The time Digger Phelps saved Christmas Eve (a true story)...

It was that special night--Christmas--and Zofia and her daddy were headed home through the back streets adjacent to Notre Dame's golf course and campus. The neighborhoods were built, in most cases, around the time of the Great War and its aftermath, mostly populated with professors, former Notre Dame coaches, and even a few celebrities, like the comedian Martin Short, a home he bought for his children while they attended the university's prestigious law school.

The law school itself is run by the notable Robert Blakey, former chair of the House Assassinations Committee that was convened in the late 1970s to investigate the killings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert Kennedy, and John Kennedy.

But it had snowed and melted overnight before Zofia and her daddy went out to run errands for when grandma and her uncle were coming over to celebrate Christmas eve with them and they had forgotten how icy the neighborhoods could get! The moment they hit the patch of ice, it was over: they slid very quickly into one of the neighborhood yards; it was shocking and jarring, but they were alright when it was over. But they were stuck. What to do?

Help was on the way! A grumpy old man who appeared to have been born with a jelly-doughnut in his mouth ambled-up to the side of the car. Daddy had already gotten out. The man said nothing, just grunted, and motioned. He took the jelly-doughnut out his mouth and said, "Move it over that way and you'll be able to get out."Daddy did what the man said, and it worked. Daddy waved to the man with no response who was headed home, eating his jelly-doughnut he'd been born with. Funny how people can overcome their shadow side, being kind and grumpy all at the same time. Grumpy!

But the fact remains: Digger Phelps saved Christmas eve. Thank you Digger.

"On Sarah Palin and a Turkey," a theopolitical reflection by LenDavinny

There must be some kinda way outta here,

Said the Jester to the turkey,

I should be eating crow right now,

But I'd prefer moose jerky...

But I think I just figured it out from watching Sarah Palin pardoning a turkey who should have replied, "back at you," but was no doubt grieving his soon to be fallen brethren who were no less worthy of Salvation than he, just less lucky. Sarah should, but probably does not, empathize with a randomly selected lucky turkey. How could she not see the beauty in the irony of the only fitting sacrifice to match her sudden popularity and $7 million book deal?

But the truth came, as it always does for Governor Palin, during the interview as a turkey was being decapitated in the background while she chortled, or gobbled, on about this season of joy and celebration. Onlookers reportedly informed her of what was transpiring, or expiring, behind her and she said she didn't have a problem with it. Presumably, she and the turkey are both looking forward to a far better 2012 with great anticipation.

What do you call the syndrome when you get festive occasions reversed to the point that you celebrate Thanksgiving with a Halloween-appropriate turkey snuff film? Possibly, Holiday Dyslexia. And if it didn't have a name, let it have one now, and let us celebrate the noble life of another national treasure pratfalling toward a great destiny. I suddenly realized that I don't want to see her go, she's a national treasure.

I can't wait to see what she has in store for Christmas. Maybe a Santa Cottontail, hopping all the way from the North Pole, "Hippity hoppity, hippity hoppity, dash away, dash away all!" Or Rudolph the Red-Nosed Post Traumatically Disabled Alcoholic Vietnam Survivor for Veteran's Day. Think of the possibilities: even ingenious comedians like Groucho Marx, Madeline Kahn,or Gracie Allen couldn't hire enough good writers and deliver enough lines with the timing and sheer Providential luck with which the woman has been blessed.

And maybe it is a blessing.

Maybe people of her religious calling do have the ear of God who bestows a halo upon them and it is spangles of hanging lights like a jester's crown. And there's one thing for sure--if He's doing it, He's got a great and warped sense of humor. We already knew that, didn't we? Palin is immaculate in her innocence.

This innocence is so disarming that I go weak in the knees and have to hold back the tears for the righteous, and I hear God, the Highest of Holy Ventriloquists [Ed.--Hey, does that guy have his union card?] filtering through her somehow purifying, cleansing ignorance. And He tells me, "A funny thing happened on my way to the grave...oh come on down there! Walk it off and cheer up! Hasn't anybody gotten the message?" Guess not. Certainly not in Washington, "said the Jester to the Thief...."

And again, I can only say apologies to Bob and a round of applause for the rest of humanity. Give yourself a hand, Ladies and Gentlemen, and kindly walk around the blood and feathers on the way out. It's been great, huh?

No reason to get excited,

The turkey kindly spoke.

There are many here among us

Who feel that life is about a joke.

But you and I , we've been through that,

And that is not our Fate.

Election day will come again,

And for those of us without a clue, it never gets too late.

[Ed.--Come on, it was secret squirrel code to Bush to pardon himself...for farting. "And she's always a turkey to me."]