Parade's Lead Time

I have been trying for years to figure out exactly how much lead time Parade magazine needs for an event to be reflected in its content. They seem to prepare it about about a week before it's actually published. This leads to the occasional gaffe, such as when they reported that Derby-winner Barbero was alive and well in a pasture in Kentucky when in fact his death had been the biggest news story of the preceding week.

Yesterday's Parade had the following:

"Q In June, Lindsay Lohan signed on for extended care at Promises, a luxury rehab center in Malibu. Isn't that really just an extended vacation?

A No. Lohan, 21--who abused alcohol, pills and cocaine--seems committed to finally getting clean. ..."

A mug shot taken at Ms. Lohan's July 24 arrest is attached, so we can deduce that Parade's lead time is at least five days.

The day after they published the story about the decedent Barbero being alive Parade ran an apology on their website, but they haven't done so about this. Perhaps they didn't get around to reading the paper yesterday. I know I didn't.

Polycarp's Increasingly Sporadic Horoscope

Polycarp has spent the last month working on another project and regrets his absence. As always, click on the highlighted words to uncover veiled clues, or you could just Google the phrase "melt-down." If you'd like Polycarp's free-range, fair market staff to send you a note whenever there's a new post, drop him a note at Polycarpblog@gmail.com. Thanks for reading.

Aquarius (January 20-February 18): This has been a touchy, difficult period for Aquarians, especially if they're mayors of very large cities. On the other hand, at least one seems to have hit on a way to ensure he gets good press. And unlike the previous six or seven times when Mrs. Aquarius has thrown him out of the house for having affairs, this time she means it.

Pisces (February 19-March 20): Pisces, Polycarp recommends that you spend the next few weeks thinking about pederasty and money, and how indulging one leads to loss of the other. Because of an odd tangle of circumstances--mainly his indolent church-going habits--Polycarp may still be a member of a parish in your Archdiocese, and therefore you may be in a position to excommunicate him directly, Cardinal Pisces. Please don't--he swears he's going to go to church again some day soon. But. Ahem. Your eminence, isn't $660 million a lot to pay to avoid testifying? Polycarp gave you some of that money, and so did a lot of other good people with less to give. We hate to suggest it, but it's almost as though you're ... hiding something. Polycarp says papal aspirations are no longer in the stars. What else are you hiding? It won't be worse than this, but Polycarp is curious.

Aries (March 21-April 19): It's been a bad week for North Carolina Arieses, I'm afraid. It was sad that the judge rejected your suggestion that your punishment be limited to opening an eye care clinic for the poor, and instead sentenced you to five years and three months. It didn't help when your friend the president of the Christian Action League got busted for soliciting sex from a scary-looking prostitute. Polycarp predicts that the next 63 months will provide ample time to reflect on the path your life has taken over. And by the way, the poor called. They don't want you looking at their eyes, anyway.

Taurus (April 20-May 20): It occasionally happens that the stars dish out to us what we have previously dished out on others, Taurus. So, for example, if you happened to be a Republican congressman elected on a Christian values platform and raised your visibility by jumping on the "impeach Bill" bandwagon, harping salaciously on the impropriety of illicit oral sex with cooperative young interns, ten years later you may find yourself publicly humiliated by revelations that you frequent brothels and call madams to hire call girls from the Senate floor. Entertaining as this is, for your sake we hope your wife has softened in her approach to this kind of marital problem.

Gemini (May 21-June 20): Geminis are twins of course, and the stars say they're often two different things intertwined together. Competence and incompetence, for example, as in your case. Who does your hiring, Gemini? Somebody you lured away from FEMA? Your Southern Regional Campaign Manager just got outed in a sex scandal, and your South Carolina Chairman is now in rehab and will soon be in jail after getting busted for cocaine trafficking. Don't you do background checks up in New York?

Cancer (June 21-July 22): Polycarp suggests that all Cancers go immediately to a dictionary and look up the word "progress," so that next week if the phrase "progress in Iraq" is used in a press conference, it might bear some relationship to reality. The other big news last week-end was that you had a colonoscopy and Dick Cheney was back in charge while you were out, just like he was the whole first term. Polycarp just wishes he'd fired a certain Leo Attorney General before you woke up.

Leo (July 23-August 22): As you're out and about, Leo, listening to the birds sing and breathing the air of the free, looking at your pretty wife and not practicing law because you've been convicted of a felony involving moral turpitude, just thank your lucky stars for the loyalty of your friends. Of course, first they used you as a fall guy and threw you to the curb like yesterday's garbage, but it could have been worse. As Polycarp's friend Mark the opera critic said, "Who would have thought that Paris Hilton would do more jail time than Scooter Libby?"

Virgo (August 23-September 22): This last month has been a time of falling fortunes and depleted bank accounts for you, Virgo. You've performed the most dazzling front-runner collapse since Ed Muskie in 1972. Who's your campaign manager, Lindsay Lohan? You were a Naval aviator, for God's sake. Stop complaining about your sweaters in a whiny homophobic way and take command. Oh--and saying "Jeez, I really screwed up on this Iraq deal, didn't I?" might help.

Libra (September 23-October 22): This has been a week--no, a month--no a year--in which well-meaning Libra candidates have once again faded into the wallpaper. We're glad you're still out there, Libra, being honest, acting like a pre-Bush Democrat, running for president (yet again) and espousing tolerance and environmentalism. You're a good man and an honest public servant, so of course you have no chance at all of getting niminated. You're what Ralph Nader could have been, and you don't cause as much collateral damage. Keep it up, Libra. Polycarp is sure you're influencing the race somehow.

Scorpio (October 23-November 21): Scorpio, the stars say you are going through a phase of childish bickering and pointless sniping with a junior Leo from Illinois, and that you should both knock it off immediately. It is way too soon for the front runners to start tearing into each other like Voldemort and Harry Potter Nevertheless, Polycarp predicts that you two idiots will keep up this stupidity until neither one of you is a front runner, and then you'll go on bickering about whose fault that is. This won't be the worst thing in the world for the Democratic Party, of course, because once you've shredded each other it's possible that somebody with a chance to win the general election would then become the front-runner. A well-meaning Gemini, for example.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21): Another drug-addled, limitedly talented young celebrity recently broke your record for shortest time between release from rehab to complete collapse into insane, slobbering drunkenness, Sagittarius, so it's time for you to step up to the plate and arrange a complete liquefaction of all sensibility and dignity in front of photographers and reporters, preferably involving expensive clothing that does not belong to you and a small, annoying dog.

Capricorn (December 22-January 19): So now your story is that not only did she kill herself with your gun minutes after she walked into your house, but that you were nowhere near her and the blood leapt across the room to spatter on your clothes? This is lunacy, but you always were a bullying loon, so this fits, in a homophonic way. Polycarp thinks a more subdued look may be in order for your next residence, where the walls are not of sound.

Happy Father's Day

It's Father's Day, and I'm a father, so I've been thinking about what makes a good one. I think I've figured it out and it's very simple: the secret to being a father is having great kids. My children are the two most accomplished, intelligent, perceptive, beautiful, engaging and talented young women in the world, and I think the credit for that is theirs, not mine. It's theirs individually, because they are bright and interesting and talented individuals, but also as a pair, because I think they raised each other as much as their mother and I raised them. Despite all of my mistakes, all of the things I forgot, all of the times I got mad when I shouldn't have, all of the things I didn't do that I should have, all of the times I was strict when I should have been lenient or slack when I should have been alert, there they are: the best pair of sisters in the world. So, like I said, the key to being a good father appears to me to be to arrange for your wife to have great children.

After that, all have to do is love them.

I do have some advice for young parents, but honestly I don't have any idea whether it matters a whit. I think mine might have done just fine no matter what I did. But here's the successful part of what I did.

The first thing is to start teaching manners early. As son as they can comprehend, teach them good table manners, not to interrupt, not to use the telephone late at night, to be nice to others, don't cut in line, do unto others, etc. If you're the father of girls, treat them the way you think young women should be treated from an early age, especially in public. If you're the father of boys, insist that they treat their mother and any other women and girls in their lives respectfully.

The second thing is to encourage them to have healthy interests. Don't try to select their interests for them, because it won't work. But for me, I would leave work early to get kids to soccer practice or play rehearsal or choir. It was a little harder if they wanted a ride to go hang out at the mall. This pays off in a lot of ways, by the way. When they get to be good at something it gives them a pride you can't teach, and the time spent doing healthy things won't be spent at the piercing parlor.

The next thing is to be honest. Pretty much always. You don't always have to be direct, though. There's a series of questions beginning with Santa Claus and ending with premarital sex that require honest, but not always direct, answers. But don't lie to them.

The fourth thing is to teach them what you know. You'll be surprised how far it goes--how it resonates as they grow. My dad taught me about machinery and how to use tools--he's an engineer and he knows this kind of thing in a very deep way. He showed me how things worked and then let me take them apart, and if I ran into trouble, he'd show me how it all fit back together. He was very patient and was never cross wit me for taking things apart or borrowing his tools. To this day, machinery--from clocks to diesel engines--makes sense to me. Broken things don't scare me.

In my family we've also always really liked food, for generations in all directions. So when my kids came along and expressed an interest we all started cooking together from a very early age. It wasn't just helpful, although it was--as a single dad the extra hands (when they didn't need to be studying) were a huge help, but kitchen and food form a family bond between my children and me that stretches back through my mother to my father's mother and to stories I've heard of her parents and siblings i never knew. Simple as it is, food and the kitchen root my daughters and me to a big family and a lot of tradition. All because they wanted to learn to cook. Plus, they're now both really good cooks.

Don't let your squabbles with your wife or ex wife spill over onto your kids. Ever. Under any circumstance. At any point in their lives. If you're divorced, work out your problems with the ex out of their hearing. If you're married, don't get mad at each other in front of the kids. If you hate your ex, don't ever, ever, under any circumstances complain about her or criticize her to her kids. No matter what she did to you, even if she ran off with your brother and left you with the mortgage, kids need to think well of their mom.

I also didn't hit my kids. I slapped my oldest on the wrist one time when she was doing something that might have hurt her sister, but I wish I hadn't done it. That was the only time I administered any corporal punishment at any point in my life. I think it's a bad idea. It causes pain you can't imagine, that will last a long time, and makes it hard for them to trust you. You really don't want your children to be afraid of you all the time.

Help them study, and give them a curfew, and all that, too.

But really, the main thing is to have good kids.

Happy Father's Day, and thanks to my wonderful daughters, visiting together in Pasadena.

Legal System Relieved to Return to Normalcy

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The American legal system breathed a sigh of relief as word was released that things can now return to normal. "This has been a big few weeks for us," the legal system said. "Dismissing chargges against the Duke boys showed that we police rogue prosecuters. Hell, [Duke lacrosse prosecutor Mike] Nifong is on trial right now to save his law license. That was a nice touch, if I do say so myself." The legal system went on to explain that the recent sentencing of Lewis "Scooter" Libby to thirty months, as well as a Los Angeles Superior Court judge's insistence that Paris Hilton return to jail to complete her sentence "proved that the rich and powerful aren't exempt from the rules. This wipes that O.J and Robert Blake taste right out of people's mouths," said the legal system. "Judges are tough, and everybody can see that now." The judicial system complimented Justice Anton Scalia for coming up with the idea.

Public confidence having been restored, the judicial system said that things could now return to normal. "We don't really have the budget to keep this kind of thing up for long," said the legal system. "We arranged these results by adopting special emergency guidelines for the administration of superior and district courts. We've diverted a lor of resources from other places, and we just can't do that long term." Expected consequences of returning to normal legal procedures include a resumption of unfair privileges for the rich, disproportionate prosecution of the poor, judges falling asleep during trials, and excessive verdicts in civil cases. "But hey--you can't say we didn't make our point," said the legal system.

William Jefferson could not be reached for comment.

MLB Owners Agree to Shoot Barry Bonds

Bowing to increasing pressure, the Major League Baseball owners Executive Committee voted unanamously today to shoot Barry Bonds. "After lengthy debate and much soul searching, we have decided that Barry Bonds will be suspended for the rest of his career," announced Commissioner Allan H. "Bud" Selig, "and that to ensure his compliance, the Owners have arranged for his demise." Asked for his reasons, Selig answered that the steroid-like drugs Bonds had used for years are still untraceable and that Bonds may well still be using them. "The FBI shut off the tap from Balco, but that stuff is still untraceable. No lab can find it in blood or urine even today. We figure he's buying it from Mexico and he's still juiced. Plus, he's an asshole."

San Francisco Giants owner Pete Magowen and Bonds' seven fans protested immediately. "I built that park just for Bonds," said Magowan. "The fences are short where he's short and long where he can really jack it out," he said, pointing to center left. "Principle and tradition are all fine and good, but this is money we're talking about." Asked if he planned to take legal action to prevent the owners from shooting Bonds, Magowan said he doubted he would. "I don't want to get carried away here," he said.

Asked for comment, Giants coach Bruce Bouchy shrugged and said "Well, you know." Asked if he was sorry he would not get to see Bonds break Hank Aaron's home run record, Bouchy answered "Well, not so much. I, um, knew Hank, you know? And I know Barry, you know?"

Barry Bonds' wife declined comment through a spokeswoman. "Liz is just trying to get on with her life and has nothing to say at present," said K.C. Pittman of the Marin County Women's Shelter, which refused to release Mrs. Bonds' current address.

If you'd like for us to let you know when there's a new post at Polycarp, drop a note to Polycarpblog@gmail.com, and we'll be glad to add you to the list.

Allberto Gonzalez Fails Driver's License Test

Alberto Gonzalez, who has come under fire over the last few months for his increasingly difficult to believe lapses in memory and astonishing lapses of judgment, failed his driver’s license exam for the third time last Thursday, the White House announced today. Revealing for the first time that the Attorney General has taken the District of Columbia Driver’s Examination at least three times, although administration officials admitted they’re not sure how many times he has taken it overall, or when he first attempted it. Gonzalez himself says he cannot remember, and calendar references that might clear the matter up were inadvertently deleted, according to the Department of Justice. The White House obviously viewed this as a vindication of their explanation for the recent scandals at Gonzalez' department. “When we told you he forgot who gave him instructions on the U.S Attorney firing list, you said he couldn’t be that stupid,” said deputy White House spokesman Dana Perino. “When he put that woman from Oral Roberts’ law school in charge of hiring all the career prosecutors and let her take everybody who voted for Kerry off the list, you said ‘nobody could be that big of an idiot.' Well, ladies and gentlemen of the press corps, I think you all owe us an apology.”

D. Kyle Sampson, one of the Deputy Attorneys General to have lost his job over the ongoing scandals, said that he had briefed Gonzalez extensively in the days leading up to at least one of the driver’s license exams, to no avail. “I prepared lots of position papers for him on how close you can park to a fireplug and the speed limit in unposted areas of the District—the whole gamut of topical traffic issues—but it just didn’t seem to gel for him,” said Sampson, adding that on at least two occasions he had been required to clear the Attorney General’s schedule to spend a day doing practice exams with top advisers. “He’s a busy man,” said one top aide, requesting anonymity when discussing Gonzalez’ imbecility. “But I think the real problem is that he is genuinely, honestly convinced, in his heart of hearts, that with Bush and God on his side, the law just doesn’t matter very much, so he has a hard time taking this seriously.”

A few people have asked if they can subscribe to this blog, and I really appreciate the interest. Unfortunately, the only solution I've found thus far involves installing software on your computer that allows you to get a feed from the blogs you're interested in, and I don't want to recommend anything like that until I can test it. If you're interested in hearing from us, though, drop me a line at Polycarpblog@gmail.com, and I'll be more than happy to send you a note with a link each time there's a new post.

Monica Goodling Confesses to Shakur Murder

Monica Goodling, former White House liaison for Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, shocked the House Judiciary Committee with a tearful confession that she had been the mystery woman who shot and killed famed rapper Tupak Shakur in 1996. Goodling, who had been granted immunity in exchange for her agreement to waive her fifth amendment privilege and testify about the U.S. Attorney firings, was not previously known to be involved with the shadowy world of hip hop music. In testimony broken frequently by tears, Goodling testified that Shakur had only himself to blame for the Las Vegas shooting: "It was just wrong of Tupac to record those cuts for Death Row. Puffy had bankrolled him and turned him from nothing to a megastar, and then Suge Knight gives him a couple of grand for legal fees, and it's like us back on the east coast just don't matter no more," she said, sobbing loudly. "Something had to be done."

Ms. Goodling's testimony was another chapter in the bitter feud between east coast and west coast rappers, a feud that has led to several other murders, including Biggie Smalls in 1997. Law enforcement had long considered the Smalls and Shakur murders to be related, a charge Ms. Goodling denied. "Oh, that's just silly," she said, in response to a question from Rep. Adam Schiff (D. Cal.), the Judiciary Committee's most knowledgable member regarding west coast rap. "We hit Tupac for being a traitor, and Death Row knew it. He was our guy, so Suge was pissed, but knew he couldn't do nothin'. Biggie was Suge all the way--just cleaning house for too much dissing and too much debt."

Because of the immunity deal, Ms. Goodling cannot be charged with any crimes to which she testifies in these hearings.

Asked for comment, D. Kyle Sampson, who resigned as a result of the U.S. Attorney firings, said "Now that you mention it, she did always seem a little dangerous, kind of street, if you know what I mean. Like, she was the only Deputy AG who came to work every day in a Knicks jersey. You don't get that much from Oral Roberts U grads."

Goodling returns tomorrow to continue her testimony regarding the U.S. Attorney firings, when she is expected to testify that Karl Rove personally hand-picked all of the U.S Attorneys who were to be fired. "He called them all and told them they needed to ease up on republicans and start prosecuting democrats for voter fraud, during election cycles, if possible," Ms. Goodling said. "Anyone who squawked was outta there." Mr. Rove could not be reached for comment.