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A teenager in New York is suing the city for injuries suffered when she fell down an open manhole. The Staten Island native, one Alexa Longueira, was engaged in sending a text message at the time of the accident. Presumably the message was something along the lines of "OMG I like walked into a dk hole. I'm cut and like bleeding. No LOL please" Alexa was unhurt and we can only hope that, next time, the municipality of Staten Island re-covers the manhole...with Alexa still inside.
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State liquor officials in Alabama have halted the sale of Cycles Gladiator wine because the label, a reproduction of an 1895 French advertising poster, depicts a naked flying nymph.
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The British government has issued a set of guidelines for civil servants using Twitter. As you may know, Twitter messages can run to no more than 140 characters. The manual issued by the British government is 20 pages.
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It is impossible to add anything constructive to the Gates/Crowley dustup of last week except that the President, along with every other black man in America, cannot be faulted for believing that the arrest, in his own home, of a limping 57 year old black man by a white Cambridge cop, was racially motivated.
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The recent gaggle of scandals vexing the Republican Party has brought unwelcome attention to a fundamentalist Christian organization referred to as "The Family". The group operates out of a boarding house on C Street in Washington and includes among its followers John Ensign, who got his parents to pay off his former mistress and her husband to the tune of $96,000; Mark "hiking the Appalachian Trail" Sanford and Charles "Chip" Pickering of Mississippi who has recently been accused of using the group's C St. house as his own chateau l'amour. In case these names sound familiar, these are the same fellows who in 1998, were hunting Bill Clinton's head (while Bill Clinton was hunting head). Apparently being a swordsman is only a crime if you're a Democrat.
The origins of The Family are as interesting as they are bizarre. Founded by Abraham Vereide, a Norwegian immigrant working in the poorer precincts of Seattle, Reverend Vereide (he was,among other things, a traveling preacher) determined that: 1) unions were socialist, 2) socialism was evil, and, 3) ministering to the poor was less profitable than the brochure had led him to believe. Abe claimed to have been visited by God who took the form of the president of U.S. Steel ( apparently, the ghost of Andrew Carnegie was otherwise engaged). This CEO/God assured Rev. Abe that there were already plenty of folks ministering to the poor. Abe was instructed to care for the troubled and spiritually neglected captains of industry and the leaders of America. What a break!
Delighted to cast off the smell of poverty for the sweet aroma of wealth, Reverend Vereide set about organizing his new ministry. In 1941 he arrived in Washington and immediately began acquiring converts to his "poor people are swine, greed is divine" brand of Christianity. By 1953 he had gained access to Dwight Eisenhower who was the first President to attend his National Prayer Breakfast. Presidents , including Barack Obama, have been appearing ever since.
By 1969, Reverend Vereide went to join that great country club in the sky, leaving the reins of leadership to Doug Coe. Now 81, Mr. Coe is still a powerful voice for the group. Among his religious tenants are: 1) It's OK to profess virtue and still bed your campaign workers. Morals are for the little people. 2)Hitler, Pol Pot and Osama bin Laden are to be admired as leaders who were able to organize their followers. 3) Powerful people are ordained by God and are more important in his eyes. So what was all that New Testament drivel about the difficulty of a rich man entering the kingdom of heaven?
The leaders of The Family have compared the group to the Mafia. They like a low profile. They also don't care how a man makes a living or who gets hurt in the process. In the eyes of The Family, if God did not want them shorn, he would not have made them sheep.
Like all successful Christian demigods, Coe has found a scriptural passage to justify his beliefs. Given half a chance, Christians could find a biblical imperative for dunking donuts in coffee. Coe decrees that King David, famously adulterous, was still one of God's chosen. Did David resign in the face of scandal? He did not. In other words, "It's good to be the King". This is the reason for the lack of resignations coming from those caught with their zippers at half staff. Sanford, Ensign & Co. have been advised that, because they are among the power elite, the rules of decency and morality don't apply to them. That must have come as welcome news.
Anyway, next time you find yourself in Washington, stop by the house on C Street. There's always a cup of relativism brewing along with some delicious situational morality cookies. Who knows, you might even get lucky...if your clout is big enough.
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