By MICHELE MILLER, Times Staff Writer
Published June 12, 2006
The squirrels have won.
Sure, they scatter sometimes, running every which way up the branches of the grand Southern oaks to scold the intruder who dares venture into the back yard during feeding time. More often than not, they simply continue to nonchalantly chow down on the feed that is meant for the birds.
At first, ousting the squirrels seemed a worthy battle - one waged by the man of the house with plastic gallon jugs and big cans of lard that were sure to shore up the "squirrel-proof" bird feeder.
There is no such thing.
It was only a matter of time before the man surrendered. Now, a couple of years later, we have learned to coexist with the rather rotund rodents, even taking pleasure in their antics, as they hang precariously off the squirrel-proof feeder, spilling seed to the others feeding on the ground below.
Sometimes, you realize, you just have to pick your battles.
Those who still have their sanity after raising a terrible, 2-, 3-, 13-, (pick a number)-year-old, know well the wisdom of that kind of prioritizing.
Last week, it was easy to figure what side of the spectrum Ann Coulter never grew out of. Some might have seen the right wing commentator who was busy liberal-proofing the country and plugging her new book on the fated 06/06/06 day that had some news outlets in such a state that they let the hype overshadow the anniversary of D-Day.
Coulter marked the day by beating up liberals, the Today show's Matt Lauer and some 9/11 widows who she declared were basking in their personal tragedies and wielding their grief to stifle response from others who disagree with their political positions. (For those who missed it, check it out for yourself at http://www.gawker.com/news/ann-coulter/ann-coulter-reaches-out-to-911-widows-178697.php)
She even got a little cantankerous with Lauer, who should have been requesting an exorcism rather than an interview. That diatribe featured Coulter's trademark shrill talkover spiel that no doubt had some expecting to see that blond head twisting full circle and spewing pea soup and profanities about other people's mothers.
"You're getting testy with me," said the devil with the black dress on, when Lauer tried to get a word in edgewise.
Um, that's the kind of thing that happens, Ann, when you launch outlandish accusations at 9/11 widows.
Sometimes, you should realize, you just have to pick your battles.
Then there were our esteemed politicians, who were busy defending the sanctity of marriage.
Choose an issue you'd like to be paying your legislators to go to the wall for. Chances are it isn't gay marriage. While our president and his cohorts were wasting time and money duking it out, most of us just weren't all that hopped up about it.
Both sides knew when they began this debate that a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage was a dead issue that wouldn't get by the Senate.
But suddenly, the discussion about whether two people of the same sex can legally commit themselves to each another was pressing business. More important than trying to fix Iraq, Darfur, the mounting deficit, nuclear disarmament, homeland security, AIDS, global warming, world hunger, etc.
Some say this virtual battle was a way to get the vote out - the right kind of vote - for midterm elections while rejuvenating the president's political base and keeping at bay groups such as Focus on the Family.
So, they figured, let's regurgitate the gay marriage issue of the 2004 general election.
While they're at it, perhaps they should dredge up some of those "other" issues.
Like the statistics that showed that 50 percent of those legal heterosexual marriages fail in the United States. And the others from the latest census that cited the state of Massachusetts - the one that recently legalized gay marriage - as having the lowest divorce rate in the country. That blue state was followed by others - Connecticut, New Jersey, Rhode Island and New York. The highest? Those would be the red states: Nevada, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Wyoming. Colorado, which happens to be the home of Focus on the Family, came in at No. 33.
Then there are the other numbers from the George Barna Research Group, based in Ventura, Calif. The Associated Press reported on its national survey that showed agnostics and atheists actually had a lower divorce rate than Baptists, Jews, and mainstream and nondenominational Protestants.
Being born again, evidently, does not always bode well for the betrothed.
Perhaps those politicians who are so intent on combating the assault on the sanctity of marriage should face off over a constitutional amendment that would stem the slide of those who seem less inclined to follow through with "until death do us part."
Then again, sometimes you just have to pick your battles.
