Breakfast at Tiffany's – Because I Do Not Know

Scotty Is Beamed Up

The ashes of James Doohan, who portrayed Montgomery "Scotty" Scott on the original "Star Trek" television series, have finally been blasted into space. His earthly remains had some good space company on Saturday: the great Mercury original Col. Gordon Cooper. (For those of you who remember "The Right Stuff," Dennis Quaid portrayed Cooper.)

Wende Doohan, the wife of the Star Trek actor, spoke of her late husband: "It's not how you die, or when, but rather how you lived." In his role, Scotty was "engineer extraordinaire", she continued, completing his five year mission in three years and that "he's in good company on this flight."

Suzan Cooper, the wife of the late Gordon Cooper explained: "Supposedly, we are all made of stardust. So then it is only natural to one day return to the stars once our lives have ended on this Earth."

"We are all here to celebrate the lives of friends and loved ones ... and to embrace an incredible new technology which allows anyone to leave the boundaries of Earth and actually travel into space," Cooper said.

We wrote a tribute to Doohan back when he died in 2005. There, you can read about his near-death experience as part of the Canadian D-Day assault on Juno Beach.

Godspeed, Scotty and Gordo.

1 comments Jake McCafferty last posted at 5:54 PM
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A Few Brief Notes Tonight

We have four presentations this week to prepare for, but a few short items before we go.

Gun violence, despite what the Parisians would like you to believe, isn't solely an American production. Only in America? Hardly.

Five years ago I did research for an article on mass shootings. Here are a few of the headlines I came across:

"8 slain at council meeting"
"Teen wounds 5 in tech school"
"Suspected gang shooting leaves 4 dead, 2 injured"
"Man kills ex-bosses, principal, himself"
"Gunman kills self, 7 others"

The incidents these headlines describe occurred in France, the Netherlands, Japan, Germany and Italy, respectively. In the five years since that research, crime rates have continued to climb in many other countries with far stricter gun control laws than those in the United States. ...

In the 2002 presidential election in France, many political observers cited soaring crime as the Number 1 issue. Nationwide strikes by thousands of France's police officers a few months before the election heightened the issue. The strikes came in response to what police said are growing dangers from gun-wielding criminals. They had strong evidence to cite, including the recent shooting deaths of two police officers during an armed robbery in a Paris suburb.

I've heard people say "only in America" in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings. Clearly, though, it's not only in America. Terrible incidents like these have occurred and are occurring in countries across the world, including countries that severely restrict or ban the private ownership of firearms, and countries with a reputation of peace and harmony.

Which reminds us of the old joke. "For Sale: French WWII Army Rifle. Never Fired. Dropped Once."

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We are also continuing to hear the Virginia Tech shootings referred to as the "worst case of mass murder" by one person (presumably the wording is used to avoid discussing wars on American soil or the 9/11 attacks as "murder"). Regardless, even if you refer to it as the "deadliest act by one person, you'd still be wrong.

The Happy Land social club fire in 1990 killed 87 people. Julio Gonzalez was convicted of murder and arson and sentenced to 174 25-year sentences. This being in New York, of course, he is eligible for parole in eight more years. Down here, he would have already been strapped in and needled.

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Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin is dead. So is author David Halberstam.

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Hey, Europe, are you paying attention? This could be you in 20 years if you don't wake up.

Enough already ... back to work.

2 comments Jake McCafferty last posted at 5:38 PM
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Why All The Focus On The Reaction?

Because we refuse to participate in the death pornography that the "news" outlets are obsessed with today, we'll address a fair question of this blog. Why have BaT's posts focused so much on how faculty and students reacted to the attack?

The answer is simple: We must be mentally prepared to react to a similar situation -- if, God forbid, we're ever in it -- far in advance of the seconds it takes for the horror to unfold. Once something like this begins, instinct can be the difference between survival or death for you, your family, your friends or even strangers too weak to help themselves.

This is a new era. Hijackers are no longer looking for a free trip into or out of Cuba. They are looking to crash planes into buildings. Bank robbers are no longer folk heroes. They kill everyone inside to eliminate witnesses. And anti-social losers are no longer content with pretending to be Alhandra the Human Paladin. They spout off nonsensical tirades, worship other losers and make references to "88" -- when that particular man would have just as soon sent your non-Aryan ass to the gas chamber, too.

This is a new era. We should assume the worst and pray for the best. Most of us learned this lesson after 9/11, but the sheltered and the clueless need more reminders. This week at Virginia Tech was yet another. Be prepared, be vigilant and, once confronted, be aggressive.

Cowering under a desk and waiting for help to come is no longer an option. American schools must teach their students to respond aggressively to attacks by people bent on mayhem.

"I would hope that the administrators and folks that are making the decisions would understand that it's difficult to negotiate with a bullet," security consultant Allen Hill told TODAY. "A person that comes into your facility with a gun intends to kill and do you harm." ...

The "bad guys" plan their attacks. Schools need to plan and rehearse their defenses and responses just as aggressively.

"The training should be just as intense and be taken just as seriously as the bad guy takes their mission to kill," he said.

At Virginia Tech, Cho Seung Hui walked into classrooms and simply shot people. There are reports that he even lined up victims to shoot them one by one. But in one Norris Hall classroom, student Zach Petkewicz led his classmates in barricading the door, saving all inside.

We received an e-mail yesterday from our friend The Gay Marine from Marigny, last seen beating the hell out of a frat boy who made the mistake of calling someone "a faggot" in the presence of a queer, 6-foot-2 combat veteran. GMfM comments on our Monday post encouraging an unspoken plan for everyone to charge an armed madman as a group rather than be picked off one by one. He reminds us there is another option for those who may not have that option. He writes:

Run like hell! That might be an option, particularly if there's only one or two of you and you are physically outmatched. To charge a gunman, you need more people than he has bullets -- or at least more people than he has time to fire those bullets. So run, but run wisely. Zig-zag like hell. It is very difficult to hit a moving target, particularly under a stressful situation -- and a gunman will be under some stress, especially if he is a thrill killer. Even for skilled marksmen like ourselves, lining up the target and firing accurately becomes extremely difficult when the target moves about wildly. Run away, but not straight away. Don't give him center mass (meaning a good shot at your chest or back). He might hit an arm or leg, but you'll live.

We still prefer returning fire, but not everyone is comfortable with that. So your other choices are charging the gunman, throwing the biggest, hardest objects you can find at him or running like hell. You don't need to be paranoid, but be aware of your surroundings. Always know where the nearest exit is. When you enter a place for the first time, ask yourself: "If some serious sh*t breaks out in here, what's my plan?"

Those 15 seconds of thought before the sh*t breaks out could save your life. And that's why we're focusing on the reaction.

3 comments Jake McCafferty last posted at 5:20 PM
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The Not-So-Great Generations

We had similar thoughts following last night's post about Professor Liviu Librescu and his bravery in the midst of the Virginia Tech rampage. We weren't sure how to sum up our concern that our generation -- those of us over 25 but under 40 -- and the one after us fail to live up to the example set by our parents and grandparents.

Canadian author and columnist Mark Steyn, however, nails our feelings exactly in this column titled, "Cult of Passivity."

On Monday night, Geraldo was all over Fox News saying we have to accept that, in this horrible world we live in, our "children" need to be "protected."

Point one: They're not "children." The students at Virginia Tech were grown women and -- if you'll forgive the expression -- men. They would be regarded as adults by any other society in the history of our planet. Granted, we live in a selectively infantilized culture where twentysomethings are "children" if they're serving in the Third Infantry Division in Ramadi but grown-ups making rational choices if they drop to the broadloom in President Clinton's Oval Office.

Nonetheless, it's deeply damaging to portray fit fully formed adults as children who need to be protected. We should be raising them to understand that there will be moments in life when you need to protect yourself -- and, in a "horrible" world, there may come moments when you have to choose between protecting yourself or others. It is a poor reflection on us that, in those first critical seconds where one has to make a decision, only an elderly Holocaust survivor, Professor Librescu, understood instinctively the obligation to act.

We can't get the image of a nearly 80-year-old professor pressing against a door while a gunman shot through it ... trying desperately to keep a madman out while his students escaped. Tears come to our eyes. Of all the young men in those rooms, it is this old white-haired man who we praise today.

No, none of us can absolutely predict how we'd react in that situation. But we can take a pretty good guess by looking at how we live our lives. Are we the type of people who run up burning skyscrapers or hold doors amidst gunfire? Or are we the type who hide in a corner or turn the other way rather than "get involved"?

God help this country if Professor Librescu is more of the exception than the rule. At least we are heartened to hear some other stories of people helping others. And we may never know what this young man did or tried to do. But judging from the stories we've already heard of his kindness and spirit, we can assume he was rushing to help one of the students who he was charged with looking after. God only knows what great accomplishments he might have produced.

We do our children a disservice to raise them to entrust all to officialdom's security blanket. Geraldo-like "protection" is a delusion: when something goes awry -- whether on a September morning flight out of Logan or on a peaceful college campus -- the state won't be there to protect you. You'll be the fellow on the scene who has to make the decision. As my distinguished compatriot Kathy Shaidle says:

*When we say "we don't know what we'd do under the same circumstances", we make cowardice the default position.*

I'd prefer to say that the default position is a terrible enervating passivity. Murderous misfit loners are mercifully rare. But this awful corrosive passivity is far more pervasive, and, unlike the psycho killer, is an existential threat to a functioning society.

"Better to die on your feet than to live for ever on your knees." -- Dolores Ibarruri.

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Speaking of classics, the "great dame" and New Orleans native Kitty Carlisle Hart has died. She was 96.

In a piece on CBS' "60 Minutes" in 2000, Marie Brenner, author of "Great Dames: What I Learned From Older Women," said: "A great dame is a soldier in high heels. ... They lived through the Depression. They lived through the war.

"They were tough, intelligent and brassy women," said Brenner, who described Hart as a great dame who "walks into a room, and the room lights up."

Discipline ruled Hart's success. She began every day with an exercise routine, even after she turned 90.

"I can do things a woman a fifth my age can't do. ... I do 40 leg lifts without stopping, And then I take my legs, I put them over my head, and I touch the floor behind me with my toes, and then very slowly I let myself down, touching every vertebrae as I go," Hart told "60 Minutes."

RIP.

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Harry Lee, the take-charge sheriff of Jefferson Parish, La., has leukemia. He still plans to seek re-election, even at 74 years old.

But, brandishing his legendary obstinacy, he vowed to stay on the job and even to seek an eighth term in office this fall.

"I fully intend to qualify and run for sheriff on Sept. 4," Lee, 74, said at a news conference.

Love him or hate him, you can be sure the ol' cuss will be there on Election Day if -- and only if -- the Lord Almighty Himself doesn't intervene.

1 comments Jake McCafferty last posted at 5:47 PM
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When Ordinary People Do Extraordinary Things

On this day, we choose to focus not on the evil person who murdered fellow human beings in cold blood. We don't care why he did it. We don't care that he was a loner. We don't care if he may have been on medication. In fact, the only thing we care about him is that he's dead. And we're glad he is.

Instead, we will highlight the story of man who died as he lived: courageously.

A 76-year-old professor who survived the Holocaust was shot to death while saving his students from the Virginia Tech assailant, students said.

Liviu Librescu, an internationally respected aeronautics engineer who taught at Virginia Tech for 20 years, saved the lives of several students by barricading his classroom door before he was gunned down in the massacre, according to e-mail accounts sent by students to his wife.

"My father blocked the doorway with his body and asked the students to flee," his son, Joe Librescu, said in a telephone interview from his home outside of Tel Aviv. "Students started opening windows and jumping out." ...

"He should be recognized as a hero," Virginia Tech graduate student Philip Huffstetler said. "We should be in such great debt to his family for the rest of our lives."

Professor Librescu escaped Nazism. He escaped communism. In the end, he didn't escape a cowardly loser. But because of a 76-year-old man, many young people are alive today. Emerson once said, "A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer." But for the few moments the good professor held that door admire gunfire, his students jumped to safety. In those few moments, he taught them a lesson he will never hear them repeat -- but one they will never forget.

Rest in peace, Professor Librescu. You are a hero.

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G-d bless.

2 comments Jake McCafferty last posted at 5:52 PM
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A Moment Of Silence

Several blogs are briefly going black in remembrance of those murdered at Virginia Tech. (Hat tip: Rocky Top Talk)

We join in this evening.

0 comments Jake McCafferty last posted at 5:43 PM
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Virginia Tech Update

The victim toll is now at 32, with more critically wounded. The killer apparently fought with a girlfriend or ex-girlfriend, and when a dorm adviser intervened, he shot them both. More than two hours passed before the university warned students that a double-murderer was on the loose -- and by then, the much-deadlier shooting spree was already over.

During the later murders, the killer apparently lined his victims up and then shot them execution-style. Let's learn from this and from 9/11 ... both cases when people did what they've "always been told to do" -- don't resist, don't aggitate.

To hell with that. If you're ever in that situation, where you are superior in numbers, the unspoken command should be, "Charge!" A few, no doubt, will die, but in doing so, the others will subdue (or beat to death, we're fine with that, too) the offender.

Better yet, Virginia is a right-to-carry state -- although we've been told that Virginia Tech refused students their constitutional right to protect themselves. If, just maybe, it hadn't ...

NOTE: Odd, but Blogger doesn't seem to be allowing us to update the previous entry. So if this appears twice, our apologies.

0 comments Jake McCafferty last posted at 5:44 PM
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Horror In Blacksburg

ABC News is reporting at least 29 people have been murdered in a shooting rampage on the Virginia Tech campus. More are wounded. Pray for the injured and the families of those who have been taken from us.

"It is difficult to comprehend senseless violence on this scale," said Virginia's Governor Timothy M. Kaine in a statement. "Our prayers are with the families and friends of these victims, and members of the extended Virginia Tech community."

Amen.

0 comments Jake McCafferty last posted at 10:50 AM
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I-Man Is Canned

MSNBC showed talk show host Don Imus the door yesterday. Today, CBS fires him from his radio show once also carried on the lowly rated cable news network.

Losing Imus will be a financial hit to CBS Radio, which also suffered when Howard Stern departed for satellite radio. The program earns about $15 million in annual revenue for CBS, which owns Imus' home radio station WFAN-AM and manages Westwood One, the company that syndicates the show nationally.

The news came down in the middle of Imus' Radiothon, which has raised more than $40 million since 1990. The Radiothon had raised more than $1.3 million Thursday before Imus learned that he lost his job.

"This may be our last Radiothon, so we need to raise about $100 million," Imus cracked at the start of the event.

Imus finally fired back at race-baiting bigot Al Sharpton -- albeit too late and just moments before CBS executives decided to can him.

6:12 AM: On Imus' radio program (no longer simulcast on MSNBC) this morning, Chris Carlin, who covers sports for the program, discussed yesterday's dismissal of charges against the Duke lacrosse players. (rough transcript)

DON IMUS: When will Al Sharpton be apologizing to them?

(LAUGHTER)

CARLIN: I'm unaware of such a press conference.

IMUS: I'll be darned...

Don Imus is a cad. He hurt some young women's feelings, but nobody died. Al Sharpton can't say the same.

0 comments Jake McCafferty last posted at 5:38 PM
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Cha-Ching: Lesser Of Two (?) Evils Prevails

Who's ya daddy? If you're Anna Nicole's little girl, you now have an answer -- although considering your choices, you might just as soon be an orphan.

Choice 1: A sleazy lawyer with one client (your drugged-up mother) who just happened to be around at the time your mom and your brother both OD'ed

Choice 2: A "photojournalist" with ethics that allow him to sleep with his most-photographed subject and sell her photos after she dies

Choice 3: An actor/boyguard/chef whose biggest role was either "Bar Patron," "Military Observer" or "Mercenary" -- although his greatest stretch was playing himself

Choice 4: A masseur/fake prince whose only claim to fame before all of this was that he's been married to Zsa Zsa Gabor longer than the other seven men she called hubby

Choice 5: The sperm of a rich oilman who's been dead for more than 10 years -- and whose fortune is nothing less than a curse to anyone around it

Jeez, when you put it that way, maybe the paparazzo guy ain't so bad after all.

DNA tests prove it: Larry Birkhead is the father of Anna Nicole Smith's million-dollar baby.

"I told you so!" the late Playboy Playmate's former boyfriend said Tuesday upon emerging from a closed court hearing. He added: "My baby's going to be coming home pretty soon."

Birkhead, a 34-year-old California photographer, then hugged his rival, Howard K. Stern, who has been caring for baby Dannielynn since Smith's sudden death in February.

The hearing was a pivotal moment in the battle over who gets custody of the girl, who could inherit a fortune from the estate of Smith's late husband, J. Howard Marshall II. Although Birkhead is the father, Stern's name is on the birth certificate. Another custody hearing was scheduled for Friday.

"I told you so!"? And hugging Howard K. Stern? That's his reaction? We guess we shouldn't expect more. The whole damn crew is nutso.

Well, except for you, Howard. We love you. Serious. No, really.

0 comments Jake McCafferty last posted at 6:30 PM
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Newsflash: Don Imus Remains An Old Fool

Radio talk show host Don Imus was once funny. For about 15 minutes. Back about two decades ago, after he sobered up and before he started playing to the television cameras at MSNBC. But now he's 66 years old, and you know, his act is just tired. A lot like Stern. You can only insult people and be a pompous jerk for only so long.

It comes as no surprise to frequent Imus listeners that another bigoted, insensitive comment has rolled off his tongue. And he's now been suspended for two weeks -- and could still lose his job if advertisers starting backing out on his show.

His offense this time around: He called members of the Rutgers women's basketball team (who finished second to the mighty Lady Vols) "some nappy-headed hos."

MSNBC, which telecasts the radio show, said Imus' expressions of regret and embarrassment, coupled with his stated dedication to changing the show's discourse, made it believe suspension was the appropriate response.

"Our future relationship with Imus is contingent on his ability to live up to his word," the network said.

Imus, who has made a career of cranky insults in the morning, was fighting for his job following the joke that by his own admission went "way too far." He continued to apologize Monday, both on his show and on a syndicated radio program hosted by the Rev. Al Sharpton, who is among several black leaders demanding his ouster.

We're torn here. Imus has a history of intolerent comments, and we stopped listening to him years ago. On the other hand, the race-baiters like "Diamond Merchant" Sharpton and Jesse "Hymietown" Jackson after him, one can't help wishing against them -- even if it means being for him. Imus is a moron. What did he have to gain by insulting a group of young women? If he's going to talk about hos, talk about the grown men like Sharpton and Jackson, who undoubtedly will be waiting for the end-game payoff from Imus' corporate bosses.

0 comments Jake McCafferty last posted at 7:08 PM
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Eddie Robinson, 1919-2007

The great Eddie Robinson is gone.

And so ended the life of a beloved football coach who put a small school in remote northern Louisiana on the map and turned it into a virtual farm team for the NFL during a career that spanned 57 years.

Robinson built a football powerhouse with a worldwide reputation, all the while struggling to get past years of segregation and discrimination against blacks.

His success at Grambling no doubt made him the first easily recognizable black coach in any sport.

"Today, we mourn the loss of a great Louisianan and a true American hero," Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said. "Coach Eddie Robinson became the most successful college coach of all time and one of the greatest civil rights pioneers in our history. ... Coach Robinson elevated a small town program to national prominence and tore down barriers to achieve an equal playing field for athletes of all races."

Robinson won 408 games, the most ever for any football coach at the time of his retirement in 1997. He sent hundreds of players to the NFL and other leagues, and the majority of them were clutching college degrees when they left Grambling.

He was far more than a football coach, both to the young men who played for him and to the greater community who enjoyed his competitive drive, his class and his success. He died just hours before the 39th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King's murder.

In their own ways, the two men shared a common goal: a world where men would be judged by the depth of their character.

Robinson had character. He also had the respect of those who draw X's and O's for a living. The accolades and remembrances have been pouring in all day. It's as if football's pope died, as if a head of state expired.

"There is no doubt in my mind that in the late 1960s, when they started integrating Southern college football, nobody played a bigger role than Eddie Robinson and (former Florida A&M coach) Jake Gaither," said Florida State's Bobby Bowden, the all-time winningest Division I-A coach. "They were pioneers. It wouldn't have been successful without Eddie Robinson and Jake Gaither. At the time, their schools had it made. Their schools were all African-American and they'd been going undefeated every year. LSU couldn't get African-Americans in school. Tulane couldn't get African-Americans in school. We couldn't get African-Americans in school. Even though they were about to lose a lot of their kids, they helped it be successful, telling people how to act and what to say and to be patient. They made it a wholesome process."

RIP, Coach.

1 comments Jake McCafferty last posted at 6:49 PM
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Searching For Bobby Jindal

If you haven't heard of Bobby Jindal, you will. Not only can he be the saviour of Louisiana, but he could very well be our first non-white president. Red State takes a look at the wunderkind in a must-read post.

This fall, Louisiana can choose the old ways of doing things, the corrupt ways, the status quo. They can fall back. Or they can move forward under the leadership of the brilliant young policy wonk who chose his home over comfort and financial success. They can take this opportunity to walk in a better path, a path toward solving their problems, fixing the crushed houses and streets, and do what they have to do to make this broken state new again.

The choice is theirs to make.

We first met Bobby back in the late 1990s, when we lived in Louisiana and he had just returned to his home state to work for then-Gov. Mike Foster. It was over dinner at Al Copeland's, and Bobby was out shilling for the governor. We weren't overly impressed with his boss, but we were with him. As the above article mentions, he is razor sharp, in complete command of the facts and the smartest kid in the room. Normally, that's a turnoff. But he was different; you couldn't help but like him.

If not for those sleazy campaign tactics, he would have defeated Kathleen Blanco in 2003 governor's race ... and Louisiana would have avoided the suffering case by her pathetic Katrina response. As local, state and federal bureaucrats "followed procedure" and generally sat on their asses, Bobby and the great sheriff of Jefferson Parish, Harry Lee, were taking action.

Jindal's office had set up a hotline number, with the number broadcast over the radio airwaves, for anyone who needed help to call. The calls ranged the full gamut, from the expected to the shocking -- from no power, to missing children, to medical supplies needed, to "I'm stuck in my attic with a cell phone and a radio. Please come and save me."

They had a helicopter pilot call in. He had his helicopter, gassed up and ready to go. But he wanted authorization to go in and save people.

Jindal's staff called FEMA -- they said it was a military issue. They called the Marines -- they said it was an issue for the Department of Transportation. They called the DOT -- nobody knew who to ask.

Jindal called the helicopter pilot back. "Go in."

"You got me authorization?" the pilot asked.

"Yeah, I'm giving you your authorization right now."

That's the kind of person Louisiana needed as its leader, and now its voters can correct the mistake of '05 by sending him to the Governor's Mansion.