Tiger Woods, the latest high profile, newly revealed letch, spot lit the sex addict pretext when he entered Pine Grove Behavioral Health & Addiction Services in Hattiesburg, MS.

He joins other serial fornicators such as entertainment libertines Errol Flynn, Mick Jagger, Jack Nicholson and presidents Warren G. Harding, John Kennedy and Bill Clinton among others.

Then there is the stratospheric number of professional athletes who can’t resist all that cleavage awaiting them at airports.

Braggadocio Wilt Chamberlain claimed in the autobiography, A View from Above, to have had sex with almost 20,000 women. “At my age,” he wrote, “that equals out to having sex with 1.2 women a day, every day since I was fifteen years old.”

These vintage roués, unlike our latest crop, never stooped to the addiction excuse. They bed-hopped with abandon and a devil-may-care lust.

For a while Eric Benet, Halle Berry’s ex, thought his excessive adultery indicated addiction but he later decided, “In retrospect, it’s not what I would label my situation,” explaining it all as “making some stupid-a**, stupid-a** mistakes,”

Bravo, Eric, a candidly up-front lothario.

I first heard the sex addict bleat when actor Michael Douglas’s womanizing was tagged as sex addiction. Since then, David Duchovny, Charlie Sheen, and Kanye West have signed on.

Way back when, those who voraciously played around were recognized as a randy bunch. No obfuscation. They knew themselves to be reprobates though often without remorse. And society didn’t mince words; promiscuity, while provocatively interesting as gossip fodder, was recognized for what it is, indiscriminant and unrestrained sexual behavior leading to cultural, emotional and spiritual corruption.

Not to mention the unwelcome collateral kids.

“Mad, bad, and dangerous to know, “ said Lady Caroline Lamb, of her lover, flamboyant English poet and legendary womanizer George Gordon (Lord) Byron. He fathered several illegitimate children thanks to his proclivity for bedding the many women he fancied.

At the risk of Judaic/Christian indignation, my nominee for another sexual scoundrel is King Solomon. Wisdom aside, the man was a polygamist without equal as well as an adulterer in perpetuity. The man had 700 official wives and 300 concubines.

But let us not forget lechery’s female counterparts. Lust is an equal opportunity employer.

Russia’s Empress Catherine the Great was a sexual glutton. She used sex as a stress reliever and cure for boredom. Her rung-out lovers went on to screen and select new candidates for the insatiable monarch.

Margaretha Geertruida “Grietje” Zelle, the delicious Mata Hari, avidly played the international field before her execution for espionage during World War I.

Present-day British singer-songwriter and druggie, Amy Winehouse, inches up the slut scale as she romps from lovers to husband to lovers with sexual stamina that rivals Warren Beatty’s. Some label her a sex addict but her rank behavior doesn’t rate the new homogenized lingo.

The psychiatric community is always happy to coin a new addictive disorder when it invites professional voyeurs into another personal catastrophe. 

And now comes Tiger Woods looking for an out that will rescue his shredded family and reputation. But there may never be restoration, even should he target the truth and defeat his propensity for sexual excess. The multiple adulteries severely breached a marriage covenant and degraded this supremely gifted and admired athlete. Pitiably, that obstinate fact will shadow him and become a permanent apostrophe attached to his remarkable career.

The very week of Tiger’s mea culpa, an enormous memoir by Giacomo Casanova, was sold to Bibliotheque Nationale de France (France’s national library). 

Casanova, the 18^th century Venetian rake, whose name is synonymous with seduction, penned the manuscript that numbers 3700 handwritten pages. In “Histoire de ma Vie” (Story of my Life), Casanova claims a paltry (in light of Chamberlain’s boast) 122 conquests.

Label it what you will, vice still stinks. That ethereal laughter you hear is Giacomo’s response to our attempts to spit ‘n polish sin. Habitual peccadilloes become a ferocious snare especially when they engage all five senses. A fact he well knew.

Casanova called his unabated sexual pursuits, not addiction, but rather, “my ruling passion.”

Passion, yes, but sex addiction? Please, spare us the charade. 

Bible Byte: Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me… see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.  (Psalm 139: 23, 24) 

Giacomo Casanova's "Histoire de ma Vie"

On the 31^st Anniversary of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, their Supreme Sourpuss did not extend festive good wishes to his citizens. Instead he announced, "The Iranian nation, with its unity and God's grace, will punch the arrogance (Western powers) on the 22nd of Bahman, February 11, in a way that will leave them stunned." 

What kind of national picnic is that? 

Conversely, on July 4^th our independence is remembered with parades, baseball and a couple of beers. Add hot dogs, sparklers, Old Glory and everyone’s invited. 

Our nation was founded on the Christian/Judaic ideals of sacrifice, enterprise, freedom and faith without fear. Lest we forget, the Islamic Revolution sits on a terrifying tradition of violent and determined repression. 

Thanks for the aide memoire, Ayatollah. The choice is clear. 

Bible Byte: Surely wickedness burns like a fire; it consumes briers and thorns, it sets the forest thickets ablaze, so that it rolls upward in a column of smoke. (Isaiah 9:18)

This photo taken Sept. 11, 2001 by the New York City Police Department and obtained by ABC News, which claims to have obtained it under the Freedom of Information Act, shows smoke and ash engulfing the area around the World Trade Center in New York. MANDATORY CREDIT (AP Photo/NYPD via ABC News, Det. Greg Semendinger)

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Monday, February 08, 2010, Associated Press

Advocates Push Abortion-Rights License Plate in Virginia 

RICHMOND, Va. —  Abortion-rights advocates have been unable to halt the "Choose Life" license plates in nearly two-dozen states, so now they're working to balance the bumper debate.

Activists are pushing a "Trust Women/Respect Choice" license plate in Virginia. The state would become only the fourth to offer a pro-choice plate and the first to require legislative approval for it. Most other states have administrative agencies approve specialty plates.

Supporters have threatened to sue if lawmakers don't give drivers the option... 

Bible Byte: "For You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made." (Psalm 139:13-14, NIV)

January 4, 2010 

Dear Pastor, 

Several of us relatively new members were taken by the casual reference you made to your 25^th anniversary today in leading this church. It truly speaks to your faithfulness in serving our great God and His honoring of you, one of His favored servants. 

From the first day I walked through the doors I was aware of the sweet Spirit inhabiting the sanctuary, no doubt due to your commitment to the truth and purity of the Scriptures--with no compromise. You well-characterize one quiet but mighty verse first written to Timothy by his “father,” Paul: 

“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15)

The irony of your 25th anniversary (and unwavering commitment to doctrinal purity) is even more pronounced in light of a Sunday Denver Post article about another church in Denver that has dwindled to few parishioners. The PCUSA (a sadly anemic denomination) hired a pleasant new lady minister who uses  “different modalities of healing and prayer, including Eastern spiritual practices.” 

Her intent is diversity and inclusiveness to pump up congregation numbers. Numbers may grow because itching ears want a soft place to land, certainly not on the Rock of Christ. But there is no doubt in my mind that The Almighty will not be in attendance. His Word clearly condemns polluting worship with counterfeit religions.

"But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction." (I Peter 2:1) 

You know that I am biologically a direct descendant of Jonathan Edwards. Had I not been adopted out my maiden name would have been Edwards. But what you may not know is that I was adopted into the Peabody/Brewster families of Boston. Both these families have long, influential histories in American religion and culture. 

Ephraim Peabody (1807-1856) was the rector of Boston's King's Chapel which was pivotal in the spread of Unitarianism.  A great-grandfather, Francis Greenwood Peabody, and great-uncle, Charles Eliot, both influential Unitarians and Harvard presidents, did much to liberalize and deflect American faith away from the truth of the Trinity and towards social activism (and its self-righteousness) as one primary purpose for religion. 

I was rescued in 1974 out of the Unitarianism and consequently, I’m overly sensitive to apostasy and greatly appreciative of those pastors who hold fast to the true faith.  You are one of those and thus God’s good blessing is on your ministry. 

Happy 25th Anniversary and thank you.

With warmest regards,

Ellen