March 30, 2005 -

PAPAL PRIVATION!

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The Pope is on a tube.

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Now, details...

Word comes that Pope John Paul II, in frail health and again hospitalized, has been connected to a feeding tube. Look for liberals across the nation to scream that the Pope be allowed to die a pleasant and wonderful death from starvation. The one Terri Schiavo's husband, Michael, described on national television. He said once he succeeded in getting his wife's feeding tube that she would "drift off into a nice little sleep and eventually pass on and be with God."

The Pope should be reasonably safe for two reasons. For one, Florida courts have no jurisdiction in Italy. For another, it's highly unlikely that anyone can find a Papal spouse who wants to kill him.

President George W. Bush has good instincts about many things – until it comes to Mexico. Caving to our bad neighbors to the south for the umpteenth time, Bush issued an order that state courts provide new hearings for Mexicans sentenced in American death-penalty cases.

Bush's caving on the new hearings didn't stop the cases of murdering Mexicans from going to the U.S. Supreme Court, which heard arguments from lawyers for Jose Medellin, who says his rights under a U.S. treaty were violated when a Texas court tried and sentenced him to death in 1994 without giving him access to the Mexican consul.

Horrors! It's also likely that Houston didn't give him the key to the city or an appointment with a hairdresser. It's likely they were somewhat irritated because Medellin and four other members of a Mexican gang raped and murdered two teenaged girls in Houston in 1993.

Word comes that a genius from Tulsa, Oklahoma has created a "Fox Blocker" that allows really stupid cable-television viewers to block Fox News Channel. Sam Kimery says he has sold "about 100" or his small devices, that screw into the back of a television set and then block FNC programs. I don't know how much Sam charges for his blocker, but I already have several multi-purpose "blockers" for my television sets. One is known as an "on/off" button and the other is called a "remote control."

I use my remote control to take me away from many programs. I'm thinking of naming it my "Rather Not" device, in honor of Good Ole' Dan of CBS News.

It's likely that FNC will survive the blocking. The news channel's ratings are the best among the cable babble networks. For the first three months of this year, Fox has averaged 1.62 million viewers in prime-time, compared with 805,000 for second-place CNN (formerly known as the Clinton News Network).

I thought someone might have slipped LSD into my coffee cup. That fear came when I realized I was seeing the Rev. Jesse Jackson on television, pleading that Terri Schiavo be kept alive. I can't recall the last time I thought Jesse Jackson was speaking the truth about much of anything. But there he was: surrounded by religious demonstrators in Florida, arguing that starving an innocent woman into the ground is basically an evil act for a society to perform.

Now I will know that I have been hallucinating if I flick my "Rather Not" control past CBS and catch former President Jimmuh Carter orating on the correct side of an issue.

Bleeding hearts will run red for Jeremy Hinzman, a deserter who fled to Canada, saying he believed the liberation of Iraq was a criminal act. Poh Baby Jeremy learned recently that not even left-wing Canada is buying his story. The Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board said Hinzman hasn't convinced even Canadians that he faces persecution or cruel and unusual punishment if he is extradited to the United States.

Jughead Jeremy joined the U.S. Army in 2001. He wanted the Army, by way of the taxpayers, to send him to college after he did his duty. He was a paratrooper but contends that he didn't realize that serving in the Army might mean he might have to shoot people. Yep. Jeremy is definitely college material.

Matter of fact, Jeremy might even get a teaching job in the Bronx. That conclusion comes from the case of the hilariously named Wayne Brightly, a 38-year-old teacher who apparently bullied a homeless man into taking his New York state teacher certification exam for him. The stand-in was Rubin Leitner, 58. Leitner found the New York test a breeze, even though Brightly had failed it repeatedly. Leitner did all too well. People checking the tests had trouble believing that Brightly had brightened so much since his last failure. They checked farther and noticed that Brightly's skin is quite black and Leitner's is very light.

QUESTION FOR THE DAY: Would it violate international law if we sent the Florida court system to some foreign country?