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.