“EDMONTON — Corrections Canada won’t let guards at maximum security prisons wear stab-proof vests because it sends a confrontational ‘signal’ to prisoners. “If you have that kind of presence symbolized by (a stab-proof vest), you’re sending a signal to the prisoner that you consider him to be a dangerous person,” said Tim Krause. “It interferes with what we call ‘dynamic security.’ We want staff to talk to prisoners, to see

Wait, I’m confused: I thought we were the McCarthyites, and that the growing tribe of Heroic Dissenters (Manhattan Chapter) trafficked in nothing but truth and justice and puppies and, y’know, freshly picked daisies and such. Name names, Al? Well, the veil has certainly be lifted from these eyes…

Well, that’s one approach. Another would be to hock your ’65 Les Paul Firebird for way below market value, then — when that $500 runs out — start hanging out in bus station bathrooms giving handjobs to closeted businessmen for $15 a throw. From what I’ve heard, I mean.

MILWAUKEE — The Wisconsin man who invented the telephone answering machine died recently at age 92. Joseph James Zimmerman Jr. invented the machine in 1948 and patented it a year later. A funeral service will be held Monday at St. Mary’s Church in Elm Grove. The first answering machine was a box that — Beeeeeeeeeeep. Ah shit…! [re-dial] — lifted the telephone receiver from its cradle when it rang. A

Oh dear God, no.

Ted Kennedy calls Iraq “George Bush’s Vietnam.” In other news, protein wisdom calls Ted Kennedy “John Kerry’s Chappaquiddick.”

Last night I was in the mood for a black and white movie (I’m sick of color, with all its sneering “nuance”), so I threw in the newly remastered Fox Studio Classics DVD of John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, directed by John Ford and starring Henry Fonda. Good movie, if a bit heavy on the melodrama (every Okie is streaked with dirt and wears a rough five-o’clock shadow, including the

…Overheard at the Fat City Bowling Alley, Littleton, Colorado: “Alanis what now? And who’s this ‘Canada’ person you keep going on about? Quickly. I’m a busy man.”