Wednesday morning Bill Bennett, author of “The Book of Virtues”, took a call on his radio show where the caller inquired about the higher rate of abortions and the dropping crime rate. Bill Bennett replied:

But I do know that it’s true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.

The caller did not mention race at all so why did Bill Bennett make it a racial issue? White people commit far more crimes than black people. Why then, when we talk about crime, does it come to our minds to discuss it in terms of race?

If you want to lower crime, you need to lower poverty. The poverty rate has gone up since George Bush has become President. So has the abortion rate. Both rates dropped under Bill Clinton.

I want to know what the FCC is going to do about Bill Bennett. He is using America’s airwaves to promulgate this point of view.

The FCC is taking Howard Stern off the air because he is indecent. I ask, is what Howard Stern does on his show in jest, more or less indecent than what Bill Bennett was pushing Wednesday in seriousness?

With the indictment of Tom “The Hammer” Delay, republicans are playing defense.

Their defense is revolving around a single thing: claiming the democrats have no unified message and offer no clear alternative.

I think the democrats are being perfect geniuses right now. They are unified around a strategy best explained by Napoleon Bonaparte: “Never interrupt your enemy while he is making a mistake.”

Think Tom Delay will keep his nickname if he goes to prison? I bet “The Hammer” means something different at the penn.

I’m sure you’ve seen the new, slick ad for the Apple iPod Nano, or what I like to call the iBigot.

The commercial is catchy, with the catchy music and high production quality we have come to expect from Apple. It is also, in my eyes, racially insensitive.

The commercial show people’s hands holding the iPod Nano. Tossing it, flipping it, looking at it with curiosity. All the hands are white.

The only time an obviously black hand is shown is when it is trying to grab the iPod out of a white person’s hand.

See for yourself.

Simple oversight? Our country is inherently blind to racial inequality and the way it is quietly and shamefully accepted.

Is there any irony in a person owning a hybrid car, then smoking while driving? I saw that very thing twice today.

Take this short test to find out if you’re really a democrat, republican, or some other political designation.

I am patient with stupidity but not with those who are proud of it. — Edith Sitwell

Yesterday I was sitting in a meeting with a media sales rep from a trade publication, who I’m guessing was sixty-ish. The old spice that emanated from him could stop a bull.

Two hours later, one of the ladies in the marketing department was going out to lunch with her college-aged son. As she walked around proudly introducing him, I noticed it again. My olfactory system was overwhelmed by a smell, whose quantity could cover up a rotting corpse. Except this time, it was Axe Body Spray.

Then it dawned on me. We make fun of the old men that bath in Old Spice. Axe has become the Old Spice of a younger generation.

I’m tired of trying to find myself.

American pop-psychology is full of people “finding themselves.” So we read books about how they found themselves, and mostly, I think it’s more about your money finding their bank account.

And all the time I’m thinking: I don’t have many friends. Others seem to be having more “fun” with life than me — whatever “fun” means.

Yet I wonder if I had the chance to ask, say, the Dali Lama a question, he’d answer, “Son, I’m just as lost as you.”

I’m tired of trying to find myself. I’m going to start inventing myself.

I was just reading an interview Bill Gates did with CNET. Something caught my eye.

Snip:

CNET: So that would be the philosophical difference between Microsoft and what Google is up to at this point?
Gates: Well, we don’t know everything they are up to, but we do know their slogan and we disagree with that.

The Google slogan is “do no evil.” Gates just said he disagreed with it.

Time to buy a mac.