Bush owns class warfare. (Off the Map).

* Chico, California, home of the Sierra Nevada brewery, which has grown in thirty years from a garage operation to the ninth-largest brewery in America. And I'd like to think, in my own little way, I am more than partly responsible.

Plastic sheeting and duct tape. Just a couple questions here: 1) Wouldn't a better use of the duct tape and plastic sheets be to slap a couple pieces across Donald Rumsfeld's mouth? I'm just asking. 2) If we do seal our houses up, mightn't we run the risk of suffocating like forgotten dime-store goldfish? 3) Could this whole plastic sheeting and duct tape crap be a stealth attempt by the Administration to kick-start the economy by getting consumers back into hardware stores? It seems to be working. For crum's sake, the entire state of Georgia is out of the stuff.

I don't know about you, but I am less than soothed after being provided with this comprehensive anti-terrorist plan of self-defense. But you go ahead, be a good American, go down and try to pick up your fair share of duct tape and plastic sheeting. Turn your house into a giant Ziploc Baggie and your neighborhood into the crisper bin of a shared refrigerator in the kitchen of a 200-employee insurance agency. And if the shelves are all empty, don't you fret, dear friend, there's plenty of other ordinary household items you can purchase to ensure the protection of your family in much the same way. Only different:

Tinfoil and nailguns. Brown wrapping paper and super glue. Replacement materials in lieu of no gray tape or Saran Wrap.

Shovels and pickaxes. Might find yourself some spare time to work on a bit of basement remodeling. I'm thinking guestroom, shelter, bunker.

Yellow legal pads. Last words, final thoughts, that sort of thing.

Caulking guns and Tabasco sauce. Improvise your own weapons.

Lots of string and clean tin cans. High-tech communications devices could become useless. Return to the time tested.

* San Francisco, California, where a Green Party candidate has been voted in as president of the board of supervisors. Great timing: $320 million budget deficit. Like being newly installed as chief of Enron's human resource department.

I'm dredging gray matter depths to come up with an analogy equivalent to Al Sharpton's chances of winning the Democratic nomination for President in 2004. "Snowball in hell" smacks not only of cliche but seems a bit generous as well. How 'bout "more likely to see a film with a credible plot starring Eric Roberts?"

North Korean President Kim Jong Il declared a holy war on America. Wait a minute, isn't North Korea a communist country? Bush is good: Bringing the fear of God to the godless since 2001.

Bush keeps saying it's a swell time to buy a house. And when you think of it, he's right. It's also a good time to buy an airline, and Kmart, and AOL Time Warner.

* Puyallup, Washington, the meth capital of the upper Northwest. Easy to tell when you're in the fancy section of Puyallup: All the roofs of the double wides are sporting satellite dishes.

Class warfare. Bush owns it, and the Democrats want it. Democrats love class wars. They understand class wars. To them, a class war is getting back to basics. Like the pitcher covering first in spring training. And the President has got his part down perfectly: claiming they're the naughty ones who started the whole mess by attacking his tax stimulus package with the scurrilous charge that it neglects to provide any of what you might call your stimulus. On top of that, the thoroughly ungrateful minority party has specifically attacked Bush's attempt to eliminate the tax on stock dividends, which mostly helps the wealthy. The GOP's response is "the wealthy pay most of the taxes, so of course they're going to get some of the breaks." The Democrats came back with "but this ain't no `some,' Chuck. This is a huge honking `most.' "But let me let you in on a little secret here: What really drives the Dems nuts is the public couldn't care less. As a matter of fact, Americans are all in favor of more perks for the rich because the American people only think of the gajillion tax breaks they'll be raking in when they become rich. Which will be any minute now. So when the Administration announces "in order to help out the economy, we have to stimulate the rich," we just nod our heads and go, "uh-huh, that's me, someday."

Will Durst plans to be rich someday. No, not Sunday. Someday.