So the world needs a MOM ?

 A maudlin way to make the point : " Carefully fingering a

    string of rosary beads ... "  Professor Mark Miravalle whispered,

    " The world today is in desperate need of a mother . "

        He  and 6 million other Catholics  want to promote the Virgin

    Mary to  FIRST MOTHER of the whole world. ( see PROJO , Dec. 26,

    page A6 ) .

             In the interim  may I recommend Barbara Bush as a worthy

    candidate  of the FIRST MOTHER role ?  She might secretly believe

    that HER son , W , is indeed  DIVINE , but my heart went out to

    her when she insisted in public that HE was not stupid . Motherly

    pride is powerful stuff !

            A biography says of Barbara : "  She started volunteering

    in hospitals long before she became famous. She did the kind of

    work - even emptying bed pans - that gave her up-close experience

    with many patients .

            Barbara Bush is well known for her long campaign for

    literacy. She learned that a prisoner " got caught because he

    couldn't read the exit sign on the door of the supermarket

    he was robbing. "

           " She urged him to develop his reading skills - "

           Yes, indeed nothing  like a good mother !

        By the way, there is a correlation between sightings of

    the Virgin Mary and  a high level of illiteracy in the

    witnesses and the spectators:  " It's a Miravalle ! "

               But I have great respect for the real Madonna !

Crank atheist on " spirit of Constitution "

The town atheist in  Somerset, Gil Amancio , prates about

    public creches as a  violation of the " spirit of the Constitution ".

    All it takes , of course, is one cranky complaint and the babe is

    evicted from the manager - not in the spirit of the Constitution,

    which even an honest agnostic must admit is permeated with a RELIGIOUS

    spirit - no in the spirit of Scrooge before his encounter with even

    the first SPIRIT . ( see story in PROJO  , Dec. 22 , page B 2 )

               Atheists have their rights, to be sure. Let the LAW decide

    this matter of religious displays one way or another.

               It is a fact that professed atheists ( not humanists )-

    people who over -emphasize their ATHEISM - are among the most

    mean spirited people on  earth.

           When did a group of  ATHEISTS  ever get together to do

    some obvious GOOD anywhere ? What cramped souls !

               Are atheists so much smarter than the ignorant masses ?

    I suspect that most of them simply have defective imagination and

    bad digestion .  Too much of the same old gruel for supper. It

    gives them souls as dead as a doorknob.

               A pitiful sight in their coffins : All dressed up and

    nowhere to go !

Powell right, Jacoby wrong

           The choice of that remarkable man - Colin Powell - for

    Secretary of State - proves that George W. Bush is  not himself

    - whatever his agenda - a drooling right wing fanatic. He is

    in fact a chip off the old block.

              Boston Globe crank columnist Jeff Jacoby is very nervous

    about the Powell appointment: " When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait

    in August 1990, Powell was prepared to let him have it" , writes

    Jacoby .

               The vast majority of the country would not have been

    willing to sacrifice much for the arrogant, oil rich elite of

    Kuwait - who were openly contemptuous of working class American

    soldiers putting their lives in danger to protect their " sovereign "

    plutocracy.

                Imagine a poor black soldier returning from the Gulf

    War to find his elderly mother shivering in a cold slum house....

    couldn't pay the bill that month !

                Knowing all about " The Other America " , do the

    oil billionaires of the world ever declare : " This won't

    stand ! "  ?

               Nor can I imagine poor black soldiers sacrificing

    their lives to keep poor Palestinians HOMELESS.

               I hope Colin Powell does not lose his humanity

    in acquiring great power.

DRAFTED in middle age - a nightmare

                They found me hiding under the bed in my apartment

    - pathetic coward that I am . It had been five years, but they

    caught me. The scene at  THE TRIAL was right out of KAFKA. But

    still I had my own lawyer, a personal friend. He advised me :

          " You got to grow up sometime ,  Ron. The best way to

    deal with this nightmare is with a spirit of resignation."

           " Yea , but  I still dread  the DRAFT. It's not fair now! "

           " Soon you will have to face that great umpire in the sky.

    And what will you have to say for yourself then ? "

                 In cold cowardly panic I signed on the dotted line.

          Just hours later I found myself in  left field at Dodger

    Stadium. A crack of the bat... a fly ball was coming in my direction.

    I  fell down  in front of the wall - but I caught the ball !

                Then I woke up , still in the Twilight Zone.