Pulitzer subito!

At the funeral of Pope John Paul II, from the sea of the faithful in St. Peter's Square, banners and chants arose, all demanding a single thing -- "Santo subito!"

"Sainthood now!"

After seeing the above bit of radical truth-telling in the Rayne (La.) Independent -- even if it was by accident, a bit of exasperated prose, "dummy type" that got left in when it shouldn't have -- I got to thinking what a wonderful thing it would be if Americans could descend en masse on Columbia University to demand "Pulitzer subito!" Because this right here, folks, would be my candidate for the first Pulitzer Prize by public acclamation.

Even if it was a glorious "mistake," much like the most famous of the genre, when The Boston Globe's backshop accidentally left the joke headline "Mush From the Wimp" on an editorial about one of Jimmy Carter's speeches on the economy.

After all, in lying times like these, I'll take a little unvarnished truth any way I can get it.

HAT TIP: Romenesko.



UPDATE: You don't get Pulitzers for great journalism anymore (no matter how unintentional). You don't get them anymore for telling the truth, either -- though some have gotten them for fabricating stories out of whole cloth.

No, that's not how it works. Instead, you get fired.

Payback by the bottle

You know how it's said that all of life is high school? Here in Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District, even the elections are high school.

Republican congressman Lee Terry and Democratic challenger John Ewing were schoolmates at Omaha's Northwest High. Ewing was a football standout, while Terry played another role for the Huskies.

According to Ewing, our nerdy member of Congress was "the water boy." Terry prefers the term "equipment manager," says the Omaha World-Herald:

The two high school friends were a grade apart. Ewing started taking digs at Terry a few months ago when he referred to the incumbent congressman as the football team's “water boy,” while Ewing was starting at tight end and defensive end.

Terry on Tuesday acknowledged he had been the school's “equipment manager” and said the race between the two would be, in his words, "interesting."

I'LL BET it will be. Whatever the case, it's pretty obvious that Mr. Touchdown never saw Revenge of the Nerds.

By November, though, I'm pretty sure the county treasurer who wants to be a Big Man of Congress will be feeling the "liquid heat"

House of hi-fi

You may be a geek if you get really excited over winning this in an eBay auction.

I am a geek, because the 1960 Voice of Music tuner (with an add-on FM multiplex adapter for that newfangled "stereo" thing) is mine. Mine! Mine! Mine! Because a radio isn't a real radio without vacuum tubes and Conelrad markers at 640 and 1240 on the AM dial.

There's only one purchase that could make me happier.


This.

But an opening bid of a little short of $1,000 is a lot more than a final purchase price of a little over $70. Champagne taste, etc., and so forth.

Go to L. ('S' and 'U' are getting pink slips)

Louisiana's governor, Huey P. Jindal, believes in robbing Peter's budget to tide Paul over until the magical thinking pays off.

Louisiana's House of Representatives believes in a meat-ax.

Louisiana's college administrators believe they're about to get screwed. Yet again. Really badly.

Etymologists, after considering the Gret Stet, believe they really need a more descriptive word than "clusterf****" to put in their Funk & Wagnalls.

The Advocate's capitol-beat writers probably believe in a couple of pops before sitting down at the laptop to depress themselves and others:

LSU System Vice President Fred Cerise told the committee that additional cuts to the state’s public hospitals would result in reductions to the programs that train doctors and other health-care professionals.

He said an emergency room training program already is facing possible accreditation problems.

“We’re going to get back a list of things that’s going to be quite dramatic,” Cerise said.

The state’s public universities could lose more than $225 million in state funds next year. Those budget cuts would be on top of the $360 million hit higher education has taken since the decline in revenues to state government began four years ago.

“We will be on the brink of cataclysm,” said Interim LSU System President William Jenkins.

If the cuts stick, LSU will be in line to lose nearly $98 million in state funding next year including a $42 million loss for the main campus in Baton Rouge, according to numbers released by the Louisiana Board of Regents.

Jenkins estimated the LSU system would also have to furlough or lay off more than 1,300 employees.

The Southern System could see two more of its campuses declare exigency next year if changes aren’t made to the HB1, said Kevin Appleton, the system’s vice president of finance and business.

The $42 million in cuts the state’s community and technical colleges are facing — $3 million at Baton Rouge Community College — means the difference between putting medical equipment in their nursing classrooms or not, Louisiana Community and Technical College System President Joe May said.

I BELIEVE that Louisiana should put up state-line road signs that warn "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."

When the captain heads for the lifeboats. . . .

When the ship's taking on water from 100 million leaks and the captain heads for the lifeboats, one can assume the next port of call will be Davy Jones' Locker.

And when that captain is Chancellor Mike Martin of the good ship Louisiana State University -- and when the governor and any number of legislators are packing icebergs and aren't afraid to use them -- optimism probably is no longer appropriate. Especially when the lifeboat Capt. Martin's about to jump into is bound for the SS Colorado State -- a lateral move at best.

Of course, it could be that Martin figures his political detractors are about to pull the plug on his tenure, and he wants to quit before he gets fired -- still not a good omen for a university that's suffered 100 million one-dollar leaks and is beset by politicians ready to poke a few more holes in the hull.

ACCORDING to The Advocate, which has been chronicling the shipwreck for some time now:

Informal talks between the two parties started in December, before getting more serious in early January when Martin said he made his first of three trips to Fort Collins, Co. [sic]

Martin said he has had only preliminary talks with CSU about the direction of the system and his compensation.

“Up until now, it’s largely been them examining me. Now I can begin to talk more deeply with them,” Martin said. “I’m going to compare the adventure I could have with them with the adventure I’m having right now at LSU.”

Martin’s time at LSU has been marked by nearly $100 million in state budget cuts. He previously said ongoing state budget cuts to LSU and all of higher education over the last three years have played a factor in his possible departure from Baton Rouge.

Martin, 65, said while his original plan was to retire when his LSU contract expires in 2013, he feels as if he as more to offer.

“The last four years I thought I’d hang it up, but I don’t feel that way anymore. There’s still some more tread on the tires.”

GOOD for Martin. I'm glad he still has tread left on the ol' four-plies.

Those about to slip under the whitecaps on Louisiana's sinking flagship university, I'm sure, would be damned happy to have even an inner tube to hang onto right now.

This is the point where one would say something about how Louisianians, and their so-called government, should be ashamed of themselves and their screwed-up priorities. One would if one thought Louisiana susceptible to shame.

It isn't.

It'll be sad when that great ship goes down.

Ach! Der tinks vee can do vitt Facebook

There are lots of conversations you could have about the whole "gay marriage" debate.

There are substantive discussions you could have pitting the secular, civil-libertarian arguments for men marrying men and women marrying women against the sociological, historical and religious reasons against such.

There is a discussion to be had about the constitutional ramifications of enshrining a vision of marriage that no one had until . . . well, the last couple of decades.

There is a lively debate to be had about upsetting something as foundational to civilization as the traditional understanding and purpose of marriage in, historically, the blink of an eye. And you could even kick around the entire "Hey, y'all! Watch THIS!" ambiance of the whole gay-marriage movement and how it has swept the globe.

WE COULD even get into how heterosexuals gravely wounded the institution with no-fault divorce, serial matrimony and the shack-up culture of the sexual revolution. We could have those discussions. Instead, this being America, which kind of looks like Weimar Germany, we can just smear our political opponents with all kinds of agitprop not dissimilar to what You Know Who deployed to great effect.

Because we all know the only reason to oppose gay marriage is bigotry or rank redneck stupidity. And if you know what's good for you, Cletus, you ignorant, hater hillbilly, you'll shut your f***ing bigoted mouth and get with the program.

Becauss vee haff veys, ja?

Right now, those "veys" are limited to being branded with a scarlet "H" -- for "hater." That and being mocked as stupid and backward.

I wonder what the rhetorical heirs of Joseph Goebbels have cooked up for Phase 2.

Excuse me while I puke

This was on Jezebel's page on Facebook.

I am happy to report that I don't read Jezebel, and happier to report that neither does my wife. But the missus is Facebook friends with someone who does read Jezebel and thought this hathotic bit of bad-art-meets-Obamadolatry was da bomb.

Frankly, a bomb is the only thing that could improve this.

Yes, as you might guess, the editors of Jezebel are happy President Obama came out of the closet in favor of an oxymoron, that being "gay marriage." They chose to express their pride in our god-king's change of heart in an amazingly (but predictably) lame and stupid manner.

I mean, really. Riding a unicorn? This looks like something out of a bad Chinese children's book.

FOR THE RECORD, I don't care what gays do or with whom they shack up. I am not the morals squad. I would not be opposed, generally, to gays entering into "civil unions." I would support the state getting completely out of the marriage business, and leaving the civil benefits of domestic partnership to a state-sanctioned civil union and the eternal benefits of marriage to the church, with the state keeping its bleeping nose utterly and completely out of it.

I don't hate gays, and some are my friends, but I have neither the ability nor the inclination to rewrite a couple of millennia of historic Christianity, a millennia and change of historic Islam, a few more of historic Judaism, and an untold swath of civilizational taboo just to offer 5 percent of the population who bear a heavy cross cheap -- and ineffective -- grace.

I guess that's why I'm not in politics.

Unlike Barack Obama, who apparently thinks -- like too many modern American presidents -- that savior of the world is an elective office. What's more disturbing is that many Americans think so, too -- and to varying degrees always have. (See artwork above.)

Or that Jesus is on the White House staff. (See artwork below.)


I THINK I just threw up in my mouth . . . a lot. I doubt that Jesus is amused, either.

Oy veh.

As dead as the American Dream

If you're from Omaha or hereabouts, remember this?

I found the little orange promotional sticker some years back on a still-sealed Three Dog Night LP at a local antique store.

KOIL once was everywhere in Omaha. It was the Top-40 powerhouse of this stretch of the Midwest.

It was the Mighty 1290.

But that was when a working man could support a family, marriage meant a little more than it does today, Americans had recently been to the moon, our longest war was Vietnam, and we talked about the American Dream sans a weary, cynical smirk.

Time marches on; old things fall away. New things take their place. Not all of them are better . . . or any g**damn good at all.

Today, KOIL is the overlooked 1180, not the Mighty 1290. Today, the automation server switches between this and that syndicated talk-radio program. Today, KOIL are four letters about which no one really gives a s***.

Today, its glories are all past, and its future isn't anything to waste time thinking about.

Yeah, I'm listening to Bruce Springsteen's latest album right now. At least The Boss is still singing our song, though a sad one it is.

Maybe someday we'll have enough of crying, and. . . .

Snooki in 2033

If you swing by the Pep Boys on Baldwin in Freeport, N.Y., the bikini-clad lady in the hot dog truck will show you her weenies, and that's OK.

But the long arm of the law on Long Island has a big problem if you return the favor to 45-year-old Catherine Scalia . . . and thus she ended up pleading guilty Tuesday to misdemeanor prostitution, which she instead insisted was merely indecent exposure.

Nude conduct, as it were.

Thus we have the remarkable case in which Lana Lee -- not Ignatius J. Reilly -- ends up hawking Lucky Dogs, but gets into trouble when one transaction ends up being for a Night of Joy. But the saddest thing about the whole thing is not having Burma Jones there to narrate.

Now where's my soiled bedsheet? We need a good banner. How about this? "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their weenies!"

I shall dub this movement the Crusade for Frankish Dignity. Hot-dog lovers of Long Island! Listen to the voice of the oppressed:

“I’m a mother of four kids and, yes, I show my cleavage," Scalia said. "I think it’s sexy. If Pamela Anderson can do it, so can I.”

The air that Cher breathes

Cher won't grow up
(She won't grow up)
It's more fun to just emote
(Lots more fun to just emote)
Learn to squawk just like a parrot
(Tweet and squawk just like a parrot)
And spew like a fireboat
(And spew like a fireboat)

If growing up means
It would be beneath her dignity to let her dumbth flow free
She'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up
Not she!
Not her!
Not she!
Not sheeeeeeeeee!

-- Apologies to Carolyn Leigh

Perspective from low Earth orbit

I heard the trailing garments of the Night
Sweep through her marble halls!
I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light
From the celestial walls!

I felt her presence, by its spell of might,
Stoop o'er me from above;
The calm, majestic presence of the Night,
As of the one I love.

I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight,
The manifold, soft chimes,
That fill the haunted chambers of the Night,
Like some old poet's rhymes.

From the cool cisterns of the midnight air
My spirit drank repose;
The fountain of perpetual peace flows there,—
From those deep cisterns flows.

O holy Night! from thee I learn to bear
What man has borne before!
Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care
And they complain no more.

Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer!
Descend with broad-winged flight,
The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair,
The best-beloved Night!

Hymn to the Night,
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

3 Chords & the Truth: Between 88 and 108

I became fascinated by radio as a kid, growing up to the sounds of Top-40 radio and those wonderful disc jockeys who kept me plied in top tunes and made my imagination take flight.

The deal was sealed, as it were, in my teen years (just before, actually) with the sounds of FM radio -- back when you were likely to hear anything on that stretch of crystal-clear ether, and usually did. These were the days when progressive and album-oriented rock lived somewhere between 88 and 108 megahertz, and whole vistas of sound were there for young ears to explore.

Almost 40 years later, I remember. This, largely, is what 3 Chords & the Truth is all about. And this is overwhelmingly what radio today sadly has forgotten.

THIS WEEK'S episode of the Big Show is yet another one where you are liable to hear any damn thing. Or at least any damn thing that's any good.

In other words, it's just like the FM stations I remember and perhaps, if you are of a certain age, you remember, too.

Two words for this edition of 3 Chords & the Truth: Vanilla Fudge.

That is all.

Enjoy the wonderful weirdness.

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

More viral, please

This video of Shepard Smith violating Fox News policy (and MSNBC policy . . . and CNN policy . . . and . . . ) by telling the unvarnished truth needs to go more viral than it already has.

That is all.

Happy are the ears that hear the Crown

There's a new monitor amp in town at 3 Chords & the Truth, and there's only one thing I really can say after getting it hooked up and going strong.

Long live the king!

My only regret is that you can't hear the Big Show as an uncompressed WAV file played on a Crown D-75A and a pair of vintage Electro-Voice Sentry 100A studio-monitor speakers. It sounds soooooo sweet.

There is no comparison to any consumer audio equipment that you're likely to find or be able to afford. I'd forgotten how spoiled you get having stuff like this in radio-station air studios and production rooms -- the old E-V studio speakers absolutely come alive when paired with the Crown amp. It's kind of breathtaking, actually.

Oh . . . I even built a little equipment rack for the Crown out of oak 1x4s, which I oiled up right nice to bring out the natural finish. Wait till I add the vintage '70s Pioneer tuner ($15 on eBay) that's on its way to Papa as I write.

Holy krispy kritters, Batman!

This woman is in trouble with the law in New Jersey.

If you ask me, that's the least of her troubles. That's the one thing I know.

What I don't know about this case is legion.

I don't know whether she feloniously dragged her daughter into a tanning booth with her, giving the kid a bad sunburn. I don't know what evidence the cops have apart from the iffy ramblings of a 5-year-old to a schoolteacher.

Just don't know. The courts will have to sort it out.

Anyway, here's the story from The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J.:

A Nutley woman pleaded not guilty in Superior Court in Newark this morning to child endangerment charges after authorities said she allowed her then-5-year-old daughter to burn in a tanning salon last month.

Patricia Krentcil, 44, who was charged April 24 after the girl showed up at her elementary school with burns, said her child instead tanned from a long day in the sun a few days before.

(snip)

Following the brief court hearing, Krentcil’s lawyer, John Caruso, called his client a caring mother who would not risk endangering her child, who is now 6.
“Patricia is 150 percent innocent,” Caruso said. “That child was never in that tanning booth. She loves that child and she would never, ever allow her child to go inside a tanning booth.”

Krentcil, who is free after posting a $2,500 cash bond, is next scheduled to appear in court on June 4.

Although the state’s Division of Youth and Family Services is looking into the charges, the child is still living with her mother and father, Caruso said.

“She’s still a mom," Caruso said. "The child is still living a normal life with her mother."

Although he did not answer questions from the media, Krentcil, who is heavily tanned, did. One such question from a reporter asked if she tanned excessively, elicited a simple answer.

“Yes,” she said.

YA THINK? As I said before, I don't know whether the woman is guilty of anything or not. Neither do I know how she hasn't come down with melanoma. But I'll tell you what I do know.

That ain't a tan. That's getting way too close to a nuclear explosion.

Eww.

The thrill ain't gone

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

I think MSNBC's Chris Matthews had a thrill going up more than his leg here.

President Obama might or might not be Henry V, but I'm pretty sure that most everyone on the cable "news" networks is Napoleon XVI.

Hey, y'all! (Hic!) Watch this!

You're drunk off your ass (allegedly).

You have no driver's license.

Because it was suspended for 10 years after your third DUI.

Your wife also is three sheets to the wind (allegedly). She's in the back of your SUV.

She's cheering on your 7-year-old granddaughter.

Whom you're towing down the street in her plastic kiddie car.

Which is attached to the SUV with a couple of dog leashes.

What the hell could go wrong?

WELL, you could get stopped by the cops, who throw your and your boozy wife's saturated asses in jail. But that's what went right.

Naturally, this occurred in south Florida. And, naturally, it made the MSNBC news headlines:

Belinda and Paul Berloni were arrested on Sunday after a deputy in a marked patrol car saw the SUV pulling a "small plastic hot wheels car" along an access road, authorities said. The vehicle was going about five to 10 miles per hour, the probable cause affidavit said.

The girl was wearing a bathing suit with no protective gear, authorities said. The toy car was attached to the SUV with two dog leashes tied to the trailer hitch, the affidavit said.

Paul Berloni, 49, smelled of alcohol and his eyes were bloodshot and watery, the affidavit said. When asked for his driver's license, he said it had been revoked for 10 years for a DUI. He also told authorities he had two or three drinks, authorities said. He later said it was more but wasn't specific, the affidavit said.

Belinda Berloni, 47, was in the cargo area with the rear hatch open cheering the little girl on, the affidavit said. She was also intoxicated and said she had a few drinks, authorities said.

She "also stated that she understood that it was dangerous to drag a child behind the vehicle but stated they were just having fun and had been doing it all day," the affidavit said.

Belinda Berloni's son, who is the girl's father, arrived and was upset with his mother. He also said that he believed they had a drinking problem that may have affected their decision making, the affidavit said.

FRANKLY, I'm wondering about Junior's decision making, which he apparently cannot blame on the bottle.

Hello, PayPal?

Click on photo for higher resolution

Yay! It's mine! Mine! All mine!

Dude, I'll PayPal you the $95 grand in a sec . . . just as soon as I take another hit off of my crack pipe.

Thank God for that. The crystal meth is starting to wear off.


I'll bet the little bitty Mexicans hanging auto parts in my hackberry tree don't have one of these!

F***in' A, they don't!

Hi-fi fries self in line of duty, once played the hits

This just in to the newsroom:

OMAHA, Neb. (INS) -- Harmon/Kardon 330C, the vintage stereo receiver deep into a second career as a monitor amp in a home production studio in this Midwestern metropolis, died in a cloud of ozone Saturday, with its right channel humming and the room stinking of toasted electronic components.

Harmon/Kardon 330C was 36 years old.

"Well, you had to figure this would happen sooner or later, using an old, second-hand receiver hours on end every day," said 3 Chords & the Truth host Mighty Favog. "I can't get mad about it; I think I got more than my $35 worth out of it over the past few years."

The dead receiver will be interred later in the week somewhere in a basement closet and will be exhumed for spare parts at a later date.

In a related development Saturday, 3 Chords & the Truth management announced that Crown 75-A -- a broadcast-industry standard monitor amplifier -- has been purchased as Harmon/Kardon's successor. Favog said it was time to call on pro equipment to do a real studio amp's job.

"Crown is the Cadillac of monitor amps," the aging program host slurred. "Those things were (unintelligible) built to go 24/7 in radio air studios, so it ought to (unintelligible) work here with no . . . problem."

The new 75-A, which Crown is discontinuing after decades of pro-audio popularity, was obtained from Broadcast Supply Worldwide for $399 -- a $622 discount from the list price as the merchant closes out its stock. Favog, somewhat distracted by the absence of Early Times from his coffee, added that he wanted to pay tribute to Harmon/Kardon for kicking the bucket at such an opportune moment.

Crown 75-A is slated to begin its studio duties sometime during the next two weeks.

3 Chords & the Truth: It's all wet; it's all good

Rain, rain go away . . . or not. I really don't care.

On 3 Chords & the Truth, the music is all good, and the company is all good, and that's all we need. The end.

What do you mean I have to write more than that?

It's cold and rainy. The music isn't. You can stay out of the bad weather and listen. We're having a fine time here in the studio. What the hell else is there to say?

What do you mean by "That sounds a little thin?"

IT'S MISERABLE outside here in Omaha, by God, Nebraska. It's all right inside . . . with the Big Show and with all the cool tunes.

It's all good. We're having fun. End of story. Leave me alone. I've got music to play.

What do you mean you don't like my attitude?

Quit being such a party pooper and a spoilsport. It's all wet -- outside -- and it's all good inside . . . except for Mr. It-Sounds-a-Little-Thin. Go. Get outside in the rain. Serves you right.

Now, my children, where were we? Oh, right. . . .

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