It’s Time to Get Fired Up —DeWese

Welcome to class. I hope you all had a safe and sober Fourth of July. The campus here at Mañana University has been very quiet except for the unfortunate fireworks rocket attack on Dean Michelson's office. He is recovering nicely, and will have eyebrows and hair again in a few months.

Monique, you look as if your holiday was neither safe nor sober, and you need to wipe that barbecue sauce off your chin. You obviously fell asleep on the beach and got that magnificent sunburn that matches your auburn hair. Maybe you should brush some of the sand off your legs. The men are all staring, and I need their attention up here.

And, Monique, please keep your hands to yourself today; your groping is distracting to the other students. This is not a singles bar.

Okay, let's get started.

My wife of 48 years, Anne, is also known as Attila the Nun by my readers, friends and relatives. She can be brutal and she's devious. For example, Anne leaves magazine and newspaper articles that she wants me to read where I can't miss them, like on my bedside table or next to my toilet.

A recent article from Anne was a chronicle of the foremost leaders in the patriot movement and other radical militia people in America. These folks see federal government conspiracies everywhere, and they speechify, blogify and use their Websites to warn the rest of us to remain armed in case we have to fight off the U.S. Marines when they come to take us away to concentration camps.

Government Conspiracy

They warn, for example, that Washington, DC, has already constructed hundreds of concentration camps to house us if we smell the least bit liberal, are the wrong race or have the wrong sexual orientation. They say the camps are no secret. I guess I just missed hearing the secret. There were about 25 or 30 of these biographies in the article, and old, out-of-touch me had never heard of any of them.

This got me to thinking about conspiracies against the printing industry and, dammit, I found some. The Internet people, in cahoots with the laser and inkjet printer people, have conspired to eradicate letterhead and envelopes. When was the last time you received a nicely typed or handwritten letter on good stationery? No, you get plenty of e-mails, but no letters.

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