There's a joke circulating on the Internet: A grandmother overhears her 5-year-old granddaughter playing "wedding." The wedding vows go like this: "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say may be held against you. You have the right to have an attorney present. You may kiss the bride."

One can scarcely blame the child. The state of the police state is on everyone's mind. A large bomb has devastated Bali. The Irish peace process has collapsed. Nepal is on the verge of civil war. Ivory Coast has spontaneously ignited. Venezuela is facing massive civil unrest. Brazil's economy is teetering dangerously. Iraqi citizens overwhelmingly pass a referendum in support of Saddam Hussein, some pricking their fingers and marking their ballots in blood. At home, Rush Limbaugh insists that war will liberate the Iraqi people, who will rise up and thank us for invading. The Pope has added five new mysteries to the saying of the rosary: the mysteries of light. Just in time for the age of darkness.

It's a crazy world, getting crazier. People use words like matches in a dry barn. Amiri Baraka, poet laureate of New Jersey, launches himself into an ugly verbal brawl in which he conflates Ariel Sharon's policies with all of Israel, Israel with all Jews. Harvard's president, Lawrence Summers, launches himself into an unattractive polemic in which he conflates Sharon's policies with all of Israel, Israel with all Jews, and thus seems able to conclude that economic boycotts protesting specific human rights abuses under Sharon's leadership are "anti-Semitic in their effect." Entrepreneurs operating in Muslim countries, having happily conflated the American economy with the American President, are profiting from boycotts of American products through a boost in sales of catchy alternatives like Mecca Cola and Halal Fried Chicken.

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