OUR BLOGGERS ARE SAYING

You gotta love Episcopalians. They can argue over big things with the intensity of a UFC cage match, but with the decorum of 4 o'clock tea.

Take gay bishops, for example. The American church is locked in a tense showdown with just about every other Episcopal jurisdiction in the world (it's called the Anglican Communion) over this issue. At the same time, the American church is faced with growing dissension within as some local churches seek to break away and align with other like-minded parts of the Anglican Community.

So, the American church puts its ecclesiastical thumb on dioceses who think ordaining gay bishops is wrong. And the Anglican Communion puts its ecclesiastical thumb on the American church for ordaining gay bishops. It's a tangled theological fight with fundamental issues of scripture and human dignity seemingly pitted against each other.

Yet, to read about it you'd think Anglicans were characters in a satirical Swift novel waging war over the proper method of cracking a hard boiled egg. ...

For more, go to www.lvrj.com/blogs/sherm/.

Honk if you love drippy little sayings

I'm an avid bumper sticker hobbyist. ... I mean by "bumper sticker" that ever growing collection of cultural parables, maxims, and random observations that can pop up anywhere: Posters, billboards, tiny desk plaques with their own little easels. ...

It intrigues me how many of these drippy little sayings get bandied about as truth, motivation, and inspiration which, when we hold them up to the light, sorta fall apart as the drippy little sayings that they are.

Today a friend said he was working on inner peace. Worthwhile goal, in my book. ... And, to that end, my friend is contemplating a bumper sticker he found in his e-mail: "By not deciding to be the best, you have chosen to be mediocre."

I listen to the bumper sticker. I read the bumper sticker. And I have the same reaction both times: My inner peace is not nurtured. Rather it is disturbed.

I have two problems here ...

Inner Peace is a marriage of self-respect and self-acceptance yielding contentment. For me, NeedToBeTheBest has always been a cocktail of ego, insecurity and envy.

But, secondly, isn't this bumper sticker a bit of a strained dichotomy? Couldn't there be a place between mediocrity and being the best? I think so. And I think the name of that place is "excellence."

For more, go to www.lvrj.com/blogs/kalas/.

Mr. Rogers and his jihad

The Wall Street Journal [Tuesday, Feb. 10] uses a Las Vegas dateline and Jim Rogers' KVBC-TV, Channel 3, to illustrate what it calls the fuzzy future of local television stations.

The story quotes general manager Lisa Howfield, saying she has recently laid off 15 employees. [Viewership is down almost 8 percent and revenues will be down 30 percent from 2008.]

The story goes on to suggest that the major networks might soon abandon their local affiliates entirely and go directly to cable.

"In Las Vegas, Ms. Howfield is optimistic her station will survive. She says KVBC is looking for ways to develop new categories of advertisers and to survive on less: 'We better operate like there's no tomorrow.'"

I wonder if this might distract Rogers from his jihad for higher taxes for everybody ... nah. He's already made his.

For more, go to www.lvrj.com/blogs/mitchell/.

But no royalties

Two classic rock songs were written about Vince Neil, whose group Motley Crue played the final two performances at Hard Rock's The Joint last weekend.

One was Aerosmith's "Dude (Looks Like A Lady)." ...

Neil says he also inspired the Dire Straits old hit, "Money For Nothing."

The song goes: "See the little faggot with the earring and the makeup; Yeah, buddy, that's his own hair. That little faggot got his own jet airplane; that little faggot -- he's a millionaire."

Neil laughs about it.

"It's great. Back then, if you didn't have a No. 1 song, you might as well have somebody write one about you," he says.

For more, go to: www.lvrj.com/blogs/elfman/.