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The message from the Biased Liberal Media Commissar, based in Washington, was quite clear. Unless I addressed the same topics as every other pundit in America, I was in danger of losing my membership card, which entitles me to free admission to the Victoria Tavern, except on nights when there's a band.
I can take a hint. But as we have all been told on many occasions, it's wrong to just criticize without offering solutions, and I have some.
1) Elian Gonzales. The furor over the most famous 6-year-old in the history of the world is merely a symptom of a bigger problem: Florida.
Look at a map of the United States, and Florida sticks out like a sore thumb. Much of the peninsula is a swamp infested with voracious alligators and vicious insects.
Its influence on our politics is toxic or worse: sugar subsidies, Social Security, disaster relief after hurricanes, Caribbean diplomacy -- to name a few issues that the federal government cannot address honestly because presidential candidates covet its 25 electoral votes.
The solution is simple, and was inspired by an observation from President Ulysses S. Grant about 125 years ago. Beset by scandals with the Santa Fe Ring in a remote western territory, most of it a barren desert, Grant suggested that the United States go to war with Mexico again -- this time, to force Mexico to take New Mexico back.
Since every Floridian I've seen on TV lately speaks fluent Spanish and waves a Cuban flag, an analogous solution seems obvious. President Clinton should offer Florida to Fidel Castro for annexation to Cuba.
Better it damage his polity than ours, and if Castro turns it down, then we can mobilize. Marines and Army infantry could head inland from our beachhead at Guantanamo while the Air Force bombed Havana and the Navy established a blockade and began shelling port cities.
Our military might not be as potent as Republicans want it to be, but we should have the firepower to force Castro to surrender within a fortnight and agree to take Florida. Then it's his problem, and we're well rid of it.
2) Microsoft. The market will solve this problem, eventually, but our own state government could give the market a nudge, and make Colorado a more prosperous place in the process.
Here's how. Gov. Bill Owens should issue an executive order that, as of July 1, 2000, the State of Colorado will purchase no more Microsoft products, and that by July 1, 2001, all state 80x86 computers will run the Linux operating system and applications written for it.
This will create a demand for Linux programs to replace Windows programs. Colorado will become a world center for Linux expertise, and as the applications are developed for the state's computers, our entrepreneurial programmers will be able to sell them worldwide, thereby bringing bales of money into our state.
Not all the programmers will be in Colorado, of course, and that's another benefit. Hackers everywhere will find some useful and profitable challenges in writing software for our state government, and so they won't be crashing the Internet or devising new viruses.
Everybody wins here -- even Microsoft, since the real competition inspired by our state government means that the federal anti-trust case would be moot.
3) Columbine. She's my older daughter, and she's just fine. No problem there.
As for the other one, at the moment there really isn't
such a place in Colorado. We do read about a social
construction called the Columbine community,
but
when the insensitive global media jackals are looking for a
place to invade, they can't look at a Colorado map and find
a Columbine.
We can fix that. North of Steamboat Springs, near Hahn's Peak and Steamboat Lake, there was a gold camp known as Columbine. It had a post office from 1896 until rather recently: 1967.
All we have to do is resurrect the post office so that it appears on maps, and the boom-mike holdes will head there.
A further benefit, according to Kenneth Jessen's
excellent book, Ghost Towns: Colorado Style,
is that
the Columbine site is now private property -- a resort
where the old houses have been restored into guest cabins.
Thus the swarming sharks will enjoy historic accommodations
during their feeding frenzies, and they'll get lots of
healthful exercise as they wander around at 9,000 feet,
looking for someone to interview.
Since that area is fairly remote, sequestering the media mob there also means the rest of Colorado can go about its business.
Again, everybody benefits, just as we would if we
annexed Florida to Cuba and if Colorado made Linux the
official state operating system. And, having resolved
those major social issues, I must turn to solving some of
my personal matters, like figuring out which
law-enforcement agency to call when Windows 98 reports an
illegal operation.
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