Can we try and separate out the issues of illegal immigration and the O'Reilly argument that illegals contribute disproportionately to the denigration of our quality of life? And would you be willing to put a finer point on the "facts" you've stated here? (I suspect they are correct, but I don't have the data you appear to have). The fact that illegal aliens are illegal is a problem in and of itself. The discussion was about the near-fisticuffs between O'Reilly and Rivera over the significance of a single illegal alien and the relevence of his illegal status to a crime he had committed. There is no rational connection between the two issues.

I just recently returned to the east coast after 5 years in southern California. I found the overall effect of the presence of illegals to be, on a day-to-day basis, far less conspicuous than in the greater Washington, DC, area where I am now. Still, it is true that illegal immigrants have cost California (and a number of other jurisdictions) a lot in terms of the items on your laundry list. It's a problem, but it's not the problem Rivera and O'Reilly were screaming about, which is that illegals commit a disproportionate amount of crime and destroy neighborhoods. That hasn't been my observation.

By the way, where I'm living now looks a hell of a lot more like Tiajuana than any place in LA (apparently by design). It's actually eerie. And there are costs incurred here, too, that need addressing. But wholesale mayhem isn't one of them and neither is declining property values. It's easy to point at a single minority group and say "Look at this mess!" but it's way too easy. If we break down our society into enough groups we could easily prove Capt. John Smith's contention that the Scots-Irish contingent (of which I am a part) is every bit as lazy, stupid, destructive and criminal as any other subgroup. Sociologists have already done that with American Indians (of which I am also a part). Yeah, and we're "anchor babies" too, only our lineage goes so far back no one can figure out who to deport and they're all dead now anyway.

I'm not trying to take away your argument, just trying to put it where it belongs: in the Illegal Immigration is Illegal folder.

It's his audience. Why the hell is there an audience for this sort of moronic, uncivilized behavior and willful ignorance being passed off as humor? Are we really that stupid, that lowbrow, that hateful, that BORED? Sweet lord! Imus has always been an idiot and clearly he's not alone in "Occupation: Foole." (Thank you, George Carlin, for giving this field of endeavor a name).

It's easy to excoriate Imus et al, and to make various "demands" regarding his being fired, run out of town on a rail, disemboweled, etc. The same old ritual "demands" that will somehow cure the problem if met. The truth is not so simple: those who kept him on the air by listening devoutly are the real problem.

We are not the civil society we'd like to think we are. When you add in jerks like Rush Limbaugh and that crew, you've got a pretty damned big audience that relishes incivility and stupidity but doesn't have the gonads to say those kinds of things themselves, at least not without having someone to point to as having said them first. And when these spokesmen for Devolved America find they've crossed the fine line and said something even their own listeners wouldn't say out loud they suddenly try to put the Universe on rewind and have a Charles Colson moment, get religion or something, become sensitive...whatever. They were encouraged to go out that rotten limb because they had people listening!

Where are those listeners? At a Klan rally? We really have a problem, and it's not Don Imus and it's not about "freedom of speech". It's an issue of civility and we've got a serious bleed somewhere. Until people stop worshiping at the altar of Howard Stern we will continue to have these reminders that somewhere someone is gleefully tuning in, and that person is the problem.

Does it?

Marshall has a lot of maybes lined up, but not a helluva lot of facts. Prove to me don Juan didn't exist, that Casteneda was a cult leader and charlatan. Then prove Jesus never existed and the choice of all but one of his close followers of grisly deaths rather than lying to protect themselves (suicidal gestures surely) - never happened, and...what difference does it make? What does any of it matter? Either we believe in something or we don't. It doesn't matter the iconography involved. Joseph Chilton Pearce, in the early 70's, went to the trouble to compare Jesus and don Juan, as well as their respective milieus, and the parallels were striking. They also didn't matter. We'll choose something to believe or we'll choose to believe nothing. Which leads me to wonder: Is Nothing sacred?

I am perpetually dumbfounded by the frantic, desperate need of some to kill the compulsion of the rest of us to believe there actually is something more. More! That's all. Just more.

Prove to me there isn't more. Give me a reason to believe - in nothing. At that point maybe I'll become a follower of Robert Marshall. He's got the real truth.

Crucify him!

I feel fairly sure he'd go for that, especially at this moment.

Call me a Christian elitist (or is that oxymoronic?) but I'll betcha Dubya'd jump at a chance to get literal about his metaphors right about now, and I'm quite certain he's remarked to his minions as to how he's been getting "crucified" lately.

I've got a nail gun. Somebody fetch some two-by-fours!