I read a report the other day that indicated all is not well in America's heartland. It seems that a majority of the kids in Iowa -- Iowa, for heaven's sake! -- admitted to being shoplifters. Even more shocking, like the looting cops in New Orleans, they weren't even ashamed of themselves. Well, why would they be? In a country rife with entitlements, this is just one more. After all, the folks who owned the stores were richer than they were, and were therefore fair game to be robbed.

It used to be that Iowa was the state where they grew corn, and where parents raised their young to live by the Golden Rule. When the heck did they start growing Commies? And couldn't the government pay them to stop doing it, the same way they get farmers to stop growing soy beans and rutabagas whenever somebody notices we're hip-deep in soy beans and rutabagas?

Also, I'd like to know when the nature of shoplifting changed. When I was a youngster, it was nearly always little kids who would steal junk from the five-and-dime, often as not on a dare.

Then, at some point, we were told that the only people with sticky fingers were middle-aged women who could easily afford to pay for the items they were carting away. According to the shrinks, these women tended to be the neglected wives of middle-aged men. Their crimes were allegedly subconscious pleas for attention -- the equivalent of little kids misbehaving because even being punished is preferable to being ignored.

I was always slightly skeptical of that theory. As far as I was concerned, it all depended on whether the purloined item was a lipstick or a diamond necklace. In the first case, I might buy that it was a woman screaming, "I need attention." In the latter case, I figured it was a woman whispering, "Ooh la la. Come to mama!" Less a case of the empty nest syndrome than the not quite full jewelry case syndrome.

These days, young people, even in middle America, seem to feel entitled to walk off with anything that isn't nailed down. In trying to explain this decline in morality, I know that some people blame the music the kids listen to, others blame the movies and TV, while still others simply blame it all on an increasingly permissive society.

Personally, I blame George Bush. It's a habit I've picked up from the liberals. On 9/11, the book the president happened to be reading to those school children was "My Pet Goat." Ironically, he has since become the pet scapegoat for millions of my fellow Americans, and I've decided to join them. I find it's good for my self-esteem.

I now blame the man when I run out of gas on the freeway, when I fail to fill an inside straight, and even when I drop something really heavy on my foot.

It doesn't change anything of course, but it just makes me feel ever so much better having someone else to blame for my own stupidity.

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: