In the face of recent revelations that the Bush administration has been tracking billions of phone calls, has no solution to the Iraq travesty and can only offer a photo op with some war ravaged Guardsmen in Arizona to solve a serious immigration problem, why don't we wonder why our fearless news reporters asked why Whitehouse hack Snow is sporting a yellow wristband. NPR has already treated me to a tearfelt explanation of how he survived colon cancer while those close to him fell to that ignomious terrorism of the anus. No word on whether the NSA will be data mining his ass for further evidence of terror inducing cancerous cells.

While I am sure FOX will run this as its headline, would anyone be surprised if the so called MSM rushed through it's other leads, reading them like the warnings on a bottle of Paxil or the true cost of that zero interest financing on the H3, to do an indepth study on Snow's ass and colon cancer in general ("Colbert" question for Katie Couric: Why do only assholes get colon cancer?)

During the late eighties and nineties the rightwing wacko bumper sticker groups warned us never to trust the media. I'm beginning to believe they were actually being facetiously honest. As in don't trust the media because if all goes well, many will be on our payroll.

What we are seeing is unique in the free world. In places like Iran, Cuba, the USSR, people knew where their media stood. It stood for the state. When Tass welcomed them to a brand new glorious day, the citizenry knew they were going to be fed a bunch of shit but then, by dessert time, get the local hockey scores and tomorrow's weather. We in America have for years thought we were going to be given honest objective news then fed shit about the weather and our hockey team's prospects of making the playoffs.

Now we know we know what it is like to be a Soviet citizen in 1972. Except our weather news and hockey team still suck.

I wonder if Mr. Keillor reads our letters. I hope he does, but that is somewhat Popish of me.

Like Dubya's fishing prowess, I always believed the highlight of the Catholic mass was when the priest walked down the aisle swinging that ornate incense burner with the wonderful odor of frankinscence or myrrh or patchouli wafting among us. There's a lot to be said for aromatherapy and the Catholic church definitely burned a trail on that one.

But like a certain Salon sports writer, I digress. If you want to complain about the church you should consider a seminal article on the one great beauty of Protestentism; the fact that it freed people to pursue their own ideas about God and how to know him. Luther was the girl in the Apple commercial lobbing a hammer at the blue screen of IBM, the kid offering a view of the king that included a suggestion of nudity, the orphan asking for something more.

For better, and worse, Protestantism gave civilization a chance to pursue ones belief's free of dictates from on high, whether they be dictates of wonderful popes like Peter and John Paul II or those of the most corrupt like anyone named Urban or Innocent XIII. The point was, whether your fearless leader be a saint or a sinner, maybe it would be better if one's life purpose and responsibility was better borne upon your own shoulders.

Protestantism was the great unleashing. It gave us the chance to pursue so many different ways in which the best, and sometimes worst, of humanity could express itself. It walked in tandem with free markets, but it walked to a tune more comprehensive and in many ways more important than acquisition of wealth. Yes, Protestantism, gave us the Anabaptist nightmare in Switzerland, the Salem Puritans, Jim Jones and David Koresh, but it also gave us equality for women, civil rights for minorities, gay rights and the concept that life could be ruled by peace rather than constant war; thank you Reverand Sloan.

Sadly our children are given the Cliff Notes of the Reformation without the substance. Ninety-nine theses nailed to a door is not the same as a harpooned whale. What I would really like to read or see is a clear and honest essay on why the Reformation was important then, and, in a time when a "world leader" claims to define true belief and its believers, the Reformation now is so important.

Lest we forget,

This is the same guy who promoted invading a South American country because that would be the last thing Al Quaida would suspect us to do.

There is no depth to this man's stupidity.