An evening of moral ineptitude

—Bumper sticker of the week: One generation plants the trees, the next gets the shade.

—Quotes of the week: “A person who says, ‘I’m enlightened,’ probably isn’t.” Ram Dass

“If you don’t find God in the next person you meet, it is a waste of time looking for him further.” Ghandi

—Tomorrow is Yom Hashoah-Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust: When I think about the Holocaust, my mind can’t phantom it. It just doesn’t register. It seems so horrible my mind can’t process it. How can such a thing have happened? Still, I know it did, and I know it does. Look no further than Tibet, Durfar, Cambodia, Uganda, Zaire. People killing people for the stupidest of reasons: You look different, you talk different, you worship different. In a world that has become connected by the touch of a button, how is it we can continue to deny our connectedness? I can communicate with people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa, Pakistan, Lebanon, ask them about their lives and what is going on, write a story, and be done by noon. When I do so, I can no longer deny their suffering. I am a part of it, like I continue to be a part of the Holocaust. I cannot shake it off as history or that I wasn’t born yet, or that I wasn’t responsible. I ask, “What could I have done anyway?” In my every waking hour, I should be condemning the killing of innocent people for ideological purposes, religious creeds and dogmas, or national imperialism. If I don’t, the deaths of innocent men, women, and children should weigh heavily on my heart.

—How to know you’re growing older:

• Everything hurts.

• You feel like you really partied it up last night, but all you did was go to bed.

• You join health clubs but never go.

• Your knees buckle but your belt won’t.

• You have too much rom in the house but not enough in the medicine cabinet.

• Every name in your address book ends in M.D.

• You turn out the lights to save on electricity, not for romantic purposes.

—Knox College hosts John Ashcroft in an evening of moral ineptitude: Bad idea, Knox. What a fiasco. With leadership like this, no wonder we’re ass deep in alligators. It’s pathetic. All he can talk about is 9/11 and the great job he did saving us from evil and, along the way, explaining how he justifies torture. Get this, it’s for our own good.. He explains we can do such things in the name of liberty and democracy. I hear tell he was paid $10,000. That was about $9950 too much. The speech rambled and made absolutely no point, other than demonstrating the awfulness of our leadership in Washington. Everyone sitting there should have been thoroughly disgusted. The students were relatively mild-mannered. They wouldn’t have cut it in my day.

—Wise thoughts on everything:

• Life is sexually transmitted.

• They raise taxes $500 and give you a 50¢ rebate.

• Men have two emotions: hunger and horny. If you see him without an erection, make him a sandwich.

• All of us should learn a lesson from Mother Nature: She pays no attention to criticism.

• It wouldn’t hurt if about half of everyone on Earth were somewhere else.

• I guess religion is ok. It beats sitting around having nothing to talk about.

• If you give a person a fish, they’ll eat it. If you teach them to fish, you’ll never see them again.

• The average cost of raising a dog to age 15: $12,000 The average cost of raising a child to age 18: $170,460. Score one for the dogs.

• You cannot lick your elbow.

• When it’s time to retire, you’ll know it. Your job will no longer make cents.

• In life, there are so many things to remember. To help you out, I narrowed it down to this: