They hang genocidal maniacs, don't they?

Well, this should be just about it for my home state, Louisiana.

You just don't get this stuff out of the marsh. And this stuff -- crude oil, courtesy of BP -- will kill the marsh, and what's in it.

And then it all will erode away, and whole stretches of coastline will sink into the Gulf of Mexico.


GOODBYE, fishing industry. Goodbye coastline. Goodbye to what's left of the last protection New Orleans and other coastal cities have from the sea -- and the hurricanes that roll in off of it.

Goodbye to a massive chunk of the Louisiana economy. Goodbye not only to people's livelihoods, but also to their way of life. What their daddies did, and their granddaddies did, and their great- and great-great-granddaddies did before that, they no longer will do.

Does the U.S. code cover murder of an economy? Cultural genocide?

Look at these photos from National Geographic. Can executives of BP, Halliburton and Transocean be rounded up and put on trial at The Hague?

I know, when pigs fly. At least in this day and age.

BUT AS WE WAIT for porkers to get airborne . . . as a matter of financial expediency for whatever cleanup is possible in this catastrophic mess, can President Obama at least invoke whatever emergency powers are necessary to immediately seize every U.S. asset of every company responsible here?

Justice demands it. And God knows we are going to need the cash.

Crackers earn a red card

Lincoln East soccer fans are patriotic.

Above, we see them showing their American pride in an Omaha World-Herald photo taken at East's exhibition game against the Russian national team.

It's heartwarming how today's youth have not forgotten such old-fashioned values as . . . pardon me? What?

It wasn't an exhibition game against the Russians? Is this an old picture then, from right after 9/11?

IT WAS TAKEN Tuesday night? At the state championship match? Against Omaha South?

Well, what's the deal with the American flags, then?

What do you mean, "Same deal as with the green cards thrown on the field after Lincoln East won in overtime"?

Excuse the interruption, y'all. I've been instructed to look at today's World-Herald. Let's you and I check it out together:

Several Lincoln East students were suspended Wednesday in connection with a postgame incident that sullied the high school’s Tuesday night boys state soccer championship match against Omaha South.

The students admitted making and distributing “green cards,” a reference to immigration status aimed at South’s largely Latino soccer team.

Also Wednesday, dozens of East students began forming a group to “plan action steps to mend bridges with the South High community,” said Dennis Mann, East’s associate principal.

“Their foremost concern is not how to protect our reputation, but how to heal hurt relationships with South,” he said.

East won the game 4-2 in overtime. But what happened afterwards marred the victory.

Dozens of green paper rectangles were tossed into the air as fans and players celebrated on the field at Creighton University’s Morrison Stadium. The “green cards” lay at midfield behind the Lincoln players and coaches as they received their trophy and medals.

As soon as the ceremony ended, several East administrators and a tearful student rushed onto the field and hurriedly scooped up the paper.

The incident offended South staff and supporters, many of whom had attended graduation ceremonies just before the game.

(snip)

Mann said that only one person, whom he would identify only as a “Lincoln East fan,” actually threw cards on the field.

“One fan threw a stack of cards,” he said.

He said video of the postgame celebration confirmed that.

When pressed whether the person was an East student, an adult or a college student, as some reports have claimed, Mann would say only, “I’m going to call him a Lincoln East fan.”

“We’re taking ownership of this,” he said.

East students made the cards and distributed them, and some other students knew about it and didn’t stop it, Mann said.

The students’ original intention, he said, was to have the crowd hold up the cards en masse during the game, the way a soccer referee would hold up a red or yellow card.

“Very inappropriate, and very hurtful,” Mann said. “But we were able to put the kibosh on that, thanks to some students who did step up (and tell administrators). But we were appalled and ashamed to see the cards come out on the field.”

He said the students who had planned the green card stunt did not know about the fan’s plan to throw them onto the field.

“The kids who have had disciplinary action taken against them are also agreeing to be part of the solution,” Mann said. “They have agreed to take actions, including writing letters of apology, to help heal the hurt that they have caused.”

Lincoln East Principal Susan Cassata said East’s athletic director sent an apology to South’s athletic director. Cassata said she planned to apologize to South Principal Cara Riggs.

HOLY CRAP. That ain't good.

South, and the whole South Omaha community, had been so excited to get to the championship game. Everyone was so proud. So happy.

I got a smile on my face reading this story in Tuesday afternoon's paper:

Everywhere record-setting soccer goalie Billy Loera goes, from the hallways at Omaha South High School to the streets of his South Omaha neighborhood, he hears the cheers.

“Teachers, staff, alumni, people I don't even know at school come up to me,” Loera said. “They tell me, ‘You're making us look real good. Thanks a lot.' ”

By qualifying for Tuesday night's Nebraska state soccer championship game against Lincoln East, Loera and his teammates have given a reason to cheer to a community that sorely needs one.

South High hasn't won a state championship in any sport since a basketball title in 1990. The Nebraska Department of Education recently designated South as one of 52 “persistently low achieving” schools in the state. And some may take a dim view of South Omaha and its growing Latino population, despite the area's lively historic business district and other assets.

That might explain why cheers, tears and text messages flew out of Creighton's Morrison Stadium and spread through Omaha to thousands of Packer supporters after South beat Creighton Prep in a semifinal Saturday night.

“People are just excited that South made it to a championship game,” said Rich Gonzalez, who played baseball, basketball and football at South in the 1980s. “It's about bringing back South High tradition, bringing back some of the state tournament wins that we used to have. But the biggest thing is it's good for the community.”

Gonzalez, a South Omaha native who is a captain on the Omaha Police Department, said people from the area “know we have a great community here; they know what the community's about.”

“When you're from South High, you have the pride,” he said. “No matter what, when they're losing, when they're down, you still follow 'em, you still care about 'em.”

IT SOUNDS LIKE these kids from South -- or South Omaha -- didn't deserve what they got from the East fans, who I assume don't throw lutefisk at the Gothenburg Swedes . . . or BMW key rings at Omaha Westside.

And then I saw this story in the paper:

It's 7:15 p.m. at the Omaha Civic Auditorium. Three blocks away at Morrison Stadium, music is blaring in preparation for the Class A state boys soccer final, scheduled to start in exactly one hour.

Soon Manny and his five senior teammates will be under the lights, competing for Omaha South in the school's first state championship game in any sport in 20 years.

But first first they must get to Morrison Stadium. First they must listen to speeches about journeys and goals and ideals.

Manny wants to enjoy the moment. He does. But he would rather beat Lincoln East.

A class officer takes the podium, recounts memories of “dreaded stairwells and delicious cafeteria food.” She thanks her parents. She reminds her classmates to notice life's beauty. She cries.

Manny Lira leans forward in his chair, fidgeting like a 8-year-old who missed recess. He's in the front row about 300 classmates are behind him and he already has soccer socks and spandex under his creased, black slacks. Time is ticking.

6:56 was “Pomp and Circumstance.”

7:10, “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

7:21, the school choir.

7:26, the principal.

7:32, an Omaha Public Schools administrator.

“Graduates, I implore you to dream,” she says.

Lira can't take it anymore. He looks at his teammate, Billy Loera, and grumbles.

Roni Huerta saw this coming.

Several weeks ago, the South athletic director contacted the Nebraska School Activities Association and introduced a potential problem. The state championship game is scheduled for 7:15 p.m. May 18. South High's graduation is scheduled for 7 p.m. May 18.

Some of these kids are the first in their family to earn a high school diploma. Some of these kids if forced to choose would choose the graduation ceremony, Huerta told the NSAA.

But really, she was only covering her bases. South had never won a state tournament soccer game, let alone a state championship game.

Then the Packers made state. Then they beat Elkhorn last week in a shootout. Then they beat their nemesis, Creighton Prep, in another shootout.

The NSAA moved the championship game back an hour, to 8:15 p.m.

FIRST IN their families to get a high-school diploma? That's, like, inspiring.

And still some Lincoln East fans are taunting these kids with American flags, are throwing faux "green cards" on the field? Just because Omaha South is 60-percent Latino?

Well, if there's some stereotyping to be done, let's try this: The Lincoln East yahoos sound like a bunch of overprivileged, white-bread, suburban rich-kid wankers to me.

In fact, taunting minority students for sole reason of their "otherness" differs from this in no significant manner at all:


LITTLE ROCK. Central High School. 1957.

I wonder whether, amid the other verbal and physical abuse, the white kids thought it would be really funny to pitch watermelon slices at the "Little Rock Nine"? After all, they were . . . black.

For some people, that's reason enough to be a boor and a bully. Just like for some at Lincoln East, any amount of bad behavior is justified by the twin towers of last refuge for rank scoundrels -- the First Amendment and "Hey! They're Mexicans!"

Administrators at Lincoln East say they have the matter in hand. They say suspensions were meted out.

East's associate principal said the incident Tuesday night "turned what should have been a joyful Wednesday at East into 'a day of mourning.'"

No, East. You don't get to mourn. Your kids were the perps; you get to be ashamed. Very, very ashamed. There's a difference.

You get to be ashamed because it was on your watch -- and on the watch of the parents of these unstellar members of the East "community" -- that these morons decided to "represent" for the Spartans by letting their "white trash with cash" freak flag fly. What is to be mourned is that "freak flag" happened to be the Stars and Stripes.

They say it takes a village. Well, in this instance, East, your village sucked.

THAT'S WHY I think the Lincoln East "community" has forfeited its moral right to decide on how its soccer miscreants get disciplined. By all rights, I think that "honor" should go to the Omaha South faculty and student body.

Si, se puede!

All the twits that are fit to diss?

Imagine you're the editor of a major metropolitan newspaper . . . OK, editor of the metropolitanest of major metropolitan newspapers.

Imagine that you need to announce that your managing editor is going to step away from that job for six months to run the paper's online operations. Imagine likewise that you also are announcing that three editors will take turns filling in for her.

AND WHILE you're at it, can you imagine any good reason to throw the following lines into the staff memo? The New York Times' Bill Keller could:

No doubt this rotation will be widely analyzed, interpreted and speculated about. (I look forward to hearing and reading a lot of entertaining nonsense.)

NOTHING SAYS "I think you're all a bunch of petty, nonsensical morons" like immediately assuming the worst of your staff -- and everyone else -- then giving the impression you're explaining the process only because you know people will be coming up with all that "entertaining nonsense," not that that will stop the idiots.

And if the boss has so little confidence in his charges at The New York Times -- America's "newspaper of record," why should we? For what nonsensical reason, in that case, should we bother reading a publication put together by such a collection of dolts and gossips?

For what insane reason would an editor feel the need to say something like that in a staff memo, and say it so . . . gratuitously?

NO DOUBT, this memo will be widely analyzed, interpreted and speculated about. One only can hope (for the sake of the Times) that the easiest conclusion to draw -- that its author is a smug jerk who isn't exactly building an institutional culture conducive to success -- is just a lot of entertaining nonsense.

Faster than lightning. Really.

Dear John Cameron Swayze,

Eat your heart out.

And then there's this. . . .

I wonder if this thing will do the Internets?

What's an Internet?

It's geek porn, I tells ya! Geek porn!

That's it . . . I'm done. As in "done in."

Gone. Lost. Incommunicado.

Just bring me some beer and some Carnation Instant Breakfast, then call EMS to hook me up a catheter. I have been reliably informed of the existence of a website that's the online home of almost every Radio Shack catalog published from 1939 to 2005.

And that's just part of it.

It seems to me that all I need right now is Doc Brown's DeLorean and some period-appropriate cash, and I'll be in bidness. Oh, the places we'll go!

The gadgets we'll buy!

I THINK I'll get me a classic Rek-O-Kut turntable from 1961. And a vintage Harman-Kardon stereophonic receiver.

Maybe an H.H. Scott FM tuner, too!

Oh! And a Tandberg reel-to-reel tape deck! Tapes! I need tapes!

AND WHEN I'm done shopping in the year of my birth, maybe I'll pop over to Radio Shack somewhere during my junior year of high school . . . let's make it Christmastime 1977. I always wanted a DX-160 communications receiver.

And while I'm at it, maybe I'll pick up this, too:


"What is it?" you ask?

It's an iPod.

The 'Feel-Like-I'm-Fixing-to-Politically-Die Rag'

NOTE: Contains one F-bomb.

And it's one, two, three, what are we enlisting in the Marine Reserves to avoid fighting for?

Don't ask Richard Blumenthal, he don't give a damn, the Connecticut attorney general is too busy lying about serving in Vietnam.

SO SAYS The New York Times:

At a ceremony honoring veterans and senior citizens who sent presents to soldiers overseas, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut rose and spoke of an earlier time in his life.

“We have learned something important since the days that I served in Vietnam,” Mr. Blumenthal said to the group gathered in Norwalk in March 2008. “And you exemplify it. Whatever we think about the war, whatever we call it — Afghanistan or Iraq — we owe our military men and women unconditional support.”

There was one problem: Mr. Blumenthal, a Democrat now running for the United States Senate, never served in Vietnam. He obtained at least five military deferments from 1965 to 1970 and took repeated steps that enabled him to avoid going to war, according to records.

The deferments allowed Mr. Blumenthal to complete his studies at Harvard; pursue a graduate fellowship in England; serve as a special assistant to The Washington Post’s publisher, Katharine Graham; and ultimately take a job in the Nixon White House.

In 1970, with his last deferment in jeopardy, he landed a coveted spot in the Marine Reserve, which virtually guaranteed that he would not be sent to Vietnam. He joined a unit in Washington that conducted drills and other exercises and focused on local projects, like fixing a campground and organizing a Toys for Tots drive.

Many politicians have faced questions over their decisions during the Vietnam War, and Mr. Blumenthal, who is seeking the seat being vacated by Senator Christopher J. Dodd, is not alone in staying out of the war.

But what is striking about Mr. Blumenthal’s record is the contrast between the many steps he took that allowed him to avoid Vietnam, and the misleading way he often speaks about that period of his life now, especially when he is speaking at veterans’ ceremonies or other patriotic events.

Sometimes his remarks have been plainly untrue, as in his speech to the group in Norwalk. At other times, he has used more ambiguous language, but the impression left on audiences can be similar.

In an interview on Monday, the attorney general said that he had misspoken about his service during the Norwalk event and might have misspoken on other occasions. “My intention has always been to be completely clear and accurate and straightforward, out of respect to the veterans who served in Vietnam,” he said.

But an examination of his remarks at the ceremonies shows that he does not volunteer that his service never took him overseas. And he describes the hostile reaction directed at veterans coming back from Vietnam, intimating that he was among them.

In 2003, he addressed a rally in Bridgeport, where about 100 military families gathered to express support for American troops overseas. “When we returned, we saw nothing like this,” Mr. Blumenthal said. “Let us do better by this generation of men and women.”

At a 2008 ceremony in front of the Veterans War Memorial Building in Shelton, he praised the audience for paying tribute to troops fighting abroad, noting that America had not always done so.

“I served during the Vietnam era,” he said. “I remember the taunts, the insults, sometimes even physical abuse.”

(snip)

In an interview, Jean Risley, the chairwoman of the Connecticut Vietnam Veterans Memorial Inc., recalled listening to an emotional Mr. Blumenthal offering remarks at the dedication of the memorial. She remembered him describing the indignities that he and other veterans faced when they returned from Vietnam.

“It was a sad moment,” she recalled. “He said, ‘When we came back, we were spat on; we couldn’t wear our uniforms.’ It looked like he was sad to me when he said it.”

Ms. Risley later telephoned the reporter to say she had checked into Mr. Blumenthal’s military background and learned that he had not, in fact, served in Vietnam.

THE TIMES has broken the story. Politico and The Washington Post will spew thousands of words about what this means for the Democrats' prospects in the Senate come November, and not so many about the cultural, social and moral dimensions of the story . . . not to mention how this very public man has gotten away with such a sick charade for decades.

As for me, I just want to know whether running for political office has become a prime indicator of narcissistic personality disorder and various other mental illnesses.

I love the java jive, and it loves me

Barring a descent into heavy alcohol consumption, there's nothing like a fresh pot of good coffee, made the way God intended it, to take the edge off a crappy day.

Today has been one of those crappy days, and this is my means of self-medication. If this is a total fail -- I don't think it will be, but you never know -- perhaps I will resort to calling Dr. Jack Daniels.

But I don't think that will be necessary.

I just have some simple advice to the world. Or at least some advice for having a happy middle age.

First, never allow your parents to get old. Second, don't let them get weird.

If one or both go weird on you, you're just screwed. In that case, I'd recommend stocking up on good coffee . . . and good bourbon.

Just in case.

Monday morning comin' down

It's 2:30 a.m. on a Monday. This is what I'm doing.

God, I'm a geek.

LipDubbapalooza

When high schools meet lipdub, it's kind of like giving Junior the keys to the Plymouth. You fear the worst and pray for your car -- and, by the way, Junior -- to come back in one piece.

And with a full tank of gas. (OK, sometimes prayer is a long shot.)

Jaded old fart that you are, you are surprised when the old heap comes back not only in one piece, but topped off and detailed, too. Applying the analogy back to the world of lipdub, that's what Shorewood High School did in Washington state (above).

And you find yourself thinking, fossil that you are, "How did they do that?" Then Junior gives you that "This moron is the BOSS OF ME???" look, and explains the patently obvious to the Old Man.

IT GOES something like this:


AND THEN Junior's slacker friend drops by, and you're thinking, "Holy crap . . . here we go," and you discover, to your amazement, that he's been working hard on a project for a principal who's stationed in Iraq with his National Guard unit . . .


. . . AND THEN, a tribute for another one who's retiring at the end of the year:


DISORIENTED, you struggle to understand when the kids tell you about other youth just like them in Florida.

"What the f. . . ?" you start to ask them, then you remember what your wife told you about cussing in front of Junior, and how you're a bad example, and to knock it the . . . hell . . . off.

Then the kids show you this:


"WELL . . . HECKFIRE," you think. "Maybe I've been all wrong about the next generation. Maybe they're smart enough, they're good enough and -- doggone it -- I should like them."

Then the phone rings.

It's Junior's homeroom teacher.


SUDDENLY, your equilibrium restored, you feel much better. And you yell at Junior about that little scratch you just found on the rear-left quarter panel of the Plymouth.

Damn kids.

Oh, crap.

Steve Jobs thought he had a Gizmodo problem.

What's he gonna do about this Vietnamese website that's come up with an iPhone 4G and Apple's newest MacBook? Insist that American authorities rekindle the Vietnam War?

Come to think of it . . . oh, s***.

AS YOU consider the prospects and tremble, here's the latest from Mashable:

A Vietnamese website — the same one that got hold of another Apple 4G iPhone last week — has posted a video and details about the new entry-level MacBook 7.1.

The machine’s CPU was upgraded to a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, increased from 2.26GHz in the previous generation, and graphics were given a shot in the arm with a NVIDIA GeForce 320M GPU. These updates will be the first for the MacBook since October 2009, when the notebook got a longer battery life and overall design reworking.

Apple’s recent round of laptop refreshes has thus far included upgrades to the MacBook Pro, including a standard 4GB of RAM and a choice between Intel’s i5 and i7 processors on larger models. Similar CPU and graphics changes appear to be trickling down to standard MacBooks, as well. Upgrades to the MacBook Air were also rumored but have yet to surface as fact.

AND I'LL BET that for a Vietnamese website, getting a scoop on what Apple's doing next is as easy as driving to the southern Chinese factories that make all this stuff and slipping a little somethin' somethin' to somebody who's more than willing to make a premature sale.

I guess, while Steve is at it, he could have American authorities declare war on China, too. But in the event we didn't get our clocks cleaned in trying to make the world safe for Silicon Valley capitalists, where then would Apple make its premium-priced products?

In American factories? Paying American workers living wages?

That would sooooooo screw with Apple's profit margins and "shareholder value," don't you know?

I guess it's better to just keep kicking around the little guys, then.

Truth in town naming

The driver lived.

This fact, of course, casts doubt on Darwin's entire theory of evolution and "natural selection." I predict this will be another straw at which creationists grasp.

3 Chords & the Truth: Country, rock, jazz

Click above for printable playlist.

This week on the Big Show, you can pick your . . . pleasure.

That's right, on Episode 101 (just a silly millimeter longer . . . sorry, really obscure pop-culture reference there) of 3 Chords & the Truth, you got your country. And you got your rock 'n' roll.

And then you got your great ladies of jazz.

FRANKLY, I think that pretty much covers it. There's not much else to say, except that you need to look for the tie-in to a couple of posts on Revolution 21's Blog for the People earlier in the week.

If you're the first caller with the correct answer . . . give yourself a nice prize.

So remember -- this week on the Big Show, we got your country, your rock and your jazz. A balanced diet of fine music.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

Lies, damned lies and government estimates

A 5,000-barrel-a-day oil spill in the Gulf?

Scientists look at the spill, look at that number and say BP and the government are full of beans. Slimy, oily, polluted beans.

The questions are not new. In fact, those doubts are just as longstanding as the government's -- and the media's -- insistence upon using the 5,000-barrel estimate, which a government agency, according to a New York Times report, basically pulled out of its butt:

Two weeks ago, the government put out a round estimate of the size of the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico: 5,000 barrels a day. Repeated endlessly in news reports, it has become conventional wisdom.

But scientists and environmental groups are raising sharp questions about that estimate, declaring that the leak must be far larger. They also criticize BP for refusing to use well-known scientific techniques that would give a more precise figure.

The criticism escalated on Thursday, a day after the release of a video that showed a huge black plume of oil gushing from the broken well at a seemingly high rate. BP has repeatedly claimed that measuring the plume would be impossible.

The figure of 5,000 barrels a day was hastily produced by government scientists in Seattle. It appears to have been calculated using a method that is specifically not recommended for major oil spills.

Ian R. MacDonald, an oceanographer at Florida State University who is an expert in the analysis of oil slicks, said he had made his own rough calculations using satellite imagery. They suggested that the leak could “easily be four or five times” the government estimate, he said.

“The government has a responsibility to get good numbers,” Dr. MacDonald said. “If it’s beyond their technical capability, the whole world is ready to help them.”

Scientists said that the size of the spill was directly related to the amount of damage it would do in the ocean and onshore, and that calculating it accurately was important for that reason.

BP has repeatedly said that its highest priority is stopping the leak, not measuring it. “There’s just no way to measure it,” Kent Wells, a BP senior vice president, said in a recent briefing.

Yet for decades, specialists have used a technique that is almost tailor-made for the problem. With undersea gear that resembles the ultrasound machines in medical offices, they measure the flow rate from hot-water vents on the ocean floor. Scientists said that such equipment could be tuned to allow for accurate measurement of oil and gas flowing from the well.

Richard Camilli and Andy Bowen, of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, who have routinely made such measurements, spoke extensively to BP last week, Mr. Bowen said. They were poised to fly to the gulf to conduct volume measurements.

But they were contacted late in the week and told not to come, at around the time BP decided to lower a large metal container to try to capture the leak. That maneuver failed. They have not been invited again.

“The government and BP are calling the shots, so I will have to respect their judgment,” Dr. Camilli said.

IF YOU HAVE the formulas to come up with a better flow estimate, and you have outside experts offering equipment to better analyze the spill rate but still you refuse to employ the better mathematical formulas -- just as you blow off scientists' offers of analytical assistance -- the public is pretty much left with a single conclusion to draw.

The people in charge of this thing don't want to know how bad this oil spill is. More precisely, they don't want us to know how very screwed we are.

That's how junkies operate. Dope . . . oil . . . it's all the same when you're good and hooked. When the last thing you're interested in is kicking the habit.

OUR ADDICTION is going to kill us. But it's going to kill Louisiana first.

Not that we care to know about any of that.

Sell diapers, save lives

While "right-to-life" groups keep busy demonizing health-care reform and slandering those who support it. . . .

And while Nebraska Right to Life is busy endorsing Republicans who make abortion really, really attractive to poor women. . . .

It takes a disposable-diaper maker to get with the program of making a people actually rethink the whole enterprise.

ALL BECAUSE Pampers wants to sell some product, and this iPad app is a hell of a way to do it. Think of it this way: You're taking your standard pro-lifer's plastic fetus combined with all the pamphlets filled with gestational information, and then throw in a 4-D ultrasound for good measure.

You're distributing this around the world, at zero cost after production, and you're distributing it to millions at a time -- not just to abortion-prone women or from an information table at a county fair or somebody's church.

What do you think will do more to make the world safe for unborn children, what Pampers is doing or what the "pro-life" movement is doing now . . . under the covers with politicians whispering sweet nothing in its ear.


HAT TIP: Rod Dreher.

Shindig! + 5

Five years after Delaney Bramlett performed on that second episode of Shindig!, where he was a member of the house band, here he is with a whole new look, pickin' and singin' with his wife, Bonnie.

And with some other feller by the name of Eric Clapton. And another feller named Dave Mason.

I just thought you might enjoy not only some fine, fine music, but also an illustration of the tectonic cultural shifts that can happen in a mere five years.

TV a go go

Shindig!

It's right here . . . just in from 1964, when television was a lot more creative and a whole lot funner.

BESIDES, you couldn't beat Johnny Rivers, in glorious black and white, at the height of his "a-go-go" powers.

Why are you so warped, Favog?

You'd be warped, too, if you watched this guy on television for 25 years.

This is Price LeBlanc. He sold cars around Baton Rouge for decades, and his kids still do today.

And this was his shtick.

I remember this shtick from when he was doing it standing next to a 1970s AMC or Chrysler in front of a curtain in the Channel 9 studios. And I remember it from when he was doing it in a car lot full of Toyotas.

Hell, I remember him walking into the Cotton Club, a watering hole and seafood joint just north of LSU, and nobody letting him leave until he said "Dahlin'!"

This probably not only explains a lot about the mental instability of your humble blogger, but also about the place that spawned him. Dahlin'!

I blame gay marriage in Iowa for this

I think I know what killed Sergeant Floyd.

The Lincoln is weird. I do not like the Lincoln.

I likes sweet pertaters. I had me a hankerin' fer sweet pertaters when I gots off the Greyhound bus in this place called the Lincoln in this other place called Nebrasky, but it might be the other way around because this place is funny, because I ain't seen nothin' likes it before.

I never been out of Pumpkin Center before but I tol' Mama that they was a big world out there and I wanted to see it and I was 34 years old -- because Papa said I was bornded when Jerrald Forde was president and that was 1976 and Miss Hilda at the center said that was 34 years ago, and that's how old I am. That is old enough to go see the world, and I had some money saved up from delivering the Hammond Daily Star, so I tol' Mama I was going to see the world and maybe I would go to Omaha where Jerrald Forde was bornded, and that's in Nebrasky, too, you know, or maybe in Lincoln, because I sometimes get things backwards and get confuseded, so I packed my bag and rode my bicycle to Hammond and I got on the Greyhound that the man said would go to Nebrasky where Jerrald Forde was bornded.

THE BUS got to Lincoln today, and people said Lincoln was real close to Nebrasky, and you can walk to Omaha from there to see where Jerrald Forde was bornded. Anyways, I decided I would stay in the Lincoln for a while because it is interesting, and the people are real different here, and I ain't never seen nothing likes that before. They talk funny and everything, and they seem to be a lot more white but people looked at me funny and somebody with long hair and glasses like my grammaw and a little sack on his back -- or maybe it was a she because I get confuseded -- cussed me when I axed them where was all the nigras and did they know where I could get me some sweet pertaters.

Then a passed by this building that was way taller than anything in Pumpkin Center, and it might be as tall as the state capitol in Baton Rouge but I don't know because I ain't never been there, but I asked somebody and they said it was the state capitol and I said no it ain't because this ain't Baton Rouge, and they said yes it was, too, because this was Lincoln and it was the capitol building of Nebrasky. And then I said I thought it lookded likes a big dick, and they got all flustered and walked off, and I axed them what's the matter, ain't they seen a big dick before and they said they was going to call the police and I got scared and runded away. I sure wish I had me some sweet pertaters.

I kept walking but I would hide when I saw a police car because I didn't want to get throwded in jail, because Mama always said that was where they kept the nigras and the justice of the peace always said you didn't want to mess with them people. But I kept gettin' hungrier and hungrier, and I really wished I had me some sweet pertaters, and I forgot where the bus station was exactly but it was gettin' dark and I saw this building called the Chamber of Commercial, that's what the man I axed to read the sign told me it was, and it sounded like a fancy eatin' place Daddy told me about once that he went to in Baton Rouge, so I went in because I figgerd that if anyplace in the Lincoln had sweet pertaters, maybe this would be the place and I still had $3 left not counting my bus ticket and a savings bond I got for delivering the Hammond Daily Star to people in Pumpkin Center, and that ought to be enough to get me a nice mess of sweet pertaters. And maybe a RC Cola, too.

And I was right that it was a fancy eatin' place because they was all these people in there dressed all fancy and they was all eatin' them fancy little sammiches and them little weenies with toothpicks through 'em and they was drinkin fancy wine but they was all watchin' the TV but they wadn't no football game on, it was the news show and they was showin' numbers all across the bottom of the TV and some people was even lookin' at these little computer books on tables, and I axed where the waiter was and where was all the nigras but them people just looked at me funney like they just pooted in their pants a little bit and they walked away from me, but they ought not a did that because I didn't poot in my pants or nothin' and I tried to tell 'em that but then somebody said can't somebody do somethin' about the homeless people comin' in there, and I said I didn't see no nigras, what the hell was they talkin' about?

I think these people in the Lincoln are a little bit odd ducks and I for the life of me don't know how Jerrald Forde come from such a weirdo place because my Daddy said he was the last normal president we ever had except for President Raygun, because Bill Klinton would screw everything that wore a skirt and Bamack Obamer was a damn communiss Muslin. But it's true, these peoples in the Lincoln and I guess in Nebrasky too is all weirdos because they act likes they ain't seen no normal Americans before like we have in Louisiana.

I even seen the mayor of the Lincoln in the Chamber of Commercial restaurant place and he was the weirdest of all them weirdos because I think he was one a them hermorphadites what was dressed just like a damn woman, and his wife was dressed like a g**damn truck driver, that's what daddy woulda said about her back home, that she was dressed like a g**damn truck driver, only she looked like even more a he-she that the mayor did in his dress and long hair and lipstick, only a opposite he-she, maybe it is that the mayor Chris Biteler is a she-he and his wife is a he-she, I don't know, because I think that all the people in the Lincoln is a bunch of damn oddballs.


This is a picshure of Biteler the mayor.

This is a picshure of Mrs. Biteler his he-she wife.

They was happy about a arena passing but I said it didn't look like no ESPN was on the TV, and they all looked at me like I was stupid or somethin'. I never did get my sweet pertaters and I think I messed up coming to this Nebrasky place where all the peoples is freaks and he-shes and she-hes, and I can't understand where they hiding all their nigras, I guess it ain't no wonder a body can't get no damn sweet pertaters here.

I want to go home to Pumpkin Center people are not weirdos there and I ain't never seed no he-shes and she-hes there. I will go back there as soon as I can find the Greyhound station, I do not like Jerrald Forde no more, and I miss home. The Lincoln can go to hell.