JFK Was Right They are jelly dougnuts.

Marines. Last thing -- this really ticked me off:

Several of my fellow Marine wives, however, have experienced verbal and physical abuse in the past few weeks from so-called "peace protesters." One woman was told from another car at a stoplight that her husband was a baby killer, and that they hoped he would die. Another, and her young son, were yelled at and manhandled by a group of protesters as they were passing through the area. Why did this happen? Because the wives either had a Marine Corps sticker on the car or a Marine Corps shirt on.

My mother, a Marine wife, btw, gave me a baseball cap with the Marine Corps emblem, the eagle, globe and anchor, embroidered on it for Christmas. I gave it to my son -- not because I am ashamed of the Marines -- on the contrary, I have so much respect for the Marines, I didn't want to appropriate any of the honor that is due a Marine -- I didn't want anyone to think that I was a Marine or had ever served as one. But if it's coming to this, I'm going to go get that cap and wear it to show support for the Marines and their families.

These creeps never have the guts to tell it to the Marines.

Bishops. As a follow-up to my comment below about apologizing for the Episcopal Bishops, I must note that I have always been fond of the bishop of my own diocese, the diocese of Virginia, Bishop Peter Lee. No, I don't always agree with him -- nor he with me, but that's part of being a Christian -- neither of us is perfect and we need each other in the process of being made into saints. I was particularly pleased to read this statement in our church bulletin about 10 days ago:

Christians have a bias for peace and peace-making. We continue to pray that the nations of the world may find a peaceful way to remove the threat of weapons of mass destruction from Iraq. We have many people in our diocese directly working for such an outcome, beginning with the Secretary of State, General Colin Powell, a faithful member of St. John’s Church, McLean. We support them with our prayers.

And we have faithful members of our diocese whose work for peace is to assure the strength of our diplomacy through their active military service. Last Sunday at St. Mary’s, Arlington, I participated in the baptism of a little girl held in the arms of her Marine colonel father just two days before he was deployed.

Please send me the names of those in your congregation on active military duty and I will send them the Armed Forces Prayer Book and the Episcopal Service Cross as signs of our support for their sacrificial service.

We pray for peace. We uphold our leaders and our military in our prayers. And in a fallen world, we understand that one of the responsibilities of international leadership is to name the threats to peace and to participate in removing them, by diplomacy if possible, by measured, necessary force as a last resort.

Pray that we may participate in planting seeds that will grow into an international order that promotes justice, peace and love. Among the risks of taking leadership internationally is that we may fall into the false assumption that American interests are always the interests of others. The President got it right at the conclusion of his address on Tuesday night:

“America is a strong nation and honorable in the use of our strength. We exercise power without conquest and sacrifice for the liberty of strangers.

“Americans are a free people who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America’s gift to the world, it is God’s gift to humanity.”

So at a time of international uncertainty, people of faith return to our knees in prayer and set about on our work of aligning ourselves with the God who is spreading seeds of justice, peace and love.

The entire pastoral address may be read here, however, this is the relevant section dealing with Iraq.

BTW, if you do know of anyone stationed overseas who would benefit from a Prayerbook, the details may be found here.

On the Nightstand. Sometimes when it rains, it pours -- but this can be a good thing. I put my name on the list at the library for books and sometime they all come in at once. I had hoped to take Col. Alexander's book on Tarawa (Utmost Savagery) with me on my trip last week -- this was a gift from my father-in-law last year. When I started reading it, I realized with the names it would be a book I'd need to take on an airplane -- a place where I can give it my undivided attention to a long block of time. That book is on the top of my reading stack for the books I own. However, the week before my trip both The Last Jihad and The Demon in the Freezer came up on the reserve list.

So I checked both out and took Jihad with me and left Demon home for my daughter to read. Unfortunately, while I was out, Christopher Buckley's newest book, No Way to Treat a First Lady, became available. I finished Jihad last night -- it was so-so (Tom Clancy doesn't need to worry) -- there were several key features that just don't work which ruined it for me. Since it looks like I might be able to renew Demon, I'm going to put that on the back burner and plunge into the Buckley book.

If you haven't read it, Buckley's White House Mess is the funniest book about US politics I have ever read -- so I'm really looking forward to this Clinton-inpired novel. Premise: after a tryst with a presidential donor the first couple has a horrendous argument and, the next morning, the first lady discovers the Prez dead in the bed. She's charged with the assasination of a President bringing on the "Trial of the Millennium" Buckley is a fun writer who clearly enjoys his craft -- example the first lady's name is "Beth MacMann" -- her nickname in the tabloids is “Lady Bethmac.” Speaking of funny books and politics, the best passage in a book about politics is in Jeff Greenfield's The People's Choice -- there's a scene fairly early on where a candidate throws away the prepared speech to wing it. I was reading this while riding on the train and I literally laughed until I cried. The rest of the book doesn't hold a candle to Buckley (mainly because Greenfield has a little axe to grind), but that passage is sterling.

Dear Diary. I was out of town last week in a part of the country Mark Byron spent some time in. I was auditing legal cases and during the week I was there I reviewed 155 cases -- our whole group did 300 combined -- but then they did interviews whereas I just plowed through paper. What prevented me from blogging was that the hotel charged .10 a minute for phone calls after a standard minimum (yes, even local calls) -- normally I'm on-line all night after dialing up the local UUNET connection.

My oldest daughter is away at Teenpact all week this week -- it's an intensive educational seminar for teen aged students focused on the government of the state. Here's an article from World magazine if you are intrigued. I'm driving down tomorrow to meet with her and give the operation a look over.