They're funny that way

Sorry.

Your Daily '80s: History repeats itself, almost

March 30, 1981.

Now President Reagan.

Here's some coverage from ABC television.

Meanwhile, on Dallas TV

WFAA television in Dallas. Nov. 22, 1963.

A day in November in 1963

It's a big day in Dallas-Fort Worth this late November day in 1963. The president, vice president and first lady are in town.

WBAP radio is providing complete coverage of the presidential visit. An exciting day in the history of any city, to be sure!

North Texans will long remember this Nov. 22, I'll bet.

All we need is sex

We didn't die before we got old after all, and that's a real bummer, maaaaaaan.

An Associated Press poll finds that the generation that gave us the sexual revolution now wonders whether that's all there was once the passion fades and your freak flag, as often as not, hangs limp waiting for a mighty wind:

Faced with performance problems, menopause blues and an increased mismatch of expectations between the sexes, middle-aged Americans are the unhappiest people of all when it comes to making love, a new Associated Press-LifeGoesStrong.com poll shows.

Only 7 percent of people between 45 and 65 describe themselves as extremely satisfied with their sex lives. And nearly a quarter of the middle-aged Americans say they are dissatisfied. Even among seniors, fewer are dissatisfied.

"Older people can learn new tricks," said Ruth Westheimer, the sex therapist better known as Dr. Ruth. Aging men and women need to work on being "sexual literate - to really know what they need, what their partner needs and how to pleasure each other," she said in an Associated Press interview.

The findings represent a stark turnaround for the group of Americans who spearheaded the sexual revolution, coming of age as birth control became readily available, premarital sex gained wider acceptance and abortion was legalized. The Many of the first victims of the AIDS epidemic were in this group.

Younger and older people report better feelings about their sex lives. Some 24 percent of middle-aged group say they are dissatisfied, compared with only 12 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds, 20 percent of those 30-44 and 17 percent of those over 65.

Perhaps the middle-aged group have given up on experimenting. A surprising number of them feel they have learned just about all there is to know about sex - nearly three in five women and half of men.

IF YOU HAVEN'T noticed before now, my generation whines about everything. Why?

I'm glad you asked. It's just that. . . .

People try to put us d-down (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Just because we get around (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Things they do look awful c-c-cold (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
We had hoped we'd die before we got old (Talkin' 'bout my generation)

This is my generation
This is my generation, baby

Why don't you all f-fade away (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
And don't try to dig what we all s-s-say (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
I'm not trying to cause a big s-s-sensation (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
I'm just talkin' 'bout my g-g-g-generation (Talkin' 'bout my generation)

NOW, WHERE did I put my glasses? I'll never find my Viagra without them.

Your Daily '80s: Ain't dere no more

March 17, 1980. Broadcasting magazine. The Mutual Broadcasting System -- "The World's Largest Network" -- heralds its affiliation with 1050 WHN, New York City's only country station.

July 1, 1987. WHN drops country music, as well as its vintage call letters, to become sports-talk WFAN. In 1988, WFAN would move to 660 on the New York dial, ending the historic tenure of WNBC.

Aug. 31, 1998. Mutual's now-owners, Westwood One, shuts down the Mutual newsroom in Arlington, Va., merging its operations into that of its affiliated CBS Radio.

April 18, 1999. The last newscast under the Mutual name is aired.

May 7, 2002. New York's last country-music radio station, Y-107, changes format. New York has been without a country station since.

Sic transit gloria radio. Bee doop.

Texas A&M-Nebraska: Behind the scenes

Football fans, particularly of the Husker variety, were mystified at how a clean hit on the Aggie quarterback could magically turn into a late hit, and how Nebraska tight end Ben Cotton could get 30 yards of personal-foul penalties for trying to stop an A&M player from grabbing his junk.

This unfathomable mystery nearly drove Coach Bo Pelini mad with frustration on the NU sideline. Hell, I know that watching this trademark Big 12 fiasco on television in the comfort of my Omaha home had me yelling obscenities even I seldom use.

And that's saying something.

Well, I think I have the answer. I was searching the Internets up and down for some elusive enlightenment, and I came across this -- the secret behind-the-scenes Big 12 Conference video meant for its secret archives in Irving, Texas.

Now it's all so clear.

Rest in peace . . . dahlin!

If you're from my neck of the woods, I can say one word, and you'll know exactly who I'm talking about.

Dahlin!

Of course, I'm talking about Price LeBlanc, the king of cars in greater Baton Rouge. I remember when he'd hawk Ramblers, then American Motors, then Chryslers and Plymouths, then Toyotas from a spare studio with a simple curtain backdrop and a couple of his products parked behind him.

And he'd give you free country sausage if you came in to the dealerships in St. Gabriel and Gonzales.


I ALSO remember, back in the 1980s, a night of seafood and drinking at the old Cotton Club just north of LSU, but only because Price paid a visit to the bar and proceeded to visit with everyone in the place, leaving them with his trademark "Dahlin!"

Price LeBlanc was the king of cars in Baton Rouge, all right. And now the king is dead.

Long live the king.

The Advocate carried the sad tidings to his subjects Saturday morning:

Price LeBlanc Sr., longtime Baton Rouge businessman and owner of several car dealerships, died shortly after 6 p.m. Friday, his family confirmed.

He was 88.

LeBlanc died peacefully of natural causes, surrounded by his family, said his son, Price LeBlanc Jr.

The elder LeBlanc was well-known as the namesake for his car dealerships, which became synonymous with its trademark catchphrase “dahlin” ending each of its commercials.

The elder LeBlanc added the familiar slogan in honor of his mother, who often used the endearment, his son said.

Price LeBlanc Sr. was a life-long resident of St. Gabriel, where he started with a cattle business career after graduating from Spring Hill College in Mobile, Miss., his son said.

He made the switch from livestock to cars in 1954, and opened his first dealership in 1969, the younger LeBlanc said.

“He had a way of relating to people, a common touch, that he could bond with anyone from any walk of life,” he said. “That’s what he’s leaving behind with us.”

NO, THERE will never be another Price LeBlanc. I'll bet you a Toyota and a damn case of country sausage on that one.

Dahlin!

Your Daily '80s: Eurovision schlock contest

Bucks Fizz of the United Kingdom won the 1981 Eurovision Song Contest with this.

I blame it all on socialism. Or something.

3 Chords & the Truth: Sultry, swanky, sweet

If you've spent any time lately listening to commercial radio -- for instance, you've just been released from a CIA torture chamber or, perhaps, Mexican drug lords wanted to find out where you hid their stash, man -- boy, are you going to need this.

"This," of course, is 3 Chords & the Truth, otherwise known as the Big Show.

And that, of course, is the mark of quality music on the Internet.

Here's a quick example of the sumptuousness of today edition of 3 Chords & the Truth: Right out of the box, we're going to be hitting the rarer side of the British Invasion, and then you're going to listen to that set of music segue into . . . well, you're going to just have to listen to find out, won't you?

OK, OK, OK. Another quick example for you, Skipper.

A LITTLE LATER in the show, we're going to launch from a little 1965 disc by Mimi and Richard Fariña, and then you get to sit in utter amazement as their electric folk stylings morph, with the succeeding tracks, into . . . naw, you're going to have to listen to find out what happens there, too.

Hang on. OK, how about this. I can let you in on this little bit of proprietary information.

See, closer to the end of the show, we're going to kick off a sultry, swanky and sometimes sweet spate of songs with a great, great number by a singer's singer -- and native Nebraskan -- Jeri Southern. You can read all about her here.

Anyway, we're going to start there and tell you a little bit about this underappreciated song stylist who's nearly been lost to the ages, and then we're going to go right into some stuff by . . . no, just can't spill the beans.

That would be wrong. Sorry to have been such a tease.

BUT IF YOU just go click on the player up yonder at the top of the page, or just click here, all will be revealed to you. I guarantee.

Really, I do.

As always, it's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

Your Daily '80s: We are devo in '87

In 1987, '80s teenyboppers cover '60s classics, and those of us reared on the original figure the country is heading for a cultural low tide.

De-evolution, as it were. Thanks, Tiffany.

Hell, if we had known where this hip-hop thing was going to end up 20 years later, we probably just would have committed hara-kiri.


Quick! A palate cleanser!

Omaha's stinking, steaming pile of recall

Sometimes, I'm so right I disgust myself.

I didn't want to be right.

But it looks like we're going to have a mayoral-recall election in Omaha. From the number of signatures, it even looks like there's a chance we'll actually throw Mayor Jim Suttle out of office.

Let the unbudgeted hemorrhage of city funds begin. Special elections ain't cheap.

Anyway, this is what I wrote here July 3, 2009:

OK, I'll start by saying this: Omaha, generally, is a city that can withstand idiot politicians without missing a beat. The Big O's new mayor, however, is going to put us to the test.

Sometime in the next four years -- if not the next four months -- I predict we'll not only cry uncle, we'll be crying "Walt Calinger." If not "Fred Conley."

AT THE TIME, I wasn't particularly enamored of the new mayor. He was not off to a good start.

He wasn't leading on budget matters, and he seemingly was doing his best to make the worst impression. And you know what they say about not getting a second chance to make a good first impression.

Well, now Jim Suttle knows what they mean, too.

If you regularly read this space, you know I've taken my shots at the mayor -- really hard shots at the mayor. Really, he did not get off to a good start in anybody's eyes.

Ironically, though, I think Suttle has been gaining his footing this year. He's been starting to lead, and he is acting responsibly on the city's budget problems, realizing we can't cut our way out of the financial thicket the city finds itself in.

The money has to come from somewhere, and in a commonwealth, that would be your pocket.

OBVIOUSLY, the spoiled teen-agers who make up way too much of the city's electorate think otherwise. But having no plan, no foresight and no clue is no excuse to call off a good temper tantrum.

No matter who has to pay for it.

Recall elections were meant to be a last resort for the electorate. Now, in this age of unending political warfare, it's a first-strike option when the chips don't fall your way. And it's deadly when wielded by people whose good sense is only underperformed by their maturity and intelligence.

I call it the downside of universal suffrage. Government of the people, by the people and for the people is only as good as . . . the people. And when the people have it in their minds to be a bunch of spoiled brats, you're kind of hosed.

But that's where we are in Omaha, by God, Nebraska. Folks seemingly have come to the conclusion that sh*tting in their own bed is how you run a city and, in that respect, they display much less sense than my dogs.

Nornally, I'd say, "Well, it's their bed." But it's not.

The recall-mad people of Omaha are sh*tting in my bed, too. And yours.

Perhaps it's time to make that fact well understood.

A simple solution to the 'anchor baby' problem

Remember when Nebraska cut off prenatal care to pregnant illegals and some other poor women?

Now the results are starting to come in some eight months later, and I think I've figured out the philosophy of "pro-life" Gov. Dave Heineman and all the other Republican defenders o' the border. It's as ingenious as it is simple.

But before I tell you what it is, why don't you get yourself up to speed with what the Omaha World-Herald is reporting today? Basically, it's that doctors are reporting levels of stillbirths they haven't seen in years and years and years among poor women:

Health-care providers for the poor have seen five stillbirths in Columbus and Omaha since March 1, when the state decided to end prenatal services for illegal immigrants, they said Friday.

The providers said they could not definitively link the stillbirths to the policy shift by Gov. Dave Heineman's administration.

But they said it was clear women had forgone or delayed the preventive care, which has been proven to head off expensive and complicated deliveries and higher long-term expenses for birth defects and special education services.

As little as $800 worth of prenatal visits, they said, can head off $5,000-a-day stays in intensive-care units for children who automatically become U.S. citizens at birth.

"It's shocking that the State of Nebraska has chosen to disregard the huge weight of medical evidence about preventative (prenatal) care," said Dr. Paul Welch, an obstetrics/gynecology physician from Columbus.

THIS IS Tea Party America. I frankly am shocked that the doctor is shocked. It's going to get worse.

Anyway, back to the story.

Advocates for prenatal care said they are already seeing some of the higher costs and poor medical outcomes associated with a lack of such care.

Rebecca Rayman of the Good Neighbor Community Health Center in Columbus said her clinic has seen four unborn babies die since March after having no stillbirths in the previous six years.

“Only God knows” whether those deaths were directly attributable to the lack of prenatal care, Rayman said. She had evidence at least one was directly linked to lack of care.

Two emergency births took place at a South Omaha clinic because women are afraid of the costs of going to a hospital.

One infant, delivered at 20 weeks of gestation, died, said Andrea Skolkin of OneWorld Community Health Centers. The infant's mother had received no prenatal care.

Skolkin joined former U.S. Rep. John Cavanaugh, who now heads an effort to improve education for the poor in the Omaha area, in asking legislators to restore the prenatal services.

“This is a domino of destruction that will follow (these children) and us,” Cavanaugh said, in terms of higher costs for special education and poorer academic performance.

“There is not one word of testimony about the positive impact of this change,” he said.

NOW THAT you've been filled in, here's Heineman's brilliant strategy -- in the sense, of course, that Lex Luthor comes up with brilliant strategies for thwarting the Man of Steel. Like I said before, its brilliance lies in its very simplicity.

There's only one sure way to keep the Mexicans, and other impoverished opportunity-seekers, from flooding across our besieged borders and overwhelming the Greatest Nation on Earth (TM). And that, children, is to make America into Not the Greatest Nation on Earth.

You stop Mexicans, etc., and so on, from "flooding the zone" by taking away any advantage we have over places like Mexico. If Mexico sucks and we suck, too, there's no percentage in risking life, limb and la Migra by sneaking across the border, now, is there?

Accomplishing this while also making sure Mexican mommas deliver more dead "anchor babies" -- and doing it all while you proclaim your "pro-life" bona fides -- is just a bit of panache that borders on showing off.

Never mind the bollocks

When a high-profile consultant in your own party starts recycling jokes he told at your expense during the 2008 campaign -- when working for your archrival -- you may be in some political peril, Barack Obama.

Especially when it's a really, really funny joke.

And even more so when it kinda, sorta has the ring of truth about it.

Then, when the White House gets all pissy and thin-skinned about a joke -- especially a good one that people think is kind of close to reality -- the butt of the joke just starts to look like a butt, period.

A rather humorless one, actually.


TAKE THIS story from CNN, for example:

Democratic strategist James Carville compared President Barack Obama to his democratic primary rival and current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Thursday, implying Obama needs to toughen-up.

"If Hillary gave up one of her balls and gave it to Obama, he'd have two," Carville said at a "Christian Science Monitor" breakfast discussion.

His comment was a response to whether Obama is taking strong enough stands on taxes and repealing the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" military policy.

Carville made a similar comment to "Newsweek" during the 2008 campaign season when he compared Clinton and Obama's toughness.

"If she gave him one of her cojones, they'd both have two," he said.

He reacted to the comment on CNN's "John King, USA" Thursday.

"If I offended anybody, I am not sorry and I do not apologize," Carville told CNN's Chief National Correspondent John King.

THE WHITE HOUSE and senior Dems, according to King in the CNN video, "are outraged tonight (Thursday)." Well, that certainly violates a basic rule of politics, and life: "When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging."

President Obama can stop digging any time now.

The proper way to handle this would be 1) not to look like something traditionally paired with "balls," and 2) step out of character and summon your sense of humor. (Like, everybody's supposed to have one of those, right?)

An example: Pop in at the daily briefing and announce to the White House press corps -- in a basso profundo voice -- that you'd just had a productive meeting with the secretary of state. A good laugh defuses much.

Face it, when the most celebrated Democratic strategist's response to reports of your outrage over his political funny is "I am not sorry, and I do not apologize," you'd best start doing all the defusing you can regarding that H-bomb in the middle of your presidency.


P.S. TO CNN: If you're going to quote somebody -- especially somebody telling a a joke -- get the quote straight. All you had to do was . . . watch the videotape. Doesn't YouTube come through your Internets tubes in the CNN newsroom?

Your Daily '80s: With this ring

About this time in 1980, Broadcasting readers were getting sold on how a program about weddings and marriage could help radio stations rake in the advertising dollars.

Thirty years later, I would imagine With This Ring is just as obsolete as 39 percent of Americans think marriage is.

A society without marriage, or at least one where the institution is about as significant as the next Harry Potter movie? (Check that, less significant than the next Harry Potter movie.)

What could go wrong?

We're all Sunnis and Shiites now

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Ilario Pantano
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Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Rally to Restore Sanity

The basics of the would-be congressman's resumé were clear enough.

Former Goldman-Sachs guy joins the Marines after 9/11, eventually ends up in Iraq as a second lieutenant.

His men stop a car seen leaving a house they were searching. Found some garden-variety weapons in the house, find nothing in the car or on the driver and passenger.

Marines search the car again, search the occupants again. Still nothing.

The would-be congressman smashes up the car. He sends the rest of his men off, has the unarmed Iraqi civilians search their own vehicle again. For some reason, he empties two clips of M-16 ammo into their backs at close range. They slump into the car.

The one which contained no weapons.

Afterward, the lieutenant slashes the tires on a car full of Iraqi house painters. After that, he places a handmade sign on the car with the two bodies inside: "No better friend, no worse enemy."

MONTHS LATER, the Marines investigate. Prosecutors charge him with murder, which could have meant the death penalty. A hearing determines there's not enough evidence to court-martial him.

The presiding officer, however, recommended a non-judicial punishment for "extremely poor judgment." He said the lieutenant, by desecrating the Iraqis' corpses with the sign, had disgraced the Marine Corps.

Then he sheds his uniform, finds Jesus, paints himself as a red-white-and-blue hero of the Iraq War, writes a book to that effect . . . then puts himself forth as a Republican candidate for Congress in North Carolina.

And that, friends, is how Ilario Pantano became a Tea Party darling and got 46 percent of the vote against a conservative, pro-life Democrat who voted against ObamaCare.

That's how he went from staring a murder rap and the death penalty in the face . . . to almost getting elected to Congress. With the backing of a whole, big bunch of Republicans, including Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani.

That such a character as Pantano has gotten so far in politics is no testimony to the civic heath of North Carolina. You have to wonder what the hell is wrong with those people, frankly.

In Pantano's native New York, however, old friends and acquaintances wonder what's become of the man they once knew. These deep misgivings about the would-be congressman reverberate through the pages of New York magazine:

But to some of his old New York friends, the new Pantano is not the one they thought they knew. “Is this obviously a new and different phase in Ilario’s life? Yes. Has he made major changes in his life? Yes. Is this the guy I’ve known before? No,” said Noah Shachtman, a contributing editor to Wired magazine and a non-resident fellow of the Brookings Institution. He met Pantano at Horace Mann. “As a politico turned musician turned reporter,” Schactman added, ”I don’t begrudge anyone the right to reinvent themselves.”

Though Pantano moved to North Carolina about ten years ago, Schactman, like other New York friends who’ve kept in touch, believed Pantano a New Yorker through and through. His mother was a New York literary agent, though she now raises horses in North Carolina; his wife was a Jewish New Yorker and onetime model who posed for photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Pantano never did drugs, but he loved to dance and loved the hot nightclubs of the nineties. “He went to Mars, the Palladium, Disco 2000. “He couldn’t have gone there and possibly have had any issue with gay people,” said Alex Roy, who runs Europe by Car, a family business, and who held a fund-raiser for Pantano when he was accused of murder. “He’s changed a lot. I am pretty surprised to hear that he’s against gay marriage, considering that we have gay friends in common. He’s 180 degrees away from the person I grew up with. Maybe it’s a function of where he lives, or having served in the military. If you’re running for office it sure pays to agree with people in your district.”

Vlad Edelman, who was Pantano’s partner in a digital media business for half a dozen years, called Pantano after his New York speech against the proposed mosque. “What’s going on with your politics? I don’t recognize them,” Edelman asked. Shachtman also worried about Pantano’s fearmongering — the candidate fears a Chinese attack via Cuba, as he told Schachtman in an interview for Wired.

THERE YOU GO. Being against gay marriage is a big, big concern. Alleged war crimes? Not so much.

Likewise, giving a speech against the "Ground Zero mosque" is some kind of major faux pas, but gunning down actual Iraqi Muslims in cold blood . . . not so much.

"What's going on with your politics?" As if there were no red flags in 2004, in some God-forsaken corner of Iraq?

Screw it. You want to know what America stands for today? Nothing. Not a damn thing apart from self-righteousness, nada apart from talking a good -- albeit hypocritical -- game. That's who we are, what we're all about.

Left or right, Bohemian or Bubba, there's only one unforgivable sin in contemporary American society today -- being politically incorrect. I guess what they say is true . . . you are what you invade.

Your Daily '80s: True

Spandau Ballet was all over the charts with "True" the summer and fall of 1983 -- it hit the Billboard Top 40 on Aug. 27 and stayed there for 10 weeks, peaking at No. 4.

Not only is "True" a great pop song, it also forever will take me back to being a newlywed; it hit the Top 40 exactly one week after Mrs. Favog and I were married.

We had just moved across the country, from North Platte, Neb., to Baton Rouge, and I was heading back to LSU to finish my degree.

Good times, and a fitting soundtrack.

Maybe Lee was 'so drunk' . . . again

We have to give Lee Terry the benefit of the doubt for his support of BP's best buddy as chairman of the House energy panel. Maybe that lady lobbyist got him "so drunk" again.

Or maybe the congressman from Omaha is just such an expletive-deleted that he figures he can get re-elected no matter how much contempt he shows for justice, ordinary citizens or the environment. At least it looks that way from this article on Politico:

Eight Republicans Wednesday began circulating a letter indicating support for Texas Rep. Joe Barton in his longshot bid to lead the House Energy and Commerce committee.

Texas Reps. Ralph Hall and Michael Burgess joined with Rep. Lee Terry (Neb.), Cliff Stearns (Fla.), Joe Pitts (Pa.), Steve Scalise (La.), Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.) and John Shimkus (Ill.) on a “Dear Colleague” letter, signaling that they are recommending their “friend and colleague, Joe Barton, for the Chairman of our committee in the 112th Congress.”

“You know Joe,” the letter reads. “He has provided unyielding conservative leadership during our protracted partisan battles over cap-and-trade and health care reform.”

It’s the largest measure of public support for Barton, who is term-limited out of the chairmanship this Congress. His staunch lobbying has irked members of the Republican leadership, throwing further into doubt any chance he had at obtaining a waiver of the term limits rule.

What’s notable is that the co-signors are all members of the committee, and are drawing a clear line in the sand against Michigan Rep. Fred Upton. Furthermore, Shimkus and Stearns were both considered contenders for the gavel.

Barton’s main argument for a waiver, something Republican leadership seems averse to, is that his time as ranking Republican on the committee should not count against the term-limit rule – a point Republican leaders thinks is peripheral, and long-settled.

It’s been an ugly fight. Anonymous opposition dumps – which Barton denied having a hand in – have circulated around Capitol Hill, saying Upton is not conservative enough. The Republicans supporting Barton made that point in their letter.

IT'S CLEAR. Only two things matter in Congress anymore -- money and ideology. Matters of right, wrong, people and nation are just the detritus of the modern political process, to be discarded along with your empties after "policy discussions" with the lobbyists.

Maybe you can fool all the people all the time. Until you can't.

The question, however, is whether that "can't" moment in American history does or doesn't arrive before the "It doesn't matter anymore" moment.

TV Blow-Up, or . . . shootin' like the King

This might be the sanest thing anyone in America has done in the last year, and look what it gets the guy.

Besieged by the SWAT team.

Busted.

Written up in all the newspapers.

ALL BECAUSE of a completely sane, rational response to the politician who not only won't go away, but tells all her no-account kinfolk to come over, too. Here's what The Associated Press put out on the wires, but you be the judge:

A rural Wisconsin man blasted his television set with a shotgun after watching Bristol Palin's "Dancing with the Stars" routine Monday night, saying he was fed up with politics and Palin wasn't a very good dancer, according to court documents.

Steven Cowan, 67, of the town of Vermont, about 15 miles west of Madison, then pointed the gun at his wife, 66-year-old Janice Cowan, who escaped and called police, authorities said. A SWAT team surrounded the couple's farmhouse, and officers were able to talk Cowan out Tuesday morning after an all-night standoff.

Cowan had been drinking before he sat down to watch "Dancing with the Stars" and suffers from bipolar disorder, his wife told officers. He was charged Tuesday with second-degree reckless endangerment, and could be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

Cowan was expected to make his initial court appearance Wednesday in Madison. Online court records show that the state public defender's office was appointed to represent him, however the office said it had no record of him as of Wednesday morning.

Dane County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Elise Schaffer said Cowan works as a landlord, but that she didn't know where he owned property. He has a clean criminal record, she said.

"It's kind of sad, actually," Schaffer said.

YEAH, IT'S SAD that y'all put the poor man in jail after his spontaneous fit of rationality. That's what's sad.

But that's just my opinion. Let me know if anybody's interested in starting up a defense fund for a true American patriot.


AFTER ALL, if the King can shoot a TV set -- and get away with it -- for less provocation than a Palin, there just ain't no justice for the common man.

The '70s that I miss

When I think of the 1970s, this is the '70s in my mind and of blessed memory.

The '70s I miss is, to be sure, the bubblegum, rock and soul-flavored fun of Top-40 AM radio, but even more, it is the thoughtful and horizon-expanding world of FM radio . . . the freeform, AOR, laid-back funkiness of that cultural space between 88 and 108 megacycles.

That brief moment in broadcasting and pop-culture history when FM was a statement, not the next place to be assimilated by the forces of homogeneity.

WHEN I think of Jimmie Spheeris, the name is inseparable from "Loose Radio" in Baton Rouge, WJBO-FM, later to become WFMF.

That's the 1970s to which I sometimes desperately wish I could return. But I can't, and neither can any of us.

Dem things happen.