T e s ate of lab r to ay

Labor Day -- that 24-hour period every year when we say kind words over the bloated corpse of organized labor in America -- is over.

Now it's back to reality for the Nebras A S Ate Education Ass Ciation and other similarly discombobulated labor unions. As they say, "reality bites." In fact, it even may have consumed education's rear end.

You know what else they say: "First they came for the teachers, but I wasn't a teacher. . . ." Well, I say we're all teachers now!

Ye who labor in America, stay strong! The ass you save may be your own.

A thousand miles and a country away

This is the Louisiana state capitol in Baton Rouge.

As you can see, it's roughly the same age as and slightly resembles another of the United States' few skyscraper capitol buildings (below).


This is Nebraska's state capitol in Lincoln. It's a little shorter, a little cleaner of design and a little older than Louisiana's, but similar nonetheless.


BUT OF ALL the inscriptions on both states' sky-reaching statehouses, this one on the Cornhusker State's is one you'd never find in a million years on Louisiana's. This sentiment is fundamentally alien to the culture of the latter and, thus, to how it is governed.

You'd also never find a statue of Abraham Lincoln on the capitol grounds in Louisiana, but that's not important now.

Anyway, the thought occurred to this transplanted Louisianian as I was snapping some photos at Nebraska's capitol Saturday. I just thought I'd share because of another thought that came to me some time earlier.

You see, in those 1,100 miles between where I live now in Omaha and where I was born and raised in Baton Rouge lies a night-and-day difference in cultures, concepts of self-governance and -- for all intents and purposes -- countries. All that in a couple of days' drive and a lifetime's worth of mindset.

Funny, isn't it?

Hal David, 1921-2012

This.

Is.

Why.

Hal.

David.

Matters.

Rest in peace.

The reddest place on earth

Memorial Stadium, Lincoln, Neb.

(May Day in Red Square had nothing
on a Nebraska home football game.)

3 Chords & the Truth: Running the option

Another football season has arrived, and that brings to mind a helpful analogy for 3 Chords & the Truth.

Something about how Nebraska used to be the king of option football, about how you can't touch this . . . will he keep it . . . or pitch it . . . something something . . . yadda yadda . . . keep 'em guessing . . . just like the music on the Big Show . . . something something . . . whatever.

Brilliant timing is what makes it work . . . flexibility . . . amazing to behold . . . blah blah blah . . . 3 Chords & the Truth.

WE CLEAR on that, podna? Really, it's just as simple as can be.

It perfectly explains why this week's episode of the Big Show is so dadgum good, dadgummit! Now I'm off to watch the game.

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

Oh, no! Don't let the house fall down!

There was a crooked man and he had a crooked smile.

Had some crooked fortune and he walked a crooked mile. Had a crooked cat, and he had a crooked mouse. And after Miss Katrina, they left their crooked house.

Ah, ah! Oh, no, don't let the rain come down! Ah, ah! Oh, no, don't let the rain come down! Ah, ah! Oh, no, don't let the rain come down! My roof's got a hole in it and I might drown! Oh, yes, my roof's got a hole in it and I might drown!

And when Isaac's rain came down -- and when his wind blew hard -- the crooked, empty house came down, and the neighbors' house was jarred.

It gave those neighbor folks a start. It made their house a mess. For the crooked, empty house could not pass the acid test!

Ah, ah! Oh, no, don't let the rain come down! Ah, ah! Oh, no, don't let the rain come down! Ah, ah! Oh, no, don't let the rain come down! My roof's got a hole in it and I might drown! Oh, yes, my roof's got a hole in it and I might drown!

And then the shutterbug from New Orleans' Picayune came to snap this picture and, thus, I cribbed this tune. For a fallen, crooked house comes but once in a blue moon!

Ah, ah! Oh, no, don't let the rain come down! Ah, ah! Oh, no, don't let the rain come down! Ah, ah! Oh, no, don't let the rain come down! My roof's got a hole in it and I might drown! Oh, yes, my roof's got a hole in it and I might drown!

-- Apologies to the Serendipity Singers

Now if it had been Krispy Kreme. . . .

WAFB 9 News Baton Rouge, Louisiana News, Weather, Sports
Hurricanes can't shut down Waffle House. What's a little wind and rain?

Hell, for all I know, nuclear war and/or the Apocalypse couldn't keep the legendary short-order chain from scatterin', smotherin' and coverin' the hash browns . . . and probably anything else you desired. If hostile space aliens mounted an invasion of Earth tomorrow and came across a Waffle House, my best guess is that they'd be so busy assimilating waffles and chili-covered hash browns, they'd never get around to exterminating the human race at all.

And when they had sated themselves, they'd wobble away on their spindly, green little legs shouting "OOP! BLOOP! QUARK! FLEEGAMATRONICS!" That's space-invader speak for "I love you, man!"

"Y'all come back!" the gal at the register would reply with a friendly wave goodbye.

NOPE, nothing can turn out the lights at Waffle House.

Well, except for one thing: the long arm of the law. Baton Rouge, La., police were not amused -- well, maybe they were a little -- to find the lights on and a party going on at one Waffle House late into the Isaac-tossed night after a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew took effect Wednesday.

Here's the story from a bemused reporter from WAFB television, which a generation of baby-boomer Baton Rougeans grew up knowing as "big, booming, powerful Channel 9":

The streets were bare through most of the city, but it was like a party at the Waffle House on College Drive.

"Four o'clock this afternoon, you could hardly get in the door it was so busy," said Karl Landry. "It was packed. Matter of fact, the waitress told me they had to lock the doors at 5:00 to be able to clean up."

It was one of just a handful of places open as Isaac's winds and rain lashed the Capital City, which is why Karl Landry visited the restaurant three times Wednesday.

"We're here for the food," said Leah Couvillion. "Our power is currently out, so the air conditioning and the nice break to have some food and to get together is really nice."

"I'm very appreciative to Waffle House for being the only thing in town that's open," added another customer.

However, there was one problem. With the curfew still in place, the restaurant was not supposed to be open.

"I'm sorry, they're closed," an officer said. "We're under a curfew for the town, so I'm going to have to ask you to go home."

The curfew is in effect until till 6 a.m., so officers with the Baton Rouge Police Department spent the night making their rounds and forcing shops to shut down, sending employees and potential customers home.

"No one told us, so we came here and they told us and we were like, 'Oops,'" said one customer forced to leave.

"It's pretty devastating. I'll be honest. I mean, it wasn't that serious of a storm, so we thought Waffle House would be open serving us hash browns," Couvillion added.

HERE'S A TIP for corporate: It's Louisiana, y'all. I reckon that if a cute and buxom waitress had waved a plate of scattered, covered and smothered in front of the local constabulary, Baton Rouge's finest might not have actually failed to enforce curfew, but I bet they would have taken their sweet time about it.

Just as soon as they'd finished off a late supper at a Southern institution. And a couple or three cups of coffee.

Hometown hurricane inside baseball

I've been in the Midwest for a while, y'all.

This means I have grown accustomed to looking to local government for, well . . . government. This means I've grown unaccustomed to looking to local government for entertainment.

Then another hurricane hits Louisiana and I end up glued to the computer, watching the hometown TV news online, and suddenly I'm confronted by some clown dressed unconvincingly in police casual as he tries to rock it like Clint Eastwood rockin' it like Dirty Harry.

Again, unconvincingly.

And I'm thinking "What the f*** is this?"

THIS THOUGHT LASTS for a split second. Of course, it's the mayor of Baton Rouge, Kip Holden (right).

And of course, it's a hurricane. Hurricanes mean that Baton Rouge mayors have to start acting all bad ass -- it's a city ordinance or something, I think.

They have to tell people obvious things as if the fine citizens are abject morons -- which, of course, many are. They have to threaten to arrest all those potential offenders of the public order, throw their asses in jail and then laugh when Yankee civil-rights advocates demand that arrestees be supplied with soap on a rope.

I think I even saw Kip do that corner-of-the-lip thing. He even may have said "punk" a couple of times, but don't hold me to that. I was laughing pretty hard -- it all was soooooooo Baton Rouge.

I MEAN, if you were a looter, would you be deterred by the sight of . . . that?

Me neither. By the way, nice flat screen you have there, Your Worship. And you keep the jewelry and cash where again?

And for what it's worth, I think the Boss Hogg look (top) would work a lot better for you. And if you could have a joint press briefing with Gov. Bobby Jindal when he's doing his "Mister Rogers on speed" act, that would be great.

What is dumbth?

WAFB 9 News Baton Rouge, Louisiana News, Weather, Sports
I can't define it, but I know it when I see it.

Oh, look! Here's a great example caught on camera as Hurricane Isaac turned Louisiana's Lake Pontchartrain into a swollen, storm-tossed tempest -- which, of course, is to moron 20-something males as a light bulb is to a moth. And with similar results.

Plaquemines Parish's watery passion play

Seven years to the day after Hurricane Katrina, Plaquemines Parish, La., is going under the waves again.

As I write, authorities and private citizens in private boats are pulling people off of their roofs and out of their attics. We see what has become of a subdivision in Braithwaite, La., in this photo posted to Facebook by the Times-Picayune in New Orleans.

Hurricane Isaac, by the way, came ashore as a Category 1 storm. And this house, by the way, is three stories high.


ONE HAS TO WONDER how much longer whole swaths of coastal Louisiana, for all practical purposes, will remain habitable absent a massive federal effort to extend the hurricane-protection levee system and an even larger effort to restore Louisiana's lost wetlands. Of course, then you have to consider the reality of coastal subsidence, climate change and rising sea levels.

Between nature, neglect and the failure of state and local government to effectively govern -- and let's not even get into Washington's special brand of dysfunction -- my home state, day by day and bit by bit, literally is becoming a no man's land.

Lord have mercy. Mercy now.

The dog days of hurricane season

I believe in God and country. I also believe in baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Toyota automobiles.

And I damn well believe in a television anchorwoman who brings her dog to work during a hurricane.

In this picture from WWL television in New Orleans, Eyewitness News legend Angela Hill is shown behind the scenes of the station's ongoing coverage of Hurricane Isaac with her personal assistant, Diesel the Dog. Channel 4's news director may have other thoughts, but I think it's pretty much mandatory that Diesel be given some on-air role in keeping folks up to date on the storm.

TV news never lets a pretty face go to waste and, with one like Diesel's, it would be a doggone crime if it started now.

#*@! you and the false idol you worship

As a native of south Louisiana who seven years ago watched on TV as New Orleans drowned -- and whose hometown of Baton Rouge is gonna get whacked by Isaac -- I would just like to say to Rev. Airhead of the Fashion-Challenged Church of God's Own Party that . . . never mind.

It's not fit for print.

I will say, though, that the God you worship seems to me to be a pretty piss-poor caricature of the Creator of the universe. Furthermore, you might be surprised at what the Holy Trinity really thinks of the Republican Party, not to mention nimnals such as yourself.


HAT TIP: Rod Dreher.

Tranquility base here. Neil Armstrong has landed.

I was blessed to gave grown up during an age of American giants, though we didn't always realize it at the time.

As Joni Mitchell sang, "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone?" Now in this land of small minds, smaller men and great discontent, we may be getting some idea of what we had.

Neil Armstrong, first man on the moon, is dead. He was 82.

Above is what I -- and hundreds of millions -- saw that July day in 1969, a time of trouble, yes, but also a time when giants walked the earth. And when astronaut giants flew to the moon -- and back.

One of the last of those giants now is gone, God bless his soul, leaving this postmodern world to its pygmy overlords.


UPON HIS LEAVING, it's almost as if Neil Armstrong: Giant has left us his final commentary about the kind of hands now holding our collective fate as Americans. Look at this screenshot of the NBCNews.com front page.

Says it all, doesn't it?

Goodbye, Mr. Armstrong. Thank you for your courage. Thank you for your dignity.

Thank you for our dreams.

3 Chords & the Truth: We play everything!

You know what's great about 3 Chords & the Truth?

We play everything -- and nearly anything -- and it all ends up having a musical point. It goes somewhere. It's part of a tapestry we put together every single week here on the Big Show.

For instance, we start our first set of the day with the Carpenters covering the Beatles. That's not where it ends up, and all the fun is in getting there. Ta da! That's 3 Chords & the Truth in a nutshell.

Or CD jewel case. Whatever.

ANYWAY, that's our deal -- 3 Chords & the Truth plays everything (within reason). And it all has a point . . . and an end destination.

That's it. Managed to make my point right before my brain quit working due to exhaustion.

Whew! And nighty night.

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

GOP finds a solution for democracy

The Republican National Committee comes to the conclusion that democracy is overrated, then employs North Korean techniques to improve upon it.

Who knew that the Great Successor was a Mormon?

At any rate, WXIX television in Cincinnati has all the sordid details the glorious saga of the Great Patriotic Republican Party's wise and ingenious countermeasures against the nefarious sedition of the party's pig-dog counterrevolutionary traitors.

Film at 11. Firing squads at midnight.

Look, folks! They're not actually singing!

There really was a more innocent time in TV history. Hosts would tell you when the acts were faking it.

Well, OK. Maybe only Arthur Godfrey would tell you when the acts were faking it, er . . . lip synching . . . which is one of the dadgum hardest things to pull off in show bidness, dadgummit!

Certainly more difficult than getting the performers' names right -- when the Carpenters appeared on this 1969 episode of the syndicated Your All-American College Show, Arthur managed to turn Richard into "Ed."

No, Ed was the name of the slab of carved stone placed next to Godfrey. Back in the day, slabs of carved rock were known to have long-running variety shows on network television. We are hopeful this age's brightest archaeologists -- soon, one hopes -- will be able to explain this ancient practice.

ANYWAY, it was just as well that Godfrey proudly touted that "what they're gonna do is give you the number right off the album, and what these kids are gonna do is lip-sync it." Viewers would have figured it out from a few clicks and pops in the audio . . . because they were playing "Ticket to Ride" right off the album. Not a tape.

Thus was the world of syndicated TV shows in the 1960s.


AND FOR your trivia enjoyment, here from 1968 is The Carpenters' first TV appearance -- as The Dick Carpenter Trio, also on Your All-American College Show.

The Interwebs . . . you can find anything in there.

Radio-geek photos of the day

At the Iowa State Fair on Saturday night . . .


. . . and Sunday afternoon.

Bobby Jindal's Louisiana

Them that's got shall get
Them that's not shall lose
So the Bible said,
and it still is news
Mama may have,
Papa may have
But God bless the child
that's got his own
That's got his own . . .

The University of Louisiana System Board of Supervisors heard Tuesday that state budget cuts caused a wide range of dismal conditions in the state’s higher education system, from low morale and program cutbacks to tuition hikes and faculty layoffs.

Board members for the system that oversees nine public universities received testimony that state budget cuts may be the cause of an increase in employee thefts on campuses, particularly the institutions that haven’t been able to keep a full-time internal auditor on staff.

Board members learned about the increased thefts moments before adopting a $762 million operating budget, which leaves the system’s nine universities with about $38 million less than last year.

“There is a lot of cash on campus and we’re starting to see where the cash is not getting into the bank,” said Robbie Robinson, UL System vice president for business and finance.

Yes, the strong gets more
While the weak ones fade
Empty pockets don't ever make the grade
Mama may have, Papa may have
But God bless the child that's got his own
That's got his own . . .

Without going into specifics, Robinson mentioned an ongoing investigation on one UL System campus, where administrators believe an employee diverted about $40,000 into a credit card account.

Robinson said something that auditors call the “fraud triangle” comes into play when times are tough.

The fraud triangle is a term coined by sociologist Donald Cressey. The points of the triangle are made up of the three most common factors that occur in cases of fraud. They are incentive, or financial stress; rationalization, where the person believes the money won’t be missed; and opportunity, where a person may see a weakness within the organization.

Money, you've got lots of friends
Crowding round the door
When you're gone, spending ends
They don't come no more
Rich relations give
Crust of bread and such
You can help yourself
But don't take too much
Mama may have, Papa may have
But God bless the child that's got his own
That's got his own . . .

UL System President Randy Moffett said some employees have spouses who have lost jobs, making them more prone to stress.

“Their financial situation has changed,” Moffett said. “Most of them haven’t had an increase in pay for four years.”

Moffett, however, said the system’s campuses have “done a great job” reporting when money isn’t accounted for.

On the budget, the UL board sat through a presentation that showed largely the same trend Louisiana’s other three college systems have been going through.

The reduction in state dollars is a continuation of a familiar trend in Louisiana’s higher education system that has seen state funding cut by $426 million since 2008.

Cuts to the UL System have totaled $207 million during the same period.

Mama may have, Papa may have
But God bless the child that's got his own
That's got his own
He just worry 'bout nothin'
Cause he's got his own

Song: "God Bless the Child" -- Billie Holiday and Arthur Herzog, Jr., 1939
News story: "UL budget cuts cited as thefts rise" -- The Advocate, 8/22/2012

It is (pretty much) finished

In a few weeks, you'd never guess there ever was a baseball stadium on the hill.

Except for the last bits of its torn-down and blown-up carcass, the demolition men have relegated Omaha's Rosenblatt Stadium to blessed memory for those of us who loved it.


The missus and I didn't go back to Rosenblatt in June when zoo officials opened it up during the College World Series for fans to say goodbye. We did that during the last baseball game to be played there in 2010.

I prefer to remember the old gal like this (above). We hold closed-casket funerals for a reason.

Get on the stick

Hidey ho, neighbors!


Welcome to the Iowa State Fair!


Here, food comes on a stick. Even food that wouldn't seem to be particularly stick-friendly.

I'm guessing PBJ on a stick is heavy on the PB and light on the J.


In Iowa, even salad dressing and juice come on a stick.


Not to mention origami.


Look, even Cajun "cheeze" comes on a stick, cher. I think Cajun cheeze must be cheeze that you roll around in "garlik" and "kayenne" pepper and call it "Cajun" -- and "cheeze."

I wonder whether "cheeze" is to cheese what "krab" is to crab.


But if you think "cheeze" on a stick might give you a heart attack on a stick, you certainly can opt for salad on a stick.


Or perhaps some fruit on a stick.


Or . . . you could just go for the original stick food.

I won't tell your cardiologist.