saints alive!

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-- Perhaps with an eye to his flagging constituencies, Pope Benedict XVI named seven new saints today, including a Native American.

In the Roman Catholic Church, a saint is a person who has been recognized officially as being in Heaven.

If official recognition is required, it makes me wonder what happens to all the other poor schlubs who imagine they have been reliably informed that their loved ones made the grade.

George McGovern

-- George McGovern, a decent man (and Methodist) whom no one in his right mind would bother calling a "saint," has died at the age of 90. McGovern flew 35 bombing runs over Nazi-held lands during World War II and became a U.S. senator who staunchly opposed the war in Vietnam ... and was roundly defeated in a run for the presidency by Richard Nixon in 1972.  I will remember him as a man of substance, a man with sand ... though he may have been too thoughtful for the company he kept. He certainly stands in contrast to the grasping featherweight politicians America enjoys today.
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