The view from Hades

When a multinational corporation cuts corners on a deepwater oil rig, blows the son of a bitch to high heaven, kills 11 crewmen and unleashes an oily apocalypse that consumes everything in its filthy path -- fish, turtles, birds, plankton, oysters, shrimp, marshes, jobs, health, cultures, lives -- you can count on Right-Wing America to put on a long face and tell us "Well, those things happen."

When government apprises this apocalypse wrought by the multinational corporation and decides the responsible party needs to pay up -- now -- suddenly the long faces of Right-Wing America contort into scowls, and pundits' voices rise as one unholy chorus from the depths of hell to wail "This shall not stand! Communists! Hugo Chavez tactics! Shakedown! Help! Help! Daddy Warbucks is being repressed!"

And the thing is . . . lots of people buy this stuff. They buy into a societal anti-morality that turns social Darwinism into holy writ.

The devil, he's a real pro.

Blessed are the powerful! Alms for the rich! Kill the poor!

Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin, Pat Buchanan, Newt Gingrich, Sean Hannity, Judge Andrew Napolitano and 1,000,000 others like this.


HAT TIP: Rod Dreher.

3 Chords & the Truth: Listen or else!

You heard me.

Listen to this week's episode of 3 Chords & the Truth -- it's right here -- or Tony Hayward gets it.

I'm serious.

Really, I'll do it! Listen to this week's episode of the Big Show, or the CEO of BP gets it. And then we'll throw what's left of him into the oil slick.

I mean it!

C'mon, people. Listen to the show.

WHY WON'T you listen to the show?

What?

Oh.

I'm not messing with you people anymore. Either listen to 3 Chords & the Truth -- which really is a fine show this week and every week -- or we let Tony Hayward, CEO of British Polluters, go home to London unscathed!

He'll make it back without a scratch on him. Unless you listen to the program right now.

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

They were too on a mission from God!

Well Jesus, Mary and Joseph! We coulda told you that oh . . . 30 years ago.

That said, I give two thumbs up to the Vatican's proclaiming The Blues Brothers a classic. A Catholic classic.

ABC NEWS brings us the story live from Bob's Country Bunker in Kokomo, Ind.:

This week, the official Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano devoted no fewer than five articles to "The Blues Brothers," anointing it as a film with a Catholic message.

"The evidence is not lacking in a work where details certainly are not casual," wrote editor Gian Maria Vian, according to a translation from The Tablet newspaper.

He cited examples of a photo of Pope John Paul II on the set, characters like Sister Mary Stigmata, and other religious touches to support his argument. The storyline follows the Blues Brothers as they attempt to raise money for a church-run orphanage where they grew up.

All this in a movie where Jake Blues, played by John Belushi, declares, "Jesus H. Tap-Dancing Christ! I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT!"

The Blues Brothers joins a lofty list of Vatican-acclaimed films, including "The Ten Commandments," "The Passion of The Christ," and "It's a Wonderful Life."

OF COURSE, some Catholic quarters are horrified, as was the U.S. bishops' film office back in 1980. Moral rigorism always has run strong in the American church, and there will be no plain white toast and whole fried chickens in the lunchroom at the Legion of Christ-owned National Catholic Register:

The movie and its music are “memorable”, concludes Vian, and adds: “According to the facts, [it’s] Catholic.” Elsewhere in the paper, a full page article describes the film as a “masterpiece”, “incredibly shrewd” and “full of ideas.”

All quite interesting – but whether this is really something that should court so much attention in L’Osservatore Romano which many see (incorrectly) as the Vatican’s official mouthpiece, is open to question.

Vian is a friendly, hard-working and well-meaning editor who has done much good for the publication, but his enthusiasm to regularly bring pop culture into the ‘Vatican’s newspaper’ may be all right in Italy, but to an increasing number it appears to trivialize the Vatican and, ultimately, the Church.

While movie and music reviews can rightly be a popular feature of many Catholic newspapers, many, myself included, feel L’Osservatore Romano is different and should instead be devoting its pages to more spiritual and lofty matters related to the faith.

OR, AS MY BOSS at a Catholic radio station once said to me as she objected to a bar of "Jingle Bells" in a recorded holiday ID, "Christmas is not fun." (Unsurprisingly, she belonged to Regnum Christi, the lay arm of the Legion of Christ, an order which has had troubles far surpassing the Vatican newspaper's "nonspiritual" embrace of pop culture.)

Think about that. "Christmas is not fun."

Obviously, for some Catholics, neither are the movies.

Ve haff veys uff keepen ziss town Amerikanische

Way to represent, Fremont.

Because you people up there northwest of Omaha are so good at throwing hissy fits -- at using the law as an excuse for dehumanizing your fellow man -- you've ended up in The New York Times. And now the whole damned country knows about Nebraska's crazy uncle in the attic.

And it's all because of a stupid little ordinance that will be really good at stirring up hate and s***, but not so good at stopping illegal immigration one iota.

This is ordinarily a serene place with polite politics and votes that sail through City Hall 8 to 0. But in a special election Monday, residents will decide whether to ban businesses from hiring illegal immigrants and bar landlords from renting to them. Residents demanded the vote, fighting off challenges by some of their elected leaders all the way to the State Supreme Court.

The election has opened a rare and raw divide. There are awkward silences for some who fear offending their neighbors (whose position they cannot be certain of), and, for others, volleys of suspicion.

Wanda Kotas, who pushed for the special election, said her family’s cat, Mr. Sippi, was killed by a pellet gun not long after her efforts, an act she suspects is related. Kristin Ostrom, who has spoken against the referendum, said a rock was heaved through her front window, an old barbecue grill was dumped at her doorstep, and, this week, an e-mail message arrived promising in red letters to “shed blood” to take back the country. And Alfredo Velez, who once worked at one of Fremont’s meatpacking plants and now owns a Mexican grocery, received an anonymous letter accusing him of harboring illegal immigrants, and said someone screamed at him on these neatly kept streets: “Go back to Mexico!”

The Hispanic population, while growing, still makes up less than 10 percent of Fremont, yet some say they blame illegal immigrants for what they see as a rise in crime here, the loss of good jobs for local residents and a shift in the culture.

NAW . . . the loss of good jobs never could be the result of your living in Fremont, a small city pretty much like all small cities in the lack of staggering levels of economic opportunity. No, that could never be the problem.

Listen, you want an amazing, high-paying job? Get an MBA and move to Omaha.

Wait . . . on second thought, don't.

Some complain about shoppers speaking Spanish at the Wal-Mart, businesses with phone messages saying “Press 1 for English,” and the need for two interpreters last fall at the annual “kindergarten round-up” where children meet their teachers.

Perhaps these are ordinary growing pains for Midwestern cities like Fremont, anchored by meatpacking plants with many immigrant workers, some of whom residents here suspect of being in this country illegally.

But the struggle has taken an unusual turn. After Fremont’s political leaders rejected an ordinance intended to keep illegal immigrants out, residents fought back and insisted, finally getting approval in the Nebraska Supreme Court to take the matter straight to voters.

This is a legally complicated realm given the federal role in handling immigration; a lawsuit is all but certain if it passes. In other places where such immigration laws have been pondered (and often contested later), state lawmakers and local governing bodies have usually made the call, not citizens by referendum.

“In this very quiet little town where this hasn’t been an issue, it’s uncomfortable,” said Michelle Knapp, who opposes the anti-illegal immigrant law but acknowledges that she has at times only whispered her view. “You don’t know what people are listening.”

WELL, YOU can't say the fine, all-American folks of Fremont have accomplished nothing with their quixotic little campaign against Pedro.

No, it takes moxie and skill to turn a peaceful little Midwestern town into a fear factory where people are terrified to say what they think. And it takes real imagination on the part of those "patriots" earnestly looking forward to a future where the most uttered phrase in Fremont, U.S.A., is "Your papers, please."

. . . then the rains came

It's not this way in Louisiana come summertime.

There, I never had to study the radar, then go over the forecast again, then look at the sky, then just end up doing what my gut said and not watering the garden today because I figured it'd probably rain. No, I just had to look at the clock, and figure there would be a thundershower about the time the big hand was on the 12 and the little hand was on the 3.

TURNS OUT that today -- at least -- I guessed right. The vegetable garden and the wheelbarrow full of greens are happy now.


THAT'S Nebraska for you. That's the Great Plains for you -- the most aggravating place in America for figuring out just what the weather is gonna do.


AND THAT'S IT for the pictures. I was starting to get wet out there.

Just hangin' out

I'm just hanging out right now, having some coffee while I wait.

I'm waiting to see whether these clouds below will turn into the thunderstorms forecasters were worried enough about to issue a tornado watch.


It certainly feels like storm-producing weather out -- windy, 94 and muggy, one of the few mid-summery days we've had so far this year. Right now, the storm prospects for Omaha are kind of iffy, but the weatherman says if these clouds are going to turn into some storms, it won't be too long.


If they do, I won't have to worry about watering this.


Or this.


Look how fast the mustard greens are growing. I can almost taste 'em now.

Today's horror feature: Children of the Red Stick

Where I come from, old times there are not forgotten.

But at least -- once in a blue moon -- official Baton Rouge can be persuaded to look away, look away, look away from backwardness.

That's something, I guess.

Of course, after reading the following story in this morning's Advocate, I'm thinking that the city's white-flighty northern suburbs might benefit from the resumption of Radical Reconstruction after a 130-odd year hiatus.

I WONDER whether we could get BP to pay for it?

The Metro Council voted Wednesday to rezone a 52-acre site near Zachary so a residential program for troubled youths can be operated on the site.

The 8-3 vote to rezone the property for Heritage Ranch Christian Children’s Home on Tucker Road came over the objections of Councilman Trae Welch, who represents the area, and dozens of residents who packed the council’s chambers.

They complained the site isn’t suitable and said they fear for their safety because the operators have no experience running a residential program of this type.

(snip)

While the project has support from influential business and community leaders in Baton Rouge, it drew intense opposition from people who live in the area.

“I’ve never received so many e-mails and calls about a zoning case,” councilwoman Alison Cascio said. “I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s been incredible.”

The vote to rezone the property from rural to Planned Unit Development followed nearly three hours of impassioned debate.

YES, all this over plans to build a facility to help troubled, underprivileged kids. And not even the worst of the troubled, underprivileged kids.

Two things you have to realize about my hometown. One, the real problem here is that most of these "underserved" kids are likely to be black, and be from Baton Rouge, and the main selling point for the suburbs in question is they are neither.

Second, the folks up there really, really hate Baton Rouge. It's psychotic, actually -- depending on the "big city" for jobs and services at the same time you want nothing more than to escape it, then fiscally starve it to death.

Central and Zachary are where bond issues that benefit Baton Rouge go to die.

And during Wednesday's council session, you have to wonder whether the only folks holding down the fort in Central and Zachary were Mrs. Ashley Wilkes and Mrs. Frank Kennedy, waiting and knitting with Doc Meade's wife while reading aloud from David Copperfield.

YOU SEE, everybody else went off to a "political meeting."

Opponents, including Bill Waters, who lives across the street from the project, were disappointed.

“We were out lobbied by the big money and the power brokers of Baton Rouge,” Waters said.

Welch had urged the council to reject the rezoning request, noting that everyone in the neighboring area was opposed to it.

He said 350 residents signed a petition opposing the rezoning.

Several opponents noted that the supporters speaking in favor of the rezoning don’t live in the area.

“Every single person lives in Baton Rouge,” Jennifer Patterson said of the supporters. “Not one lives in my community.”

They also talked about the impact young people with behavioral issues could have on the schools, and noted that similar programs operate on much larger sites in more-remote areas.

“We know what their vision is and what they hope Heritage Ranch will be,” Waters said, “but they simply do not have the expertise to do what they say they want to do.”

THIS WAS persuasive for Big Sam, played Wednesday by Ulysses "Bones" Addison, who voted against the facility. Despite the likelihood that some of the kids helped by the facility would come from his impoverished council district.

Of course, Big Sam never asked where opponents thought kids with behavioral problems are now, if not in public schools. Or asked whether some of the public-school kids with behavioral problems just might be their own.

Furthermore, the granddaddy of all "similar programs" isn't in a "more-remote" area at all -- it's an adjacent suburb of Omaha. Maybe you've heard of it; it's called Boys Town.

Capt. Rhett Butler could not be reached for comment.

It's a dog's life

Our friend Scout, loyalest dog in the world. He's an old boy.




But he's hanging in there.

Life with the 'small people'

The "small people" on Grand Isle, La., have something to say to BP . . . via a short film by Phin Percy who, by the way, is the nephew of Walker Percy, the great writer and maker of a hell of a mint julep.

Your BP-English, English-BP dictionary

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg is right: His company does care about the "small people." And nothing but the "small people."

Trouble is, the folks in charge of BP are the smallest people around.

The rest of us? We're screwed.

Keep your eye on the bankruptcy courts.

What goes around . . . (oil-spill edition)

Folks in Louisiana lately have been doing a lot of bitching and moaning about being treated as second-class citizens in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe.

If that thing had blown up off the coast of Martha's Vineyard or Malibu, the argument goes, the federal government would be moving heaven and earth to protect those locales from the toxic black gook rolling in from the sea.

I agree. Louisianians are second-class citizens, and if BP had committed its BPocalypse off a trendier coastline, s*** would get done. Yesterday.

On the other hand, I cannot tell you how bad it looks when people whining about their second-class citizenry -- and, after all, the Gret Stet is America's ghetto -- cry about how they are not neither "wogs" as they go about acting like wogs, governing like wogs, mangling the King's English like wogs . . . then turn away from the microphone to shovel a heapin' helpin' of down-home Whoop-Ass on people even woggier than themselves.

Well, dat's Louisiana for you.

APPARENTLY, some government officials in a state now obsessed with its lack of civil rights (for lack of a better term) never got the memo from the Big Guy -- and I'm not talking Barack Obama -- about the whole "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" thing.

For example, here's what happens when a non-profit group wants to open a Christian camp for underprivileged kids in the northern suburbs of Baton Rouge, otherwise known as Places White People Like. J.R. Ball, the Baton Rouge Business Report's executive editor, picks up the story from here:

Citizens of East Baton Rouge—thanks to a little thing called “democracy”—are free to call and e-mail their elected representatives to express support or opposition to matters that will come before the Metro Council. This week’s rezoning request is no exception. Numerous constituents have sent e-mails to council members asking that they grant the Heritage Ranch’s rezoning request.

Disturbingly moronic are the responses from our so-called elected leaders. More troublesome, sadly, is that such replies are far too frequent.

[Trae] Welch, in whose district the proposed project would be built, was quick to weigh in with his opposition, writing that while he had no problem with Heritage Ranch, he did have a problem with “where the project is to be placed.” Who says the term NIMBY is reserved solely for neighborhood association members? Apparently, life for residents along Tucker Road would be destroyed if there was a facility that provided guidance and hope while instilling moral values in the underserved youth of Baton Rouge.

It’s a pair of retorts, however, from council member Bones Addison that leaves me crazier than that bird chasing Cocoa Puffs.

On June 9, at 10:28 a.m., Addison responded to e-mailers with this: “This matter is in Mr. Welch’s district. I will be seeking advice regarding this re-zoning [sic] from the member who [sic] district it impacts. I have suggested to others who have sent me the e-mail blast that they contact Mr. Welch because he is elected to represent the citizens of that neighborhood.”

He closes with this: “Be size [sic], I don’t even know where Tucker Road is.”

Addison, four hours later, fires off this e-mail to a group of residents and two fellow council members: “Hey, why don’t everybody stop e-mailing me on it, [sic] its [sic] not in my district. I would great [sic] appreciate that.”

MONDAY NIGHT, as I was writing my post about how Louisiana's real problem is that it's America's 'hood, I resisted the temptation to use the phrase "What goes around, comes around" in reference to the state's historical internal struggles over equality, class and race. I thought it would be gratuitous and mean.

Suddenly, it's not a problem anymore. Louisiana keeps making my point for me . . . even when I hold back from making it.

Why bother trying not to stick a shiv in people hell-bent on committing hara-kiri anyway?

As I said, historical ironies abound.

On Iowegians: We pity the fools

The things you learn from joining the Big Ten Conference, as Nebraska has just done.

For example, did you know that the state of Iowa is even lamer than you originally thought? I mean, my God, they think this is funny.

Really? Is this the best you got, Iowa? Is this the best the comedic mind of Des Moines media can manage? Well, no, but he left for a bigger job at an AM daytimer in Pixley, so this is all WHO-TV can muster -- total mindlessness.

LISTEN, you Idiots Out Wandering Around, our governor in Nebraska is Dave Heineman. C'mon, the man is the Pillsbury Doughboy . . . on barbiturates.

And you pass up that comedic gold mine in favor of dressing up a Missouri fan in his Sunday best and painting a Nebraska logo on his best hat?

That's all you effing got?

Too bad. You will have invited an overwhelming retaliatory strike by Omaha World-Herald columnist Mike Kelly -- a pique-fueled bombardment of stats, rankings and civic-minded anecdotes proving how up-to-date everything is in Omaha and greater Nebraska -- and you will have invited it for something as totally piss poor as that WHO-TV video.

Iowegians. They never learn.

Straight outta Compton Louisiana

The problem with Louisiana is it's in the 'hood.

Hell, it is the 'hood. Historical ironies abound.

If a whole country of 300 million can have a 'hood, Louisiana fills the bill. It's got poverty problems. It's got crime problems. It's got health problems. It, Lord knows, has education problems.

It even has had not only a Marion Barry -- the former ethically and chemical-dependency challenged mayor of Washington, D.C. -- but several Marion Barrys in its "colorful" political history. Note that when one speaks of "colorful" government, this is not a synonym for "effective" or even "minimally competent."

America's 'hood also suffers from an economy too reliant on just a few things. One of the few things on which Louisiana is overreliant happens to be the petrochemical industry -- this bad neighborhood of poor folks and problem cases is where we stick all the industries we depend upon . . . but don't want in the "nice" part of town.

It's where we put all the offshore oil rigs -- like the Deepwater Horizon -- we rely on for our daily petroleum fix but don't want anywhere near, say, Malibu. Or Martha's Vineyard. Or Miami Beach.

And if something goes BOOM! in the night, it's just blowing up people -- whole cultures, even -- whose main qualification for the honor is being unlike "people like us."

And if the thing that's just gone BOOM! in the night starts to soil Boudreaux's marsh and Thibodeaux's oyster beds, we'll leave the cleanup to the negligent screw-ups who caused the mess in the first place, because . . . who cares? It's the 'hood!

WE HAVE good reasons for maintaining a 'hood. This is just one.

Of course, we have other reasons for having national 'hoods, just like our local ones. For one thing, it makes it easier to find people to exploit -- from your local streetwalker to your low-paid service- and hospitality workers, who provide services and hospitality somewhat different from that of low-wage hookers on the corner.

For another, the 'hood provides a convenient focus for the attention of "progressives" striving for "solidarity" with someone . . . anyone. And for hipsters, it provides a handy place to seek "authenticity" in all manner of things -- food, music, culture, "expression."

How very quaint to possess the charms of the rustic . . . or the dispossessed.

Charm and "authenticity" are not enough, however, to save you from toxic emissions, failing infrastructure, a poor education or even a big-ass oil spill that eventually will destroy all the Stuff White People Like about you.

If you're the 'hood we call Louisiana, note well the stuff people like about you, which is different from actually liking you. Because they don't.

There is no place on earth with more "authenticity" in music, food, culture and all other manner of expression than New Orleans. The place is chockablock with Stuff White People Like. Was that sufficient for the American people to safeguard all this authentic goodness by preserving robust wetlands and building Category 5 hurricane-protection levees?

Please.

It's the 'hood, for God's sake.

What's hailed as "colorful" culture and politics in south Louisiana, is a clear case of "Edna! Call 911!" if it makes its way to Our Town. That or occasion to urgently convene an anti-corruption task force, depending.

Don't get caught in Uncle Sam's neighborhood after dark. We're going to want to know how you got that nice car you're driving.

OF COURSE, the underprivileged now and again take extreme umbrage at some slight, real or perceived, and they start to "act out." This has to be carefully managed. Usually, you can head things off by putting the ringleaders and "troublemakers" swiftly in their place.

Here's how the mayor and "civic leaders" handled things in 1963 when "the Negroes" started to get out of hand in Omaha:

Billy Nungesser, the president of Plaquemines Parish whose frustrations about the federal government response have been featured prominently on TV in the past few weeks, told ABC News that in the private meeting the president had with local leaders here today, President Obama "chewed me out."

Nungesser, a Republican, told ABC News that President Obama "told me that we need to communicate."

He said that he told President Obama that after his first visit to the region a few weeks ago, "We got the jack-up boats done cause of you. And you spent more time with us than any other president. But since then, it was a bottleneck. Things weren't getting done. All of it was sitting in the marsh."

Nungesser said the president told him, "'Well you know, if you can't get it done through the chain of command' -- and he's made some changes; we've got a guy on the ground now that can make decisions -- he said, 'you pick up the phone and call the White House. And, if you can't get me on the phone, then you can go blast me.'"

DAMN. I seem to have put up the wrong clip. Let's try this one:

And I will make one last point -- and I said this to every leader who is here: If something is not going right down here, then they need to talk to Thad Allen. And if they’re not getting satisfaction from Thad Allen, then they can talk to me. There’s nobody here who can’t get in touch with me directly if there is an idea, a suggestion, or a logjam that needs to be dealt with.

So we’re in this together. And it’s going to be a difficult time, and obviously the folks down here are going to be feeling the brunt of it, but we’re going to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to get this solved as quickly as possible.

S***. Third time's the charm, right?

Last May, the Rev. Mr. Jones and several other young ministers formed the 4CL, or Citizens' Coordinating Committee for Civil Liberties. "They barged into my office," angrily recalls Mayor Dworak, "with a series of outrageous demands. I offered to appoint one of them, the Rev. Rudolph McNair, to my biracial citizens' committee. Apparently, that wasn't enough, because they picketed the very first meeting of the committee. We won't stand for that here in Omaha."

Made up of Omaha's most influential citizens, the Mayor's Bi-racial Committee claims it is carefully laying the groundwork for the correction of Negro complaints. Says Morris E. Jacobs, a prosperous Omaha businessman and one of the leaders of the committee, "We're trying to set up an ideal that can serve as an example for the whole United States. And what happens? They picket! I got wind of it beforehand, and phoned Reverend McNair. I said. 'We didn't know about your grievances. Now that you've made them known, give us a chance to settle things and redeem ourselves with dignity — don't crowd us.'

Look magazine, Dec. 17, 1963

THIS IS the formula for dealing with the 'hood. Sometimes, it backfires and you get a big riot or something, but it's still the "industry best practice" for dealing with "those people."

Let's review: First, those running the show must sound reasonable so that the troublemakers sound like . . . unreasonable troublemakers. Second, it's important to be intimidating. Never, ever should a mayor, governor, civic leader . . . or president . . . show fear.

It's like dealing with the wild kingdom -- some species can sense fear, and that will not go well for the power elite.

Third, it helps to be condescending. This is related to intimidation. Highly effective with low-class people, who may harbor inferiority complexes you can exploit.

Finally, if those in charge want to stay in charge, they must always voice their sincere intention to work on the issues that so aggrieve the restless hordes. They must stress this over and over. Likewise, they must implore the aggrieved to be "reasonable" and "calm," emphasizing that people must "work through the system."

See, "Call center, BP."

In all this, sincerity is the key. If governmental and civic leaders can fake that, they've got it made.

Of course, the needed resources never seem to materialize. It's the 'hood, after all, and Americans don't do 'hood. Nothing ever seems to be done; nothing ever seems to change, and we like it that way.

Because it's the 'hood. Republican or Democrat, the consistent policy is "out of sight, out of mind." The 'hood is not like us. For the most part, we're quite content to let it -- and everyone in it -- die.

Though we'd just as soon not see or hear about it. See, "Gag rules, clean-up worker" and "Restrictions, press."

WHEN IT COMES right down to it, this is the moment I have been writing about for almost four years now. Every time I've written about Louisiana and its political and cultural challenges, this is what I was getting at.

I didn't know how it would happen, but I knew Louisiana's existential crisis would come -- in many ways, had come -- and that when it did . . . the 'hood wasn't any place you'd want to be. But there Louisiana is.

In the 'hood. With all the bad things, few of the good things, and with "les Americains" probably figuring they're better off with Louisiana dead. If you want to survive, Boudreaux, go chain yourself to an oil pipeline now. We'll take care of those, probably.

In effect, what I've been trying to argue -- poorly -- is that if Louisiana were a TV show, it would be Sanford and Son, and it probably would earn a nice write up in Better Homes & Ghettos. Now, America thought ol' Fred G. Sanford was funny and all -- "colorful" and "authentic," no doubt -- but there's no way we'd want the real-life version of the irascible junk man in our neighborhood.

What I also have been arguing for these past few years -- poorly -- is that Louisiana's survival hinged on its somehow transforming itself into a higher class of (ahem) "ethnic" program, say The Cosby Show. The Huxtables, they had it goin' on.

America loved Cliff and Clair Huxtable -- the doctor and the lawyer. America loved their bright and adorable kids. America welcomed the Huxtables into their homes every week, and they would have welcomed them into their neighborhood, too.

There's plenty percentage in being like the Huxtables. America would do anything for Cliff and Clair, and even if they didn't, the Huxtables could shift for themselves just fine in the modern world.

Unlike Louisiana. Alas.

Is all this right? No. Are all men created equal? In the eyes of God, at least.

But aren't we all Americans? Equal under the law? E pluribus unum, and all that?

In theory, yes. But theory is just another word for marketing, and marketing always takes liberties with the unvarnished truth.

The unvarnished truth is that this is a fallen world we inhabit, a true vail of tears. In such a place -- in such a country as even this -- it's a hell of a thing to have "always depended on the kindness of strangers."

Blanche DuBois. Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire."

Set in New Orleans.

Go figure.

'Blah blah blah': the transcript of suffering

Don't listen to what BP or the government say. Watch what they do.

This is what BP does.

More crap from the No. 2 state

Everything's bigger in Tejas.

First of all, there's the outsized ego of its state university. And don't try to convince University of Tejas fans theirs isn't the only school in Tejas, if not the world -- they won't believe you.

And the "bigger in Tejas" list also includes, no doubt, the feedlots. They'd have to be to hold as much bulls*** as what flows out of the Land of Big Hair and Small Brains every time Jennifer Floyd Engel posts another column in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

One of the best rivalries in sports will not be the same; just ask Arkansas what happened to its rivalries after leaving the SWC. Can you imagine the Aggie War Hymn with "goodbye to Louisiana State University"?

Of course, Governor Good Hair wants A&M to stay with Texas.

What he needs to be doing is trying to save the Big XII. I do not say this lightly since this league obviously had fatal flaws, starting with its clearly overmatched commissioner, Dan Beebe, and a lot of schools who did not know their role.

And I am talking to my alma mater, Mizzou. Great job being played by The Big Ten, and enjoy begging for inclusion in the Mountain West. My check is not in the mail, nor will it be until heads roll.

I am also including Nebraska, which idiotically believes going to The Big Ten will turn back the clock to 1990, when 'roided partial qualifiers ruled the college football landscape. How smart are Nebraskans? They actually buy this "more aligned with culture and academic mission" nonsense being spewed Friday.

And who hasn't heard Nebraska referred to as Harvard on the Plains?

In fact, can everybody please dispense with acting like this is about academics, or worrying about being left behind, or anything except for money and super conferences.

Yes, The Big XII is dead, killed by corn shuckers, Tigers and greedy blank-blankers. And while this wake has turned into a roast, look for everybody to be mourning its demise in hindsight.

'ROIDED partial qualifiers? Harvard on the Plains?

Well, there is this story in the Omaha World-Herald. Maybe that's where Ms. Jennifer Floyd Engel learned about NU's reputation:

Few doubt the University of Nebraska-Lincoln can more than hold its own on the football fields of the Big Ten.

A bigger question is how it stacks up in the classroom and the lab. Nebraska's flagship university ranks lower in the U.S. News & World Report rankings and pulls in fewer research dollars than all of its new partners in the nation's most academically prestigious athletic conference.

But regardless of UNL's current standing, almost any university would envy the upward trajectory the school has been on academically over the past decade.

Its U.S. News ranking among comprehensive public universities has jumped from 57th to 43rd, a measure of its rising reputation.

Its federal research haul has more than doubled.

The school is attracting more of the state's brightest students, and more students than ever from out of state.

Were it not for the marked improvements of the past decade, Chancellor Harvey Perlman said he doubts UNL would be the newest member of the Big Ten.

Now that that new affiliation will have UNL running and collaborating with some of the most prestigious public universities in the land, Perlman and other campus leaders say they see no reason UNL can't aspire to loftier heights in the decades ahead.

“It's a new bar for academics and research,” said Ellen Weissinger, UNL's interim vice chancellor for academic affairs. “Joining the Big Ten is going to accelerate our pace.”

UNL's upward trajectory did not go unnoticed when the Big Ten's presidents and chancellors considered granting the school entry to the conference, said Lou Anna K. Simon, president of Michigan State University and head of the Big Ten's board.

While athletics and football were obviously the initial reason UNL was considered, she said, scholarship is taken too seriously in the Big Ten to add a school that was not a serious academic player.

“There was more to this than just a football game,” Simon said Saturday. “I think all of my colleagues felt very comfortable that Nebraska was an extraordinary fit.”

The recent boost in UNL's academic firepower has its roots in a period of serious introspection during the 1990s.

IT'S REALLY a shame that the best a sports columnist for an also-ran metro daily in north Tejas can muster is rank name calling. Then again, Tejas is the World's Biggest Feedlot, and the fumes from all that Chanel No. 2 must have gone to a Mizzou gal's head.

It's not like it would have taken much. As folks up here are keen enough to observe, the University of Missouri is close enough to the Ozarks to see your first cousin from there, and she/he is lookin' right purdy.

As much as anything, Engel's outpouring of bile reminds me of what became pretty much a yearly ritual for Missouri football fans after having their asses handed to them by the Huskers. Of course, they often didn't fare any better in the insult department than they did the football department.

I remember when my wife and I drove to Columbia in 1983 for the Nebraska-MU game. Of course, Nebraska won.

And naturally, some drunk-ass Mizzou student was staggering outside the stadium afterward screaming "Nebraska sucks! Nebraska sucks!" at Husker fans (who, by the way, applaud visiting teams in Lincoln, win or lose). Of course, we responded by chanting back "Nebraska wins! Nebraska wins!"

He shut up. Really, some things are just too easy.

LIKE ENGELS succumbing to the temptation to just "phone it in" by ripping off the patented insult-column style of well-known "Colorado malcontent" Woody Paige. She imitates the Denver Post sports columnist OK; I do it better.

But nobody approaches the real deal. And only a Tejas bulls*** artist would think she could.

That kind of baseless arrogance only can mean one thing. When UT starts up The Longhorn Network, Jennifer Floyd Engel probably will be the first hire.

Talk about your match made in Hillbilly Heaven.

Farmer Favog's Almanac

The backyard garden has been in for about three weeks now, and the wheelbarrow greens garden has been in about a week.

Here's how it looks after a week of rain and warm weather.


The mustard greens have sprouted, and they're growing fast. The green onions, we're still waiting on.


The first thing we get every spring, though, is the wild mint all over our yard. When some plants go nuts all over the yard, you just don't mind.

There's little better than tea steeped with a big, big sprig of mint in the bottom of the pot.

Ditto for mint juleps and mojitos -- God's gift to the liver, both.


Even the houseflies agree.

The Marlin Perkins Report

And I'll stay here, on the news set, while Jim goes around back to flush out the man-eating raccoon.

Welcome to the morning news in Michigan.

Sweet Jesus! What have we Nebraskans gotten ourselves into with all this Big Ten stuff?

On the other hand, if Michigan coons made the road trip down to Lincoln, then got loose in the studio for the Husker Baseball TV Show, it would be more excitement than Mike Anderson's squad has generated in the last two seasons.

Oh, mother of Mary!

Tired of Bevo's s***, Huskers move out

If he wouldn't be embarrassed, and I wouldn't be embarrassed, I would give Tom Osborne a bear hug right now.

Harvey Perlman, too.

They have led Nebraska fans out of Egypt land. And the hypocrites of the Big 12 Conference let our people go.

Or something like that. Like they could stop us.

I THINK Tom Shatel puts it right well this morning in the Omaha World Herald:

Goodbye, Manhattan; hello, East Lansing. Goodbye, Boulder; hello, Columbus. Goodbye, Austin; hello, Iowa City.

It was a big day, the biggest day, and nobody was bigger than Harvey Perlman and Tom Osborne.

The chancellor and athletic director/legend-at-large put on a show at the regents meeting. They laid it all out. And while they were at it, they laid out Missouri and Texas. It was powerful. It was clinical. Nebraska, eerily quiet all these weeks, finally spoke up and turned up the volume for all the Big 12 to hear.

Perlman called out Mizzou for being the one to start the expansion circus.

Osborne talked about schools in the Big 12 that were asking NU to stay and all the while selling themselves to not one, not two but three other leagues.

Perlman said the Big 12 presidents wouldn't commit to staying in the league if Colorado and Missouri both left.

And then, in a downright delicious passage, Perlman talked about calling Texas' bluff. And how he asked Texas to commit its TV rights to the Big 12 if it was serious about the league, and how Texas declined.

Brilliant, Harvey. The Steve Pederson years are now forgiven.

Then, finally, the money quote from Osborne: “One team leaving does not break up a conference. Two teams leaving does not break up a conference. Six teams leaving breaks up a conference."

Boom. They should engrave those words on a plaque, or on the side of Memorial Stadium. Maybe put them on the final Big 12 football trophy.

AND THAT, boys and girls, is how a lot of us have become something we never really considered until now -- Big Ten fans. Happy Big Ten fans.

Goodbye Big 12. And good riddance.