The other day, I was reading about “the first Latino fundraiser for Obama’s candidacy.” The president was talking to “about 120 mostly Latino contributors.” And I thought, “Even our fundraisers are segregated now? Must everything in American life be divided up by ethnicity and race?”

I have an idea: How about separate drinking fountains and toilet facilities? Has anyone ever thought of that?

E pluribus unum — a great principle. We ought to think about adopting it and living it someday . . .

‐Sen. Marco Rubio keeps swearing up and down that he would not accept the Republican vice-presidential nomination. This is bad, very bad. Maybe he thinks he needs to say this in order to get people off his back — in order to stop this line of questioning. (“What about the vice-presidency, Marco?”) But . . .

A) If his party calls, will he really say no? B) If his country calls, will he really say no?

I wonder how he can accept the nomination now, after his categorical statements. If he does, he’ll look like just another politician, one who doesn’t tell the truth but who says whatever is convenient to say at the moment.

‐A couple of fools at a Republican debate cheer inappropriately, or boo inappropriately, and it becomes a national issue. The president of the United States mentions it.

For two or three weeks, this nation was convulsed — convulsed — by the question of whether Tea Party people had spat on congressmen and used the N-word.

Okay: The Occupy Wall Street people are engaged in the most vile antics. They are crapping on police cars and so on. They routinely say dopey and hateful and Nazi-like things.

Prominent Democrats have made very sympathetic noises about the “occupiers.” Should we Republicans hang the occupiers around their necks, as they would do to us, for sure? (I realize that ain’t the Golden Rule.)

Of course, the Democrats always get more media help than we do. Is that whiny to say, or just truthful? A combination of the two, no doubt.

‐In early October, I said I heard a dog not barking: I hadn’t heard about the birth-certificate issue in ages. Since April, actually, when President Obama at long last approved the release of his “long form.” Obama had killed the issue dead, I said. Thank goodness.

I also said, “Think the Democrats miss it? The issue, I mean?” It was always so good for them: because it made opposition to Obama — all opposition — look kooky.

An astute reader wrote to me, “Not so fast — there are still birther rumbles.” And, lo, about two weeks later, Governor Perry went and reopened the issue. The same reader wrote me back and said, “You jinxed it!”

Hilarious.

‐A word about the Israeli-Palestinian swap — the 1,027 terrorists for Gilad Shalit. I hated this swap, just hated it. It will mean more killings, probably more hostage-taking. And yet I’m for it.

Does that make me a blockhead?

I think of the death penalty: I’m against it, by and large. Yet I know it deters. I know the absence of the death penalty means more crime — more murders, to be blunt about it.

Am I a blockhead, and guilty, to boot? (Let me stress that these questions are strictly rhetorical . . .)

Arabs hate it when people say, “The thing is, the Jews love life while the Arabs love death. Simple as that.” This is a gross generality, probably a slander. Yet people will go on saying it until the Arabs, as a whole, disprove it.

Who can love death, except the psychopathic?

‐The above item is not my clearest — it needs mega-elaboration. But I trust you can sense what I’m groping at.

‐Several days a week, I walk by the Intrepid, on the Hudson River. Almost every time, someone is having his picture taken in front of the ship. Usually several someones.

Earlier this week, I thought, “Is that the way it’s going to be in the future? Will our ships in general be like the Intrepid — museums? Will America be a formerly mighty power, with tourists taking pictures of what used to be? Will we be like Europe, a has-been continent?”

I’m not ready for that, chillen. It’s not just a matter of personal or national pride. This is not a question of vanity. The world hath need of us. For if not us, who? (To coin a phrase.)

‐Back to the Middle East: A few weeks ago, I was reading Jennifer Rubin’s account of an interview she had with Mitt Romney — here. Romney spoke of his first trip to Israel, in May 1998. He said that, of all the trips he has taken in his life, that one has to be “the most emotional.”

This was “not only because [Israel] is the birthplace of my faith, but because of the extraordinary commitment of the people of Israel to values that we share — freedom, tolerance of others.”

You might say this is just a candidate blowin’ smoke — telling a strongly pro-Israel journalist what she wanted to hear. I don’t know. But as I read Mitt’s words, I thought, “You know, it’s true of me, too. The most emotional trip I have ever taken was one to Israel.”

FWIW (“For what it’s worth”), as they say.

‐Here I go again, rising to the defense of Anna Kournikova. Remember her? Beautiful blonde tennis player? Always mocked for being more famous than her record warranted?

On Monday, an article about quarterback Tim Tebow said, “. . . there are those who think he might prove to be the NFL’s version of Russian tennis player Anna Kournikova — popular, attractive and talented but not cut out for the weekly grind of the professional circuit.”

Okay, let me quote from an Impromptus in July 2001 — this was just a few months after the column began, I believe:

Wimbledon time brings thoughts of . . . Anna Kournikova (no sniggering). For several years now, I have been fascinated with the extreme resentment of her, not only from her fellow players but from journalists and others who comment on her. She is a bombshell — blonde at that — and so gets endorsements and attention that she wouldn’t receive otherwise. Everyone likes to point out that she stinks – that she has never won a major tournament and ranks only Number 11 in the world.
I love that: only Number 11. What a hack, Anna Kournikova! Geez, of all the women in the world — how many are there, about 3 billion? — this chick is merely the eleventh-best tennis player.
Whine about Anna’s commercial success all you like, but do you realize how good eleventh-best is? Yes, Kournikova is famous because of her looks. But life isn’t fair, not least in the looks department. So deal with it, baby — and people who can barely get out of their chair have no business knocking Kournikova’s tennis.

Well said. (Oops, it’s not for me to say that.) I see that, in 2001, I thought there were about 6 billion people in the world. I suppose there were. A few days ago, we got the news that there are over 7 billion. How time flies!

‐One of the more delightful personalities at National Review is Helen Rittelmeyer, an associate editor. She’s not entirely normal. A) She’s southern. B) She went to Yale. You know how that goes.

She’s the type to read 63 volumes on the British in Botswana. If she knows something, she has to know everything. Also the type to troop down to a butcher in Brooklyn to buy a whole hare — in order to make rabbit stew.

I thought southerners just went out and caught one with their bare hands. Anyway . . .

I said, “Helen, how’d that rabbit stew go?” She said, “Okay. If you’d like, you can see a picture of it on my blog.” Blog? What? I’d known her for years, never knew she had a blog. Modest type.

Here is her write-up of the rabbit stew, and here is her blog in general. If you want to meet an exceptional mind, spirit, and pen — you’ll thank me.

‐A reader writes me, “Have you noticed that Brady Hoke never complains about the team he ‘inherited’ from Rich Rodriguez?” As you know, this is a swipe at Obama and his perpetual whininess. But who are Hoke and Rodriguez? They are the coach of the University of Michigan football team and his predecessor.

Which gives me a chance to brag on my old friend John Bacon, an Ann Arborite. Actually, he is John U. Bacon — and this is one of the great names in American letters. How often do you see the middle initial “U”?

John’s latest book is Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of College Football. I haven’t read it yet, but I’m certain it’s a good book.

And if you don’t want to take my word for it, take George Will’s: “John U. Bacon’s report on the weird world of college football is eye-opening, and occasionally jaw-dropping.”

Formally, the famed columnist is George F. Will. Good, but not as good as John U. Bacon.

‐Responding to my column “A Turn in the South,” a reader writes,

I’m unsure as to the cause, but my three sons (14, 12, and 9) do not have much of the southern accent that my ex-wife and I have. I blame TV.
At any rate, I was talking to my youngest a few weeks ago, and we were discussing how he was feeling. I asked him, “Aren’t you well yet?” as he was still a little puny from a recent cold. [Puny? I like it.] He looked at me as if I were speaking Pashto.
A long debate ensued in which he accused me of not pronouncing the word “well” correctly. His specific objection was that I pronounced the word with two syllables, instead of the one syllable prescribed by Webster’s. I pressed my case by maintaining that the word is pronounced the same as the word for that enormous sea-going mammal, the whale. It too has two syllables.
Apparently, my case was unpersuasive.
The conversation ended on a decidedly down note as I told him that I spoke the way southern folk speak. He then administered the cruelest cut of all, saying, “Well, Dad, I’m not southern.”
Oh, the horror.
Praise the Lord he’s only nine. There is still time, and hopefully his mind is malleable enough for me to make a difference.
Take care and stay well (two syllables).

Beautiful.

‐Some columns ago, I mentioned the slogan of a Texas exterminator: “You got ’em, we’ll get ’em. They come back, we come back.”

A reader writes, “When I read about the Texas exterminator, I flashed on something I’d seen years ago. Don’t know if it was real or just made up, but it was a photo of a Texas veterinarian/taxidermist’s shingle. His motto: ‘Either way, you get your dog back.’”

‐Care for a little music? My latest column for CityArts is here, and it touches on a Barber of Seville at the Metropolitan Opera, the composer Michael Hersch, and an all-Sibelius concert, played by the London Symphony Orchestra under Sir Colin Davis.

‐Finally, one more speck of reader mail. One of our readers was interpreting one of the hate-spewers on MSNBC: “Let me get this straight: Republicans are so racist, they would vote for a black man [Cain] just to avoid voting for a black man [Obama]. Got it.”

Good! See you.

#JAYBOOK#