Jesus makes large claims for his heavenly father but never mentions that his mother is or was a virgin, and is repeatedly very rude and coarse to her when she makes an appearance.

Whenever I hear some bigmouth in Washington or the Christian heartland banging on about the evils of sodomy or whatever, I mentally enter his name in my notebook and contentedly set my watch. Sooner rather than later, he will be discovered down on his weary and well-worn old knees in some dreary motel or latrine, with an expired Visa card, having tried to pay well over the odds to be peed upon by some Apache transvestite.

My father had died, and very swiftly, too, of cancer of the esophagus. He was 79. I am 61. In whatever kind of a 'race' life may be, I have very abruptly become a finalist.

Cancer victimhood contains a permanent temptation to be self-centred and even solipsistic.

With modern American dentistry it is simply amazing to see what transformation can be wrought in a single day.

I must have been one of the least surprised people on earth on September 11. I felt very braced for that. I knew something like that was going to come.

I vote and I do jury duty.