Several weeks ago I was shopping at a Barnes and Noble after work when I ran into a woman who comes into my department to use the internet because she brings her children with her.

As she's just learning to use computers, and the internet access they have at home is very limited because (she told me) her husband says it's too dangerous to have in the house, she also wants help from somebody. She's a very timid person, and somewhat paranoid. (We had a long and involved discussion about whether it was safe for her to put her ZIP code on her application for free email.)

At Barnes and Noble, she expressed lengthy outrage that Sesame Street is planning to include an HIV-positive character. Most of her sentences concerning public policy begin with the phrase "My husband says..."

It so happened that he was also at the store, and she introduced him to me. He began talking. He talked for almost an hour, until it was half an hour until closing. About 10 minutes into the rant, I suddenly recognized the patter: it was, chapter and verse, what I read here. He mentioned all the same news sources and said, "I used to read other stuff, but why should I bother when these guys gather it all for me?" He had an odd light in his eyes when he talked about Daschle and the Democrats and how world terrorism and the tanking of the stock market and corporate corruption are all actually Clinton's fault. I'd seen that light before: I've been on the receiving end of other kinds of evangelism.

That's when it occurred to me that I read reworkings of the same script here. And I thought, "Why bother? I can go to Newsmax and already know everything I'm going to read here."

See you in the funny papers.

Mary Anne