Bin Laden probably hiding in cave to avoid wives

News items about this, that and the other thing:

The whereabouts of the Im-perial Grand Wizard of Terror-ism Osama bin Laden are still unknown. Some believe he has been killed in the war against terrorism; others say he may have died from an illness; others think he slipped out of Afghan-istan; still others believe he is hiding out in an Afghan cave.

One of his four wives, identified only as A.S., believes he is still in Afghanistan. She may be right: Four wives might cause him hide out in cave. A.S. says that when she last saw him, he looked exhausted, worried and took tranquilizers to try to sleep. Sounds like symptoms of having four wives.

A.S. believes bin Laden is alive because he told her that if he ever leaves Afghanistan, it will be to "meet God." She doesn't believe that meeting has been held. I wonder what the other wives think. By the way, since bin Laden can't introduce any one of his wives as "my better half," would it be proper for him to introduce one wife as "my better fifth?" Just curious.

The following women probably won't be finalists for the "Mother of the Year" award. Two Canton, Ga., women have been banned from their daughters' youth league basketball games. It started when the two daughters got into a shouting match during a game.

The mothers followed suit. Words led to push, which led to shove, which led to fists, which led one of them to pull a gun. Before the gun could lead to shots, the skirmish ended. These mothers certainly are role models for their daughters, es-pecially the one who carried a gun to a youth basketball game.

I confess to having mixed emotions regarding a law that has passed the Vermont House of Representatives and is now before the Senate. If it passes, no one under 18 could have any body part pierced other than their ear lobes. The law would ban pierced tongues, eyebrows, navels or lips.

My emotions are mixed. One inner voice whispers "I agree with Peter Shumlin, Vermont Senate president pro tem, who says the legislature has better things to do than spend time on such a bill. Yes, such matters should not be the concern of government. I doubt that neither the U.S. Constitution nor Ver-mont's gives government the authority to regulate holes poked in bodies for jewelry.

Another inner voice yells, "All right!" It goes on to proclaim that somebody needs to forbid children from defacing their bodies in order to adorn themselves with jewelry. If parents won't protect their children from themselves, let the government do it.

Both of my inner voices might be content with a compromise: Pass a law requiring those under 18 to be accompanied by a parent or have written parental permission before any body piercing happens. Both inner voices say, "Right on!"

Who says governments can't get anything done? The Utah legislature reached a profound compromise in the closing days of the legislative session. The issue was naming the official state vegetable. I'm talking big-time decision making here.

Well, the legislators hitched-up their boots and compromised: Utah now has two official state vegetables: The Span-ish sweet onion is the Utah Modern Vegetable; the sugar beet is the Utah Historic Veg-etable. How about them apples?

Up front, I want to say that I have visited Santa Cruz, Calif., many times. It is a lovely place. But the Santa Cruz governing body surely has egg all over its face. City officials spent $83,000 on a 15-by-30-foot sign with big yellow words on a blue background reading: "Wel-come To River Street, Down-town Santa Cruz."

Once the sign went up, the response was universal: The sign is too ugly to stay up! City officials have offered it for sale on e-Bay for $5,000. Assuming someone wants this white elephant enough to meet the price (which is no sure thing), the city will lose $78,000 on what probably seemed like a good idea at the time.

It would be nice if they could find another Santa Cruz with a downtown River Street that is more tolerant of gaudy color schemes.

One would think that a scale model of the sign in advance might have let them know where it fell on the Ugly Scale. Learning after the fact that the thing was 10 on the scale was an expensive lesson.

That's the news for now.

(Joe McAdoo is former chairman of the communication department at Drury University.)