First, we as Americans have to come to terms with the fact that AIPAC would have virtually no influence were it not for the obsession of the neocon Christian Right with the Biblical dominos being set up in and around Jerusalem in order to bring about the Final Battle and all that other fundie crap that fed the Crusades, the Third Reich, the Cold War and the recent fiascos in Iraq. If not for lunatic Christians (which by no means is the same thing as all or even most Christians) didn't have such an abiding obsession with the words in a volume of very old and disconnected history shrouded in mystical significance and consumation of a hypostatic union with The Lamb this conversation wouldn't be happening now.

Surely, AIPAC depends in large part upon people's fear of being called anti-semitic. For some reason people care if this happens to them and will do damned near anything to avoid it or explain that they didn't mean what it sounded like they just said involving the liability Israel has progressively become, thanks largely to the basically Jew-hating bunch of right wingnuts who have supported Zionism climbing into bed with Zionist American socialists from Louis Brandeis onward. Strange bedfellows indeed.

Yes, Isreal as a Jewish ideal has changed so dramatically over time that it is virtually unrecognizable. This is only because AIPAC is not primarily an engine driven by Hebraic, Jewish ideals, but of Zionist Christian right wing lunacy involving the impending End Times. Keep an eye on those volk. They have insinuated themselves into every aspect of the highest levels of our government and are now stepping out into the open in the persons of George W.Bush, Sam Brownback and other maniacs who will use peoples' fear of being called anti-semitic to help steer us off the edge of their flat planet until and unless we shut off power to the Third Rail and let Israel be what it will be, just another little outline in the sand.

For the intransigent End Timers: Jesus wasn't an Israeli.

It's starting already with the hateful "ethical" people who worship and the feet of...what? The mummified corpse of H.L. Mencken?

Why would an essentially good and kind yet eminently human creature like Anne Lamott even bother to grace the pages of Salon, knowing as she does that so much of its readership is composed of spiritually dead human barnacles? So bring it on, and gimme some too, just because I love this woman, I feel her, I know what's up with her, and so tell me I don't belong here either, as I am more interested in honor, kindness, a quiet, normal life (a la Warren Zevon, it's true) and, yes, grace. Have a little, for chrissake. Or just validate the hate. It doesn't really matter.

Grace. There, I said it again. The fulminant hatred of simple humanity that follows Ms. Lamott apalls me, and that really takes some doing.

By the way, Ann, July 14 absolutely works for me, because it is the day my insane hillbilly family has chosen to hold its annual reunions. This is a testament to the transformative power of grace and the refusal to give up and join the pathetic, faux liberal flagellants as we grow and maybe even evolve a little.

The article reminds me of the words of a fellow who ran a Gurdjief commune out west some years ago: "I look this way because I've been living."

Carry on.

The loss of my parents was not quite as abrupt as your father's passing, Sean, but although we had plenty of time to prepare - and even feel relief, in the case of my mother - it hasn't gone away. We've come to terms with it, it certainly wasn't as terrible as the loss of one of my daughter's college age peers between the two, but there is a sense in us of immortality in our parents who have given themselves to us and been loved in return (and not all are, needless to say). When we discover they've left, whether or not with preparation, the discovery of that shell, that chrysalis, still leaves us with a strange and terrible new feeling impossible to convey.

And yet it does pass. The hole is never filled, the empty chair is never right again, and yet somehow the love that leaves us feeling so lost in that moment of discovery does change us over time, and so changes the feeling from one of loss to one of separation, to one, eventually, of being closer to wholeness.

It doesn't make any sense, but it happens. It gets better. The gift becomes more gilded and burnished and precious with time.

But right now all anyone can offer that does make sense is what I feel right now: I, too, am terribly sorry for your loss.

Not near as funny as your Jesus-on-a-stick reference.

(Uh, "reptile" would have saved a lot of words and been perfectly PC by the way). Hisssss!