Thoughts While Jaywalking

* Q.) Who owned and controlled Iraq's oil before Saddam took power?
A.) British and American oil corporations.

Q.) Who owned the oil while Saddam was president?
A.) Iraq

Q.) Who owns it now?
A.) Beats me.

* A protectionist doesn't have a good name anymore - not in America - although it's just fine in China. Consider the opposite of protectionist: neglectist. By not protecting our industries and citizens' work skills, we are neglecting the future. Recent presidents have been neglectists - so have Congresses.

* Patrick Henry said that he "smelled a rat" when he read a draft of the Constitution. Thomas Jefferson had serious doubts, too. They both feared cconcentrations of power in the executive and the judicial branches of the federal government.

* Clark County in Nevada and New York City have passed resolutions to subsidize school teachers' housing costs. Talk about a slippery slope. This sounds as if some of us are more equal than others. If you drive a bus, aren't you important too? Is a teacher more valuable than a preacher who might fix you up on a cloud in the sky?

* A Loiterers' Protest and Stand About is scheduled for May 1st in the roundabout at Main and Tabernacle. A spokesperson urges those who care to join the demonstration before even more space is taken away from loiterers who want only to do their thing.

* Nevada Congressman John Porter gambled his seat by appearing in Las Vegas with President George 33% Bush. The boss man could have stopped in at "Roundabout City," he was so nearby. Apparently, he didn't believe he could do much to oust Democrat Congressman Jim Matheson.

* Oil goes to $75 a barrel, gas to $3 per gallon, and congressional leaders are calling for investigations and/or a windfall profits tax. President Bush is impatient for some gas price relief because it has great potential to shake the economy as well as Republican chances in the November elections. The mother of all political battles is shaping up. Economic philosophies are at the core, slightly ahead of political expediency.

* THE SPECTRUM reports today, in a headline, the names of two Washington County sheriff's deputies accused of misconduct with inmates. If this is still America the two men are innocent at this point. No one, certainly not a chain newspaper, has the moral right to print their names. If they are convicted, there will be time enough to beat on them on the front page. Meanwhile, the men are being punished right now by ugly publicity.

* Watch Senator Hatch. He's in a tortured turn-around over the June 2nd explosion test issue. He and Senator Bennett will be on opposite sides and eventually clash, but gently, of course.

* Thirty years ago, our president's father was named Director of the CIA. We know it's a spook outfit, but wouldn't ask whatever else they do. Bush Sr. stayed on the job for only a year. Didn't he like them or didn't they like him? Probably the latter. You wouldn't quit a job heading the CIA. That could make somebody mad.

* The guvmint ought to subsidize having babies for middle class folks. The endangered species won't reproduce unless they receive cash incentives (something strange about those people.) The country will soon need many middle class young workers to do jobs that illegal immigrants won't do. How about $10,000 per child?

TWENTY-YEARS-FROM-NOW NEWS:
Manfred Manning, the first snowbird to be elected to public office in Utah, is also the mayor of Boise, Idaho. He was recently elected to the Santa Clara city council. He told Mike McGary on KDXU Radio: "I will serve my constituents well, but when summer comes, I'm out of here."