All the feigned umbrage in the world doesn’t change the fact that Van Jones, the White House Council on Environmental Quality’s Special Advisor for Green Jobs, is correct. The reason Republicans had more success under Tom DeLay and Mitch McConnell then we’ve had under Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi is…well, like he said. Although I’m not a huge fan of our top two people either…

And I’m not talking about quoting from the Sermon on the Mount in the Bible, but a passage from a “silent dialogue” with God’s son yesterday. In a press release distributed on PRWeb yesterday, an outfit called ACIMI — A Course In Miracles Inc. — Jesus is quoted from an alleged “interview” conducted by Clare Lamanna, who teaches the Course of Miracles.

However, there must have been a breakdown of the Transubstantiational Translator because Jesus’ ancient Hebrew got turned into spiritual gibberish. And while it does follow in the semi-Socratic style Jesus often employed in the Bible, He seems to have developed a habit of referring to Himself in the Third Person. But it must be Jesus. After all, it’s in quote marks:

“What does this mean for you? It means that in remembering Jesus you are remembering God. The whole relationship of the Son to the Father lies in him. His part in the Sonship is also yours, and his completed learning guarantees your own success. Is he still available for help? What did he say about this? Remember his promises, and ask yourself honestly whether it is likely that he will fail to keep them. Can God fail His Son? And can one who is one with God be unlike Him? Who transcends the body has transcended limitation. Would the greatest teacher be unavailable to those who follow him?”

Needless to say, the rest of the press release doesn’t follow Associated Press style or the widely accepted inverted-pyramid format of the traditional press release, and plays pretty fast and loose with semantics.

So who were the intended recipients of the release? God-forsaken cynical unbelieving journalists? Doubtful, though even the hardest-hearted among the Fourth Estate would have been hooked by the headline: “A Rare Interview with Jesus Christ Himself In A Course In Miracles.” Rare indeed!

But from there it would have been hard to keep a skeptic’s attention with the series of non sequiturs, incomplete sentences and spiritual babble that is set within quote marks and attributed to a silent conversation with Jesus during a “private miracle healing session” held in Wisconsin Dells, Wisc.

Perhaps it really was the intention of Jubi Onyeama — the listed media contact — to get some media placements from this “release,” and he or she plunked down a few hundred dollars to distribute it on PRWeb. But it’s clearer still that the intention was to distribute “A Course in Miracles,” an electronic book available for download free of charge from the release. Oh, and to gin up attendance at four classes where the “CIM” will be taught. No charge, but donations are accepted.

I have no qualms about admitting that behind most overt acts of public relations lurks a product and usually a spokesperson, though the product is not typically a miracle nor the pitchman a godhead.

But on the other hand, this seems more like a cult-recruitment ploy than an attempt to spread faith-borne miracles. Just ask yourself — What Would Jesus Sell?

CSI Miami — a very dead shark.

A few years ago Miami cracked down on the number of chickens running free on city streets. A special squad was formed that spread out across mainly ethnic neighborhoods to round up errant poultry and hand out tickets, since it’s illegal to raise fowl within city limits.

The natural question once a bird was spotted in someone’s yard was, “Is that your chicken?” The almost universal answer, in English, Spanish and Creole, was, “What chicken?”

A similar kind of only-in-Miami story occurred downtown yesterday as two men carried a 90-pound nurse shark around the streets, at one point boarding the Metromover, a free monorail that circulates downtown — while the fish was still alive. You can read the Miami Herald coverage here, but I wanted to focus on highlights of the story that are characteristically Miami.

For instance, the quotes of the shark’s fellow Metromover passengers:

“The door opened and the shark was sitting by the front of the door,” said Mae Singerman, a 24-year-old musician who was practicing for a show on the Metromover platform. “I didn’t see a reason to call police,” Singerman said. “It’s Miami. Stranger things have happened. The doors shut, and then we forgot about it.”

“We looked at him; he didn’t really say anything,” Sandy Goodrich, a Miami legal secretary, said of the man clutching the shark. “I was just so freaked out about the shark on the floor.”

The two men were seen carrying the shark in the direction of the Miami River, apparently with the intention of selling it to a fish market for the recession-era sum of $10.

Casablanca Fish Market owner Jorge Sanchez was unimpressed with the walk-in offering. “It was full of flies,” he said. “It was still alive. It was dry.”

“I do buy shark,” Sanchez said, “not this kind of crazy stuff.”

Unable to sell the fish, the men simply dumped it on a downtown street and left. The next morning workers at a nearby auto body shop tried to get sanitation workers to dispose of the now extremely dead shark:

“When the garbage is coming, we tell them, pick it up,” said Eduardo Perez, who works at the shop. “They tell me no. All day long the shark was there …. This was only in Miami.”

Finally, someone called the police, who arrived at about 9 p.m. and took crime scene photos, since what those guys did to that shark constituted misdemeanor animal cruelty.

Then the cops took the corpse and consigned it to a watery grave in Biscayne Bay.

Only in Miami.

First, the real deal:

This guy needs health care, all right. He needs MENTAL health care.

And now, the remix:

I admit I did hesitate at first, not because I am averse to new things, but because I could not know the ramifications of putting myself out there on the Internet. If I had known then what I know now, I would have done it anyway, but at least I’d have an idea of what to expect.

Discomfort is inevitable, because social media is changing the way we communicate with and relate to one another.

Yesterday, out of the blue I received an e-mail from a guy who is a contact on LinkedIn. He asked me to “endorse” him. When I clicked the link, it took me to the page where you can post a recommendation for a contact on LinkedIn. Recommendations are important on LinkedIn because they enable you to be listed in business directories, which enhances your business networking possibilities, and the more you have, the higher you’re ranked.

Now I would gladly recommend someone I know well, but I don’t really know this guy at all. We worked together at a the same company in 1992 in different departments. We have both changed jobs since then and have had no contact whatsoever. And now he wants me to recommend him? For what? Based on what?

After a moment’s reflection, I wrote him back explaining that I didn’t feel qualified to recommend him since I don’t really know him and it’s been 16 years since I even said good morning to him at the water cooler. He seemed disappointed: “OK. Thanks for the response anyway. I hope you are well.”

Perhaps if he had established a basis for my recommending him, or at least reached out and asked after my well being before he hit me up for a recommendation, I might have been more receptive rather than just kind of creeped out.

Then there’s the former girlfriend from my college days who friended me on Facebook. I figured that it had been a sufficient number of decades ago and she lives half a continent away, we’re both happily married to other people, so what’s the harm?

She apparently has more time on her hands than I do because she keeps sending me virtual plants for my little green patch and asking me to send her back a plant for her little green patch so we can together end global warming. I kid you not, this is apparently something someone cooked up on Facebook.

So I ignore her requests for little green plants and I refuse to accept the kittens she tries to send me to save animals, and basically I’m thinking of unfriending her altogether if she doesn’t get the message.

Then there’s my dead friend on Facebook. Well, he’s not really a friend, more of a business acquaintance, but he is definitely dead and he’s still in my friends list months after he croaked. What’s the proper etiquette in this case? Unfriending him seems rather callous and not quite right, but still, he’s haunting my Facebook page and I’m afraid he might give me a poke from the Great Beyond.

Apparently it’s common for survivors to leave up a dead person’s Facebook page as a way to remember them. Facebook has responded by creating a special area — a kind of virtual Forest Lawn Cemetery — as a repository for dead folks’ pages. I suppose I’ll just leave him on my friends list until his family sends his page to its final resting place.

These three situations are novel in my experience. Indeed, they probably would not have even occurred before the advent of the social media revolution. I guess some loser ex-associate could have asked for a recommendation letter, but it seems unlikely. And I guess an old girlfriend could have tried to give me a real plant or kitten, but I doubt she would drive 1,200 miles to do it. And the ghostly presence on my Facebook page is a totally otherworldly experience.

I’m sure as I continue working and experimenting in the social media realm more moments lie these will arise. It’s inevitable, because social media is changing the way we communicate with and relate to one another in this novel online milieu. If only they weren’t so … uncomfortable.

Have you had an uncomfortable social media moment you’d like to share? If so, post a comment or e-mail me at buck@pensitoreview.com.

The next time you’re forced to listen to Sarah Palin speak, try this: swear. According to bizarre new research on tolerating pain, it should help.

Researchers from the school of psychology at Britain’s Keele University have found swearing can make you feel better as it can have a “pain-lessening effect,” according to a study published in the journal NeuroReport…

“Swearing has been around for centuries and is an almost universal human linguistic phenomenon,” says Stephens.

“It taps into emotional brain centers and appears to arise in the right brain, whereas most language production occurs in the left cerebral hemisphere of the brain. Our research shows one potential reason why swearing developed and why it persists.”

How the scientists proved their theory is both novel and ingenious.

Their study involved 64 volunteers who were each asked to put their hand in a tub of ice water for as long as possible while repeating a swear word of their choice.

They then repeated the experiment using a more commonplace word that they would use to describe a table.

The researchers found the volunteers were able to keep their hands in the ice water for a longer when swearing, establishing a link between swearing and an increase in pain tolerance.

Since listening to Sarah Palin speak can make you feel like your head is submerged in ice water, it’s worth a shot to let loose on her. Try the old standard MF, or for added relief, throw in some more creative variations, possibly involving the C-word. Just don’t call her a table. That doesn’t work.

I knew Stewart would have a field day with the Sanford tragedy but this exceeds expectations.

— David Letterman, discussing the Iran election during a monologue

The official White House portrait of Bo Obama

I guess it would be wrong if I were to “lose” my dog and then replace her with one like this, right?

Hey, has anyone else noticed that Bo is both black and white? Ebony and ivory? You know, it’s like a metaphor for…something.