Vice President Joe Biden, left, telling Sen. Arlen Specter how much more fun it is to be in the majority. (AP Photo / Ron Edmonds, File)

I can't claim to have predicted Arlen Specter's defection to the Democratic Party, but I did offer my colleagues an accurate guess about what he would say in his statement: that he would be as much of a maverick in his new party as he was in his old one.

Sure enough, the statement contains this Arlenesque caveat:

My change in party affiliation does not mean that I will be a party-line voter any more for the Democrats that I have been for the Republicans.... I will not be an automatic 60th vote for cloture.

And although I was surprised by Specter's switch, it reflects traits that have been on view throughout his public life, which I followed closely in my previous job at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Notable among them is Specter's survival instinct, which long before today's party switch inclined him to, er, adjust his position to the demands of the moment.

In a 2005 column written after Specter championed a vote on some of George W,. Bush's judicial nominees, I compared the senator to the Vicar of Bray, a 16th century English clergyman who kept his pastorate as the monarchy seesawed between Protestantism and Catholicism. A poem about the vicar features this refrain:

And this is law, I will maintain
Unto my Dying Day, Sir.
That whatsoever King may reign,
I will be the Vicar of Bray, Sir.

Or the senator from Pennsylvania.

When I was young and not yet 20, I used to mock my elders for their antique vocabularies. My mother called the refrigerator the "ice box." The aged nun who taught me seventh-grade math referred to automobiles as "machines."  One of my grandmothers used the words "authoress," "poetess" and (more offensively) "Jewess" and "Negress."  The other admitted that she was born in the year Nineteen-aught-eight.  Older relatives who grew up in a German neighborhood in Pittsburgh called taverns "beer gardens."

Now middle-aged, I find myself bemused by what I consider ugly neologisms. I'm not talking about computer abbreviations (lol) or teenage lingo. "Proper" English has taken on weird new forms.   In my youth, the word "behavior" was singular, "partner" was not a verb and you "referred to" something. Today, the behaviors of well-educated people include partnering with stakeholders (not the villagers who chased Dracula) and "referencing" an event or article.

I'm especially agitated by the use of "reference" as a verb. I suspect it originated in business English, whereas other atrocities ("behaviors," "role models') have the odor of the sociology classroom. Whatever its origin, the verb  "reference"  has established itself even in The New York Times, or at least on its baseball blog.   The other Times' Josh Robinson noted that the first pitch at the Mets home opener was thrown by Tom Seaver. Robinson continued: "Asked if he was surprised that the Mets had invited him back, Seaver referenced his own special status in Mets history. He is, after all, their only Hall of Famer."

Language changes and crankiness are occupational hazards of growing old (or becoming, ugh, a "senior"). But linguistic behaviors like "referenced" and "behaviors" ought to be put on ice.

When I was in parochial school in the 1960s, the advent (as it were) of Lent prompted recess discussions about what we would give up: comic books, television, candy or -- my suggestion --  gym.

Except for the spinach, these habits were all indulgences, though not the kind the pope grants. Now Italy's Catholic bishops want to reboot the penitential pre-Eastern season by asking the faithful to forgo text-messaging, Internet browsing and other technological thrills.  According to the archdiocese of Modena,  “It's a small way to remember the importance of concrete and not virtual relationships."

Some online activities are indeed analogous to candy, or eye candy, and abstention from them would be a form of edifying self-denial. It wouldn't hurt Catholic kids during Lent to close Facebook and turn off the texting. But, unlike candy, Internet access is sometimes a duty, not a pleasure.

A ban on all interaction with computers, self-imposed or otherwise, is impractical.  Even if compliance were a matter of faith, ingenious theologians would suggest the need for "prudential considerations" -- i.e., loopholes -- in cases where connecting to the Internet was necessary. There is a precedent in the church for suspending even mandatory observances for a higher purpose. Or a lower one: Catholic bishops suspend the Lenten requirement of meatless Fridays when St. Patrick's Day falls on the sixth day of the week.

The church might also want to reconsider its no-computer advice now that Catholic dioceses -- including Modena -- have their own Web sites and the Vatican has christened a Youtube channel. Or maybe Google could defer to the Holy Father and add Paternal controls to its Internet options.

What's in a name? Maybe a criminal record. A  study by economists at Shippensburg University in my native state of Pennsylvania found that adolescent boys with the least popular names were more likely to commit crimes. I took special pride in this summary of the study by London's Daily Telegraph:

"David E. Kalist and Daniel Y. Lee compared the first names of juvenile offenders in one US state with the first names of young males in the general population of that state.

"They assigned a popularity-name index (PNI) for each name based on how common it is among the general population and how unlikely it is to be associated with criminal behavior. Therefore for Michael, the PNI is 100 while for David, it is 50. For names such as Alec, Ernest, Ivan, Kareem, and Malcolm, however, the PNI came out around one."

I have wriiten before about my discomfiture with the popularity of faddish boys' names such as Ethan, Jared, Kyle, Joshua and Ryan. But if those trendy names continue to proliferate, the day may come when little Ethan will be less "at risk" (as sociologists like to say) than little Mikey.

Even if that occurs, some names will remain so unusual that  -- if the researchers are right --  parents still might want to think twice about naming their son "Steeler Gerard" (as some Pittsburgh football fans did) or "Seven," George's preferred name for his imaginary child on "Seinfeld."

What isn't clear is why oddly named boys disproportionately gravitate to the dark side. The study suggests two possibilities: These unfortunate kids “are treated differently by their peers, making it more difficult for them to form relationships . . Or  young people with unpopular names may “act out because they consciously or unconsciously dislike their names.”

But maybe being saddled with a bizarre name is a mixed curse. In the hit song "A Boy Named Sue," the eponymous narrator attacks the father who saddled him with the S word. But Dad has a comeback:

And he said: "Son, this world is rough
And if a man's gonna make it, he's gotta be tough
And I knew I wouldn't be there to help ya along.
So I give ya that name and I said goodbye
I knew you'd have to get tough or die
And it's the name that helped to make you strong."

Certainly for Johnny Cash "Sue" was a winner. I don't think he would have scored with "A Boy Named Mike." "

I was preparing to write about the pope's un-excommunication of four traditionalist bishops -- including a Holocaust skeptic -- when I heard that John Updike had died. Immediately it occurred to me that there was a connection between the breakaway movement led by "rebel archbishop" Marcel Lefebvre and "The Music School," one of my favorite Updike short stories. The Times' Updike obit quoted this line from the last paragraph of that story: "The world is the host; it must be chewed." My first thought was of the story's first paragrph, which introduces the metaphor of the Communion wafer.

The narrator writes: "Last night I heard a young priest tell of a change in the Church's attutude toward the Eucharistic wafer. For generations nuns and priests but especially (the young man said) nuns, have taught Catholic children that the wafer must be held in the mouth and allowed to melt; that to touch it with the teeth would be (and this was never doctrine, but merely a nuance of instruction) in some manner blasphemous. Now, amid the flowering of fresh and bold ideas with which the Church, like a tundra thawing, responded to that unexpected sun the late Pope John, there has sprung up the thought that Christ did not say Take and melt this in your mouth but Take and eat. The word is eat, and to dissolve the world is to dilute the transubstantiated metaphor of physical nourishment. This demiquaver of theology crystallizes with a beautiful simplicity in the material world; the bakeries supplying the Mass have been instructed to unlearn the science of a dough translucent to the tongue and to prepare a thicker, tougher wafer -- a host, in fact, so substantial it must be chewed to be swallowed."

Updike, an astute amateur theologian, knew whereof he spoke. I remember a nun who told us that some irreverent child had once chewed the host, only to find his mouth filled with (real, not sacramental) blood.

It's a literal article of faith among the Lefebvrists that the post-Vatican II Church had demystified Catholicism, including the traditional view of the Eucharist as a sacrifice in which the consecrated bread offered to God is no ordinary bread -- and shouldn't taste like it. In pre-Vatican II theology, the climax of the Mass wasn't, as in Protestantism, the Communion (i.e., the eating) but the transformation of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. The culinary change Updike described probably would be anathema to Archbishop Lefebvre -- as may be to Pope Benedict and the "rad trads" (radical traditionalists) who admire him for rehabilitating the Latin Mass.

There always has been a poignance about the schism of the "rebel archbishop" and his followers. These were old-school Catholics nursed on the doctrine of papal supremacy who came to the traumatic conclusion that the pope was wrong. That the current pope is reaching out to them is something for liberal Catholics to chew on -- and they won't like the taste.

Among the more obscure provisions of the U.S. Constitution is Article I, Section 9, Clause 8: "No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State."

Unfortunately, this provision doesn't bind journalists or bureaucrats. Thus the head government honcho who was to preside over the ill-dated auto-industry bailout was referred to as the "car czar" and Carol Browner has been appointed -- or crowned - as the Obama administration's "environment czar."

And that's not all. Chris Tucker, a spokesman for the Institute for Energy Research, told Bloomberg News: "Put the environment czar alongside the auto czar next to the technology czar cattycorner to the copyright czar, and before you know it, these guys are going to have more czars over there than the Romanov Dynasty."

I have always wondered why journalists are so fond of "czar" as shorthand for a government official with extraordinary jurisdiction. One theory is that it's a short word that fits snugly into limited headline space. This may be why pornographers are often referred to in headlines as "vice lords." At my former newspaper in Pittsburgh, a headline writer described the boss of an illegal gambling racket as a "bet baron," prompting speculation in the newsroom about whether, according to protocol, a vice lord should enter the room before a bet baron.

But even ordinary Americans seem to have a fascination with rank and royalty. A prominent potential senator from New York is a member of the Kennedy "dynasty." Managers of political campaigns are "kingmakers." Spoiled American teenage girls are called "princesses." Elvis was (is?) the King.  Aretha is the Queen of Soul.   

Perhaps we're compensating for the Constitution's ban on titles of nobility.  But why? Are inhabitants of this Republic just as susceptible to the mesmerism of monarchy as supposedly less advanced societies. Maybe we should remember that word "czar" is the Slavic version of "Caesar."

Anyone for a Economy Emperor?

So whose fault is this whole mess between Controller Laura Chick and City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo?

Yesterday the City Council pleaded with them both to at least suspend their (potentially costly, and certainly embarrassing) legal battle, and Delgadillo’s chief deputy quickly said his boss was willing.

So isn’t Chick the unreasonable one, because she told the council she wouldn’t back down and would see them all in court? At taxpayer expense, no less? 

Actually, no. Sure, Chick could be a lot more collegial about the whole thing, but there’s a point at which being collegial looks an awful lot like being a sucker, and it’s hard to blame her if she believed she was about to be pushed past that point.

Chick claimed that her power to conduct performance audits of city programs included the workers’ compensation function in Delgadillo’s office, and Delgadillo thought she was wrong, for several reasons. For one thing, he said her authority doesn’t extend to programs run by other elected officials. For another, his office said, workers’ comp isn’t even a program. It’s just people. Who just do stuff. So when Chick served a subpoena on those people, Delgadillo -- whose tasks include interpreting the city charter -- went to court to block her. His action was reasonable enough.

But Delgadillo’s self-interest in making that interpretation is obvious, and it’s pretty clear that Chick had to go to either the courts, or the voters, or someone else outside city government to settle the disagreement -- or else permit the power of the controller to be (in her view) diminished. So sue me, she told Delgadillo, and he did.

That leaves the City Council.

You could be forgiven for thinking that once the state passed a ban on lead ammunition in California condor territory, the birds would henceforth be protected from probably their biggest environmental threat. Truth is, there were some silly loopholes in the rules. Ammunition used for eliminating animals that create a nuisance was exempt; same for ammunition used on small animals like rabbits and squirrels.

Now, after legal action by environmentalists, the state Department of Fish and Game and the Fish and Game Commission have agreed to extend the ban to depredation hunting, and will consider extending it to small-animal hunting. The extensions make sense. Condors neither know nor care whether an animal died because it was a nuisance or a rodent; they're just good at cleaning up carcasses, and in the process, they can ingest the lead from the ammunition.

The tougher part of this is enforcing the bans. Hunters who oppose them say that the birds are getting the lead elsewhere, not primarily from their bullets. The studies indicate otherwise, but the hunters could be right. Fine. Stop using the lead ammunition entirely, and we'll see what happens; it's the best test for their theory.

The strange part of all this is that environmentalists sort of like hunters, at least as far as condors are concerned, if they would just leave the lead bullets at home. With fewer cougars around to provide leftovers for the condors, hunters -- who tend to leave bits and pieces of their kills behind -- make a great substitute predator species.

Barack Obama isn't even president yet, and he's already committed his first "gaffe."  At his proto-presidential news conference on Friday, Obama was asked which former presidents he had consulted about how to discharge his new duties. The puckish president-elect replied: "I have spoken to all of them who are living. I didn't want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about doing any séances." Later, Obama apologized to Nancy Reagan for the allusion to her practice of consulting astrologers (not mediums) in planning her husband's schedule.

The apology may have been a political imperative, but I loved Obama's original comment. It showed that he has a smartass streak, which high office tends to suppress. Only rarely do figures of the magnitude of Obama let their inner wisguy escape.

It happened a couple of times at the Senate confirmation of hearings of John G. Roberts as chief justice.  Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah (in the self-referential habit of senators) told Roberts: "I read an interesting book over the weekend, Cass Sunstein's recent book published by Basic Books. Now, he discussed various philosophies with regard to judging. And I just would like to ask you this question: Some of the philosophies he discussed were whether a judge should be an originalist, a strict constructionist, a fundamentalist, perfectionist, a majoritarian or minimalist -- which of those categories do you fit in?" Roberts replied: "I didn't have a chance to read Professor Sunstein's book. He writes a different one every week; it's hard to keep up with him."

Speaking of the Supreme Court, when I was covering the court, schoolkids on pilgrimage to the nation's capital were often dragooned into watching oral arguments before the justices. At the end of one particulary soporific session, a group of junior high schoolers was taking a shortcut out of the courtoom through the press gallery. I asked their teacher if her students had enjoyed the argument. One boy piped up: "Yeah, I was riveted to my seat." Ah, I thought, a kindred spirit! At his age I also was a smartass. (It runs in the family.)

Life is tough for little smartasses -- or mavericks, as John McCain and Sarah Palin might describe them. McCain, by the way, fought smartassery with smartassery while campaigning in New Hampshire. When a high school student asked McCain if at 71 he was too old to be president, the candidate shot back: "Thanks for the question, you little jerk.  You're drafted.'' That moment was the closest I came to supporting McCain.

It's a good thing there won't be time for small talk when Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. stands up on Jan. 20 to administer the oath of office to President Barack Obama. Ordinarily one might think that the two alumni of the Harvard Law Review -- Obama was president, Roberts managing editor -- would glide easily into a reminiscent groove, cheerily comparing notes about professors and pizza parlors in Cambridge. But any conversation might be awkward, because Obama, unlike 22 other Democrats, voted against Roberts' confirmation.

Worse, if The Washington Post is to be believed, Obama stiffed his fellow Ivy Leaguer by flip-flopping from support to opposition.

The Post reported:

"It was the fall of 2005, and the celebrated young senator -- still new to Capitol Hill but aware of his prospects for higher office -- was thinking about voting to confirm John G. Roberts Jr. as chief justice. Talking with his aides, the Illinois Democrat expressed admiration for Roberts's intellect. Besides, Obama said, if he were president he wouldn't want his judicial nominees opposed simply on ideological grounds.

"And then [Pete] Rouse, his chief of staff, spoke up. This was no Harvard moot-court exercise, he said. If Obama voted for Roberts, Rouse told him, people would remind him of that every time the Supreme Court issued another conservative ruling, something that could cripple a future presidential run. Obama took it in. And when the roll was called, he voted no."  (Ironically, political calculations may have inclined Obama to condemn a recent decision in which Roberts was in the minority -- the court's ruling that child rapists can't be sentenced to death.)

It's well known that Roberts was surprised when senators he thought were going to support him switched sides. That he was confirmed anyway, with votes from half the Senate's Democrats, may have softened the blow. And Roberts has the comfort that he is likely to hold on to high office a lot longer than Obama will. Still, it's just as well that the two men won't have to chit-chat before Roberts exercises a privilege Obama didn't want him to have in the first place.