We've been hearing a lot about celebrity justice this past year, probably because so many celebrities are appearing before a bench these days. While there are opinions flying around like gulls over a garbage scow, one thing everyone seems to agree on is the fact that it just isn't fair. Not fair at all.

What's interesting, however, is the difference in opinion about exactly what isn't fair about it. Even more interesting is the fact that the difference isn't related to who is speaking as much as it's related to whom they're speaking ABOUT.

After the O.J. trial, it was on everyone's lips - you don't go to jail if you're rich and famous. It was the same after the Michael Jackson trial. Ditto Robert Blake.

And when Paris Hilton was released early in the same fashion in which many non-celebs in the same situation were released, the public outcry was quite palpable. The explanation that the situation was not unusual or particular to celebrities fell upon a deaf nation. Everyone expected her to serve her full term, and by God, they'd bitch and whine until she did. And the same goes for that Lindsey Lohan scofflaw, as well. Nichole Ritchie, no different. 

I have no problem with that. Send 'em up the river. I'm just wondering why it should be different for Michael Vick.

Everywhere I go, I hear that he's only being prosecuted - some say "persecuted" - because he's rich and famous. I've been hearing it from the beginning. Never mind that his actions were against the law, not to mention any imaginable concept of decent human behavior. Never mind that he CONFESSED. They're only going after him because he's a famous football player.

Why the difference? Am I supposed to think that District Attorneys and Judges are big Paris Hilton fans, but don't care so much for sports figures like Vick and Kobe Bryant? None of them watch football or basketball, but would hate to see the next Lindsey Lohan film released late?

Or could it be that people have a vastly different standard for the celebrities that they like? Could it be that Americans don't care as much about the objectivities of the law as much as they like to pretend? Of course it could, and it's far from impressive.

Even more infuriating are the people who say "Well, [another sports figure] did [insert crime here] and only got [light sentence] so why should we go after Vick?

Well, by that logic, why go after anybody? If someone can show that one person got away with breaking a law, shouldn't everyone? After all, if one person got a light sentence, then there is no justice, and why should we pretend? It would be unfair to hold one person accountable for his actions if anyone else has gotten off prior to this, isn't it? That's how the argument seems to go.

And we ALL know that only one party's politicians are ever arrested. If it was the OTHER party, no one would say anything. Remember that guy from the other party who did such and such back in 1976 and got away with it? Obviously, every single person in the world who is mad at our guy knows about the other guy and approves. Hypocrites.

Meanwhile, I tend to think that the mistakes of the past may be beyond fixing, but their repetition can be easily avoided. In other words, if the law isn't being prosecuted properly in regard to celebs, there can be a point where that changes. Just because so-and-so got off five years ago in one state, it does not follow that someone else should get off for a crime committed in another. It is perfectly valid to say "Enough is enough. From now on, we do it right." We don't have to wait until it's someone unpopular confessing to a crime. We can choose to do things right any time we want. If we want, that is. We have to actually care about the law being obeyed by both those we like and those we don't.

But the lamest, worst of the lot is right here. This is pathetic excuse-making at it's worst.

First off, I have to ask why anyone watches The View. If any women reading this do watch the view, I sure hope you've never put men down for watching sports, Baywatch or the Three Stooges, because the fact that The View survives is ample proof that men aren't alone in watching utterly stupid, mindless television. However, I digress.

On her first show, and no doubt wanting to prove that she can be as controversial as Rosie O'Donnell, Whoopie Goldberg tells us that the conviction is unfair because Vick was doing something that comes from his southern U.S. culture.

Well, what else did I see in the news today that reflects southern U.S. culture? How about the racist slogans and swastikas that were burned into the lawns at a golf course in S. Carolina? How about nooses hanging from trees, and justice only for white people? What would Whoopie have to say about these "southern cultural traditions"?

I mean, sure, racism is wrong, and most of us know it is. Just like we know that training dogs to tear each other to ribbons and killing them tortuously if they fail is wrong. But we can make excuses for culture, right? How many people living in the area that Vick grew up in feel that wearing a white hood and putting a black neck in one of those nooses is a valid cultural statement?

Culture can be an interesting thing, but many people feel that it should be immutable, which I disagree with. I applauded when the state of New Mexico finally outlawed cockfighting, despite the fact that it is part of "Mexican culture." We're close enough to Mexico for those sad sucks to take a road trip for their blood sport. Cultures have been evolving since the first culture began. They do that because mores and standards change over time. If you tell me that you must be allowed to do something for no other reason than the fact that your granfather did it, I simply will not consider your argument valid enough to consider as such. It's really that simple. Show me how your tradition makes sense in our culture today, or how no one is harmed by it. Don't just tell me, "That's our culture", because when it comes to stuff like racism, animal torture, female genital mutilation, or forcing teenage girls to be their cousin's third wife, among other things, I simply don't respect or care about it. This is our culture, and it changes all the time. Jim Crow was part of our culture, and isn't anymore. Keeping women out of academia and the workplace was part of our culture, and isn't anymore. Voting rights for men only, etc., yada yada yada.

So please, Whoopie, spare me the bullshit about culture. Unless you're willing to stand up in defense of cross - burnings, segregation, and racially tainted justice as results of "southern culture", you really should shut the fuck up and let those elected to apply the law do so. We'll save the outrage for when someone is convicted on shoddy evidence without a confession. At least, I will. And I don't think I'l be standing up for someone rich and famous when that happens.

 

Boy, the ad hominem arguments are flying around this week. They're all in response to this, John Edwards' speech in which he said that as President, he would ask Americans to switch to more fuel-economical cars. When asked if that meant people "sacrificing" their SUVs, he said "yes".

From right-wind Blogovia's response (and don't miss Marco's well-considered comment!), you'd think he tried to choose Hugo Chavez as a running mate.

There is outrage. People are pointing out how "hypocritical" it is for a guy with a big house to criticize those that drive gas-guzzlers. They're picking on his house, his jet, and, for some very (I'm sure) bizarre reason, his haircut. I've noticed, however, that no one is tackling the actual argument that he makes about fuel consumption. One might think that they aren't able to.

Well, I see some logical problems with their arguments against it, and being the bullshit filter that I am, I'll see if I can strain some of it out for you.

First, his house. Sure, it's big. It's a mansion. I dare say that if any of the conservatives that put him down for living there had worked hard to build a successful law practice (which they will also gladly put down as being based on "frivolous lawsuits" although I'm still waiting to see an actual examples of research on that claim) and made enough money to get a mansion like that, they would. Thus, I suspect a hint of jealous hypocrisy in this particular critique. However, that's not the whole point.

The whole point is that while Edwards' mansion might - I say might -have a larger carbon footprint than one SUV, it will not even come CLOSE to ALL of them. Let's be real here. We should all be allowed to waste gas because the guy suggesting we all try to cut back is living in a big house that cannot, even if filled with styrofoam and lit on fire, come close to polluting as much as millions of vehicles? And the people who argue thus say that they are providing perspective?

Exactly what sacrifice is being asked for here? That everyone walk? No. That everyone carpool? No. Bikes? No. Public transport? No. None of these are new ideas, anyway. People were doing them voluntarily in the 70s when we had that energy crisis, and gas prices shot up.  You know, like they have been for the past three years.

No, Edwards is instead suggesting that we try to drive more fuel-economical vehicles. Then, we'd use less gas and create less pollution. We'd also save money. We'd spend less to get to the places we want to go. Less money in the tank, more in the bank.

Well, how dare that bastard try to make us sacrifice that way?

So while "conservatives" will tell us that we need to sacrifice our right to privacy, they draw the line at suggestions that we spend less on fossil fuels, even if it means traveling just as much as we did before. Or even more, depending on the situation.

Another argument is against the idea that we are the world's bigest polluters. "What about China? What about India? They each pollute about the same as we do! Ever heard of those countries?"

Well, yes, I have. Ever compared our population to theirs? Here's what I just looked up:

U.S.  302,746,657

India  1,129,866,154

China 1,319,175,335  It changed twice just while I was jotting the number down.

Not really equal, is it? This means that if we pollute anywhere near what either of these countries do - and we do- then we are far, far filthier per capita than either of these countries. India has almost a billion more people than we do. China has over a billion people more than us. But we're going to wait for them to clean up their acts first?

Sounds, I don't know, kind of mind-numbingly arrogant and selfish, doesn't it?

But then again, what do you want from people who support a war as long as the tax cuts mean they don't have to pay for it? Let China buy up all of the debt, we'll be okay. Our children wil be fucked, but we're all about us, aren't we? Let them form their own world with whatever we leave behind.

Edwards also said that he'd like to stop the overseas manufacture of the weapons and ammunition that our soldiers are using, saying that anything used to defend America should be made in America by, oh, I don't know, Americans? You'd think that would be something that righties could agree with. And I'm sure they do, which is why they aren't saying anything about it. Zero. Cuts into the ad hominems when he says something like that, it does.

Now, I drive an old Bronco II, not a Prius. I'm not currently in the financial situation to buy a new vehicle, although I certainly wouldn't mind a Prius. I have, however, changed the way I drive.

I moved to a job in an office, instead of outside sales. Leaving the old job was not exactly my choice, but avoiding outside sales when I looked for a new one was.

I rarely "run out" to pick something up or run an errand. I save my errands for the weekend as much as possible, and plan an efficient route. And I don't take unneccessary trips. Sure, I'll go out for fun - I'm not advocating hermitage. But the fact is that last year at this time, I was burning through 1 1/2 tanks of gas every week. Now I might burn that much in a month. While I was spending $300.00 a month on gas, I am now spending about $70.00.

I think I can handle making that kind of sacrifice.

Your milage may vary, of course (you had to know that was coming!) but I doubt that there is anybody who couldn't think a little about their habits, and find sufficient financial motive to make some tweaks.

I just can't, for the life of me, understand why someone would lay down for the reduction of their 4th Amendment rights, allow the Executive branch to claim far more power than they were ever entitled to by law, but take a stand for their right to be utterly wasteful with their own money and everyone's breathing air. Why not just set your money on fire and inhale deeply?

The thing is, some kind of sacrifice is inevitable. A stitch, in time, saves nine after all. A small "sacrifice" for prevention can offset a large sacrifice for solution.

If this report is correct, we'll soon see what we'll have to sacrifice if we don't wise up.

If you've been looking at the news or surfing the web this morning, you've probably seen the latest Liberal Outrage. Several papers chose not to run two Opus cartoons that had jokes about radical Islam. You can see it in the "mainstream" press here, and in right-wing Blogovia here, and if you look around, you'll see it all over, no doubt. You can find the cartoons here.

Now, I can't see why these cartoons would be so inflammatory, but then again I also don't care that Salman Rushdie was knighted. I would have allowed the cartoons to run if I edited a newspaper. But that isn't the point.

Everywhere you look, the editors who pulled the cartoons are being called "cowards" and "spineless." I've seen people complaining about censorship, and how we don't need the government to do that for us because we'll do it to ourselves. There is plenty, also, about hypocrisy, because last week's Opus about Falwell  was published. Of course, I've seen the inevitable comments about how these editors are afraid to "take a stand."

This reminds me very much of the to-do about the Dixie Chicks a few years ago. They stood onstage somewhere in England and told the audience that they were ashamed that President Bush was from their home state of Texas.

Bam! They were off radio stations all over the country. Bam! They were out of record stores, too. Bam! Concerts were cancelled in some areas due to low ticket sales. Their careers eventually recovered - when some righties started opening their eyes and remembering that there is indeed a U.S Constitution - but they had a couple of rough years because of it. And whenever someone said anything about the right to free speech or censorship, many Righties provided this answer:

"What censorship? The government didn't say they can't be played! The government didn't cancel their shows! The government didn't take their CDs off the racks! These are privately owned radio stations and record stores, and if they don't want to play what these traitors (yes, they were called that) sing then that is their RIGHT. Don't YOU believe in freedom?"

Well, how is this any different?

Aren't these newspapers private companies? Do they not have the right to make their own editorial decisions, especially when we're talking not about a news story, but a comic strip? Are they obligated to print what righties want them to, as if they were all owned by Murdoch? Of course they aren't. So is the right willing to take a stand for the freedom of individual companies to make their own decisions about their own product? It seems that a lot of people are willing to take the stand in some instances, but not others. And that isn't taking a stand at all, is it?

It's understandable why these editors made this choice, as well, although I'll say once again that I disagree with it. The address of the editorial offices is plainly printed in each copy of the paper, and some folks have an allergy to being blown to little, tiny bits. It's fear. It's the same fear that makes people create stupid excuses for a war that anyone honest can see was wrong from the beginning. It's the same fear that makes people eager to give up their freedoms - the same ones they say the soldiers are fighting for - for a promise of security that this administration has not even tried to give them. It's a fear of being blown to smithereens by radical muslims, and the Left is far from being alone in feeling that. Fear of muslims has, in fact, influenced the Republican platform more than anything else since 2001. Fear of muslims is why Bush got a second term. Fear of muslims is why we suddenly don't need warrants to listen to private conversatons, and also why that isn't exactly what the KGB used to do. For a conservative blogger to say that this fear is cowardly is the ultimate in hypocrisy, unless that blogger is insulting Islam with their own name and address printed clearly on his blog every time. And those would be few and far between, wouldn't they?

And why is the Falwell thing equated with this? Do his followers kill people for any percieved insult? More to the point, does he speak for all Christians? The unpublished cartoons made a statement (a weak one, albeit) about ALL of Islam, not one cleric. The Falwell cartoon spoke of one person only, but just like when he died people are happily pretending that any criticism of Falwell is a criticism of Christianity as a whole.

Well, I was raised Catholic, so he didn't speak for me. In fact, he didn't have much that was nice to say about Catholics. He said, as I recall "If you're not a Born-Again Christian, you're a failure as a human being." In other words, if you didn't belong to HIS denomination, you weren't a Christian at all. That didn't speak for Catholics, or Methodists, or Lutherans, or Mormons, or Episcopalians, or anyone that isn't a born-again, Baptist, racist segregationist that wants to destroy the Constitution and the government as it stands and replace it with a theocracy based on their beliefs.

So, how is a joke about him being in Heaven with a whole list of fellow Americans that he never missed a chance to denigrate during his life an insult to all of Christianity? If Christians of most denominations want to see insults to their beliefs, a great place to look would be a list of Jerry Falwell quotes. Here's one.

But, please, righties, feel free to continue to make a fuss about this. I'm not the only one who remembers the Dixie Chicks, I'm sure, so keep showing folks how your opinion wavers and how you consider a cartoon to be more important than the fact that the soldiers are fighting for a government that took the whole month off. Keep showing folks that this is more important than security, liberty, health care, and jobs continuing to march overseas. Please keep showing us how all you big, strong warriors who happen to be at home while others fight and die to alleviate YOUR fear are "taking a stand", albeit a completely different stand than you took a few years ago in a similar situation.

Please keep showing us this at least until November of next year. Those of us who actually care about America more than our own fear would appreciate that.

I remember vegging out in front of the TV a few years ago in that I-had-a-long-day-and I-just-want-a-beer-and-a-bowl-and-the-TV sort of way I sometimes have. I had landed on the Cosby Show, probably because of the bowl. It was the episode where the ditzy daughter, the one with no direction in life, had decided that she was going to teach kids through rap, and that since she could rap already she didn't need an education degree. It was a really lame episode of an otherwise occasionally fine show.

Watching a classroom scene, I noticed the drummer who was tapping out the beats so little miss dipshit could jingle out the alphabet to the kids. My exact words, I think, were "Fuck me, is that Max Roach???" I endured the episode with its obvious and heavy-handed lesson on the value of education in order to see the credits and sure enough, it was Max himself, who I later learned was an old friend of Bill's. And I thought "Cool".

I was in a position to recognize Max because I'd been paying special attention to him for a couple of years already. When I went to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in 2001, I saw that name on the program and recognized it, but couldn't remember why. The friend I was there with didn't want to see him, but I was drawn to that tent. I don't remember what she saw, but I saw a jazz master. Obviously getting up there in years, he deftly drummed to the delight of a tightly packed audience (so much so, that I was barely able to get any passable photos) and introduced some of tomorrow's stars in a fine, if not overly long, show. I left there a fan, and determined to hear more of this highly impressive old man.

When I got home, I looked through my CDs and found why his name seemed familiar. Not only was it on my Charlie Parker CD, it was also on the back of my recently-bought copy of Miles Davis' The Complete Birth of the Cool. This guy had street cred like no one else at that festival, including B.B himself. This was Max himself.

Max is one of four men - along with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Kenny Clarke - to be credited for the development of be-bop. His innovation of using the cymbal to keep time, thus opening up the entire drum kit for improvisational frolics, helped usher in a sound still heard 60 years later. He didn't just stick with that sound though. Like his lifelong friend, Miles Davis, he continued to grow and change his style over the years, yet never losing his comfort with what he's done before.

For the past several days, I've been immersed in the various sounds of Max Roach. Since his sad death last week at the age of 83, the underground recordings have been flying about like bats. This is common - when someone passes on, the fans spread his music around to salve the wound, and to warn those in the afterlife that someone special is coming. It's like playing their theme song as they enter the Tonight Show stage, and more aesthetically pleasing than the Klingon Death Scream. And it helps one get an overall picture of an amazing career.


Max's career started rather early, when he was just 16 years old, and Duke Ellington's drummer fell ill. After that he worked behind a drum kit steadily. His early career never really reached the underground - my oldest underground recordings are from the mid-1950s - so one must hit the record store for that, and well worthwhile it is to do so. I can give you a decent idea of what he's done in the decades since then, though.

In the mid-50s Max had formed a partnership with a young and very impressive trumpet player named Clifford Brown. While this partnership was cut short by Brown's untimely death in an auto accident (along with pianist Ritchie Powell and Powell's wife) it is still one of the more famous and well-regarded partnerships in jazz history. At 25 years of age, Brown (or "Brownie" as his friends called him) had carved out a big reputation as the next trumpet phenomenon. There are a few great CDs of this pairing available in stores, and I recommend them.

This underground piece comes from the Jazz Festival in Newport, RI on July 16, 1955. Playing with Max and Clifford were Harold Land (tenor sax), Ritchie Powell (piano) and George Morrow (bass). The song is a Cole Porter number known to all Blazing Saddles fans, and that this band had made very much their own. It's called I Get a Kick Out of You.

In the sixties Max was politically active in the civil rights movement, something that cost him work at times. Known beforehand for being very soft-spoken, he gained quite a different reputation when fighting for his rights. In later interviews he said that Clifford, while also very polite, was a very strong person and stood up for Max on many occasions. Many others said that Brown's death was what brought the change in Max.

He did stay busy, though, and while I don't have much from the 60s to share I can give you this number done with tenor sax giant Sonny Rollins and Jymie Merritt on bass. It was recorded on Nov. 22, 1966 (the day before I turned one year old) at the Stefaniensaal in  Graz, Austria, and it is titled Love Walked In.

Now, like a true artist, Max never settled on one style of music. He spent his entire career trying new things (he was, in fact, one of the first jazz musicians to collaborate with hip-hop musicians, but I don't have that to offer). The difference, though, is that Max didn't have phases. He'd go back and forth between different styles, setting one thing down to do another and going back to the first eventually, and staying fresh with all of it. That was how he approached his work with percussion band M'Boom.


This work was entirely different from what he'd done before, and is more closely comparable to Micky Hart's Rythym Devil sessions from several years later. While the sound is different than Max's previous work, it is a logical extension of his lifelong theme of finding ways to move the drum out of just doing the rythym and helping out with the melody. While Max was playing with them as early as 1973, this sample is a striking piece from Paris in 1983. I don't know the names of the other musicians, but the song is called Kujichaglia.

Also from the 70s I have three very short songs to share. The first two are solos that he did at the Kornhaus in Ulm, Germany on April 26, 1979. He was with his quartet that evening, but you won't hear them on these songs. Now, it's easy for a rock fan to hear "drum solo" and roll his eyes, because we know that interesting ones are few and far between. These aren't solos, though, they're songs, and when you listen to them you will hear the difference that I'm talking about. Even if you don't listen to anything else I put up here, you should listen to this track, Papa Jo. I won't tell you what makes it unique, but I will tell you that I've never heard anything like this attempted by anyone before. Frankly, it's difficult to imagine anyone but Max getting away with it, but he certainly does. That track plus For Big Sid are how he warmed the audience up for the entire quartet that evening, and together they illustrate his genius in less than six minutes.

The other seventies cut is from NPR's first Jazz at the White House show on June 18, 1978. It's an impromptu quickie version of the jazz standard Salt Peanuts by Max, Dizzie Gillespie on trumpet and amateur musician Jimmy Carter contributing his voice. Here's a photo of the moment.

He continued playing with his quartet in the 80s, as well as M'Boom (obviously) and also came up with another idea; the Max Roach Double Quartet. This was his jazz quartet playing simultaneously with a string quartet. There were at least two lineups for this project (one of which had his daughter, Maxine, on viola) and several tours over the years. I posted about this last year, and those who haven't heard it (or want to hear it again) can find it here.


Finally, I have another short piece from the most recent recording I have found thus far (still looking for a recording of that Jazz Fest appearance!). It's from Marian McPartland's terrific radio show Piano Jazz, where Max is joined by Marian on piano and Ray Drummond on bass for a sweet, slow version of John Coltrane's Giant Steps.


I could go on and on and on - since his death on the 16th, I've downloaded at least eight gigabytes - 15 or so titles- of underground Max. All of it, however, couldn't do him justice. His was simply too long and creative a career to be summed up in one post, regardless of its' length. Anyone who wants to build a good jazz collection can't go wrong with Max.

Here's the great thing, though. While Max's career passed 50 years, I only have 20 or so of his bootlegs and ten or so releases. That means that there is still a LOT out there to listen to.

You and I can go at least a few more decades of discovery, Max. Easily.

I'm looking forward to it. I'll see you there.

Top story in the news today. Go look. We'll wait.

 

This absolutely outrages me. It would anyway, no matter who the child is, no matter where. This angers me just a little bit more than it would anywhere else, though.

That's because I am certain, deep in the bottom of my little heart of hearts, that this would not have happened had me not steamrolled that country. If we had left Sadaam in iron control of that steaming heap of whackadoos, that kid would be playing with his friends today. If we hadn't opened the door to every half-baked psycho that our government used as an excuse to go in there, that kid would be in school. And, possibly, still smiling.

But what REALLY riles me is the certainty with which I expect this to be used by conservative pundits and bloggers as a justification of the war. I fully expect to see people saying "See? This is what the people we're fighting are like. You want to end the war? You're just handing these terrorists more children to light up like kindling." And it will be a lie, and they know it.

Besides the obvious fallacy - the fact is we handed THIS kid to the terrorists when we ripped their country wide open - there is the idea that these people could possibly care less about Iraqi children. It takes a truly delusional soul to blow up a country to save the children in it. It didn't work in Waco, and doesn't work on a larger scale, either. But to take it a little further, aren't these the same people who call a two-year old girl with an American bullet in her forehead "collateral damage?" Don't these same people tell us "You've got to break a few eggs to make an omelet?" Don't they tell us it will be worthwhile in the end? Sure - because it's not YOUR two year old daughter catching the bullet, not YOUR kindergarten aged son being set on fire by masked strangers.

"But they attacked us!!" No, the Iraqis did not attack us. And no children of any nationality attacked us.

And let us finally dispense with the bullshit about how this is making us safer. It isn't. Securing our borders, checking incoming cargo, and breeding goodwill internationally might, but no one seems interested in such tactics. They're too busy working to get the 3000 killed on 9/11/01 some "justice".

But is that what we're actually working toward? Justice? How many hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians must die so that our 3000 can have justice? How many American soldiers must die before we feel that we've paid our debt to the 3000?

How many children - innocent, laughing babes that cannot even yet concieve of true evil- have to be torched before we admit that we were simply scared out of our skins on 9/11/01, and just want to get past the black eye we were given in front of the whole world by showing how God damn tough we are? How many truckloads of dead babies does it take for us to admit that we are still scared, and want to feel like we can ever be safe again?

Like this little boy will probably never, ever, feel as long as he lives.

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UPDATE:

It seems that help is on the way for this boy. He's coming here for treatment.

Now, how about if CNN puts every little kid our government's policies have helped fuck over on the news? We have a lot more guilt to assuage, I'm sure.

Usually, I try to inject a little humor into the American Asshole proceedings. You know, have a little fun with the winner's assholery. You hadn't noticed, you say? Shaddup.

It's not so easy this time, though, because there's nothing funny about it. Judith Leekin is far more than an asshole, and far less than a human being.

While Michael Vick, who most certainly is an asshole (There is no provision in America for not being an asshole until proven to be one in a court of law. This is the court of assholery right here, and he's guilty as hell.) looked like a shoo-in after being nominated twice by readers, he ended up being out-assholed by Leekin. The reason, in case you didn't read it before, is right here.

Leekin, thought by her neighbors to be a kindly old lady,  was found in a house filled with people that were severly abused. There were nine of them, ranging from 15 to 27 years of age. None of them had more than a fourth grade education. They weren't allowed out of the house except for yardwork. They ate nothing but noodles, and were slowly starving. They were often bound at night and soiled themselves as a result. Many had burns. One was blind. Another can hardly walk. And she was being paid to care for every one of them.

She had established aliases with which she was able to get more children than one person would normally be allowed. She was caught when an 18 year old girl was found wandering aimlessly and told police that Leekin had abandoned her. Leekin told them that she had run away a year earlier. She was found out the next day, though. The children had been hiding from the police out of the fear that Leekin had been instilling in them for years. It's estimated that at one point, she was making $180,000 per year. You get extra for adopting "special needs" children, after all.

Now, some might think that she started seeing those checks, got dollar signs in her eyes, and went astray. I don't know any different, but that just rings untrue to me. This doesn't strike me as simple negligence. This was a deep pattern of ongoing, long term abuse. I suspect that she enjoys causing this suffering, this pain. I think she probably enjoys the power she had over these people, and found a way to profit from it. Sort of like making your hobby into a career, if you will.

So here's to you, Judith. You are, at last, getting the recognition you deserve, asshole. You violated the most basic, most important, most sacred trust that one  being can have for another.I hope you spend the rest of your life in prison, and in general population.

Then the rest of the inmates can show the esteem with which they hold people like you. That's where the justice will be done.

I was perusing the news last week, and the headline jumped up and screamed at me."Forgotten Music Star Makes Comeback" 

Now, I immediately thought of the old blues stars of yesterday, who sank into obscurity in the 50s. Professor Longhair worked as a janitor for many years prior to being re-noticed in the 70s. Recent TtU subject Lightnin' Hopkins did similar work during the time that the kids who would bring him back in the 70s were growing up and listening to his old, mostly forgotten 45s. So it was with eager interest that I clicked to see who it was. I was stunned to see a name I have not heard or even thought of in 25 years, at the least.

It seems that old-time country music legend Porter Wagoner has made it back to the limelight. And I think that is just a fine, fine thing.

Now, I've never been that big a country fan, but I know the classics because I was raised by one. My dad loved the old-time country. He attended the Grand Ole' Opry once, and will still talk about it, though he'll get confused as to which of his kids was with him. They never made an episode of Hee Haw that dad didn't watch. While I never watched it, I did listen from the other room, though, mostly for the bluegrass. I sure didn't want dad to know that, though.

Now that I'm older, though, I don't mind admitting that. And the next time I talk to dad, maybe I will. After all, I've been a fan of country rock such as has been played by the Grateful Dead, New Riders of the Purple Sage, and CSN (and sometimes) Y for two decades now. The difference is nominal. That music and the classic country of folks like Wagoner, Johnny Cash, and Roy Clark is far diferent from today's country. That old stuff has soul, where today's country just has mudflaps.

But while he often appeared on Hee Haw, Porter was much more readily seen on his own show, which, according to the article, ran a solid 21 years, and introduced another major country star, Dolly Parton, known throughout the world for having big, big hair.

 But at the end of that show's run, he checked himself into a psychiatric hospital for exhaustion and just seemed to disappear for the most part. His record label dropped him, and the only people who still had an ear for the Thin Man from West Plains was the Opry crowd. The business had changed, the music had changed, and he, quite frankly, didn't want to change with it.

But some folks did take an interest, and they've helped find both an audience and a label for him. After a couple of gospel albums, he's produced a country record in his finest tradition, and at 80 years seen that people hadn't quite forgotten his name.

But there's no way, I'm sure, that he'd have expected to be playing Madison Square Garden on July 24, 2007, as the opening act for - get this - the White Stripes. At their invitation, natch.

"This is one of the tremendous thrills of my career to be here tonight in Madison Square Garden. God bless you," he says.

Backed by Stuart and his band, the Fabulous Superlatives, he performs seven songs. The crowd is still arriving as he plays, but even the most pierced and tattooed of the bunch seem curious.

His voice grows stronger with the first rain of applause, and when he gets to one of his biggest hits, "Green, Green Grass of Home," a good bit of the audience is singing along.

The next morning, in the elegant Roosevelt Hotel lobby, he's still taking it all in.

"The young people I met backstage, some of them were 20 years old. They wanted to get my autograph and tell me they really liked me. If only they knew how that made me feel, like a new breath of fresh air. To have new fans now is a tremendous thing."

Tears well in his eyes and one streams down his gaunt cheek. And just then one has to wonder whether "The Thin Man from West Plains" finally has seen everything.

You can't help but feel great for the old guy, you know? He and Dolly and his sequined jackets and their big hair were just a part of TV when I was growing up, and still feel comfortable.

Now Porter's music is, simply put, cliche' classic country. That's because it was so ubiquitous and so often copied that it did indeed birth the cliche'. He sings sentimental songs about people regretting their bad decisions. Songs about prison walls and psycho wards and love gone wrong with a bullet or two, all backed with a fiddle and a steel guitar. But it isn't a cliche' when Porter sings it, because it's coming from the source. Whether you can dig what he's doing or not, you have to credit the man for his sincerity. No one is more genuine Country than Porter Wagoner.

Well, enough fawning - on with the music. Of course, I have to share "Green Green Grass of Home" so you can hear what the article - which you really should read all of, by the way, it tells a great story that I only skim - talks about. It's cool to hear the White Stripes ccrowd showing support for Porter. There may be hopes for this generation after all.

Now I was tempted to also post his haunting and deeply personal song "The Rubber Room", but enough melencholia! Here is a foot-tapper I recognized right away from being a loyal fan of the early "Andy Griffith Show" episodes. It's called "Dooley".

Let me know what you think of them. I especially want to hear from non-country fans, which I think will be most of you. How much do you relate to this audience who came for something completely different, yet found themselves cheering?

Welcome back. Porter. You deserve it. Stay awhile.