First.

William Perkins, editor of Mississippi Baptist’s weekly “The Baptist Record,” reports in the December 11 issue of a creative Christmas gift that Planned Parenthood has concocted: a gift certificate for an abortion.

“From the folks who gave us ‘Choice on Earth’ Christmas cards last year in a twisted effort to commemorate this country’s modern-day Slaughter of the Innocents that has claimed more than 50 million babies, the Indiana state affiliate of Planned Parenthood is offering gift certificates that can be redeemed for any of their ‘services.'”

The come-on promises that by giving a friend this certificate you will “contribute to their health throughout the year.” They don’t tell how such a gift will contribute to the health of the aborted babies, William notes.

He quotes Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther King, Jr., who said, “The word inappropriate hardly describes Planned Parenthood’s scheme. To give someone a gift card from the nation’s largest abortion business is to give death for Christmas.”

She continues, “Planned Parenthood really should call these ‘King Herod’ certificates after the Roman ruler who slaughtered tiny babies in his vain attempt to kill the baby Jesus. Better yet, it should just leave Christmas, a celebration of birth, hope, and life, completely alone.”

Amen, sister. And Brother Perkins.

Second.

We in the New Orleans area have just been treated to the most ghastly display of the flesh, a nightmarish picture of what happens when one’s ego goes unchecked.

Saturday in Lafayette, New Orleans sportscaster Vince Marinello was convicted of murdering his estranged wife Liz a couple of years ago. The jury hardly took time to turn around in the jury room before agreeing on the guilty verdict.

The facts of the case are these. Marinello, age 72, I think, was in the middle of divorce proceedings brought by Liz who was some 30 years younger. Things were getting ugly. One day, as she exited the Metairie Road building where she had been receiving counseling, a scruffy guy wearing a beard and old clothes and riding a bike pulled up close and shot her in the face with a handgun. At first, it appeared to be a random shooting, maybe by a thief. She died the next day.

As the killing hit the airwaves, people started calling the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s office. One guy said Vince Marinello was in his costume shop recently purchasing a beard. A gun shop owner told of Marinello bringing in a handgun and buying ammunition for it (it turned out to be a rare type, but the same type used in the killing). A friend said Marinello showed him the pistol and asked, “Would this work for an assassination? How would you go about it?”

The piece de resistance, however, came from inside Vince’s FEMA trailer where he was living (his home was flooded by Katrina). A note in his handwriting listed steps to killing his wife. “Drop handgun into swamp on way to Mama’s.” That sort of thing.

On trial, Marinello admitted the note was his, but said he wrote it after learning of the murder, trying to figure just how he would have gone about killing his wife, “had I actually done it.”

This was one desperate man to think anyone would buy that.

All the evidence was circumstantial — I mean, no one saw him pull the trigger — but rather overwhelming. I don’t know of a single person who doubts that he was guilty.

People who watched the trial said he grew teary-eyed talking about the possibility of going to prison but at no time did he show any emotion over the death of his wife.

Monday, on a radio call-in show, Liz Marinello’s mother chatted with the host. She was satisfied justice was done. She said, “You know what the worst part of prison will be for Vince? He’ll have to give up his toupee and his makeup.”

I don’t want to be unduly cruel here. Toupees are ways guys cope with hair loss and faltering self-images. But no one on the planet, I hear, has ever seen Vince Marinello without that rug (which is grey and wavy and overly abundant). Welcome to prison life, friend.

The distraught mother told how, when Hurricane Katrina was bearing down on New Orleans, Marinello evacuated his pets from his home but left his elderly mother in her condominium. When wife Liz inquired about her welfare, Vince replied, “Oh, she’ll be all right. The condominium people are going to evacuate them.”

Her point was that this is one hard-hearted man, without affection for anyone except himself.

The next guest on the show was a lawyer friend of Vince. That’s when it really got interesting. (Sorry; don’t recall his name.)

“I’m as close a friend as Vinny has, I’m sure,” the lawyer said. “And he conned me the way he did everyone else.”

He told of the image Marinello portrayed of himself as financially well-fixed and working in radio just for the challenge. But when he was arrested, the courts had to appoint a public defender for him. One day, that attorney called the lawyer friend and said, “Vince wants you to draw $19,000 out of your bank account and let him have it. He’ll repay you just as soon as he gets out.”

The lawyer didn’t do it.

Next, the defender called and said, “Vince wants you to take a second mortgage on your home and let him have $149,000 (or whatever) so he can get out on bail.”

Nope, the lawyer friend said. Not a good idea. Only later did he find out Marinello did not have a dime to his name.

The lawyer said to the radio audience, “I am convinced that Vinny killed Liz because he knew that in the divorce it would come out that he was broke and not the person he wanted the world to believe he was.”

Bizarre. Weird. But mostly dumb, dumb, dumb.

Third.

A bumper sticker on the car in front of me this morning asked the most profound theological question of the day: “What if it turns out that the hokey pokey really is what it’s all about?”

“Help us, Lord.”