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I flipped on the TV last night when I got home from work, and my first thought was, "Who's that weaselly-looking guy who blinks his eyes a lot?" Then I figured out it was one of those TV superpreachers. This guy's name is Joel Osteen. You might remember his wife, who got into a lawsuit over a scrape with an airline stewardess a while back. Question: Why does anybody in their right mind send money to a TV preacher? Isn't there a church or charity in your own town that could put that money to good use? I knew a lady who lived outside Claysville and left her farm to Oral Roberts. We've seen in the last year or so what a good job that outfit was doing with its donors' hard-earned cash. But I digress. Preacher Osteen (I'd call him Reverend, but I don't think he's ever really had any religious training to speak of) was talking to his flock about getting their finances in order. He suggested they need to work really hard to pay down their credit card debt. Duh. But he said they don't have to do it alone. Direct quote: "When God sees you making that effort, he will step in, and his blessing will overtake you." So I guess if you start putting a little more in that check to Visa each month, the Lord will start kicking some extra cash your way. I'm a little confused. Every time I ask someone why their God would allow the suffering in Darfur or cancer in little children or some such thing, I am usually told that while God created the Earth and everything on it, he's not a micro-manager who oversees every detail of our daily lives. Unless we need some cash, apparently. But, hey, who am I to question? It's clearly worked for Preacher Osteen, who bought the old Houston Rockets arena and turned it into a 16,000-seat church. And I understand he lives in a million-dollar home and rakes in huge amounts of cash through book sales. So you can't say God hasn't shown him the money.