There are a lot of things about which to write and upon which to comment these days.  I'm not sure that any of them deserves a whole column; so I  am going to reference some of them.  One is Governor Haley Barbour's Second Inaugural.  There was never any real doubt that he would be re-elected.  He has a finely honed political organization backing him, but his leadership after the Katrina crisis struck is what won the governor's race for him this time.  He simply did the best job of any governor or other elected or appointed official anywhere--including Washington, DC.  He was visible, and he had a positive message for people who were hurting at the time.  He has continued to work for resources to help Mississippi rebuild after the hurricane.

Two would be the sudden resignation of Trent Lott from the US Senate.  This follows Chip Pickering's not running for the house again.  Many questions linger in people's minds about this.  The revelation last week that Lott intends to set up a lobbbying firm in Washington gives more opportunities to ask questions.  The indictment of Lott's brother-in-law also raises questions.  It just may be, however, that Lott is tired of the Senate and Congress after all these years and wants a change.  One that offers an opportunity to make some money.  He took a serious hit during Hurricane Katrina, and I don't know that he has gotten any settlement from insurance.  He may have realized that his retirement financial security was more fragile than he might want.  Or he just may have wanted to be a lobbyist and now is the time to do it.

The baseball steroid scandal just won't go away.  Now we have a marquis player, Roger Clemens, who has been accused ot "juicing."  I'll have to confess that I think there may be something to that.  After all, when he went to the Yankees, he was closing in on  40 and he had those Cy Young seasons at an age when most men simply cannot pitch that way any more.  I realize that Roger has kept himself in good shape.  Others of us have kept ourselves in reasonably good shape, too, and there isn't anyway that a guy that old can win the Cy Young without some help.  And Roger won four of them!  He says and said on 60 MInutes that he did not and has not used the drugs.  His trainer, McNamee, says that he injected the All Star pitcher with them several times.  Somebody is lying.  Somebody is going to be majorly embarrassed, like Rafael Palmeiro was embarrassed earlier after claiming that he had never used the drugs.

Then there are the crazy life styles of the Stars, the rich and famous.  They are just nuts, many of them.  And there is the amounts of money these people and sports fi gures make.  Even college coaches.  Even assistant coaches--hundreds of thousands of dollars.  My wife, who teaches 200 children every week and tries to carry on an art program in our local high school, has a grand total of $300 to run that program for a WHOLE YEAR.  That's crazy, and that's not right.

The stock market is in the doldrums due to the sub-prime adjustable rate mortgages thing.  Much of this crisis is over people wanting to get into luxurious homes for cheap.  Don't believe it?  I have it on about the best authority you can get.  How do you get into a home costing $750,000 and up?  And you are a young family?  Your folks spring for part of it, and then you get one of these sub prime adjustable rate mortgages.  You move into one of these palatial estates and may have not more than a couple of mattresses and chairs as furniture.  But you can afford the monthly payment--until the adjustable rate goes up.  When your mortgage jumps a thousand or two thousand dollars per month, then you go belly up.  Just like the Real Estate industry which allowed you to get into this fix.

Folks, we need to live realistically and right.