In this column I pose questions and raise issues. I don't always agree with the conclusion, implied or stated. The purpose is to put a slightly different spin on each item and to promote discussion.

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• Simple solutions are abundant if you ignore enough of the contributing factors.
• Conservative pundits claim liberals are to blame for the continuation of the highly unpopular High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lane experiment. As is obvious during rush hour, when a handful of cars with 2 occupants whiz by the tens of thousands of motorists stuck in stop-and-go traffic getting lousy gas mileage, the HOV lanes are an unmitigated failure. For everybody, that is, except the oil companies, who profit from the extra gas used as a result. Which makes me wonder - who has enough political clout to perpetuate such an unpopular program: the liberals, or oil companies?
• Violations of drug laws aside, according to Bureau of Justice Statistics more crimes involved alcohol than drugs, and according to the 2000 Statistical Abstract of the United States, Tables No. 141 and 142, alcohol was involved in more deaths than drugs.
• I enjoy Russell Crowe's performances and it's nice he won the Oscar for his role in Gladiator, but let's be honest: awards often go to the role rather than the actor. Take Roberts, for instance. Not Julia, although her Oscar for Erin Brockovich is richly deserved, but her brother Eric, whose chilling portrayal of Paul Snider in Bob Fosse's final film, Star 80, about the tragic murder of Playboy centerfold Dorothy Stratten, was every bit as worthy of an Oscar as Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs. But we hated Snider and ignored Roberts' performance, just as we hated Commodus and therefore ignored Joaquin Phoenix's stunningly brilliant performance in Gladiator.
• Big business thinks it has it made with Bush, and in the short term maybe they do. But they are forgetting something: unfair conditions always beget a backlash.
• Much is made of the fact most modern serial killers have been white men. They're right. It's true. Just one other thing: most modern serial killers have also been very smart because it takes intelligence to avoid getting caught. Now, although I have long sided with those who oppose racial profiling, I have to ask: is pointing out the smartest killers are white the most effective way to make a case against it?
• Some say that in any interaction between whites and blacks, race is always an issue. That may well be. Let's just keep in mind it goes both ways.
• Until and unless we address all bigotry - White or Black, Asian or Indian, Hispanic or whatever - all our efforts to end racism will fail, because bigotry is not a White or Black problem, it's not an Indian or Asian or Hispanic thing, but a social problem which, like a systemic disease must be addressed and resolved in all its parts before we can cure the whole.
• Those who support choice for women but oppose choice for men encourage female irresponsibility and a male backlash.
• For an explanation of school violence pundits point to the "boy code," which forces boys to bottle up their emotions and the "only rule is they can't be weak." But just who is it males are trained not to be weak for? Fact is, a man who shows weakness is not desired by women. As long as women don't change, men won't change and the violence will continue.
• Many have difficulty accepting Indians with white skin but no trouble at all accepting Blacks and Chicanos with white skin.
• Pundits say the job of corporate management is to run their companies as efficiently as possible. But were that really true, then good management would house their employees in barracks, work them at least 12 hours a day, feed them from the company store, and manage their personal time to assure individuals do nothing which would interfere with the maximum efficiency of the corporation. Ironic, isn't it, how much the efficiently run corporation sounds like socialism.
• Just because somebody says a thing is about the liberation of women doesn't mean it is.
• Many conservatives complain about how the "liberal media" dominates the press and the air waves. But how can that be? There is no law which says conservatives may not found a newspaper or start a radio or television station. So what could account for this liberal dominance of the media? Either the market doesn't want to buy what the conservatives have to sell (which would call into question the conservatives' faith in free enterprise), or liberal dominance of the media is a myth.
• Perhaps instead of going after mothers who abuse drugs and alcohol while pregnant and prosecuting them under politically incorrect concepts of "fetal rights," we should wait until those fetuses turn 18 and then allow them to sue their mothers for the financial damages those women caused by injuring their children's brains and thereby impairing their children's abilities to lead a happy and productive life.
• Sometimes a backlash becomes a revolution.
• I sympathize with the Boeing brass for wanting to leave the Seattle metropolitan area. A few days before the announcement that Boeing would move their corporate headquarters, I moved, too. My reasons were many, but chief among them is that Seattle has gone insane. When they aren't putting in 12-hour days at work, they're stuck in traffic, jamming their way into sports arenas, frantically seeking sex on Friday night or salvation in some mega-church on Sunday, or locked away safe in their homes. Community, camaraderie and civility are giving way to racism, consumerism and victimism.
• One simple answer to the Napster dilemma would be to allow unlimited free lo-fi downloads, such as 8-bit stereo at 22,050 Hz, and charge for all good quality sound files.
• For several years I've tried to find out who recorded "Lazy Days," a song I loved to play on the piano as a kid. Thirty-seconds at the Napster site is all it took to find out it was Spanky and Our Gang, and I have already ordered the CD. But for Napster, I still wouldn't know and there would be no order. As a writer, I respect the need for copyright protection, but the recording industry's demanded remedy is comparable to Microsoft's attacks on Linux - the big boys trying to keep the little guys out of the game.
• Anti male bigots want men to live in fear.
• The 2001 Bankruptcy Bill is going to do more than force consumers to assume a certain degree of fiscal responsibility: it's also going to curb consumer spending and reduce corporate revenues, thereby forcing retailers to make changes in how they do business.
• Single men who listen don't get laid. If women want husbands who listen, they need to date men who listen. Or they can stop whining about "men from Mars" and take responsibility for choosing a non-listening man.
• Pop feminists are very threatened by the "choice for men" movement, which demands the same reproductive choices for men that women have. A viable but equally threatening alternative would be shotgun weddings - you have unprotected sex, you get pregnant, you don't want to get an abortion, you have to marry the father. Of course, such a law would have to make allowances for cases of adultery, but, pop feminist complaints that such a policy would violate women's liberation notwithstanding, it would certainly mitigate the problem of single parent households.
• Sexual harassment laws were created to protect women because men have exploited women's sexual resources for generations ... just as women have exploited men's economic resources for generations.
• Proponents of America's so-called "war on drugs" note amphetamines are so addictive that by the third dose the user is hooked for life. Ritalin, or methylphenidate, which is prescribed to children diagnosed with attention- deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), is less potent than amphetamines but more potent than caffeine. Given the addictive properties of amphetamines and caffeine (my favorite drug), shouldn't we be concerned about the addictive properties of Ritalin, too?
• A lot of pundits say the free newspaper and magazine content on the web will end soon, maybe by the end of this year. Maybe. I hope so. When the big outfits begin charging for content, the readership of sites like mine will soar.
• "You get what you pay for," an aphorism many employers evidently believe does not apply to them.
• In response to more school shootings evoked by bullying, the U.S. Senate has passed an anti-bullying bill. So, the way to get our government to pay attention to injustice is to commit violence? Wouldn't it be better if our government responded to injustice before the victims feel compelled to resort to violence? There's a powder-keg in this nation, it's called "deadbolt dad," and the clock is ticking. The only thing that will stop the clock is an impartial Family Court system.
• African American leaders have accused the media of bias for portraying the perpetrators of the violence at Seattle's 2001 Fat Tuesday celebration as being Black. Hey, complain all you want, it was caught on video - while not all the perpetrators (both male and female) were Black, most of them were. So what? This isn't a racial issue, but a social issue and a criminal matter.
• When a white school boy takes a gun to school and starts shooting, his name and picture are published for all the world to see as proof the evil white male is still on the loose. But when a school girl does it, her name and picture are not published.
• A guy pumped up on anabolic steroids and a gal (who has not had a mastectomy) with breast implants are the same.
• On March 7, 2001, Senator Hillary Rodham-Clinton observed that women comprise 46% of the workforce but account for 64% of the repetitive motion injuries. Had she been talking about which sex (male) is most often convicted of a crime, she would have offered this as evidence of a male defect; as she was talking about which sex (female) is most often the recipient of healthcare, however, she offered this as evidence that women are victimized.
• Humanity is too uncivilized to handle telepathy.
• One of the most effective means pop feminists have discovered for gaining power is to persuade boys and men that emasculation is a precondition of female-approval. But we don't need to go along with it because there are more women than men, which is another way of saying men are in short supply.
• Recently, I saw an employment ad that read: "Expanding co. Needs people we can work half to death!" Thirty years ago, an entire family could live on one person's 40 hour a week wages and still have time for vacations. Now, in this so-called "tight labor market," employers can get away with stuff like this because we let it - the global labor market and the virtual demise of unions - happen. We let it happen, and only we can turn things around.
• In 1999 critics complained the Seattle police overreacted to the WTO protesters. Could the explicit orders for Seattle police officers to stand by and do nothing during the 2001 Fat Tuesday rioting have been calculated to offset the effects of the outrage over the mishandling of the WTO incident?
• It's interesting how Black men and White women like to joke about White men opposing interracial relationships when, in America, the two groups most opposed to it are Black women and Asian men.
• A guy I know makes a lot of money and dates a lot of women. He frequently complains about how all the women he dates are bimbos and bitches. One day I asked him, if they're bimbos and bitches, why does he date them? His answer: he likes how they look. In this respect, he's no different from the women who complain about the bullies and bad boys they take to bed.