It was only a matter of time. In the fall out over reports that Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore engaged in sexual misconduct with a 14 yr old, the great people of Alabama quickly shifted into damage control by invoking the Bible to justify pedophilia. According to their state auditor, Jim Zeigler, "Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus.” Seriously, Jimbo? But then this ‘Bama, folks, the land of George Wallace, Jim Crow and the original capital of the Confederacy. Any biblical scholar worth his or her weight in frankincense and myrrh can also tell you the good book is chock full of more salacious anecdotes than a dossier about Donald Trump. To writ, take the tawdry tale of Lot and his daughters and how a father justified prostituting his children in hopes he'd be rewarded with an anointment by the Messiah. Hallelujah! Sadly, there are plenty more sordid stories that somehow just don't get the equal airtime by evangelical hucksters more concerned with waving snakes and ripping off the poor. While it's easy to bash the low hanging rotten fruit from our Southern cousins, Oregon has it's own Hell to pay. Lest not forget disgraced PDX politico, Bob Packwood (a great porn name — but not so much for a self-righteous U.S. Senator), who managed to get kicked off The Hill after innumerable ethical accusations, prompting the typically spineless (and always chinless) Mitch McConnell to finally say "enough is enough." In the end, I'll stick with an uneasy truth than a comfy delusion — and take solace that our NW slice of heaven features abundant hops and sticky buds to help escape from the wicked, wicked world.