From time to time, with a salute to Jonathan Swift, I will make "a modest proposal." They will be something like Bill Maher's "New Rules" but more in the style of Swift's 1729 essay, "A Modest Proposal." Here's my first:

A Modest Proposal

I would urge all those who voted for George W. Bush to sew a big red B on their outer garment. Surely they would take pride in this and it would save the rest of us many hours of wasted time trying to engage in an intelligent discussion of the wealth gap; Iraq; privatization; separation of church and state, evolution vs. intelligent design, and other issues, only to find belatedly that the person we're communicating with supports the Bush administration.