America could be on the verge of finally getting rid of the officially-sanctioned discrimination against citizens willing to serve their country in uniform because of their sexual orientation. Then again, it could be on the verge of setting up an even bigger fight on the issue outside the halls of Congress. Either way, this historic debate is about to be put front and center in the political world this week.

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It's going to be a short one today, folks. Since Congress is on yet another one of its week-long vacations, politically it has been a pretty slow week. Even the mainstream media is left fanning the flames of the airport security foofaroo in a desperate attempt to fill their allotted timeslots, in the absence of any real news out of Washington. Well, actually, even if there were such news coming out of Washington, the media would likely still be distracted by the shiniest object in their (quite limited) ability to perceive these things.

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Which is why I'd like to offer a modest proposal. Actually, to be strictly correct and technically accurate, I should say an immodest proposal -- that everyone should have to fly naked. Immediately ban all clothing of any kind from all flights, in order to reach a one-hundred percent rate of security against clothing bombs. This would be the ultimate in security for the flying public, and therefore should be our new policy for every commercial flight.

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For the first time since the Vietnam War, a Medal of Honor has been awarded to a living serviceman. The Medal of Honor is the highest military award America bestows, and not very many of them are handed out, so this is indeed news. There have been other Medal of Honor recipients since Vietnam, but all of them have been awarded posthumously -- a telling statement on the type of bravery it takes to earn this medal. And, inevitably, the word "hero" is used to describe the recipient.

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The town of Mountain Pass, California, is about as close to a ghost town as you can get without actually being empty. The town lies fifteen miles in from the Nevada border, on the interstate highway route from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. It is a mining boom town that went bust -- and not back in the Wild West days, but very recently. But it's not just any mining town out in the desert, it's a very special one.

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It's that time of year again... the time when we pre-empt our usual Friday Talking Points column here and instead gather 'round the virtual campfire and shove a metaphorical flashlight under our chin, and proceed to tell two tales of horror guaranteed to make your blood run like ice water in the veins, no matter which side of the political divide you hail from.

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Incivility seems to be running fairly high in the country right now, what with heads being crushed under boots by political supporters and whatnot. But the incivility which has me scratching my head has nothing to do with politics. Instead, I've been asking a question which (so far) has remained unanswered, so I toss it out today in the hopes that a sports whiz knows the answer: Why do professional baseball players not shake hands with the other team after the game?

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When ex-actor Ronald Reagan won the presidency for the first time, I became convinced that American politics had become indistinguishable from show business. Nothing that has happened in the intervening years has caused me to change my mind on the subject. But the phenomenon of television personalities throwing their own pseudo-political "rallies" on the National Mall in Washington certainly breaks new ground in both the political arena and the entertainment world, I have to admit.

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It's a good time of year for it, as well. Because Thanksgiving is right around the corner, which is supposed (in the easily-digestible children's version, at least) to be all about Native American farmers absolutely saving the lives of the white newcomers, by teaching them how to grow their own food. In other words, I bet this settlement gets a prominent mention in the White House's official Thanksgiving Day message.

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Frank Zappa was recently honored by the city of Baltimore (where he spent the first years of his life) by the erection of a bust in front of a public library. And, yes, I like to think Frank is up there somewhere smiling down on my usage of the words "erection" and "bust" in that sentence. More on that in a bit.

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