Occasionally, people ask me how I decide what I’m going to write about. The truth is that, as a rule, something in the news riles me up. If after a couple of days, I find I’m still riled, I find that my only relief is to sit down and write a six or seven hundred word essay on the topic.

Sometimes, however, I find that I don’t want to write a full-blown piece. I merely want to share an idle thought, express an opinion, as I would if I were sitting over a cup of coffee with a friend.

So, friend, I’ve been thinking that during World War II, young Japanese-American males, in spite of their families being locked up in concentration camps like Manzinar, volunteered in large numbers to join the U.S. army. The 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the glorious “Go for Broke” guys fought so heroically, they simultaneously brought honor to their families and themselves, while highlighting how shabbily the Nisei had been treated by their own government.

The question, though, that’s been nagging me this past year is why there hasn’t been a similar response from America’s Muslim community. Why aren’t young Muslims enlisting to fight the Islamic terrorists? They’re not even volunteering to serve as translators. Instead, all we hear from them is how much they resent being profiled by the authorities.

Another idle thought concerns that great American populist, John F. Kerry. If he and the Heinz heiress wind up moving into the White House next January, it would be only their eighth largest home! And how is it that the likes of the Saudi royal family and the rest of the filthy rich oil sheiks have managed for all these years to keep their countrymen from rising up and ripping them to shreds? Wouldn’t you think the Palestinians, however much their mullahs have dunned Jew-hatred into their heads, would finally ask themselves, “How is it that Arafat has hundreds of millions of dollars, his wife and kid live like royalty in Paris, while I’m stuck in a hovel with a dirt floor, and a good career move consists of blowing myself up in an Israeli pizza parlor?”

Speaking of Arabs, how is it that America has defended Muslims in Kosovo, Kuwait and, for about a week or so, in Somalia, whereas Saddam Hussein murdered Muslims in Iran, Kuwait and Iraq, and somehow, to millions of Islamists, he was the good guy and we’re Satan’s spawn?

Finally, I’d like to know why science hasn’t come up with a birth control pill for men. Only we humans would be silly enough to expend all that time and money coming up with Viagra when a contraceptive pill for men is what the world desperately needs.

Let’s face it... there isn’t a man alive who doesn’t hate prophylactics. Which is certainly part of the reason that they don’t use them nearly as often as they should. But nobody objects to taking a little pill. Overnight, we could put an end to the battle over abortions. Unwanted pregnancies would be a thing of the past. Scientists, put on your thinking caps. Fortune, adulation and a Nobel Prize, await you.

You’re probably wondering what I have against Viagra. It’s simply this: If you can’t get an erection the old-fashioned way, I happen to think it’s God’s way of saying, “It’s enough already. Go take up golf.”

You can learn more about Burt and his latest book, Conservatives Are from Mars (Liberals Are from San Francisco) at his home page. Write Mr. Prelutsky at: