Hope sputters at Road Home's dead end

Between George Bush and his administration of "Let them eat cake" hacks on one side, and Gov. Kathleen Blanco and her supporting cast of Mayor Teddys and "Boss" Hoggs on the other, it's no wonder that despair is the only growth industry in K-Ville today.

From The Times-Picayune:

WASHINGTON -- With New Orleans homeowners telling a Senate subcommittee Thursday that displaced residents are giving up hope because of continued delays in the state's Road Home program and projections the program is running out of money, a key Bush administration official suggested more federal funds to bail out the program are unlikely.
Donald Powell, the federal coordinator for Gulf Coast recovery, didn't completely rule out additional federal financing, telling the Senate Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery he's willing to sit down with Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and other state officials to discuss options for covering a projected $3 billion shortfall.

But he gave a strong hint that such additional funding will be a hard sell, telling the subcommittee that the overruns were caused largely by the state's decision to "unilaterally, independently and fundamentally" change the program to cover wind damage as well as flood damage.

Without the expansion to cover wind damage, Powell said, the Road Home program, based on current projections, would be showing a $600 million surplus instead of facing a substantial deficit. "We were always very clear that the federal government would not fund state housing programs to cover wind damage," he said.

Andy Kopplin, executive director of the Louisiana [Recovery] Authority, sitting next to Powell at the witness table, said that the state made a decision "not to discriminate based on the kind of damage" that wasn't compensated by insurance, which generally covers wind damage from a storm. The decision, he said, was the "right thing to do."

"When the president said he would do what it takes, and stay as long as it takes, he didn't say except if you had wind damage," Kopplin said.

Sen. Mary Landrieu, chairwoman of the subcommittee, who changed the order of testimony to sit Powell and Kopplin together on the first witness panel, urged the two officials to try to work out their differences, saying the success of the state's long-term recovery efforts may well be at stake.

The hearing was at times emotional; with some New Orleans residents expressing frustration at what they describe as the inability of applicants to get even the most basic information on the status of their applications.

Walter Thomas, a resident of New Orleans Lower 9th Ward, said that he was so encouraged last October when he met with Road Home officials who told him his application seemed complete, "I felt I had a check on the way," he said.

But soon thereafter, Thomas said, he was hospitalized, and since he's gotten out, "I've called 30 or 40 times. "Every time, I call someone says we'll get back to you." But he said no one has.

"I've given up," Thomas said.

Connie Uddo, administrator of St. Paul's Beacon of Hope Organization in Lakeview, described herself as the neighborhood "encourager, the cheerleader," constantly telling people that "Your life will come back." But now, she says, "I can't look them in the eye and tell them that anymore." Based on current pace of awarding checks, she figures it will take seven years for the last applicants to get their checks.

Dear Diary: The besieged Church is agin' everthin'

EDITOR'S NOTE: Revolution 21's Blog for the People continues an occasional series of dispatches recorded some years ago in the trenches of Catholic radio. The names aren't real, nor are the places, but the stories are -- and it's a snapshot picture of what happens when "Their zeal consumes them" meets "Sinners sacrifice for the institution, not vice versa."

In other words, there has to be a better way.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 03, 2002

Dear Diary,


I didn't get home until about nine tonight . . . we're having our semiannual "Pledge-a-Thon" at Pope FM and I've been working from 6:45 a.m. to 8:30 every night.

BTW, today my boss and the development director, during one segment, got into this incredibly self-righteous sounding feedback loop of Orthodox Catholicism Against the Infidels, cracking on the "secular media" and its distortions about the Church, Catholics who don't know their faith, that "forces" would love to stop us in our mission, yadda yadda yadda.

I was in the control room doing a slow burn. Finally, I started to ratchet up the outro music -- giving them the hint to shut up -- and put on some CDs. Then I called the development guy into the control room, shut the door, told him I was telling him this because then was neither the time nor the place to get into a s***-slinging match with my boss, and then calmly let him have it with both barrels.

BASICALLY, I told him they were demonizing the media (and that the media for the most part had the Church's number down pat in the recent scandals), that they sounded incredibly self-righteous, and that if it didn't stop I was going to walk. I told him I knew I would be in a world of hurt if I did, but that it was a matter of conscience with me.

I added that what we needed to be saying was what we were FOR, not that we were poor Catholics being persecuted by the world.

Furthermore, I told him, what we needed to show people was love and humility because we were in no position to be arrogant.

To his credit, he listened and went to the chapel to pray on the matter. He came back and told me the message he got in prayer was to speak to what we believed in as Catholics and not worry about the rest. I don't know if he had a heart-to-heart with Mary about what I said, but the rest of the day went much better, with the exception of one repeat remark Mary made about the "forces." The development honcho was standing in the control room when she did, and I told him that the remark was overly cryptic, nebulous and that, frankly, (with the exception of Satan, who would like to see all evangelism fail) we weren't on enough people's radar screen for there to be a conspiracy against us.

Really, why does Catholic media have to come to this? And why do orthodox Catholics stand for this kind of counterproductive nonsense?

THERE WAS A TIME when I might have bought a lot of this -- and perhaps did buy a lot of this -- but I've been purged of it during the last year or so. Particularly after Sept. 11, when I got to see first-hand how ugly much of the Church's initial reaction to such a trauma could be.

It was either idiotic or Pharisaical, but not Christlike, I don't think.

I listen to how many contemporary, music-oriented evangelical stations that I listen to relate to the broader culture, and I'm envious . . . comparatively. I truly envy that aspect of the broader evangelical-Protestant spirituality -- the emphasis on hope, forgiveness and love. It's not that they're soft on sin -- it's just the emphasis on there being something BETTER than sin, that there is victory over sin and the death resulting from sin.

Orthodox Catholicism in so many quarters, however, just strikes me as stinking of its own peculiar version of the Nutso College-Campus Street Preacher Syndrome. Just all tied up in apologetics and doctrine.

Am I making any sense here? It's difficult to express what is so much a deep sense within the soul and heart.

Does something look different here?

Revolution 21's Blog for the People has a bit of a new look -- a new, and occasionally changing, flag at the top of the page.

The new accoutrement sprang from my looking for something more professional- and spiffy-looking to top the blog. So I finally had the inclination to explore putting art in the Blogger layout. And I started making a flag, or that banner atop the blog page.

And then I put it up. Better, but not as slick as I wanted.

So I started playing with the scanner and a box of old photos . . . and with pulling some art off a royalty-free stock-photo site. Then with setting objects on the scanner and scanning them.

NEXT THING I KNEW, I had 20 new flags to rotate atop Revolution 21's Blog for the People. And counting, I am sure.

So, every so often, you'll see something new atop the blog. Every now and again, I might explain what it is . . . and when it was.

The flag you're looking at now shows a slice of New Orleans' St. Louis Cathedral, photographed by me in the spring of 1987. New Orleanians have worshipped on this site since 1718 under French rule, and in 1727, a new church building was completed and consecrated -- named for Saint Louis, King of France, otherwise known as Louis IX.

THEN CAME the great fire that burned much of the now Spanish-ruled city to the ground in 1788. Including the first St. Louis parish church, which had been New Orleans' first structure of brick-between-post construction. Rebuilt bigger and grander beginning in 1789, the "new" structure is the one we know today, albeit with various additions and a major renovation in the 1850s. It was dedicated as a cathedral and housed its first Mass on Christmas Eve, 1794.

Pope Paul VI named St. Louis Cathedral a minor basilica in 1964, and Pope John Paul II visited in 1987.

Free the Deity! Unshackle the Almighty!

There's a riot goin' on at The Boar's Head Tavern over the Virgin Mary. It's relatively civilized as interdenominational clashes go, but has been following the usual pattern for these things.

The lineup is the usual token Catholic guy and a couple of sympathetic non-Catholics versus 1,234,568 Protestants (approximately) who seem to think that the woman who was extraordinary enough to bear Christ couldn't have been extraordinary in any other way at all.

Ever virgin? FEH!

Queen of Heaven? IDOLATRY!

Mother of God? DOUBLE-DOG IDOLATRY!

Praying to Mary because she has pull with her Son? AAIIIIEEEEEEEEE!!! DISSIN' THE ALMIGHTY! HE WANT DA PRAYAZ! HE. WANT. DA. PRAYAZ!

Here's a sample of what I'm talkin' about:

I’m coming late to this discussion (after all, some of us have to work for a living), but here goes:

How can Mary be “Mother of God” if God (YHWH), “I Am That I Am” existed before Mary? To call Mary “Mother of God” seems to me to indicate there was no God before Jesus was born.

How can one with confidence say that Mary was a perpetual virgin when, honestly, there is no way of knowing? Did she just go around talking about it and it caught the ear of Peter who passed it down to the other popes?

And I’ve heard the old rationale of praying to Mary, which seems to indicate that Jesus is such a jerk that he won’t hear your prayers and his mother has to talk him into doing anything. I find that idea rather offensive.

Don’t get me wrong. If I were a pastor I’d preach a sermon every year during Advent honoring Mary. But, as Audrey said to Ellen when she started her “eulogy” for Aunt Edna by telling the Lord that “we love this woman with all our hearts,” “Let’s not overdo it, Mom!”

I DO COMMEND the panel for keeping the debate pretty genial -- at least for these types of disputations -- but it's going to end like every other forum in which a token Catholic has to be the one guy to answer every challenge and be the lightning rod for 500 years of Reformational grievances against corrupt popery. Rhetoric will get hotter and hotter, epistemological blood will be shed, consensus will be elusive -- except when it's nonexistent -- and sooner or later the Catholic guy will say "(Expletive) this (deleted)," and that will be that.

And everyone will lament the fact that the Catholic guy was such a touchy sorehead.

BUT, JUST FOR THE RECORD . . .

Is Jesus the second person of the Holy Trinity? Yeah? Well, that makes him God. Mary gave birth to Him. Thus, Mary is the Mother of God -- the God who has existed forever and created the universe . . . and Mary.

Of course, that makes no sense . . . to us. We Catholics call that a Mystery, with a capital "M."

Just like Mary being conceived free of original sin, otherwise known as the Immaculate Conception. We Catholics believe it impossible for a sinless, perfect Savior to be born of a flawed, originally sinful woman. To us, that just doesn't make any sense. So Mary must have been the first beneficiary of Jesus' saving grace . . . at her conception.

And, frankly, Catholics are offended by the hardline Protestant notion that Jesus would be pissed off about someone asking His mother -- or any saint -- to put in a good word for us earthly schlubs.

And to continue in this frank vein, that kind of always-offended-and-looking-to-smite deity seems to me to have more in common with the Allah of Ibrahim and Ishmael than the God of Abraham, Issac and Joseph. C'mon, give God some credit for being almighty enough to not get His Divine Nose out of joint . . . and to accept our procuring lobbyists to grease the Judgment Seat!

For Pete's sake, let the Holy Trinity out of solitary confinement, already!

Or, as Flannery O'Connor once put it:

Whatever you do anyway, remember that these things are mysteries and that if they were such that we could understand them, they wouldn’t be worth understanding. A God you understood would be less than yourself.

The implications of 'screw you' as official policy

You know, I was just thinking that the precursor to nihilistic political violence -- a.k.a., jihad -- was an ongoing sociopolitical hopelessness in the Muslim, particularly Arab, world.

And you could argue that the mindset of violent Islamofascism is, in some way, objectively insane. Ingrained, institutionalized, societal insanity.

Which kind of makes the official neglect of a destroyed American city -- and the further official neglect of the despair the original neglect has bred -- every bit as nuts, doesn't it?

From New Orleans City Business:

In nine years in adult psychiatry, Stephen Menendez has never before seen a population of young psychotics resistant to all forms of anti-psychotic medication.

“We’re seeing a lot of people between the ages of 20 and 30 coming in with their first psychotic breakdown,” said Menendez, supervisor of adult psychiatry at East Jefferson General Hospital. “They’re hearing, seeing and sensing things that aren’t there. They’re paranoid and delusional and they aren’t responding to anti-psychotic medications, and we don’t know why. It seems like a new phenomenon.”

More than 20 months after Hurricane Katrina, mental health professionals say the severity of mental illness in New Orleans has reached new lows and is deteriorating.

More patients are exhibiting post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms while mental health services are nearly impossible to find, said Celeste Lewis, a staff nurse at River Oaks Hospital.

The number of adult inpatient psychiatric beds nosedived 93 percent to 17 from a pre-storm high of 234.

“It’s just a feeling of hopelessness, overwhelming sadness and that life is not going to get better any time soon,” said Lewis. “That spirit of determination that ‘we’re going to get through this and rebuild’ has really faded. It’s made people feel apathetic about their general health. The city is really suffering.”

Mayor C. Ray Nagin recently wrote to Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco demanding the state address the emergency mental health needs of New Orleans. The city lost nearly 100 psychiatric beds and a 40-bed crisis intervention unit after Charity Hospital closed following Hurricane Katrina.

Louisiana State University spokesman Marvin McGraw said the hospital division plans to establish 33 psychiatric beds at its DePaul campus in New Orleans before the end of the year. But there are no plans to recreate a crisis intervention unit.

The New Orleans Adolescent Hospital added 20 psychiatric beds but did little to solve the problem, said Alice Craft-Kerney, executive director of the Lower Ninth Ward Health Clinic, where 95 percent of patients exhibit post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms.

Mentally ill patients in New Orleans are either forced to wait for hours in emergency rooms ill-equipped to handle their needs, sent to hospitals in Mississippi or northern Louisiana if a bed becomes available — or they are medicated and released.

“If that happens, the best case you go to jail, the worst you get killed,” said Craft-Kerney.

FOR MORE INFO: Medical News Today

Google this!

Dear Google,

Data collection is not the same as "knowing." You attribute more worth to random infobytes and compiled online snapshots than is warranted in a world where flesh-and-blood human beings must interact and get along with other flesh-and-blood human beings. But, according to The Financial Times, that's not going to stop you from trying, is it?

Google’s ambition to maximise the personal information it holds on users is so great that the search engine envisages a day when it can tell people what jobs to take and how they might spend their days off.

Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, said gathering more personal data was a key way for Google to expand and the company believes that is the logical extension of its stated mission to organise the world’s information.

Asked how Google might look in five years’ time, Mr Schmidt said: “We are very early in the total information we have within Google. The algorithms will get better and we will get better at personalisation.

“The goal is to enable Google users to be able to ask the question such as ‘What shall I do tomorrow?’ and ‘What job shall I take?’ ”

The race to accumulate the most comprehensive database of individual information has become the new battleground for search engines as it will allow the industry to offer far more personalised advertisements. These are the holy grail for the search industry, as such advertising would command higher rates.

Mr Schmidt told journalists in London: “We cannot even answer the most basic questions because we don’t know enough about you. That is the most important aspect of Google’s expansion.”

He said Google’s newly relaunched iGoogle service, which allows users to personalise their own Google search page and publish their own content, would be a key feature.

Another service, Google personalised search, launched two years ago, allows users to give Google permission to store their web-surfing history, what they have searched and clicked on, and use this to create more personalised search results for them. Another service under development is Google Recommendations – where the search suggests products and services the user might like, based on their already established preferences. Google does not sell advertising against these services yet, but could in time use them to display more targeted ads to people.

FLESH-AND-BLOOD human beings have immortal souls and complex psychologies, of which your ever-developing algorhythms haven't a frigging clue.

Oh Google, my Google, we love you for the search engine you are. But you're going to make a hash of YouTube, and your online ad-buying business is going to be the "cure" that kills off the critically ill newspaper and radio businesses.

Google, some things are just none of your damned business. What I do with my career and how I spend my days off are among these.

Now, my friend, learn your place or bugger off!

Now, that's good eatin'!

It's funny how good blogs often lead you to other really good blogs, which oftentimes end up being more elucidating reading than a stack of newspapers and magazines.

The New Yorker's New Orleans Journal by Dan Baum -- who's living in the Crescent City until June while working on a book -- is one of those blogs I discovered because I'm a fan of Harry Shearer, who's a really big fan of Baum. Journal is indispensable reading about an indispensible place.

Here's a sample, from a post about Baum's trek to the place you go when you get a hankerin' for some fresh snappers (turtles, not game fish) or alligator, or muskrat . . . or raccoon:

He led us into a shed and opened a freezer that looked like the morgue at the Bronx Zoo. Inside, encased in plastic, were raccoons, rabbits, and muskrats, all of them flayed but easily identifiable and looking surprised in their wrapping. “How about this?” he said, holding up something about two feet long that looked exactly like a whole skinned alligator. “Whole skinned alligator,” he said. “Marinate that and put it right on the grill.”

A whole skinned alligator seemed a bit much for just the two of us, so we bought a couple of packets of alligator meat. (“Tail? Body meat? Both?” he asked, dropping the packets on the scale.) We also brought home a quartet of frozen soft-shell crabs for ten dollars, a jar of Cajun Land Fish Fry, an unlabelled bottle of homemade strawberry wine that turned out to be delicious but produced an instantaneous headache, and a stack of flyers to give to our friends.

When I asked the proprietor if I could identify him in this column, he wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “I don’t need the commotion,” he said. It may also be that he doesn’t need a visit from the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. On the other hand, he was careful to tell us that his cowan are common snappers, not endangered alligator snappers. I’m pretty sure his operation is legal; he’s been in business since 1959.

Back on Dauphine Street, I pounded the alligator pieces with a rolling pin to tenderize them. Ask Louisianans how to prepare any kind of wild meat, and their answers are so alike in content and wording that I suspect they were reciting this in school when I was pledging allegiance to the flag: “Get some Wish Bone Italian dressing, and put it up in that with your spices, some onion powder, some garlic and some green onions. Serve that with hot rice and”—they clap their hands.

Yankee food snobs that we are, we didn’t have any Wishbone Italian dressing on hand, so I made a marinade with imported extra-virgin olive oil, red-wine vinegar, dried thyme, onion powder, crushed garlic, Zatarain’s Creole seasoning, and some cayenne pepper. Then I added more cayenne pepper. And then a little more. I left the alligator marinating in the refrigerator overnight, and then thought up excuses to eat out, hoping the alligator would disappear. When it didn’t, I lit the burners in our stove’s Jenn-Air grill and laid the slices atop it. “How do you like your gator?” I asked Margaret.

“I think you should cook it a very long time,” she said.

It was chewy and mild, like a cross between chicken and veal. It seemed lean and healthful, the kind of thing that will soon show up in a Jane Brody column. (No antibiotics! No trans fats!) Its flavor was faintly nutty and not fishy at all; if I had to put an adjective on it, I’d say, “Reptilian.”

I called Ronald Lewis, to see if he liked gator any more than he liked gefilte fish. “Oh, yes,” he said. “I’ve been eating it all my life. I like it fried or smothered.”

I told him I didn’t think it had much flavor.

“Well, that may be because it was frozen,” he said. “I think it probably tastes better when it’s fresh. What you really want to try, though, is coon. My mama used to boil that in seafood boil and then bake it with sweet potatoes. Now that’s good.”

AS SOMEONE who reads posts like this and sorely misses home, I can attest that alligator is good eatin' -- particularly breaded and fried like catfish. Its taste lies somewhere between fish and chicken . . . at least to me.

And I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Lewis that coon is good eatin', too. I'd like to try his mama's recipe, though it's plenty tasty just barbequed.

I strongly suspect that sometimes, in her heart of hearts, Mrs. Favog wonders just what the hell she'd been smoking the day she said "I do."

Curses! He knew she do that voodoo that he rue

File this Baton Rouge, La., TV report under "Things that just don't happen in Topeka":

A woman is stabbed more than 30 times Sunday night, and witnesses say the man stabbed her because he thought she put a voodoo spell put on him.

The stabbing happened on North 43rd Street, which is near Gus Young in north Baton Rouge. Witnesses say a woman was stabbed a few blocks down on Billops Street.

They say a man, who police identify as Courtney Thomas, took two knives and stabbed her more than 30 times.

They say the woman tried to get away by running to North 43rd Street, but witnesses say Thomas followed her and then tried to stab a man who helped the woman.

We're told the "Good Samaritan" grabbed a pipe and Thomas fled the scene. He was arrested some time later.

Paramedics rushed the woman to a local hospital. Police say her injuries are non-life threatening.

I'M NO EXPERT on voodoo, but I'm assuming that either the spell didn't work or that she forgot to do the "make myself invincible" incantation before the suspect pulled out the knives.

Uhhhh . . . we nEd 2 txt bout DIS

OMG, som rEsrchRs R worEd dat teens addiction 2 txtN iz lEdN 2 shallower relationships w othRz -- depriving dem of d nuances of mEng conveyed Thru d hUmN vox & face-to-face contak.

& d onlE certainty 4 1 shrink iz d utter uncertainty of wot it aL wiL mean 4 society. GOin by DIS WashNtn pOs repot, itz goin 2 tAk lots of Xperts w :-l l skiLz 2 figur dat 1 out:

The explosion of this technology was inevitable, according to those who research adolescent behavior, because it provides a new tool for creating what teenagers always have wanted and needed -- distance from parents.

"It's a form of silent communication; they can do it whenever, they can do it fairly secretively," said Rob Callender, trends director for Teenage Research Unlimited. In a recent study of teens, he said, TRU found that texting is the second most popular use for cellphones, right after using them to check the time. Plus, every phone number a child calls is recorded on the family phone bill, with a time stamp. But text messages remain an anonymous, faceless lump number.

Friedland, the psychologist, says texting is different from the marathon phone calls most parents remember making as teens because it's typically done with a large group of friends. "For many of them, it is the sense of being part of a group that is really important," she said. What she worries about is that children aren't getting the "cleaner, deeper sense of friendship and relatedness" that came from talking to someone directly, even on the phone.

"We just don't know yet what the impact will be," she said.

WOT SOM PARNTS of teen-agers nEd 2 figur out, tho, iz much mo immediate. wot dey nEd 2 figur out iz how 2 pA lst mthz ceL bill.

TLK iz chEp. txtN ain't.

4 EXMPL, LETZ L%K @ a most fascinating case study n d n8tN's capital:

Sofia Rubenstein, 17, got in trouble the way a lot of teens do these days.

Her incessant text-messaging racked up a huge phone bill on the family's wireless plan.

"It's whatever pops into my head. There's no stopping it," she said. "Sometimes I'll be on the phone with someone and I get texted, and then I'm having two conversations at once."

Last month the Washington high school junior used 6,807 text messages, which, at a rate of 15 cents apiece for most of them, pushed the family's Verizon Wireless bill to more than $1,100 for the month. Sofia knew she'd been texting a lot but couldn't believe the "incredible" number she hit. "I just thought, oh my God, my life is over," she said.

Indeed. Sofia will be working in her parents' retail store this summer to pay off her debt -- but she definitely won't be the only teenager paying for text abuse. Minutes? Forget minutes. It's all about the text allowance. It needs to be supersized, now that instant messaging has leapt from the desktop to the mobile.

Families who carefully researched their wireless plans to cover calls with no extra fees are discovering, to their horror, that their thumb-tapping teens have found a new way to blow the budget. In Sofia's case, her parents' plan included only 100 free text messages a month -- fewer than half of what she was using every day "at all points of the day" -- and she racked up massive per-message fees fast.

DO U TINK? ROFLMAO!

Well, this certainly explains the last post

'I think as far as the adverse impact

on the nation around the world,

this administration has been

the worst in history'

WHEN JIMMY "HOSTAGE CRISIS" CARTER, fer cryin' out loud, has the unmitigated nerve to call George W. Bush the most incompetent president ever -- at least when it comes to foreign policy -- you know something is seriously awry at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

To say the least.

Something has to be screwy for Carter to say what he said. Because nobody has that much gall. Really.

The Associated Press offers up all the depressing details:

Former President Carter says President Bush's administration is "the worst in history" in international relations, taking aim at the White House's policy of pre-emptive war and its Middle East diplomacy.

The criticism from Carter, which a biographer says is unprecedented for the 39th president, also took aim at Bush's environmental policies and the administration's "quite disturbing" faith-based initiative funding.

"I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history," Carter told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in a story that appeared in the newspaper's Saturday editions. "The overt reversal of America's basic values as expressed by previous administrations, including those of George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon and others, has been the most disturbing to me."

Carter spokeswoman Deanna Congileo confirmed his comments to The Associated Press on Saturday and declined to elaborate. He spoke while promoting his new audiobook series, "Sunday Mornings in Plains," a collection of weekly Bible lessons from his hometown of Plains, Ga.

"Apparently, Sunday mornings in Plains for former President Carter includes hurling reckless accusations at your fellow man," said Amber Wilkerson, Republican National Committee spokeswoman. She said it was hard to take Carter seriously because he also "challenged Ronald Reagan's strategy for the Cold War."

Carter came down hard on the Iraq war.

"We now have endorsed the concept of pre-emptive war where we go to war with another nation militarily, even though our own security is not directly threatened, if we want to change the regime there or if we fear that some time in the future our security might be endangered," he said. "But that's been a radical departure from all previous administration policies."

Carter, who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, criticized Bush for having "zero peace talks" in Israel. Carter also said the administration "abandoned or directly refuted" every negotiated nuclear arms agreement, as well as environmental efforts by other presidents.

(snip)

Douglas Brinkley, a Tulane University presidential historian and Carter biographer, described Carter's comments as unprecedented.

"This is the most forceful denunciation President Carter has ever made about an American president," Brinkley said. "When you call somebody the worst president, that's volatile. Those are fighting words."

The British are going! The British are going!

It takes a special kind of idiot to cause Great Britain to run screaming into the night. And, by gum, George W. Bush is just the man for the job.

From the Sunday Telegraph in London:

Gordon Brown is prepared to risk the future of the "special relationship" with the United States by reversing Tony Blair's support for the Iraq war, President George W Bush has been warned.

He has been briefed by White House officials to expect an announcement on British troop withdrawals from Mr Brown during his first 100 days in power. It would be designed to boost the new prime minister's popularity in the opinion polls.

The President recently discussed with a senior White House adviser how to handle the fallout from the expected loss of Washington's main ally in Iraq, The Sunday Telegraph has learned.

Details of the talks came as a close ally of Mr Brown called for a quicker withdrawal of British troops. Nigel Griffiths, a former minister, said: "We should get out of Iraq as soon as is practicable. We should consult the Iraqi government - but they cannot have a veto. This cannot be delayed."

Mr Griffiths, who resigned as deputy leader of the Commons this year over the decision to replace the Trident nuclear weapons system, spoke out as reports suggested that Mr Brown would use an early trip to Iraq to reassess Britain's role and accelerate the withdrawal. Revelation of the US fears will reinforce expectations in Westminster that Mr Brown will make a decisive break with Mr Blair's support for the war.

During a surprise "farewell trip" to Iraq yesterday, Mr Blair suggested that his successor would continue his policy. Speaking shortly after a mortar attack by insurgents on Baghdad's fortified "green zone", the Prime Minister said: "I have no doubt at all that Britain will remain steadfast in its support for Iraq, for the Iraqi people and for the Iraqi government as it tries to make sure it overcomes the threat of terrorism and continues to make progress.

"The policy I pursue is one for the whole of the Government, so even when I leave government I am sure that support will continue."

However, it can be revealed that senior figures in the National Security Council, the Pentagon and the State Department in Washington have expressed fears about Mr Brown.

They believe that cordial relations between the two leaders will be "at an end" if the incoming premier plays "gesture politics" over Iraq.

Mike V to 'stand right up and roar' no more

Mike the Tiger is dead. Long live Mike the Tiger.

That is, as soon as Louisiana State University officials find a suitable Mike VI to replace the dearly departed Mike V, who left for that eternal jungle in the sky Friday morning.

I HOPE THE NEW KID doesn't mind idiot cheerleaders banging on his cage/trailer -- come future autumn Saturday nights -- trying to make him roar as he, it and they careen (OK, creep) around Tiger Stadium. Back in the day, we denizens of the student section had a special cheer for this . . . the ritual of the perpetually peppy people pounding on the poor creature's mobile lair, then sticking a PA mike in Mike's face.

It went something like this:

Let Mike out!
Let Mike out!
Let Mike out!
Let Mike out!

ALAS, the running-dog, proto-fascist, conformist trainers never would let Mike out to wreak his revenge on the cheerleaders who, truth be told, bugged the crud out of us anyway.

There was a strain of the Caligula-esque that ran through the Tiger Stadium student section back then. Probably now, too.

Here's the (Baton Rouge) Advocate obit for poor, dead Mike V:

LSU’s Bengal tiger mascot, Mike V, died Friday morning of renal failure, university officials said.

Mike V was admitted to the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine on Wednesday for a routine exam, said Dr. David Baker, Mike’s veterinarian.

Baker discovered a condition called idiopathic chylothorax. Emergency surgery was performed to remove 10 liters of fluid from around the tiger’s lungs. As a result of the anesthesia, Mike’s kidneys failed and he was placed on renal dialysis, which was unsuccessful, Baker said Friday during a news conference at the school.

Baker said a necropsy will be performed to determine the cause of the chylothorax. Mike V will be cremated and his ashes placed in an as yet undetermined location, he said.

Mike V was born in October 1989 and began representing LSU in 1990. The famed mascot was given to LSU by Thomas and Caroline Atchison of the Animal House Zoological Park in Moulton, Ala., according to the LSU Web site.

LSU Chancellor Sean O’Keefe said the tiger will be missed.

“It’s sad, but he leaves a great long legacy,” O’Keefe said. “He brought a lot of enthusiasm to folks and joy to lots of kids.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco, in a statement, said “Mike V served Louisiana State University as more than a mascot. He was an epic symbol that represented the unique spirit of our state’s flagship university. Citizens across our state and LSU fans around the world are saddened by Mike’s passing. I know that Mike’s spirit will live on through his successor as a new era begins at LSU.”

Mike V arrived at LSU after his predecessor, Mike IV, was retired to the Greater Baton Rouge Zoo at age 15. Mike V’s first road trip was to the Superdome in December 1991 for a basketball game against Texas, which LSU won.

Plans are under way to find a new tiger, possibly a cub or juvenile, Baker said.

“I’m not so concerned about getting a tiger quickly, but getting the right tiger,” Baker said. The next tiger, he said, will be a male Bengal tiger.

Baker had announced in March that Mike V was in the first stage of retirement, meaning he would not have been encouraged to roar any more at football games had he survived longer.

Despite losing weight and muscle, Baker has said, Mike was still reasonably healthy and had a good attitude.

But, as mascot for 17 years, Mike V was already old for a tiger and the third-oldest Mike yet. None have lived past 19.

Bo Diddley, Bo Diddley have you heard. . . .

Bo Diddley came to town this past week.

Then he had a stroke, as mentioned in an earlier post. So he's still here . . . in the hospital.

Thanks be to God, he's doing much better now, and doctors seem to think that -- with speech therapy -- he'll be able to return to performing. But we came too close to losing another rock / soul / R&B legend, here.

SOOOOOOO . . . how's about we do something novel this week? We're going to celebrate a great artist while he's still around to hear the applause. Bo Diddley, here's to you!

We're going to hear several Diddley delights on The Big Show, and if you listen closely, you'll hear a little bit of Diddley in a lot of the musical lineup. And your Mighty Favog is -- with tongue slightly in cheek -- doing it up in '50s Screamin' Top-40 DJ style.

And, boy, does his imperial throat hurt.

Bo Diddley. Doesn't get much better than that.

Download the show from the player at the top right of the page. Or go here.

Be there. Aloha.

'I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up . . . not me' Not now. Not ever. No way. Never.

What if Peter Pan were a dirty old man?

Well, for one thing, he'd probably be on the radio, talking about "nappy-headed hos" and how he and Captain Hook were going to have some fun (Arrrrrrrrrrrrrr . . . she shiver me timber!) with Condi Rice.

And when some mean old grownup tried to "censor" his "free speech" -- which, by the way, is full of the F-word and glorifies aggravated rape -- he'd just "Think happy thoughts. They lift you into the air."

Or he'd have his Lost Boys throw a collective temper tantrum in protest of the fascist grownups. Whatever.

AYE, IT'S A TALE TO BE TOLD, that's for certain. But it's not J.M. Barrie, it's the Los Angeles Times:

Satellite radio bills itself as the Wild West of the airwaves, an uncensored outpost beyond the reach of federal regulators where expletives fly with impunity and the banter can get as raunchy as at a strip club.

But the decision this week by XM Satellite Radio to suspend shock jocks Opie and Anthony for 30 days for crude sexual comments about First Lady Laura Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Queen Elizabeth II has listeners wondering whether there's a new sheriff in town.

Some XM listeners were outraged — not at the comments but at XM's reaction.

"I signed up for XM because it's uncensored. I like these guys because they are so unfiltered," said Placentia resident Paul Hebert, who canceled his $12.95 monthly XM subscription Tuesday in protest.

He wasn't alone. Hundreds of angry subscribers have flooded XM's operators with calls to cancel since the suspension was announced Tuesday. About 60 listeners smashed their XM receivers Wednesday outside the WFNY-FM studios in New York, where Gregg "Opie" Hughes and Anthony Cumia continued to air their tamer, over-the-air broadcast for CBS Radio.

"The reaction is mind-blowing," said Ryan Saghir of North Branford, Conn., who runs a blog about satellite radio called Orbitcast. "One of the main attractors to satellite radio is the unregulated content. Once you take away that … you're going to have some upset subscribers."

But industry observers said XM might have been more worried about offending federal regulators, who can block the company's proposed merger with its only rival, Sirius Satellite Radio, than staying true to its slogan, "Beyond AM. Beyond FM. XM."

Sensitivities have been heightened in Washington since the controversy over veteran shock jock Don Imus' racially offensive comments about the Rutgers University women's basketball team, which led to his firing last month by CBS Radio.

"It's hard to read anything into it other than that they're catering to federal officials," said William Kidd, a media analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities in Los Angeles.

XM spokesman Nathaniel Brown would not comment on whether the pending merger was a factor in the suspension and would not say how many people had canceled their subscriptions. XM has suspended on-air personalities before, he said, but none with as high a profile as Hughes and Cumia.

(snip)

Satellite radio followers said the suspension was unprecedented. Some XM listeners were stunned and angry when they heard about it.

Ed L. Kelley of Wagoner, Okla., said he spent six hours on the phone Tuesday night trying to cancel. He's talking to an attorney about a class-action suit, saying that because "The Opie & Anthony Show" appears on one of XM's "explicit-language" channels, the company has violated its promise to deliver uncensored content.

"These guys make me laugh and they make fun of everybody equally," Kelley said.

Debbie Wolf, co-founder of People Against Censorship, called the suspension "outrageous" and organized the demonstration outside CBS Radio's studios. Christopher Lewis of Glenmoore, Penn., quickly registered http://www.cancelxm.com , and the message boards there and on other satellite radio sites have filled up with dozens of angry comments.

"I will not support a company that has decided the one true reason they exist no longer matters," wrote one poster on Orbitcast.

IT'S THE NEW AMERICA, don't you see? The land of the Everlasting Adolescent Id. We'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up, not us.

It's my party, and I'll say (expletive deleted) if I want to!

After first reading the Los Angeles Times piece, I called up WFNY radio in New York to see whether I could get some further comment from Opie and Anthony. And whadda you know? I got them on the phone for a minute or so.

Here's a partial transcript:

O&A: Why do you have to spoil everything? We have fun, don't we? I taught you to fly and to fight. What more could there be?

R21: There is so much more.

O&A: What? What else is there?

R21: I don't know. I guess it becomes clearer when you grow up.

O&A: Well, I will not grow up. You can not make me!

WELL, I guess they have me there. I can't make them grow up. For that matter, I can't make their fans grow up, either. Nor can I make anyone who thinks Opie and Anthony's shtick is funny -- or Howard Stern's shtick is funny -- grow up.

Neither I nor anybody else can make Juvenile Nation grow up and do the right thing.

All I can do is say that -- even though perpetual adolescence might be fun for a while, even for an entire nation -- there are consequences. Ultimately, you won't like what those are.

Bad news on the doorstep

IF YOU'RE A MUSIC FAN, you're not going to like what's in your morning paper.

Bo Diddley is in intensive care here in Omaha after suffering a stroke Monday. The Omaha World-Herald has the story:

Bo Diddley let his audience know Saturday night that he wasn't feeling well, but few in attendance at Harrah's Horseshoe Casino would have guessed that the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer would be hospitalized for a stroke the next day.

Susan Clary, a publicist for Diddley's management team, said Wednesday that the 78-year-old musician was listed in guarded condition in the intensive care unit at Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha.

Tests indicate that Diddley - who has a history of hypertension and diabetes - had a stroke that affected the left side of his brain, impairing his speech and speech recognition, Clary said.

Clary said she has no other details on Diddley's condition or how long he would be in intensive care.

In August 2004, the bluesman had a toe amputated in Gainesville, Fla., due to complications from his hypoglycemic condition.

Katie Hansen, a spokeswoman for Harrah's in Council Bluffs [Iowa -- R21], said Diddley performed shows at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Saturday in the Whiskey Roadhouse club.

At one point, she said, Diddley announced from the stage that he wasn't feeling the best and that he had been coughing a lot during the past week. The next morning on the way to the airport, Diddley became ill and was taken to Creighton.

Diddley, with his black glasses and low-slung guitar, has been an icon in the music industry since he topped the R&B charts with "Bo Diddley" in 1955. His other hits include "Who Do You Love," "Before You Accuse Me," "Mona" and "I'm a Man."

Diddley was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 and was given a lifetime achievement Grammy in 1998.

Diddley was born Ellas Bates on Dec. 30, 1928, on a small farm near the town of McComb, Miss.

He moved with his family to the south side of Chicago in the mid-1930s. He studied the violin for 12 years, composing two concertos for the instrument.

For Christmas in 1940, his sister Lucille bought him his first guitar. That's when he acquired the nickname "Bo Diddley" from his fellow high school students.

After more than a decade of playing on street corners and in clubs around Chicago, Diddley recorded "Uncle John" and "I'm a Man" in the spring of 1955. He took the recordings to brothers Leonard and Phil Chess, owners of Chess Records in Chicago.

The two songs were re-recorded and released as a double A-side disc "Bo Diddley"/"I'm a Man" on the Chess Records subsidiary label Checker Records. It went straight to the top of the rhythm-and-blues chart. It was later hailed as one of the most influential debut singles in history and one of the cornerstones of rock music.

ABOVE, YOU'LL SEE a video of Bo Diddley, whose real name is Ellas McDaniel, on The Big T.N.T. Show, a 1966 rock 'n' roll extravaganza that later was turned into a concert film. Watch it, and know that you're seeing a legend in his prime.

Know, too, that Bo Diddley had a lot to do with just about everything you hear on the Revolution 21 podcast.

And do you have faith in God above? Then say a prayer for his speedy -- and full -- recovery.

Man, I dig those rhythm and blues.

CBS bringing Congress to prime-time sked!

This is stunning and encouraging news.

It seems CBS television is taking over operation of C-SPAN -- which has offered live coverage of the U.S. House and Senate, etc., for a quarter century -- and apparently will make public-service broadcasting the mainstay of its network sked.

Finally, sanity reigns in network television, and ordinary Americans will get a prime-time education in How Our Government Works.

Kudos to CBS!

From Variety, the show-biz daily:

CBS is ready to unleash a reality take on "Lord of the Flies," quietly wrapping filming on a new skein in which a group of 8- to 15-year-olds will create their own society.
Tom Forman, showrunner on "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," is behind the 13-episode project, tentatively titled "Kid Nation."

Eye is expected to unveil the show Wednesday at its upfront presentation. It's unclear if "Kids' Nation" will land on the fall sked, but it wouldn't be surprising if it did.

Project was originally pegged for a summer debut but was held for the 2007-08 season after CBS execs became excited about its breakout potential. Eye's other reality staples -- "Survivor" and "Amazing Race" -- have been greenlit for two cycles and one cycle, respectively.

CBS reality guru Ghen Maynard has been feverishly working on nearly two dozen unscripted concepts for the Eye and cousin net the CW.

With "Survivor" and "Amazing Race" both aging, execs at CBS have made finding the next big reality hit a huge priority. Effort begins in earnest later this month with "Pirate Master," premiering on the same date "Survivor" originally bowed.

As for "Kid Nation," skein will follow 40 kids for 40 days, observing them as they attempt to build a new society from scratch.

Rather than surviving on an island, the kiddies relocated to Bonanza City, N.M., a ghost town abandoned more than a century ago. Prodigal children live without parental supervision and modern comforts.

Goal for the kids is to build a functional society. They have to pass laws, choose leaders and build an economy. People familiar with the project said the kids may also be given choices between things they need (food and supplies) and things they want (think Nintendo Wii).

Chill! It's not like they said 'nappy-headed ho.' . . .

Calling African-American basketball players "nappy headed hos": Bad. Very bad. Fire-Don-Imus bad.

Airing vulgar rape fantasy about African-American secretary of state: Not so bad. Just suspending bad.

Or not, if you're CBS Radio.

If the normative American family were run like the normative American broadcast entity, the other nuclear powers of the world would have to obliterate the United States out of sheer self-defense.

Why, you ask?

Because they'd be faced with 300 million sociopaths with zero impulse control. And some of them would have the nuclear launch codes and nothing else to keep them amused. And we have legitimized the concept of preemptive war, you know.

From The New York Times:

XM Radio, the satellite provider, announced yesterday that it had imposed 30-day suspensions on the hosts known as Opie and Anthony after the pair participated in an on-air discussion last Wednesday that imagined sexual assaults on Condoleezza Rice and Laura Bush.

Though the hosts, Gregg Hughes and Anthony Cumia, had read apologies on Friday on their shows on both XM and CBS Radio, XM said in a statement yesterday that subsequent comments they had made “put into question whether they appreciate the seriousness of the matter.”

“The management of XM Radio decided to suspend Opie and Anthony to make clear that our on-air talent must take seriously the responsibility that creative freedom requires of them,” the XM statement said.

CBS Radio broadcasts a different version of “Opie & Anthony” that precedes the XM show, and did not carry the rape discussion. CBS said yesterday that it would broadcast today’s show as scheduled. The hosts’ producer did not respond to a request for comment yesterday afternoon.

AS ONE of my college newspaper editors used to say, "Kill me now!"

Well, at least they didn't damn you to the fires of Hell . . . or did they?

I haven't read Good News, Bad News: Evangelization, Conversion, and The Crisis of Faith, a recent offering from Ignatius Press by a couple of Catholic heavy hitters, Russell Shaw and the Rev. C. John McCloskey III.

There are lots of staggeringly good testimonials for it on the Ignatius website from other Catholic swells -- mostly of the conservative Republican stripe. Folks say Father McCloskey, an Opus Dei priest, is quite the convert-maker.

But from the way Ignatius is marketing the book, you have to wonder whether a) Father has a problem relating to Democrats and Regular Joes, or b) some converts, and their endorsements, are better than others. That's just me, probably. The Original Mr. Non-Conformist Proletarian Guy.

Anyway, like I said, I haven't read the thing. But whatever approach has worked for Shaw and McCloskey, I'll garon-damn-tee you these guys have a better idea.

I'LL BET THE INTERNET MONK, Michael Spencer, would think so, too.

The Southern Baptist preacher and campus minister has read Good News, Bad News. He is not amused, as evidenced by his post on the Boar's Head Tavern blog:

Having read dozens of books on evangelism, I’ve never read anything like this. I’m trying to avoid the words I almost feel compelled to use.

I was frankly stunned with the caricaturing, insulting, shallow portrayals and straw man examples of Protestants that filled this book. I can’t imagine a contemporary mainstream evangelical book that would portray Catholics in such a biased manner. I’m not talking about [Joel Hunter], I mean mainstream Christianity Today evangelicals. This had all the flavor of the anti-catholic propaganda I hear from the ignorant preachers in the mountains. I try to do better and thought I wasn’t alone. Naive me.

This book took me behind the polite veneer and let me hear the real deal. Separated “brethren?” That’s a mild way to put it. Confused. Stubborn. Unspiritual. Unable to think clearly. No serious contribution. Biblio-dolatrous. Empty. Chaotic. Ugly buildings. (I’ll admit that a lot of this is true, but ever looked on the other side of the fence as well? Hello.)

I’d never think of telling my staff here that RC kids that won’t go Protestant are just not “getting it” because they’re just too thick and confused. Well, I should learn a thing or two.

SPENCER POINTED OUT one little detail from the slim volume that told me all I needed to know about where Good News, Bad News registers on the BS-O-Meter, though:

The little tips were good, too. Get ‘em to mass a lot, so they will know what they are missing.

The short theological exegesis of that "helpful tip" is as follows if you live in one of the great majority of Catholic parishes in these United States: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHA! HAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The long version is as follows: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHA! HA! HA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOO HOO HOO HOO!!!! HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE!!!!!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!! HAAAAAAAA!!! GAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!! (Thud.)

Now, I will admit to having gone to, for example, Presbyterian (sorry!) services and telling Mrs. Favog afterward that "There's no there there." But that's because I buy into the whole Catholic thing already.

How can a church service not seem lacking when you believe that, even at the crappiest, most rote, most non-reverent, Haugen-ditty-filled Catholic Mass, you have seen the priest make Jesus Christ -- Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity -- truly present on the altar? When you, despite all the worst modernity has wrought upon my suffering Church, still get to -- as Walker Percy would say -- "eat Christ," doing exactly what Jesus, in John 6, said we must do to have life within us?

LIKE I SAID, I know what I would be missing because I'm already Catholic. I've already signed up for the Roman Life Assurance policy.

Your woebegone Protestant conversion target hasn't yet. Get it?

All your average evangelical probably sees is a lackluster homily, music that's at least as bad as their "praise and worship" stuff, most of the congregation going through the motions -- at best -- and little to no fellowship after all is said and "celebrated."

Such as it is.

THE JOURNEY into Catholicism for many today is a journey precipitated by marriage or a relentlessly seeking intellect homing in on the Original Source Material of Christendom. Both are good things, very good things. Fine reasons to join the Church.

But you'll probably end up frustrated if you're really on fire for Christ. After all, how many converts are touting the vibrance of Catholic parish life or the extraordinary witness of most lay Catholics as being this mysterious, mighty, irresistable riptide that pulled them out into the Living Waters and toward that far bank of the Tiber River?

Until you get acclimated -- and I really don't know whether acclimated is a good thing or not -- the serious convert barely may be restraining himself from jumping atop the pew (and be careful about this if you're in a parish with chair-pews or movable pews) and screaming at his fellow parishioners.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THE MATTER WITH YOU PEOPLE!?! Don't you realize the riches this Church possesses? Don't you know that's JESUS on the altar there? And with 2,000 years of Gregorian and Byzantine chant, and hundreds of years of classical hymnody, WHY ARE YOU SINGING THIS ST. LOUIS JESUITS S***?????

"Oh . . . pardon my French, Lord. Please forgive me." (Slinks silently out of the sanctuary as people stare and Father shakes his head.)

ON THE OTHER HAND, I quite literally have been brought to tears of joy by the Holy Spirit at the most humble of Masses, liturgies unremarkable except for the humility and love with which they were celebrated.

On one occasion -- it was on the road, in the cathedral in Jackson, Miss. -- the Spirit, I am convinced, used just such a liturgy to let me endure, by unceasingly praying for my accuser, what I absolutely, positively know I could not have withstood through my own strength or will. At least not in a spirit of prayer, and not without unleashing a verbal hell on earth toward the other party.

Who happened to be my dying father.

But the Lord does what He will, where He will, when He will.

SWERVING BACK toward the subject of this post, I think what so rankled Michael Spencer in his reading of Good News, Bad News is an ugly encounter with bad, old-fashioned Catholic Triumphalism. In other words, it's the Holy Roman version of the invective a lot of Reformed and evangelical types like to sling at us devotees of Popery.

Obviously, Shaw and McCloskey never got the memo about two wrongs not making a right.

The Internet Monk continues in his post:

The section on Episcopalians and Evangelicals was worth the price of admission. ECUSA is just destroying themselves with heresy. We knew that. But evangelicals? What a zany bunch of Bible thumpers we’ve got there. Not a systematic, serious theology in sight.

I know this is preaching to the choir, but all this needed were jokes and funny faces right in the margin.

How do you deal with a family member whose Protestant family doesn’t want them to convert? “….so what?”

So what? What if it’s my FAMILY and my MARRIAGE that you’re dividing? “So What?”

WHAT CAN I SAY? Spencer is right. He's right, and -- going by Spencer's account -- "my side" is shockingly, insensitively wrong, wrong, wrong. You'd think that adult Christians with at least a drop of empathy could do better than that.

A divided marriage, a divided family is no trifling thing. It is serious, gravely serious, and people can get hurt. Badly.

Ask a friend of mine who became disenchanted with the Southern Baptist faith she was reared in. She became interested in Catholicism in college, hit some major speed bumps along the road of life, then -- still drawn toward the Catholic faith -- ended up taking instruction and converting.

On the eve of her confirmation, her father sat her down and gravely, sadly told her she was damning herself to Hell. Talk about your major buzz-kills.

A couple of years later, when she married another Catholic, her parents attended the wedding (which, out of deference, they decided to make a simple service and not a Mass) but absolutely, positively refused to take wedding photos anywhere near the altar.

Nor did they attend either of their granddaughters' baptisms. There's no intrafamilial religious cleansing going on -- no harsh words or infighting, per se -- but it's a detente, not a full blown outbreak of peace and harmony.

"So what?" indeed.

I would never tell anyone to turn away from what one's conscience tells him (or her) is true. Or The Truth, to be exact. But there's a hell of a lot more to it that a shrug and a blithe "So what?"

YEP, I'M A CATHOLIC, and I believe the following without reservation -- the Southern Baptist preacher is right. My side is nowhere NEAR schmuck-free. Not even in the same zip code as schmuck-resistant, even.

I'll probably be burned as a heretic by all the Catholic True Believers now. Even though I are one, just without the italics and capital letters.

Oy veh.

***

P.S.: If I were Ignatius Press, I'd be thinking twice about the testimonial by the Rev. Peter Stravinskas, who came to Omaha for a while, got himself embroiled in a great big s***storm (involving a police probe) then just disappeared one day . . . along with the controversy. Inquiring minds want to know. You know?

Yeah, reason for triumphalism abounds.

Paris. Boil. Butt. Humanity.

One thing I do regret is that Jerry Falwell did not live long enough to kick the ass of this snobby, spoiled little B-I-itch.

Paris Hilton needs Jesus. Well, she needed better parents to start off with, but now what she really needs is Jesus.

Before she's "in a good place" for the Holy Spirit to do that voodoo that He do, however, someone is just going to have to kick her ass, because right now she's acting like nothing more than a boil on the collective buttocks of the human race. From The Daily Mail of London:

Just when she thought things couldn't possibly get any worse, pictures have surfaced of Paris Hilton surreptitiously smoking cannabis.

The 26-year-old heiress was photographed allegedly smoking a joint while backstage at last month's Coachella music festival.

Paris attended the event with a group of pals weeks before her court hearing, but clearly wasn't concerned about keeping out of trouble ahead of the case.

Hilton now faces a 45-day jail term for for driving while her licence was suspended.

As it stands, Hilton - who has appealed to the Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger for a pardon via an online petition - is scheduled to be admitted to jail on June 5.

The online Free Paris Hilton petition has gathered more than 25,000 signatures - but unfortunately for the reality TV star, a rival campaign, Jail Paris Hilton, is twice as popular, with more than 60,000 supporters.

Hilton can expect tough conditions at LA's Century Regional Detention Center where is set to serve her time.

Her cell will be approximately 12 feet by 8 feet and feature very basic amenities such as a sink, toilet and mirror.

According to reports, inmates are forbidden from wearing makeup and hair extensions, and are allowed only two pairs of socks and underpants.

PERSONALLY, what with a disjointed Paris flipping her lid all over Creation, I was rooting for the Joe Arpaio 12-Step Program to straighten that girl out, but good. Alas, it isn't to be.

Damn.

Jerry Falwell, RIP

The great tragedy of the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who died today at 73, is that he lived to see his "Moral Majority" rode hard and put away wet by the Republican politicians with whom he cast his lot -- and evangelicals' lot.

Apart from a hard lesson in politics and the Law of Unintended Consequences that all of us religious and social conservatives have been learning in this new millennium, I can only fault Falwell over matters of style and focus, not real meat-and-potatoes substance. Come to think of it . . . make that one big thing about which I can hit the late reverend.

He was so totally wrong about rock 'n' roll. It ain't the music that's the problem, it's what you do with it that can be the problem.

You probably can figure out the matters of style and focus where I differed with Preacher Falwell, and I've talked about the perils of trying to sanctify politics here. I'm not going to dwell on it now, and I have no desire to add to the postmortem trashing this basically good man now is going to get from basically classless ones.

I have no doubt that Jerry Falwell loved the Lord and did his best. That's pretty much all any one of us can do in a lifetime in this vale of tears, and I commend his soul to a merciful God.

Er . . . then again, maybe not

"I'm going to run a terrific campaign today!

And I'm gonna help people! Because

I'm good enough, I'm smart enough,

and, doggone it, people like me!"

SO FAR, Minnesota voters answering pollsters' questions are not giving TV-comic-turned-U.S.-Senate-candidate Al Franken his Daily Affirmation.

From Minnesota Public Radio:

St. Paul, Minn. — Fewer than half of the people interviewed in the MPR polls last week -- 48 percent -- said they think Norm Coleman is doing a "good" or "excellent" job as Minnesota's U.S. senator. Additionally just 43 percent of the respondents had a favorable opinion of Coleman a quarter of have an unfavorable opinion.

Moorhead State University political science professor Barbara Headrick says the numbers confirm what Democrats and political analysts have been claiming: Coleman is vunerable going into his campaign for a second term in the Senate.

"Any incumbent who's below 50 percent should see himself or herself as in trouble," according to Headrick.

In January 2004, Coleman enjoyed a 52 percent "good" or "excellent" job-performance rating. Voters' favorable opinions of Coleman have also slipped over the past three years.

Mason Dixon Polling and Research conducted the latest poll. They interviewed 625 registered voters last week. Their results have a 4 percentage point margin of error.

Brad Coker, who directs Mason-Dixon, says Coleman's drop may have more to do with national politics than with Coleman himself.

"I suspect that has a lot to do with the fact that Republicans have fallen out of favor nationally across the board over the last couple of years due to the Bush administration's problems in Iraq and elsewhere," Coker said.

Following a speech at the University of Minnesota on Monday, Sen. Coleman talked about the new poll and didn't dispute the numbers.

"It's a tough political environment," he said. "I'm just going to concentrate on doing my job. You know, one month that number is at 53 percent, then at 48, so I really don't worry about the numbers and what I worry about is whether I am getting things done for Minnesotans and I hope they see that."

While Coleman says he doesn't worry too much about poll numbers, he liked questions in the MPR poll about how he would fair in head-to-head match-ups against Mike Ciresi or Al Franken if the election were held today.

Ciresi and Franken are the two Democrats hoping to run against Coleman next fall.

According to the poll, Coleman would beat either by a comfortable margin.

Matched up again Franken, Coleman would win 54 to 32 percent. Against Ciresi, he would win 52 to 29 percent.

While Coleman is struggling with popularity, his negative ratings are well below those of Al Franken. According to the poll, nearly 8 of 10 Minnesotans know who Franken is and, of them, nearly a third have an unfavorable opinion of him.

"I think Al Franken starts out with baggage," said University of Minnesota political scientist Lawrence Jacobs. "There's no doubt that his past career as a comedian is dogging him a bit."

ON THE OTHER HAND, Al Franken does have one thing going for him, as addressed by the story: By late 2008, George Bush is sure to make the GOP even more wildly unpopular than it is now.

So, doggone it, there's always hope. Even for washed-up comedians.