Goal: written drafts (in some semblance) of all 5 chapters by August 31.
Means of implementation: deliberate staring at computer screen, forsaking of (some) weekend trips and summer fun, much consumption of caffinated beverages, and few shining moments of literary genius.
End result: one piece of paper that says I'm supposedly smarter.

Stand by my Woman -- Lenny Kravitz
Say Goodbye -- Dave Matthews Band
Bodies -- Jennifer Nettles Band
Summertime -- The Sundays
The Water is Wide -- Lillith Faire
Waste -- Phish
Fields of Gold -- Eva Cassidy
Don't Ever Wonder -- Maxwell
You are so Beautiful -- Joe Cocker
At Last -- Etta James
Sexy -- Black Eyed Peas
You Sexy Thing -- Hot Chocolate
I Want You -- Cheap Trick
Kiss Me -- Sixpence None the Richer
Let Go -- Frou Frou
These Arms of Mine -- Otis Redding
The Promise -- Tracy Chapman
Turn Me On -- Norah Jones
I'll Close my Eyes -- Dinah Washington

The old idea of the intellectual as the one who speaks truth to power is still an idea worth holding on to. Tyrants fear the truth of books because it's a truth that's in hock to nobody, it's a single artist's unfettered vision of the world. They fear it even more because it's incomplete, because the act of reading completes it, so that the book's truth is slightly different in each reader's different inner world, and these are the true revolutions of literature, these invisible, intimate communions of strangers, these tiny revolutions inside each reader's imagination, and the enemies of the imagination, politburos, ayatollahs, all the different goon squads of gods and power, want to shut these revolutions down, and can't. Not even the author of a book can know exactly what effect his book will have, but good books do have effects, and some of these effects are powerful, and all of them, thank goodness, are impossible to predict in advance.

Literature is a loose cannon. This is a very good thing.

Salman Rushdie

Of course Hannity wants the spotlight on Schiavo. This will distract the public from the fact that Terri’s autopsy backs Michael Schiavo’s contention that his wife was in a persistent vegetative state, a claim that Hannity fought. Like Jeb and George Bush, Tom DeLay, and Bill Frist, the Fox talk show host doesn’t want to look stupid.

[...]Terri’s autopsy destroyed every claim Hammesfahr made about her condition. Terri’s brain was half its normal size, severely and permanently damaged, giving her no chance of recovery. She was also blind.

How did Hannity respond to the autopsy report when it was released June 15? He had as a guest that day Mark Fuhrman who suggested that Michael Schiavo had strangled his wife with a pillow back in '90. Though the autopsy revealed no evidence of this, Fuhrman explained that a police choke hold could deprive a person of oxygen without leaving marks. (Fuhrman ought to know, the ex-cop who used to brag about beating and torturing suspects.)

Shameless. Disgusting.

But Jeb Bush’s response wasn’t much better than Hannity’s. On the day of the autopsy results he directed Florida’s state attorney to open an investigation into whether Schiavo delayed in calling paramedics when he found his wife passed out in their bathroom. The pretext for Jeb’s sudden interest, 15 years after the fact, is that over the years Schiavo has given different estimates of the time he discovered Terri—was it 4:30 a.m. or 5 a.m.?

Never mind that it was very early in the morning, and Schiavo was panicking and trying to revive Terri—a far more human response than Jeb’s brother, George, showed as he sat dumbstruck in a second-grade classroom after having learned that his country had just been attacked by terrorists. ...

While some find the message sexist in the way it targets girls, Scott Hughes, director of Just Wait, says it's really more about teenage boys.

"Guys are turned on visually by what they see, so it's really saying guys aren't men enough to control themselves, therefore you have to be careful on how you present yourself," says Hughes.

Relationships aren't the best thing, if you ask me. People can be quite untrustworthy, and the more you get to know them -- by that I mean the more you let someone know who you really are -- the more it feels as though something is at stake. And that makes me nervous. It takes me a million years to get to know anybody pretty well, and even then the slightest thing will set me off. I feel it in my chest, this desire to dissociate. I don't mean to be a jerk about it, but that is how I am wired. I say this because it makes complete sense to me that we would rather have a formula religion than a relational religion. If I could, I probably would have formula friends because they would be safe.

Searching for God Knows What, Donald Miller

Hmm, my apologies that this epiphany is a bit of a downer. My supply of this must be running dangerously low. (incidentally, you wouldn't believe some of the crazy things Google dredges up when you type in "happy thoughts")!!

THE MALL'S BANANA REPUBLICS
FOR THE NEW MILLENNIUM.
By Kate Hahn

Oligarchy & Fitch
Forever Totalitarian
Club Monarchy
babyJunta
Dictatorship's Secret
J. Crony
American Eagle Occupiers
French Colonial Connection (FCCUK)
Old Duchy

Mortal, Eat this Scroll! -- The introduction

and

Hermaphrodite Terrorist Angel: How many holy rollers does it take to pray the devil out of a hermaphrodite terrorist angel? (good question)

It was deemed the worst act of terrorism in Canadian history: 331 people were killed in two decisive and deliberate explosions — one in a Japanese airport, another aboard Air India flight 182 in 1985. For the families of the victims, most of them Canadian, this was just the beginning. Charges of investigative bungling would be followed by the more startling accusations that CSIS, Canada's security agency, intentionally initiated a coverup. For [20] years Canadians have grappled with this unsolved crime for which no one has yet had to pay.

• Bush to Shun G8 Allies on Global Warming: OSLO (Reuters) - Unconvinced that the world is warming, U.S. President Bush looks set to shun pleas by his main industrial allies to step up a fight against climate change at a Group of Eight summit next month.

• Pentagon Creating Student Database: The Defense Department began working yesterday with a private marketing firm to create a database of high school students ages 16 to 18 and all college students to help the military identify potential recruits in a time of dwindling enlistment in some branches.

• Supreme Court Rules Cities may Seize Homes: WASHINGTON - A divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses against their will for private development in a decision anxiously awaited in communities where economic growth often is at war with individual property rights.

• US Votes to Slash UN Funds: The United States House of Representatives has voted to halve contributions to the United Nations unless it introduces radical changes. Support for expanded and future peacekeeping missions might be refused if a list of demands are not met.

• Bush's bulldog speaks: Democrats demand Rove apology: Rove, in a speech Wednesday evening to the New York state Conservative Party just a few miles north of Ground Zero, said, “Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.” Conservatives, he said, “saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war.” He added that the Democratic Party made the mistake of calling for “moderation and restraint” after the terrorist attacks.

Video of the douchebag's comments here. Imagine, the Bush administration exploiting 9/11 and mocking/demeaning those who disagree with their regime's policies. Shocking, indeed.

Poutine -- yum!, originally uploaded by becky b..

I know my admitting I actually LIKE poutine will come as a shock for some of you.

French bistro -- Liberty's, originally uploaded by becky b..

This is a good picture of all of us, taken today.

June21st 029, originally uploaded by Eclectic.

A stunning pic from the severe thunderstorm last night.

"Regina is hell." -- my husband

[...]What the disparate sects of this movement, known as Dominionism, share is an obsession with political power. A decades-long refusal to engage in politics at all following the Scopes trial has been replaced by a call for Christian “dominion” over the nation and, eventually, over the earth itself. Dominionists preach that Jesus has called them to build the kingdom of God in the here and now, whereas previously it was thought that we would have to wait for it.

America becomes, in this militant biblicism, an agent of God, and all political and intellectual opponents of America’s Christian leaders are viewed, quite simply, as agents of Satan. Under Christian dominion, America will no longer be a sinful and fallen nation but one in which the Ten Commandments form the basis of our legal system, Creationism and “Christian values” form the basis of our educational system, and the media and the government proclaim the Good News to one and all. Aside from its proselytizing mandate, the federal government will be reduced to the protection of property rights and “homeland” security.

Some Dominionists (not all of whom accept the label, at least not publicly) would further require all citizens to pay “tithes” to church organizations empowered by the government to run our social-welfare agencies, and a number of influential figures advocate the death penalty for a host of “moral crimes,” including apostasy, blasphemy, sodomy, and witchcraft. The only legitimate voices in this state will be Christian. All others will be silenced.

[...]

I can’t help but recall the words of my ethics professor at Harvard Divinity School, Dr. James Luther Adams, who told us that when we were his age, and he was then close to eighty, we would all be fighting the “Christian fascists.”

He gave us that warning twenty-five years ago, when Pat Robertson and other prominent evangelists began speaking of a new political religion that would direct its efforts at taking control of all major American institutions, including mainstream denominations and the government, so as to transform the United States into a global Christian empire. At the time, it was hard to take such fantastic rhetoric seriously. But fascism, Adams warned, would not return wearing swastikas and brown shirts. Its ideological inheritors would cloak themselves in the language of the Bible; they would come carrying crosses and chanting the Pledge of Allegiance...

Adams told us to watch closely the Christian right’s persecution of homosexuals and lesbians. Hitler, he reminded us, promised to restore moral values not long after he took power in 1933, then imposed a ban on all homosexual and lesbian organizations and publications. Then came raids on the places where homosexuals gathered, culminating on May 6, 1933, with the ransacking of the Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin. Twelve thousand volumes from the institute’s library were tossed into a public bonfire. Homosexuals and lesbians, Adams said, would be the first “deviants” singled out by the Christian right.

We would be the next.

Becky and Jerry's party, originally uploaded by Linea.

Here's a photo that Linea took for us -- I like the look of it. That's me with my little niece, Jenna. (her photo set of the day is here)

(I know that the amount of personal-life-posts here have been HUGE here laterly, but it seems to be in the forefront in the last little while)

We had planned on getting out the door and on the road by 10AM. Of course, after staying up til 3 or 4 the night before (introducing them to the wonders of Tim Hortons), we got out by 11.

In Kindersley, SK, my sis noticed an electric plug hanging off my car in the front. She held it up, and with great concern, asked me if this was supposed to be hanging on the front of my car. Oh, to be in the naive state of not needing block heaters!

We inched our way to Drumheller, Alberta. After a brief stint of being lost (damn that elusive Alberta road 838), we reached the dino-friendly Welcome sign. We then proceeded to the world's smallest church, Horsethief Canyon and of course, The World's Largest Dinosaur. In between that time, we enjoyed watching all the prairie gophers and two boys run up and down the badlands like crazy men.

We finally made it to Calgary, only to discover that I had forgotten the carefully-packed bag of tolietries for myself and my Mr.

We were in need of them, so after a late supper, we began a desperate search for a Shopper's or some other drug store that would be open that time of the night. Not only did we search and get lost, but after finally finding one (a half hour before it closed, no less), we had the experience of watching an extremely drunk woman assault a rent-a-cop of the mall we were visiting. Fun times?

We decided to hit the Tower for a brunch, only to miss its breakfast time by minutes. After a quick look at the Calgary skyline, we settled in for a lunch in the revolving restaurant. The menu was not very inviting, and I decided on a Caesar Salad -- when it came out, I was presented with a small head of romaine lettuce and a small slice of prosciutto. I knew I must be in a fancy place when they made me make my own salad!

Our poor waiter, Albert, couldn't carry a tray to save his life -- so our ambiance was complimented with dropped dishes and trays, in addition to a very squeaky section of the tower that badly needed some WD-40 to allow the restaurant to pass over it quietly.

In addition to having an overpriced and under-prepared meal, I had a mini-celebrity experience. While we were waiting for our food, Jerry looked up and after a few glances, he recognized a friend from Saskatoon who was passing by. After a few minutes conversation, he turned to introduce me to him -- and his friend looked and recognized me as "grrrl meets world". He's a fan, so hi to you, Andy Mark! My sister thought it was hilarious someone would recognize me and know me as grrrl meets world. Stranger things have happened, but I got a kick out of it too.

The rest of the day was spent visiting MEC, finding me an outfit for the reception on Saturday, eating supper at Old Spaghetti Factory (spumoni, yum!), and a night at the hotel's jacuzzi. Not a bad day.

Okay, so by this time, I am one tired grrrl. Little sis and her hubby go non-stop, so they got up first thing and checked out the Devonian Gardens they missed the day before.

But, she loves me and brought me coffee and some of these tasty confections as incentive to get up to drive out West. It's a good thing there's none of these shops nearby -- though Jerry didn't care much for 'em (sad thing, indeed).

We headed out on the Trans Canada, and stopped at the Canada Olympic Park for a soggy touristy stop. Great fun and silly poses were had by all. (we later had to rent Cool Runnings to fully appreciate the experience)

We then proceeded to Canmore, lunched at the Bolo Ranchhouse and had quite the waitress. I now know the "correct" way to reheat cold pizza. We then walked around some shops, dodged the ever-present raindrops, and had a blast at a used bookstore, a candy shop, and scored some amazing trail mix.

Then it was off to the infamous Tipi (or teepee) experience in Kananskis. Again, raining non-stop, we were forced to roast our marshmallows over tea lights and not the campfire we had envisioned.

I suppose it didn't help our camping experience for me to talk about the bear attack that happened in Canmore earlier this month.

But despite the rain and unseasonably cold weather, we had a fun time -- it was such a great campground, we're already making plans to go again. There's just nothing like waking up and seeing mountains in your backyard.

Today was the last day of our cross-province trek, and we left the campground a little after 9AM, not to return to Saskatoon until after 3AM Tuesday morning. Lots of driving and weather-experiencing took place in between these 18 hours.

Monday gave us quite the taste of Canada's meteorological delights -- in that one day we experienced rain, wind, snow, sun, hail, and heavy fog.

First up: Lake Louise, a mountain lake filled with blue-green glacier water. Beautiful lake, not-so-beautiful gray skies and rain.

We then checked out the rest of Banff National Park, including Crowfoot Glacier and Peyto lake. While we were up in the mountains, we had a pretty good dousing of summer snow, as well. (I think snow has forever lost its romantic appeal to me, after spending 3 winters in Saskatchewan)

We then acted as tourists and played in Banff for the rest of the day. We saw an incredibly creepy merman skeleton, ate fondue, and enjoyed the fleeting sunshine falling over the mountains around us.

Eventually we begrudingly began the quest home and had quite the "dining experience" at one of Hanna, Alberta's finer dining establishments.

Not too shabby. Thanks for this, Suz and Tim.

You scored as Emergent/Postmodern. You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don't think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this. Emergent/Postmodern 71% Classical Liberal 54% Modern Liberal 50% Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 46% Neo orthodox 43% Roman Catholic 29% Charismatic/Pentecostal 25% Reformed Evangelical 21% Fundamentalist 11% What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

No, not the cheesy movie, but come and meet my parents! If you're in Saskatoon tomorrow, and want to drop by and see the Stateside folks, c'mon by anytime after 7pm. It's just a little drop-in party, so come by and have some popcorn and sparkling Saskatoon berry juice.

Email me if you need directions.

You never planned to see an Oddball Comic like THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN VS. THE PRODIGY!, but here it is! Co-published by Marvel Comics and the Planned Parenthood organization, this digest-sized giveaway from the Disco Era features Spidey preventing a slavery scheme from outer space while simultaneously advising teenagers on how to avoid unwanted pregnancies! Yep, believe it or not, beneath all of its superheroics, this is a birth-control comic! Never again will you think about "web-shooters" in quite the same way!

Not nearly enough -- well, I say that now that I'm settled into a cozy apartment. Everytime I move, I bemoan (temporarily) my book collection. Now that I'm married to another bibliophile, my book collection has increased all the more! One of the first things we did as a couple was to mingle our books -- no small affair, and quite momentous.

I'm hesitant to count 'em all -- but our rough estimate puts it between six and seven hundred. We only have 5 bookcases, and the books on these cases are arranged every-which-way in order to accomodate our emerging collection.

We don't go out much, but we do love buying or exchanging books. My dream job would consist of me reading in my papasan chair, drinking hot tea, and reading for fun all day.

We just got the latest translation of Gilgamesh by Stephen Mitchell & McLaren's latest, The Last Word and the Word After That.

I just finished reading the other two books in McLaren's series, A New Kind of Christian and The Story We Find Ourselves In. I hadn't read these before, and I was pleasantly surprised by them. Reading them confirmed for me a lot of what I've discovered for myself, the last few years of my own spiritual journey.

I tend to dabble in a bunch of books at once -- I'm nearly finished Rhetoric as Social Imagination: Explorations in the Interpersonal Function of Language for my thesis. It's all about rhetoric being used in advice columns/books. I've also just finished Anne Lamott's latest, Plan B.

Of course, I keep a running list of my latest literary victims over on the sidebar to the left.

• The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant. One of its reviewers said this book was what the Bible would be like if it were written by women. It's the story of Dinah, Jacob's only daughter -- told from a woman's perspective. It was one of those books that deeply, deeply impacted me. I read it 4 or 5 years ago, and I see that as a turning point for me in how I viewed my faith.

• The Story We Find Ourselves In, by Brian McLaren. I'm just now finishing it, and I loved the whole experience. I think in this second book, McLaren finds a stronger voice than in the first of the series. I feel a connection with these characters, and I think narrative is such a strong tool to use -- particularly when dealing with matters of the spirit.
  

• The Mists of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley. I read this book not long after encountering The Red Tent. It's the story of King Arthur, told from the perspective of the women in his life. It's an amazing and refreshing experience (now I'm sounding like a jacket cover, I know). But, it is. I always had issues with how Morgainne (his sister, Morgan le Fay) was portrayed in the legend -- I just couldn't understand the rationale behind the character, besides serving as some kind of patriarchial object lesson. This book gave me a new understanding -- not only in terms of Arthurian legends, but also a new perspective in spiritual matters.
  

• The next is Traveling Mercies, by Anne Lamott. I only read this last year, and it's on my favorite shelf from now on. This book is a memoir of Lamott's spiritual journey -- or, how she's ended up a funky, dreadlocked white woman writer. Her voice throughout the book made me feel like she was telling me her life over a cup of coffee. I literally laughed out loud or cried at various parts of this book. I'm always amused when that happens -- usually I'm in a quiet room, and then there's this random outburst from me. Anyway, one great read.

• Finally, my last book is Sula, by Toni Morrison. I first read this book in a Southern Lit class in my undergrad, and I became completely enraptured with Morrison's work. At one point, I lamented I wasn't born a black woman so I could completely empathize with what I was reading. Sula is the story of two girls, who grow up and live completely different lives -- one doing the "right" thing, and the other living her own life. Morrison's use of language (especially her metaphors) get me every time.

1. Rilla, because she's as much a literary nut as I.
2. Laura, because she needs to blog and as her best friend, it's my job to distract her from being productive.
3. Scotty D, because he's Scotty! (reason enough for me, anyway)
4. Darren, because I'm curious what books he's enjoyed, and not given up on. Plus, I know this list is going to be varied.
5. and Dixie, because she makes me laugh.
5.5 d'oh! I also must tag Natalie, just because.

I try militantly never to be affected by the pious language of the faithful but it is always coming out when you least expect it. I doubtless hate pious language . . . because I believe the realities it hides.

fellow Southern girl, and personal hero: Flannery O'Connor
from her book of letters The Habit of Being

• The various nativity sets -- a nightlight, the holy rodent family, a marshmellow depiction, chickens?!
  
• Chick tracts!
• the checkbook Jesus -- now you, too, can write your dollars and cents on the Savior's face
• the nativity set that reads "The heavens de clare the glorg Of god"
• the beanie baby with a crucifix
• and of course, the He'Brew: the Chosen Beer ("Messiah Bold!")

"I think I can, I think I can...."

A little railroad engine was employed about a station yard for such work as it was built for, pulling a few cars on and off the switches. One morning it was waiting for the next call when a long train of freight-cars asked a large engine in the roundhouse to take it over the hill "I can't; that is too much a pull for me," said the great engine built for hard work. Then the train asked another engine, and another, only to hear excuses and be refused. At last in desperation the train asked the little switch engine to draw it up the grade and down on the other side. "I think I can," puffed the little locomotive, and put itself in front of the great heavy train. As is went on the little engine kept bravely puffing faster and faster, "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can."

Then as it near the top of the grade, that had so discouraged the larger engines, it went more slowly, but still kept saying, "I--think--I--can, I--think--I--can." It reached the top by dint of brave effort and then went on down the grade, congratulating itself, "I thought I could, I thought I could."

To think of hard things and say, "I can't" is sure to mean "Nothing done." To refuse to be daunted and insist on saying, "I think I can," is to make sure of being able to say triumphantly by and by, "I thought I could, I thought I could."

I can stand any society. All that I care to know is that a man is a human being - that is enough for me; he can't be any worse. I have no special regard for Satan; but I can at least claim that I have no prejudice against him. It may even be that I lean a little his way, on account of his not having a fair show.

All religions issue bibles against him, and say the most injurious things about him, but we never hear his side. We have none but the evidence for the prosecution, and yet we have rendered the verdict. To my mind, this is irregular. It is un-English; it is un-American; it is French.

from Concerning the Jews
by Mark Twain

A single lawn sprinkler spraying 19 litres per minute uses 50 per cent more water in just one hour than a combination of ten toilet flushes, two five minute showers, two dishwasher loads and a full load of clothes.

Your GHG Emissions Report

Based on your answers, your annual individual GHG emissions are estimated at:

• 5.82 Tonnes (5816 kg).

• make more of a concerted effort to buy ethanol-blended gasoline
• stop idling the car when I'm waiting to pick up my Mr. ("Idling for 10 minutes a day can produce about a quarter tonne of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions each year and cost you about $70 in wasted fuel.")
• when I run outta lightbulbs, I'll spend the extra cash and buy fluorescent energy-saving ones
• look into becoming a part of Saskpower's Green Power program

• Recycling
• using a power-saving LCD computer monitor
• I walk a lot -- where we live is handy to walk almost anywhere I need to (school, shopping, food, etc)
• I'm a windows kind of girl
• and I'm quickly becoming my parents -- I'm continually walking around the house turning off lights that have been left on.

Quotes from Kay O'Connor about women's suffrage (login from BugMeNot)
Associated Press

Quotes from Sen. Kay O'Connor, R-Olathe, a candidate for Kansas secretary of state, about women's suffrage:

Sept. 28, 2001:

"We have a society that does tear families apart ... I think the 19th Amendment, while it's not an evil in and of itself, is a symptom of something I don't approve of."

(The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1920, gave women the right to vote nationwide.)

"The 19th Amendment is around because men weren't doing their jobs, and I think that's sad. I believe the man should be the head of the family. The woman should be the heart of the family."

Wednesday, June 1, 2005:

"I don't deny saying that, and I will stick to my guns. I am not bashful about taking an unpopular position. I can take the heat. I have no problem with women voting. I think they need to vote. Women need the right to vote in today's society.

"I trust my instincts here. I don't think the citizens are going to make a big issue of it.

"I am who I am. You don't have to agree with everything I say. I think men should take better care of their women, but I think women should be more willing to accept masculine care."

...But what is the soul? Is it something given to us, absolutely pure until it is sullied by our sins and then cleansed by repentance? Or is it something we build, more gritty and complex, a glorious shambles, scarred and barbed, yet still aglow as we press on? By this I mean perhaps the soul is an unfinished symphony of our life experiences and the jangling inner world of our mind.

Why then do so many people focus more on the innocence of children than the wisdom of the old? We cry and fight over the aborted fetus, the miscarriage, the stillbirth, yet legions of geezers with troves of experience are fossilizing alone behind the doors of nursing homes and shabby apartments. Isn’t an old soul, a well-lived soul, more valuable, more interesting than a virgin fresh one? Perhaps but the old soul is hardly as soothing as the thought of a happy child reveling in the carefree delights of youth. We envy children and their “fresh start.” We see ourselves as them. The old remind us of what’s to come.

...Many Christians fear their bodies because they don’t understand them. And they don’t want to understand. Their focus is the soul and its salvation. The body is a temptress, dirty and wicked. The body is sinful. Sin takes the soul away from God and in turn the eternal reward promised to a submissive soul. Thus, many people see their own body as an enemy that can foil their faith. Or even worse, as a coping mechanism, they self-aggrandize the purity of their own body by regarding other bodies as sinful and impure.

...We are imperfect. We break easily. We decay quickly. More often than we like to think, our genes go off the beaten path of best hopes. But we are glorious in our imperfection. We should thank our creator for these imperfections because they keep us humble. Yet we are perfect enough to enjoy the gift of Life as we create our life.

But we can thank the hurly burly of Parliament and its attendant dramas, Belinda Stronach's traipse across the Common's floor, Judge Gomery's daily autopsy of cash and cronyism for sparing us even more grisly spectacles. I've missed, for example, most of the Michael Jackson trial. Surely a proof that there is a God and that He is both merciful and cares for us. Bits of it have strayed in to my consciousness. The fact that Mr. Jackson must be the only defendant in all of history to show up for court facing child abuse charges in his pajamas. I've missed every Larry King episode on the Jackson trial as well, a holiday for the intellect and the soul as Larry turns the full force of his suspenders on whichever loud lawyer happens to be across the desk from him.

Better still, I've missed ''Revenge of the Sith'', George Lucas's latest lowering in to the interminably boring well of the infantile Star Wars and all its merchandise, its light sabre dip sticks and its moronic bleatings about the Force being with you. George Lucas is Norman Vincent Peal for aging yuppies. Peal once wrote ''throw your heart over the fence and the rest will follow'', the kind of person walking around with his heart in his hand looking for a good fence to toss it over has probably let go of the brain sometime earlier.

Speaking of abandoned intellect, Paris Hilton continues to vacuum the brain pans of the celebrity obsessed. In her latest adventure, she soaks down a car while wearing something left over from the Catwoman movie doing a ballet that would embarrass a mink. It's meant to be a sales pitch for hamburger. The lesser life form is endorsing the higher.

Is Oprah still flogging books? I gave up on Oprah when she endorsed Tolstoy, the cork's homage to the ocean. It's not enough that the empress of the world has turned half the world in to a romper room for therapy monkeys. So you see, there may have been days when watching question period or Peter, the man with the home, Mackay or some menacing witness with Judge Gomery when we thought this stuff is going to wear us down, but in reality, it was a screen shielding us from the even more gruesome and elaborate exhibitions that our good friends, the Americans, have inexplicably decided constitute a form of amusement. ''Revenge of the Sith'', it's not a movie, it's a protracted lisp.

Sonnet 94
William Shakespeare

Brotherly Love

Estimated cost of the new 3,000 seat
North Point ministries church to
be built on Lenox Road.....$40 million

Annual budget of the largest
church in Atlanta, First Baptist
Church........................$13 million

Number of uninsured children
in Georgia....................168,000

Approximate cost to give a basic
check-up, without blood tests
or vaccines, to all those
children......................$12,450,000

Approximate number of Sudanese refugees
who've fled to neighboring Chad
because of tribal warfare....250,000

Cost to shelter and feed those
refugees for one year........$13,590,000

Minimum number of homeless people
in metro Atlanta..............37,000

Minimum number of meals provided
to homeless by the Open Door
Community each year........15,600

Annual budget of the nonprofit
Open Door Community.......$440,000

Number of times Jesus lost his temper
in the New Testament.........1

- Michael Wall, Creative Loafing
Sources: Atlanta Journal Constitution, Georgia
Department of Community Health, Georgia Chapter
of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Save Darfur
Coalition, CARE, Metro Atlanta Task Force for the
Homeless, Open Door Community.

• Anne Lamott, Blue Shoe (hardcover, for 6 bucks!)
• The Detox Revolution by Thomas J. Slaga
• and Reading the Women of the Bible: A New Interpretation of their Stories by Tikva Frymer-Kensky.

• Michel de Montaigne, On Friendship
• Socrates Cafe: A Fresh Taste of Philosophy by Christopher Phillips
• and A Brief History of Paradox: Philosophy and the Labyrinths of the Mind by Roy Sorensen.