I just dug up a copy of Kavenaugh's A Modern Priest Looks At His Outdated Church and was reminded about how powerful the Catholic Church was back then. Kavenaugh's leaving the priesthood and his personal struggles afterwards were a reminder of that ominous business of excommunication.

Now? The last person who cared about Mass in my family was my late mother. We had a Catholic funeral for my father, but for Mom, we four children decided it wasn't necessary or desireable. We only went to Mass to take her for her own pleasure. By then, Alzheimer's prevented her from learning or believing anything about the pedophile scandals or the Church "taking care" of women impregnated by priests, so we decided to let her keep her Catholic fantasies while she still lived.

By the way, to the person who said "all Christian churches are the same," remember that the Catholic Church is like the Mafia or being a comic book collector; you never really leave. But, while we may retain much of the Catholic philosophy and its metaphysics, we can't support the abuses, corruption and hypocracy of the Church itself.

The Catholic Church hasn't made a difference in movie ratings, education or national politics for decades now. Why should being excommunicated, or not, make much of a difference to Ms. Kissling?

And your mention of Twin Peaks is the giveaway. The reason that show failed is that it strung along the audience too long. David Lynch didn't want to tell a story; he wanted to abuse the audience. Like many other film directors in this sad age, he didn't want to tell a story, examine life or explore mysteries; he wanted to beat the crap out of audiences to prove how great and powerful he was.

Lost has a bunch of opaque mysteries that can't and won't be solved, and the producers simply want to lead gullible audience members on. It's a big elaborately wrapped Christmas present from your parents, and when you open it up, the only thing inside is a broken slab of concrete and a note saying "F you!"

The point where the series lost me was early in this season, where Doctor McDeadhead could have tried to escape through the underwater hatch, but didn't. If he'd been honorable he'd have tried to kill the whore and her pimp who had captured him, whether he lived through it or not. He didn't, and meekly went back to his cell. He was no hero, he had no courage, and the reason why those two factors existed was that the producers were screwing with the viewers.

Maybe a lot of people are into bondage and discipline when it comes to TV viewing. To me, it's a pathetic, sick game. I want a story, characters and meaning. Lost doesn't have it.

Much as I dislike Tom Clancy (his various fascist novels annoy the hell out of me) in an online conference I heard him give the most sensible advice about writing. He said something like "You cannot use a piece of software to help you write. You cannot go to classes to learn how to write. You cannot go to study groups to help you write. You must write."

Nobody (well, perhaps Mr. Keillor might do it, but he's weird) would write a book about how it feels to refinish furniture, the angst you go through while learning to author a DVD, the mindset you must have when sewing a Simplicity pattern. But books about "the writing life" are steady sellers.

Even though the Internet, blogs and things like that have changed the writing business - soon, nobody will be able to be paid as a writer, there will be no copyright, publishing is dead - it has given people venues in which to write. Even writing about how useless Heather Havrilesky is to Salon is writing. So what if writing will no longer be a paid profession? It will become a skill a lot of people have, thanks to constant use.

The only question remaining is, is Douglas Adams right? In his discussion of the Babel Fish, he said that the more people understand each other, the more they will hate each other and the more wars, murders and conflicts they will cause. All this increased, unpaid writing will help us understand each other, but is that a good thing? We can always hope that isn't the case, but when has hope made a difference in the last few decades?

...I thought for a minute it was Darth Vader wearing a new beach pattern armor, a nice change from basic black.

And then I thought that, perhaps, to the people in the Middle East, thanks to this terrible war, all our troopers look like Darth Vader in beach pattern armor. Whether they're actually decent people or not. This war has made all Americans villains.

I wonder if Americans will ever be seen again as "the good guys" within my lifetime.

Having watched decades of campaign commercials, local and national, I can understand how the traditional "me first" campaigns are annoying the hell out of people. Only the attack ads and smear campaigns are hated more.

The things mentioned for the Obama campaign sound very appealing, on the other hand. For decades, Republicans and the Democratic imitators of their campaigns have pushed egotism and individuality over community. They swallowed the "me generation" crap and approved of it. Maybe a simple approach like this, to build community, make people trust one another, make them realize we all share important needs, desires and dreams, could eventually reform politics.

Or maybe I'm pipe-dreaming, and we're all doomed.