Lord Byron was a poet. Every kid not in a Mad-Rats-Asses school has heard of him—or should have. In the full bloom of life Lord Byron ran off to Greece to fight the Turks. He was planning an attack on the Turkish fortress of Lepanto when he caught cold and died. William Haines Lytle was also a poet. He wasn’t quite as good or as well known as Lord Byron but he was good enough. He wrote Anthony and Cleopatra.

   “And for thee, star-eyed Egyptian!

        Glorious sorceress of the Nile,

   Light the path of Stygean horrors

        With the splendor of thy smile;

   Give the Caesar crowns and arches,

        Let his brow the laurel twine,

   I can scorn the Senate’s triumphs.

       Triumphing in love like thine.”

He ran off to fight for the North in the American Civil War. He was commanding a brigade in Phil Sheridan’s Division when he was mortally wounded at Chickamauga.

A fellow named Kilroy wrote only three words—the epic Kilroy was here!  It was easy to remember. GIs took a liking to it and scrawled the century’s shortest poem on everything they came across between Normandy and Berlin. It was said a high-ranking German General offered a large reward for the capture of Kilroy.

And then there was Steve Allen. Steve was always on the lookout for new poets. Where have all the poets gone he asked and he offered this by the Silhouettes. Who can forget: Get a job?

     Sha na na na sha na na na na

     Every morning about this time

     she get me out of my bed

     a-crying get a job.

     After breakfast, everyday,

     she throw the want ads right my way

     And never fails to say

     Get a job.

     Sha na na na na Yip yip yip yip Get a job.

Well—where have all the young poets gone? There are no Byrons, no Lytles, no Kilroys—no Silhouettes. Today’s young poets are not fighting to free the Greeks or to end slavery or to push the Nazis out of France or to avoid gainful employment. No, sir, they are rising up from the impoverished masses of the Middle East and North Africa to protect the most peaceful and tolerant religion that has ever existed from the Kafir hordes of America and Israel—the ruthless mercenaries of social change, democracy, artistic license, woman’s rights, mini skirts, Western clothes, clean-shaven faces and the Three Dog Night.

Where have all the young poets gone? Gone to Jihad and You Tube everyone! Typical of the new breed of poet is The Lyrical One. What extraordinary composition! What striking lyrics! What rolling periods! What a concatenation of ideas! The Living Martyr literally oozes from The Lyrical One’s pen! Watch live on barbarindians as she puts words to paper! (Actually she uses a computer but one bit of literary license deserves another) And look at her eyes! Oh, those eyes! Beautiful, beautiful brown eyes? I’ll never love blue eyes again? No! Not at all! Cold, steely, the Bride of Frankenstein! Brown as the waste at the bottom of a cesspool! The last thing Boris Karloff saw before the castle exploded! Be the judge!

                 The Living Martyr

    “The living martyrs are awakening

     And Kafirs world seem to be shaking

     let us make jihad

     move to the front line

     to chop chop head off Kafir swine.”

It brings to mind The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Note the double chop—a poetess willing to take chances! And it rhymes! Oh, the amateurs are getting better, bolder; more courageous, thanks to You Tube—also more demented.

With The Living Martyr under her burqa, there was no stopping The Lyrical One. The influence of Hamas Mouse courses through her poesy like soiled diapers through the intestines of an old Billy Goat. But she struggles on. How to behead is early Calvin and Hobbes—without Calvin and without Hobbes. It could have been written by the man that shot George Wallace—or Larry Flynt…it is through the intestine. Read it and scowl.

                           How to behead

     “It’s not as messy or as hard as some may think.

     It’s all about the flow of the wrist.

     Sharpen the knife to its maximum.

     And before you begin to cut the flesh,

     tilt the fool’s head to its left.”

To its left? Is this from the Qur’an or from al-Qaeda for Dummies? Of course, if the target is someone like Crocodile Dundee it won’t matter and the assassin will wish he hadn’t sharpened his knife to the maximum.

But in Allah-la-la-land digression is oppression and the poem must go on.

     “Saw the knife back and forth.

     No doubt that the punk will twitch and scream,

     But ignore the donkey’s ***,

     And continue to slice back and forth.

     You’ll feel the knife hit the wind and food pipe.

     But don’t stop.

     Continue with all your might.”

Jack the Ripper wrote something like this in the third grade and was canned. But notice how descriptive The Lyrical One is—she uses the words wind and food pipe instead of esophagus or gullet. The Ripper preferred gullet. The overall tone of How to behead offers a clue to the poet’s identity. She could be a halal butcher. They are familiar with twitching, screaming and donkey butts. But onward with the poem:

     “About now you should feel the knife vibrate.

      You can feel the warm heat being given off.

      But this is due to the friction being caused.”

Vibrate? Heat? Friction? There one has it—proof positive that the poet is a halal butcher! Of course, by joining jihad to the slaughterhouse one is sure to create an excessive amount of tripe. And that is clearly the case with The Lyrical One. But no died-in-the-wool poet can leave that much tripe lying around unattended, something must be done with it and what better place to dispose of it than on You Tube. They take all kinds of tripe. There are people who would call How to behead rubbish, but not to worry, You Tube handles rubbish as well as tripe and it is also a good place to store three-day-old possum innards and the unsalted sowbelly that winds up behind the Clampett cabin after the Annual Possum Day Parade.

The Lyrical One finishes with a bleeding ulcer:

     “Kafirs, your time will come soon,

       and no one will save you from your doom.”

The poet should—sha na na na na Get a job.

The video was posted by barbarindian

To The Lyrical One: “Here come the chopper to chop off your head.” Now that’s poetry!

(The Lyrical One, Samina Malik, was sentenced to 9 months in jail for violating the 2000 Terror Act. She was found guilty of scrawling extremist thoughts on till receipts at the shop where she worked in Heathrow. The sentence was suspended.) 

Sixteen-year-old Aqsa Parvez is dead. Her father, Mohammed Parvez, strangled her because she wouldn’t wear the hijab. The slaying had nothing to do with Islam. It was un-Islamic. Sure—like the killings in Darfur and Beslan. Police said Aqsa died of an ‘neck compression.’ That’s like dying of ‘lead poisoning’ in Deadwood or Tombstone or Lincoln County. Billy Bonney could have said, “I didn’t know the gun was loaded.” With a good lawyer he could have had a case. “I didn’t know my hands were around her neck,” is more difficult. They should have said she died ‘of Islam.’

The Islamic Society of North America Canada held a news conference at their headquarters in Mississauga to come to grips with the tragedy. There were extenuating circumstances they said. “This girl she refused to stay at home,” said Imam Mohammed Alnadvi. “There were feelings that she is going in the wrong direction…going with some other boy or some other thing.” Sure, like Jamie Lynn Spears, Britney’s sister.

Sheikh Alaa Elsayed, who organized the conference, said, “We cannot let culture supercede religion. If we stay away from the teaching of Islam, we pay for it.”

Friends of the family said they had argued over Aqsa’s refusal to wear the hijab. She was too socially progressive for her cultural warrior father. “So if the daughter makes the decision,” explained Alnadvi, “then they have failed.” But a ‘neck compression—couldn’t Pops have locked her in her room for a couple of days till things settled down? It has worked before.

There was the time Alfalfa refused to wear a tutu to a dance recital. It almost drove dear old Mom mad, but she didn’t strangle him. She sent him to bed without desert—for forty-six straight days! One of them learned a lesson. George S. Patton had a problem in North Africa in 1943 with GIs who for one reason of another traipsed around without helmets on their heads. He issued an order requiring all personnel to wear steel helmets at all times, including physicians in the operating wards. No one was shot so it must have worked. The Lone Ranger and the Green Hornet swapped masks one day to play a little joke on Tonto and Cato but Tonto was so nearsighted he followed the Green Hornet around for three weeks before he realized they were playing a joke on him. He was outraged but did he strangle the Lone Ranger? Of course not, the next time they stopped in San Francisco he sewed lace on the Masked Man’s saddlebags. So there are options besides murder.

Nonetheless Elsayed insisted on belaboring his point. “No religion condones such an act,” he said. “It is forbidden to hit anyone.” Anyone?

Tabari IX:113 “Allah permits you to shut them up in separate rooms and to beat them, but not severely.”

Okay, no hitting—except for women.

The taking of a human life is an act against all humanity said Elsayed.

Tabari !X:69 “Killing disbelievers is a small matter to us.”

Tabari VII:97 “The morning after the murder of Ashraft, the Prophet declared, ‘Kill any Jew who falls under your power.’”

Tabari VIII:179 “Among those Muhammad ordered killed was Abdallah bin Khatal. The Messenger ordered him to be slain because while he was a Muslim, Muhammad had sent him to collect the zakat tax with an Ansar and a slave of his…His girls used to sing a satire about Muhammad so the Prophet ordered that they should be killed along with Abdallah. He was killed by Sa’id and Abu Barzah. The two shared in his blood. One of the singing girls was killed quickly but the other fled. So Umar caused his horse to trample the one who fled, killing her.”

Okay, no taking of human life—except for disbelievers, Jews, former Muslims and singing girls.

Qur’an 8:67 “It is not fitting for any Prophet to have prisoners until he has made a great slaughter in the land.”

Qur’an 33:60 “Whenever they (Hypocrites) are found, they shall be seized and slain without mercy—a fierce slaughter—murder, a horrible murdering.”

Ishaq 676 “(The Prophet said) will no one rid me of this woman? That very night he (Umayr) crept into the writer’s home while she lay sleeping with her young children. There was one at her breast. Umayr removed the suckling babe and then plunged his sword into the poet…Killing her was as meaningless as two goats butting heads (said the Prophet).”

Okay, no taking of human life—except for disbelievers, Jews, former Muslims, singing girls, designated civilians, hypocrites and poets. This is a long list, yet the killing of Aqsa Parvez was—they say—un-Islamic. It was random violence, domestic abuse, it happens all the time. It had more to do with family than with religion or culture. Alfalfa was lucky his mother didn’t strangle him and the Lone Ranger could thank his lucky stars Tonto enjoyed practical jokes more than retributive justice.

Still Elsayed said, “We cannot let culture supercede religion.” And that was precisely why Mohammed Parvez murdered Aqsa. Culture was creeping into his religion—an alien culture—and it could not be tolerated. Local Imams had plenty of after-the-fact advice on child rearing. The key to getting girls to wear the hijab was to teach them religion at an early age—and, of course, having selected ‘a proper spouse.’

Aqsa’s mother is reportedly sick with grief. No doubt, her daughter is dead and the Imams are saying she is ‘an improper spouse.’ Tabari IX:113 must be flashing on and off inside her head like a fire alarm.

They say Aqsa’s father was a crazy man, a lunatic. That may be, but he could not have committed his horrible crime without the help and the urgings of Tabari, Ishaq and the Qur’an—and Islam.

From the “Don’t Know When to Keep Their Mouths Shut” files comes this totally unrelated incident:

Hojatolislam Gholam Reza Hassani, representative of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini, in eastern Azerbaijain, addressed the press—AND Kronus International—in the city of Urumieh. “I do not understand how these women who do not respect the hijab, 28 years after the birth of the Islamic Republic, are still alive,” he said. “These women and their husbands and their fathers must die.”

Dr. James Corbett is not a gentleman—at least not like Gentleman Jim Corbett was, maybe like Boston Corbett but definitely not like Gentleman Jim. Dr. Corbett teaches Advanced Placement European History and Advanced Placement Art History at Capistrano Valley High School, Mission Viejo, California. Valley High is an IB World School, the crème de la crème, has been since 2005, long enough to inflate some empty heads. The IB stands for International Baccalaureate. Classes are taught in three languages. If little Alfie Einstein’s parents are convinced he can handle Valley High’s two-year programs in advanced studies that is the place to go. It is so-o prestigious. With an IB from Valley High even Potsy Weber would be eligible for Oxford or Cambridge, then Richie and Ralph Malph could eat their hearts out while Master Weber hobnobbed with Salman Rushdie and Madonna. It might even be worth the extra study.

But there is a crack in the prestigious façade at Valley High and it is due to Dr. James Corbett who should not be confused with Dr. James Corbett, the nuclear medicine physician at Ann Arbor or Dr. James Corbett, the researcher in semi-conductors and solid-state physics at SUNY at Albany, NY, or Dr. James Corbett, professor of Marine Policy Programs at the University of Delaware’s Graduate College of Marine Studies. Lord, no! Those other guys teach college students—Dr. James Corbett teaches kids, kids like Potsy and Ralph Malph who certainly deserve a better fate than listening to his diatribes.

Nor should Teacher Jim be confused with Gentleman Jim Corbett, the great prizefighter. The latter was a gentleman. That’s why they called him Gentleman Jim. He never looked down his nose at anyone or anything—certainly not at John L. Sullivan, not at Boston, not at the New England states. He would rather have died than say what Teacher Jim routinely says to his students about the South, about religion, about almost anything. “What part of the country has the highest murder rate?” Teacher Jim asks his students and then answers his own question, “The South! What part of the country has the highest rape rate? The South! What part of the country has the highest…church attendance? The South!”

Gentleman Jim was not stupid. If such thoughts had ever entered his head he would never have spoken them aloud, yet those are the kinds of thoughts that are always entering Teacher Jim’s head and he frequently expresses them to his students like the afore-mentioned diatribe aimed at Scarlet and Rhett. He seldom contains his feelings. He doesn’t like the South—it’s the abode of nasty Republicans. Nor is he especially fond of Rush Limbaugh or Christianity. “When you put your Jesus glasses on you can’t see the truth,” he says.

Hit ‘em where it hurts, Jim-bo! So what if they are kids? Hit ‘em in the solar plexus! It’s better than a rabbit punch. It was a blow to the solar plexus that brought down the great Gentleman Jim Corbett. Oh, how it must have hurt!

Low blows? Classroom intimidation? Rabbit punches?

There have been complaints—some of them long-standing. Corbett is currently being sued by one of his students, 16-year-old Chad Farnan, for violating Chad’s First Amendment rights. Lynley Rosi pulled her son out of one of Corbett’s classes. “The mockery of religion was a main focus in the classroom,” she said. “I felt like he (her son) wasn’t learning what he should be curriculum-wise, so I pulled him out.”

Teacher Jim has his defenders, certainly fewer than Gentleman Jim, but nonetheless defenders. Principal Tom Ressler says Corbett is a ‘solid’ teacher. With a Ph d he should be, but after 15 years what is he doing still teaching high school? He should be in college with the big kids. Or would that be too much of an intellectual challenge?

Geography and History teacher Tom Airey says, “Corbett has been a powerful reminder to me, that we ‘Christians’ do not have the monopoly on truth…Corbett is training young students to think critically.” Please, Tom, when you put on your secular glasses make sure the tunnel vision is turned off or you will end up like Teacher Jim. He is not training students to think critically—not any more than Emma Goldman trained Leon Czolgosz to think critically; not any more than the Taliban trained John Walker Lyndh to think critically; it’s the way Hamas prepares 10-year-olds for suicide bombers.

If Gentleman Jim had said the New England states led the country in murders, rapes and church attendance he would have been considered a colossal fool. Gentleman Jim was no urchin off the streets—he had been to college and was a boxing coach at the Olympic Club in San Francisco. It appears he got more out of his college experience than Teacher Jim got out of his. Other parents had complained about Corbett’s classroom behavior. It accomplished little save to make Junior and his parents a target for in-class ridicule. A lawsuit was a last recourse.

Dr. James Corbett is a bully—he picks on kids who don’t know how to defend themselves. He’s got a horseshoe in his glove. He’s no different than the tough kid who forced Opie Taylor to cough up his lunch money every morning on the way to the little red schoolhouse till Andy got wind of it. Opie got his money back and when he grew up he gave the tough kid a sound thrashing. Dr. Corbett’s victims will not be so fortunate. Child abuse is child abuse. What the Doctor needs is a good old-fashioned talking-to and maybe, if all else fails, one to the solar plexus.

A disease was named after Lou Gehrig, a doctrine after Harry Truman and a child’s toy after Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy got the best of the deal. Nobody wants to contract Lou Gehrig’s disease and the Truman Doctrine is as dead as the U.S.S.R. but everybody wants a Teddy bear—well, almost everybody. It was more than a hundred years ago that Rose Michton put together the first teddy bears and set them in the window of the family novelty and candy store in Brooklyn to attract customers. Mr. Michton, according to the custom of the time, asked Teddy, who was then serving as President, if they could name the bears after him. Teddy said yes and the rest is history. Millions of teddy bears have come and gone since those heady days and not once has a member of the Roosevelt family or the Bullmoose Party marched on the Michtons or on Hasbro or on the Vermont Teddy Bear Company—the last manufacturer of teddy bears in America—to threaten them with life and limb for insulting Teddy or the Republican Party.

But name just one teddy bear after the Prophet Mohammed—just one—and the protectors of Islam will rise up in such Qur’anic fury that the world will tremble. So why would someone be so foolish as to name a teddy bear after Mohammed in a Muslim country? It was scarcely a few months ago that Arifur Rahman, a Bangladeshi cartoonist drew a four-panel cartoon in which a child referred to his cat as ‘Mohammed cat.’ It was an innocent play-on-words—at least that was what Arifur thought. It went like this: First panel: Mullah: “Boy, what’s your name?” Boy: “My name is Abu.” Second panel: Mullah: “It is customary to put Mohammed in front of the name.” Third Panel: Mullah: “What is your father’s name?” Boy: “Mohammed Abu.” Fourth Panel: Mullah: “What is that in your lap?” Boy: “Mohammed cat.”

Islam was outraged. How would Arifur like it if someone had called him a Kafir? He was arrested and jailed for insulting Islam, the Qur’an, the Prophet and the fragile egos of tens of millions of Muslim men. Mobs gathered in the streets. There were death threats. The government confiscated all copies of the issue in which the cartoon had appeared and the publisher, Prothom Alo, was put on notice. Prothom Alo apologized, withdrew the cartoon and dismissed the sub-editor.

Rahman was charged with ‘threatening national security.” Hundreds of Muslims marched in Dhaka shouting, “Hang the cartoonist” and “Death to the Prothom Alo editor.” Such are the wages of sin in Islam’s Twilight Zone.

Sudan may be a thousand miles from Bangladesh as the crow flies and news from the outside world may be slow to penetrate the doom and gloom that enshrouds Omar Al-Bashir’s 7^th Century Islamic theocracy but theologically they are on the same page of the Qur’an as the zealots in Bangladesh and just as ready to commit mayhem in defense of the Prophet.

Gillian Gibbons, a teacher at Khartoum’s Unity High School should have had some idea of how touchy they were. Yet she allowed the students in her class—six and seven-year-olds—to name a teddy bear Mohammed. What was she thinking? Gillian was arrested for insulting the Prophet. She could be sentenced to six months and 40 lashes or a fine. The students chose Mohammed because it is a common name. None of the parents objected. Every family has at least one Mohammed.

The school was closed for fear of reprisals and Gillian was removed to a secure location. Hundreds of ‘fundamentalist’ Muslims gathered in the streets outside the jail waving clubs and knives. They shouted, “Execute her!’ and “Those who insult the Prophet of Islam should be punished with bullets!”

While the demon-strators waved their swords and cudgels Eric Vickers of the American Muslim Council, one continent removed, was telling Bill O’Reilly on The Factor that millions of Muslims were condemning the behavior of the mobs. O’Reilly challenged the numbers.

“Well, Bill,” said Vickers, “I think you have made the classic mistake of stereotyping an entire group of people because of the extreme acts of a few. (More Muslims protested the naming of the teddy bear Mohammed than Hitler had Nazis behind him during the Beer Hall Putsch, more than there were Yankees following Sherman on his march through Georgia. And the extremists were all ‘locals’ who didn’t need to be recruited.

“I mean,” said Vickers, “its obvious that this is such an extreme act that no Muslim, there are seven million Muslims in this country. And not a single one condones that or thinks it in any way represents Islam.”

O’Reilly lost his cool—a word he doesn’t like. “You should and every—all 1.2 billion Muslims should rise up tomorrow and say, you don’t kill a human being over a teddy bear. Right? Am I right?” he said.

Vickers said that 1.2 billion Muslims have said that—obviously a gross exaggeration. O’Reilly said he had not heard anyone condemn the action. Vickers said he condemned it and O’Reilly said, “But you’re not a world leader. You’re a good guy.”

Alas, Bill O’Reilly is no Michael Savage.

Eric Vickers is a practicing lawyer and has a long paper trail. In 2003 he asked U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to launch an immediate investigation into the political repression of Muslims and Arabs by the U.S. government. He defended Sami al-Arian. O’Reilly must have known that. In 2002 Vickers wrote a letter to the Buffalo News. “We (Americans),” he wrote, “have no more right or business putting Wahhabism on trial for the September 11 attacks…than we do to putting Christianity on trial for the Oklahoma City bombing.”  (Tim McVey did nothing in the name of God and could be considered a Christian only in the broadest sense of the word. Wahhabists have consistently preached the destruction of the United States.

Yet Vickers said not a single Muslim condoned what happened to Gillian Gibbons in Khartoum or thought that it in any way represented Islam. Did he miss the demonstraters in Khartoum? Muslims have not been in the forefront on the war on terror. In May of 2005 a group calling itself Free Muslims Against Terror marched on Washington—all 50 to 150 of them. A slim turnout, indeed! Many times that number can be gathered on a college campus on short notice to scream “Death to Israel.”

In a survey of Detroit Muslims, 81 percent said they preferred Sharia Law to the U.S. Constitution. Slavery had less support in Virginia in 1860 than it has in Detroit in 2007. The stated goal of the Council of American-Islamic Relations—frequent guests on The Factor—is for Islam to be the only religion in America.

Groucho Marx once said he would never belong to a club that would have someone like him for a member. Eric Vickers belongs to a ‘club’ that has Osama bin Laden and Omar Bakri Mohammed as members. Like it or not, a sizeable minority of American Muslims support al-Qaeda, have turned a blind eye to Darfur and the ten thousand terrorist attacks perpetrated by Muslims since 9/11. They are not to be trusted. More Muslim Americans have aided the cause of terrorism during the current war than German and Italian-Americans aided the Nazis during World War Two. And the population of the latter was significantly larger than is that of the former. 

The sad fact is that most Muslims who do not support the terrorists will do nothing to impede them because, in the end, the terrorists are doing Islam’s work—extending Dar al-Islam.

If someone joins a club or converts to a different religion and said club or religion begins to engage in activities that run counter to what the new member or new members or what old members had once agreed upon there are three options: They can quit the club or religion; they can stay on and work to replace the leadership and the club or the religion’s direction; or they can swallow their pride, keep their mouths shut, remain as members and enjoy the benefits of the club or religion. This is where Islam is in America. Few have quit the club, more support the bad guys and most are keeping their mouths shut.

Islam needs one Groucho Marx more than it needs a million such as Eric Vickers.

Hundreds flee public school system! Rosicrucians stunned! Millennia at hand! Antiquarians searching for Henry the Eighth’s leotards and codpieces! College of Cardinals considering switching to pants! Swee’Pea fashions in vogue! Doo Dah Parade cancelled! Seinfeld to do Romper Room Show!

What on earth is going on in the little red schoolhouse? Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher swapping clothes? Whatever happened to tipping over outhouses and putting old Doc Twaddle’s goat in the church steeple? That was real fun! Now when Nellie buys a new dress it’s for Arnold to wear to the school prom! Arnold! Is this a scene America want to repeat all across the country? It’s political correctness gone mad, that’s what it is—mind-boggling, stomach-churning, gender-bending, political correctness! This could not have happened in the old days! Al Capone would have seen to that! He was a man when men were men and women were broads!

But maybe, just maybe…if things had been different…

Why, goodness gracious, it’s June 1933 again and there’s Spanky and Alfalfa standing in the schoolyard! Yes, it’s Spanky and Alfalfa! Just look at them—the sweet little guys haven’t aged a bit, but there’s something odd about them, something indefinable, something different…Why, goodness gracious, they are dressed as girls! What on earth is going on? Dare one eavesdrop on their conversation? Would 007 eavesdrop on Goldfinger? Of course!

“You look ridiculous, Alfalfa,” says Spanky. “That dress is two sizes too big for you. It would fit a moo cow.”

“Yeah?” grumbles Alfalfa. “You should talk! You’re wearing Darla’s underpants!”

“I am not!’ says Spanky.

“You are too!” says Alfalfa.

“They’re not Darla’s!” says Spanky.

“Oh, girls,” coos Butch, “ which one of you prom queens needs a walk home from school today.”

“I hate gender-bender days! “ moans Alfalfa.

“Me too!” wails Spanky.

Down the street a ways it was more of the same.

“No! You are not going to wear my good petticoat, Opie,” says Aunt Bea. “You will forget yourself, step on the hem and trip and fall and get it dirty.”

“Aw, Aunt Bea…” whines Opie.

“I don’t know whose idea this Gender Bender Day was,” says Aunt Bea, “but I know the next time there’s a school board meeting, I’m going to be there!”

“It’s a Communist plot if you ask me,” says Barney.

Case in point: Deputy Sheriff Bernard Fife. He lived in an age before political correctness and Hi Karate. Communism was complicit in everything from fluoridation to Hula Hoops. If someone had mentioned a gay and lesbian task force and Gender Bender Days to Deputy Fife, he would have stared into space. “I don’t watch Twilight Zone anymore,” he would have said. “It’s too scary.”

But it’s 2007 and the folks in Iowa—some at least—are up in arms over Gender Bender Day. Dozens, maybe hundreds of parents have pulled their kids out of school. Better to home school them than have them twisted and perverted by a school system gone mad. Expect another surge in home-schooled spelling bee champions in the next few years. State officials have admitted that at least 80 students have been pulled out of public schools during the past week in opposition to the much publicized Gender Bender Day at East Des Moines High School.

Gender Bender Day? Yes, Gender Bender Day—cross-dressing to most folks, a sign of the times to its promoters, a perversion to some and a passing fancy perhaps to Potsy and Ralph Malph. It’s definitely not for everybody. Al Capone would have been against it. Among its supporters is the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). They have been promoting cross-dressing and have developed a school lesson plan for teaching boys and girls to cross-dress. Cute? Not to everyone.

One of GLSEN’s lesson plans is called What’s With The Dress, Jack? “A boy and girl play dress-up and tell stories about how the Assiniboine, a Native American tribe, encourages their children to wear the clothes that suit them best and play the games they most enjoy, without the limit of stereotypical gender roles.”

Sure, blame it on the Indians—on the cross-dressing Assiniboine. They started it—invented the reversible breechclout. Everybody knows that. But the cross-dressing that went on around the campfire and in the wigwam didn’t make the Assisiniboine any more peaceful than other tribes. GLSEN seems to think it gentled them, but the Assisiboine warred against the Blackfoot and before that it was the Atsina. They were related to the Sioux. Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, their country cousins, believed hunting and making war was men’s work and everything else was woman’s work. GLSEN should have picked the Tasadai.

Individual incidents of cross-dressing can range from the bizarre to the harmless to a cry for help; organized cross-dressing has little if anything to do with individualism and GLSEN is more interested in promoting the gay and lesbian lifestyle than in sympathizing with RuPaul.

Once upon a time there were only two sexes: male and female. That’s what biology had proclaimed and it was good enough for God. Then the psychologists conspired with the gay community and now there are five…or four…or six. And the hermaphrodites haven’t been heard from yet but they are making noises.

The nuclear family stands in the way of GLSEN’s great Transgendered Socialist Nirvana. That will never do. The nuclear family will have to go. How is that to be done? Simple, water the family down like cheap booze, like near beer, create new sexes, insist on new family variants and eventually the Cunninghams and the Cleavers will disappear, Hugh Heffner and Rosie O’Donnell will be all smiles and Rabelais will have the time of his life.

The radical left supports the gay agenda not because they have any liking for gays but because it hurts America. Barney Fife would call them Communists. They are George Soros and Dennis Kucinich and Michael Moore. One can think of dozens of others without having to go beyond Berkeley or Chapel Hill.

GLSEN says it wants every student to have a quality education regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. Students should be safe from bullying. Most everyone can agree with that. “We know that the age old arguments such as “boys will be boys” or bullying and harassment is part of growing up don’t hold up and more importantly, both substantially undermine the academic achievement of students and their ability to succeed as adults,” says GLSEN.

That is not true. ‘Boys will be boys’ is more than bullying and harassment—it is competition. It has not undermined academic achievement or anyone’s ability to succeed as witness the accomplishments of Thomas Alva Edison, Ulysses S. Grant, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Richie Cunningham. They went to school to get an education, not to bully or be bullied. No one had to tell them what sex they were. They figured it out on their own and saved themselves expensive trips to Sweden or Norway.

If anybody is being bullied in the American public school system it is the white heterosexual Christian male. The neo-Socialist school principal, the Marxist kindergarten teacher, the radical college professor and the people from GLSEN have an agenda. Their intention is to turn Unconditional Surrender Grant into I Surrender Grant, to emasculate America to fit their one Gulag worldview. It they can get rid of Shane and Hondo then Deadwood and Dodge City will be better places to live. In this world there are tigers and Barney Fife needs all the help he can get.

Occasionally, there is good news to report. Officials at the Adams Middle School in Brentwood, California, have cancelled a cross-dressing day because of parental complaints. The Pacific Justice Institute, which counseled the parents, said. “The only purpose that seemed to be involved with this event was for the sensitivity and tolerance of cross-dressers, transsexuals and transvestites.”

Amen.