3 Chords & the Truth: Staycation for your ears

 
Greetings from Omaha, by God, Nebraska. And welcome to the humble studio home of the Big Show, a little audio adventure we call 3 Chords & the Truth.

I, as always, am your Mighty Favog, and I'm tickled pink that you're able to join me again this week as we tiptoe through musical genres and play the best of it all on our foray into freeform radio on the Internet.

And, as always, we have a great program lined up for you -- one where we get from here to there seamlessly and without regard to musical pigeonholing. It doesn't matter where you are; wherever that might be is a great place for a staycation for your ears . . . and your soul.

This week on 3 Chords & the Truth, we begin the show with a late-1960s classic written by John Denver and memorably performed by Peter, Paul and Mary. Then we really kick things into gear.

WE'RE TALKING great music by Dinah Washington, for one. Rod Stewart 2.0 for another. Isaac Hayes and Santana engaging in a bit of funky synchronicity for a third bit of "Whoa!"

From the fusion of New Wave and ska to cruising with The King to a journey deep into classic jazz and big band, we're covering it all on the Big Show. And it's all as close as the digital device you're using right now.

I could go on and on, but I fear that would just ruin the surprise.

Nine out of 10 people who really love music highly recommend that you block out 90 fun-filled minutes to be entertained -- and edified. The tenth guy is just a grouch.One listen to 3 Chords & the Truth will prove that entertainment and edification are not mutually exclusive.

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

Standing at the corner of Dumbass and Bigot

What's a fella gotta do to get a street named for him in St. Bernard Parish, La.?

You don't want to know.

You see, the president of the local chapter of the NAACP asked the parish council to rename Colonial Boulevard in the town of Violet for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. As it happens, more than 80 percent of the households on the boulevard petitioned the parish to make the change.

As it also happens, lots of white people who don't live on Colonial Boulevard -- and lots who don't even live in Violet -- ardently oppose that. When the measure went before the parish planning board last month, the opposition went something like this:

“My experience is that streets that are named MLK has been crime-ridden, drug-infested and unfortunately, it’s known to be black populated."

I DON'T KNOW what one does with that. Fumigate the council chambers for fear the commenter might be contagious? Redouble your efforts to get the brain-eating amoeba out of your water supply?

Ultimately, the parish council punted, saying the street was under state, not parish, jurisdiction. Except that Colonial Boulevard is controlled by St. Bernard Parish. Channel 4 in New Orleans reports:

A proposal to rename a street is sparking strong emotions in St. Bernard Parish. On Tuesday night, the parish council claimed the state had jurisdiction over the roadway and tabled the issue.

"It's a nice boulevard to be living on," said Violet resident Terry Grant.

For a decade and a half, Grant has lived on Colonial Boulevard. He's raised kids and watched his grandchildren at his Violet home. The street sign has remained the same until now.

"With our young kids that don't understand or know about are black leaders, they lived and died for their voting rights. I don't see a problem with them changing the name into Mr. King," said Grant.

An ordinance is being proposed to rename Colonial Boulevard to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

Rev. Kevin Gabriel with the St. Bernard Parish NAACP says 28 signatures from a total of 34 houses on the Boulevard were collected in favor of the name change.

"We really mean what we say. We want this street named Dr. Martin Luther King for the people of Colonial, not because it's black, not because it's white, but for the people. He was for all people," said Rev. Gabriel.

At Tuesday night's parish council meeting, opponents of the ordinance held up "say no" signs while the public got the chance to weigh-in.

"I grew up off of Colonial and 6th Street, from a little girl all the way through graduation until we lost the house because of Katrina. Colonial has a lot of good memories," said a woman attending the council meeting.

"Dr. Martin Luther King talked about peace, he brought people together. If we were naming one of these streets after someone who doesn't look like us in this community, it would not be a problem," said Violet resident Andrew Rhodes.

One group even claimed they'd collected more than 1,000 signatures parish-wide against replacing the Colonial Boulevard signage with the late civil rights' leader's name.

"Please do not let outsiders influence, break us down, divide us, nor force change in our community," said one woman attending the meeting.

THAT WOMAN must be related to this one who, at the planning board meeting, said this: “I mean, if the street’s name has to change, which is ridiculous, then name it after someone who’s done something for this parish."

This is where I point out that Colonial Boulevard intersects with East Judge Perez Drive. That used to be Goodchildren Drive until, in 1972, it was renamed to honor the late segregationist political boss of Plaquemines and St. Bernard parishes, Judge Leander Perez.

How bad a segregationist was Leander Perez? Excommunicated by the Catholic Church bad, that's how bad. From Wikipedia:

In the 1950s and 1960s, Perez gained attention as a nationally prominent opponent of desegregation, taking a leadership role in the southern Massive Resistance to change, particularly following the 1954 US Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which ruled that segregation of public schools was unconstitutional. Other nationally recognized figures who became known on this topic were Strom Thurmond, George Wallace (future governor of Alabama), and Ross Barnett of Mississippi. Perez was a member of the White Citizens Council and an organizer of the white supremacist Citizens Council of Greater New Orleans. Perez researched and wrote much of the legislation sponsored by Louisiana's Joint Legislative Committee on Segregation.

Perez tried to control the activities of civil rights workers by prohibiting outsiders from entering Plaquemines Parish via the bayou ferries, which were the chief way to cross rivers and enter the jurisdiction.

In 1960, while opposing desegregation of New Orleans public schools, Perez spoke provocatively at a rally in the city. His speech is credited with catalyzing a mob assault on the school administration building by some 2,000 white men, who were fought off by police using fire hoses. The mob ran through the city and attacked African Americans on the streets. When the schools were reopened, Perez organized a boycott by white residents. His group made threats to whites who allowed their children to attend desegregated schools. Perez arranged for poor whites to attend a segregated private school without charge , and he helped to establish a new whites-only private school in New Orleans. The Roman Catholic Church supported desegregation, and integrated its parochial schools. The bishop of New Orleans excommunicated Perez for his overt opposition to the church's teachings.

IN THE 1990s, the St. Bernard Parish Council rededicated Judge Perez Drive for Judge Melvin Perez, a state judge who served St. Bernard Parish, thereby distancing itself from the long-dead white supremacist, Leander. Then again, how many people do you reckon think of Melvin when you say "Judge Perez Drive"?

Obviously, the only thing as hard as naming a not-very-long street for Martin Luther King, Jr., in St. Bernard Parish is unnaming a major thoroughfare for a corrupt segregationist political boss. Here's more on Leander Perez from Wikipedia:

In 1919, Judge Perez launched a reign of bought elections and strictly enforced segregation. Laws were enacted on Perez's fiat and were rubber-stamped by the parish governing councils. Elections under Perez's reign were sometimes blatantly falsified, with voting records appearing in alphabetical order and names of national celebrities such as Babe Ruth, Charlie Chaplin, and Herbert Hoover appearing on the rolls. Perez-endorsed candidates often won with 90% or more of the ballots. Those who appeared to vote were intimidated by Perez's enforcers. He sent large tough men into the voting booths to "help" people vote. Many voters were bribed. Perez testified that he bribed voters $2, $5, and $10 to vote his way depending on who they are.

Perez took action to suppress African Americans from voting within his domain, but most were already disenfranchised due to the state constitution passed at the turn of the century, which added requirements for payment of poll taxes and passing literacy tests in order to register to vote. Subjective and discriminatory treatment by white registrars prevented most blacks from registering.

LOUISIANA: Home of both the "carefully taught" and the carefully bought.  Next parish council meeting should be another humdinger.

Coincidence? I think not

Of all the things Nebraska's bazillionnaire governor could throw his fortune behind that actually might benefit his state, what does Pete Ricketts choose to bankroll to the tune of $200,000?

Education initiatives for the state's poorest residents? Nope.

Higher education?  Nope.

Job training for the chronically unemployed? Nope.

Food banks? Nope.

After school programs for underprivileged kids? Nope.

Antiviolence efforts in north and south Omaha? Nope.

A petition drive to restore the death penalty, which was eliminated by the Nebraska Legislature over the veto of the governor, who likes to tout his pro-life Catholicism? Bingo!

Proceed to "GO" . . . and pick up a batch of black-market execution drugs on your way there. Gov. Pete still has hope.

FROM Saturday's Omaha World-Herald:

Gov. Pete Ricketts has doubled his monetary backing of the petition drive to restore the death penalty in Nebraska.

A report filed Friday shows the governor gave $100,000 to Nebraskans for the Death Penalty in early July, which comes on top of the $100,000 he gave to the campaign in June.

His donations account for nearly one-third of the funds raised by the group, which has less than a month left to gather signatures on a petition seeking to put the fate of capital punishment on next year’s ballot.

The referendum petition would ask voters whether they want to undo legislation repealing the state’s death penalty. 

Ricketts’ role in financing the petition drive appears to be a first, at least in recent decades. Past governors have signed petitions or thrown their political support behind them but have not been top contributors to the drives.

PERHAPS the governor's parish priest needs to have a loooooooong talk with hizzoner. For a "pro-life" kind of guy, Pete Ricketts surely does seem to be quite enamored with killing.

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

2266 The efforts of the state to curb the spread of behavior harmful to people's rights and to the basic rules of civil society correspond to the requirement of safeguarding the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense. Punishment has the primary aim of redressing the disorder introduced by the offense. When it is willingly accepted by the guilty party, it assumes the value of expiation. Punishment then, in addition to defending public order and protecting people's safety, has a medicinal purpose: as far as possible, it must contribute to the correction of the guilty party.
2267 Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically nonexistent."

AUSTIN POWERS, call your office. Nebraska needs your help.

3 Chords & the Truth: Once in a blue moon

There's a moon out tonight, and it's blue.

Once in a blue moon comes out to about -- on average -- once every 2 1/2 years. That's how often you get two full moons in the same month.

In my native south Louisiana, we'd call that lagniappe. A little something extra.

AND IT occurs to me that's how often you'll find something like 3 Chords & the Truth . . . something as wonderfully diverse, broad-ranging, quirky and sometimes surprising as this here little musical venture on the Internet. The goal here is to always give you a little something extra. 

Just like a blue moon.

Bom ba ba bom ba bom ba bom bom ba ba bom ba ba bom ba ba dang a dang dang,
Ba ba ding a dong ding . . . blue moon.

And, boy oh boy, are you going to get your blue moon's worth this week on the Big Show.

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

Along with the sunshine. . . .

If there's a better country-pop song than "(I Never Promised You a) Rose Garden," I don't know what it might be.

And now both artists responsible for this masterpiece in 2:55 are gone. Writer Joe South died in 2012. The woman who had the smash hit with it in 1970, Lynn Anderson, died last night.

From The Tennessean in Nashville:

Country singer Lynn Anderson, best known for her classic recording “(I Never Promised You a) Rose Garden,” died Thursday night of a heart attack at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

She had been hospitalized for pneumonia following a trip to Italy. She was 67 years old.

Lynn Rene Anderson was born Sept. 26, 1947 in Grand Forks, N.D., and raised in California. She came from a musical family: Her parents Casey and Liz Anderson were both songwriters; the latter penned the Merle Haggard hits “(My Friends Are Gonna Be) Strangers” and “I’m a Lonesome Fugitive.”

Ms. Anderson’s debut single, a duet with Jerry Lane called “For Better or for Worse,” was released in 1966, when she was just 19 years old. It failed to chart. However, later that year her single “Ride, Ride, Ride,” cracked the country charts, and its successor, “If I Kiss You (Will You Go Away)” was a Top 5 hit.

For two years during the late 1960s, Ms. Anderson was a regular on the popular “Lawrence Welk Show,” an outlet which exposed her to a nationwide audience. "It was appointment viewing," said WSM DJ and Grand Ole Opry announcer Eddie Stubbs. "Lynn Anderson really helped expand the boundaries of country music because there wasn't a lot of (it) on network television at that time."

Ms. Anderson wed producer/songwriter Glenn Sutton in 1968. He produced several of her hit songs—and wrote some too, including “You’re My Man” and “Keep Me in Mind”—but the couple would divorce in 1977.

In 1970, Ms. Anderson moved from California to Nashville, and signed with Columbia Records. In October of that year, she released what would become her signature song, and one of country music’s classics. The lilting “(I Never Promised You a) Rose Garden,” penned by Joe South, became a worldwide hit with its immediately recognizable intro and catchy lyrics. In the U.S., it spent five weeks atop the country music charts and crossed over to the pop charts as well. The recording also netted Ms. Anderson a Best Female Country Vocal Performance Grammy Award, and in 1971, the Country Music Association named her Female Vocalist of the Year. Over the last four decades, “Rose Garden” has been covered numerous times by a wide variety of artists including k.d. lang, Martina McBride, Suicide Machines and Southern Culture on the Skids.

3 Chords & the Truth: It's a smash!

Did you hear the big news?

The Big Show is a BIG SMASH! And we're not talking about what happens to your fedora when you accidentally sit on it, either.

No, the kind of "smash" we're talking about when we're talking about 3 Chords & the Truth is the good kind of smash . . . as in "smash hit." As in "smashes down the boundaries of excellence in music programming."

Yes, in that respect, your favorite music podcast is indeed a smash.

THIS WEEK,  we'll be doing more of our customary smashing of barriers that dictate what you can and can't do with a music format. And we'll be smashing any notion that you might guess what we'll be doing next -- or playing next on the Big Show.

That's the Big News about 3C&T all wrapped up in a petite promotional package. And the big news is, of course, very good news.

Even more succinctly, let me put it this way: Give the Big Show just 90 minutes of your valuable time, and we'll give you an entire world of music. Sound fair? Good. We'll meet you over at the podcast player.

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

Ads that will embarrass y'all in 60 years

For the hell of it, I've been going through some mid-1950s editions of Television magazine, immersing myself into an archival wayback machine.

Trade advertising was fascinating then -- at least to me -- sometimes dry, sometimes cute, occasionally  sophisticated . . . and too often, through the clarifying lens of 2015, horrifying.

Let's just say my little "wayback" exercise is a quick and effective manner of coming to grips with how a culture you were reared in -- and, frankly, didn't think much about at the time because people never see the forest for the trees -- actually was pretty horrifying in many ways.

IN THIS CASE, looking back at 1955 and 1956 through the lens of a television camera, we see a culture that was both deeply racist, quick to stereotype and completely hung up on the glories and nobility of "the Lost Cause." We see a culture dedicated to whitewashing (both literally and figuratively) its defining narrative and embracing an identity that you could sum up as They Who Give the Finger to the Yankees.

The South's past: Not forgotten because it's not really past.

Of course, to be fair. one Minnesota TV station had a trade ad touting itself via the ugg-a-mug stereotypical language of the American Indian, but you have to admit that the South set the standard for casual bigotry in the United States. We Southerners leave our subtlety at the door.

NOW, this has me thinking about matters not of the past but of the future.

My wondering goes something like this: When future generations of Americans -- or whomever -- look through the cultural output of post-millennial America, what things will horrify them that we hardly think about at all? Which of our cultural assumptions will testify against us and our age?

You know, sort of like watermelon-eating black children, branding yourself with the Confederate battle flag or the "gallantry" of Nathan Bedford Forrest?

3 Chords & the Truth: A minute better

 
The last couple of weeks, the Big Show has run a minute long.

I interpret this as there being just too much spectacular stuff to fit in a mere 90 minutes of 3 Chords & the Truth.

You know that great Billy Eckstine album I was telling you about earlier on the blog? We're leading the show with the best cut. This is called "getting off to a fast start."

And then we don't let up a bit -- a great number, recorded live in 1987, from the late tenor-sax great Stan Getz. And then after that. . . .

WELL, we don't need to lay waste to the mystery of this edition of the Big Show, do we? No, we don't.

Not knowing what's next is half the fun of it all -- am I right?

Anyway, it's another good 'un, and you just might want to make 3 Chords & the Truth appointment listening. This is called "the smart thing to do."

In a wee housekeeping note, you'll notice that we've made just a few format tweaks in honor of this being episode No. 301 of the program. The biggest tweak is this: After more than 7 1/2  years, we're getting a new primary opening theme. Let's just say Gruppo Sportivo's Superman spoke to my radio-guy soul the other day.

THAT'S about it for this week. Just listen . . . and just have fun here in 3C&T land.

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

Cool jazz on a hot summer's night

Was anybody better than Billy Eckstine?

Several were as good but none better, I don't think. And this 1959 stereo version of Eckstine's 1958 Billy's Best album makes for fine listening on a hot, steamy Midwestern eve.
 
Hell, it would be just as wonderful on a frigid winter's night on the Plains, too. 

So this was tonight's musical selection here in the Revolution 21 studio here in Omaha, by God, Nebraska, deep into the dog days of summer, with state-fair season still a month away and college football a little further out than that.

UNLIKE many vinyl aficionados, I have nothing in particular against compact discs or good-quality digital audio files. But, damn, there's really nothing like putting an old LP on the turntable, basking in that particular smell of aged cardboard and paper. Nothing like holding the record sleeve in your hands and dreaming of your lost youth . . . or the days when jazz ruled the western world and you were yet a glimmer in your mama and daddy's eyes.

Maybe you can't hold this '50s classic of American popular music in your own two hands, but you can always listen to 3 Chords & the Truth and dream sweet dreams about a culture at its zenith that's just showing off.

Because it could.

iGet taken back . . . and so does the iMac

I'm 18 again. And cool.

This was my afternoon listening -- during which the memories and the cool tunes came flooding back -- before there almost wasn't an episode of 3 Chords & the Truth this week. There almost wasn't a show this week because I finally took Production iMac to the Apple Store last night to get its recalled, big-ass "fusion drive" replaced with a brand-new, not-recalled version of the same.

The original hard drive seemed fine to me, but the email from Apple said they'd determined that my hard drive and others just like it were at risk of the computer version of cardiac arrest. Production iMac would need a transplant.

So as a PC veteran who has replaced my share of hard drives . . . and everything else . . . I was figuring along the lines of bring the thing in, go have cup of coffee, pick the thing up, go home. Unfortunately, while Apple products Just Work, they cannot be Just Fixed. Because cool design, or something like that.

THREE to five days, the verdict was.

"Well, then, I'm sunk. This is my work computer," I appealed.

"Let me check," the Genius Court said.

"There goes this week's show," your host groused during the wait.

As it turns out, the sentence was amended. Twenty-four to 48 hours in the shop, with no credit for time not served.

Under Apple's "good time" law, however, Production iMac was paroled early this afternoon -- a presumably rehabilitated digital audio workstation. (By the way, I can't say enough good about the Mac's "Time Machine" data backup. In less than an hour, the iMac was just as it was before. No hassle, no drama.

Windows boxes are all about the drama. I spent a night and part of a day trying to get our Dell laptop to work and play well with the studio equipment and digital audio interface. It was touch and go.

Actually, it was more like cuss and scratch your head.

But the Mac is back, and I'm not subjecting myself to the W-word anymore.  Not in the studio, at least.

All is well in the world, the Big Show goes on, and you'll get to hear you some Gruppo Sportivo, too.

Life is worth living again

As the Playboy-reading kid said as a cheerleader came flying through his bedroom window as Faber College's homecoming parade went horribly wrong . . . "Thank you, God!"

3 Chords & the Truth: 300 and counting

  
Three hundred.

300.

Thrice five score.

Three hundred episodes of 3 Chords & the Truth . . . and counting.

That's a lot of shows. I've loved doing every one of them -- even when I had a clunky, outdated digital audio workstation (that's computer to you and me) that I fought with all the time. I won't tell you what I called that Windows monstrosity; this show is PG-13 at its bawdiest.

But now I have a souped-up, giganto iMac, and it's all gravy now. Even more fun. And I hope you have as much fun listening as I do playing great -- and highly eclectic -- music for you on the Big Show.

WELL, this week we have another highly eclectic and hugely fun program for you to mark the Big 300th episode. We start out with a "revolutionary" set in honor of Revolution 21, the umbrella under which your humble musical smorgasbord keeps its powder dry. Dry gunpowder is important when you're aiming for a music explosion, don't you see?

Then we have some more smorgasbord, and then some classic soul, and then . . . well, why dispel all mystery about this episode of 3 Chords & the Truth.

Needless to say, it's a good 'un.

Set a spell, take your clothes off . . . NO, THAT'S NOT RIGHT . . . PG-13, REMEMBER? Let me try this again.

SET A SPELL. Take your shoes off. Y'all have fun now, y'hear?

Clothed. Absolutely clothed. Family show here on the Internets. Yeah, that's the ticket.

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

Last evening's vintage listening

Here's a glimpse at my vintage listening for last night -- Billy Vaughn and his orchestra goes Hawaiian back in 1959.

Well, contrary to Dot Record's sloganeering, this LP represents not "the greatest sound on records!" but rather, "Really great, but still no RCA Victor release from the same era."

I know this because I'm a nerd. 

A vintage record nerd, with geek tendencies.

ACTUALLY, this LP was amazingly clean and unworn, despite its vintage. It sounded new, even after all these decades.

The vinyl itself was a little warped but still played flawlessly. And the album still was in the Sears and Roebuck plastic wrap.

I can almost see, a half century and six years past, the music going 'round and 'round on something like this . . . right out of Sears' 1959 Christmas catalog. Musical satisfaction guaranteed.

Aloha.

This ever-changing world in which we're livin'

For those with eyes to see, it has become rather clear that intolerance in the name of tolerance is no vice.

One circuit clerk in Mississippi is learning the hard way that acting like an adult in the face of a court ruling one finds intolerable -- and, in the process, respecting the rule of law and acknowledging the legal duties of public officials -- is no defense against accusations of thought crime.

Amid Southern governors seeking to obstruct the Supreme Court ruling mandating gay marriage in all 50 states by asserting that public officials' religious rights trump their duty to uphold laws with which they disagree, Grenada County Circuit Clerk Linda Barnette did an intellectually honest thing -- and in the process gave the rule of law its proper due -- when she determined she could not in good conscience as a Christian issue marriage licenses to homosexual couples. She resigned.

In a letter to the board of supervisors, Grenada County Circuit Clerk Linda Barnette announced her resignation on Tuesday, citing the Supreme Court's decision to legalize same-sex marriage.

Barnette has been the circuit clerk for 24 years, and announced that her resignation is effective immediately.

"The Supreme Court's decision violates my core values as a Christian," she wrote. "My final authority is the Bible. I cannot in all good conscience issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples under my name because the Bible clearly teaches that homosexuality is contrary to God's plan and purpose for marriage and family."

Barnette has not yet been available to take phone calls.

"I want to thank the citizens of Grenada County for giving me the honor of serving as their circuit clerk," she wrote.

Aquaintances said Barnette's husband is a pastor who worked with Billy Graham Ministries for many years.

"I choose to obey God rather than man," Barnette wrote.

Grenada County voter Lue Harbin said she is disappointed in Barnette's decision. She said she has voted for Barnette in every election since she got out of the Army in 2001.

"I was kind of shocked, I don't know her personally but I never thought she was that way," Harbin said. "She's given marriage licenses to people who have committed adultery and stolen and lied, and when their parents haven't approved... it's just crazy the way she's thinking. That's her job and she's not there to judge people."

OUT OF RESPECT for both the law and her God, this wife of a pastor willingly sacrificed a post she'd held for 24 years. She now is unemployed.

But that's not enough for the forces of tolerance, who see Barnette's crime as having thought the wrong things in the first place. From the Facebook  blog Drop of Blue in a Sea of Red:

It's so funny. They only want separation of church and state when someone does anything involving the church, but when it's purely governmental (IE THE CONSTITUTION AND ITS AMENDMENTS) they lose their fucking minds and cannot separate the two. "Oh my stars and garters, this here goes against my religion!" Fuck you. You're functioning as a state employee, not as a church employee.

When I say funny, I really mean it's sad. But, it's also kind of amusing. All these bigoted, hateful people are going to die alone, as bigoted, hateful people. They will forever be known as bigoted, hateful people. I can only hope that if there is a God, that upon their arrival to those pearly gates, St. Peter points to a sign that says 'No Homophobes Allowed'.

Now look, I'm all for standing up for your beliefs, no matter how outdated or misplaced I think they are. That's really not my business. But your beliefs have no place interfering with your ability to function at your job, especially as a state employee.

So, goodbye, Linda Barnette, former Mississippi Circuit Clerk. I hope you wallow in your misery as the rest of the world comes together and works towards true equality.

"TRUE EQUALITY." Heh. Translate that as "Truly, some are more equal than others, and why don't traditional Christians just die already?"

"Live and let die." Maybe that, in the name of truth in advertising, should be the new inscription on the Great Seal of the United States. Obviously, the day of "E pluribus unum" has come and gone . . . in a puff of rainbow smoke.

And the unceremonious demise of "In God we trust" as our national motto goes without saying.

***

 

UPDATE: I forgot this one going around Facebook. Just what we all need, to take our moral guidance from "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. Because wrestlers are so much more authoritative on these things than, you know, Jesus . . . or the Bible . . . or the pope . . . or catechisms . . . or the great philosophers and saints.

Because stupid.

3 Chords & the Truth: Flag this show

We're going to run this edition of 3 Chords & the Truth up the flagpole and see who salutes it.

That's because this edition of the Big Show tackles America's raging debate about the Confederate battle flag. Should it fly? Is it all about hate and subjugation?

What's it all about, Alfie?

As a native Southerner now living happily in the Midwest, your Mighty Favog has some thoughts about all that. They've been expressed over the years on Revolution 21's Blog for the People, and they're going to be put to music on this edition of 3 Chords & the Truth.


I'd like to engage your brain in this, but I'd like more to engage your heart and imagination. I think we succeed -- and succeed in superbly entertaining in the process -- but, as always, you'll be the judge.

THE SOUTH. Race. Heritage. Hate. History. Culture. Music.

It's all packed in to a special edition of the Big Show. As a matter of fact, it's so special that there's a bonus two minutes . . . which I couldn't bear to trim. So there's that.

Sit back, listen, think, feel and enjoy. Those are your marching orders for this week  . . . and every week, actually.

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

The truth will set us free

I’ll be honest with you. It chaps my a** to read the smug comments of some of you Northerners, so certain of your rectitude. But it also breaks my heart to read the smug comments of some of you Southerners, so certain that this is only a matter of fighting back the forces of political correctness, because no American could possibly take genuine offense at a symbol second only to a burning cross in standing for white supremacy and racial terror.

I am glad to see the Confederate flag go. Yes, there are about a billion more important things on the racial front than the fate of this flag. The disappearance of the Confederate flag from public places will not educate one more black child in a failing school, or help a single black child growing up without a father in the home, or do a damn thing for black families trapped in their homes after dark because of gun violence. That’s all true. You can re-name a city thoroughfare after Dr. King, but that won’t keep it from being, as it is in too many places, one of the worst streets in town. Same deal with the flag.

But taking it down is still the right thing to do. There is no getting around the fact that the armies that went to battle under that flag fought for a nation and a political and social order built on enslaving Africans. And there is no getting around the fact that the same flag was resurrected in the 1950s by Klansmen and other white supremacists, and wielded as a symbol of resistance to equality for black Americans.

The Confederate flag is largely invisible to me, in a way that it is not invisible to black Americans. I can, and do, ignore it as an example of badly dated nostalgia, but Dylann Roof made it very, very clear that for some white people, the flag remains a potent expression of racial hatred. He forced many of us whites who aren’t particularly fond of the Confederate flag, but who don’t think about it much, to pay attention to that symbol, and to see it through the eyes of black Americans.

And so did the amazing grace of the people of Mother Emanuel AME church.

My friend Rod Dreher speaks for me here, as does New York Times columnist Ross Douthat.

Many of the folks who are now jerking their knees so hard in defense of their "heritage" and the flag they say represents it, are jerking them so hard they're hitting themselves square in the chin. They are liable to knock themselves plumb out.

Lots of these folks fancy themselves to be fine Christian people and, no doubt, not just a few of them are finer Christians than I. But you cannot be a good Christian without acknowledging you're a damnable sinner in need of the cross . . . and in need of sincere repentance and a firm purpose of amendment. You can't get there without being acquainted not only with the sins of your own volition but also those in which you've been implicated.

We Southerners cannot escape the plain fact that the flag with which we were raised is the banner of the South's -- and America's -- original sin. Hatred and subjugation of blacks is the original cause for which that flag flew, and it again represented that same cause when it was resurrected in the 1950s and '60s.

The Rebel flag was and is the banner of rebellion -- rebellion against the United States, rebellion against the "self-evident" truth that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It matters not a whit whether we're speaking of the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, the Stars and Bars, the Stainless Banner or the Blood Stained Banner. They, and the cause they represent, are the standards of rebellion, rebellion against our fellow man and against the Creator Himself.

In bowing down before this idol, this golden calf of moonlight and magnolias, of grits and mustard greens, "heritage" loving Southerners also bow down before the Father of All Lies, the devil who hated both slave and slave master as much as he loved the death and suffering inflicted by the overseer's whip . . . and the foot soldiers' rifle fire and artillerymen's cannon balls.

SATAN WAS the lord of Montgomery, and he was the lord of Richmond. Finally, for eight days, he was the lord of Danville, Va. He cheered on the Grim Reaper at First Manassas, known by Yankees as the First Battle of Bull Run. He sharpened death's scythe at Antietam. He delighted in Pickett's charge up Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg but later rued the outcome of the Civil War's pivotal battle.

The devil's spirits lifted when his standard again ascended flag staffs across the South after Brown v. Board of Education. He egged on every lynching, cheered for the white rioters at Ole Miss and bought the bullets for the rifles that fired on Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King Jr.

God's greatest creation, and Heaven's first fallen angel, looked on with demonic pride when the forefathers of Dylann Roof blew up four little African-American girls in a Birmingham church. And the treacherous banner, the gold standard of rebellion, flew over it all.

We Southerners can have our moonlight and magnolias, our fried chicken and cornbread. We can love our bourbon and mint juleps, best enjoyed in the shade of a live oak tree. We can have all the good things that were left to us as part of our Southern heritage. We, however, are not permitted to ignore that God-damnable evil that is equally our heritage.

In doubling down on their defense of the indefensible -- in doing so a week after a racist Southern punk who loved the Confederate flag walked into Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, sat through a Bible study and then gunned down nine black Christians who had opened their arms and hearts to him -- too many of my fellow Southerners insist upon proving the old adage "There are none so blind as those who will not see." They will not see the obscenity of the symbolism they defend, and they will not see the obscenity of doing so before the bodies of nine African-American saints, nine black Christian martyrs, have even been committed to the good earth of South Carolina.

PART OF my heritage as a native Louisianian is that the moment folks decided Gov. Earl Long had gone off his rocker came with an angry 1959 speech to a legislature hell bent on segregation and nullification, as recounted by A.J. Liebling in The Earl of Louisiana. His rant was directed at the arch segregationist, Sen. Willie Rainach:

"After all this is over, he'll probably go up there to Summerfield, get up on his front porch, take off his shoes, wash his feet, look at the moon and get close to God." This was gross comedy, a piece of miming that recalled Jimmy Savo impersonating the Mississippi River. Then the old man, changing pace, shouted in Rainach's direction, "And when you do, you got to recognize that n*****s is human beings!"

It was at this point that the legislators must have decided he'd gone off his crumpet. Old Earl, a Southern politician, was taking the Fourteenth Amendment's position that "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States . . . nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

AS MUCH as I hang my head in shame that part of my heritage looked upon being foursquare for the Fourteenth Amendment as a prepaid ticket to the funny farm, I also delight in the spectacle of a boozing, pill-popping politician -- who at the time was cavorting with a New Orleans stripper -- going waaaaay out on a limb to do the Lord's work, while "decent white Christians" were denying the humanity of those children of the Father whose skin happened to be of a darker hue.

No doubt, the Willie Rainachs of the Gret Stet of Louisiana were just trying to defend their heritage. That "heritage" denied Adam and Eve's original sin just as much as it celebrated the South's.

None of us has the right to deny our brothers' and sisters' history in order to celebrate a sanitized version of our own. Segregating the black children of God from the white children of God in a separate but unequal Southern heritage, where the latter get to whitewash the suffering of the former in the name of pride is a deal only Lucifer could love.

Truth will have none of it. Neither will history.