Among the great tragedies of Louisiana is the sad fact that its moral compass is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
That is why this story -- which first came to light one year ago today in The Nation, more than three years after the fact -- is getting another of its sporadic moments of traction in New Orleans. And why is that? Because it's the focus of an FBI investigation.
What happened on Algiers Point in the days following Hurricane Katrina -- bands of white vigilantes shooting black "looters" at will and cops allegedly carrying out executions -- got some small local attention when The Nation and Pro Publica broke the story. More likely, though, you'd find far more attention paid in places like this.
TO BE FAIR, the story of Algiers Point and other instances of alleged police misconduct pops up in the Times-Picayune (most notably in a recent series) or on one TV station or another when there are fresh developments in the federal investigation.
The latest is a report on WWL-TV:“King was yelling out the window, my brother got shot, my brother got shot,” Tanner said.
Suddenly nine or 10 officers pointed guns at them, Tanner said. He said the police immediately handcuffed all three of them, leaving Glover still bleeding in the back seat.
“We handcuffed, his brother yelling, ‘help, my brother,’ – this and that and that. He still acting hysterical,” Tanner said. “A black cop came through the ranks and slapped him so hard I felt the slap, and knocked him out.”
Tanner said the police might have assumed they were looters, but swears he had done nothing wrong and there was no evidence he had done anything wrong.
But he said they accused them of all kinds of things.
"You niggers come out there and beat up, you know, tourists and everything like that, mugging them and everything like that," Tanner said.
He said they then began beating them.
“The cop kicked me two times in the stomach around my ribs and hit me with an m-16 rifle with a laser sight, right on my cheek right here,” Tanner said. “So I was hurting.”
He said the officers threw the three of them into the back of a squad car and kept them there for hours. He said they took his toolbox, jumper cables and a gas can out of his car. Then the officer who had beat him drove off in his car, he said.
Tanner said he was afraid for his life. Then a policewoman he had met previously appeared to intervene for them, and the police released them.
“If she hadn’t did what she did, they probably would a shot us or killed us,” Tanner said.
Just days later, private investigator Michael Orsini and his partner found Tanner's charred car with human remains inside.
BUT THE POINT IS, and the fact remains, that Louisiana is perfectly happy to keep all the ugliness under wraps -- far away from both disinfecting sunlight and the judicial process -- until the national press and the FBI force its hand.
This says nothing good about the state's press corps or about the prospects for any semblance of a civic society taking root there after three centuries of entropy.
One only can hope the FBI also is investigating this as well. It's important.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
It's not easy to imagine a better messenger of compassion than a pup named Rudolph. Especially when the recipients of the message are elementary-age children. They're young enough to respond to floppy ears and a soft coat, and old enough to understand the life lessons they are receiving.MAYBE WE should just elect little kids to Congress. And let them run for president.
Rudolph is not an ordinary dog, and Marcia Fishman knew this when she decided to take him in. She already had one dachshund, named Gunther, and wanted another one. That's when an online search led Marcia to a small fawn-colored dachshund she would call Rudolph. Not only was his coloring a result of over-breeding, so too were his inability to see or hear. Marcia's favorite hobby is training dogs, but this would present a unique challenge -- how to care for a dog that is blind and deaf? She decided to find out.
He was skittish at first. No wonder. In addition to his sensory challenges, Rudolph had spent the first year of his life in a cage at a puppy mill, then in four different homes. Now in a permanent and nurturing home with Marcia and his canine brother Gunther, Rudolph burrows and hides under blankets, as dachshunds like to do. When Marcia comes home, she can call out to Gunther.
But not Rudolph. Marcia jokes: "People ask, do you call him Rudy? I say, I don't call him!" He wouldn't hear her if she did.
It's no coincidence that this dog that lives in darkness shares a name with an unlikely reindeer hero who was able to navigate through darkness too. Canine Rudolph's nose is also his guide.
That gave Marcia an idea, and she decided to write a short story coloring book with a lesson. The title: Rudolph's Nose Knows, starring a certain dachshund who was teased by other dogs. When a little chick that is too young to fly falls into a deep dark hole, it is only the dachshund named Rudolph who can save it. He is then received by the other dogs with kindness rather than taunts.
The message is tolerance and acceptance of differences. It's a message Marcia delivers compassionately to young children. And she decided to do this with Rudolph's help.
"The kids think he's darling. They just seem to want to embrace him," she said.
Lucy O'Donnell, the sparkly friend of the 4-year-old first-born of John Lennon, grew up, married Ross Vodden, reconnected with her preschool mate Julian in recent years . . . and died of lupus in September at 46. It was in memorializing his friend on his first album in 12 years, though, that allowed Julian to finally come to terms with his father's ghost and tend to some old, old hurts.Julian told "Early Show" co-anchor Harry Smith his original drawing depicting Lucy "got lost. So how it was found or who may have taken it, I have no idea, but it's now been re-found and David Gilmour from Pink Floyd has it and kindly allowed us to use a copy of it for the art work" for "Lucy."SOMETIMES, it's about more than just being a singer in a rock 'n' roll band. And sometimes grace deserves a credit in the liner notes.
"The song ends up being an important bridge, because your relationship with your father had good days and good times and bad times," Smith observed.
"Indeed," Julian agreed.
"And no times at all," Smith added.
"Indeed, yeah," Julian said.
Asked if he feels "like you kind of made some peace here," Julian responded, "It's sort of come full-circle in many respects."
He told CBS News working on "Everything Changes" and on "Lucy" helped him come to grips with his relationship with his father and finally find forgiveness.
"With Dad running off and divorcing Mum," Julian said, "I had a lot of bitterness and anger I was living with. In the past, I had said I had forgiven Dad, but it was only words. It wasn't until the passing of my friend Lucy and the writing of this song that really helped me forgive my father.
"I realized if I continued to feel that anger and bitterness towards my dad, I would have a constant cloud hanging over my head my whole life.
"After recording the song "Lucy," almost by nature, it felt right to fulfill the circle, forgive dad, put the pain, anger and bitterness in the past, and focus and appreciate the good things.
"Writing is therapy for me and, for the first time in my life, I'm actually feeling it and believing it. It also has allowed me to actually embrace Dad and the Beatles."
GOD IS TRUTH. Jesus is the Word incarnate. Our supreme duty as Catholics -- and as human beings -- is to the truth. And the Truth.
And here's what happens when you think the city will quit looking a little more Third World every year -- and that people with brains will one day quit leaving Louisiana and start flocking to the Gret Stet -- if only they vote down yet another bond issue. If only they keep looking at the public school system as OK for black folks but nothing they'd want little Johnny anywhere near . . . or is even worth caring about.After starting up in Baton Rouge 25 years ago, Innovative Emergency Management is leaving the capitol city. They're moving their headquarters 900-miles east to Durham, North Carolina, saying Louisiana can't lure the kind of workers they need.
IEM officials say for the past several years it's been hard to get educated technology professionals to move to Louisiana. One of the biggest issues their potential employees have with the state - education.
"Telling them they have to put their kid in private schools, this is an additional cost and these are just practical considerations," said IEM technology vice president Ted Lemcke.
Lemcke says struggling public schools are just one concern his company's potential workforce has with Louisiana. IEM workers advise federal agencies on how to manage threats to public safety and property.
"Young technology professionals are attracted to centers like Raleigh-Durham or Austin or other places, and they don't see Baton Rouge as one of those technology clusters," said Lemcke.
Lemcke says it's the main reason IEM is moving it's headquarters and about half of their 200 employees from Baton Rouge to North Carolina.
"These are perceptions these candidates have, and these perceptions have caused us some challenges with getting candidates to accept positions here," said Lemcke.
The word of the week on 3 Chords & the Truth is "Good."
But on Dec. 8, 1957, magic happened one last time, bygones were bygones for just a moment, and the power of that moment -- a moment that went out live coast to coast on a Sunday afternoon -- brought a control room full of jazz mavens and TV engineers to tears. And the power of that moment, captured on a fuzzy, grainy kinescope, can take one's breath away over the span of decades and societal transformations.Billie Holiday didn't actually write songs. She thought of a melody, and she hummed it, and then her piano player or somebody else would orchestrate it — or arrange it, rather. And as for lyrics, she would write those, but then she'd consult with somebody like Arthur Herzog, who was the co-writer on "Strange Fruit," and he would sort of shape it into a more singable form.
So the theme of the lyrics of "Fine and Mellow" was infidelity, and Billie knew a lot about that. I don't know how you put this. She had a poor choice of men, and that was one of the reasons, I think, that she could sing this song and a lot of other songs that had to do with dreams and aspirations and fantasies and romance when they turned bad. She was an expert at that.
What made this the climax of the show was this: She and Lester Young — she had given him his nickname, Prez, and he was the guy who called her Lady Day, which other people came to call her. They had been very close for a long time, but then they stopped being close. They paid very little attention to each other while we were rehearsing the show.
Lester was not feeling well. He was supposed to be in the big-band sequence, but he couldn't make it. I told him, "Look, in the Billie section," which was a small group. She was sitting on a stool surrounded by just a few musicians. I said, "You know, you don't have to just sit down and play."
When it came to his solo, in the middle of "Fine and Mellow," Lester stood up and he blew the purest blues I have ever heard.
Watching Billie and Lester interact, she was watching him with her eyes with a slight smile, and it looked as if she and Lester were remembering other times, better times. And this is true — it sounds corny — in the control room, Herridge, the producer, had tears in his eyes. So did the engineer. So did I. It was just extraordinarily moving. I think for all the times she sang this song, on records and in night clubs, this was the performance that I think meant the most to her, and it came through on "The Sound of Jazz."
"The blues to me," said hard-luck Singer Billie Holiday sipping a cup of coffee, "are like being very sad, very sick—and again, like going to church and being very happy. We've got to do right by the blues on TV, because the blues deserve the best." At air time, Billie sat on top of a bare stool and cuddled up to an old jazz-cult favorite, Fine and Mellow ("My man don't love me, he shakes me awful mean"), and did just dandy by the blues. And, for the balance of CBS's one-hour The Sound of Jazz, the art got what it has so long deserved: a TV showcase uncluttered by the fuss and furbelows that burden most musical telecasts. In the murky, smoke-choked studio, more than two dozen of the best jazz vocalists and sidemen worked through eight of the best jazz numbers with the kind of love, wonder, almost mystical absorption they usually summon up in the most free-wheeling jam sessions.GREATNESS IS NOT a popularity contest. It is what it is, and profit is wholly unconcerned with quality, but instead with whatever folks will buy . . . for whatever reason.
Soon after the show, however. Seven Lively Arts's producers heard a long, sad note from CBS. In spite of some artistic successes after a faulty start, Arts had wooed no sponsors in five weeks. So CBS decreed that on Feb. 16—after only ten of its projected 22 shows, and a loss of $1,250,000—Arts will close shop. Executive Producer John Houseman blamed the lack of sponsors partly on the critics, added: "But if you fail when you're doing something that's fun and good, it doesn't matter."
If a newspaper dies and Editor & Publisher isn't there to tell us about it . . . does that mean everything's OK?Editor & Publisher, the bible of the newspaper industry and a journalism institution that traces its origins back to 1884, is ceasing publication.CALLING Romenesko . . . CQ . . . CQ . . . requesting status report . . . CQ . . . calling CJR . . . is CJR on the air?
An announcement, made by parent company The Nielsen Co., was made Thursday morning as staffers were informed that E&P, in both print and online, was shutting down.
The expressions of surprise and outpouring of strong support for E&P that have followed across the Web -- Editor & Publisher has even hit No. 4 as a Twitter trending topic -- raise the notion that the publication might yet continue in some form.
Nielsen Business Media, of which E&P was a part, has forged a deal with e5 Global Media Holdings, LLC, a new company formed jointly by Pluribus Capital Management and Guggenheim Partners, for the sale of eight brands in the Media and Entertainment Group, including E&P sister magazines Adweek, Brandweek, Mediaweek, Backstage, Billboard, Film Journal International and The Hollywood Reporter. E&P was not included in this transaction.
As news spread of E&P's fate, the staffers have been inundated with calls from members of the industry it covers, and many others, expressing shock and hopes for a revival. Staff members will stay on for the remainder of 2009.
AMID THE triple whammy of the Internet, the economy and stupid, stupid management, whole modes of mass media are collapsing atop newly useless people like . . . well, myself.Like a lot of journalists, I wouldn't be where I am without Editor & Publisher. I'd still be a journalist, of course, but I definitely wouldn't have followed the same path, which means many of the important stories I fought to report might never have been reported. I might not have met the same friends. I might not have even met my wife.
No joke.
I'm in Los Angeles today because E&P sent me to Idaho ... and then New Mexico ... and then ...
I'll explain.
As I approached graduation in the late 80s, the classified section of E&P Magazine was the most valuable item in the newsroom. It was to me, and every other journalism grad hoping to land a job at a newspaper, the only link to our future, the only publication that listed what few jobs the industry had to offer.
Unlike most of my friends, I applied to all of them. Regardless of whether I met the qualifications, I wrote each and every newspaper that placed an ad.
(snip)But, the job I did take also resulted from an E&P classified. It was in Ketchum, Idaho, a weekly with an editor who let me crash in a spare room at his house for a few days until I found a place of my own.
Less than a year after that, still in Ketchum, I received a phone call at work from an editor in Santa Fe. He said he'd kept my letter of application for a job they'd advertised in E&P long before I took the job in Idaho. He'd tracked down my whereabouts by calling the references I'd listed. He said they'd already filled the investigative reporter slot, a post for which I clearly wasn't qualified, but they had an opening in sports and wanted me to fill it.
Sports? The closest I'd ever come to sports reporting was to take agate while working the late-night shift on the sports desk at the Lexington Herald-Leader. I wasn't a sports writer. I was an investigative reporter, or, well, I was going to be.
The editor didn't care about that. "You don't belong in Idaho," he said. "You belong here."
Two weeks later, I was again packing everything into my little, gray Chevette and driving hundreds of miles to live in a place I'd never been, all because of a job I'd found through E&P.
.JPG)
.JPG)
And above the heat vent is where you hang your wet socks and thaw your ice-covered wool cap. At right is how I've been doing it lately..JPG)
.JPG)
At left is the view out the front door after the blizzard began in earnest..JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
The schools are closed, and even the malls will lock their doors and extinguish the lights of Christmas commerce in about an hour. The snow's falling harder than ever, the blizzard part is yet to come, and my city is shutting -- and hunkering -- down..JPG)
SANDY ROWE is the kind of editor you'd kill to work under and learn from. Unfortunately, staffers won't have that opportunity any longer . . . because she put those same staffers above herself.Colleagues:
I today announced I am retiring as editor of The Oregonian. This was a tremendously difficult decision but I am confident it is sound. You deserve to know why.
When we first announced the buyout and possibility of subsequent layoffs, many of you wanted to know staffing targets, how and when we would decide about layoffs and what departments would be most affected. Reasonable questions, all. I responded we would not know the staffing target until we had a new publisher and a final budget and we wouldn’t start planning layoffs until the buyout was completely closed. I also said we would protect more content-producing jobs by reducing the number of editors. I did not realize at the time that statement would drive my own decision.
Led by Chris, in early November we went back into the budgets, determined to ensure the company’s profitability in 2010, the essential ingredient to retain jobs and turn our focus from cutting to building. At that point it became clear we would have to shed about 70 jobs total from the newsroom staff. As we have gotten much smaller as a newsroom, it is also clear we have too many editing positions concentrated at the top of the organization.
Over Thanksgiving I wrestled with the number of layoffs we would need and determined it was best to start by removing my own salary from the budget. I informed Chris of my decision last week. Doing this preserves other jobs.
The biggest single timing consideration for me is my conviction that we are indeed right on the brink of having both financial soundness and great opportunity for the future. That is the good news. The economy is starting to turn and Chris and his leadership team are putting all the pieces in place to take full advantage of our strong market position and growing online opportunity. It won’t be easy, but by this time next year, I predict this company will be in a modest growth position.
In News, I have no doubt you have the leadership within yourselves and in this room to meet the future with vigor and commitment. I am very proud of that. The superb work you have done and the public service we provide through our journalism has never been attributable to the editor or a small handful of people. It is from all of you. Yes, we are smaller than we have been and many talented colleagues have left, but look around you at the talent still here, ranging from veteran Pulitzer Prize winners to young super-talented digitally savvy journalists.
You will not lose the passion that drives you and in that, too, I take great pride. What you do is worthy, often inspired, and has never been more needed than it is today. Amid the noise of the media marketplace, more than ever the fight is to be the trusted source of local news and information. That is what you do so well, and you will win that fight — on any platform the market chooses.
I will miss you a great deal, but that is overshadowed by the gratitude I feel for the good fortune of having worked with you and every day having fun, laughing, struggling and, ultimately achieving tremendous things together.
I cheer you and wish you Godspeed on these important next steps in the journey.
Sandy
Here in Omaha, it got up to all of 26 degrees today. Right now, it's 18. Saturday, it might hit 40.
The news-editorial and advertising functions of the American press always have been uneasy partners in a forced marriage -- one in which divorce wasn't an option, because as miserable as the couple might be, they needed each other. So they reached an accommodation -- agreeing to live as codependents who, alas, remain true to themselves.After the jump, you will find a memo Dallas Morning News editor Bob Mong and senior vice president of sales Cyndy Carr sent to everyone at A.H. Belo Corp. Wednesday afternoon outlining what they call a "business/news integration." Which means? As of yesterday, some section editors at all of the company's papers, including The News, will now report directly to Carr's team of sales managers, now referred to as general managers. In short, those who sell ads for A.H. Belo's products will now dictate content within A.H. Belo's products, which is a radical departure from the way newspapers have been run since, oh, forever.AMAZING HOW PEOPLE afraid for their jobs in a rapidly disappearing profession will say the damnedest things. Or do the damnedest things.
Those sections mentioned in the memo include sports, entertainment, real estate, automotive and travel, among others.The memo doesn't mention Business or Metro by name, but there are references to "health/education" and "retail/finance"; these are not defined in the missive. Says the memo, Carr's sales force will "be working closely with news leadership in product and content development." Executive sports editor Bob Yates and Lifestyles deputy managing editor Lisa Kresl are quoted in the memo enthusiastically signing off on the unconventional marriage; says Kresl, "I'm excited about the idea of working with a business partner on an arts and entertainment segment."
“I would probably need to apologize to her and hope she uses a driver next time instead of a 3-iron.”
-- Jesper Parnevik . . . the Swedish
golfer who introduced Elin Nordegren
to her future husband, Tiger Woods
In the film, "The Day After Tomorrow," the world gets gripped in ice within the span of just a few weeks. Now research now suggests an eerily similar event might indeed have occurred in the past.
Looking ahead to the future, there is no reason why such a freeze shouldn't happen again — and in ironic fashion it could be precipitated if ongoing changes in climate force the Greenland ice sheet to suddenly melt, scientists say.
Starting roughly 12,800 years ago, the Northern Hemisphere was gripped by a chill that lasted some 1,300 years. Known by scientists as the Younger Dryas and nicknamed the "Big Freeze," geological evidence suggests it was brought on when a vast pulse of fresh water — a greater volume than all of North America's Great Lakes combined — poured into the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans.
This abrupt influx, caused when the glacial Lake Agassiz in North America burst its banks, diluted the circulation of warmer water in the North Atlantic, bringing this "conveyor belt" to a halt. Without this warming influence, evidence shows that temperatures across the Northern Hemisphere plummeted.
Previous evidence from Greenland ice samples had suggested this abrupt shift in climate happened over the span of a decade or so. Now researchers say it surprisingly may have taken place over the course of a few months, or a year or two at most.
"That the climate system can turn on and off that quickly is extremely important," said earth system scientist Henry Mullins at Syracuse University, who did not take part in this research. "Once the tipping point is reached, there would be essentially no opportunity for humans to react."
This is great.
This is the paperless newspaper . . . and magazine.
This is what we all knew was coming down the proverbial pike a decade and a half ago. See?
NOW, it's almost here. But is it too late?
That's a good question, because the Big Question remains the same: In an era where free is the new subscription price and information comes from a diffuse electronic cloud surrounding us, how do you monetize this?
Will the ads in a "tablet" version of, as the demo shows, Sports Illustrated be compelling enough, targeted enough and cost-effective enough to hold advertisers and fix the broken model of "traditional media" financing? And is it possible anymore to charge for content even as cool as the demo?
See, in the brave new world we find ourselves inhabiting, the "cloud" giveth and -- as unemployed newspaper people everywhere have found out -- the cloud taketh away.
No, don't pity Tiger Woods. If someone has the hubris to screw around on a supermodel with a cocktail waitress, he deserves all the hell he's about to get. Including being given advice by John Daly:On Tuesday, golfer John Daly said, “the thing that Tiger needs to look at is, whatever happened, just tell the truth.”WHAT MAKES it worse for Tiger is that Daly kind of makes sense. Ouch.
Daly also thinks Woods will be able to survive this controversy. “He’ll get over this. The family will get over it. They’ll move on. Golf needs him,” he said.
Microsoft says recent security updates made to computers running Windows 7, Vista and XP operating systems are not to blame for the "black screen of death" some users are having on their machines, which results in the computer shutting off.WELL, that's it. Gotta post this sucker before the computer locks up.
However, it was still unclear Tuesday what the source of the problem is. It is the first of any scope to affect users of Windows 7, the software maker's newest operating system which became available in late October. Microsoft said if there is a problem, it may be tied to malicious software, or malware.
"Microsoft has investigated reports that its November security updates made changes to permissions in the registry that are resulting in system issues for some customers," said Christopher Budd, security response communications lead member for the company. (Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.)
The company, Budd said, "has found those reports to be inaccurate and our comprehensive investigation has shown that none of the recently released updates are related to the behavior described in the reports."
Windows users are familiar with the "blue screen of death," when their computers essentially shutdown because of an operating system problem. The new "black screen of death" appears to occur when the computer is first turned on, then shuts down.
"We’ve conducted a comprehensive review of the November Security Updates, the Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool and the non-security updates we released through Windows Update in November," the company says on its blog.
"That investigation has shown that none of these updates make any changes to the permissions in the registry. Thus, we don’t believe the updates are related to the 'black screen' behavior described in these reports."
