There I sat, in the choir (OK, my couch) of the Agnostic Church of Realists, listening to the best living comedian, Chris Rock, do the preaching.

He was talking about the rise of patriotism following Sept. 11 and how it morphed into hating anyone who wasn't a "real American" - from Arabs to immigrants to anyone who couldn't speak the native language (Cherokee, anyone?), etc.

Rock admitted that he thought it was "all cool," but starting getting nervous as the allowable hate talk increased in mainstream American culture.

"You know (expletive for blacks) and Jews are next," he said. "That bus is never late."

He then looked at his watched as the mostly black crowd roared and added, "any time now."

I was reminded on this bit from Rock's HBO comedy special going back two or three years when I opened a piece of mail sent to directly my way at The Times Herald.

It was almost Christmas and I could honestly say that I was pleasantly surprised to have yet to hear the nonsensical banter about whether or not to substitute a generic "Happy Holidays" for "Merry Christmas."

But, like Rock says, that bus - the one of latent hate - is never late.

With about a week to spare, the letter - using the VFW magazine as its source - read like this:

Despite all media-inspired hoopla about Americans supposedly being offended by greetings of "Merry Christmas," (G2 Note: silly exclamation point removed) a national poll last December found that 95 percent are not offended. However, 46 percent were offended by "Happy Holidays."

Another survey revealed that nearly 70 percent of Americans prefer "Merry Christmas" and 53 percent were bothered by merchants who omitted it from their stores and signage. Finally, 78 percent believe Christian holiday symbols should be displayed on public property.

The Association of Religion Data Archives (G2 Note: The 'My Back Pages' staff will check on this "organization's credentials) shows that 84 percent of Americans are Christians. Yet 95 percent celebrate Christmas.

Out of respect for the holiday - and I do respect it - I waited to respond.

And while I'm still trying to digest this equivalent to a piece of undercooked Happy Meal meat, I'm ready to come out swinging.

First and foremost, I don't know how and where these numbers were culled, but something tells me that the surveys - if really taken - were passed around at militia meetings in Nebraska and white power gatherings in Alabama and Pennsyltucky.

The use of the buzzword "merchants" always sends up red flags in Gordonville, a mystical place where Henry Ford and Lucky Lindy aren't American icons and Joseph Goebbels isn't a misguided genius.

When you drop that word, we all know what you are trying say. So come on, yo, don't beat around the bush. Just spit it out.

But it all points to a larger picture. Making an annual fuss about this has less to do with religion and more to do with filling empty lives with a sense of wanting to feel superior to your neighbor because you are in on something he or she isn't.

Is that what Christ would do?

Then again, if an alleged 84 percent of Americans truly followed in footsteps of Christ, we'd have health care for kids and no need for gun control.

Hunger? Ha.

Road rage? LOL.

Worrying yourself sick over people not getting in lock-step every holiday season? Pathetic.

And if wreaths and reindeer and Candy Canes are "Christian" holiday symbols, I give up. I really do. Let me pack up the family and move to Iceland (top place to live in the world, according to some entity other than VFW Magazine).

If 46 percent of you are really offended by a greeting of "Happy Holidays" - when the season encompasses several holidays (Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, New Year's) - I wonder if the climate of our culture is worth saving.

Speaking of statistics, I can be 100 percent sure this was sent to me because I have openly mocked such frivolity in the past.

The anonymous - of course - sender of this I'll-set-him-straight piece of balled-up-trash-in- waiting called it "Christmas Trivia."

On that we can agree, my unseen friend, as it is all very trivial indeed.

I was born and raised in the Jewish faith but, like many people who have pondered such questions, have come to the conclusion that if a God does exists, he or she would scoff at our arcane ways of making sense of it all.

Personally, I'm not offended by any greeting that isn't "stick it, Glantz." If you get your jollies out of saying "Merry Christmas," go for it. If no offense is meant, none is taken.

It is much to do about nothing - particularly given all the woes in the world, including long and bloody wars that are fought in the name of organized religion.

Then again, considering the source, some are willing to do it again.

Any time now.

Some buses are never late.

You have to admire Gandhi.

Going on a hunger strike can't be easy.

However, that's almost what several of us hungry Pilgrims at The Times Herald newsroom had to do Monday night.

To backtrack, the Glantz homestead had nothing but leftover ham and there is only so much of it a Jew can eat before his intestines reject it and an ambulance has to be called.

That left me coming into work in desperate need of fuel, i.e. food.

I figured it would be no problem. Online Editor John Berry has become an excellent "runner." He even knows to get me a decaf soda (root beer, birch beer, Sprite) if a place is out of lemonade. But JB had to shoot video in the city (catch it online) of a local band, leaving me in scramble mode.

Sports guy Stuart Christ was willing to go in on an order with me to my new favorite place for pickup, Patti Jean's Diner in Jeffersonville. This was big of Stuart, since he vowed not to go there again after they forgot his salad (or should I daintily say "thalad") the last time we ordered there.

Val Newitt of our features department (the "Pink Suitcase" lady), who is applying for early sainthood by working Monday nights, also wanted in.

But when we called at 8:15 p.m. Patti Jean's was closed. Someone answered the phone, but said they were closed. And you call yourselves a diner?

Next on the list, Main Street Pizza in Norristown. We tried calling 8 times, letting the phone ring 10-12 times each try. No answer.

Next, Anthony's in Bridgeport. They told Stuart they closed early, too.

Was it a conspiracy or just not our night?

I know Mondays are slow, but it wasn't midnight.

All I knew was that I had to eat in order to function. I even considered the unthinkable - McDonald's at Main and Markley - but figured starving would be safer.

We tabbed Michael's Deli in King of Prussia. It meant me driving over there - as we've had some bad experiences with delivery (blintzes with no sour cream????) - but our well had run dry.

We got our grub and got on with our night, although Val ended up giving most of her food away to freeloaders/fellow bloggers Keith Phucas and Kevin O'Brien because it was almost the end of her shift.

I'll blame the early closings on the Chicago-like winds that make even the staunchest Gore supporters wonder if global warming was, in fact, a creation of the left-wing media.

But I want these haunts to know that even us lowly journalists need to eat, too. The next time you think about closing early, call us first (610-272-2501). You may get some business out of the deal.

It's an adage almost as old as Keith Richards.

In case you haven't heard it recently, it goes something like this: "Make a fool of me once, shame on you. Make a fool of me twice, shame on me."

The first time my dear arch-nemesis Lisa Mossie reduced me to a cultural stereotype it was in the form of a now infamous letter to the editor - a collector's item currently fetching thousands on eBay - entitled "The Day in the Life of a Managing Editor."

She had me opening bottles of wine (even though the real G2 doesn't drink), checking blogs of fellow left-wingers for talking points (even though I barely knew what a blog was back then and I NEVER read opinions on topics that fire me up until AFTER I write my own) and tooling around the burbs in a SUV (she had me there) that featured a Gore-Lieberman bumper sticker on the rear bumper (my cousin had a yarmulke - i.e. that "beanie thing" some Jews wear - but I don't believe in bumper stickers).

It was so well-crafted that I approached Lisa about doing a column for us every other week. She was so good at it that she now writes every week. She is also a regular on "Behind The Headlines" and, though we don't see eye to eye on anything except the fact that Saudi Arabia literally gets away with murder, I was working under the assumption that a mutual respect was built.

Even though Lisa has baked me a tray of holiday cookies, I can't let her off the hook for her last column debunking conspiracy theories on the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Lisa clearly identified me - one whose ideal date would be front-row Springsteen tickets or cuddling on the couch for a Sopranos marathon - as one who thinks the killing of JFK was the handiwork of the CIA, Mafia and military-industrial complex.

She then resorts to form and makes this unsolved murder that was pinned on one schmuck named Lee Harvey Oswald a political wedge issue.

In one of her less creative efforts down the right column of our Thursday editorial page, she thinks she tows the party line - and unwittingly reduces herself to a cultural stereotype - by saying that only "boring conservatives" are level-headed enough to see that Oswald acted alone.

A lot of this stems from a recent episode of "Behind The Headlines" when I brought along avid Times Herald reader/assassination buff Thomas Lees to politely lay out the logic to Lisa.

I even lent her a coffee-table book, one with a lot of pictures and graphs, to serve as a starter's guide toward an enlightenment that would not mean tearing up her membership card to Pat Buchanan Fan Club.

It was clear that she needed the help, and admitted as much.

Lisa lent me a book (whisper: don't tell anyone, but her little cheat sheet on what to say, verbatim, was still inside even though she swore that she doesn't pre-rehearse for the show) that I have found somewhat interesting - but ultimately off-point - called "Camelot and the Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of John F. Kennedy Shattered American Liberalism" by a journeyman college professor bent on being a contrarian named James Piereson.

She was clearly basing her arguments on this book's flawed research but Tom, Editor Stan Huskey (who believes in a second shooter, despite leaning right politically) and I took it easy on Lisa.

She admitted she hadn't read enough about it, and we took that as a small victory.

Turns out that what she was really saying was that she really didn't care about this earth-stopping moment in relatively recent history.

Lisa never concedes defeat, even when she has lost. Perhaps that is admirable, I don't know.

Her dismissive follow-up column, perhaps written to ease her guilt about not really caring who gunned down a dreaded member of the Kennedy clan (of which I have no real affinity, either), made it sound as if the rest of us believe any conspiracy that the mainstream media she professes to loathe runs up the flagpole.

News flash, Lisa: I don't believe in UFOs. I don't believe that Jews secretly rule the world (although it would be fun). I don't believe our presidential administration, as devious as it is, was behind Sept. 11. I don't believe that Monica Lewinsky was a Russian spy.

I'm not so sure about the assassinations of Robert Kennedy or Martin Luther King because, like you with the JFK turkey shoot, I haven't read enough about them.

But I do believe that JFK was murdered in a conspiracy in which Oswald was a probably bit player who was set up to take the fall and was never meant to survive long enough to be taken into custody. I base this on facts, not the fiction of the Warren Report.

You resorted to typical, albeit pedestrian, methodology to make me and mine look like silly lefties who can't get over an icon being killed by a lone nut.

You asked the inane question about why anyone hasn't come forward in all these years, when the truth is that several have come forward with intriguing tales to tell only to be marginalized by the mainstream media that has been after-the-fact accomplices to the assassination.

And yes, Lisa, face the facts. Too many who knew something have turned up curiously dead.

You wondered why subsequent presidents, Republican and Democrat, never led a charge to get to the truth.

Again, you are making this a political issue. It's not a question of right or left as much as it is one of right or wrong. Politicians, particularly the ones at the top, do the wrong thing - even if it is for the right reasons (like not wanting to shock the nation with a true version of events that they incorrectly think would blow our minds).

I know how that feels.

I did the wrong thing for the right reasons, too.

I was too nice about a subject I'm too passionate about the last time we discussed this in a public forum.

On the show, I asked Mr. Lees who he thought did it.

Honestly, I don't even remember his answer.

I didn't give a theory because I don't have one, other than it was clear Oswald didn't act alone.

But let's play along and say that your attempt to pigeonhole me into this CIA-Mafia-MIC thing - in between ideal dates of Springsteen concerts and Sopranos marathons - is an accurate portrayal of my thoughts.

First of all, no one with 3 1/2 brain cells would say it was the whole CIA and every made guy in the Mafia and every major player in the Military Industrial Complex.

In truth, it may have been just a few from each group who were desperate to cling to a way of life that the Kennedy administration was threatening.

Why, Lisa, would anyone of importance come forward from this mix?

We all share secrets within small circles of family or friends that are carried to the grave.

You should know the saying about "nothing to gain and everything to lose" by coming clean, much like a good Catholic in a confessional.

The current administration, the one you support, has sworn by this approach too many times to count.

Yes, you are a boring conservative who refuses to think outside the box - even as a academic drill.

Shame on you.

Four appearances on the dreaded Fox New Channel as a guest with Greta Van Whatever-Her- Name-Is for fodder on her flash-and-trash "On The Record" show.

Three times on MSNBC, which saw fit to even send out a make-up artist (a true master named Vivian) to make me look presentable to millions of viewers (staff writer Keith Phucas received the same treatment).

Another appearance on a since-cancelled show on Court TV called "Catherine Crier Live."

For each of the appearances, the network dispatched a limo to my front door to take me to a studio.

I was such a hot commodity that a producer from Nancy Grace's CNN show muttered "dammit" when I told him that Greta already had me locked up, which she did.

Well, at least the sweet-talking female producer with the sing-songy voice did.

Although my fleeting television career lasted the proverbial 15 minutes, one could say I was living the life.

But it is not a life I will live again.

I have DVDs of all but one of the appearances but have not re-watched any. I'll save those for my daughter, who was merely a bun in the oven at the time, to enjoy someday. I'm sure she'll get a big laugh out them.

At least one of us will be laughing.

I feel too used and abused to find any humor in my stumbling and bumbling on national television.

The 1970's soul classic "Everybody Plays The Fool" by the Main Ingredient somehow comes to mind.

The intrigue - not to mention clear desperation for a guest - swirled around the not-so-mysterious death of Ellen Robb, an Upper Merion housewife beaten beyond recognition as she wrapped Christmas gifts during the last holiday season. The prime suspect was her estranged husband, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania named Rafael Robb.

The case of what was promptly dubbed "Murder in the Ivy League" - which is code for white-on-white crime that will be fodder for a future Lifetime movie - drew so much media attention that Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr. held a press conference to pretty much say nothing.

It wasn't his fault. The investigation with a clear destination wasn't even complete, but the pressure to make a statement mounted.

I sat in his conference room with writers from outlets like People Magazine and talking heads from TV magazine shows while Castor kinda sorta said what everyone already knew - that the eccentric professor from Israel was the only suspect.

Subsequently, Robb was charged with beating his wife to death while their 12-year-old daughter was at school.

Robb's elaborate scheme to out-fox investigators by going through the motions of driving to work in the city and staging an apparent break-in had failed miserably, said Castor, who added that Mrs. Robb had been beaten so badly that seasoned lawmen originally thought she had been shot in the head at close range.

After Robb was formally arrested and charged, the "Greta people" made me stand outside in the bitter cold and tape a segment in front of the county prison. They chose the location because it was closer to Castor's home in Lower Salford, but he was a no-show.

"Boy, you really looked cold," he later joked, adding that he taped his voice-over segment while sitting at home in his recliner in his bathrobe and holding a Scotch whiskey.

I laughed it off.

We were on the same side, I thought.

What Rafael Robb did was heartless and, in my mind, deserving of the death penalty. In reality, that was asking too much in the case of a guy who could afford good lawyers. Castor - he of the 98 percent conviction rate - was shooting for life in jail. Good enough.

But it turns out that this once high-profile, high-priority close has been closed without any consequences for anyone but the the victim's stunned family and friends.

Last week, with his trial pending, Robb cut a sweetheart of a deal. The homicide charge was dumbed down to manslaughter. He'll get 10 to 20 years, but could be out in 4 1/2 to six years with some more legal hanky panky.

Other than in our paper, and unlike last year, the odd turn in the case was a barely blip on the radar screens of other media outlets.

It was the fourth or fifth story for the Philadelphia-area television news.

Nothing - at all - nationally.

Unlike 11 months ago, I received nary a phone call from bloodthirsty networks looking to sensationalize an open-and-shut case with some temporary legs.

Well I have legs, too. The next time, if there is one, I'm gonna run as far away as I can.

Editor Stan Huskey and I disagree on many things, but the inequities in our legal system is not one of them.

Stan thinks a series on sentencing guidelines has "Pulitzer" written all over it.

I don't know about that. It seems too easy - like scoring into an empty net. The disparities - racial and otherwise - are as plain as the chin on Jay Leno's face.

What I do know is that Rafael Robb, the man who denied everything and now says he "just lost it" and bludgeoned his daughter's mother to death, virtually got away with murder while receiving the outgoing DA's blessing.

The sad situation should be a subject for real experts - not people like myself, who was naive enough to think that such and open-and-shut case would lead to acceptable justice - should be discussing on national television.