How is it commendable or prudent or a subject of pride that in the United States not a single oil refinery has been built in more than 25 years?
In his strange autobiography, Bill Clinton notes his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky was "immoral and foolish," his "relationship" with Gennifer Flowers one he "should not have had." He also mentions, albeit negatively, Kathleen Willey and Paula Jones. Alas, he fails to reference alleged encounters with, let's see: Dolly Kyle Browning, Connie Hamzy, Sally Perdue, Bobbie Ann Williams, Sandra Allen James, Christy Zercher, Juanita Broaddrick, Eileen Wellstone, Lencola Sullivan, Susie Whiteacre or Elizabeth Ward.
And speaking of predation, the first Roman Catholic diocese, in Portland, Ore., has been driven into bankruptcy by predatory priests who demanded sex from the young - mostly boys. Announcement of the bankruptcy filing came as jury selection was to begin in yet another trial, with millions already paid to successful litigants. The Portland diocese said, in effect, Enough. The diocese of Tucson, Ariz., may be next.
Given the lessons flowing from the damage done by primarily homosexual priests in Catholic dioceses, one wonders whether those lessons have been taken sufficiently to heart in key Protestant denominations - Baptist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian - courting schism over such issues as homosexual marriage, blessed homosexual "civil" unions and non-celibate homosexuals in the ministry?
In the culture it's an anti-Bush tag-team, what with Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" and - next up - publication of the ranting novella "Checkpoint" scheduled for just before the Republican convention. In an interview, "Checkpoint" author Nicholson Baker, who has written deeply about an escalator ride and phone-sex, terms President Bush "beyond the beyond."
Bill Cosby keeps on. In May he blasted many young African-Americans for failing to take advantage of opportunities earned by the civil rights movement. On July 1, addressing Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH in Chicago, he lamented those who "think they're hip (although) they can't read (and) they can't write. They're laughing and giggling, and they're going nowhere." And: "For me there is a time . . . when we have to turn the mirror around. Because for me it is almost analgesic to talk about what the white man is doing against us. And it keeps a person frozen in their seat. It keeps you frozen in your hole you're sitting in."