That damned (though lovely) Honor Blackman

Two stories. One governor. All about the same thing, and the lengths to which some politicians will go to get it . . . or make it an obligation-free entitlement via the charnel-house method.

What is it? Let's just say Agent 007 "had" the answer in Goldfinger.

Here's the latest breaking story, still unfolding as I type, from The New York Times:

Gov. Eliot Spitzer has been caught on a federal wiretap arranging to meet with a high-priced prostitute at a Washington hotel last month, according to a person briefed on the federal investigation.

The wiretap recording, made during an investigation of a prostitution ring called Emperors Club VIP, captured a man identified as Client 9 on a telephone call confirming plans to have a woman travel from New York to Washington, where he had reserved a room. The person briefed on the case identified Mr. Spitzer as Client 9.

The governor learned that he had been implicated in the prostitution probe when a federal official contacted his staff last Friday, according to the person briefed on the case.

The governor informed his top aides Sunday night and this morning of his involvement. He canceled his public events today and scheduled an announcement for this afternoon after inquiries from the Times.

The governor’s aides appeared shaken, and one of them began to weep as they waited for him to make his statement at his Manhattan office. Mr. Spitzer was seen leaving his Fifth Avenue apartment just before 3 p.m. with his wife of 21 years, Silda, heading to the news conference.

The man described as Client 9 in court papers arranged to meet with a prostitute who was part of the ring, Emperors Club VIP, on the night of Feb. 13. Mr. Spitzer traveled to Washington that evening, according to a person told of his travel arrangements.

The affidavit says that Client 9 met with the woman in hotel room 871 but does not identify the hotel. Mr. Spitzer stayed at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington on Feb. 13, according to a source who was told of his travel arrangements. Room 871 at the Mayflower Hotel that evening was registered under the another name.

(snip)

Mr. Spitzer gained national attention when he served as attorney general with his relentless pursuit of Wall Street wrongdoing. As attorney general, he also had prosecuted at least two prostitution rings as head of the state’s organized crime task force.

In one such case in 2004, Mr. Spitzer spoke with revulsion and anger after announcing the arrest of 16 people for operating a high-end prostitution ring out of Staten Island.

“”This was a sophisticated and lucrative operation with a multitiered management structure,” Mr. Spitzer said at the time. ”It was, however, nothing more than a prostitution ring.”

AND NOW, THE OLDER, less sexy story that's pretty much about exactly the same thing, as reported by Rochester's Catholic diocesean newspaper:

New York state's eight bishops -- including Rochester's Bishop Matthew H. Clark -- voiced in a joint March 10 statement their strong opposition to Gov. Eliot Spitzer's proposed Reproductive Health and Privacy Protection Act.

The bishops' statement describes the proposed legislation as "a radical proposal" that would elevate abortion to a fundamental right in New York state and maintain the state's reputation as the "abortion capital of the United States." The bishops are calling on all Catholics to let their legislators know they oppose this bill, which Spitzer introduced last spring. The bishops also plan to meet privately with Spitzer March 10 to discuss the proposal, as well as education tax credits and other critical issues facing the state.

The proposal, known as RHAPP, would establish the choice to terminate a pregnancy as a protected and fundamental right and ensure abortions are legal throughout all nine months of pregnancy, according to Jann Armantrout, the Diocese of Rochester's life-issues coordinator, who spoke about the proposal Feb. 27 at St. Mary Parish in Waterloo. It would allow post-viability abortions to be performed outside of hospitals and on an outpatient basis in clinics, It also would transfer the state's abortion-related laws from the criminal code into public-health law.

RHAPP would make abortion virtually immune from state regulation and reverse the current law requiring that only doctors may perform abortion. Instead, it would allow any health-care practitioner to perform the procedures, Armantrout said. It also would block the passage of an "Unborn Victims of Violence Act," meaning that those convicted of killing a pregnant woman and her unborn child could only be punished for one murder.

Last but not least, RHAPP would eliminate from current law conscience protections that allow doctors and hospitals to refuse to perform abortions; medical students to refuse to learn how to perform abortions; and Catholic agencies, hospitals and schools to refuse to provide insurance coverage for abortions, Armantrout said.

"The extremism of this proposal is couched in euphemisms like 'choice' and 'reproductive health care for women.' The words have become unmoored from their meaning; they cannot mask the fact that the bill attempts to legislate approval for a procedure that is always gravely wrong," the bishops said in their statement.

SEE, JAMES BOND exists only in literature and in the movies. Having your cake and bedding it, too, gets a lot more complicated -- and untidy -- in the real world.

Laws get broken. People get hurt. Babies get killed in the womb.

All because of, well . . . you know.

Campaign for Boorish Dignity

I always used to think of "A Confederacy of Dunces" as a New Orleans thing. A fabulously hilarious, rooted-in-people-I-know, only in New Orleans -- or at least South Louisiana -- thing.

HOW COULD YOU place the likes of Ignatius P. Reilly anywhere else? Squabbling with Mama in front of D.H. Holmeses on Canal Street. Ravenous -- and, unsuprisingly, failed -- vendor of Lucky Dogs in da Quarter. Wearer of a wool hunting cap and plagued by a problematic "valve."

Filler of Big Chief tablets and owner of a soiled bed sheet. Abysmally unsuited leader of a worker rebellion at the Levy Pants factory, soiled-sheeted standard bearer for the Campaign for Moorish Dignity.

Could such a quixotic character, such a comically oblivious lost-causer, exist anywhere outside the Crescent City?

Well, come to think of it . . . yeah.

Enter Omaha City Councilman Garry Gernandt, leader of the fight to save Rosenblatt Stadium and defender of South O residents' right to shake down hapless College World Series fans for ad hoc parking spots on their well-worn lawns.

Concrete blocks optional.

Gernandt and the bedraggled masses behind his Campaign for Boorish Dignity standard stand unalterably and vocally opposed to Mayor Mike Fahey's plan to move the baseball series to a brand-new, state-of-the-art downtown stadium.

Yes, it would cost city coffers just as much to renovate the 60-year-old Rosenblatt to less than what the National Collegiate Athletic Association wants in a CWS venue as it would to build new downtown. And no, down in South O, there still wouldn't be many hotel rooms within walking distance of the CWS site -- so Omaha would have to stiff the NCAA on that point, too.

True, the NCAA has a lengthy list of wants for its fast-growing championship event. And, no, Omaha wouldn't be able to satisfy a lot of those wants at the old park that's been the CWS' home since 1950.

And yes, a new downtown park -- Have I mentioned it would cost the city no more than trying to fix up the aging 'Blatt? -- would meet all those NCAA demands and likely earn the city a 20- to 25-year contract extension as host of the Series. Meanwhile, failure to build a new downtown park likely would cost Omaha the CWS forever and ever, amen.

After 60 years.

But that's not important now. Not to Garry Gernandt and his foot soldiers in the Campaign for Boorish Dignity.

Some of the campaign's well-researched counterarguments were reported in Friday's Omaha World-Herald:

"Rosenblatt is Omaha. Rosenblatt is the College World Series. Rosenblatt is the tradition of baseball in Omaha," said Al Italia, 75, who has attended CWS games at the old stadium for 58 years.

Mary Ehrhart summed it up: "We are angry, and we are frustrated."

HOW CAN economic-development rationales and financial spreadsheets refute that? Not that CWS of Omaha, Inc., chief Jack Diesing Jr. didn't try . . . when he could get a word in edgewise amid the revolutionary hecklers and boobirds:

Diesing appeared to have the most trouble balancing the emotional attachment to Rosenblatt and the decision to move downtown. He acknowledged several friends in the audience he had spent hours with enjoying the CWS over the past four decades.

"It's been the crown jewel for Omaha for 59 years," Diesing said. "But the decision is not about the past. It's about the future."

"Change is hard," Diesing said, "but change is good."

But Diesing also was heckled when he told the crowd that the NCAA was presented with only the downtown option and not an alternative of a renovated Rosenblatt. After the uproar subsided, Diesing explained that the NCAA asked Omaha to bring its single best proposal and not a stack of options.

AH, but the Good Book sayeth "Let not thy mind be troubled by facts and logic when you think The Man is out to screweth thou overeth and smiteth thy annual lawn-parking windfall."

I'm not sure what book and chapter, but it's somewhere near the back, I think. Right in there between Revelation and Zesto.

No, the important thing to remember is "Rosenblatt is Omaha. Rosenblatt is the College World Series." And if making that point means the actual CWS picks up and moves to Indianapolis . . . or Oklahoma City . . . or Orlando, then so be it. Right?

Thing is, the only other permanent tenant for beloved Rosenblatt Stadium is the Omaha Royals, the Triple-A baseball team whose management really, really would rather play somewhere else than in a ballpark that's three quarters empty just about every time those not-ready-for-prime-time boys of summer take the field.

Without the CWS to justify the existence of -- and forcing the Royals to play in -- a too-big hilltop ballyard, you can bet your last kolache that the club's owners will build their own smaller stadium downtown or extort the city to build one for them. Or else.

Of course, the Campaign for Boorish Dignity could gear up to "save Rosenblatt" one more time, but success would just be telling the O Royals not to let the door hit them in the arse on their way out of town. And where would that leave Rosenblatt Stadium, not to mention South Omaha yard-parking economics?

SEE, THAT'S THE PROBLEM with fired-up mobs of loud people with small brains. They can't see past their slogans, and they never wonder "Who is that odd man with the banner made out of a soiled bedsheet?"

That man would be Garry ("Extra 'R' for sale! Five dolla . . . cheap!") Gernandt. And the thing Gernandt won't tell his 'Blatt mob -- probably because he hasn't figured it out himself -- is that Rosenblatt Stadium is toast, no matter what.

It might be sooner, or it might be later, but the 'Blatt has had it. The only question still open is whether Omaha will lose the 'Blatt and keep the College World Series, or whether it will lose them both.

Now, if it would smooth the path toward building a new baseball stadium in North Downtown, maybe the city could meet the Campaign for Boorish Dignity halfway. Rosenblatt still would come down, and the Henry Doorly Zoo still would get the property, but the city could funnel all the CWS overflow traffic down 13th Street to South O residents' front yards.

Councilman Gernandt would be in charge of the free hayrack shuttle to the new ballpark, and the parking hucksters in the old neighborhood still could soak the out-of-towners for whatever the parking market will bear.

Concrete blocks extra.

3 Chords & the Truth: Just playin' the tunes

Today on the Big Show, there are no big themes or intricate thematic sets of music.

Today on 3 Chords & the Truth, it's one of those shows where we just play the damn music and kick back. Because that's the kind of mood we're in aujourd'hui. D'accord? Bien.

As usual, though, the tunes are tasty and we cover a lot of territory on the continuum of good stuff. Yes, we do.

YOU'LL ALSO NOTE that your Mighty Favog has made some adjustments to the 3 Chords & the Truth formatics, giving an aural feel that's a lot closer to the spirit of the program and, we're hopeful, a lot less stereotypically "radio" in its sound.

After all, it's a new age of media, and new ages require new ways of thinking about how you do this mass communication thing. The rub, however, is unlearning what we old farts have learned over a lifetime.

More precisely, the problem is in unlearning the shopworn parts of what we old farts have learned over a lifetime and replacing them with fresh, yet substantive, new parts.

Or something like that.

Give the Big Show a listen, will you? And let us know what you think.

Be there. Aloha.

NOLA's nattering nabob of noonies

I am not making the following Ray Nagin story up because, frankly, you can't.

In fact, just when you think you've seen the Full Nagin from New Orleans' buffoon-in-chief, the man just does something so insane that you realize that he's been holding back all these years, and that C. Ray has untold reservoirs of whack he can call upon at a moment's notice.

So, without further ado, here is the latest in the ongoing serial, Adventures of Chocolate Mayor, as reported by WRNO radio:

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin says he is "a vagina-friendly Mayor."

Nagin made the remark while welcoming the author of the Vagina Monlogues, Eve Ensler to the city to promote the "V-Day" celebration in New Orleans next month.

(snip)

Mayor Nagin began his comments at the news conference by saying, "How am I gonna stand up and say, I'm a 'vagina-friendly' Mayor to these cameras after 'Chocolate City' and some of the other stuff that I've done. But you know what? I'm in."

"She (Ensler) started describing the event, and you know what, I'm a guy and I've heard about the Vagina Monologues but I don't know what was going on. I didn't know anything about it and she started to describe this event - look, you know I've got a script and I'm not following it - and I was absolutely blown away at how awesome this work is. I mean, she is doing God's work. So, I stand before you, a vagina-friendly Mayor. I am in! And you know what? It is so appropriate right now. New Orleans, Louisiana is the birthplace of jazz, you know, but it is the birthplace of so many tremendous women."

HA HA HA HA HA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

(gasp)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!! HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE!!! HAAAAAAAAAAAW!!!! HAW HAW HAW HAW! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! GAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!

HOO HOO HOO HOO HOO HOO!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA! HAR HAR HAR HAR . . . GAAAAAAACK!!!

(thud)

THAT, NEW ORLEANS, was the sound of the rest of America (and the world, I dare say) no longer laughing with you but, instead, laughing at you. There is a difference.

Enjoy the mayor you re-elected at the most pivotal moment of your almost-300-year history.

Gimme that old-time anti-Semitism. . . .

Oftentimes, it gets real weird real fast in the Catholic ghetto.

So weird that a generation of Catholics -- adrift in a Marty Haugen present and groping in the dark for a glorious lost Church it never knew -- will grab onto any crazy damn thing that brings to mind what it must have been like in the Good Old Days. Some turn to websites full of alleged signs, wonders and prophesies of how Mary warned that Jesus said that the Father's about to kick some cosmological ass and avenge the offended sensibilities of the True Faithful in this vale of tears.

OTHERS FIND a bishop who talks a good orthodox game and gives him the kind of fealty they ought to be reserving for Christ . . . even when the prelate turns out to be a better wolf than he is a shepherd. As we have witnessed again and again since 2001 in the Scandals.

And others, still, go around trying to rehabilitate notoriously nutty, anti-Semitic radio priests from the 1930s. Yes, I mean that demagogue of the Depression-era airwaves, the Rev. Charles E. Coughlin.

Unsurprisingly, I stumbled across this last phenomenon because of the Catholic Blog Awards. It's that time of the year in the Catholic blogosphere, and various members of "St. Blog's Parish" are campaigning for Best Whatever of 2008.

The awards are administered by cyberCatholics.com, based in Abbeville, La. (Oh, Lord, why are all these things in my home state?) And if you go to the cyberCatholics.com home page -- which advertises nominations for the Catholic Blog Awards, incidentally -- and if you scroll down a bit, you will see a column of "guest contributors."

Actually, make that guest contributor. All of the highlighted articles (for example, "Wikipedia is Marxist!") are by the same Canadian guy, Stephen Volk. One of them, naturally, is a press release for the website FatherCoughlin.com:

For everthing [sic] there is a season! Knowing that "Satan" means "slander," it's time to call a firm halt against the decades of unwarranted liberal slander towards Father Charles Coughlin…

While this man should by now be hailed as one of America's great heroes - who tirelessly fought for the poor during the Great Depression - his name is still being sloshed in the mud of liberal propaganda.

I have read many first editions by and about Father Coughlin. It is easy to conclude that he was never an antisemite. Absolute nonsense. But in the charisms of the Church he did have powerful, powerful God-given Gifts of Wisdom, Discernment and Knowledge:

"I do ask , however, an insane world to distinguish between the innocent Jew and the guilty Jew as much as I would ask the same insane world to distinguish between the innocent gentile and the guilty gentile."

Is this not completely fair? Or does the Bible not say, "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God."

To clear up decades of confusion, www.FatherCoughlin.com is now open! As a Grand Opening Gift to you, go now to download your FREE complete book by Father Charles Coughlin, "Am I an AntiSemite?" Then check back often for FREE download of all his radio programs!

Why the urgency? Because today's "political correctness" is cultural Marxism.

Once again, we need strong, visionary leadership to prayerfully and boldly combat this before our civilization is left in ruins!

WAS FATHER COUGHLIN an anti-Semite? Here's a clue, from a Time magazine article, dated Nov. 14, 1938:

In Switzerland four years ago a book went on trial—the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion—in a suit brought and won by the Swiss Jewish Community against two booksellers (TIME, Nov. 12, 1934). This notorious work, first published in Russia 33 years ago and circulated more or less surreptitiously throughout the western world since then, purported to expose a Jewish plot to destroy Christian civilization, dominate the earth. The Protocols, as the Swiss court found, have been repeatedly proved a fraud.

(snip)

Yet in the past two months Rev. Charles Edward Coughlin, rabble-rousing radio priest, has published the Protocols in his weekly Social Justice. Brushing aside the matter of their authenticity, Father Coughlin repeatedly stressed their "factuality," quoted Henry Ford (a onetime believer in the Protocols) : "They fit in with what is going on." Father Coughlin's point, buttered with many a some-of-my-best- friends-are-Jews disclaimer of antiSemitism, has been that Jews are to blame for Communism, that the aims of the Protocols closely resemble those of Communism—and of the New Deal, the C. I. O., numerous other Coughlin bogies.

Last week a fellow priest went to bat against the authenticity of the Protocols and, inferentially, against Jew-Baiter Coughlin. He was Rev. Michael Joseph ("Mike") Ahern, jovial, witty Jesuit, head of the geology department at Weston College near Boston. On his Sunday radio Catholic Truth Period, Father Ahern drew upon European Catholic sources to demolish the Protocols.

He closed his talk with a quotation from a recent talk by Pope Pius XI which, although published in European Catholic papers, has not been publicized in the U. S.* Said the Pope: "It is not possible for Christians to take part in antiSemitism. We fully acknowledge that everybody has the right to defend himself, protect himself against whatever threatens his legitimate interests. But anti-Semitism is inadmissible. We are all Semites spiritually."

OF COURSE, the careful historian must consider his primary-source material. After all, this article was in Time, and Time was part of the media and -- as Coughlin often told his radio audience -- the press is dominated by the Jews.

Or so true anti-Semites would have us believe.

While Coughlin was serializing the "Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion" -- a modern-day favorite of Islamic radicals everywhere -- in his national newspaper, something big was about to happen in Nazi Germany. The night of Nov. 9 - 10, 1938, came to be known as Kristallnacht.

A month later, Coughlin continued a series of radio talks proposing that the Nazis weren't right, necessarily, but they had their reasons for going after the Jews. Make sure you click on Undercover Black Man's audio links.

Here's what, again, Time reported about the first of Coughlin's post-Kristallnacht radio programs in its Nov. 28, 1938, edition:

Although all week U. S. radio had been speaking with thunderous unanimity against Nazi pogroms, Father Coughlin made resounding reservations when he joined the chorus. Nazi persecution of Jews was bad, he said, but communist persecution of Christians was worse. Admitting that his sources were Nazi, he said that 56 out of 59 members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party in the U. S. S. R. were Jews. He also accused Kuhn, Loeb & Co. of giving financial aid to the Bolshevik Revolution, attributed that accusation to a British White Paper.

Promptly Station WMCA (Manhattan) spoke for itself, followed its broadcast of the speech with more than the usual disclaimer of responsibility. Said the WMCA announcer: "Unfortunately, Father Coughlin has uttered certain mistakes of fact."

BOY, THOSE LEFTIST media Jews really had it in for that preacher of the True Faith, didn't they?

Or perhaps it's just that some "Catholic" websites have a weakness for lunatic-fringe "contributors" who specialize in defending the indefensible. Like the egregious media offerings of a demagogue Catholic priest from long ago, in some mythical gilded age when everything that called itself Catholic must have been really, really Catholic.

I shudder to think of what future generations in some dystopian remnant Church might latch onto from this present era of American Catholicism. Note to Catholics of the future: The music of Marty Haugen and David Haas --to name only a couple of bad composers of my time -- sucks now, and it'll suck then, too. Be forewarned.

The Catholic ghetto is a strange and interesting place. And the things Catholics in the cultural feedback loop get caught up with brings to mind a thought that, frankly, scares the crap out of me -- everything we do is a witness to the faith. And I have proven myself lousy at this "witness" thing over and over and over again.

You see, the Catholic cultural ghetto is just like the Evangelical ghetto, or the bar-scene ghetto, or the hip-hop ghetto, or any kind of popular-culture ghetto. There's a pearl to be found here and there (for example, the glories of the gin-and-tonic or black-and-tan within the bar-scene ghetto), but there's a lot more junk and stupidity to be found there.

For example, getting stupid drunk and throwing up all over your pants and shoes after too damn many gin-and-tonics or black-and-tans.

So, while all these Catholic blogs in the Internet section of the Catholic ghetto are competing for Best Whatever in the Catholic Blog Awards -- all in good fun, it must be said -- somebody who knows squat about the Church or what she really stands for . . . what Christ really stands for . . . is going to start following the links and seeing what's there.

If we're lucky, they might find an alleged image of the Blessed Mother on a piece of burned toast.

If we're not, they'll find some wingnut making apologies for a Jew-hating priest from Radio Days past on a website called cyberCatholics.com, which runs the Catholic Blog Awards, which lots of Catholic bloggers want to win.

And in the name of truth, justice and good taste, they'll look elsewhere for . . . well . . . truth, justice and good taste.

Four Songs: Stoned again

Bob Dylan sez:

Well, they'll stone ya when you're trying to be so good,
They'll stone ya just a-like they said they would.
They'll stone ya when you're tryin' to go home.
Then they'll stone ya when you're there all alone.
But I would not feel so all alone,
Everybody must get stoned.

Well, they'll stone ya when you're walkin' 'long the street.
They'll stone ya when you're tryin' to keep your seat.
They'll stone ya when you're walkin' on the floor.
They'll stone ya when you're walkin' to the door.
But I would not feel so all alone,
Everybody must get stoned.

AND IT'S the God's honest truth.

This may have something to do with this week's episode of Four Songs, but I don't want to give it all away. Y'knowwhatImean, Vern?

So I guess you'll just have to download the bite-sized musical offering from the Revolution 21 empire and hear for yourself. OK?

'White schools' and 'n***** schools'

The problem with conservative ideologues like Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is that rarely do they "conserve" anything. Except, of course, the ability of radical individualists to blow up society for their own profit.

Thus, the dirty little secret behind the "school choice" agenda Jindal has embraced in his call for the state's second special legislative session this year, as reported by The Times-Picayune of New Orleans:

The governor spent little time in his prepared remarks on the tuition tax deduction proposal. But teachers union lobbyist Steve Monaghan said afterward that it could define the tax portion of the session.

At a $20 million cost -- allowing parents to deduct half of each child's tuition cost up to $5,000 per child when figuring their taxable income -- the plan is a blip on the state's budget radar. But the precedent, Monaghan said, would establish that the state's educational priority list is no longer topped by public schools.

"This is a distraction," said Monaghan, president of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers. "If we're truly concerned about building a world-class public education system, then we have to stop sending mixed messages. Why incentivize sending children to private schools?"

Jindal said the idea, which was not part of his campaign platform, came from several legislators and other advocates of "school choice."

"They made a persuasive case," the governor said. "We think it's important for our families to be able to send their children to high-quality schools all over Louisiana."

WHY IS IT that someone who bills himself as a "conservative" -- particularly a fiscal one -- is so enamored of what amounts to welfare for the well off? Or at least well off enough to shell out thousands of dollars a year in private-school tuition.

Welfare for the at least moderately well off is what Jindal's proposed tax credit is, too. And it's what passes for sound public policy in the eyes of Jindal's buddies in the "school choice" movement.

One of those "school choice" friends is Rolfe McCollister, publisher of the Baton Rouge Business Report and a founder of the city's Children's Charter School.

McCollister, who's had his scrapes with the local school system, recently penned a column calling on voters not to renew a penny sales tax that funds part of teachers' salaries and provides funds for school construction and renovation. He decries the local public schools' poor performance, particularly their record with at-risk students.

This despite his own charter school's barely passing grade from the Great Schools website, which uses publicly available data and parent ratings to grade America's schools. In fact, according to Great Schools, McCollister's Children's Charter School had the second highest pupil-teacher ratio of any school within a five-mile radius, while earning only a 6 rating on a 10-point scale.

One would think Children's Charter School would be drawing the at-risk children of the most motivated of at-risk parents. Parents you would assume at least gave enough of a damn to try a charter school. Yet. . . .

On a college grade scale, 60 percent is a D. Barely. On my old high-school grade scale, 60 percent is a solid F. And one nearby public, non-charter school at least managed a C. Barely.

IF I'M BOBBY JINDAL, I'm going to be seeking out advice on education policy from "D" educators? And I'm going to be following these folks' advice to pursue a policy of undermining public schools . . . for what, exactly?

There are none so blind as right-wing pols who refuse to see.

"Conserving" a civic culture and a functional society does not include aiding and abetting the "school choice" of the relatively privileged while abandoning the rest to a "separate and unequal" public-education system. There is no "conservative" principle, properly understood, in tolerating decay and dysfunction as the normative environment of those "left behind" in public schools.

(East Baton Rouge Parish public schools, in the wake of court-ordered desegregation, now are 83 percent minority and 79 percent African-American. Most students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches.)

And there is nothing "conservative" about opening the public coffers, wholesale, to private groups for carrying out the public's business. In this case, that would be educating Louisiana's children.

"Conservatives" have forgotten -- utterly -- the flip side of freedom. That would be "duty." Just because middle- and upper-class folk have the ability to "escape" a struggling school system, that freedom to do so does not therefore become an entitlement underwritten in whole or in part by the state.

And it certainly does not translate into some "right" to cast the less privileged into an abyss of voters' making, either by commission -- as in the separate but unqual of Jim Crow days -- or by omission . . . as in the separate but unequal of some McCollisterian "I'm not paying a cent of tax money for 'failed schools'" dystopia.

When, by default, most white children attend private schools partially underwritten by public monies and most black children attend public schools abandoned to decay and dysfunction, it is difficult to discern how the "desegregated" present differs substantially from the darkest days of de jure segregation.

LONG AGO, before de jure school segregation had breathed its last in Baton Rouge, my parents used to threaten me with being sent to "the nigger school" when I misbehaved at the officially all-white Red Oaks Elementary. That was supposed to imply a fate worse than death to a young mind indoctrinated, from birth, into a white, racist milieu.

Now, in my hometown, they're working on making every public school "the nigger school" -- with all the awfulness that once meant to little white ears -- and all you have to do to get your kid sent there is not have enough money (or luck, or whatever) to get into this generation's "white school."

And if you don't have the dough (or luck, or whatever) to get into the "white school" in the first place, I don't see how Bobby Jindal -- or his proposed tax credits -- can offer you any hope. Any hope at all.

Let me know how that works out for you, Louisiana.

Rethinking Margaret Sanger

You watch news stories like this one, and you start thinking that Margaret Sanger happened for a reason.

THE STORY ABOVE, as reported by Heath Allen of Channel 6 in New Orleans, is the horrific tale of an infant -- born to a family of rustics in the piney woods of Louisiana -- who was beaten, drugged and burned, yet none of her Deliverance-cast kinfolk professes to know what the hell happened to her.

Except grampaw. He knows what happened.

"Some crazed maniac done this to my grandbaby," he tells Allen.

Do you think?

Anyway, I watched this story, and it occurred to me this just drives home a point we all need to remember -- great evil often is a response to great horror. Margaret Sanger saw how the poor, the swarthy and the "colored" lived back in the day, and she thought, probably, a couple of things.

One, they'd be better off dead.

Two, we'd be better off if they were dead. Or at least if they didn't breed.

Trouble is, genocide is a murderously bad solution for intractable economic and social maladies. The dignity of you deny and the life you take of "The Other" today surely will be your own tomorrow, for you're some other's Other.

So, what solutions do we have to sociological deviance like what we see in the video above? Short of Planned Parenthood-style eugenics and abortion, that is?

I suspect it involves an army of teachers, preachers and social workers -- a solution we like to give lip service but rarely try to implement in any serious manner.

Lord have mercy on that little child. And may whoever harmed that baby rot in jail forever and ever, amen.

Every bank collapse has a silver lining

Yes, Citibank may go down the tubes, sucking God knows what else down with it, with this Associated Press story reporting that a Persian Gulf bailout may not be enough to offset a subprime-sized hole in the bow.

Citigroup shares sank about 6 percent to their lowest level in more than nine years, as stockholders recoiled at forecasts of more losses at the troubled bank and comments from a Middle East fund executive that Citi must raise more cash to stay in business.

Samir al-Ansari, chief executive of the $13 billion government-owned investment firm Dubai International Capital, said Tuesday at a private equity conference that it will take more than the combined efforts of the Gulf’s wealthiest investors — the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, the Kuwait Investment Authority and Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal — to save Citigroup.

Back in January, Citi raised $12.5 billion from a group of investors including the Kuwait Investment Authority, the Government of Singapore Investment Corp. and Prince Alwaleed. And last year, Citi nabbed $7.6 billion from the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, a sovereign wealth fund owned by the ruling elite of the United Arab Emirates, the world’s fourth-largest oil exporter, in return for a 4.9 percent stake.

(snip)

Citigroup shares — which have shed about 50 percent since the credit markets froze up last summer — dropped another 5.6 percent to $21.80 in early afternoon trading Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange.

In January, Citigroup reported losses of almost $10 billion in the fourth quarter, spurred by $18 billion in write-downs. In addition to capital injections from sovereign wealth funds, the bank has been raising cash through small asset sales of nonessential assets and nearly halving its dividend in January.

“Not only do they need to raise more money, but they should’ve suspended their dividend six months ago,” said Christopher Whalen, managing director of consulting firm Institutional Risk Analytics. “They’re trying to do this in bite-size pieces. But everyone’s still waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

Citi Chief Financial Officer Gary Crittenden said in January the $12.5 billion stake, along with a $2 billion stock sale the bank completed soon afterward, was enough to address “potential capital shortfall under multiple scenarios.”

“They’re saying it’s enough — it’s not enough,” Whalen said, noting that further losses from consumer debt will draw down Citi’s cash levels.

THAT would be bad.

On the other hand, if Citi goes bust, we'll all get a lot less junk mail hawking credit cards we don't want and can't afford to have.

Many trees, alas, could be saved -- living another day to suck greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. You have to like that, at least.

Washing their feet and looking at the moon

With people like Chas Roemer -- son of Louisiana's last (failed) reform governor -- running education in the Gret Stet, it's hard to hold out hope that anything will ever get better there.

Roemer, newly elected to the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education from Baton Rouge, is another Capital City swell who thinks teachers and children need to pay the price for the sins of the school board. He writes in the Baton Rouge Business Report:

Taxpayers are now faced with the proposition of either sending more money to the same system or being labeled as “against the kids.” Nothing could be further from the truth. I, for one, will vote against the tax—not because I’m against spending the money, but because I am against wasting the money. I would support any number of different approaches and, in fact, could support sending even a greater amount of money to a system that I believed put the kids first and not “the system.” I have witnessed firsthand the system making decisions that protect them while sacrificing potential opportunities for our kids. For example, the system turned away KIPP Academy—a nationally recognized charter school provider that specializes in serving urban kids. They turned down the Children’s Charter School in their attempt to expand—despite that their student body is 98% at risk and scores above the state average on school performance scores. Children’s Charter operates an 11-month school year with extended day for the same amount per pupil as the system. Furthermore, for years the Children’s Charter operated exclusively out of temporary buildings. Why can’t the system do some of these same things?

HERE'S A NEWS FLASH, podna. When you willfully advocate a politcal course of action that will force teachers to take a pay cut of between 2 percent and 22 percent, you're not only against the teachers . . . you're "against the kids."

And when you willingly advocate a politcal course of action that will doom the parish's students to remain in crumbling, outdated and squalorous "facilities," you're "against the kids." In fact, you're guilty of child abuse.

But that's OK. Baton Rouge's public schools now are 83 percent minority.

So it's not like the children of actual white people are on the line here. At least not enough of them to represent an unacceptable level of collateral damage when you blow up the public schools so that a magical voucher scheme might descend from the heavens and set everything aright.

BUT WAITING FOR GODOT is what my fellow Louisianians do. They're good at it. And the state's periodic political messiahs are happy to offer up the latest hare-brained scheme to throw Bubba a sop and stick it to the Negroes in the name of "reform."

Gov. Bobby Jindal (PBUH) is the latest to try that approach, just today calling on legislators to approve a tax credit for private-school tuition. In other words, welfare for people who have the money to pay thousands per year in tuition for their kids to go to private schools . . . so they don't have to give a damn about public schools.

Welfare is only a dirty word when it applies to minorities -- whose children are left to rot in defunded ratholes.

Gotcha.

IN OTHER WORDS, things ain't changed much in the Gret Stet since Gov. Earl Long stood at the dais in the Senate chambers and laid into one of its members, arch-segregationist Willie Rainach. In his book, The Earl of Louisiana, the journalist A.J. Liebling recounts the scene:

"After all this is over, he'll probably go up there to Summerfield, get up on his front porch, take off his shoes, wash his feet, look at the moon and get close to God." This was gross comedy, a piece of miming that recalled Jimmy Savo impersonating the Mississippi River. Then the old man, changing pace, shouted in Rainach's direction, "And when you do, you got to recognize that niggers is human beings!"

It was at this point that the legislators must have decided he'd gone off his crumpet. Old Earl, a Southern politician, was taking the Fourteenth Amendment's position that "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States . . . nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

AFTER THAT, they put Uncle Earl in the nuthouse. Being in favor of the Fourteenth Amendment . . . that'd always get you in trouble in the Gret Stet of Loosiana.

Still will, I suspect.

3 Chords & the Truth: It's all about love

Trust me, what's below ties into this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth. To find out how, you'll just have to listen, now, won't you?

Download it here. You'll be glad you did.

Really.

Be there. Aloha.

1 Corinthians
Chapter 13

1

If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.
2
And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.
3
If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4
Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, (love) is not pompous, it is not inflated,
5
it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury,
6
it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.
7
It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8
Love never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing.
9
For we know partially and we prophesy partially,
10
but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
11
When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things.
12
At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.
13
So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Hurting people to make a point

Rolfe McCollister, as we've discussed previously, wants Baton Rouge voters not to renew the penny sales tax dedicated to public-school construction and teacher raises.

The Baton Rouge magazine publisher asks voters to write out a spite-based public policy prescription because he's frustrated with the public schools and the poor performance of many. This, when local teachers are chronically underpaid and local schools fall apart around those inside them.

Here's a passage from an article on my alma mater, Baton Rouge Magnet High, from one of McCollister's own magazines, 225:

The Government Street school, decades behind in maintenance, is crumbling around the National Merit semifinalists it produces.

Plaster flakes from classroom walls. Mold and mildew feed on intruding moisture behind the crumbling brickwork, which has separated from the building’s exterior. It’s so bad it routinely sickens students and faculty.

“The mold and mildew on the third floor are just out of control,” Principal Nanette Greer says. “You wouldn’t believe the number of people who are sick or have problems due to allergies. It’s unbelievable. We’re all sick. I’m on allergy medication as is most of the staff. We don’t complain because it is what it is.

OH, BUT IT GETS WORSE than that. Here's an excerpt from a story about Baton Rouge High and the plight of local public schools in McCollister's other publication, The Baton Rouge Business Report:

The findings were no surprise to Dot Dickinson, who watched a tile fall from the ceiling before a performance of the school’s orchestra, which included her son, in the mid-1990s. Luckily, the wayward tile landed on empty seats.

“Seems someone would have noticed the need for maintenance at that time,” she says.

Most likely someone did. But at the time, every public school in the parish needed work, and there was virtually no money to pay for it, school officials say. The system isn’t in the crisis mode it was in 10 years ago, but there are still a number of school buildings that are drafty, leaky, moldy or otherwise disheveled.

The School Board was scheduled to discuss—and most likely finalize and vote on—the system’s facility plan on Jan. 10. The futures of Baton Rouge Magnet High, which is in line for a $62 million renovation, and Lee High School, which the system had considered closing before Superintendent Charlotte Placide proposed building a new Lee High on the same site, have elicited the strongest emotions.

But the problem is much bigger than two schools.

YES, THE "PROBLEM" IS BIGGER than Baton Rouge High and Lee High. The "problem" is as big as an entire city -- an entire state -- where public education, and generations upon generations of students, just aren't that big a priority.

The problem is as big as a magazine publisher who sits on the board of a charter school and loathes the public school system with such a white-hot intensity that he's willing to cut off kids' noses to spite the school board's face. And he hopes to accomplish this by convincing voters to effect positive "change" via means of material and financial destruction.

Really, what's condemning somebody's children -- though certainly not those of Baton Rouge's Brahmins -- to attend classes in squalor when it's all to fire a shot across somebody's bow. The shot may well cross the East Baton Rouge school board's bow, but here's a sketch of whom it won't hit . . . and whom it will.

Again, from McCollister's own Business Report:

Thirty percent of children in East Baton Rouge Parish do not attend public schools, nearly double the state average of 16%, which the Louisiana Department of Education says is the highest rate in the nation. The private schools can pick and choose whom they want to let in, while public schools take all comers. Public schools tend to have nearly all of the special education and special-needs students, while private schools grab many of the high-achievers.

For middle- and upper-class children, private schools are the rule, not the exception. Nearly 77% of the students left in East Baton Rouge public schools are poor, as measured by how many qualify for free or reduced lunch. Often, poor children come from unstable homes or dangerous neighborhoods, and they bring those problems with them to school. Parental involvement in a child’s education, a key factor in academic success, is often lacking in poorer homes.

IT TAKES A BIG MAN -- and a classy city -- to kick kids who already are down. And, in the case of Baton Rouge High, an added bonus is getting to kick the crap out of the really smart kids Louisiana desperately wants to stick around.

The school board is clueless. Kids, however, get the message loud and clear.

For the former, may we have a standing eight count and a prison cell, please? And for the latter . . . a scholarship to an out-of-state school, a U-Haul and some mail-order Community Coffee.

Because now it's possible to get the coffee without having to live in a world of suck.

SO, WHOM ELSE is Rolfe McCollister willing to shaft to make the point that he's mad as hell, dammit, and he's not going to take this anymore?

Here's part of a comment left by a Baton Rouge public-school teacher in response to McCollister's diatribe:

If you run a business, you get to choose the best and the brightest people with which to surround yourselves. You get to choose from which suppliers and vendors you will purchase your raw materials to make/create/perform your products/services. If an employee is failing to do his/her job at a high enough standard, you get the luxury of firing him/her. We don't get that luxury. We have students that come to us with varying negative backgrounds, poverty, no adult supervision, no structure, exposure to violence, etc. over which we have NO control. We have students that come to us from homes where they are taught that the teacher is always wrong and "out-to-get-you." Sometimes, when I discipline a student in class for negative behavior, that student tells me "I'm going to tell my mom. She's going to come here and get you."

Yet, despite this, we work as hard as we can. We go above and beyond the call of duty. Even when we have NO support from administrators, and sadly sometimes no support from parents, we make strides to take kids from nothing to something.

I like my job. I like what I do. I love to teach and talk to the kids and see them learn and grow. I like to hear them laugh. I live for that rare moment when a kid tells me "thank you."

So, if you have a problem with the way the school system runs, then get involved. Work to make changes. Go into the schools and observe. Volunteer. Maybe you could offer your advice on something (since you obviously know so much about education). But, PLEASE, PLEASE do NOT take it out on us. Do not take it out on the kids. Do not take it out on the hard-working, dedicated teachers.

And, finally, if this renewal does not pass, my annual salary will drop by exactly $5218.00. How would you like to suddenly lose $5218.00 of your salary just because people don't like the school system for which you work. If I lose that salary, I won't be able to afford the house that I worked so hard, took a part time job, and struggled to be able to buy five years ago. I guess I will have to move back in with mom and dad.

REALLY, if you're willing to make children suffer for pique's sake, what's ruining the life and finances of a schoolteacher? It's all in the name of reform, right? Even if you don't have a Plan B yet to deal with the wreckage you leave behind.

I would ask Rolfe McCollister what the hell gives him the right to tell people to hurt kids and punish teachers in the name of making the perfect the sworn enemy of the good. But, then again, everybody knows that "You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs."

Rookie-league pols in a Triple-A city

If you're dumb enough, parochial enough and intractable enough, you, too, can ingnore the financials, the logistics and the potential of moving the College World Series to a brand-new downtown Omaha stadium -- just like some statesmen on the City Council.

The Omaha World-Herald highlights these "profiles in courage":

But City Councilman Garry Gernandt, who represents south Omaha and is a member of the Save Rosenblatt committee, said he remains convinced that improving Rosenblatt is the best option. He said traffic would be congested around a downtown stadium, and a new facility would lack the ambiance and tradition of Rosenblatt.

He said Save Rosenblatt will continue to lobby for the existing stadium.

Gernandt's council colleagues, Jim Vokal and Jim Suttle, both said they will wait to see what the public makes of the stadium plan before deciding whether to vote for it. The council will have to sign off on the stadium financing plan. Both Vokal and Suttle said most of the input they have received from constituents thus far has favored Rosenblatt.
"Now that all the information is out, I want to go back and have those discussions again," Suttle said.

VOKAL AND SUTTLE are being typically spineless politicians. But it is Gernandt who exemplifies the bold proposition that extremism in defense of stupidity is no vice.

At least not in his South Omaha district.

Let's review the pertinent facts:

* The NCAA has all but said "We want a new downtown stadium with more fan amenities for the CWS . . . and we've had it with our Aunt Ida from Sheboygan getting ripped off to park in a mudhole in somebody's yard a half-mile from Rosenblatt Stadium."

* There are a lot of cities out there with brand-new, relatively new or on-the-drawing-board downtown stadiums, prepared to give the NCAA every single thing it wants. And they'll do it in a heartbeat to snag the CWS. Orlando wants to build a stadium much larger than Rosenblatt at Disney World.

* Building a brand-new, state-of-the-art ballpark in downtown Omaha will cost the city almost exactly the same as doing a much-inferior renovation of 60-year-old Rosenblatt Stadium -- a renovation which would not give the NCAA suits all the amenities they seek for a championship event.

A NEW STADIUM will cost the city no more than fixing up Rosenblatt because private donors are willing to shell out much more to further the economic and aesthetic development of downtown. As the World-Herald reported:

The financial analysis found that the cost to taxpayers would be the same for either a new downtown stadium or a Rosenblatt renovation. That's because a new stadium would generate more revenue and garner more donations, the analysis found.

Stinson said potential donors have indicated they will give more for a downtown ballpark.

"I think they clearly see that investing their dollars in a new stadium makes a lot more sense," Stinson said, citing the desire of some donors to improve the downtown area.

Private donors are not willing to shell out the big bucks for a renovation proposition in South O, because it won't keep the College World Series in town for another generation or two. And the only economic development it would spur is that which turns residents into virtual carnies and their yards into muddy parking stalls.

Which, apparently, is the only kind of economic development geniuses like Garry ("Will someone not offer me 20 bucks for that extra 'R'?") Gernandt can wrap his brain around.

Sometimes, even a no-brainer of a decision requires cognitive skills beyond the capabilities of some.

Four Songs: Dynamic range, as it were

Human communication is all about dynamic range -- kind of like music.

And, like a badly mastered, overcompressed and severely squished (technical term, there) recording, it just doesn't sound right when everything we have to say to one another is via screaming.

YOU NEED dynamic range. In addition to the screams, you need the whispers, too.

Me, I come from a family that was a lot better at screaming than whispering. Not a good thing. Just like it's not so good when folks just can't let 'er rip now and again.

So that's what the theme of today's Four Songs is all about . . . from a whisper to a scream.

It's Four Songs, the bite-sized program of musical wonder from Revolution 21.

Aw, that really sucks

The American Catholic Church is going after the Dutch Schismatics over the inerrancy of colloquialisms in the English language. Because, as St. Walker Percy warned us in "Love in the Ruins," the center would not hold.

Neither, apparently, would Catholics' sense of nuance in . . . everything.

As is evidenced by canon lawyer Edward Peters' contention that National Catholic Reporter writer Joe Feuerherd was damning the American bishops to Gehenna in a column he wrote for The Washington Post. Here's what Peters contends:

On February 24, National Catholic Reporter correspondent Joe Feuerherd, writing in the Washington Post, expressed his desire to see the bishops (of the United States) literally damned before he would fail to vote Democratic this Fall.

Feuerherd's words of contempt were not shouted in a heated argument wherein, say, a lack of time for reflection or "anger hormones" might mitigate one's culpability for uttering invectives. No, Feuerherd's curse, "the bishops be damned", was expressed in cold, deliberate, prose intended for maximum effect in a prominent national publication.

Now, Canon 1369 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law states that "a person who . . . in published writing . . . expresses insults or excites hatred or contempt against religion or the Church is to be punished with a just penalty." Canon 1373 states that "a person who publicly incites among subjects animosities or hatred against the Apostolic See or an ordinary because of some act of power or ecclesiastical ministry . . . is to be punished by an interdict or other just penalties."

I believe Feuerherd has gravely violated both of these canons.

HERE'S WHAT Feuerherd actually wrote:

The bishops seem to have forgotten that it is not simply aspirations that matter, though they seem more than willing to accept rhetoric ("I am pro-life") over results.

Why should non-Catholic Americans care about the bishops' right-wing lurch?

Because the bishops can influence a good number of the faithful, many of whom happen to be concentrated in large, electoral-vote-rich states. In the key swing state of Ohio in 2004, for example, bishops vigorously supported an anti-same-sex marriage amendment to the state constitution, which helped drive Republican voters to the polls. Bush won 55 percent of the Catholic vote in the Buckeye State, up from 50 percent in 2000 and enough to provide his margin of victory.

There's little hope, unfortunately, that the bishops will adopt a more pragmatic approach to achieving their aims anytime soon. Younger American priests, the pool from which future bishops will be chosen, overwhelmingly embrace the agenda enunciated by John Paul II.

So what's a pro-life, pro-family, antiwar, pro-immigrant, pro-economic-justice Catholic like me supposed to do in November? That's an easy one. True to my faith, I'll vote for the candidate who offers the best hope of ending an unjust war, who promotes human dignity through universal health care and immigration reform, and whose policies strengthen families and provide alternatives to those in desperate situations. Sounds like I'll be voting for the Democrat -- and the bishops be damned. (Emphasis mine -- R21.)

IF YOU BELIEVE Feuerherd literally meant to damn the bishops to hell when he said "and the bishops be damned," I shudder to think what pictures are in your head when your teen-ager declares that something "sucks."

Take your shoes off. Pour yourself a double of something, put on some Sinatra and chill.

In the context of Feuerherd's op-ed piece, "be damned" no more means a literal wish for the fires of Hades to turn the bishops into Krispy Kritters than "sucks" -- some 30-plus years removed from my junior-high days -- connotes the full . . . er . . . glory of what it did in 1974.

AS A LINGUIST, Ed Peters is a hell of a canon lawyer. Who should have common sense enough to know that if some bishop -- using all the moral authority that Catholic bishops possess these days (Hint: little to none) -- moved against Feuerherd on such specious grounds, the resulting derision would just add to the litany of woe the American Church has brought upon itself in recent years.

I am pretty sure that I skew much more orthodox Catholic than does Joe Feuerherd. Likewise, I am much less inclined to blithely cast a vote for Barack Obama than he -- which is not to say I intend to even consider casting a vote for John McCain and the Party of Endless War, Torture and Greed. As a Catholic, I have to take the Church's teachings seriously and consider what the bishops say carefully.

But if those bishops, like Ed Peters, can't find anything better to do than crack on a liberal Catholic reporter who colorfully throws some important questions their way -- questions that deserve an answer from shepherds who need to, you know, shepherd -- then to hell with them, indeed.

In the colloquial sense. Not the literal.