A friend on the Tempe Governors Board sent me an e-mail mid-afternoon Monday with word that former longtime Tempe City Councilman Carol Smith had died in hospice care at Friendship Village after waging a long battle with cancer. She was 72. I called City Hall, and they hadnt gotten the word yet.Carol Smith communicated contrasts. Her perfectly arranged white cotton hair, long eye lashes, meticulously applied makeup and eye-catching dresses with bows and scarves could stop you in your tracks. But as feminine as Carol presented herself, she was tough. …

Country music superstar Martina McBride made a concert stop Thursday night at Jobs.Com Arena in Glendale, home of the Phoenix Coyotes. Her Waking Up Laughing Tour was shoe-horned into the schedule for what was known as the Glendale Arena until its sponsor-naming last fall. The building had already been booked for the three-day District Convention of the Jehovahs Witnesses, which was to begin hours later, at 9 a.m. Friday. The convention runs through 4 p.m. Sunday and attracts about 10,000 each day.By the time the arena cleared late Thursday night, …

Across the planet, the Vatican has effectively established its authority across the landscape of the Roman Catholic Church. Defiance of rules and procedures is dealt with swiftly and seriously to ensure orthodoxy.In China, Catholicism has had to make due, even letting the Communist government compromise procedures that are ironclad for the big church in all other parts of the world. China is often the exception in so much of human activity. Methodically, policy must serve China. With its sheer population, the economic powerhouse cannot be ignored, even as a prime …

Most famous people on the steep slope to their death fall out of the public eye months or years before their demise. Ego presumably has a lot to do with it. They dont want their admiring public to see them as humans wasting away to disease and age. So only family and close friends can see them.Tammy Faye Bakker Messner became the exception. To most peoples shock, she appeared Thursday night (albeit a taped interview) on CNNs The Larry King Show. By Friday, she had died from her colon cancer …

HowSexyAmI.com proclaims a billboard on eastbound lane of the Santan Freeway. It shows a photo of two pairs of feet (presumably a mans and a womans) poking out from under the covers at the back of a bed. The feet are playfully twisted. Eye-catching indeed. The billboard sends drivers to the Web site to see whats going on. Were Bringing Sexy Back declares the site of Cornerstone Christian Fellowship in Chandler, which plans a six-week sermon series by its senior pastor, Linn Winters, starting Aug. 12. It is further promoted …

How many cold-calling solicitors for non-profit groups reach households where residents may be literally on their death beds, or who have been served with divorce papers or just learned of a loved one killed in a car accident or Iraq? In such cases, the callers must politely tiptoe out of the situation. We have all taken cheery calls to help some cause when we just got a huge bill in the mail and feel in no mood to give away money we dont have.Supporting charities falls far low on the …

It’s generally an off-year for conventions of American Christian denominations. With the high cost of such national gatherings, some have moved to holding conventions on alternate years while some gather only every three or four years, or in some other variation. One downside is that fewer people overall are ever selected to be delegates to such a convention in their lifetimes. It means summers arent like they used to be one faith after another doing its business in huge arenas to set the tone of church activity for another …

The unfathomable $660 million going to clergy abuse victims in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Los Angeles just conjures if-only thoughts in my mind. Sort of the same if-only thoughts if we had not started a war in Iraq and therefore had $12 billion per month to spend domestically on education, health care and rebuilding our cities.Mistakes and faulty judgment at the very top have led to massive unintended consequences an untold trail of victims, real innocent human beings. Leaders could have cut the losses much earlier by decisive …

Across the meeting table recently, two friends talk about Republican presidential candidates and the front-runners. One noted that former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani had been married three times. That shouldnt matter whether he can govern as president, the other firmly retorted. Thats a mans personal life unrelated to the talents of leadership, he insisted.Marital stability, once virtually expected in such candidates, seems to be a marginal issue. When there was more chatter about Giulianis three marriages, including his first one to his second cousin, it was also …

My summer reading has been pretty bleak. I have focused on articles, newsletters and books that take a macro examination of world religions and where they seem to be headed. Once I thought we were moving, albeit painfully slowly, toward interfaith understanding and dtente. Not anymore. The we-are-better-than-you obsession seems intent on prevailing, never mind civilizations survival. Forces leading global faiths are determined to gain the upper hand through edicts and statements that are undoing the work of spiritual peace-makers seeking common ground over decades and centuriesLatest evidence: Pope Benedict …