ON THE LIGHTER-THAN-AIR SIDE:
Some Very Funny Air Traffic Controller Vignettes

Courtesy of Molly's Musings, in honor of the late Robert ("The Untouchables") Stack for his very funny performance as an air traffic controller in the classic spoof Airplane!. Stack died last week at the age of 84.

Here's a sample story from Molly's blog:

A Pan Am 727 flight engineer waiting for start clearance in Munich overheard the following:

Lufthansa (in German): "Ground, what is our start clearance time?"

Ground (in English): "If you want an answer you must speak English."

Lufthansa (in English): "I am a German, flying a German airplane, in Germany. Why must I speak English?"

Unknown voice (in a beautiful British accent): "Because you lost the bloody war!"

IN TEXAS, THEY HAVE THE RIGHT IDEA:
Legislators Flee Lone Star State to Avoid Vote

According to the Associated Press, 51 Democrat legislators from the Texas House of Representatives are holed up across the border in Ardmore, Oklahoma in order to prevent a quorum from being formed to vote on a Republican-sponsored redistricting bill they disagree with.

In order to vote on the bill before the House's Thursday night deadline, after which the bill must be scrapped, the House Republicans need the presence of their Democratic colleagues, who decided to flee the state rather than fight a battle they knew they’d lose. Instead, the Democrats intend to stay in Oklahoma until Friday morning, long oast House’s deadline:

Republicans castigated their absent colleagues for the growing heaps of bills in jeopardy of not being passed.

"We want our colleagues back," Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who presides over the Senate, told reporters before the GOP House members convened Wednesday. He said lawmakers are only days away from completing "a historically successful session'' that will balance the state's budget without a tax bill, despite a $9.9 billion shortfall.

The House Republicans quickly adjourned to move into committee hearings, which are allowed without a House quorum as long as a majority of a committee is present.

Despite the work stoppage, Republicans remain focused on legislative business, said Gov. Rick Perry.

…Texas already has a court-drawn redistricting map, but Republicans say it doesn't reflect state voting trends and want to redo it. Their plan could add five to seven GOP House seats to the 15 the Republicans already have.

From their motel in Ardmore, Okla., the Democrats blamed U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay for the shutdown of the Texas House of Representatives.

"We have a message for Tom DeLay: Don't mess with Texas,'' said House Democratic Legislative Caucus leader Jim Dunnam. "We did not choose the path that led us to Ardmore, Okla. Tom DeLay chose that path.''

In Washington, DeLay mocked the Democratic legislators. "I have never turned tail and run,'' DeLay said. "Even when I'm losing, I stand and fight for what I believe.''...

[On a historical note, in 1988 then-U. S. Senate Majority leader Robert Byrd (D–W.Va) needed a quorum, but didn’t have enough willing members on hand to fill it. So he sent the Senate’s Sargeant-at-Arms, accompanied by the Capitol Police to every Senator’s office on the Hill to “persuade” the absent Senators to join him on the floor. One Senator, Robert Packwood (R-Ill.), locked his office door and refused to come out. When the police tried to force the door open, Packwood pushed against them but was overwhelmed in short order. He was taken out feet first and carried to the Senate Chamber.]

PRESIDENT HAS AFFAIR WITH INTERN:
No, We Don't Mean Bill Clinton....

...We mean none other than Bill Clinton's idol and role model, John F. Kennedy, known affectionately to the White House Press Corps during his administration as "Jack the Zipper." According to a story from the Associated Press today, it seems that JFK had an affair with a 19-year-old White House intern:

...''She had no skills. She could answer the phone,'' Robert Dallek, author of ''An Unfinished Life,'' told ''Dateline NBC'' in an interview that aired Sunday. ''Apparently, her only skill was to provide sexual release for JFK on those trips and maybe in the White House.''

Dallek learned of the affair from a White House aide, Barbara Gamarekian, whose oral history was recently unsealed. Gamarekian told the Daily News that she remembers only the young intern's first name, which she refused to reveal.

...Kennedy is known to have had numerous extramarital liaisons, but this is the first report of an affair with an intern. ''There were lots of women,'' Dallek, whose book comes out Tuesday, told the newspaper. ''The real question is: Did it distract him from his job as president? I think it really didn't.''

Like in the Bay of Pigs fiasco, for example? Yeah, right.

ON RICK SANTORUM:
He's No Trent Lott

One of the most irritating things about Rick Santorum's treatment by the media and pro-gay liberals is the constant comparison of Santorum's views on sexuality to Trent Lott's boneheaded condoning of the racist Dixiecrats back in the 50s and 60s.

Liberals both inside and outside the media know full well that unlike Trott's sympathy for Strom Thurmond's presidential run as a segregationist, Santorum's very nuanced and very tolerant views regarding sexual orientations reflect those of the vast majority of Americans.

So when they attack Santorum as a "bigot," they attack all of us as "bigots."

SHE FOUGHT "TO THE DEATH":
Rescued POW Jessica Lynch Did Not Want to Be Taken Alive, Army Says

Today's Washington Post reports that the recently rescued POW, 19-year-old Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch, continued fighting the Iraqi soldiers who ambushed her unit, Army 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company, even after receiving several gunshot wounds and three broken limbs. And when she was finally subdued and captured, she was stabbed in the process. But she had already taken out two Iraqi soldiers:

"She was fighting to the death," [an Army] official said. "She did not want to be taken alive."

...Several officials cautioned that the precise sequence of events is still being determined, and that further information will emerge as Lynch is debriefed. Reports thus far are based on battlefield intelligence, they said, which comes from monitored communications and from Iraqi sources in Nasiriyah whose reliability has yet to be assessed. Pentagon officials said they had heard "rumors" of Lynch's heroics but had no confirmation.

...Lynch, of Palestine, W.Va., arrived yesterday at a U.S. military hospital in Germany. She was in "stable" condition, with broken arms and a broken leg in addition to the gunshot and stab wounds, sources said. Other sources said both legs and one arm were broken. Victoria Clarke, a Pentagon spokeswoman, gave no specifics of Lynch's condition, telling reporters only that she is "in good spirits and being treated for injuries."

But one military officer briefed on her condition said that while Lynch was conscious and able to communicate with the U.S. commandos who rescued her, "she was pretty messed up." Last night Lynch spoke by telephone with her parents, who said she was in good spirits, but hungry and in pain.

"Talk about spunk!" said Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), whom military officials had briefed on the rescue. "She just persevered. It takes that and a tremendous faith that your country is going to come and get you."

One Army official said that it could be some time before Lynch is reunited with her family, since experience with those taken prisoner since the Vietnam War indicates that soldiers held in captivity need time to "decompress" and reflect on their ordeal with the help of medical professionals.

"It's real important to have decompression time before they get back with their families to assure them that they served their country honorably," the official said. "She'll meet with Survival, Escape, Resistance and Evasion psychologists. These are medical experts in dealing with this type of things."

...One intriguing account of Lynch's captivity came from an unidentified Iraqi pharmacist at Saddam Hussein Hospital who told Sky News, a British network, that he had cared for her and heard her crying about wanting to be reunited with her family.

In other news, the Governor Bob Wise of Pfc. Lynch's home state of West Virginia has announced that the state government will "see that she becomes" the kindergarten teacher she wants to become by paying for her college education at any West Virginia public college or university of her choosing.

We salute this brave young woman, and all our troops in the war against Saddam, and wish her the very best of God's blessings.

WHERE'S SADDAM???
Two Weeks and Counting, Still No Hussein

Since the war in Iraq began just a fortnight ago, the coalition forces have subdued over half of Iraq and destroyed half of its military and paramilitary leverage. During that period of day-and-night bombing and missile attacks, Saddam's key government buildings and military installations have been reduced to rubble.

Yet the Iraqi government, apparently in a near-psychotic state of denial, insists to its television and radio public that it is "winning" the war. But at no time during these past two weeks has Saddam shown his face in public to assure his followers that he is still in full control. much less to personally intimidate the Iraqi people into refraining from joining the allies against him.

The only high-profile Iraqi official these days seems to be the Minister of Information, who, when he's not issuing threats if suicide bombings against the coalition soldiers and marines, insists that Saddam is still alive and well. In our opinion, if he really was, he'd have shown his face by now.

THE COUNTDOWN BEGINS:
5 Hours to G-Day

All indications are that the ever-defiant Saddam Hussein will not take up President Bush's invitation to "get out of town," at least not by 8:00 pm EST tonite. Thus the 300,000 US, UK, and Australian troops and 1,000 warplanes amassed at his borders are now on the move.

Associated Press reporter David Crary relates the following details (Fair Use extracts in blue text; emphases via underlines added):

(March 19) -- Hours before the deadline set by President Bush, Saddam Hussein gave no sign of yielding, and long columns of U.S. armored vehicles moved through swirling Kuwaiti sandstorms Wednesday toward Iraq's border.

In Baghdad, fortified by trenches and sandbags, streets were quieter than usual, with light traffic and some shops shuttered. Saddam ordered residents to stack wood and oil barrels to be set afire in hopes of concealing targets from bombardment.

Iraq's rubber-stamp parliament, at a special session, rejected the U.S. ultimatum and reaffirmed support for Saddam. The idea that he would flee into exile ''is absolutely unthinkable,'' said Speaker Saadoon Hammadi.

Just across Iraq's southern border, U.S. and British troops piled ammunition and combat gear into fighting vehicles and broke camp, ready to invade on short notice. One major deployment involved the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division - its 20,000 soldiers and thousands of vehicles were ordered to positions close to the border.

...''We are one day closer to making history,'' Col. Michael Linnington, commander of the 101st Airborne Division's 3rd Brigade, told his officers at a briefing Wednesday morning.

...Though U.S. defense officials hope for a quick victory, with minimal casualties on both sides, they raised the possibility that Iraq would use chemical weapons. Pentagon officials said intelligence reports suggest Saddam has given field commanders authority to use such weapons.

The top American general in Kuwait, Lt. Gen. David D. McKiernan, warned against any such tactics. ''It would be a hugely bad choice on the part of any Iraqi leader or commander to employ chemical weapons,'' he said.

Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said he does not believe Saddam's government would use chemical or biological weapons even as a last resort because it would turn world opinion in favor of the United States. ''Some people care about their reputation even after death,'' Blix said.

Interestingly enough, Blix does not mention that as recently as the past few months Saddam has been telling the UN Security Council and its weapons inspectors in Iraq that he does not possession chemical or biological weapons.

Obviously, as has now been established, Saddam had been lying all along. Yet Bush's critics, especially in the Democratic Party, continue on their self-deluding merry way as if nothing has changed:

....Some determined opponents of the war - including a group of black members of Congress - refused to abandon hopes for a diplomatic settlement.

''We are making one last plea not only on behalf of ourselves but on behalf of millions of people throughout our country, millions of people throughout our world,'' said Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif.

Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said black lawmakers had asked to meet with Bush but were rebuffed....

WINDS OF CHANGE IN IRAQ:
And Whirlwinds of Defeat for Saddam

Before this week is out the disarming of Saddam and the liberation of the Iraqi people by the coalition forces of the US, UK, and others will begin. In yesterday's edition of his End of Day e-newsletter, Gary Bauer of the Family Research Council notes that in recent days the Iraqis themselves have been protesting against Saddam despite the oppression and violence they face for doing so. He writes:

Hussein In The Crosshairs

Events are now swiftly moving toward war. The Azores "summit" resulted in the allies giving "diplomacy" one more day, but even one more month would not have mattered. France again made it clear they would veto any U.N. resolution that contained an ultimatum and without an ultimatum there is no chance Hussein would ever cooperate.

Now comes word that President Bush will address the nation tonight at 8:00 pm after briefing congressional leaders. Rumors swirling through Washington suggest that he will give Hussein 48 to 72 hours to leave Iraq. But even before the President's speech, an Iraqi spokesman said Hussein will not leave and that the only thing that will avert war is for President Bush to resign!

Meanwhile, U.S. intelligence is picking up signs that the chemical weapons Iraq doesn't have, that Blix couldn't find, and that the French insist don't matter, are being distributed to Republican Guard units around Baghdad. Speaking of Blix, he is planning on leaving Iraq tomorrow and will soon be replaced by 225,000 G.I. inspectors who have a bit more passion for the job than the U.N. bureaucrat has shown in the last six months. In fact, very soon Blix, Kofi Annan, Jacques Chirac and the peace demonstrators will be taking a backseat in the news to the bunch of kids from Everytown, U.S.A., who will, once again, liberate - not conquer - and make us all proud.

Cracks In Iraq

Reports are beginning to leak out of Iraq about what is going on there as liberation nears. Twenty thousand demonstrators in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk marched demanding Hussein's overthrow. There are reports of sabotage all over the country. Posters of Hussein are being vandalized. Last weekend a demonstration against Hussein by Iraqi Shiite Muslims was brutally suppressed. In short, freedom is in the air in Iraq. If I were Jacques Chirac, I would vacate my Iraqi embassy now.

ANOTHER GREAT IRISH SAINT:
Maybe Patrick Drove Out the Snakes, But....

...according to beer writers Steve Frank and Arnold Meltzer Ireland's own St. Brigid (457-525 AD) turned water --including dirty bath water-- into fine ale:

Probably the best known Irish saint after Patrick is Saint Brigid (b. 457, d. 525). Known as "the Mary of the Gael," Brigid founded the monastery of Kildare and was known for spirituality, charity, and compassion. St. Brigid also was a generous, beer-loving woman. She worked in a leper colony which found itself without beer, "For when the lepers she nursed implored her for beer, and there was none to be had, she changed the water, which was used for the bath, into an excellent beer, by the sheer strength of her blessing and dealt it out to the thirsty in plenty." Brigid is said to have changed her dirty bathwater into beer so that visiting clerics would have something to drink. Obviously this trait would endear her to many a beer lover. She also is reputed to have supplied beer out of one barrel to eighteen churches, which sufficed from Maundy Thursday to the end of paschal time. A poem attributed to Brigid in the Brussels library begins with the lines "I should like a great lake of ale, for the King of the Kings. I should like the family of Heaven to be drinking it through time eternal."

Unfortunately, we're not told what the Ph levels were in the water, nor what kinds of hops St. Brigid used, nor whether or not she employed a single or double decoction. But we trust the resulting brew was at least as good as Guinness.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

-----------

FOR THOSE OF IRISH DESCENT....
...And Those Who Wish They Were

Here are some links to Irish folk songs and other goodies:

Irish Songs Music, Lyrics and Midis for Traditional, Drinking and Folk
Songs

Irish Folk Songs

Ireland 20,000 Volkslieder, German and other Folksongs

Traditional Irish Songs

Irish Folksongs. Airs, Ballads, Ditties, Folksongs, Hymns, Jigs, and Reels of Ireland

Irish Songs and Stories

MAYBE WE SHOULD SPELL IT "M-O-R-O-N"
Northern Virginia's Resident Dolt Places Foot in Mouth Once More

In a Q&A session with a group of local anti-war protesters this week, liberal U.S. Congressman James Moran (D-VA) has raised the ired of the Jewish community with his looney "observation" that were it not for "Jewish influence," the Bush administration would not be set upon waging war against Iraq in the near future. His comments came as part of a response to a protester who identified himself as a Jew and asked Moran what could be done to stop the march to a second Persian Gulf war.

This is just another in a long, long line of dumb and dumber things popped off over the years by the Rep. Moran, who reminds us of something Dorothy Parker once said way back in the 1930s to a particularly air-headed New York City socialite who seemed unable to resist the temptation of making a public jackass out of herself in a similar manner:

"Madam, is there any thought in your head you've left unsaid?"

GOOD NEWS FROM UTAH:
Abducted Kid Found Alive and Well!

Back in June of this past year, 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped at gunpoint from her home in Salt Lake, Utah. The authorities search for weeks, but weeks turned into months as clues became scarcer and the abductor's trail grew colder.

Eventually everyone gave up --except her friends and family, who kept the pressure on the police and Elizabeth's name and face in the media. Their patience and persistence paid off when Elizabeth and her abductor were spotted this week by two alert citizens, who alerted the police. Now Elizabeth is back with her family.

As most of us know, most kids taken by strangers almost never turn up, much less turn up alive. Happily, this was a joyful exception. Praise God!

For more info on the heartbreaking issue of child abduction and missing children as well as the campaign to pass a national Amber Alert law, go to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children web site.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

"At the center of the universe is a loving heart that continues to beat and that wants the best for every person. Anything we can do to help foster the intellect and spirit and emotional growth of our fellow human beings, that is our job. Those of us who have this particular vision must continue against all odds. Life is for service." --Fred Rogers

GOOD-BYE, GOOD NEIGHBOR:
It's a Sad Day in the Neighborhood

"When I think about heaven, it is a state in which we are so greatly loved that there is no fear and doubt and disillusionment and anxiety. It is where people really do look at you with those eyes of Jesus." --Fred Rogers

Fred McFeely Rogers, the host of public t.v.'s children's progam "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," who for 30 years practically turned kind-and-gentle into an art form, passed away today after a bout with stomach cancer. He was 74.

In 1968, Rogers, an openly avid Christian and an ordained Presbyterian minister who was greatly influenced by Catholic contemplative theologian and psychologist Fr. Henri Nouwen while studying early child development at the University of Pittsburgh, wanted to use television to encourage pre-school children to love themselves and others. His goal was to inspire in them the virtues of selflessness, tolerance, and respect for everyone around them in order to help them grow into happy and well-adjusted community-and-family-oriented adults. To that end, he composed and sang simple songs and created colorful puppet characters for the often funny scripts he wrote, stories and dialogues which usually included lessons about sharing, or honesty, or patience, or dealing with fear or anger.

During the Persian Gulf War, Rogers assured his young audience that "all children shall be well taken care of" and asked their parents to repeatedly tell them that they would always be safe. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Rogers recorded public service announcements telling parents how to help their children deal with the attacks. He also advised parents against letting young children watch replays of the attacks because, he noted, "they might think it's happening at that moment."

Throughout his career, Rogers, by all accounts a naturally soft-spoken and gentle man, made a point of being himself both on screen and off. His soothing voice and kindly demeanor made him such a hit with the youngsters who watched him that most remained fans as adults with young children of their own.

Fred Rogers had a very positive influence on millions of children since 1968, many of whom are now loving and committed parents. Few have left better legacies than that.

Thanks, Mister Rogers. You were special just the way you were.

NOTES:

To read more about Fred Rogers' life and career, go to this page at his Family Communications web site.

In its March 6, 2002 issue, Christianity Today published its cover story on Fred Rogers and how he communicated his faith and Christian values through his t.v. show.

See also Focus on the Family's tribute to Fred Rogers.

THE ULTIMATE C.Y.A. MANUEVER?
Missouri Prosecutors Favor Executing the [Potentially] Innocent

From today's New York Times and Kansas City Star comes a story on what can only be called "The Ultimate Cover-Your-Ass[ets] Maneuver" proposed by some in the legal system.

According to the Times and the Star, the following exchange took place in the Missouri Supreme Court between the judges and a prosecutor attempting to block an appeal by a death row inmate to have his case re-opened based on new evidence which had surfaced long after his conviction:

Judge Laura Denvir Stith: "Are you suggesting [that] even if we find Mr. Amrine is actually innocent, he should be executed?"

Assistant State Attorney General Frank A. Jung: "That's correct, your honor."

Judge Ronnie White: "So you would put an innocent man to death as long as he got a fair trial."

According to the Star, Jung replied that

...[T]he remedy in such a case is the governor, who has the power to pardon. The Supreme Court, however, has adopted the proposition that innocence should be considered only if a constitutional violation has occurred, [Jung] said.

Judge Michael Wolff, however, questioned how the courts could allow a wrong decision to stand. He mused that such a policy would require the courts to depend for a just outcome on a political decision by the governor, who is not obligated to issue such a pardon.

The Times article goes on to say that state prosecutors and attorneys general are becoming increasingly resistant to allowing those facing execution to try to vindicate themselves based on DNA testing and other newly discovered evidence or potential evidence once the standard appeals deadlines have passed:

While death row inmates have always peppered the courts with legal filings, the recent wave of death row exonerations, based on DNA and other evidence, has inspired more defense lawyers and academics to seek to reopen death penalty cases in a sustained and vigorous way.

Courts are beginning to express concern that they may be parties to the occasional miscarriage of justice. Gov. George Ryan's commutations of the death sentences of all 164 prisoners on death row in Illinois focused public attention on the issues of wrongful convictions and flaws in the capital justice system.

Jeremiah W. Nixon, Missouri's attorney general, said Mr. Jung's response to Judge Stith was a legally correct answer to an inflammatory hypothetical question. The point Mr. Jung was trying to make, he said, is that there must come a time when cases can be closed.

"Is the state required to prove every day that someone committed an offense beyond a reasonable doubt?" Mr. Nixon asked.

Well, yes --if new reasonable doubt arises as the result of covering grounds which had not been covered before. Damned right! After all, the last time we looked the proper role of American jurisprudence is to protect the innocent and punish the guilty, not the other way around. (Unless, of course, one is an ACLU lawyer; but we digress...)

Nevertheless, Messr.s Nixon and Jung "argue" that the legal system should not be so terribly inconvenienced by such petty matters as life and death. After all, they seem to say, isn't it more important to stay on schedule? As well as save the courts all that extra time and work? But we suspect that there's another more "important" reason for such adamant quasi-bureaucratic insistence upon adhering to deadlines and procedures:

As we all know, state prosecutors make their careers and reputations on the quality of their track records in court: The more conviction notches you can put on your belt, the better are your chances for becoming Mayor, or Governor, or Senator. Or being named United States Attorney General by the next President. Or being recruited by a high-profile New York City law firm.

On the other hand, the more of those whom you've prosecuted manage to get their convictions overturned, the more likely you'll end up becoming a law clerk in Moose Knee, Montana.

SAD NEWS FROM NORTH CAROLINA
17-Year-Old Jesica Santillon Dies; Victim of Botched Transplant Operation

For those of us who have been following this story, this is a sad day indeed. (Lord Jesus, bring this dear child into your Kingdom and send your comforting love and peace to the grieving family she left behind. Amen.)

One of the most astonishing aspects of this story is the reaction of some to the fact that young Jesica was the child of illegal aliens, who came to this country specifically for the purpose of helping their daughter, who had been born with a defective heart. These cold-hearted naysayers "argue" that Jesica had no "right" to the surgeries she received in the US because she and her parents weren't American citizens. Never mind that her medical treatment was funded by private donations, NOT taxpayers' money.

Pathetic.

OF PROTESTING THAT OTHER WAR:
"Peace In Middle Earth In Our Time"

An especially witty piece of satire written by blogger and Lord of the Rings fan Domenico Bettinelli opens thusly:

MINAS TIRITH (Gondor News Network) - Thousands of peace activists took to the streets of Minas Tirith and other cities of Middle Earth today to protest what they termed a rush to war with Mordor.

“We need more time for diplomacy,” said a key member of the Middle-Earth Security Council, Saruman the White. “I am not convinced by the evidence presented by my esteemed colleague, Gandalf the Grey, or that the Dark Lord Sauron presents an imminent danger to the peoples of the West.”....

Go HERE to read the rest of this fine piece.

OF IMMATERIAL "PEACE" PROTESTING:
Madonna Expresses Herself On Iraq and War

Long before President Bush made clear his determination to oust Saddam Hussein, the Hollywood glitterati --who tend to be liberal Democrats-- have been on the anti-Bush bandwagon. Their long-held antipathy for Dubya is now dressed up as "concern" for "peace" and "the Iraqi people."

Never mind that the Iraqi people have known no peace under Saddam during his entire 25-year regime. He started the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980's, which dragged on for years at the cost of millions of Iraqi lives. Never mind that he has imprisoned, tortured, and murdered tens of thousands of Iraqis who've expressed the least degree of disagreement with him, and has waged war on minority ethnic groups such as the Kurds. And never mind that he has used his own people, by the hundreds and thousands, as guinea pigs for his chemical and biological weapons.

Not to be left out of the Hollywood "peace" chorus is none other than the Material Girl herself, Madonna. It seems Madonna has been working on a controversial music video based on her new anti-war song "American Life." The video opens at a fashion show but "escalates into a mad frenzy depicting the catastrophic repercussions and horror of war," says Madonna spokesperson Liz Rosenberg.

However, numerous early reports claim it also includes alarming film clips of dead Iraqi soldiers and body parts --reports Madonna categorically denies. Moreover, Madonna asserts, "I feel lucky to be an American citizen for many reasons, one of which is the right to express myself freely." She added, "I am not anti-Bush. I am not pro-Iraq. I am pro-peace. I have written a song and created a video which expresses my feelings about our culture and values and illusions of what many people believe is the American dream -- the perfect life."

Of course, it's as much Madonna's right as anyone else's to express her views about Iraq or any other issue. No one would gainsay that. (In fact, we hope she'll add a blog to her web site for that very purpose.) Her liberalism aside, Madonna is one of the more insightful and intelligent (and, surprisingly enough, more intellectual) folks in show biz, as her 1994 Esquire interview by Norman Mailer demonstrated. Despite some monumental imbecilities --that silly Sex book, for example-- Madonna's no dummy. Too bad she tends to squander her keen intellect on cultural shallowness and inane causes.

The same question which applies to most celebrities-turned-political-pundits, who seem to live under the delusion that their fame and expertise in show business somehow makes them foreign policy experts, applies to Madonna as well (your humble servant is an Equal Opportunity Curmudgeon, after all): Namely, who cares what she thinks about Iraq or Sadam or any issue other than the sorry state of entertainment, the music industry, and popular culture in general? Like most big-name entertainers making a big to-do about Iraq these days, what Madonna knows about foreign affairs most likely wouldn't fill a thimble; except, perhaps, what she knows about the ones she's had herself.

What Madonna and other Hollywood naysayers need to remember and to keep in mind is that what has been required of Saddam today by both the US and the UN --namely, the dismantling of and cessation of development of WMDs-- was required of him 12 years ago as part of the terms for ending the Persian Gulf War without taking Baghdad and ousting him. Thus the proposed use of force against Saddam in response to 12 years of proven defiance and deception is more an act of finishing the last war than starting a new one. Therefore, if military action is taken against Saddam the responsibility for any and all innocent civilian casualties among the Iraqis falls squarely on Saddam's shoulders and no one else's.

SNOWBOUND IN BABYLON-ON-THE-POTOMAC
"It Ain't a Fit Day Out for Man or Beast" --W. C. Fields

The big news here in the DC area since Friday the 14th has been Saturday, Sunday, and Monday the 15th, 16th, and 17th. To be more precise, the nearly two feet of snow dumped on us since Saturday nite, a storm which didn't end until this afternoon.

Just about everything is closed here, including the Fed, until Wednesday at the earliest. Meanwhile both private citizen and public servant strive to dig us out of this. (One can hear laughter regaling from the upper Midwest and the snow belt around the Great Lakes. To those blizzard veterans, we poor benighted DC area folk are snow wimps: This is but a "flurry" to them.) But we're slowly digging out, and things'll be back to normal in a jiffy.

Or at least what passes for normal in Washington.

QUOTES OF THE WEEK
On France & Germany's Reaction to the USA vs Saddam

"Luckily, France and Germany still say they are still our allies. You know, the same way Bill and Hillary are husband and wife." --Jay Leno

"Did you all see Colin Powell speaking with the U.N.? He was very persuasive, but still some folks want more evidence. France wants to see more evidence. Well, hell, I was thinking the last time France wanted to see more evidence it rolled into Paris with a German flag." --David Letterman

"Going to war without France is like going deer-hunting without an accordian." --Jed Babbin, former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense

WHAT A SLOW NEWS DAY!....
...We Think We'll Go Squirrel-Fishing

Um, wait a minute. That's what our Bullies 'N' Bozos BLOG is for. Never mind.

HIGH NOON AT THE U.N.:
Colin Powell's Iron-Clad Case Against Saddam

Yesterday, before the United Nations Security Council, Secretary of State Colin Powell gave a 90-minute presentation of recently declassified US intelligence data which apparently confirm beyond a shadow of a doubt that Iraq possesses chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction, as well as continues to develop more of them in massive quantities. For example, Powell noted, the Iraqis have manufactured and still possess over 4 tons of the lethal agent VX, a poison so deadly that only "[a] single drop" on a person's skin "will kill in minutes."

Moreover, said Powell, the data proves that Saddam Hussein was not only refusing to comply with all U.N. resolutions passed against Iraq, the Iraqis been systematically and deliberately deceiving the U.N.'s inspectors for the past 12 years.

The case Powell made was so compelling and convincing that life-long liberal Democrats Joe Biden and Ted Kennedy finally agreed with President Bush about the danger Iraq presents to the US and the rest of the world. Even The Washington Post's resident Clintonista, columnist Mary McGrory, wrote that she was "pursuaded."

Yet, we are told today, three key members of the Security Council --France, China, and Russia-- continue to resist using force to make Saddam disarm. Instead, they want to "respond" by sending more inspectors to Iraq. Perhaps they want to drag this on for another 12 years, by which time Saddam could very well be up to his eyeballs in nuclear weapons.

"LOVE TO ALL, LAUREL":
A Columbia Astronaut's Last E-Mail to Earth

Today the Associated Press released the text of an e-mail sent by astronaut Laurel Clark to her friends and family the day before her death. She happily tells them in some detail about her experiences in orbit. For example, she described the views from space of "our magnificent planet Earth" as "truly awe-inspiring," but adds that she and the rest of the crew were so "busy doing science round the clock" that "getting a moment to type e-mail is precious."

Clark vividly describes her seeing "lightning spreading over the Pacific, the Aurora Australis lighting up the entire visible horizon with the cityglow of Australia below, the crescent moon setting over the limb of the Earth, the vast plains of Africa and the dunes on Cape Horn, rivers breaking through tall mountain passes, the scars of humanity, the continuous line of life extending from North America, through Central America and into South America." While over Japan, she says, "Mount Fuji looks life a small bump from up here, but it does stand out as a very distinct landmark."

She also describes clearly seeing her native Lake Michigan area, especially the area of Wisconsin she came from. She didn't get a lot of chances for sight-seeing over Planet Earth, she said, because "much of the time I'm working back in Spacehab and don't see any of it." But "[w]henever I do get to look out, it is glorious. Even the stars have a special brightness." She noted that she took as many photos as she could, and felt she got some especially beautiful shots though expressing concern over their sharpness since zero-gravity can affect one's focusing. On that note, it would a nice turn in this tragedy if her camera is eventually recovered.

She writes, "I feel blessed to be here representing our country and carrying out the research of scientists around the world" and adds that "[t]he food is great and I am feeling very comfortable in this new, totally different environment." But eating and drinking in zero gravity has its challenges: "It still takes a while to eat as gravity doesn't help pull food down your esophagus. It is also a constant challenge to stay adequately hydrated. Since our body fluids are shifted toward our heads our sense of thirst is almost non-existent."

Clark closes her e-mail thanking her family and friends for "hav[ing] supported me and my adventures throughout the years. This was definitely one to beat all. I hope you could feel the positive energy that beamed to the whole planet as we glided over our shared planet."

"FLYING FOR ME"
John Denver's Tribute to the Space Shuttle Astronauts

According to a story published in 1997 in Florida Today, back in the 1980s the late singer-songwriter John Denver --an outspoken supporter of the space program as well as an avid amatuer pilot-- was seriously considered by NASA to be the first civilian non-astronaut to ride into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger in its ill-fated January 1986 flight. As we now know, school teacher Christa McAuliffe was chosen instead, apparently per President Reagan's wishes.

This is the song Denver wrote in honor of McAullife and the entire Challenger crew. It seems equally fitting for the Columbia crew as well:

FLYING FOR ME
by John Denver

Well, I guess that you probably know by now
I was one who wanted to fly
I wanted to ride on that arrow of fire right up into heaven
And I wanted to go for every man, every child, every mother of children
I wanted to carry the dreams of all people right up to the stars

And I prayed that I'd find an answer there
Or maybe I would find the song
Giving a voice to all of the hearts that can not be heard
And for all of the ones who live in fear
And all of those who stand apart
My being there would bring us a little step closer together

They were flying for me, they were flying for everyone
They were trying to see, a brighter day for each and everyone
They gave us their light, they gave us their spirit, and all they could be
They were flying for me

And I wanted to wish on the Milky Way and dance upon the falling star
I wanted to give myself, and free myself, enjoin myself with it all!
Given the chance to dream, it can be done
The promise of tomorrow is real
Children of spaceship Earth, the future belongs to us all

She was flying for me, she was flying for everyone
She was trying to see, a brighter day for each and everyone
She gave us her light, she gave us her spirit, and all she could be
She was flying for me

They were flying for me, they were flying for everyone
They were trying to see, a brighter day for each and everyone
They gave us their light, they gave us their spirit, and all they could be
They were flying for me

According to reports published soon after the song was released in 1987, Denver gave any money he earned from it to the families of the Challenger crew. In October 1997, Denver too died in a flight accident when he lost control of his experimental ultra-light aircraft, which plunged into the Pacific off the coast of California.

SADDAM'S SMOKING GUN:
Key Defector Reveals Secret WMD Sites

According to a piece in yesterday's edition of the Australian news daily Herald Sun,

SADDAM Hussein's senior bodyguard has fled with details of Iraq's secret arsenal. His revelations have supported US President George W. Bush's claim there is enough evidence from UN inspectors to justify going to war. Abu Hamdi Mahmoud has provided Israeli intelligence with a list of sites that the inspectors have not visited.

They include:

AN underground chemical weapons facility at the southern end of the Jadray Peninsula in Baghdad;

A SCUD assembly area near Ramadi. The missiles come from North Korea;

TWO underground bunkers in Iraq's Western Desert. These contain biological weapons.

William Tierney, a former UN weapons inspector who has continued to gather information on Saddam's arsenal, said Mahmoud's information is "the smoking gun".

Mahmoud, according to this article, paints a picture of an increasingly paranoid Hussein who "is a walking arsenal" with "concealed guns all over his body," especially after a 1996 assassination attempt on the life of his eldest son.

DAVE BARRY REMEMBERS COLUMBIA:
The Popular Humorist's Personal Tribute

In this light-hearted yet touching story on his weblog today, writer Dave Barry reminisces about the time an astronaut took one of his books into space aboard the Columbia

Thanks, Dave, for reminding us how human and down-to-earth our fallen heroes really were, and for giving us something to smile about in the midst of this sad time.

TRAGEDY IN SPACE:
The Space Shuttle Columbia Is Gone

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds --and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of --wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence, hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along,
And flung my eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

--"High Flight" by WW2 pilot John Gillespie Magee Jr.

Our prayers go out for the families, friends, and colleagues of the seven heroic astronauts who lost their lives yesterday in the NASA space program's worst accident since the 1986 Challenger tragedy.

May God bless and comfort them all.

PS: Especially noteworthy are the comments by syndicated columnist Peggy Noonan (from whom the above-quoted poem was taken), as well as the words of Junk Yard Blog's Bryan Preston, a NASA employee who once watched the Columbia take off.

A LIVELY NEW BOG:
Is It Really Dave Barry?

Fellow St. Blogger Kathryn Lively has happened upon a promising new blog, begun just last week, which seems to be the work of popular humor columnist Dave Barry. At least his official website includes a link to it.

Hmmmm. Maybe Dave, a Secular Humorist, will convert and join St. Blog's Parish.

MORE SMOKE BUT NOT MUCH GUN:
President Bush Makes His Case, Almost

Last night in his State of the Union address, President Bush repeated his intention to disarm Saddam Hussein, including unilaterally by force. Fewer folks than yours truly would like to see Hussein become another page in history, and lickety-split. He's clearly a major source of instability in the Middle East, and seems to have learned nothing from his defeat in Desert Storm 12 years ago. Except, perhaps, that the UN will drag its heels about living up to its warnings and resolutions. But the public was promised a "smoking gun" in the form of new evidence linking Hussein to Al Queda. It didn't happen. What we got instead was a better argument for taking military action against the Butcher of Bagdad, but an argument based on speculation about what Hussein might do if he had X, Y, and X, not an argument based on heretofore unrevealed hard facts.

We need more, Mr. President.

ABORTING GOOD TASTE:
St. Blog's Parish Responds to Planned Parenthood's Poster Contest

Back in October, in the epitome of bad taste, Planned Parenthood announced a poster contest to "celebrate" the then-upcoming 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, which anniversary occurs today.

In their own inimitable style, some of the more artistically inclined members of St. Blog's Parish have come up with their own --ahem-- inspired entries.

No doubt PP will be most appreciative.

40 MILLION DEAD AND COUNTING:
The Fruits of Roe v. Wade

Today marks the 30th anniversary of the Supreme Court caving in to the Culture of Death by declaring as "unconstitutional" every state law banning the crime of abortion. So far, thanks to those Justices, approximately 40,000,000 innocent preborn human beings have had their lives snuffed out by abortionists.

But the legalization of abortion was only the beginning: As Francis A. Schaeffer and other Christian leaders and teachers predicted at the time, the de-humanizing of the unborn has resulted in the de-humanizing of the born as well: Since Roe v. Wade more and more Western nations have been going down the slippery slope of legalizing infanticide (aka "partial birth abortion"), suicide, and euthanasia.

God help us all!

THOSE BRITISH "PAGANS"?
Yet Another Bishop Gets It All Wrong

Many thanks to Emily Stimpson at the Heart, Mind, and Strength BLOG for bringing to our attention yet another Church prelate who seems utterly clueless about the true state of today's Postmodernist and post-Christian Western culture.

It seems that the head of the Catholic Church in the UK thinks the majority of his countrymen are now pagans. According to an AP report today, "Archbishop of Westminster Cormac Murphy-O'Connor was quoted as telling the Daily Telegraph that Britain "has become, from a Christian point of view, very pagan. Children are not really taught religion in most schools. 'And yet, even though it is a pagan country, people don't dismiss religion, don't dismiss God, don't dismiss the spiritual side of their character,' he was quoted as saying."

But Stimpson got it right when she wrote in response to this,

... Plato was a pagan. Homer was a pagan. Ceneca was a pagan. Most modern day Brits (and a healthy share of Americans too) are not pagans. They are post-Christian agnostics and atheists whose philosophy is steeped in relativism and irrationalism. Calling them pagans is too high of a compliment. Pagans, for all they lacked, still believed in truth, virtue, the natural law, and religion.

The sad truth is that Paul could reason far more easily with a first century Roman pagan then any of us could with a twenty-first century devotee of Sex in the City.

Hear, hear!

The late Christian writer and teacher Francis A. Schaeffer, a noteworthy Evangelical who sounded the alarm within the conservative Protestant community about the dangers posed by the Culture of Death over 25 years ago, understood full well the kind of age we live in. He warned decades ago, in his very prophetic little books The God Who Is There and Escape From Reason (published in the early 1960s) that relativism and irrationalism would overtake Western culture and end up running society within the lifetimes of the very same college students he and his L'Abri staff taught and led to Christ by the thousands during the Counter-Culture era.

Schaeffer and L'Abri knew this because, unlike too many Catholic intellectuals and churchmen, he and his colleagues made it a point of staying "in the trenches" ministering to --and, most importantly, listening to-- those most deeply involved in the culture around them. As Stimpson points out above, modern day Western agnostics and atheists are post-Christian, not pagan.

Schaeffer --one of the first Christian writers and teachers to use the term "post-Christian," and may have even coined the term-- understood that difference very well, and understood the radical significance of that difference. It's high time more of the leadership of the Catholic Church understood it as well.

"...WHERE ARE THE CLONES?..."
...Maybe Next Year?

Memo from the P. T. Barnum Dept.:

According to the Associated Press today, it seems that the UFO cult-funded bio-engineering firm Clonaid is about to do an about-face on its promise to allow independent scientific verification of its claim that it had produced the first human clone.

What a surprise.

"...SEND IN THE CLONES..."
UFO Cult Claims Birth of "First Human Clone"

A bio-engineering company called Clonaid, founded by a small religious group (the "Raelians") which believes humans were created by space aliens, claims to have successfully created and brought to term the first human clone --a girl named "Eve."

According to Clonaid, Eve's genetic material was taken from the skin cells of a 31-year-old American woman and implanted in one of her eggs to create an embryonic copy of the woman. In other words, claims Clonaid, Eve is the infant twin of her own mom.

Read all about it here: Group claims first cloned human born

Of course, the jury is still out about the credibility of the Raelians' claim, a claim which has not been verified and which seems dubious at best. After all, it's being made by an outfit which claims to be in regular and ongoing contact with ET and is run by "bishops" who say lame-brained things like "she was born yesterday in the country where she was born," as if "she" could've been born somewhere other than where "she" was born.

PIMPIN’ BARBIE:
Mattel Hammers One More Nail Into Childhood’s Coffin

In the Outlook section of the Sunday Dec. 22 Washington Post, outraged Baltimore school teacher Deborah Roffman protests yet another example of the seemingly endless trend in popular American culture to sexualize childhood.

In the past, Roffman points out, the culprits have been the recording and fashion industries: Witness, for example, the influence of pop singer Britney Spears’ increasingly risqué “fashion” sense on the ways adolescent, and even prepubescent, girls dress in public. Witness also, says Roffman, the rapidly lowering age of more and more kids getting caught up in sexual activities:

Those of us in the business of education have been worried about middle- and high-school students for a while. The stories of the past few years are harrowing ….[But] [t]he litany of stories I'm hearing now involving young children are even more disturbing: "freak" dancing or "grinding" at fifth-grade graduation parties in public school buildings, with adults as passive onlookers; 8-year-olds being taken to see R-rated movies such as "American Pie II"; elementary school children posting sexual jokes and messages online, even on school networks; mothers finding pornographic passages in their fifth-grade daughters' diaries; fourth-grade boys turning to fourth-grade girls in the cafeteria line and asking, "Do you spit or swallow?"

In too many cases, Roffman argues, adults have been not only willfully blind to these dangerous phenomena, but even complicit in them, at least psychologically. Including adults in positions of great influence in children’s lives, up to and including toymakers. This is where Mattel comes in according to Roffman:

Still seeking that perfect gift for a special young girl in your life? …For a mere $45, you can surprise and delight her with a Lingerie Barbie. And what a Barbie Babe she is, decked out in her sexy black (or, if you prefer, pink) garters, stockings and obligatory stiletto heels. Even her PR is PG, giving the phrase "sex toy" a whole new level of meaning: "Barbie exudes a flirtatious attitude in her heavenly merry widow bustier ensemble accented with intricate lace and matching peekaboo peignoir." …Mattel [also] plans a February launch for its sixth "limited edition" Lingerie Barbie, promising she'll be "simply sassy in a short pearl-grey satin slip trimmed in black lace" and "thigh-high stockings" that "add a hint of flair."

Yep, now Mattel, it seems, is moving its famous “teen fashion model” out of the fashion business and into the soft porn business –and targeting children as its key market. Oh, yes: Forget about Mattel’s “disclaimer” that Lingerie Barbie is for “age 14 and up.” As any parent can tell you, Barbie’s chief market is the 6 to 12 year-old set. “Get real,” one adolescent student puts it, "No 14-year-old girl would be caught dead playing with a Barbie Doll, 'lingerie' or otherwise. Who do they think they're kidding?"

Who indeed!

Happily, says Roffman, both the teachers and parents of young girls –and in many instances, young girls themselves—are up in arms about Mattel’s shamelessly shameful new strategy of making a buck off kids:

Teachers and parents (even among Barbie fans) can't believe their ears when they hear about this one: Disgusting! How dare they! Don't they have little girls of their own? Where will it all end? Enough!!

Many teens I know, and even younger children, have been equally outraged. High school students at one all-girls school in Tennessee where I recently spoke were moved to start a national letter-writing campaign to chastise Mattel for this brazen sexualization of children.

”NOPE, AIN’T NO ANTI-SEMITES HERE”:
The Remnant Whitewashes Fr. Dennis Fahey

In his “rebuttal” of Sandra Miesel’s Crisis article poking holes in the conspiracy-mentality and “anti-Judaism” of the Sieg Heil wing of the Catholic Traditionalist movement, Remnant writer Christopher Ferrara claims that the famous Jew-baiting Irish priest of the first half of the 20th century, Dennis Fahey, was not really an anti-Semite. To read more on this, go to the full version of this commentary at our Bullies 'N' Bozos BLOG.

POST-MODERNIST HUMBUGGING:
Or, "Here We Come a-Politically-Correct-Caroling"

Many thanks to Fellow Blogger Lane Core for this very funny "politically correct" update of "The Twelve Days of Christmas." It certainly made our Day!

DPI NEWS FLASH: There will be no Congressional Creche on Capitol Hill this year: No one can locate a wise man anywhere in Congress, and as everyone knows there are no more virgins left amongst the interns. However, there are more than enough jackasses to fill every stable both inside and outside the DC Beltway.

OF NEO-NAZIS, CHRISTIAN IDENTITY, & KKKATHOLICS:
Is the Uber-Catholic Lunatic Fringe Going Sieg Heil?

Conservative Catholic blogger Bill Cork notes how the thinking of some within the self-styled "Traditionalist Catholic" movement is rapidly (and rabidly) becoming indistinguishable from that of anti-Semitic conspiracy-theory-and-white-supremacy-oriented sects and movements such as Christian Identity and the National Alliance (an openly neo-Nazi group whose founder gave us Timothy McVeigh).

For background info on this weird phenomenon, go to our Bullies 'N' Bozos Web Log and stay tuned for further developments.

THE MESS IN BOSTON:
It Didn't Begin With Cardinal Law

Here's a thoughtful behind-the-scenes analysis by noted conservative Catholic pundit Michael Novak on William F. Buckley's National Review Online web site:

The Boston Disease: What Remains After Cardinal Law

One of Novak's chief points was that the Boston archdiocese had been ripe for sex abuse scandal long before Bishop Law was sent there:

...The reputation [of the Boston diocese] for lax discipline that had started long before Cardinal Law's time did not compel his immediate attention on his arrival in Boston....

...Cardinal Law faced four huge moral deficits in the Archdiocese of Boston. The first is an unusually tribal and mutually protective, ranks-drawn-up clergy, circling around its own three-generation tradition of moral fault; a pattern of "weakness" or "corruption" in some few, but covered over and unpoliced by the others, in a long-standing and defensive posture.

The second is a 40-year period of massive moral dissent from Catholic moral teaching, especially in regard to sexual and "gender" questions, in the principal Catholic institutions of learning in Boston... This fairly systematic dissent, through which some have boldly called the theology of Pope John Paul II (and Paul VI before him) wrong, mistaken, and based on untruths, has had the inevitable effect of weakening the sense of right and wrong in those faced with severe sexual temptations....

Third is a laity in very large numbers living in open dissent and rebellion, and encouraged in this by many clerical voices — even among their own pastors — first on many small things but gradually on many increasingly large things, too. ...They seem to abhor the most-distinctive features of the Catholic Church, most notably full communion with Peter, the bishop of Rome. They seem embarrassed also by her traditional and not-at-all-new teachings of embodied personhood, the physical/sacramental nature of reality, the full and rich sexuality of Catholic teaching (expressed in so many great works of literature, painting, and music down the ages), the nature of matrimony, and most obviously the tradition of celibacy and chastity as high ideals affecting the lives of all....

WE WON'T HAVE AL GORE TO KICK AROUND ANY MORE:
The Heretofore Presidential Candidate-for-Life Bows Out

This breaking news, first revealed by Gore himself last night on CBS's "60 Minutes" t.v. "newsmagazine" show, stunned many but really surprised no one. Although he confirmed that, "personally," he had "the energy and drive and ambition to make another campaign" for a 2004 Presidential bid, Gore rightly conceded that doing so would "involve a focus on the past that would in some measure distract from the focus on the future that I think all campaigns have to be about."

Hear, hear!

Needless to say, however, the Republican leadership is mostly likely not at all happy about Gore's decision since (to them) Gore would've been running as a two-time loser assuring George W. Bush's re-election.

TURNING INTO A PILLAR OF SALT?
Trent Lott's Dixiecratesque Faux Pas May Cost Him His Career

Last week, Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) made the following ill-advised tribute to Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-South Carolina) on the latter's 100th birthday: "I want to say this about my state. When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either."

Lott was referring to Thurmond's 1948 run for the Presidency against then-President Harry Truman as one of the many "Dixiecrat" segregationists who broke with Truman's majority wing in the Democratic Party. (After the 1948 election, Thurmond returned to the Democrat Party but switched allegiances to the GOP in 1964.) The Dixiecrats claimed to be about "states' rights" versus increasing Federal encroachment.

But the Dixiecrats had broken with the Democrats specifically on the matter of racial integration in the areas of voting registration, education, housing, and employment --a reform which Truman and both the Democratic and Republican parties increasingly favored. The Dixiecrats argued that their Southern brand of apatheid was strictly a state-by-state matter, while the two major parties came to regard racial segregation as a violation of the basic Constitutional rights of its minority targets and therefore a Federal issue.

The Dixiecrat legacy is what Trent Lott, whether unwittingly or intentionally, seemed to voice support for last week in the eyes and ears of many, both Republicans and Democrats, especially those old enough to remember those bad old KKK-run days in the South. Even though Lott has since tried several times to get out from under the cloud of seeming to endorse segregationism, and even though most of his critics agree he's not a racist, his carelessness and lack of clear thinking may have turned his ability to lead into a pillar of salt. Hence the call from many Republican leaders and conservative pundits --such as Linda Chavez, Charles Krauthammer, Mona Charen, and Cal Thomas-- for Lott to step down as Senate Majority leader.

DOING THE RIGHT THING AT LAST:
Cardinal Law Resigns His Post

Apparently Boston Archbishop Bernard Law finally woke up and smelled the cappuccino. In the wake of the on-going sex abuse and cover-up scandal plaguing his watch, and worsening each day as more previously hidden facts come to light, Cardinal Law tendered his resignation at the Vatican yesterday.

Also, the fact that Pope John Paul II accepted Cardinal Law's resignation may have meant that for him enough was finally enough. It may also mean, as blogger Mark Shea pointed out today, that the Pontiff's refusal to boot the former Archbishop last Spring was far less of a gesture of support for Law (as too many in the media and in the laity, this writer included, had assumed) than a means of making Law face the music back home at the hands of the press, the civil government, and the critics within his own flock.

With heat comes purification, and forcing Bernard Law to remain in the fire all these months may very well have been the Pope's strategy for fixing the mess in Boston and --by sending a message, via Law as example, to other prelates-- in the rest of the Catholic Church in the USA as well. In other words, asking for the Cardinal's resignation back in April would've been giving Law an easier way out. After all, not only has John Paul accepted Law's resignation, he is sending the former Archbishop back into the fire instead of sheltering him from it in the Vatican. Thus, far from being lenient with the Cardinal last Spring, the wise old Pontiff from Krakow was actually quite shrewd.

Additionally, the Pope's acceptance of Law's resignation may mean that some in the Curia and elsewhere in the Church's hierarchy will finally divest themselves of the lame notion that the American media (generally, no friend of religion) --rather than decades of incompetence, moral laxity, and misdeeds within the American clergy and hierarchy-- has been the source of Holy Mother Church's problems and the chief cause of damage to both her reputation and her moral voice in the world, a voice needed in these troubled times more than ever before.

Cardinal Law's resignation and the Pope's acceptance of it were the right things to do for all concerned and, we hope, will be the first of many steps in some badly needed reform and renewal for shepherds and flocks alike, and in all branches of Christendom.

FAITH ON THE FRONT BURNER:
Bush Expands His Faith-Based Initiative

In a move apparently designed to drive the ACLU and the liberal establishment in general into a state of apoplexy, President Bush has decided to give his "faith-based initiative" a big boost via Executive Order. Associated Press reports that,

Hoping to involve churches and religious organizations more deeply in government efforts to address social ills, Bush on Thursday was signing executive orders aimed at giving those groups a leg up in the competition for federal money, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer (news - web sites) said. He was announcing the changes in a speech to religious and charitable leaders meeting here.

The president began pushing the issue on Capitol Hill in his second week in office but ran into a fierce debate over how religious groups could get government money without running afoul of the constitutional separation of church and state.

He was successful in the House but the Senate wouldn't give him even a watered-down version that mainly increased tax breaks for charitable giving.

Though he faces a more friendly Republican-controlled Congress next year, Bush decided to forge ahead on his own.

Thankfully, the President went unilateral on this one, and did not consult the U.N. first.

To read more, go HERE: Bush Moves Ahead With 'Faith-Based' Plan (AP: White House)

"THIS SCUD'S FOR YOU":
The Bush Administration Lets Yemen Keep Its Covert Missiles

This week Spanish and American naval vessels stopped and boarded an unflagged freighter bound from North Korea for Yemen --an ally of Saddam Hussein's Irag, and the sole Arab nation which supported Iraq during the Gulf War. The reason for the boarding? The intel community had received tips that Pyongpang secretly sold Scud missiles to that Middle Eastern Muslim nation, which had bought them in secret. The boarding parties discovered the missiles, all fifteen concealed in blocks of cement.

The Yemenis' "explanation" for this? Well, they're just trying to beef up their defense capabilities --against whom? Oman? Kuwait? Oz?-- and needed the missiles to do so. But never mind that Scuds are not defensive systems to begin with, especially because they are highly inaccurate and indiscriminate when it comes to targetting. The Scud is an offensive system whose chief purpose and function is to terrorize, not defend. And never mind that systems such as the Patriot were designed from the ground up to defend against attacks, and thus would fill the Yemenis' defense bill much more effectively. And why the secrecy? Why not just buy the Scuds openly instead of covertly? Yemen, it seems, has no answer to that.

In light of such factors, Yemen's "explanation" rings hollow. But what rings even more hollow is the Bush administration's decision to accept Yemen's "explanation" and return the Scuds to them. Is the Bush administration's war on terrorism serious or not?

MEMO TO BOSTON: HOW TO KEEP FROM GOING BELLY-UP:
Refinancing Archbishop Bernard Law's Bankrupt Leadership

Apparently, in an effort to prevent the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston from having to shell out millions in monetary damages and restitution to the victims of the pedophile priests he shuffled from parish to parish, Archbishop Bernard Law may be taking the same route Enron and other mismanaged or corrupt corporations have taken in order to avoid the financial consequences of their bad judgment calls or unethical actions: File for Chapter 11 to keep what you have, and to Hell with the victims your incompetence or malfeasance created. (For more details on this newest wrinkle in Clerical Weaselism, go here: Boston Archdiocese moves closer to possible bankruptcy (CNN) and here: Law goes to Vatican for advice (The Boston Globe)

But we have a much better idea for solving the Boston Archdiocese's financial woes: Instead of resorting to bankruptcy, raise funds for any upcoming victim compensations by selling buttons, banners, bumper stickers, and other items emblazoned with the Cardinal's new slogan,

"WWJLD" ("What Would Jesus' Lawyer Do?")

No doubt they'd rake in millions.

PRESIDENT VIOLATES SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
Quick! Someone call the ACLU!!!!

General Thanksgiving

By the PRESIDENT of the United States Of America

A PROCLAMATION

WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"

NOW THEREFORE, I do recommend and assign THURSDAY, the TWENTY-SIXTH DAY of NOVEMBER next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed;-- for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish Conftitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted;-- for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge;-- and, in general, for all the great and various favours which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also, that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and befeech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions;-- to enable us all, whether in publick or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all fovereigns and nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us); and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind fuch a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

GIVEN under my hand, at the city of New-York, the third day of October, in the year of our Lord, one thousand feven hundred and eighty-nine.

(signed) G. Washington

This dangerous right-wing religious nut must be stopped before he destroys the Republic!

AT LEAST THEY DON'T TAKE CREDIT CARD NUMBERS:
When Anti-Catholic "Christians" Behave Like Bill Clinton

If you, dear reader, ever become tempted to sign up with a "Christian" message board in which you are in a distinct minority, and that board's admin demands to know your private information, such as your full name, DON’T DO IT!

You might be putting your privacy at risk!

Thankfully, this fellow never asked for my credit card number. God only knows what he would've done with that. LOL

For more details go HERE

UPDATE: A "Christian" E-pologist Takes Lessons from the Cults in response to public criticism. For all the details, go HERE

TOM DASCHLE UNDER THE BOZONE LAYER
If At First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Again to Blame Rush Limbaugh

Whilst driving home after work last night, WMAL-AM, the local talk radio outlet here at Babylon-on-the-Potomac, played back the recorded remarks of Senator Tom Daschle (D-South Dakota) on why he and his party went down in flames on November 5.

The cause of the Dems' defeat at the hands of the electorate? Why, none other than talk radio in general and Rush Limbaugh in particular. Worse than that, Daschle exclaimed, talk radio incites people to threaten him and his family members, and other liberal Democrats and their family members, just like the Taliban and other Muslim extremists in the Middle East.

Talk radio, says Daschle is DANGEROUS! And you know what? I AGREE! Whilst listening to Sen. Daschle's remarks on that talk radio station, I laughed so hard I swerved off the road and almost killed myself!

But having regained control of my vehicle and my sanity, I began to wonder what in the world would move an allegedly sane man, and allegedly serious politician, to come up with such cockamamy notions. So did WMAL talk show host Chris Core, who immediately surmised that the strain of the election and the agony of defeat must have taken a deep emotional toll on the good senator.

Core may be right. But we here at DPI have another theory, based on the findings of the late great syndicated columnist Mike Royko, who tried to account for some bizarre behavior on Capitol Hill and in the Reagan White House back in the early 1980s.

Royko theorized that just below the Ozone layer protecting the earth against physically harmful radiation is another layer protecting us from other cosmic rays which cause people to do and say some pretty looney things. Royko dubbed these rays "Bozo Rays" and the protective layer blocking them, the "Bozone Layer." But every now and then, noted Royko, holes open up in the Bozone Layer allowing the Bozo Rays through, in turn causing even the most stable people to behave like --well-- Bozos.

Thus the only logical and scientific explanation for Daschle's Looney Tunes antics yesterday is also a very simple one: Sometime after the election, a hole in the Bozone Layer opened up over poor Mr. Daschle's house and did a number on him. And to compound the problem, the hole has been following Mr. Daschle around ever since.

Someone should call the EPA lickety-split and do something about that hole before it widens over the entire Democrat Party.

OOPS! Too late!

BAMBI MEETS GODZILLA:
A Protestant E-pologist vs. Pope John Paul II on Sexual Ethics

Evangelical Christian e-pologist Eric Svendsen once attempted to critique (i.e., write a silly screed against) the Catholic Church's teachings on sexuality, sexual conduct, and family planning. The results were less than stellar either intellectually or spiritually (in fact, like Bambi under Godzilla's foot, they went "SPLAT!"), but enormously entertaining nonetheless.

Click HERE to read more....

THE KIND OF CATHOLICS ANTI-CATHOLIC MESSAGE BOARDS PREFER
Thanks to Scott Adams and Dilbert.com

Sheep to be Shorn

MEMO FROM THE GET A LIFE DEPARTMENT:
Humanist Organization Boycotts Christian Concert Sponsor

Many thanks to blogger Mark Shea at Catholic and Enjoying It!for bringing the following to the public's attention: "In a world riven by war and Islamicist terror, the American Humanist Association stood up for the things that really matter!"

Yes, the Enlightened Ones at the AHA once again demonstrate their Open-Mindedness and Love of Free Inquiry by trying to get Chevrolet to repent of the Mortal Sin of corportate sponsorship of religious music, even a form as innocuous as Christian Rock. Why, that would be --GASP!!!-- mixing reilgion and ...and ...and... YIKES!.. ART!!! Nosirree, we can't have that.

The AHA's "rationale" for its latest attempt at the Separation of Church and Reality was wrapped in a typically (for AHA) two-faced and paranoid spin on the subject:

It represents a significant entry into the culture war by a major corporation, an entry that can't help but lead the public to conclude that Chevy and perhaps its parent, General Motors, feel the attributes that they refer to, family orientation and great values, are to be found only in Christianity.

Too bad the AHA wasn't around during the Renaissance to nip in the bud all that annoying religious art and music funded by all those wealthy Italian, French, and Spanish merchant families whose intention, no doubt, was to "lead the public to conclude" that the d'Medicis and Borgias (for example) "feel the attributes that they refer to, family orientation and great values, are to be found only in Christianity."

It seems that some folks have waaaaaaay to much time on their hands.

NOT TOO WILD ABOUT HARRY (OR FRODO):
Some Critics Miss the Points About J. K. Rawlings and J. R. R. Tolkien

It’s that time once again. The next installment in the Disneyesque filmed versions of the popular Harry Potter children's fantasy novels by J. K. Rawlings –and the key word here is “fantasy”—is due to be released in theatres around the country tomorrow. The next installment of the classy and classical Lord of the Rings comparatively adult-level fantasy series will follow soon thereafter.

And once again, both –but especially the former-- will be met with a barrage of protests by many (especially amongst Protestant and Catholics) who seem ill-acquainted with Western literature save, perhaps, the local newspaper and the Bible, and likewise oddly unable to discern the difference between fact and fiction; not to mention those who seem to see a Global Satanic New Age Conspiracy behind the most innocuous presentations of myth-and-magic, no matter how hodge-podge and implausible (Harry Potter) even for one who believes in the supernatural and the demonic, or no matter how thought-provoking and invocative of Western Christianity (Rings). Granted, most Christians familiar with Tolkien’s work recognize the latter fact and place it in the same category as C. S. Lewis’ Narnia fantasies. Too many, however, especially in the upper far-right choirs of Christendom, do not and, in fact, look askance even at Lewis, whose fantasy works are more overtly Christian than Tolkien's.

In any case, whether one reads the novels of Rowlings or Tolkien (or even Lewis) --or views films based on those works-- one does so for their primary purpose: To be entertained. This rather salient fact seems to have been lost on both Tolkien's and Rowlings' critics. Moreover, the fact remains that the fairy tale versions of "magic" and Disney-style forms of "sorcery" (as in the famous Mickey Mouse cartoon, The Sorceror's Apprentice) depicted in Harry Potter bear no resemblance whatever to real-life Satanism or witchcraft (especially a la the modern, contrived "religion" of Wicca, created mostly out of whole cloth by occultist Gerald Gardner), or occult practice in general:

For example, nowhere in Harry Potter do the protagonists invoke Astaroth or Beelzebub; or summon demons; or conduct seances; or worship nature or "the Goddess"; or sacrifice animals to Satan; or dance in "magic circles" skyclad (i.e., naked). Instead, what one sees in Harry Potter is a smorgasboard of purely fictional elements and fantasy characters borrowed from all forms of Western folklore and legend. Even the scene in the movie of Harry and his friends learning to fly on broomsticks is based not on real occult practices, but on popular folklore, and Harry's magic wand is an echo of Disney "sorceror" Mickey Mouse, not Rosemary's Baby or even Merlin. Harry Potter no more teaches kids how to be practitioners of Wicca, or Satanism, or Necromancy, or Voo-Doo than Leggos teaches them how to construct office buildings, or Star Trek teaches them how to pilot a spaceship to the Moon.

Rather than some kind of imagined covert attempt by Hollywood in cahoots with the New Age movement to indoctrinate children into the nearest witches’ coven (which proves little more than that too many Harry Potter critics have entered the Twilight Zone) the only real problem with the Harry Potter series –unlike J. R. R. Tokein’s masterful work of political metaphor and symbolic Christian [i]didactica[/i] in the form of myth-and-magic story-telling-- lies elsewhere: As does the majority of contemporary Western secular fiction (and, for that matter, much of contemporary modern Western Christian fiction), the Harry Potter series seems shallow in how it deals with moral issues and with character development, especially in terms of teaching children to distinguish the differences between virtue and vice and to pursue the former.

In all fairness to Rowlings, however, her books are intended to entertain children, not teach them ethics. The very popular and enormously entertaining Veggie Tales videos are much better suited to that task.

In Tolkien’s story, Frodo, the lead character in the first installment of The Lord of the Rings must undertake dangerous tasks as well as overcome ongoing and great temptations as he seeks to destroy a demonic ring whose bearer would be given absolute power were he or she to choose to employ the ring. Added to that is the ring’s increasingly corrupting influence over the one who merely carries it without using it at all. Thus Frodo’s struggle is both temporal (overcome an evil force seeking to possess the ring in order to destroy the world) and spiritual (overcome both his imperfect nature and the ring’s morally debilitating effects upon his moral fortitude). The Lord of the Rings --written by Tolkein with the warring nations of the WW2 conflict and the then-new atom bomb in mind-- is nothing less than a wonderfully entertaining homily and epic-level parable against the dangers of absolute power and its tendency to corrupt absolutely as well as to destroy.

But nothing so high-minded can be discerned in the Harry Potter series, at least not in the first installment of the film version: The only reason the lead character, Harry, undertakes a dangerous mission to retrieve a magically powerful artifact from his friends’ arch-enemy is, well, the latter is his friends’ arch-enemy, and because the SOB murdered his parents when he was a baby. Beyond a vague appeal to “justice,” there is simply no moral element to Harry’s struggle to overcome both his foes and his weaknesses, the latter of which (unlike Frodo's) are less of a moral nature than a physical or mental one. Like much of what passes for "thinking" in modern Western liberal secularism (especially in politics and religion as well as in culture), the first Harry Potter story is about power versus powerlessness, not virtue versus vice, or even good versus evil --two concepts which seem hopelessly vague and empty of any real content in Harry Potter.

Other than a comic-book-level treatment of good and evil, this lack of moral clarity and depth is the only potential problem with the Potter series, at least last year's film version. Yet its most vehement critics ignore this very central aspect of Harry Potter, and aim instead at the wrong target --a target largely of their own collective imagining.

CATHOLICS vs. THE WEASEL ZONE:
Outraged Christians in an Age of Buck-Passers

Once again the Vatican and the US Catholic Bishops are in the news as the latter meet this week to discuss and implement Rome’s directive to bring the June 2002 draft of the Bishops’ new “zero tolerance” policy on clerical sexual abuse of minors into conformity with the Church’s Canon Law.

According to an editorial in The Washington Post last week, one of the objections Rome raised was two-fold: (1) the Bishops’ new policy overlooked or ignored the due process rights of accused clerics under the Canon Law; and (2) the Bishops’ new policy ignored the Canon Law’s 10-year statute of limitations on charges of clerical sexual abuse. That is, a victim of sexual abuse by a priest must report the incident(s) within 10 years of his or her 18th birthday –a proviso which seems to have been difficult at best for victims in the past because much pressure was placed on him or her and/or his or her family by their diocese to protect Mother Church against needless embarrassment in the public eye, a priority the Vatican seems to consider still rather paramount.

The Post also notes that the Vatican likewise objected to the Bishops’ June decision requiring all Bishops and clerics in all dioceses to immediately report all accusations of clerical sexual abuse of minors to the civil authorities whether or not state or local laws mandate such reporting, and even whether or not state or local governments which mandate such reports specifically exempt religious organizations. Instead, the Vatican said, Bishops should be required to do no more or less than comply with whatever the civil laws in their dioceses happen to be.

Ironically enough, mostly non-Catholic and highly secularized average American citizens and civil leaders seem to take this problem much more seriously than do some leaders within the Catholic Church, even at the Vatican level: Many, if not most, American state and local legal codes include no statute of limitations on either statutory rape (consentual sexual relations between an adult and a minor) or sexual abuse of minors, the latter of which is considered a deeply serious crime to which are attached severe penalties up to and including long prison sentences. Moreover, in almost any school district in the country the mere accusation of any form of sexual involvement by any teacher with any student of any age, with or without that student’s consent, results in that teacher’s immediate dismissal. In most cases, the offender is turned over to the civil authorities for prosecution. But, with perhaps a few rare exceptions, offending teachers are never transferred to other school districts and victims and/or victims’ families are never urged to keep quiet to avoid embarrassing the school system.

On the surface, the Holy See’s desire to protect the rights of priests as well as the reputation of the Church seems all well and good, as well as fair and proper. That is, until one remembers a couple of (in our opinion) important caveats:

(1) One of the roles of the Church and her clergy is to protect the family, without which the Church cannot exist. It’s NOT the role of the family to protect the Church and her clergy. After all, the family as a God-ordained institution precedes the Church as a God-ordained institution, both in terms of history and theology:

God –Himself a family in the form of three Persons!-- created the family first for a reason, and founded the ancient nation of Israel –the Church’s prototype-- upon families for a reason, primarily to image Him. Thus the integrity and security of the family --especially its most vulnerable members, its children-- has primacy over the integrity and security of the Church –especially its most powerful members, its clergy. God has even built into human nature the tendency of all human beings to protect and defend their immediate families –especially their children-- from any person or institution which threatens them either unwittingly or self-consciously, up to and including the Church or her clergy. In its understandable (and even proper) desire and haste to protect the rights and reputations of her priests and the Church, the Vatican seems to have forgotten these first things.

(2) Too many of the world’s institutions –civil government, the multi-national corporation, the investment firm, marriage, and even charity and volunteerism are being both overrun and run by weasels, those folks who, in the words of “Dilbert” creator Scott Adams, operate in “a gigantic gray area between good moral behavior and outright felonious activities” which Adams has dubbed “the Weasel Zone” (see Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel HarperBusiness; 2002).

While only the most skilled weasels are also lawbreakers who don't get caught (once you're caught and prosecuted, you cease being a weasel and become a criminal), most weasels engage in less-than-illegal yet less-than-moral activities such as "acts of omission, conflicts of interest, manipulating public opinion, deflecting blame, avoiding issues, hypocrisy, false claims of discrimination, obfuscation (weasel words), cover-ups, unwarranted optimism, turning a blind eye, ignoring scientific data, scapegoating, and anything else that strikes you as just-plain-wrong."

Weasels will never take responsibility for any negligence or incompetence on their part, especially when it results in harm to those around them and under them, or to their organization as a whole. Instead, weasels will blame someone else inside their organization, usually an underling. Or they’ll try to blame their organization’s rules or policies. Or they’ll blame outside “forces” (such as competitors, the media, or the civil authorities) who are “out to get them.” In any case, weasels pass the buck from themselves to something or someone else.

This latter phenomenon may be one of the factors many otherwise loyal and compliant Catholic lay people have been especially outraged by. As they see it, the Vatican’s –and some American Bishops’-- response to and attitude toward the Bishops’ “zero tolerance” policy is and has been an example of operating in the Weasel Zone.

Instead of using the Canon Law to preserve the status quo, or –worse yet— as an excuse for avoiding accountability and its stepchild, reform, the Vatican should acknowledge that the Canon Law needs to be changed radically (“at the root”) to place at least as much emphasis on protecting the natural rights of Catholic children who came into the Church’s life involuntarily as on protecting the man-made rights of Catholic clergy who came into the clerical life voluntarily.

This is especially crucial in light of one of the foundational principles upon which the Catholic Church’s social teaching is based; namely, consistent emphasis on the rights and dignity of the most vulnerable over the rights and dignity of the most powerful –a principle which has rightly earned the Church worldwide admiration and respect, even from many of her toughest critics. It’s time to bring the Canon Law into conformity with that principle, and to bring out of the Weasel Zone everyone in the Church’s hierarchy who may to still be in it.