Click Here

So I was listening to Pandora on the computer and I switched from one of my stations to my Latin/Mexican music station. To silence the new blue screen appeared -- it may look nice on a smart phone, but Pandora's new appearance is not nearly as useful on my computers -- giving no indication as to what song was loading up. Then near the bottom of the screen appeared the words, "Click here to see Shakira's profile."

Of course I did.

A Bad Day for L.A. Media: RIP Gary Owens

And as soon as I finish one post, another familiar name shows up "trending" on Facebook. Gary Owens died yesterday at the age of 80. Most famous, perhaps, as the announcer from "Beautiful Downtown Burbank" on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In and still heard as the voice of Antenna TV, Garish had the 3-6 pm shift on KMPC 710, the radio station I listened to the most growing up.

"The Nurny Song" (not only sung by the "staff" singers, but by just about every recording artist of the '60s and '70s, including The Carpenters and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir); the words "insegrevious," "fnork," and "krelb;" an autographed picture of the Harbor Freeway; Krellman; Earl C. Festoon; the "Gary Owens Rumor of the Day;" "The Story Lady" (nearly 300 episodes are currently available at that link); speaking to or of "Wayne Doo" (KMPC engineer Wayne DuBois); and the Zookmeister Broadcasting System. Good music, news and traffic reports, and plenty of promotions with Dick Enberg, announcer for the (then) California Angels -- KMPC and the Angels were both owned by Gene Autry, who also owned KTLA channel 5. Ending a finance company commercial with, "and there are 29 offices within the sound of my voice. And now," speaking much louder, "there are 57 offices within the sound of my voice."

Yet in all that non-stop zaniness, he was also a consummate professional. Here's an aircheck, unfortunately it begins a bit wobbly, from his Sept 17, 1970, KMPC broadcast. (Note that in air checks the middle of songs and commercials are frequently cut out.) Oh, the memories this brings to me!



Stan Chambers, Gary Owens... I hope I'm not back in a krenellemuffin.

Geoff Edwards: Thanks for the Good Times

Geoff Edwards, the mid-morning DJ on KMPC Los Angeles from 1968-1979, has died.

Apparently I'm at the age where I'm going to hear this more-and-more of those people who I never met or knew but were, nonetheless, part of my every-day life growing up. While the national news is focussing on his game show hosting, the LA Times's obituary hit exactly what popped into my mind when I heard the news this morning on the radio:

On radio, he was a clever talker who sprinkled music and news with homegrown bits like "The Answer Lady." That was simply Edwards answering listeners' questions, often comically, without even pretending to imitate a female voice.

Listeners called 520-8600 (Can you believe I remember the KMPC phone number?), Geoff'd say in his normal voice "Answer Lady," a question was asked (it could be about anything), he toss off a quick one-line answer and immediately push the next button on the phone, saying, "Answer Lady," and doing this bit quick-boom-boom for 3-5 minutes. Alas, you don't hear this kind of radio any more.

Edwards probably received more noteriety for his game show hosting and he was, for many years, the announcer for the California Lottery's The Big Spin. Perhaps the biggest moments of his career was when he was reporting on the events following President Kennedy's assassination in Dallas for KHJ/Mutual, including being at the scene when Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald. A good retrospective of his career, including how he came to be in Dallas that day, appears right now on the front page of Don Barrett's LARadio.com, the place to remember over 6000 "LA Radio People".

While I remember him best from KMPC, it turns out Geoff was the morning man at KFI just prior to Lohman and Barkley -- which means I would have listened to him every morning when I first got my own radio for my bedroom. While they were indeed brilliant, Lohman and Barkley didn't do a whole lot for me when I was 9-10 years old, and I switched to KMPC. Of course, with a 9-Noon shift, I only got to hear him in the summertime.

You can listen to an air check of the 11 o'clock hour Geoff Edwards on KMPC from November 13, 1978. The first half,
and the second half,
.
No "Answer Lady" here -- she usually happened during the 10 o'clock hour -- but it's a good taste of the old full service AM radio that, alas, no longer exists. FWIW, it does run a wee bit slow, but that's noticeable mainly if you remember what he sounded like on the air.

Oh, cool!! One of Geoff's most famous radio bits, Mr. Kent calling the dry cleaners to see if his stuff (dropped off earlier by Miss Lane) is ready, appears on his web site.

Besides the Times' obit, there's this from the Hollywood Reporter (hey, local sources are best) and his Facebook page, which has some wonderful photos. I think he enjoyed a good life. I'm glad he was a part of mine. Requiescat in pace.

Oh, the Agony! Oh, the Memories!

Oh, my, that was ugly. My Los Angeles Angels are playing the A's in Oakland. I turned on the A's broadcast last night, thanks to XM Radio, when I went to bed. It was 6-2 in the 6th inning, and Albert Pujol's second homer in the 7th made it 7-2. Then suddenly, the A's scored 4 in the 8th, and tied it up in the 9th. Extra innings.

I fell asleep with the radio still on, woke up, and the game was still going. Repeat a couple more times One of the of the things being in the Midwest for a West Coast game is that as the hour gets later in California, it is 2 hours later in Peoria. It was now past midnight on the West Coast.

And as the poor A's announcers, Ken Korach and Ray Fosse, tried to think of what to say about a game that wasn't ending, where the teams were running out of players, where the Angels scored in the 15th, only to have the A's tie it up again -- at the top of my mind was another Angels-A's game in Oakland.

I was 12. Angel road games in Oakland (and Minnesota) were always televised in those days, and 1971 was to be our year for an American League Western Divison pennant. But the season was going down the drain fast. In those days I would usually sit in front of the TV keeping score, but for some reason I didn't have a score card that night. Good thing, as that game went past 1 am, too, long after I'd gone to bed fallen asleep with my transistor radio plugged into my ear.

In the morning I awoke. 20 innings! 1-0. Tony Congliaro, who had gone 0-8, retired before the Sun had risen. It was a game that reflected the frustrations of the 1971 season, one filled with hope at the beginning -- when this Angels fan had committed to listening closely to each and every game. It was, as Angels history tells, a season of one weird disaster after another, beginning several years of futility. It would be 1978 before we had a winning record.

I was actually half awake at 3:30 this morning (Central Daylight Time) when, in the bottom of the 19th, A's 1st baseman Brandon Moss hit his second home run of the game. Angels lose. 10-8. 6 hours, 32 minutes -- the longest game (by time) in A's history. Portents of things to come? The Angels are supposed to be contending for an AL pennant, but our 9-16 record after 25 games is tied for the worst in team history. Angels' center fielder Peter Bourjos pulled a hamstring and is on the disabled list.

I hope I don't remember this game as well 42 years from now.

Gorgeous, Simply Gorgeous

Listen to this version of George Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" that aired over WWCT as I was driving home from this evening's Lenten service.

As a song writer, Harrison could be pretty uneven. But when he was good, he was very, very good -- and this song is among his best. This version, which I'd never heard before tonight, is a George Martin remix of George's original demo for The White Album with strings added for the 2006 CD, Love. Enjoy!

Guess Who Got Posted at Chaos Manor?

Friday I posted to my Facebook page the link to yesterday's memorial for Ray Bradbury at the LASFS Clubhouse, commenting, "Oh, to be living in LA!" (For some reason, probably because Thursday evenings were for choir practice, I never actually made a meeting of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society.) Well, I still haven't experienced it personally, but it seems I was sort of there anyway. Read it here!

I haven't been this excited since LA sports radio legend Jim Healy acknowledged on the air a note I sent him from here in Peoria!

My Music

I don't know how many others are like this, but since Bill Cosby spoke about "having your own music to ride with" in his "Go Carts" routine when I was a kid, I don't think I'm alone. Cos' music was taken from The Rough Riders. Weird Harold's was taken from The Lone Ranger. (You can listen to it here.)

In the cinema, particularly older films, it is not uncommon for a particular tune to appear any time a particular character is on the screen -- or some other times when the director wants you to think of that character. Organist Shay Torrent at Anahiem Stadium or Helen Dell at Dodger Stadium (and others at ball parks across the land) would play a snippet from a particular song when a batter would be announced. When I was 11 I imagined Shay Torrent playing the theme from "They Call Me Mister Tibbs" when I would be announced as the next Angels' batter.

In reality, though, I don't have a tune. I do, however, have my music. And I've had it for as long as I can remember. Sure, if I'm listening to the radio, or a record or CD, or something on the computer, that'll be the music in my head at the time. And the stylistic range of that music rather broad; the "Arts and Entertainment" section of my Facebook profile has a really long list of musicians and I once listed 52 "favorite vocalists" here. And that doesn't include other kinds of musical artists. But this is about the music in my head when I'm not listening to music.

Yesterday, and part of today, the hymn tune ST. CATHERINE was going through my head. I had finally finished selecting the hymns we would be using for our Wednesday Lenten services, and that tune was used for two different hymns I chose. You might recognize it as the tune used for Frederick William Faber's "Faith of Our Fathers" [note: the music will start almost immediately if you click that link].

The thing is, however, that what I've been hearing in my mind is most likely very unlike any way you have ever heard it. Heck, it's unlike any way I've ever heard it. Yet it's the way I hear it, and just about any other tune, when one is running around in the back of my mind all day. For "my own music" isn't a particular piece of music.

It's lots of different songs or themes -- ancient or modern, classical or pop, a really fine tune or horrid schlock -- set off by who-knows-what-kind of stimulus, that since I was a kid have managed to have one common thread when stuck in my mind for hours at a time. Something I realized just a few years ago as I was watching "Friends" the show's theme song was, once again, stuck in head thoughout the entire episode sounding entirely unlike The Rembrandts. Not long ago the tune was a Lenten Lutheran chorale from the 17th century.

The common thread is that my own music is performed by Billy May and His Orchestra.

Pope Benedict XXVI: Ash Wednesday Homily

I had to run to the store for some olive oil this morning before the Ash Wednesday service and, on the way back, Sebastian's radio (Sebastian is my 2002 Golf TDI) was tuned to our local EWTN Radio station, which was airing the Ash Wednesday Mass celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI. As I said to the congregation, not only is this Pope a fine theologian, he can preach.

...I would like to reflect on the liturgical sign of the ashes, a material sign, a natural element that, in the Liturgy, becomes a sacred symbol, so important on this day that marks the start of our Lenten journey. In ancient times, in the Jewish culture, it was common to sprinkle one’s head with ashes as a sign of penance, and to dress in sack-cloth and rags. For us Christians, there is this one moment which has important symbolic and spiritual relevance.

Ashes are the material sign that brings the cosmos into the Liturgy. The most important signs are those of the Sacraments: water, oil, bread and wine, which become true sacramental elements through which we communicate the Grace of Christ who comes among us. The ashes are not a sacramental sign, but they are linked with prayer and the sanctification of the Christian people. Before the ashes are placed on our heads, they are blessed according to two possible formulae: in the first they are called “austere symbols”, in the second, we invoke a blessing directly upon them, referring to the text in the Book of Genesis which can also accompany the imposition of the ashes: “Remember that you are dust and unto dust you shall return”.

Let us reflect for a moment on this passage of Genesis.

It concludes with a judgement made by God after original sin. God curses the serpent who caused man and woman to commit sin. Then He punishes the woman saying she will suffer the pains of giving birth. Then He punishes the man, saying he will suffer the fatigue of labour and He curses the soil saying “accursed be the soil because of you, because of your sin.” The man and woman are not cursed directly as the serpent is, but because of Adam’s sin. Let us reread the account of how God created man from the Earth. “God fashioned man of dust from the soil. Then He breathed into his nostrils, a breath of life. Thus man became a live being. Then God planted a garden in Eden, which is in the East, and there He put the man He had fashioned.” Thus the sign of the ashes recalls the great story of creation which tells us that being human means unifying matter with Divine breath, using the image of dust formed by God and given life by His breath, breathed into the nostrils of the new creature.

In the Genesis account, the symbol of dust takes on a negative connotation because of sin. Before the fall the soil is totally good: through God’s work it is capable of producing “every kind of tree enticing to look at and good to eat.” After the fall and following the divine curse it produces only thorns and brambles and only in exchange for the sweat of man’s brow will it surrender its fruits....

That's what I got to hear (in translation from Italian) about an hour before placing ashes on some 30 foreheads and preaching Ash Wednesday myself. You can (like me) read the rest of it here.

Family Radio and the Return of Christ

I discovered Family Radio in 1988, shortly after moving to Berkeley to attend seminary. Broadcast in the Bay Area from neighboring Oakland, I became a bit more familiar a couple of years later when I my parents gave me a shortwave radio while I was on internship in Helena, Montana.

One of Family Radio's features was the nightly "Open Forum," where people could call in to ask any question they had about the Bible or Christian faith. "Brother Camping" was the host. He'd clearly read the Bible throughly, and most of his responses put him solidly within conservative, perhaps even "Fundamentalist" (at least in its original Calvinist formulation) American protestantism. The program wasn't flashy and his manner of speaking wasn't particularly eloquent. In fact, he rather downplayed himself, focussing on how he read the Bible. You could hear the pages of his King James Bible turn as he moved from the caller's question to his finished answer.

Like many "self-taught" Bible interpreters, he could get stuck on some peculiar notions. But one thing he impressed me with was his response to one set of questions that kept coming up over and over again, that is, the "Rapture" and the return of Christ. On one hand he could tell you, based on his studies and computations, when God created the world. But as for when it was ending, that was not for us to know, or even worry about. Christ is returning, but when He was asked He said, "I do not know." Thus neither do we.

Then I noticed him answering the question, "Where can I find a true Bible believing church?" with (essentially), "Don't bother looking any more. They're all apostate, though in a few places there are faithful house churches I could direct you to. Better, take your Bible, and worship at home with your family according to these Bible principles...." It turns out that this advice started after he left the church in which he had been a member.

Nevertheless, shortly after arriving in Peoria, I was surprised (though since he'd separated himself from the church, I ought not have been so) when Camping published a book (that the local "evangelical" bookstore was selling) in which he stated that Christ might be returning September 6, 1994. When he'd talk about it on Family Radio, he hedged his bets a much as possible, but people took notice. I figured when it didn't happen, Brother Camping learned his lesson. And every once in a while, I'd turn the radio dial and catch him (via shortwave or up in Chicagoland) on Family Radio, sounding much older and fumbling a bit as he turned the pages of his Bible to find the answer to his caller's question. Or, sometimes, not find what he was looking for, which could sometimes lead to a short discourse on some other matter that popped into his head.

So I was rather surprised to learn that he'd gone back into the prediction business, and that today (the 120th anniversary of my grandmother's birth) is the Rapture.

Frankly, it seems to me that the secular media is making a bigger thing of this than anyone else (besides Brother Camping's Family Radio, that is, and a few of his listeners). As for what this Christian pastor thinks about the date of the Rapture or the return of Christ, I think Canon Kendall Harmon wrote well this morning on his TitusOneNine blog:

Since my area of specialization in research is eschatology, I have gotten a lot of questions about a certain individual (and his entourage of followers) getting a lot of press this past little while for stating the time of the end of the world (he thinks it is soon). I refuse to post stories on this because I am not going to give him/his group any more publicity.

As for what I think, my answer is simple--I refer you to Mark 13 in which Jesus says:

"But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.

"From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away before all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. But of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.Take heed, watch; for you do not know when the time will come (verses 24-33, RSV).

This is a difficult passage, because it comes in answer to a double question, but I think it is rightly understood at the end to be referring to Jesus' second coming and the "end of the world." Do you notice what he says? Not even Jesus knows.

So if Jesus says he doesn't know, and if history is littered with examples of people who have confidently predicted the day with certainty and later were shown to be wrong, why should we presume to say we know? That it is coming and that it is coming "soon" we can be sure, the New Testament is quite clear on that. But as for when exactly, we don't know. I do not know. Part of being a dependent creature is to admit there are things we simply do not know--that isn't a bad thing, it is actually a key part of Christian witness--KSH.

And if you really want to see Jesus, show up Sunday mornings during the nine o'clock hour Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church of Peoria (or the appointed time in one of many other churches) and I'll show Him to you. And when He returns in His glory to judge the living and the dead, you might be better prepared -- whenever He comes.

Dear All Things Considered

Subject: TSA Scans and "Pat Downs"

Dear All Things Considered:

Regarding the story this evening (Monday, 11/15) on the TSA Scans and "pat downs" of airline travelers and the interview with Dave Barry:

Perhaps you can help me understand what is so humorous about ordinary citizens being subjected to invasive body scans and searches simply because they are traveling by airplane. The reports of acts by agents of our own government sound more like something one might have heard from the darkest days of Stalinist Russia or Nazi Germany, not in the land of the free or a
nation conceived in liberty. Or are we indeed now living in a dystopian future that authors like Huxley and Orwell warned us about in fiction more than half-a-century ago? Are we free citizens or subjects of some faceless "czar?" Since going through an American airport now seems to routinely require indignities that convicted felons cannot be subjected to except in extreme circumstances, I'll find some other way to travel.

Steven Tibbetts
Peoria, Illinois
listening on WCBU, Peoria

= = = = =
Interestingly enough, the spell checker on Outlook flags "TSA" and suggests "TSAR."

Franklin Roosevelt's D-Day Prayer

Try to imagine the President of the United States going on the radio (TV, etc.) to do something like this today. D-Day, the Allied invasion at Normandy to begin the liberation of Europe from the Nazi's was 66 years ago today. And FDR spoke to the nation...

My fellow Americans: Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far.

And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:

Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.

Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.

They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.

They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest-until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violences of war.

For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and good will among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.

Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.

And for us at home -- fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas -- whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them--help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.

Many people have urged that I call the Nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.

Give us strength, too -- strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.

And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.

And, O Lord, give us Faith. Give us Faith in Thee; Faith in our sons; Faith in each other; Faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.

With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogancies. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister Nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.

Thy will be done, Almighty God.

Amen.

Interestingly, just now I'm listening to XM Radio's old time radio station, with Orson Welles' Mercury Theater broadcast for the day after D-Day. Agnes Morehead is narrating and, suddenly, what do I hear? An actor portraying FDR saying this prayer over the air!

Hat tip to TitusOneNine, where Canon Harmon posted this last week. This copy is the from Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum.

A Date Which Will Live in Infamy...

Yes, it was 68 years ago today, some 17 years before I was born. Nevertheless, this is in my bones. And what follows remains a marvelous speech that evokes in my mind "President of the United States" — even if it is "That Man." You can listen to it here from a radio broadcast, but if you're like me, you can hear the voice just by reading the words.


Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the Senate, and of the House of Representatives:

Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.

Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States and his colleagues delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. And while this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack.

It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time, the Japanese government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.

Yesterday, the Japanese government also launched an attack against Malaya.

Last night, Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.

Last night, Japanese forces attacked Guam.

Last night, Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.

Last night, the Japanese attacked Wake Island.

And this morning, the Japanese attacked Midway Island.

Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area.

The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation. As commander in chief of the Army and Navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense. But always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us. [applause]

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory. [cheers, applause]

I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us. [applause]

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph — so help us God. [applause]

I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.

[applause, cheers]

The Voice of Heaven

It was brutal, last night's 11-0 Dodger loss to the Phillies.

I was listening to the Dodger feed on my XM Satellite Radio. For the playoffs, the Dodger Network is taking a page from history. You see, during the season the principal Dodgers announcers are Charley Steiner and Rick Monday. They share the announcers' booth beginning in the 4th inning of all games, and for most road games they broadcast the entire game.

THE Dodger announcer is, of course, Vin Scully, who's been at a Dodger mic since the 1950 season. At home and West Coast games, he broadcasts the first 3 innings on radio, then heads over to the TV booth. But in this post-season, we get to go back (in a sense) to the old days, when Scully had the mic solo for most of the game, with Jerry Doggett giving him respite for a couple of innings each game. For this post-season the Dodger feed is Vinnie for innings 1-3 and 7-9. It makes all the difference.

Growing up, Vin Scully's voice was in the background whenever Grandpa Hutchinson was around (his house or ours) and the Dodger game was on. His voice echoed throughout Dodger Stadium as fans brought our transistor radios and tuned to KFI to listen to him describe the game we were watching. Just a couple of years ago, as I was driving on a September Sunday afternoon, I marvelled as Scully kept his listeners entertained as a batter fouled off something like 15 pitches in a row.

Last night, as the Dodgers were receiving a royal shellacking, Vin Scully told it straight. No whining like the more "homer" announcers we have here in the mid-west. No harsh criticism of "bad decisions" by Joe Torre, his coaches, or players. Oh, there was no doubt as you listened just how badly the game was going for Los Angeles and how they weren't executing the way the team with the best record in the National League ought to be executing. But the story is the game, and Vin is a master storyteller, bringing in all sorts of background -- one story was of when the "Whiz-Kid" Phils beat the Dodgers in a one-game playoff to make the World Series, and he didn't need to mention that it was 1950 and that he was there in the booth -- to put it all in the proper context. Baseball's a game. A wonderful game, even when things aren't going well for your team.

Sadly, the 2010 season will be his last. Then no more will a ball game begin, "Hi everybody, and a very pleasant evening to you, wherever you may be."

There's a Facebook group called "Vin Scully - The Voice of God." That's not quite right. Vinnie doesn't speak and things come into being. Rather he describes what's happening, and you are there and you understand what's going on in ways that never would have come to mind. When Scully's announcing the world is right. Evan when the game is brutal. Vin Scully - The Voice of Heaven.

Good Peoria Radio Bites the Dust--Again

Well, nuts! I come back from a few days out of town, turn on the radio, and my radio station has changed formats. No more "World Class Rock and Roll" at 99.9 (where the music was so good that I didn't mind the silly "The Stage" moniker). It's now "The Buzz" and the music (the newer, harder edge of the old format), ads (the local strip club is sponsoring the entire first week), and DJ (at least he's a live one) seems to be aimed at potty-mouthed college frat boys. Like a couple of other stations in town.

I suppose I ought not be surprised. Peoria radio stations that I really enjoy listening to never last very long. Even the two I still list on the right column, the classical/public affairs WCBU NPR affiliate and the Adult Standards WOAM, aren't as good as they once were.

As for WWCT 99.9, it went to the "world class rock and roll" format early this year, with an eclectic adult rock format, sort of a cross of LA's KNX-FM and K-WEST circa 1980 (just before they gave up being individual stations and went Top 40) updated for 2008. While I was in hospital for my prostate surgery (and thus not listening to the radio) they announced an upcoming format change (the ratings weren't anything special), but by the time I was home the only change was the new name along with lots of promo announcements about how "the listeners have spoken" so station management listened back and wasn't screwing up the station.

Until this week.

Well, I guess I go back to radio channel surfing in the car, and XM at home if I'm not listening to the news. Thanks AAA Radio.

An Era Ends (and on My Birthday)

Hmmm. It's another March for Pastor Zip's Blog.

T. J. Simers opens his column in today's Los Angeles Times:

VERO BEACH, Fla. -- The Dodgers played their last spring training game here Monday, like most folks in California really care.

The Dodgers have been training here for 60 years, out of sight as far as Los Angeles is concerned, and who cares where they practice?

It's just another minor league baseball stadium, a clubhouse off limits to fans, and even the players no longer stay overnight in Dodgertown, passing on nostalgia for almost $700 a week in living expenses to hang wherever they want.

Blow up the place, and I don't think any of my neighbors will lose any sleep. Make a museum out of it, and I can still think of a thousand different places worth a visit first.

Read it all here. But T. J. Simers must never have been a boy growing up in Los Angeles. I was -- born on St. Patrick's Day as the Los Angeles Dodgers (a term at that point that tripped off the tongue of no one except Kenny Hahn) were in Spring Training for a season that would, shock of shocks, bring baseball's World Championship to the West Coast. (That means I passed a milestone yesterday, celebrating my 49th birthday -- one more than my grandfather, Charles Wallace Tibbetts, did.)

Vero Beach mattered. Even to an Angels fan in the West Valley who craved, instead, reports from Holtville and games from Palm Springs (it would be years before I finally figured out that the guy yelling outside the press box almost drowning out Enberg and Wells or Drysdale was hawking "ICE COLD BEER!") on KMPC. It meant the sports pages and reports on the TV news and a game or two on Channel 11 focussed on the other Southland team, meaning Dodger talk. It meant that the wonderful voice of Vic Scully was again describing the action on the field while selling Farmer John hot dogs, bacon, and other pork products.

In 1983 our Pastor's 15-year-old son was diagnosed with cancer in the bone of his right leg. Keith was at the time quite a young pitcher whose life ambition until then was to pitch for the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Saga of Keith and the Dragon Slayers became a focus of the congregation's shared life and all sorts of people got involved in offering comfort and support for Keith. Even the Dodgers had been involved -- baseball players and teams can be so good at providing inspiration and hope -- and, after treatments that included chemotherapy, radiation, and replacement of the bone with a titanium rod, it seemed young Keith had been cured.

And as 1984 was blending into 1985, somehow arrangements had been made for the high school kid who should have been pitching for El Camino Real High School (arch rival of the Hunters) was going to Dodgertown in Vero Beach, with his dad, and get to spend time with their beloved Los Angeles Dodgers. Alas, within hours of his arrival, Keith collapsed and in the hospital it was discovered that, unbeknownst to anyone, a tiny piece of that bone cancer had escaped capture and the cancer was now in his brain. And suddenly the questions were, as Pastor Dave was all alone in Vero Beach, how long could Keith live, and could he come back home to LA.

There were lots of stories yesterday as the Dodgers played what should be their last game in Dodgertown. Sports Illustrated's SI.com has a wonderful article, Dodgers: Farewell, Dodgertown of the day, with an 80-year-old Tommy Lasorda managing (while Joe Torre has part of the team playing an exhibition series with the Padres in China):

"It is a special place," former Dodgers ace Carl Erskine said.

His white hair ruffling in the breeze, Erskine played the national anthem on his harmonica. He threw the first pitch at cozy Holman Stadium when it opened in 1953, back when grassy embankments served as the outfield walls. Even now, there are just 17 rows of stands and no roofs on the dugouts.

The popular "Oisk" first arrived in 1948, when the Dodgers touched down at the converted naval air station a year after they trained in Havana.

The Boys of Summer are grandfathers now, Jackie and Pee Wee are gone and Brooklyn is now home to a minor league team.

But there was always that link to Dodgertown, where Sandy Koufax still came back to teach pitching. History abounded -- heck, the camp is older than almost half the franchises in the majors.

David Hinkley of the New York Daily News in "A farewell to Dodgertown" remembers being a 9-year-old Brooklyn Dodger fan in Connecticut struggling with the notion that, since the Dodgers had just moved to Los Angeles, Vinnie wouldn't be on the radio from Dodgertown.

Around 12:30, when the pregame shows used to start, I went to the kitchen and turned on the radio, a small black Magnavox with a plastic gold grill. I switched from WTIC, where Bob Steele gave us the weather every morning and school closings on really good days, to 840.

Nothing sounds like a baseball game on the radio. You know it as surely as you know the smell of popcorn in a movie theater. Even a pregame show is distinctive.

This afternoon, there was nothing distinctive on WKNB - probably, thinking back, some NBC network show.

I adjusted the dial, hoping I'd tuned wrong. I hadn't. I turned it off. Fifteen minutes later I came back, hoping maybe they just weren't carrying the pregame.

I started trying again around 12:55. By 1:15 there had been no mention of a ballgame.

Maybe it was rained out, I started to tell myself, but even at 9 I knew when I'd exhausted this delusion.

By 2 o'clock the announcers had done a half dozen breaks and never mentioned a ballgame.

I stared at the radio. I remember feeling very lonely.

As years have passed, I've thought of a lot of things I wish I had done, or could have done, when I was young. If I'd been just a year or two older, I might remember my great-grandmother, who came over from Ireland in the 1870s on a "famine ship" and died when I was 4. What a story she must have taken with her.

But those senses of loss came gradually. For acute, immediate loss, it would be years before anything would come close to what washed over me in the kitchen on that March afternoon.

It felt unfair. Just unfair.

Curiously, I didn't look to blame anyone, because it didn't really seem to matter who did it. Even if I'd known about Walter O'Malley, I wouldn't have understood enough to hate him. It would be years before I appreciated the treachery of Robert Moses.

I certainly didn't blame the Dodgers. I remained a fan, now a cross-country fan, hating the playoff loss in '62, loving the sweep of the Yankees in '63 and so on through the years.

So when I arrived back here in Vero Beach this spring, the sharp pain of that afternoon in the kitchen was tempered by the expectation of seeing Matt Kemp and James Loney and Andre Ethier, hoping they can make the Dodgers a good team again.

When they came to bat, Holman Stadium didn't feel like the scene of a wake. It felt like a a pleasant afternoon when I had tickets to see my team, which for the last 50 years I haven't had enough chances to do.

Still, it's hard not to feel the ghosts around Dodgertown, starting with Jackie Robinson's "42" on the right-centerfield fence.

Vero Beach is still the place where all those guys that I played in the backyard got good every spring - Hodges and Reese and Campanella, sure, but also Don Demeter and Randy Jackson and Gino Cimoli.

I was all of them. They were all here. And now this place is going to be gone, and that takes them away, too. There will be no more blue Dodger uniforms in a stadium where tropical trees grow up through the middle of two reserved sections. No more Dodger dogs.

Tom Singer now over at MLB.com, but who I read every day in the sports section of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner (now that was a newspaper), wrote Dodgertown blues: Time to say farewell:

Legendary broadcaster Vin Scully, eyewitness to almost as much of Dodgertown, calls his spring home for 59 years "my memory factory."

"This," Scully said before bidding an early farewell to Dodgertown on his way to China, "is where I stood in place and it seems like half the world came by -- players, coaches, managers, writers, broadcasters."

This is where time still stands still. Strolling down the dusty path from a back field, you come to an intersection where a traffic sign directs pedestrians, "Players, Left," "Public, Right." They rub elbows with each other, as they have for over a half-century, passing across Duke Snider Street, Don Drysdale Drive, Sandy Koufax Lane and so on.

"There were times you'd be rushing to get to the park," said Steve Garvey, the former Dodgers first baseman/icon, "and you'd be signing [autographs] and putting your bat between your legs and walking along through the people."

The homogeny also extended to the players, hundreds of them on dozens of Minor League clubs in the early years, when Holman Stadium was essentially the quad of Dodgers University.

Holman? Vero Beach Caddy dealer Bud Holman scored one of the first "naming-rights" deals for convincing legendary Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey to relocate the team's training base here. How long ago was it? To sell Rickey, Holman had to look him up in Cuba -- where the Dodgers were training in 1947.

"When you came here, you felt that competitive worry of having to make the club," said Jeff Torborg, Dodgers catcher 1964-70. "That's what Dodgertown meant. That family feeling you get being here, you don't feel anywhere else."

"We played baseball all day long," Lasorda recalled, "and that was the best part of it. Learning how to play so you could advance yourself to the Major Leagues. Greatest, most unique sports complex in America."

"Just walking in there ... smelling the orange blossoms, hearing the crack of the bat. The whole atmosphere was just something special," said Mike Scioscia, the Angels manager who first came here in 1977 before becoming the Dodgers' catcher, and last departed from here in 1999 as their Triple-A manager at Albuquerque. "And it's the people who made it special.

"Sandy Koufax, Carl Erskine and Roy Campanella would be in the Chow Hall, eating breakfast with you. They were all reminders that you were there to win, to achieve. Every time you stepped into the clubhouse, you were prepared to spend that day becoming a better ballplayer."

Even the poetic waxing about the place is itself part of the anachronism. The game is as great and as absorbing as ever, but the romance seems to have long ago left it. Sentiment is quickly put into its place.

The Times has a regular report of that last Dodger game at Holman Stadium in Dodgers bid farewell to Dodgertown (maybe):

VERO BEACH, Fla. -- Carl Erskine played the national anthem on a harmonica. Tommy Lasorda made a speech. And then the Dodgers said what may be their final goodbye to Dodgertown after 61 spring-training seasons today by losing to the Houston Astros, 12-10.

. . .

The Astros took a 3-1 lead in the third on back-to-back homers by Michael Bourne and Hunter Pence before the Dodgers rallied with four runs in the bottom of the inning, helped in part by Rafael Furcal's second home run of the spring.

Houston answered with another home run in the fourth -- one with an ironic twist given the day's history because it was hit by second baseman David Newhan, whose father, Hall of Fame baseball writer Ross Newhan, covered numerous spring training games in Vero Beach as the Dodgers beat writer for The Times.

The Dodgers hold Spring Training in Glendale, Arizona? With the White Sox?? No, it doesn't feel right. Not on my birthday, for heaven's sake. Dodgertown is part of the Dodger mystique! No, T. J., this LA boy knows you've opened your story all wrong.

But get past those heartless first paragraphs...

And when it was all over, the players leaving after a 12-10 loss to the Houston Astros, Lasorda lingered at home plate.

As he began to walk down the right-field line, every step appearing to be a chore, something almost chilling on a hot day began to take shape.

Somewhere beyond first base he looked up, and he saw it, too, Dodgers players standing in a long line, two-by-two across from each other, bats raised above their heads as if they were crossing swords in honor of a military hero.

And as he walked down the tunnel, he shook each of their hands, a bunch of kids taking it upon themselves without a call to any of their agents to honor an 80-year-old man.

A few minutes later, after making it to the clubhouse, Lasorda cried.

"A lot of amazing things have happened to me in my life," he said. "But what those players did for me with the bats is something I'll never forget."

It was another miracle. Somehow arrangements were made for a medically equipped jet -- this was 1985 -- to fly Keith from Vero Beach back to LA where his UCLA doctors could see what they could do and, unlike what we had feared, Pastor Dave would be leading his congregation in worship for Holy Week and Easter. Then the miracles ran out. Young Keith died a few weeks later, and for his funeral, people packed Resurrection to the gills.

Ah, "Resurrection." Stories for another time. But ponder this: the miracles really don't run out. Eras end, but there'll be something more. And better.

A Classy Guy Departs

He was a very good player when I was a young baseball fan and had had an honorable career playing and managing in the Big Leagues. But at the beginning of the 1985 baseball season, his new job was as the analyst for KTLA's broadcasts of the California Angels, and the new guy (replacing, if memory serves, Harmon Killebrew) just wasn't very good. Except that as the season went on, he got better. And better. In fact, by mid-summer, there were 2 new reasons for watching the Angels on TV -- it was a good year (the Haloes would end the season with 90 victories and only 1 game behind the American League's Western Division Champs) and listening to this analyst was just fascinating. And that's when I became a Joe Torre fan.

10 years later after 2 baseball seasons in Peoria and being frustrated listening to the Cubs, I thought I'd try being a Cardinal fan largely because Torre was their manager. Naturally, he was fired mid-way through the season. By season's end, I'd given up on the Cards, too. But I followed Joe to his next position as he turned Steinbrenner's Evil Yankees into a special team worth rooting for -- behind the Angels, of course. As a subscriber to XM Radio the last couple of years, I've probably listened as intently to Yankees' games as the Angels' -- this despite the Yanks' truly awful play-by-play announcer.

Well, after 12 seasons, 12 consecutive post-season appearances, 10 1st place finishes, 6 World Series, 4 World Championships, and a soap opera's fill of off-the-field highs and lows, it seems that Joe's finally had enough of managing the Yankees. Thanks, Mr. Torre (as shortstop Derek Jeter always called him) for giving the Yankees a human face.

Now we can go back to hating those Damn Yankees.

The Dodgers: 50 years in Los Angeles!

50 years ago today, the Dodgers announced they were moving to Los Angeles.

I know: I've not even been alive that long. I was 6 1/2 months old when the Dodgers defeated the White Sox in the '59 World Series. It was their second season in LA, and the Brooklyn crew Roger Kahn would later dub The Boys of Summer had passed their prime. I've never even been a big Dodger fan, though I always enjoyed going to Dodger Stadium, and no one announces a game like Vin Scully (who a few weeks ago kept me entranced listening on the radio as a batter fouled off some 15 pitches in a row).

But I'm an Angeleno, and even to Angels fans, the Dodgers are a part of the background of life. And the background really is important. And yesterday and today, the Los Angeles Times published a nice 2-part series, "50 YEARS AGO: FROM BROOKLYN TO LOS ANGELES." Part 1 is, at least on the web site, found in "business news":

L.A.'s major league play: Dodgers' 50 years in Los Angeles

Fifty years ago, L.A. City Council voted to provide Walter O'Malley with 300-plus acres in Chavez Ravine. The rest is baseball history.

All of 22 years old and fresh out of USC, Rosalind Wiener was looking for ways to attract voters in her bid for a seat on the Los Angeles City Council.

She had 35,000 cards printed up enumerating the standard election promises: strengthen drug laws, improve the economy, eliminate government waste and provide adequate public transportation.

But she needed one more item. Something different. Something original.

Well, her family had always been huge baseball fans, so why not?

Wiener's final item: Bring major league baseball to Los Angeles.

The year was 1953.

"I didn't know about minor league rights," she said. "I didn't know you had to get a vote of the owners. I thought, you just said to somebody, 'Come visit. Come to L.A.' I didn't know how complicated it would be to bring a team here."

Complicated, but not impossible, as Wiener, who married and became Rosalind Wyman, discovered after winning a council seat.

Professional baseball in Los Angeles in those days consisted of two Pacific Coast League teams, the Los Angeles Angels and the Hollywood Stars.

On the other side of the continent, the Dodgers seemed entrenched in Brooklyn, where they had been since their inception in 1890 as the Bridegrooms.

As the Trolley Dodgers and then, simply, the Dodgers, they became the soul of their community and "America's Team" long before the Dallas Cowboys were tabbed with that distinction.

But by 1953, Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley had been exploring alternatives for aging Ebbets Field for seven years. Back in 1946, as a minority owner, O'Malley sent a letter to engineer Emil Prager in which O'Malley said, "Your fertile imagination should have some ideas about enlarging or replacing our present stadium."

O'Malley's imagination was running wild by the 1950s. Having taken over majority ownership of the team, he envisioned building a domed stadium, a concept that seemed inconceivable for baseball at the time, more than a decade before the Astrodome was constructed in Houston.

O'Malley had selected a site at the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush, a couple of long fly balls from Ebbets Field. The property contained a soon-to-be-abandoned meat market and was located at a hub of the New York transportation system that would bring in the Manhattan crowds via subway and those living in the suburbs via the Long Island Rail Road.

There was no question Ebbets Field, built in 1913, its foundation decaying, its opportunities for expansion nonexistent because of the surrounding neighborhood, had to be replaced.

Also in 1953, a seemingly unrelated event back in L.A. would push Wyman's dream one step closer to reality.

Three years earlier, a letter had gone out from the Los Angeles Housing Authority to residents living on more than 300 acres of steep rolling hills near downtown known as Chavez Ravine. It informed them a public housing development for low-income families was to be built on their property, which they would be forced to sell at fair market value under eminent domain. The residents would be given the first opportunity to buy into the new project, to be known as Elysian Park Heights, or would be given public assistance in finding other homes.

"The Dodgers had nothing whatsoever to do with the moving of people out of Chavez Ravine," Wyman said.

With the process underway and families being bought out, the project came to a screeching halt in 1953 with the election of Norris Poulson as Los Angeles mayor. A vehement opponent of public housing, he was the key figure in the killing of the project.

Read it all here. Part 2 is in "sports":

Dodgers' fans were Flatbush-whacked

Losing their beloved 'Bums' seemed inconceivable to Brooklynites. When the team left, a borough's collective heart was broken, and those who were there can still recall the pain.

The Dodgers leaving Brooklyn?

It was as inconceivable as the Notre Dame Fighting Irish leaving South Bend, Ind., the Packers leaving Green Bay or the Statue of Liberty being moved to Lake Michigan.

Yes, Brooklynites understood Ebbets Field was decaying and knew owner Walter O'Malley was frustrated by his inability to get New York city commissioner Robert Moses to approve O'Malley's plan for a new stadium. They had heard the rumors about Los Angeles.

And yet when conjecture became reality, it hit everyone hard, from fans on the street and in the seats to team personnel on the field and in the front office.

The resulting emotion is expressed in the memories that follow of those tumultuous times for a borough and its team:

Buzzie Bavasi, former Dodgers general manager: "Walter's attitude was, 'If it's 30 miles from Brooklyn, it might as well be 3,000 miles.' Flushing Meadows was not Brooklyn."

Billy DeLury, who has served in the Dodgers organization for over half a century: "It just wasn't fair. If I want to build a house and this is where I want to build it and someone says, 'You don't build a house unless I tell you where to build it,' I don't think that's right. And that's what happened with the ballpark.

"Would you have to change the name to the Flushing Dodgers? I really, truly think Moses thought we would never leave."

Bavasi: "None of us blame Walter because we realized Ebbets Field needed a lot of work. My sister's father-in-law was the fire commissioner for Brooklyn. He could have condemned Ebbets Field, but because of his relationship with me, he told me to just do a few maintenance things and it would be all right. But even with that, it cost us plenty of money because we had to do a lot of work. To get it into condition where it would have been approved by the city would have cost us millions and we didn't have the millions at that time."

Financial details, however, were not the main concern of Brooklyn fans.

Boxing promoter Bob Arum, who grew up in that borough: "When I think of Brooklyn, the only thing that really mattered was baseball. Ebbets Field was less than a mile from where I lived. It was 25 cents for the bleachers. They used to play a lot of doubleheaders, so our mothers packed lunches because we would be there for eight hours.

"The players lived in the area you lived. [Manager] Charlie Dressen lived a few blocks away. You'd see the players in restaurants. There was a pitcher, Freddie Fitzsimmons, who had a bowling alley. It was really more than just a team."

TV host Larry King, another Brooklyn native: "I still remember the aroma of Ebbets Field. I was at Jackie Robinson's first game. Sat in the bleachers. It was a scene I'll never forget. The bleachers were the best because they were so close.

"The Dodgers were the symbol of Brooklyn. They gave us an identity, set us apart from Manhattan and Queens. When you lived in Brooklyn, everything else was Tokyo."

Joan Hodges, the 81-year-old widow of Gil, the Dodgers first baseman: "My parents came from Italy and didn't know a baseball from an onion. But by the time Gil was managing the Mets, my mother would ask him: 'How come you take so long to take the pitcher out?' "

Current Dodgers announcer Charley Steiner, another native New Yorker: "Brooklyn was a conclave of immigrants of every nationality and religion: German, Polish, Russian, Irish, Italian, Catholic, Jewish. Our grandparents had a funny accent because they were from the old country, but the one thing they all had in common was the Dodgers. That was Brooklyn."

But as the 1950s wore on, that was changing.

Arum: "Many families were moving to the Long Island suburbs like my folks did because they could afford it and it offered a better quality of life. It had nothing to do with racism. It was less cramped and you could own your own home out there.

"Unlike Californians, those people were not acclimated to vehicles. They had no desire to drive back into the city, so O'Malley needed a stadium that was close to public transportation."

When he couldn't convince Moses to sign off on his dream stadium, O'Malley pushed ahead in negotiations with L.A. officials.

Read it all here. And the sidebars, of both articles, too. Kudos to writer Steve Springer. And the Times.

Oh, and this is interesting. The tired and beat-up Ebbets Field was 45-years-old when O'Malley moved out of it. Now, apart from Fenway Park, Wrigley Field, and the (largely rebuilt) Yankee Stadium, Dodger Stadium is the oldest park in the Major Leagues. 45-years-old. And still a jewell.

Wait 'til next year!

Oh my, what an ugly way to end what had been a wonderful season. Yes, I listened to the whole thing on XM radio with the hometown announcers. Boston 9, Los Angeles Angels 1.

After the Cubs lose to the Diamondbacks, ending their season. (Theological content here on TitusOneNine. And Canon Harmon lives in South Carolina!)

The worst Notre Dame football team in anybody's memory beats UCLA, 20-6. Ugh!

Out of the depths I cry to you:
O Father, hear me calling.
Incline you ear to my distress
In spite of my rebelling.
Do not regard myh sinful deeds.
Send me the grace my spirit needs;
Without it I am nothing.
      (stanza 1, Out of the Depths I Cry to You,
      Martin Luther, tr. Gracia Grindal,
      paraphrase of Psalm 130, LBW hymn #295)

But then there's this: the 41-point underdog Stanford Indians, er, Cardinal upset the USC Brain Surgeons: 24-23!!

Alleluia!!!

My soul is waiting for the Lord
As one who longs for morning;
No watcher waits with greater hope
Than I for his returning.
I hope as Israel in the Lord;
He sends redemption through his Word.
We praise him for his mercy.
      (stanza 4)

Wait 'til next year!

The Long Lent Explodes in Los Angeles

I've been home the last week for my 30-year high school reunion.

The headline in Sunday's (Los Angeles) Daily News:

Sins of the fathers to cost church $660 million

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles will pay a historic $660 million to more than 500 victims who were abused by clergy during the past 70 years, sources said late Saturday.

In what would be the largest payout in the church's sex-abuse scandal, sources close to the archdiocese and a lawyer for the victims said Saturday that terms of a settlement are being worked out this weekend. If the agreement holds, each victim would receive between $1.2 million and $1.3 million.

The news came just two days before the first of more than 500 clergy abuse cases is scheduled for trial jury selection Monday.

Ray Boucher, attorney and negotiator for the victims, confirmed late Saturday that a settlement had been reached, but he declined to provide specifics.

He said a news release will be issued today (Sunday) about the formal announcement of the settlement, which will take place on Monday morning.

A source close to the archdiocese confirmed to the Daily News that an agreement had been reached but said details and legal language were still being hammered out.

Read it all here.

This has been the story in LA ever since. The Daily News' front page on Monday and Tuesday remained focussed on this $660 million settlement. Monday:

Mahony's mea culpa
Cardinal offers apologies to sexual-abuse victims; claimants doubt sincerity

Calling sexual abuse by clergy a "terrible sin and crime," Cardinal Roger Mahony apologized Sunday to hundreds of people who claim they were molested by priests in the nation's largest archdiocese.

The apology came during a news conference following Sunday Mass and a day after the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to pay a record $660 million in a settlement with 508 victims.

"There really is no way to go back and give them that innocence that was taken from them," Mahony said. "The one thing I wish I could give the victims ... I cannot.

"Once again, I apologize to anyone who has been offended, who has been abused. It should not have happened and it will not happen again."

Mahony said he has met with dozens of victims of clergy abuse in the past 14 months and those meetings helped him understand the importance of a quick resolution to the lawsuits.

The cardinal is scheduled to be in court this morning to go over the final settlement. He said the church's decision to settle on the eve of the trials - which were set to begin today - had nothing to do with keeping him from testifying.

Read it all here.

We're reading notes from an interview with Cardinal Mahoney (which apparently upset His Eminence), stories about victims, and questions about the Cardinal's future. That last links concludes ominously:

Meanwhile, with the civil case now settled, it appears a criminal case isn't out of the question. Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley issued a statement Monday afternoon making that clear.

"Today's massive civil settlement highlights the institutional moral failure of the archdiocese to supervise predatory priests who operated for years under its jurisdiction," he said.

Regarding confidential documents that could be released as a result of Monday's settlement, Cooley said, "If these documents reveal evidence of criminal activity on behalf of individual priests or anyone else, we will pursue them.

"The book is not closed on our investigation."

I can hardly wait to see tomorrow morning's paper.

Meanwhile, LA's talk radio is blistering the Cardinal Archbishop, at least on KFI (where John and Ken seem to have nothing good to say about the Church) and KABC (where the usually common sense Larry Elder is beside himself over Cardinal Mahoney still having a job).

What the people of Los Angeles are not hearing or reading about is the outrage among faithful Catholics that dates to the beginning of the sexual abuse scandal, which blew open in January 2002 in Boston and then spread across the nation. Fr. Richard John Neuhaus of First Things was calling this the "Long Lent" back in 2002. At one point he wrote:

I have said it before: we have probably not yet felt the full fury of the storm aroused by the grave misgovernment of the Catholic Church in America. I do not want to write about this, and I wouldn’t blame you if you do not want to read about it. Since all this broke in January, I have given no less than thirty hours per week to the subject, talking with endless reporters, and doing radio interviews. (I’ve been turning down as many as half a dozen television interviews per day, because they take so much time in traveling to studios, and mainly because most of them provide an opportunity for no more than a few sound bites and a food fight.) Please, I’m not whining. It is just to say I’m weary of the subject, but recognize the probability that it will not let us go.

For weeks now, the media have been in a feeding frenzy. I do not say that in criticism of the media. Let it be stated unambiguously: the leaders of the Catholic Church, meaning mainly the bishops, are responsible for the crisis and for the consequent frenzy. Of course some reporting is sensationalistic, and of course it is amusing to see the New York Times, day after day, running essentially the same story on the front page, as though they’re afraid people are going to forget about it. But, regrettably, there are also new developments, and no doubt will be more, that legitimate the major attention paid.

There is this difference: for the first time in years, I have the impression that most journalists are really trying to understand what is happening, or at least to find a story line that makes sense of what is happening. In other words, the story doesn’t conveniently fall into the conventional left/right, liberal/conservative boxes on which reporters usually depend. Recall that the story started out as a “pedophilia” scandal. The story has rightly moved beyond that now. The scandal is only very marginally about pedophilia. With very few exceptions, it is about adult men having sexual relations with adolescent and older teenage boys. So everybody has by now heard a great deal about “ephebophilia.” It is not necessary, however, that we learn a new vocabulary. There’s a perfectly good old fashioned word for same-sex sex. Homosexuality is very close to the center of the crisis. At the epicenter is the grave negligence of bishops. Not all bishops, to be sure, but too many. And, as in the case of Palm Beach, Florida, not only grave negligence but active complicity. Two months ago a lawyer and friend of the Church told me that before this is over we will see a bishop or two in jail. I thought that hyperbolic. Now I am not so sure.

That was in June 2002. In May 2004, Fr. Neuhaus wrote about "The Catholic Reform:

The cover of the 150-page report of the National Review Board (NRB) is deep purple, the color of Lenten penitence, which is just right for this telling moment in the Long Lent that began with the Boston exposures of January 2002. It is titled “A Report on the Crisis in the Catholic Church in the United States.” Not the “Sex Abuse Crisis in the Catholic Church” but the “Crisis in the Catholic Church.” Long before there was a sex abuse crisis, there was a spiritual crisis, a moral crisis, a doctrinal crisis, and a crisis of misgovernance in the Catholic Church in the United States. All these crises finally come down to what the bishops did and did not do, what the bishops have and have not been doing for decades. The report is about priestly perpetrators and their victims; it is about seminaries and spiritual formation; it is about lawyers and the compromising of the Church’s independence. But, mainly and most importantly, the report is about bishops.

When, in their panicked Dallas meeting of 2002, the bishops created a National Review Board of prominent Catholic laity, I was opposed to the idea. I said and wrote that the bishops should take the heat and the responsibility for what had happened. I thought it was a dangerous precedent to have lay episcopoi of the episcopoi, overseers of the episcopal overseers; that it would play into the hands of dissenting Catholics who challenge what, in Catholic teaching, is the divinely constituted structure of the Church governed by bishops who are successors to the apostles. I hoped the bishops would devise some means—perhaps a plenary council or a long collegial retreat—to honestly examine what had gone wrong and come up with a believable program for reform. I was wrong. It is now apparent that the bishops as a body, meaning the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), were incapable of doing what the National Review Board has done. It is inconceivable that the bishops and bureaucracy of the USCCB could have produced the forthright analysis and program of reform that the NRB issued in Washington on Friday, February 27. The NRB has done what the bishops should have done. The report is a great gift to the bishops and to the Church. Now the question is whether the bishops are capable of receiving the report, and acting on it. If not—and the initial responses are not encouraging—they will, as the report suggests, further undermine the confidence of the Catholic faithful in the authority, competence, and moral integrity of their leaders. That is the “Crisis in the Catholic Church in the United States.” The report leaves no doubt that clerical sex abuse opened a window, exposing to sight a much larger reality of nonfeasance and malfeasance in the leadership of the Church.

Read it all here. Alas, the Cardinal Archbishop of Los Angeles did not seem to get it in full. Phil Lawler says it like this in a special to Catholic World News:

Five years ago Cardinal Roger Mahony was reportedly encouraging Vatican officials to ask for the resignation of Boston's Cardinal Bernard Law. Using the same logical arguments that the American prelate presented in 2002, the Vatican should now ask Cardinal Mahony himself to step down.

The sensational cost of the sex-abuse scandal for the Los Angeles archdiocese far exceeds the devastation in Boston. The $660-million legal settlement announced on July 16 is nearly five times the total of the financial damages in Boston. Combining that settlement with previous agreements, lawyers' fees, and other associated costs, the overall price to be paid by the faithful Catholics of Los Angeles will approach $1 billion.

Yet the monetary costs, grave as they are, still do not reflect the most serious damage to the Catholic faith. Only rarely do I agree with an editorial in the Boston Globe, particularly when the topic is the Catholic faith. But today's Globe editorial is on target:

In the eyes of victims, the scandal will never be fully resolved as long as bishops who put the interests of their fellow priests over the protection of children remain in positions of leadership.

One could – and should – go further. This ugly chapter in Catholic history cannot be closed until the Church rebukes those prelates who put their own interests ahead of the needs of the Catholic faithful and the Catholic faith. Cardinal Mahony is the most conspicuous example.

Thanks to blogger Steve Ray for that report.

Bishops stopped acting like Bishops, and trusted secular counselors to fix priests who could not keep their vows. When they got caught, they let their defense and insurance lawyers stall and protect, rather than confessing their sin and doing their penance. (Which, it seems, is exactly what "saved" the original offenders.) The $660 million this has finally cost the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, after millions more paid elsewhere and even the bankruptcy of other Dioceses, is only the money side of the cost this has been to the Catholic Church. What about the cost to the faithful laity, clergy, and religious? And worse, the cost of (and to) those who lost their faith, or had it stripped away -- Catholic, protestant, and others?

And in all this we cannot set aside that this Long Lent, which still continues, has been deftly used by anti-Catholic zealots who attack the Catholic Church because it indeed has some sort of accountability for this sort of thing, even when it is horribly misused and mangled by those who should know better. Meanwhile other parts of our culture, in both sacred and secular realms, this same sort of behavior does not get much attention, or where in the popular media it is even encouraged.

Who'll pay for that when those chickens come home to roost?

Home, Sweet, Home

Several years ago a friend looked at my home page and observed that I really must love Los Angeles. I've not lived there since 1988, and must confess that image of home in my mind is more from the '60s than the early 21st century. Nevertheless, I do.

I was deeply touched last week when reading Ray Bradbury's 1974 introduction to Dandelion Wine. He was writing about Waukegan, but while reading it I was thinking of places I've lived: Canoga Park; that part of Van Nuys at Sepulveda and Roscoe near the Busch Brewery; Helena, Montana; the South Side of Peoria. Nearly 30 years ago, a woman in my home church said I had been "born 40." And while I wouldn't deny the compliment she was offering me, I'm glad I've never lost touch with little boy inside of me.

Here's Bradbury:

I was amused and somewhat astonished at a critic a few years a few years back who wrote an article analyzing Dandelion Wine plus the more realistic works of Sinclair Lewis, wondering how I could have been born and raised in Waukegan, which I renamed Green Town for my novel, and not noticed how ugly the harbor was and how depressing the coal docks and railyards down below the town.

But, of course, I had noticed them and, genetic enchanter that I was, was fascinated by their beauty. Trains and boxcars and the smell of coal and fire are not ugly to children. Ugliness is a concept that we happen on later and become self-conscious about. Counting boxcars is a prime activity of boys. Their elders fret and fume and jeer at the train that holds them up, but boys happily count and cry the names of the cars as they pass from far places.

And again, that supposedly ugly railyard was where carnivals and circuses arrived with elephants who washed the brick pavements with mighty steaming acid waters at five in the dark morning.

As for the coal from the docks, I went down in my basement every autumn to await the arrival of the truck and its metal chute, which clanged down and released a ton of beauteous meteors that fell out of far space into my cellar and threatened to bury me beneath dark treasures.

In other words, if your boy is a poet, horse manure can only mean flowers to him; which is, of course, what horse manure has always been about.

Perhaps a new poem of mine will explain more than this introduction about the germination of all the summers of my life into one book.

Here's the start of the poem:

Byzantium, I come not from,
But from another time and place
Whose race was simple, tried and true;
As boy
I dropped me forth in Illinois.
A name with neither love nor grace
Was Waukegan, there I came from
And not, good friends, Byzantium

The poem continues, describing my lifelong relationship to my birthplace:

And yet in looking back I see
From topmost part of farthest tree
A land as bright, beloved and blue
As any Yeats found to be true.

Waukegan, visited by me often since, is neither homelier nor more beautiful than any other small midwestern town. Much of it is green. The trees do touch in the middle of streets. The street in front of my old home is still paved with red bricks. In what way then was the town special? Why, I was born there. It was my life. I had to write of it as I saw fit:

So we grew up with mythic dead
To spoon upon midwestern bread
And spread old gods' bright marmalade
To slake in peanut-butter shade,
Pretending there beneath our sky
That it was Aprodite's thigh . . .
While by the porch-rail calm and bold
His words pure wisdom, stare pure gold
My grandfather, a myth indeed,
Did all of Plato supersede
While Grandmama in rockingchair
Sewed up the raveled sleeve of card
Crocheted cool snowflakes rare and bright
To winter us on summer night.
And uncles, gathered with their smokes
Emitted wisdoms masked as jokes,
And aunts as wise as Delphic maids
Dispensed prophetic lemonades
To boys knelt there as acolytes
To Grecian porch on summer nights;
Then went to bed, there to repent
The evils of the innocent;
The gnat-sins sizzling in their ears
Said, through the nights and through the years
Not Illinois nor Waukegan
But blither sky and blither sun.
Though mediocre all our Fates
And Mayor not as bright as Yeats
Yet still we knew ourselves. The sum?
Byzantium.
Byzantium.

Waukegan/Green Town/Byzantium.

Green Town did exist, then?

Yes, and again, yes.

from "Just This Side of Byzantium," pages ix-xii of Dandelion Wine.

I hear the voice of Ray Bradbury -- yes, I've heard it on the radio and TV -- while reading this.

And, just to make this entry's title more appropo, while I'm typing this up I'm Iistening on XM Radio to my Los Angeles Angels play the Dodgers, as Spring Training is winding down, in the annual Freeway Series. Since the game is at Chavez Ravine (Dodger Stadium), it's the home team's announcer: Vin Scully. (Alas, the score is 6-1 Dodgers, bottom of the 3rd.) Maybe I am a little boy again!

"You really live on the South Side of Peoria?" I get asked. Yup, right next to the church. Wouldn't have it any other way. I wonder what the kids playing outside going to remember of this coming summer 2007?

Home, Sweet, Home.