WHEN WILL MADAME VIRGINIA FOXX hold an actual town-hall meeting and allow her constituents to ask questions, to which she supplies actual answers?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Answer: Approximately NEVER!

Wal-Mart sales for November fell for the first time in a decade ... whereabouts of Supreme Deity in doubt.

H. Lee Scott Jr., the chief executive of Wal-Mart, has ordered nine days of animal sacrifice and auguries. "We will paw through pigeon entrails until we get an answer for why God has forsaken us," Scott said.

DID YOU HEAR THE ONE ABOUT THE DUMB FRATERNITY?

Apparently, they don't make 'em any dumber than Sigma Chi at Chapel Hill.

First, they get outed for breaking the Greek code of conduct (forcing their pledges to drink alcohol, verbally harassing them, depriving them of sleep, and making them perform menial tasks), and when the Daily Tar Heel headlines their punishment (suspension until 2009), members of the fraternity run all over campus stealing more than 10,000 copies of the newspaper.

Elemental logic: We steal papers. Nobody read. Nobody know what asses we are.

Now the fraternity president has 'fessed up to the theft, and the fraternity will pay substantial money (the "high four figures," according to the N&O) in restitution.

Elemental logic (reprise): Act like asses and then like jerks, and the whole world's gonna hear about it.

NOW IT'S THE STATE GOP's TURN ... to struggle publicly over power.

Ferrell Blount, who up until Election Day a couple of weeks ago was state Republican Party chair, resigned abruptly November 7th before all the votes had been cast and counted, and he ended up looking like the ship's captain who abandoned the boat at the first sign of a leak.

The struggle to replace him is getting interesting. Linda Daves of Charlotte, who has been vice chair of the state party through four chairmanships (i.e., a loyal party hack), is now acting chair in Blount's absence, and she says she intends to seek her own two-year term when the party has its state convention next spring. In the meantime, she's called a meeting of the state executive committee for this Saturday to formally appoint someone to complete Blount's unexpired term. Everyone seems to think it's going to be Linda Daves, at least the N&O suggests she's the front-runner.

Enter senators Liddy Dole and Richard Burr, who tried (but failed) to postpone the meeting and vote on Saturday, because evidently they have no faith that a party apparatchik like Linda Daves is the one to lead the children to the Promised Land. The senators are apparently pushing for Bob Ingram of Durham, the former CEO of GlaxoSmithKline. (Apparently, he can get good drugs cheap.)

Main problem with Bob Ingram? He's been playing the Big Pharma game of buying politicians in both parties, so his contributions over the years will make for a fun parlor game this winter.

Going Very Up-Scale on Our Up-Slopes

Lengthy, in-depth article in "The Mountain XPress" (out of Asheville) about the implications of so much "outside money flood[ing] into nationally marketed, high-elevation resort projects" in western North Carolina. We're talking BIG money, of which the $150 million worth of unimproved house sites sold at Laurelmor on the opening day of that "offering" is a mere pale foretaste.

The real estate bonanza "is enough to send chills up the spines of many WNC residents," i.e., us peons, as we contemplate the future. The article mentions the downside of "sprawl" and environmental degradation, never mind the annoyance of more white Infiniti limousines blocking the fire lanes outside Harris Teeter.

But the biggest downside will be the higher cost of living that trails the perambulations of the super-wealthy like a contrail. We'll all be engulfed in that cloud of laughing gas otherwise known as inflated land values. Suddenly, my little scrub acre will get the tax re-val it so DOESN'T deserve, and I'll turn bitter, whining Republican (pace M.K. Carter) under the cruel yoke of property taxes.

The upside, they tell us, is that the filthy rich will be paying big bucks into our county coffers to own their upscale retreats, the implication being, we suppose, that the rest of us will pay less. But that line of thought reads like a non sequitur to us, because (numero uno) comparisons are odious and (numero tuo) if my own tax bill is higher next year because Mr. Billionaire bought a mountainside this year, then it hardly matters how much HE's paying. Does it?

The only hopeful thing that might come out of this land-acquisition virus among the out-of-towners would be an expanded homestead exemption, which would as a matter of fact shift the tax burden toward non-resident owners and which will have to be passed by the state legislature. That proposed exemption was championed by successful candidates Steve Goss, who won his seat in the NC Senate, and by Mary Moretz, who intends to introduce a resolution supporting it to the Watauga County Commission (possibly as early as next week).

At the moment, the only thing slowing down the basic underlying problem of a massive invasion by the super-rich, and the factotums who cater to them, are certain land-use restrictions, like steep-slope development ordinances, which are coming on in many western N.C. counties almost as fast as the land-grab.

Welcome to America, You Devil-Possessed Heathen

A 19-year-old Polish exchange student's account of spending quality time in a Winston-Salem home -- "My Half-Year of Hell With Christian Fundamentalists" -- was published (in English) in "Der Spiegel Online." Part of it is believeable, though much of it reads like a clueless Paris Hilton confessional about survival in the yucky midlands of America. In other words, he's pretty much a typical teenager, and his account is maybe more than anything a testiment to the universalizing of teenager disaffection with authority.

Whether he got the details right may not be as important as understanding his version of what happened as a prevailing European stereotype of "George Bush's America" ... Bible-totin' and intolerant.

The boy's story, and his inability to deal successfully with Southern folk culture, reminds me of what the Greensboro writer Fred Chappell once said was the best possible answer to the question, "Son, do you love Jesus?"

"Well, I like 'im."

The Wages of Sin Are Puny Cash Flows

So God does pay attention to the bottomline. From The Hill's "Under the Dome" (scroll down)

Some Christian conservative groups say both Wal-Mart and the Republican Party have "forsaken God." And just as the GOP took a hit in the elections earlier this month, the groups say the retail giant's lower-than-expected November sales figures are the wages of that sin.

Why are sales below estimates? "It is for the same reason things went south for the Republican Party this past election cycle," read a statement by the Rev. Flip Benham and Pat McEwan, with Operation Save America and Operation Save Wal-Mart. "Wal-Mart has forsaken God and it has forsaken the people who love Him."

The groups led protesters on Nov. 24 to picket the "gates of hell" -- that is, Wal-Mart stores around the country. They say Wal-Mart, like the GOP, has strayed from its founding principles, set by founder Sam Walton, citing Wal-Mart's dispensing of "Plan B" contraception and the fact that the retailer is a corporate member of the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce.

Speaking of a Plan B, our own Sen. Liddy Dole is now dressing in sackcloth and ashes and is sitting by the gate, begging alms for the poor:

In an urgent appeal to donors this week, Sen. Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, the chairwoman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, beseeched contributors to "help us retire our debt."

Stumpy shared the Senator's desperate e-mail a couple of days ago, and now the AP has picked up on the story.

Maybe old King Lear was right:

The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to plague us.

May We Hold Your Coats?

If there's gonna be fisticuffs, we trust they'll be televised.

Newly elected Senator Jim Webb (D-Va.) admits he got so angry at El Presidente at a private White House reception immediately following the election "that he was tempted to slug the commander-in-chief" (according to The Hill).

In this corner, wearing the rawhide trunks ... The Thief of Baghdad, The Stem-Cell Mauler ... He's hell with the quick jabs, but can he go the distance? Handicappers say he may have a glass jaw.

And in this corner, wearing his son's combat boots ... Jim Dandy Webb, The Virginia Whirlwind ... A tough close-fighter with a mean upper cut and a history of going the distance.

"We Don't Need No Stinkin' Poor"

Rev. Joel C. Hunter, president-elect of the Christian Coalition of America, has stepped down, saying the group resisted his efforts to broaden its agenda to include reducing poverty and fighting global warming.

The poor we'll have with us always, the Christian Coalition is saying. But The Gays ... The Gays must be dealt with NOW. While they're hot.