Jewish World Review April 28, 2006/ 30 Nissan, 5766

Greg Crosby

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The unwritten columns


http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | I might have written a column this week on the demonstration held in front of the Israeli consulate in New York City on April 21st where a group called the Islamic Thinkers Society chanted (in Arabic) "The mushroom cloud is on its way! The real holocaust is on its way! Zionists, you will pay! The wrath of Allah is on its way!"


The demonstrators were holding signs printed with "Islam will Dominate" and showing a picture with an Islamic flag flying over the White House. The Islamic Thinkers Society is an offshoot of London's Al-Muhajiroun, a group that celebrated the 9/11 attacks, referring to the hijackers as "the magnificent 19." I might have written my column on this, but I didn't.


I might have written a column this week on the skyrocketing gasoline prices. Record high prices that energy experts say will undoubtedly stay high throughout the summer. The fact that people are paying $40, $50 and more every time they fill up their vehicles now will surely put a dent in the old summer vacation car trips. It doesn't do much for all the rest of us middle class consumers, either. I might have written on that, but I didn't.


I might have written my column on Iran's continued war rhetoric with their tireless threats to not just the United States, but to the entire free world. Iran now says that not only won't they work with the U.N. atomic energy agency, but they are ready to transfer their nuclear technology to other countries — and you can bet your booties those countries won't be Sweden, New Zealand, or Lichtenstein. Talk about a country begging to be bombed. I might have written on that, but I didn't.


There are tons of really weighty issues that I might have written a column on, but the fact is, I'm just not in a weighty kind of mood. The alternative might be to go in the other direction for my column this week and write about something light — pop music or movies or something equally fluffy and non-threatening. But I don't want to do that either. The beauty of writing a freewheeling column like mine is you can write about anything, or not write about anything. And I do. Or I don't.


I've been going through some of my old notes and you wouldn't believe some of the stuff I have NOT written about. There are things that have occurred to me that, evidently, I once thought worthy of putting down on paper but then decided against it. And there are things that I definitely wanted to write about but for one reason or another, never got around to it. I could probably write a book just on the things I haven't written about.


Sometimes an idea will occur to me and I'll jot it down thinking that I could use that idea in formulating a column. When I go back and read it later I realize that the idea, although interesting, really doesn't justify writing an entire column around it. For example one notation reads: We used to travel on airlines with strong, imposing sounding names like "United," "TransWorld," and "American" — now we take airlines like "Jet Blue" which sound like toilet bowl cleaners." See what I mean? An amusing thought but not worthy of an entire column so I just stuck the scrap of paper in the desk drawer. Here are some other notes I found in that drawer:


Whenever we get even the smallest bit of rain, Los Angeles plunges into a panic attack. It drizzles for ten minutes and suddenly the streets are flooded, the canyons are closed, and the cliffs crumble. Hollywood is like a spoiled Jewish princess — the slightest thing goes wrong and it falls apart totally.


In all of history, never have a society of people paid so much money to colleges and universities to teach their kids to hate that very same society as we do now.


It's a myth that women are "the fair sex." Women aren't fair at all — if they were, they'd let men win once in awhile.


The good part about Hamas winning the Palestinian elections (or any terrorist group that becomes the controlling party of any country) is that the country will then be officially a terrorist state and as such we should be able to wage war on it without any further discussion or delay.


If some straights can be "homophobic" isn't it possible for some gays to be "heterophobic?"


I have dozens and dozens of these little notes scribbled on scraps of paper, lying in the back of that drawer just waiting for their big break — the chance to hit the big time in a column all of their own. Some will make it but many more will not. Such is the fickle serendipity of success. Ah well, that's show biz.


Or rather, column biz.

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JWR contributor Greg Crosby, former creative head for Walt Disney publications, has written thousands of comics, hundreds of children's books, dozens of essays, and a letter to his congressman. A freelance writer in Southern California, you may contact him by clicking here.

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