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crowd looks up to the sky.
    “Who is it?” the guests ask the owner of a sailboat who is scanning the sky with binoculars.
    He replies, “I’m almost sure it’s Buchwald.”
    “It can’t be. He has maintained for years he would never come to Chilmark because you always need a map.”
    “He must have changed his mind. After all, this is his last hurrah.”
    Mike says to the pilot, “I still have a quarter-tank of ashes in the urn. Take me over to Menemsha. Vernon and Ann Jordan are throwing a birthday party.”
    The urn is almost empty and the plane has just enough ashes left to make it back to the airport.
    Mike is pleased with the evening, but waiting for his plane when they land is a Coast Guard officer who says Mike can’t drop ashes without a permit.
    Mike just smiles and says, “I’m sorry, and if Buchwald were here he would be sorry, too.”

I Spy-You Spy
    THE GOVERNMENT’S HOMELAND SECURITY plan is going along nicely, thank you.
    One program Attorney General Ashcroft is enamored of is the swearing in of private citizens as “tipsters” to spy on anyone who may look suspicious.
    For starters, he would ask truck drivers, taxi drivers, deliverymen and cell phone owners to report anyone they see who might be acting strangely on the highway or in the city.
    Like most Americans, I thought this was a dandy idea until a psychiatrist told me: “What a wonderful opportunity for paranoids to come out of the closet. The Justice Department is going to have to figure out who is a vigilante and who is just plain sick.”
    “I’m sure Ashcroft’s people will figure it out,” I said.
    The psychiatrist wasn’t that sure. “Suppose the tipster is keeping his eye on the laundry hanging on his neighbor’s clothesline. The shirts, undershorts and socks could be hung out in such a way that someone could read it as a code to Osama bin Laden.”
    That gave me something to think about.
    He then said: “Now suppose there is a tipster driving along the highway. The car that just cut him off could be someone looking very suspicious. The driver gives the tipster the finger. This could either be a terrorist act or a typical example of road rage. To make sure, the highway patrol sends a helicopter to the scene and other patrol cars block off all the exits.”
    “Why would someone want to be a tipster?” I asked.
    “For power,” he replied. “If the word gets out, everyone will be scared of him. I’m not saying a tipster will catch anybody. But having these vigilantes will change everyone’s way of life.”

    “Will tipsters be armed?”
    “They are asking to be, and I’m sure they will get permission. The argument is you never know where a terrorist is going to strike next.”
    “So the tipsters will be part of the homeland security system?”
    “They could be the heart of it. A UPS truck driver could do more for his country than a hundred lie detectors at the FBI.”
    “The tipster system worked well under the Nazis and the Fascists,” I pointed out. “If they hadn’t had tipsters, Mussolini could never have gotten the trains to run on time.”
    “There may be some resistance from those who can’t make the cut. After all, the tipsters are the elite home-front soldiers. Americans hate to be spied on, especially by people who owe their loyalty to a higher being—in this case Attorney General Ashcroft.”

Between Iraq and a Hard Place
    TO INVADE OR NOT TO INVADE. That is the question. The debate is going on all over the country in earnest. Here is how it’s shaping up.
    Hawks: We must invade Iraq and kick Saddam’s butt in.
    Doves: We can’t kick Saddam’s butt without the approval of Congress.
    Hawks: Who needs Congress? The president may kick anyone’s butt he wants to.
    Doves: What about Saudi Arabia? If we attack Saddam, they will
cut off their oil and we’ll run out in two months and have to siphon gas out of other people’s cars in the mall parking lot.
    Hawks: Once our ground troops knock off