...or do patriot groups think irony is how bullets taste?

Washington D.C. was awash in gun lovers yesterday. They were commemorating: a) the battle of Lexington and Concord, b) the seventeenth anniversary of the assault on the Branch Dividian compound in Waco, c) the fifteenth anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, or d) the 67th anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising. (This last commemoration is unlikely given the klanish nature of the groups involved.) Two groups convened around the Capital. One organized in Fort Hunt Park in Alexandria, the other mustered around the Washington Monument. (The First President never expressed a view on gun ownership but the lock and load crowd consider Washington one of them.)

The groups that assembled in the Capital were armed with signs, placards and silly Revolutionary War costumes. Had they arrived with guns,they would have been re-enacting the Boston Massacre with the DCPD in the role of the British. In Virginia the "Don't Tread On Me" brigade was armed to the teeth. The authorization for carrying guns into a national park was recently signed by (irony alert!) Barack Obama. This fact is lost on the "patriots" who are convinced that this President intends to confiscate all their toys. Like the Reagan administration, the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. has made no statement or suggested any legislation on guns, for or against.

Nevertheless every real , red-blooded, God-fearing, (read "white") American knows that a black, well educated, liberal, urban President is just waiting for his opportunity to sneak up on every gun owner in America and pour cement down the barrel of their Remington assault rifle. After all, any elected official willing to risk all of his political capital to guarantee that Americans would be able to secure decent medial care for their families, can't be trusted with anything as sacred as the Second Amendment.

All of this paranoia would be troubling if it weren't so illogical. Gun owners and tea-baggers rail continually about "taking the Country back". From who? Blacks? Liberals? The Elite? Well unless my calendar is faulty, that chance will come in 214 days. Voting for the candidate of your choice would appear more likely to effect change than waving your Smith & Wesson around a park in Alexandria. Gun owners appear ready to shot big holes in the very system of government they wish to preserve. America hasn't been taken over by Hugo Chavez. The current administration was voted into office by a citizenry sick to death of Republican lies and mismanagement. If your team lost, tough. You don't pick up a gun and attempt to manufacture reasons why the President is a socialist, or a fascist, or a Kenyan.


This approach was attempted in 1860 when South Carolina expressed its displeasure with the outcome of a presidential election. Four years and 600,000 dead later the South learned the error of its bellicose ways. (Actually secession was considered briefly in 1812 in of all places New England on the brink of the war with Britain. Nevertheless secession always sounds more likely when spoken with a Texas accent.) Now Oklahoma is considering organizing a militia to defend itself. From what I have no idea.

Everyone understands that frustration is rampant in the land. Many people feel that government is too large and too expensive. Taxes seem high and jobs are elusive. Logical arguments fall flat. Changes, even small changes, are scary. The past feels safe. No one goes to a tea party rally dressed as someone from the future. The old ways seem Comfortable and secure. Older white Americans sense something slipping away. A snake-oil salesman like JD Hayworth in Arizona can propose the "preservation of American Culture" (code for "let's keep the salsa off America's hotdogs")and not be condemned as a blatant racist.

A 240% increase in militia groups and a four-fold increase in gun purchases should tell us something. Take a chill pill, America. Stop helping Glen Beck get rich. Think for yourself. Go to a park...without a gun. If you don't like the direction in which the Country is going, pick up a phone not a weapon. Support a candidate. Standing around the Washington Monument in a tricorn hat with a gaggle of guys who think like you, only makes you look silly...even on Fox News.

...or did the Pope's proclamation in Malta during the volcanic eruption still only amount to a half-ash job?

Pope Benedict XVI flew to the island country of Malta last weekend to celebrate the 1,950th anniversary of Saint Paul's shipwreck in AD 60. Considering the current state of the Catholic Church in the United States and Europe, Benedict appears to be engineering his own shipwreck.

The Pope took the opportunity to visit, at length, with eight people sexually abused by the clergy. In a country roughly half the size of Chicago the Pope was able to find plenty of people who had been molested by his priests. Had he come to America he would have needed Madison Square Garden for the meeting.

During the Papal audience there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth. The Pope was "deeply moved by the stories of the victims and expressed shame and sorrow for their suffering". He has promised to refer all future cases of sexual abuse by priests to the civilian authorities. Benedict, hello...horses?...barn door?

Sadly all of this Papal hand-wringing comes a bit late in the game. The reason that past sins cannot be prosecuted is that bishops, cardinals and popes sat on the complaints until it was too late for the authorities to act. Not that places like Ireland would have acted anyway but at least someone in power in the Church could say they tried. Every decision made prior to last week's announcement was made to prevent any scandalous mud from splattering the white vestments of the Pope.

The world has every right to be suspicious of this ecclesiastical epiphany. There have, thus far, been no outing of pedophile priests; no bishops forced to resign; no cardinals in the stocks. There has been no announcement of a "defrocking list" to be published in Obsarvatore Romano. The first time the Church acts rather than reacts to a complaint of abuse, they might begin to rebuild their credibility. The Pope would do well to remember that in order to receive absolution in the Confessional one must promise to "go and sin no more".

...or do hockey and basketball playoffs take longer than the healthcare debate?

Things that take too long:


Baseball games- especially the televised Yankee v. Red Sox games...of which there are 67. Yankees v. Mets comprise the other 95 on the Yankee schedule. They take too long, too.


Playoffs in hockey and basketball. Playoffs that start in April should not end in June. The fact that there are franchises in cities that have only two traffic lights (Oklahoma City? Columbus? San Jose?)adds to the tedium. These playoffs go on longer than the first Gulf War. Between the NHL and the NBA there are 16 different playoffs in progress. By the time a winner is crowned in either sport, the Supreme Court will have nine judges again; Congress will have recessed and come back eight times and Jay Leno will have left and returned to the Tonight Show...twice.


The pending trial of Rod Blagojevich. Nothing short of a judicial tsunami is going to get this annoying hair-ball off the stage. I'll pay for the trial myself. Just put this creep in a cell.


Tom Hanks' HBO specials. Clearly Mr. Hanks wishes to show us the interminable nature of the War in the Pacific by dragging us through interminable television, one hour at a time. The battle scenes are gripping but the story lines are hard to follow. Using virtually unknown actors has advantages but with everyone wearing helmets, covered in mud and smoking it can be difficult to keep the characters straight. War isn't just hell; it's hell to produce.


The trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Civil trial? Military tribunal? Straight to a firing squad? Hell, try him in front of Judge Judy, just try him! Then we can all sing America the Beautiful and pack this vermin off to Florence, CO where he can occupy the Gotti Suite for the remainder of his life. Also, get him a new mug shot. There are children watching.


The closing of GITMO. There are estimated to be 193 prisoners still in Cuba. Send four to every state. Problem solved.


Healthcare. So we passed the bill, the tea baggers expressed intelligent rebuttal (ensuring that they spelled "nigger" and "Hitler"correctly on their placards) and now; what? No insurance until 2012? Well, I'll see if I can get granny to hold out that long.
The political effects of the healthcare legislation will be the same whether it starts today, tomorrow or in two years so why not roll it out now? At least the morons holding Joker signs on the National Mall would have a chance to see how it works before condemning the congresspeople who voted for its passage. That would, however, require some logic which is tragically incompatible with hysterical spitting and sign waving. Never mind!

...or is Governor McDonnell planning to run on the Jim Crow ticket?

The Party of No appears to be degenerating into the party of No, Really? Thanks to Bob McDonnell, the GOP's newest asshat, Virginia is being transformed from a cosmopolitan urban center to a suburb of Hattiesburg, Mississippi. The new governor is attempting to prove that, even in 2010, it's possible to be an insensitive bigot. Lester Maddox and George Wallace would have been proud.

Following his colossally tone-deaf reintroduction of April as Confederacy Month in Virginia, Governor Retro has involved himself in the legislative effort to restore voting rights to non-violent felons. During the 2008 election, in order to persuade a few black people in Norfolk and Hampton Roads to vote for him, McDonnell ran on a promise to restore voting rights to non- violent offenders. Currently Virginia and Kentucky are the only states that don't automatically restore those rights upon completion of sentence. An appeal to and approval of the governor is required.

McDonnell has decided that before you get the right to vote again you will be required to submit an essay on your contribution to society since your release. (If McDonnell were required to submit such a term paper, his right to vote would vaporize.) This Jim Crow-like restriction is being vilified for what it is, a roadblock to the restoration of voting rights to predominately black citizens. Whether you think felons should be allowed to vote or not is irrelevant. What matters is that McDonnell is singlehandedly towing Virginia into the arms of Southern, Conservative, Tea Party rednecks. We get it; Virginia is a Southern State. It's not necessary to segregate water fountains to underscore the point.

But wait...another state is heard from. Haley Barbour, Governor of Mississippi has weighed in (and his weight is considerable) to defend McDonnell. As a bastion of civil rights and progressive thinking, we all need to be taking our cue on equality from Mississippi. Barbour, whose entire exposure to slavery appears to be a slavish devotion to donuts, thinks that ignoring slavery is just fine. Why Southern politicians continue to treat ignorance as a point of pride is a constant wonder.

Anyway, no one should be surprised if Governor McDonnell continues to drag Virginia down this path to antibellum bliss. Remember, Virginia Governors can only serve one term so no reelection worries for Old Bob. How about a poll tax? Hey, we have to balance the budget somehow. Maybe a minstral show in Richmond? Don't be shocked to see Governor McDonnell reintroduce miscegenation laws prohibiting interracial marriage. After all, that law was only changed in 1967. The ink is barely dry.

...or when it comes to coal mine safety, do miners always get the shaft?

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Face it, we never think of the people who do scary, difficult jobs until there is a tragedy. No one worries about the electrical worker climbing a utility pole in a snow storm until one of them is either electrocuted or falls to his death. Police officers and firefighters rarely invade public consciousness until the performance of their duty results in the loss of a life. The same is true of miners. The 29 men killed at the Big Branch Mine in Montcoal, West Virginia would otherwise have lived and died doing a dirty, dangerous unpleasant job in complete anonymity. Now, in the aftermath of a predictable, unnecessary mine explosion, these miners will become symbols of the unsafe and deplorable conditions of the Massey Mining Company's operation. In a week, no one will care...again.

Mine safety is something everyone assumes is a given. Hell, it's 2010. The company store that Tennessee Ernie Ford sang about owing his soul to, is history. Children are no longer sent into the mines to sort coal. Black lung disease isn't the scourge it once was. We don't even endanger canaries anymore, right? Wrong.

Coal mines are not safe. They are not even reasonably safe. Conditions may be better than in 1900 but that is like suggesting that, because the Chinese have stopped chaining factory exit doors, conditions are now tolerable. Coal mines are dangerous because companies like Masey Coal have determined that it's cheaper to protest citations and delay safety improvements than take the costly action necessary to comply with regulations. The penalties for violations are so inconsequential that adhering to safety guidelines is unprofitable and consequently unthinkable. In their black little hearts, they mutter, "what's the big deal? They're just miners. We can always get more."

In a sane world, the fine for permitting unsafe methane build-ups in a coal mine should exceed that for allowing your dog to poop on the streets of New York. If a mechanic knowingly and repeatedly installs faulty brakes or tires on customers' cars, he will be prosecuted. If your neighborhood daycare center encloses their property with barbed wire, the full weight of the legal process will be brought to bear. However, if you run a dangerous business in an area of America where no other employment exists, your workers are prisoners and victims. You can always threaten to shut the mine down leaving your workers with the Hobson's choice of fear of their job or fear of no job. You can hide your unsafe enterprise easily because the New York Times rarely ventures into southern West Virginia. It's the perfect place to exploit people.


So Montcoal, West Virginia will bury their dead and life will continue in the mines. (The irony of spending a week digging the bodies out of the mine so they can be buried is lost on the owners and managers of Massey Coal.) Governor Joe Manchin of West Virginia will be reminded how important the coal industry is to a state where few other industries exist. Coal operators will promise change. State and federal authorities will demand compliance with regulation. The miners will shake their heads, grab their hard hats and return to the pit. In coal country no one's hands are clean for very long.

or does the small type hide the big stories?

America's fifty governors, in their capacity to create joy among their fixated constituents, declare commemorative days, weeks and months all the time. Several states have officially declared Dec. 7th as Pearl Harbor Day. In Illinois, September is Spinal Chord Injury Awareness Month. February is Sweet Potato Month in North Carolina and Fresh Tomato Month in Florida. State legislatures waste countless hours entertaining motions to declare Fluke Fishing Week, Kleptomaniac Awareness Month (Watch your wallet!) or, in places like Alaska, Don't Marry Your Sister Week. Governors sign this drivel to the great joy of the purveyors or fans of whatever is being proclaimed or honored.

If you take him at his word, the newly minted governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell, was only trying to promote tourism and respect for the brave soldiers of the Commonwealth when he re-instituted Confederate History Month. Unfortunately, rather than appellations from the Sons of the Confederacy, Governor McDonnell has received a shower of righteous manure from every corner of America. It seems that in his desire to paint the Rebellion of thirteen southern states as the glorious response to Union tyranny, he omitted one teeny tiny aspect of the conflict, namely, the 400 year bondage of millions of black Africans. Slavery may have been an unpleasant, even inconvenient aspect of the Civil War but it is difficult to ignore.

The cynics among us might believe that this wholly unnecessary proclamation was issued entirely to remind Governor McDonnell's conservative base that, in spite of the ethnic circumstance of the current President, Virginia is still the good-ol-boy, red-neck, gun-loving backwater that it was before all those liberals in Fairfax County (Washington's tony suburb) started turning this red state purple. McDonnell has stopped short of declaring Jeff Davis' birthday a state holiday or adding the Stars and Bars of the Confederacy to the state flag but the message of this re-invigoration of honor for the rebellion is unmistakable: Virginia may look progressive and intelligent but we're still as backward as any Mississippi town sheriff.

Governor McDonnell's ham-handed attempt to paint Virginians as shoeless rubes notwithstanding, there remains the delicate issue of how to promote a healthy respect for the actors in the Civil War without glorifying their cause. How do you praise the character of Robert E. Lee and JEB Steuart without justifying the reason for the secession and subsequent conflict? Is it even possible to respect the courage and loyalty shown by thousands of fallen southern soldiers, most of whom never owned a slave? The rules for the conduct of the vanquished in the land of the victorious seem vague. It does, however, appear easy to determine when the rules are broken.

Although Civil War battles were fought from California to Florida to Pennsylvania, most of what Americans know of the Civil War took place in Virginia. The Confederacy established its Capital in Richmond. The first and last major land battles were fought there. Bull Run, Fredericksburg, the Wilderness, Petersburg, and The Crater all happened in The Old Dominion. Even Gettysburg and Antietam took place less than a hour's drive from the Potomac. Virginia was doing just fine as a tourist destination for Civil War enthusiasts before Governor McDonnell decided that, once again, the old wounds should be opened. In point of fact, Virginia was a reluctant partner in the rebellion. Virginia didn't actually secede until after Ft. Sumter and even then the Western counties remained loyal; hence the admission of West Virginia to the Union in June 1863. Virginia doesn't require a new Bill of Secession in order to persuade a few tourists to stop on their way down I-95 toward South of the Border.

Virginia was doing just fine as the neutral epicenter of a tragic episode in American history. The National Park Service maintains several of the battlefields without fanfare or flag-waving. The gift shops sell memorabilia from both sides. The heroism of Stonewall Jackson and the ineptitude of George McClellan are represented as equal parts of the history of America from 1861 -1865. No one needed to be reminded that there are still ignorant knotheads who harbor resentment over the war's outcome. No one with an IQ in two digits ever uttered the phrase "The South Will Rise Again".

There is nothing more sinister in American politics than pandering to the evil angels of our nature cloaked in the high-minded innocence of a well-intentioned mistake. Governor McDonnell knew exactly whose ass he was kissing when he issued his proclamation on Confederacy Month and it wasn't the hot dog vendor at the Bull Run Battlefield. McDonnell was reminding Virginians and the rest of the South that the days of Democratic Governors and blue state flirtations are over. Virginia is a Southern State, with all the racist, backward, tea-party assumptions that entails. Virginia may have elected the first black governor in 1990 but damn it, it's still the capital of the Confederacy...and we're not just whisltin' Dixie.

...or has The Wall Street Journal discovered the real criminal in the Catholic Church scandal?

Thank you Rupert Murdoch! Because of your tireless editorial contributors at The Wall Street Journal we now know where the real trouble with the Roman Church can be found. It's not the hundreds of pedophile priests roaming the sacristies of America and Germany (so far). It's not the institutional torture and abuse of generations of children in Ireland. It's not the bishops and cardinals who looked the other way to protect Mother Church from repeated accusations. It's certainly not Our Holy Father in Rome (bless yourself here) who showed compassion for a predator priest rather than the deaf children he mistreated. No, my friends, the real villain in the piece is...The New York Times.


As a result of a nifty bit of misdirection, William McGurn, sometime writer for the WSJ and full- time conservative abuse denier, has determined that the reporting of the Times is biased (well they're owned by Jews, be Jesus) and unfair to the Church he loves. He contends that Laurie Goldstein (note the name) left several inconvenient facts out of her report of the case of Father Murphy and the 200 abused, deaf children in the archdiocese of Milwaukee. Ms. Goldstein failed to report that the lawyer for the abused children has been suing the cassocks off the Catholic Church since these abuse allegations began to surface. I guess one man's crusader for justice is another man's ambulance (or possibly Popemobile) chaser. I'm not sure how Father Murphy's heinous crimes become less vile because his victims' lawyer has profited from RCC misdeeds.


McGurn also contends that, because Rome got the case thirty years after the fact, prosecution would have been difficult. Really? If The Vatican had a statute of limitations on crime, why are they still sneering at the Jews for killing Christ? Besides, it takes thirty years to do anything in the Catholic Church. Don't believe it? Ask someone trying to annul a marriage.


None of this matters worth a damn. The Church failed to act in the case of Father Murphy out of self preservation, period. Mr. McGurn can rearrange the deck chairs any way he likes, it won't change the destiny of the Church's ship. Rome has handled this mess shamefully. Given the opportunity to purge itself of this stain it has chosen instead to obfuscate and misdirect.


Rome's last/best hope to reclaim the moral high ground involves a Reverend Joseph Jeyapaul. Father Jeyapaul has been charged with two counts of first degree criminal sexual conduct in Greenbush, Minn. in 2004-2005 in connection with the alleged abuse of a 15 year-old girl. Father Jeyapaul is currently serving in Ootacamund, India and has no intention of returning to America to answer the charges. To keep Mr. McGurn happy, it should be noted that the plaintiff in the case is represented by Jeff Anderson, the lawyer involved in many of the other abuse cases.



If the Vatican is serious about its desire to reverse hundreds of years of ignored abuse, they will box Father Jeyapaul in a nice FedEx package and deliver him to Minnesota before you can say Pentecost Sunday. Rev. Jeyapaul may or may not be guilty but if the civil authorities in Greenbush are satisfied enough to indict, the Catholic Church must acquiesce. If Rome obstructs, you should expect a flood of indictments extending all the way back to the Chair of Peter. The Church would do well not to confuse infallibility with immunity.

...or should the internet slow down so I can catch up?

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Jesse James has checked himself into a treatment center. Well, I for one am thrilled. Maybe now he'll get the help he needs. Just one question...Who the ----is Jesse James? OK, I know he's married to Sandra Bullock and he fixes motorcycles on Spike TV (viewership skewing to the incarcerated) but since when did Hollywood infidelity rate so much ink? If extra-marital groping among celebrities was this newsworthy, Charlie Sheen would have his own daily newspaper.

James appears to be of particular interest because 1) he's married to a recent academy award winner and 2) the woman he was canoodling has more writing on her body than the walls of a Spanish Harlem bodega.


I'm not a fan of tattoos. Presumably, a small discreet butterfly or a coyly placed rose is harmless enough but people who have turned their bodies into a LeRoy Neiman painting creep me out. Like excessive piercings, I just don't get it. The woman Mr. James is accused of shtupping is actually a walking billboard for tattoos...literally. Michelle McGee bills herself as a tattoo model. Presumably Jesse was just admiring the painting and wanted to get the full effect. After all, you don't look at the Mona Lisa with a thong across the lower half, do you?


I suppose it's unfair to judge a person merely because they have permanently turned their body into a billboard but ask yourself: do you want your heart surgeon to display the entire White House Rose Garden on his chest? Would you be freaked out by your child's second grade teacher if he had the New York Yankee team from 1927 inked across his back? Folks with elaborate tattoos are screaming "Look at Me. I'm strange. I like being stuck with inky needles by a person who needs to check the sign over the door avoid misspelling 'tattoo". So ask yourself: Do you want this freaky guy married to America's sweetheart? or Do you want this freak fixing your carburetor?


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Sarah Palin has a TV show. Boy, no one saw that coming. The show, called Real American Stories is apparently designed to distinguish itself from the Real Housewives of Wherever. None of those "fake" stories about people dying without healthcare for Sarah. (What do you want to bet that one of her "stories" involves a gun?) The plan is to highlight American Exceptionalism because as we all know, there are no exceptional Frenchmen or Dutchmen. The very idea of exceptional Russians or Chinese is laughable. Naturally, the show will appear on the Fox News Channel after such "exceptional" Americans as Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck. The motto of Fox News is "We Distort. You Decide".


Norman Podhoretz wrote a scary column in The Wall Street Journal this week comparing Sister Sarah to Ronald Reagan...favorably. Podhoretz describes Reagan as an unfocused, intellectual light-weight who became (according to Podhoretz) the second coming of George Washington. Reagan was, as history tells us, introduced to millions of Americans as host of Death Valley Days on TV in the 50's. It therefore seems only correct that Sarah Palin host a TV show to remind Americans that the uneducated, platitude-driven, amateurish, unqualified, dim-witted people of the country need a champion too. (Like Beck wasn't already doing that job.)

Although people are invited to "log on and tell their stories", it appears unlikely that the show will air the tale of a young boy, educated in Indonesia who, despite bi-racial parents and modest means, was able to work his way through Columbia University and Harvard Law to become a U.S. Senator and President of the United States. After all, the show is called "Real American Stories" and, well, you know, there is that birth certificate thing...
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Representative Paul Broun, a Georgia Republican (express shock here!) introduced a bill that would establish "Ten Commandments Weekend". Seriously, this man actually drafted a law which would "acknowledge that the U.S.'s national character was shaped by The Ten Commandments". The proposed law has run into a few roadblocks on the road to passage. Several Republicans, including David Vetter and John Ensign, object to the inclusion of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments as too restrictive and an affront to freedom. Several Democrats are troubled by the Seventh Commandment. Representative Charlie Rengal demands a broader definition of "steal". Several Texas congressmen want the Fifth Commandment altered to include the phrase "unless a gun is involved". More than one Conservative Congressman is troubled by "keeping holy the Lord's day" as a possible excuse for additional union-sponsored holidays. Even Sarah Palin, who hasn't let her lack of standing as an elected official stop her from bombarding us with her opinion, has an objection. "Well golly shucks, coveting your neighbor's goods is what made America great. Our capitalist system only exists because we want what our neighbors have...and more of it. Any other idea is just plain socialism."


Muttering in dismay, Representative Broun plans to withdraw his legislation in favor of a bill to install a plaque inscribed with the Second Amendment in every inner-city emergency room in America.

...or will Benevict XVI soon discover how small a country Vatican City is when he tries to hide there?

Piling on would be pointless. When every newspaper and web site in America and Europe is carrying some version of the Catholic Church's abusive clergy scandal, there isn't much to add. Individual stories of atrocities and cover-ups will continue to ooze from all corners of the Christian world. Rome will continue to vacillate between apology and excuse. Victims will write books and Cardinals from here and there will offer explanations. Everyone is missing the point.


The most interesting and comprehensive attempt at justification was penned by Rev. James Martin, S.J. who divides his treatise equally between plausible ("bishops had no idea how widespread the problem was" or "bishops were uncomfortable confronting abusive priests") and ridiculous ("bishops under-appreciated the harm to the victims" and" it's too hard to defrock a priest"). He does however strike two issues that go to the heart of the matter: bishops feared litigation because of the bad press and, the Church did not want to give its enemies a club with which to beat it. How's that working out for you?


I'd carpel tunnel from listing the scandals that would have been minimized or forgotten if only the public figures involved had come clean at the outset. From Nixon to Clinton, from Heidi Fleiss to Tiger Woods the story is always the same: scandal strikes...the spin doctors converge to plan how to keep the story contained...reporters, smelling a cover-up, dig furiously...the cover-up unravels...the spin doctors are nowhere to be found...Jay Leno and Co. have a new punching bag for three months.


The Church in Rome is currently working overtime to 1) spread the blame, 2) avoid blame, 3) attack critics and 4) minimize the crime. In recent years the College of Cardinals has swelled to more than 120 members and one can surmise that most have been put to work in the PR Dept. The latest attempt to exonerate the former Archbishop of Munich/current Pope is to blame the guy who had the job before him, John Paul II. This stratagem has worked well, up to a point, for President Obama. The story is that Cardinal Ratzinger of Munich reported an abusive priest to Rome and Rome demurred. As to why the Cardinal allowed the priest to return to parish work (and abuse more kids) is a bit fuzzy. I guess the defense is "hey, I did my job..." This might hold water if you're working at the GM plant but, when you're the Vicar of Christ, we hold you to a higher standard.


The idea of blaming your dead predecessor is a tricky business. JP II is revered throughout Christendom. There is talk of fast-tracking him to sainthood. The faithful will surely take a dim view of besmirching John Paul to save the hide of a guilty German. The Church is already trailing in the PR wars. The Pope's polling numbers in America (yes Virginia, even the Pope has poll numbers) have slipped so far that you'd think he voted for the healthcare bill.


The "Catholic Church as Victim" strategy has loser written all over it. You are not the victim when priests who answer to you abuse children and you do nothing but suborn the abuse. You are not the victim when your cozy relationship with the government of Ireland caused the institutionalizing of torture, imprisonment and intolerable abuse for 100+ years. You are not the victim when self preservation and secrecy were preferred over concern for the children entrusted to your care. What you are is a self-perpetuating, self-serving ecclesiastical bureaucracy whose first thought in any crisis is self-protection.

Yes, the Catholic Church has enemies but none as dangerous as bishops who sweep every controversial issue under their very expensive carpet. If Rome doesn't start dealing with this issue openly and honestly, future generations will visit the Vatican with the same curiosity with which they visit Chichen Itza in Mexico; wondering what could have destroyed the culture that built such wonderful buildings.

...or is there a good reason Bill Clinton never campaigned for Al Gore?

If anyone in Arizona should happen to find John McCain's soul, please drop it in any mailbox. Postage is paid. Honestly, how badly do you want to stay in the U.S. Senate that you would agree to appear on another stage with Sarah Palin? How little self worth must you have to attempt a smile and a hug from the runner-up Miss Vapid 1999? Jesus, John! Your wife has millions. You have more houses than you can count. The Democrats hate you. The Conservative wing of your own party (which is all but seven people) hate you. Your fan club consists of Joe Lieberman and two old guys from the VFW hall in Flagstaff. You have given 27 years to the Congress and all you have to show is a primary challenge from a dickweed talkshow host who, in a sane society, couldn't get elected to secretary of the Bisbee school board. I know you hate to lose John, but... Sarah Palin?


In case you missed "Sarah and John Deux", you didn't miss much. They were all there. Cindy McCain, who was promised after Nov. '08 that she would never have to stand on another platform and look at Sarah Palin's ass, was there. She still has the look of a traveling nurse ready to rush in at a minute's notice if John needs his meds. Todd "the cigar store Indian" Palin was there. Seriously, I get that Todd's wife is the gravy-train from heaven but shouldn't a real man from Alaska want to do more than adopt the fig-leaf pose one pace behind and to the left? Does he speak? Can he speak? Don't we all suspect there is a barc-a-lounger and a beer somewhere with his name on it? Jesus, the lead dog from the Iditarod winner has more personality.


Anyone tuning in midway through the news last night and seeing Johnny Mac and Sister Sarah on the platform must have thought they caught the tail end of America's Biggest Loser. McCain is trailing in the polls and may soon be dusting off the "you won't have John McCain to kick around anymore" speech made famous by Richard Nixon in 1962. The good people of Arizona who admired McCain's tough, bi-partisan, rational approach to government now feel that he is a tad too bi-partisan. Enter the biker-chick. Sarah resurrected her black leathers (more suited to an appearance in Sturgis, S.D.) to appear for the embattled candidate in Phoenix. She trotted out the usual platitudes that played so well at the Tea-bagger confab in Tenn. last month. This lady has more bromides than the Farmer's Almanac.




As uncomfortable political events went, this was the best (or worst) since Sammy Davis kissed Richard Nixon. McCain hates everything about the tea-baggers. Their noisiness says nothing; their fire has no warmth and their lack of focus (we hate taxes, we hate government, we really hate the black president) brings no direction. Tea-baggers aren't a movement; they're a soft- core, Klan pep rally. McCain is incensed at being tossed over the side by the very people he thought he was representing.




Palin, for her part, would rather return her wardrobe to the RNC than help John McCain. His campaign staff spent the summer filling a wing of the Library of Congress with "Sarah Sucks" books: "Sarah Sucks as a Candidate", "Sarah Sucks as a Student"," Sarah Sucks as a Team Player". They blamed her for everything from the weather on election day to Joe the Plumber's hair loss. Now she is forced to bite back the rage and tell the good people of Arizona what a knee-jerk conservative Good Old John McCain really is. At least she got to spear McCain with an age joke which was as unfunny as it was inappropriate.




Palin left Arizona secure in the knowledge that she had burnished her reputation as a loyalist who pays her political debts. She may have ditched the people of Alaska midway through her term and ignored the RNC National Convention in favor of the Tea-baggers (six figure checks notwithstanding) but, by God, she wasn't going to abandon the man who made her a household name. Sarah moved on with a clear conscience to her next event: a rally against Senator Harry Reid in Nevada. New state...same audience. Maybe they could dress Todd up like a blackjack dealer.

...or is confession only good for the soul when it's someone else's soul?

In response to Catholics who have taken me to task for criticizing the Church in Rome, I have decided to reserve my abuse for times when the RCC or its leaders land in the news. Well hang on to your cassocks kids because the boys in Rome are all over the press this week. The Catholic Church is making more news than Bart Stupak and Dennis Kucinich combined.

In the United States, the Church has taken a page straight from Mel Brooks. " We've flattened their fingers, we've branded their buns, nothing is working...send in the nuns." In stark opposition to the U.S. Conference of Bishops, Catholic nuns have sent a letter to Congress supporting the current healthcare legislation. The letter includes signatures from 50 Women's Orders including The Leadership Conference of Women Religious which professes to represent 90% of America's 59,000 nuns. That's enough habitted firepower to shrivel the manhood of the entire Roman Curia.

Unlike the bishops who sit in the chancery and get most of their news from Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly, the nuns actually work in hospitals and schools and get to see first hand the suffering brought about by the lack of healthcare. They also apparently read the bill and can't find the elusive abortion language Bart Stupak and America's bishops swear is in there. The nuns I remember could spot a slouching seventh grader in Church from 50 yards away. I'm confident they could detect sneaky abortion funding even if it were hiding in 2,000 pages of legislation.


Rome has been strangely silent on this issue. Not wishing to garner further abuse from Maureen Dowd and others regarding the Church's disgraceful treatment of women, the cardinals in the Vatican appear content to let America's bishops sort out America's squabbles. Smart play. Anyone who has tried to go toe-to-toe with even one nun knows how intimidating they can be. I watched Meryl Streep in "Doubt" and was afraid to chew gum for a month.

----------------------

Rome has also maintained a guarded posture amid continuing allegations of 50 years of protecting pedophile priests in Germany and Ireland. The details of these accusations are as familiar as they are disturbing. Catholic bishops, including a certain Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger of Munich, aka, Benedict XVI, continually shielded clergymen accused of abusing children. These pedophiles were never referred to civil authorities or even disciplined by their superiors. Instead they were reassigned to new parishes where the abuse continued.



Sean Cardinal Brady, a top-ranking cleric in Ireland used part of his St. Patrick's Day homily to apologize for his role in perpetuating the abuse of children in his diocese. That's a start but hardly a cure. The Catholic Church in Ireland is the most heinous modern example of what happens when religion gains civil authority. Anyone appalled by the treatment of women in Afghanistan would be incensed by how children, especially girls, were systematically tortured in Ireland. If the RCC in Ireland is mystified by empty pews and dwindling collections, it need look no further than the Murphy Report of November, 2009.


The Vatican took time out from praying that the whole sordid mess would disappear to accuse the German government of persecuting the Church. In a statement worthy of the worst corporate weasel, the RCC has expressed shock and dismay that anyone would accuse Mother Church of harboring felons. They assert that the incidence of pedophilia within the ranks of the clergy is no worse than the population at large. Well that's comforting. Unfortunately, we don't usually invest the population at large with a presumption of holiness. We don't hand out Roman collars to just any citizen. We maintain a healthy skepticism of men who appear too eager to be scout masters and swim coaches until they wear rosary beads.


A priest is presumed to represent his church. Men with the power to administer the sacraments must adhere to a higher standard of moral conduct because of the damage done to both the flock and the institution. We don't expect priest to be saints but we should expect a slightly elevated degree of morality. They're priests for God sakes. They hear confessions, dole out advice, pray over the dead. They may be ordinary men but we imbue them with extraordinary respect and responsibility. If we wanted average people to act as our clergy we would be married by our grocer and confess our sins to our barber.


Besides, the issue isn't that priests are as flawed as the rest of us. The issue is that once those flaws are discovered, some responsible action should be taken. That action should not include cover-ups, denials and suborning repeated felonies. Not only did the Church systematically conceal these crimes from the police and the populace, they transferred the offenders to other parishes where, big surprise, similar crimes occurred. As long as Rome responds to these charges by appearing wounded and defensive, the congregation will continue to view them as just another sanctimonious corporation with a knee-jerk PR department and no moral fiber.



Please, Benedict, get out in front of this for once. Don't call the law firm of Duck, Dodge and Hyde. Call a press conference and promise to expose every bad apple in the ecclesiastical barrel. Act like the Vicar of Christ not the CEO of Lehman Bros after the crash. Then give yourself five Our Fathers and five Hail Mary's and go and sin no more.

...or is more of the same just more of the same?

Volume II

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Say what you will about former Congressman Eric Massa from New York. When forced to confront his somewhat unconventional behavior with staffers and anyone else in the showers, he resigned. That's more than can be said of Larry "love amongst the stalls"Craig or everybody's favorite international soulman Governor Mark Sanford of Appalachia. Massa might have been having a few too many sleepovers with the boys in the band but he only made his excuses after he left the Congress. John Ensign, the Senator who felt that sharing everything with his chief of staff included the man's wife, then ran to his parents to bail him out, is still in office. So is Senator David Vitter whose name and number appears in more call girl Roledexes in Louisiana than the number of the VD clinic. So here's to you Eric Massa. You might have crossed the line at your "crossing the line party" but your tickle parties gave America a good laugh.

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Washington D.C. said goodbye this week to Desiree Rogers. The former White House Social Secretary resigned her post amid allegations that she confused her role as party planner with co-first lady. Ms. Rogers made a spectacle of herself in more ways than one. Desiree was posing for the cameras at the President's State Dinner honoring India's Prime Minister while Michaele and Tareq Salahi were schmoozing their way past the Secret Service. While security is not among her duties, she became the face of the scandal. If you don't know who will replace Ms. Rogers, well, the Obama's hope you never do.

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And now we come to Colleen R. LaRose, aka, Jihad Jane. People like this make any sensible discussion of homeland security impossible. Conservative fear-mongers will use this arrest as proof that the Patriot Act and illegal wiretapping are noble and necessary. They will rail endlessly about evil subversives in our midst and how no one is safe from radical Islam. Borrowing a clinical term from the Kennedy School of International affairs...CRAP.

Jihad Jane is a dangerous, deluded misfit. In a country of 300 million I suspect she is not the only one. Had she chosen Christianity or Scientology as a cause and set out to assassinate Sean Penn or Arnold Schwarzenegger the arrest wouldn't have made page 10. The internet has given voice to every type of oddball and eccentric (including no-nothing bloggers). How many Nazi sympathizers might we have unearthed in 1942 if the world wide web were available? How many misguided souls, hungry for a little attention and frustrated by the lack of it, would have surfaced as "reds" during the commie-hunting days of the House Unamerican Activities Committee?

Ms. LaRose is a crazy person and a criminal. She should be prosecuted as such. (No star chamber military courts please.) She is not special or particularly sinister because her brand of lunatic affiliation is Middle Eastern. She is just another loner with a grudge. She is not the tip of some Jihadist wet dream. You have much more to fear from Tom Cruise recruiting your children than from Osama bin Laden. Really!

...or should the estate of Joe McCarthy sue for defamation after being compared to Liz Cheney?

Volume I


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Proving with absolute certainty that the medical condition known as asshat-itis is hereditary, Liz Cheney has embarked on a crusade worthy of her sneering, skulking old man. Liz sits on the Board of Directors of a vanity organization called Keep America Safe. She shares this dubious distinction with Debra Burlingame, noisiest of the 9-11 survivors (Ask yourself if the government ever asked the families of Pearl Harbor victims to participate in plans for post war Asia.) and William Kristol, spoilsport editor of The Weekly Standard and the only quasi-serious journalist-supporter of Sarah Palin's Presidential aspirations.

Apparently the goal of KAS is to rid the country of all those pesky Constitutional nuances that get in the way of American exceptionalism like: prohibition against torture, the rule of law and, most recently, the right to an attorney. Liz & Co. are in a snit over the U.S. Justice Dept. hiring lawyers who had, at one time, been advocates for Guantanamo inmates or other terror suspects. According to Ms. Cheney, if you defend a person accused of terrorism, you're a terrorist or at least a suspicious character. This novel theory came as troubling news to attorneys who were called upon to advocate for a pedophile or a serial killer.

It's possible that Lizzie was out sick the day they taught "Law" at the University of Chicago Law School. She also no doubt missed the miniseries about John Adams and his defense of the British soldiers accused of murder after the Boston Massacre. Not content to merely throw dirt on the reputations of attorneys doing their jobs, the Keep America Safe crowd has coined the name "Al qaeda Seven" to ensure that every lawyer attached to any terrorist trial will be tarred with the traitor's brush.



Andrew McCarthy in today's Wall Street Journal makes the case that the sort of client a lawyer choses speaks to his opinions and political leaning. This information must be made public if an attorney is to be involved in public policy. William Kunstler, defender of the Chicago Seven, was a longtime advocate for liberal causes. Nevertheless, if we assume that attorneys, journalists or judges cannot separate their professional obligations from their personal opinions or their prejudices, we are left in Limbaughland where any notion of impartiality is demeaned and ridiculed. It would be impossible for an educated person, having been exposed to a lifetime of media, not to have formed opinions on the issues of the day. (This hypothesis speaks to Sarah Palin as a possible choice for either Chief Justice or managing editor of the New York Times.)

No one reading this column needs a lesson from me on Constitutional law or the need for zealous representation of defendants. You may however, reflect upon what you thought of the Duke lacrosse team in 2006 when the scandal broke and, what you thought after the team's lawyers sorted through the facts. Presumably Liz Cheney also missed the class on "innocent until proven guilty" and how that applies to lawyers as well as defendants.



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Our Band of Brothers on the Supreme Court has been busy these last few years ensuring that any wingnut who can afford the cost, be allowed to own and carry a firearm. Their decision in Heller vs District of Columbia affirmed the right of every citizen to arm himself to the teeth on federal land including high-crime DC. Now they appear ready to extend that right to the population at large. In McDonald vs The City of Chicago the Supremes will affirm that no gun restriction is lawful and the Founding Fathers apparently would have endorsed the 30,000 or so gun deaths that occur in America each year. They certainly provided no redress short of a Constitutional Amendment. (Fat chance.)

The Scalia Court (if you think Justice Roberts is in charge you don't read much) believes that 283 million guns in private hands in America is just fine with them. So, how about we all pack up our Berettas and our Glocks; our Sigs and our S&Ws and parade them over to the Supreme Court building? Last time I looked, the Court was on federal property. If the boys in black are so fond of gun-toting Americans, let's show them a few. Guns are not permitted in the Court building (I can't imagine why) but we should be able to walk around outside.

You are not safe from gun owners in a bar, a church or a national park. Why should the people who decide these insane "rights" be excluded from sharing in the joy of armed neighbors? Why wouldn't the Supremes feel any less safe knowing that the lawyers, clerks and spectators in the High Court are all packing? How are you liking that Second Amendment now, Antonin?



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What are we to do with Dennis Kucinich? There was a time (mostly in romance novels of the nineteenth century) when families were permitted, nay encouraged, to lock such embarrassing relatives in the attic. They would be fed and cared for but never allowed out when guests were entertained because of their strange behavior. Alas, Dennis is everyone's Crazy Uncle Festus.




Congressman Kucinich is prepared to sink the healthcare bill because he feels it is insufficient. This a classic case of the perfect being the enemy of the good. Although I cannot speak for the good people of Ohio's tenth Congressional district, I suspect they did not send Dennis to Washington to play the obstructionist...Michigan's first district sent Bart Stupak to do that.




Mr. Kucinich should command the floor of the House as often as possible and rail at the weak, insufficient, watered-down legislation being presented to the American people as healthcare reform. He should then sit down and vote yay.

...or are American newspapers running the comics on Page One?

Item

Seriously? You are the Conservative Political Action Committee. You profess to be a serious political force, representing a significant portion of this country, and you prove it by inviting Glenn Beck as your featured speaker? Should Julius Erving lecture to the American College of Surgeons? He is, after all, a doctor. Should Harrison Ford teach graduate archeology at Stanford? He already owns the hat and whip. Allow me to repeat myself...nobody is going to let you be the ringmaster if you continually play the clown. And no one is going to elect you to anything if you invite buffoons and side-show barkers to speak at your political events.



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A respected, high-ranking Pakistani official was rejected recently as ambassador to Saudi Arabia. Mr. Akbar Zib was denied this prestigious post because his name translates into Arabic as "Biggest Dick". Where are the Pythons when you need them?



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Long Island resident Kathleen Frascinella was ticketed for driving in the HOV lane of the Long Island Expressway while accompanied by an elaborately dressed dummy. The dummy turned out to be Rudy Giuliani. Rim shot!



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Australia's star hurdler Jana Rawlinson has had her breast implants removed to improve her chances for a medal in the 2012 Olympics in London. Rawlinson said she "loved having bigger boobs" but did not want to disappoint her fellow Australians. Jana's boyfriend, presumably one of those "fellow Australians" was unavailable for comment.


Ms. Rawlinson was following in the footsteps of American figure skater Scot Hamilton who had his gonads removed prior to the 1984 Winter Games in Sarajevo. OK, that was cheap!



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Shawn White, Lindsey Vonn, Bode Miller and Evan Lysacek have all performed beautifully this week in Vancouver however, Americans are cheering the real comeback story of the year. That's right folks, McDonald's has revived the Filet-O-Fish mounted fish ads. Although at a loss to explain why a dead stuffed mackerel singing "Give me back that Filet-O Fish" should attain the sort of cult popularity of Mr. Whipple or Clara "where's the beef" Peller, we are nonetheless captivated. If McDonald's could teach the carp another song, it might replace Susan Boyle among the "Idol" crowd.

...or would Cpl. Klinger have gotten out of the Army quicker had he worn a burka?

On Thursday, February 18, 2010 Joseph Stack, 53 year old software engineer and bass player crashed his Piper PA28-236 Dakota into the Echelon Federal Building in Austin, Texas in a rage over taxes. Miraculously, only one person died.


On Nov. 4, 2009 Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan marched onto the base at Ft. Hood, Texas and murdered 13 of his fellow soldiers, wounding another 30.



On Friday, Feb. 12, 2010 Amy Bishop, PhD, professor at the University of Alabama, Huntsville shot and killed three colleagues during a staff meeting, wounding 2 others.



On May 31, 2009 Scott Roeder, anti-abortion fanatic and suspected schizophrenic walked into the Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, KS and shot Doctor George Tiller in the eye.



On Christmas Day 2009, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to kill 289 people on board Northwest Airlines Flight 253 using a bomb concealed in his clothing. No one was injured.



On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh, ex GI and KKK sympathizer, detonated a truck full of explosives in the front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal building killing 186 and injuring 450.



Question: Which of these people is a criminal and which is a terrorist? Why?



Applying Occam's Razor, the simplest answer is also the correct one... It doesn't matter.



Regardless of motivation, a crime is a crime and should be handled in the same measured, detached manner prescribed by our judicial system. Calling a person a terrorist is a pointless name game resulting in unnecessary fear and tragic overreaction. There are thousands of Christian Americans passionate for a cause. They talk tough, attend rallies, carry signs. They do not shoot people or blow things up. There are thousands of American Muslims who object to the military invasion of Iraq. They rail on web sites, reinforce their views at mosques, they applaud America's military difficulties in Afghanistan. They also do not shoot people or blow things up. Muslim extremists are no different from Christian extremists and should be treated no differently.



We are a country of laws. Americans never miss an opportunity to parade our freedoms and our Constitution through the streets. We take great pride in any effort to bring that freedom to others. We cheer the rule of law when it's exported to Iraq and Afghanistan. Sadly, when opportunities arise to apply those same noble principles in our own country, we look to Dick Cheney and Sarah Palin for guidance. Bolstered by the clownish rhetoric of Glen Beck and Bill O'Reilly, we respond to every threat by breaking out the torches and pitchforks.



Amy Bishop was a Harvard PhD yet no one (except maybe Sean Hannity) is looking for the motivation for her rampage in Cambridge. If you shoot three professors in Alabama you're a headcase; if you shoot a doctor in a church you're a misguided baby-saver; if you shoot 43 soldiers on an Army base, you're a Muslim demon controlled by puppet-masters in the Middle East.



When tragedy strikes, America seeks answers. What were the warning signs that we missed? How can we prevent another Ft. Hood or another Virginia Tech? Frustration over the senseless loss of life prompts us to lash out in all directions. After 9-11 many dark-skinned citizens were harassed including turban-wearing Sikhs. Strangely, after the Tiller shooting, no one (except maybe Keith Olberman) was suggesting we keep an eye on Bill O'Reilly's ardent fans. After Virginia Tech, there was no increase in surveillance of Korean Americans.


What escapes notice is that right-wing extremists, hungry to find any excuse to abandon democratic principles of due process in favor of a rope and a tree, never think to attack or question the Second Amendment. I defy you to find one single conservative talker who suggested that, had Major Hasan's weapons been tougher to obtain, a tragedy might have been averted or minimized. If you imagine that an Army doctor has access to military firearms, you know nothing about the military.


You would expect the Hannitys and Becks to demand frontier justice. They have never seen a fire that couldn't use a good dose of gasoline. Political leaders however, should know better. Elected officials are presumed to understand the laws and the ramifications of ignoring them. It's why we elect people trained in the law, not in TV ratings. Sadly, Conservatives and by extension Republicans, have decided that pandering to the baser emotions of Americans is easier and more expedient than leading. God help us if they succeed.



When people commit crimes in America or against Americans we arrest them, read them their rights, put them on trial and if guilty, lock them up. (If, after 44 years you don't understand Miranda, you don't watch enough Law and Order.) No exceptions. No.. "but what ifs..".



If you are captured on the battlefield (in the thousands of years of combat this has never been an obscure concept) you are a prisoner of war. Goodbye Department of Justice; hello Geneva Convention. We don't mix and match. You are not in line for Dick Cheney Justice (which is no justice) because you pray to Mecca. Those battlefields are in Iraq and Afghanistan, period. Seat 17F of a commercial airliner is not a battlefield.

...or are Virginia legislators required to swear an oath on a Harry Potter Book?

Really, you can't make this stuff up!

The Virginia legislature is about to vote on a bill which prevents employers and insurance companies from implanting microchips in a person's body against their will. Interesting. Presumably the vote cannot be taken until all delegates are fitted with aluminum headgear to prevent telepathic thoughts from influencing their decision.

This is not as "out there" as you might think. Wisconsin has already passed such a law and Georgia is contemplating a similar idea. Apparently the fear of Big Brotherism stems from discussions among insurance companies and other health providers to implant chips in Alzheimer's patients. The chips would be helpful should the patient wander off. Also there has been talk of implanting people's medical records in their bodies. Should you be in an accident, responders could retrieve the data and therefore know how best to treat you. These ideas no doubt have merit provided they are voluntary. Forced implants, however, sends a chill through even the people who wrote the Patriot Act.

One would think that the Virginia legislature would vote for this bill on First Amendment grounds. The unwanted implanting of microchips in Commonwealth citizens is abhorrent to lovers of liberty and defenders of personal privacy. However, to insure that no one forgets that Virginia is still the home of Christian radicalism, several members of the House of Delegates have supported the ban on implants because...wait for it...implants represent the "mark of the beast". That's right folks. Your elected officials are approving and rejecting policy based on the voodoo details of the Book of Revelations in the Bible.


Far be it from me to denigrate the beliefs of anyone, including those who run for public office but, I would feel better if those office-holders didn't arrive for work muttering about End of Days and angels pouring out their bowls on the earth. I mean it's scary enough watching Virginia Republicans hunt for new crimes deserving of capital punishment. Revelations is very specific what with reference to seven trumpets, seven seals and the beasts of the land and sea. The scripture states that "no man may buy or sell save that he has the mark, or the name of the beast or the number of his name". This has prompted some deep thinkers to imagine that the "mark" is some form of bar code.


Anyway, I suppose that we should be grateful that, regardless of motive, the Virginia House of Delegates will stumble into the correct ruling. Now if only someone in government could divine a Biblical reference to the prohibition of handguns. Perhaps in Exodus "...and the Lord said unto Moses 'tell those Jewish idiots to stop shooting each other".

...or do the Winter Olympics leave you cold?

Quickly...regarding Sarah Palin's speech at the Tea-baggers party in Nashville: we will devote no more space to a person who abuses the opposition for using a teleprompter, but needs to write notes on her hands. Seriously, all friends of intelligent government are encouraged to send a contribution to the Sister Sarah for President Campaign Committee. I'm begging this moose-burger to run.

Now, back to the important stuff:

Item:

Face it. No one in America gives a royal rat's ass about the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. We don't have any heroes who play in the snow. Most of the fans of NHL hockey players (about 200 at last count) will have divided loyalties watching their idols play for Russia, Sweden, or the Czech Republic. Having just watched the New Orleans Saints beat the Colts, and with baseball's spring training camps opening soon, no one cares who wins the two-man bobsled or the luge. Most Americans imagine biathlon as having something to do with cross-dressing. Quick: name America's entry in cross-country skiing.

To be honest, Americans don't have much of a selection of name brand winter sportspeople. Our scant collection of recognizable winter competitors includes Bode Miller, world renowned pot-smoker and all around loose cannon. Having staggered and stumbled to a fifth place finish in Turin in 2006, Miller is stoked (or possibly toked) to be every bit as disappointing in Vancouver. He is hoping to improve his performance this time around, especially because he has signed on with a new sponsor: Zig Zag Rolling Papers.

America will also be cheering for another Turin retread, Apolo Ohno. Mr. Ohno won speed-skating gold in Salt Lake City in 2002 when the South Korean skater that beat him was disqualified. Who knew there were Mulligans in speed-skating? Ohno, age 27, will try for gold in the 1,500 meter race, which will demand that he remain upright for the entire race. Best of luck to Mr. Ohno.

Speed-skating also features another rare sight: an African American winter Olympian. Shani Davis, who won gold in Turin, is returning to attempt a record-tying five gold medals in a single Olympics. Davis, a Chicago native, will ensure that the number of black Americans tuning in to the Games will rise by the exact size of his immediate family.

While it's true that Americans perform really well in snow-boarding, everyone knows that those events aren't "real" Winter Olympic Sports. They were only included because the American TV audience had no rooting interest in curling. Snow-boarding is to winter sports what surfing or skate-boarding would be to the summer games: an excuse to watch adolescents try to kill themselves. Skate-boarding behind a moving bus would have the same appeal.

The perennial favorite of both women and sensitive men (read gay) has always been figure skating. This year's field includes the usual complement of gifted, dedicated kids no one has ever heard of or will remember much past the nightly news. The definition of "sport" will again be challenged as Scott Hamilton, Dick Button and Peggy Fleming guide us through endless triple axels, Salchows and Lutz Jumps. For all you skating neanderthals, a Lutz Jump is a toe-pick assisted jump with an entrance from a back outside edge and landing on the back outside edge of the opposite foot. Now don't you feel dumb?

Figure skating has always drawn the highest rating of all winter events. Women love it and men just like looking up those little itsy bitsy skirts. (Right, I'm the only one!) Actually, men are also fascinated by how male skaters are able to compress their packages into those tight costumes. This may explain why most male figure skaters never have children.

So enjoy the Games. Marvel at the opening ceremonies, which are interrupted by more commercials than the Baseball Home Run Derby. Be amazed by the parade of athletes featuring more white people in one place since the Republican National Convention. Ask yourself why anyone but a blood relative would stand on a mountain in subzero weather to watch American Lindsay Vonn shuush by at 70 mph. Express wonder at anyone paying $200 apiece to watch something called Women's skeleton. (Surprisingly, it has nothing to do with bulimia. Who knew?)

...or is the Tea-bag Movement a strong brew?

If it's Nashville, it must be the Tea-Baggers Convocation.

The grass-roots movement spawned by the election of a black liberal as President and whipped into a froth by Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, has descended on America's heartland for three days of peace, love and joy. The banner welcoming attendees to the Gaylord Opryland Hotel (Gaylord?) proclaims "Give us your white, your old, your overweight yearning to breathe free." Well, not exactly free. Assuming you drive the family pickup truck from God's Garterbelt, Arkansas and stay at the Sleep Inn in Murfreesboro instead of the pricey Opryland Hotel, you are still paying $549 a head to listen to the speechifying. As to the event, America hasn't seen this many white people in one room since George W. Bush's last golf outing. Canadian hockey crowds are more diverse. Attendance has been solid, owing to the fact that most Tea-baggers are retired or at least negotiated a few days off from their greeters job at Walmart.


The convention got off to a rousing start with a kickoff speech by Tom Tancredo, former Congressman from Colorado. Aside from his somewhat truncated bid for the Presidency in 2008, (he never got off the bus in New Hampshire) Tancredo is perhaps best remembered as the anti-immigration candidate who suggested that all immigration be halted for three years while current immigrants assimilate. Plans for stopping illegal immigrants from entering the country included fences, guns and a lot of harsh language. He has also suggested that any further attacks like 9-11 should be met with the immediate destruction of Mecca. A Molotov Cocktail party will follow.


Breakfast on Friday will feature Steve Milloy, FoxNews commentator famous for labeling all research on climate change as "junk science". Milloy also disputes the harm done by second-hand smoke, views the Clean Air Act as an abridgement of freedom and has campaigned against the ban on DDT. Milloy's cozy and longstanding relationship with the tobacco industry has cast a cloud over his credibility. No matter. Most of the attendees will be out for a smoke break during his address.


Lunch will include a speech by former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore. Judge Moore came to prominence as the jurist who resisted a federal court order to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from the Alabama State Courthouse in 2003. The Alabama judiciary responded by removing not just the monument but also removed Judge Moore. The Judge will be accompanied by Joseph Farah. Mr. Farah, editor of the conservative website WorldNetDaily, is one of the more vocal adherents to the notion that Barack Obama is a Kenyan. Saturday's breakfast speaker is Ana Puig who will discourse on the correlation between Barack Obama and the Marxist Dictators of Latin America. Oddly, the Mensa Society passed on an opportunity to stage a membership drive in the hotel lobby. Seriously, why would any movement with aspirations of being taken seriously as a political force invite this collection of wingnuts to speak at their meeting? The only applehead missing is Lyndon Larouche.



Delightfully, the piece de resistance is the keynote speech delivered by the always insightful Sarah Palin. Despite collecting $100,000 for her starring role (the Governor of Alaska makes $150,000, dinner not included) Sarah claims it's not about the money. Her theory is that as long as the Tea-baggers are determined to be fleeced, it might as well be by someone who loves them. Sweet Sarah is apt to look a bit lonely in Nashville. Her usual props: unwed daughter w/ baby, goofy husband, Cindy McCain staring holes in the back of her head will all be missing. It will be just Sarah and the 1,100 or so faithful admirers. No hints have emerged as to the topic of Gov. Palin's address but we can expect plenty of "golly shucks" and a few "you betcha's." There was a "substance alert" earlier in the week but Ms. Palin's spokespeople assured the group that the Governor would never say anything meaningful or significant. Thank heaven for that!



The organizers of the event have rejected a re-creation of the famous Boston Tea Party as potentially dangerous. With all the elderly attendees, there was some concern about throwing the wrong bags overboard. Sorry!

...or is John McCain a few french fries short of a happy meal?

Honest to God!

For as much as we try to consign John McCain to the ash heap of second place finishers next to the 1982 Cincinnati Bengals, the 1932 Chicago Cubs and Michael Dukakis, he continues to stumble and obfuscate his way onto the front pages. Trying to give this guy the benefit of the doubt is like trying to appreciate the films of Micky Rourke...why put yourself through it?

This week's performance was especially egregious. The Senior senator from Bullshitastan managed a double play. Woody Allen's Broadway Danny Rose says "You can't ride two horses with one behind" but you'd never know it to watch John McCain. As they say in the circus, they'll never let you be the ringmaster if you keep acting the clown.

Let's start with the Armed Forces and it's "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding gay troops. This obscene bit of discrimination has been responsible for the cashiering of more than 13,000 serving Americans since Bill Clinton's lack of spine made it law in 1993. Since then, our Army, Navy and Marines have lost the services of many dedicated, well trained volunteers for no other reason than being outed as gay or lesbian.

During his aborted campaign for President (where the don't ask, don't tell policy was rigorously applied regarding the galactic incompetence of Sarah Palin) McCain stated repeatedly that "The day that the military leadership comes to me and says, 'Senator, we ought to change the policy' then I think we should seriously consider changing it." Apparently McCain was confident that the Winter Olympics would be awarded to hell before any high-ranking officer would publicly condone gay soldiers. Well look out for snowboarding devils Senator. In an extraordinary act of courage, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mike Mullen and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates testified this week before the Senate Armed Services Committee and told the Senator exactly that.

Clearly the two highest ranking members of the Armed Forces, one civilian and a Republican appointee and one military (from McCain's own Navy, no less) wasn't enough. Perhaps a visit from George Patton would help? McCain was unmoved. Big surprise! Face it. McCain served in the Navy of the 1960's. They were barely tolerant of blacks. The idea of openly gay sailors puts McCain in mind of the drag scene in South Pacific. When he thinks gay he thinks of a ship full of limp-wristed marys prancing from stem to stern. It's OK to harbor prejudices. Everyone does. It is not OK to parade your biases to the world and it is not OK to offend serving Americans with your particular brand of bigotry.

Senator McCain's second bit of duplicity occured on the vote on the Conrad-Gregg Commission. Non-policy wonks may be unfamiliar with this brief, doomed attempt at bipartisan governance. Senators Kent Conrad (D-ND) and Judd Gregg (R-NH) proposed a plan to curb America's budget crisis. The bill was called the Bipartisan Task Force for Responsible Fiscal Action Act. Can these guys turn a phrase or what?

Briefly, the task force would be composed of 18 members, 10 Dems and 8 from the GOP. They would submit recommendations for fiscal restraint which would be voted on in Congress. The details are labyrinthine but reflect a genuine effort at broad-based fiscal reform. The bill initially had 35 co-sponsors from both parties. Here's where the fun began.

A letter was sent to the President urging him to sign the bill should it ever get that far. The letter was signed by the likes of Cornyn of Texas, Chambliss of Georgia, Feinstein of California and even Lieberman of Connecticutt (Let's show it to Joey. He hates everything.). President Obama, anxious to achieve bipartisan anything, came out in favor of the Commission. Naturally, Presidential support for any initiative triggers automatic rejection in the Republican caucus. Leading the charge for rejection was everyone's favorite grand dad; John McCain.

McCain's opposition, which reversed his support a few weeks ago, was nifty. He voted against the bill because, he said, it might lead to higher taxes. Forgetting for a moment that the Commission must achieve a 14 out of 18 plurality to recommend any action and that Congress can pass the proposals only with super majorities, this bill was designed and blessed by both parties...including the Senior Senator from Arizona.

McCain's opposition can only lead to two conclusions: 1) Stripping away all of the "why can't we all work together" rubbish, McCain is, at his core, a vengeful, intractable ideologue who will never support any proposal endorsed by the guy who kicked his white ass in November 2008; 2) Alzheimer's. Either he is terrified of losing his precious perch in the Senate to a Tea-bagger in a primary or he's just losing it. Either way it's time to show John McCain the door... in case he forgot where it was.

...or should regular people create their own litmus test?

As Tea-baggers prepare to convocate in Nashville (at $595 a head), the staff at isitjustme has been busy developing our own set of new laws, rules and suggestions. Please feel free to add anything that fits:

1) The law enforcement community should be required to create a voluntary "Mug-shot Database" for all Americans, especially those in the public sphere. Permitting citizens to come in for a mug-shot on their own time when they look their best would prevent the sort of horrid portraits that appear in the media after one has been arrested. Titled The Nolte/Torn Protocol, anyone anticipating a bust for drunken driving, indecent exposure, waving a gun around an empty bank or just general stupidity can have their picture taken in advance thus avoiding the career halting embarrassment of an ad hoc photo. The recent arrest of actor Rip Torn, with the attendant frightening cameo should be the only incentive required to encourage this concept.



2) Restaurants are hereby prohibited from delineating their restroom facilities with anything but signs that say "Men" and "Women". No more roosters and hens. You shouldn't have to be an expert in animal husbandry to successfully choose the correct lavatory. Mexican restaurants can dispense with drawings of sombrero-clad males and petticoat-wearing women. Also to be avoided are "Hombres" and "Senoritas". High school Spanish was a requirement for a diploma not a trip to the toilet. A person shouldn't have to make a detour to Berlitz on the way to the can. It's a water closet not a statement of restaurant chic. A woman shouldn't have to wander into a string of urinals only to discover she missed the cute depiction of Zeus on the door instead of the drawing of Aphrodite one door down.

3) A note to people who send Spanish Prisoner letters (those letters that promise a seven figure payout in return for help in rescuing a fortune from a foreign country, most recently Nigeria): at least dress it up a bit. The letters I've received lately have no letterhead, only brief explanations of the scam and no signature. They didn't even bother to hit the "rich text" bar. Seriously folks. A little effort, please. How do you expect to steal money from greedy, gullible people if you don't make your bogus letter look plausible? These notes are so lame even Glenn Beck knows they are fake. Without a little window-dressing, even the Tea-baggers won't be fooled, and they believe everything.

4) Congress should decree that anyone with a driver's license be required to purchase an EasyPass. Let's get with the program, folks! It's 2010. You have a debit card. You have a cell phone. Stop holding up traffic on America's highways while you fish around in your ashtray for another quarter.



5) And while we're on the subject, no more check-writing in supermarkets. Use cash or use a card. My ice cream is melting back here and my beer is getting warm while you hunt for a pen. The Declaration of Independence took less time to write than checks from shoppers who ask the clerk six times how much their broccoli cost. While we're young, people!