The state of the culture

Those lovable goofballs of the Westboro Baptist Church, who have graced Indiana with their presence a few times, have been set free to again roam the land in search of military families to counsel. A federal judge has ruled that church members have a First Amendment right to picket military funerals with signs and chants railing against homosexuals.

No tears here for the departure of "Dr. Laura," though the controversy over the "N-word" seems to contain more than a little theatrical outrage. Actually, that only hints at the real problem:

Every year at this time, Wisconsin's Beloit College releases its Mindset List to show the "cultural mindset" of incoming college freshman as a "reminder to faculty to be aware of dated references." Actually, it's an annual reminder that we're really getting ooooold.

Is cornpone humor acceptable if we pretend it isn't cornpone humor? I ask having attended the "Red Green Wit & Wisdom Tour" show on Saturday night. We were in the $10 balcony cheap seats, but that was OK -- no seat in the Scottish Rite is that far away from the stage. It wasn't necessary to see Red that clearly anyway; if you've ever seen his PBS show, you can easily fill in the facial-expression blanks somewhere below the hunting hat and above the plaid shirt.

I give you, direct from the pages of their high school yearbooks (via gawker.com), the most hottest, dynamic political couple since Marty Matalin and James Carville -- Rachel Maddow and Rush Limbaugh! Scary.

Another school system that doesn't know when to leave well enough alone:

MOUNT OLIVE, N.J. -- Who wants to pay for "D"-quality plumbing? Fly the skies with a "D"-rated pilot? Settle for a "D" restaurant?

Lots of people are commenting on Judge Vaughn Walker's tossing of California's Prop. 8, thereby invalidating the actions of Californians who voted to define marriage in one man-one woman terms, but the American Family Association was one of only a few groups to send me a press release on it. The AFA says one thing I agree with and one I disagree with:

This is where AFA gets it right:

For the past two days, I've been harangued by phone and e-mail and in person over a letter to the editor we published Monday. It spoke against the recent City Council proposal to ban K2:

This is -- gulp -- Bugs Bunny's 70th birthday:

The CBS Sunday Morning show had a fascinating piece on Willard Wigan, the sculptor from England who makes microscopic works that he places on t