SEEING RED. THIS CAME IN ON THE INTERNET.

Dear Red States:

We're ticked off at the way you've treated us and we've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us.

In case you aren't aware, that includes California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast.

We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New California.

To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches.

We get Elliot Spitzer. You get Ken Lay.

We get the Statue of Liberty. You get OpryLand.

We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom.

We get Harvard. You get Ole' Miss.

We get 85 percent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama.

We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red states pay their fair share.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms.

Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and antiwar, and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your citizens. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don't care if you
don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home.

We do wish you success in Iraq, and hope that the WMDs turn up, but we're not willing to spend our resources in Bush's Oil Quagmire.

With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80 percent of the country's fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation's fresh fruit, 95 percent of America's quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners), 90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy League and Seven Sister schools, plus Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.

With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists,
virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.

We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.

Additionally, 38 percent of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62 percent believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44 percent say that evolution is only a theory, 53 percent that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61 percent of you believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties.

Sincerely,
The Blue People


PECKING ORDER PHOTO OPS

A recent article in NEWSWEEK reports on the current trend by high school graduates to get "fashion-model-style photos" for graduation. Photographers spend hours shooting the young "models" in all sorts of poses and dressed in many ways, i.e. in football togs or swim wear or stripped to the waist (males), sitting on horses and tractors, or seducing their favorite poor person. One mother will spend $700 dollars on these wasteful shots. The poor need not apply. Another mother reports that she's sure glade they no longer need to wear the monotonous blazers. Some schools are sensible enough to require more basic shots for school yearbooks, but the proud and the rich will be sure to lord it over the less fortunate with their selections of posed and polished snapshots for exchange. Parents, parents—when will you call a halt and cut down on these needless high school expenses which only spoil your children? But, of course, evolutionary theory would suggest that if you got it, you flaunt it. Prestige (pecking order) is a necessary animal trait. Somehow, this article makes me think of "The Last Picture Show" or "Midnight Cowboy".