SPITBULL

It rolled into the parking lot, top lights lit, and the lights continued to burn as the tall young driver sauntered toward the student union.

You scumbag, I thought. You are the epitome of the problem. How can you drive this monument to American arrogance, this fuel-devouring war machine? Does it make you feel powerful? Why not volunteer for the Army and drive a real Hummer in Fallujah? Did your Daddy give you this? There's no way you paid for it. Does it help you pick up girls? You probably get gentleman's C's and are just marking time till you can take over Daddy's business. Jerk!

We’ve learned a lot and vow to be better prepared for the next conclave (which we hope is many years off). For one thing, we've learned that you really need someone inside the conclave, and to that end Learned Foot has started the campaign to get me my Cardinal’s hat.

The Pope has e-mail: benedictxvi@vatican.va

A self-described "domain hoarder" who used to live in Texas says he will be cautious with the pope-related Web address he registered earlier this month.

Rogers Cadenhead, a former Fort Worth newspaper reporter who now lives in St. Augustine, Fla., registered BenedictXVI.com well before the new pope's name was announced.

...

But Cadenhead apparently isn't asking for money. On his personal Web site, Cadenhead wrote that in exchange for the domain name, he would ask the Vatican for "one of those hats," a free stay at the Vatican hotel and "complete absolution, no questions asked, for the third week of March 1987."

They're on opposite sides of course, but Nick Coleman really reminds me of David Horowitz. Some practices common to both: the instant demonization of others, the personalizing of all disputes ("nor do I remember you defending me...."); the masochism in saying what you intuitively know will get you ripped; the comical self-image as the baddest, bravest truthteller of them all; generating side issues (like the "unauthorized" publication of Coleman's note) in case the main one flags; the use of politics for narcissistic self-display, and the quality of seeming "unhinged" in public debate.

This is in addition to the most obvious parallel: the principle of all-out overstatement, almost all the time, the practice of rarely using a neutral term when a more inflammatory one can be found.

Kabay was known for pushing the envelope. Sometimes this worked great, as when he recorded his colloquy with a drug dealer on a Minneapolis street corner. Other times, it was deemed over the top, as when he faked an ambush interview with Brett Favre in a Minneapolis hotel room and asked if the woman in the room was “the lovely Mrs. Favre.” Tom and the gang had to throw ol’ Kabay to the wolves and fire him.

Dear Squirrels,

Please keep out of the bird feeder. Remember this note before you climb up the tree. You have your own food. Thank you. You may come in my back yard as long as you don't get into the bird feeder.

Love,

A***

PS. Make sure you can read.

Naturally, dear reader, fundamental grammatical flaws are a must. Today’s college students may claim they know everything, but they think a semi-colon is a fancier quotation mark. In addition, the poem should convey an irksome all-knowing tone. After all, these kids are 19 years old, and they understand the ways of the world far better than their elders.

...

Contestants need not be college students. Contestants need not detest college students, but it will probably help.

Writing lame haiku.
Your criticism is true,
But it beats working.

IN THE SPRING A YOUNG CHILD'S FANCY LIGHTLY TURNS TO THOUGHTS OF BATHING SUITS

Minnesota is blessed with many clothes-showdown days: cold, snowy or rainy bleak weather days that make the youngun's spontaneously crave the bare-skin feeling of hot weather clothing while their parents are still reaching for the mittens. Yesterday was one (today is too), but M.A.W.B.er St. Kate wisely backed down and let her son wear shorts.

In the sleep-deprived days after my youngest was born, I was not so wise. One morning I had a knock-down drag-out screaming and crying fight with the seven year old who insisted on wearing a dress to day care despite the sub-zero temperatures of January in Minnesota. A Minnesota day care which, in the interests of raising hardy children (and keeping its staff sane), sends the children outside to play twice a day no matter what the weather (I think they might make an exception for lightning storms). I demanded she wear the pants/turtleneck and sweater combo I had picked out. Not only appropriate to the weather, but tasteful to boot. As the volume increased, she grudgingly consented to wear pants underneath her dress, but that was her final offer.

My only excuse is that I only had two or maybe three awake and functioning synapses that morning. I kept clinging dully to some stupid child care principal I had read in some inane magazine about how to raise kids. Must. Be. Consistent. It took at least twenty minutes for the thought that this was a dumb fight to penetrate my fog and another ten to figure out a face-saving way to back down.

I promised myself that day never to fight about clothing again. (Ed. Hah! Just wait until she's a teenager ...) And I've kept my promise. My favorite outfit so far is the one she donned for a family expedition to shop for a couch: Raggedy pink tutu worn over a jumper (sewn by my grandmother who couldn't see very well so the seams were all akilter), rubber duck boots and an Easter rabbit ears headband.

Now that's fashionable.

THE first parents meeting of the year at my child's Italian public school started off with a warning. We all hunched anxiously over tiny first-grade desks as the teacher rose from her chair and stated solemnly, "I have bad news."

Teachers' strike, typhoid and no textbooks were some of the potential crises that rushed through my head. But what the teacher was worried about drew a gasp of horror from the other parents.

"Your children are not eating," she said sternly. "Some of them don't even touch their second course."

Everybody knows Italians are obsessed with food. My mother is Italian, I spent many childhood summers in Rome and Tuscany, so I was well acquainted, I thought, with the importance of cooking pasta al dente, the moral imperative to throw out day-old mozzarella, and never to go swimming less than two hours after lunch.

But even I was unprepared for how a food-centric nation handles education. When my daughter started kindergarten last year, I was surprised to find a huge chart posted on the door, marked with what appeared to be grades. On closer inspection, the chart turned out to be a scorecard of the day's lunch achievements.

Every day, next to each child's name, the teacher marked down what she ate, and how well.

EMMA: Primo (first course): Pasta con pomodoro (pasta with tomato sauce). Tutto. Ottimo. (Ate all. Excellent.)

Secondo (second course): Scaloppine di Vitello. (veal scallops) Meta. Molto bene.(Half. Very good.)

Contorno (side dish): Patate bollite e fagiolini (boiled potato and beans.) Poco. Bene. (A little. Good.)

Dolce (dessert): Pera cotta (stewed pear). Niente. Maggiore impegno. (None. Needs work.)

Fraud and corruption scams are to Italian newspapers what sex is to British tabloids. Almost every day, somewhere in Italy there is a scandal over rigged lotteries, sports "doping," or ingenious forms of municipal graft. But the one kind of scandal guaranteed to make the front pages has the word "mensa" in it. They are not referring to the high I.Q. club. Mensa, in Italian, means school cafeteria, and any story that suggests that children are being cheated of their culinary due unleashes mass hysteria.

Last month, 13 people, many of them high-ranking city administrators, were arrested in Milan after a local catering company was found to be providing substandard food to city-run hospitals and schools.

After the Milan story broke, parents who had not once mentioned the war in Kosovo gathered in angry groups outside our school, militantly ready to storm the school kitchen.

"My son brought home an apple that I swear was bruised," one mother said urgently. "How do we know they are not buying second-rate produce and pocketing the profits?"

The school held an emergency meeting to address those concerns. I have yet to talk to another mother about reading skills or after-school programs. We do occasionally gather over espresso at the cafe next to the school to debate the school cook's ability to produce a satisfying "suppli di riso."

Italy is not a society preoccupied with learning disabilities, ritalin and attention deficit disorder. Here, ADD stands only for appetite deficit disorder.

Romans have a healthy contempt for all public officials, but no city administrator is more pilloried than Fiorella Farinelli, the supervisor of Rome's public schools (though Walter Tocci, vice-mayor in charge of traffic, is a close second). Last year, Mrs. Farinelli decreed a meatless day in honor of Linda McCartney, the wife of the former Beatle Paul McCartney; she was a vegetarian and animal rights activist who had just died of cancer. The indignation from parents was so fevered I wrote an article about it.

When I interviewed Mrs. Farinelli, she explained that this was nothing. Once, when she tried to introduce perch to school menus, she was questioned in Parliament.

"Mothers in Rome want their children to eat pasta with meat sauce, meat and french fries, and ice cream," she said wearily.

"Only that will make them feel certain their children are eating."

So far, I have been lucky enough never to get an urgent summons from the school about a broken bone or high fever.

B UT once, early on, I was on assignment in Venice when my husband got a panicked call from Emma's kindergarten teacher, asking him to come over right away. His Italian wasn't very fluent, so as he raced over, he called me on my cell phone to urge me to catch an earlier flight home. I did. The emergency was, of course, food-related. Emma, who at the time still didn't speak Italian, wept when the cafeteria lady sprinkled parmigiano on her pasta and she refused to eat it.

It should go without saying that the school day begins with "merenda," the Italian word for snack, except that it is not considered optional. Mothers are expected to provide their children every morning with a fresh slice of pizza bianca to tide them over until lunch.

In the afternoon, the kindergarten teacher distributes apples and slices of bread and nutella, a chocolate and hazelnut spread. (Child obesity rates in Italy are increasing, but they are lower than in the United States, 22.5 percent vs. 25 to 27 percent.)

After 18 months, I have assimilated. When I get home from work, I never ask my child what she did in school. Like every other Italian parent, I remove the soiled cloth napkin from her book bag and ask, "What did you eat for lunch today?"

[Blogging has] given me a chance to exercise my voice and take that back into the real world and give me more confidence.

I think that gets at another kind of inequity in terms of value. Valuing some of these blogs that are more political, more business-oriented, and privileging them over other kinds of blogs that may not be as edgy. A privileging of socially constructed ‘male issues’ over ‘women’s issues[.]'

People who feel threatened on the street, in a bar, at a baseball game - or anywhere they have a legal right to be - could "meet force with force" to defend themselves without fear prosecution or liability under a bill the House passed overwhelmingly Tuesday.

The measure (SB 436) passed 94-20. It had already passed the Senate and now heads to Gov. Jeb Bush, who said Tuesday that he will sign it. It was the top priority of the National Rifle Association in Florida this year.

It essentially extends a right Floridians already have in their home or car, saying that there's no need to retreat before fighting back. Generally people attacked in their homes don't have to back off. If they're attacked in the street, though, they're supposed to do what they can to avoid escalating the situation, and can only use deadly force after they've tried to retreat.

Bloggers, at least the political ones, need triumphs to keep up their momentum. There's no money or glory in blogging, so bloggers must be fueled by something else. Like the gotcha moments when they snag major media in errors or bias.

Some have hypothesized that in the future blogging will be eaten up by big media, interest groups, or politicians. Professionals will take the place of the amateur.

I'm starting to see another fate for the blogosphere. It's one where the personal blogs triumph. Those that write witty and small things about their cats and yoga classes and kids.

Today finds everyone in an improved mood around here. It’s difficult to feel subdued on a beautiful spring day. With temperatures in the 50’s, the boys and I were talking about what outdoor projects we could accomplish today. The Senator asked if we could spread peanut butter on The Governor’s hair, dip him in birdseed, and put him out on the deck.

It was a serious request. I am raising future asylum inmates.

I think, instead, we will go out and lay in the grass and watch clouds. This will be followed by first annual Easter Egg Massacre in which we take all the decorated eggs out to the pasture and smash them against trees. A little post-Easter therapy for me...destructive fun for the boys. Just the sort of thing the Mother of the Year judges look for in a candidate. 2005 should be a cinch.