Morning

I have had a typical Sunday NY Times morning. All the way across the bottom of my screen are open articles that I have enjoyed reading and want to forward along to people via e-mail. But I think I'll just post the links.

The first is proof of karma, "just desserts," what goes around comes around, yin-yang, feng shui, etc. I realize I am misusing these terms. Every culture has a term for it. The mayor of Spokane, WA, who has been historically anti-gay in his policy-making, was caught in an on-line affair with a 17-yr-old boy.

Next: I can't help it. I think Laura Bush is a joke. She is just so... She reminds me of tissue paper. That's about all I can say for her. Anyway, this editorial is about a press event/party that the White House threw for the Washington press-in-the-know crowd. I LOVE the word "sycophant" and specifically remember the day Mrs. Blackburn introduced it to our 10-grade English class. Priceless.

[Yes, Mrs. Bush was funny, but the mere sight of her "interrupting" her husband in an obviously scripted routine prompted a ballroom full of reporters to leap to their feet and erupt in a roar of sycophancy like partisan hacks at a political convention. The same throng's morning-after rave reviews acknowledged that the entire exercise was at some level P.R. but nonetheless bought into the artifice. We were seeing the real Laura Bush, we kept being told. Maybe. While some acknowledged that her script was written by a speechwriter (the genuinely gifted Landon Parvin), very few noted that the routine's most humanizing populist riff, Mrs. Bush's proclaimed affection for the hit TV show "Desperate Housewives," was fiction; her press secretary told The New York Times's Elisabeth Bumiller that the first lady had yet to watch it.]

Lastly, this one should come as no surprise. Guess what? The Catholic Church thinks YOU shouldn't be having sex. (Unless you're conceiving little Catholic soldiers for them.) Condoms to prevent AIDS? No way! Then the millions of Africans might have non-Catholic sex! That would be a tragedy...

[Fortunately, the Vatican's policies are routinely breached by those charged with carrying them out. In rural Guatemala, I've met Maryknoll sisters who counsel prostitutes to use condoms. In El Salvador, I talked to doctors in a Catholic clinic who explain to patients how condoms can protect against AIDS. In Zimbabwe, I visited a Catholic charity that gave out condoms - until the bishop found out.

"What would Jesus do?" said Didier Francisco Pelaez, a seminarian in São Paulo. "He would save lives. If condoms will save lives, then he would encourage their use."]

On that note, got to get ready for Sunday School.