The American Pile

• An Indianapolis Star article this morning posed this rhetorical question for its readers: Can you imagine working at a company described as follows: Of its 500 employees, 29 have been accused of spousal abuse, 7 have been arrested for fraud, 19 have been accused of writing bad checks, 117 have bankrupted at least two businesses, 3 have been arrested for assault, 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit, 14 have been arrested on drug-related charges, 8 have been arrested for shoplifting, 21 are currently defendants in lawsuits, and in 1998 alone, 84 were stopped for drunken driving. OK, got all that? Now guess where you work. Give up? It's the U.S. Congress, which the Star gently described as "the same group of people who perpetually crank out hundreds of new laws designed to keep the rest of us in line." The Star and its intrepid reporter doubtless basked in self-congratulations at the service its diligent research had provided its readers. The Star would be mistaken if it did so. The essential ingredient--and one crucial test of any newspaper's seriousness about its public mission-- is missing from this episode of bulldog reporting: the names. We don't care if seven or 70 of this motley band of scoundrels and buffoons have been charged with a crime: we do want to know who they are. Until the Star and the rest of its co-conspirators in the brotherhood give us names, they're just another part of the public's daily hoodwinking (January 4, 2000).

• A federal judge in Dallas has ruled that Papa John's Pizza slogan--"Better Ingredients, Better Pizza"--is unfair, unjust, and illegal. Pizza Hut sued its pizza rival in 1998, claimed the slogan was false and misleading and asked for $12.5 million to make it feel better. Judge William Sanderson cut those damages to only $468,000, but his ruling, if taken seriously, means the end of all advertising as we now know it. If fairness and truth are now the standards by which advertising will be judged, you can kiss the entire industry goodbye. (January 4, 2000)

• It Only Seems That Long Department: USA Today noted somewhat breathlessly in today's edition that "after five tumultuous years" the Spice Girls will receive a lifetime achievement award from the British music industry. (January 31, 2000)

• The Kroger Company's mid-January move to cover up the covers of Cosmopolitan magazine excited surprisingly little screaming about censorship from the wacko left, though I'll bet the ACLU isn't yet done with the matter. Kroger felt the magazine's cover models and brazen article titles were a bit much for children. But from what I see of magazine racks everywhere, there's more work to be done. A stroll down them is to run an avalanching soft porn gauntlet of billowing female breasts and smutty headlines. So where do we stop? Or do we stop at all? No one will be exercising self-restraint anytime soon, that's for sure.

• Big shocker in the Feb. 7 business section of the Indianapolis Star. The latest survey shows one of every two Americans feels he's getting the shaft from his employer. Fifty-six percent of women feel they're being cheated, 47 percent of men. For blacks, sixty-six percent said they're being cheated, compared to 47 percent of whites. What should we expect in a grievance-obsessed culture which nurtures envy, resentment and a sense of entitlement among its citizens? (February 7, 2000)

• Victim-Group Spotting Department: McDonald's Restaurants now print a warning, "May Contain Peanuts," on the paper tray liner advertising its McFlurry product, a combination of soft ice cream and crumbled cookies, candy, or peanuts. The company's nervous legal beagles no doubt insisted on this, since the peanut-afflicted are America's latest victim group and have been suing for damages and winning all across this great land of ours.

• Language buffs will want to note a new term that's popped up in the business pages: the "whisper number." The Associated Press in a January 20 account of why Microsoft stock took a pounding after announcing quarterly earnings that exceeded not only the prior year's but the predictions of Wall Street "analysts," speculated that the drop of over $8 a share occurred because even though Microsoft exceeded published expectations, it failed to meet the "whisper number"--an unofficial prediction circulated on trading floors, but apparently in a whisper audible only to the select few, and never discussed publicly. Something new for all of us to agonize over as we ponder Wall Street's tea leaves and entrails. (January 20, 2000)

Oh Good, Something Else for Us To Agonize Over

• The History Channel is running a television program about the mystery of how the ancient Egyptians managed to move so much big stuff around--blocks weighing tons and tons for the pyramids, obelisks and other monuments. Egyptologists are shown trying various experiments in the desert. The show speculates that by using ropes, pulleys, rollers, and digging out sand beneath objects, they could be moved great distances and heights. The narrator in a pained tone comments on how dangerous this work had to have been been for the poor slaves who performed it. I'd have sworn the narrator was another wacko leftwing, touchy-feely, angst-ridden Clintonista about to propose retroactive federal grants and counseling programs for the aggrieved ancient workers. If Sick had heard about this in time, he'd have stuck something in his federal budget for it, for sure. (February 9, 2000)

• I've taken recently to writing short letters to companies who print tiny messages on their product (usually candy) reading "For nutritional information, write to---." I'd think the people who get my letters must be thrilled to hear from the outside world. Like the 800 number for Dial-A-Man-Eating-A Cantaloupe, they probably don't get many calls, and my little note surely proves that their quest to establish contact with another life form in the great void out there has succeeded.

• How long before a young mother and father stand soberly beside the hospital crib, turn to the waiting hospital scribe and say, "We're naming him ------ Dot Com"?

• Kenneth Zimmerman of Huntington Beach, California, wrote in the "Letters" section of the March 2 USA Today expressing dismay over this week's murder of one first grader by another in Mount Morris, Michigan. "What's next," Zimmerman asked America, "murder at preschool?" Answer: Yup. And not if, only when. It's the harvest. (March 2, 2000)

• I was thinking one recent evening as the phone rang off the wall at home that I seem to recall a time in the olden days--in my case, Scorched Corners, Indiana, in the 1950s--when it was considered socially rude to call anyone during the "dinner hour" which was then considered to be between 5-7 p.m. Am I hallucinating about this? Was it just another example of troglodytic custom at 135 North Congoleum Street, pretty much alone against the world? (March 5, 2000)

• Journalist Cokie Roberts, in commenting on last week's tragic shooting of one first-grader by another in Mount Morris, Michigan, noted that children don't have the mental capacity to know the difference between right and wrong. Well, yes. But the real trouble is, neither do most adult Americans.

• How about people locks instead of gun locks?

• At Last, Something We Can Look Forward To Department: Bill Joy, the chief scientist and co-founder of Sun Microsystems, a leading Internet company, has published a 24-page article in Wired in which he says technological advances could cause "something like extinction" of humankind with two generations. Good! (March 18, 2000)

No Fair Peeking, George!

• On ABC's This Week program, always delightful Washington Post columnist George Will noted the paradox of Americans driving down the street in their expensive vans and sport utility vehicles, talking on their cell phones, sipping bottled designer water costing over $20 per gallon while bitching about the price of gasoline. (March 19, 2000)

• A little-noticed story in the March 21 issue of USA Today well illustrates why some citizens--in general, conservatives--prefer to keep government at arm's length and on the tightest of leashes. Tucked away innocuously on an inside page, and given less than two inches of space and a tiny, two-word headline ("Census Apology"), this utterly chilling story dealt with a quiet apology given by the U.S. Census Bureau to an Asian-American advocacy group following publication of fresh research about a Certain World War II Unpleasantness Said to Have Involved Census Bureau Quislings. Put bluntly, here's what happened: The Census Bureau willingly provided its highly detailed census information to help the U.S. government find and detain Japanese-Americans early in the war. The information was and is collected with the promise of complete confidentiality and federal law prohibits its improper use or release. That didn't stop the Census Bureau. It handed over demographic data so detailed that federal agents knew where people of Japanese ancestry could be found, down to units as small as a city block. Hundreds of thousands of them were rounded up and sent to detainee camps in one of our country's most disgraceful civil rights episodes. Scholars at Fordham University and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee combined to publish the research. A Commerce Department official apologized for the Census Bureau, saying "We deeply regret any role that the Census Bureau played in a really sad, sad (time) in our history. We want to reassure the community it's not going to happen again." Of course not. Not until the next time sufficient pressure is exerted by the government against a politically-incorrect group-of-the moment. If we believe otherwise, we are naive and ignore human nature.

• My wife, Mogo, and I attended Shakespeare's Othello last night. I enjoyed it, though I couldn't help but notice that when a character in one of these plays dies, he or she does not expire quickly. Death lingers while the actor staggers or crawls from place to place, arms outstretched, delivering just one more soliloquy before truly dying. As a result, the play was a bit long (three-and-a-quarter hours) for today's limited attention spans. We soldiered through, however. (April 8, 2000)

• Ameritech's all over the radio hyping three-way calling. "It's already on your phone," the voice assures us. "Everyone's got it!" All you've got to do is use it. Then he tells us how easy it is to get three people together simultaneously just by punching a few buttons. Careful listeners, however, will hear in the legal mumbo-jumbo that closes the ad that even though "everyone has it," three-way calling isn't available in all areas.

• Someone has now calculated that the average American now "online" will spend approximately five percent of the remainder of his or her life there. One could argue that anyone spending five percent of his life online doesn't have one in the first place. Of course, the more people are online the less they'll be in our back yards and houses and alleys and streets and faces.

• Some time ago I wrote about my discovery that the State of Ohio has the word God in its seal and state motto. How has such a thing escaped the watchful eye of the ACLU and other extremist wacko kooks? I asked. I predicted Ohio's free pass on this could not last long. This morning's Indianapolis Star carried a front-page wire notation that a federal appeals court has ruled that this use is unconstitutional and must cease.

• The local press is full of stories about the collapse and chaos at the formerly glamorous Conseco company. Its stock price has dropped from a high of around $58 in April, 1998, to close at $5.63 on April 28, a loss of value to shareholders in the billions of dollars. Future catastrophic losses loom as well. Many Conseco executives and insiders are to be bailed out of disastrous loans their company gave them so they could buy company stock. The losses on those loans already amount to about $180 million dollars and signs point to the company bailing out its own, all of whom were ready and eager to take these sweetheart deals when the company was high-flying, but now can't possibly pay them back since the stock price has plummeted. Friday the company's founder and CEO, Stephen Hilbert, resigned under pressure, as did another top executive, Rollin Dick. The company employs 3,700 people in the Indianapolis suburb of Carmel. Rumors are rampant that the collapse is so extensive the company may itself have to be sold. But while thousands and thousands or ordinary people have lost big money in this scandal, it was revealed Friday that Hilbert's severance compensation--the so-called "golden parachute"--will exceed $72 million--his reward for running a Fortune 500 company into the ground. If we're looking for an example of obscene, scandalous injustice, this is it. Unbridled capitalist greed, you might even say. . .and on down the road at major toymaker Mattel, former CEO Jill Barad, who was forced out last February after piling up huge losses, gets a $39.9 million severance reward, according to the May 1 edition of USA Today. Further evidence--as though we needed it--that in American society (and perhaps all human attempts at it) the game is rigged in favor of the elite and the cruel joke's on the rest of us.(April 30, 2000)

• I had occasion in April to call Hudson Valley magazine in Poughkeepsie, New York. Naturally, I was greeted by a machine offering recorded messages and options, one of which was to actually dial the operator. I chose that and was told to "please wait a moment." Music played, then an advertisement for a car dealer, then another ad. Finally, a machine answered and a recorded voice said "No one is available to answer your call." Then another recording notified me that "You have reached the general information directory. Please leave your message now." The message I left, in my favorite gravel-voiced halfwit persona was, "Some mornings it just doesn't seem worth it to gnaw through the leather straps." Then I hung up, not really believing that my message would ever reach a human. The call itself was a new level of answering machine experience for me, though: the tactic of keeping you on the line long enough to subject you to advertising, letting you think you're actually progressing toward human contact when in reality you're just being squeezed through a twisting bowel polyped with advertisers trying to sell you things. And of course the Hudson Valley permutation retained the essential reason for the existence of answering machinery in the first place: to enable companies to not answer their telephones.

The Price of Respectability Down In Bloomington

• Rock singer John Cougar Mellenkamp was Indiana University's commencement speaker over the weekend. Mimicking Aristotle, Francis Bacon, and Saint Augustine, Mellenkamp waited till the night before to write his speech. He mounted the podium in full academic regalia, chewing gum and wearing sunglasses. Once introduced, he tossed his gum wad away, and began counseling the thronging masses. The Indianapolis Star had a breathless reporter present, and he wrote that the crowd roared its approval when Mellenkamp suddenly declared it was too danged hot to be wearing academic garb, then tossed aside his robe and mortar board and delivered the rest of his address in grizzled splendor wearing black jeans, work boots, and black sleeveless T-shirt, his tattoos pulsating in the southern Indiana sun. He used profanity, snickered and slouched, told his audience that "Life is about getting exactly what you want." He said people--"you guys," actually--should not spend their lives doing something they hated doing. When some impertinent prick wondered why the University allowed such a sleazeball to sully the occasion, an IU spokesperson quickly pointed out that students voted to have Mellenkamp. All this--and Bob Knight, too--friends, from a university which actually claims it is serious about its mission of taking the quest for truth and knowledge to higher planes. There is one universal truth about this, however: The Cougster has donated over $6 million to Indiana University, and that offers a clue about the price of respectability in its eyes. (May 5, 2000)

• Somebody's calculated that a citizen's return on the money paid into Social Security via payroll taxes over a lifetime is about two percent. The same amount of money invested over a worker's lifetime, so the story goes, would--assuming a modest six percent return, well below the stock's market's decades-long average--produce a pension four times greater than Social Security's and total well over a million dollars. And Al Gore is opposed to this because it's "too risky." (May 23, 2000)

• Harvard University's annual State of the Nation's Housing report was released June 27. One of its discoveries is that the richer people are, the more likely they are to move to the suburbs. Harvard surely got millions in federal grants to uncover this stunner.

• Meanwhile, American Demographics magazine reports that forty percent of the adults it surveyed feel that the "ideal neighborhood" is one in which people say hello now and then but mostly keep to themselves. Another thirteen percent--and count me among 'em--prefer that their closest neighbor live at least five miles down the road. (June 25, 2000)

• A friend is utterly despondent that The Mentor again slipped off the hook down in Bloomington. He believed Knight's 29-year record of ugliness and abuse of others warranted a firing. He is correct. But his mistake is believing there is justice in the world. Seldom is this true. Sensing he was near-suicidal, I gave him this advice. In all your dealings with other human beings, expect the worst from them. You will seldom be shocked or disappointed. Despair will no longer buffet you. And when humans do step out of character and behave nobly, you'll be delighted and pleased and grateful. Every day of your life will be easier once you lower your expectations to coincide with reality. Now, please, take the small handgun out of your mouth, return it to its nesting place in the bottom right-hand drawer of your desk, walk out of the room and join your loving family for whatever remains of your life. And never, never again look at the head table, because that's where the rogues and scoundrels will always be sitting. (June 28, 2000)

• Yesterday was not a good day for parents. Dick Lugar's 40-year-son was arrested when police found a bag of marijuana under the front seat floormat of his car. The lad claims he has no idea how it got there. He posted $200 bond and was released. British PM Tony Blair's teen-aged son, Kermit, was apprehended in London while--or shortly after stopping--blowing chunks on Leicester Square. And a body inside a vehicle hauled out of a pond near Julius (Dr. J) Irving's home in Florida is believed to be that of his 18-year-old son who's been missing since May. There was probably more, but those three leapt off the pages of this morning's Star at me. And so it goes. (July 7, 2000)

• Sometime in the last six or so months a scam has been worked on Indianapolis citizens. For years it's been relatively easy to buy out-of-town newspapers on downtown streets from vending boxes. Within a block or two of the office were three or four places where I could get a Chicago Tribune, for example. Then I recall reading in the local paper about people complaining about how messy and unsightly the assortment of newspaper boxes were. Someone injected city officials with a plan to replace the many individual boxes with one great big massive box which would carry multiple publications. There was a benefit of uniformity, too--all the boxes would have an Indianapolis "message" on them, all would be the same color. The few feeble protests were hooted down. Gradually the old boxes disappeared and the new were set up. They are handsome indeed, and each has space for 13 publications. What I have noticed, however, is that the new distribution centers or kiosks contain only one daily newspaper, the local Indianapolis Star, and one weekly or bi-weekly, the slightly disreputable and renegade Nuvo. All the rest of the slots--in many cases 12 of the 13 total--are taken up by free giveaway "papers" listing local homes for sale or rent, local computer job listings, local apartment guides and other similar material.Though I have not ranged meticulously over the mile-square downtown core to inspect every kiosk, my incomplete inspection leads me to believe that non-local papers have all but disappeared from street corner sales areas. Even the local hotel gift and candy shop, which used to sell three or four non-local papers, now sells only one or two. I can find the Tribune in only one downtown news stand now, instead of the three or four handy vending machines. I can't see how the serious reading public is being served by all this, but then that was never the point of this exercise to begin with. (July 25, 2000)

• An announcement played over outdoor speakers before every event at the Hoosier Dome in downtown Indianapolis gives us a piercing insight into our society. As the questing thousands throng around the place, a booming female voice repeats the message over and over: Facility policy prohibits taking food or beverages into the Dome. Also prohibited are bottles, cans, horns, weapons, or missile-like objects. Please return these objects to your car, or you will be denied admission. Management reserves the right to inspect all containers, bags, purses, or clothing capable of carrying these objects. Patrons have the right to refuse such inspection, but will be denied admission if they do. How many millions of us have even an inkling that there was once a day when this speech would never have been dreamed of? Only we old farts, I'm afraid. (August 8, 2000)

The Decline and Fall of Great Nations

• McDonald's patrons get their pepper in paper packets. Shakers are too dangerous to have out. People throw them. These tiny containers resemble corrugated paper and hold just a few grains. A dotted line crosses the end of the packet with the instructions "Break Here" imprinted on an arrow pointing to the dotted line. Breaking there and bending the packet end is how we are supposed to get at the product. But, alas, you almost never find pepper packets in any McDonald's anywhere which "Break Here." Rarely do they break anywhere. Instead the packet must be torn in two. The hours of engineering which went into this container must be staggering, and they don't even work. Another example of how great nations slowly fall into ruin.

• Imagine The Great Minds That Labored To Bring This Baby To Fruition Department: Fox Television has canceled American High, its new program which portrayed teenagers at a suburban Chicago high school. The show ran two weeks, a futility roughly equivalent to each year's Indianapolis 500 race where billions of hours of labor and billions of dollars go into preparing the climactic start of the race when. . .one or more cars won't start.

• Culling The Gene Pool, Revisited Department: One man was shot to death, eight others were shot and wounded, another was slashed with a knife and a car hit a woman during an apparent melee the first week of August at what was described as a "block party" in the Bronx. Police said the episode "was the result of a dispute," according to the August 7-11 issue of USA Today.

• America's pre-eminent Aristotelian philosopher, Cher, appeared Monday night on Larry King Live to tell the nation that Texas is "the worst place to raise a child" and that "more people are starving in his (just a wild guess--that would be Dubya's state, wouldn't it?) state than any other state in the United States." Neither Larry nor anyone else challenged the redoubtable Mrs. Bono-Allman on any of this.

• How Refreshing--A Citizen Accepting Responsibility Dept.: "I have extremely deep regret for my action as well as the damage done to the American Cancer Society. I make no excuses for my actions and accept all consequences." --Daniel Wiant, a 35-year-old former American Cancer Society executive in pleading guilty August 25 in Columbus, Ohio, to charges he embezzled almost $8 million from the organization. He faces 65 years in prison on four charges.

• Here's what goes on while you and I sleep. Two 14-year-old twin girls, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, launch a magazine aimed at--hold your breath, now--" 'tween" girls. These are girls between the ages of 8 and 13. No longer little girls, not yet young women--" 'tweeners"--get it? The new bimonthly will cost $5.95 per copy and cover brave new ground: celebrities, beauty, hygiene, and fashion. The co-editor twins--I've never heard of 'em, have you?--already have their own dolls, videos, video games, , books, and a line of clothing soon to be sold in Wal-Mart stores, according to a fairly breathless report in USA Today last week. (August 25, 2000)

• Spontaneous prayer erupted at high school football games all across this great nation last weekend, in response, one surmises, to the recent anti-prayer ruling by The Supremes. Asheville, North Carolina, and Hattiesburg, Mississippi, seem to have been the most serious troublemakers. There, thousands repeated The Lord's Prayer in pre-game defiance. Those tracking troop movements by satellite will soon be picking up BATF swat teams and accompanying armament dispatched by the Sick-Reno-Gore Administration to those cities and other trouble spots. Their mission--and they've chosen to accept it--is to stamp out the insurrection. Something must be done. These people must be stopped. And we all know who they are. (August 28, 2000)

• Terrible news in the August 27 Indianapolis Star. Just terrible. Jaded Hoosiers are yawning at mere $20 million to $30 lottery jackpots, and Indiana Lottery officials are deeply concerned. Lottery sales were down about $100 million for the latest fiscal year ending June 30, 2000. Boredom is thought to be a major cause. More and more lottery customers report they just can't get excited about jackpots in the low millions--they crave greater excitement, bigger jackpots. How big? Local gambling experts say it takes something on the order of $70 million to get peoples' attention, at least in Indiana. I've noticed a steady stream of radio ads in recent years hyping this new game or that, and Sunday's article explains why. State officials, running faster and faster on their gerbil wheels, have to work harder and harder to create the illusion of novelty, excitement, and newness, to keep pulling customers back and new customers in. But I remain steadfastly on track for attaining my goal of being the only American to die never having bought a ticket. (August 28, 2000)

• The Indianapolis Star has announced (merely coincident with the sale of the Pulliam family-controlled newspaper to Gannett Newspapers, Inc.) that it's bringing back aging hippie radiclib Dan Carpenter, the howling scourge of all things Republican and Conservative, to write a periodic op-ed page column. The mere mention of Carpenter's name has the power to infuriate troglodytes. This morning's diatribe (August 11, 2000) put forth the notion that talk is cheap and until we actually elect a Jew, a woman, a black, an Indian, an AIDS volunteer, a homo, or some other victim class member to high national office (only vice president or president will count) then we--at least we Republicans, Conservatives, and Luddites (sometimes one is all three)--stand convicted and guilty of racism, prejudice, and worse in the Carpenterian Court of Wacko Leftydom. Dan confessed with a sigh that although he'd been on sabbatical for some years it was good to be back at the barricades torching infidels once again. My guess is we'll see the Star's editorial position drift markedly leftward in the next year or so as the new owners settle in and root out the troublemakers. This, even though the legendary Russ Pulliam negotiated a deal with the absentee owners that allows Russ to remain on the editorial page staff almost in perpetuity. Gannett will perform a Lateral Arabesque on Russ and he'll dangle there, "outside the box," forevermore, a non-entity. The Star's news pages long ago were transformed to something more resembling Rolling Stone than objective neutrality. That said, the Star is a mediocre, shitty rag, no matter what one's politics. (August 12, 2000)

• Culling The Gene Pool, and Not A Moment Too Soon Department: Actor Brad Renfro, 18 and a recently minted high school graduate, was arrested, jailed, and released on $10,000 bail August 28 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., following an early morning caper police described this way: Around 4 a.m., witnesses were awakened by the sound of a 45-foot yacht's engines bellowing as the $175,000 craft struggled mightily to pull away from the dock with Renfro and a cohort identified as Harold Bond playing The Mighty Helmsmen. Sad for the lads, the ship was tied to the pier and went nowhere. Police said the aspiring pirates were charged with grand theft. (August 30, 2000)

There's Milo! There's Maynard! There's Kermit! But Where's Rick?

• Rick Kaplan, president of CNN, was tossed overboard August 30. Low ratings did it, he said. The network declined comment. Kaplan, who had been part of recent reorganization meetings held by CNN executives to prepare for the company's merger with America Online, said the firing came as a surprise. He said his first clue came August 29 when he was in a meeting and was shown a reorganization chart that didn't include his name.

• Durk Jager served 17 months as CEO of Procter & Gamble Co. During that time the company's stock dropped from $118.38 to $52.75 as a result of several botched Jager initiatives. Jager's reign saw P&G lose about $73 billion or 50 percent of its market value. He was allowed to resign and given a $9.5 million severance payment as part of his reward. (Wall Street Journal, 8/28/00).

• USA Today reports that the producers of CBS' Big Brother program are so desperate for viewers that they've offered $10,000 to the first surviving participant who'll quit, so that they can be replaced by a good-looking female alternate who's in the wings awaiting her 15 minutes of fame. How long before the producers decide the only way to get more viewers is to start assassinating guests on live TV? It's only a question of when. A bored, jaded, angst-ridden American audience will one day demand it. Stand by, we're getting closer!

• Cats, the world's longest-running play, has closed down in Gotham City after 18 nonstop years, 7,485 shows and gross ticket sales of over $380 million on Broadway. I've seen the critter four times--in London, Chicago, Indianapolis, and South Bend--and would gladly go again. An awesome experience. All hail!

At Last, Candidates Worthy of Respect

• Hurtling down Old South Friendly Road this morning, I chanced upon two political interviews which raised my spirits (normally so low in election years). One candidate, an older gentleman, told of campaigning 45 years ago when his entire budget was 27 hundred dollars--about what they spent at toll stations today, he noted--and of how he never debated, never talked, never went on radio, never said too much, just hoped for the best, and prayed. He said he felt former President Chester A. Arthur was one of the finest men ever to walk down the path of life. In the other interview, a younger, much more virile man spoke of how he'd had to trample on almost an entire nation to get this nomination but now he was ready to take the party forward with its banners unfurled and its swords put away, but by the same token at its side, or sides. He brought out Puffy, his wife, and spoke candidly of how he and his family had been in a nearby hotel for several days waiting for the nomination formalities to play out, but they weren't over there dignified in tuxedos--they'd been drunk, with the kids throwing stuff out the windows, stuff like that. "How did we know--in our wildest moments--that we'd ever be. . .Mr. and Mrs. President? I wouldn't make a decent paperweight. Ho-leee God, what did you people have in mind?" he shouted over the cheers. It was an endearing moment, and the crowd roared its approval. So, I might add, did I. At last, men worthy of the office, worthy of respect. (September 18, 2000)

• Here are two nominees for The Most Unfortunately Named Businesses or Product in America: Illini Swallow, a bus company operating out of Champaign, Illinois, and Nads, a hair-removing gel heavily marketed on television from Beverly Hills, California. Surely, they're kidding us.

• Joe Wambach, the lead news announcer for WIBC-AM radio in Indianapolis, twice Monday referred to someone having prostrate cancer. Is that the kind you get from lying down? (September 19, 2000)

• The U.S. Postal Service is rumored to be nosing around the Internet, trying to figure out a way it can get a piece of the action. One of its bright ideas is to offer Americans an e-mail forwarding service. But the post office would have to have your e-mail address and your street or mailing address to do it. This would be a bureaucrat's dream. Think of the money it could make sharing that list with other government agencies, police, marketers, and so on. I won't be participating.

• This story reminds me of one of my Rules for Understanding Life: Any technology that man can imagine and invent will be put to evil use as well as good, whenever possible.

• It's Either Wall Street, Democrats, Republicans, or The Mafia Department: If you believe, as I do, that the nation's two major political parties resemble nothing more than competing Mafia families brawling in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial for control of the national trough, then you've got to love the lead paragraph of a recent Wall Street Journal editorial: "New York mobster Lucky Luciano once spent a day at the stock exchange and concluded that he'd 'joined the wrong mob'. " (September 24, 2000)

• USA Today brought us a snapshot last week of an ethically challenged University of Wisconsin willing to do whatever it takes to achieve one of the left's sacred icons, multicultural diversity. The University's publications director, Al Friedman, has admitted that when his office was unable to find any in-stock photographs of the student body reflecting the diversity they wanted for an application brochure, it electronically "doctored" a photo of Badger fans taken at a football game by inserting a black student's face in a football crowd scene which previously showed all white faces. Some troublemaker noticed, though, that the photo was from a 1993 game and the black student, one Diallo Shabazz, wasn't enrolled at the Madison campus till 1994. Friedman said the cover will be reprinted, then chanted part of the Mantra of Our Age: "It was an error in judgment." Presumably, a campus-wide search has been launched to find and punish all the photographers who failed to take pictures reflecting diversity.

• Another Rapid Response To Shopper Angst Department: Marsh's Supermarkets is now offering customers a "self-opening bag." Pull it off the roll and apparently it opens itself. I've never actually seen this happen, but I am willing to believe that it can. And of course I am relieved to be freed of the struggle of opening my own. (September 25, 2000)

• Gotta Love This Guy! Department: Marvin Stewart, a 76-year-old ex-convict, walked into a Council Bluffs, Iowa, bank earlier this month and demanded two fifty-dollar bills, which a nervous teller gave him. As he left, Stewart told bank employees he would be waiting outside in his car, smoking a cigarette, when police arrived. There they found him. Stewart told authorities he has no family, is lonely, and wants to go back to prison.

• Subway sandwich shops sell several kinds of cookies. Carry-out cookies go in small paper sacks. On each sack is printed this sentence: "Cookies may contain nuts or peanuts even if not included on the ingredient list." This is to guard against a peanut-afflicted customer coming in looking for trouble and suing. Lawyers at work. Gotta love 'em.

• Just Trying To Move Sick's Legacy Forward Department: Among my Saturday morning errands was a stop at the Hard Cheese Post Office. Amazingly, the place was empty. I strode to the counter eager to make my case. I was greeted by an elephantine clerk. I need stamps, I told her--33s and 22s. She got out the book containing loose sheets of postage. American Glassware. Library of Congress. Baseball Heroes. Trains. And finally, War Heroes. I saw my opening. I scanned the sheet. Audie Murphy. Omar Bradley. John L. Hines. Alvin York. I read the names aloud. "Hmmm," I said, "I don't see Sick Willie in there. Do you? I wonder how come? Oh, this is for heroes. Sick was a draft dodger. Guess he doesn't qualify. Hmmm?" The clerk chuckled. She seemed unsure how to respond. I changed the subject, paid for my stamps, wished her an All-American day. I left feeling fairly pleased with myself for having done my part. (September 30, 2000)

• My employer, Universal Export, has announced its annual flu prevention program. Almost free flu shots are available for only $5. I'd be in there like a streak if they'd give me a case of the flu so I could get sick and miss work. Absent that, I'll be passing on this fringe benefit. (October 3, 2000)

• Lefties tug on our heartstrings by framing every issue in terms of "the children." The anti-gun crowd is no exception. But occasionally someone digs out facts that don't fit the mantra. A troublemaker named Walter E. Williams--who is this guy, anyway?--cites these 1997 Center for Disease Control statistics for accidental deaths among children from birth to age 14: drowning, 1,010; automobile, 2,606; pedestrian, 675; bicycle, 201; gun accidents, 142. The left will scream foul, but rumor has it that its statistics are inflated by expanding the definition of "children" to include up to 18-year-olds. (October 4, 2000)

• How many of us recall what kind of shoes O.J. Simpson was wearing when he slaughtered his wife and tracked her blood around the place? Bruno Magli shoes, of course. Well, Bruno hasn't gone away, either. Bruno is running an ad in Esquire magazine this summer which shows a male model wearing black tight pants, a see-through top, and a pair of Bruno Maglis. The model has unnaturally red, glossy lips, and the glassy-eyed, druggy-pale look of so many of the current crop. He is standing beside an androidlike robot. The model is strangling the silver-clad figure.

• Let's make grateful note: Today is National Mental Health Day, and we've got plenty to be depressed about. (October 10, 2000)

• The Pew Internet & American Life Project released survey results at summer's end that can't be encouraging for the global industry hyping the Internet. Pew found that about half of America's adults are online. But among the 94 million non-users there is significant resistance. About a third of them say they "definitely will not" be joining the fun. Another 25 percent say they "probably won't" use the Internet. Age is a factor, of course. Eighty percent of the troublemakers are over 50 years old. Over half of them are convinced they aren't missing anything by not being online. About 10 million of the non-users once did, but disconnected and have gotten on with their lives. Actress Daryl Hannah is one of those. She told the Pewsters that, "I found myself wasting so much time that I stopped (using the Internet) completely." There's too much at stake, too much invested, to allow these people to screw up the program. Something will have to be done. I don't know about you, but I can see a character like Mr. Hacket (played by Robert Duvall) in the classic movie, Network, gathering his board of directors to consider the problem, and finally concluding that "we're gonna have to kill them."

• It's getting harder and harder to transact business in America's fast-food emporia. Take McDonald's. No matter what you order, the staff haggle you to upgrade. They're relentless. If I order a hamburger they ask if I want cheese on it (but don't mention it's another 20 cents if I do). I reply either "No, thank you," or "I'd be ordering a cheeseburger if I did." If I order a cheeseburger they ask if I want a double cheeseburger. If I order a meal they ask if I want to "super-size" everything. If my choice comes with medium fries and drink they ask if I want large. I understand they've been ordered to do this by management: extract, by any means possible, as much of my money as they can. Those 20-cent slices of cheese product are their favorite profit center. But I get tired having to fight off their sales pitches.

• Is it my hearing or do 90 percent of the employees in these places speak unintelligibly?

• United Way agencies here and there around the country have begun disassociating themselves, under pressure from gay rights activists and liberals, from the Boy Scouts of America, which persists in believing its purposes are not well-served by having homosexuals as Scoutmasters. The Supreme Court--amazingly enough--has supported the Scouts' right to take this position, but that's not enough for the screamers. Thus I have made a simple decision not to contribute another penny to any United Way campaign, regardless of the local United Way's position on the Boy Scouts Unpleasantness. All contributions I would have otherwise made to the United Way will now go directly to the Boy Scouts. Until, of course, the courts declare that illegal.

• Have we noticed how the use of certain language spreads through the media like a virus? Can't pick up a newspaper or magazine these days without seeing reference to some form of "rage." Just plain rage at first. Then its permutations: "road rage" for tantrums involving vehicles, "air rage" for tantrums at airports or aboard airplanes. There'll be more. And each will one day takes its rightful place on America's ever-expanding list of disabilities and qualify its perpetrators for special federal grants and dispensations. Count on it.

• But I Still Haven't Budged Department: Number of the six formerly inert elements whose inertia Finnish scientists have managed to disrupt: 6 (Harper's, November, 2000 issue.)

• Percentage of Americans who report being "regularly bored out of my mind.": 21 (Harper's magazine, November, 2000 issue).

• I stopped by the Maverly Brothers Optical emporium for an eye examination and was given the usual ream of paperwork to complete. On the line labeled "Occupation" I wrote--it came over me in a flash--"Tax Critter." Further down the page was an ailment check-off list. Heart disease, cancer, blackouts, hives, dyspepsia, tumors, green apple quicksteps, and finally they wanted to know if I'd ever had any psychiatric problems. I wrote, "I'm sickened by Sick and The Clintonistas. Otherwise fine." Later, in the grey murk of the examination room, young Dr. Feelgood got a hearty chuckle as he scanned over the forms and noted those entries. No harm done, surely.

• I am convinced there's a small camera in my telephone at work. It is uncanny how many times I will be at my desk for lengthy periods of time with no incoming phone calls, but when I am away even for 60 seconds to get a cup of coffee, the phone rings. This cannot be mere coincidence. The phone seems to know when I leave.

• Here's how far we've come in 40 years. USA Today runs a "Snapshot" feature on page one offering us a statistical glimpse of ourselves. Last week it printed responses of students aged 12-17 to the question, "What issues concern you most?" School violence led the list at 60 percent. Next came drug and alcohol abuse (55%), crime (42%), racism (31%) and AIDS (27%). I'll venture to say that not a single one of these categories would have merited any mention at all when I was a high school student. Some, like AIDS, weren't even in the nation's vocabulary. As I recall those days the big issues bugging us would have run along the lines of dating, winning the next football or basketball game, fantasizing about the pretty young Spanish teacher, homework, having neat clothes, fixing up your old car. None of the vile tableau which confronts youngsters of today even appeared on our radar.

• Lech Walesa says he is withdrawing from public life following a disastrous one percent showing in Poland's October presidential election. This from a man who achieved worldwide fame and admiration in the 1980s for founding the independent trade union which led ultimately to Poland's freedom from Soviet rule. In 1990, Walesa was the nation's first elected president. In the span of 10 years, he's sunk to non-entity status. This likely the case of a man well suited to lead his country to freedom but without the education, business skills, or political strength to then administer it. He enters the history books a hero, anyway.

• A Case of--We Guarantee You--Unintended Irony Department: When Bowling Green State University turned down a sociology professor's proposal to teach a course on political correctness, his own department colleagues voted 9-5 against it, and the school's director of women's studies was quoted saying "We forbid any course that says we restrict free speech." (National Review, Oct. 23, 2000 issue).

• My wife, ever alert to societal trends, has spotted a beauty. Call it The Ballooning of America. Anecdotal evidence is everywhere. Remember, for example, when a cupcake was about two inches high and two inches wide--about the size of a lemon? And a scoop of ice cream was, say, two golf balls big? Remember when there was no such thing as a foot-long hotdog or a "whopper"-size of anything? But today in America you're confronted with super-sized everything. A cupcake is now the size of a cake. Donuts and cookies are as big as frisbees. Hamburgers weigh a pound or more and cover a dinner plate. Baked potatoes the size of small footballs. The old six-ounce Coke is now a 32-ounce bucketful. Stores themselves have grown to gargantuan size, symbolized by warehouse retailers like Sam's Club and Meijer's with stores so big you need a golf cart to shop in them, and the shopping carts are big enough to hold several adults

• Penn State University faculty have taken a brave step forward in their ceaseless quest for world peace. They've passed a resolution denouncing "negative cheering" at Penn State athletic contests. This is code for: booing.

• "Boston Public" is being hyped as the finest flower of Fox TV's fall lineup. Promos for the new show feature voice-overs swooning about the drama, the excitement, the deep meaning, the stirring insights into the human condition and the never-to-be-forgotten-dedication of inspired teachers reaching deep into the hearts of earnest youngsters, touching their hearts and minds forever. Critics are liberally quoted--TV Guide, Entertainment Weekly, the New York Times, God knows who else--all raving in high praise. But when you actually watch the screen and pay attention, a somewhat different perspective emerges. What this show is really about is that great old standby, sex. It's about students and teachers going braless, male figures from a portly and lecherous old principal to virile, horny young male faculty hungering to score with any female they can mount. It's about leering and cleavage, dialogue overloaded with sniggering sexual inuendo and double entendre, locker-room peepers, and a teen-age student body miraculously composed almost entirely of silicon-inflated girls and buff-bodied guys. It's about dropping blou and dropping trou. Everyone is nearly hysterical from testosterone saturation. The jokes are about tits and gonads and bodily functions, scents, and excretions. It's about kids bedding down with kids and teachers sleeping with students. Has Fox made itself clear about what sells? I think so. (October 25, 2000)

• Meanwhile, People for the Ethical Treament of Animals (PETA) is demanding that the state of Wyoming change its license plate to get rid of its traditional symbol of a cowboy atop a bucking bronco. This "promotes and glorifies the abuse of animals," according to PETA spokesidiot Kristie Sigmon. Several years ago, PETA campaigned to get the town of Fishkill, New York, to change its name because it incited cruelty to fish. Time for PETA to get a life, I'm afraid. (November 2, 2000)

• The anti-gun nuts will not be telling us this, but the British province of Nottinghamshire is now sending police on routine patrols armed with pistols. Rising crimes rates involving criminals with guns is said to have prompted this break from British tradition.

• The American Bar Association has taken a poll and learned that only 14% of Americans say they have strong confidence in lawyers. At that, lawyers rate better than journalists who got an 8% rating. Almost 18% said they're confident in Congress. This confirms what we know intuitively from our daily lives.

• This morning's Indianapolis Star bore a front-page photo of a group of busybodies protesting the death penalty. "No More Killing," said one of their signs. Lovely sentiment, but these foot-stampers would serve their cause better if they contacted criminals and told them to stop killing. (November 15, 2000)

• I subscribed for a year in mid-September to The Weekly Standard magazine. Within six weeks--almost before I received my first issue--they'd mailed me an offer to renew or extend my subscription. This seems to be a modern trend, the constant pestering of people. Annually I send in dues to support U.S. Term Limits, the Heritage Foundation, and a few other organizations. Without exception they are not content with only my annual dues. I get about a dozen mailings annually from each organization, asking for more money for this crisis or that. The answer, I suppose, is that these are not anything but money-raising enterprises. My patience is sorely tested and I am always on the verge of refusing to send anyone anything, even annual dues. When will I wise up? (November 17, 2000)

• I daydream of doing a music video of Paul Simon's great song, "You Can Call Me Al."

• The last several decades of watching politics and public life has cured me of a naive notion of my childhood, that "the law" was immutable, fixed, clear, never-changing. I have learned instead that the law is whatever a clever lawyer or agenda-driven activist judge can stretch it to be. The law is, as lefties are ever so fond of telling us, a living, breathing thing which must be constantly adapted to changing needs and times. We see this in full flower in the disgraceful legal maneuverings of the Clintonistias and Gorenians. It is a depressing thing to face. One by one, my beliefs and cherished misconceptions fall away. There's almost nothing left that it is possible to believe in. (November 21, 2000)

• Can anyone imagine what it would be like to get Jonathan Winters, Robin Williams, Jim Carrey, and George Carlin together in the same room? I'd pay to get in there! (November 22, 2000)

• Another Rule For Living Department: If you assume the absolute worst of human behavior will emerge in any situation, you will seldom be disappointed or surprised in life.

• The thought of being dead and never again hearing music or reading a book is close to unbearable.

• Hope surged anew in the human breast at Thanksgiving time when USA Today reported in its November 20 edition that the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture has a plan to release a natural predator of the dreaded fire ant all across the American South come springtime. The USDA will release phorid flies over 11 states. They prey on South American fire ants by injecting an egg which eventually matures and decapitates the fire ant. Grisly stuff, but the discovery increases hope that someday science will discover either a predator or an antidote that removes assholes from society. (November 22, 2000)

Even Driving, Dogged Determination Cannot Prevail At Mickey D's

• A Recent Anecdote from A Downtown McDonald's Department: I ordered a Big Extra meal and presented a coupon good for a free hamburger in addition. The counter-critter asked if I wanted a slice of cheese on that sandwich and I said no. Regular or diet drink? I said diet. She asked if it was for "here or to go" and I said here. The bill should have been $3.59. She rang up the order at $4.89. I asked if she could re-check that. She said she had added a slice of cheese at 30 cents. But I do not want any cheese, I repeated. She re-rang the order at $4.59. I said it still seemed a bit high and reminded her that the hamburger was free. She discovered she had charged for the hamburger. She re-rang the order and got it right. Moments later she began putting the order in a sack. I said, no, I wanted it for "here," on a tray. She got out a tray and unpacked the sack. I asked if I could have 12 packets of pepper. She reached below the counter and tossed five packets on my tray. I asked if I could have seven or eight more. She gave me 10 or 11 more. When I got to my seat and opened my sandwich I discovered they had put cheese on it despite my two attempts to tell them I did not want cheese. I gave up at this point and dropped the matter, battered and dejected. I suspect this is the way the world ends. The sluggards simply wear out the rest of us.

• Another mighty blow has been struck--well, delicately struck--in mankind's eons-old struggle to climb out of the primordial slime and feel better about itself. Word arrives from Elkton, Maryland, that Cecil County school officials have banned dodge ball and all other "activities requiring human targets." (Presumably this would include war.) A story in the November 26 Indianapolis Star details this latest wrinkle in America's national Hold Me-Touch Me-Cuddle Me-Make Me Feel Better About Myself movement. Education officials now argue that dodge ball is "inappropriate" and "not aligned with school-taught values" such as teamwork. Those hit by a thrown ball, say the feel-gooders, lose self-esteem. Gym teachers around our nation, the article reports, are searching assiduously for ways to spare children further damage. Some now use soft, foam balls instead of rubber ones. Others have altered the rules so that students who are hit by a ball can stay in the game. Ed Langan, an Elkton gym teacher, is quoted saying "We're not there trying to hurt anyone," and adding that certain gym teachers are concerned that a broad interpretation of the ban on human targets could mean soccer and hockey will no longer be tolerated. Langan told breathless reporters that he has his kids playing "cross-over" dodge ball, in which players hit by a ball switch to another team but never have to sit out. The article noted, in a Clintonian touch, that Cecil County officials are so tormented by their efforts to define what the words "human target" mean that a school board vote had to be postponed earlier in November. (November 28, 2000)

• Law enforcement officials, social service workers, and a homeless mother are all aflutter with confusion about the unpleasant behavior of a 13-year-old boy in Detroit. The lad has been apprehended six times in the past 12 months for stealing cars. He has been sternly lectured. He has been sent to a group home. He's been sent to a juvenile facility. He has escaped from custody three times. He steals more cars even before he appears in juvenile court to discuss previous car thefts. Adults are just baffled. "I don't know what's going on with him," says the mother in a Detroit Free Press article. "This could be a cry for help," opines a Wayne County assistant prosecutor, Martin Krohner. "On the other hand, he could just be a car thief." OK, Wayne, I'll spit it out for you: he IS a car thief. Why is it such a terrible struggle in America to call a thing what it is? (November 28, 2000)

• "If foreplay on the hustings becomes an instant tradition, Tipper will be remembered as the first political wife to be forced into the role of a Zola heroine, a woman aroused but left unsatisfied, the Therese Raquine of the whistle stop, consumed by pelvic furor as she gazes out over a sea of cheese-wedge hats in the middle of the night somewhere in Wisconsin." --Florence King, author and conservative troublemaker, writing in the December 4, 2000, edition of National Review about Weird Al's ostentatiously public kissing of his wife at the convention and on the campaign trail.

• At bottom, the entire Florida Election Unpleasantness is about something very simple. American society is deeply afflicted by an unwillingness to set and enforce rules and standards. Everywhere you look in in our society you find evidence of it. It's most glaringly visible in our schools, where teachers are under relentless pressure to be infinitely flexible in enforcing standards, where any conceivable student behavior is forgiven or overlooked, where any failure by any student is deemed to be the fault of the teacher, who obviously didn't teach the student well enough, and never the fault of the student who simply failed to meet a standard. American society has always had rules and standards governing the election process. I can remember a sixth grade teacher telling us about them. It has always been crystal clear that your vote would not be counted if you failed to comply with the rules. No one thought a thing about it, and no one--ever--protested that the rules were unfair to anyone. Every county and precinct in Florida--indeed, in all fifty states--had clear rules and regulations about voting in the 2000 election. The difference this time is that Democrats, knowing no shame and with limitless audacity after their successful manipulation of various Clinton depredations and the impeachment process, are demanding with a straight face that everyone who could not follow the rules the first time be given a second chance and that the rules be thrown out and something called their intent to vote (for Al Gore, it should be noted) be the only thing that counts. This is a societal sickness at work here, nothing more complicated than that. I cannot see it ever being cured, either. (December 1, 2000)

• By near-miraculous chance, a USA Today headline caught my eye: Wandering Puget Sound Tugboat Hauled In. An inch-and-a-half of type. No major time commitment. I took a look. An abandonded tugboat had drifted 20 miles through heavy traffic in Puget Sound last weekend before running aground (as if steered by an Unseen Helmsman) on southern Whidbey Island in--are we ready for this?--Useless Bay. As one who's always loved peculiar or whimsical place names, Useless Bay automatically qualifies for my Top 100 list. Sounds like an absolutely perfect place to spend the rest of my life! (December 1, 2000)

• Word reached me this morning from the wilds of western Washington state that a creature dressed in a Darth Vader suit was standing in front of the Supreme Court Building in Wonderland, D.C., this morning bearing a sign which read: "Keep Counting Until The Dark Side Wins." I have complete faith that they will.

Reasons To Go On Living. . .

• Esquire magazine's annual Dubious Achievement Awards are out, and though their quality is not what it used to be, having them is better than not having any at all. A keynote feature this year is a section entitled "365 Reasons to Kill Yourself." Some very special reasons make the list--no easy task in itself, since there are far more than a mere 365 eminently qualified contenders. Hoosiers may take special pride in the awards, since our Beloved Mentor and Supernova Flamer, Bob Knight, was the only three-time nominee. Coach made the cover as well, as one of the magazine's "Castaways from Hell" (his teammates there were Hillary Clinton, Yasir Arafat, Regis Philbin, Elian Gonzalez and Britney Spears). My personal highlights include (in no particular order of importance) No.88--Cameras at political conventions playing Find The Colored Guy; No. 107--Chelsea Clinton; No. 127--The suggestion that Tiger Woods's success at an exorbitantly expensive game requiring miles of immaculately manicured lawns will help urban black kids living 12 to a room; No. 315--You're not allowed to sell your soul on eBay; No. 316--But selling it on Meet The Press is no problem; No. 314-The joyous reality of a Jewish vice presidential candidate candidate only means that every four years we are going to have to pull out the Ethnicity List and make sure everyone gets a shot, or we are never going to hear the goddamn end of it; No. 350--Bobby Knight; No. 351--Knight; No. 352--Mr. Knight; No. 22--askOJ.com; No. 41--Celebrity-endorsed diseases; No. 176--Victoria's Secret's disturbing report that 40 percent of all sales are thongs. The magazine also reports, under the heading of The Clinton Legacy, that during the year 2000 the average bra purchased in America increased from 36B to 36C. Looks to me like there are Reasons To Go On Living, too. (December 3, 2000)

• Bet You Money It Made Her Feel Better About Herself Department: Dawn Hopkins, 26, on trial in Valparaiso, Indiana, for killing her infant son, told the judge she did it because the three-month-old child would not "smile and coo and do those little baby things." No doubt she wonders what the big deal is.

• Confirmed Sighting of Another Bob Knight Acolyte Department: About 2,000 fans stormed out of a Barry White concert in Sydney, Australia, Thanksgiving Day and demanded refunds. USA Today reports the pop singing idol showed up an hour late, then sat for extended periods on a stool with his back to most of the crowd, many of whom paid up to $70 for tickets.There were also complaints of poor sound quality. So what are they angry about?

Now You've Got Your Chadlands

• Geography Lesson: You've got your Dakota Badlands. Now you've got your Florida Chadlands. Much like the law under liberals, the English language is a living, breathing, growing thing, ever reinventing, exploring, adapting. God, I love this! (December 5, 2000)

• Shirley Henson, 41, of Birmingham, Alabama, has been convicted of killing another woman on an Interstate 65 exit ramp during a "road rage" tantrum in November of 1999. The trial revealed that Gena Foster, 34 and the mother of three, had been tailgating Henson and when both vehicles took the exit ramp, Henson stopped her car, walked back to Henson's vehicle and shot Henson to death. Henson was sentenced to 13 years in prison. Good!

• One of my favorite actors, teeny-tiny little Dudley Moore, offered a frank farewell during a British TV interview, in which he said he "faces a short and uncertain future and will die" soon from progressive supranuclear palsy, an incurable disease. Moore, barely more than five feet tall, seemed to always be in the clutches of fabulously beautiful women, as wives, live-in girlfriends, or movie co-stars, not least of whom was his role in 10 opposite the legendary Bo Derek. He was close to priceless starring in Arthur with now deceased British actor, John Gielgud, as his faithful but caustic butler. Adios, Dudley, you brought us many a chuckle. (December 6, 2000)

• The lovely and talented actress and Aristotelian philospher, Alicia Silverstone, has received the United Kingdom's Foot in Mouth award given now and then to selected individuals who utter imbecilities in public. Silverstone was interviewed by the London Sunday Telegraph and said she thought a movie she starred in, Clueless, was "very deep. I think it was deep in the way that it was very light. I think lightness has to come from a very deep place if it's true lightness." And countless millions of citizens take Alicia and people like her seriously. (December 10, 2000)

• Stage and screen actor Jason Robards died yesterday of cancer at age 78. Much of his latter-day fame came from his Oscar-winning role as the Washington Post's then editor, Ben Bradlee, in the Watergate era film, All The President's Men. The Associated Press resurrected a Robards quote that makes me suspect I'd have loved this guy. Speaking about "method acting" which he disliked and felt phony, Robards in a 1993 interview told a reporter that, "I look at the words (of the script). . .I don't do a lot of analysis. I know those words have to move me. I don't want actors reasoning with me about 'motivation' and all that bull. All I want 'em to do is learn the goddamn lines and don't bump into each other."

• Someday science will pinpoint the exact moment when our present Culture of Feelings began. This will at least get the research going. I can trace it as far back as the moment when weathercritters invented the Wind Chill Index, which deals not with facts about what the temperature actually is, but with how cold we citizens feel it is, what it feels like out there

• Speaking of feelings, what a coincidence it is that (according to a Dec. 26 Associated Press/New York Times report December 26) beginning January 1, 2001, America's hospitals will be required by federal law to measure every patient's pain regularly from the time they check in, and if hospitals don't begin government-approved pain relief measures, they will risk losing their accreditation. This, friends, is a shoo-in for The Sick Willie Legacy File, for no man has ever felt our pain like Sick.

• The Human Condition--It's a Beautiful Story Department: This may not have earned an Esquire magazine Dubious Achievement Award in 1999, but it should have. In an article about rent control in the December 11, 2000, issue of The New Yorker magazine, writer Jeffrey Toobin notes that, "In 1999 Alvin Weiss, also known as Mark Glass, pleaded guilty to hiring a hit man to kill some of his tenants in lower Manhattan, so he could get higher rents on their apartments."

Bartender! Perfect Games For Everyone!

• I don't know how I've lived over 2,500 years and missed this, but there is nine-pin bowling out there. I'd likely have gone on in blissful ignorance but for a story in a recent Scorched Corners (Indiana) Peeper about a local native rolling two perfect games. A one-time kegler myself, I dove into the story. The breathless reporter noted that Ron Cockerel had just rolled his second career nine-pin 300 game. Whoops! Nine pin? Yup. Turns out nine-pin bowling is skyrocketing in popularity in the U.S., though a 9-pin game is mentioned in Rip Van Winkle. Participants throw two balls per frame, just like the real game, but only have to knock down nine pins to get credit for a strike. Cockerel said the nine-pin version "has less tension" and said he enjoys the "competitiveness" of the nine-pin game. How the reporter resisted asking Cockerel if getting credit for a perfect game at a 10 percent discount made him feel better about himself, I'll never know. But I can tell you this: nine-pin bowling is a thoroughly beautiful game for these modern times, for our Culture of Feelings. And now that this stubborn barrier has been broken, eight-pin and even seven- and six-pin strikes and perfect games can't be far behind. (December 31, 2000)

• A CNN/USA Today poll at year's end asked Americans to name the man and woman they most admired in all the wide, wide world. Citizens offered proof positive that the end is near. They roared their approval for Sick and Pope John Paul II, who finished in a dead-heat tie for first place with six percent of the votes for the menfolk. Weird Al trailed close behind at five percent.. Hillary, meanwhile, routed her opposition, winning first place with 19 percent. No other woman even made double figures. This survey tells us all we need to know about the state of human civilization on this planet. I am willing to bet money CNN/USA Today are not making this up. There's no better way to sum up mankind's just-ended most ridiculous century yet. (December 31, 2000)

• And O. J. Simpson's ceaseless quest to find the his wife's killer goes on. . .

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