54-year-old Berlin man was arrested on charges of contributing to the delinquency of a house pet last week for allegedly teaching his dog the “Heil Hitler� salute, according to German authorities. Though he admits his sheepdog can do the salute, Hans Roland insists he must have learned the gesture from other dogs in the neighborhood.

“It’s not my fault the pound sold me a Nazi dog,� claimed Roland through an interpreter. “You never know what you’re going to get, a carpet pee-er or a radical skinhead or whatever.�

“Sieg Heil!� screamed Roland at the sheepdog, Adolf, after it began to lower its paw.

When this reporter pointed out that Roland’s denials were implausible, given that he was wearing a t-shirt with a picture of Adolf Hitler on it at that very moment, Roland called such allegations “absurd� and pointed out that the dog doesn’t know it’s Hitler.

“The dog’s not very smart,� explained Roland. “He thinks is Charlie Chaplin.�

Under German law, Roland can be prosecuted for displaying symbols of an unconstitutional organization and faces up to three years in prison. The laws against public display of Nazi symbols are meant to prevent a recurrence of Nazism in Germany and date back to the end of WWII. They likely wouldn’t pass constitutional muster but for the lucky fact they’re in Germany, which through a convenient loophole is exempt from American laws. Roland also faces lesser charges of contributing to the delinquency of a canine, a charge usually reserved for pet owners who give their dogs beer.

“I don’t know where these rumors get started,� Roland lamented. “Someone says you buy cheap coffee, you’re roaming around the neighborhood in the nude at nighttime, your dog’s a Nazi…�

If Roland is convicted, the dog likely will be housed in the war criminals wing of a local animal shelter.

“It’s just a rotten shame that people are going to judge this dog based on what his owner taught him,� fretted Cindy Farmou of the local animal protection agency. “It makes me sick. This dog probably isn’t even a Nazi, but because his owner was deranged he’ll have to wear that title and a swastika neckerchief for the rest of his doggie life. It’s important to remember the dog is the victim here. He probably thinks ‘Heil Hitler’ means ‘I love bacon snacks’ or something.�

“Fuck that Nazi dog!� disagreed teenager Hammel Stoiber, owner of a Jewish cocker spaniel. “They may say he’s not like the rest, but they’re all the same. Have you seen the look in that dog’s eyes? I bet he’d just love to put my Maxie in a concentration kennel.�

Roland is currently free on bail, preparing for trial by shouting at passers-by and coaching his dog on witness stand etiquette. According to court documents, police also confiscated a ferret named Manson and a parrot named Osama bin Laden from the man’s apartment.

n efforts to control crime and young minds in the past decade, many cities have followed the move of small towns to institute curfews and keep young people off the street. As part of the commune's ongoing attempt to bring you closer to the world around you, the issues presented to the American public, and eventually get you to buy our sociological journals, the commune brings you the commune Focus: Teen Curfews and Other Forms of Mind-Control.

Most recently, the town council of Vernon, Connecticut, some kind of state in the country, decided not to appeal a federal court ruling upholding a ban on their longtime teen curfew. Teens everywhere celebrated by playing X-Box, using swear words, and having unprotected sex in between backyard wrestling matches. The town council vowed to do nothing until hearing which way the parental outrage swung.

The ban on the town curfew came after ACLU (ack-loo) lawyers challenged the law on the premise it was written in Spanish. That having failed, the ACLU then challenged on behalf of parents' rights to set their own children's curfews, and then challenged on the idea it violated the rights of children themselves, best two out of three, but the court bit on the second suit.

The ruling could dissuade other pompous town council people in Footloose-type situations from passing legislation taking away the rights of anybody under the age of 21. Other issues in controlling teen thought are in dangerous territory with the frown on teen curfews, including a legal drinking age of 21, school uniforms, and chemical castration (for boys only).

"It's very important teens learn restraint in social situations," said Child Psychology professor Fett Geraldo, an ancient prick far too old to have any fun anymore. "Children lack the same wizened social skills and experience to make decisions of importance for themselves like what to wear and what time to come in, whether to obey their parents or not. I know you're thinking people once said that about women and non-white people, but I assure such assessments are only mostly accurate. Anyone under the age of eighteen, or twenty-one, if we're talking alcohol, is clearly not mature enough to make decisions for himself. Or herself. Hell, look at all these teen websites for just-turned-eighteen girls, you can see what I mean."

This reporter did look at the websites, and was quite impressed by Dr. Geraldo's point. And the flexibility of one particular Ukrainian girl.

Teens, however, were demonstrably pissed off by the professor's opinion, and modern music.

"This is just another example of one group claiming they know what's best for another," said seventeen-year-old Betty Fullback. "But I know what's best for them—just shut up already. Adults always think young people can't make decisions about anything, and it's stupid. It's just like the sixties—I hear. We need to mobilize and rebel and stuff, to get our rights like the African-Americans did in the 1600s. I'm trying to get some people together at my house this weekend, so if you know anybody who's interested in fighting for their rights, just—as long as I have approval, you know. Let me check the list. I'm on student council, you know, I have some respect to maintain."

Consequently, this reporter found himself uninvited from the party after a lewd pass and a little commune name-dropping.

The president took an honest and sincere step toward covering up the recent questions of intelligence (the CIA's, not his) with his creation of a bipartisan (emphasis on the "partisan") commission this week. But the question remains: Are we supposed to buy this bullshit?

That question aside, and the answer is obviously a resounding "yes," issues still remain about the quality of intelligence the administration is receiving about terrorism. If the CIA thinks there are large deposits of chemical or biological weapons in an underdeveloped nation like Iraq, based, I might add, on some barbershop rumor floating around Nigeria, what does this mean for the safety of the country? Are we pretty much left at the mercy of the incompetence of terrorists? Much like they are left at the mercy of our own incompetence.

It might be easier for the American public if they knew exactly how intelligence is gathered for the purposes of national security. First and foremost, we buy it. Any episode of Starsky & Hutch should display this adequately. Foreign equivalents of Huggy Bears come nosing around our embassies, and back alley deals galore abound.

The second way is the kind we think of it most often: large, burly American national security agents wearing fake beards and dressed in swami hats and Lawrence of Arabia robes. These are the real heroes, the deceitful, backstabbing undercover agents who get the secretest information straight from the horse's mouth by putting their lives on the line in barely plausible disguises. There is no more dangerous job in the world, except for being an employee of Phil Spector. Many is the time some jihad-crazy Muslim terrorist flips out and frisks you to yell out, "Abdul's wearing a wire!" It's all over then, sir.

There is also what the government calls "option three": Kicking in doors of suspected terrorists, arresting them on suspicion and searching their base of operations without warrant. Right now this is still hard to do overseas, with their difficult laws preventing illegal search and seizure, at least in the more Westernized countries and some of the third world, but rollback in constitutionally-guaranteed rights in the states has made it a lot easier to fight terrorism on our own turf. We might have to annex the world before they agree.

So whose balls were dropped on this particular outing? Democrats suggest the administration manipulated intelligence to manufacture consent for an unjustifiable war with Iraq. Plausible, yes, and even the most likely case, which makes it a poor choice to discuss in this column. So I point the blame squarely at the acting schools in this country.

What kinds of intelligence operatives are we turning out? Nervous, jittery young rubes who make poor choices in their acting and offer only an overbaked performance any first-year Hamas fanatic could see through. Our guys show up on their doorsteps, spewing anti-American rhetoric in a British accent because it's all they can do, and the terrorist masterminds of the world are laughing at us. They tell our guys six or seven times a month they're ready to launch a major attack on our soil, when in fact their biggest effort is not to giggle while they discuss fake plans to use dirty bombs and chemical agents.

Hopefully this nine-person distraction Bush is calling a bipartisan commission will get right to the heart of our off-off-Broadway operatives. We're the richest nation on the planet, and our security is something we should not be paying half-price for. I say, shell out the $20 million for Pacino. De Niro, Hoffman, any of these guys. We should at least be able to afford Billy Dee Williams. He was fantastic in Mahogany.

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