Whew. The Endless Election is over. We can finally turn on the TV without facing yet another lecture by the latest People's Prophet, Joe the Plumber. Somehow you knew he was past his sell-by date when he popped up on the Weather Channel predicting that a plague of locusts would be visited on the feckless New England states should their voters be so foolish as to elect that well-known Marxist agitator, Barack Obama.

So Joe wandered off into that weird twilight reserved for flash-in-the-pan celebrities, where he can cut country-western CDs and hawk them on late night TV, joining the illustrious Billy Mays, spirited pitchman for such must-have stuff as Awesome Augers, Mighty Putty and, of course, that old favorite OxiClean.

Sarah the Governor is back in Alaska (albeit still making a break for the Lower 48 whenever she can), and John the Senator and Barack the Prez-Elect will soon return to Washington. Finally we can consider life's

really important stuff.

I refer (and I am not making any of this up) to the Church of Summum and the monument to its Seven Aphorisms that it wants to set up in Pioneer Park in Pleasant Grove, Utah. The park is strewn with about 10 other monuments, including a huge stone rendering of the Ten Commandments, a gift to the people of Pleasant Grove - is that a great Frank Capra movie name, or what? - from the Fraternal Order of Eagles.

The Church of Summum offered its monument as a splendid addition to the park's edifices. Pleasant Grove's civil leaders said, in the style of spunky small town folks everywhere, "Thanks, but no thanks." The battle was joined. Last week our nation's Supreme Court took up the case.

The adherents of Summum - Summumists? Summumians? - insist that if there's room for the Ten Commandments in Pioneer Park, well, by gum, there's room for the Seven Aphorisms. And I say: You go, you Summum-whatevers!

After all, what does America - or the world, even - need more than yet another religion to squabble about? And especially one that (in the true tradition of great religions the world over) espouses some decidedly, um, peculiar customs and beliefs. Such as "modern mummification." Including of pets - one of them a Doberman named Butch, according to the New York Times - given places of honor inside the main Summum Pyramid in Salt Lake City. And the ritual consumption of various fermented nectars, each containing "messages" to the brain. I'll bet!

Summum was founded by former Mormon Claude "Corky" Nowell in 1975 after he encountered several "beings not of this planet." It is not clear whether he encountered them in Salt Lake City or in a UFO or in an altered state of consciousness, but they made a big impression on Corky, who eventually changed his name to Summum Bonum Amon Ra, although apparently everybody still called him Corky.

Corky wrote that "the Summa Individuals opened my awareness to the Principles," among them the Seven Aphorisms. Turns out they pre-date the Ten Commandments. They were on the first tablets given to Moses. But when he took them down the mountain he discovered that those poorly educated Israelites couldn't understand 'em, so Moses climbed back up the mountain and God gave him the more easily understood Ten Commandments. Who knew? Thanks to Corky, we all do now.

And apparently the Aphorisms are a perfect complement to the Commandments. Su Menu, the church's president, told the Times that one need only look at them side by side, "they are really saying similar things."

The third commandment: Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.

The third aphorism: Nothing rests; everything moves; everything vibrates.

Similar indeed!

But there could be - indeed, have been - worse religions than Summum. The church's website explains that "Summum is not about doctrine, dogma, or beliefs, but about gaining the experiences that will awaken us to the spirit within and to our place in the matrix of Creation's formulations."

A little New Age-y, maybe, but also benign and even generous. Not too bad in a time when a lot of so-called religious people are at one another's throats, sometimes literally.

So my vote is for the Seven Aphorisms and for the Summum folks. What's one more hunk of granite that people likely will never look at?

And now I have to cut this short. I must seal up the house, because I'd say - from the racket outside - those dratted locusts are getting a little too close for comfort.