Cap’n Ken’s Homespun Wisdom

Seriously. Fire him now. Better to cut bait, suck up a payout and dump this incompetent loser before he drags LSU down to the Curley Hallman level a couple of years from now.

Monday”s embarrassment against Tennessee, coming on the heels of one of LSU”s most embarrassing wins ever at Arizona State, is all the proof I need of Miles” incompetence.

This was not a story of “we blew a 21-point lead”. We were only ever in the game because Tennessee started Erik Ainge and their receivers didn”t catch anything in the first half. Starting Ainge was Phil Fulmer”s bad decision. The rest of the stupid stuff came from Miles and his staff.

Where was our offense? JaMarcus Russell is a passing quarterback, yet we attempted only 28 throws and gained only 158 yards in the air. Joseph Addai had a good game running the ball, but when the defense knows you”re not going to put the ball in the air, your running game can”t sustain you. We had exactly one pass play go for more than 25 yards - a 47-yard play on our one and only real offensive drive - yet we have a strong corps of big, fast receivers.

And the defense proved to be as confused and outcoached as they were against Arizona State. Again, only the presence of Ainge saved this from being a Tennessee blowout. Our defensive backs can cover people, but our defense is totally vulnerable to audibles, as Rick Clausen very aptly demonstrated. We stopped nothing after Clausen came in.

On both sides of the ball, we are incompetent. And beyond the obvious, there are seriously bad signs about the program.

Our players - the ones who practice in Louisiana heat and humidity - were the ones cramping up, not Tennessee”s. And that started early in the second half. Where”s the conditioning program?

We jumped offside at least a half-dozen times. Where”s the discipline?

The capper, though, was Miles” decision to sit on the ball in a tie game with two minutes to go. Hey coach, they call it a “two minute drill” for a reason. If you have an offense that you don”t think can move the ball, then you need a new offense.

And don”t try to blame the coordinators. This is the exact same crap that happened at Arizona State, and the big man has to accept responsibility - and change things.

This may, however, be a lot to ask of a man who is stupid enough to think he can wear his little Madonna-style headset in Tiger Stadium:

Just a couple of plays into the game, Miles had switched to a normal headset:

I mean, how smart can this guy be?

I”m not upset that we lost. I did not believe the top-5 hype this year. We”ve got a lot of talent, but they”re young. And I expected a rough transition to a new coach, but I didn”t expect Curley Hallman.

The Times-Picayune (the New Orleans daily, not the near-worthless Spanish coin) is reporting today that tales of murder, rape and rampant violence at the Superdome and Convention Center were apparently just not true.

The National Guard sent a refrigerated tractor-trailer to the Dome expecting to retrieve 200 bodies. They found 6 (four died of natural causes, one overdosed and one committed suicide).

At the Convention Center, four bodies were found, not the stacks of corpses that were supposed to be in a freezer there. One of those people appeared to have been murdered.

And across the city, it appears the tales of violence were extremely bloated. The D.A. says the city can only confirm four murders in New Orleans since Katrina. That”s a typical week”s worth of killings there.

Yet the international media reported the rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl at the Convention Center and the general “wave of rapes, murders, looting, shootings and carjackings” in the city following Katrina.

So the image that”s been painted of New Orleans across the globe is of violence, murder and basic lawlessness. To be sure, New Orleans has always been a little more violent and a little less safe than your average American city, but the grossly exaggerated tales of violence in the city after Katrina won”t exactly endear the city to the tourists and residents it desperately needs to return.

To quote a friend”s first email after Katrina drowned his house: “Friends who are firemen, etc. say the human garbage that remains is looting every house and building and shooting at rescue personnel. Total garbage. Not going back to live there, regardless.”

Not what you would call a Chamber of Commerce Moment.

So the media is to blame, right? Sort of. But the real fault lies in the unimaginably irresponsible actions of Mayor Ray Nagin and police chief Eddie Compass, who spread these untrue tales of murder and mayhem across the national media - including an interview with Oprah where Compass said “some of the little babies (are) getting raped” and Nagin said of the Dome situation “they have people standing out there, have been in that frickin” Superdome for five days watching dead bodies, watching hooligans killing people, raping people.”"

Compass also apparently greatly exaggerated supposed encouters his cops had with armed gangs in the city. One story he related about cops following muzzle flashes at night to round up 30 armed thugs turned out to be completely untrue.

Why would the city”s leaders make up tales of violence? It was likely a tactic to hustle up the federal response. If New Orleans is an chaos, the troops might come quicker, I suppose.

But Nagin and Compass have likely done irreparable harm to the city”s image at exactly the time they need the support of the world the most. How eager will tourists be to return to a city where the mayor told of such violence? What motivation will residents who have uprooted themselves to Baton Rouge, Houston or elsewhere have to pull their kids out of school, quit their new jobs and move back to New Orleans if this is the image their own mayor has given them?

In the long term, this may be Nagin”s biggest failure of leadership. He”s set the image of New Orleans going forward. And this isn”t even to speak of this in terms of two black leaders helping promote the stereotype of blacks as murders, rapists and thugs.

The story: Rumors of deaths greatly exaggerated

Those among you who saw fit to vote Virginia Tech ahead of LSU (Va. Tech jumped to 3, pushing LSU to 4) a day after LSU should have played No. 10 Tennessee but couldn”t because of Hurricane Rita are complete asshats.

Sure, Va. Tech ripping apart Georgia Tech was impressive, and yes, the Hokies have played 4 games to LSU”s 1, but not holding the rankings steady until LSU can play Tennessee tomorrow night is just unethical.

On what basis does LSU deserve fewer total points in this week”s poll? Because we made Tennessee”s players cry at the thought that they might have to fly down to Baton Rouge on Saturday?

Are you punishing LSU for having it”s season opener postponed; it”s supposed second home game moved to Arizona and its would-be third home game pushed to Monday because of hurricanes? Or is your built-in anti-LSU bias coming back after a few weeks of Katrina sympathy?

LSU will show tomorrow night whether it deserves it”s top-5 ranking. If we lose, we”ll drop. But now if we win, we”ll have dropped a position in your poll anyway. Do you really think there”s a chance LSU will re-pass Va. Tech if we roll Tennessee up 51-7?

But in the end, your AP poll doesn”t matter much, anyway. We play for the BCS in Baton Rouge, so those are the polls that matter.

OK, how about this for a topic that I care about and hasn”t been covered much: destruction of historic sites.

In New Orleans, early reports are that most of the “historic” parts of the city (at least in the minds of tourists - there”s some damned fine “historic” places in Mid-City, Lakeview, etc. that nobody but locals know about but are likely gone) are more or less OK, but I”m sure there will be some losses uncovered down the road.

But over in Mississippi, the destruction to irreplaceable historic sites is clear. The Mississippi Heritage Trust does a good job of detailing the destruction:

Katrina damage in Miss.

I think the most sickening thing is the 1856 Tullis Toledano house in Biloxi that was flattened by a casino barge that was thrown ashore. A fucking slot-machine boat smashing down a 150-year-old historic home.

The casino barge notwithstanding, only God is to blame for the destruction in Mississippi. No levees that were poorly-built caused their problems. Just a big damned storm. But just the same, the state lost a whole lot that simply can”t be replaced.

If you”ve ever driven down the beach in Mississippi and marveled at the beautiful homes and huge oaks right on the coast (and wondered how the hell that can happen), that”s mostly gone now.

The week-long Wisdom outage has been driven as much by my inability to focus on one aspect of post-Katrina implications as it has been by traveling to the west coast.

So anybody got any part of the puzzle you”d like to see some Wisdom on?

The wife and I spent a few hours yesterday helping out at a Katrina relief center here in Atlanta. I had a cushy job in the men”s clothing area until a special need arose - an evacuee staying up the road at a Holiday Inn (with 18 family members) had a flat tire.

I vounteered to get the guy”s tire fixed. When he opened his trunk to find a jack, I noticed a few MRE packs amidst the blankets and other random things stuffed inside. I asked him if he”d been eating that Army food, and he said yeah. When I asked him how they tasted, he offered me up some MREs to take home.

Now, the last thing I want to do is take food from a NOLA refugee, but he insisted they were done with them (I understand why, now). So he gave me two Menu No. 8s (beef patty) and one Menu No. 15 (beef enchilada) to try out.

Working from home today, I (and, ultimately, the dogs) had a perfect chance to try out an MRE.

So here we go: Menu No. 8 - Beef Patty

The first thing I noticed was the little soldier silhouette in the upper left corner. Obviously this guy didn”t get Gen. Honore”s order to lower his weapon.

What”s in the bag

Left column packets - Nacho Cheese Pretzels, Wheat Snack Bread, Wheat Snack Bread

Center column packets - Accessories Packet, Spoon, BBQ Sauce, Cheese Spread with Bacon, Beef Patty

Right column packets - Mexican Style Macaroni and Cheese, Flameless Ration Heater

The things in boxes (beef patty and mac/cheese) are meant to be heated, but there”s just one Flameless Ration Heater. Maybe there”s a trick to getting the one heater to heat the two boxes, but I couldn”t figure that out.

A quick overview of the contents revealed the one great thing about an MRE - the tiny Tabasco bottle that”s included:

“Cooking”

I decided to use the Flameless Ration Heater on the Beef Patty, since it”s the advertised entree. The heating process is pretty simple - put a little water in the FRH, wrap it around the pouch and stuff both back into the box. It cooks on an incline as the illustrated instructions indicate:

For my lunch, the role of “something” was played by a bottle of Maker”s Mark:

As my Beef Patty was simmering away in its hydrogen sauna (the MRE is careful to warn you not to cook too many of them in a small space, as it may suck all the oxygen away), I checked out the rest of the pack.

The Mac & Cheese

The good news about this stuff is that it”s fully-cooked and has “real” cheese in it. I imagine it could be heated in hot water if an FRH wasn”t available. I tasted it cold right out of the pouch. It”s pretty much on par with public-school cafeteria mac & cheese. The dogs liked it.

Wheat Snack Bread

These look like Soviet Pop-Tarts and taste even worse than you might imagine. They”re as dense as cardboard and have all the flavor of low-carb pancakes. I have to be on a 4-hour flight this afternoon, so I didn”t risk eating much of this. The dogs were puzzled but eventually ate it.

Nacho Cheese Pretzels

These are the same thing as Combos snacks. Definitely the belle of the MRE ball. I”d trade two Mac & Cheeses for one of these packets. The dogs did not get any of these.

Iced Tea Drink Mix

This is your basic instant tea. I put the little Crystal Light tube in the shot, however, to make a point. The big MRE tea packet is for use with six ounces (standard military canteen cup) of water, which ain”t a lot of tea if you ask me. The tiny Crystal Light tube turns 16.9 ounces of water into yummy lemonade (they also have a tea version). Perhaps the military needs to re-think their tea strategy.

Cheese Spread with Bacon

Not bad. It”s basically like Easy Cheese. It didn”t make the Wheat Snack Bread any more edible, but it was damned yummy on the Combos.

Beef Patty

How Alpo got the contract to make MRE Beef Patties, I don”t know. Upon opening after 10 minutes of “cooking”, the pouch put forth a horrible aroma that sent the Little Black Dog (who was raised on wet dog food and apparently still remembers the smell) into a frenzy. I dared only a small bite of the Beef Patty, which tasted about as the smell would suggest. The dogs, needless to say, loved it.

I tasted the BBQ Sauce, which wasn”t bad (a little on the tomatoey side), and had one of the Chicklets included as an after-MRE treat.

And thus ended My Lunch with MRE. The take-away? Go for the Combos, and spread “em thick with Cheese Spread with Bacon. The rest of the meal makes me feel better about all the dogs stuck in New Orleans. I think they”re probably eating pretty well.

And, by the way, please don”t eat the Flameless Ration Heater.