THE GATEWAY TO MY SPIRITUALITY

The older I get, the more relevant religion becomes. And no, I’m not saying that because I’m concerned about my after-life. I’m concerned about my present life, and finding as much meaning in it as possible. Religion gives my life much of its meaning.

But how, you might ask, can I buy into religion, in light of its basic premises? Isn’t it true that religion begins with the adoption of a belief in the cosmic Santa Claus – the notion that there exists an omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnipotent and omnipresent deity who created this world in accordance with His own inscrutable will?

Well, it that were to be true, then I definitely should stop blogging so much about religion. Like a huge fraction of the educated people in the modern world, I think of that deity as a figment of our own imagination. Or, if you prefer, let me say it like they’d do it in logic class. “If there’s a field called pediatric oncology, then there’s no Cosmic Santa Claus. If there’s a place named Auschwitz, then there’s no Cosmic Santa Claus. If there are tsunamis that kill tens of thousands of people, then there’s no Cosmic Santa Claus. If there’s an institution called television news, and all it ever covers is the death of Anna Nicole Smith, then there’s no Cosmic Santa Claus.”

But exactly who made the law that requires us to think of God as a Cosmic Santa Claus? Who made the requirement that, to be religious, we must adopt the view that this is the “best of all possible worlds”? That latter phrase comes from Leibniz, but the last time I checked, he was just a blow-hard, not a law maker. When it comes to our religious beliefs, we, the people are the only lawmakers. And as the Lord of my own beliefs, I say that I can believe in a God that is altogether different from the old-fashioned, miracle-working God of Scripture.

My spirituality starts with a much more modest assumption than omnibenevolence. I’ll admit it’s an assumption – pure speculation. Then again, believing its opposite would be pure speculation as well. I choose to believe in the assumption at issue largely because I intuit that it makes sense and largely because it makes my life more meaningful when I adopt it.

My assumption is that all of life is unified – and by that, I mean that it is one single substance, one single organism, if you will. My assumption, in other words, is that everything that exists today is intimately connected with everything that did exist but no longer does in the same form, and everything that will exist even though its form hasn’t yet manifested itself to our senses or thoughts. I start with the idea, in short, that The All is One.

And to that All, I grant the notion of divinity … of holiness, of beauty.

Try that approach for yourself, sometime. Consider that all your thoughts, everything you can sense with your five senses, and everything you can’t sense but believe is existent in some hidden set of dimensions, are part of a single Being – much like you already believe that your bones and tissue are part of a single being. Then, walking down the street or lying in bed, look lovingly at that single Being. Praise the Being for its beauty and complexity. Allow it to inspire your own actions. Give the Being a name (I’m partial to the name “God,” but you might prefer another – like Absolute Being). And then devote your lives to honoring that name.

Try that for a few days. Then let’s talk about whether there’s room in our lives for religion.

MEDIAN AND MEAN

Liberals like me often laugh at the old saw that “a rising tide lifts all boats.” Whether you call it “trickle-down” or “Voodoo economics,” the idea that what’s good for the economy generally and the very rich in particular will inevitably – and almost magically -- benefit the middle-class or poor worker has been subjected to all sorts of ridicule by economists and pundits alike. Now, and perhaps only now, are we seeing some justification for our liberal scorn.

This fall, the New York Times reported that now, for the first time since WWII, a period of an expanding U.S. economy is poised to fail to offer an increase in real wages for the average worker. Assuming, in other words, that the recent economic expansion is coming to an end, the nation as a whole will have gotten richer at the same time that most Americans are getting poorer. Specifically, from 2003 to the present, a time when national productivity has increased steadily, the median American hourly wage has dropped by two percent. Corporate profits are at a four-decade high, but the trickle has not been felt down below.

It’s easy to look at these figures and blame the White House – the tax cuts, for example, or the shrinking minimum wage. But there may be something amiss here that transcends the policies of any particular administration or Congress. Consider what’s happened to that formerly great American institution, the trade union. If someone tried to make On the Waterfront now, nobody would know what it’s talking about. Or consider the rising costs of health care -- costs that will only skyrocket as we Baby Boomers get as old as I sometimes feel already. Companies will need to spend a greater share of their profits on health care, and that will leave less money to pay the wages that workers need to feed their families and enjoy the American dream.

All these facts and figures sound kind of dry and boring – at least until we realize what’s at stake here. Increasingly, we’re witnessing a threat to what is perhaps the most impressive and distinctive aspect of the American culture: the notion that everyone, practically, is a member of the middle class. The idea of a nation of middle-class farmers, shop owners, and unionized skilled workers suggests a tri-part America dominated by a vast middle class, with a tiny group of Brahmans at the top (the Adams’s, the Bush’s, the Kennedy’s, the Rockefellers) and another small group of urban and rural poor at the bottom. But, in fact, the situation wasn’t quite that utopian before, and it’s certainly not so now. In fact, we seem to be on the verge of heading toward a bi-polar economy.

On the one hand, you have a growing number of multi-millionaires – lawyers who bill $600 an hour, corporate executives who receive annual bonuses of several hundred thousand a year in addition to their huge salaries, and doctors who receive similarly overstuffed salaries, all the while complaining that they’re not making quite enough. On the other hand, you have an increasingly un-unionized force of laborers who are watching their bosses get richer while finding it harder and harder to purchase what even they had grown accustomed to buying.

As our country grays over the next few decades, I find myself wondering whether the problem of the median hourly wage will get better or worse. What will happen, for example, to social security? Will we provide universal health care, as opposed to allowing large fragments of the work force to grow old without the help of modern medicine? And will the graying of America depress real wages because of the health care burden, or increase wages due to a dwindling supply of labor? (I raise that latter point as a question, but I find it difficult to believe that the supply of labor in this country will actually drop – our population seems invariably to be on the rise.)

I have no crystal ball on this issue, but I do have a preference: whatever we can do to ensure that the median wealth in this country is on the rise, and not merely the mean, that’s what we must do. Let’s take care of this situation now before we split any further in two. We’ve tried splitting up before, and while it produced some pretty darned gripping theatre, in the end Lincoln turned out to be right.

THE ULTIMATE GAME SHOW

I pride myself in having friends from 8 to 80. It was one of the very youngest that turned me on to televised poker.

I had played poker before. In fact, when I was in college, there was a period of weeks when I regularly went to the local poker club (the Cameo Club on El Camino Real, for those of you who know Palo Alto) and played low-ball poker. Truth be told, I basically broke even as far as my battles with the other players were concerned, which means that I would gradually lose money to the House – but very gradually. I was decent enough that it was a relatively cheap form of entertainment. It all ended when someone working for the club decided that those of us under 21 had to get stamped on our left hands, and I felt that wearing a stamp that said, in essence, “child” wasn’t what I had in mind for that particular adventure. I never returned.

Then one day, a couple of years ago – or as they say in the poker world, a short time after the post-Moneymaker period began – my eight year old friend mentioned that he had been watching poker on TV. I thought he was nuts. I knew that stuff was being televised, but it seemed like something suitable for watching only in a lobotomy ward. Who would want to look at a bunch of fat, grimy men – punctuated by the occasional blonde – look at a couple of cards, throw some chips on a table, and essentially watch a dealer flip a few coins until one of the fat, grimy men won and another lost. I assumed that if someone came up with the idea of forcing televised poker on the prisoners in Git-Mo, my fellow liberals would lambaste it as a form of torture.

But the eight year old who recommended watching poker carried some weight with me. He wasn’t just any eight year old. He was a math prodigy … and a sports fan. I call that the nerd-boy daily double … or, if you prefer, a clear sign of a kindred spirit. I simply had to tune in for myself, and Lord knows, that wouldn’t be hard to do. ESPN was televising poker practically every evening. In the 80s, they featured hydroplane racing, tractor pulls, and Australian Rules football; post Moneymaker, they’ve featured poker.

In case you can’t tell by now, I’m hooked. If you showed me the faces of poker players, I could probably come up with literally dozens of names. And yes, one of those names is Moneymaker. I’m referring, for those who haven’t caught on to this fad, to a man named Chris Moneymaker. He was an amateur who looked like a truck driver and had the accent to back it up. Somehow, though, in the 2003 Main Event, he defeated a field of 839 to claim what was then a record yield of $2.5 million. All of a sudden, poker’s popularity on television increased geometrically. There was something intriguing about this “Every Man” being able to sit, expressionless, as millions of dollars were at stake. Perhaps it was an antidote to all those games shows we’ve watched for decades as bouncy bimbos yelled with joy as some John Edwards look alike screamed out “Congratulations. You’ve just won FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS!” That’s actually more like $3500 after taxes. And while that’s real money, it probably didn’t merit all the juggling and the yelling and the kissing and the … well, all the idiocy. You didn’t get that with Moneymaker. He sat still as he accumulated more and chips until finally, he was $2.5 million richer. Even after taxes, that was quite a haul.

Since Moneymaker, the stakes have only gotten bigger. In the 2006 Main Event, the number of competitors increased from many hundred to many thousand, and $12 million went to the winner. His name is Jamie Gold, but you can call him Irving Cohen because the guy seemed to fit one Jewish stereotype after another. I loved him! He was never too far from his motha – who was kvelling like a motha has never kvelled before (at least not my Jewish mother). And Gold was chatting incessantly, as only a Jewish boy can. But he didn’t just chat, he shared. That’s right, he kept giving lots and lots of meaningful info about what was in his hands. His style was totally unorthodox; in fact, it was probably downright incompetent. And yet the guy won anyway … in a rout! It was as startling, in its own way, as Moneymaker’s victory.

To top off the whole experience, the best part about watching poker on ESPN is the announcer – Norman Chad. The guy is classic borscht belt. I can’t tell you how many times he makes fun of his failed marriages. One minute it’s “and the next card is a two of clubs,” and the next minute it’s “take my second ex-wife, please!” Well, he doesn’t say it that way – he’s much funnier – but you get the idea.

The funniest thing about Chad, though, isn’t his intentional jokes. It’s his predictions about who will win the game you’re watching based on which players are incredibly good which ones are reasonably good, and which ones are mere pretenders. Now don’t get me wrong: I’m sure that some poker players are much, much, MUCH better than others. And the comedy fan in me digs the fact that poker has its own royalty who are treated as gods by the other competitors, as well as by Chad. But I’m convinced that on any given day, the quality of the players matters a whole lot less than the luck of the draw.

Norm, you may want this game to be like chess, where quality almost always shows its face. But at the risk of bursting your bubble, this ain’t chess. It’s a game for fat, grimy men – punctuated by the occasional blonde – who probably aren’t appreciably smarter than the truck drivers or actuaries they resemble.

But hey, it’s still the ultimate game show.

IS HE RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT OR VEEP?

I hope you all were watching MSNBC or CNN today at 10:00 a.m. central time, when Barack Obama officially announced that he’s running for President. It was a nice speech, full of soaring rhetoric, and yet not without a clear sound bite: all troops out of Iraq by March 2008.

The best thing about the speech was that the dude implicitly compared himself to Abraham Lincoln, and he actually pulled it off. Seriously -- he did go from Columbia University, to being a poor community activist in South Chicago, to being the first African American President of the Harvard Law Review, to being a legislator in the same place where Lincoln cut his political teeth, to becoming – unless I’m mistaken – the only African-American U.S. Senator. Pretty compelling story, I’d say.

But we’ve all heard the story before. Many of us have also heard the soaring rhetoric. We knew how smart he is. We knew his gifts as a unifier – at once spiritual and progressive. We knew his potential to make history – to show that, even if American hasn’t completely gone past its racist past, at least it has made a major stride.

We knew all that. And yet, in the polls, Barack still remains well beneath Hillary Clinton.

I support Barack over Hillary not primarily because I think Barack is more electable but rather because I think (a) Barack could actually unify our nation as a President and accomplish some very significant achievements, and (b) Democrats should stop obsessing about “electability” and go instead for the person who they could envision being most effective as President. Hillary has such a cold, divisive personality that I don’t see her getting much done. Moreover, her health care proposal back in the day was so screwed up that I don’t see her making any progress in that area – her ideas would be too easily lampooned by their opponents. In addition, I have trouble trusting any so-called Democrat who was in favor of the Iraq War, refuses to apologize for her vote, and actually supported a bill to ban flag burning. Finally, I have trouble relishing the prospect that two families might control the White House non-stop for a period of literally 28 years. That doesn’t sound like a democracy to me.

But … while I might not think much of the idea of Hillary as President … I won’t for a second underestimate her chances of winning that office. And I really won’t underestimate her chances of winning her party’s nomination. She has bucks coming out of her ears, gobs and gobs of support from power-brokers who either owe her or her husband big time, and last but not least, both tremendous experience and superior intelligence as a politician. She’s also calculating enough that I don’t anticipate her making the huge gaffe that has destroyed many other would-be Presidents on the campaign trail.

Hillary has already started making comparisons to the other candidates. She has touted her own experience relative to that of her competitors. Gee, do you think maybe, just maybe, she was calling attention to Barack Obama and his neophyte status as a national politician?

You need only look at Hillary for five minutes to understand this woman will go for the jugular if she has to. If she’s willing to advance her ambitions by supporting anti-flag burning legislation, she’s probably willing to tear into her opponents if that’s what it takes to get elected. I have to say, as little as I think of her as a potential President, I like the fight in the woman. And I think the American public would like it too. They don’t want divisive politicians, but they really don’t like guys who get swift-boated and don’t know how to fight back. Of course, right now, Hillary doesn’t need to swift-boat anyone. She can just stay put, on top of the political version of Mt. Olympus, take the occasional swipe at her opponents’ lack of experience, and let the bags of money roll in by the tons.

The one who needs to fight is Barack Obama. He’s the challenger. He’s the one behind on points. He’s the one who has never demonstrated to the American public that he has the aggressiveness needed to stare down a belligerent dictator. Heck, he’s never even demonstrated to the nation that, as a politician on the national stage, he has the courage to take an unpopular stance on a controversial issue.

For Barack to be the “Tiger Woods of politics,” he would have to be superior in virtually all aspects of the game. We’ve seen his majestic drives (the equivalent of the soaring speeches), and we’re beginning to see signs of promise in his iron play (the equivalent of putting together specific plans to address hot-button issues). But does he have Tiger’s short game? In other words – if I am permitted the chance to mix a metaphor – what kind of in-fighter is Barack?

Is he willing to explain to the American public not only why he would be a great President but what differentiates him from Hillary? Is he willing to explain that he is a unifier and she is a divider? Is he willing to explain that she can never lead this nation in a war against poverty or global warming – which requires broad support from across the ideological spectrum? Is he willing to explain why we should care that he was an early critic of the Iraq War and she was an unapologetic supporter?

Let me ask the question differently:

Barack, we know that like Hillary, you’re “in it to win it,” but for which office are you really campaigning, President or Veep?

If you aren’t willing to wrestle a bit in the mud, do me a favor and go away for four years. I don’t ever want to see Tiger Woods carrying the bag for Phil Mickelson.

UPDATE ON THE CREED ROOM

Over the next couple of months, I will be doing a number of book talks for The Creed Room. I would appreciate it if you – or anyone you think might be interested – are able to attend any of these events.

The next such event will be held on Sunday, February 11^th at 6:30 p.m. at Temple Shalom. The Temple is located at 8401 Grubb Road, Chevy Chase, MD, 20815.

Then, on Wednesday, February 21^st at 7:30 p.m., I will be giving a talk at the Bethesda Barnes and Noble. That store is located at 4801 Bethesda Avenue, Bethesda MD 20814 (walking distance from the Bethesda Metro stop).

On Monday, March 12^th at 6:30 p.m., I will be giving a talk about the book at a meeting of the Washington Spinoza Society held at the Washington, D.C. Goethe Institute. The Institute is located at 812 7^th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20001 (walking distance from the Gallery Place/Chinatown Metro stop).

The above talks are all open to the public and free of charge. I will also be giving a talk about the book at two private parties in March. First, on the evening of Saturday, March 10^th, in Glen Rock, New Jersey, and later on the evening of Wednesday, March 28^th, in Bethesda, Maryland. If you are able to attend one of these functions but not any of the others, please e-mail me at creedroom @danielspiro.com and I’ll see if it’s possible for me to get you an invitation.

If you have any questions about the book in advance, go to www.danielspiro.com, www.thaegispress.com, or www.amazon.com.

THE WEEK THAT WAS

A lot of things happened this week that seem worthy of note. Let me react to a few that you might have heard about, and point out one that you almost certainly haven’t.

First, I was taken by the controversy surrounding Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware. Just as he was announcing his bid for the Presidency, Biden put his foot in his mouth. In an attempt to praise Barack Obama, Biden referred to his rival as “the first mainstream African-American [candidate] who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”

You’ve surely heard that line. All the talking heads are lappin’ it up. They can’t get over how stupid Biden is for making such an obviously racist comment. Well … here’s my take:

Call the statement stupid. Call it racist. Call it a fitting away for a blowhard with a huge ego but no shot at victory to throw his hat into the ring. I don’t mind any of those characterizations. But I’ve got to say that the comment made me sympathize with the guy. If I were running for President, I’d make more quotably stupid comments than any politician ever has – Dan Quayle inclusive. And so, I suggest, would anyone that you’d possibly want to hang out with a Saturday night … or even a Sunday morning.

The media coverage of politics -- and specifically, its intense scrutiny of candidates, and its desire to sensationalize and ridicule – has had a clear consequence: if you want to run for the highest office, you had better be a friggen robot. Look at Howard Dean. He was just a teentsy, weentsy different, and the media castrated him.

So bye, bye Joe Biden. And so long, in advance, to any other Presidential Candidate who considers speaking extemporaneously. I’ll look forward to a season of robots who “don’t make mistakes.” Personally, I’d take a flesh and blood leader any time. Wasn’t that one of the lessons from Star Trek?

Second, this past week marked the passing of one Molly Ivins. She was a liberal. Not a Triangulator, not a DLC Dixiecrat, not a non-binding-resolution pragmatist … but a real, honest-to-God liberal. She hated guns, hated war, hated bullies, hated crooks, and loved the little guy (and gal). Oh, and by the way, she was really funny … and courageous … and willing to piss people off who deserve to be pissed on. She also had a ton of common sense.

I, for one, will miss her a lot. In fact, her passing makes me question why – after all these millennia of human evolution -- there aren’t more people like her. Does God really need to teach us over and over again that “He” isn’t omni-benevolent? You’d think we would have learned that lesson by now.

Third, a study was released saying that the human race is causing the planet to heat up. Tomorrow, I guess, they’ll be releasing another study saying that Shaquille O’Neal’s parents caused him to be tall. I wouldn’t have thought the issue was still being debated … at least not until I recently spent some time in the Midwest. People see things a little differently out there. Global warming is a hoax, evolution is a hoax … and Saddam’s WMDs were not merely real … they were positively noumenal!

Fourth, the Scooter Libby trial is going on. And guess what? The witnesses are contradicting one another. There’s a shocker. If I were given a hundred dollars every time a witness failed to tell the “truth, whole truth, and nothing but the truth” when answering one of my questions … let’s just say I’d be rich enough to retire from the law and never look back.

Fifth, Senator Russ Feingold – who wants to end America’s War in Iraq -- called the proposed non-binding Senate resolution on Iraq a “deal with the devil.” Can I say that Feingold is basically the same person as Molly Ivins except that (a) he isn’t a woman, (b) he isn’t funny, and (c) he isn’t dead. Believe me, that’s high praise.

Sixth, and finally, I made the decision to devote my next blog-post to talking about my upcoming book-talks. As someone who hates marketing, I’ve been putting off the pleasure of tooting my own horn. … But now that I’ve come this far in the self-promotion department, I think I’ll follow through with my threat. So when I post again, I’ll give some dates, times and places. If you know anyone in Northern Jersey or the Washington, D.C. area, stay tuned.

THE WEEK THAT WAS

A lot of things happened this week that seem worthy of note. Let me react to a few that you might have heard about, and point out one that you almost certainly haven’t.

First, I was taken by the controversy surrounding Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware. Just as he was announcing his bid for the Presidency, Biden put his foot in his mouth. In an attempt to praise Barack Obama, Biden referred to his rival as “the first mainstream African-American [candidate] who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”

You’ve surely heard that line. All the talking heads are lappin’ it up. They can’t get over how stupid Biden is for making such an obviously racist comment. Well … here’s my take:

Call the statement stupid. Call it racist. Call it a fitting away for a blowhard with a huge ego but no shot at victory to throw his hat into the ring. I don’t mind any of those characterizations. But I’ve got to say that the comment made me sympathize with the guy. If I were running for President, I’d make more quotably stupid comments than any politician ever has – Dan Quayle inclusive. And so, I suggest, would anyone that you’d possibly want to hang out with a Saturday night … or even a Sunday morning.

The media coverage of politics -- and specifically, its intense scrutiny of candidates, and its desire to sensationalize and ridicule – has had a clear consequence: if you want to run for the highest office, you had better be a friggen robot. Look at Howard Dean. He was just a teentsy, weentsy different, and the media castrated him.

So bye, bye Joe Biden. And so long, in advance, to any other Presidential Candidate who considers speaking extemporaneously. I’ll look forward to a season of robots who “don’t make mistakes.” Personally, I’d take a flesh and blood leader any time. Wasn’t that one of the lessons from Star Trek?

Second, this past week marked the passing of one Molly Ivins. She was a liberal. Not a Triangulator, not a DLC Dixiecrat, not a non-binding-resolution pragmatist … but a real, honest-to-God liberal. She hated guns, hated war, hated bullies, hated crooks, and loved the little guy (and gal). Oh, and by the way, she was really funny … and courageous … and willing to piss people off who deserve to be pissed on. She also had a ton of common sense.

I, for one, will miss her a lot. In fact, her passing makes me question why – after all these millennia of human evolution -- there aren’t more people like her. Does God really need to teach us over and over again that “He” isn’t omni-benevolent? You’d think we would have learned that lesson by now.

Third, a study was released saying that the human race is causing the planet to heat up. Tomorrow, I guess, they’ll be releasing another study saying that Shaquille O’Neal’s parents caused him to be tall. I wouldn’t have thought the issue was still being debated … at least not until I recently spent some time in the Midwest. People see things a little differently out there. Global warming is a hoax, evolution is a hoax … and Saddam’s WMDs were not merely real … they were positively noumenal!

Fourth, the Scooter Libby trial is going on. And guess what? The witnesses are contradicting one another. There’s a shocker. If I were given a hundred dollars every time a witness failed to tell the “truth, whole truth, and nothing but the truth” when answering one of my questions … let’s just say I’d be rich enough to retire from the law and never look back.

Fifth, Senator Russ Feingold – who wants to end America’s War in Iraq -- called the proposed non-binding Senate resolution on Iraq a “deal with the devil.” Can I say that Feingold is basically the same person as Molly Ivins except that (a) he isn’t a woman, (b) he isn’t funny, and (c) he isn’t dead. Believe me, that’s high praise.

Sixth, and finally, I made the decision to devote my next blog-post to talking about my upcoming book-talks. As someone who hates marketing, I’ve been putting off the pleasure of tooting my own horn. … But now that I’ve come this far in the self-promotion department, I think I’ll follow through with my threat. So when I post again, I’ll give some dates, times and places. If you know anyone in Northern Jersey or the Washington, D.C. area, stay tuned.

THE WEEK THAT WAS

A lot of things happened this week that seem worthy of note. Let me react to a few that you might have heard about, and point out one that you almost certainly haven’t.

First, I was taken by the controversy surrounding Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware. Just as he was announcing his bid for the Presidency, Biden put his foot in his mouth. In an attempt to praise Barack Obama, Biden referred to his rival as “the first mainstream African-American [candidate] who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”

You’ve surely heard that line. All the talking heads are lappin’ it up. They can’t get over how stupid Biden is for making such an obviously racist comment. Well … here’s my take:

Call the statement stupid. Call it racist. Call it a fitting away for a blowhard with a huge ego but no shot at victory to throw his hat into the ring. I don’t mind any of those characterizations. But I’ve got to say that the comment made me sympathize with the guy. If I were running for President, I’d make more quotably stupid comments than any politician ever has – Dan Quayle inclusive. And so, I suggest, would anyone that you’d possibly want to hang out with a Saturday night … or even a Sunday morning.

The media coverage of politics -- and specifically, its intense scrutiny of candidates, and its desire to sensationalize and ridicule – has had a clear consequence: if you want to run for the highest office, you had better be a friggen robot. Look at Howard Dean. He was just a teentsy, weentsy different, and the media castrated him.

So bye, bye Joe Biden. And so long, in advance, to any other Presidential Candidate who considers speaking extemporaneously. I’ll look forward to a season of robots who “don’t make mistakes.” Personally, I’d take a flesh and blood leader any time. Wasn’t that one of the lessons from Star Trek?

Second, this past week marked the passing of one Molly Ivins. She was a liberal. Not a Triangulator, not a DLC Dixiecrat, not a non-binding-resolution pragmatist … but a real, honest-to-God liberal. She hated guns, hated war, hated bullies, hated crooks, and loved the little guy (and gal). Oh, and by the way, she was really funny … and courageous … and willing to piss people off who deserve to be pissed on. She also had a ton of common sense.

I, for one, will miss her a lot. In fact, her passing makes me question why – after all these millennia of human evolution -- there aren’t more people like her. Does God really need to teach us over and over again that “He” isn’t omni-benevolent? You’d think we would have learned that lesson by now.

Third, a study was released saying that the human race is causing the planet to heat up. Tomorrow, I guess, they’ll be releasing another study saying that Shaquille O’Neal’s parents caused him to be tall. I wouldn’t have thought the issue was still being debated … at least not until I recently spent some time in the Midwest. People see things a little differently out there. Global warming is a hoax, evolution is a hoax … and Saddam’s WMDs were not merely real … they were positively noumenal!

Fourth, the Scooter Libby trial is going on. And guess what? The witnesses are contradicting one another. There’s a shocker. If I were given a hundred dollars every time a witness failed to tell the “truth, whole truth, and nothing but the truth” when answering one of my questions … let’s just say I’d be rich enough to retire from the law and never look back.

Fifth, Senator Russ Feingold – who wants to end America’s War in Iraq -- called the proposed non-binding Senate resolution on Iraq a “deal with the devil.” Can I say that Feingold is basically the same person as Molly Ivins except that (a) he isn’t a woman, (b) he isn’t funny, and (c) he isn’t dead. Believe me, that’s high praise.

Sixth, and finally, I made the decision to devote my next blog-post to talking about my upcoming book-talks. As someone who hates marketing, I’ve been putting off the pleasure of tooting my own horn. … But now that I’ve come this far in the self-promotion department, I think I’ll follow through with my threat. So when I post again, I’ll give some dates, times and places. If you know anyone in Northern Jersey or the Washington, D.C. area, stay tuned.