I've been thinking about Gillian Gibbons, the British teacher living in Sudan, who was convicted of insulting Islam. If you've not been following the story, Gibbons and her students named a classroom teddy bear "Muhammad." Her point of view was that it's a common enough name among men in the region.

To the thousands of protestors who stood chanting in Khartoum yesterday, however, waving clubs and knives and calling for her execution, it was a terrible affront that had very likely hurt the prophet Muhammad's tender feelings. One would think that his legions of underage virgins would be enough to console him, but apparently this guy has a really short fuse.

It's just a bit unseemly, going about calling for middle-aged teachers and teenage rape victims and anyone with a Jewish-sounding last name to be summarily beheaded. Religion of peace and all that, you know. Perhaps the imams who whipped the illiterate masses into their murderous frenzy, which seems a common enough occurrence across the Muslim Middle East, might consider how their own behavior is an even greater affront to Islam. In the meantime, we should all pray that poor Ms. Gibbons escapes Sudan with her life.

So if playing sports builds character, what kind of monsters might some of these NFL thugs have become without its moral influence? Thank goodness for those legions of coaches and parents who make the spiritual growth of their young charges take precedence over winning. Otherwise we might have a real bloodbath on our hands.

The reality, of course, is that while many (mostly unsung) coaches and parents fit this bill, there are far too many who are little better than Michael Vick, running gladiator academies to surface the most vicious beasts possible, because that's the cheapest road to victory. And why do thug-breeding coaches thrive? Because we love our sports.

It builds character, after all.

I didn't know somebody had invented a test to measure narcissism. Even better, researchers have been administering it to college students since 1982. The shocking news this week is that recent results confirm a trend: today's college students are, on average, more narcissistic and self-centered than their predecessors. The researchers blame everything from permissive parents to untrammeled access to social networking sites like MySpace, which are designed to help each little darling showcase The Wonder That Is Me.

A related Atlantic Monthly article cites a school teacher whose antidote is simple: "I tell them that self-esteem comes from a self doing something that is worthy of esteem."

I'm looking forward to our new church sanctuary because it will have pews. Right now we sit on folding chairs, which is part of the reason why I had to stare at the pimply ass-crack of the young woman in front of me, until I left to sit in the lobby, where the view was brighter and the sermon sounded kinder. She was a visitor, and some grace must be afforded, though the regular member who brought her treated everyone to more than we needed to see of her lime-green underwear.

At this point, please play in your head the voice of a nasally overindulged teenage girl, complaining that you just can't buy pants any more that don't sink low on the hips. Now, please slap this girl, as well as her mother and father. Cathartic, isn't it? You certainly can buy pants that don't expose your butt, and while you're at it you can pick out some shirts that don't expose your poochy belly and your brave little bellybutton hardware. On behalf of civilized society everywhere, I'd like to say that we are all tired of being the captive audience for your self-obsessed, half-naked prancing.

So what do you say we all start buying clothes that fit? This goes for boys as well as girls, because I'm also tired of seeing the waistbands of boxer briefs, inevitably exposed by boys who really should still be wearing tighty-whiteys and sucking on pacifiers, so nearly tangible are the umbilical cords that their mommies haven't bothered to snip.

Just to be clear, children: none of us cares to see your underwear. We don't need to see your cleavage and your bellies and most certainly not the canal that you regularly swipe with toilet paper.

I blame the fathers, because it works for me. When a girl dresses like a slut, I'm inclined to believe that she's craving attention from men. Why does she feel inadequate, Dad? When a boy dresses like a slouching ingrate, I'm inclined to believe that he's not been shown how to comport himself like a gentleman. Why doesn't he understand how men carry themselves, Dad?

At the funeral last week, there was a boy in flip-flops. I wish someone had escorted him out. I think I would like to work on becoming the kind of man who does that sort of thing. It would be a vain effort, but maybe shame can only be brought back one person at a time. I'm not arguing for a return to slacks and ties at all times, but can we at least preserve some dignity? Can we put on shoes for a funeral? Can we cover our asses for an hour in church?

"Dad," Caleb asked me Saturday, "why do some men wear earrings?"

"They want people to pay attention to them, because they aren't man enough to be themselves."

"They want attention?"

"Yep. When I was a college boy I had an earring, because I wasn't man enough."

"But now you're man enough. You look like a man."

"Caleb, something I've learned is that being a real man doesn't depend on how you look, but how you behave."

"You're a real man, Dad."

"I'm trying, anyway."

And that's the truth. Maybe it's what cheeses me about girls who show any stranger their underwear, and boys who don't bother to put on shoes when a body has to be put in the ground — they don't even try. It doesn't occur to them that there are times and places where their comfort and self-expression are unimportant. They are ill-bred, which means that their parents are doing a poor job, and maybe more of us should say so.

Cathy Young, whose writing I sometimes enjoy, suggests in her Reason Magazine essay that the wildly popular Dangerous Book for Boys is dangerous indeed, because it reinforces traditional sex roles. Why couldn't it have been titled "The Dangerous Book for Kids"? In service to this question, Young quotes a female friend to great effect: "'Where is the book for girls who did stuff like make their own chain mail as kids, or cracked rocks with sledgehammers in the driveway both to see what was inside them and to see if you could get sparks?'"

I thought I would ask some chain mail-knitting, sledgehammer-wielding little girls how they feel about the exclusionary effect of the book's title, but then I realized I don't know any little girls like that. I've also never seen girls drooling over cowboy guns at the hobby shop, or sticking butter knives in their belts and pretending to be pirates. But, as Jeffrey Chamberlain wrote, "In a country as big as the United States, you can find fifty examples of anything."

So it's a legitimate question: what to do about the tender feelings of girls who want to make chain mail and use sledgehammers? It's really a question about curves, isn't it, and not the kind that some females have been socially constructed to sometimes get, and which in sexist literature some males sometimes pay attention to, though of course we know in the real world we shouldn't make generalizations like: boys and girls are different. No, I mean curves of the Bell variety, which often capture human realities quite nicely, and which — were we benighted enough to pay attention to data rather than self-serving anecdotes — might disrupt the argument that goes: girls would like wrestling more and boys would like tea parties more, if not for the dominant social paradigm.

And the answer, in light of these curves, is delightfully conservative (in the old-fashioned sense, not the newfangled Republican sense) namely: nothing. If you have a little girl who would rather learn how to make paper airplanes and read about the battle of Thermopylae than do cartwheels and play with dolls, then by all means, buy her the book, and tell her — with conviction, not the self-doubt that seems to plague so many essays like Young's — Honey, just because the book says it's for boys, doesn't mean you can't do it too. Now let's read "A Brief History of Artillery" (one of the book's chapters).

The solution, in other words, is not to reorient nature to suit the self-esteem needs of the minority of girls who want to make chain mail. It's far better to embrace their difference and impart to them the strength to go against the tide, if that's how they're made, to become, as Shaw wrote, "a force of nature, instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy." To complain about titles of books, it seems, is to give far too little credit to these brave little girls, wherever they are hiding, who want to blow things up and learn how to spit.

Part of the problem here is the mistaken notion, perhaps due to an overactive sense of grievance, that the title of the book means that the knowledge therein is exclusively for boys. A more generous reading reveals that the authors, Conn and Hal Iggulden, simply wanted to include the stories, games, and skills that a great many boys (and men) want to know. Does that mean no girls should want to know these things? Of course not. But could you sell millions of copies of exactly the same book, had it been titled The Dangerous Book for Girls? Here comes that pesky Bell curve, accompanied by his pernicious friend, Common Sense, to spoil a good feminist lather.

As for the boys Young worries about, the ones "who may be more interested in reading than in catching snails and may prefer art to stories of battles," I think the answer is simply to get them out of the house. This comes from someone who would far rather curl up with a book than go fishing, mind you (a challenge I describe, often to humiliating effect, in my pamphlet on raising boys). That's because boys are physical as well as mental creatures, and to let the former atrophy is to do your son a disservice. Yes, of course this goes for girls as well, but as anyone who has had to supervise great numbers of boys and girls will tell you, sometimes the physical activities that girls seek out are distinctly different from those preferred by boys. Yes, they all like to play tag. But no, you don't often see girls randomly tackle one another. And that's okay.

Rick Hilton needs a swift kick in the ass. That's my opinion on the never-ending Paris Hilton spectacle. And while we're at the butt-kicking, we can line up any number of successful businessmen, movie stars, and sports heroes who have neglected the fundamental duty of fathers, which is to train up our children in the way they should go. We could turn it into an annual Father's Day weekend tradition: the 24-hour Tail Stomp, open season on every bad father. I think it would be cathartic. And before someone else claims him, I've got dibs on Alec Baldwin.

It's interesting that we celebrate the success of men at business, sports, entertainment, war, and politics, but rarely at the thing which matters more than those often-ephemeral feats, the raising up of confident, competent, moral, courageous children to carry on a free and prosperous civilization. Not to wrestle with this great calling every day of our lives, fathers, is to fail at manhood itself.

I'm not saying that we are failures if our children don't end up perfect. But we are failures if they emerge without a moral compass, and genuine self-confidence (which should not be confused with arrogance, which is often a sign of insecurity), and some fundamental ability to earn a living. Hence Rick Hilton's need for a kick in the rear-end, at least from my very limited vantage-point, because his daughter seems to lack all three. Insofar as she earns a living, it's Donald Trump-style, off the outrageousness of her own conduct. That's not value-creation, it's a freak show.

In the last days of his life, as Teddy Roosevelt collaborated with editor Joseph Bishop on a bound volume of his letters to his children, he said, "I would rather have this book published than anything that has ever been written about me." These letters don't contain much in the way of TR's exploits on the battlefield, or his political victories. Instead they tell his children about a curious lizard he caught in Cuba, or explain how proud he is that they have learned to ride their horses better, or admonish them not to let sports get in the way of what's important. They are letters that reflect his love of and hopes for his children. Being a good father, he recognized that this was his most important legacy, his family.

I've met a great many men over the years who have been so seduced by the lure of business success that they neglect their children. I can't describe for you the remorse that I've heard in some of their voices, as they sit in their beautiful, empty homes, and say that they wish they could do it over, and be fathers to their children. But there is no doing it over; there is only right now, the choices you make today — and each choice constrains what choices will be available to us tomorrow. Can Rick Hilton spend time with his daughter now, and convince her that she is truly lovely, that she needn't whore herself out to the men and the lights and the cameras? That work should have been done years ago. But, he does have that thriving real estate business, and several palatial homes. He's what we call successful.

Perhaps we need to redefine that word. The worst part is that Hilton probably told himself, as do so many of us, that he was doing it for his family, the twelve-hour days and endless travel and weekend work. Beyond some basic necessities, however, what our children need most is us, the very thing we so often deny them.

I find that more and more, when I hear or read about a successful man, I say to myself: Yes, but what kind of father is he? It's worth asking, don't you think? Don't be surprised if you end up unable to find someone to vote for next fall, however, or if your favorite actors and sports stars lose some of their luster. But that's how it should be, I think. Maybe men will stop sacrificing our children on the altar of success when we reintroduce shame as a public concept.

Goodness knows, I don't get it right. I've lost count of the number of evenings I've put my head on my pillow in shame, wishing I could rewind the day, and take back a moment when I barked at one of my boys, or ignored them when I should have been listening. But I wonder if it even crosses the minds of many successful men that they are failing as fathers, and therefore, as men. I want to believe that this in itself makes a difference, the conscious striving. Weak and foolish as we are, maybe we can still succeed as fathers if we will just put forth the effort. Maybe that's all our sons and daughters really need from us, the unspoken love that comes with that striving.

So, fathers, are you striving?

The makers of Xbox are holding a Dad of the Year essay contest:

"Do you know a terrific gaming Dad? Here's your chance to show him some Father's Day love and take a shot at winning an awesome prize for yourself. Here's how it works.

Write an original essay about a father (or male legal guardian) and gaming. Do you know a Dad who does a great job balancing gaming and fatherhood? Is he known for his patience with n00bs or his mad fragging skills? Does he play games with his kids? Is he raising his gamer offspring to play fair and follow the rules?

Your essay should be at least 250 words, but no more than 500 words, and must be received by 11:59 P.M. Pacific Time, June 9, 2007..."

This got me thinking about what some of their entries might look like:

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To: Xbox Dudes
From: RadGamr4Life

Dear Xbox,

I totally want to nominate my pops for this kickin prize, b-cause he rawks! Check it - just last night, I was trying to get some boring homework done for my stupid Shakespeare class, and pops was in total azz-kicking mode on some Alien vs Predator, and I was like, Dad, hook me up on my homework - who was that chick Romeo was gettin it with, and Pops was like, don't bother me, cuz I'm all up in some level ten, and then I was like, c'mon Dad, I'm dyin on this homework, and Pops was all, c'mon over and get in on this action, and I was all, are you sure? And Pops was like, dude, nobody needs Shakespeare to get a job - I've had dozens and I never read no Shakespeare. So tell your teacher to bite it. I was all, no way! And Pops was all, Yes way! It was totally awesome. So then we busted out some double-hammer action on the Aliens and Predators and stuff, and it was you know, a total bonding time. No joke Xbox, my pops rulz!

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To: Xbox
From: 6thGradeVidBlaster

Dear Xbox,

My dad is so great. He plays Xbox every night, and he lets me sit and watch as long as I'm quiet. He lets me play too, when I get home from school and before he gets home from work. Then I sit on the couch and do my homework and watch him play. Once, I was going to get online and learn some cheats for Halo 2, but dad said I shouldn't cheat, that the only right way to get good at Xbox is to play it lots and lots. I'm glad I have my dad to teach me right from wrong. He should really win this prize, because he loves Xbox more than any other dads I know. Nobody works as hard at getting good at gaming as my dad. He is the best dad in the world, and one day I will be just like him.

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Not to belittle every father who plays with an Xbox from time to time.

Actually, yeah, to do that.

Update: Alert reader Lori MacKean sent me this pertinent video clip.

Perhaps I'm old-fashioned, but I believe a preacher ought to think long and hard, and then think again, before he quotes a Psalm and then begins his next sentence with: But, as if to say, yeah, the Bible's probably worth reading, but let me hit you with some real knowledge.

It's even worse when, in his rush to augment the wisdom of the psalmist with that of Zig Ziglar (no, I'm not making that up; click the link above and see for yourself), he gets the verse's location wrong. That's Psalm 37:23 that you meant to improve, doc, not Psalm 37:25.

Recently I found myself sitting with bright and dedicated teaching professionals, all of us asked to participate in developing ideas for improving the entrepreneurial bent of students. Having a seven year-old who routinely sets up booths in our front yard to sell things, a four year-old who builds elaborate Lego/Thomas the Train/Hot Wheels/Daddy's books cities in our basement, and a two year-old master climber and escape artist, I think we've got the entrepreneurial creativity thing pretty well covered in our house, but I'm always happy to help someone else out.

My problem — one of my problems — is that I can't just look at the thread. There's always that big ball of tangled yarn somewhere in the shadows, with all of us noodling over the one thread stretched out in front of us, and I can't help but imagine that we are working on the wrong thing. Someone suggested — reasonably, understandably, with good intention — that we might give grade schoolers more exposure to economics and entrepreneurship, as a means of generating more understanding of it in their later years.

I rudely tugged the ball of yarn onto our table, and told them I think kids can get this stuff in a year or two. What we need to deal with, I said, was the fact that somehow schools — especially public schools — manage to squash the innate instincts for creativity and inquiry. If we want to turn out children who are prepared for college, cultivate in them a sense of inquiry. Teach them logic, and self-discipline. Protect them from television and video games and other mind-numbing garbage, and impart to them the ability to put down the bag of Fritos and read. If nothing else, I pleaded, teach them to e-n-u-n-c-i-a-t-e, for crying out loud, and to stand up straight and look people in the eye, instead of going out into the world as slouching, sloppy-thinking mumblers.

Awkward silence. Some of the people in the room have children in public schools. Others work in a private school that serves children with higher incomes and IQs than their public school counterparts. They are all very bright, and their children perform above average, I am sure. The problem, I believe, is that what we accept as "average" continues to slip. It embodies a set of disconnected skills, as opposed to a means of grappling with the world and the self and the soul and God. It has taken on a new connotation — that which best prepares my child to make money. I worry that the only people concerned with reforming education see this as the goal — preparing the workforce. I worry that the state of the GDP means everything, and the state of the heart and soul means nothing. I worry that I don't know when to shut my mouth. They all mean well, after all.

In examining this week whether partisanship is a good or bad thing, NPR has produced an artful and rich examination of precisely the wrong question. In a forum where anecdotes reign, the pro- and anti-partisanship partisans have plenty to say, and, as is the case in any good debate, nobody wins. There are plenty of examples, after all, of deleterious bipartisan decisions (think Prohibition and Japanese internment). But there are also examples of partisan disasters (the Johnson years, or more recently, the dramatic rise in spending under Republican rule). No matter whether you are a dyed-in-the-wool party hack, or a transcendent, smarmy Independent, there was plenty this week to bolster your self-perception.

The question we ought to ask, however, is whether our representatives are loyal first to principle, or to party. Former RNC Chair Ed Gillespie tried to thread the needle, by arguing that the two are married. "Parties are based," he said, "on political philosophy."

This is akin to stating that NFL teams are based on a love of the game. Political parties, like professional sports franchises, are built to win. Principles are, at best, means to that end — rallying cries we shout to convince ourselves that ours is the team favored by God, and the other the team of Satan. (Of course any thinking person understands that this is only true when my North Carolina Tarheels face the aptly named Duke Blue Devils, but that is not something one can expect the common man to discern.) To today's professional partisan, principles are communication tools, carefully worded to elicit votes, crafted to tap into whatever deep beliefs we citizens tell ourselves we hold.

Former Gore campaign manager Donna Brazile, also on the NPR program, best summarized the dilemma when she declared, "Partisanship is a good thing when your party is guided by principles." This is a wonderful statement, coming from a woman with a track record of vicious and unintelligent rhetoric, because it encapsulates the very problem, to wit, that the parties are controlled by the likes of Donna Brazile, Karl Rove, and a host of others who long ago abandoned principles as anything other than slogans, as rallying cries in the fight for victory and its accompanying spoils.

Do you ever get the feeling, when you listen to a politician speak, that he is more like a trained monkey (or Keanu Reeves, to go a step lower on the performance scale) than an actual human person? Ironically, it was the professional actor, Ronald Reagan, who was last able to make us feel like he really meant what he said. Even better, one got the sense that he had arrived at his convictions without first asking himself what would make him most popular among swing voters in Ohio.

Jean Giraudoux wrote, "The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you've got it made." I get the feeling that today's politicians don't get the humor in that quip. Witness Democrats consulting experts in order to learn how to "communicate their faith." The American people want me to love Jesus? Fine, I'll squeeze that in between health care and legal reform. "Lou! Write me a few lines about my faith in Jesus! And make it sound sincere, for Christ's sake!"

Perhaps principle will never mix well with partisanship, because politics is, by its very nature, transactional. We give to some and take from others in the hopes of getting a little something nice for ourselves. In the grubby political marketplace, where the wealth and freedom of strangers is what's being traded, we shouldn't expect principle to flourish. If so, then maybe the solution is to keep the political marketplace as small as possible. We still need one, to be sure — if nothing else, as a jobs programs for mediocre lawyers and former student body presidents — but perhaps we should confine it a little more tightly. Like in an iron box. At the bottom of the ocean.

I think something like that was the idea behind situating our nation's capital in a swamp. But then somebody went and built bridges, and then some other bozo invented air conditioning, and now we can't seem to be rid of these people.

With that in mind, and in spite of all my anti-partisan talk, I'm looking forward to this new period of partisan bickering. It means that our politicians will be so busy sticking it to each other that they will have less energy to stick it to us. So I guess that makes me a pro-partisan. In a principled sense, of course.

Rose Macaulay once wrote, "It is a common delusion that you make things better by talking about them." This assumes, of course, that one actually cares to make things better, which is not something to assume about members of the U.S. Senate's Foreign Relations Committee, which yesterday released a non-binding resolution declaring President Bush's proposed troop surge not to be in the national interest. For humor value, the bloviations were hard to beat — witness Chuck Hagel, would-be president and tough guy, declaring that his courageous decision to vote for words that have no direct binding power on outcomes is an example of the "tough business" that tough men like him engage in every day.

Beyond an opportunity for Senators to pose and preen before the cameras, however, the resolution does little more than announce to the world, as well as Iraqi insurgents (one instance where these tough little words may have a very real and deadly effect), that the U.S. military will not up its ante in Iraq.

Perhaps retreat is the best outcome. What American citizens should expect from our Congress, however, especially from tough guys like Chuck Hagel, is that they take definitive action. In the words of John Kerry to his fellow Senators, if we believe President Bush's strategy is misguided, then "we have an obligation to do something." And so the brave little prince lent his support to words that carry no force. What he was against, before he was for it, he is now courageously against again.

It puts me in mind of the scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, after Robin has run from a fight. His minstrel is following him, gaily singing his praises: "When danger reared its ugly head, Sir Robin turned and bravely fled..."

As an election strategy, it's shrewd — capitalize on the public's dissatisfaction by appearing to do something, without actually taking action that might directly backfire. Should a slew of Iraqis be slaughtered in the wake of U.S. troop withdrawal, the John Kerrys and Chuck Hagels of the world are clean as a whistle — they never forced Bush to withdraw troops, after all. This is why they'll not use the power of the purse to restrict Bush's hand in Iraq either, because they fear being blamed for inadequately equipped soldiers. What's a brave and principled Senator to do?

Why, issue a proclamation, of course, boldly announcing what each has already been shouting from the rooftops to news reporters and Iowa focus groups. Does it change the outcome? Certainly. But it does so in a way that leaves no fingerprints.

I suppose we shouldn't expect any better.

On second thought, I think we should. Our representatives don't have to get it right all of the time, but I don't think it's too much to expect them to do what they believe is right for the people they claim to represent. If the Senate peacocks really do believe that the Bush administration lied to get into the Iraqi war, and has since grossly mishandled it, and is now poised to do even more grievous damage, then the courageous thing to do is stop him. The cowardly thing to do, on the other hand, is squawk and blather, without accountability for an alternative course of action.

One of the managers I admire most in the world has a delightfully offensive saying he likes to use with his employees: "no bitch without a pitch." The point being, of course, that anyone can complain. Constructive action, on the other hand, involves crafting an alternative to the status quo, and being willing to make the case for it, and to stand by its consequences. All of his shop floor workers get that. Perhaps that's why none of them will ever become a U.S. Senator.

Last month we got a letter from an organization that calls itself "People to People International." They were writing to invite our daughter to attend, at our expense, be sure, an educational experience in Australia. The letter assured us that "Caroline has been named for this honor by a teacher, former Student Ambassador or national academic listing."

Their website provides similarly deceptive statements intended to suggest that the organization is not a vast moneymaking enterprise disguised as a selective academic organization. As best I can tell, Caroline, who has been dead since 1999, lingers on a couple of mailing lists because for a short while she received the "American Girl" doll magazine.

The lesson, for those of you with children who have begun to receive such solicitations, is to investigate before writing a check. There are a host of organizations (and I could name a couple of well-known ones in Washington, D.C.) that advertise themselves as selective academic opportunities, when in reality they are either glorified and overpriced touring agencies, or cheap labor mills for organizations like the Republican and Democratic National Committees.

And speaking of lying liars, around the same time I got a survey from Howard Dean, addressed to "Dear Fellow Democrat." His letter explains that I have been asked to complete the survey because I am "an active and engaged member of our Party" in my community. I'm pretty sure this comes from my subscription to The Atlantic Monthly. The only way I'll likely ever be an "active and engaged" leader in my community is if they try to ban Krispy Kreme.

It's standard practice now for both parties to send out such breathless literature, claiming that it is a selective effort to solicit the opinions of key leaders. In reality, of course, it's a funding solicitation. It's a lie nonetheless, and both parties ought to be ashamed.

As if the leadership of either organization were capable of such a thing as shame. We've sunk awfully far, it seems, when leaders of the self-styled liberty and decency party can make the likes of Charlie Rangel and Nancy Pelosi look like they may be worth a shot.

I've recently received invitations from decent and kind people in my church, asking me to attend fundraisers for local political candidates. My tactic is to ignore the invitation if possible, for fear of offending them. They mean well, they really do. But the truth of it is that I don't ever intend to give money to another politician, because it occurs to me that doing so only encourages them. Maybe if we stop paying them to sing and dance for us they'll get real jobs and leave everyone alone.

The state of Arizona used to have a rule that required a state office to go unstaffed and unfunded if a majority of voters wrote in "None of the Above" on their ballots. Perhaps it would lead to disaster, but I'm willing to give it a try. I had a wise professor in graduate school who liked to note that while critics fault American government for being unresponsive to the interests of the people, the reality is that it's too responsive. It tries to give everyone everything by pretending that there are no tradeoffs. In short, we tend to get the government we deserve. Or, as H.L. Mencken wrote: "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."

Imagine someone who speaks the truth as he sees it, who gives direct and clear answers to questions, and who is honest about his own failings and sins and fears. Imagine someone who refuses to compromise his principles for the sake of a key donation, or in order to insure that his party maintains a majority, or even to insure his own re-election. Do you think he would have a shot on November 7th? Of course not. What's worse, our opinion of him would be that he's a nut, or hopelessly damaged. We can't even tolerate an honest sinner in the pulpit of our church, let alone as our Senator or President.

So we enable the charade, hoping for the one completely righteous and wise man to ride out of the desert and set all things straight. (And when he does show up, he won't be running for office, you can be sure.) I think our mistake is that we yearn for leaders who are better than us, and subject them to a process of constant campaigning and fundraising that insures the opposite, that morally and spiritually they are very likely to be far worse than the average American. What kind of person, after all, can spend his entire life trying to secure votes? Not someone you'd trust with your daughters or your wallet.

We want wise kings, and there are none, and so it seems to me the only logical solution is to give them as little authority as possible, watch them like hawks, and send them back to the real world at the first sign that they're starting to enjoy themselves. And if somebody can figure out how to word that as a Constitutional Amendment, we'll all be indebted to you.

I'm 30,000 feet above vast stretches of empty American land, thinking about how our legislators want to protect us from Mexicans willing to do the work we're too fat and lazy to do for ourselves, and I'm wishing we could make a swap: one Mexican family for every elected U.S. official. Only then might I get enthusiastic about building a 700-mile fence along the southern border of the land of freedom and opportunity. Then it occurs to me that such a swap would be an awfully un-Christian thing to do to the Mexicans, who already have enough corrupt and bloated public officials without adding our snake's nest of panderers and preeners.

I just finished the co-authored autobiography of Haing Ngor, who some of you may recognize as the Cambodian refugee who won an Oscar for playing fellow refugee Dith Pran in The Killing Fields. I think that in the back of my mind, while I've always found Marxist intellectuals repugnant in the same sense that I find any deluded and sloppy thinker repugnant -- allowing me, for example, to hold Ann Coulter and Michael Moore in near-equal esteem -- I always thought them quaint. I've done a mental housecleaning in the past couple of years, as you can tell from other posts, and with it has come a growing and harsh disdain for the willfully ignorant. After I put down this heartbreaking book I realized that anyone who continues to insist, in the face of overwhelming evidence, that forced communism with its attendant delusions (atheism, nihilism, etc.) does not lead inevitably to enormous tragedy can only persist in this lie through a considerable act of self-deception.

We are all ignorant of many things, and if one has a scrap of wisdom and humility, one must forgive honest ignorance just as each of us hopes his own is forgiven. But there is a different brand of ignorance, worn with near-pride by some, that can only be sustained if nurtured and protected, like a fragile but poisonous plant. In simplest form it's the studious ignorance of scores of U.S. legislators who refuse to understand fundamental economics. In its most venomous form it is the ignorance that produces wholesale slaughter of people deemed the wrong skin color or religion or economic class.

Ngor endured the latter, in 1970's Cambodia, where the brutal Marxist Khmer Rouge briefly seized power and murdered a quarter of the population. As I read it, I found myself wondering how far we are from such tragedy. How long does it take for institutionalized ignorance and abandonment of truth to descend from relatively mild corruption and inefficiency to full-scale slaughter? How deeply do nihilism and anti-intellectualism have to penetrate a nation before the soil is ripe for the ultimate fruition of these seeds sewn in willful ignorance?

I also wondered how many deaths can be traced to the professors of French and American universities who had such a strong hand in educating the likes of Mao Tse-Tung and Pol Pot. And further, how many deaths would be enough for deluded intellectual thugs like Noam Chomsky and Eric Hobsbawm to renounce their comfortable positions and live the remainder of their dreadful existences in seclusion. I suspect more blood than exists would sway neither, nor their less intelligent compatriots, because in the face of willful ignorance, evidence has no import. War is Peace. Ignorance is Strength.

Ngor survived multiple torture sessions at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, who wanted him to confess to being a doctor. In that world, everything Western or intellectual had to be purged. This was the ironic conclusion reached by the dictators educated at the feet of Western intellectuals -- that enlightenment itself was the enemy. Their armies were the thousands of uneducated peasants who envied the wealth of city-dwellers, and who took great pleasure in tormenting their new slaves.

Pseudo-intellectuals skilled in the rhetoric of envy, leading hordes of the ill-educated taught that they have a grievance against the producers of wealth -- no, that could never happen here.

Ngor met an end that was tragic and shameful. Though he lost nearly all his family to the Khmer Rouge, he survived, made it to America, and not only became an actor but an important figure in Cambodian relief efforts. And for years he wore around his neck a gold locket with the only picture of his dead wife inside. One evening in 1995, three thugs in a Los Angeles alley mugged him, and when he refused to give them this last reminder of his beloved, they shot him in the chest, took the locket, and left him to die. Ironically, all three were Asians, imitators of the homegrown thug culture celebrated by rappers and idiot suburban teenagers.

No, it could never happen here.

For decades American historians have debated whether the United States has an "exceptional" culture that effectively immunizes it against the philosophical nonsense that has wafted up from Europe since the 19th century, or whether suppression of radicals has been all that restrains the forces of utopianism from having their sway here as they have elsewhere. I'd like to think that we are exceptional, but I suppose Haing Ngor once thought so as well. I suspect every human being living in peace and comfort has told himself the same thing, that it could never happen here. And yet it continues to happen: war and oppression and profound human misery, and we in the West tell ourselves such things only happen in other places.

I've typed three concluding paragraphs, but each only leads to more paragraphs. Apparently I have a lot more to say about this and related topics. It seems terribly unkind to inflict a diatribe of this length on you after such a long absence, however, so I'll opt for an abrupt ending. And I promise to write more frequently, now that my summer sabbatical has ended.

Okay, about the exit and entry ramp. We all face the challenge of adjusting to those around us. Some of us, like the Unabomber, fail miserably. Others, like Regis Philbin, are annoyingly good at it. Still others, like Dick Clark, or my own child Caleb, adjust nary a bit, but let the world mold itself to them. These are the golden children, happy and oblivious.

But for most of us, there is some change required from time to time. Some modification of our habits. A curbing of our wants. An acceptance of demands placed upon us. This is the nature of living in civilized society.

What this means in particular for those of you attempting to join freeway travelers by way of an entry ramp, is that sometimes you just have to slow down and wait.

Stop right there. You, in the back, the one who thinks he knows something about driving, the one getting ready to assert that people entering the highway need to accelerate, for crying out loud, not slow down. You know who you are. Shut your piehole and listen for a minute.

Of course acceleration is necessary, when there is space. But acceleration is foolish and wrong -- yes, wrong -- when it slings you up next to a line of cars, some of which are trying to exit. In that circumstance, dear driver, it is incumbent upon you to adjust your speed so that you slip in behind the people exiting.

Otherwise, there is chaos. A free-for-all. The red tooth and claw of primitive man comes rushing to the surface, and we are once again thrown back into the state of nature after the Fall but before toilet paper.

Entry-ramp protocol is one of the most difficult skills to understand and master, so you are forgiven if you've spent thirty years cursing at people exiting in front of you while you try to accelerate into traffic. Mend your ways, go forth and sin no more. The yield sign is there for a reason. Look it up.

And now for you muddleheaded do-gooders who think you are doing your fellow man a good turn by slowing down so he can enter the freeway. Look in your rearview mirror. See all those people behind you? Do you know what they do when they see you hit your brakes? They brake. Do you know what that causes a half-mile back? A seemingly random braking, which in turn causes a panicked overreaction, which results in an accident. Like many people in the world, you may think you are helping your fellow man, but in reality you are inflicting damage. You're like Greenpeace, or one of those mothers who always cleans up after her kids.

Save it for the UNICEF can. Keep your altruistic foot off the brake and drive. Better yet, if you don't need to exit, get out of the bloody right lane. But be sure to stay out of the left lane, because some of us have places to be. You are a middle-lane driver, my friend, the one who reports 12 hours before the election that he still hasn't made up his mind, the one who always chooses "5" on a ten-point scale, the one who voted for Clinton but never really liked him, the one who thinks we ought to reform things but for heaven's sake be really careful about it. You go to bed by 11pm and you like Leno. It's okay. Just stay in your middle lane, and nobody has to get hurt.

But step on that brake to let one more driver onto the highway, and there's going to be trouble.

I feel a host of driving missives boiling up, reminiscent of my series of critiques of libertarianism a few years back, also affectionately known as "The Great Ayn Rand Beat Down of 2002."

So let's talk about a sub-species of the animal known as "Parkius Leftius," or what is in the common vernacular often referred to as "Passing Lane Slow-Poke," "The Speed Challenged," and my personal favorite, "That &%!$!! Idiot in Front of Me."

The sub-species of which I speak is the lowest of the low. He camouflages himself as a passing lane slow-poke until you get some clear space in the right lane to move comfortably around him and resume your speed.

Then he speeds up.

That's right, he races you to ten, fifteen, even twenty miles over the speed limit, until you have to get back behind him because you've come to another string of people in the right lane.

Then he slows back down.

Let's do a thought experiment. Imagine you are in Nazi Germany, or Stalinist Russia. Do you have any doubt that this little man -- and it's almost always a man -- would be gleefully working the machinery of oppression?

He is a closet dictator, an iron-fisted tyrant stuck in the body of a seemingly innocent American motorist. He wants you behind him, under his thumb and, in my case, very nearly under his bumper, because he is H. L. Mencken's definition of a Puritan: "Someone who is desperately afraid that, somewhere, someone might be having a good time."

He probably votes for mandatory recycling and kicks his dog. He believes homeschooling should be outlawed. He thinks it's good to soak the rich, unless he happens to be driving a Lexus, in which case he thinks it's good to soak the poor in the form of higher subsidies for PBS and sports arenas. He supports mandatory voting laws, eminent domain, restrictive zoning, hate speech penalties, Astro-turf, the Drug War, restricted toilet flushing capacity, China's right to regulate the Internet, and those irritating little tags on your pillows. He shops regularly at Hobby Lobby and wears golf pants. He secretly calls the neighborhood association because he thinks your hedges are too high.

He is the mandarin of his own imaginary world, and for those brief but interminable minutes when he has you behind him in the passing lane, he is your miserable little king.

I like to think that all those cases of road rage we used to read about were simply a string of would-be dictators getting their comeuppance. I mean really, when you read about someone getting shot on the highway, why do you assume he didn't deserve it?

Yes, it was a stressful drive to work today. But it only took 15 minutes, because I no longer live in Gomorrah.

Our topic for next time: The Entry and Exit Ramp, or, Who That Yield Sign is Really There For.

Did you know I used to drive professionally? There are all kinds of interesting secrets I keep from you. It's all part of the mystique, the allure that keeps you coming back to Sand in the Gears.

What kind of driving, you ask? Not racing, though my Bug once beat a raggedy '76 Mustang off the line on Stratford Road in Winston-Salem. No, I drove the big rigs.

That's right, school buses. Diesel automatics, four-in-the-floors, those sweet activity buses with the governor set at 45 instead of 35 -- I drove 'em all. I had to pass grueling tests and demonstrate my prowess in situations that would make a lesser man wet himself.

Which I almost did once while stuck at 35 mph on a long stretch of bumpy road after a large Dr. Pepper, but that's another story.

The point is, I know from driving. So consider this a public service announcement, directed at that portion of the driving public in serious risk of a severe beat-down from yours truly.

Specifically, the passing lane. Which is for passing. Funny how the name follows the function, huh? You see, some of us need to get somewhere. I'm not one of those nuts doing 15 miles over the speed limit. Well, sometimes I am. But if you're in the passing lane and doing a respectable five or six over the limit, I can bide my time a respectful distance behind you. My issue is with those who only do the speed limit in the passing lane, or worse, drive below the speed limit.

You are in the bloody way. Move.

I have half a mind to get one of those big tubular metal thingies for the front of my truck, just for ramming the next Sunday-driving-on-Monday-morning-my-aren't-the-flowers-growing-in-the-median-lovely slow-poke turtle-blooded turf crawler who gets in my way. Give me a jury of my peers -- my real peers, not the people who sit on really important trials and always seem to screw them up -- and I think I'd have a good shot at being vindicated.

And it's not that I'm in such an all-fired hurry to get anywhere; a wife and three children have accustomed me to being late. It's just the inconsideration involved in camping out in the left lane without regard to the long line of cars piling up behind you. It's just rude. Move. Move. We don't tolerate this sort of nonsense from our toddlers when we need to pass by in the hallway, and we darn sure don't need to tolerate it from adults who ought to have been taught better by now.

I have no problem with going back to prison, people. So consider yourself warned.

Dear Paper Magic Group, an affiliate of CSS Industries, Inc.:

I would like to introduce you to the Swiss Miss Corporation. The Swiss have something you should definitely look into for your line of attractive Christmas cards, 80 of which I had the misfortune of recently purchasing. This something, as you will note from a previous post here, is called a-d-h-e-s-i-v-e.

As in, the stuff that's supposed to be catalyzed by my saliva. The saliva from my tongue, which I ran repeatedly along the backs of your envelopes until I sustained a wicked paper cut.

Said paper cut being, in case I have not been clear, on my tongue.

My freaking tongue, Paper Magic Group. Have you ever sliced this most delicate of instruments? Therein lies a pain that even I, a master of words, cannot describe on this family-oriented site. Were I a cursing man, which I am during the holidays and other festive family occasions, I would now use the word I screeched upon sustaining this injury, a word which can be found liberally sprinkled in place of a logical plot throughout any Quentin Tarantino movie.

Not that you would have understood me, because a cleaved tongue does not produce the sounds one intends. My wife thought I was referring to a character in "Robin Hood."

(pause for the stragglers)

In the Swiss Miss Corporation you can find, Paper Magic Group, an admirable example of the cutting edge in sealing technology. I'm quite sure they would be open to selling you some glue so that your future customers do not have to resort, as I did, to tape in order to seal their holiday card envelopes.

And to all of you who will be receiving a card from me, please keep in mind that you can re-use that duct tape, it is a high quality brand. Just stick it to your existing roll.

As for those of you who do not receive a Christmas card from me, please see the post below regarding my new friend Amanda Frazier, who will be receiving a card.

And now I'm off to the ER to get my tongue stapled.

Dear Frito-Lay Empire,

I have long admired your work. Kudos, especially, on the extra-wide Frito corn chip, which really does yield an optimal dipping experience. I wish I could tell you that this letter is only to laud you for your place of leadership at the vanguard of snack food excellence. Unfortunately, it is my sad duty to be the one to tell you that lately you have begun to miss a step. Not all cylinders are firing. There's a few bulbs out in your tree. Whatever corporate pseudo-metaphorical business-speak works for you.

The point is, Frito-Lay Companies, you have become a love 'em and leave 'em kind of snack food conglomerate. First, you hook me on your delicious Barbeque flavored corn chip, a staple of movie-watching for years in the Woodlief household. Then you introduce the Chili Cheese Frito, Barbeque's flashy cousin from Albuquerque. Sure, Chili Cheese drives a nice car and always leaves you with that breathless special on-top-of-the-world feeling, but after a while you realize he's all smile and no impact, all powdery initial taste but no lingering substance.

So I admit I flirted with the Chili Cheese Frito, but only for a while, and then I was back with my steady Eddie Barbeque Fritos, happy as a transfat cell snuggled up nice and close to a favorite artery wall.

But then I noticed the Barbeque Frito wasn't around so much any more. I would go to my favorite grocer, and see only a row of Chili Cheese Frito, flashing his big-city grin and revving his engine. Now finding a bag of Barbeque Fritos is like finding a lucid statement from Michael Moore -- you know they must exist, but you're darned if you can locate one.

You've let me down, Frito-Lay Corporation, plain and simple. You're like, oh, I don't know, let's take a purely hypothetical and totally made-up example, a wife who buys some slinky little lingerie number in a festive holiday theme, but only wears it the one time. It's not right, Frito-Lay Megalith, it's simply not right.

And now let me address my real complaint, the one that has really frosted my cinnamon buns. That's right, I'm talking about the Guacamole Potato Chip.

First, let's get one thing straight right off the bat. Don't even bring that nasty, stick-in-your-throat Dorito Guacamole disaster up in here. Don't even, Frito-Lay Behemoth. That's weak.

I'm talking about the delicate yet powerfully tasty Guacamole Potato Chip. The one we bought numerous bags of, funding who knows how many lucrative stock options for top Frito-Lay Corporate Chieftains. The beautiful Guacamole Potato Chip. The flavor-filled Guacamole Potato Chip.

The entirely absent Guacamole Potato Chip.

What really hurts, Frito-Lay Colossus, is that you didn't even warn us. We could have stocked up. We could have taken the time to linger over those last greasy delicious morsels. We could have mourned, we could have prepared ourselves.

But no, you just murdered the Guacamole Potato Chip, and then to add insult to injury, you pretend on your colorful uninformative corporate Website that he never existed.

Et tu, Frito-Lay?

So tell me, why should we trust you now? Say you manage to compress the tasty flavor of a bag of peanuts poured into a Coca-Cola, and spread it onto a savory pita chip? Why should I grow attached to a new offering from you? Why should I let myself love again, after you've wounded me so? I ask you, Frito-Lay and Associated Subsidiaries, why should I give my heart to you again?

Do you think I like buying off-brand chips, Frito-Lay Leviathan? Do you think I enjoy cheapening myself in that way, closing my eyes and pretending that the Kroger barbeque chips are really my beloved Barbeque Fritos?

Well, I most certainly do not. So here I am in this beautiful season of excess, and I am eating popcorn during movie time. Popcorn, Frito-Lay. It's a net calorie loss, by the time you count all the fishing around at the bottom of the bowl for those kernels that are hard enough to fight back, but not too hard to chip a molar.

I thought I meant more to you than this, Frito-Lay and Affiliated Entities. But I guess I do not. I'm just another statistic.

But this statistic has a heart, Frito-Lay. He has a big, overlabored, cholesterol-inhibited heart. And thanks to you, that heart is breaking. Goodbye, Faceless Frito-Lay Corporate Giant. Goodbye.

To: Swiss Miss and affiliates, including but not limited to Swiss Watch & Clock LLC, Swiss Cheese Food Products, Swiss Army Knife and Nail Clipper Companies, and Swiss Gold and Cash Laundering Services LLC

From: Tony Woodlief

Subject: Swiss Miss Pudding Cups

First, I want to congratulate you on breaking new ground in the area of packaged food-sealing technology. Given that NASA can't seem to shoot anything into space without it falling apart all over the place, I encourage you to contact their scientists regarding the glue you use to seal the tops of your pudding cups.

Unfortunately, as with all great breakthroughs that have rocked the food sciences (e.g., Pop Rocks, lime-flavored Coke, the McRib Sandwich) there are some complications arising from your innovative new approach. To wit, the requirement that a customer use a mallet and chisel to separate the lid from the pudding cup. Now, I am absolutely confident that when I finally give the pudding cup to my children -- hours after dinner, mind you -- it will be absolutely free from contamination or tampering. It will be safe, that is, except for the periodic plunges of my fingers into the pudding as I pull and tear at miniscule pieces of the lid, which seems cleverly designed not to lift in one piece, but to separate itself so that one can only pull off a thin strand at a time.

Very clever, Swiss Miss, very safe. I think perhaps we have a cultural difference here. I know that you pride yourselves on safety in the great mountainous origin of sexually repressed theology, the Red Cross, and studied neutrality from the world's great conflicts. I know that when times call for daring acts -- resisting the Nazis, for example, or hewing to minimal standards of decency when it comes to profiting from totalitarian thuggery -- the Swiss have bravely run away to not fight another day. But really, we're talking pudding here. Are you afraid that opening the pudding cup too rapidly will result in a blob getting in someone's eye? Are you dissatisfied with prevailing food industry methods of preventing tampering?

Perhaps this is a statement, a declaration to the world that Switzerland is still the safest place on the planet, provided one is not a fleeing victim of a holocaust, of course. If so, then I applaud you, Swiss Miss Corporation and Affiliates, for rendering your pudding cups nearly impenetrable. Catholic Girl's Schools and calculus textbook writers could learn at your feet.

Alas, though, in my household we have a reckless desire to actually eat the pudding. Thus I regret to inform you that in the future we will be buying the Del Monte pudding products -- that's right, the ones in the dangerous tin cups with the round pull-tops. Yes, someone could get a cut, and there may be pudding spillage. That's just how we roll in my house, Swiss Miss.

I wish you well in your future endeavors.

PS: My wife has just informed me that you aren't really Swiss after all, that you are part of some soulless American food conglomerate. Now I am doubly disillusioned. Not only can I not savor your tasty chocolate goodness without a MacGyver-like effort, now I do not even have the luxury of imagining that I am tasting the forbidden sweetness of what passes for Swiss decadence. Now we are through for good. Good day to you, sirs.

Moving puts one in a consumerist mindset, sometimes forcibly. Along with the excitement of finding a new home that fits one's wants and wishes comes the depressing drudgery of coping with the varied organizations whose products are essential either to one's household or to the government's sense of what is necessary to fund itself while keeping the populace from killing, poisoning, or intolerably irritating one another. In the same day one can play the role of omnipotent customer and powerless supplicant, depending on the transaction. The key is to maintain your dignity. They can take your money and your liberty, but never let them have what separates us from the animals and the French.

Keeping one's dignity during a three-hour visit to the Division of Motor Vehicles with three small children in tow, however, is no small feat. So sometimes it's enough simply to refrain from killing a state employee in the exceedingly slow and surly performance of his rote and ill-considered tasks.

I noticed something during that ordeal, and to explain it properly I first need to make clear that I am not someone who believes the word "literally" was invented so that the inarticulate could express how much something is way, way more/less/better/worse, etc., than their limited words could otherwise convey. In other words, it has a literal meaning. And I mean it literally when I say that these people move slower, literally, than any other collection of non-injured, non-geriatric individuals whose proximity I've ever had the misfortune of sharing. It's as if they were coated in molasses and force-marched through the North Pole.

I'm sure many of them would disagree. They are tired when they get home, and they believe they earn their pay just like anyone else. But they move at about two-thirds the speed of a well-supervised or well-motivated person. I watched one woman schlep every few minutes from her seat in one corner to a fax machine in the opposite corner, walking parallel to the walls so she could stay behind the long counters protecting her co-workers from the irritated citizenry (though that last word may not be entirely accurate). She was the only person I saw using the fax. Not only did she travel at the speed of a tire rolling uphill, but it didn't seem to occur to her that perhaps the fax machine should be relocated. Will it ever occur to her? No, because her life is the same whether we wait three hours or three minutes, except in the latter scenario she has to move a little quicker and solve more problems.

This isn't limited to the DMV, of course -- any organization can let its workforce become a wasteland where the goals and motivation are as bizarre and meaningless as a Kofi Annan speech. I wandered into a sporting goods store a few days later (hanging up a heavy bag, going to teach the little men to bring the serious, Bruce Lee, jeet-kune-do-go-tell-your-mama-how-bad-you-just-got-whupped smack), and noticed several customers standing in different sections looking for non-existent help. Only when I made my way back to the front did I see a clump of teenagers wearing shirts implying that in some vague employment-law sense they actually worked there. I told them they had customers in guns and shoes and I needed help as well, and so they shuffled back to work. The store will go out of business soon, and the owner deserves to lose money. The DMV, however, will likely remain until we invent teleporting, though I suspect we'll all have to start getting inspections and tags for that as well.

Though the convenience of dealing with bureaucracy by phone is preferable to dwelling for hours in one of its waiting-area purgatories, there is the added haughtiness that immunity from a physical beating inspires in some functionaries. Consider a rough transcript of the conversation my wife had with a representative from our local water company:

"What do you mean we owe you money? We've been gone for three years."

"You had an unpaid bill for $19.00, which has been reported to a collection agency."

"But when we closed our account you told us what we owed and we paid it."

"There were subsequent charges."

"We weren't informed that there would be subsequent charges."

"We sent you a bill."

"That's odd, because our mail was forwarded for three months, and we never received a bill."

"We don't allow our bills to be forwarded."

"So let me get this straight. We asked you to disconnect our service because we were moving, and you expect us to know about a bill that got sent to the house weeks after we've vacated?"

"The bill is your responsibility."

"That's ridiculous. And let me tell you another thing: I don't know what collection agency you hired to fetch your 19 dollars, but they have to be the worst collectors in the world because not only have we never heard a peep from them, our credit report is completely clean."

"If you want your water connected, we will require a $75 deposit."

"Fine."

And then there's the phone company. Thought I had their number, pardon the pun, by way of Vonage, one of these voice-over-Internet outfits salivating over the residential telephony market. But no such luck. Things never worked right, we couldn't place calls, the cable modem got messed up as well, and their fleet of earnest help desk operators in India were terribly, terribly, terribly, terribly unable to help us.

So I called to fire them. I explained to the representative that I was canceling because a critical part of telephone service, for our family at least, is the ability to make telephone calls. She listened politely, then offered two free months of service if I would remain a customer. You don't understand, I explained, it doesn't work. You could give me a hundred years free, and it still wouldn't do me any good. So she upped the ante: "How about three months?"

Sigh. And now they are jacking us around (what a punster I am today!) by refusing to refund various start-up and equipment fees. My revenge, should it come to this, will be to write something exceedingly snippy and funny and beg Instapundit to link it. I'm not important, but I do have very important acquaintances.

But at least, after a hard day of wrestling the consequences of poor management and overweening government, I can always go to my favorite family restaurant, a little place you've never heard of called Barn'rds. They, at least, know my name, and they are always glad to see me.

And isn't that, in the end, all any of us are really asking?

Sorry, been away again, on another top secret mission. Of course you know I'm kidding about the mission part, because nobody who kills people for a living would actually joke about it on his website, even though joking would be the perfect cover. Joke about killing people, blabbity blah about your kids, and nobody would ever suspect a thing...

Where was I? Oh yeah, the sorry part. Sorry.

Now, for a few recent irritations, because I'm in one of those moods, because I've had to give up coffee, because, minor detail, lately it makes me feel miserable.

First, a helpful email from American Airlines, notifying me that my flight scheduled to leave at 4:20 would actually be leaving at 5:30. Time email was sent: 5:03. What was intended to be a notification instead became mockery, as is much news in a highly connected world. This was followed by a string of emails telling me the flight would be later and still later, each notification coming within minutes of the newly scheduled time. So not only did I listen to the harried American employee periodically explain why the delays were NOT HIS FAULT, I got taunted by my own bloody blackberry. This is why it is very important that we discover how to teleport people, though I'm sure if the airlines are in charge they will find a way to get me to my destination both late and missing important body parts.

Second, flip flops. Let me be more precise, because the wife has a few pairs with frilly decorations that make her feet look as if they are sexy little exotic Las Vegas dancers. I have no inherent problem with the flip flop. What I have a problem with are men who cram their nasty, cheese-ridden toes into flip flops so that we can all see what an advanced case of gangrene of the toe looks like. I also have a problem with flip flops that look as if they have been worn while cleaning bathrooms in a Calcutta whorehouse.

Look, we all appreciate that you are young, and that you live the exciting parts of your life after 11pm, and that trudging to work at 8 a.m. is really a Tremendous Burden. But none of these are an excuse to go slippy-slapping about with your feet adorned in mold-ridden tire shavings. Have some self-respect, for God's sake, or is that too much to freaking ask.

Did I mention that I'm on the coffee wagon? Or off it. Whatever. I need caffeine and I can't have it.

Finally, I saw this sign in the cafeteria in my building: "Satisfaction Guarantee: If you aren't 100% satisfied, please speak to a manager." So let me get this straight: if I'm not 100 percent satisfied, then the "guarantee" is that I can speak to a manager? Who needs a guarantee for that? If I really want to talk to the manager, I can jump up on a table and pee in the wax geraniums. Now that's guaranteed to draw a manager.

So I'm thinking -- Sand in the Gears is a business, except that you get more satisfaction here than from your phone company, and you don't pay me (well, most of you don't). So starting today I'm offering the Sand in the Gears 100 Percent Satisfaction Guarantee. If you aren't 100 percent satisfied with what you find here, you can kiss my . . .    shove it up . . .    speak to Management.

Have a nice day.

Or don't. See if I care.

I only have time to write a few words before I catch a truck to an undisclosed border crossing, where I will begin my new life as a fugitive from international justice. The jig is up, as a law professor at Michigan State University declared in her recent letter to The Atlantic Monthly:

Corporal punishment of children�regardless of how "moderate," and no matter by whom dispensed�is considered a violation of international human-rights law. The practice violates at least six human-rights treaties: the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child; the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights; the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; the American Convention on Human Rights; and the European Social Charter.

Moreover, a rapidly growing number of countries have outlawed all physical chastisement of children. As of this writing twelve nations�Austria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Latvia, Norway, Romania, Sweden, and Ukraine�have banned spanking by law. Israel has done the same by a judicial decision of its highest court. . .

Crap, and Austria always topped my list of potential hide-outs, what with its Sound of Music scenery and fine tradition of economic thinking.

That's right, I'm a spanker. I haven't gotten around to gassing ethnic minorities or starving religious dissidents yet, but six human rights violations has got to be up there on the Crimes-Against-Humanity Scale. And as the author herself notes ("at least"), there may be more. Perhaps she'll send a follow-up letter once her research assistant has scoured the minutes of august bodies with names like the Transnational Union of Enlightened Academics and the International Quorum of the Internationally Minded.

And I'm ashamed to say that there's more than just the spanking. Sometimes I put the kids down for a nap when they aren't even sleepy. Who knows how many U.N.-divined rights are being transgressed as they lie there on their little beds, staring up at the ceiling?

I also make them eat all their salad, which surely is a violation of some international proclamation against forced ingestion, not to mention the purchase of non-union produce. Not letting them leave the table until they've finished, after all, is really no different than loading a bag of lettuce onto the end of a plunger and ramming it down their gullets, by the logic of the learned professor.

It's all becoming clear now. I thought I was being a good parent, but in reality I am the Butcher of Virginia. How benighted I have been!

And now I see the wretched but deserved future that awaits. Crouching in the hazy lobby of some nondescript South American hotel, playing chess with decrepit former SS guards and junk-bond traders, nervously watching the door for U.N. authorities on a righteous quest to bring me to justice for forcing my children to say "yes sir" and "excuse me." Oh, the humanity. How did I come to this? What pain and suffering might the world have been spared, if only I had secured a J.D. and an internship with the Public Interest Law Initiative!

Spankers of the world, disarm. Embrace the Time Out and the Positive Affirmation, the Disciplinary Hug and Television Deprivation (although if your kid wants to watch PBS, I think there's a U.N. Declaration somewhere that says you have to let him). Just turn back, before it's too late.

Otherwise I'll see you in Guatemala. Or Chile. Or Ecuador. Actually, I'm not at liberty to say where, but be sure to brush up on your Spanish, and your chess. I'll be the one in the dark glasses, clutching a copy of Chicken Soup for the Human Rights Violator.

I know what some of you are thinking. He's lost his edge. You remember with fondness the days when I would bring the everloving smack to McDonald's for faulty pickle placement, or rain down barbs on smug, intolerant, self-anointed judges of what counts as real womanhood. That was the real Tony, you think. Back when he was a man.

If you find yourself mildly dismayed by the heavy doses of sentimentality of late, and missing the old, bitter Tony, then this one's for you. The topic today is Blockbuster, also known as the The Company That Robbed My Children of a College Education With Their *$!#%&!! Late Fees. One of the greatest moments of petty vengeance I have ever experienced came the day I signed up with Netflix. No late fees, excellent selection, no bloody late fees, don't have to leave the house, no freaking late fees, an online queue so you don't have to remember everything you want to see, no *$!#%&!! late fees. Life has been great ever since.

Well, the wife and I are nursing a 24 addiction, but it's manageable. I mean, we can quit any time we want. Really. I mention the addiction (and it's really more hers than mine) because it brought us back to Blockbuster. You see, I mismanaged my Netflix queue, and this weekend we found ourselves without the next 24 DVD. "Let's go get it at Blockbuster," said the wife. (See what I mean?)

"Absolutely not," I replied through clenched teeth.

"Just this once."

"Get behind me, Satan."

"Fine, then I'll watch it by myself, and tell you whether Jack Bauer survives the plane crash."

"You hussy!"

Since we were out anyway, I drove to Blockbuster. She was already committed, you see, and I didn't want her driving at night on her own. As we pulled into the parking lot of the Video Store We Don't Speak Of, I saw that its windows were covered with big red signs announcing that we no longer have to live in a world with late fees, because Blockbuster is taking a stand to eliminate them.

At times like this I wish my mother didn't read this blog, because to do justice to what went through my mind, I would have to lay out some really creative cursing, the kind you need a copy of Gray's Anatomy and a stint in the Navy to really appreciate. So let's suffice to say that I was nonplussed. Whatever "plussed" is, I was very much the opposite of that. Definitely without the plussing. These are the people, you see, who perfected the art of the bait and switch in the field of late fees.

Here's your movie Mr. Woodlief. It's due back on Tuesday unless you bring it back on Monday, in which case it's really due yesterday. In fact, it's already late. That'll be $73.47. Thanks for shopping at Blockbuster.

And now they're making it sound like the world was awash in complex late fee arrangements before they stepped into the breach. Of course their "no late fee" policy really isn't; now if you keep it too long they don't charge you a late fee, they charge you the price of the entire fricking movie.

These aren't late fees, Mr. Woodlief, they're Inadequate Timeliness Assessments.

I confess a fiery burning hatred for firms that behave like an East German water utility, and only modify their practices once they are threatened by upstart competition. I like companies that are constantly innovating and finding better, cheaper ways to suck up to me while selling me schlock I don't need at a ridiculously low price. And I like companies that strike at the very heart of a big, slow, stupid behemoth. Hence my love affair with Netflix. It even sends me DVD's in pretty red envelopes, like Valentines.

I'm not obsessed, mind you. Just mildly infatuated. And irritated. So a pox on your house, Blockbuster. You with your movies that don't stretch back past 1997, your endless supply of video games, your bright cheery interior hiding your dark, cold accountant's soul. One day I will set up my portable DVD player and watch Godfather on your freshly tilled grave. Maybe even Godfather II. Definitely not Godfather III, of course. Even my vindictiveness has limits.

The only good thing about getting on a kiddy caterpillar roller coaster with your two year-old, wrenching your back, and having the injury get progressively worse until you are laid up for most of the weekend is that you get caught up on your magazines. This is how I found myself reading one of the most remarkably dense statements I have ever encountered, in a February issue of National Review, no less.

The statement comes from Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth, in his review of Gregg Easterbrook's The Progress Paradox. I'll confess at the outset an admiration for Easterbrook, who has convictions that lean left but whose pursuit of truth frequently leads him to chip away at the shibboleths of big-government socialism. Would that the Right had more people as intellectually honest. My feeling for Moore is mildly positive as well; I've heard him speak before, and his message about the unrestrained, shamelessly profligate spending of Republican-dominated state legislatures in the 1990's is sure to boil any thinking man's blood.

But here is Moore trying to puncture Easterbrook's claim that material progress may not secure happiness, and in fact may mitigate against it:

". . . as an economist, I'm a bit of a skeptic on Easterbrook's 'paradox of progress' argument. We economists believe in 'revealed preferences': If you choose something voluntarily, then -- we assume -- you are better off. If getting richer and having more and more things doesn't make us happier, why do we spend so much of our lives trying to get more money?"

I am hard put to come up with a sentence that more ferociously skewers by caricature the economist than that last. I wonder how an adult can even formulate such a thought without shrinking from it in embarrassment. Who among us does not know someone who has wrecked his life on the rocks of his own material success, and as a result is mired in deep, abject misery? Indeed, who among us has not lain awake in the twilight hours -- when the heart is least stifled and our thoughts most honest -- and feared that such might well be his own wretched lot?

But such is the nature of economics, that the model must trump human experience. Revealed preferences are a critical assumption because otherwise we must understand the black box of the human heart and mind, and this cannot be done with slide rule and statistics.

A great failing of professional economists, and of the ideologies which make them their high priests, is that they transmogrify simple descriptive models of human behavior into prescriptions. Man seeks material gain because it is what he believes is best for him -- this is a description that allows us to build predictive models of behavior. Somehow the average economist has turned this into a prescription for living. Eat, drink, and be merry, he says, for it grows the GDP.

Indeed, it seems that economists turn the old adage about accountants on its head: They know the value of everything, and the cost of nothing.

Seems some of the fine minds who hang out at this Nazi website and chat forum are having a raging debate over whether I am a whiny Christian or a whiny Jew.

Says one, who has lifted a picture of me and my son and pasted it into his comment:

"Notice the frizzy hair, the shape of the skull (specially the back of his head)."

But wait, says another, are you sure he's Jewish? Can you verify it?

Certainly, says the first, because he uses "the very Semitic label 'Jew-hating.'"

Ah, says the second, but here's a post about his dead daughter. He talks about God in it. He must be a Christian. You should be ashamed for calling him a Jew.

But in another of the Jew's posts, says the first, he uses the word "chutzpah." This is proof of his Jewishness, concludes this genius, because:

"How many White Christians use the word Chutzpah?"

Nazi One continues to opine that, though I mentioned my daughter meeting Christ the night she died, this is likely because she is a goy, the product of my race-betraying gentile wife.

Oh yeah, I'm definitely buying that .45 I've had my eyes on.

It gets better, friends. Another skinhead barges into this intellectual debate, to announce that I am without a doubt a Jew, because -- and stuff like this is just too good to make up -- I called Vanessa Redgrave evil, and we all know that she was a fine English actress censured for making anti-Semitic remarks.

Guys, I appreciate your taking time out from Mein Kampf to study my website, but instead of reading the tea leaves, why not just ask me? Tell you what: so you don't soil yourselves by sending the potential Jew an email -- because that would lead to intermarriage and Bar Mitzvahs and such -- I'll just answer the question for you:

I worship a Jewish carpenter. Hope that puts your leather panties in a nice, tight bind.

And thanks for reading. Mazel Tov!

Some who make their money by practicing medicine (and let's get the incentives clear at the beginning, shall we?) believe the use of ultrasound devices by people with insufficient medical degrees should be stopped. The specter of giddy expectant parents ogling a four-dimensional image of their bundle of joy in utero under the smiling guidance of a mere technician is more than the blue-bloods can bear. This is medical technology, after all. Would we want these proletarians doing their own brain surgery?

In steps the FDA, making n