If the Big Easy doesn't want its musicians. . . .

Some people think Omaha is dull.

Unlike places like, oh . . . New Orleans.

But while the City That Care Forgot has been making news by trying to roll up the sidewalks -- at least for street musicians -- by 8, here's what I found Sunday night in boring ol' Omaha's Old Market. The top shot was taken at 8:31 p.m.


THIS WAS at 8:44 p.m. . . . on a really slow night for Old Market buskers.


AND THIS was at 8:52.

In New Orleans, this would be nearly an hour past "music curfew."


THERE IS a term for this kind of thing in a city that lives (and dies) by tourism and music. I think it's "nuts."

In fact, it might be the craziest damn thing you hear this year.

Now if New Orleans -- prone to occasional hissy fits in which it bites the musical hand that feeds it . . . probably some sort of subconscious rebellion against having "always depended on the kindness of strangers" -- doesn't appreciate its wealth of musical talent, we'd be happy to take some of it off the Big Easy's hands.

They could play on Old Market street corners (or, for that matter, in up-and-coming NoDo) until, say, 11 without getting busted. And I'm guessing they could do pretty good business, especially on weekends.

In fact, I'm thinking the Omaha Convention and Visitors Bureau ought to bring New Orleans' most-harassed group, the To Be Continued Brass Band, up here this fall to lead a jazz funeral for Rosenblatt Stadium after the Omaha Central-Creighton Prep football game there -- one of its last events. Just second line all the way up 10th Street from the old ballpark to the new place in NoDo.

And get ESPN to cover it for SportsCenter.

I'm seeing, in my mind's eye, a weekend "celebration of life" for Rosenblatt and a "welcome your baby" shower for TD Ameritrade Park. Then, To Be Continued could play a Saturday-evening show in the Omaha Chamber of Commerce courtyard at 13th and Howard streets.

Go ahead. Pass the hat.

Because Omaha is that kind of town.

Sign of the year

Seen Sunday in the Old Market, Omaha, Neb.

This TV set is 39 years old

When this Sony color portable was made in 1971, television sets were not cheap.

You had to save up for one. And they were tanks -- solid and heavy.

On the other hand, if a set like this model KV-1201 were to break, which was extremely unlikely, you could get it fixed. And the picture quality was very, very good . . . as you can see 39 years later.

I BOUGHT this set for $7.50 Sunday at an estate sale. If I had bought it brand new in 1971, I would have gotten almost four decades of use out of it, and it would still work like new.

Makes you wonder, doesn't it? It makes you wonder what the real cost is of our postmodern consumer society, where we buy lots and lots of stuff -- gadgets -- and almost none of it will last longer than a few years, at which point you will throw it away.

It makes you wonder whether the flat-panel HDTV you bought for $500 will last four years, much less four decades. It also makes you wonder whether, if it lasts two, you will junk it anyway because it's no longer the latest thing -- and we Americans are all about the latest thing, aren't we?

Me, I'm rather partial to scavenged relics of a lost era of durable goods -- truly durable goods.

And at $7.50, this bit of durability is a bargain you'd be hard-pressed to beat.

It must be all the Corexit in the air

At 8:01 p.m. in New Orleans, you can stagger down Bourbon Street laughing and yelling like a lunatic.

At 8:02 p.m., you can lose your lunch in the gutter in front of Pat O'Brien's.

At 8:03 p.m. in the quarter, you can buy a T-shirt whose message begins with an F and ends with a K and has nothing to do with "fire truck." Then you can wear it into a titty bar, where the entertainment wears no shirt a-tall.

At 8:47 p.m., you can stagger out of the titty bar drunk as a skunk and randy as a junior U.S. senator from the Gret Stet . . . and once again upchuck into the gutter.

And at 9:14 p.m., you can randomly yell, "Heeeeyyy! Rock annnnnnd rolllllllllll!"

ALL THIS MEANS is you're from Iowa, and you're having a fine time in the Big Easy. Good for you; the city is happy to take your money.

But if it happens to be 8:01 p.m., and you happen to actually be from New Orleans, and you're standing on a French Quarter street corner playing music for the drunken, yelling and puking tourists . . . your ass is in trouble, Cap.

New Orleans has gone stark, raving (and tourism-killing) mad, and The Daily Reveille at LSU is here to tell you about it:

The curfew, which is being put into effect amid an abundance of protest, makes it unlawful for street entertainment to be performed between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. from the entertainment district of Bourbon Street to Canal and St. Ann streets.

Another ordinance brought to the musicians’ attention makes it unlawful for any person to play a musical instrument on any public right-of-way in the city between 8 p.m. and 9 a.m. unless granted a permit.

Now, in addition to their trumpets and saxophones, the members of To Be Continued and other musical staples of the French Quarter can often be seen holding signs reading “Please Don’t Stop the Music” and other marks of protest.

“[Bourbon Street] is the birthplace of what we do,” said Sean Roberts, a trumpet player in To Be Continued. “It’s the most famous street for people to come and see what you invented, and we are a representation of that. So why wouldn’t you want your representatives to represent you?”

Roberts is one of many musicians currently in discussion with New Orleans law enforcement to find a way to make the ordinance mutually beneficial for the residents of the city and the entertainers.

Lisa Palumbo, manager of To Be Continued and marketing professor at the University of New Orleans, said the band — which has performed in the French Quarter since 2002 — never had a problem with playing its music until a few weeks ago.

“We’re not trying to make the French Quarter unavailable for anybody, but the 100 block of Bourbon is there for entertainment and commercial purposes,” Palumbo said. “We’re not trying to play all day or all night in any area. We’re just looking for a curfew that is reasonable for all parties involved.”

PERSONALLY, I blame it on all the Corexit oil dispersant BP is spraying into the atmosphere and on the water all around the Louisiana coast.

Now, if any New Orleans musicians might like to play sans harassment by the cops, we'd be glad to have them in Omaha. In the Old Market, they don't roll up the sidewalks at 8.

BP's human laboratory rats

"I wanted to leave several weeks ago, but my wife didn't want to leave, and we been married . . . well, our 30th anniversary was April 21, the day after the spill. So, I figure if she's gonna stay here and die, I'm gonna stay here and die with her."

3 Chords & the Truth: Crank it up!

The last time I posted a "WBRH episode" of 3 Chords & the Truth, it was an accident.

When I finished putting that particular program together back in February, it struck me that one of the musical sets sounded a lot like what we might have done at the radio voice of Baton Rouge High School 3o-something years ago. Or something like that.

This "WBRH episode" of the Big Show, however, is entirely on purpose -- as in, "If I could bring the WBRH of old into the present day . . . and then do the afternoon rock show there again, what would I do?"

THE ANSWER is simple: Something a lot like this edition of 3 Chords & the Truth. Of course, that's a lot like most editions of 3C&T, but not exactly.

If I had a shift on my high-school radio station once again, there's probably one or three things I do here I couldn't do there. But after I'd had a while to work on 'em . . . who knows?

This week, it's the spirit of '78, updated and plopped down in July 2010, right here on WBR . . . er, the Big Show.

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

'This water is poisonous'

When the government has no credibility because it's of, by and for the corporations pillaging its citizens, and when the press is so busy with "oil-spill gotcha" that it fails to ask fundamental questions, somebody's going to step into the breach.

"Somebody" could be a heroic citizen journalist. "Somebody" also could be a half-loony paranoid baselessly scaring the bejeezus out of people on Coast to Coast AM.

Has BP tapped into an undersea volcano, which is sure to unleash a tsunami that will destroy the entire Gulf Coast? Is the air so poisoned with benzene and hydrogen sulfide that the Gulf states will become an American Chernobyl?

Will hurricanes -- or just regular summer weather patterns -- spread toxic rain all across eastern North America, leaving it incapable of supporting human life for years?

Or, alternatively, should we just remain calm, because all is well?


EVERYBODY is claiming something. Transparency is elusive, and so is credibility. Still, you have to believe somebody.

The trouble is in discerning which somebody to believe.

Let's start with a simple question: How much poison are the people of the Gulf Coast being doused with? The results some citizen watchdogs (top video) got from an independent lab are enough to give one pause.

This next video, an interview with a marine biologist on the Project Gulf Impact website, backs up one's worst fears on that point.


AS DOES this from the same website:


MEANTIME, the EPA tells us everything is all right. Meantime, clean-up workers aren't being given respirators. Meantime, the national press parrots the official line, interviews a dissenter or two . . . but won't spring for any independent testing.

And meantime, how many expendable, working-class Americans down there are going to turn up dead in five, 10 or 20 years?

This report from WWL-TV isn't encouraging. In fact, it makes you wonder why officials aren't starting to talk about evacuations.


AND WHILE one hesitates to believe a word of anything touched by Alex Jones and his Prison Planet website and radio show (not to mention Coast to Coast AM and a whole motley crew of online conspiracy nuts) . . . what the hell is up with this?

Are we facing an acid-rain blight across the Gulf South and Eastern Seaboard? Where are the mainstream science reporters when stuff, like the following sampling of YouTube dispatches, is showing up all over the Internet?

OK, mainstream journalism, does anyone have a plausible explanation for this not involving the end of life east of the Mississippi River? Plant biologists? Organic chemists? Climatologists?

Anyone? Anyone? Americans across the Gulf South are starting to lose their s*** -- and their vegetation -- because . . . anyone? Anyone?

AND NOW that we're heading toward the meat of what's forecast to be one of the worst Atlantic hurricane seasons ever, this (below) is the level of planning going on at all levels of government:

CREDIBILITY right now is about in as short supply as marine life in the central Gulf of Mexico. Legitimacy of the federal government is careening toward a similarly scarce state.

And if the wackos are right -- on any one of their apocalyptic forecasts -- the United States of America can put its head between its legs and kiss its ass goodbye.

FOR THAT MATTER, when you have Kindra Arneson -- the fisherman's wife-turned-activist who's become one of the go-to interviewees for the national media -- is saying s*** like this and still getting microphones stuck in her face, governmental credibility and legitimacy may well be so compromised that an oily tsunami or a toxic-rain apocalypse would just serve to speed up the inevitable.

We now return you to our continuing coverage of the political pissing match, live from Washington, D.C.

Head-case nation

I wish to associate myself with Mitch Albom's remarks in the Detroit Free Press:

Note to journalism students. When we celebrate investigative reporting, it's for issues like war crimes, nursing home scandals or police corruption. It's not to report that LeBron James has opened a Twitter account.

But that was a "major" headline Wednesday. And James' first Tweet was Hello World, the Real King James is in the Building "Finally."

Honestly, who calls himself "King"?

Which brings me back to the man himself, who, after a few years of relative humility, now seems, at 25, to be stepping onto some assumed throne atop the world, like that "Airbender" kid, as if the rest of the planet naturally should step aside.

Excuse me if I turn my back. I no longer care less where LeBron James plays. I'm sick of the whole story. The number of supposedly respectable people tripping over themselves to hand him $100 million should make all of them and many of us ashamed.

In a country where people are out of work or out in the streets, LeBron's basketball home was never important. But spilling money on his head is downright insulting.

(snip)

Still, the final cherry on this ego sundae is the televised event tonight, an hour-long ESPN special at 9 o'clock (an hour?) in which James will announce who wins the right to wrap its money around his arrogance.

Only in America could we keep inventing reality TV that fantastically outshames the previous low mark. A prime-time event? To announce a free-agent signing? And don't point out that some proceeds go to charity. You want to give to charity, quietly write a check. Don't get a network to do it for you so it gets to pump its shows and you get to shower yourself in international coverage -- while calling it philanthropy.

The NBA has embarrassed itself here. The media have embarrassed themselves. And a guy who calls himself "King" may be beyond embarrassment, which is truly embarrassing.

Dear America: You're effin' nuts

This is insane.

Make it stop.

How Facebook rolls

The Facebook rulebook, simplified:

OK -- Group "praying" for the untimely death of the president of the United States.

NOT OK -- Group outing convicted pedophiles lurking in the dark corners of Facebook.

NOW THAT we have that straight, we can go back to pondering the ramifications of a company this warped knowing so much about us and demonstrating how little it cares for privacy rights. Except, of course, if you like to have sex with minors.

In that case, Mark Zuckerberg has your back.

Lindsay's fickle finger of (epic) fail

Once upon a time, you could bargain with the barbarians.

Even Attila the Hun could be persuaded by Pope Leo the Great not to sack Rome.

But in our addle-minded age of unceasing incivility, nothing and no one, I'm afraid, can dissuade Lindsay Lohan and her whole generation of poor little rich kids from a ruthless sacking of what's left of Western civilization. What's to be said for a society where it's possible for the famously troubled actress to go into a Los Angeles courtroom to beg a judge for mercy, all the while giving the honorable court -- and the world -- a fingernail-sized "f*** you"?

TONGUES were wagging on the Fox 411 blog:

Lindsay Lohan may have come with a message for the Los Angeles Superior Court when she appeared for her probation revocation hearing on Tuesday, and it could spell more jail time on top of her three-month sentence.

Lohan, who was sentenced to 90 days in prison and 90 days in an in-patient rehabilitation facility for violating the terms of her probation, appeared in court with the words “f**k u” printed on her middle fingernail.

And according to one expert, this could spell serious trouble for her sentencing, which was already triple the amount that the prosecution requested.

FOX411.com reviewed photos from three separate photo agencies -- Thompson Reuters, Associated Press and Getty -- all of which appeared to display the words on her middle left-hand fingernail.

A Thompson Reuters rep told FOX411.com in a statement that “the images of Lindsay Lohan published yesterday by Reuters were not altered beyond the normal bit of toning to correct color balance and contrast.”

An Associated Press rep said that after discussion among their photo editors, they sent out an advisory to clients that read in part "EDS NOTE: OBSCENE LANGUAGE ON LEFT MIDDLE FINGERNAIL."

If indeed Lohan's message was aimed toward the courts, "it would be a separate charge for contempt,” says New York City Public Defender Stacy Schneider. “She could have an entire extra sentence heaped on top of her current one. If the judge were angry enough, it could run even consecutively.”

Los Angeles Public Defender Greg Apt echoed Schneider's sentiments, calling Lohan's fingernails a "creative" way to land in contempt of court.

"The judge could hold her in direct contempt, which could be between three to five days in jail for vulgarity," if the judge deemed the words were aimed at the court, Apt said.

THAT'S THE RESPONSE of our terminally ill society. To debate whether or not Lohan's message was meant for the judge and, thus, constituted contempt of court.

On what planet is walking into your hearing with F U on a T-shirt, your lips or on your middle finger not contempt of court by definition? One can't imagine even ol' Attila tolerating suchlike.

But here on Planet Hollywood, it's just more grist for the media-fueled mill grinding down an entire civilization.

Lock the bitch up. Throw away the key. Then stop feeding the animals . . . and the voyeurs who love their dysfunction.

An extra shot of quirkiness with my brevé

Here's a slice of life from our favorite Omaha coffee emporium, Caffeine Dreams.

Oh . . . the painting? Yeah, there's a story behind that bit of artwork -- which is among the works on display, and for sale, at the shop.

Unfortunately, I don't know what it is.

I DO KNOW that it once lacked the coffee-shop version of a fig leaf. Pig Boy, though, left full frontal nudity behind one night when some high-school kids were playing a gig at Caffeine Dreams . . . and parents in the audience complained.

It wasn't about the music.

The first fig leaf -- quickly applied by the barista, who knew better than to mess with PO'd parental units -- was a bit of newspaper just big enough to mask the pig-man's shame. This later morphed into a sticky note . . . and now the added protection of a paper-napkin loincloth.

This is overkill, admittedly. Pig Boy wasn't that well endowed.

This, however, is the Midwest. And Mother knows best that edginess has its limits.

The irreplaceable editor

There's something I need to say.

You know how people -- mostly in corporations and crap -- say no one is irreplaceable? That's bulls***. The folks in North Platte, Neb., learned how irreplaceable Keith Blackledge was when he retired as editor of the North Platte Telegraph.

They learned how irreplaceable he was when he was no longer at the little daily newspaper, and no longer was taking punk kids right out of college and turning them into grown-up reporters and editors who, frankly, learned more in North Platte than they had in several years of journalism school. North Platte also learned how irreplaceable Keith was when -- suddenly -- the little newspaper that could . . . couldn't. Well, at least not nearly so much as it had under the steady -- and sometimes bemused -- leadership of Keith Blackledge.

People learned how irreplaceable one newspaper editor was when he no longer sat in that corner office at the Telegraph. When he no longer could will, it seemed, a little city to do what needed to be done, establish what needed to be established and build what needed to be built.

They also learned how irreplaceable Keith was when he grew too frail to serve on the approximately 98 trillion committees and boards he had served on for decades and decades.

AND NOW we all are learning how irreplaceable Keith Blackledge is as a presence in our lives -- as a living example of how to love the place where God has put you, do a job to the best of your ability and then teach your charges how to do that, too. We're learning that because time waits for no man -- not even Keith -- and it finally has taken that presence away from us.

We can't replace it. We can't replace the best damned boss we ever had -- those of us who were blessed enough to pass through the Telegraph newsroom on our way to somewhere, alas, not as good.

Almost three decades ago, a know-it-all, smartass kid from way south of the Mason-Dixon Line trekked out to the Sandhills of Nebraska to give Keith Blackledge a spring and a summer of hard work, some more-or-less decent news stories and, no doubt, a serious case -- or 20 -- of acid indigestion, with the odd migraine thrown in as lagniappe.

In return, Keith gave me a graduate-level, hands-on education in community journalism, a well-deserved ass-chewing or two, several friends for life . . . and my dear wife of 27 years -- the wire editor I stole from him on my way out the door.

I got the better end of the deal. Keith, meantime, was left holding an IOU I couldn't repay, not even if I had six lifetimes to try.

At the wedding shower, he also gave me the best advice I've ever gotten. Keith advised me that I should take care of all the monumental things in Mrs. Favog's and my marriage -- you know, world peace, geopolitics, erasing the national debt and divining the meaning of life -- while letting my new bride handle everything else. You know, like what I'll wear, where I'll go, where we'd live, what we'd eat, when I should just shut the hell up . . . stuff like that.

So far, it's worked out pretty damned well.

Except that I just broke Keith's rule about cussing in the newsroom.

I only can hope that the best damned newspaperman ever will forgive me this one last transgression. After all, I was -- and am -- replaceable.

Ve haff veys uff makink you see no evil

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. . . .

And now the Obama Administration is out-Bushing the Bushies with an outright ban on the public -- or the press -- seeing what's going on with . . . anything. No one will be able, under penalty of federal law, to get close enough to clean-up boats or oil booms to see our government at work.

Or not.

FROM A story in Thursday's Times-Picayune in New Orleans:

The Coast Guard has put new restrictions in place across the Gulf Coast that prevent the public - including news photographers and reporters covering the BP oil spill - from coming within 65 feet of any response vessels or booms on the water or on beaches.

According to a news release from the Unified Command, violation of the "safety zone" rules can result in a civil penalty of up to $40,000, and could be classified as a Class D felony. Because booms are often placed more than 40 feet on the outside of islands or marsh grasses, the 65-foot rule could make it difficult to photograph and document the impacts of oil on land and wildlife, media representatives said.

But federal officials said the buffer zone is essential to the clean-up effort.

"The safety zone has been put in place to protect members of the response effort, the installation and maintenance of oil containment boom, the operation of response equipment and protection of the environment by limiting access to and through deployed protective boom," the news release said.

The Coast Guard on Tuesday had initially established an even stricter "safety zone" of more than 300 feet, but reduced the distance to 20 meters - 65 feet - on Wednesday. In order to get within the 65-foot limit, media must call the Coast Guard captain of the Port of New Orleans, Edwin Stanton, to get permission.

Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the national incident commander for the oil spill, said in a press briefing Thursday that it is "not unusual at all" for the Coast Guard to establish such a safety zone, likening it to a safety measure that would be enacted for "marine events" or "fireworks demonstrations" or for "cruise ships going in and out of port."

Allen said BP had not brought up the issue, but that he had received some complaints from county commissioners in Florida and other local elected officials who "thought that there was a chance that somebody would get hurt or they would have a problem with the boom itself."

Associated Press photographer Gerald Herbert, who has been documenting the oil spill, raised concerns about the restrictions within his news organization on Wednesday. He has asked for a sit-down with Coast Guard officials to discuss the new policy - and the penalties - but has not received a response.

SOMEONE NEEDS to explain to President Obama and his enforcers that bad PR starts at the point where you begin to make tea-party paranoiacs' looniest pronouncements begin to look . . . prescient.

Acting like a bunch of thugs while performing official duties like the mayor's incompetent brother-in-law appointee is no way to inspire confidence in the federal government's response to a national environmental catastrophe. As I've said and said, the final crisis coming out of the BPocalypse will be one of governmental legitimacy.

And, ultimately, Obama won't be able to blame that one on George Bush.

3 Chords & the Truth: Is America singing?

Here's something to think about this week on 3 Chords & the Truth:

Once upon a time, Walt Whitman could write this -- I Hear America Singing:

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

I THINK, when you distill all that besets up on this Independence Day of 2010, it comes down to this one thing.

We're having trouble remembering the tune.

The tune that America was singing.

Anyway, that's what's on my mind for this holiday edition of the Big Show. Your mileage may vary.

There's some other stuff -- amazing stuff -- in there as well this week, so you really don't want to miss what we're up to as you go about whatever it is you're up to for the Fourth.

IT'S 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

'I see Jack . . . and Chivas . . . and Bud. . . .'

Nothing says "Romper Room" like a recipe for absinthe frappé, courtesy of WWL-TV.

Back when this ad ran in a July 1960 issue of Broadcasting, the New Orleans version of the Boomer kiddie classic had to do the rest of the country one better, I guess. On Channel 4, no doubt, you had your "Do Bees," your "Don't Bees," and your "Shoobee Do Bee Do Bees."

NOW WE KNOW what fueled Miss Ginny's Magic Mirror.

The Crescent City always was a little different. (OK, a lot different.) And I really, really miss when the Jesuits ran the WWL radio and television empire -- "King Edward cigar time" (on WWL radio), absinthe drinks and Romper Room . . . all part of one's "mission from God."

Is Catholicism a great religion or what?

The not-so-secret life of dogs

Click on photo for full size.

Here's the Molly edition of What Dogs Do.

Mrs. Favog thinks the Big Blue Chair is hers. The woman always was a little clueless -- how do you think I got her to marry me?

For the record. . . .

Once upon a time, when young folk bought these things called "LPs" for $3.98 at a retail establishment called a "record store," you actually got stuff.

You got a 12-inch vinyl disc with grooves on the surface -- the "record," which was played on a "phonograph." It came in a large cardboard sleeve with artwork on the front and back covers. This artwork was large enough to see, as was the track listing on the rear.

If during one of your treks to the "record store" -- in, say, 1972 -- you happened to purchase Melanie's "Stoneground Words" album ("album" is what we often called "LPs," or "records"), you also got lyrics (again, large enough to actually read) on the "inner sleeve," which held the "vinyl" within the "sleeve."

And for your $3.98, you also got a fold-up display of many photos of Melanie, suitable for hanging on the wall of your room because, frankly, Melanie was a babe.

Can you get all that with iTunes, bunkie?

I didn't think so.

Now we've achieved craptastic perfection

I don't know what to say about this, except that I think we have achieved some sort of perfection in suck.

Not only that, but the BPocalypse has done so -- out there on the soiled marshes of Louisiana -- in a massively appropriate, full-circle kind of way.

What am I talking about? Pick up your New York Times, man! Behold the dawn of a new standard of outrageous dumbth.

THEY'RE HOUSING oil-spill cleanup workers in FEMA trailers. You know, the ones that reek of formaldehyde:

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, they became a symbol of the government’s inept response to that disaster: the 120,000 or so trailers provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to people who had lost their homes.

The trailers were discovered to have such high levels of formaldehyde that the government banned them from ever being used for long-term housing again.

Some of the trailers, though, are getting a second life amid the latest disaster here — as living quarters for workers involved with the cleanup of the oil spill.

They have been showing up in mobile-home parks, open fields and local boatyards as thousands of cleanup workers have scrambled to find housing.

Ron Mason, owner of a disaster contracting firm, Alpha 1, said that in the past two weeks he had sold more than 20 of the trailers to cleanup workers and the companies that employ them in Venice and Grand Isle, La.

Even though federal regulators have said the trailers are not to be used for housing because of formaldehyde’s health risks, Mr. Mason said some of these workers had bought them so they could be together with their wives and children after work.

“These are perfectly good trailers,” Mr. Mason said, adding that he has leased land in and around Venice for 40 more trailers that are being delivered from Texas in the coming weeks. “Look, you know that new car smell? Well, that’s formaldehyde, too. The stuff is in everything. It’s not a big deal.”

Not everyone agreed. “It stunk to high heaven,” said Thomas J. Sparks, a logistics coordinator for the Marine Spill Response Corporation, as he stood in front of the FEMA trailer that was provided to him by a company working with his firm. Mr. Sparks said the fumes in the trailer from formaldehyde, a widely used chemical in building materials like particle board, were so strong that he had asked his employer to provide him with a non-FEMA trailer.

HAPPY FOURTH to us, citizens of the stupidest flippin' nation on earth.

The sun rises in the east? Every day?

Who knew?

Really, who'd have thought that a 15-year-old girl would ever overdose and die at a humongous rave at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum? I think what we need is a blue-ribbon panel to study what may have gone wrong here, and why an underage girl would even want to go to such a thing, much less take illicit narcotics.

One is grateful the stadium's operator has declared a moratorium on raves of 185,000 people until we figure out what happens at such events, particularly how additional scores of youth ended up injured.

READ THE SHOCKING story of this totally unforeseen tragedy in this Associated Press dispatch:

Barry Sanders, president of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission, said he is ordering the venue's managers not to book any raves until the full commission takes up the issue at its July 16 meeting. At that time, he said he'll recommend that the full commission continue the moratorium.

The uproar over last weekend's 14th annual Electric Daisy Carnival has grown by the day as new details emerge about the mayhem and drug abuse that filled the Coliseum during the event, which featured carnival rides, light shows and appearances by techno star Moby and Will.I.Am of the Black Eyed Peas.

Videos of the event show a generally peaceful crowd dancing to the music, but as evening falls the Coliseum's football field becomes tightly packed with revelers. At one point, as people leap over a fence to move from the seating area to the field, one of the performers launches into an expletive-filled tirade from the stage, demanding that the crowd violently push them back.

NOW, I THINK a prime focus of any investigative panel should be on whether any particular expletives were the triggers for the crowd violently setting upon fence-jumpers.

Also, it might be worth exploring whether everyone might have better gotten along (and avoided "hard" drugs, too) if they had all just been issued medical marijuana to mellow them out. Another question: "magic" brownies, reefers or free disposable pipes?

Truly, unforeseen tragedies like this are the worst.