Two interesting things happened this week so far. The first is the especially droll and dog-faced Don Imus, shock-less jock, has gotten his ten gallon hat spun around by insulting some black girls.

He's going to pay the price. MSNBC has axed the simulcast of his boring radio show, and now CBS may kick him off the airways too.

Oh, well. No loss for humanity.

The other thing is that Kurt Vonnegut died. He was kind of a second rate author who had some funny and some profound things to say.

Most will focus on his "Slaughter House Five" novel, about the horrific fire bombing of Dresden, of which Vonnegut was a survivor, along with a number of other US soldiers. They survived by taking shelter from the fire storm in the meat locker (number 5) of a slaughterhouse.

Virtually nobody will mention his one monumental and groundbreaking and futuristic story, which was published in 1961. Nobody will mention it because it rips at liberal sensibilities, and Kurt Vonnegut was a card carrying member of this group of world wide ideologues.

Nobody but nobody but me will mention his story, "Harrison Bergeron" in the same breath as Don Imus. But they are related. Cousin stories at least.

Vonnegut's story begins, "The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal". It goes on to describe the crazy US Handicapper General, Diana Moon Glampers, who takes a shotgun and other measures to the best and the brightest and most beautiful in society to make sure that they have no advantage over the next person in line.

Harrison Bergeron was an exceptionally bright and attractive human specimen, who, because of this advantage, had to be shouldered with three hundred pounds of weights, wear coke bottle glasses...well, you get the idea. All to make him like the next.

When I first read this story I thought that it was an amusing dark comedy. That was better than twenty years ago. No matter what you think of Vonnegut, you have to admit he was wrong. He set the story too far in the future. Year 2001 is more realistic.

Don Imus is the latest public figure to pay for his stupidity and ignorance by being sacrificed on the alter of political correctness and hate speech

This is a natural outgrowth of Diana Moon Glamper's activity. Yes, Imus may be a racist, but the reaction to what he has said has thrown up a mirror to a society that will tolerate this type of speech from some and not from others. All to make things equal.

If things were really "equal" with out handicap, Jesse Jackson, who hardly apologized enough for calling New York "hymie town" and Al Sharpton, who was complaining about his election returns being "jewed" down, would be tossed off of their respective radio shows. In fact, because these comments happened before their shows launched, the same PC Mavens, the same junior Diana Moon Glampers, would not have let those two pollute the public airwaves.

But they do. And they posture and pretend.

I for one think all three should be on the air, if they can keep an audience. All three of those racists will blather themselves down to the lowest common hateful denominator, and then hopefully fade away.

But the enforcement of the "handicap" leads to the weight being borne more by some and less by others. Ultimately this ugly weight is borne by all of us, Americans all.

Where will this lead?

Not to equality but to more hate.

And Diana Moon Glamper will be smiling.

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