The retired Fox News Channel anchor offers an opinion on a talk show -- an opinion that happens to be one of the least crazy things said on Fox in the last five years -- and all the usual suspects act like he's some kind of Jesus-y Osama bin Laden.
And what was this crazy opinion that threatens not only Western religious tolerance but liberal democracy itself? It was this:
Tiger Woods will recover as a golfer. Whether he can recover as a person, I think, is a very open question and it's a tragic situation with him. I think he's lost his family. It's not clear to me whether he'll be able to have a relationship with his children. But the Tiger Woods that emerges once the news value dies out of this scandal, the extent to which he can recover seems to me depends on his faith. He’s said to be a Buddhist. I don't think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So my message to Tiger would be, Tiger, turn your faith, to the Christian faith, and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.
WOW. If the republic cannot withstand a Christian going on television and saying (kinda awkwardly, actually) that he thinks poor, messed-up, ruined Tiger Woods might find solace, forgiveness and redemption in -- AAAIIIIIEEEEEE! -- Jesus Christ, you're looking at a country that not only won't survive but has no business surviving.
Especially when it's a country in which some faiths are more equal than others. I think it goes without saying that in the circles Keith Olbermann inhabits, a Muslim advocating for Muhammad would be just okely dokely. Even if it wasn't the preferred cup of tea for confirmed secularists.
I would wager that's because, when you get right down to it, the Keith Olbermanns and Dan Savages of the world are just culturally imperialistic enough to see Muslims as just "Other" enough (or perhaps as just primitive enough) to be utterly non-threatening, save the odd suicide bomber.
But Christians . . . there still are a lot of those in America, aren't there? And they're just a little too familiar -- one could be your next-door neighbor, for Madalyn Murray O'Hair's sake!
And if they all started taking that Jesus guy at His word -- and if they all actually started following His word -- why, the capitalist, materialist foundations of the modern consumerist-lemming state might crumble! And where would that leave MSNBC and its capitalist raison d'être?
Really, if people did as poor Brit Hume advised and started following the God, that might mean everybody couldn't be a god. And then Dan Savage not only would start to look as stupid and uncouth as he actually is, he'd also be out of business straightaway.
Which, ironically, probably would bring Olbermann and Savage to their knees.
Newspapers and other dying media are contemplating a social-media strategy for getting advertisers' messages in front of consumer eyeballs.
They're eyeing Twitter, and they call the concept "paid tweets." But I think we all are familiar with the practice under a different name -- spam. Because if a publication's Twitter feed has a similar ratio of ads to "content" as the print product, what Joe Public is going to get in The Daily Blab's feed is upward of 60 percent advertising.
Ad Age can shade this anyway it wants, but when you take an advertiser's money, then use Twitter's infrastructure (on Twitter's dime) to clog up a captive audience's Twitter feed, that makes you a spammer. The only difference, in that case, between The Daily Blab and HootchieMama0896 would be that more of the audience would be more interested in the latter's wares (as opposed to "wears," which would be non-existent).
When Kim Kardashian can ask $10,000 just for sending a marketer's tweet to her 2.8 million followers on Twitter, traditional news companies have to wonder whether they can cash in too.
Many news sites have successfully harnessed Twitter to distribute their stories and build their audiences, after all, but they aren't making money from news tweets yet. Now, though, early exploration is emerging from Los Angeles to New York to Montreal. Paid-tweet purveyor Ad.ly, the 4-month-old Los Angeles startup, has pitched its services for the most obvious approach, inserting paid tweets among news tweets. So far the big takers are individuals such as Ms. Kardashian, but Ad.ly says major publishers are coming to the table, too.
The New York Times isn't ready to try paid tweets, despite nearly 2.3 million followers for its main Twitter feed -- heady enough territory to ape Ms. Kardashian if it wanted to. "We're taking a bit of a wait-and-see approach on that one," said Denise Warren, senior VP-chief advertising officer at The New York Times Media Group. "We want to be sure that audiences really understand the difference between the paid tweet and the real tweet."
Instead, however, The New York Times Online has started selling packages of ads that appear specifically for visitors who arrive through social media such as Twitter and Facebook. Advertisers can buy certain shares of such readers, typically around 25%, so a page receiving a million visitors via social media would show a participating marketer's ad to 250,000 of them.
The effort, begun last fall, is still too young to gauge. "I couldn't give you projections yet for what we think this is going to yield," Ms. Warren said, declining to identify advertisers that have bought the program. "What we've seen, like most publishers, is that there's more of an acceptance by marketers to embrace these kinds of tools. We're definitely seeing much more interest in these programs."
THE OLD MEDIA, as most anachronisms without a clue are wont to do, are looking for a cheap and dirty way to avoid fundamental change. Usually, that just leads to profound embarrassment before the inevitable -- and ignoble -- demise.
Yes, newspapers (and magazines, and broadcasters) need to find new ways to get the message -- and the ads -- in front of consumers' eyeballs (and ears). But that process is going to be a lot more involved than hijacking Twitter's bandwidth and, in the process, annoying the crud out of the public.
The English army had just . . . taken a wrong turn, ended up in Omaha and froze solid.
Sorry, Your Majesty. Bad colonists!
YOU GO AHEADand read what's in today's World-Herald. I'm going to put on another pot of hot tea and curl up into a fetal position:
Snowfall is forecast to resume tonight, with about 4 inches possible. If you want to warm up, you might consider heading to northernmost Alaska; or to Thule, Greenland; or even Moscow.
None of those places was as cold Monday morning as Omaha.
Shortly after daybreak, the mercury plunged to 20 degrees below zero at Eppley Airfield.
And there's more chilling news ahead.
Winds are expected to pick up Wednesday afternoon, meaning blizzard conditions are briefly possible. Blowing snow could limit visibility for the Wednesday evening and Thursday morning rush hours.
After a slight respite today and Wednesday, dangerously cold conditions are expected to last until Saturday, according to the National Weather Service and AccuWeather, The World-Herald's weather consultant.
Once the arctic air arrives Wednesday evening, forecasters say, it's likely that temperatures won't rise above zero until Saturday. By Friday morning, wind chills could plunge to 30 below, or worse.
In places like Moscow, Thule, and Barrow, Alaska, the lows on Monday ranged from 10 below to 10 above zero. The forecast for Reykjavik, Iceland — highs in the 30s all week — looks like a walk on the beach compared to Nebraska and Iowa.
Is it just me, or has the new millennium been all about taking away free stuff we all took for granted, then putting a "digital" label on it and charging us a pretty penny to get back a convoluted version?
According to the Wall Street Journal -- whose "paywall" you can avoid here, thanks to the Scourge of Murdoch (a.k.a. Google) -- the next big thing is going to be watching local TV channels on "mobile devices."
Kind of like the one I got for Christmas . . . in 1970.
YOU THINK they'll call these tech wonders something really hip and cool . . . like "portable TV"? Or maybe Sony will make one of these new-fangled thingies and call it a "Watchman."
Watching live television broadcasts on mobile devices is common in some countries, but not the U.S. A new effort is taking shape to change that.
A group of broadcasters plans to use this week's Consumer Electronics Show to promote their plans to deliver news, sports, weather and other local content to users on the go. While cellphones are an obvious target, backers of the effort also expect users to receive local programming on laptop computers, portable DVD players and devices in cars.
Results may not come quickly, or easily. Competition for users' attention is stiff, including an array of on-demand video offerings for mobile devices as well as another mobile broadcasting network that is trying to build a U.S. audience.
DO TELL, how much of our dwindling income will we have to part with to acquire this "mobile TV" cornucopia of Oprah and Everybody Loves Raymond reruns?
The transition from analog to digital-only television broadcasts, completed last June, spurred the new effort. Compression technologies associated with digital transmission allow local broadcasters to offer high-definition TV service and still have extra channels for mobile services, too.
With most television viewers receiving signals over cable-TV or satellite services, backers see Mobile DTV as one way to keep a direct connection with viewers.
"We're looking five, 10 years down the road—how do we stay viable?" says James F. Goodmon Jr., a member of the coalition and vice president of Capitol Broadcasting Co., owner of station WRAL in Raleigh, N.C. "Last thing we want is to be behind the curve," he says.
(snip)
In South Korea, consumers since 2005 have watched television on cellphones using a technology called DMB, for digital multimedia broadcasting. Qualcomm Inc., the San Diego cellphone-chip maker, has lined up programming for a mobile broadcast service called FLO TV that is sold in the U.S. by AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone PLC. AT&T's service starts at $9.99 a month.
Though most FLO TV users purchase specially modified cellphones, Qualcomm plans to market a special device for receiving the broadcast service along with an $8.99 monthly service fee.
Brandon Burgess, chairman of the broadcasters' coalition, argues that FLO TV is too expensive. The coalition hopes to differentiate Mobile DTV with free local content.
Consumers also may be able to watch simulcasts of national programming carried by the networks, though rights to some content may have to be negotiated by broadcasters, the coalition says. Over time, premium services also may be added.
"Having premium content like ESPN available on a mobile device is great, but it's not our starting point," Mr. Burgess says. "We'll start with local broadcasts to try to educate consumers."
Mobile DTV requires new equipment for broadcasters, as well as new hardware for consumers. Among the products to be unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is the Tivit, an accessory from Valups Corp. that receives Mobile DTV signals and transfers them to devices that have Wi-Fi connections, including laptop personal computers or Apple Inc.'s iPhone. Pricing is expected to range from $90 to $120.
TRULY, an infinitesimal price to pay for such staples of local-broadcasting goodness such as Ken and Barbie Mangle the News, old Billy Mays infomercials and Live With Regis and Kelly.
I hope you feel blessed to live in a gilded age such as this.
Perhaps, if we're extra-special lucky, somebody will offer a "mobile live-audio entertainment" device so we can hear a real-time music guru thoughtfully putting together sets of music listeners might enjoy, then providing commentary about the songs and other miscellany.
And if we're super-duper extra-special lucky, it'll only cost us something like $29.95 a month.
Because we're stupid -- and getting stupider by the day -- alleged news operations like CNN figure the road to ratings success is best navigated by the short bus.
ANDERSON COOPER and alleged comedienne Kathy Griffin are the ones in the back seat, smoking cigarettes and throwing spitballs. Their New Year's Eve performance (a return engagement of the "fool me twice" variety) blessedly escaped my notice until now but, alas, did not elude the gaze of The Canadian Press:
For the second straight year, comedian Kathy Griffin ushered in the new year by saying something vulgar on CNN.
During the network's live New Year's Eve broadcast from Times Square, Griffin was joking with co-host Anderson Cooper about how to pronounce the first name of "balloon boy" Falcon Heene when she mumbled something that sounded a little like "Falcon" and a lot like the F-word.
Cooper hung his head, shook it and said "You're terrible," before resuming his banter.
The network said in a statement Friday that it "regrets that profanity was used during our New Year's Eve coverage."
During the same show a year ago, Griffin gleefully shouted at a heckler in the crowd and made a joke implying that the man performed gay sex acts for a living.
CNN REGRETS Kathy Griffin's F-bomb like Al Sharpton regrets the persistence of racism among Caucasians. But for foul-mouthed X-listers and white folk behaving badly, we'd be paying precious little attention to either.
Otherwise, how do you explain the "news" outlet putting Griffin back on the air, on New Year's Eve, after this last year (and, yes, note the "blue" language here, too):
EDITOR'S NOTE: Your Mighty Favog is kicking back for a week, so he thought he'd start a New Year's tradition by reposting his favorite show of the previous year. For 2009, that would be the Woodstock 40th-anniversary show.
Favog doesn't know whether that was the best show of the year, but he knows it was the most fun to do. So, once again, let's travel back to the age of Aquarius . . . on the Big Show.
During the Age of Aquarius, Uncle Favog was the coolest cat I knew.
He drove the coolest VW microbus, he wore the coolest beads, and he had the coolest bell bottoms adorned with the coolest peace-and-love patches.
Uncle Favog protested the war, expanded his mind and got all the groovy chicks. And he played groovy music all night on Radio Free Omaha . . . master of his own fate (at least so long as he didn't cause The Man to come down on the station, bourgeois capitalist convention being what it was, man) and host of 3 Chords & the Truth.
This present 3 Chords & the Truth on the Internets is a tribute to that wonderful show of Uncle Favog's four decades ago on the FM airwaves.
Remember when FM was hip, cool, happenin' and now?
Didn't think you did.
ANYWAY, I was rummaging through a box of old reel-to-reel tapes, and I came up with this Big Showgem from 40 years ago this week. Anybody remember what was going on then?
Yeah, you may have seen the news stories featuring aging hippies remembering a certain "happening" in New York state. Uncle Favog, though, would not have been one of them.
Oh, of course he's an aging hippie, but he also was right here in Omaha, playing the musical "guru" as he spun the righteous tunes over the Radio Free Omaha airwaves. Back in the day . . . when we had problems, but still held out hope, all the while groovin' to the music that could move our souls.
Washington Wizards teammates Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton reportedly drew guns on each other during a locker-room argument over a gambling debt.
Law enforcement is investigating the presence of weapons in the locker room, and the league is not taking action now.
The Wizards said Friday they are cooperating with authorities and the NBA and “take this situation and the ongoing investigation very seriously.” The team had no further comment.
Arenas, a three-time All Star, tweeted Friday about the developments.
“i wake up this morning and seen i was the new JOHN WAYNE. ... Media is too funny,” he wrote.
About 2½ hours later, his tweet was more straightforward: “i understand this is serious..but if u ever met me you know i dont do serious things im a goof ball this story today dont sound goofy to me.” The investigation into possible firearms in the locker room at the Verizon Center revealed the alleged Dec. 21 dispute between Arenas and Crittenton, Yahoo! Sports reported Friday, citing unidentified sources.
IS THERE anymore reason for any sports fan to take the NBA seriously? It's Rollerball with hoops and nets. It's a work-release program for athletically inclined offenders.
It's where college pimp-daddies send their top-flight talent when they've wrung all the cash they can out of "students" who write sentences like "i wake up this morning and seen i was the new JOHN WAYNE."
Oh, it's also a sign of cultural apocalypse. But that's not important now, is it?
Downtown, we have the Holiday Lights Festival. But at the Durham Museum in the old Union Station, you'll find the Mother of All Christmas Trees (above).
Yes, Omaha is an old railroad and cow town. Then again, that isn't -- and wasn't -- necessarily a bad thing.
THERE WAS grandeur in old cow towns, if only you looked for it. In Omaha, a good place to start was the fabulous art-deco Union Station.
And what's great about old railroad and cow towns all grown up is that, sometimes, we remember the grandeur in our midst and preserve it . . . restore it to its full measure.
Then, especially at Christmastime, we revel in glories past -- glories restored for the present and the future.
To many Americans on the coasts, cities like mine are "flyover country," hardly worth a mention or a thought.
Their loss.
THERE ARE many reasons to visit the Durham Museum all through the year -- in January, it's wrapping up a fantastic Smithsonian exhibit of the poster art of Nashville's Hatch Show Print from the past century.
It's not a poster show; it's the cultural history of the South and the country displayed through hand-set advertisements run off one by one on the printers' old letterpresses.
Ernest Tubb. Minstrel shows. Stock-car races. Johnny Cash. Porter Wagoner. Elvis Presley at the beginning.
But I digress.
THE REAL STAR at the Durham -- at the old Omaha Union Station -- when the cold wind blows and the days grow pitifully short . . . is Christmas. The whole holiday season, where the past is present and its glories point toward the future, too.
It's grand. It's parents introducing their children to the magic, and those children introducing their children to the magic some fine day when the present has faded into the rosy glow of "when I was your age."
Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind ? Should old acquaintance be forgot, and old lang syne ?
For auld lang syne, my dear, for auld lang syne, we'll take a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne. And surely you’ll buy your pint cup ! and surely I’ll buy mine ! And we'll take a cup o’ kindness yet, for auld lang syne.
Old Rosenblatt Stadium ain't dead yet, but the family's thinking about the wake.
The wake, of course, will be the 2010 College World Series -- an oddity, being that the wake will precede the old baseball stadium's actual demise sometime in September, with the end of the Omaha Royals season.
MEANTIME, Omaha already can see the flashy downtown slickster that's going to replace the old girl in South O, starting with the 2011 CWS. At left is the view from 13th and Cuming streets of the new TD Ameritrade Park.
What's amazing -- at least to me -- is how quickly the site has gone from a Qwest Center Omaha parking lot to an excavation site . . . to this. "This thing really is gonna happen" quickly has gone from an intellectual exercise to a concrete-and-steel reality.
AND HERE'S the view from beyond what will be the right-field seats, while below is a close up of the work on the grandstands and luxury suites.
YOU KNOW, it's starting to look like a real city around these parts. Play ball!
The past 10 years has been the decade of "disruptive technology."
And the easier the tech is for your average clod to use, the more disruptive it has been, is and will be in the decade to come. See "search engine, Google" and "iPod, Apple."
That cry heralded one of Conan O'Brien's recurring late-night gags in the '90s, in which he listed ludicrous predictions of how the world would change in the new millennium.
In the year 2000, O'Brien said, political correctness would dictate that the term “homo-sapiens” be changed to “alternative lifestyle-sapiens.” Also, for no apparent reason, the color green would be renamed yellowy-blue.
Who could've guessed he wasn't being absurd enough?
Just 10 years ago, we lived in a world that didn't recognize the phrase “reality TV.” A world in which, for all we knew, Paris Hilton was a French hotel. It was a time before steroids killed baseball, before iPods killed CDs.
It's not just the simple stuff that's changed. Terrorism, war, political battles and financial struggle indelibly affected every aspect of our culture, even — or especially — the parts traditionally considered entertainment.
But the question is: What cultural elements will come to define the years 2000 through 2009?
(snip)
1. Google
You know what another good name for Google would be? The Internet's oxygen.
Google, the Internet search engine founded in 1998, is about as omnipresent as things get online — it's always around, it's absolutely essential, and like that odorless gas we breathe, its importance is pretty easily ignored if you're not paying attention.
Beginning with its fast, accurate and thorough search, the GooglEmpire (it's not a word, but it should be) has grown to include Google Maps, Gmail, Google Earth, Google News and endless other incarnations, innovations and creations.
Face it, it's Google's Earth. We just live on it.
2. iPod
It's a simple gadget, basically an empty — albeit pretty — hard drive and some white headphones. And yet, in just a few short years, Apple's iPod (first released in 2001) has staged a cultural coup and completely changed the way we listen to music.
As much a feat of marketing (joyous, bright musical commercials) and marketplace genius (iTunes, the most convenient music store ever) as it is beautiful hardware, the iPod forced the music industry to change its focus from albums to singles, and from CDs to online digital files. Two-hundred twenty-five million sold, and music may never be the same.
MAYBE I should revise my lede on this post. What if we only think the "noughts" have been the decade of disruptive tech? What if the first tenth of the 21st century only has set the table for the real disruption to come?
What if 2000-2009 has been high-tech's figurative working over of traditional media's midsection, with the odd jab here and there to newspaper's snout and broadcasting's swollen right eye?
And what if the next 10 years delivers the uppercut that finishes the job that started with the last 10 years of "softening up"?
Muhammad Ali, meet Steve Jobs.
Jobs, the brain behind Apple, bloodied and staggered radio and the record industry with the iPod and iTunes. And now, it looks like he's about to either save or kill off newspapers and magazines with Apple's long-rumored "tablet" computer.
Personally, I wouldn't even consider that Apple's tablet will save newspapers, but I mention the possibility because the analyst in the MSNBC video above did. He apparently has much more faith in traditional media's ability to embrace and adapt than I do.
DID I mention the age of tablet computing probably will be the death of radio, too? Just ask former radio man Jerry Del Colliano:
In my opinion when this device is debuted -- not if -- it will be the most successful consolidation of media ever -- far more successful than radio consolidation.
Apple will likely allow music, movies, email and web browsing. Some call it a potential Kindle killer because it is likely to compete in the book reader category that Amazon's Kindle has started.
This is purely out of the Apple playbook.
Let someone else test the market and they come in with a cooler, more intuitive device with a back structure that includes Apple's massive and growing iTunes store.
I've heard that the new device may also include a PDF reader making it a phenomenal choice for professional people (doctors, lawyers, disc jockeys -- sorry, I'm partial to radio djs) as well as an ideal replacement for student textbooks.
How popular do you think Apple will be if municipalities everywhere could stop ordering textbooks and have students access digital books through the iTunes store?
(snip)
Let me be blunt.
If radio is not actively engaged in iPad content, it is over even sooner than the ten year life radio has left.
Why?
Older consumers will also migrate to the iPad. They showed a willingness to embrace the next generation's new tools when they adopted email, texting, Facebook and iPods to name a few. This will be no different.
The new iPad will be their own personal media device. Their bookstore. Their TV.
And radio's answer to simply stream terrestrial audio won't work here. In fact, radio needs to get video. And I'm not talking about a studio cam aimed at the morning dj (if they still have one).
The iPad is something very exciting and the only industry that has talent in place to occupy that space is the one industry that is firing all its talent.
You know who.
The iPad will be bigger than the iPod and iPhone but for radio and the music business it will be the iPlop if they don't get into the future right.
AMEN.
What we have today -- and what already is wreaking havoc on traditional media -- are version 1.2 devices, essentially. An Apple tablet will be cheaper than a good laptop, as capable as a netbook (and far more capable than a Kindle), easier to carry around than a newspaper and will offer a far more compelling multimedia experience than an iPhone or other "smart phone."
It will be like jumping directly to a version 3.0 device.
Unfortunately, broadcasting and newspapers -- at least those still working in broadcasting and newspapers -- by and large are partying like it's 1999.
Have a houseful of dogs, especially those of the yappy variety? Has your locality just been smacked good by a blizzard?
Are the drifts in your back yard deep enough for Fido to disappear into, never to be seen again . . . at least until spring?
Well, Bucko, Revolution 21's Blog for the People and 3 Chords & the Truthhave the helpful hints you needed yesterday.
Follow your host, the Mighty Favog, as he shows off the Wintertime Canine Superhighway of Bidness Doing. All you need to keep your furry friends happy, dry and . . . alive . . . is a snow shovel and the basic knowledge one can gain from listening to Frank Zappa's 1974 album Apostrophe(').
AND ALL you need to remember is "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow":
Dreamed I was an Eskimo (Bop-bop ta-da-da bop-bop Ta-da-da) Frozen wind began to blow (Bop-bop ta-da-da bop-bop Ta-da-da) Under my boots 'n around my toe (Bop-bop ta-da-da bop-bop Ta-da-da) Frost had bit the ground below (Boop-boop aiee-ay-ah!) Was a hundred degrees below zero (Booh!) (Bop-bop ta-da-da bop-bop Ta-da-da) And my momma cried: Boo-a-hoo hoo-ooo And my momma cried: Nanook-a, no no (no no . . . ) Nanook-a, no no (no no . . . ) Don't be a naughty Eskimo-wo-oh (Bop-bop ta-da-da bop-bop Ta-da-da) Save your money: don't go to the show Well I turned around an' I said: HO HO (Booh!) Well I turned around an' I said: HO HO (Booh!) Well I turned around an' I said: HO HO An' the Northern Lites commenced t' glow An' she said (Bop-bop ta-da-da bop . . . ) With a tear in her eye: WATCH OUT WHERE THE HUSKIES GO AN' DON'T YOU EAT THAT YELLOW SNOW WATCH OUT WHERE THE HUSKIES GO AN' DON'T YOU EAT THAT YELLOW SNOW
WELL, THAT'S ALL your fearless leader has for you right now, my children. So, until next time, this is Mighty (Nanook) Favog signing off.
It's brutal out there -- a full-blown Plains blizzard.
So far, though, God's whole "Enough! Be still and be at peace" initiative through better meteorology is going OK this Christmastide. After a busy day posting the Christmas edition of 3 Chords & the Truthand shoveling the walk and driveway several times, I'm a good kind of tired and remarkably unstressed.
Maybe that's because the blizzard has taken away all the wild expectations surrounding the holiday. It has been stripped to its essentials . . . and so have our lives, for just these few days. FOR US, at least, the rush to get presents wrapped, etcetera and so on, has been diminished. Holiday entertaining, too. Today was a day of getting done what needed to be done, managing to get to Christmas vigil Mass while the getting was . . . possible . . . and then making a pot of our traditional Christmas Eve chicken-and-sausage gumbo for a late-night supper for two. Even though the simple act of getting to Mass involved the driveway-shoveling equivalent of a forced march, it was all good. And the snowy drive to church, truth be told, fell under the category of Things Guys Like. IN OTHER WORDS, a good challenge. And I don't think God minded that I showed up to Christmas Mass in snow boots and two pairs of sweatpants.
You don't shovel in finery, is what I'm saying.
But now it's really late, I'm exhausted, and it's time to go to bed. Tomorrow -- today now -- is another day, Christmas Day, when we will continue to be still as we scramble to beat back the elements howling outside the door. And suit up to shovel away enough drifts for the poor dogs to go outside and do what dogs do.
JUST CALL me Nanook of the North.
Merry Christmas from snowy, blowy Omaha, by God, Nebraska.
O holy night! The stars are brightly shining, It is the night of Our dear Saviour's birth. Long lay the world In sin and error pining, 'Til He appear'd And the soul felt its worth. A thrill of hope The weary world rejoices, For yonder breaks A new and glorious morn.
The sleet and the snow are blowing, by Ned, while visions of chiropractors dance through my head.
And Bing in his sweater and Elvis in his leather, live again in tunes that fend off the weather.
I PUT ON a record and heard such a clatter . . . they're rocking around the tree, that's what's the matter! So to the hi-fi I ran like a flash, and turned the thing up for the big bash.
It's blowing outside on this white Christmas, but you can have your tropical isthmus. I'll take the cold and the wind and the snow, so long as I can just do the Big Show.
But it's time to stop with the useless chatter, it's music we need -- that's what's the matter. So I'll leave you 3 Chords & the Truth -- Yule cheer, Yule dance, Yule cry . . . just like a youth! And as I leave you to shovel, here's a wish for 'ya -- that your Christmas is merry, and you'll "Be there. Aloha!"
EDITOR'S NOTE: We're waiting for the second round of ice to hit, the blizzard to come for Christmas Eve . . . and I'm pretty sure I have a sinus infection. So during this interlude before getting snowed in -- and then a spate of Christmas digging out from under it all -- I thought I'd rerun a "greatest Christmas hit" from Revolution 21's Blog for the People.
This originally ran early Christmas morning 2007, it's still true, and I find I have nothing more to add to it. So I'm just rerunning this reflection on Christmas gumbo and offering it up. Merry Christmas, y'all.
It's the wee hours of Christmas morning. The Christmas Eve chicken -and-andouille gumbo is in the fridge, the Christmas Eve guests are long gone and Midnight Mass is long over.
Christmas music plays on a Canadian station on our old Zenith, and I've just polished off a bottle of Cabernet. So I'm sitting at the computer, pretty much alone with my thoughts. And my memories.
THIS CHRISTMAS has been strange, to say the least. From the Omaha mall massacre to the passing of a young friend, it's been impossible to shake the specter of death looming over this season of joy. For so many here this holiday season, it has been a time of profound loss.
And in the dark and quiet of this Christmas morn, we take time to mourn, to recall those who live now only in our hearts and memories. . . .
Once again as in olden days Happy golden days of yore Faithful friends who are dear to us Will be near to us once more
EVERY CHRISTMAS EVE I make a huge pot of gumbo and we throw open the doors to whomever wants to share in the largesse. It's my attempt to keep alive a tradition from my mother's side of the family in Louisiana, when my grandma -- and later my Aunt Sybil -- would cook up mass quantities of chicken gumbo and put out trays of sandwiches, relish, fruit cake and bourbon balls.
It seems like Aunt Sybil used to cram something like 100 relatives into her and Uncle Jimmy's tiny house in north Baton Rouge. I come from a family of loud, argumentative people -- it's a Gallic thing -- and opening the door to that caffeine, nicotine and highball-fueled yuletide maelstrom was more than a little like having front-row seats at a Who concert.
Without earplugs. WHEN AUNT SYBIL and Uncle Jimmy moved out to the east side of town after my grandmother died, they gained some square footage. I'd like to think, though, that what the holiday gatherings lost in regards to that sardine je ne sais quoi, they made up for in "only in Louisiana" weirdness.
Like in 1983, when my brand-new Yankee bride learned first-hand that William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor weren't making that s*** up.
Everything started out normal enough, ah reckon -- taking into account, however, that this was south Louisiana. You know, 87 quintillion relatives (the identities of some of whom, I had only the fuzziest of notions about) all talking at the same time. Loudly.
Of course, Mama assumed my bride had received full knowledge of all these people along with the marriage license. My bride, for her part, may well have been wondering whether she could get an annulment anda refund on the marriage license. And then Aunt Joyce -- second wife of Mama's baby brother, Delry, whose first wife was mentioned only after spitting on the ground (or so it seemed) -- had a "spell."
IF WE HADN'TFIGURED this out by the trancelike appearance, the eyes rolled back into her head, and full knowledge of her bad heart, we would have been tipped off by everybody running around the house yelling "Joyce is havin' a SPEYUL!"
There could have been a fire, resulting in great carnage -- or something like that -- if Cousin Clayton hadn't been there to grab Joyce's burning cigarette.
Ever hear the song "Merry Christmas From the Family"? Robert Earl Keen ain't making that s*** up, either.
Anyway, 20 people crowding around her announcing that Joyce was havin' a spell brought my aunt around after a fashion . . . and the show went on. At least until Aunt Sybil died some years back.
The sane one in my family, Aunt Sybil was the ringmaster of family togetherness, probably because she believed in "Baby, you got to offer it up." Everybody else . . . well . . . didn't.
TWENTY-FOUR YEARS after Aunt Joyce had a spell and Mrs. Favog got a masters in Southern Gothic, almost all of my aunts and uncles are gone. And I make my Christmas Eve gumbo up here in the frozen Nawth for friends who like exotic fare and funny stories about Growing Up Louisiana.
Then we go to Midnight Mass, being that Mrs. Favog and I are Catholic now, in no small measure because of Aunt Sybil and Uncle Jimmy, wild gumbo Christmases and "Baby, you got to offer it up."
After we were confirmed in 1990, the wife and I got a package from Aunt Sybil and Uncle Jimmy -- a Bible, his and her Rosary beads, and a crucifix. The biggest gift, though, was one they never knew they were giving.
Someday soon, we all will be together If the fates allow Until then, well have to muddle through somehow So have yourself a merry little Christmas now.
The weather service has issued a winter storm watch for most of the state for Tuesday night through Christmas eve. In central Nebraska, six to 10 inches of snow are possible. In eastern Nebraska, the storm is likely to begin with freezing rain followed by several inches of snow, the weather service said.
Wednesday “will see a whole variety of precipitation -- snow, sleet and freezing rain. It looks like a pretty ugly day,” said AccuWeather meteorologist Tom Kines.
Snow and hard winds will continue through Thursday, with some flurries and frigid wind chills on Christmas Day.
But it's a little too soon to know exactly what's coming.
That shouldn't come as a surprise, given how this year's weather has unfolded. After all, climate scientists are perplexed by autumn's odd weather.
North Platte received more snow in October than it usually sees in an entire year. Across much of Nebraska, October and December have brought near-record cold.
With December's cold came a snowstorm that blanketed much of the United States and brought the nation's midsection to a halt.
Climate scientists say a couple of factors are upending the weather lately. But they hold onto hope for higher-than-normal temperatures in January and February.
“This could turn out to be one of those years when December ends up colder than January and February — at least, I've got my fingers crossed,” said Mike Halpert, deputy director of the Climate Prediction Center for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Halpert said a North Atlantic weather phenomenon known as the Arctic Oscillation has been playing havoc with the end of autumn.
The jet stream, he said, has shifted farther south than it normally does at this time of year, allowing cold air from Canada and the Arctic to drift down.
“We're not sure why it's doing this,” he said, though “we have some suspicions.”
TONIGHT, the TV weatherman said freezing rain (translate: ice storm) Wednesday changing to snow the afternoon of Christmas Eve, with "several inches" of accumulation by Christmas morning. This could mean we'll be walking -- not driving -- to midnight Mass this year. Or not. It depends.
What it does mean is we'll be pretty much snowed in this Christmas.
See, in a season where we're all prone to rushing around, getting busy, getting frazzled and "Christmasing" ourselves into a state . . . well, God has His way of saying "Stop! Enough! Be still and be at peace."
And, frankly, that the Almighty can do that while dressing our landscape in the finest white garments -- and making everything so jaw-droppingly pretty, especially at Christmas -- ranks among the most fetching of the Midwest's charms.
First, Barack Hussein Obama tries to indoctrinate American schoolchildren into collectivism and "civic responsibility" with a socialistic campaign of propagandistic White House "Holiday balls."
Next, he will ban Christmas altogether and replace it with New Year's music programs, where singing socialists take to the Red Channels to give praise to the Almighty Obama. In Russian.
This is the kind of thing "traitor" Ben Nelson voted for the other day -- abortion, statism and atheism. You just watch . . . comrade.
Nebraska's senior man in the U.S. Senate got the best deal he could where the politics of abortion meets the politics of health care, leaving everybody really, really hacked off.
In fact, if you listen to the Republicans and the utterly politicized pro-life groups, you'd think poor Ben Nelson was lighting the fuse on Apocalypse Now -- the useful idiot, but an utterly devious and malevolent one, from the Great State of Nebraska who just handed Barack Hussein Antichrist Obama the keys to hundreds of millions of good Christian souls.
BUT IF you read The Associated Press'account of things, it sounds a lot less Mark of the Beast-ish:
The Senate compromise was reached after hours of intense negotiation between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and key senators on both sides of the issue.
Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., who opposes abortion, had threatened to withhold a critical 60th vote for the bill unless restrictions on abortion funding were tightened. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., represented supporters of abortion rights, who wanted to preserve coverage already available.
Nelson said Saturday that the Senate bill essentially uses different means to achieve the same goals as the House bill, which included tight limits on abortion funding praised by U.S. Catholic bishops.
The health care bill would create a new stream of government subsidies to help people buy health insurance, largely through private plans. The subsidies would be available to those buying coverage through a new insurance supermarket called an exchange. Since abortion is a legal medical procedure now covered by many insurers, activists on both sides mobilized to try to shape the legislation.
The House bill includes Stupak's amendment, which bars plans operating in the exchange from paying for most abortions. The only exceptions would be those currently allowed by federal law. Women wanting coverage for abortion would have to purchase a separate policy.
Reid's bill sets up a mechanism to segregate funds used to pay for abortions from federal subsidy dollars.
No health plan would be required to offer coverage for the procedure. In plans that do cover abortion, beneficiaries would have to pay for it separately, and those funds would have to be kept in a separate account from taxpayer money.
Moreover, individual states would be able to prohibit abortion coverage in plans offered through the exchange, after but passing specific legislation to that effect. The only exceptions would be those allowed under current federal law.
YOU KNOW, I wish the language was a lot more strict, too. In fact, I wish abortion on demand was just flat illegal. And better yet, I wish no woman ever felt so out of options that she'd even consider snuffing out the life of her unborn child.
But in a move that's so shocking as to not be believable -- that is, at least, if you know me -- I'm far too subtle to ever become a professional pro-lifer. Here's what it takes to play with the big boys, as evidenced by the reaction of Nebraska Right to Life:
"There is no pro-life Nebraskan more devastated by Senator Nelson's actions than myself." said [Executive Director Julie] Schmit-Albin. "I have defended his record to Nebraskans and believed that he would stand on pro-life principles as he has on numerous occasions in the past. I have had a good relationship with Senator Nelson and his staff throughout the years . I personally met with him on healthcare in July and in mid-November and have been in frequent contact with his staff over the past six weeks. Just Wednesday afternoon, I was apprised of the Casey language by his staff and I urged them to strongly relay to him that we could not support it. When he rejected the Casey language we were bolstered by that action and believed he would hold firm to his commitment to vote against cloture if Stupak language was not included."
"Moreover, NRL Political Action Committee gave Senator Nelson a sole endorsement in his re-election race in 2006 based on his record and actions both as Governor and Senator." said Schmit-Albin. "It is a very sobering day for myself personally and for pro-lifers across Nebraska and the nation. Senator Nelson obliterated the hope of pro-life Americans who saw him as the last man standing between expansion of government funding of abortion and the Hyde Amendment."
THE CATHOLIC bishops' conference also is less than happy, according to The Washington Post:
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops also said the plan was unacceptable, adding in a statement the bill "should be opposed" unless there are changes. "It does not seem to allow purchasers who exercise freedom of choice or of conscience to 'opt out' of abortion coverage in federally subsidized health plans that include such coverage," it said.
UMM HMM. But here's the deal: The "Nelson compromise" is probably the best they'll get without blowing up the whole thing. It's also the closest thingthey'll get to what had been floated (not in Congress, notably) as a reasonable compromise -- requiring the purchase of a separate private "rider" policy for abortion coverage in federally-subsidized policies. [Actually, the "rider" approach is implicit in the House "Stupak Amendment" language, which Nelson offered, and was handily voted down, in the Senate.]
What the bishops and pro-lifers are demanding in health-care reform is something not one of them has agitated for in the present system, where 86 percent of all private insurance plans cover abortion. And unless you're wealthy enough to buy an individual policy of your own choosing, you can't "opt out," and your premiums will go toward paying to kill somebody's unborn baby.
Where's the outrage? Dead babies are dead babies, right? Is it any more immoral that one's premium dollars are funding abortions than one's tax dollars maybe funding abortions?
What we have here is a failure of logic.
What we also have here is a bunch of feckless guardians of society's most vulnerable members fighting a war for hearts and minds on the most unfriendly terrain possible -- Capitol Hill. Of course, that's just a distraction aimed at covering up the utter defeat of the church and the rest of our "culture warriors" in the battle for our . . . culture.
The political grows out of the cultural -- not vice versa -- and if you've lost the culture, politics is a futile pursuit. That pro-lifers and churchmen are too stupid to recognize that plain fact (and so obviously incompetent at softening hearts much less stony than your average Washington insider's) is a prime indicator why they so regularly get rolled by politicians.
The desperate tone of the next fund appeal you get will be as good an indicator as any of how that's working out for the unborn.
It's getting closer to Christmas, and we at 3 Chords & the Truth have a present for you.
Good music.
This week, we start with a vintage Yuletide classic from Elvis Presley, and then we roll from there. Meaning that on this pre-Christmas edition of the Big Show, you'll be hearing stuff like Stepp. . . . Hey! I'm not telling you what you're getting! SOME PEOPLE just don't care about ruining the surprise for everybody.
So, listen, Buster . . . you'll have to open your present like anybody else to find out what you got. Fortunately for you, all you have to do to open your present is start the player on click on one of the links.
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