Lies, damn lies and Lee Terry's mailers

So this is what Rep. Lee Terry was cooking up in our nation's capital when the pretty lady lobbyist got him "so drunk."

Latch on to that excuse, Congressman. The New York Post -- no friend to your political opposition -- will vouch for you.

The other explanation for this one is that Terry is a contemptible liar -- even by Republican-politician standards -- and has no honor at all. When one speaks of "no honor at all," it's usually referencing something like blatantly slandering the opposition in November's U.S. House race in Nebraska's 2nd District.

IN A FLIER aimed at pro-life Democrats, Terry alleges that state Sen. Tom White "supports taxpayer abortion on demand." In the strange, strange world of Lee Terry, this is what constitutes supporting using "your tax dollars to pay for abortions on demand":

White on Monday described the health care reform package approved by the House as "far from perfect, but better than continuing with the status quo."

That, he said, matches the assessment of Omaha investment icon Warren Buffett as well as his own experiences as a cancer survivor and small business owner.

"Now it's time for Congress to turn to fixing the economy, getting our fiscal house in order, and restoring the economic and job growth the country so desperately needs," White said.

(Lincoln Journal-Star)

I SUPPOSE there's room for Terry to go even lower in this election battle, but I don't know whether he could stay out of jail in the process.

The "abortion on demand" slur about health-care reform goes back to the epic battle over the legislation passed in March. And, frankly, the only people who buy it are GOP pols (for obvious, and cynical, reasons), their wholly-owned subsidiaries within the politicized "pro-life" movement and the nation's Catholic bishops.

To get there, the bishops and the "pro-life" groups had to make some pretty paranoid and wild assumptions about what the legislation would do. That ground has been well covered, including on this blog.

In brief, academics who specialize in health-care law have said the Republican pols, the professional pro-lifers and the bishops are nuts if they think what Terry and his ilk slur as "ObamaCare" provides taxpayer subsidies for "abortion on demand."

To be even briefer, what we have in this electoral silly season are lies, damned lies, and whatever Lee Terry is mailing out to pro-life Democrats. Actually, we knew it was coming. It was on the Politics Daily website just the other day:

With a state unemployment rate in August of 4.6 percent (the third lowest in the nation, thanks to a booming agricultural economy) and Omaha itself at just 4.9 percent, the 2nd District has been spared much of the I'll-never-work-again despair that shapes politics in most of America.

As Lee Terry knows all too well, he represents the most hotly contested individual congressional district in the 2008 presidential election. Because Nebraska awards an electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district, the Obama campaign mounted a successful crusade to pluck off a surprise pickup in a state that has been stoutly Republican in presidential politics since 1964. Terry, whose victory margin was held to 52 percent amid the Obama upset, acknowledged with blunt honesty that the Democrats "had one heck of a ground game that got people registered and practically eliminated the Republican advantage in the district."

Comparatively inexpensive ad rates (about $75,000 a week for 1,000 gross rating points) allow White (who had $532,000 cash on hand at the June) to be competitive with the incumbent (who had $787,000 in the bank) on Omaha television. Both candidates, who went on the air late last month, have each committed to buying at least $400,000 in additional TV time before November. Terry plans to press his financial advantage through radio advertising and sending out about 300,000 mailings. For example, even though both candidates are anti-abortion in this roughly 40-percent Catholic district, the Terry campaign is readying a special direct-mail piece aimed at pro-life Democrats.

Two elements make the TV narrative here in the Omaha area slightly different than the cookie-cutter national norms. Because of the comparatively low local unemployment rate, the economic crisis that both candidates decry is the national debt rather than lost jobs. A Terry spot slammed his opponent for supporting the economic stimulus and the overall goals of the Obama health-care bill and claimed, as a result, that the difference between the two candidates was "2 trillion dollars" and that White intended to pay for it "with higher taxes and more debt." White's first ad began with the candidate starring directly into the camera and declaring, "When you look at the debt that both parties in Washington keep piling on our kids, it's just wrong."

White never identifies himself as a Democrat. Instead, in his ads he is vaguely identified as "a different kind of leader for Nebraska" and "Nebraska independence for Congress." Asked about a lack of a party label in his ads, White said candidly, "This is not a year where that's effective. Nor is it ever. You have to understand in my whole career, I have never run as a Democrat. The legislature is entirely non-partisan."

A national Republican strategist calls the 2008 bank bailout vote "the one symbol of anti-incumbency that has a chance of working against incumbent Republicans." Small wonder that Tom White has gone after his rival for his vote in favor of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) in an ad that claims "Washington politicians like Lee Terry . . . voted for wasteful spending like the Wall Street bailout." Asked about the TARP vote, Terry said, "I really thought it would cost me the [2008] election."

AND I GUESS we all knew Terry would go as low as he did in slurring White as a radical pro-abort. All we had to do was remember what the Republicans threw at Jim Esch in the fall of '08.

White certainly figured Terry's GOP slime machine was warming up. Just after the Terry mailer hit this pro-life Catholic Democrat's mailbox this afternoon, this robocall from White hit my answering machine:


I SECOND that emotion.

And I grieve for the truth, murdered yet again by a "pro-life" politician who will do -- and say -- any damnable thing to keep sucking at the taxpayer teat on Capitol Hill.

Afghanistan Now

Wasilla?

One of the "Afghanistan Now" suspects is a soldier from Wasilla?

I guess Sarah Palin not only can see Russia from up there in Alaska, but My Lai, too.

Here's something from ABC News that only reinforces the view that Afghanistan is the new Vietnam War. In every way that made the Vietnam War the Vietnam War:

Dressed in a t-shirt and Army shorts, a 22-year-old corporal from Wasilla, Alaska casually describes on a video tape made by military investigators how his unit's "crazy" sergeant randomly chose three unarmed, innocent victims to be murdered in Afghanistan.

Corporal Jeremy N. Morlock is one of five GI's charged with pre-meditated murder in a case that includes allegations of widespread drug use, the collection of body parts and photos of the U.S. soldiers holding the Afghan bodies like hunter's trophies.

All five soldiers were part of the 5th Stryker Combat Brigade, of the 2nd Infantry Division, based at Ft. Lewis-McChord, Washington. In charging documents released by the Army, the military alleges that the five, Staff Sgt. Calvin R. Gibbs, Spec Adam C. Winfield, Spec. Michael S. Wagnon II, Pfc. Andrew H. Holmes and Morlock were involved in one or more of three murders that took place between January and May of this year.

Lawyers and family members of the soldiers say they all intend to fight the charges.

An Article 32 hearing for Morlock, the military equivalent of a grand jury, is scheduled later today at Fort Lewis-McChord, Washington.

On the tape, obtained by ABC News, Morlock admits his role in the deaths of three Afghans but claims the plan was organized by his unit's sergeant, Calvin Gibbs, who is also charged with pre-meditated murder.

"He just really doesn't have any problems with f---ing killing these people," Morlock said on tape as he laid out the scenario he said the sergeant used to make it seem the civilians were killed in action.

"And so we identify a guy. Gibbs makes a comment, like, you know, you guys wanna wax this guy or what?" Morlock told military investigators during an interview videotaped in May at Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan.

The corporal said Gibbs gave orders to open fire on the civilian at the same time Gibbs threw a hand grenade at the victim.

"He pulled out one of his grenades, an American grenade, you know, popped it, throws it, tells me where to go to whack this guy, kill this guy, kill this guy," Morlock told the investigators.

Morlock said Sergeant Gibbs carried a Russian grenade to throw next to the body of the dead Afghan, to make it seem he was about to attack the American soldiers.

The corporal said he opened fire as directed, fearful of not following Gibbs' orders.

"It's definitely not the right thing to do," Morlock told the investigators. "But I mean, when you got a squad leader bringing you into that, that type of real, that mindset, and he believes that you're on board with that, there's definitely no way you wanted him to think otherwise."

The investigator asked Morlock, "Because you felt maybe the next shot might be coming your way?"

"You never know. Exactly," answered Morlock. "I mean Gibbs talked about how easy it is, people disappear on the battlefield all the time."

YOU KNOW, our young barbarians are out there in their own personal Heart of Darkness fighting the Taliban's young barbarians, and the only difference I'm seeing here is that the Taliban's young barbarians a) at least aren't violating the Uniform Code of Military Justice, b) rules of engagement, or c) the Geneva Convention, because they don't have a) or b) and didn't sign on to c).

So who's worse? Their barbarians, who don't know any better but come from a land where life is cheap . . . or ours, who are supposed to know better but operate with minds rotted by violent video games, violent music and a society where life is cheap?

Empire's a bitch. Ask Joseph Conrad.

Or Francis Ford Coppola.

KLMS: It hit Lincoln right

OK, that was a snotty Omaha-centric remark about Lincoln and KLMS in the previous post. Mea culpa.

As my penance, here's a lot of really cool information about KLMS via a Nebraska Broadcasters Association tribute to the guy who ran it for so long, Lee Thomas.

Your Daily '80s: KLMS!

Down the road a ways from Omaha, in Nebraska's capital city of Lincoln, there once was a Top-40 blowtorch, KLMS.

KLMS was no KOIL, but then again, Lincoln is no Omaha. (What the hell did you expect me to say, Lincolnites?) But rock it did, once upon a time, and now those days when radio was radio are lost to the ages.

But echoes remain, like these 1980 commercials gleaned from YouTube.

And sports-talk KLMS, still hanging out on 1480 AM, gently weeps.

Good advice, like history, repeats itself

Extremists in politics, hunting for communists, trawl for votes on an ocean of fear.

Soon enough, we see that these demagogues will stop at nothing, just so long as the consequences make folks more fearful, more angry and looking to them for protection against . . . Them.

Soon enough, some journalist calls them on it. And then, the response to the allegation becomes another opportunity to throw red meat to the booboisie.

And the accuser is thrust into the ranks of Them.

Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Tea Party Patriots, Sen. Joseph McCarthy . . . they're pretty much all the same. And how do you deal with them when they try to turn you into Them?

Above is the advice the editors of Broadcasting-Telecasting had in the edition of April 12, 1954. It was good advice in the context of 1954 and Federal Communications Commission "equal time" requirements for broadcasters.

It's good advice now, too. We just need to adapt the principles to the age of the Internet and cable news channels.

Pigs do it . . . dogs do it. . . .

Back in the olden days of Midwestern radio, a "Barn Dance Frolic" was a hillbilly-music program that aired Saturday nights on WHO out of Des Moines, Iowa.

Today in American high schools, including all across the great American midriff, what you see on the dance floor might also be described as a "barn dance frolic." As in, "Pigs do it, cows do it, even dogs and sheep do it . . . OH MY GOD, BILLY AND MARY ARE DOING IT IN FRONT OF THE WHOLE SCHOOL!"

Well, not exactly. Genitalia remain covered, and the kids call it "dancing."

AND RIGHT HERE in River City, the Omaha World-Herald is talking about how it's giving high-school administrators fits:

The dance style known as grinding — pelvis to pelvis gyrations, typically with the boy behind the girl — has grown popular at high school dances, but several school administrators say it's indecent.

With homecoming season in full swing at Omaha-area high schools, administrators are employing a variety of tactics aimed at cleaning up dirty dancing.

“Every school needs to stop this,” said Jonna Andersen, principal at St. Albert Catholic School in Council Bluffs, who cracked down for this year's homecoming dance.

Andersen warned students ahead of time that they must dance face-to-face, and if they didn't, the music would be stopped. Letters went home alerting parents to the rules, and administrators enlisted help from the homecoming court to encourage students to abide by them.

School officials were concerned about how students might respond, and planned to stop the dance if they didn't comply, she said. But the dance a week ago ended up well-attended, students followed the rules, and they reported having a good time, Andersen said.

ONE MIGHT say that if Catholic schools are having to tell their teenagers that dancing like you're doing it "doggie style" is morally problematic and not decent for public consumption, something has gone horribly wrong with Catholic catechesis and moral training -- both at school and at home --in the preceding decade.

Of course, one also might say that's obvious, so why bring it up? I dunno, maybe it's because "obvious" stroked out and died about 20 years ago. Back to the story. . . .

Although it's nothing new for young people's dancing to alarm the older generation, Lincoln Southwest High School Principal Rob Slauson said the current trend in dancing goes “way beyond” the days of Elvis Presley gyrating his hips on stage. The students are “simulating sex,” he said.

“We're talking about a situation now where the young lady is facing away from the man, and at times she's putting her hands on the floor, raising her rear end,” he said.

“And in some dances, the girls are wearing short skirts and the guys actually pull the skirts up while they're dancing. And then there's contact between her groin area and his groin area.”

Chaperones have a difficult time policing the dances when students form a circle in the middle of the dance floor and the adults can't see what's going on, he said. High school dances can attract more than a thousand students.

Slauson said he warned students about their dancing before last year's prom. Although the situation improved, they still resisted, he said.

School officials last June decided to step up their response and prohibit guests from other schools at Southwest's dances, with the exception of prom. It's easier for school administrators to discipline their own students than those from other schools, he said.

Slauson said the policy was a “shot across the bow” to let students know the administration was serious about cracking down.

METHINKS "shots across the bow" aren't going to touch on the larger problem -- including what these school administrators are going to be dealing with next year as their student bodies continue to marinate in this sort of cultural stew.

(NOTE: The first "how to" video probably is safe for work. The following teenage application of "grinding" principles definitely isn't -- in fact, it's what we Catholics call a "near occasion of sin." I wouldn't advise watching any more than necessary to get the idea of what kids find acceptable on the dance floor.)




MY FIRST reaction to this stuff is "They have to teach dry humping?"

My second reaction is that what ordinary folk used to consider public indecency -- and still would be considered sexual harassment in the workplace -- is what kids today consider "normal," which pretty much is the end of the line of what we consider (or at least once considered) "civilization."

Folks, this isn't just another instance of kids "pushing the envelope" and scandalizing the old folks. That ended somewhere short of dry humping.

This is flat-out simulated sex, and the only place to go from here is the real thing.

In public.

At your kid's high school.

Perhaps with your kid.

SO, DON'T GIVE me that crap about Boomers scandalizing the folks with the bump, and bobby-soxers scandalizing great-grandpa by doing the jitterbug. Nobody ever found condoms on the floor after the high-school hop back when TV would only show Elvis Presley from the waist up.

The condoms-on-the-floor thing came from this MSNBC story in February.

What we're dealing with here is mass abandonment of human dignity -- the continuing objectification of human beings, if you will. When you're "grinding" little Susie on the dance floor, you're not enjoying the company (or the beauty) of a wonderful girl with a sparkling personality and winning smile. Instead, you're getting what jollies you can in public with a butt and a vagina -- albeit covered (for now) -- that happen to have a torso, head and legs attached.

For young women, substitute the appropriate male "features."

(Please. Don't give me that bull about it being "not sexual." I'm not an idiot, and I understand the physiology of, and the stimuli involved with, sexual intercourse.)

Back about the time of the fall of Rome, in a Christmas homily, Pope Leo I reminded the faithful of who and what they were:

Christian, remember your dignity, and now that you share in God’s own nature, do not return by sin to your former base condition. Bear in mind who is your head and of whose body you are a member. Do not forget that you have been rescued from the power of darkness and brought into the light of God’s kingdom.

THAT'S JUST so much history. Leo the Great has been dead for millennia, and now so is dignity.

And judging by the cultural evidence surrounding us, we even regard ourselves as nothing more than exceptionally intelligent farm animals. Who engage in "barn dance frolics."

If I were a school administrator, I'd be tempted to break up the "freak dancing" with the strategic application of a cattle prod.

It's the only thing animals understand, after all . . . and it's not like the kiddies could complain that I was offending their dignity. That, they -- we -- discarded a while back.

Your Daily '80s: The Gerry Todd Show

Welcome back to Your Daily '80 . . . with an "s" this time, because why not mine the whole darned decade for tasty nuggets, right?

This time on Your Daily '80s, we check in with what was going on in the world of TV comedy. One big thing that was going on was SCTV, and the debut of "The Gerry Todd Show" skit.

SCTV's May 1981 unveiling of the all-night TV "VJ," sitting at the switcher and racking up all the most popular music videos was significant in a couple of prophetic ways.

One, it preceded the debut of MTV in August 1981 by several months. Yeah, we all saw it coming. By 1981, music videos were nothing new -- a 24-hour channel to air them was.

Two, and this was more prescient -- albeit in a really, really warped way -- the "Tom Monroe" videos on "The Gerry Todd Show" were eerie prefigurements of Paul Anka covering Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

Your Daily '80

This is Your Daily '80.

(Hey, you think this should be a daily feature, or what?)

Today's edition of Your Daily '80 features Split Enz, and their single "I Got You." That this is one of my favorite songs ever is merely coincidental.

Enjoy.

Tomorrow: Better than today

After posting this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth -- what with my paean to the '80s and "colortinis" -- I got to thinking about the late, great Tom Snyder and his Tomorrow show.

The wasn't anyone the man hadn't interviewed, I don't think. And it was always a late, late show event when he did. Above, we see Snyder with John Lennon on 1975.


AND THEN, with Lennon's producer for Double Fantasy, Jack Douglas. The date: Dec. 9, 1980.

John Lennon had just been murdered the night before.

Douglas said the former Beatle had had a message for people at the dawn of the 1980s.

I think the first single off the album, which was called "Starting Over" -- which we picked while we were doing the album -- was the feeling that he wanted to have for the '80s . . . that we are, in fact, in the '80s, that we are starting over. That it's time to be optimistic about the future. That it's time to write off George Orwell and 1984.

It's time to forget about those things, that in '84, that we can have what we want if we work together and for ourselves.

I MISS an age when we could be so hopeful. Naively hopeful, but hopeful nonetheless.

That was such an improvement over the anger, strife, name calling and hopelessness we wallow in today.

Come back John Lennon.

Come back, Tom Snyder.

We've forgotten how to hope. And we've forgotten how to have a meaningful -- and civil -- conversation. We long to sit back, relax and watch the pictures, now -- hopeful pictures -- as they fly through the air.

3 Chords & the Truth: Sick of the 2000s

Fire up the Tom Snyder videotapes, hand me a colortini and make the postmodern world go away.

I'll take the economy size Box o' 1980s, and you can keep the change. Oh . . . before you go, can you take this box of 2010 out to the dumpster for me? Thanks.

Well, that pretty much sums up the thrust of my thinking as 3 Chords & the Truth reappears after a week off. Last week, I tried to actually get back to the 1980s -- and 145 pounds -- but it didn't work out.

SO . . . here we are, making do with a sublime '80s New Wavish set, and then sprinkling in some other vintage deliciousness for good measure. I hope it meets with your pop-culture approval.

At any rate, this week, the Big Show is the place to go to forget how outraged you are at . . . everybody. It's the place to go to forget radio consisting of 10 bad songs in a row with no actual human being within earshot.

It's the place to go to forget radio consisting of 10 bad songs in a row with no actual human being within earshot.

It's the place to go to forget radio consisting of 10 bad songs in a row with no actual human being within earshot.

It's the place to go to forget radio consisting of 10 bad songs in a row with no actual human being within earshot.

It's the place to go to forget radio consisting of 10 bad songs in a row with no actual human being within earshot.

-- FATAL ERROR ON HARD DISK 0. PRESS F1 TO CONTINUE --

SORRY . . . the automation computer went on the fritz. The budget for live program hosts disappeared in 'o8. Fixed it as fast as I could.

See, I told you the 2000s suck.

Which is why we're, to a large extent, ditching them on 3 Chords and the Truth this week.

And when we need to, we can go hide out there for a while. Join me, won't you?

Where I'm going -- where the Big Show is going -- Tom Snyder still lives. He's still interviewing original punks amid a cloud of smoke.

No one has heard of Rush Limbaugh. Lady Gaga hasn't been born yet. And a tea party is what genteel ladies have on a lazy afternoon. There are better times out there, if only in the memories of old farts like myself.

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

Sick of Suttle? Vote for the San with the plan

Omaha always has loved a good joke.

Take the court jesters trying to recall Mayor Jim Suttle, for example. About a third of the steering committee doesn't even live in Omaha, couldn't vote for the mayor and certainly can't vote to recall him.

But they can tell you to. Now, that's funny.

Almost as funny as a bunch of slumlords property owners and greasy-spoon hash slingers restaurateurs trying to oust a mayor 14 months into his term, all because he's raising taxes, all because the city's broke. Oh . . . and because he hasn't gone beyond the past two years of budget cutting to decimate city services in ways the recall folks thus far have failed to specify.

Folks, that's comedy.

BUT WAIT . . . there's more. If the "concerned citizens" garner enough signatures, the recall election will cost $250,000 to $300,000 Omaha doesn't have.

And if voters give Suttle the ol' heave-ho, taxpayers could be on the hook for another $300 grand -- $600 grand if there's a runoff. Like I said, Omahans love a good joke.

Sometimes we elect them. Other times, they ride in to tickle our funny bones unbidden.

Undoubtedly, recalling a mayor a year and a half into his term -- barring some high crime or misdemeanor -- is funny.

That non-Omahans are leading the charge is even funnier.

Racking up huge deficits to recall a mayor because he allegedly is taxing and spending too much . . . by God, that's getting pretty near pee-your-pants hilarious.

BUT IT'S ALL missing a certain something -- a coup de grace of ridiculous hilarity, so to speak.

That why, if the prairie Jacobins manage to oust Jim Suttle, I say we throw out the unintentional comics and let the professionals take over.

If Suttle's not our man, let's dig up San.

I'm talking about Dr. San Guinary, the late host of Creature Feature, the late-night horror movie on Channel 3 back in the day. That's the great thing about green-ghoul mad scientists -- being dead since 1988 is no obstacle to getting the job done.

Or undone, as the case may be.

Besides, it all makes sense. First, a funny mayor is a definite plus when something funny is definitely going on.

And second, this wouldn't be San Guinary's first time at the rodeo -- the Green One ran a spirited campaign for Omaha mayor in 1976 when Ed Zorinsky resigned to become Nebraska's junior U.S. senator. After drawing major celebrity endorsements in his bid to be interim mayor, he was unfortunately edged out by Robert Cunningham under, I am told, questionable circumstances.

FINALLY, San is just the man to bring stability to city hall in unsettled political times. There will be no attempt to scupper a San Guinary administration; there will be no flak from the City Council; there will be no recall attempts.

The new chief of staff, Igor, would make sure of it.

Happy bicentennial, y'all!

Two centuries ago today, rebels did what rebels do to the Spanish garrison at Baton Rouge, and the West Florida Republic was birthed after a brief, vicious firefight.

Happy bicentennial, y'all!

Here's a remembrance from . . . The Denver Post?

WELL, UH . . . thank you kindly!

While Texans are fiercely proud their state was once its own republic, and California celebrates the same former status on its flag, relatively few Louisianans know that a group of their forebears overthrew Spanish rule to carve out a tiny, independent nation 200 years ago. With the bicentennial coming up Thursday, historians and descendants of the rebels are hoping to change that.

"It is the most dramatic event in Louisiana history that has been so little recognized," said Sam Hyde, director of the Center for Southeast Louisiana Studies at Southeastern Louisiana University. "We have been lost to all the Cajuns and the debauchery of New Orleans, but it is a unique event that had a lasting effect on this area and others."

In the early morning hours of Sept. 23, 1810, 75 armed rebels slipped into the Spanish fort at Baton Rouge, and in what was described as a "sharp and bloody firefight," subdued the garrison. They lowered the Spanish flag and raised the Bonnie Blue Flag—a single white star on a blue field—that had been adopted for the new nation they called West Florida.

Three days later the rebels signed a declaration of independence and set up a government for the new nation that historians say included about 4,000 people.

The republic was one of three nations that joined with the United States as it expanded west during the 19th century. The others were the republics of Texas and California.

West Florida achieved its goal—annexation by the United States—74 days after independence, said archivist Betty Tucker of Zachary, La.

Historians generally agree the republic included 8 Louisiana parishes still known as the Florida Parishes, and those completed what became the state of Louisiana in 1812.

"They were English speaking people, several were Tories, and they were sick of Spain," Tucker said of the rebels. "You had to be Catholic (under the Spanish), they had no rights, no vote. They were planning to join the United States from when they started their secret meetings in 1805," she said.

The rebels had also originally claimed all Spanish territory extending east through Mississippi to the Perdido River, which separates Alabama and Florida. But their ambitious attempt to seize Mobile, Ala., failed, and Hyde said people living in those areas outside of Louisiana never actively rebelled.

On Thursday, ceremonies marking the 200th anniversary of the revolt will be held at Old Fort San Carlos in Baton Rouge and a flag-raising is set at the St. Tammany Parish Courthouse in Covington. On Jan. 10, 2011, the bicentennial of the annexation of West Florida will be celebrated at State Capitol Park in Baton Rouge. Neither Mississippi nor Alabama are planning West Florida commemorations.

West Florida's residents were mostly farmers and tradesmen of Scottish and English descent. Its leaders dealt harshly with opponents to either independence or U.S. annexation.

"It was pretty violent," Hyde said. "In one case a man was burned alive."

Patriotism today

Once, "patriot" meant something.

Now, when you see something on Facebook along the lines of "Sometimes your driving in traffic and you come across an American PATRIOT!" the word means something else entirely.

For one thing, it may mean that the person throwing around "patriot" has little command of English grammar. For another, in this context "patriot" now means "Angry half-wit who puts stupid and tasteless s*** on his pickup and wrecks a perfectly good paint job in the process."

It's just another small step in defining perfectly good English words and phrases down to something more idiotic than previously. For instance, "patriot" now is a euphemism for "crank," just as "make love" has become one for "rut."

Geez, about the only word that means what it always has is . . . yeah, that one.

The sexual apostates

The Catholic Church has taught some basic things about human nature and moral theology quite clearly, quite consistently for a very, very, very long time.

From the beginning, in fact.

And in our Western society, with our tradition of freedom of conscience, one is free to disagree with what the Catholic Church teaches. One is also free to leave it if its teachings so offend one's moral, theological or philosophical sensibilities.

Unfortunately, that kind of intellectual honesty got lost somewhere after the Counter-Reformation. Leading the way in this profound intellectual dishonesty -- some might call it subversion -- are "Catholic" academics.

Two of them are mainstays of the theology department at Creighton University here in Omaha. Creighton is a Catholic school, meaning loosely that it is a place where many Catholic teenagers go to abandon their faith altogether or, perhaps, replace it with some quasi-Gnostic, self-gratifying facsimile thereof.

This brief background explains my amazement -- and glee -- that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops finally has stood up and taken down a couple of apostates within -- those who, ensconced inside the Catholic establishment, try to subvert everything Catholicism has stood for more than 2,000 years. And this academic, theological dismantling of the "work" of Creighton professors Todd Salzman and Michael Lawler is something to behold.

FEW WILL, though, because modern America -- and, indeed, the modern church -- is allergic to deep discourse, and such an involved fisking of The Sexual Person: Toward a Renewed Catholic Anthropology cuts against the grain of today's McNews and McThought. Here's a bit from the USCCB press release today:

In the statement, "Inadequacies in the Theological Methodology and Conclusions of The Sexual Person: Toward a Renewed Catholic Anthropology," the Committee asserts that the authors of The Sexual Person "base their arguments on a methodology that marks a radical departure from the Catholic theological tradition" and "reach a whole range of conclusions that are contrary to Catholic teaching."

The Committee concluded that "neither the methodology of The Sexual Person nor the conclusions that depart from authoritative Church teaching constitute authentic expressions of Catholic theology. Moreover, such conclusions, clearly in contradiction to the authentic teaching of the Church, cannot provide a true norm for moral action and in fact are harmful to one's moral and spiritual life."

The views of the two professors previously came under episcopal censure in 2007, when Archbishop Elden Curtiss, then archbishop of Omaha, published a notification in his diocesan newspaper regarding the conclusions of two articles by these professors.

Archbishop Curtiss wrote: "In these articles, Professors Lawler and Salzman argue for the moral legitimacy of some homosexual acts. Their conclusion is in serious error, and cannot be considered authentic Catholic teaching." When in 2008, Salzman and Lawler published their book, The Sexual Person, Archbishop Curtiss wrote to the Committee on Doctrine asking for assistance. After studying the book and conferring with Archbishop Curtiss's successor, Archbishop George Lucas, the Committee decided that the most effective way to address the problem presented by the book was to prepare a statement on the problematic characteristics of its methodology, which leads the authors to a number of conclusions that contradict Catholic moral teaching.

IN BRIEF, the bishops concluded the Creighton professors stretch the meanings of historical context and natural law to the breaking point, so that any interpretation of the demands of scripture and tradition can be transmogrified into "Do what thou wilt."

Needless to say, this take on moral theology might well be more at home in the Church of Satan than it is within any historical understanding of Catholicism -- or, indeed, Christianity itself.

I'm not used to saying this, but . . . good on the bishops.

Likewise, Salzman and Lawler, in their work, elevate personal experience to the level of scripture, natural law and tradition in deciding what is right, and what is sinful . . . that is, if the concept of "sin" even exists in their moral universe, such as it is.

Well, I have some personal experience with Professor Salzman. And I think my personal experience -- elevated, as he would have it, to the level of dogma -- might serve to illuminate how, in the name of "compassion," he and his ilk are more than willing to use the tragedy and pain of ordinary Catholics struggling to be faithful to their church's teaching . . . use it against those ordinary Catholics, all in the name of "liberating" those "oppressed" by the cruel vagaries of "traditionalist" Catholic doctrine.

IN THAT LIGHT, I resurrect something I posted here in January 2008. Then, I called it "I am legend."

* * *

On Christmas morning, our little house bustles with the ghosts of children who never were.

They play tug of war with the ghosts of long-dead dogs and listen to stories of "way back there then" from grandparents who live only in memory. Then we all open presents never bought, tearing through brightly colored wrapping paper that never left its cardboard tube.

And someone always plasters someone's non-existent hair with non-existent bows.

THIS CHRISTMAS, the missus and I sit down for a late supper -- the two of us -- at a table built for six as the old radio on the bookcase plays carols about a holy infant, a mother and child, on some far-away station.

Through nearly 25 years of marriage, we have come to love one another more and more deeply, and we have learned to be thankful for the blessings that are ours. But after years of infertility, then cancer surgery that took a question mark and turned it into a period, we are haunted by the ghosts of our beloved children who never were.

My wife loves babies. She has an infant-seeking radar that will guide her to every small child in a room and have it in her arms as soon as Mama or Daddy will unhand the child. Most people don't realize what a remarkable thing it is to take such grief over what never was and turn it into such love of what is.

Even if "what is" belongs to someone else.

For years, we have volunteered with our church's youth group. And for a while now, we've been going to the weddings of kids the same age as our ghosts, then watching them have their own children.

So the years spin by and now the boy is twenty
Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true
There'll be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty
Before the last revolving year is through

And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return, we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

I NOT ONLY cannot improve upon how Joni Mitchell describes the "Circle Game" of life, I -- and my wife -- have been doomed to not fully participate in it. My better half says there's one question she wants to ask Jesus when she dies, being that we live in a country where there's so few children even to adopt because so many parents don't want to be . . . and can make that so.

I'll bet you can guess what that might be.

We live in a society that feels free to take our pain and use it as a weapon to smash the natural law to politically correct bits. In fact, during one youth-group session, we sat there dumbfounded -- and seething -- as a "Catholic" theology professor speculated upon the possible ecclesiastical permissibility of "gay marriage" someday, on grounds that -- hey -- infertile couples can't fulfill the procreative nature of matrimony, either.

A roomful of societally brainwashed Roman Catholic teen-agers nodded approvingly.

I wanted to kill the son of a bitch. Who, naturally -- being a Catholic theologian teaching at a Jesuit university -- was impervious to objections raised on catechetical and natural-law grounds.

WELCOME TO THE LIFE of a childless, middle-aged Catholic couple in the Midwest. I don't relish this opportunity to give you a glimpse into our world. To tell you the truth, I've been writing this in fits and starts.

When you take a hot knife and dig around in an open wound, you tend not to have a lot of staying power.

This, however, finally made me do it. "This" being Rod Dreher's "Crunchy Con" post on an article (and online discussion) in The Atlantic Monthly about the apparently grim and lonely dotage we Baby Boomers will be facing.

In his post, Dreher quotes extensively from an online observation by Atlantic contributor Philip Longman:

Another relationship between fertility and aging is less obvious but also important to the future. Within the Baby Boom generation there was a pronounced disparity in birthrates. Those who remained childless or had just one or two children tended to be well educated, liberal, and secular. By contrast, the roughly 30 percent of Boomers who had three or more children tended be conservative, religious, and less well educated. Members of the later group, though only a minority of their own generation, produced more than 50 percent of the next generation.

Already, as I have argued elsewhere, this pattern in Boomer birth rates (which is much more extreme than in previous generations) has led to the country becoming more morally conservative and pro-family. As Dick Cavett once quipped, “If your parents forgot to have children, chances are you will as well.” The anti-natalism inherent in the modern liberal mindset leads to a gradual return of patriarchy, if only by default.

What does that mean for Boomers in retirement? A majority or near majority of younger Americans, having grown up in conservative and religious households, will tend to view childless Boomers through their parents eyes: as members of an irresponsible, alien tribe. Though the minority of Baby Boomers who rebelled against tradition have a hard time recognizing it, most people wind up adopting their parent’s belief systems, particularly if they become parents themselves. The apple rarely falls far from the tree. Accordingly, in the eyes of many, if not most, younger people, a Boomer without a family will be taken for an aging yuppie, a decaying narcissist, or ailing atheist—none of which stereotypes will be helpful in drawing public sympathy.

THAT'S. JUST. GREAT. If Longman is correct, the answer to "Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm sixty-four?" (or 84) may well be . . . "No!"

All because my wife and I are going to be lumped together with all of the most pathological of my fellow Baby Boomers. Accused, tried, convicted and sentenced to die "alone and unloved" by the millennials and their children.

And the ghosts of our children -- our children who were so loved but never born -- will not be able to speak to their compatriots on our behalf.

They will not be able to come back to their childhood home to visit us, and to indulge the waves of childhood memories that, alas, never will engulf them. And we will not sit down together at the family table, eating my wife's wonderful cooking.

Neither will we all gather together at the Omaha homestead for my traditional Louisiana chicken-and-sausage gumbo on Christmas Eve, and I will not tell them stories of growing up down on the bayou. And my grandchildren will not ask me, "Grandpa, why did black kids and white kids have to go to separate schools?" or "Papa, how come great-grandma grew up so poor and never got to go to school?"

I WILL NEVER GET the chance to struggle at giving them my best inadequate answer, because our children and our grandchildren are not there, and we -- my wife and I -- are incomplete.

And on future Christmas mornings, our little house will bustle with the ghosts of children who never were.

They -- and their children who never were -- will play tug of war with the ghosts of long-dead dogs and listen to stories of "way back there then" from all the grandparents . . . who live only in memory. Then we all will open presents never bought, tearing through brightly colored wrapping paper that never left its cardboard tube.

And someone always will plaster someone's non-existent hair with non-existent bows.

Then after a Christmas alone with our thoughts, and with each other, the missus and I will sit down for a late supper at a table built for six as the old radio on the bookcase plays carols about a holy infant, a mother and child, on some far-away station.

So if you're walking down the street sometime
And spot some hollow ancient eyes,
Please don't just pass 'em by and stare
As if you didn't care, say, "Hello in there, hello."

Dying for sex

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

No matter how we try and try, and then try again, to make ourselves into figurative tubs of Chiffon -- remember Chiffon? -- we crash and burn upon the rock-hard realities of "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature."

Oftentimes, this principle is demonstrated most starkly and tragically when it comes into conflict with the modern-day dogma of universal autonomy, which holds that "f***ing is an entitlement." NBC News unveiled the latest chapter of an interminable tale of hubris and woe this morning on Today (above) and on MSNBC:

Pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson may have known years ago about the deadly risks of its birth control patch Ortho Evra, according to internal documents obtained by NBC News.

Patient reports between 2002 and 2004 show that Ortho Evra was 12 times more likely to cause strokes and 18 times more likely to cause blood clots than the conventional birth control pill, NBC News' TODAY show revealed Wednesday.

When Ortho Evra first hit the market in 2002, it was a big hit. "Time" magazine called it one of the best inventions of the year and doctors have written nearly 40 million prescriptions for it. But as sales surged, so did claims of injury and even death.

Some experts say the patch is problematic because it delivers a continuous and high level of estrogen — 60 percent more estrogen than the pill. When a birth control pill is swallowed, it quickly dissolves into the system. But with the patch, estrogen keeps flowing into the bloodstream for an entire week.

"With the patch… there's no relief of the body of the woman from getting estrogen," Dr. Sidney Wolfe, Medical Director of watchdog group Public Citizen, told NBC.

Concern over the patch has led to high-level resignations at Johnson & Johnson.

In 2005, Johnson & Johnson Vice President Dr. Patrick Caubel suddenly quit, saying in his resignation letter, "I have been involved in the safety evaluation of Ortho Evra since its introduction on the market. … The estrogenic exposure [of the patch] was unusually high, as was the rate of fatalities."

His letter, which was obtained by NBC, said the research was "compelling evidence" that the company ignored. Therefore, he wrote, "it became impossible for me to stay in my position as VP."

NBC's investigation also found a lawsuit by another Johnson & Johnson vice president, Dr. Joel Lippman, who is suing the company for unlawful termination after he says he blew the whistle on the patch's dangerously high levels of estrogen, even before it came to market.

The company, he says, "disregarded his concerns and launched the product anyway."

"The company knew about much of it, if not all of it," said Dr. Wolfe. "They thought correctly that it wouldn't sell as well if you told people how dangerous it was."

NATURAL LAW isn't a popular concept in the postmodern West, but that doesn't make it any less valid. Everything has a purpose. Natural systems, and this includes Homo sapiens, have a certain economy.

Certain plants grow best within a certain environment, and humans thrive only within certain parameters -- physiologically, sociologically and morally. We don't want to hear this, however, because being fallen creatures, we want to do what we want to do.

(For that matter, we don't want to hear that we're fallen, either.)

And we'll find ways to deny the consequences of our doing exactly what we want to do. Which brings us into direct conflict with the one immutable reality of earthly existence -- "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature."


THERE WILL be consequences when you violate the law -- moral and physical. Most of them will be ugly.

In every instance, though, we're going to keep trying our damnedest (in every sense of "damnedest") to do just that. You see, in this sad case, we find that the corollary to "f***ing is an entitlement" is more important than the main point itself:

"Making billions of dollars off 'f***ing is an entitlement' is far greater entitlement than f***ing. And we'll kill you to do it."

Building empires upon the ether

In 1954, there was no brighter star on the Omaha broadcasting scene than Todd Storz' KOWH.

Back then, it was pioneering -- right here in the middle of the Middle West -- a revolutionary music format that we'd come, eventually, to know as Top-40. And everybody (or so it seemed back then) had his radio tuned to 660 on the AM dial.

KOWH was it. One KOWH contest back then had listeners searching for prize money hidden in a book at an Omaha Public Library branch. Station devotees ripped the branches -- and their books -- apart looking for the cash.

The compensation the station paid to the unamused librarians was a small price to pay for a big, big PR buzz.

Amazing stuff for a little AM station that had to sign off at sundown every day.

STORZ SOLD the little station that could in 1957. He, by now, had much bigger radio fish to fry -- 24-hour radio fish to fry -- in much bigger radio markets.

KOWH was never the same. In Omaha, the Mighty 1290 KOIL became the home of Top-40 goodness. Twenty-four hours a day.

And KOWH became KMEO. And then KOWH again. Before it was KOZN. And now it's KCRO, talking about Jesus all day long to a minuscule audience.

Jesus never gets the good formats . . . or the ratings.

Neither does 660 on your AM dial in Omaha. Because nothing lasts forever, and we're all tap dancing on thin ice.

Because it's cooler to make fun of the 'fundies'

And the question, says Carnac, is "Why are the Democrats going to lose it all?"

Seconds before tearing open an envelope bearing the question, the magnificent one had received an answer from the universal consciousness: "Because pointing out why the tea-party pol might be a crook is boring, and it won't make Democrats look cool to the bohos in SoHo."

Cue the jokes about the witch who refuses to conjure up self-love potions.

AS REPORTED in The Washington Times -- the Moonie-owned, right-wing Washington Times! -- here's the real toil and trouble allegedly bubbling in the tea-party darling's cauldron. It's a real witches' brew, and it's at risk of dematerializing amid the progressive snarkfest over the religious-right "freak":

In one of the strongest condemnations yet against the "tea party"-backed Ms. O'Donnell, the nonpartisan Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) Monday filed complaints with the U.S. attorney's office in Delaware and the Federal Election Commission accusing her of using campaign funds to pay for personal expenses and then lying about her expenditures on forms she filed with the FEC.

CREW has asked the U.S. attorney's office to start an immediate criminal inquiry and asked the FEC to conduct a full audit of all of Ms. O'Donnell's campaign expenses.

"Christine O'Donnell is clearly a criminal, and like any crook, she should be prosecuted," Melanie Sloan, CREW executive director, said in a written statement. "Ms. O'Donnell has spent years embezzling money from her campaign to cover her personal expenses. Republicans and Democrats don't agree on much these days, but both sides should agree on one point: Thieves belong in jail, not the United States Senate."

The O'Donnell campaign didn't respond to several telephone and e-mail requests for comment regarding CREW's accusations, but her campaign manager, Matt Moran, told CNN that he was "very confident that [the CREW accusations] will be dismissed as frivolous."

"And for the charges that need to be articulated fully, we have some lawyers that will be looking at that and addressing those concerns," he said.

PROVING THAT it's much better to be lucky than smart, the angry right is learning fast that with enemies like "progressives," who needs friends?