...or is watching politics in Iowa about as interesting as watching corn grow?

Things you missed while watching Rick Santorum receive his 15 minutes of fame:

West Bank Story

The forces of Greece and Armenia have once again beaten their ploughshares into weapons and allowed their differences to blossom into armed combat. These ancient civilizations, once allies against the hated Turks, have now taken up arms against one another. This conflict may have eluded mainstream media coverage in that the aggression has not erupted on the plains of Gamar or in the mountains of Amonos but in a far more obscure location...in the pews of The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. The combatants are rival tribes of monks and the weapons- brooms and mops.

It seems that three orders of monks share the maintenance chores for this Church said to be the birthplace of Jesus Christ. The privilege of cleaning and maintaining the church has been a constant battle among factions of the Catholic religion. A fragile status quo exists among the three groups: one Roman Catholic, one Armenian and one Greek Orthodox. Each group cleans a certain designated section and there is frequently trouble on or near the borders.The conflict extends back centuries. In the 1800's Czar Nicholas sent troops to restore a balance he felt was tipping too far toward the Catholics. Must have been a slow day in Moscow.


The fight (and it was a fight) erupted along the border between the Armenians and the Greeks. The amazing aspect of this conflict is that there isn't a Jew or Arab in sight (or on site either). The Holy War of the Dustbin is entirely the province of the Catholics. For the moment, order has been restored but as we all know about religious squabbles in that region, peace is only as permanent as the closest O-cedar and a monk who knows how to use it.


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Room for The Holy Ghost


Skaneateles High School, nestled in the pastoral lakes region of upstate New York, has become ground zero in the war on sin. Principal Georgette Hoskins has determined that the Winter Ball will have to be cancelled this year because the students will not refrain from "grinding" during slow dances. Ms. Hoskins has tried everything short of limiting the music selection to polkas and the Texas two-step but all to no avail. "Our students dance like they were magnetized" one teacher lamented. Unable to pry the boys away from the girls and, convinced that dirty dancing is called dirty for a reason, cancelling the big winter dance was the school's only recourse.

Grinding played a major role in the sex life of the denizens of St. Nicholas of Tolentine parish in the Bronx. Actually it was my entire sex life for all of high school. Outside of an intimate moment with a stranger on an overcrowded subway, rubbing against a real live girl in the school gym was as good as it got. Our dances were heavily chaperoned (something like one parent per couple) but we were nevertheless able to get pretty close for brief periods. Some girls were convinced that this activity would lead to pregnancy (a bit of misinformation the nuns did nothing to correct) but most of the girls were semi-willing participants. The idea of cancelling our dances due to slow-dance contact would be like cancelling skiing due to snow.

Ms. Hoskins, we beg you to reconsider. If you are concerned about full body contact, encourage the girls to wear a catcher's chest protector or prohibit the boys from showering a week before the dance. Better yet hire the Mormon Tabernacle Choir as the house band. Catchy!



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Shave and a Haircut ...ten years



Oh those Amish! Twelve members of a breakaway (read: lunatic) Amish sect were arrested and charged by the FBI with a hate crime. It seems that Samuel Mullet (that's really his name) and a group of his followers have been attacking other Amish folk and cutting their beards and hair. (Presumably it was the men who were being de-bearded and the women scalped but the story doesn't specify.) Also unclear is the nature of the unauthorized barbering. In a perfect world the top of the head or the center of the beard would be left long and the sides cut close. Reverend Mullet was assisted by Brother Soulpatch who left the men with only a small square of beard just below the lip. Also charged in this dastardly deed were Brother Bob, Brother Buzzcut and his crew, Reverand Moptop, and Sister Pixie. Sister Helmet-head was not with the attackers which explains why none of the women looked like Callista Gingrich.

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How Can They Tell?

Mexico City has closed its main city dump which , in its heyday (can a dump have a heyday?) recieved 12,000 tons of trash every day. The dump was closed because it was bigger than Mexico City itself. "People couldn't tell which was the dump and which was the city" said Mayor Marcelo Ebrard. "Actually the dump smelled a little bit better and the food was much better" said the Mayor. The dump had fallen on hard times recently because citizens were being encouraged to take a bag of garbage over the border when they entered the US illegally. Why not?" said Mayor Ebrard. "It helps us at home and the bags can be used as floatation devices. It's a Win-Win."





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...or is the Catholic Church universally guilty of inappropriate behavior?

Another country heard from. The Catholic Church in the Netherlands has been deluged (how biblical) with complaints of child molestation and abuse. From 1945 to 1981, between 10,000 and 20,000 children were abused in seminaries, boarding schools and orphanages. The Dutch commission has identified hundreds of priests involved both in the abuses and the cover-ups. Once again the Church in Rome offered its scripted heartfelt apologies and meaningless mea culpas. Once again no police were notified. Once again no priest or bishop was publicly arrested. Once again no bishop was expelled. Once again no offer to surrender Church files or documents was made. In other words the Holy Roman Catholic Church remains the largest fraud in the history of religion. Their "heartfelt apology" is worse than useless. The charlatans in Rome will wring their hands and bow their heads until the headlines fade. At that point they will return to business as usual, which is covering-up; hiding the proof of crime and hoping the fools who still occupy the pews on Sunday will believe their lies and misdirection...until the next country is heard from.

If anyone out there is offended...tough. The world has been forced to choke down one horrific scenario of abuse after another. Their pattern, like the perpatrators', never changes. Anyone who thought the crimes of pedophile priests were confined to the United States, Ireland, or Germany is probably foolish enough to believe that The Netherlands will be the end. It won't.

...or is it possible to feel sorry for a man who's worth $150 million?

I admit it. I feel sorry for Mitt Romney. I want to send him a fruit basket...or a Vermont Teddy Bear...or an autographed photo of Rodney Dangerfield. Honestly, Romney is the tomato soup of the Republican buffet; everybody likes it but something else always looks tastier.

On paper he would appear to have all the qualifications to be a lock as the GOP standard-bearer. He comes from the aristocracy. (His father was governor of Michigan and one-time Presidential hopeful.) His educational creds are impeccable. (Harvard MBA and law degree which he earned concurrently.) Business success at Bain Capital where he earned what the IRS categorized as "a shitload of cash". He rescued the 2002 Winter Olympics from a payola scandal that, even by Olympic standards, was horrific. (Japan and Korea finished one/two in the "See Who Can Stuff More Cash and Prizes into Your Suitcase" event.) He got the good people of Massachusetts to elect him their governor...as a Republican. That's like Kansas electing Bill Ayers as its senator.

Short of discovering a cure for cancer or managing the Cubs to a World Series, it's hard to imagine what else this guy needs to do. Hell, he even looks the part.

There are kids in college who can't remember a time when Mitt Romney wasn't running for or running something. Persistence alone should account for something. He barely had time to change his "Romney in 2008" posters to "Romney 2012" before he was back out on the campaign trail. Politicians will tell you that the run for President is a marathon not a sprint but Mitt has turned it into an odyssey. One suspects the book for 2012 will be "the Making of the President 2012" by Homer.

Don't get me wrong. I don't want Mitt Romney to beat Barack Obama next year. Heaven forefend. It might be nice however, to see a candidate for president from the Republican party who doesn't look like one of the horrors on Fear Factor. Watching the election returns with one hand clutching my passport is not the way I wish to spend Nov 6, 2012. At least Mitt Romney doesn't speak and act like someone in need of a rabies test.

Why is this man getting no love? Is it like happily married men attending the show at Stringfellows? Hey, where's the harm in a little flirtation or fantasizing? I'm not going anywhere with these bimbos. I'm just imagining. Similarly, no rational Republican (oxymoron anyone?) would seriously consider voting for Michele Bachmann or Newt Gingrigh in a "real" election. It might be sexually stimulating to dream of a president hiring black school kids as janitors or demanding Ronald Reagan's bust on Mt. Rushmore but not really. A President should sound measured, thoughtful, intelligent. Most of the competitors in the GOP race sound like Fox News auditions for Glenn Beck's job. Enter Mitt Romney.

It can't be that Romney is a Mormon. America's Christians should be thrilled that any President attends a church of any kind. The only time any of the last five or six Presidents went to church was to pray that some scandal would blow over. Even the Obamas, who went to church regularly in Chicago (remember Rev. Wright?) sneak out of the White House for dinner on Saturday, not services on Sunday. Romney's Mormon faith may be the only thing he hasn't reinvented, reconsidered or reversed since his campaigning began. That should account for something. If Massachusetts didn't care why should Kansas or Iowa?

Anyway, the reinvigoration of Ron Paul's campaign should alert Republicans that they have reached the bottom of the peanut butter jar. What's next: Rick Santorum? Herman Cain redux?

Republicans should be careful that Romney doesn't drop out after Iowa. What then? Maybe it's like Chutes and Ladders; when you have to start over from the beginning. Paging Mitch Daniels! Anyone seen Donald Trump?

...or are the Republican debates running longer than Gunsmoke?

OK, what'd I miss?

It's been almost two months since last we spoke. In that time forty-three Republican presidential candidates have come and gone. When you look at the stage during any one of the recent debates, all you can see is Haley Joel Osment saying "I see dead people". Strangely though, the dead people aren't the same from week to week. The GOP has more personalities than Sybil and, like Sybil, most are bats**t crazy.

The flavor du jour is Newt Gingrich. Unlike his competitors, about whom one hears good and bad, the feelings about Gingrich are universal...everyone and I mean everyone hates him. Former Republican Congressmen who served during Newt's reign as Speaker in the 90's would rather support Dennis Kucinich. Should Gingrich be nominated, rank and file GOP strategists are already developing a Plan B. It's called "Christie 2016".

Gingrich has a political and personal past that would keep Danielle Steele in business for twenty years. The man had to open a branch closet to accommodate all the skeletons. He is running with more baggage than a porter on the Queen Mary. O. J. Simpson is sitting in a jail cell saying "Jeez maybe I could run".

Most of America has previewed the highlights. As a womanizing philanderer (three marriages, two affairs) he makes Bill Clinton look like a Trappist Monk. As a political leader, he allowed the government to be shut down and fled the House on the heels of an ethics scandal that came close to expulsion-worthy. His mea culpa (sort of) goes like this "I've made mistakes..." No kidding. If Newt were an entertainer he'd be Lindsey Lohan.

But you don't need to revisit Newt's past to find reasons to be repelled. His recent pronouncements are just as troubling. During a recent visit to that Fifth Ave. kingmaker Donald Trump (what's with that?) Gingrich allowed that poor kids (read, poor black kids) grow up in environments where no one goes to work. He suggested that these tykes be hired to scour toilets and mop floors as a way of learning a work ethic. No doubt they will also acquire the skills that will serve them well in the only career for which they are culturally suited. Newt stopped short of including tap dancing in his curriculum.

Forget the blatant racism and the incredible insensitivity inherent in this "plan". Ask yourself what sort of candidate for national office would say something so offensive? Seriously, would Mitt Romney talk like this? Would George H.W. Bush? Or the sainted Ronald W. Reagan? Hell GWB wouldn't say something so crazy and he was off the reservation 75% of the time. It's not that Newt Gingrich isn't mentally stable enough to be president. He's not mentally stable enough to be president of North Korea. (A job which recently became available.)

The mere fact that Gingrich is leading in the current polls speaks volumes about the present state of affairs in the Grand Old Party. They don't just want to crush Barack Obama, they want to send a message to the world that his liberal policies have been completely and thoroughly rejected by America. We are a Christian, heterosexual, white (except for John Boehner and Donald Trump), native born (no Kenyans please) country and the election of the current President was a horrible aberration. The opinions of Republicans will forever remain unaltered by facts. Barack Obama is a socialist, a gun hater, an appeaser of Muslims, an anti-business redistributor of wealth and a class warrior. These teabaggers are uninterested in listening to any information that contradicts these unshakable truths..so help me Rush.

Tragically, this rabid anti-Obama bile is driving normal Republicans (all 12 of them) to the fringes. So, with a nod to Jeff Foxworthy: If Newt Gingrich looks like a reasonable alternative to Michele Bachmann, you just might be a teabagger. If you think Rick Perry's lack of ability to form complete sentences is part of his charm, you just might be a teabagger. If you're eagerly awaiting Rick Santorum's big moment, you just might be a teabagger. If you think Mitt Romney is the reincarnation of Ted Kennedy, you just might be a teabagger. And finally, if you're content to get all of your nuanced political opinions from Fox News...you are a teabagger...and an asshat.

...or is being a plumber with a job better than being an unemployed PhD living in a tent in Zuccotti Park?

Try as I might I can't add anything to this. In one sign (though crudely crafted) we learn both the frustration of the Occupy Wall Street movement and, at the same time, we can appreciate the response of the "get a job, hippie" reactionaries. When it comes to OWS everyone is on the side of the angels. As always, answers and resolutions are harder to craft than sympathy for the participants. The fault, dear readers, lies not in our stars but in ourselves.

Our cultural ethos since World War II is that everyone who wants to (and many who don't), should be able to go to college. From the time we all slouched into high school, our relatives and family friends all asked the same question..."where do you want to go to college?" Unless a child shows signs of being a music or art prodigy (in which case it's off to Julliard or the Sorbonne) all roads are suppose to lead to the ivies or dad's alma mater or the school that cousin Roscoe attends. If you hear a small explosion emanating from your local junior high school, it's probably the horrified reaction of some parent being counseled that little Justin or Rachel doesn't appear to be college material. Even parents who suspect that their offspring are not academically inclined still treat the news like a doctor's report of a serious illness. "What will my family and friends say if little Ebenezer isn't recruited by Yale or Stanford?". "We'll have to move." Parents whose kids choose a trade or, God forbid the military, feel the need to investigate witness protection.

This well-intentioned farce was fine when kids could attend a college for a few thousand dollars and expect to pay back any student loans within a year or two of graduation. Parents could point with pride to their progeny at graduation and think "My work here is done". It didn't much matter what little Brittany chose for a major because being a college grad was enough to apply for practically any office job in the country. Once hired by the Acme Widget Company, her career was launched and all those quaint college courses in Geology and Art History were a charming memory.

Fast forward to 2011. Most private university costs have increased 440% in 20 years. Good luck gaining admission to your state university. Students can expect to graduate with a degree and a serious six-figure debt. (Our girl in the picture above is actually on the low side.) Jobs in the private sector which once required a BA or BS can now hunt quite successfully for MBA's. An estimated 19,000 college grads are currently parking cars...and not their own. 300,000 are employing their expensive degrees as waiters and waitresses. A society crying for scientists and engineers probably has more Medieval History majors than it can ever support. Clearly a new paradigm is in order.

OK, with apologies to Bill Maher, we need New Rules.

Rule One - Not everyone can, or should be encouraged to, go to college. This should not be viewed as a death sentence. Intellectually we all know that different kids have different skills. Musical instrument companies have made untold millions selling accordions and recorders to kids who will never be able to tell B# from Cm. We don't force our kids to play instruments for which they are clearly unsuited (after the first two years of expensive lessons) so why force them into an academic career? Schools should abandon the "college track for smarties and wood shop for dummies" programs. Real efforts should be made to determine what little Guido is good at and elevate his pursuit of excellence regardless of skill set. Seriously, you may think that college is the only goal for your little genius but do you want an Archeology major fixing your transmission? Kids who are good with their hands should be praised as possibly the next NASA engineering wiz. We act as though the only possibilities are Nobel laureate or ditch digger. That needs to change.

Second Rule - If you want to go to college there will be restrictions. If your family can afford to send you to Whatzamata U. to study The Influence of Homosexuality and Lesbianism on Fourteenth Century Haberdashery, knock yourself out. If you work your can off throughout high school and can hook yourself a scholarship in say, The History of the Color Yellow, congratulations. If, however, you plan to borrow the money for school, there will be a few codicils. Your major course of study will be based on demonstrated attributes and diligence as well as the available job landscape for your chosen discipline. (Example: if you had to look up "codicil", Law and English might not be for you.)

Lenders (read, Uncle Sam) will not lend you the cash to study Marine Biology merely because you saw Free Willy four times and want to get a job where the preferred mode of dress is a bikini. Minimally demonstrated attributes might include 1) knowing that oceans are near the beach; 2) being able to swim; or 3) knowing that port is left and starboard is right. We simply cannot train 10,000 Geologists to fill 26 jobs. The net result of that policy is 9,974 disillusioned kids occupying Wall Street.

Rule Three - If you change your major, your loans are immediately due for payment and you must reapply for funds in your newly chosen field. An addendum to this rule is "five years to graduation or you're out".

Rule Four - None of the other rules apply if you want to give science, mathematics and engineering a try. We all know that most American students suck at science and math but part of the reason is that these fields are nerd-centric and buzzkillers with the opposite sex. Yeah, I know, Bill Gates and Steven Jobs made nerdness cool but ask them what high school was like. We need to isolate any sixth-grader who can add up a golf score card and nurture his or her God-given talent. Like Lebron James, we should throw money at these kids (and their parents) to attend MIT and CAL Poly. Companies should be able to recruit them out of high school and ensure that college Calculus and Quantum Physics are taught by swimsuit models.

All kidding aside, we can all sympathize with the sentiments of young people for whom the American Dream isn't turning out like it did for their parents. It's easy and cynical for Herman Cain to tell Occupiers to "get a job". His kids can always work in the pizza business. We encourage our young people to study and pursue knowledge for its own sake. Most universities require courses in language, philosophy and the arts. It shouldn't be all about career. Even accountants and pre-med students take film courses once in a while. Nevertheless we cannot be blind to the fact that we are training a generation of citizens wholly unsuited for the business and social environment of the 21st Century. I'm all in favor of studying Hispanic Lesbians but there needs to be a job of some sort waiting at the end of the academic road. No academic pursuit, regardless of its obscurity, should end with a cardboard sign in Zuccotti Park.

...or is being wrong about someone more irritating than being right?

Honestly, there are few things in life more comforting that our dislike for certain people. If you're a Boston Red Sox fan, you really have a case-on for Yankee third baseman Alex Rodriguez. If you don't live in the city of Miami, Lebron James makes your teeth hurt. Should you live in the Northeast, most guitar playing, cowboy hat wearing, country singers make you run screaming into the night. Certain people at your job make you want to throttle them until they vow to stop doing the things that make you crazy. There's a twisted pleasure derived from knowing that there are certain people you just plain don't like. (Note, I have avoided using the word hate. Hate is way too strong. It's difficult to imagine actually hating anyone you don't know intimately Insert ex-spouse's name here).

Conversely, it is genuinely frustrating to wrap yourself in the enmity you hold for someone else only to discover that the object of your negative feelings is capable of an unselfish act that forces a complete revaluation of your animosity. I mean what could be more frustrating than to learn that Karl Rove spends all his off hours (when he isn't destroying civilization as we know it) working with Ally Cat Allies? Or discovering that Snooki from Jersey Shore (just typing the name gives me agita) actually teaches molecular biology to blind graduate students at Rutgers? Information like that can bend your entire outlook. Hell, if you can't be sure of your negative opinions about people, what can you believe in?


Naturally, all of this reflection stems from an incident that transpired last week. A person who I hold in high esteem had a death in the family. The services were held in a part of the country which made attendance all but impossible. In subsequent discussion, I learned that the funeral was attended by a mutual acquaintance who I have held in low esteem. This fellow held a position which allowed him to make my life, and the lives of all of my colleagues, consistently miserable. His joy at spreading ill humor made a delightful environment, hell on earth. As you can imagine, his demise was greeted with universal happiness and derision. Now this person has committed the ultimate treacherous act; he has done something selfless and praiseworthy. Of all the snaky tricks.

I now find myself in limbo. I can't think of him the way I use to, disagreeable and unreasonable. That would be uncharitable to someone who did something magnanimous. Still, it is impossible to reverse years of rancour over one gesture. This sucks.

I've decided (like you care) to assume that I have been wrong lo these many years. Perhaps the good side was always there and I just wasn't in a position to see it. Sometimes good people aren't afforded the luxury of acting good. Maybe there was always a silver lining hidden under that fat, obnoxious cloud. So now the slate is clean. In the unlikely event that I should encounter this fellow, I will greet him as a long lost friend. I'll offer to buy coffee or a libation. We'll hash over old times and, if time and geography permit, we'll catch one of Skooki's lectures at dear ole Rutgers.

...or would Dorothy be forced by the Kansas legislature to travel back to Oz for a mammogram?

A lot of wonderful people come from Kansas. I actually know a few. These folks would help you raise a barn, bring in your crops, milk your cows and do any number of those other farmy things.

Face it, individually Kansans typify all that is good about America. Collectively, however, they are red-necked, cruel, and heartless. If a citizen of Topeka finds a homeless person (bum is a bit out of fashion) on his doorstep, he will feed him, care for him, and if possible offer him a job. That same citizen will then amble down to the grange and rail about welfare, healthcare and jobs programs. If you wonder where the cutting edge of contradiction can be found, look no farther than the The Sunflower State.

Of all the "fly over" states, Kansas is the easiest to fly over; or jump over. The highest point in the state is 4,039 ft, Mt. Sunflower or, as they call it in Colorado, a speed bump. This lack of topography has led Kansans to believe that no one is watching what they do.

Kansas has, by law, an official language: English. Apparently having 96% of this country and a fair slice of the rest of the world already speaking the mother tongue just didn't cut it in Kansas. (Taco Bell must have one hell of a time being compelled to translate "burrito" and "chimichunga".) In Kansas, when you call the state for assistance the answering machine says, "for English press one. For all other languages, go f--k yourself."

Kansas passed a law setting the minimum legal age for marriage at 15. It's unclear whether this was intended as protection for farm girls or a guideline for farm boys; like the minimum size of a keepable trout. Kansas has 29 dry counties which might help explain their cranky attitude. The Kansas legislature has passed several laws restricting the benefits and educational opportunities available to anyone residing in Kansas illegally. This is curious. At the rate people are fleeing the Wheat State you would think that Kansas would be more welcoming of anyone who actually wanted to live there.

Politically, Kansas is so red you can see it from space. Think Oklahoma without the charming accent. How Kathleen Sebelius ever got elected governor as a Democrat...twice...is anyone's guess. In Presidential contests Kansas has supported Willkie, Dewey, Nixon, all the Bushes and, of course, John McCain. Thankfully their 2.8 million inhabitants only warrant six electoral votes; about the same as Brooklyn. Normally, no one cares what these people do to themselves legislatively but that changed recently.

The insidious and dangerous nature of the red state agenda was never more clear than when the Kansas legislature passed a law effectively defunding Planned Parenthood. It seems that the god-fearing folk down on the farm are troubled by the fact that, in addition to offering a myriad of medical services to women, Planned Parenthood also offers counseling on abortion. Let's be clear, the vast majority of Planned Parenthood's services involve pap smears and mammograms.

To prohibit Planned Parenthood from functioning based on the misguided notion that it serves as an abortion mill, is criminal. Without Planned Parenthood, the rate of cervical cancer will balloon. Breast cancer will go undiagnosed and untreated. People will die. No, correct that...women will die.

This horrible law isn't directed at any aspect of men's health. Cancer screening for men will continue at whatever clinics currently do the procedures. This is all about women and women's health. Why any woman would support a state representative who voted for this law is a mystery. I understand that people don't always vote in their own self interest (see, "What's Wrong With Kansas" by Thomas Frank) but this is insane. You don't close the movie theater because one of the twelve films offends you. You don't ban all gun ownership (much as I'd like to) because a few people use them to rob liquor stores. You don't have to like or support abortion rights but don't deprive women of needed medical care to impose your narrow view.

Thankfully, U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten (the J is for John) issued an injunction preventing Kansas from closing the financial door on Planned Parenthood. I do not know the political affinity attached to Judge Marten and I don't care. This isn't about politics; it's not even about religion. It's about a small group of right-wing crazies pandering to a larger group of right-wing crazies. Like the teabaggers whose fight was never about the debt or taxes or healthcare, this is about social engineering. It's about the forty seven or so cliches (real Americans, founding fathers, close the borders, original intent, Jesus is my savior, blah, blah) the fringe uses to cloak their burning desire to impose their brand of Americanism on you.

But fear not, Kansas. Without organizations like Planned Parenthood, the EPA, OSHA, the FDA and others, you'll all be long gone; dead from cancer, botulism, farm accidents and pollution. And so citizens of Kansas,as you make that final journey to be returned to the soil you love so much, rest easy in the knowledge that there will still be plenty of Mexicans around, farming your fields and marrying your daughters...after they turn fifteen, of course.

...should we replace "in God we trust" with something more current?

I was thinking of something along the lines of "Thou shalt not jump to conclusions" or "Thou shall wait until all the facts are in". Anything's better than "Ready, Fire, Aim." This particular rumination came about as I was reading of the recent decision in the strange case of Dominique Strauss-Kahn. The case of the City of New York vs DSK has taken on all the trappings of "Duke Lacrosse Players, Deux".

The few available facts involving Strauss-Kahn (not easy to obtain) are as follows:

-Mr. Strauss-Kahn, age 63, was visiting New York in part to meet his daughter's new boyfriend. They had dinner the evening of May 13th.

-He checked out of the Sofitel Hotel on May 14th leaving behind his cell phone. (Other things "left behind" will be discussed later.) Meanwhile at the local precinct, a hotel maid, one Nafissatou Diallo, was explaining to a desk sergeant that, as far as she knew, the duties of a chambermaid did not include forced oral sex with nude, crazy guests. (The inherent dangers of "forced, oral sex" will also be discussed later.) The cops were sufficiently impressed that they abandoned their jelly donuts (no small event on a Sunday morning) and headed to the Sofitel to investigate.

-Meanwhile, DSK contacted the hotel and requested that his phone be sent out to JFK before his flight departed for Paris. This turned out to be his undoing. His phone, along with an arrest warrant. were delivered by several members of New York's Finest who unceremoniously escorted Monsieur Strauss-Kahn to a holding cell in Rikers. Mon Dieu! Dominique made every effort to explain that this was all a misunderstanding brought about by some confusion regarding the translation of the word "consensual". DSK was charged and later indicted for first degree criminal sexual assault and unlawful imprisonment.

-Ms Diallo is from Ghana and was living in the Bronx with her daughter. The author has no particular knowledge of sexual niceties in Ghana but in the Bronx, "no" means "put soggy Napoleon back in your pants. Just leave a gratuity like everybody else".

From here the facts depend largely on whom you choose to believe. The maid at the Sofitel claims that Strauss-Kahn emerged from the bathroom when she went in to clean. He was naked and seemed a bit deranged. He grabbed her and forced her into his lap. He then locked her in a closet and left...presumably fully dressed. There is DNA evidence that some kind of sexual activity took place.

Strauss-Kahn, forced by the DNA to admit to something sexual, professes that the tryst was consensual. (No doubt the French translation of "consent" is "your lips tell me no, no but there's yes, yes in your eyes".) He will no doubt swear that, finding himself short of change for a tip, he proffered the next best thing. After all, what black, poor immigrant woman wouldn't rather have a 60ish, Viagra-induced, French bone than a few euros? When asked why a woman from Ghana would seduce a fossilized Frenchman, Strauss-Kahn attorneys hint at a dark conspiracy, hatched to keep Strauss-Kahn off the French throne. (I know, he wants to run for President but throne sounds more exotic.)

Anyway, although the original prognosis for Monsieur Strauss-Kahn looked grim, his fortunes of late have been looking up. It now appears that his accuser's story has more holes in it than a box of donuts. She arrived in America from Ghana with a sad tale of gang rapes and other atrocities. That story was the basis for her green card as a refugee. Apparently there are enough inconsistencies in her story to cause Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance, Jr. to loose sleep.

Nevertheless, we the people, armed with only a perp walk and a few sketchy facts were out buying the rope for the execution. What did we really know?:


He's French

He runs an organization, the IMF, that we don't really understand but don't trust.

He is wealthy

He speaks French

He has a history of goosing women

He is from France

He is French

Never let it be said that facts or reason ever stood in the way of a good, irrational rush to judgement. In the case of the Duke lacrosse players, we were ready to castrate the little bastards. It was poor, black female students vs rich, privileged, white frat boys. Only later did we discover that it was really poor, dumb, drunk hookers vs rich, privileged, white frat boys. Being horny and nineteen isn't a crime.

Unlike the Duke Lacrosse players, it seems that Mr. Strauss-Kahn got some splainin' to do. He needs to tell us how his little swimmers got on the carpet. (Possibly setting the stage for the first "spanking the monkey" defense.) Considering DSK's proclivity for aggressive sexual harassment he garners as much sympathy as Casey Anthony. (Another case of trial by the great unwashed.)

Monsieur SK might be able to peddle that "consensual sex" story to the New York DA but his wife, French media darling Ann Sinclair may be less forgiving. Not only does she join that tragic mob of women, publicly embarrassed by their philandering husbands, she will also lose her chance to be addressed as the First Lady of France. Strauss-Kahn's hopes of ascending to the presidency of France are all but over. The French don't care if you shtup the maid. They probably don't even care if you ask permission first. But getting marched into an American courtroom to explain your wandering saucisson (Fr. dried sausage) to four hundred TV cameras is too much.

His career at the IMF in tatters and his politically ambitions all but over, what's next for poor DSK? How about a guest shot on "America's Least Wanted"?

...or will Dick Cheney's book be as exciting as Cheyenne, WY on a Tues nite?

The National Library has a problem. Dick Cheney's book comes out this week and the library is stuck. It seems the Dewey Decimal System has no category for "pure egomaniacal bullshit". The book is titled "In My Time" but should have been called "In My Dreams". To call it fiction dishonors every author who ever tried to tell a good story. Calling it non-fiction would trigger the gag reflex of everyone unfortunate enough too draw to close to the stacks. it maybe historical fiction but, the only actual history aside from the dates, is that the names are mostly spelled correctly. That any tree should have been sacrificed to produce this tripe is enough to make Smokey the Bear take up arson. I tried downloading the book through itunes and the website threw-in a free recording of "It's only Make Believe".

I never expect much candor from a politician in a biography. Having been second-guessed throughout their public lives, political figures write memoirs as a opportunity to explain the decisions they made and share their thought processes. That said, did it really take Cheney 576 pages to say "I was always right and everyone else was always wrong"? In Cheneyworld mistakes were always made by the other guy. The CIA screwed up on WMD. Condoleezza Rice was at fault on yellow-cake uranium and Cheney never heard of Katrina. Honestly, if this book had any more bullshit in it you could toss it in a bucket of cleaning solvent and make a serviceable truck bomb. Half the book is Cheney sitting in his office like Yoda with the great and small parading past to tell him how he was right all along. I was waiting for a paragraph about the time Harry Whittington came by to thank Dick for shooting him in the face.

You expect excuses and obfuscation in these books. Nobody likes to admit they were wrong but this load of cow flop takes first prize at the meadow muffin derby. Waterboarding is the perfect example. Any man with a shred of dignity would have said "9-11 scared the bejeebeers out of everyone. Our first concern was that it wasn't going to happen again. In our zeal to keep the country safe we may have used methods of interrogation which, upon further reflection, now appear excessive." Not our boy Dick. In spite of the undisputed fact that no usable information ever came from anyone while they were being tortured, Cheney defends the tactic and proudly proclaims that its use was justified. Well, that clears that up.

Of particular distaste is Cheney's attack on Colin Powell. Considering that Cheney never did anything more dangerous for his country that jay-walk on Constitution Ave., it takes a special kind of coward to suggest that Powell was anything but a stand-up guy during his time as Secretary of State. Cheney is clearly jealous of Powell's popularity among Americans; most of whom think Cheney is a mean-spirited asshat who makes everyone think of the crabby uncle in the family that no one likes. When Cheney left office he had a popularity rating of 14%. Casey Anthony polled better.


Naturally, I haven't read the book (not with so many copies of The Nation piling up) but it appears clear that, in spite of Cheney's boastful assertion, the only head likely to explode in Washington, was GWB. George had the apparently mistaken impression that he had been President from 2001 to 2009. Turns out GWB was only in charge when the wrong decisions were made. Barnes and Noble will need to tie an anchor to the display table to keep the methane from floating the books away. (They won't leave the store any other way!)

At some point former Vice President Cheney must have felt that the book was a little too self-serving. He needed a neutral, unbiased voice to counterbalance his self congratulatory fist pumping. Fortunately, Liz Cheney was between screeds at Fox News. Having played no part in the Bush administration and having zero insight as to the workings of government, Liz was the perfect choice. (FYI, Liz is the straight one) Dick would have been better served had he selected Bush's Scottish Terrier Barney to help with the manuscript. At least he was at one or two cabinet meetings. Barney is also housebroken and doesn't beg scraps from the table. Liz...not so much.

So it's clear that I don't much like Dick Cheney. It seems unlikely that anything he put in his book was going to change my mind. It would have been nice, however, to be able to say something about Cheney's refreshing reflection on a lifetime of living off the government. He was a congressman from Wyoming so someone must have liked him somewhere. However, if you're ever tempted to think a kind thought about Richard Bruce Cheney, just remember, it was Cheney along with Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and a few others who engineered the outright lies that pushed America into two wars and got more than 6,000 Americans killed in Afghanistan and Iraq. Let him try to bullshit his way out of that.

...or is Rick Perry just GWB with better hair and no pedigree?

Rick Perry has entered the 2012 Republican Presidential Race with all the subtly of a person who shows up unfashionably late and a bit drunk to your dinner party, all braggadocio and bad manners. You get the impression that he only joined the fray so those cute little women-folk from Minnesota and Alaska wouldn't have to shoulder the burden of hauling all that teabag bullshit all over America. Hell, he looks like the Marlboro Man after a year on human growth hormones. Thank God he loves his hair so much or we'd have another cowboy hat in the ring. The Texas Governor is running for President because...wait for it... God told him to. What with God nudging candidates in and out of the contest for GOP candidate(Bachmann in, Huckabee out), no wonder He took his eye off the ball and we ended up with Hurricane Irene.

Perry got to be Governor of Texas when George W. Bush got to be President. A more nuanced example of reverse evolution you will never see. Hardly a testimonial for intelligent design. On the MENSA meter, Perry makes George W. Bush look like Bertrand Russell. Rick Perry's reputation in Texas is that of a slow-witted, scam artist who never saw a special interest he couldn't tap for a contribution. His business card says "Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, "quid pro quo". The only difference between Perry and Huey Long is the cost of his hair stylist.

Governor Perry arrives on the national scene with just the right blend of tea and sympathy. Naturally, he hates our current President. Perry thinks the last thing Barack Obama got right was the ""...so help me God" part of his inauguration address. He hates TARP, hates stimulus, hates healthcare, hates raising the debt ceiling and really hates Obama's choice of mustard at Ray's Hellburger. He touts the growth of jobs in Texas forgetting the fact that all, and I mean all, of the new jobs in Texas are either minimum wage or public sector. There are about four hundred military bases in The Lone Star State. Counting the Long Horns football team almost everyone in Texas is wearing a uniform. The Governor who made headlines in 2010 by suggesting that Texas might declare for independence from the mother country is only too happy to take all the federal gravy he can get.

Perry professes to run a fiscally conservative ship in Texas yet the State is currently running a $27 billion deficit. To close the gap, Perry has slashed $4 billion from the K-12 education budget. Good choice! The state already ranks at the bottom among the state residents with a high school diploma. (That includes 61% of the states basketball players.) That gives them a world education ranking near Somalia and just ahead of Azerbaijan. If Texas were a country, Sally Struthers would be filming aid commercials from Abilene.

Armed with the confidence that fear sells (hey, it worked for Glenn Beck) Perry has attempted to demonize all things federal. Hoping to garner the survivalist vote Ricky has attacked Ben Bernanke (a well-known tool of Marxism) and labeled social security a Ponzi scheme. Apparently Old Rick hasn't been checking the birth certificates of the teabaggers lately. Most of them are only able to attend rallies thanks to senior discounts. Having never actually seen or used public transportation, Perry is unfamiliar with the concept of the third rail.

Perry has already been forced to respond to ethical questions in Texas. Those issues will only intensify as the national press begins to dig. After all, you know how mean-spirited the liberal media can be. According to the New York Times, Perry received $17 million in campaign donations from more than 900 of Texas state appointees and their spouses. Who says Texans don't know how to return a favor? If Perry can dream up 25,400 additional government jobs at $19,000 per contributor, he'll have the 1/2 billion needed to run for President. Think of how rosy the unemployment picture in Texas will be then.

What Governor Perry forgets is that low state taxes and no state income tax sound great but his gains come at the expense of other states. If you remove the safety net that is minimum wage, OSHA, EPA and NLRB from the national equation, every state suffers. People can no longer trust the produce they eat or the water they drink. Low wage jobs boost employment rates but create more poverty and the need for more assistance. No healthcare drives people to emergency rooms for care. ENRON, Bear Stearns and AIG have amply demonstrated what unregulated capitalism can produce. The "low taxes will produce more jobs" canard has been disproved time and time again. Low taxes produce corporate profits...period. If that is Governor Perry's idea of fresh thinking, he really is dumber than George W. Bush.

...or is television just a mirror with better reception?

Well it's almost September and you know what that means. Yes, it means you can pack your little offspring onto a bus and have them be someone else's problem all day. No, it doesn't mean the new car models will showcase. That gig ended with Bonanza. But that's a hint. September means the new fall network shows will premier. True, there has been a steady stream of new shows on cable but the fall lineup has always been special for those of us who remember rabbit ears and Art Linkletter.

As usual ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox (Fox is still a late-comer to us purists) will dazzle us with a glorious array of sitcoms and dramas slavishly copied from whatever was popular last year. Considering that TV has been around since the 40's, you'd think the industry could brag on something more substantial than Shark Week or Bridezilla. True, we had Roots and MASH, Gunsmoke and Howdy Doody, but we also have Snookie and Simon Cowell. Two steps forward, two steps back.

Anyway, the impetus for this quibbling rant is the upcoming premier of the new NBC offering "The Playboy Club". This will be followed by ABC's "PAN AM". Both shows plan a jaunty stroll down memory lane to a time when men were men and women were exploited sex objects. You can thank the success of Mad Men for reintroducing America to the halcyon days of smoking, drinking and ass-pinching.

Both shows are set in the hedonistic 60's. Not the 60's of "hell no, we won't go" or "turn on, tune in, drop out". No, these are the early 60's; a time of Camelot when even the President was using women like Kleenex. Who wouldn't want to return to the days of martinis, wife-swapping and Marlboro's? A glorious time when men could delude themselves into believing that bad behavior had no consequences. After all, did James Bond ever cough from smoking? Did drinking ever stop William Powell as the Thin Man from delivering pithy bon mots? Did swordsmanship keep JFK out of the White House?

There is little doubt that both of these shows will be cancelled before the second commercial break. Copy-cat television rarely succeeds. OK, I know, CSI and Law and Order. But there's a difference between copying and cloning. As TV writers often do, the creators of The Playboy Club misinterpreted the reason for the success of Mad Men. Yes, the men are pigs and the women loose but how is that different from Jersey Shore? The real allure of Mad Men is the same as the formula for any good drama, namely well drawn characters and well written scripts. Copying the backdrop is about as intelligent as assuming The Godfather is about Italian fashion after the War.

Mad Men is good because all of it is good; not just the costumes or the cleavage (both of which are excellent). I suggest that America continue to frequent shows like Justified or even The Living Dead (which, by the way, was stolen from the Republican National Convention) and leave The Playboy Club to the exploitative era from whence it came. Nobody wants to revisit polio either.

...or has the South decided that, although you can't fix stupid, you can still elect it?

It sometimes appears that our Southern brethren are committed to a desperate attempt to return to Margaret Mitchell's vision of the world. State capitols must be beaten into striking the confederate flag. The most benign gun restrictions are savagely attacked as some Northern conspiracy to confiscate all weapons. Asshats like Rick Perry even suggest a new secession movement. (That may have sounded nifty when running for Governor. Let's see how often presidential candidate Perry disavows that notion.) And when the subject is race and racist, the states of the Old South continue to display their true colors: white, whiter and translucent.

Alabama has discovered that while racial intolerance against blacks is passe (not to mention detrimental to recruiting football players for the University of Alabama), it is perfectly acceptable to be rude and bigoted toward brown people. Secure in the knowledge that few if any Mexicans will seek scholarships as wide receivers anytime soon, Alabama has enacted the single most draconian immigration law in the country. If Alabama has its way, eating a burrito in public will be a felony.

Aside from the obvious disgraceful racism exhibited by the state that gave us George C. Wallace and Bull Connors, the practical aspects of this law are elusive. Sure, Alabama is always ready to step to the front of the line when the subject is intolerance but why Spanish people? Hello! Alabama is not a border state. The closest that Alabama comes to an influx of non-English speaking strangers is illegal border crossings by people from Mississippi. Latinos comprise only about 2% of the total resident population and that includes occasional visits by The Buena Vista Social Club.

Alabama has farms and farms need underpaid, exploited workers. Without help from south of the border Alabama farmers will be forced to exploit Arkansans or some other hapless, easily identifiable minority. That cotton won't pick itself. Face it, the only cotton that white Alabama will ever pick is the plug at the top of an aspirin bottle.

Hey, it's not like we're not sympathetic to Alabama's desire to excell at something. After all, it's too late to be the leader in execution. Virginia had a head start and Texas is thinking of putting their hangmen on two shifts. Alabama can't be the gun-crazy capital. That honor resides in Arizona. (More on that tomorrow.) Unfortunately, Alabama will have to content itself with the distinction of being the racist capital of America. Well, look on the bright side: at least you won't have to decide what color to make the flag.

...or should there be a rating agency to downgrade the GOP?

We begin today's roster of head-shakers with the aftermath of the teabagger attempt to derail the American economy in the name of fiscal responsibility. What a crock! The people who swarmed to the polls to elect George Bush twice (ugh) are shocked, shocked to discover that the ruinous policies of 2001-2008 (unfunded tax cuts, two totally unnecessary wars, an unfunded drug program) have run up America's debts. Their answer, of course, is to tax the poor by dismantling social programs that benefit people who don't vote Republican.

These shameful solutions to the country's fiscal woes speak volumes about the cynical mantra of the teabaggers and the politicians they elect. To risk America's reputation and credit status (now rated just above Turkmenistan and just below Burkina Faso) around the world merely to advance the agenda of the Cooke Bros. is a disgrace and unworthy of Americans. For any candidate (we're talking to you, Michele Bachmann) to suggest that default is "no big deal" exhibits a disregard for the facts as well as for the country they profess to love. We have now seen the response when America merely toyed with the idea of default. I do not wish to live in a country that treats stupidity as though it were a virtue.

The teabaggers and their toadies in Congress have taken exception to being called terrorists. Well folks, if the buckled shoe fits... The dictionary defines terrorist as a person who uses terror to advance a political end. Not all terrorists wear bombs. Some wear pearls. To borrow from Jeff Foxworthy, if you run around the Capitol threatening to blow up the economy in order to sabotage the President you hate, you just might be a terrorist. If you think your agenda is so important that it's worth millions of lost jobs, you just might be a terrorist. If you think that a campaign pledge to Grover Norquist is more important than your oath to protect and defend the Constitution you just might be a terrorist. If you think your knowledge of how global economics works exceeds that of every economist and financial expert in the entire world, you are not just a terrorist, you're not smarter than a fifth grader.

Blame Barack Obama if you like. Toss him out after one term. That's the system we live by. Just don't delude yourself into believing that your problems will magically end with the inauguration of President Perry or President Christie or President Romney. Trust me, in two years that new face will still be blaming Barack Obama for the sluggish economy. Be careful what you wish for.

...or is my country further off the rails than a Chinese high speed train?

This missive will be the first (or at least the most recent) in a series.

Even more reasons to move to France...now...soon...

Christian Mingle? Really? "Maybe God wants you to act?" (I might have said "take your love life into your own hands" but most Christians consider that a sin.)

Web sites like eHarmony and Match.com are OK I guess. People are busy and finding the time to meet and vet a life partner is a challenge. After all, your days and nights are consumed with staring at your Blackberry/Smartphone. Better to let a computer choose your stalker. Besides, whether you hit it off or not, your portable communication devices will ensure that you never actually have to talk with your partner. And, if things get sticky, there's always restrainingorder.com.

Seriously, I understand why Jews have jdate.com and Muslims check salaamlove.com. Both groups represent a small percentage of the population. An unmarried Jew could spend months in Abilene, TX trying to scare up a minyan let alone finding a single girl. A Muslim in Phoenix would have to pray a lot more than six times a day to have any hope of getting an Islamic date. For small groups like this, sub-set sites make sense. For Christians...not so much.

First of all Christians are a plague. They're everywhere. You can't swing the shroud of Turin without hitting one. It's not like they're hiding. With their scrubbed complexions and modest garb they're as obvious as Al Sharpton at an RNC rally. If you have an hour or so to kill, approach one of these Liberty University alums and ask if they are a Christian. Trust me they won't surreptitiously draw a fish in the dirt.

Christians have unlimited chances to meet the holy roller of their dreams. There are church services, Klan meetings, Michele Bachmann rallies. (The main difference between the two is no one wears pearls to a Klan meeting.) What about anti-abortion gatherings or anti-mosque rallies? Between the hate speeches and the shooting there should be plenty of time for mingling. After all, the vetting process is relatively simple. "Hi, my name is Daniel, like the prophet. Have you accepted Jesus as your personal savior? Great, me too. Will you marry me?"

The Christian Mingle site questionnaire is extensive, enlightening and really separates the wheat from the chaff. Questions include:

Where/when did you find Jesus?

a) in Church
b) in prison
c) in an image on a potato chip
d) when my ex-wife pointed a shotgun at me and my secretary in the No-tell Motel.

Have you saved yourself for marriage?

a) Yes
b) No
and 'yes' your cousin counts.

How much do you drink?

a) never
b) never on Sunday
c) never in Church
d) never during the actual service
(Irish applicants are not required to answer.)

How often do you attend Church?

a) every Sunday
b) Christmas and Easter
c) weddings and funerals
d) during the last hockey game in hell

Clearly, only the pious need apply.

So once you meet the virgin of your dreams, where do you go on a date? Bars are out. Restaurants are OK but how many serve unleavened bread? Movies are good but your selections are limited to "Winnie the Pooh Reads from Isiah" and "The Passion of the Christ". (spoiler alert: in spite of all the blood, gore and suffering this story does not end well.) A play would be good but perhaps you should steer clear of "The Book of Mormon". You could always take her back to your place and show her your collection of fruits and vegetables shaped like the Virgin Mary.

On some level Christian Mingle would seem counter-productive. Wouldn't it be better to meet and convert some poor misguided atheist or Jew? Maybe even a person who chose to be gay? After all, what's the good of learning all those Bible verses if your partner keeps finishing your sentences? Better to troll for souls on some secular site. Who knows, you might get to convert Ms. Wrong into Mrs. Right. Remember, forming a lasting bond is the first step to bondage. Good luck, all you Christians!

...or is the Republican Presidential bar set so low that even Michele Bachmann can meet it?

I know you've read this before but ... Michele Bachmann? Really?

Is the GOP so completely bereft of viable Presidential candidates that Michele Bachmann can gain traction? Has the forest of Republican leadership been so decimated that no one with serious Presidential timber seems likely to emerge? Must the circus that is the Republican party seek their standard bearer from the clown car? Will the Party of Lincoln choose to be represented by a woman who's command of the facts makes George W. Bush look like Henry Kissinger?Forget Barack Obama, at this rate the Republicans couldn't beat Jimmy Carter.

You know you're in trouble when the best thing you can say about your candidate is that she didn't make a complete fool of herself during a debate. Being able to dress yourself and not swallowing your microphone shouldn't be enough to get you a four year gig at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. John McCain might not know how many houses he owns but he was lucid much of the time and showed a reasonable grasp of the issues in 2008. Michele Bachmann appears to be garnering considerable praise for simply not drooling on herself. Having not bungled her lines during this her first skirmish with adults, the entire world seemed ready to ignore her previous difficulties with geography, American History and with who was born where. (In spite of the best efforts of Ed Rollins and a coterie of handlers, Ms. Bachmann couldn't resist trumpeting proudly that she and John Wayne were both born in Waterloo, Iowa. She may have been, The Duke was not.)

But seriously, Presidential contenders shouldn't be judged on their gaffes. No one can be error- free when reporters and cameras dog your every movement. Still, Michele's proclamation that the Founding Fathers were committed to the eradication of slavery was made during a prepared speech. Someone had to write those words down and Ms. Bachmann had to be confident enough in their accuracy to speak them publicly. A candidate may be forgiven for a mistake made while bouncing from a plane to a waiting limo but to actually prepare blatant falsehoods for public consumption shows either an appalling lack of respect for your audience or sheer ignorance.

Ms. Bachmann was asked to address her earlier comment about the Founding Fathers "working tirelessly to end slavery". Her response to George Stephenopoulos was as follows:

Bachmann: "Well you know what’s marvelous is that in this country and under our constitution, we have the ability when we recognize that something is wrong to change it. And that’s what we did in our country. We changed it. We no longer have slavery. That’s a good thing. And what our Constitution has done for our nation is to give us the basis of freedom unparalleled in the rest of the world."

Given the current climate in the GOP Ms. Bachmann will, no doubt, be given high marks for proclaiming the abolition of slavery as "a good thing". There will also be universal conservative condemnation of George Stephenopoulos for his "gotcha" questioning. (A similar vicious question ensnared Sweet Sarah just weeks ago. The Question? "What have you learned during your trip to New England?" Clearly the liberal press will stop at nothing.)

Is it too much trouble for politicians to say "I screwed up. I conflated John Adams, a Founding Father opposed to slavery and John Quincy Adams a later President, who did work to have slavery abolished." How hard is that? This is America. We forgave Bill Clinton for getting a hummer from an intern in the Oval Office. We forgave Michael Vick (granted, a much tougher sell). We even forgave Coke for New Coke. However, we expect you to admit your transgressions. (Sarah Palin merely looked stupid when she tried to rewrite history.)

No one seriously thinks that someone as addled and dogmatic as Michele Bachmann could actually be elected President. Success in early polls is usually symptomatic of voter disaffection.

Nevertheless, the election of GWB (twice, for Christ's sake) should be a cautionary tale regarding the contrary nature of the electorate. That fact combined with the quiet, systematic attempt being made in several GOP-controlled states to disqualify a substantial portion of the electorate, makes 2012 a toss-up regardless of who the GOP sends into the arena. So, en guarde America! We have nothing to fear except maybe a woman who thinks creationism and evolution are "theories" right up there with gravity and the molecular adhesiveness of liquids.

Sneaky liberal question of the day" Did the Founding Fathers believe in gravity and how many worked to abolish it?"

...or should we listen when the Catholic Church says gay marriage is a perversion?

After all, who would know more about perverts than the Catholic Church? They run the pedophile academy.

Truly, I would give anything to be able to ignore the Catholic Church and their gang of pedophile-enabling ostriches who think rock and roll causes men to fondle little boys. I would love to just chuckle at the false conclusions that imagine the collapse of civilization in any action that runs contrary to Church dogma. Honestly, it's amazing that the cult of hubris that brought the world the Crusades, the destruction of civilizations throughout South America and the Inquisition would have the colossal gall to pontificate on the potential harm of gay marriage. After the Church's befriending of Hitler and Mussolini at the expense of Europe's Jews and the systematic, century-long torture of Ireland's youth, you might expect a little modesty. Perhaps a retreat to a retreat. No such luck.

Five minutes after the New York State Senate approved the gay marriage amendment, New York's archbishop Timothy Dolan was ominously predicting dogs and cats sleeping together. "You think it's going to stop with this? You think bigamists aren't going to want their rights to marry?" The good bishop went on to rant about men wanting to marry their sisters but no one was listening by then. At least he stopped short of the fears expressed by former Senator Rick Santorum or Bill O'Reilly (both Catholics) who were confident that people marrying their domestic animals was the next logical step. (Santorum clearly had his eye on a fetching presidential elephant.)


Where is Rome during all this hysteria? Where are the cool deliberate members of the Curia to calmly lay out the Church's view? "We in the House of Celibacy are opposed to any wedding that doesn't involve one man and one woman. (Exceptions include nuns who 'marry' themselves to Christ.) We uphold this teaching even though we can find no passage in the New Testament that shines any light on how Christ felt about gays. We, as a religious institution however, have no control over how non-members spend their time. If gay people want to marry, ponce around in thongs and drink sidecars, that's none of our affair."


Instead, Rome allows publicity-seekers like Archbishop Dolan to blog and release statements condemning the actions of people over whom they have no authority. Why does the CC give a fig what gay people do? You would think that an organization rife with pedophiles and their enablers would tend to their own knitting. New York State law does not compel Catholic priests to perform gay marriages. (New York State law does compel bishops to report cases of child abuse and molestation but so far none have done so.)

The institution that is the Catholic Church has never gotten over the loss of its temporal power after the Reformation. It can't stand being relegated to the same public status as boutique religions like Jews and Druids. They would welcome state-sponsored religion, as long as it was theirs. They watch Evangelical Christians elect God-squaders to office in Iowa and Texas and they seethe. Even in countries like Italy and Ireland no one is listening to orders from the Holy See any more. The Church's attempts to prevent the sale of birth control pills and its efforts to prohibit divorce (both crimes against women) have crumbled in recent years. European Catholics haven't lost faith, they've simply lost faith in a Church that never appears to be looking out for the faithful. "Thou shalt cover your ass at all times" is the new eleventh commandment.



The Wall Street Journal carried an op-ed from the leader of the National Organization for Marriage (read hetero marriage) Maggie Gallagher (Irish Catholic). Ms. Gallagher devoted the entire column to affirming that when gay marriage is put to a vote, it is always defeated. At no time does she propose a single reason why anyone should oppose gay marriage or what harm it does. Her entire argument is that courts and legislatures as well as all media have a perverted liberal bias and that the people know best. Fortunately, the "people" weren't consulted prior to the Emancipation Proclamation. The "people" were excluded from participating in the "Loving vs Virginia" case in 1967 which finally allowed blacks to marry whites. The "people" want the borders closed but they also want cheap produce. The "people" love capital punishment but rarely support it when the "best people" are accused. The "people" hate welfare but love Medicare. The "people" hate taxes but love their police and fire depts. We elect legislators to protect us from the tyranny of the majority. Courts and government bodies encourage the angels of our better nature.

The legislature of New York State did the "people" a favor. Maggie Gallagher, Archbishop Dolan and every other member of the faithful who finds gay marriage offensive will now have to find something else to hate. Ms. Gallagher could devote her time to helping battered women, especially Muslim women, escape abusive relationships. As for the Archbishop of New York well, he might blog on why, after 2,000 years of Catholicism, women are still relegated to second-class status; why nuns are treated as little more that chambermaids; why the priesthood is still a male-only club? But mostly, he can explain why an institution like the Catholic Church, with its bloody and abusive past, continues to use fuzzy doctrine as a cudgel to deny people basic civil rights? That includes not just the right to marry but the right to be spared the attentions of pedophiles.

...or would we all have been better off if the tech revolution ended with the invention of the electric can opener?

So, I know it's not all about me but I'm sure I'm not alone. I now officially own more technology than I can:
1) appreciate
2) repair
3) master
4) justify owning
5) pay for

Really! Thanks to the wizards of Silicon Valley I can now download music into everything but my pencil sharpener (Memo to me: check for availability of isharpeners.) Except I don't want nor need to hear Lady Gaga belting out "Born This Way" from devices primarily intended to make toast or iron my shirts. I now have four different devices that can navigate me, turn by turn, to the nearest frozen yogurt store in forty-three different languages or four English dialects. I'm considering setting all of them at once. It will be like getting directions from the chorus of Cats.

These complaints no doubt qualify me for a one way trip to the cranky old geezers home. (Second memo to me: check to see if the GPS in my ipad will take me to an assisted living center.) Nevertheless it can't be crazy to expect my cell phone to be a cell phone and not a miniature Wall Street Journal or a portable repository for Angry Birds. Yes, it is occasionally helpful to be able to locate a Chinese restaurant in lower Manhattan from the back of a southbound cab in Midtown. However this delightful little app is of limited use to a farmer in Duluth. (Third memo to me: Find out if farmers use a GPS device to learn which field is wheat and which is corn.)

Once upon a time life was simple. I had a phone book at home, a Rolodex at work and a small pocket directory for travel. That simple system has been replaced by a "contacts" lists in nine different devices and, as usual, the information I need is never in the device I have with me. I may not be able to locate the phone number of my dermatologist but I'm quite sure that, given the launch codes, I could detonate a nuclear device over Pakistan while seated on a Metro North train bound for White Plains.

The other price being paid for all this high tech wizardry is the price being paid for all this high tech wizardry. I used to pay a phone bill for phone service. The arrangement with Ma Bell (God, I'm old) was simple: I pay a bill, she made sure I had a dial tone when I picked up my receiver (Oh for Christ's sake, look it up!) . My current phone bill, encompassing one land line, two mobile lines, text, and Internet access is now higher than the rent on my first apartment. The land line and the cell services are listed on the same bill but serviced by different companies...with the same name. The Internet service is a different carrier and the ipad bills through a credit card I foolishly gave to Apple itunes. I'm considering calling Congressman Paul Ryan for help in cutting wasteful spending.

The tragedy here is that, while I'm desperate to be tech savvy and oh so hip I know I'm falling behind every day. A friend asked me about Pandora and I was clueless. Fortunately a quick trip to Google and I was rescued. Nevertheless it's just a matter of time before I'm outed as an uncool Luddite. Actually it's already started. I took my laptop to the Geek Squad in Best Buy to determine why it wouldn't boot. The young man at the counter (whose cognitive memory extends back to maybe the first Iron Man movie) took one look at the computer and muttered "Wow, an IBM. I didn't know these things were still around." OK, hold on. I may not own the latest and greatest equipment but ten minutes ago IBM was the Tiffany's of computers. (Fourth memo to me: find out if Tiffany's is still the Tiffany's of anything.) Just because it didn't roll off Steve Job's assembly line this week doesn't mean the machine should be relegated to doorstop status. And anyway it's not like I asked him to repair a Victrola or a fountain pen.

Yes I know technology rocks. I guess it's cool to be able to settle any argument in a bar with a quick visit to Wikipedia from a Droid but the science has reduced the usefulness of a time-honored skill namely, making up the facts as you go along. Many a disagreement has been decided by one's ability to pull statistics directly out of one's ass. Call it bluffing, call it bullshit, manufactured facts have been the cornerstone of human interaction since history began. Michele Bachmann has built an entire political career this way. Seriously, how was Abdul the camel merchant supposed to make a decent living when a customer could Google CamelFax and discover that the camel for sale wasn't owned by a little old lady in Abbottabad. If Union Army General George McClellen possessed Google Earth in the first year of the Civil War there wouldn't have been a second year. Stalin could have learned all he needed to know about Hitler's honesty from his Facebook page and he never would have signed that non-aggression pact.

My point is that technology isn't always a good thing. How many times have you blundered into a great store while wandering lost in a new city? Conversely, how many times have you blundered into a lamppost because you were looking at a screen instead of where you were going? Chance meetings are far more likely when some chance is involved. Facts and data should never get in the way of a good story. So look up, America. You will notice that the world is in 3-D and looks amazingly like the grid in Mapquest. You'll discover that you can actually find the Grand Canyon or the St. Louis Arch without a Garmin. Florence and the Machine does not have to be the soundtrack of your every waking moment. George Lucas did not mean for Star Wars to be viewed on a screen half the size of a sheet of toilet paper. Put your mechanized world on airplane mode, vibrate and quiet. Then lock them in a railroad station locker. (Last memo: are there still lockers in railroad stations?) Rise up! You have nothing to lose but that squint, a cauliflower ear and potential brain cancer. Of course, if you get brain cancer, it would be nice to look it up on WebMD... and look up a specialist... and a hospital.... and get directions...and .................

...or does America need a civics lesson?

Yes, I know isitjustme has been silent since mid May but really, how do you top "Obama Beats Weiner"? Honestly, the only way this story gets better is if Anthony Weiner marries Anita Baker. (See what happens once you get started?) When the jokes write themselves, don't interfere.

Anyway, as the summer rolls forward, aging white Americans have mothballed their tricorn hats. During the lull, serious law makers from both parties try to hammer out a few spending cuts and raise the country's debt ceiling. The argument revolves around whether we are in this fiscal fix due to Bush's wars and his unfunded tax cuts (we are) or, because of President Obama's stimulus and bailouts (maybe so). How or why is hardly the point at this juncture. Throwing rocks at the problem isn't the same as fixing it. The unrealistic notion that the cure won't leave a bad taste is just that; unrealistic.

Still, the rhetoric of the last two years has brought into focus a fundamental change in the attitude of a large portion of the population. The harmless chiding of Washington made famous by the likes of Will Rogers has morphed into a poisonous hatred of all things government. Europeans understand that their leaders, for all their faults, are trying to run their countries for the well-being of all. They have an understanding that government exists for a purpose and that purpose is beneficial. Germans in the 30's looked to their leaders to extract them from a horrible depression. OK that didn't work out so well but even today Germans don't hate their government.

In an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal, Michael Barone postulates that Americans who lived through World War II had an abiding faith in government's ability to perform miracles. He feels faith was eroded in future generations because of scandals like Watergate and the Vietnam War. (While Vietnam might have convinced America that government couldn't be trusted, it's unlikely that the war protesters of 1968 are the teabaggers of 2010.) Where Mr. Barone and I part ways is his belief that the country has (correctly) decided that big government no longer works. My view is that America (read older, white rural America) has been fed a steady diet of bile from the right and has finally decided that their government is their enemy. Not just a bunch of mildly corrupt vote chasers who routinely get governing wrong but evil, sinister, fifth columnists who mean to destroy the very Country they were elected to serve.

Don't take my word for this. Ask your favorite right-winger what he or she thinks of Nancy Pelosi...but don't do it with small children within ear-shot. The kind of venomous hate directed at the former speaker is usually reserved for Osama Bin Laden. Who taught Americans to hate like that? Not Congress. They fuss and fume but the invectives are directed at policy not people. America is being systematically taught to hate its own government. The Hannitys, Becks and Limbaughs of the media have successfully indoctrinated a substantial portion of the population to believe that they are under attack. This drek was harmless enough in the Bush years because the right-wing masses could console themselves with the notion that one of their own was in the White House.

That ended with the horror of horrors: a black liberal of questionable lineage was elected President. Limbaugh must have thought he died and went to heaven. His hoard was prepared to believe almost anything about this "outsider". "He's clearly not one of us." Fox news hired every conservative with a pulse, and a few without. Roger Ailes, lord of Fox News, sent his minions to cover every gathering of disaffected white people yelling about taking back the country.

So here we are. Republicans in Congress have to be smuggled into meetings with the opposition for fear of being called traitors. Compromise, once the hallmark of intelligent government, is now a dirty word. Legislators willing to accept the bizarre notion that someone else might have an idea worth pursuing are cruising for a primary challenge in their next election. Moderates like Tim Pawlenty and even Newt Gingrich must be willing to stifle any hint of accommodation to reality. A step away from orthodoxy will draw immediate withering rebuke from the screamers in talk radio as well as mindless bomb-throwers like Sarah Palin. (Sarah doesn't really care about the Republican party. Headlines and book sales are all that matter.)

America needs a civics lesson. In his famous comic strip Pogo, Walt Kelly wrote "We have met the enemy and he is us". We have been told to fear debt, debt ceilings and deficits. Why?...we have no idea. How do we fix it?...cut spending. How?...we have no idea. We could raise taxes a little. That worked in the Clinton years. Well, good luck with that. We could cut defense spending and stop being the world's policeman. Nice idea if you can get by-in from Hannity.

The solutions, if they're out there, will come from compromise. Smart men and women will sit down and hammer out a deal that no one will love. They will then have to vote for the deal and stand up in their districts and defend being an responsible adult. Their detractors will be pundits and commentators who have never governed anything. Some of those legislators will lose but at least they did the right thing. That's a civics lesson.

...or is life more fun if you only read the comics?

Time may be marching on but minutia can be a stabilizing force.

I heard someone suggest that Sarah Palin thinks the Arab Spring is a soap that makes you smell like a camel.

Dominique Strauss Kahn has proposed a novel defense in his sexual assault case. DSK postulates that if the hotel employee in question didn't want to have sex, why did she show up dressed as a maid?

Because nature (and apparently cable TV) abhors a vacuum, the Oxygen Channel has decided to fill one vacuum with another. Ten PM Tuesday night saw the premiere of "The World According To Paris". The show stars the girl you can't get enough of because you've already had more than enough: Paris Hilton. Imagine a glorious hour watching a woman with the IQ of an arugula plant deciding what shoes go with a DUI. Or perhaps we will see Paris agonizing over which STD to share with her latest Mr. Right or Mr. Right Now. Seriously, anyone interested in this would enjoy the Nature Channel's "50 Things to do With Leeches" or "Survivor - Escape the Organ Harvesters".

The Washington Redskins have been ordered to provide captioning for all songs played during games so as not to discriminate against deaf fans. This exercise in politically stupid will no doubt enhance the experience of football about as much as reading the dialogue of a porn film to a blind person. If DC judges want to do something useful, make Dan Snider change the racist name of his club.

New Yorkers, who now practically have to walk over the George Washington Bridge to grab a smoke, will soon have a new law to "protect" them. The state legislature has passed a law declaring whiffle ball, tag and horseshoes "nonpassive recreational activities with significant risk of injuries". In a related story, staff at New York Medical Center will now be required to pack all newborn children in Styrofoam immediately after delivery.

Also, the city council of Thornton, Colo. has banned barber poles as a distraction to motorists. To this one can only utter two words... Times Square.

Also, goldfish racing in Tacoma, Wash. has been suspended after a complaint from animal rights activists. Allegations of goldfish doping, race fixing and concerns for the fish once their racing days were done played a part in the decision. There was also concern about the frequent drowning of the tiny jockey forced into the dangerous job of riding the goldfish.

A Michigan craft brewer has been denied the right to market its "Raging Bitch" beer in the state.
A spokesman for the company expressed dismay over the ruling indicating that the state liquor authority has previously approved "Darkie Dark Porter" and "Chinks Piss-Yellow Lager". A state representative said "We had to draw the line somewhere".

An Indiana woman is suing Carnival Cruise Lines because she got seasick on one of their cruises. There being no oceans in Indiana, Doris Beard was understandably misled by Carnival's magazine ad campaign in which the ships aren't actually moving. In a related story we have learned that Mr. Peanut has died from an anaphylactic reaction to some unnamed food product.

A New York man was escorted from a Southwest Airlines flight for exclaiming in an overly loud voice "What's taking so f--king long?".A spokeswoman for Southwest was adament in defense of the airline's policy about disruptive passengers. "Some a--holes have no f--king manners" said Thelma Prigg, Vice President for Passenger Experience. "Next time he can take the f--king bus".

...or are the Republican contenders joining the presidential dance with all the enthusiasm of geeks at the prom?

OK here's the plot: Several reluctant characters from totally different backgrounds and social classes are, by a quirk of fate, thrown together to either survive as a group or perish as individuals. Is this the story of:

1) Lord of the Flies

2) Lost

3) Survivor - Bayonne

4) Gilligan's Island

5) The Republican Presidential campaign, Class of 2012

Yes I know, 4 & 5 are the same answer.

The Republican candidates for President in 2012 have thusfar divided themselves into two camps. On one side we have those familiar retreads from 2008: Huckabee, Romney, Palin, Paul, Gingrich. Everything you need to know about their ability to engender excitement into the GOP cause can be summed up in two words: John McCain. This gang of also-rans proved to be about as exciting as Topeka on a Tuesday night. Why anyone thinks that four additional years of campaigning on Fox News has done anything to pump air into their personalities is fascinating. Constant exposure over all this time has only served to reinforce to Republicans that they made the right choice in 2008. Four years of Monday morning quarterbacking and armchair generalship has made the likes of Palin and Gingrich appear petty and small (and making Newt's head appear small is no mean feat).

On the other bench we have the new faces, the untried ideologues of the conservative movement who have managed to get themselves elected to local offices or made a name for themselves in the business community. Pawlenty, Daniels, Christie, Cain, Trump, Bachmann, Santorum and God knows who else. Not all are declared candidates but don't kid yourself. Every one of them is waiting/praying for the Party to tap them on the shoulder and beg them to "save us from the devil Obama". All of these candidates may benefit or suffer from the "send in the quarterback on the bench" syndrome. Everybody wants to see a fresh face. Hell, that's how Barack beat Hillary and Grandpa John. This team of rivals is so screwed up that the only adult in the room is the pizza guy, Herman Cain, and until a week ago no one outside of Atlanta had ever heard of him. (Cain is an interesting character. He's bootstraps all the way and has already waged a successful campaign against cancer.)

In the meantime, candidates continue to dribble into the fray. As of today, Newt Gingrich has joined the party. It took a while for Gingrich to enter the contest because he had to haul his cumbersome reputation all the way from Georgia. Honestly, Gingrich has more baggage that an airport carousel at Christmas. His ex-wives have actually formed a political action committee. And, have you seen Mrs. Gingrich #3? A helmet-headed, aging beauty queen with the stage presence of a ficus. Seriously, she makes Laura Bush and Cindy McCain look like Abbott and Costello. (OK I'm done!)

On another front we have the almost but not quite campaign of Mitch Daniels current Governor of Indiana. Daniels has several things going for him. For one, he doesn't have a gig on Fox so, nobody knows him (always a plus in GOP politics). He is the grandson of Syrian immigrants so he can neutralize the Middle Eastern connection that worked so well for President Obama in 2008. Also he's a bright guy who ran North American operations for Eli Lily. So why has this dynamo of the Republican heartland not declared decisively that he is ready to carry the presidential banner for his party? Actually, he's waiting for permission from his wife. That's right boys and girls, the party of "bring it on" leadership, of "shoot first ask questions later" toughguys will be led by a man who needs his wife's OK before leaving the house. "Honey, is it OK if I run for President? I promise I'll be home for supper." It's a good thing Newt didn't have to ask his wives. The campaign would be over before the votes could be tabulated.

...or does good news flush out as many morons as bad?

Osama, we hardly knew ya.

or

There once was a fiend named Osama

Who for years had caused nothing but trauma

He eluded George Bush

In the wild Hindu Kusch

'Til encountering the Balls of Obama.


But I digress.

The new definition of a nanosecond is the time between a significant news event and the time that the hand-wringers, self-serving asshats and nullifiers attempt to spin the facts to suit their agenda. To wit: the highly trained and deeply motivated men of the Navy Seals terminated the disagreeable life of Osama "are those helicopters outside" Bin Laden last weekend. No loss there. As the facts of their mission are released, one thing appears clear. The President of The United States sent the Seals to Pakistan for one reason and it wasn't to score some good weed. The President's instructions were very clear, don't bring back any tee shirts, STD's or bearded terrorists. There isn't much sad singing over the loss a man considered the very face of evil. (That title now passes to Dick Cheney.)

However, now that the cheering has died down, America has returned to focusing on the issues of the day like: Snookie's weight loss, the Capitals folding in another Stanley Cup bid and whether Donald Trump will ever recover from the pounding he received at the White House Correspondence Dinner. (Seriously, if you haven't watched Seth Meyers and President Obama crush Trump, watch it on YouTube. It's the best!) Predictably, like stink follows a garbage truck, a stream of scolds have emerged to fill the news void and urinate on our campfire.

First out of the gate is a steaming pile of Bushies who immediately began crowing that torturing prisoners at Gitmo was the direct cause of Bin Laden's death. Really? Most notable among these failed armchair warriors was John Yoo who took to the Wall Street Journal today to pontificate about how his policies put a bullet in Bin Laden's eye. The actual quote was " Sunday's success also vindicates the Bush Administration whose intelligence architecture marked a path to Bin Laden's door." That must have been some circuitous trail considering that, in seven years, the Bush team produced squadouch. For the record: since Gitmo opened in 2001, no intelligence officer, no torturer, no administration official of any rank has ever testified that waterboarding ever produced one scrap of actionable intelligence. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded so many times he grew gills and we never got a thing. We stopped waterboarding in 2005. All enhanced interrogation techniques stopped by 2007. It has been four years since then. How much useful information could these guys have? Face it! The Bush Administration had six years to torture the bejeezes out of the prisoners at Gitmo and other rendition sites and still couldn't find their ass with both hands. By the way...the closest John Yoo ever got to a weapon was playing World of Warcraft on his x-Box.

Mr. Yoo then has the temerity to suggest that the Obama administration took the easy way out by killing Bin Laden rather than "wade through the difficult questions raised by (his) detention". He also suggests that capturing Bin Laden would have been an intelligence bonanza. I imagine that Mr. Yoo would have encouraged the President to broadcast the waterboarding of Bin Laden on C-SPAN. John Yoo is a reprehensible turd whose advice to the White House was wrong both legally and morally. The less we hear from him, the better.

But John Yoo wasn't the only precinct heard from. There are reports of "Muslim leaders and scholars" who have concerns about the handling of the body of Osama Bin Laden. These would be the same "Muslim leaders and scholars" who were silent after 9-11 and who lost their voices as Americans were burned in Mogadishu. No offense boys but TFB. I suspect that the officers aboard the aircraft carrier transporting Bin Laden to his fish food reward had their hands full ensuring that the sailors didn't piss all over the body. Let's hear the "leaders and scholars" remind their flocks that Bin Laden was a murderer and, in death, got a lot better than he deserved.

Then we have Rashard Mendenhall whose tweets on the death of Osama Bin Laden have reinforced the idea that some technology should be left in the hands of adults. Mr. Mendenhall makes his living in the intellectually stimulating world of professional football. His thoughts (we'll call them that) remind all of us that we rarely seek the wisdom of the universe in Pittsburgh's Heinz Field on Sunday afternoons in the fall. Rashard's musings on death and skyscraper demolition bespeak one too many encounters with opponents' helmets. If Barack Obama agrees not to try out for running back for the Steelers perhaps Mr. Mendenhall will agree not to make Amercian war policy.

But our final shout-out goes to The Morning Star Institute, a Native American advocacy group. Apparently the group is taking exception to the use of "Geronimo" as the code word for the successful killing of Osama Bin Laden. This sentiment was echoed by Loretta Tuell of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Loretta went so far at to opine that the use of Native American icons like Geronimo can be "devastating" to young Indians. No doubt "banzai" would have produced an equally pained reaction from the Japanese community. Political correctness has a place and no one group can decide what offends another, nevertheless, it appears unlikely that the Navy Seals who stormed the Bin Laden compound intended to equate Geronimo with Bin Laden. Considering the current colloquial nature of our language, yelling "O'Mally" or "Corleone" would not have conveyed the same message. They might have considered "dude" but again, no pazzaz.

Our apology to any and all Native Americans who might have been offended. The Pentagon has promised to be more sensitive when next we kill an interenational terrorist. Perhaps "Hitler" will work. Advanced apologies to the German American Bund.

This just in...the US will not release the photos of the perforated OBL. Hear! Hear! The American government doesn't need to be providing bulletin board material for every crazy-ass jihaddist in the world. If people want to see a bearded body shot in the eye, rent Season VI of CSI.

...or should America be offered a choice: stop Donald Trump from talking or stop John McCain from traveling?

Will someone please break into the Senate office building and confiscate John McCain's passport? Grandpa John seems determined to rack up frequent flyer points by traveling to every corner of the war-torn Middle East. Then, armed with his "findings" he returns to the Senate with "the real story of life on the ground". This is the equivalent of President Obama having lunch at Ray's Hellburger in Arlington and reporting back on the status of the beef industry.



McCain was recently in Libya where he "met with rebel leaders" to determine what course of action the Obama administration should follow. Considering the way Senators travel and the security that accompanies them, McCain could have learned more from watching Anderson Cooper on CNN. This sort of meddling in international affairs may make McCain look "involved" but it is no more helpful that walking the streets of any inner city to report on street crime.

You may remember McCain's campaign trip to Iraq in 2008. He traveled with a cadre of guards and wore more body armour than a hockey goalie. Nevertheless he was able to peer out at the landscape and report that the streets of Baghdad were safe and that the war was mostly won. Thank you John.

Naturally, the President is inclined to ignore the daily briefings he receives from the CIA, the Pentagon and the DoD in order to listen to an aging Senator who hasn't served in an active duty capacity since Sherman burned Atlanta. Having had a cup of java with a guy who met McCain at the airport with a sign saying "this way to the rebel leader", Johnny Mac is clearly better informed than those pencil-necks in Defense or those NATO weenies in Brussels.

Senator, do your country and your President a favor; call Joe Leiberman and plan a trip to Wisconsin. After meeting with the cows in Dairyland you can report back to the Dept. of Agriculture on milk production and the cold hands of the farmers.

...or should all American history facts be multiple choice?

41% of Americans believe that slavery was not the primary cause of the Civil War.

51% of Republicans don't believe Barack Obama was born in America.

Initially, these stats would not appear to have much in common. Although we suspect that many of the 41% in column A are well represented in column B, there is no data to support that allegation. Nevertheless, these numbers taken both individually and collectively paint a troubling picture of how Americans see themselves and how they see the country's history.

Most Americans think that Iran's denial of the Holocaust is ridiculous. You cannot refute facts. There are pictures, records, survivors all testament to the horrors of Nazi Germany. To refuse to accept facts makes anyone look foolish. Yet the same situation arises regarding the Civil War's origin and the President's birth. If one person says "the Civil War was fought for states rights" he is dismissed as a crank. If thousands say it, it becomes an alternate view of history. The fact that the Articles of Secession passed in South Carolina specifically discuss the institution of slavery becomes irrelevant. The history as taught for the last 150 years becomes revised, softened. The devolution goes like this:

1) Slavery was a prime cause of Southern Secession and the subsequent Civil War.

2) Slavery was a contributing factor in the War Between the States.

3) Slavery was a factor but not the determinate factor in the War of Northern Aggression.

4) Most Southerners didn't even own slaves. The War for Southern Freedom was about state's rights.

It hasn't been necessary for Southerners to accept the corrupt cause that resulted in the deaths of 620,000 Americans. Time and stupidity have molded the facts to fit a feeling. If Michele Bachmann were from Alabama we would have a whole new set of details justifying the attack on Ft. Sumter in 1861. Hell, John Adams would be a featured player for the South. Hang around long enough and get enough yahoos to agree with you and any fantasy can become alternate reality.

The "Obama isn't a citizen" foolishness is cut from the same cloth. If enough people with access to a microphone say it enough times, voila, the President is a Kenyan or an Indonesian or a Martian. The disingenuousness of this stuff is irrelevant. Even Donald, the multi-married, multi bankrupt, knows this bird won't fly. Nevertheless in the world of Fox and the 24 hr news cycle, facts clearly don't matter. A reasonable Donald Trump discussing issues like Libya and the debt couldn't get an interview on Nick at Nite. However, talk like a batshit street corner preacher and you're all over CNN.