I went to a diner near Route 66 today to watch and listen for scheming Middle Eastern types. If Eunice Stone can catch a virtual bevy of wrong-thinking Middle East-types in Georgia/Florida I figure if I hang out near an Interstate I could too! I want to heed the call of Attorney General Ashcroft to be the eyes and ears of the anti-terrorist police. I want to do something other than watch football games on TV. Afterall, the University of Oklahoma's game is not on free TV today. The turquoise and pink sign in front of the diner said "God Bless America!" I entered and asked the waitress to seat me in the non-smoking Arab section. "We don't have an Ay-rab section honey", she said as if she were weary of the question. "Do you have any dark people with mustaches I could sit near", I countered.

She seated me in a booth next to a man and woman who appeared, at least on the surface, to be Hispanic. I listened for some minutes but they were speaking in a foreign tongue - I think it was a Spanish-like language - perhaps Mexican or Cuban. Cuban! None of the pundits have thought of this angle yet. Not even Ashley Banfield has put her finger on the Castro - Osama connection yet. I had suspected the likelihood of a Cuba connection and had been chagrined when President Bush had omitted Havana from the Axis of Evil. Surely Jeb has filled him in? Now was my chance to close the loop by exposing Castro's involvement.

Peering over my menu and waving the meddlesome waitress away for the second time I spied what appeared to be a Cohiba-like tube protruding from the brown man's denim shirt pocket. He caught my eye. Whispering something in Cuban to the female agent accompanying him he shoved his fork into a slab of white gravy on his Melamar plate. She pulled a child agent in the booth closer to her and glanced nervously in my direction. They continued whispering to each other. By listening carefully I caught a few words. "...muy rara....bombachos.....terregosto...." "Bombachos!" I thought to myself. That sound like a bomb! I cursed myself for not taking a foreign language in highschool. As I leaned forward to try to hear better the child agent began to cry and point at me. "Darn!" "What am I gonna do now?", I thought. I bolted for the pay phone. "I've got to call the authorities before they get away." But before I could explain to the police operator the significance of the threat, I saw the Cuban agents scoot out the diner door. I hung up and followed them out. They got into a 1975 El Camino with a rust problem and drove off toward the East Coast. But not before I got their Texas license plate number and called the police back. Now I'm watching Fox News to see if they caught the Cubans on their way through Arkansas.

I met Gary Richardson for the first time this year and I'm still trying to figure him out. He is running for Oklahoma governor as an independent and, thanks to his ability to fund his on campaign startup with millions of his own, he has gotten further than any other independent in memory. But is he for real? Is he a cunning politician pulling at the populist heartstrings of Okies by playing to knee-jerk anti-authoritarians or his he an honest guy just telling the truth as he sees it? I don't know yet. When I met him my first impression was that he was practical but not an intellectual, concerned about Oklahoma but looking for the easy answers. He gave me his Plan to read, which I did. I'm still looking into the parts of his plan and will be reporting on what I find. Initially, I'm concerned that Richardson didn't do enough research before making decisions in his Plan. I see some sloppyness in his claims about the turnpikes and the state's economy. What I care about even more than what he believes in is how he arrives at his conclusions. Does he make snap decisions on important issues? Does he do his homework? Does he tell people what they want to hear? The worst type of Governor we could have is one that makes decisions without understanding the issues and the implications. I have no tolerance for sloppy research.

Gary Richardson, former Republican, started out with Paula Unruh, Republican consultant, as his campaign manager. That didn't last long before she had either quit or was dismissed. What happened?

Vince Orza (former Republican running as a Democrat for governor) has been aggressively bashing Governor Keating in his debate appearances. Orza has attacked Keating for poor management of the economy among other things. Keating has been consistently pro-business and has been more active in promoting the state and its business environment than any governor in memory. Orza won't win any points bashing Keating on economic development. Orza will need those Republican votes if he gets past the primary next week. Bad move Vince.

I tried the new hamburger at Burger King today. Not good. Tastes like chicken. Still, it's better than those greaselogs they serve at Carl's Jr.

j

On KRMG radio in Tulsa this morning Governor Keating was interviewed by John Erling about his work in straightening out the Catholic Church and their problems with priests who sexually abuse children. The Governor has come under attack by some of the leaders in the Catholic Church for his statements that Catholics who feel their local leaders are brushing these problems under the rug should "vote with their feet" and go to another parrish or diocese. If I'm getting the nomenclature wrong please understand that Catholicism is a mystery to me. I was impressed with Keating's common sense approach and his gutsy outspokenness about his church. By voting with their feet and giving their donations to another Catholic Church the believers are hitting the evil-doers where it hurts most, in their pocketbook. If there is a hell however, these evil priests will have more to worry about.

The Governor went on to quote Steve Emmerson, author of American Jihad, as an authority on radical Islamic terrorists. I wouldn't put much credibility in anything Mr. Emmerson says, Governor. I wasted money buying his book and getting his autograph at a talk Emmerson gave in Oklahoma earlier this year. Emmerson was not objective. He was rabidly anti-Arab and anti-Palistinian. I immediately suspected him of being on Israel's payroll. He criticized America for not supporting Israel's incursions into Palistinian areas and flatly stated that if America were to give in to Palistinian demands it would make absolutely no difference in the degree of Palistinian violence against Israel. I do not believe this for one minute. While the Palistinians are justified in their opposition to Israel's occupation of Palistine they are not justified in their terrorist attacks on civilians. Not only is that immoral, it's stupid. If Arafat were to use Ghandi's methods the world would be behind the Palistinians 98%. But the US has been very one-sided in our support of Israel and I can understand why Arabs are upset with this unbalanced treatment of the Middle East situation. If we were to be fair and evenhanded in our dealings with the Israelis and the Palistinians it would eventually change Arab views. It would, moreover, be the right thing to do.

The Arab and Islamic world has over-reacted however. Polls of Arab nations consistently show that the citizenry have quite bizarre views about America. It amazes me how a plurality of Arabs could actually say they believe that the 9-11 terror attacks were orchestrated by Israel to incite American hatred of Arabs. They actually believe the story widely circulated, that Jews knew about the impending attacks and stayed away from the World Trade Center on 9-11. How gullible can you be? Are the believers of this story really that insane? They are, but can you blame them that much when the Arab/Islamic media and religious leaders tell them to believe such nuttiness? The Arabs should question their leaders credibility and we should question Emmerson's credibility too.

The weekend looked like it was going to be a down until the OU football team pulled off a win over Alabama in the last couple of minutes of the game on Saturday. OU had let Alabama come back from 21 down to take a 1-point lead. It looked bad but with a minute or two to go OU piled on 10 points. This was good because when OU loses, there's a rash of shootings, domestic violence, and car crashes as disappointed Sooner fans work out their frustrations. Fortunately, OU hardly ever loses. I love Oklahoma and the OU football games are the only bigtime TV event where Oklahomans can see their team crush other states. Of course, the best of all times are those very frequent defeats of hapless Texas teams. They outlawed armed border skermishes so football's all we have.

Dropped in at St. Louis Bread Company today for soup. What odd folks they have at their 15th Street location in Tulsa! They took their sweet time about helping me. The manager asked me how my day was but then stood there behind the cash register and did nothing. After a minute he told a guy to mop the floor and the kid told him it wasn't his area. The manager did nothing. No wonder these people can't make a baguette that even remotely resembles the real French thing. Hey, SLBC! If you can't really make a baguette don't call it a baguette! Call it an "Oversized and Tasteless Bread Thingee that Hardens in 30-minutes".