I hope all my buddies out there are doing well today. It’s 83 here in Montana, and raining. Go figure.

Here are a few notes that have been roaming aound the desk for a week or so:

I send a big juicy kiss to Ellen Goodman, whose latest column carries two jeweled goodies:  She names the senior Iranian cleric who declared that earthquakes were caused by women who didn’t dress modestly. (I wish I could send Lady GaGa to sit on his lap), and, before you Christians can get too uppity, she comments on  the Vatican, which recently ruled that ordaining women is as grave a crime as pedophilia. 

 The really strange thing about the Catholic church is the fact that women are its backbone. If it weren’t for mothers nagging their kids to attend catechism and mass, there’d be no church. If most men weren’t pushed into attendance, you could hold your average mass in a phone booth. Does the church still demand that women have their head covered when entering a church? They did back when I was a captive.

I don’t really know what to  make a country that  has statistics such as these:  21% of Americans believe there are such things as witches and warlocks.  32% believe in ghosts. Only 39% of us believe in evolution. Most Americans can name the seven dwarfs, but can’t name even three members of the Supreme Court. Nine out of 10 high school students can’t find Afghanistan on a map.  Most Americans can name Larry, Curly and Moe as the Three Stooges, but can’t name the three wings of the U.S. Government as Executive, Judicial and Legislative.

My stomach hurts when I think of Glenn Beck speaking from the Lincoln Memorial on the anniversary of MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech. A man that insensitive should be kept in  a damp rubber room with four pounds of black widow spiders and a mentally disturbed wolf.

The Bozeman  police log has been quiet this week. I only have three entries for you:  A caller heard a loud rumbling noise on the Erwin Bridge at 2:30 a.m. Investigating officers found an elderly man pulling a cart. He said he had been thrown out of his home and was trying to find a place to sleep. The officers gave him a hotel voucher.  And another  caller said there was a kid walking down North 22nd Street with a snake around his neck. She wanted to know if that was legal. She was informed that it was. Then came a call from a man who said his ex girlfriend broke into his mobil home and stole a notebook he uses to “log down incidents inolving her.”

                                                                                                                          FIGHT FORTH

I’m getting pissed over this Muslim situation.

Being a good American I believe in religious freedom for all — even though I think all religions are either silly, stupid or dangerous superstitions. But, as the man said, they can do whatever they want as long as they don’t do it in the streets and scare the horses. Who cares what the hell religious people do? If orthodox Jews want to wear long curls and odd square little hats, or if Catholics like to sprinkle each other with “holy water” and incense while lighting little red candles and praying to statues, that’s fine.  If some Southern Baptists want to tickle rattlesnakes in  church, what the hell — Just leave me out of all that bull-pucky.

Normally I think they should be left alone to practice their myths as long as they don’t endanger me.

It’s the people who insist I live by their ridiculous rules that make me angry. Just this week a gang of fundamentalist Christians manged to get our advances in stem-cell research brought to a dead stop because of their twisted beliefs. Vitally important medical science is stopped dead in its tracks because of some bible-thumping jackass. I don’t like the fact that the Catholics are fighting against homosexuals at every turn, and , instead of saying, “I don’t like abortion, so I won’t have one,” they say, “You can’t have one either.” They’d like to have the Ten Commandments tattooed on my ass (Five on each cheek)

When I lie in  bed at night, trying to figure how to solve the world’s problems, I often bite my pillow when I think about what religions have done to the world.

Now — about these Muslims.

I had a “What If” moment last night.  What if a bunch of psychopathic idiots in a country called Goofystan decided to start religion which ruled that women and cows were of equal rank, except that the cows could run around naked whereas all women had to live inside a walking tent,  with nothing but their eyes showing — and those eyes better not ever, ever look at a man and lead him into evil temptation. What if they said that they could perform rustic rusty surgery on young girls to make sure they didn’t like sex and ruin men’s souls? What if they said it was your duty to kill someone who didn’t agree with them? Hell, you could kill someone for even drawing a picture of God. What if  this new religion said it was okay to stone a woman to death for adultery, but never mentioned any punishment for male participants? What if it was okay to throw acid in the face of little girls who dared to go to school? What if they ruled that it was okay to set fire to children of disbelievers? What if they encouraged suicide bombings, as long as it was done in the name of Allah? What if they could actually convince their men that they’d find 72 virgins waiting in heaven as soon as they died in a blaze of blood and terror for Allah.

And what if they said “Okay. It’s time to move to America and make some converts?”

That’s what scares hell out of me. They say that there are now roughly 6 million Muslims in the USA. I know that they are mostly kind, gentle people. I’ve heard it said that 90% of American Muslims are just like all the rest of us — good, decent citizens. It’s that other 10% that makes my eyeballs spin. If 10% of the American Muslims are batshit crazy I don’t want to send out any Welcome Wagons.

What I really want, and insist on, is for the mullahs or imans or whatever the hell their leaders are called to stand up and loudly denounce that 10%. They can’t really expect to be welcomed here until they assure us that they don’t agree with their insane fundamentalism. I want a Muslim leader or two (or 50) to say, “We don’t believe all that madness. We just want to practice a quiet, peaceful religion.”

I sure as hell don’t like being associated with anything Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich or those other mellon-heads are saying — so I’m begging for relief from worry.

But, until I start hearing such statements from rational Muslims, I don’t want their maniacal cousins living in my neighborhood.

 ————————————————   FIGHT FORTH——————————————————————————

I feel as though I have lost some dear friends.

The Current wife has attacked my closet and banished some of my best pals. It started when she said, “Let’s straighten out your stupid closet.”  We stood there, looking in as she shook her head. “You have stuff in here that you haven’t worn in more than a year,” she said. To be honest, there was stuff in there I haven’t worn since most of us thought that The Beatles were bugs. I spotted a  shirt that I wore at the Democratic convention  that nominated John F. Kennedy.

“Take all your winter shirts and put them over there,” she ordered, pointing my bed. “Then put all your summer shirts over here. Hang the jackets on  the back of the door, and put your pants over there on the chest.”

“Are we just going to organize them, so I don’t have to call you to help me find some pants?” I asked.

“No. We’re getting rid of about half this junk,” she announced.

Once we had everything separated she started holding up articles of clothing.

 ”You haven’t worn this shirt since we moved to Montana. Out it goes!” She shoved it into as big plastic bag. “This shirt looks like it’s been inhabited by rodents. Out!”  She snatched up a shirt that was the color of elderly mud “Out!” She went through my shirts like a human vacumn cleaner, filling that bag while I choked back tears. “You can keep this one. I bought it for you.” Then,  ”I’ve always liked that blue shirt too. You can keep it.” I had never counted my shirts, but there must have been thirty of them in there.  There were a few that must have  belonged to total strangers, because I had no memory of ever seeing them before.

All in all it was sad. I became attached to some of those pants. As she stuffed one pair into that yawning bag I felt as though I should give them a hug. They were the pants I wore to the hospital on that day our first daughter was born, 56 years ago. She grabbed another pair of pants — the ones I wore to New York for Jimmy Carter’s nomination. Next she de-hangered a pair I had worn at least once a week for two decades. Sure, they sagged a wee bit in the seat, and the cuffs looked as though they had been attacked by a snarling, rabid Taliban, but they contained memories. I wanted to kiss them goodbye.

Finally, ‘way at the back of the closet, we found a hanger that contained a half-dozen ties. I personally, and happily, threw them all into the bag. I have always  hated ties, and haven’t worn once since a funeral in 1972 — an have no intention of ever attending another funeral, so I had no tender feelings for the ties.  I think ties for men, and high-heeled shoes for women, are the two dumbest mistakes ever created by the fashion geeks.

My closet isn’t one of those nice big walk-in things. It stretches about three feet to the right, and three feet to the left. There’s one metal pole that runs the length and it had held up all those clothes for many years. Now it looked kind of naked. I had a few summer shirts to hang up, and a few winter shirts. My new supply of pants covered only a few inches now.

Maybe it’s time to go shopping.