Haslett to return as Saints coach in '04

Well, after hearing this, Buddy probably said "I'm outta here...I've been in purgatory long enough."

Louisiana sportscasting legend Buddy Diliberto dies

There never has been and never will be any sportscaster like Buddy D. WWL won't be the same without him. Who could ever forget even his commercials:

"Gulf Coast Recycling - Our business stinks but it's pickin' up!"

"If ya ain't in Bucktown, ya ain't at da real Deanie's!"

I had the privilege of impersonating him on the radio. Nobody probably remembers my bits but nobody who heard him will ever forget Buddy.

That's it

Thursday's reading, 1 Jn 4:19-5:4. I heard this and thought it summed up the Christian philosophy, at least for me.

"Beloved, we love God because he first loved us.
If anyone says, "I love God" but hates his brother, he is a liar;
for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen
cannot love God whom he has not seen.
This is the commandment we have from him:
Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is begotten by God,
and everyone who loves the Father
loves also the one begotten by him.
In this way we know that we love the children of God
when we love God and obey his commandments.
For the love of God is this,
that we keep his commandments.
And his commandments are not burdensome,
for whoever is begotten by God conquers the world.
And the victory that conquers the world is our faith."

Brad Pitt's publicist confirms he, Jennifer Aniston have split

Now they are both back on the market. The trouble, with both of them being so beautiful, is whom to choose!

Seriously, this is probably something that E! will break in with live remote coverage.

Bishop Muench Announces Name Change

"I am pleased to announce today that the official name of the school as of the next school term will be: 'St. Michael the Archangel Diocesan Regional High School.' This name was the original name given for the high school, but was changed before the school's opening in 1984. I am happy to approve this consultative recommendation.

"Let me say a word about St. Michael. As most of us know, Michael is one of the three archangels, along with St. Gabriel and St. Raphael. St. Michael, mentioned in the New Testament in the Letter of Jude (1:9) and the Book of Revelation (12:7), is the Warrior against evil. With the other archangels, his feast is celebrated on September 29. The new, yet old, name for the school is a good fit, since the warrior is its mascot."

Finally, somebody gets it. Bravo to the Bishop, the school board and the good fathers who realized that this is more of a restoration of what should have been than a quick fix in CYA mode.

Defend us in battle

We did it! The new name of Bishop Sullivan High School will be St. Michael the Archangel, which is what the school was supposed to be called initially.

Prayers are answered!

ChaldoAssyrian Christians may soon leave Iraq en masse

Frankly, we are not doing enough to help Iraqi Christians from being persecuted.

Doors manager Danny Sugerman dead at 50

The article says he is survived by his wife Fawn, who is Fawn Hall, Oliver North's secretary back during the Iran-Contra days.

Aaron Carter's SUV bursts into flames

Unfortunately, none of the master tapes of Aaron's albums were harmed in this fire.

Britney's Kid Sister to Star in TV Show

You mean "Britney's clone."

This is nice, though: "'I want to go to Louisiana State University. If I can,' she says shyly." Nice considering the only education her sister is interested in is teaching teenaged girls how to dress like ho's.

Andrea Yates' Conviction Overturned

Perhaps this time, the new jury won't make the same mistake the old jury did during the punishment phase.

Teacher Charged With Having Sex With Student

What?! Another incident!?!?!?!?

This chick is overweight but as you might expect has a "pretty face" and a "great personality."

Notice that none of these incidents involved the Catholic Church. Thank the Lord for that.

Teacher Accused Of Having Sex With Students Appears In Court

Here we go again!



This is 28-year-old Sarah Suzanne Bench-Salorio, 28, of Orange, California, and a teacher at Santiago Charter Middle School. Sarah has been charged with 20 counts of lewd acts on a child under 14 years old! According to the D.A., "Teach" seduced the students over dinner, via e-mail and over the phone for months. Apparently, the kids were pinching themselves for months before actually going through with it.

According to the NBC affiliate in San Diego, the legal eagle hirted by Bench-Solorio said the accussed is "embarrassed," yet probably not as much as her husband, Christopher Salorio, 30, an electrician who is also a politician and losing School Board candidate! I bet the only thing he'll run for now is the county line. He's gotta be feeling two feet tall right now. And about two centimeters long.

I'll admit that this teacher looks like a trashy broad in the slutty biker chick vein. A good-looking trashy broad, yes.

See below for my "all joking aside" comments on issues such as these.

Teacher in Bristol Virginia accused of taking indecent liberties with student, 13

Right off the bat she gets points off for letting herself go. This woman is 32? She looks 42, at least. Because her level of "hotness" is negligible, this can truly be called a tragedy. She looks like an old maid compared to Debra LaFave. At least Debra knews that if she's going to fufill the role of adolescent sex object, she has to look like she stepped out of Van Halen's "Hot For Teacher" video.

All sick humor aside, this is just one side effect of the sexualized society we live in. When we allow young people to idolize rappers, when scores of women cite fictional character Carrie Bradshaw as an empowering role model, we have lost our way. I'm not saying women need to be June Cleaver in the kitchen. I'm not saying kids need to be...well, I don't know what I'm saying kids need to be because I can't think of one relevant and positive role model for children or adolescents. I don't know the answer. But I do know that society has gone astray.

FCC launches probe into latest network profanity slip

First of all, Motley Crue on The Tonight Show. No wonder people order Carson DVD's.

Now it seems Vince Neil let his tongue slip and dropped an f-bomb on Leno's live New Year's Eve show. The FCC, naturally, is looking in to it.

I have been saying this for some time but the source of the obscenities are all no-account musicians in the throws of extreme arrested maturity. Janet Jackson, Justin Timberlake, Vince Neil and Nicole Richie (the daughter of a musician, which makes her doubly useless) all lead the hedonistic rock and roll lifestyle and flaunt it in America's faces as if it were cute, shocking and not tiresome. Even Bono, whom I respect, continued the trend. (Sorry guy, but you're 45. Grow up.) An honorable mention goes to self-styled bad-boy actor Colin Farrell who lives almost like a rock and roller and dropped an s-bomb on SNL about a month ago.

If these individuals think so poorly of our hospitality as to fill our homes with vulgarities, what else would they be capable of in their own artistic output? All I can say is "Oh man..." Jackson's last two albums weren't about sex per se...they were about fucking. Her partner in crime has embedded the lyric "gonna have ya nekked by the end of this song" into the consciousness of top 40 radio listeners AKA every teenage girl on the continent. As for Motley Crue, where does one begin? Take your pick: Satanism, suicide, the Pam and Tommy video...the list is endless. Again, only Bono's music is not only clean (which isn't enough to make it good music...Hillary Duff's music is clean but it's still pre-molded plastic dog poop) but U2's output is consistently uplifting, spiritual and positive.

When the dust settled, the FCC let Bono's remark slip, which is fitting considering the Irishman and his mates in U2 have no history of flooding the airwaves with indecent material. Jackson had a top radio hit with a song ("All For You") which opened with this bit of poetry:

“All the girls at the party, look at that body, shaking that thing like you never did see. Got a nice package alright, think I’m going to have to ride it tonight.”

Time and time again, individuals such as these are responsible for the coarsening of our society, the vulgarization of our airwaves, and the early sexualization of adolescents. Listen to top 40 radio and you'll hear one talentless rapper after another talking about "ballin'", shooting people, and easy money inbetween spurts of self-promotion. Even Kanye West's song "Jesus Walks" was laced with profanities...we can't even praise God without potty mouths! At least West is adding to the public discourse with his music; the rest of the stuff on the air isn't exactly the stuff of intellectual analysis.

How low will our popular music go before America cries "enough!" For the longest time, I have told as many community and religious leaders as I could find to pay attention to the radio. If an organization as large and influential as the Sountern Baptist Convention or the Catholic Church were to mobilize it's flock, we could turn the tide. Here's how it's done:

1.) Every church or PTA forms a committee to monitor local top 40 and urban radio station.
2.) Listeners note every obscenity they hear including time and date.
3.) Complain to the stations.
4.) Complain to the corporate owner.
5.) Complain to advertisers.
6.) Complain to the FCC.

The media will feel our wrath. They're already hung up on this red state business. It's time to shake up their world.

Look, I've said time and time again that I'm no prude. The French Connection, The Godfather, Scarface, Goodfellas and the first season of Nip/Tuck are in my DVD collection because they're well made dramas. They're not for children, and, appropriately, none of them are shown on broadcast TV. N/T's pushes the envelope on basic cable, I admit. But it isn't on FX all day filling our kids heads with sex without warning. Top 40 radio is wall to wall sex and violence marketed directly to the youth of America. And the nation isn't paying attention.

Fox Affiliate Dumps 'Daddy'

and replaces it with a program where families reflect upon adoption. Wow...a positive step from a network affiliate!

As you might expect, I find it abhorent that Fox's handling of a subject so delicate and personal to millions of people. By calling it "Who's Your Daddy?" and using a typical game show-derived reality TV format, big Fox is turning one woman's search for answers into a circus sideshow.

I hate to admit it, but after I saw the promo for the first time, I started giggling. One of my favorite game shows is To Tell The Truth, and I couldn't help but think of that show's famous introduction: "This is Jane Doe. She was adopted as a child and has been searching for her biological father. Two of these men are imposters, only one of these men is Jane Doe's father and is the only one sworn to tell the truth!" Of course, CBS would NEVER have allowed this, at least during TTTT's original 1956-1968 run. Too bad we can't go back to the standards of those good old days.