"The ones going on the loudest, you don't see them taking any into their homes. 'Til you do that, you got nothing to say." Except if you also don't.

Last night I set up the Christmas tree and hung the decorations. It was a nice way to spend an otherwise solitary evening, and the result was very pleasing. The ornaments reflect the lights and cast a quiet glow about the room.

While hanging the decorations I listened to “Frances & Friends”, the pentecostal version of PBS’s Washington Week in Review. Ostensibly it is a religious call-in show, and all of the “guests”- a rotation of elderly ministers in Jimmy Swaggart Ministries’ employ- answer email and phone questions from listeners with 100% unanimity of view. A North Korean referendum could not be more with its on-the-same-pageness as Sister Swaggart and her husband’s staff.

Last night they were in a clear panic as they frantically lectured a caller who asked what Americans’ biblical mandate is toward aiding displaced persons from the Middle East. These are people who truly see Syrian rapists breaking down their doors any minute.

Then Donnie Swaggart- at 60, the Prince Charles of the family business- fumed through a denunciation of a caller who wondered about America’s responsibility for the decimation of native Americans. There’s weren’t that many, he said, so no big. Less than a million on the whole continent. And they weren’t blameless, either! They were having horrible tribal wars long before real Americans arrived. Some of them even fought with the British against the Founding Fathers. So they pretty much deserved the smallpox infected blankets and the free booze, and the 800 mile walk to Oklahoma was a chance to see more of the country than the average white American of the day. Damn that Andrew Jackson and his entitlements for minorities!

I am keenly aware, daily, of my shortcomings. The Swaggarts made me feel better. I could be so much worse.