NEWS LITE : NO MAN IS AN ISLAND, EXCEPT IF YOU HAPPEN TO BE CATHOLIC.

The tiny Norwegian island of Selja has almost everything its Catholic bishop could hope for: a saint, a church, an old monastery and a 1,000-year-old tradition of holiness.

Everything, that is, except Catholics.

``There are seven residents on the island, and none of them are Catholic,'' said Gunnar Morsund of Selje Township, which includes the island of Selja.

The Rev. Pero Sudar of Sarajevo was named honorary bishop of Selja two years ago. His trip to the island for Sunday's celebrations of its 1,000th anniversary as a holy place is probably the first by a bishop in 500 years.

About 90 percent of Norway's 4.3 million people belong to the state Lutheran Church. There are only about 35,000 Catholics in Norway, which banned the religion from about 1500 to 1843.

Sudar, assistant to the cardinal of Sarajevo in Bosnia-Herzegovina, had never heard of Selja before he was named to the post.

``I had to look it up on the map,'' he said. He plans to hold a service there today - an ecumenical one, appropriately enough.

Selja is about 120 miles north of Bergen, the main city on Norway's west coast. It takes 20 minutes to walk from end to end, said Morsund.

Catholics consider Selja the second holiest place in Norway because St. Sunniva died there around 950, he said.

Write locally, sell globally

The song Robert ``Mad Dog'' McGuire wrote as a joke turned out to be his big break.

His ``Moon Over Parma,'' a folksy tribute to the Cleveland area, is the theme song for ``The Drew Carey Show,'' an ABC sitcom set in Cleveland, Carey's hometown.

Carey first heard McGuire playing the catchy tune on the banjo when he happened to stop at a local nightspot, the House of Swing. Now the 60-year-old McGuire - who got the nickname ``Mad Dog'' from a former band leader after he started howling during a solo - has Los Angeles music publishers wanting copies of his 13-year-old tune.

``I always thought of `Moon Over Parma' as a bit of local humor,'' McGuire said. ``A Cleveland thing, and that's it. But they're not going to do it just to sell a few hundred copies in Cleveland. They must know something that I don't.''

Where there's dog, there's a fire

Almost any dog will wake you if there's a fire. But how many will open a door, jump a fence and squeeze through a doggy door made for a dog five times smaller?

Cody, a 55-pound wild herding dog, did just that when he spotted a trash bin burning behind the Denver home of his lady love, Stempy.

``It's just like Rin-Tin-Tin or Lassie or something,'' said Stempy's owner, Linda Van Auker.

Van Auker said a noise awakened her in her southwest Denver home at 1:30 a.m. Wednesday.

``I thought someone was in my home,'' she said. ``I got up and looked and there was Cody.''

Cody, who lives across the street, is a frequent visitor to her home. Stempy, a 10-pound miniature dachshund, is the chief reason he drops by, Van Auker said.

But Van Auker thought the hour was a bit too late, definitely past Stempy's curfew. So she ordered Cody back home.

As he departed through the tiny doggy door, she heard someone banging on the front door. A neighbor shouted that there was a fire in the back yard.

Van Auker dialed 911. Then she looked out the back door to see 4-foot-high flames dancing above the trash bin in the alley behind her house.

``That's when I realized what Cody was doing,'' she said.

Jackson points away from racism

Involvement, not alienation, is the key to improving social conditions for African-Americans, the Rev. Jesse Jackson said in a speech at the Essence Music Festival in New Orleans.

The former presidential candidate urged listeners at an ``empowerment seminar'' Friday to focus on politics, business and legal issues rather than racism.

``The issue is not the white sheets, but the blue suits and black robes,'' Jackson said.

The four-day festival, sponsored by Essence Communications Inc., includes concerts featuring Luther Vandross and Patti LaBelle as well as seminars by poet Maya Angelou, writer Terry McMillan and defense lawyer Johnnie Cochran.

Bardot's bounty: Bring it back alive

Actress turned animal-rights activist Brigitte Bardot is offering $2,000 for the hide of a lone wolf with a taste for sheep - as long as the predator is captured alive.

The French government has authorized the killing of the wolf terrorizing flocks in southern France's Larzac region.

Bardot announced her reward offer on Europe 1 radio, saying: ``I adore wolves because they are animals who are poorly loved, who are rejected by society.''

Her animal-rights foundation has donated $100,000 to a nature reserve in southeastern France created to protect the small population of wolves there.

``I know them well, and I find that they are more interesting than certain human beings,'' Bardot said.

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Photo

PHOTO Polly want a pancake? Daniel Martinez sets up his two macaws, Lumbre and Azul, with a breakfast plate at a fund-raiser in Santa Fe, N.M. He and his birds have been regulars at the United Way event for eight years.

Associated Press