Open Sesame!...Street

Front Page: One of the many thrills of my ex-presidential lifestyle is getting to watch any University of Michigan event I want (and any Justin Timberlake concert) on closed-circuit television. Today, for instance, while the students were miraculously on vacation, the law school brought in Bill Keller, executive editor of the New York Times. I found his speech on freedom of the press in light of government secrecy to be thoughtful and witty. The only problem with not having students in the audience, though, is that it gives all the crazies more room. And then, when it's question-and-answer time, guess who leaps to the microphones? (Hint: It's not the people with interesting, probing questions.)



So the first crazy gets up and asks why the Times chose to "bury" a report done through Johns Hopkins that said there were 600,000 Iraqi dead. Keller calmly explained that the Times had not, in fact, buried it - they'd run a 1000-word story on it, and had discussed the merits of whether an epidemiological survey was as accurate as counting bodies in the morgues. The next person goes right back to how the Times is covering up the atrocities, and accuses the Times of sitting on their information about domestic wiretapping during the 2004 presidential election so that Bush could win. Keller is quite a bit angrier by now (and rightly so) because this guy didn't even have a question and the audience had to boo at him to make him stop. Then, while Keller is trying to respond to that man's comments, some other crazy in the back of the room starts calling out more crazy-talk. People! This is not helpful! You have a chance to ask the executive editor of the New York Times a well-crafted question and instead you seize the opportunity to advance your own agenda?! No one wants to hear your crazy theories and rigamarole!

So I've been thinking about how to reach the audience crazies. Contrary to popular perception, they're not just hobos and impoverished cranks. Many crazies were raised in middle-class homes and their names are followed by a maze of degrees, which means they think that their ideas actually have credence. Predictably, the crazies feel a certain sense of disconnect and disenfranchisement from their government and can't understand why everyone doesn't see the world through their eyes.

So how can we combat craziness? Well, let's look at how we've dealt with Arab resentment. First, there was this, which I don't think helped much (after all, there are 600,000 Iraqis dead!). The thing is, the Muslims aren't enthused by Muppets, and we know they hate Danish cartoons:



But you know what the Arabs love? Well, to find out the answer, let's look at another example of Islamofashion:



That's right - they dress like Disney characters! It's perfect! They hate the Jews, and Disney was an anti-semite! What we ought to do is air-drop copies of Aladdin all over the Middle East. Only then will they know how much we appreciate their rich culture of magic carpets and midriff-baring princesses. One cartoon movie is our ticket to peace and global understanding. Why didn't I think of this in 1976? I could have been elected!

As for the crazies, I think they're best represented by the closest thing the world of puppets has to crazies, so they can identify with him and stay home, watching Sesame Street, instead of going to college campuses and mucking up otherwise-good lectures:



There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe,
Gerry