What’s the old saying? “If it weren’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all”? Our outing last week was only about half “bad luck.” Could have been worse.

Whatever else his critics say of him, no one can fault President Bush for failing to go the extra mile in his efforts to show that neither he, nor the United States, is opposed to the Islamic faith, or to Muslim nations.

Karen and I exchange recipes often. She’s an excellent cook so I can always count on her recommendations.

Except for the tortilla soup recipe she passed along. It was okay but not particularly enticing. However, as is often the case when I cook something, I’ll call Mama and say, “I’m bringing you supper.”

Reasons to be sad about the Bush administration abound. But here's a happy note: Team Bush has repaired its mistake on religious freedom that I and many others complained about last month.

The Yankee bullpen has some young pitchers who could throw a baseball through a brick wall -- if they had enough control to hit the wall.

A new survey of the five states that will hold caucuses or primaries prior to February's "Tsunami Tuesday" indicates the so-called "religious right" is a shrinking force among Republicans who say they will vote in their states' presidential primaries.

Sometimes it just happens like that. The heavens open up and stuff is dumped right into your lap. God just smiles and gives you a gift. That is what he did for me last week. There is no other answer. It just happened and I am not questioning why. I have waited for more than a year.

For the most part, I tend to stay out of local politics. This is not one of those times. I read recently that Peachtree City officials met in a workshop to look at the possibility of changing division directors and the city’s fire and police chiefs to an “at-will status.” If this is ever seriously considered, it is, in my opinion, a very, very bad idea.

Pity John McCain, for whom everything has gone sour in the past period, taking him from lead candidate for the Republican nomination to the cellar. Some years ago, after hearing what John McCain withstood in North Vietnam, I pledged never to write a negative word about him, and over the years it has required very few beads of charity to stand by him. His latest difficulty started out sounding worthy of another medal of honor, to wear alongside the one he earned through the efforts of the North Vietnamese torturers.

Mrs. Clinton wants us to be healthy -- depending, naturally, on how we define health.

Is it a matter just of knowing the federal government will get you in somewhere to do something for you when you need care of one sort or another? If so Mrs. Clinton may be your candidate. Her ideal is universal coverage: something for everybody, at an estimated cost of $110 billion a year.

The ageless man was dark as a soot pot. Bent with time and circumstance, he walked down the abandoned railroad tracks unaware we were watching him. Or so we thought. Passing within three feet of our hiding place deep in the thicket of bushes, he paused for a moment. My three brothers and I had been throwing water balloons at his house all summer. Until now, we had never been caught. Not even close.

Snoopy is having a hard time these days. In the popular Peanuts cartoon, Snoopy is agonizing over losing his doghouse to the new freeway that’s coming through. In a recent edition, Lucy unloads, “All right, so they run a freeway through here and you lose your doghouse. You think you’re the first one who’s ever lost his home? You think you’re the only one? Huh? Stop feeling sorry for yourself!”

At my invitation, several readers were kind enough to write and share their thoughts about surgery, pain and healing.

WASHINGTON -- Eyebrows at the Treasury were raised last Tuesday when Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. named a major Democratic fundraiser to an important advisory role. On the next day, eyebrows were still elevated when Under Secretary Robert K. Steel participated in an event spearheaded by Bill Clinton's two Treasury secretaries.

Three friends and I were motoring our way from the western edge of Kentucky over to Louisville when someone proclaimed a sudden and immediate need for an orange Nehi soda.

Dr. Esam Omeish resigned as a member of the Virginia Commission on Immigration after his anti-Israel remarks in support of "the jihad way" were posted on YouTube. He told a news conference that jihad has nothing to do with violence, but instead is about inner struggles leading to spiritual triumph. We've heard this before. Such explanations are presented after a terrorist act or a radical is exposed. Radicals also have been known to lie, especially to "infidels."

We'll wrap up this Cochran family this week with some details on the remaining children of William Allen and Alpha Sophia Johnson Cochran of the McCollum area south of Palmetto. The Cochran land was in the Seventh District which straddles Campbell (now South Fulton) and Coweta counties. Land lots in this district are in both counties. It also is not far from Tyrone in Fayette County. Using today's landmarks, I'd say these Cochrans lived roughly in the Cannongate area (within a few miles of the golf ball water tower). They moved here from Newton County sometime between 1835 and 1840.

A number of years ago, I went to a professional basketball game. After battling the traffic, searching for a parking space, walking an exhausting distance, and pushing through the humanity that flooded the stadium, I finally found my seat and prepared to thoroughly enjoy my very first NBA game sans television. Within a short time, I wished I had stayed home. The game, except for the last four minutes, had all the excitement of watching grass grow.

About the so-called Jena Six, reasonable people can disagree about whether or not prosecutors initially charged the Jena, La., defendants too harshly. The black teenage defendants stand accused of beating a white teenager unconscious.

Democrats should run Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for president. He's more coherent than Dennis Kucinich, he dresses like their base, he's more macho than John Edwards, and he's willing to show up at a forum where he might get one hostile question -- unlike the current Democratic candidates for president who won't debate on Fox News Channel. He's not married to an impeached president, and the name "Mahmoud Ahmadinejad" is surely no more frightening than "B. Hussein Obama."

CNN devoted an entire hour to the chaos in Jena, La., and rendered a considerable service. We hear, running through it all, the voices of critical figures -- the district attorney, the school principal and a school board member, the mothers of the defendants and of the victim, the outsiders. The temptation for this journalist was to seek to isolate words and events and watch the tensions rise, the ease with which despair made its way into the picture, creating a scene reproduced throughout the world.

So, in the end, Monday the Iranian wild man Mahmoud Ahmadinejad got a dressing down from the man who had invited him -- in the name of free speech, you understand -- to speak at Columbia University.

WASHINGTON -- The Alice-in-Wonderland quality of legislating in Congress was typified this week. The Democratic Congress quickly passed a national health insurance bill, drafted in secret and protected from amendment, that constitutes the most important legislation of this session. While designed for a presidential veto, it is national health insurance -- through the front, not the back, door. Democrats view it as no-lose: either landmark health care will be enacted over President George W. Bush's veto, or, if overridden, they'll have a lovely 2008 campaign issue.

No one tolerates everything. Some who tolerate the murder of unborn children abhor the killing of some animals. One man's Mede is another man's Persian.

It amazes me how life can change in a solitary moment. As a firefighter, I see this, every day at work. One moment we’re training; the next we’re fighting a house fire, performing CPR, or disentangling someone who’s trapped in an automobile. Not one of those people thought their lives would change in such a profound way when their day started, but it did nonetheless.

Beware of friends like me. I’m the kind of friend that you invite to dinner and I turn around and invite the whole neighborhood.

Minor thoughts on local themes:

Fayetteville Mayor Ken Steele has no opposition to another four-year term as top dog in the county’s commercial center. Two years ago, 7 percent of Fayetteville’s registered voters bothered to come to the polls to vote. Could there be any connection between those two facts?

I would not be as bothered by Columbia University’s decision to host Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad if Columbia and other universities had a consistent policy toward those they invite to speak and the rules applied equally to conservatives and liberals; to totalitarian dictators and to advocates for freedom and tolerance.

The guy was extremely courteous and nice but obviously distraught. The five-page letter forwarded to me from a newspaper detailed the downfall of men.

“Be prepared.” It’s the motto of both the Girl Scouts and the Boy Scouts. I had a friend in my Brownie Troop (back when we wore beanies and brown dresses with orange neckties) who took this to heart. We were at day camp and one sunny day we were to go on a nature hike. She brought her rain coat and galoshes. The leaders tried to explain to her that there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and that we wouldn’t be gone long. She wasn’t hearing it. “But it might rain and we’re supposed to be prepared,” she said.