Eat Your Vegetable

Maybe it's because Tom Hanks will star in the movie version of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code-a novel that's already been translated into 44 languages and sold 20 million copies-that senior Vatican official Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone is suddenly telling Catholics not to buy or read the book. It involves a painting with clues proving Jesus Christ was not the son of God, that he married Mary Magdalene, fathered a family and, for all we know, frequently used Day-Glo condoms as a method of artificial birth control.

Don Novello, who played offbeat priest Guido Sarducci on Saturday Night Live, appeared on MSNBC in his clerical costume to comment on this literary phenomenon:

"Starting in 320 A.D., popes have commissioned, preserved and collected works of art, and now this guy comes from nowhere, making a fortune from a book that is based on a painting we own. He used our painting for his own benefit. Where was he when we were taking care of it for 500 years-dusting it all that time, and keeping it away from mildew-where was he? And worse, he did it in a holy year. Holy years come once every 50 years-we put a lot of money behind planning and promotion-and he comes out with his book then. Year 2000 coincidence? He waited until a holy year, he jumped on our wave, he stole our holy year. If it's Mary Magdalene instead of St. John, where did St. John go? Did Jesus have to tell him, 'Sorry, there's no room for you in this painting'?" Ê

And now, on top of that theological controversy, there's the case of Terri Schiavo and her right to die. Consider the possibility that last-minute, unprecedented political pandering was based on a false premise that the religious right put George Bush in the White House for a second term; that this myth stemmed from early exit polls in the 2004 election, where some pollsters included "values" as one of the reasons Bush would be reelected-and what voter would ever have denied that?-when actually it was because of a combination of John Kerry's personality problem, Osama bin Laden's favorable review of Fahrenheit 9/11 and the fact that American presidents have never been changed in the midstream of a war.

The interference of legislators in a private medical situation boils down to a matter of taxation without representation, as indicated by an ABC poll-conducted by telephone while members of Congress and the president were grandstanding their asses off in a display of bipartisan hypocrisy-a poll that found 63 percent of their constituents supported the removal of Schiavo's feeding tube. The poll also found that 58 percent of Republicans believed such intervention was inappropriate, and 61 percent supported removal.

Nonetheless, according to satirist Barry Crimmins, Republican mothers now admonish their children, "If you don't feed the vegetable, you don't get any dessert."