The only war on the boob tube these days is the scuffle over network ratings and the collateral damage from reality programming. Alleged killers Robert Blake and Robert Chambers air competing interviews as a distressed America anticipates the George Bush -Saddam Hussein debates. Our President will be hard pressed to sell the Iraqis on the merits of democracy after that rip-off in Florida, though Saddam, for his part, will need to explain that messy incident with mustard gas.

Recent reports claim the heightened terror alert is based on faulty intelligence. Before you set out from your duct-tape cocoon, consider the following: a dance club melee in Chicago claimed 21 lives only days before 97 were consumed by a nightclub blaze in Rhode Island. And its not just the revelers that are at risk as a fire swept through a Hartford nursing home freeing up bed space for 10 new residents.

Is there a Phoenix rising from the ashes of the technology – telcom sector? Nextel added half a million customers last year and posted quarterly earnings of $1.38 per share sending the stock on a dead-cat bounce. Dell Computer posted record revenues and a jump in net income. Share price and profits aren’t the only thing higher at the PC maker as the Dell “Dude” spokesman was arrested in New York for possession of marijuana. Actor Benjamin Curtis, an NYU drama student, was told at his arraignment that all charges will be dropped if he stays clean for a year and comes up with a half-decent plan for rebuilding the World Trade Center.

It seems like the good old days when long hair and Vietnam split our country apart. Police met 3,000 anti-war protesters in Colorado Springs with riot gear and tear gas, arresting a dozen in the process.

Fault lines have spread to Europe where French President Jaques Chirac cautioned the 13 candidates for membership in the European Union against supporting President Bush. France and Germany have befouled our plans for Iraq both as members of the United Nations and as NATO allies.

I suppose anytime you gather so many different countries, with their own cultures and languages agreement becomes virtually impossible. The fact remains, however, that without U.S. military power, the French would speak German and the Germans would speak Russian. And while their ingratitude is galling, they might not be so pompous when they’re all speaking Arabic.

Days after the space shuttle disintegrated over Texas, anti-aircraft batteries were deployed around Washington D.C. An orange terror alert pushed the Dow below 8,000 and further crippled a sagging dollar.

We find ourselves between Iraq and a hard place, and only the Brits are standing up as our true allies. Fearing an attack by Saddam Hussein, Turkey invoked article 4 of NATO’s mutual defense treaty only to be vetoed by France and Germany. The Saudis are mulling the expulsion of American forces. President Bush was even waylaid by Alan Greenspan who denounced the White House stimulus package. The Fed chairman said tax cuts would leave a wake of massive deficits and rising mortgage rates. Though the Fed is out of ammo to prime the economy, the Bank of England cut interest rates to 50-year lows. Maybe that Falklands thing wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

A milestone of my advancing years is the realization that the music which shaped my adolescence, once labeled anti-establishment, is now considered old-school. Growing old, therefore, means growing less cool. Eminem laments that his music has lost meaning now his that his CDs are being snapped up by the very parents he’s trying to alienate. If you rage against the machine from a minivan with Bob the Builder sun shades, will anyone listen? Maybe this is what drove Kurt Cobain to the end of the road. It seems though, that child porn cuts across musical genres as both Pete Townshend and R Kelly were arrested last week for possession of images unsuitable for viewing. My God! Who’s next, Raffi?

The Middle East sings the same one note opera as Ariel Sharon was returned to the Prime Ministry in Israel. Despite a majority of Israelis favoring a Palestinian state and demolition of Jewish settlements, the hard line Likud party was reelected in the biggest trouncing since the Super Bowl. It took Sharon all of a day to reject peace talks with Yasser Arafat. John Lennon asked us to give peace a chance and look what it got him.

The din of anti-war protesters grows, although in San Francisco it proved no match against panhandlers. Public opinion hasn’t been this blindly polarized since the O.J. Simpson trial. Parallels run deeper than the compunction to watch four gruesome hours of CNN despite your better judgment. The outcome is all but certain and even the players look the same. Saddam as the accused and President Bush as Marsha Clark, virtuous but unable to make a convincing argument in the face of such obvious guilt. Donald Rumsfield glares through his glasses ala Chris Darden, bristling at the hint of criticism with an arrogance neither justified nor supported by his intellect. Finally, Dick Cheney as the profiteering Johnnie Cochran with Halliburton contracts replacing high-profile clientele. Maybe Michael Moore should make a movie.