Nobody ever listens to Cassandra

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If somebody had warned the citizens of ancient Pompeii that Vesuvius was about to blow its top, they probably would have accused him of fear mongering.

Whole towns and cities just northeast of Rome lie in ruins today, victims of a powerful earthquake. Scores are dead. They needn't have died, because they had been warned.

THE DEPRESSING DETAILS come from Reuters:

An Italian scientist predicted a major earthquake around L'Aquila weeks before disaster struck the city on Monday, killing dozens of people, but was reported to authorities for spreading panic among the population.

The first tremors in the region were felt in mid-January and continued at regular intervals, creating mounting alarm in the medieval city, about 100 km (60 miles) east of Rome.

Vans with loudspeakers had driven around the town a month ago telling locals to evacuate their houses after seismologist Gioacchino Giuliani predicted a large quake was on the way, prompting the mayor's anger.

Giuliani, who based his forecast on concentrations of radon gas around seismically active areas, was reported to police for "spreading alarm" and was forced to remove his findings from the Internet.

Italy's Civil Protection agency held a meeting of the Major Risks Committee, grouping scientists charged with assessing such risks, in L'Aquila on March 31 to reassure the townspeople.

"The tremors being felt by the population are part of a typical sequence ... (which is) absolutely normal in a seismic area like the one around L'Aquila," the civil protection agency said in a statement on the eve of that meeting.

"It is useful to underline that it is not in any way possible to predict an earthquake," it said, adding that the agency saw no reason for alarm but was nonetheless effecting "continuous monitoring and attention."

EVEN TODAY, an Italian science-o-crat still was blowing off the tragically obvious: "As far as I know nobody predicted this earthquake with precision. It is not possible to predict earthquakes."

Except that someone just did. The man who, as it turns out, was Cassandra.

That dynamic worked out well for Troy, too.

But don't go picking on the Italians. They're just as human as the rest of us -- a motley lot who never want to hear the bleedin' obvious when the obvious involves bad tidings.

After all, who'd a thunk that, someday, a major hurricane would hit New Orleans, swamp the whole place and kill more than a thousand?

Uhhhhh. . . .

HISTORY TELLS US no one much cared to hear what the New Orleans Times-Picayune (and all its scientific sources) predicted, either. Faced with the sure knowledge more than 100,000 poor people would be completely unable to flee an oncoming hurricane, the city's best response was to settle on telling them they were on their own.

But something happened before the official notification to that effect. Her name was Katrina.

The weird thing is that Katrina missed New Orleans, landing only a swiping blow. And look what still happened.

Of course, lots of people still try to stick their heads in the sand about climate change and the rising oceans. And all they get is a snootful of salt water. Every time.

UPDATE: Hey! Big spender! Nothin' like rich Uncle Sam throwin' the big money around to help whole cities that have been wiped out.

From Agence France-Presse:

The United States said Monday it would donate 50,000 dollars in emergency aid to Italy after a powerful earthquake killed at least 100 people.

"We send our heartfelt condolences to the families of those killed in the earthquake. Our embassy in Rome will provide 50,000 (dollars) in emergency relief funding," State Department spokesman Robert Wood told reporters.

Remind me not to bother trick or treating at the Obamas' house.

“Remember, man, you are dust . . ."

". . . and to dust you will return.”

Above is the iconic poster of actress Farrah Fawcett from three decades ago, back when lots of guys my age had it in a prominent place in their rooms. She was a young woman at the top of her celebrity game.

We were younger men just figuring out the game of life.

WE THOUGHT we would be forever young. And so would Farrah.

Who now is 62 and critically ill with cancer. From RadarOnline:

Farrah Fawcett has been hospitalized and is in bad shape, sources close to family and friends tell RadarOnline.com exclusively.

She has been battling cancer for three years and recently returned from Germany, where she had experimental stem-cell treatment. Sources told RadarOnline.com that she is critical but stable in a Los Angeles-area hospital. They also say she is unconscious and has been hospitalized for days.

Long-time love Ryan O’Neal has been by Farrah’s bedside, as has troubled son Redmond, who bolted from rehab earlier this week.

3 Chords & the Truth: Feel like a number

Hard times keep calling us back.

Calling us back to explore the subject one more time, at least, on 3 Chords & the Truth. Why not? We're in them . . . just as well plumb the depths of where we find ourselves.

What interests me this go around is the death of "livin' large." Or the death of that notion for some -- the ones not taking the bonus money and running. If you listen to the news, or the cultural zeitgeist, you can be forgiven for thinking we all were riding high . . . and then something happened.

THE TRUTH is more complicated. Truth is, the American Dream has been under assault for the better part of two generations. For that long, great American industries have been on the skids, and the Americans who worked in them have been progressively thrown away.

Now we watch as the government goes about "shuttin' Detroit down" -- which may or may not be a mercy killing -- and the loss of industrial jobs kicks into overdrive. Pedal to the metal.

Used to be, you could work in a factory (or plant) make a good wage, support your family, send the kids to college, then retire with a comfortable pension. Used to be.

Global competition and the quest for short-term returns killed that notion dead. We've thrown away workers' security, and now we're busily throwing away the workers themselves.

Job retraining, in too many cases, is learning to say "Would you like fries with that?" in both English and Español.

First, we began to import throwaway products. Now we have throwaway workers. Check out the tent cities of the homeless all over California.

REALLY, is there anything -- or, for that matter, anyone -- we don't throw away these days? We have disposable plates, disposable utensils, disposable containers and disposable appliances.

Disposable napkins, disposable clothes, disposable bags and disposable lighters.

Disposable relationships, disposable contracts, disposable jobs and disposable workers.

Disposable music, disposable culture, disposable arts and disposable media.

Disposable lovers, disposable kids, disposable marriages and disposable morality.

AGAIN . . . CAN SOMEBODY tell me what we don't discard?

Well, banks do seem to have some difficulty in disposing of "toxic assets." And we fervently hope you won't chuck this week's episode of the Big Show.

Such is life in a world where people serve the economy, and not the other way around. Maybe that's why we keep returning to this theme in these times.

Or, as Bob Seger once sang:

Feel like a number,
Feel like a stranger,
A stranger in this land,
I feel like a number,
I'm not a number,
I'm not a number,
Dammit I'm a man,
I said I'm a man

THAT'S KIND OF a Motor City translation of a Christmas sermon Pope Leo the Great once gave. The money line: "Christian, remember your dignity."

It would be nice if the suits remembered our dignity once in a while, too. "Dammit, I'm a man. I said I'm a man."

And, as always, it's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

Honk if you love gay marriage

Oh, what fools we have been.

We used to think marriage -- matrimony -- was "the union of man and woman as husband and wife."

We used to think this marriage thing existed as a sacrament, a "covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring."

Idiots that we are, we used to think this was so self-evident that no one had to spell it out in the law. We thought it was holy, created by God at the beginning, more or less, and that you just didn't mess with holy things.

ABOVE ALL, we thought this conception of marriage was so blatantly logical as to be unassailable by anyone of sound mind or serious intent.

We were wrong.

Soon enough, the dominoes began falling. Divorce. Artificial contraception. Abortion. No-fault divorce. "Open" marriage. Single-parent chic.

And now another "same-sex marriage" domino has fallen in Iowa. Iowa!

The Iowa Supreme Court legalized gay marriage Friday in a unanimous and emphatic decision that makes Iowa the third state — and the first in the nation's heartland — to allow same-sex couples to wed.

In its decision, the high court upheld a lower court's ruling that found a state law restricting marriage to between a man and woman violated Iowa's constitution.

"We are firmly convinced the exclusion of gay and lesbian people from the institution of civil marriage does not substantially further any important governmental objective," the Supreme Court wrote in its decision. "The Legislature has excluded a historically disfavored class of persons from a supremely important civil institution without a constitutionally sufficient justification."

The ruling set off celebration among the state's gay-marriage proponents.

"Iowa is about justice, and that's what happened here today," said Laura Fefchak, who was hosting a verdict party in the Des Moines suburb of Urbandale with partner of 13 years, Nancy Robinson.

Robinson added: "To tell the truth, I didn't think I'd see this day."

Richard Socarides, an attorney and former senior adviser on gay rights to President Clinton, said the ruling carries extra significance coming from Iowa.

"It's a big win because, coming from Iowa, it represents the mainstreaming of gay marriage. And it shows that despite attempts stop gay marriage through right-wing ballot initiatives, like in California, the courts will continue to support the case for equal rights for gays," he said.

IT IS THE MAINSTREAMING of gay marriage.

Up is down, black is white, right is left and the epitome of pointlessness has been turned into a civil right. It's not enough to have civil arrangements so that gay partners might have the same legal rights afforded family members. No, our postmodern world will not be sated until meaning has been evacuated from all things once seen as holy.

The new gods of our existence will not be happy until we believe -- and do -- three impossible things every day. You know, achieve endless economic growth without producing anything of value, fight successful loser-bankrolled foreign wars of conquest . . . and give Heather two mommies.

Or two daddies, as the case may be.

FRANKLY, if it's unconstitutional for two guys (or two gals) to be denied the right to "marry" one another, I don't know what we now say to the Muslim who wants four wives or the fundamentalist Mormon who wants 44. Personally, I've found one wife for the past quarter century to be almost more than I can handle -- but I guess that's just me.

But as long as we're committing ourselves as a society to the worship of the pointlessly implausible, I'm sure polygamy will be embraced shortly. Then we'll move on to a brave new world where "men are men, and sheep are nervous."

Yes, sheep are backwards, but I'm sure they'll "see the light" soon enough. (Baa the way, would it be murder to make your wife into mutton?)

Now we truly live in a world of endless possibilities, where the old TV sitcom My Mother the Car has just become a lot less ridiculous. As has this. (Contains some vulgar language, not to mention the general creepiness of the subject matter. But what do I know? I'm not very open-minded.)

GOD HELP US ALL. But, under the circumstances, I somehow doubt He will be so disposed.

Barbarians in the Quad

Just what today's kids need. More porn.

AND IT'S THEIR colleges and universities giving it to them. Like the University of Maryland, for just one, as reported by the Baltimore Sun:

The student union at the University of Maryland, College Park, will be showing a hard-core pornographic film this weekend, causing some to worry that the university is promoting the degradation of women.

Pirates II: Stagnetti's Revenge will be shown at midnight Saturday in a campus theater usually home to tamer fare such as independent and foreign films. The distributor of the film, Digital Playground, offered it to the student union for free, so student activities fees are not being used to finance it. A student programming committee voted to screen the film, billed as a "XXX blockbuster."

But the chaplain of the Catholic Student Center at Maryland, the Rev. Kyle Ingels, said screening pornographic films does not lead to a positive atmosphere on campus. "We're trying to promote greater respect on campus of all people and something like a pornographic film is not contributing to the buildup of the human person," Ingels said. "It's degrading to the human person. It really runs counter to our efforts to try to form people to be men and women who will go out and contribute to society."

University officials acknowledge that the film is "not for everyone" but say the idea was to provide students with an alternative to late-night drinking and other dangerous activities. The student union screens a wide variety of films for a wide variety of audiences, they said.

"We thought this would be something fun for the students to do, especially since we're getting close to the end of the semester," said Lisa Cunningham, program coordinator for the Hoff Theater, which is showing the film. "We're a college movie theater and we thought it would bring out the students."

A university spokesman, Lee Tune, said the administration was aware that the film had been scheduled and would not block its screening.

The admission cost of $4 will cover the expense of staffing the film. About 60 advance tickets had been sold as of Wednesday. The 138-minute film, released last fall, was the most expensive hard-core porn film ever made, at $10 million, according to Digital Playground. The story centers on a group of pirates seeking revenge on another pirate.

An R-rated version of the film is also available, but Maryland chose to screen the XXX version because it would generate greater student interest, Cunningham said.

IN A SOCIETY SATURATED in every conceivable manner with the premise that human beings are mere pieces of meat, the University of Maryland proposes to reinforce the idea with porno screenings in the name of good, not-so-clean fun. Oh joy.

Out of one side of their mouths, members of this country's educational establishment decry "sexting," sexual assault and sexual harassment, but from the other spews pornographic films that contribute to the degradation of sex -- and of the humans who have it.

Educators, make up your minds. Can what's really, really, really bad for the 17-year-old really be all that good for the 18- and 19-year-old?

When we actively -- or passively, out of moral and educational cowardice -- tell young people they are objects, mere humanoid sex toys to use and be used for giggles and orgasms, we ought not be surprised with what we ultimately get. Dysfunctional relationships, for one thing. Illegitimacy, for another.

Abortion, sexually transmitted diseases, sexual abuse, sexual harassment and divorce, just to name a few more.

Ultimately, as this cultural toxic waste filters down to the hoi polloi, we end up with stuff like this. Gee, I wonder where that idea came from?

A tale of two Kentuckies

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It's a hard-knock life. Unless you're a big-time athletic program.

Then you get to tell a nation in the middle of the worst hard times since the Great Depression. . . . Well, let's just say you get to rub big money and f***ed-up priorities in folks' faces.

We act like life is a game and a game is life. No, and hell no.

The mystery of darkness

Sometimes, the darkness just descends.

Sometimes, something just snaps.

Sometimes, atrocity happens, and we have no clue why.

It's a mystery. As a Catholic, I'm big on "It's a mystery." The mystery of the Godhead. The mystery of life. The mystery of death.

The mystery of evil. A darkness that, sometimes, just descends -- and consumes.

I SUSPECT that many of you are ready to scoff about now. Call me a superstitious Catholic religious fanatic. Go ahead, call me a religious fanatic. My wife and my priest probably could use a good laugh about now.

And after you do, you try and explain this, the story that's consumed the pages of the World-Herald, and Omaha, so far this week:

The Andersons’ final day began with an early morning trip to Robert “Andy” Anderson’s hometown of Shubert in southeastern Nebraska.

Later Sunday, after visiting with Andy’s elderly mother, the pair returned to Omaha.

Neighbors saw the Andersons’ car in the driveway, and everything seemed normal until about 5 p.m., says a daughter. Then Karla Anderson failed to call her elderly mother, an important part of both women’s routine. Neither Andy nor Karla checked in with their daughters.

By Sunday night, family members were worried and police entered the couple’s longtime Dundee home, 112 S. 50th St.

Andy and Karla were dead.

Omaha police say it was murder-suicide. Andy shot Karla, then turned the gun on himself, according to police.

But nothing in the couple’s background or life together fits such a scenario, said Robyn Anderson, one of two daughters Andy had with a previous wife.

Her father and Karla were loving, caring people who liked to laugh and did it often, she said today.

“They had a normal family life and normal family pressures.”

To say that they died in a murder-suicide is completely opposite “of what everyone knows about their character,” Robyn said. “It’s as if something is white and they tell you it’s black "

That’s why Robyn doesn’t want police to reach a conclusion about the couple’s death until all the evidence — particularly forensic tests — has been gathered.

“I am only asking for the testing to be completed and then studied to prove, or to rule out, any possible scenarios or events,” Robyn wrote in an e-mail.

A ruling of murder-sucide has significant implications for the reputation of a well-regarded and much-loved couple, and shouldn’t be reached without scientific evidence, she said.

Andy was a 71-year-old vocational rehabilitation specialist for the State of Nebraska. He held a doctorate in psychology, had been a teacher and was considered a talented musician. Karla, 63, was a revered nurse in the intensive-care unit at Nebraska Medical Center.

Robyn said she speaks only for herself in calling for forensic evidence. The family also includes her older sister, plus two daughters from Andy and Karla’s marriage and nine grandchildren, one of whom preceded them in death.

I HOPE THE COPS can give the Andersons' children and family all the evidence they need. I hope forensics can shine some small light of comprehension on a dark mystery.

Some mysteries we can live with. Others, a body just can't.

Lord, have mercy. The darkness is closer than we like to admit.

The point of hilarity

St. Thomas Aquinas counseled us to "drink to the point of hilarity."

This evening, for me, that would be one shot of Early Times. Because I hardly can contain my "hilarity" looking at this, sober as a judge. Oh, Lord have mercy!

This is so rich!

What's sad is that any serious Catholic gives a flying intercourse what Rush Limbaugh has to say about l'affaire Obama at Notre Dame. I'll worry about that, however, after a bit of hilarity.

Kids today

Funny -- isn't it? -- how we wait, amid these uncertain and trying times, for our figurative "end of days" and the arrival of the postmodern-day equivalent of the Huns.

We wait for a secular Pope Leo the Great to meet Attila at the gates of Rome -- or somewhere -- and convince him to leave us in peace. Leave us be so we might continue driving our oversized cars, continue chatting about nothing on our ubiquitous cell phones and continue being pampered at our favorite spa.

I fear we wait in vain. The economy will lay waste to "livin' large," and the spiritual successors of Leo the Great scarcely can deal with the Catholics, much less the barbarians.

THE BARBARIANS . . . who happen to be us. And our children, now perfecting the whole looting, raping, killing and pillaging thing.

From The Advocate in Baton Rouge, La. (sigh):

A 15-year-old girl was shot in the face early today after she refused to have sex with the shooter, Baton Rouge police said.

The shooting, which occurred in the 2500 block of Jura Street, happened at 4:20 a.m., police spokesman Cpl. L’Jean Mckneely Jr. said in a news release.

The suspect, along with two other boys, fled the scene, McKneely said.

The victim was talking with several boys with whom she was acquainted, when one asked her to perform a sex act, McKneely said.

The girl refused and one of the boys pulled out a gun and shot her, McKneely said.

Police officers found and apprehended a 14-year-old boy at 8 a.m. at the home of a relative in the 400 block of St. Rose, McKneely said.

UPDATE: Oh, and there's also this:

A 7-year-old girl was reportedly raped at Park Forest Elementary School on March 13, police said today.

Baton Rouge Police spokesman Sgt. Don Kelly said the girl told a family member Sunday that one boy raped her while several older boys pinned her down.

Park Forest Elementary is located at 10717 Elain Drive.

Sex crimes detectives are currently investigating the incident, and no arrests have been made yet, Kelly said.

OK, fair is fair

I interrupt my permanent fast from fretting about Louisiana for this important announcement.

Der pissen-anten Führer im der Swampen ist atten it again.

State Rep. John LaBruzzo, National Socialist R-Metairie, wants to require all welfare applicants to undergo drug testing and ban anyone with a felony drug conviction from receiving state aid for 10 years.

FROM AN Associated Press report:

State law now bans drug felons from obtaining public assistance for one year from the date of conviction. LaBruzzo's bill would expand that to 10 years; however, a drug felon who goes through a drug treatment program approved by the Department of Social Services could become eligible for assistance two years after completing the program.

As for drug testing, current law calls for drug testing of "certain" adult recipients of aid through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program but leaves it to the state Department of Social Services to determine which recipients will be tested. LaBruzzo's bill would require testing for all adult TANF recipients.

Although less controversial than the sterilization proposal, which drew no public support from any other lawmaker last year, the drug testing and welfare eligibility proposals will face opposition.

"That is a suspicionless, warrantless search," Marjorie Esman, Louisiana director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said of the drug testing proposal. "It's a presumption that someone who needs a little bit of financial assistance has done something wrong."

IN ONE RESPECT, I have little to say about LaBruzzo's proposed legislation apart from "Consider the source." Really, really consider the source.

Consider that folks who had problems with LaBruzzo's eugenic scheme have little problem -- other than the bureaucratic requirements, perhaps -- with der Führer von Metairie pushing something just a little less draconian.

Consider also that most Louisianians probably think making poor people pee in a bottle before getting their welfare check is a fine idea. That cutting off drug felons for a decade is a better idea.

But then consider how these self-same folk might react if Rep. B. Lack Ascoal proposed banning from public assistance for 10 long years anyone convicted of minor in possession or driving under the influence. What about making grandma pass the piss test to collect her Social Security? Or grandpa blow into the Breathalyzer before the doctor submits his bill to Medicare?

Oh, no. They're not those people.

NO, TELL ME. Who are "those people," pray tell?

Well, that's my one reaction. My other reaction is to ask whether we get to apply similar high standards to the state of Louisiana before allowing it to continue suckling at the federal teat.

Think of the money we could save.

Copper-plated coins denominated at .01 dollar eminating from a paranormal entity of bliss

Your government wants you to know:

Economic turmoil (e.g., increased unemployment, foreclosures, loss of investments and other financial distress) can result in a whole host of negative health effects - both physical and mental. It can be particularly devastating to your emotional and mental well-being. Although each of us is affected differently by economic troubles, these problems can add tremendous stress, which in turn can substantially increase the risk for developing such problems as:

* Depression
* Anxiety
* Compulsive Behaviors (over-eating, excessive gambling, spending, etc.)
* Substance Abuse

(snip)

Other Steps You Can Take

Acknowledge that economic downturns can be frightening to everyone, but that there are ways of getting through them - from engaging in healthy activities, positive thinking, supportive relationships, to seeking help when needed from health professionals.

Encourage community-based organizations and groups to provide increased levels of mental health treatment and support to those who are severely affected by the economy.

Work together to help all members of the community build their resiliency and successfully return to healthy and productive lives.

For further information on mental health or substance abuse issues please visit The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

PERSONALLY, I really prefer how Americans dealt with this kind of stuff in the 1930s (see video above).

Shutting Detroit Down

Sometimes, it takes a songwriter to distill into digestible form what's been happening to a people.

For a generation in this country, we've seen the rich get richer and the poor and working class get the shaft. By and large, we have been too distracted with bread and circuses to notice what's been happening in Novus Rome.

But the bubble has burst. The fit has hit the shan. We notice.

And now, as country singer John Rich notes, we're bailing out the bankers while we're shutting Detroit down. And throwing the working man under the limousine.

If, as many fear, the worst is yet to come -- and if Americans have any civic-mindedness and fundamental concern for justice left -- there's going to be a revolution in this country.

You can take that to the zombie bank.

The problem with newspapers

It is 1:07 on a Monday morning. Omaha is the scene of yet another random atrocity on the American scene.

According to a witness, an elderly couple has been murdered in Midtown, and a suspect may have barricaded himself (herself?) in the house at some point. The neighborhood is cordoned off; the city's main thoroughfare has just reopened.

Dozens of cops and the SWAT team descended on the scene. Grieving relatives show up at the police command post.

I learned little of this from the Omaha World-Herald, the city's daily newspaper. I heard something big was going on in Midtown from Facebook. Then I found a running account of the action on Twitter . . . from someone observing from across the street.

THIS IS ALL that's on the World-Herald website at the moment:

Police called to Dundee home; Two people found dead

The scene at 112 S. 50th St. where at two people were found dead is secure, Omaha police said.

Police gained entrance to the house, but the team would not say if someone is in custody.

Firefighters were first called to the home at 10:24 p.m. on the report of an unconscious person.

A SWAT team was called in and was stationed at a gas station at 50th and Dodge Streets. An Omaha Police Department mobile command center was set up oustide the home.

Dodge Street reopened about 12:45 a.m. The only street still closed is 50th Street for a one-block area.

THAT'S IT. Meanwhile, this is the eyewitness account I'm getting from Twitter (newest "tweets" are at the top):

A cop just shined a light through my window at me. Busted!
18 minutes ago from TwitterFon

A few relatives (?) are here now grieving. So so sad. They went into the huge command center vehicle.
21 minutes ago from TwitterFon

The fire truck left and now the spotlight isn't on the house. Can't see much, I think they are reopening dodge
24 minutes ago from TwitterFon

I just want to get back to work but @mrlasertron won't let me turn lights on :
26 minutes ago from TwitterFon

@gabek the whole street is blocked. Show channel 6 my tweets! :D
28 minutes ago from TwitterFon in reply to gabek

@jjsnyc across the street at 50th and dodge
29 minutes ago from TwitterFon in reply to jjsnyc

LOL a huge optimus prime " Omaha police mobile command center" just rolled in. Bigger than a Winnebago.
39 minutes ago from TwitterFon

Now a guy in a suit and gloves walked in slowly with a bug group of new officers who just arrived. No guns out now.
about 1 hour ago from TwitterFon

Now they are looking in the backyard shed. I wonder if that means the gunman wasn't in the house? Sucks if he's loose!
about 1 hour ago from TwitterFon

We are all safe here, the street is swarming with officers and everything is barricaded.
about 1 hour ago from TwitterFon

@rahulgupta haha I could knit a badge and go check it out
about 1 hour ago from TwitterFon in reply to rahulgupta

@CatRocketship what were you celebrating??!
about 1 hour ago from TwitterFon in reply to CatRocketship

@rahulgupta I'm in my house!
about 1 hour ago from TwitterFon in reply to rahulgupta

There are two teams of a dozen officers each. The first team entered the house through the back and I see them through the windows. Yelling.
about 1 hour ago from TwitterFon

Holy s they're moving in, rifles drawn
about 1 hour ago from TwitterFon

I'm so bummed, they were a sweet couple with lots of grandchildren who always visited.
about 2 hours ago from TwitterFon

The gunman is barricaded inside a house and there are "at least" two deaths
about 2 hours ago from TwitterFon

Oh my gosh it's a double homicide
about 2 hours ago from TwitterFon

They have a barricade and shields!!!
about 2 hours ago from TwitterFon

And another car...I count 28 cops/emergency responder people
about 2 hours ago from TwitterFon

Wow two more cop cars just showed up. I wonder what's going on.
about 2 hours ago from TwitterFon

Six squad cars, a firetruck, and an ambulance with the street blocked off
about 2 hours ago from TwitterFon

Livetweeting 14 cops with shotguns outside my house at 50th and dodge :
about 2 hours ago from TwitterFon

TECHNOLOGY has changed the game irreversibly for the news media. The only question remaining is whether the press will adapt and use the Internet -- specifically social media -- or whether it will be steamrolled by it.

In this instance, while reporters were kept behind police lines -- literally and figuratively in the dark -- an across-the-street neighbor was giving continuous updates to the world. A world better informed about a breaking-news story than were the reporters sent to cover it.

Understand the implications here: A cell phone and Twitter in the hands of a neighbor on the scene has rendered the professional media useless. The gatekeepers have been stormed and tossed aside.

Print reporters -- at least at a lot of newspapers -- just don't comprehend what good tools Twitter and Facebook are for keeping one's "ear to the ground."

WHAT'S FRUSTRATING is that a savvy editor or reporter -- upon hearing the first radio call on the police scanner -- could have started doing advanced Twitter searches and, soon enough, found what I did this morning.

"Old school," for that matter, could have worked just as well. A reporter or editor could have dragged out the newsroom's reverse phone directory and started calling neighbors to find out what they were seeing.

It's not brain surgery. But in this technological age, it is a matter of life and death.

For traditional media.

The more things change. . . .

Now, I have to tell you that it was a great privilege when I was told that I would receive this award. I admire Margaret Sanger enormously, her courage, her tenacity, her vision. Another of my great friends, Ellen Chesler, is here, who wrote a magnificent biography of Margaret Sanger called "Woman of Valor". And when I think about what she did all those years ago in Brooklyn, taking on archetypes, taking on attitudes and accusations flowing from all directions, I am really in awe of her.

-- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,
upon getting Planned Parenthood's
Margaret Sanger Award

"We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don't want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population. and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members."

-- Margaret Sanger, 1939

Now do you get the picture?

You might be wondering where I'm coming from on this Notre Dame brouhaha over Barack Obama's commencement address and honorary degree.

I certainly was blunt in that last post, but perhaps I could be more clear about why I have no patience for bishops like Thomas Olmsted deciding to double security at the stable after all the horses have fled. Perhaps I can explain myself this way:

I live in the Archdiocese of Omaha. From what I can tell, it's a pretty typical Catholic diocese -- not completely whackadoodle, not completely dyspeptic and suffering from a more-or-less average degree of maladministration.

If you attend Mass at your average Catholic parish, you're likely to hear at least as much (and maybe more) about this

. . . as you will about this.

Then again, the archdiocese can't function without our

I mean, without money, how could the chancery spend $389,000 to purchase this

. . . so this man

. . . can live happily ever after in comfortable retirement digs?

Of course, when things turn political and there's (!!!!!) a sudden, grave threat to the traditional family, traditional morality and natural law, you'll see the state bishops' conference make a little noise about this

. . . but you'll never, ever see the bishop draw the line -- even in the most charitable, pastoral manner -- here

The star of Jurassic Queen ("Mature Audiences Only 18+"), by the way, is the choir director at Omaha's Sacred Heart Catholic Church.

Needless to say, if one thinks about all this in light of the gospel -- or even in terms of basic decency and justice -- you could find yourself in a situation something like this

. . . or certainly like this

So, in times like these, is it any wonder so many Catholics, for so many reasons, just end up heading for this?

Oh. Puh. Leeze.

The Catholic Church's man in Phoenix -- having eluded the city's rampant drug-cartel shanghaiing specialists -- is keeping a laserlike focus on the things that matter in life.

Like ripping Notre Dame's president a new one for giving America's president an honorary degree.

And it seems the cardinal sin here isn't that the Rev. John Jenkins is making nice with one of the more enthusiastic boosters of Abortion Nation. It seems that the cardinal sin here is this:

"It is a public act of disobedience to the Bishops of the United States."

WELL . . . we can't have that now, can we?

Don't get me wrong. What Notre Dame is doing . . . not a good idea. It does muddy the Catholic Church's clear teaching about the value of every human life and the unequivocal need to protect and honor every single one of them.

And it calls into question whether we're serious about what we say we believe. Like, maybe we just like to talk nice about what we -- wink -- "believe."

On the other hand, life is full of "teachable moments," and it seems to me the Catholic Church in this country could care less about carpe-ing the diem. That's Latin, your excellencies -- a dead language you ought to know a little about.

I'd like to see the American church attuned to making the most of all kinds of "teachable moments," particularly when they involve the President of the United States. Then again, I'd like to have a bazillion dollars and a ginormous checkbook, too.

One's about as likely as the other.

THAT'S BECAUSE if the Catholic Church can't even convince a single, solitary Kennedy to act -- and cast congressional votes -- like a Catholic, I don't know what it could do with poor old Barack Obama, over whom it has no authority.

I dunno, perhaps Father Jenkins unwittingly is providing a teachable moment to the American bishops. And that moment says "You're a joke. You are turning Christ's church in America into a joke. You are unserious, and the church you lead is becoming unserious as well."

For 14 years, I had a pretty good chance to closely observe Catholic teen-agers, of both the public-school and parochial-school stripes. For almost 20 years, I've been a part of suburban Catholic parish life.

And I wasted several professional years being overworked and underpaid in Catholic media. That experience nearly destroyed my faith, but that's not important now.

What's important is that I've been able to directly observe just how fat, self-satisfied, lazy and corrupt is the Catholic Church in this country. What's important is that I've learned it's no mere glib exaggeration when people say one of the best places to lose your Catholic faith is in a Catholic school.

What's important is the realization that if the Catholic bishops were at all worried about teaching -- especially Catholics . . . especially the young -- the gospel of Jesus Christ might have a fighting chance in this culture.

As it stands now, not so much.

FRANKLY, your excellencies, if you have nothing so say apart from whining about how you've been disrespected, kindly shut the hell up. I would have a lot more respect for you if you had the faith of a deranged street person standing at 72nd and Dodge with a sandwich board reading "REPENT! THE END IS NEAR!"

Back in the day, the crazy street preacher would have been John the Baptist. Perhaps you've heard of him.

Come to think of it, one way or another, all our ends are near. Perhaps even that of the church in America . . . just like all those vanished churches the apostle Paul once wrote to.

And gentlemen, you're not exactly apostle Paul material.

Thanks for the info

It's pretty clear from a quick survey of Twitter messages from southeast Louisiana -- as well as from across Alabama and Mississippi -- that there's a severe tornado outbreak afoot.

For example, various tweets from across the southern half of Baton Rouge unequivocally report a tornado strike, with garages destroyed, fences blown apart, roofs ripped off, trees down and windows shattered.

INTERESTING. But how can this be? The local news-talk station is in network programming.

Then again, it is owned by Clear Channel.

Oh wait . . . the news guy just came on with a recorded bit about 40,000 customers being without power. But why would that be? Didn't say.

But let's not single out the evil media consolidator. There's plenty of suck to go around.

This, for example, is what I see when I turn to the web sites of some the ol' hometown's other media outlets. It's 4 a.m.:

NOTHING on the local newspaper's web site. Whoops!

HERE'S A little bit on the Channel 9 website. Very sketchy, no mention of any tornado strike, a listing of area power outages.

AND ON THE Channel 33 website . . . nada.

It's no secret that radio and newspapers are in bad trouble these days. Papers are dropping dead left and right, and American radio is in hospice care.

On a regular basis now, we hear some newspaper executive somewhere -- gasping a last message amid the death rattles -- warn Americans that we'll be sorry when the last of the ink-stained wretches are dead and gone.

They wax eloquent about the joys of newsprint. They tout the wonderfulness of their websites. They even say we ought to pay for their Internet output.

And those blogger people! You can't trust 'em. They're no damn good. Unreliable.

Twitter? Big time waster. People talking about how long they were on the crapper this morning, all in 140 characters or less.

These new media forms just lack professionalism. Resources. Institutional credibility.

Bloggers and tweeters just aren't big time. Not like newspapers . . . or radio and TV.

THERE'S JUST this one problem. There apparently was a significant tornado -- or, at a minimum, something about as bad -- in my hometown early this morning. Tornadoes are dropping all across the Deep South.

And I didn't hear about it from the big-time, "credible" media. I heard it on Twitter.

Down in Baton Rouge, where there are no tornado sirens like we have in the Midwest, I imagine a lot of folks heard about the twister when their roof started to come off. Or when their windows blew out.

Or when they were awakened by the not-so-early warning of that telltale "freight train" roar coming straight at them.

See, here's the thing. When the "old media" start making claims about being far superior to "new media," it might help a lot if the claims are, you know . . . true.

Achieving that isn't difficult. All you have to do is . . . come closer; I want you to hear this.

All you have to do IS YOUR DAMNED JOB.

These modern times

A vignette of life in these Modern Times comes from the Gret Stet of Tejas, where everything is up to date in the swampy metropolis of Houston.

Including all the latest methodologies for treating workers like dog turds in the punch bowl -- as evidenced by the indignities heaped upon the long-suffering journalists of the Houston Chronicle, of whom there are today a lot fewer.

FROM A POST hacked up on the Houston Press' Hair Balls blog:

The Chronicle hierarchy took steps yesterday to insure no employees ripped off the Hearst Corp. by spiriting away anything that didn't belong to them. Security guards stopped anyone carrying boxes out the door and told them they would have to provide written authorization from a supervisor.

Some employees who cleaned out their filing cabinets yesterday of old story clips and other residual flotsam from their years at the newspaper in case they were fired today had to return to the fifth-floor newsroom for a permission slip.

ONCE AGAIN, Charlie Chaplin's 1936 masterpiece Modern Times is a movie for the times at hand. Enjoy.

The devil checks Craigslist

Let me please introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and taste
And I laid traps for troubadours
Who get killed before they reached Bombay

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed my name, oh yeah
But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, oh yeah, get down, baby
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed my name, oh yeah
But whats confusing you
Is just the nature of my game

Just as every cop is a criminal
And all the sinners saints
As heads is tails
Just call me Lucifer
Cause I'm in need of some restraint

So if you meet me
Have some courtesy
Have some sympathy, and some taste
Use all your well-learned politesse
Or I'll lay your soul to waste, um yeah

-- Sympathy for the Devil, The Rolling Stones

The devil, according to published accounts, saw George Weber his chickenhawkery and raised him one of Beelzebub's own knife-fetishizing disciples.

And in pretty short order, the New York radio newsman was dead -- his throat slit, among other things. As it turns out, the rough gay sex Weber was looking for when he placed the online ad, one police say was answered by a 16-year-old whack job, was rougher than he bargained for.

YOU SEE, the devil reads Craigslist, too. And he turned it into a two-for-one deal for His Satanic Majesty. One life extinguished, one life consumed and destroyed . . . not a bad day's work for the Prince of Darkness.

If it's gory details you want, look no further than the New York Daily News:

The troubled teen charged with stabbing WABC newsman George Weber during drug-fueled rough sex is a 16-year-old Satan-loving sadomasochist with a knife fetish.

John Katehis is also a hustler who stabbed Weber "50 times to the neck" and body, police said.

"He and Weber met online sometime last week and had arranged to meet," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said. "There was going to be an exchange of money."

Katehis was charged as an adult Wednesday with 2nd degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon - charges that could send the tattooed teen to jail for a long time.

(snip)

Katehis admitted stabbing Weber after answering an ad the newsman placed on the Internet looking for rough sex - but claimed self-defense. He was also carrying a dagger that cops do not think was the murder weapon, sources said.

"He saw the victim's ad looking for violent sex and said, 'I can smother somebody for $60,' but it got out of hand," a police source said.

It was not clear if Weber knew Katehis had an account on MySpace.com. If he had seen it, Weber might have had second thoughts about letting Katehis in his home.

Katehis, who lives with his separated parents in East Elmhurst, Queens, posted pictures of himself with various blades - including one he held against his neck. He also issued a chilling warning.

"If you disrespect me then I will f-----g break your neck," he wrote.

On his site, Katehis called himself "Extremist, an Anarchist, a Sadomasochist" and said he enjoys "long conversations, drinking, bike riding, hanging out."

The teen also listed more reckless hobbies like "roof hopping, hanging off trains" and violent video games.

"I am a very easy person to talk to," he wrote. "I like to do crazy and wild things ... I'm always looking for a big thrill.

Cops found Katehis by combing through Weber's e-mail and Web browser history and tracking calls he made from his cell phone, sources said.

Katehis and Weber rendezvoused Friday evening and headed for the newsman's Brooklyn brownstone for sadomasochistic sex, sources said.

Weber, 47, whose ankles were bound with duct tape, was stabbed repeatedly in a frenzied attack that sprayed the walls with blood.

WHAT HATH the Sexual Revolution wrought? A lot of stuff like this.

A lot more parents who can't hold it together and who, in fact, can't even do anything about the little teen-age Satanist they spawned. The one still living under their roof.

Well, not anymore. Now he's living in central lockup.

Oh, but that's not the whole story of the kinky hookup gone wrong -- setting aside, of course, any question of which kinky hookup might be equated with sweetness and light. No, for the really gory details, one must turn to the New York Post:

Katehis told cops that he and Weber drank Vodka and did cocaine before the situation turned violent.

He told police that Weber pulled a knife on him, he took it and stabbed the former radio newscaster.

Meanwhile, new details of the chilling crime were revealed.

According to investigators, the knife sliced through Weber's neck, back and torso so many times that it was difficult to get an accurate count by the time the body was discovered two days ago.

Detectives poked through neighborhood trash and peered into sewers yesterday in search of the murder weapon.

Weber's ankles were duct-taped and wounds on his hands suggested he tried to fight off his attacker, the sources said.

The newsman's family released a statement yesterday remembering him as "a truly caring person who loved and was loved by all he met."

VERILY, NOTHING says "a truly caring person who loved and was loved by all he met" like getting a 16-year-old Satanist all liquored and coked up -- allegedly -- as a prelude to some gay sex and bondage.

George Weber was one day older than I am. I now am 48 years old. He had a taste, say police, for sweet young ass . . . or whatever. Some teen-age whatever, to be precise.

Yeah . . . another "truly caring person" who apparently had him some "sympathy" for the devil.

Alas, the devil had none for him. Lord have mercy.

Elly May at 75

Well, if I have to turn 48 tomorrow, that means a childhood icon, Elly May Clampett, would be 75.

A stunningly good-looking 75-year-old, but three quarters of a century old nevertheless. That takes a little bit of getting used to for this child of the '60s and '70s.

Anyway, a Baton Rouge, La., television anchor coaxed the "reclusive" Donna Douglas into an interview, where we find that there's still a lot of Elly May in Miss Donna -- fishin', playin' with critters and driving a tractor for the WAFB cameras. "Weeeeeeeeeeel, doggie!" as Uncle Jed used to say on The Beverly Hillbillies.

I wonder whatever happened to Dash Riprock?

On working for The Man today

The folk singer Melanie, performing on TV way back when, predicts 2009 and the disposable worker.