I apologize for the delay. This time around, I'm not even going to try to catch up. I've lost a week, and that's all there is to it. Sigh.

But I am sorry about that.

Let's go back to last Wednesday night, which is where my last entry left off. I had two priorities for the next day: writing my column for the school paper, and painting something for my art class while listening to classical music.

I stayed up all night, in what's come to be the familiar Wednesday night ritual. I started with the painting, and, somewhere along the line, came up with a work that wasn't perfect by a long shot, but which I could display with a straight face. Close enough. I left it to dry, and started on the article.

I was very concerned about the article, because I was taking on a really sensitive subject, advocating the printing of ads by Holocaust revisionists without comment, and I wanted to be certain that I got it exactly right.

By the time morning came, I had a strong feeling that I'd botched the job. What I'd actually written was just pathetic compared to the shimmering vision of perfection I'd had in my mind all week as I was getting ready to write the thing.

This turned out to be merely the usual post-partum depression. I showed it to three professors, who all thought it was pretty well done. Two left it at that; the third pointed out two points that needed clarification, which I gratefully fixed during the break between my two classes. At which point I also got reassurance from the one person I'd e-mailed the article to.

I should note at this point that I published a plea for hate mail in a column last year. Actually, it was a plea for any mail, but I granted that it would be absurd to hold my breath waiting for positive reinforcement. All subsequent columns, until last week, included a running count along the lines of "Columnist Held Hostage: 420 days without getting any hate mail..."

Let the record show that, on the 422nd day, the wait ended. Last Wednesday evening (a week before this past Wednesday), "A Concerned Alum" complained about my column about my philosophy professor. It was printed in this week's paper. I would have liked to have properly celebrated the occasion, but didn't want to distract from the column I was already printing.

But I digress. I had been sure that this week's column would get me all the hate mail my twisted little heart has ever desired, but, alas, 'tis not to be. For, while I had thought that the paper was going to be downplaying the whole Holocaust thing, they turned out to do anything but that.

Oh, sure, they claimed the moral high ground, by not printing the revisionist ad they were sent, but it's hard to see just how printing a bright red swastika on the cover -- our first use of color in ages -- is much of an improvement. Especially one surrounded by the logos of thirteen colleges whose only offense was to have papers which did print the ad. "FREE SPEECH?" blared the headline, "A Subtle Form of Neo-Nazism Is Creeping Into America's University Newspapers."

Well, that's debatable (and not supported by the following two-page article), but that sensationalism has crept into this college paper is pretty clear. And there's absolutely nothing subtle about it.

In short, my column is as cute and cuddly as can be, compared to the rest of the paper this week.

Saturday night was nice, as my father flooded my mailbox with notices of no less than five web-based birthday cards. See, on the Jewish calendar, my birthday was on Saturday (8 Iyar). I usually use the Gregorian calendar, though, so you guys have until May 10th to prepare. Note my father's example and profit by it. :-)

(Columbine is exempted, on grounds of strong personal feelings on the subject. The rest of you have no excuse.)

Otherwise, I had two columns to write. One was to be a web-only sequel to my Holocaust column -- promised in that column -- which would deal with the way the ad we got was written. The other was to be this week's column, which I wanted to do on the whole Columbine High School thing. As it happened, I wrote neither, although I may yet get back to the latter. I didn't manage to write the former by the time the paper came out, and after I saw what the paper did, I lost interest in covering the subject any further.

Not that this mattered. Due to a printing error, the URL to the website with the column got messed up; specifically, the top of the "6" got cut off, making it look like an "o".

This week's column ended up being devoted to trashing what the rest of the paper looked like this week. (The first half of it, anyway; I had no quarrel with the Entertainment, Music, or Sports sections.)

But why tell you about all of this, when you can just read the columns for yourself? Step this way, and see 'em both.

(The mildly annoying bounce screen is there to keep others from tracing their way back here. Sorry about that.)

Right. I just said, that, as usual, they could print it or not. And that, as usual, if they didn't print it, I wouldn't be writing any more columns for them.

Anyway, after a half hour, we discovered that he was upset because he'd thought my column was a personal attack on him, based on the fact that he was Jewish. This was absurd, and I said so. I never once implied that the paper's coverage was skewed by the backgrounds of those who put it together; I was simply reacting to what they printed. I'd have said the same thing no matter who was behind it. Once we cleared that up, he agreed to leave the thing alone.

Conversely, I'm one of two columnists who reliably submit a column every week to the Opinions section. As such, they don't especially want to lose me. Plus, while I don't think the Editor-in-Chief is fully aware of this, there are definite advantages to having a resident fifth columnist writing for one's paper. Those advantages are left as an exercise for the reader.

In the meantime, if you want to hear the actual soundtrack Your Humble (as if!) Servant was listening to while he composed this entry, check out this They Might Be Giants concert.