Thursday morning, walking to breakfast at the Red Flame Coffee House on West 44th Street, I noted a reinforced police presence outside Grand Central Station. The cover of Thursday's New York Post used Second Coming type to blare the W-word — not weasel but WAR.

After digesting this fascinating bit of news, I was reading a local daily when an equally fascinating article caught my eye. (Little wonder, considering the headline: Wimps? stamped across the page in what's known in the trade as "second coming" type.) "North American man has been cowed to the point where he has no fight left and no opinions," said the cutline. "If he did, his wife would interrupt before he could express them."