The Supreme Court has agreed to take on the nation’s only assisted suicide law and not a moment too soon for thirty-seven-year-old Stephen Dale Barbee. Barbee’s pregnant girlfriend was critically despondent and ready to give up on life after a career wasted in a Fort Worth bagel shop. So he consented to hold a pillow over her face. Legally speaking, there’s no doubt that trying to scratch out a living in a Texas deli qualifies as a terminal illness. Moreover, the notion that Lisa Underwood might have had better luck selling horse trailers in Manhattan, or dating Robert Blake, is moot now that she has beaten Terry Schiavo to the other side.

As for Barbee, he can only sit by until the high court decides whether former Attorney General John Ashcroft’s plan to prosecute doctors who prescribe lethal medications is supported by federal drug-control laws. If the Justices concur with the 9th Circuit that “the attorney general’s unilateral attempt to regulate general medical practices historically entrusted to state lawmakers interferes with the democratic debate about physician-assisted suicide and far exceeds the scope of his authority,” then Barbee’s actions will be construed to be less pernicious than palliative.

Hunter S. Thompson’s last undertaking, on the other hand, is much less susceptible to the whims of interpretation. No doubt his death came not on “little cat feet” but rather on bolts of hot steel screaming through the wind. Splattering his great Gonzo mind across the planks of his Woody Creek cabin, Thompson selfishly foreclosed on my ability to joyride in his drug-fueled jalopy. And because reminiscence is merely the weak cousin of experience, I guess I’ll be forced to start with the narcotics myself. Forget that tired business with the black ribbon; there’s nothing left but to dye my arm blue like Ackerman in a futile attempt to retrieve the invaluable as it unfailingly slithers down the drain.

Despite the right wing media’s high-profile pillory of Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby (if I spoiled the ending, too bad; Fred MacMurray dies in the hallway) the Shiavo case stubbornly remains the central lightning rod in the right-to-die debate. While command of the limited ability to drool and crap in your pants may qualify you to serve as President of the United States, questions about a meaningful existence will no doubt linger on. My friend Guttman frames the discussion philosophically: “Death is not really a promotion; it’s more of a lateral move.” Shiavo is scheduled to begin that sideways journey at 1p.m. on March 18, when her husband will FINALLY be allowed to remove her artificial feeding tube. Seven years in, Florida Judge George Greer simply grew tired of dicking around and granted Michael Schiavo the right to pull the plug. Because “there will always be ‘new’ issues,” wrote Greer, “the court is no longer comfortable granting stays simply upon the filings of new motions.” In reaction to the court order, Cardinal Renato Martino told Vatican Radio, “If Mr. Schiavo legally succeeded in provoking the death of his wife, this would not only be tragic in itself, but it would be a serious step toward legally approving euthanasia in the United States.”

It seems that Martino should be occupied with other matters at the moment, like the Pope’s rapidly declining capacity to lead the Church. Back in hospital, the Pontiff underwent a tracheotomy and was advised by doctors not to speak. Martino sheepishly conceded, “This is a big problem.” Rev. Thomas Reese observes: “Modern medicine can keep someone alive long after they can really function in this world. At the same time, the papacy has grown in importance.” Imagine Jesus, for example, nailed up on that cross with an I.V. in his arm and cans of Ensure snaking through his nose towards his stomach. Add medical life support techniques to those spectral powers and Christ might still be up there, preaching to his followers.

All this talk of death is downright depressing, and what better way to lighten the mood than to focus on the giving of newborn life. Which brings us to the subject of breast milk. For those who can’t or choose not to nurse, manufactured formula is available. Recently, producers have tossed fatty acids DHA and ARA into the mix in an attempt to more closely mimic nature’s own. But now the guys in the lab coats at Mead Johnson, Ross and Nestlé are behind the eight ball once again. A recent Texas Tech study found that levels of a toxic rocket fuel were five times higher in mothers’ milk than in store bought dairy products. Former EPA scientist Ed Urbansky remains nonplussed: “We shouldn’t be running through the streets screaming and not drinking milk because of this.” While it’s true that Percholate has contaminated much of the nation’s water supply and can even be detected in vegetables, the baby food and pharmaceutical companies are in a mad dash to add the chemical to their latest formulations. As Senator Dianne Feinstein warned, “We’ve got to come to grips with the Percholate situation quickly.”

Former baseball star Jose Canseco is brazenly accusing numerous players, including pitcher Roger Clemens, of doping up with steroids and proudly acknowledges injecting several of them with his own hands. Wielding a title so laborious that its contents become superfluous, Canseco’s just-released book, “Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant ‘Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big,” casts a pall on the game’s most compelling triumphs, including the magical 1998 season when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa both obliterated Roger Maris’ home run record. Tension is mounting among the rank and file as finger pointing and categorical denials become de rigueur. Meanwhile, the air of suspicion has grown so thick that pundits are even questioning the authenticity of the legendary Williams-DiMaggio battle of ’41 (.400 BA and 56-game hit streak, respectively) and doubting the legitimacy of the 58 homers and 138 RBI produced by Hank Greenberg back in 1938. Sadly for Hank, that’s the least, at the moment, of his worries.

After two of his AIG executives pled guilty to bid-rigging charges, and an extensive internal investigation asserted the insurance company’s malfeasances were narrowly constrained, Greenberg received fresh subpoenas from Eliot Spitzer. General counsel Ernest Patrikis had barely finished assuring analysts that AIG duly examined “every piece of smoke we could find, and… found no fire,” when the papers were served. No matter, the new charges of earnings manipulation will doubtless singe the bottom line beyond the $126 million already exacted by the Justice Department and SEC. Rather than penalize investors, Hank took the funds out of executive bonuses. Dozens of white-collar employees stood by as their six- to eight-figure bonuses turned to ash. A righteous Greenberg stated, “I felt the overwhelming part of these penalties should be borne by them and not by AIG shareholders.” A noble sentiment – kind of like giving your rape victim a warm towel after you’ve finished up.

But try as you might, you simply can’t keep a good man down. Overcoming bid-rigging partner Marsh & McLennan’s ceremonial beheading of Greenberg fils, and massive losses wrought by hurricanes, typhoons, earthquakes, tsunamis, and federal regulators, AIG posted record annual profits. Greenberg boasted: “I think that our overall business looks good.” The stock, on the other hand, fails to share Hank’s ebullience. Unchanged since the numbers were reported, the shares have done little more than tread water over the past five years. If Hank really wants to abet investors, he should follow Martha Stewart into the grey-bar hotel.

Attempting to forestall his own excursion into the correctional system, Michael Jackson fell ill on the way to court and was rushed to the hospital. A spokesman for the Marian Medical Center declined to comment, but an unidentified source speculated that the pop icon passed out in the limo after hearing on the radio that fellow NAMBLA member Paul Shanley got 12 to 15 in the big house. Reaction to the sentencing was thankfully less pernicious back in Massachusetts. Victim Arthur Austin allowed, “I don’t have to be afraid anymore.” The lone (unnamed) accuser opined, “I want him to die in prison, whether it is of natural causes or otherwise.” He went on to add, “However he dies, I hope it is slow and painful.”

Perhaps a phrase best suited to describe the lovemaking between Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles. Though they’ve been going at it for thirty years, the pair has decided to finally sanctify their erstwhile illicit endeavors. Queen Elizabeth II stated: “The Duke of Edinburgh and I are very happy that the Prince of Wales and Mrs. Parker Bowles are to marry.” Even the Archbishop of Canterbury seemed willing to overlook Chuck and Cam’s sordid history, finding the pending nuptials “consistent with Church of England guidelines concerning remarriage” and to consecrate Charles’ status “as a committed Anglican and as prospective Supreme Governor.” The million-strong Evangelical Alliance, however, finds that “the couple’s previous divorces, their documented adultery and the nature of their extra-marital relationship up to this point, do present difficulties… with respect to Charles’ suitability to govern the Church of England.” God those Brits are refined. Here in America we’d say, “Hell, there’s NO WAY we’re gonna let that pig fucker become President.” But then of course we do.

According to the 2005 Pontifical Yearbook, the world has 1.086 billion Catholics. And they all held their breath last week as Pope John Paul II was hospitalized with laryngeal spasms and an acute respiratory infection. After an assassination attempt, cancer surgery, and Parkinson’s, could this really mean curtains for the 84-year-old Holy Father? Pictures of the Pontiff being whisked from the Holy See to the Gemelli Polyclinic Hospital were continuously broadcast around the globe and found most viewers profoundly distraught. But not Liam Cusak. Cusak works for the Dragon Models USA Inc. toy company, and noticed that the image looked suspiciously similar to their Captain Vatican action figure. Even the papal vestments, particularly his chasuble and Zucchetto, seemed exact replicas of those included with the feast of the Assumption version of the toy. “It is our doll… To me it looks definitely like it is,” quipped Cusak. “Everything the guy is wearing is exactly what comes with our figure. If you look at the two pictures side by side, it’d be a huge coincidence.”

What proved not to be a hoax, on the other hand, were accusations that two dozen men were raped by Father Paul Shanley. Though it took days to wade through the tsunami of information generated by Googling “guilty priest,” I finally got the scoop: Shanley had plied the Boston area for years, moving from parish to parish at the behest of Church officials who, according to internal documents, repeatedly assigned him to positions affording unsupervised contact with children despite his public advocacy of sex between men and boys. In the end, Shanley was convicted despite the fact that most of his victims were barred from testifying due to the statute of limitations. Of the four available to prosecutors, only one (merely six-years-old at the time of the first assault) was dependable enough to put on the stand. The others, as is too often the case, suffered from substance abuse or mental health issues and would have crumbled under cross-examination. Ironically, the effects of abuse turn victims into unreliable witnesses. But no matter, Father Paul is off to prison where, God willing, he’ll be killed during Easter mass.

And a good thing too, as the President’s budget contains huge cuts in law enforcement funding, making it all the more difficult to catch child molesters or criminals of any other stripe. Although the White House wants to make permanent the tax cuts ladled out to its wealthy patrons, the budget proposes slashing programs designed to help those actually in need. It contains massive reductions in public education, farm support, mass transit, food stamps, welfare, and Medicaid. And in the event of a bio-terrorist attack, you’ll be glad to know that money has been siphoned away from local Homeland Security programs and from the Center for Disease Control. Don’t forget, Mr. Bush vowed to “cut programs that do not fulfill essential priorities,” and beyond getting his nitwit brother elected in 2008, little else promises to be essential

As for the war in Iraq, the $81 billion of squandered tax receipts are nowhere found in the budget’s pages. Nor are any funds allocated to cover the promised increase in active-duty death benefits. But who’s really surprised? Just last year W told the American Legion: “Our nation’s veterans have made serving America the highest priority of your lives. And that is why I have made serving our nation’s veterans one of the highest priorities of my administration.” Doubtless that’s why he wants to lower veterans’ medical benefits and raise their prescription drug co-payments.

“It’s a budget that focuses on results,” proffered the President, “the taxpayers of America don’t want us spending money into [sic] something that’s not achieving results.” Yeah, well, he’d best consider getting rid of the Federal Reserve. After six interest-rate hikes since June, the yield on the ten-year Treasury is paradoxically 50 basis points lower since last summer. So quite unintentionally, mortgages are cheaper, money freer and the dollar weaker. Bond mavens on Wall Street argue that Greenspan’s actions are beginning to get traction now that the rebound has retraced half of the 13 rate cuts delivered when decade began; we can only hope Bush gets out the axe before it’s too late.

Several colleagues tried to dissuade me from extolling last week’s missive in which I predicted every corporation would inexorably congeal into a single behemoth. But how can I resist given the intervening week has seen Proctor & Gamble swallow Gillette and SBC initiate AT&T’s demise? Self-glorification, they argued, is nothing more than intellectual masturbation. Yeah, well, I like masturbation.

It’s no big deal; if it’s serious mayhem you’re after, try grabbing someone else’s wiener. Like Boston priest Paul Shanley or Michael Jackson. While Shanley’s rape case has gone into deliberation, jury selection is just beginning in Jackson’s child-molestation trial. And already Judge Rodney Melville is on course to become the Lance Ito of the new millennium. His honor ruled that Jackson’s porn stash could be displayed in the courtroom but that the images could not be referred to as “pornographic” or “obscene.” It’s unclear if prosecutors can hold up images of a man’s dangly bits while blurting out “throbbing hog” or “sweaty bishop.” The bench, however, has yet to rule on the relevance of the pop star’s (reputed) $15 million payoff to a prior victim and the admissibility of his collection of SpongeBob SquarePants videos.

Defense attorneys are on edge after evangelist James Dobson denounced the porous cartoon character’s role in a “pro-homosexual video” produced by the We Are Family Foundation. The video is being distributed to 61,000 elementary schools in an effort to promote tolerance and celebrate diversity. Dobson, for one, wasn’t swayed: “Their inclusion of the reference to ‘sexual identity’ within their ‘tolerance pledge’ is not only unnecessary, but it crosses a moral line.” Dobson went on to note that he had spotted SpongeBob doing poppers with Tinky Winky, the purple, purse-carrying Teletubby.

Dobson desperately wanted to use a pejorative but was muted during the second annual “No Name-Calling Week.” The program, created by the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, is endorsed by dozens of organizations including the national associations of elementary and secondary school principals and the Girl Scouts of America. Conspicuously absent from the list of supporters is the Concerned Women of America, whose director, Robert Knight, is apoplectic. “You can teach civility to kids and tell them every child is valued without conveying the message that failure to accept homosexuality as normal is a sign of bigotry.” Why Knight is head of a women’s organization remains a mystery. Is he transgendered or merely a crossdresser? Either way, he’s one angry dame: “I hope schools will realize it’s less an exercise in tolerance than a platform for liberal groups to promote their pan-sexual agenda.” Huh? Personally, I’ve never had sex with a pan – a melon perhaps – but I can’t imagine there would be a great number of people open to conversion. I mean, do you have to take it off the stove first?

Not in Guantanamo Bay where female interrogators cranked up the heat in an attempt to break Muslim detainees. Sergeant Erik Saar reported that one female investigator, unable to gain information, stripped off her uniform to reveal thong underwear and a tight T-shirt. She proceeded to rub her breasts on her prisoner and when that failed to do the trick, she resorted to smearing him with fake menstrual blood. (Although this seems rather barbaric, it does work: when my girlfriend breaks out the phony monthly discharge I give her whatever she wants.) When British inmates first claimed that prostitutes tormented them in their cells, they found few believers. But that’s all changed in the wake of recent revelations. The FBI has reports of women grabbing prisoners’ genitals while the Pentagon acknowledged yet another incident in which a female guard ran her fingers through an inmate’s hair and gave him a lap dance. I’m not sure if this is what Alberto Gonzales had in mind when he penned the infamous torture memo. Perhaps he confused the Geneva Convention of 1949 with the Drunk-Driving Conviction facing an Austin stripper in October 1996. In that case, then-governor Bush was called for jury duty and had Gonzales not persuaded the judge to release the high-profile juror, W would have been required to disclose his own 1976 DUI conviction.

But no matter, ramifications of the techniques used in U.S. military prisons are spreading faster than Paris Hilton. Bill O’Reilly now claims that his former producer was a Taliban operative and that his frequent and lurid attempts at phone sex were in fact sanctioned by the Department of Homeland Security. Michael Jackson’s attorney, Thomas Mesereau, Jr., is considering a similar defense tactic, although it remains to be seen if he can sell the plausibility of a high-ranking member of Al Qaeda posing as a twelve-year-old cancer patient. Only time will tell.

Can you believe George Bush was sworn in to his second term as Debaucher of the Free World? Members of Congress were so giddy at the prospect, that for the first time anyone can remember, they refused to appropriate funds to pay for the inauguration. The District of Columbia, therefore, was forced to cough up nearly $20 million of its Homeland Security budget. It will be imperative, then, when the Ragheads blow the place up, to remember that we threw one hell of a party.

After the formalities, there were myriad soirées and galas, dutifully attended by heavily-jowled donors stuffed into tuxedoes, and pasty women from Texas bulging out of designer gowns optimistically fastened with spaghetti straps. And of course a cow. Although as the evening wore on, the cow, a UT mascot named Bevo, became increasingly difficult to pick out of the crowd. As for official matters of state, Mr. Bush vowed to tackle the crisis brewing over at Social Security, which he insists will go bankrupt in a dozen years, “by reforming great institutions to serve the needs of our time.” He went on to say, “We will widen the ownership of… retirement savings and health insurance – preparing our people for the challenges of life in a free society. By making every citizen an agent of his or her own destiny, we will give our fellow Americans greater freedom from want and fear.” To which Ted Kennedy rightly responded, “We have an administration that falsely hypes almost every issue as a crisis. They did it on Iraq, and they are doing it now on Social Security. They exploit the politics of fear and division.”

The cold fact is that the Social Security System is currently running at a surplus and will remain solvent, according to its own actuaries, until 2042. The current scheme, they opine, could even pay out 80 cents on the dollar as far out as 2075. No matter, the President wants to “privatize” a portion of the plan so that you can be in control of your own losses. The White House argues that historically equities have returned around nine percent per year while bonds (in which the surplus is exclusively invested) have only fared half as well. More dramatically, after accounting for taxes, inflation and expenses, government bonds hardly earn anything at all. If Mr. Bush is so confident in his own calculus, why doesn’t he merely sell all those bonds and plow the proceeds into the stock market?

In a word, demographics. The system was originally designed more along the lines of a Ponzi scheme than a bank account because during the Depression, beneficiaries needed to collect funds long before savings could accrue. At its inception in 1935, payroll taxes amounted to a scant two percent of wages. Today, they exceed 15 percent. This increase is an attempt to offset the declining number of workers supporting each retiree (8 1/2 in 1955 vs. a projected 2 in 2040). Imagine the Freemason pyramid on the back of the dollar turned upside down – with that eye becoming an anus. Yet, there is some good news; it’s far worse in China where a single-child regime forces one worker to support four grandparents and two parents.

The problem, in a nutshell, is that your payroll tax contributions are hardly yours; they’re going to some former mechanic in Decatur. The government, therefore, is obliged to replace any funds siphoned off to your Merrill Lynch account. Some estimates peg this cover at $2 trillion. Maybe that’s why the administration has proposed Draconian Medicaid and Medicare cuts in the upcoming budget: This way, figures the White House, older workers can shorten their retirement (and reduce their claims) by dying quicker.

All this angst has Republicans breaking ranks and looking out for their own hides. Rep. Katherine Harris (R-FL), Jeb’s former Secretary of State who certified 2000’s fraudulent ballot, said publicly, I’m not sure I’ve heard a solution I’ve agreed with.” A spokesman for Robin Hayes (R-SC) said that the Congressman, despite a track record as one of Bush’s more ardent rim nibblers, “does not support privatization.”

What’s worse is that it is all but certain that those dumb or unlucky enough to put all their mandated savings into the next JDS Uniphase will, in the end, beg the government (read: the rest of us taxpayers) to make them whole. Keep in mind, during Bush’s tenure, the stock market, as measured by the S&P 500 index, is actually down, so the prospect of widespread losses in not merely academic. And besides, with all the mergers* taking place, by the time any meaningful reform is passed there’ll only be one stock left to invest in: CitiFordViacom International. Is it any wonder the politicians have set up their own retirement plan?

* Recent deals:

JP Morgan (already with Chase) and Bank One
Bank of America (already with Nations Bank) and Fleet Boston Financial
Wachovia and South Trust
Sears and Kmart
Oracle and PeopleSoft
Symantec and Veritas
Sprint and Nextel
Cedant and Orbitz

(Pending)
News Corp. and Fox Entertainment
Molson and Coors
Federated and May Department Stores