Five years ago this week I lost my grandmother to Alzheimers' and cancer.

It was a painful experience that I know that we must endure as we grow older, but it hurts nonetheless.

Kevin Aylward's family, as he notes over at Wizbang, is enduring that same pain this week. His father-in-law is ailing and in dire straits.

My heart and my prayers go out to them in their time of sorrow.

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Rogers Cable customers in Ontario have to worry about their kids this weekend -- especially if the kids know the PIN to the digital cable box.

Rogers if offering -- get this -- three hardcore porn channels for free to cable subscribers as an attempt to boost sales.

The cable giant is offering customers free previews of three hard-core adult channels -- a movie channel, an XXX "action clips" channel and a gay-oriented channel called Maleflixxx -- from tomorrow at 8 p.m. to Monday at 2 a.m. in an effort to boost subscribers to those channels, which normally cost $19.95 each a month.

Rogers Cable spokeswoman Taanta Gupta said that the company has offered free viewings of adult channels a few times over the past four years and "have not had any issues."

She explained that unlike free viewings of Fox News Channel, Bloomberg News and MTV Canada -- which can be watched simply by tuning into the channel -- customers have to confirm that they want to watch this weekend's offerings by entering a personal identification number.

Each digital box comes with a preassigned PIN of 0-0-0-0. However, Ms. Gupta said, "We strongly encourage people to put in their own PINs."

PIN numbers must be entered on digital boxes to order pay-per-view events such as professional wrestling, new-release movies and adult flicks. Parents can also use the PIN system to block channels they don't want children to watch.

"That's what PIN numbers are for," Ms. Gupta said.

My readers up in Ontario probably ought to take a gander at your cable setups before Friday night. Otherwise, your kids may get an eyeful of something you probably don't want them to see.

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Air America host (and frothing-at-the-mouth moonbat) Al Franken, during an interview with South Park Conservatives author Brian Anderson, claimed that Air America's ratings -- which are putrid in most, if not all the markets they're in -- are not available to the public.

During a testy, but polite, interview with 'South Park Conservatives' author Brian C. Anderson, Air America host Al Franken asserted that radio ratings aren't available to the public!

That apparently was Franken's way of deflecting unpleasant questions about Air America's recent poor performance. It was likely also to suggest that Anderson was using incorrect, or outright phony, data!

Anderson mentioned some specific figures, from various cities, which seemed to catch Franken off-guard.

How could Franken not be aware that radio ratings are in fact available to the public? Has he not ever seen them in the New York Daily News, Boston Globe, Chicago Sun-Times, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, or the dozens of other papers in large cities that publish them on a regular basis?

And is it really possible that Franken never reviews industry trade websites, even though they fawn all over him, nearly every day?

In addition to the newspapers Brian mentions, when you hit RadioAndRecords.com (website for the trade organ of the broadcast industry), there is a button top and center: RATINGS. Hit that link, and you'll get the ratings for all the major markets in the nation. Al Franken is either clueless or lying through his teeth. Which is it?

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Janice Rogers Brown is a well-respected jurist on the California Supreme Court. President Bush has chosen Brown as his nominee to the DC Circuit Court. Her name has been mentioned as a possible Supreme Court nominee. But there's one problem -- at least in the eyes of liberals -- she's extremely conservative.

The New York Times, in an effort to play the "Uncle Tom/Aunt Jemima" card, has gone out of their way to paint Brown as alternately an evil operative of the conservative right, or an unwitting dupe that doesn't deserve to sit on the bench.

Justice Brown, currently a member of the California Supreme Court, is an extreme right-wing ideologue. She is an outspoken supporter of a radical movement to take constitutional law back to before 1937, when the federal government had little power to prevent discrimination, protect workers from unsafe conditions or prohibit child labor. She has attacked the New Deal, which created Social Security, as "the triumph of our socialist revolution."

On the bench, Justice Brown - a black woman raised in segregated Alabama - is a consistent enemy of minorities and old people, and of people injured by big business.

And of course, if -- God forbid -- the Times, or any other news organ, up through and including the hated-by-the-left Fox News Channel referred to any liberal black person in such vindictive and demeaning terms, the ink wouldn't be dry on the first editions before Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Julian Bond and every other card-carrying member of the soul patrol would be on every news program screaming to high heaven about the racist smear campaign being conducted.

But when the vaunted New York Times, with "all the news that's fit to print" says the same thing about a black conservative woman, it's "OK." After all, in their minds, she's "not really black," is she?

Writers for the Times and other outlets across the land are breaking their collective necks to color the majority party -- the GOP -- and their actions as being anti-American. The Republican majority, conversely, is working to take their place as the true majority party, and work to implement their decisions -- and that includes bringing the President's judicial nominees to the full Senate for an up-or-down vote.

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Now before you click to another site in disgust (or alternately, in glee; and to coin a phrase from Paul Harvey), let me tell you the REST of the story.

While most Americans have never used one, most are familiar with the dollar coin. The head of the current gold-colored dollar coin has the face of Shoshone Indian Sacagawea, who, as a part of the Corps of Discovery, helped famed explorers Lewis and Clark cross the North American continent two hundred years ago. Though they have been minted since 2000, more than 95 percent of Americans no longer use them, relegating them to the same category as the Susan B. Anthony dollar.

Millions of the Anthony dollars, minted in 1979 and 1981 (and once more in 1999), were pushed by the US Mint as an alternative to dollar bills as well. But they, too, were relegated to the scrap heap -- or junk change drawer -- of history. Most Americans only saw them when they used automated stamp machines in Post Offices, and this, despite the fact that coinage is cheaper to produce and is far more durable than paper currency.

Enter the US Congress this week.

On Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed a bill to create a new $1 coin, which would accompany the current Sacagawea piece. The measure enjoyed enormous bipartisan support, passing by a vote of 422 to 6.

Assuming a companion bill makes it through the Senate, the nation would be on its way to taking another stab at a dollar coin.

The idea steals a page from the popular 50 State Quarters series, in which the engraving on the 25-cent piece rotates to honor all the states. That legislation was also the brainchild of Rep. (Michael) Castle (R-DE).

The subjects depicted on the dollar coins would be the U.S. presidents. The plan is to introduce four new ones a year beginning in 2007, honoring each of the nation's chief executives in the order of their service.

And a word of advice -- if you want people to actually use the new dollar coins, you have to remove the dollar bill from circulation. Otherwise, the habit of slipping a buck into your wallet as opposed to a Bubba coin in your pocket will win out - no matter who is on the money.

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The May sweeps begin this weekend, and ABC is set to jump into the period with both feet next week, as ABC News plans to air a Primetime Live special, Fallen Idol, which they promise to be an exposé of behind-the-scenes sordidness on Fox's top-rated American Idol.

Reportedly, the ABC report will include stories of an affair between Idol judge Paula Abdul and season two Idol singer Corey Clark, as well as claims that Abdul supposedly cheats and picks "favorites" to nurture, which violates the rules of the competition.

In a new book proposal, Season Two singer Corey Clark reportedly claims he had an affair with Paula Abdul in her guest house and even got his cell phone bills paid by the judge so they could secretly talk. Clark ended up getting booted off the show for having a criminal record but he claims Paula promised to spend $2 million to fund a recording career for him.

Paula denies Clark's accusations, and her "Idol" judges are coming to her defense -- but "Idol" producers may have reason to be nervous if claims being made by the former contestant reported in The Globe turn out to be true.

"There's no underhandedness going on behind the scenes," Simon told us. "Paula, to be fair to her, will spend more time backstage with the contestants giving encouragement. But that's not a bad thing. I think [the accusations] are rubbish. I think this is a guy who's out there to publish a book."

ABC has been warned in writing it could face legal fallout for airing its scathing behind-the-scenes look at FOX's AMERICAN IDOL.

FOX believes ABC has interviewed a half a dozen losing contestants -- contestants who will claim AMERICAN IDOL producers and judges somehow manipulate the show's outcome!

At the center of the questions, the IDOL source claims, are the actions of show judge Paula Abdul.

"[ABC] is trying to say Paula somehow cheats and picks favorite singers to nurture, in violation of some sort of network standards," the IDOL source, who demanded anonymity, explains.

Fellow Judge Simon Cowell will tell TV show EXTRA Tuesday evening: "Paula, to be fair to her, will spend more time backstage with the contestants giving encouragement and everything else. But, thatÂ’s not a bad thing!"

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There is a movement afoot, primarily among academics and historians, to remove the term "Before Christ" or "B.C." from years predating the birth of Jesus Christ. Likewise, that same movement wants to change "Anno Domini," or A.D. -- literally translated from Latin as "In the year of our Lord" -- to "C.E." or "Common Era." "B.C." would become "B.C.E." or "Before Common Era."

The terms "B.C." and "A.D." increasingly are shunned by certain scholars.

Educators and historians say schools from North America to Australia have been changing the terms "Before Christ," or B.C., to "Before Common Era," or B.C.E., and "anno Domini" (Latin for "in the year of the Lord") to "Common Era." In short, they're referred to as B.C.E. and C.E.

The terms B.C. and A.D. have clear Catholic roots. Dionysius Exiguus, an abbot in Rome, devised them as a way to determine the date for Easter for Pope St. John I. The terms were continued under the Gregorian Calendar, created in 1582 under Pope Gregory XIII.

Although most calendars are based on an epoch or person, B.C. and A.D. have always presented a particular problem for historians: There is no year zero; there's a 33-year gap, reflecting the life of Christ, dividing the epochs. Critics say that's additional reason to replace the Christian-based terms.

Political correctness. Of course. Would you expect anything different?

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How did I miss this yesterday?

I love Chris' work - he always puts it all in perspective...

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A group of writers calling themselves Word of Mouth: An Association of Women Authors has written a rambling open letter to Oprah Winfrey, begging that she return to selecting titles for her Oprah Book Club.

The writers, who include Amy Tan, Mary Gordon, Maureen Howard and more than 150 others, claim that fiction book sales are down, and that only the return of Oprah's book club can save the industry.

(R)esearch suggests that the drastic downward shift actually happened six months after the (9/11) attacks: fiction sales really began to plummet when the The Oprah Winfrey Book Club went off the air. When you stopped featuring contemporary authors on your program, Book Club members stopped buying new fiction, and this changed the face of American publishing. This phenomenon was a testament to the quality of your programs, the scope of your influence, and the amazing credibility you possess among loyal Book Club readers.

Sales figures, in the context of the literary market, do not merely reflect profits; they are an indicator of literacy as well. A country in which ordinary people flock to bookstores to buy the latest talked-about work of fiction is a vibrantly literate country. Every month your show sent hundreds of thousands of people (mostly women, who are the largest group of literary fiction readers) into bookstores. The contemporary books you chose sold between 650,000 and 1,200,000 copies apiece.

We'd like to ask that you consider focusing, once again, on contemporary writers in your Book Club.

The American literary landscape is in distress. Sales of contemporary fiction are still falling, and so are the numbers of people who are reading.

Oprah Winfrey, we wish you'd come back.

Let's see. For the past couple of years, the Oprah Book Club has focused on classic works, including the last one chosen, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. Sales of books selected for the Oprah Book Club continue to set sales records, and act as the catalyst for local book clubs and book groups across the nation. So is this letter truly a plea for a downtrodden marketplace, or is it in reality a batch of authors begging for a handout?

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Me thinks that this lady's hunger strike can last a good while.

Diana Ponce talks on a phone in the yard of her San Pablo home Wednesday, the fifth day of a hunger strike to protest the gathering of armed volunteers, the Minuteman Project, at the Arizona-Mexico border to keep illegal immigrants from entering the United States.

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Someone at the BBC, in their infinite wisdom, has come forward and admitted that they sent hecklers to heckle UK Conservative party leader Michael Howard at a campaign appearance.

Apparently, the protestors were working for the BBC and in the process of doing a documentary, The History of Heckling, for BBC 3.

The Tories have made an official protest after the hecklers, who were given the microphones by producers, were caught at a party event in the North West last week. Guy Black, the party's head of communications, wrote in a letter to Helen Boaden, the BBC's director of news, that the hecklers began shouting slogans that were "distracting and clearly hostile to the Conservative Party".

These included "Michael Howard is a liar", "You can't trust the Tories" and "You can only trust Tony Blair".

Mr Black's strongly-worded letter accused the BBC of staging the event "to generate a false news story and dramatise coverage. . . intended to embarrass or ridicule the leader of the Conservative Party". The letter said that BBC staff were guilty of "serious misconduct". At least one of the hecklers was seen again at a Tory event in the North East, Mr Black added.

Last night, the BBC claimed that the exercise was part of a "completely legitimate programme about the history and art of political heckling" and said that other parties' meetings were being "observed". However, The Telegraph has established that none of Tony Blair's meetings was infiltrated or disrupted in similar fashion.

Last night a BBC spokesman said: "This is a completely legitimate programme about the history and art of political heckling. The programme observes hecklers at other parties' campaign meetings and not just the Conservatives. The hecklers were not under the direction of the BBC and their activities did not disrupt the meeting in any way. The incident at the Michael Howard meeting only plays a small part in the overall programme. However, we will be investigating the complaint very fully and will be replying in due course."

The UK general election is Thursday, May 5. The polls are open from 7A to 10P on that day across the UK.

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Terrorists have released a video showing the downing of a helicopter in Iraq, purportedly the chopper shot down yesterday. In addition, the video shows the execution-style murder of a Western man who survived the crash.

The video was released by the Islamic Army in Iraq.

Infovlad has the video (dated 4/22 - STRONG CONTENT WARNING) for your perusal in Real Media format.

In a video purporting to show the killing of the sole survivor of a downed helicopter in Iraq, a gunman orders, "Carry out God's verdict," and his colleagues open fire, riddling the man with bullets as they shout "Allahu akbar!" — or "God is great!"

The video was posted on an Internet forum used by Islamic militants and was accompanied by a written statement from a group identifying itself as the Islamic Army in Iraq (search). The statement claimed responsibility for the downing of the civilian helic six Americans, three Bulgarians and two Fijians— were killed.

Of the eleven on board, one man survived, but was severely wounded. The wounded man had apparently crawled away and was hiding in tall grass some distance from the crash. The helicopter can be seeen burning in the distant background.

Unaware of who has found him, the American says to them, "give me a hand. Give me a hand. It's broken..."

The terrorists help him up and then ask him, "CIA? CIA?" then order him to "Go! Go!" The man is able to walk. They then shoot him as he holds his hand up. He is murdered in cold blood as the terrorists yell "Allahu akhbar!" shooting him over and over.

The terrorists murder the man on the video. In a statement released with the video, the Islamic Army in Iraq says they killed the man in retaliation for the "cold blood in the mosques of tireless Fallujah before the eyes of the world and on television screens, without anyone condemning them."

The soldier in question was cleared of wrong-doing, despite the hand-wringing of Sites and others both in Iraq and here in the US.

The Marines in Fallujah ran into a number of Iraqis who played dead, only to attack US soldiers once close enough.

UPDATE - Some of the victims are being identified, per The Jawa Report and Interested Participant.

One victim identified as Jason Obert, of El Paso County, CO.

A former El Paso County sheriff's deputy was among the six American contractors killed Thursday when insurgent missile fire downed a commercial helicopter outside of Baghdad, Iraq, a Colorado Springs television station reported.

Jason Obert left the sheriff's office in February to earn extra money working in Iraq for Blackwater Security Consulting, KKTV-TV reported. The company is a subsidiary of North Carolina-based Blackwater USA.

Stephen Matthew McGovern, of Danville, has died in Iraq, his family confirmed today.

McGovern was involved in a helicopter crash, according to his stepfather, who said the family was notified Thursday night....

McGovern had been a sergeant in the National Guard with the 20th Special Forces Group in Louisville.

The three Bulgarians are named as pilots Lyubomir Kostov and Georgi Naidenov and board-engineer Stoyan Anchev by the Bulgarian News Network.

According to the Associated Press, Kostov is the pilot that was murdered on the video released by the terrorists.

The Americans were employed by North Carolina-based Blackwater Security Consulting, a firm that supplies security support for US diplomats.

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We finally get to see Brandon Routh as Kal-El in "the suit" today.

Not bad - some might want more muscles, but what the hey. He's Superman.

Costume designer Louise Mingenbach has made a few changes to the blue and red suit for Superman Returns. The "S" insignia is smaller and higher on the chest, plus as opposed to being painted or embroidered on, the emblem is more three dimensional in nature. The colors - blue, yellow & red - are darker, with the yellow appearing more gold, and the red closer to a scarlet. The blue is more a royal color. Finally, the more stylized "S" of the insignia has also been added to Superman's belt buckle.

No extra muscle padding for 25 year-old Routh, though, according to director Brian Singer.

"I always had the general idea of the suit. However, when the conceptual art was evolving around the same time that I cast Brandon, I privately had paintings rendered with Brandon's face, which certainly brought it to life."

Superman's body is the key to his power, Singer says.

"With X-Men, although they had extraordinary powers, they also had physical weaknesses," he says. "The suits were for protection as well as costume. Superman is the Man of Steel. Bullets bounce off him, not his suit."

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Pepsico is reviewing the service of Rev. Al Sharpton on a minority advisory board after hearing claims by two con men that Sharpton was going to get them big bucks from Pepsico.

The two men, fast-food giant La-Van Hawkins and Philadelphia power broker Ronald White, raised plenty of money for Sharpton's presidential bid in 2004, and were overheard on a wiretap.

"Let's say they [Pepsi] probably have some minority mandates . . . We could take insurance, we could take printing, we could take their pension fund . . . If you just broke off, like, you know, 10 percent of that s- - -, man, like, you talking billions of dollars," White tells Hawkins on a March 31, 2003, tape.

A little over a week later, on April 8, Hawkins says that Sharpton has claimed he's already greased the skids to get the Pepsi president, identified on the tapes as "Donna," to invite them to breakfast.

"I said to him, 'Rev., Tuesday and Wednesday.' He came back and said Donna said let's have breakfast Monday morning . . . He's hooking that s- - - up for the president, Donna, on Wednesday," Hawkins says.

The wiretaps were released as part of a corruption trial of Hawkins and others. White died last fall.

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A military jury at Ft. Bragg, NC, has convicted 34 year-old US Army Sgt. Hasan Akbar of premeditated murder in a grenade and rifle attack on his fellow soldiers two years ago in Kuwait.

Akbar tossed a grenade into a tent where GIs were sleeping and opened fire on the tent, killing Army Capt. Christopher Seifert and Air Force Maj. Gregory Stone.

Prosecutors say Hasan Akbar, 33, told investigators he launched the attack because he was concerned U.S. troops would kill fellow Muslims in Iraq. They said he coolly carried out the attack to achieve "maximum carnage" on his comrades in the 101st Airborne Division.

The verdict came after 2 1/2 hours of deliberations following seven days of testimony in a court-martial -- the first time since the Vietnam era that an American has been prosecuted on charges of murdering a fellow soldier during wartime.

Defense attorneys acknowledged that Akbar carried out the attack, but argued he was too mentally ill to have premeditated it and was fueled by emotion.

"Sgt. Akbar executed that attack with a cool mind," prosecutor Capt. Robert McGovern said during closing arguments, cocking Akbar's unloaded M-4 rifle and pulling the trigger twice for emphasis. "He sought maximum carnage."

The prosecutor said Akbar planned carefully and stole grenades that would achieve maximum destruction in the brigade command section of Camp Pennsylvania in Kuwait.

Defense attorney Maj. Dan Brookhart countered that Akbar was concerned the invasion of Iraq would result in the deaths of Muslims and that U.S. soldiers would rape Iraqi women.

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Julian Castro is running for mayor in San Antonio and is rather busy right in through here. Though his schedule is tightly packed, he still cannot be in two places at the same time.

Enter his brother, Joaquin.

Joaquin Castro took his place at a local parade, waving to the crowds.

As you can imagine, some folks don't like it.

Retired state appeals court judge Phil Hardberger, one of Castro's opponents, said he believes the parade appearance was dishonest and deceptive.

"If you're 18 years old and having a date, it might be a youthful prank when you swap out your brother. But when you're running for mayor of a city with 1.3 million people and sending in your brother as an impersonator ... I do see a problem with it," Hardberger said.

Castro told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he had a conflicting event and didn't intend to deceive anyone.

"We can't help that we look like each other," said Castro, a City Council member and leading contender in next month's election.

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Project 21 has issued a new release commending the Senate Judiciary Committee on their move to pass along the nomination of Janice Rogers Brown to the full Senate for what I hope will be an up or down vote.

Janice Rogers Brown, nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, was approved in the Senate Judiciary Committee on April 21 by a 10-8 party-line vote. Senate liberals, however, imply resumed filibusters will keep her and other nominees from receiving a vote in the full Senate. Members of the black leadership network Project 21 demand a halt to such delaying tactics.

“The Senate has a constitutional duty to move forward with fair consideration of judicial appointees,” said Project 21 member Darryn “Dutch” Martin. “If they resume the stalling that keeps long-standing judicial vacancies open, they don’t deserve to be considered public servants.”

A single mother and the daughter of an Alabama sharecropper, Associate Justice Brown has spent 25 years in public service. She has served on the California Supreme Court since 1996, and prior to that served on the benches of other state courts. A quarter of the court to which Brown is currently nominated is vacant.

In 2003, a bipartisan group of law professors praised Brown’s “commitment to individual freedom, even when rights are asserted by unpopular litigants.” Similarly, her fellow judges describe her as "a superb judge" who is "extremely intelligent, keenly analytical and very hard-working" and a judge "who applies the law without favor, without bias and with an even hand."

Senate liberals began a filibuster of Brown's nomination in November of 2003. While only a simple majority is needed for actual confirmation, a filibuster requires 60 votes to bring the nomination to the floor for a vote.

Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) implied filibusters will resume against Brown and others when he told the Associated Press nominees such as her “deserved to be rejected before… they deserve to be rejected again.” Despite the senator’s statement, Brown and other nominees were never rejected because a vote on their nominations never took place due to filibusters.

“Janice Rogers Brown is the most prolific thinker since Clarence Thomas,” says Project 21 member Lisa Fritsch. “Her broad profundity on the importance of individual rights of citizens and what must be the limited exercise of government are the very essence of our nation’s founding.”

Though Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) and other Republicans may be reluctant to move forward, this move by the Judiciary possibly sets up a showdown on the abuse of the Senate's filibuster power by Democrats in the larger body.

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Radio and television talk show host Sean Hannity visited the Minuteman Project along the Arizona-Sonora (Mexico) border to interview the volunteers there. Opponents to the securing of the Mexican border ambushed Hannity to raise a ruckus over the efforts there.

Brian Maloney at The Radio Equalizer is all over this.

Arizona State Rep. Kyrsten Sinema has charged the U.S. Border Patrol with having a double standard when it comes to prosecuting individuals who cross the U.S. border with Mexico illegally. During a visit this week to the Mexico-U.S. border, the ABC Radio Networks syndicated talker and Fox News personality stepped over a fence into Mexico and moments later stepped back over into the U.S. Sinema charges that action means Hannity broke U.S. law by “reentering the U.S. illegally” and that although the Border Patrol saw Hannity’s action agents took no steps against him or made any attempt to arrest him. Hannity was in Arizona this week to highlight the crisis of illegal immigration between the U.S. and Mexico.

Dennis Durband of The Arizona Conservative has an excellent account of Sinema's background of radicalism here:

For starters, Sinema supports the creation of day laborer centers in Arizona, requiring taxpayers to educate and train illegal aliens. She is endorsing law breaking and requiring taxpayers to subsidize it.

Sinema also recommends giving driver’s licenses to “undocumented residents.” Drivers licenses for illegals increase the risk of home invasions and terrorism by allowing illegal aliens to blend into American society and qualify for services that their own respective governments should provide. Illegals are costing Arizona taxpayers $1.3 billion a year.

An adjunct professor in social work at Arizona State University, Sinema opposes the Protect Arizona Now proposition and claims it is unconstitutional and there is no evidence of voter fraud in Arizona.

Or, as Larry Shannon over at RadioDailyNews.com suggests, is this merely a stunt by Hannity for ratings?

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Father Roderick Vonhögen from the Utrecht Archdiocese in The Netherlands is the globetrotting blogger behind the podcasts of CatholicInsider.com.

And while I haven't started podcasting myself yet (though I'm diligently studying the necessary software and requirements to do so), Father Roderick was on hand in St. Peter's Square Tuesday evening as Pope Benedict was introduced to the world.

Catholic Insider's 4/19 edition takes you there, live. (MP3)

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One of my girlfriends is a Nigerian-born immigrant and a devout Roman Catholic. I noticed she didn't say a word during the days leading up to the conclave. She seemed to have been resigned to the idea that the world isn't ready for a black pope.

...it's pretty clear, at least to this Baptist, that the Holy Spirit didn't get the final word.

Mitchell -- an admitted Baptist, not a Catholic -- seems to be of the opinion that she knows better than the more than 100 Cardinals who were sequestered in the Sistine Chapel for four separate votes for the new Pontiff. Mitchell points to an Agence France-Presse article among other places to support her not-so-veiled cry of racism.

Among those speculating on who would be the next pope was a 10-year-old girl named Francesca Colonna, attending mass with her mother and father.

"At school, they said that if a black pope is elected, the sun will crash on Earth, and it will be the end of the world," the girl told the reporter.

And a German priest noted that it "would be hard for Europeans to accept a non-European pope."

Even Arinze had said in interviews that the world "wasn't ready for a black pope."

Notice that we aren't hearing these cries from the Hispanic community. The Catholic Church is growing by leaps and bounds in Latin America, and there were several papal candidates from South of the Border. We only hear the whining from people like Mitchell.

I guess in her eyes, the Catholic Church doesn't know what it needs for itself, or what it's own members want. After all, it's more politically correct to do what she says, right?

For the record, I was rooting for Cardinal Arinze - I felt that he was the most qualified person for the job, with then-Cardinal Ratzinger - now Pope Benedict XVI - a close second. I'm simply glad that the Conclave was able to come to a concensus quickly, for who they felt was the best person for the job. I wish Pope Benedict well, and hope that he can both bring glory and honor to God, along with serving his flock in his larger role as shepherd of a significant part of God's flock.

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