April 16th, 2008, a Wednesday

Look.  Have you ever noticed how people will sometimes start a sentence or a statement with the word, "look".  I have been trying to figure out why they do that and what they mean by it.  So far it seems to be used when someone is trying to clear something up "once and for all".  Maybe it is when something is being hotly debated, (such as anything and everything going on between the Democratic candidates).  Or someone may use it when they are slightly annoyed that people are still discussing something even when the speaker has tried to let everyone know that they really know best and "look, just listen to what I am telling you because I am always right and then we can move on to something else that I also know everything about".  There's a lot of that going on. 

Look...there are lots of American Catholics out there who are not all that excited about the Pope's visit and what he probably won't do about priest sexual abuse.  He spoke to this on the plane ride over to Washington DC but it was one of four "planted" questions, chosen and rehearsed in advance for the purpose of making statements, not really engaging in useful dialogue (does anyone really do that with a pope anyway?).  What people are upset about is that he spoke about how ashamed he and the church were of the scandal.  Some think he should not be talking about their own shame, but instead the shame that sexual abuse brings on its child victims.  From what I can tell, it's about two things.  One is that the Pope should make sure that all priests worldwide who have abused children will be removed from ministry, not just in the US.  (I know a priest from Arizona accused of abuse who ran off to Ireland where he could keep being a priest and do it all over again.  And he baptized the littlest Dutch boy.  That's pretty close to home.)  And the second thing they want is for the Pope to discipline the Bishops involved in covering up the abuse.  Some think that is worse than the abuse itself.  (Ask any Vietnam vet whether it was worse fighting in a war or the misery of coming home to a country that hated you for it.)  It would be good if the Pope would meet with some of the victims.  It is not clear as to whether he prefaced his remarks on the plane with "look".

Look...even Maureen Dowd, the fiery redhead, very smart writer for the New York Times got on the elitist bandwagon today with her editorial.  Yes, she said Barack, the "Wonder Boy", is an elitist.  Let's think about this for a minute.  Why does everyone make fun of George W?  Because he isn't smart enough to be President.  He may be "elite" because he comes from a political family and all that but that's not the kind of elite they mean when they refer to Barack.  They are making fun of him because he doesn"t bowl very well, eats arugula from Whole Foods (what's wrong with eating your veggies), seems to be looking down on the good, downtrodden working class people of Pennsylvania, and is very, very smart.  Look, I don't care if our next President can bowl, or ever worked in a factory, or made a political mistake when he turned down a cup of coffee in a diner and asked for oj instead (maybe he doesn't drink caffeine, another healthy habit).  I care about whether he cares about us and has the smarts to figure out how to help.  So he doesn't shoot guns like Hillary's Dad taught her to do (wonder why Annie Oakley is just mentioning this little known fact) but how does that prepare him to be President?  For heaven's sake, Ronald Regan was an actor.  Bill Clinton was a brilliant good ole boy but he would have served us a lot better if he had been a little more elite himself in certain ways that I am too polite to mention.  Higher standard, you know?  Barack won't let us down.  If he is an elitist, I say it's time for some good elitism.  He can always learn to bowl.  But you can't buy an IQ or a noble spirit.

Look, I really struggled today to decide if I should write about the Pope and Barack and stuff.  Who am I, I wondered, and what do I want to be as a bear with a blog?  I care a lot about kids and politics and important things like that.  So I gotta be me, don't ya know.  Someone said that bloggers are viewed as activists, not journalists.  So today I am exercising my activist side.  Stephen Colbert was warming up his audience (Michelle Obama was his guest) and a young woman asked him "are you more afraid of bears or Hillary Clinton?".  I'm not sure what she meant by that but a little healthy fear of bears would serve everyone well.  You never know when you might be featured on jabwab.com.  Look.....watch out.

GR