Last week thousands of dollars were raised as people watched the "Bear Cam" outside her den. Lily breathes deeply and slowly but only glimpses of the new cub have been reported. A contest to name the little bear is coming and if you want to observe or serve, here's the link again:

http://fm1071.com/show_elements/link.php?entryID=13439&show=IM

Lily isn't the only animal starring in her own reality show these days. The BBC has been working on a project where chimps have been given cameras in order to shoot their own movies. So, with the possible exception of "Gigli." here is the first know film ever produced entirely by chimps:

http://fm1071.com/show_elements/link.php?entryID=13401&show=IM

Then again, one has to wonder whether chimps were somehow involved in the whole NBC/Jay Leno/Conan O'Brian disaster too. An analysis of the entire story is too complicated for my puny brain.

But after watching Jay Leno still trying to explain to Oprah the other day why he's doesn't understand why so many people blame him at least in part for Conan's woes, I attempted my own simplifying analogy:

Many times even a beloved, longtime pastor eventually can run his or her course with a congregation. When that happens, the ruling board of a church may decide that it's time to bring in a new voice.

Years ago I heard the story of a church that had a very talented and popular youth pastor who had already proven to be very popular with the kids and young families and was receiving overtures from other churches to leave. Anxious to keep him and mindful that their longtime pastor would need to move on soon, the decision was made to offer this associate pastor the job of the head pastor in hope younger people will show up for church on Sunday morning and keep the congregation growing.

So, a time was set by the ruling board for the head pastor to step aside, retire or move to another church while the youth pastor made the transition. Although he was trying to be a good sport about it, the head pastor's feelings were hurt

But then there was some "push back" by the older members of the church who weren't ready a change, who didn't want the old pastor to leave and started talking to him about why he needed to stay behind or the church would die.

Because he didn't really feel like moving anyway, loved his office and didn't like the idea that he couldn't keep the congregation growing, it wasn't a hard sell. "We'll miss you! We don't like the youth pastor. You're popular. Why can't we keep both of you?" were sentiments that fed the ego of their bruised leader. Even while the retirement parties were being planned for him, the head pastor confided to many of the influential members and big donors of the church that he was willing to stay and do one service earlier in the morning every Sunday.

"The old pastor can have the early service at 9am and the new pastor can have the 10:30am service until you're fully ready to retire!" was the compromise voted on by a divided ruling board. While some people recognized that the old pastor needed to just go away for good, the theory was that with the services split between the two pastors on Sunday morning, everybody would be happy and the church would flourish.

Of course, it was a disaster for all sorts of obvious reasons. First, anything the new pastor tried to do was fought by the old one. For example, if the new pastor put a movie screen in the sanctuary on which to project the lyrics of new hymns, the old pastor would talk it down or take it out. Secondly, the 9am service siphoned off many of the congregants from the 10:30 service which gave the impression that the new pastor was less popular in practice than he was in theory. Thirdly, the "dual" leadership of the church cast a weird, divisive vibe over the congregation which made going to church at all less appealing. On top of that, older members of the church who didn't like getting up earlier on Sunday morning but preferred the old pastor started to boycott the 10:30 service until the old pastor was brought back.

You might have guessed where this story ends but you might not be right. Unlike NBC and Jay Leno, the church leadership instead realized that "worshipping two masters" was weakening the entire structure of the congregation and decided to demand that the senior pastor retire or move to another church and declared the "compromise experiment" a failure. As it should have been from the beginning, the new pastor was allowed finally to move into the future and thrive or fall on his own. Within a year, the ship had been righted, and all was well. The old minister became a supply pastor for a couple of years and then retired.

Jay Leno keeps citing Conan's lack of success for why Jay Leno has to come back and "save" the Tonight Show, a show that would have been in trouble for a while but rebounded if had left completely from the beginning. This is what Jay Leno is missing. There is no law that says that he has to leave, but there is an old show business ethic that will guarantee you scorn if you don't.

It didn't take a prophet to see how this whole mess was going to end. Heck, even Howard Stern saw this one coming:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/20/howard-stern-warned-conan_n_430514.html

Anyway, maybe it will all work out. Jay Leno has always been popular with middle America in U.S. states like St. Croix, Lincoln and ****berland.

Haven't heard of those U.S. states yet? Hmmm. I don't know why. They're right there on the map between High Plains and Allegheny.

Maybe we're not working off the same U.S. maps. Mine is the map of the future as proposed by James Fallows who sought to redraw the lower 48 in order to give each new state an equal population, an equal number of congressional representatives and senators and, presumably, an equal number of electoral votes.

How would your license plates change?

http://fm1071.com/show_elements/link.php?entryID=13309&show=IM