AL GORE'S GREEN SUPPORT, OLDFIELD'S HONOR, SOME FLIGHT HUMOR

Friend of Al? Recently the radical environmental group, Earth Liberation Front, took credit for breaking into a University of Minnesota lab and uprooting about 800 oat plants that were part of a genetic engineering experiment aimed at improving plant resistance to disease. And the Minnesota attack was relatively mild compared with the New Year's Eve fire at Michigan State University's Agriculture Hall, which devastated a campus landmark and did $400,000 damage -- also in the name of combating genetic engineering. ELF likewise claimed responsibility for a Christmas Day fire that destroyed the Oregon headquarters of Boise Cascade, a paper manufacturer accused of having "ravaged the forests of the Pacific Northwest."

Yet we haven't seen one question asking the Democratic Party's leading environmentalist (Al Gore) to disavow ELF and its violent ways. In the wake of Columbine, the National Rifle Association and the Republicans opponents of gun control were all but accused of having pulled the triggers. Ditto for pro-life Republicans who found themselves asked to forswear violence after a spate of abortion-clinic bombings. And what about Rush Limbaugh and talk radio, which post-Oklahoma City were held as having helped foment the violence of right-wing militia. So why isn't what's sauce for the GOP sauce for Team Gore?

Certainly it's not because of any shyness on ELF's part. A breakaway group from Earth First! that defines itself by a willingness to commit criminal acts to advance its political agenda, ELF has been growing bolder each year. From the tree spikings, demonstrations and graffiti sprayings of the early 1990s, ELF has graduated to arson. Joining forces with the Animal Liberation Front, it has inflicted costly damage on government offices, businesses and university research facilities.

Its most spectacular act of vandalism came in 1998, a $12 million blaze at the Vail Associates ski facility in Colorado set because ELF believed the resort a threat to the reintroduction of the lynx. This was preceded by a $2 million fire at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Damage Control building outside Olympia, Washington. And it was followed by a fire that did $500,000 worth of damage to the Oregon headquarters of U.S. Forest Industries.

Still no outrage from Democrats angry that their good green name has been sullied by violence. Maybe that's because setting fire to corporate property doesn't rate that high on some progressive scales. Or maybe it's because there has yet to be any loss of human life -- though this is probably but a matter of time. No one who sets a fire can control it, and firefighters who enter burning buildings know all too well the risk of things going tragically wrong. "This is not college prank stuff," Gordon Compton, FBI spokesman in Portland, assures us. "This falls within our domestic terrorism statutes."

So there we have it: "domestic terrorism" on behalf of a sacrosanct cause, committed by a group that makes no apologies for the millions in damage it has done and the risks to human life that inevitably attach to it. Only two years back Democrats were running ads suggesting that a vote for the GOP was a vote for burning black churches. Surely, then, in the interests of fairness we can expect Rosie O'Donnell and similar minds around the media to wonder if a vote for Al is a vote for ELF? -- The Wall Street Journal

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Ken "Barney" Oldfield, basketball team 1928-1930, was a year 2000 ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY "BILLIKEN" Hall of Fame Inductee Jan. 28.

Some of us knew him from the years he lived in Cape and played in some old-timers basketball games in the area.

Oldfield was one of the first great guards in Billiken basketball history. Along with fellow Hall of Famer Ham Strong, he led the Billikens to records of 14-4 and 14-6 during his junior and senior years. He was also named captain of the team in 1930. After earning his law degree from SLU, he held a dairy firm distributorship and moved to Cape. He was named probate judge and adopted the community as his hometown, helping to establish a mental-health clinic among countless other community facilities and associations. He was a five-year member of the state high school basketball tournament committee. He passed away in 1956 at the age of 49 from lung cancer.

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I've been doing a lot of airline travel recently. Occasionally, airline attendants try to make the in-flight safety lecture and their other announcements a bit more entertaining.

Here are some real examples that have been heard or reported:

1. From a Southwest Airlines employee: "There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there are only four ways out of this airplane."

2. After landing: "Thank you for flying Delta Business Express. We hope you enjoyed giving us the business as much as we enjoyed taking you for a ride."

3. As the plane landed and was coming to a stop at Washington National, a lone voice comes over the loudspeaker: "Whoa, big fella. WHOA!"

4. After a particularly rough landing during thunderstorms in Memphis, a flight attendant on a Northwest flight announced: "Please take care when opening the overhead compartments because, after a landing like that, sure as hell everything has shifted."

5. From a Southwest Airlines employee: "Welcome aboard Southwest Flight XXX to YYY. To operate your seat belt, insert the metal tab into the buckle and pull tight. It works just like every other seat belt, and if you don't know how to operate one, you probably shouldn't be out in public unsupervised. In the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will descend from the ceiling. Stop screaming, grab the mask and pull it over your face. If you have a small child traveling with you, secure your mask before assisting with theirs. If you are traveling with two small children, decide now which one you love more."

6. "Weather at our destination is 50 degrees with some broken clouds, but they'll try to have them fixed before we arrive."

7. "Your seat cushions can be used for flotation. And in the event of an emergency water landing, please take them with our compliments."

8. "As you exit the plane, please make sure to gather all of your belongings. Anything left behind will be distributed evenly among the flight attendants."

9. From the pilot during his welcome message: "We are pleased to have some of the best flight attendants in the industry. Unfortunately, none of them are on this flight."

10. An airline pilot wrote that on this particular flight he had hammered his ship into the runway really hard. The airline had a policy which required the first officer to stand at the door while the passengers exited, smile, and give them a "Thanks for flying XYZ Airline." He said that in light of his bad landing, he had a hard time looking the passengers in the eye, thinking that someone would have a smart comment. Finally, everyone had gotten off except for this little old lady walking with a cane. She said, "Sonny, mind if I ask you a question?" "Why no, Ma'am," said the pilot, "what is it?" The little old lady said, "Did we land or were we shot down?"

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I couldn't figure out why I received a notice letter from the Census Bureau with a return envelope telling me I'd receive a census form within the next few weeks.

If I could have read the Japanese, Spanish or any of those other languages, I would have known the return envelopes were for those who wanted the census forms in their native language.

Still ... awfully expensive to send everyone the letter for the 5 percent or less (estimated) that couldn't read the form in English.

~Gary Rust is president of Rust Communications, which owns the Southeast Missourian and other newspapers.