August 2005 Archives

They're called "helicopter parents," for their habit of hovering -- hyper-involved -- over their children's lives. Here at Colgate University, as elsewhere, they have become increasingly bold in recent years, telephoning administrators to complain about their children's housing assignments, roommates and grades.

Recently, one parent demanded to know what Colgate planned to do about the sub-par plumbing her daughter encountered on a study-abroad trip to China.

"That's just part of how this generation has been raised," said Mark Thompson, head of Colgate's counseling services. "You add a $40,000 price tag for a school like Colgate, and you have high expectations for what you get."

Lech Walesa, the shipyard electrician who helped topple Poland's communist regime by founding the Solidarity movement in 1980, credited the late Pope John Paul II as his inspiration at 25th anniversary celebrations Monday.

Walesa, who became his country's first postwar democratic president, said John Paul's visit to his native Poland in 1979 gave his countrymen the courage to stand up to the communist leaders.

"He did not tell us to make a revolution, he did not call for a coup, but he was so suggestive that we all had to define ourselves," Walesa told an international conference on Solidarity's legacy. "The Polish nation and many other nations awoke."

Tens of thousands of Roman Catholics gathered at Poland's holiest shrine Friday to pray as the revered Black Madonna of Czestochowa icon was given a new covering, including gold crowns donated by the late Pope John Paul II, as well as amber and diamonds.

The Polish-born pontiff's secretary, the Rev. Stanislaw Dziwisz, presided over a Mass and other ceremonies at the Jasna Gora shrine in the southern city of Czestochowa. In attendance were dozens of church leaders, including Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Cologne, Germany, Cardinal Adam Maida of Detroit and Cardinal Bernard Law, the former archbishop of Boston.

Dziwisz and Poland's primate, Cardinal Jozef Glemp, blessed golden crowns from John Paul, who died April 2, on the head of the icon's image of the Virgin Mary and on the image of the baby Jesus.

Church leaders also placed a 20-pound panel of amber decorated with nearly 1,000 diamonds on the painting. The covering — commonly called a "dress" — leaves only the faces of Mary and Jesus and their crowns visible beneath the screen.

By placing the crowns on the icon, we were able "in a way to fulfill the last will, the testament of Pope John Paul the Great," Dziwisz said.

The artist who created the amber-and-diamond panel, Mariusz Drapikowski, said he wanted to thank the Virgin Mary for the pontificate of John Paul II and for the Solidarity movement, which toppled the communist government in 1989-90.

More than 100,000 people gathered on a field outside the packed church for the ceremony, according to the monastery's Web site.

Pope Benedict XVI, who appointed Stanislaw Dziwisz to lead the important diocese in June, described him as "the best person to hold this position" in a papal bull read out by Rev. Jan Zajac during a ceremony in Wawel Castle cathedral.

"By now, the faithful have come to know your responsibility and dedication and I am sure they will be obedient to you," the bull said.

Dressed in a white-and-gold robe and miter, Dziwisz walked in a procession to St. Mary's church, surrounded by hundreds of priests and bishops in white robes, nuns and city officials. He held a silver-and-gilded staff given to Karol Wojtyla — the future John Paul — when he became archbishop of Krakow in 1958.

Dziwisz blessed the crowds as he walked through the city, smiling as he repeatedly made the sign of the cross. Tens of thousands of people who lined the streets under the scorching sun responded with applause and shouts of "Bravo!"

Dear brothers and sisters, from the heart of "old" Europe, which in the past century, unfortunately, knew horrendous conflicts and inhuman regimes, young people relaunched to the humanity of our time the message of hope that does not disappoint, because it is founded on the Word of God made flesh in Jesus Christ, dead and risen for our salvation. In Cologne, young people met and worshipped the Emmanuel, the God-with-us, in the mystery of the Eucharist and understood better that the Church is the great family through which God creates a space of communion and unity among all continents, cultures and races, a -- so to speak -- "great group of pilgrims" led by Christ, radiant star that illuminates history.

Jesus makes himself our travel companion in the Eucharist, and, in the Eucharist -- as I said in the homily of the concluding celebration, borrowing a well-known image from physics -- effects a "nuclear fission" in the depth of the being. Only this profound explosion of goodness that overcomes evil can give life to the other transformations necessary to change the world. Let us pray therefore so that the young people of Cologne will bear with them the light of Christ, who is truth and love and will spread it everywhere. In this way we will be able to witness a springtime of hope in Germany, Europe and the whole world.

Your political compass Economic Left/Right: 0.38 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.13

As the second highest ranking Democrat in the Senate, Dick Durbin is in the spotlight as never before, and the country is now seeing that he is, indeed, both ruthless and insipid. In June, after wilting public scrutiny that included calls for his resignation, Mr. Durbin was forced to his knees and a near-tearful apology on the floor of the Senate after he compared American servicemen to Nazis, Soviets and the Khmer Rouge.

This came only days after the Washington Post revealed that Mr. Durbin, one of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's harshest critics in a travel-related ethics controversy, was one of the most frequent congressional beneficiaries of international junkets. Mr. Durbin's communications director, Joe Shoemaker, admitted that Mr. Durbin had failed to report a trip to Asia he said was paid by a nonprofit group. Then it turned out that the junket's deep pockets, Results, identifies itself as a political lobbying organization with ties to MoveOn.org's radical financier, George Soros.

So secure is MacPhail in his employment, he can get away with comments that insult the eternally tortured fans. This is what he said while defending his tenure: "In some ways, we have made significant progress. What I wanted to accomplish when I came here was to have an organization that could rely on a productive farm system and start to get a flow of talent. I keep a close eye on this, and we are among the top four teams in bringing talent to the big leagues over the last 11 years. Now, in my 11th season, we have had three Rookies of the Year and at least six All-Stars come up through our system. That's pretty good. We have had three or four attendance records. The things we have done to the park are going to help keep the park viable for the next generation of Cubs fans."

Pause here for a collective release of anger.

Don't bring up those trades

What is so incredibly wretched about those statements? First, MacPhail claims he and Hendry have overseen a productive farm system. In those 11 years, how many quality position players are starting for the Cubs today? Zero. Patterson is a bust, Hee Seop Choi was a myth, and of the three starting positions set for 2006, Lee, Aramis Ramirez and Michael Barrett were acquired only because cost-conscious franchises were dumping them. Maybe Pie and Murton will pan out, but I'll have to see it to believe it. As for Mark Prior and Kerry Wood, they were taken second and fourth in their respective drafts and weren't choices that required rocket science. As for the "three Rookies of the Year and at least six All-Stars" who have come up through the system? Embarrassingly, MacPhail is counting Dontrelle Willis, Jon Garland and Eric Hinske in that mix. I realize the Cubs were trying to win immediately when they were traded as prospects, but have some dignity, Andy.

Garland, a first-round draft pick, was traded to the White Sox for Matt Karchner. Hinske, a draftee, was traded to Beane's Athletics for Miguel Cairo. And Willis, a draftee, was traded to Florida in a package for Antonio Alfonseca and Matt Clement, who was allowed to sign with Boston last offseason. When you've given away three young stars and have squadoosh to show for it, don't remind Cubs fans that you drafted them. That just makes them sicker after the Lou Brock and Greg Maddux debacles.

The mass took place amid tight security, as several hundred Orthodox protesters gathered near the site, denouncing the move.

"Orthodox or death!" they chanted, accusing the Vatican of proselytising.

"You can kill us but you cannot take our faith from us!" demonstrators shouted.

Q: Holy Father, can you tell me what you would like to transmit to the youth of the world? What is the main issue you would like to "bring about"?

Benedict XVI: Yes -- I would like to show them how beautiful it is to be Christian, because the widespread idea which continues to exist is that Christianity is composed of laws and bans which one has to keep and, hence, is something toilsome and burdensome -- that one is freer without such a burden.

I want to make clear that it not a burden to be carried by a great love and realization, but it is like having wings. It is wonderful to be a Christian with this knowledge that it gives us a great breadth, a large community. As Christians we are never alone -- in the sense that God is always with us, but also in the sense that we are always standing together in a large community, a community for The Way, that we have a project for the future -- and in this way a Being which is worth believing in.

This is the joy of being a Christian and is the beauty of believing.

We all share a yearning for the good, the pure, the great and the beautiful. Why is that? Because we were all made in the image of God, who is the highest good and purity personified. That is why no one can want to be bad, impure and ugly. The hunger for love is in all of us.

When I asked a nonbeliever, "Do you wish to be unloved?" he answered, "That would be hell." How did he know this without having been taught about faith? Because we all originated in God's hand and have an intuitive knowledge of God and the fact that we were made in his image. And because God never releases us, even if we break away from him, we always instinctively remain aware of our origin and destination. Saint Augustine already realized this 1,600 years ago. He summarized this insight in his memorable words: "Our hearts are restless until they rest in you."

4. Two thousand years ago, this inner driving force from God caused the Three Kings to commence their journey to Christ. It has also brought you here to Cologne to look for and find God. He guarantees you a great future and a fulfilled life. For Christ, there was no alternative. When some of the disciples disagreed with his teachings, they decided to turn away from him.

Jesus asked the remaining disciples, "Do you also wish to go away?" And it was the first Peter who gave the Lord an answer that is both the first and the shortest creed in holy Scripture: "Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life" (John 6:68). Peter's creed is also our own. "Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life."

The Lord expressly tells us, "No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me" (John 6:44). You, dear brothers and brothers, have been drawn by the Father. That is the ultimate reason why you are here in Cologne. Your presence here is the result of an act of mercy by God. And I promise you sincerely: He will therefore remain your leader. He will turn you into a blessing for your environment, your fatherland, for the whole world, and guide you in bringing the world closer to God. That is how the world will remain a habitable place for us humans as God's children.

n this spirit of esteem and acceptance toward all those who come from different cultures and traditions, we are about to experience World Youth Day in Cologne. That so many young people have come to meet the Successor of Peter is a sign of the Church's vitality. I am happy to be with them, to confirm their faith and to enliven their hope. At the same time, I am sure that I will also receive something from them, especially from their enthusiasm, their sensitivity and their readiness to face the challenges of the future.

And so I greet the young people themselves, and all those who have welcomed them in these event-filled days. In addition to intense moments of prayer, reflection and celebration with them and with all those taking part in the various scheduled events, I will have an opportunity to meet the bishops, to whom even now I extend a warm greeting. I will also meet the representatives of the other churches and ecclesial communities, make a visit to the synagogue for a meeting with the Jewish community, and also welcome the representatives of some Islamic communities. These meetings are important steps along the journey of dialogue and cooperation in our shared commitment to building a more just and fraternal future, a future which is truly more human.

During this World Youth Day we will reflect together on the theme: "We Have Come To Worship Him" (Matthew 2:2). This is a precious opportunity for thinking more deeply about the meaning of life as a "pilgrimage," guided by a "star," in search of the Lord. Together we shall consider the Magi, who, coming from various distant lands, were among the first to recognize the promised Messiah in Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of the Virgin Mary, and to bow down in worship before him (cf. Matthew 2:1-12).

With great joy I welcome you, dear young people. You have come here from near and far, walking the streets of the world and the pathways of life. My particular greeting goes to those who, like the Magi, have come from the East. You are the representatives of so many of our brothers and sisters who are waiting, without realizing it, for the star to rise in their skies and lead them to Christ, Light of the Nations, in whom they will find the fullest response to their hearts' deepest desires. I also greet with affection those among you who have not been baptized, and those of you who do not yet know Christ or have not yet found a home in his Church. Pope John Paul II had invited you in particular to come to this gathering; I thank you for deciding to come to Cologne.

Some of you might perhaps describe your adolescence in the words with which Edith Stein, who later lived in the Carmel in Cologne, described her own: "I consciously and deliberately lost the habit of praying."

During these days, you can once again have a moving experience of prayer as dialogue with God, the God who we know loves us and whom we in turn wish to love. To all of you I appeal: Open wide your hearts to God! Let yourselves be surprised by Christ! Let him have "the right of free speech" during these days! Open the doors of your freedom to his merciful love! Share your joys and pains with Christ, and let him enlighten your minds with his light and touch your hearts with his grace. In these days blessed with sharing and joy, may you have a liberating experience of the Church as the place where God's merciful love reaches out to all people. In the Church and through the Church you will meet Christ, who is waiting for you.

In the 40 years that have passed since the conciliar Declaration "Nostra Aetate," much progress has been made, in Germany and throughout the world, towards better and closer relations between Jews and Christians. Alongside official relationships, due above all to cooperation between specialists in the biblical sciences, many friendships have been born. In this regard, I would mention the various declarations by the German Episcopal Conference and the charitable work done by the "Society for Jewish-Christian Cooperation in Cologne," which since 1945 have enabled the Jewish community to feel once again "at home" here in Cologne and to establish good relations with the Christian communities. Yet much still remains to be done.

We must come to know one another much more and much better. Consequently, I would encourage sincere and trustful dialogue between Jews and Christians, for only in this way will it be possible to arrive at a shared interpretation of disputed historical questions, and, above all, to make progress towards a theological evaluation of the relationship between Judaism and Christianity. This dialogue, if it is to be sincere, must not gloss over or underestimate the existing differences: in those areas in which, due to our profound convictions in faith, we diverge, and indeed precisely in those areas, we need to show respect for one another.

Finally, our gaze should not only be directed to the past, but should also look forward to the tasks that await us today and tomorrow. Our rich common heritage and our fraternal and more trusting relations call upon us to join in giving an ever more harmonious witness and to work together on the practical level for the defense and promotion of human rights and the sacredness of human life, for family values, for social justice and for peace in the world. The Decalogue (cf. Exodus 20; Deuteronomy 5) is for us a shared legacy and commitment. The Ten Commandments are not a burden, but a sign-post showing the path leading to a successful life. This is particularly the case for the young people whom I am meeting in these days and who are so dear to me. My wish is that they may be able to recognize in the Decalogue a lamp for their steps, a light for their path (cf. Psalm 119:105).

Adults have the responsibility of handing down to young people the torch of hope that God has given to Jews and to Christians, so that "never again" will the forces of evil come to power, and that future generations, with God's help, may be able to build a more just and peaceful world, in which all people have equal rights and are equally at home.

What does it mean to restore the unity of all Christians? The Catholic Church has as her goal the full visible unity of the disciples of Christ, as defined by the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council in its various documents (cf. "Lumen Gentium," 8, 13; "Unitatis Redintegratio," 2, 4, etc.). This unity subsists, we are convinced, in the Catholic Church, without the possibility of ever being lost (cf. "Unitatis Redintegratio," 4). This does not, however, mean uniformity in all expressions of theology and spirituality, in liturgical forms and in discipline.

Unity in multiplicity, and multiplicity in unity: in my homily for the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul on June 29, I insisted that full unity and full catholicity go together. As a necessary condition for the achievement of this coexistence, the commitment to unity must be constantly purified and renewed; it must constantly grow and mature. To this end, dialogue has its own contribution to make. More than an exchange of thoughts, it is an exchange of gifts (cf. "Ut Unum Sint," 28), in which the Churches and the ecclesial Communities can make available their own riches (cf. "Lumen Gentium," 8, 15; "Unitatis Redintegratio," 3, 14ff; "Ut Unum Sint, 10-14).

As a result of this commitment, the journey can move forward step by step along the path to full unity, when at last we will all "attain to the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Ephesians 4:13). It is obvious that, in the end, this dialogue can develop only in a context of sincere and committed spirituality. We cannot "bring about" unity by our powers alone. We can only obtain unity as a gift of the Holy Spirit. Consequently, spiritual ecumenism -- prayer, conversion and the sanctification of life -- constitute the heart of the ecumenical movement (cf. "Unitatis Redintegratio," 8; "Ut Unum Sint," 15ff., 21, etc.). It could be said that the best form of ecumenism consists in living in accordance with the Gospel.

Dear friends, what does all this mean for us? What we have just been saying about the nature of God being different, and about the way our lives must be shaped accordingly, sounds very fine, but remains rather vague and unfocussed. That is why God has given us examples. The Magi from the East are just the first in a long procession of men and women who have constantly tried to gaze upon God's star in their lives, going in search of the God who has drawn close to us and shows us the way. It is the great multitude of the saints -- both known and unknown -- in whose lives the Lord has opened up the Gospel before us and turned over the pages; he has done this throughout history and he still does so today. In their lives, as if in a great picture-book, the riches of the Gospel are revealed. They are the shining path which God himself has traced throughout history and is still tracing today...

The saints, as we said, are the true reformers. Now I want to express this in an even more radical way: Only from the saints, only from God does true revolution come, the definitive way to change the world. In the last century we experienced revolutions with a common program -- expecting nothing more from God, they assumed total responsibility for the cause of the world in order to change it. And this, as we saw, meant that a human and partial point of view was always taken as an absolute guiding principle. Absolutizing what is not absolute but relative is called totalitarianism. It does not liberate man, but takes away his dignity and enslaves him. It is not ideologies that save the world, but only a return to the living God, our Creator, the guarantor of our freedom, the guarantor of what is really good and true. True revolution consists in simply turning to God who is the measure of what is right and who at the same time is everlasting love. And what could ever save us apart from love?

Yesterday evening we came together in the presence of the Sacred Host, in which Jesus becomes for us the bread that sustains and feeds us (cf. Jn 6:35), and there we began our inner journey of adoration.

The psalm's horizon thus opens to a festive harvest, symbol of the joy generated by freedom, peace and prosperity, which are the fruit of divine blessing. This prayer is, then, a song of hope, to which recourse should be taken in times of trial, fear, external menace and internal oppression.

But it can also become a more general appeal to live one's days and fulfill one's choices in an atmosphere of fidelity. Perseverance in the good, even if misunderstood and opposed, in the end always leads to light, fruitfulness and peace.

It is what St. Paul reminded the Galatians: "The one who sows for the spirit will reap eternal life from the spirit. Let us not grow tired of doing good, for in due time we shall reap our harvest" (Galatians 6:8-9).

Single-adult households have displaced two-parent families with children as the most common kind of U.S. household, the Census Bureau reported yesterday.

WQHT Hot 97's parent company also agreed in a settlement to pay $240,000, which equaled the maximum fine it faced, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said.

Spitzer and the state Athletic Commission said the hip-hop and rhythm and blues station held 24 "Smackfest" contests from April 2004 to January 2005. Young women took turns "violently" slapping each other for concert tickets and as much as $5,000 in cash, Spitzer said. Images of the slapping then ran on the station's Web site.

"NARAL will continue to make allegations about Roberts until President Bush drops him and nominates someone who holds a clear conservative position on Roe v. Wade," said Mrs. Keenan. "The haziness of his views makes it more difficult for us to whip up the rage needed for a big NARAL fundraising campaign."

A survey of thousands of beer enthusiasts from 65 countries on the RateBeer Web site (www.ratebeer.com) in June rated the Westvleteren 12 beer as the world's best.

But the abbey only has a limited brewing capacity, and was not able to cope with the beer's sudden popularity.

"Our shop is closed because all our beer has been sold out," said a message on the abbey's answering machine, which it calls the "beer phone".

And the abbey has no intention of boosting its capacity to satisfy market demand.

"We are not brewers, we are monks. We brew beer to be able to afford being monks," the father abbot said on the abbey's Web site.

Monk Mark Bode told De Morgen daily: "Outsiders don't understand why we are not raising production. But for us life in the abbey comes first, not the brewery."

RS: Affirmative Action to me is an old battle... I think there are more systemic things that are more important to the African American community - such as rebuilding the traditional family, such as rebuilding safe neighborhoods and creating opportunites in those neighborhoods - than a government set-aside program for 5% of contracts. Now I'm not saying I oppose that and I haven't opposed that...

EG: I just want to make sure that we're under the same understanding here, Senator. Forgive me, but you understand that African Americans see Affirmative Action as far bigger than set-asides and the 5% set-aside that you suggested there. It's a much broader issue and topic for African Americans.

RS: Yes, I know it is for some African Americans. And I understand that the issue of Affirmative Action has a lot of connotation to it. But when it comes to government programs, that's what Affirmative Action by and large is: it's a set of preferences and set-asides. So my point is, that what we need to do is focus on things that have greater impact in the African American community than a handful of government programs that benefit a very small number of African Americans. So my point is not that I'm against those things - and in fact in the book I talk about my support for them - but when you focus on those things you miss what I consider to be the bigger picture here. And the bigger picture is that the African American community - and particularly in the inner city - is... we need a program and we need a policy - both from a government as well as community-based - to be able to address some of the more systemic problems there.

EG: Alright, I would just beg to differ with the idea of a greater impact than Affirmative Action. I think that would be a hard road to go down with most African Americans, that you'd find many things greater than the impact of Affirmative Action through the years.

RS: I would say the out-of-wedlock birthrate in the African American community going from 20% to 75% has had a bigger negative impact than the positive impact of Affirmative Action.

Abortion-rights groups like NARAL are not what they seem. To say that they are solely about women's rights to an abortion is like saying that the Gun Owners of America are unconnected to the profitable gun-retail business.

Roe v. Wade is not just the source of a right; it's a business license for abortion clinics. This comes best into focus when we consider that in the next term the Supreme Court is likely to hear cases involving not the right to abortion but laws regulating parental consent and notice of abortions for minor girls. These are laws that, according to a Los Angeles Times poll, over 80% of Americans support.

In September 2002, when Democrats first blocked Justice Priscilla Owen from a circuit court nomination over a Texas Supreme Court ruling that upheld a parental notice law, Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah put it this way:

I fear the opposition to Justice Owen from the abortion lobby is not at all about abortion rights, because abortion rights are not affected by a mere notice statute. The opposition to Justice Owen is not really about abortion rights, it is about abortion profits. Simply put, the abortion industry is opposed to parental notice laws because parental notice laws place a hurdle between them and the profits from the abortion clients--not the girls who come to them but the adult men who pay for these abortions. These adult men, whose average age rises the younger the girl is, are eager not to be disclosed to parents, sometimes living down the street. . . . At nearly one million abortions per year, the abortion industry is as big as any corporate interest that lobbies in Washington. They not only ignore the rights of parents, they also protect sexual offenders and statutory rapists.

You've never heard this? Surely that is no surprise. Mr. Hatch's statement was reported in only one news story, by Newsday's Tom Brune. He noted that there was an audible gasp among the abortion lobbyists in the back of the Judiciary Committee room. I remember that gasp.

What Mr. Brune did not record is that no Democratic senator responded to Hatch's charge. Something very unusual. Not even Dianne Feinstein of California, who, as she always notes, ran for the U.S. Senate to protect abortion rights. Or was it abortion profits?

We can give a name to what happened: with the biological emergence of modern humans came both the capacity for and the realization of "culture." Maybe geneticists will, at some point, isolate a gene or genes that make complex, symbol-based culture possible. Indeed, we already see some hints of this in the gene FOXP2, which affects our capacity to learn language and which mutated to its current form about 200,000 years ago.

But to speak of the beginning of culture and the emergence of our species by way of some genetic mutations from anatomically similar ancestors does little to explain the profound mystery of the event. Of course, if we are convinced in advance that genetic mutation is a random, material event, the results of which are sorted out by the struggle for survival, the immense mystery dissolves into happenstance blips in strands of East African DNA, c. 150,000-200,000 years ago.

But at that point, we have moved beyond scientific evolution to doctrinaire Evolution. The randomness of the mutation cannot be demonstrated or proved; it is simply an article of belief, no different in character from a belief that an intelligent Creator nudged the adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine bases of that DNA strand into the right order. Or that he took the clay of archaic homo sapiens and molded Adam in His own image.

At bottom the dispute between Evolutionists and Creationists always comes down to the question, "What is random?" This is the cage that Cardinal Christoph Schonborn rattled in his op-ed in the New York Times, July 7, where he wrote, "Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense — an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection — is not." Now the director of the Vatican Observatory, Father George Coyne, has published a rebuttal in British Catholic weekly, The Tablet, neatly asserting the opposite, and accusing the cardinal of having "darkened the waters" between the Church and science.

Whether the universe is truly random or whether apparent randomness is order-not-yet-apprehended seems pretty clearly a philosophical or theological debate. It will not be settled by the editors of the Boston Globe ("Unintelligent," editorial August 4), the vaporings of Rev. Barry Lynn from Americans United for Separation of Church and State, or the numerous respectable scientists who have stepped forward to say, "Sure enough, the universe is random." How exactly would they know? It is not hard to suspect that beneath this ardent insistence on an unproven proposition lies simple irritation at having to share public space, including schools, with people who inexplicably continue to think that they live in a universe governed by an active God.

GOLD HILL, Ore. - A 15-year-old boy who pinched and twisted the nipples of a 13-year-old has been sentenced to three days of community service for harassment.

David Thumler, 15, said the "titty-twister" was just horseplay. The mother of 13-year-old Matthew Cox counters that the incident was humiliating for her son, who saw it as an assault from an older, bigger bully.

Fortunately, the Dems have found a new line of attack to counter the evil election-stealing moron. A few days ago, the Democratic National Committee put out a press release attacking Bush for being physically fit. It seems his physical fitness comes at the expense of the nation's lardbutt youth. Or as the DNC put it:

"While President Bush has made physical fitness a personal priority, his cuts to education funding have forced schools to roll back physical education classes and his administration's efforts to undermine Title IX sports programs have threatened thousands of women's college sports programs."

Wow. I noticed my gal had put on a few pounds but I had no idea it was Bush's fault. That sonofabitch chicken hawk. Just for the record, "his cuts to education funding" are cuts only in the sense that Hackett's performance in the Ohio election was a tremendous victory: that's to say, Bush's "cuts to education funding" are in fact an increase of roughly 50 percent in federal education funding.

Some of us wish he had cut education funding. By any rational measure, a good third of public school expenditures are completely wasted. But instead it's skyrocketed. And the idea that Bush is heartlessly pursuing an elite leisure activity denied to millions of American schoolchildren takes a bit of swallowing given that his preferred fitness activity is running. "Running" requires two things: you and ground. Short of buying every schoolkid some John Kerry thousand-dollar electric-yellow buttock-hugging lycra singlet, it's hard to see what there is about "running" that requires increasing federal funding.

Speaking of shivering coatless girls in Bush's America, spare a thought for the underprivileged urchins of the Bronx. The Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club, a nonprofit social-services organization in New York, receives millions of dollars in government funds to give disadvantaged youth in poor neighborhoods a leg up the ladder of life. But mysteriously much of the money wound up being diverted to the coffers of Air America, the liberal talk-radio network whose ratings are yet another example of "deferred success." The needs of disadvantaged Al Franken and his pals apparently outweigh those of Bronx welfare recipients. Perhaps Janeane Garofalo is the coatless girl John Edwards was talking about all those months. Air America looks like the broadcast version of the U.N. Oil-for-Food program, whereby money earmarked to save starving moppets somehow winds up in the bank accounts of bloated self-described do-gooders with political connections.

The DNC's Bush-is-the-reason-your-kid-is-fat press release is a convenient precis of the party's problem: While he runs rings around them, the Dems lounge about getting flabbier by the week and telling themselves it's all his fault they can barely move except to complain about Bush's Supreme Court nominee's kid being overly cute. What's the betting for 2006? The Dems will have a few more "nearly the biggest political upsets," while the Republicans will have the actual political upsets -- a couple more Senate seats? Including Robert C. Byrd's venerable perch in West Virginia?

Republicans may see the increasingly arthritic, corpulent, wheezing, flatulent Democratic Party as a boon for them, but I don't. Two-party systems need two parties, not just for the health of the loser but for that of the winner, too. Intellectually, philosophically, legislatively, it's hard to maintain the discipline to keep yourself in shape when the other guy just lies around the house all day.

Being pope used to mean the world came to you, yet John Paul took104 foreign trips to 129 nations. From a cost/efficiency point of view, some seemed almost absurd. We went to Azerbaijan in 2003, for example, despite the fact that there are all of 120 Catholics there. I did the math, and it would have been four times less expensive to fly all of them to Rome. Yet John Paul felt it was important to meet people where they lived, to confirm them in the faith.

Scientists debate, the paragraph said, whether life's development is best explained by explicit design or random mutation and natural selection. This is not an argument that theology can settle. Following Thomas Aquinas, however, the document says that divine providence is consistent with either hypothesis. God's causation can express itself through both necessity and contingency, so that even if the development of life seems random to empirical observation, it certainly doesn't to God.

I had hoped to speak to Schönborn about all this, but unfortunately he was in Poland as I wrote the piece. This week, however, I was able to reach him. My question was, what does he make of paragraph 69 of the ITC document? In the end, is his problem with evolutionary theory itself, or with its potential philosophical and theological abuse?

This is his response:

"I agree completely with what was formulated in number 69 of 'Stewardship and Communion.' And I feel confirmed in my convictions by this document. In any case I think it is necessary to cite the whole paragraph 69, when it states: 'In the Catholic perspective, neo-Darwinians who adduce random genetic variation and natural selection as evidence that the process of evolution is absolutely unguided are straying beyond what can be demonstrated by science.'

"For Catholic thinking," Schönborn told me, "it was clear from Pius XII's encyclical, Humani generis, that evolutionary theory can be valid to understand certain mechanisms, but it can never be seen or accepted as a holistic model to explain the existence of life."

Schönborn's point thus seems to be that in "absolute" form, meaning as a "holistic model" that would exclude design as a metaphysical matter, "evolutionism" turns into a philosophy that parts company with Christianity.

In that light, observers say, Schönborn's view does not seem to court a new Galileo affair, putting the church at odds with scientific discoveries. He's making a philosophical point, not a scientific one. In the end, he's warning that Christianity cannot accept a universe without God, and it's fairly difficult to argue with that.

Yes, we might have defeated Japan, eventually, at the loss of 500,000 or a million lives. But we had this awful technology, wrought from the can-do spirit of America. We should be proud of the atomic bomb, and any lingering doubts should be dispelled by honestly answering one simple question: Had Japan the capacity, in early August 1945, to drop 100 atomic bombs on the 100 largest American cities, would they have done it?

Critics say the medication causes very early abortions. The Food and Drug Administration classifies it as a contraceptive that prevents pregnancy. Who's right depends on the answer to the question "When does pregnancy start?"

[Some schlubby pro-choice scientist] says what really renders a woman pregnant from a medical point of view is a positive pregnancy test.

The rigidly predictable response to Rick's latest defense of the family among the village elders he critiques has been a stunning and vituperative series of attacks, in which (yes) some fair-minded folks quote and criticize what the good senator actually wrote, but more "summarize" it in ways that wildly distort his views. Bob Casey Jr., the Democrat who hopes to unseat Rick in the 2006 election cycle, falsely accused Sen. Santorum of calling working mothers "selfish and bad budgeters," and said Santorum was "out of touch" with economic realities.

But this over-the-top attack by Democrats and their sympathizers may backfire.

Much of the fire in the family debate has centered on Rick Santorum's call for parents to cut back on work, if possible, to spend more time with their kids. But as writer Danielle Crittenden told a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter: "(Rick Santorum) is not saying anything different from what most American women themselves would say or express. Do we think children are better off with a parent at home? Of course we do."

Indeed most working moms think working less sounds pretty good, according to a recent nationally representative survey of mothers by Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner Research Inc. reported in The Boston Globe. Only 10 percent of working mothers say they would prefer to work full time; 30 percent would prefer to be home full-time, and 59 percent want part-time work. Both working and stay-at-home moms also agree with Rick's other point: Moms at home raising kids don't get enough respect. Sixty-two percent of at-home mothers and 55 percent of working mothers agree that society values working mothers more than mothers who stay at home.

I don't always agree with Rick, and even when I do, I don't always agree with how he says a thing or two, or three. But one thing I do know: In these days when politicians' pronouncements are mostly the focus-grouped bland hoping to (mis)lead the voting blind, Rick Santorum dares to try to say something that actually matters. (This is known in Washington as a "gaffe.")

Every papal statement on the subject of evolution (and these have no binding force over Catholics, and never will) over the last century has been generally favorable to the theory, albeit with caveats. Schonborn's op-ed took those caveats a bit further, into intelligent design territory, which to my mind was a mistake. But are we really going to disqualify an American Catholic from the Supreme Court because a Viennese Cardinal wanted to attack Richard Dawkins?

I can hear John Roberts now, upon confirmation: Thank you, senators, for looking beyond my obvious liability — my gender. You took a chance on me, confirming me despite the irrevocable damage I may do to the girls of our nation, who, like my own daughter, dream, as they play with their Justice Barbies, that one day some open-minded president will nominate them instead of some slice of Wonder Bread — well, me — to the Supreme Court. I'm so sorry I am a man, but I will try my very best not to be too much of a Neanderthal in robes.

I think Rafael Palmeiro has made it safe for Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa and the other stars so many people think have used steroids to get caught now. We only can be shocked -- shocked -- like this once.

Hitchens' predominant theme is that Judge Roberts should be scrutinized more closely than other Supreme Court nominees because he is a Roman Catholic, and Catholics have the temerity to acknowledge an authority above the United States Constitution. I'm not sure who should be more insulted by this suggestion -- Catholic jurists like Roberts, whose legal objectivity has been called into question; or Orthodox, Protestant, Jewish, and Muslim jurists, who by implication have fallen into idolatry and do not believe in an authority higher than the United States Constitution.

Walking into the Reinhardts' modest home, you'd expect to see a harried mother, a father desperate to escape to a TV baseball game, and a living room without an uncluttered square inch. But on a recent visit, I was welcomed into a spotless kitchen by relaxed and smiling parents, and a passel of helpful, polite kids.

I listened with amazement as the older girls described the family's recent 30-hour drive home from Zion National Park in a 15-passenger van. I had visions of mortal combat over an iPod, Oreo debris everywhere, and parents ready for the insane asylum. But 11-year old Liz bubbled: "We had fun the whole way, playing in the back seat, talking and having contests. I love being in a big family."

Jim and Nadine Reinhardt don't have advanced degrees in Parenting Studies. They've just got a few good ideas about what makes for family happiness -- ideas our culture has largely forgotten

My managers like Don Zimmer and Jim Frey, they always said I made things easy on them by showing up on time, never getting into trouble, being ready to play every day, leading by example, being unselfish. I made things easy on them? These things they talk about, playing every day, that was my job. I had too much respect for them and for the game to let them down. I was afraid to let them down. I didn't want to let them down or let the fans down or my teammates or my family or myself. I had too much respect for them to let them down.

Dallas Green brought me to Chicago and without him, who knows? I couldn't let him down. I owed him too much. I had too much respect for him to let him down. People like Harry Caray and Don Zimmer used to compare me to Jackie Robinson. Can you think of a better tribute than that? But Harry, who was a huge supporter of mine, used to say how nice it is that a guy who can hit 40 homers or steal 50 bases drive in a hundred runs is the best bunter on the team. Nice? That was my job. When did it become OK for someone to hit home runs and forget how to play the rest of the game?

When we went home every winter, they warned us not lift heavy weights because they didn't want us to lose flexibility. They wanted us to be baseball players, not only home run hitters. I played high school football at 185 pounds and played big league baseball at 182. I'd get up to maybe 188 in the offseason because every summer I'd lose eight to 10 pounds. In my day, if a guy came to spring training 20 pounds heavier than what he left, he was considered out of shape and was probably in trouble. He'd be under a microscope and the first time he couldn't beat out a base hit or missed a fly ball, he was probably shipped out. These guys sitting up here did not pave the way for the rest of us so that players could swing for the fences every time up and forget how to move a runner over to third. It's disrespectful to them, to you and to the game of baseball that we all played growing up. Respect.

A lot of people say this honor validates my career, but I didn't work hard for validation. I didn't play the game right because I saw a reward at the end of the tunnel. I played it right because that's what you're supposed to do – play it right and with respect. If this validates anything, it's that learning how to bunt and hit and run and turning two is more important than knowing where to find the little red light on the dugout camera.

"Last year, Dr. Denise Faustman, one of the researchers the Iacocca Foundation has supported for over a decade cured type I diabetes in mice. I'm not going to wait for the government or the pharmaceutical industry to decide to get the human trials going. We need $11 million for these clinical trials now. I've given the first million and I'm asking the American people to get behind me and give the rest. Click the 'donate now' icon above to help!"

The Iacocca Foundation was founded in 1984 by Lee Iacocca in memory of his late wife, Mary K. Iacocca, who died of diabetic complications in 1983. Our primary purpose is to fund innovative and promising diabetes research programs and projects that will lead to a cure for the disease and alleviate complications caused by it.