mik1of3's Blog

By Sharon Churcher
Last updated at 1:45 AM on 08th June 2008

Now that Hillary Clinton has at last formally withdrawn from the race for the White House, the eyes of America and the world will focus on Barack Obama and his Republican rival Senator John McCain.

While Obama will surely press his credentials as the embodiment of the American dream – a handsome, charismatic young black man who was raised on food stamps by a single mother and who represents his country’s future – McCain will present himself as a selfless, principled war hero whose campaign represents not so much a battle for the presidency of the United States, but a crusade to rescue the nation’s tarnished reputation.

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Forgotten woman: But despite all her problems Carol McCain says she still adores her ex-husband.

McCain likes to illustrate his moral fibre by referring to his five years as a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam. And to demonstrate his commitment to family values, the 71-year-old former US Navy pilot pays warm tribute to his beautiful blonde wife, Cindy, with whom he has four children.

But there is another Mrs McCain who casts a ghostly shadow over the Senator’s presidential campaign. She is seldom seen and rarely written about, despite being mother to McCain’s three eldest children.

And yet, had events turned out differently, it would be she, rather than Cindy, who would be vying to be First Lady. She is McCain’s first wife, Carol, who was a famous beauty and a successful swimwear model when they married in 1965.

She was the woman McCain dreamed of during his long incarceration and torture in Vietnam’s infamous ‘Hanoi Hilton’ prison and the woman who faithfully stayed at home looking after the children and waiting anxiously for news.

But when McCain returned to America in 1973 to a fanfare of publicity and a handshake from Richard Nixon, he discovered his wife had been disfigured in a terrible car crash three years earlier. Her car had skidded on icy roads into a telegraph pole on Christmas Eve, 1969. Her pelvis and one arm were shattered by the impact and she suffered massive internal injuries.

When Carol was discharged from hospital after six months of life-saving surgery, the prognosis was bleak. In order to save her legs, surgeons had been forced to cut away huge sections of shattered bone, taking with it her tall, willowy figure. She was confined to a wheelchair and was forced to use a catheter.

Through sheer hard work, Carol learned to walk again. But when John McCain came home from Vietnam, she had gained a lot of weight and bore little resemblance to her old self.

Today, she stands at just 5ft4in and still walks awkwardly, with a pronounced limp. Her body is held together by screws and metal plates and, at 70, her face is worn by wrinkles that speak of decades of silent suffering.

For nearly 30 years, Carol has maintained a dignified silence about the accident, McCain and their divorce. But last week at the bungalow where she now lives at Virginia Beach, a faded seaside resort 200 miles south of Washington, she told The Mail on Sunday how McCain divorced her in 1980 and married Cindy, 18 years his junior and the heir to an Arizona brewing fortune, just one month later.

Golden couple: John and Cindy McCain at a charity gala in Los Angeles

Carol insists she remains on good terms with her ex-husband, who agreed as part of their divorce settlement to pay her medical costs for life. ‘I have no bitterness,’ she says. ‘My accident is well recorded. I had 23 operations, I am five inches shorter than I used to be and I was in hospital for six months. It was just awful, but it wasn’t the reason for my divorce. My marriage ended because John McCain didn’t want to be 40, he wanted to be 25. You know that happens...it just does.’

Some of McCain’s acquaintances are less forgiving, however. They portray the politician as a self-centred womanizer who effectively abandoned his crippled wife to ‘play the field’. They accuse him of finally settling on Cindy, a former rodeo beauty queen, for financial reasons.

McCain was then earning little more than £25,000 a year as a naval officer, while his new father-in-law, Jim Hensley, was a multi-millionaire who had impeccable political connections.

He first met Carol in the Fifties while he was at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis. He was a privileged, but rebellious scion of one of America’s most distinguished military dynasties – his father and grandfather were both admirals.

But setting out to have a good time, the young McCain hung out with a group of young officers who called themselves the ‘Bad Bunch’.

His primary interest was women and his conquests ranged from a knife-wielding floozy nicknamed ‘Marie, the Flame of Florida’ to a tobacco heiress.

Carol fell into his fast-living world by accident. She escaped a poor upbringing in Philadelphia to become a successful model, married an Annapolis classmate of McCain’s and had two children – Douglas and Andrew – before renewing what one acquaintance calls ‘an old flirtation’ with McCain.

It seems clear she was bowled over by McCain’s attention at a time when he was becoming bored with his playboy lifestyle.

‘He was 28 and ready to settle down and he loved Carol’s children,’ recalled another Annapolis graduate, Robert Timberg, who wrote The Nightingale’s Song, a bestselling biography of McCain and four other graduates of the academy.

The couple married and McCain adopted Carol’s sons. Their daughter, Sidney, was born a year later, but domesticity was clearly beginning to bore McCain – the couple were regarded as ‘fixtures on the party circuit’ before McCain requested combat duty in Vietnam at the end of 1966.

He was assigned as a bomber pilot on an aircraft carrier in the Gulf of Tonkin.

What follows is the stuff of the McCain legend. He was shot down over Hanoi in October 1967 on his 23rd mission over North Vietnam and was badly beaten by an angry mob when he was pulled, half-drowned from a lake.

War hero: McCain with Carol as he arrives back in the US in 1973 after his five years as a PoW in North Vietnam

Over the next five-and-a-half years in the notorious Hoa Loa Prison he was regularly tortured and mistreated.

It was in 1969 that Carol went to spend the Christmas holiday – her third without McCain – at her parents’ home. After dinner, she left to drop off some presents at a friend’s house. It wasn’t until some hours later that she was discovered, alone and in terrible pain, next to the wreckage of her car. She had been hurled through the windscreen.

After her first series of life-saving operations, Carol was told she may never walk again, but when doctors said they would try to get word to McCain about her injuries, she refused, insisting: ‘He’s got enough problems, I don’t want to tell him.’  H. Ross Perot, a billionaire Texas businessman, future presidential candidate and advocate of prisoners of war, paid for her medical care.

When McCain – his hair turned prematurely white and his body reduced to little more than a skeleton – was released in March 1973, he told reporters he was overjoyed to see Carol again. But friends say privately he was ‘appalled’ by the change in her appearance. At first, though, he was kind, assuring her: ‘I don’t look so good myself. It’s fine.’

He bought her a bungalow near the sea in Florida and another former PoW helped him to build a railing so she could pull herself over the dunes to the water. ‘I thought, of course, we would live happily ever after,’ says Carol. But as a war hero, McCain was moving in ever-more elevated circles.

Through Ross Perot, he met Ronald Reagan, then Governor of California. A sympathetic Nancy Reagan took Carol under her wing.

But already the McCains’ marriage had begun to fray. ‘John started carousing and running around with women,’ said Robert Timberg.

McCain has acknowledged that he had girlfriends during this time, without going into details. Some friends blame his dissatisfaction with Carol, but others give some credence to her theory of a mid-life crisis.

He was also fiercely ambitious, but it was clear he would never become an admiral like his illustrious father and grandfather and his thoughts were turning to politics.

In 1979 – while still married to Carol – he met Cindy at a cocktail party in Hawaii. Over the next six months he pursued her, flying around the country to see her. Then he began to push to end his marriage.

Carol and her children were devastated. ‘It was a complete surprise,’ says Nancy Reynolds, a former Reagan aide.

‘They never displayed any difficulties between themselves. I know the Reagans were quite shocked because they loved and respected both Carol and John.’

Another friend added: ‘Carol didn’t fight him. She felt her infirmity made her an impediment to him. She justified his actions because of all he had gone through. She used to say, “He just wants to make up for lost time.”’

Indeed, to many in their circle the saddest part of the break-up was Carol’s decision to resign herself to losing a man she says she still adores.

Friends confirm she has remained friends with McCain and backed him in all his campaigns. ‘He was very generous to her in the divorce but of course he could afford to be, since he was marrying Cindy,’ one observed.

McCain transferred the Florida beach house to Carol and gave her the right to live in their jointly-owned townhouse in the Washington suburb of Alexandria. He also agreed to pay her alimony and child support.

A former neighbour says she subsequently sold up in Florida and Washington and moved in 2003 to Virginia Beach. He said: ‘My impression was that she found the new place easier to manage as she still has some difficulties walking.’

Meanwhile McCain moved to Arizona with his new bride immediately after their 1980 marriage. There, his new father-in-law gave him a job and introduced him to local businessmen and political powerbrokers who would smooth his passage to Washington via the House of Representatives and Senate.

And yet despite his popularity as a politician, there are those who won’t forget his treatment of his first wife.

Ted Sampley, who fought with US Special Forces in Vietnam and is now a leading campaigner for veterans’ rights, said: ‘I have been following John McCain’s career for nearly 20 years. I know him personally. There is something wrong with this guy and let me tell you what it is – deceit.

‘When he came home and saw that Carol was not the beauty he left behind, he started running around on her almost right away. Everybody around him knew it.

‘Eventually he met Cindy and she was young and beautiful and very wealthy. At that point McCain just dumped Carol for something he thought was better.

‘This is a guy who makes such a big deal about his character. He has no character. He is a fake. If there was any character in that first marriage, it all belonged to Carol.’

One old friend of the McCains said: ‘Carol always insists she is not bitter, but I think that’s a defence mechanism. She also feels deeply in his debt because in return for her agreement to a divorce, he promised to pay for her medical care for the rest of her life.’

Carol remained resolutely loyal as McCain’s political star rose. She says she agreed to talk to The Mail on Sunday only because she wanted to publicise her support for the man who abandoned her.

Indeed, the old Mercedes that she uses to run errands displays both a disabled badge and a sticker encouraging people to vote for her ex-husband. ‘He’s a good guy,’ she assured us. ‘We are still good friends. He is the best man for president.’

But Ross Perot, who paid her medical bills all those years ago, now believes that both Carol McCain and the American people have been taken in by a man who is unusually slick and cruel – even by the standards of modern politics.

‘McCain is the classic opportunist. He’s always reaching for attention and glory,’ he said.

‘After he came home, Carol walked with a limp. So he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona. And the rest is history.’

Gee...before we go talking morals where our candidates are concerned, who would YOU want representing our country?  The WAR HERO who, in the midst of a midlife (and possibly financial crisis) dumped his crippled wife for a rodeo queen heiress...or a young, black man still married to his FIRST wife? 

Does McCain's time in Hanoi make up for his lack of moral fiber? 

Personally, I'm still on the fence where these two as my choices.  Old school vs fresh air. Age vs youth.  War hero vs educated kid.  Trophy wife vs original wife. 

In the words of Yzma from the Emperor's New Groove...Which one, which one?  

Okay, I'm not a big 'gamer', but  I do have quite a few games on my computer that me and Scotti play.  Nothing violent or requiring a great amount of brain power..just cotton candy for the brain when we need to just blow some time.

Our favorites? 

   ALL of the Diner Dash games    

 All of the Wedding Dash games...I'm STUCK on level 3 right now!!

This one was lots of fun!!

We are such GIRLS!!  Sissy games, maybe, but we like them!! 

What are YOUR faves?

You know, I was never really a fan of Nicole Kidman..she always seemed a little snobby, cold, uppity; but when Tom Cruise dumped her the way he did, it made her more human to me, and I started watching/reading interviews with her after.  Turns out, the Nicole Kidman behind the ice queen turned out to be pretty cool, and very human.  (Course, she IS a very good actress..)

I guess being publicly dumped and humiliated will do that to you.

Keith Urban I've always liked.  He's always seemed very down to earth, more of an everyman than any country musician I ever read about or watched.  He seemed more like the guy next door, the one you'll invite over for a beer, (well, maybe not anymore, but you get what I mean.)

Certainly not Nicole's type, you would think!!

But here they are, married and pregnant.  Is she responsible for some of his best music ever?  ("Stupid Boy" I swear is aimed at Tom Cruise.)  I think so. 

I TRY not to get too obsessed with celebrities and their lives, but these two, well, if there's a story on them, I'll pick it up and read it.  Can't resist. 

Keep your Angelina and Brad, give me Keith and Nicole!!

PS..I really like this picture.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Mindy McCready has "caught her breath" and gone back to work on a new album following her admission of a long-standing relationship with Roger Clemens, a representative for the country star said Wednesday.

McCready told The New York Daily News on Monday that she "cannot refute anything" in the newspaper's original report posted Sunday night on its Web site. The story said Clemens and McCready met in a Florida karaoke bar when she was a 15-year-old aspiring singer and he was a 28-year-old pitcher for the Boston Red Sox and a married father of two.

McCready, who's currently signed to Denver-based Iconic Records, has had a string of legal and personal problems in recent years and was sentenced last September for violating probation from a 2004 drug arrest. She was released from jail Dec. 30.

The newspaper reported that Clemens sent cash to McCready to help her with legal issues and reached out to her when she was in jail.

Clemens' lawyer, Rusty Hardin, confirmed that the pitcher and singer had known each other for a long time but told the newspaper that no sex was involved. At no time did Clemens engage in inappropriate or improper relationship with her, said Hardin, who described McCready as a longtime friend of Clemens and his family.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080501/ap_on_en_mu/mus
ic_clemens_mccready_2

I am so surprised (okay, not really) that I haven't seen more blogs on this considering the hero worship this town seems to have for jocks. 

All I see is a lying dopehead pedophile whose "All American" persona is coming apart at the seams the more people dig into it.    

Honestly, now...which one makes the hair on your neck stand up?  I still say #1.  As you can see, Mom, Dad, baby sister Noah were all there, and the shoot was not in some seamy little room, but outdoors with a full crew.  I didn't post  "THE PHOTO" for two reasons..one, everyone has seen it, and two, I don't know that FOX would let me.

Okay...what movie is at the tippy top of your most eagerly anticipated for the YEAR?  Not the summer, fall, or winter..the YEAR?

Do you have only one?  Or are you like me (oh, the horror) and have two?  Mine, of course, are,  #1 Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince due out November 21, 2008

http://www.movieweb.com/video/V07LbcfisuyOUV  (for a sneak peek teaser video)

And, of course, Twilight, due out December  12, 2008

http://www.twilightthemovie.com/    www.stepheniemeyer.com  and you can find all different kinds of Twilight videos..including the authentic movie trailer on you tube.  (I don't know how to embed the videos.) 

If you haven't read the books yet, I heartedly encourage you to do so.  Despite being a "vampire" series (the main reason I never read them earlier, Anne Rice ruined the genre for me) it is a very moral, wholesome story with the importance of love, family and friendship its biggest focus.

Below...Kristin Stewart as Bella, Stephenie Meyer (the author) Robert Pattinson as Edward.

The Cullen family...Emmet (Kellan Lutz); Rosalie (Nikki Reed), Esme, the "Mom"  (Elizabeth Reaser), Edward  (Robert Pattinson); Carlisle, the "Dad" ( Peter Facinelli); Alice (Ashley Green) and Jasper (Jackson Rathbone). 

This is one of  the three "evil" vampires, James  (Cam Gigandet) who wants to kill Bella.  Scotti likes this picture.  She likes his tummy. 

This is James' mate, Victoria(Rachelle LeFebvre) and Laurent, (Edi Gathegri), the third of the evil coven. 

Of course, I can't leave out Jacob (Taylor Lautner). 

  He's so cute, you just want to pinch his cheeks.  But you probably shouldn't do that to a were....oops, that's in New Moon!!

A few days ago, the booggyman called me a blog troll, and advised me to look it up.  I did so and these are the definitions I found on....

yahoo...A "troll" is someone who intentionally and persistently posts inflammatory messages about sensitive topics to bait users into responding or provoke a confrontation.

and on networdblog.blogspot.com...Trolling is a well-known phenomenon in commenting and message boards/blogs on the internet. Someone will make a post specifically designed to draw a response and gleefully sit back while they bask in all the attention and furor they caused.

So is it an insult?  Or merely a name to call someone who consistently disagrees with you in hopes of hurting their feelings?  Or is it just someone who likes to debate, which I most definitely am, especially when it comes to causes near and dear to my heart. 

Personally, I can think of worse things to be called.......trolling right along.....

My parents still live in the house I grew up in, and they have voted at the same location, Beverly Hills Park, since that poll has opened.  And not ONE time has that poll ever been as crowded as it was Tuesday.  They had to park almost a quarter of a mile away, and walking to the center, they passed a woman returning to her car.  She was on a cell phone, and talking loud enough for my parents to overhear.  (Plus my mom is nosy.  I get it from her, what can I say?)   She said, and I quote...

"Fine, you vote for that jerk, and you may as well pack your bags cause your headed right back to Iraq!!"  and clicked the phone shut.

She made eye contact with my mom and said, "You heard that?"  Mom nodded, and apologized for being nosy.  Woman didn't mind.  Turns out, she's married to a soldier, who has only been home from Iraq for six months. 

She voted for Barack.  Hmm. Wonder who her husband is voting for? 

My parents still live in the house I grew up in, and they have voted at the same location, Beverly Hills Park, since that poll has opened.  And not ONE time has that poll ever been as crowded as it was Tuesday.  They had to park almost a quarter of a mile away, and walking to the center, they passed a woman returning to her car.  She was on a cell phone, and talking loud enough for my parents to overhear.  (Plus my mom is nosy.  I get it from her, what can I say?)   She said, and I quote...

"Fine, you vote for that jerk, and you may as well pack your bags cause your headed right back to Iraq!!"  and clicked the phone shut.

She made eye contact with my mom and said, "You heard that?"  Mom nodded, and apologized for being nosy.  Woman didn't mind.  Turns out, she's married to a soldier, who has only been home from Iraq for six months. 

She voted for Barack.  Hmm. Wonder who her husband is voting for? 

Will someone PLEASE explain to me what the heck a CAUCUS is? 

    I'm ALMOST as confused as THIS guy!!

  Trying to figure out the Democrat party's vote once, then caucus message really makes my head hurt.

HELP!!  

Okay, despite my disdain for this holiday, I have to add to the frenzy. 

If you could received ANYTHING for Valentine's Day, what would it be?

Me?  A complete set of British, FIRST EDITION, Harry Potter books SIGNED by JK Rowling herself.

I know, I'm pitiful.  What kind of idiot takes books over bling? 

A bibliophile, that's who!                                                   
 

Okay, maybe I haven't been here as much as I used to, but it seems that the blogs aren't as updated as they used to be.  I've been trying to figure out why, and I realized that Chassan hasn't been posting.

Where did Chassan go?  Did I miss something during the Christmas break like I did with Asnapper being outed? 

I miss Chassan.  Any answers?

Mik

I first heard about this Iowa woman, Jane Hambleton, yesterday on Paul Harvey's commentary while driving in to work.  It's on the msn home page now, with more details. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22578679/from/ET/?gt1=1075
5

Mrs Hambleton,  I think deserves a medal for the stance she took regarding her 19 year old son.  She found empty liquor bottles under the seat of her son's car.  Of course, he says they weren't his (hey, we've all tried that argument) , and she says while she believes him, she had set two rules regarding the car...NO BOOZE, and KEEP IT LOCKED.  So she showed him no mercy, and sold the car, via  a newspaper ad that read as follows:

OLDS 1999 Intrigue. Totally uncool parents who obviously don't love teenage son, selling his car. Only driven for three weeks before snoopy mom who needs to get a life found booze under front seat. $3,700/offer. Call meanest mom on the planet.

Don't you just love it?  Hambleton has gotten at least 70 calls from people everywhere congratulating her, thanking her for the example she was setting...from other parents, ER nurses, as far away as Georgia.  She says while the car has been sold, she let the ad run a couple more days.  While it was outrageously expensive, it was worth every penny.

Lynne Spears, Dina Lohan, Kathy Hilton..take note!!

Being thin..probably not a subject you'd expect to read about on this website, but my recent trip to London got me thinking..

It started when I was in the car en route to Leavesden film studios.  I whiled away part of the journey reading a magazine that featured several glossy photographs of a very young woman who is either seriously ill or suffering from an eating disorder (which is, of course, the same thing); anyway, there is no other explanation for the shape of her body. She can talk about eating absolutely loads, being terribly busy, and having the world's fastest metabolism until her tongue drops off (hooray, another couple of ounces gone!)  but her concave stomach, protruding ribs, and stick-like arms tells a different story.  This girl needs help, but, the world being what it is,  they're putting her on a magazine cover instead.  All this passed through my mind as I read the interview, then I threw the horrible thing aside. 

But blow me down if the subject of girls and thinness didn't crop up shortly after I got out of the car.  I was talking to one of the actors, and somehow or other,  we got on the subject of how a girl he knows (not one of the Potter actresses; some body from his life beyond the films) who had been dubbed "fat" by certain charming classmates.  (Could they possibly be jealous that she knows the boy in question?  Surely not!) 

'But', says the actor, in honest perplexity, 'she is really not fat.' 

"Fat" is usually the first insult a girl throws at another girl when she wants to hurt her, I said; I could remember it happening when I was at school, and witnessing it among the teenagers I used to teach.  Nevertheless, I could see that to him, a well-adjusted male, it was utterly bizzare behaviour, like yelling "thicko!" at Stephen Hawking. 

His bemusement at this everyday feature of female existence reminded me how strange and sick the "fat" insult is.  I mean, is "fat" the really worst thing a person can be? Is fat worse than vindictive, jealous, shallow, vain, boring, or cruel? Not to me;  but then,  you might retort,  what do I know about the pressures to be skinny?  I'm not in the business of being judged by my looks, what with my being a writer earning my living by using my brain...

I went to the British Book Awards that evening.  After the award ceremony, I bumped into a woman I hadn't seen in three years.  The first thing she said to me?  "You've lost a lot of weight since the last time I saw you!'

"Well," I said, slightly nonplussed, "the last time you saw me, I'd just had a baby."

What I felt like saying is "I'd produced my third child and sixth novel since the last time I saw you.  Aren't either of those things more important, more interesting, than my size?" But no..forget the kid and the book, finally something to celebrate!!

So, the issue of size and women was (ha ha) weighing on my mind as I flew home to Edinburgh the next day.  Once up in the air, I opened the newspaper, and my eyes fell, immediately, on an article about the pop star Pink.

Her latest single, "Stupid Girls" , is the antidote-anthem for everything I had been thinking about women and thinness.  "Stupid Girls" satirises the talking toothpicks held up to girls as role models; those celebrities whose greatest accomplishment is un-chipped nail polish; whose only aspiration seems to be getting photographed in a different outfit nine times a day,  whose only function in the world seems to be supporting the trade in over-priced handbags and rat-sized dogs.

Maybe all this seems funny, or trivial, but its really not.  It's about what girls want to be, what they're told they should be, and how they feel about who they are.  I've got two daughters who have to make their way in this skinny-obsessed world, and it worries me, because I don't want them to be empty-headed, self-obsessed emaciated clones,  I'd rather they were independent, interesting, idealistic, kind, opinionated, original, funny-- a thousand things before 'thin'.  And frankly, I'd rather that didn't give a gust of stinking chihuahua flatulence whether the woman standing next to them had fleshier knees than they do.  Let my girls be Hermiones, rather than Pansy Parkinsons.  Let them never be "Stupid Girls".  Rant over.

--source www.jkrowling.com  click the hairbrush marked as "extras", then the tab under miscellaneous..then on "For Girls Only, Probably". 

via email dated 2005...

Herewith at this happy time of year, a few confessions from my beating heart:

I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica are. I see them on the cover of People and Us constantly when I am buying my dog biscuits and kitty litter. I often ask the checkers at the grocery stores. They never know who Nick and Jessica are, either. Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they have broken up? Why are they so important? I don’t know who Lindsay Lohan is, either, and I do not care at all about Tom Cruise’s wife.

Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I am a subversive? Maybe, but I just have no clue who Nick and Jessica are. Is this what it means to be no longer young? It’s not so bad.

Next confession: I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors were Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don’t feel threatened. I don’t feel discriminated against. That’s what they are: Christmas trees. It doesn’t bother me a bit when people say "Merry Christmas" to me. I don’t think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn’t bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a creche, it’s just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don’t like being pushed around for being a Jew, and I don’t think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly Atheist country. I can’t find it in the Constitution, and I don’t like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica, but we aren’t allowed to worship God as we understand Him?

I guess that’s a sign that I’m getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we knew, went to. -- end.

This is an older email (as you can probably tell) written by Ben Stein back in 2005.  I saw it yesterday and thought, how appropriate with all the controversy surrounding Christmas, Christmas trees, and Merry Christmas , etc.. 

Now, chew on it.  I'm going to go find out what the heck a creche is..what a neat word!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!