Words to Live By Since 1993 A SPIFF Publication Vol. 4, No. 2 Heck is reserved for people who don't believe in Gosh. Break in the Action We didn't want to break this story to you, because of the adverse effect it could have on the deal to bring the Houston Oilers to Nashville to become the Tennessee Tax Hikes. But, in our never-ending (although often-long-break-in-betweening) quest to bring you the truth, we must. Last weekend the Spiffmobile (the original Spiffmobile, a late-1970s, powder-blue Lincoln Continental with an 8-track tape deck is no longer with us.) was assaulted. While it was sitting in the parking lot of its favorite church, some mindless, would-be stereo thief broke into the little car. Don't worry, though. The car will be all right. There was some serious damage to the convertible top, but insurance should take care of that. (We hope we don't have to write a scathing article attacking the insurance industry next week.) Nothing of any significant value was taken. Only a car adapter for a cellular phone (since we're all rich Republicans here) and a cassette tape. What was left? The car, for one thing. Thank God. Also, the car stereo, although they did remove a panel and started playing with the wiring before they brilliantly noticed that the stereo's face-plate had been responsibly removed and stored safely in the trunk. (By the way, if you're thinking about getting a car stereo with a removable face-plate, we highly recommend it.) Also not missing: several cassette tapes. The cassette they did take was an unlabeled tape which contents even we couldn't remember. They left tapes that included the works of C.S. Lewis, Rush Limbaugh, Angelina McKeithen, Dan Quayle, and Cal Thomas. Considering what they didn't take, not only do the thieves have little talent, but they have little taste. More stuff that was there but still is: (well, not now, but that's because we took it out ourselves) a round-trip airline ticket to Phoenix and a Nashville road map book (which, by the way, is worth much more than the junk they did take). We reported the crime to the police. In case you haven't had the joy yourself, you call the police, they give your name and number to a some other people who specialize in car break-ins, they call you back, take down the information, and wish you a nice day. This service probably exists only so you can tell your insurance company that you reported the crime to the police. That's understandable. The real police are too busy chasing scum that kills little kids in grocery stores. The crime is still confusing. It looks like these people were one of two types. They could have been amateurs who broke in, but found they couldn't get the car stereo. But they were too dumb to take anything else of value. Or they could have been professionals, who knew better than to take something they couldn't use. But they were too dumb to see that the face-plate was gone before they broke in. So tell us. How can we expect to have major-league sports in a town with such minor-league criminals? I've Seen That Movie, Too. In our never-ending quest to bring you the truth, which seems to pop up in almost every story these days, one of your Spiff publishers saw the new movie City Hall last weekend. If you do see it, remember one important thing: they're all Democrats. So much for the movie reviews. What's important here is what we saw before the show. After they focused, up on the screen was the face of Paul Newman, pretending to read a newspaper article about a little girl who was accidentally shot by her father. While her death was obviously a loss to her family, it was an accident--an accident, the ad said, that could have been prevented if there had only been a five-day waiting period on hand guns. No, wait. There already is. An accident, the ad said, that could have been prevented if we only had a ban on assault weapons. No, wait. That's already there, too. An accident, the ad said, that could have been prevented if it were not for the decade of greed and the worst economy in the last 2,000 years. Well, you get the idea. What really made us snicker was the cute little statistic at the end of the ad. It said that if you have a gun, you increase by three times the chances that a homicide will take place in your house. When we saw that, a lone voice nearby said, "That's a bunch of..." well, insert whatever you want here. Not necessarily, though. What they tell you may be the facts, but what they don't tell you is the truth. It may be that the chances of a homicide increase three times if you have a gun in your house. What they want you to think when you read this is that the chances of the bad guy shooting the good guy increase. What they don't tell you, though, is that it's the chances of the good guy shooting the bad guy that increase. There are lies, darn lies, the Clinton Administration, and statistics. Why is it, by the way, that in order to have an opinion on gun control you must either (a.) approve it or (b.) qualify yourself that you are not a member of the NRA? And we are not members of the NRA. Yet. Random Thoughts The Quest Continues In our never-ending-again quest to bring you the truth, about which you've probably read elsewhere in this issue of Words to Live By, your Spiff publishers have been travelling around the nation. One publisher was visiting our nation's capital hearing from the few Republicans who are not running for president. Another was Arizona, learning more about this year's GOP primary. In case you haven't been to Iowa, New Hampshire, or any of the other early primary states this year, here's a shocking revelation. The medialibs are right! Right about one thing, that is: The television ads for the GOP candidates are negative. Punishment Fit the Crime? George Bonin, the Freeway Killer, whose name we looked up for your benefit--we'd like to forget him--was killed Friday morning. Before he died, one of the networks reported, he bravely spoke out to denounce the death penalty. That's good. Did he also denounce the torture penalty and the sodomy penalty, two of the other penalties that he inflicted upon his victims? Information Superhighway Stuff We probably should have announced this sooner, but we didn't. Sorry. Thanks to free-enterprise technology, and no thanks to Owl Gore, Spiff has a www page on the Internet. If you have web access, the URL is http://www.nashville.com/~spiff/spiff.htm. If you have no idea what that means, you probably wouldn't care anyway. Please give us a visit and let us know what you think. Quote of the weak: "It was an unselfish gift." Carol Poensch, daughter of another Kevorkian victim Quote of the strong: "The target is Clinton, not one another." Bob Dornan Words to Live By is published every week at about this time by Spiff. You can send a fax to us here in the Spiff Executive Tower, on the banks of the mighty Cumberland River, at 615-847-2259, or you can send us e-mail at spiff@nashville.com.