In our galaxy, there is a place known as Brool-Yi, sometimes spelled Broolyi, also called The Isle of Peace. There, they have automated priests and ministers made of wax, ala Madame Tussaud, who whir out of church portals built somewhat like cuckoo clocks. These reverend-puppets perform all sanctioned services for the masses, including sanctioned marriage. This came about in Broolyi, in part, because multiple interpretations and exegeses of church law and writings by various priests and ministers...

I can’t say I understand the phenomena of a large and usually vehement voters’ group going oddly silent during this election cycle, but then, human beings have often been a puzzlement to those who observe from outer space; it’s their quixotic-ness, humans’ extreme inventiveness, their cleverness, but sometimes an odd dullness, all in one, that are such seeming contradictions. For instance, Earth groups in the USA which are normally vociferous and unrelentingly so during their...

Back in May 2008. I wrote on TMV about elderly Sisters of the Holy Cross (near U of Notre Dame) who were turned away from the polling place and not allowed to vote in the Indiana primary because they had no photo IDs. (This Order of the nuns taught me as a child in the rural outback, or tried to….) And You Thought Sister Mary Ignatius Was Strict: Not Allowed to Vote In Indiana: The Nuns’ Story But, last May, many of the nuns were not allowed to vote, had never driven a car in their lifetimes....

This is the Republic of Gondour’s way of balancing the disparity between the wealthy, and the not wealthy. On Gondour, each person begins with one vote each, but can earn through unusual means, the right to vote multiple times in a single election. Thus, a single person can earn the right to have many votes, while others, less ambitious, are left with only one vote for life…. But, on the Planet Earth, that small but smart blue marble whirling through the cosmos, the USA federation...

This little boy is missing. He is the the seven-year-old son of Julia Balfour, sister of movie actress Jennifer Hudson who was Academy-Award-nominated for her role as one of the Supremes. The missing little boy’s name is Julian King, and he has vanished since his grandmother and uncle (Julia Balfour’s and Jennifer’s Hudson’s mother and brother) were murdered on the south side of Chicago two days ago. The south side of Chicago is notorious for having deteriorated into a...

I voted today. Like my dad, Fedora-man, my ballot choices are secret. I’m an Independent, though I’ve belonged to each party in the past wanting to find out more. That voting is private runs in my bones. In the old country people of my family, immigrants and refugees, this secrecy of vote was cherished in America… for back in the villages everyone knew everyone’s business and those who had more, or less, often punished, exiled or denounced others for their opinions or principles…...

Men and women were weeping, holding each other in the courtroom tonight as the verdicts were read aloud on OJ and his cohort. The courtroom rang with the woman reader’s voice, clipped, shrill even: both men Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty over and over, Guilty Weirdly, truly weirdly, this Guilty verdict comes 13 years to the exact date of OJ’s acquittal on murdering two souls, Ron Goldman, and Nicole Brown Simpson. Who else will be weeping tonight? Not likely OJ, who appears to still be...

Dear Brave Souls, You may have noticed that Joe, our Ed-in-Chief, had written about how I would be covering the DNC from outside, and that I posted for two days and suddenly went incognito for a long while with no posts. Just on that second day of the DNC, we’d had a loved one in our family suddenly-diagnosed with that one word none of us wants to hear… one of the most staggering words in the English language that anyone, I think, can ever hear… and this diagnosis of Stage IV, was...

Thrust and parry aside, John McCain had the memorable glyph, speaking (paraphrased) about seeing 20th century Cold War KGB still reflected in 21st century Putin’s eyes. Whining is often an indication, in children, that the child is frustrated, indignant, or expects not to win the argument. Think back over the conversation tonight. Both men had their whiny moments, Barack particularly, his voice rising into soprano range on health care, and McCain going a bit sing-song on North Korea. There...

from the NYT: Senator Barack Obama said that Friday’s presidential debate should go ahead after Senator John McCain issued a call to delay the event to return to Washington and deal with the financial bailout package. Human beings tend to have at least two different ways of describing a heroic stance: one is pre-emptive, smart, far-seeing, prescient, responding in the here and now with a view toward the future, often taking the offensive, striking out before matters become worse, taking advantage...

Putting The Culture On The Couch: ‘The Savior Projection’ Onto Politicians Running For High Office We all do it when we are first in love: idealize ‘the other,’ seeing them as both ‘the I and the Thou’… not keeping much of a personal self, but somehow merging with an over-idealized vision of beauty and perfection we project onto this other soul… That flush of enormous feeling, in actually, upon investigation, appears to be an unrealistic image, as...

These are only three of the many… AIG Headquarters, London AIG Headquarters, New York AIG Headquarters, San Diego Wonder how much all the primo real estate owned by AIG is worth. I’d say, billions.

This is Galveston in 1900 after a huge hurricane swept through. No telephone system, no television, no internet, no text messaging, no satellites, no weatherscopes. 8000 people died there. More of Galveston after hurricane in the year 1900. No bulldozers, no cranes, no flatbed 18 wheelers, no huge roll-offs, no electricity. It took years to put the city back to a semblance of what it had once been. This is the least of the flotsam left by Hurricane Ike 2008. As of yesterday, 45 deaths were attributed...

President Chavez of Venezuela says Premier Castro of Cuba is his role model. Cuba has long had ties with Russia. In the 60s, we had the Betelgeuse scared out of us during the Cuban Missile Crisis, when Russia began secretly-building missile bases in Cuba, a mere 90 miles offshore USA. President Kennedy told Russia that any aggression launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere would be reason for full retaliation by the US against Russia. A negotiation was made, the missile...

We could see pods of whales this time, and call it First Semester, and go up where they trap humongous crabs and call it Quarterly Exams, and we could look straight down on the AlCan, and tip a wing and wave at villagers, and hoist up over mountains all the way to the Chukchi, and call it Sociology and Cartography, and we could land in knee-high fog on a lake I know, and call it Ancient History, and we could eat so much fresh fish we’d grow gills, and call it Retro-Evolution, and we could...

Just this. The day the planes were hijacked, they were bound for California; many people were coming home to Calif to their loved ones. When you think of this day and you think of the many lost at the Pentagon, at the Trade Towers and in the field at Pennsylvania, think too of the 180+ California families who lost everything dear to them that day. Many of you know that as a post-trauma specialist and psychoanalyst, I have worked with 9-11 survivor families in California and on the East Coast since...

Todd and Sarah Palin have named their little guy Trig, which according to the family, is a Norse word meaning “true” and “brave victory:” The name is in honor of his great uncle, a Bristol Bay fisherman. The name Paxson comes from a snowmobiling area in Alaska which the Palins cherish. If this little boy’s names are an indication of his family’s hopes for him, their recognition of his gifts yet to be unfurled, then it may well be that this child’s life...

CAMP BUEHRING, Kuwait -(July 28, 2007) During her recent visit to Kuwait, Gov. Sarah Palin discussed Alaska issues with Staff Sgt. Duane Middleton at an Army dining facility. The governor was visiting Alaska Army National Guard Soldiers stationed in Kuwait. Middleton is a member of 3rd Battalion, 297th Infantry, and lives in Wasilla, Alaska. (The legend of this photo reads a little like a year-book description, but it is from Alaska Department of Military and Veterans Affairs)

Even if Charlie Gibson gives a whole ‘hour’ to Gov. Palin, the interview will be scripted, edited, parts left out, spliced, and in toto, with commercial breaks be perhaps 16 minutes of Palin speaking. But, in February of this year, C-SPAN interviewed Sarah Palin whose delivery is quite different than seen at the recent GOP convention, the C-SPAN interview more person-to-person, rather than in tones of voice usually reserved for re-telling the grand sagas. And it is 25 minutes of unscripted...

I have been wondering for the past week, have we gotten lost in the pages of The Onion, the online and print satiric newspaper, or maybe we’ve simply merged with the wood-pulp of The Sun or The Examiner… “Daughter So Jealous of Mother’s Newest Baby, She Has One of Her Own”… “Frontrunner with Middle Name of Hussein Tries to Claim Going to a Muslim School for Two Years Does Not Make Him A Muslim”… “12, 000 Small American Flags Prepared...

Catholicism is rife with euphemisms, and …following the Pope’s actual intentions and motives is often reduced to a kind of Pope-omancy, interpreting a gesture or a smile as carrying volumes of unspoken information about the actual skivvy. The Church is not known for revealing the roots of its choices and decisions; nor its back-room gamblings and gambolings, so to speak. However, being “invited’ to come speak with/ appear before the Archbishop is somewhat like being called...

We’ve known for a long time that John McCain is introverted, that is, he is an interior person… likely his first thought about most anything is, No… until he thinks things through. Then the No may rapidly turn to a Yes, or a Not now, or a Maybe later, or a Right away. Young introverts, to varying degrees depending on the development of the person, are the ones who think of the greatest retort… three days after the moment for saying such has passed. Older introverts learn...

Consider that tonight Governor Palin was speaking to ‘her people.’ Her people were indeed wowed. Her talents are obvious. However, in the larger world, it remains to be seen how Governor Palin’s many talents will play, for it is still sometimes true in our culture, no matter how developed we might be… that a man who is bold in attack, is often seen as authoritative, manly Sometimes a woman who is bold is seen only as ballsy, pushy, castrating, not womanly… in essence,...

1. She can deliver natural and biting satire in a funny way: parfum of The Simpsons, paraphrasing her speech here: ‘When they haul the Styrofoam pillars off Obama’s stage…. what is left that is real?’ 2. She hired a writer who is an original rather than a ’speech-writery’ one… one who apparently enhances how/who she is, rather than trying to make her say lofty things. That’s not her style. (The speech writers of this election cycle, from ALL sides,...