I’m reading a polemic so revolting that I scarcely can choke back the urge to belch. The misguided author attempts to exonerate the craven exercise of clambering aboard any bandwagon carrying a winning sports franchise. Wherever courage and integrity are aspired to and revered—wherever persevering stalwarts steadfastly refuse to abandon their lovable losers– this nauseating practice is righteously denounced, worthy of all the opprobrium that honorable people heap upon it.

I was born attached to the Catholic Church, with no avenue of escape and little chance of loosening its stranglehold, for my mother was no ordinary woman; she was a Polish woman; neither was she an ordinary Catholic; she was Polish Catholic. As surely as corn dogs harden the arteries, Polish Catholicism, as manifest in women of my mother’s generation,hardens the brain until it becomes impervious to reason.

I am a lifelong liberal of good standing, with impeccable credentials. On one issue, however, I am an unabashed Goldwater conservative. If there’s one thing that raises my ancient hackles, it’s whenever I see the names Cathy and Casey defiled with a K. Why do parents of the newborn err so egregiously? Why favor the fraudulent over the authentic, particularly in matters of enduring importance?