It's college, not 'The Longest Yard'

Louisiana State quarterback Ryan Perrilloux has used up his three strikes . . . and his four downs, too.

And the famously troublesome football phenom has been sent to solitary again.

Unfortunately for all, this is not "The Longest Yard." This is a state university. And Perrilloux's act got real old a real long time ago, as is obvious from this Associated Press story:

LSU quarterback Ryan Perrilloux has been suspended indefinitely for violating team rules, coach Les Miles said Monday in a news release.

Miles said Perrilloux's status for spring practice, which starts Feb. 29, is uncertain.

The release did not detail the rule or rules broken and it was unclear how the suspension would affect Perrilloux's future with the team. He has been widely considered the favorite to succeed Matt Flynn as first-string quarterback after leading LSU to two victories as a starter - including the Southeastern Conference championship game - when Flynn was injured in the 2007 season.

(snip)

In May of 2007 he was suspended from the team indefinitely after he was cited for trying to illegally get on a riverboat casino in Baton Rouge by using his older brother's driver's license. He was reinstated in August.

In October, the week before the Alabama game, he was barred from practice for his role in a nightclub brawl.

Earlier in 2007, Perrilloux was named as a "person of interest" in a federal counterfeiting investigation, but that probe never led to charges.

THAT'S IT. Done dealin'. Les Miles doesn't need any more of Ryan Perrilloux's attitude or his inability to work and play well with others.

And, frankly, neither does the university (and its reputation) nor do Tiger fans (and their digestive tracks).

Show the little jerk the door, and give his scholarship to a quarterback who might actually appreciate it . . . and the chance at a free college education.

Remember, you heard the 'R' word here first

Buddy. Roemer.

With the shaky start Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is off to on his ethics jihad thus far, it is useful to remember the last messiah who was going to fix everything that's wrong with my home state.

Buddy. Roemer.

If messiahs actually existed in politics, so many Louisianians (and others) wouldn't have been doing so much "magical thinking" regarding what Bobby Jindal actually could do for the Bayou State. See, if messiahs actually existed in politics, Gov. Buddy Roemer would have fixed all by 1989, and the Gret Stet would now be known as the Land of Milk and Honey.

With boudin for dessert.

But it ain't. Instead, the Gret Brown Hope -- with the Legislature in special "ethics" session -- now gets to show the world he, too, buys his footwear at Pottery Barn.

On the up side, however, the gub'na has plenty of cash to pay the fine for failing to report campaign contributions in a timely manner, and his chief of staff got swell free tickets to the Hannah Montana concert.

In the Gub'na's Box, no less.

A GENERATION AGO, Buddy Roemer could not turn grafters into servants, a Third World enclave into Silicon Valley or -- while he was at it -- water into wine. As I recall, I reminded folks of that after Jindal got himself elected and hopes were reaching Obamaesque heights.

Alas, some Louisianians still will be surprised to discover Jindal is no more the second coming of Christ than Roemer was. Shocked that one man -- even with feet of flesh and blood, as opposed to clay -- is incapable of feats that rightly belong in the Almighty's realm.

In politics, as in life, there is no such thing as cheap grace. There is grace, for sure, but cooperation is required for it to work its wonders.

The change Louisianians await lies not within one man -- no matter that the man is some sort of wonkish wunderkind. No, the change Louisianians await lies within themselves.

There is grace in this world. But Louisiana must first "come to Jesus" to unlock its power.

And Bobby Jindal ain't no messiah.

3 Chords & the Truth: Them moods happen

Life is hard.

So sometimes you got to rock. Hard.

I'm in one of those moods. So sue me.

On the other hand, sometimes life can be pretty sweet. After all, we did just get done celebrating Valentine's Day and all that. So we can play around on the lush side of life, too, on 3 Chords & the Truth.

I guess what I'm saying here is that whetever mood you're in, we just might have it covered on this edition of the Big Show. Drop by, tune in and download now . . . won't you?

Really, I'll bet you've never heard anything like 3 Chords & the Truth. In a good way, naturellement.

'The work of a madman!'

So long, it's been good to know 'ya.

Words to live by as the disintegration of our culture and our country continues apace as atrocities become so frequent as to lose their shock value. Pearl . . . West Paducah . . . Columbine . . . Red Lake . . . Lancaster County . . . Virginia Tech . . . Omaha . . . Lane Bryant in Chicago . . . and now Northern Illinois University.

This latest gun rampage, by a former NIU grad student, claimed five students' lives before the shooter killed himself. Another young male gone berzerk in the deadliest of fashions.

Another routine atrocity in another American town.

ABOVE is some of the early MSNBC coverage of this latest deadly mayhem. I know all this coverage all starts to look alike and meld into one big, surreal blob as time -- and tragedy -- go by, but I urge you to give it a look for one important reason. On MSNBC's air Thursday evening, someone named the beast.

Someone -- a criminal profiler -- finally told us what's going on. It starts at 3:35 into the clip, with Dan Abrams' interviewing the profiler, Pat Brown.

"Usually these men are young and they're kind of involved in the anti-life kind of culture of young people," she said. "That's why we always have the guy turning up in black . . . usually obsessed with killing."

So far, a pretty good mirror of much of our popular culture. I'd call it the popular culture of a society in its death throes.

But I digress. Back to Brown, the expert on criminals and what makes them tick:

"And it's a very cultural thing," she explained. "If you look back in time, you have kamikaze pilots who killed themselves. And now we have in some cultures suicide bombers; here we have . . . what do you do to get the glory when life is not going well . . . you become a school shooter."

Abrams wonders why we are no longer shocked by our ongoing atrocities.

"It's become the cool thing to do," Brown said. "And it's all over the Net. You can actually go to sites now, and you can talk about how you can be a Columbine guy yourself.

"And so when you decide you want to go out with a blaze of glory, you follow the pattern. You know you're going to get famous doing that."

Kamikazes. Suicide bombers. American young men wanting to do another Columbine. Or now, Virginia Tech.

Death cults, basically. Nihilism run amok. School shooters -- and mall shooters like Robert Hawkins this past December in Omaha -- are our suicide bombers. Terrorists, all.

And they don't come out of nowhere.

IT'S NOT LIKE we weren't warned. The novelist Walker Percy foresaw our times back in 1971, when he wrote "Love in the Ruins: The Adventures of a Bad Catholic at a Time Near the End of the World."

Percy, a minor prophet at least, set his novel in 1983. It actually took us until now to get close enough to Percy's dystopia for a keen observer to think "Whoa!"

At first glace all seems normal hereabouts. But a sharp eye might notice one of two things amiss. For one thing, the inner lanes of the Interstate, the ones ordinarily used for passing, are in disrepair. The tar strips are broken. A lichen grows in the oil stain. Young mimosas sprout on the shoulders.

The author describes a landscape where all is falling apart, including society and politics.

Political parties have careened off toward ideological extremes. The Republicans have become the Knotheads, looking for all the world like the fondest reactionary dreams of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham.

The Democrats have become the "Lefts," or, in our real-life vernacular, the Party of Kos.

The country is disintegrating, and the Catholic Church has split into three parts: the Dutch Schismatics, the American Catholics (who play the Star-Spangled Banner at the elevation of the Body and Blood) and the remnant Roman Catholics -- a scattered and dispirited bunch.

And everybody is overcome with angst of one sort or another.

The vines began to sprout in earnest a couple of months ago. People do not like to talk about it. For some reason they'd much rather talk about the atrocities that have been occurring ever more often: entire families murdered in their beds for no good reason. "The work of a madman!" people exclaim. . . .

The center did not hold.

However, the Gross National Product continues to rise.

There are Left states and Knothead states, Left towns and Knothead towns but no center towns (for example, my old hometown over yonder is Knothead, Fedville behind me is Left, and Paradise Estates where I live now does not belong to the center -- there is no center -- but is that rare thing, a pleasant place where Knothead and Left -- but not black -- dwell side by side in peace), Left networks and Knothead networks, Left movies and Knothead movies. The most popular Left films are dirty movies from Sweden. All-time Knothead favorites, on the other hand, include The Sound of Music, Flubber, and the Ice Capades of 1981, clean movies all.

I've stopped going to movies. It is hard to say which is more unendurable, the sentimental blasphemy of Knothead movies like The Sound of Music or sitting in a theater with strangers watching other strangers engage in sexual intercourse and sodomy on the giant 3-D Pan-a-Vision screen.

BUT ENOUGH about that. Let's talk about the latest atrocity, instead -- at Northern Illinois, right?

"The work of a madman!"

Stupid, as opposed to completely nuts

Times-Picayune clarifies Nagin photo

by The Times-Picayune
Wednesday February 13, 2008, 11:40 PM

A photo in some Metro sections and on Nola.com on Wednesday showed a laughing Mayor Ray Nagin pointing an M-4 rifle at Chief of Police Warren Riley at a news conference to announce new crime fighting equipment purchased by the New Orleans Police Department. A review of a video taken at the event shows that the mayor momentarily pointed the gun at the chief as he was lowering it but he did not deliberately point it at Riley.

WHAT THIS MEANS is that the mayor of Chocolate City is merely a fool who doesn't know how to handle firearms -- remember, every gun is a loaded gun, and you don't point a loaded gun at what you don't intend to shoot -- and not a maniac.

Nagin may be nuts, but there is no evidence thus far that he's a homicidal maniac.

There is plenty of evidence, however, that he is a fool and a buffoon. And thus, the fools and buffoons who reelected one of their own as mayor of New Orleans in the wake of his spectacular Katrina mismanagement have ensured that the entire city will continue to suffer.

Democracy's a bitch, y'know?

Four Songs: Taking the week off

Four Songs is taking the week off.

Why? Because we can. And because I'm kind of tired. It's been one of those weeks.

We'll try concentrating on getting 3 Chords & the Truth out the door this week.

S'alright? S'alright.

It's a lock: Death a winner in '08

Great. It looks like it's pretty well official now.

The November election will be the Party of Abortion and Sex squaring off against the Party of Greed, Eternal War and Torture.

The U.S. Senate -- or was it the Roman Senate . . . I forget -- today voted largely along party lines to restrict the Central Intelligence Agency to interrogation techniques approved in the Army field manual. In other words, no waterboarding, no torture of any sort.

NOW THE BILL goes to Caesar President Bush who, as head of the Party of Greed, Eternal War and Torture, has vowed to veto it. Joining his fellow Greed, War & Torture senators in voting against the anti-torture legislation was presidential candidate John McCain, who had very nasty things done to him at the Hanoi Hilton many years ago.

(For those of you under 35, the Hanoi Hilton was not a five-star hotel. But it was in Vietnam.)

Meanwhile, after breaking from his fellow Abortion & Sex senators to vote in favor of torture, Nebraska's allegedly pro-life Ben Nelson was reported to be unavailable for comment due to overwhelming confusion.

The Associated Press has the depressing details:

Congress on Wednesday moved to prohibit the CIA from using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods on terror suspects, despite President Bush's threat to veto any measure that limits the agency's interrogation techniques.

The prohibition was contained in a bill authorizing intelligence activities for the current year, which the Senate approved on a 51-45 vote. It would restrict the CIA to the 19 interrogation techniques outlined in the Army field manual. That manual prohibits waterboarding, a method that makes an interrogation subject feel he is drowning.

The House had approved the measure in December. Wednesday's Senate vote set up a confrontation with the White House, where Bush has promised to veto any bill that restricts CIA questioning.

Arguing for such restrictions, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said the use of harsh tactics would boomerang on the United States.

"Retaliation is the way of the world. What we do to others, they will do to us — but worse," Rockefeller said. "This debate is about more than legality. It is also about morality, the way we see ourselves ... and what we represent to the world."

(snip)

Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, backed by Senate Republicans Olympia Snowe of Maine and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, inserted the provision in December into a bill providing guidelines for the running of U.S. intelligence agencies this year.

The 19 approved interrogation techniques in the military field manual include "good cop/bad cop," "false flag" — making prisoners think they are in the custody of another country — and the separation of a prisoner from other prisoners for up to 30 days at a time.

It prohibits military interrogators from hooding prisoners or putting duct tape across their eyes. They may not be stripped naked or forced to perform or mimic sexual acts. They may not be beaten, electrocuted, burned or otherwise physically hurt. They may not be subjected to hypothermia or mock executions. It does not allow food, water and medical treatment to be withheld, and dogs may not be used in any aspect of interrogation.

Republican presidential contender Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who was tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, voted against the measure Wednesday.

LET ME ATTEMPT to get this straight. And, please . . . bear with me here.

Come November, as a Catholic who believes what his Church teaches, I am somehow expected to vote either:

* For the Party of Abortion and Sex in order to put an end to the Party of Greed, Endless War and Torture's relentless pursuit of . . . well . . . greed, endless war and torture.

* Or, alternatively, for the Party of Greed, Endless War and Torture in order to keep the Party of Abortion and Sex from getting its grubby, K-Y jelly-smeared hands on the Supreme Court, which someday is supposed to put an end to Roe v. Wade. But hasn't yet after 35 years, despite enough Republican appointments to supposedly have done that already.

UMM HMM. I think I get it now.

How about this instead? How about -- as a Catholic who believes what his Church teaches -- I tell both parties to go to hell.

And then spend my time trying to figure out how to survive the long, ugly decline of an empire that lost its soul, then lost its mind.

The Bolshevik Revolution had its reasons

The Omaha World-Herald reports on just what kind of country we are today:

In October, Tommy Jelinek, a member of the Nebraska National Guard, returned home from a 15-month tour in Iraq and moved in with his wife at the apartment she had rented while he was gone.

Two months earlier, when Trista Jelinek applied for the apartment at Villa Vinee, a complex near 78th and Howard Streets, she told the staff of her husband's pending return and listed him as a future tenant.

But instead of a homecoming, the Jelineks say, Tommy Jelinek got an eviction notice.

In January, about three months after he settled in with his wife, an apartment manager required Tommy Jelinek to fill out an application to be on the lease.

Then, on Jan. 24, the manager notified Trista Jelinek that she would have to evict her husband.

The reason: A credit report indicated that he had "delinquent credit obligations."

The management company, Robert Hancock & Co. of Omaha, has stood by its decision to evict Tommy Jelinek, despite the Jelineks' attempts to resolve the matter.

Deborah Sanwick, an attorney for Robert Hancock, said the company requires every adult listed on a lease to have good credit. That way, if one tenant moves out, the company isn't left with another who can't make the rent payment.

Tommy Jelinek, who works for an insurance company, informed the manager that he had paid the bills on his credit report. The Jelineks also questioned why Tommy's credit score mattered — noting that Trista Jelinek had paid the $685-a-month rent on her own before her husband's return.

"I can't tell you how frustrating this has been," said Trista Jelinek, a crisis counselor on the Boys Town National Hotline. "We've asked them how we can make this work.

"But they just keep saying, 'It's our policy.' This should never have gone this far."

Tuesday, a judge issued a temporary restraining order, halting the eviction until a hearing can be held.

And we used to fret over the commies. . . .

It looks like the Bush Administration -- key members of which, including the goons at the top of the ticket, ought to have been in jail by now -- is trying to defend the indefensible in hopes of convicting some soul mates in pragmatism . . . who happened to have the bright idea of crashing planes into the Twin Towers and Pentagon as a shortcut to humbling infidels and glorifying Allah.

The Washington Post reports on how, having been failed by rank denial, our Reich-wing leadership now is giving sophistry a go:

After years of refusing public comment on a particularly harsh CIA interrogation method, top Bush administration officials have suddenly begun pressing a controversial argument that it was legal for the CIA to strap prisoners to a board and pour water over their face to make them believe they were being drowned.

The issue promises to play a role in the historic military prosecution of six al-Qaeda detainees for allegedly organizing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, in cases described by the Defense Department on Monday. One of the six detainees, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, was subjected to the technique known as waterboarding after his capture in 2003, and four of the others were subjected to different "enhanced interrogation" tactics by the CIA.

If the information the CIA collected is used in court, defense attorneys may attack it as tainted and unlawful. If the government relies instead on evidence the FBI collected in voluntary interrogations -- using the CIA information as a road map -- defense attorneys could still allege that the material is the "fruit of a poisonous tree" and unlawful.

The government's defense of the waterboarding episodes, laid out in congressional testimony and administration statements over the past two weeks, relies on a complex legal argument that many scholars and human rights advocates say is at odds with settled law barring conduct that amounts to torture, at any time or for any reason. It also leaves open the possibility that, under the right conditions, the CIA could decide to use the tactic again.

The strategy appears to be aimed primarily at ensuring that no CIA interrogators face criminal prosecution for using harsh interrogation methods that top White House and Justice Department lawyers approved in the months after the Sept. 11 attacks. Because waterboarding was deemed legal at the time by the Justice Department, Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey told lawmakers, he has no grounds to launch a criminal probe of the practice.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin M. Scalia echoed the administration's view when he said in a BBC Radio interview yesterday that some physical interrogation techniques could be used on a suspect in the event of an imminent threat, such as a hidden bomb about to blow up. "It would be absurd to say you couldn't do that," Scalia said. "And once you acknowledge that, we're into a different game: How close does the threat have to be? And how severe can the infliction of pain be?"

White House spokesman Tony Fratto told reporters last week: "Any technique that you use, you use it under certain circumstances. It was something that they felt at that time was necessary, and they sought legal guidance to make sure that it was legal and that it was effective."

FOR ALL YOU PRO-LIFERS who can't vote for Hillary or Obama because of their unwavering advocacy of killing fetuses because it's the practical thing to do -- and I am among that number -- I'm just wondering how, philosophically and practically, what the Bush Administration is trying to sell us regarding torture is any damn different.

Well?

Is dignity and worth possessed only by innocent humans upon whom we have, by our twisted "logic," bestowed it?

Are "unalienable rights" alienable after all? Or has our government done horrible things, but now is laboring to "rebrand" them as good?

Kind of like the most fanatical of abortion proponents.

Or like Josef Stalin, who had to break a few eggs to make an omelet . . . or a socialist paradise. That didn't exactly work out for ol' Uncle Joe (or those under Soviet rule), and you can't expect that defeating "terror" by embracing it will work out any better.