Billy Graham: Jesus Christ, this is the thanks I get!

You'd think when you dedicate your life to the almighty; you would get a better shake on clocking out of life. Well, not so much for Reverend Billy Graham. The poor old bible-thumpin' coot is in pretty rough shape. It seems the moral and spiritual adviser for entirely too many presidents (something like 11 if you count Ford; our country's version of a substitute teacher who let the punks run the joint i.e. Rumsfeld and Cheney) is suffering from a list of ailments that looks like what you get if you Googled "f*cked up combo of diseases that would hurt the most". Rev. Graham has fluid on the brain, prostate cancer and Parkinson’s disease.

Now far be it from me to take God and his kid to task here, but if you really wanted to impress people and have them join your club, you might want to make things a little easier on the one guy who shucked and jived in your name for the last, oh, 80 years.

And if the whole disease thing wasn't bad enough, his son Franklin arranges the Velveeta sandwiches and Country-Time lemonade in preparation for the Caucasian-studded dedication of his father's $27 million library and museum. One is led to assume that for $27 cool you would get a little class and dignity; well, that too is a dashed hope. Apparently the ol' anti-semite liked to promote his humble beginnings as a farm boy, so Franklin and his crack staff designed the place to look like a barn which has a 40-foot glass cross for a front door (classy). Hay bales and a 1936 farm truck decorate the lobby, along with an animatronic cow named Bessie that talks about Billy Graham as a young boy. Yes, you read that right, "an animatronic cow named Bessie that talks about Billy Graham as a young boy". Man, at least Falwell has a tax shelter disguised as a half-assed homogeneous university keeping his foul memory alive. In a somewhat related adding insult to injury side note, his parent's homeplace is now the site of Park Road Shopping Center.

A faux-barn, talking cow, a son with no aesthetic and a mall; take note people, that's not a legacy, that's karma!

Christopher Hitchens - Patron Saint of Polemicists

How many times have any one of us wanted to stand up in a classroom, boardroom, church, etc. and scream directly at the person blathering, "I call bullshit!" Well, the always entertaining and mind-numbingly literate author and raconteur Christopher Hitchens did essentially that on Fox News' televised monkey-dance, Hannity and Colmes.

The Set-Up: Mr. Hitchens and Christian Coalition founder Ralph Reed were brought on the show to discuss the passing of Rev. Jerry Falwell. Background: Hitch just came out with his latest book God Is Not Great and Reed is still licking his wounds from being tied to Jack Abramoff. Best Closing Line of the Night Ever!: Hitchens for "If you gave Falwell an enema, he could be buried in a matchbox..."

Let the fireworks begin:

One down...

American fundamentalist Baptist Pastor and Founder of the Moral Majority. b.1933-d.2007

Quotes to remember him by:

• “Grown men should not be having sex with prostitutes unless they are married to them”
• “I had a student ask me, "Could the savior you believe in save Osama bin Laden?" Of course, we know the blood of Jesus Christ can save him, and then he must be executed”
• “Christians, like slaves and soldiers, ask no questions”
• “AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals”
• “The idea that religion and politics don't mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country”
• “If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being”
• “Textbooks are Soviet propaganda”
• “The ACLU is to Christians what the American Nazi party is to Jews”
• “It appears that America's anti-Biblical feminist movement is at last dying, thank God, and is possibly being replaced by a Christ-centered men's movement which may become the foundation for a desperately needed national spiritual awakening”