Falling like angels cast out of a place in the past perhaps heaven or whatever it was no doubt some serious hell should we call ourselves Gabriel appearing to some latter day Daniel in some feverish dream revealing specifics beyond the tablets the fine print of the Commandments consoling him with the 11th edict Do not fuss and keep your own counsel the way a lawyer would to a client who couldn't afford to pay it is doubtful that Daniel feared the visions or the night Lucifer had not yet been invented Milton had not yet penned that portrait of pride and Satan was also far from Daniel and when Gabriel came to Muhammad he said he was reciting from a book so for all of us Christian and Muslim and Jew the back story was written first and read later rewritten to the best of the recollection of prophet whether friend or foe and repeated thereafter to help us trade places with the prophets and hear the words they heard for ourselves that's the...

Back in the 80s, I remember hearing an off colour joke about Michael Jackson once.  "What did Brooke Shields' gynecologist find?  Michael's Jackson's other glove." At least there was no question whether Brooke was Billie Jean or his lover.  In case, as Jackson himself confirmed, "the kid is not mine." He even moon walked to prove his point, and there's no refuting the walk. I myself once took a test from a doctor names Paterniti.  Afterwards, I swore I was not the father.  I wondered if I had been inappropriate, but I was reassured the joke was OK, but she probably wouldn't get it because of the language barrier. Before Billie Jean, there never was a question that bull fighters and politicians were sidesteppers, and even when the latter weren't sidestepping they kept you stepping like some kind of Philadelphia dancer climbing some Stairway to the Stars .  But between rodeo cowboys and toreadors, you earn your bread from the subtle...