Who cares if politicians are 'Godless?'

What's the most private thing we have?

I suppose there are a few possibilities, many of which would involve various little bits of nastiness we wouldn't want anyone to know about, but it seems to me the most private thing any of us have is our relationship with God.

That's why politics has become so incredibly annoying. This isn't just a liberal or conservative thing, either. I'm annoyed every time I hear a politician -- as I heard Barack Obama Wednesday night -- close a speech by saying, "God bless the United States of America."

But it happens all the time. The chances of an avowed atheist winning any sort of important office these days are about the same as Rush Limbaugh getting his clothes anywhere other than the Big & Tall Men's shop.

So I guess I shouldn't be as outraged by Elizabeth Dole as I am.

Dole, the one person Republicans always used to trot out to prove they didn't hate working women, is running for a second term as senator from North Carolina. She's struggling badly and appears to be on the verge of losing, which I suppose is why she had to play the "God" card.

Now Kay Hagen is anything but Godless. She's a Presbyterian and a former Sunday School teacher, and that isn't her voice saying "There is no God," even though her picture is on the screen at the same time.

But Dole is trying to tell us, even if she doesn't come right out and say it, that electing Hagen would be voting for an end to Christmas, forcing little children to dress up as Satan for Halloween and boiling puppies.

Jeez, Elizabeth.

You used to be so reasonable.

The fact is, there are far worse things a senator could be than Godless.

Just ask Ted Stevens.

Just for laughs, here's my prediction

This isn't meant to be a political blog; I do that over at Capitol Hill Blue and have a lot of fun with it. Mostly this site to me is about the things that really matter in life -- love, family and personal relationships.

But as the most interminable election in U.S. history draws to a close, I thought I would weigh in on how things will finish. My guess is Obama will win, although not by the electoral landslide some folks are predicting.

I think he'll break through in Ohio because of the economy, and in Virginia and Colorado because of a changing electorate, while McCain holds onto Florida, North Carolina and other states like Indiana that rarely if ever go to the Democrats.

If there's a surprise in this election, I think Missouri -- which almost always goes with the winner -- will miss out and go for McCain this time. I think it'll be a race thing.

The only southern state Obama will carry is Virginia, although I think he'll take three of the eight states in the Rocky Mountain West.

Anyway, it'll be 311-227 for Obama.

Check back Wednesday and see how far off I was.

Amazing baby is part Leporidae

I'll bet you didn't know this, but the most amazing baby in the world, my granddaughter Madison Nicole Kastner, is part Lepidorae.

Now before I send you scooting off to Wikipedia to find out what it means (although I'll give you the link right here), I'll tell you that Lepidorae is just the high-falutin' way of saying rabbit. You betcha it is.


See, even winkin' Sarah Palin agrees with me. They've got some pretty big Lepidorae up on the Northern Frontier, even if they just call them rabbit stew.

Anyway, when little Maddie was still in the womb, she apparently did a great deal of kicking. So her mother, the amazing Pauline Nicole Kastner, gave her the nickname "Thumper."

Now whether she was a "thumper" or a "kicker" is a point that could be argued, but somehow I don't think the nickname "David Beckham" would have been quite as cute for a little girl baby.


"Thumper," on the other hand, is your basic adorable nickname for a baby, and it's really quite rare for a baby to have a full-fledged nickname before she has ever walked, talked or stolen a hubcap.

It usually takes longer. I believe George "Dubya" Bush didn't get his nickname till he was 33, although I'd put Maddie's intellect at 5 1/2 weeks up against Ol' Dub at 33.

Of course all of us who have seen the movie "Bambi" knows that Thumper was sort of a sidekick to the adorable little deer, and I think that's where the analogy falls apart. I don't think Maddie is going to be anybody's sidekick; my guess is that by the time she's 30, she'll either be a movie star, a Nobel Prize winner or the Queen of the world.

And just in case you've forgotten how to scroll down, we'll leave you with a picture of the adorable little tyke.


Or does "tyke" refer to a boy baby?

I never had learn these things. This is my first experience with a baby since my own younger siblings were born, and I was still sort of a tyke myself then, albeit 11 years old when the last one came along.

Anyway, meet Maddie/Thumper, the amazing baby/bunny.

Massachusetts story a real tragedy

Christopher Bizilj, an 8-year-old from Ashford, Conn., died Sunday afternoon in Springfield, Mass., after firing a micro Uzi submachine gun at the Machine Gun Shoot and Firearms Expo.

The boy aimed at a pumpkin and pulled the trigger, but it was the first time he had fired a fully automatic weapon and he wasn't ready for the recoil. He lost control of the gun and shot himself in the head.

The Boston Globe has the story, along with more than a hundred comments from readers. Once I got past the first couple, I couldn't bear to read them. As a father, I found myself wondering what kind of parent would let an 8-year-old handle a fully automatic weapon.

It isn't as if I'm an anti-gun nut. My son has fired both rifles and shotguns, but in both instances he was at least 11 years old and did it under adult supervision at Boy Scout camp. I would never have allowed him to fire a fully automatic weapon without first understanding everything about it -- and never at age 8.

I'm sure the boy's father will regret his error for the rest of his life. It just shows that with children, you always have to be on guard. Tragedy can strike just like that.

There are people on both sides who will use this politically. The gun issue is one of the most contentious we face, and there doesn't really seem to be any way to agree.

I'm really not that concerned about gun control anymore. That we should keep guns away from criminals, the mentally ill and small children seems to me a given, and the tragedy here is that a small child tried to use a big weapon.

It's a shame no one stopped him.

'Burger Time' a blast from my past

As you can tell if you've been visiting this Website, I recently discovered a site that has a lot of great Widgets.

For those of you unfamiliar with the term, Widgets are little add-ons that spruce up Websites either by providing links or by adding humorous or entertaining content.

When I saw "Burger Time," I knew I had to add it to this site. When I was working in Anderson, S.C., in 1983, my friend Charlie Bennett and I used to go out after work and play arcade games.

Editor's note: Weren't you 33 years old then?

And your point?

Editor's note: A little old for video games, weren't you?

Excuse me. You're 55 years old and in love with the Olsen twins.

Editor's note: That's different.

Why? Even if you add their ages together, they're only 44. You're old enough to be their grand -

Editor's note: Watch it. I don't think of them in that way.

What way?

Editor's note: You know.

Don't worry. I know you're not a creepy pedophile, but you should definitely remember the one about people who live in glass houses.

Editor's note: Oh, all right.

Anyway, Widgetbox is really cool, and I've added plenty of them to this site. But I knew once I saw Burger Time for the first time in maybe 15 years, I had to preserve it on this site.

Try it out.

It's fun, which is more than I can say for spending 18 hours a day watching "Full House" reruns.

Amazing colossal baby growing fast

Here's another update in the world of Madison Nicole Kastner, the most amazing baby in the world.

Editor's note: Not again. To listen to you, nobody ever had a grandchild before.

And your point?

Editor's note: There are thousands of babies born every day, and I'm sure some of them must have grandparents.

Hey, isn't it time for that "Full House" marathon you wanted to see?

Editor's note: Oops, gotta go.

Don't hurry back. Anyway, little Maddie, who is eligible to run for president in 2044 despite being born in China and not having a $150,000 wardrobe, had a checkup the other day. She was five weeks old on Friday and she already weighs 10.4 pounds.

At this rate, she'll be towering over the skyscrapers of Beijing before her parents finish their tour there next summer.

Good thing all the weight is muscle. Otherwise we'd have to put her on Atkins.

What's the big deal about gay marriage?

My friend Mitch is really worried about Proposition 8 on the California ballot in two weeks.

Prop 8 is designed to reverse a decision by the California Supreme Court authoring marriage between two partners of the same sex. Mitch, who calls himself an "orthodox" Christian (he doesn't like the term fundamentalist), likes the idea of gay marriage only a little more than he likes gin and coke.

In fact, when the court announced its decision, he was very upset.

"This gay marriage thing is terrible." "Why?" "I've been married to my wife for nearly 30 years. I don't want to have to divorce her and marry a man."

Now you and I both know that sounds goofy, but it's no worse than some of the lies the Christian Right is spewing in its efforts to defeat Barack Obama and keep Republicans in power. One of the groups teetering on the edge of the lunatic fringe is Focus on the Family Action, the political arm of James Dobson's group.

This group has publicized "A Letter from 2012 in Obama's America," basically saying that if we elect the Democrats, every single bit of the far-left's dream agenda will be implented during his first term. In addition, Russia will run rampant, the U.S. will suffer several more 9/11-type attacks and Tel Aviv will be destroyed by an Iranian nuclear weapon.

I don't want to go into the letter any deeper -- click on the link and read it if you want -- but Dobson's people basically warn young evangelicals who are voting for Obama because they like his idealism that they could be destroying America in the process.

The one thing that is obvious to me in this is that with Jerry Falwell dead and Pat Robertson selling vitamins, Jimmy D is trying to step up and become Mr. Christian Right.

Just as Republicans have been doing for 30 years to mobilize their base, the letter is about 90 percent "God, guns and gays." The rest is national security. Of course Jimmy cares very little about the economy, or Wall Street, or the fact that his beloved GOP has presided over an ever-widening wealth gap.

The good news is that most folks aren't listening.

Polls released today show Obama ahead in states like Indiana and North Carolina, and dead even in North Dakota and Montana. McCain and Palin are sinking fast.

In fact, my friend Mitch isn't as goofy as I said. Once I told him that if was against gay marriage, he should just stay married to his wife, he breathed a sigh of relief.

The even more amazing news?

He's thinking of voting for Obama.

SNL pulling out all the stops

"Saturday Night Live" is really making the most of this election.

We've all seen Tina Fey's spot-on impression of Gov. Sarah Palin. Remember, Fey already had left the show and moved on to her own situation comedy, so getting her back was a coup.

But last night SNL topped even that coup by bringing back Will Ferrell for his impression of President Bush. Ferrell left the show years ago and has become a major movie star.

What's next? Dana Carvey coming back to play Poppy Bush? Dan Aykroyd coming back to play Nixon?

One thing is certain: SNL has certainly added a touch of fun to the endless election.

Amazing baby turning into chipmunk

I was surprised when I got the most recent update on my granddaughter, the amazing Madison Nicole Kastner, to learn that she apparently has more than a few chipmunk genes.

I wonder what she's storing in there.

Maybe little Maddie is worried that she doesn't know where her next meal is coming from -- pretty much the same place every meal she has eaten in her life has come from.

I'm reminded of a Rodney Dangerfield joke:

"I get no respect. When I was a baby, I was breast-fed by my father."

Or another one:

"I get no respect. My mother didn't breast-feed me. She said she liked me as a friend."

Trust me, that hasn't been Maddie's problem.

Everybody loves her, which is just the way it should be when you're five weeks old.

Effective ad lets young girls speak out

I saw this ad first on the Perez-Hilton Website, and I had been looking for it on YouTube ever since.

It seems to me that the idea of young girls questioning -- and admonishing -- GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin on some of her beliefs is a highly effective one, and it must be working because almost everywhere I have seen it online, comments from the right are practically rabid.

One of the most common ones seems to me to be way off base, the idea that adults are putting words into the mouths of young girls and having them say stuff they don't understand.

Not to much, I think. Most of those young girls looked old enough to understand what they were saying.

One question I wish I had heard:

"Sarah, do you really believe Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs to Sunday School?"

Might make for an interesting answer.

Friendship often means tough choices

"Nothing is more important than friendship. Not fame. Not money. Not death."
-- BANG THE DRUM SLOWLY

Along with family, I've always considered friendship the most important thing in the world.

There's nothing harder to win -- and all too often easier to lose -- than good friends, especially friendships that last a long time.

That's why when two people in less than 10 days said to me, "I thought you were my friend," I knew I had to stop and reassess what I was doing.

For the last 16 years, I have been a member of a Rotisserie baseball league. For those who aren't familiar with the term, it's also known as "fantasy" baseball. A group of people -- usually guys -- get together and draft teams of major league players and then compete with each other for prize money based on how well their players perform.

For the last 14 years, I have been commissioner of the league, a league based on friendships and one that has been remarkably stable in terms of its membership.

The last couple of years, though, there has been more than the usual amount of bickering and arguing. People have been upset by this and have been looking for solutions, with terms like "cutting out the cancer" being thrown around.

In trying to keep the peace, I took the coward's way out more than once. People have been asked to leave the league, something I didn't want to see happen. I'm ashamed of myself and the way I behaved.

That leaves me with no choice but to stand on the principles I tried to ignore and leave the league.

I'll certainly miss it. It's been a big part of my life for 16 years.

But sometimes there really is only one choice.

If you want to be a person of principle, you have to stand on principle.

Even when it hurts.

The greatest baby in the world

I had always heard it, but I never believed it until recently.

The birth of your first grandchild makes you crazy -- in a good way, of course.

I wasn't around for the birth of my children -- I didn't meet Pauline and Virgile until they were 12 and 7 -- so I missed most of the horribly, adorably cute period.

I'm not missing it this time. My little granddaughter, Madison Nicole, has got to be the greatest baby in the world. Look at that picture of her at the age of only three weeks. Have you ever seen such an alert expression on such a lovely baby?

She's one month old today, and she's already learning to roll over.

Pretty great, huh?

Couric seems to be having more fun

I've always liked Katie Couric.

Maybe it's just that she grew up about 10 miles from where I did in Virginia, although she's seven years younger than I am. Maybe it's that we both went to the University of Virginia, although I took the Sarah Palin approach to college and Virginia was only my first.

Maybe I just like perky and bubbly.

Whatever the reason, I was glad to see her get the job anchoring the CBS Evening News, and I'm not convinced things still won't work out for her there. She seems to be having a lot more fun with her video notebooks, and she acquitted herself quite nicely with her Palin interview.

The other night she was one of the guests -- along with the two presidential candidates -- at the Al Smith dinner, and Couric seems to be enjoying an inside joke. If you look at her hairstyle in the picture, it's what Matt Drudge calls a "Sarah Palin hairdo."

Now I don't know whether Katie is a Democrat or a Republican, although I have my suspicions. But I think I'd feel a lot more comfortable with a McCain/Couric ticket than with the present one.

Too bad it's too late to change.

Greater love hath no man ...

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13).”

When I was younger, I was in at least two different relationships -- one sanctified by marriage -- in which the object of my affections told me that if I ever left her, she would die.

Neither woman was particularly of the genus dramus queenus, but in the end both of them decided that life without me was better than life with me. As far as I know, both women are still alive many years later.

So when it came to questioning whether anyone really needed me, I was at the least a little skeptical. One woman I was involved with did die a few years after knowing me, but it was a swimming accident and I was thousands of miles away at the time.

Recently, the question came up in my mind. My beloved wife, who has numerous psychic scars from a childhood marked by neglect and a first marriage marked by abuse, has been going through a difficult time. One of the most important touchstones in her life is our love for each other, and I said something in hope of reassuring her.

"I would do anything for you," I said. "I would die for you if it were necessary."

It's easy to say. I've led a relatively selfish life, too many times that it was all about what I wanted and too many times I have come up short.

But I realized something and I mean it with all my heart. If the choice comes, particularly after a fairly long life, it's better to die for someone else than to live for yourself. And if I had the chance to save my wife ... or my children ... or my grandchild ... and didn't take it, I'm not sure I could live with myself.

My wife is a wonderful, loving person who is almost too fragile to live in this world, and I love her with all my heart. My children -- Pauline and Virgile -- are mine in every way except blood, and they are both going to have amazing lives. And my 4-week-old granddaughter, little Madison Nicole, just might live to see the 22nd century.

I'm not afraid to die. I believe Jesus redeemed me with his sacrifice and that my faith in him will save me.

But when I do die, I would like it to be for something.

I hope that isn't too much to ask.