I walked into Max’s kitchen and poured myself a cup then sauntered into the den to see if he was around. He was sitting in front of his computer composing an e-mail. I sat down and waited until he clicked on “send” and asked him if he had tried “porn” in his search engine lately.

“Why do you ask?” he said.

“You remember when we were shocked that we’d get 90 million hits on porn?”

“Yeah.”

“Try it now,” I urged him.

He turned around, hit a few keys, waited a moment and then said, “Holy cow!”

“What’s the total?” I asked.

“Two hundred eighty-eight million,” he said, swiveling his chair around.

“So the pornographers have prospered,” I chuckled, “and not a one of them identified by the triple X domain identifier.”

Max sighed. “Bushy-boy did a good job of killing that, didn’t he? Parents and libraries still have no easy way to block porn. The irony of it is that the porn merchants actually asked for it.”

“That’s a good argument for taking domain designation away from the United States , isn’t it?” I asked.

“Not among our federal authorities,” Max replied. “They just keep on pretending porn doesn’t exist. Mentioning it in an official document would be legitimizing it. But that isn’t the most astounding thing that’s going on. Did you know that Argentina legalized gay marriage last week?”

“No, I don’t think Fox News talks about stuff like that,” I said, shrugging my shoulders.

“Well they did,” Max went on. “Now same sex couples can get married in Buenos Aires , Mexico City, Pretoria and Ames , Iowa . But guess where they can’t get married.”

“Where?”

“In San Francisco , the shining city on the gay hill.”

“Good grief!” I exclaimed. “You’re right. Californians voted the same sex marriage thing down. That is ironic.”

“I thought it was a pattern of illogic for the ages,” Max chuckled.

“By the way, what’s your take on gay marriage, Max?”

“I think you know where I stand. I think it’s up to the states to make their own laws. The feds have no Constitutional prerogative about marriage. Anyway, I think monogamy is less risky than promiscuousness.”

“Don’t do as I do, do as I say,” I scoffed. “Monogamy is less risky? Folks, this little homely brought to you by the raging roué of Bangkok ?”

“You know that I am not successful at marriage,” he grumbled. “At least, I’ve tried.”

“Things are changing too much, too fast, Max. I read where most young people think nothing about having babies out of wedlock,” I mused.

“I am aware of that too,” he replied. “They just keep cranking out those ‘love children’ willy-nilly. As long as they take responsibility for the little brats, I suppose it’s okay. But there’s too many that don’t.”

Speaking of that, “It was one of the most ironic things ever when they discovered the link between crime rate and Roe versus Wade,”

“You’re talking about the dramatic drop in national crime rates sixteen years later?”

“That’s what I thought of. That’s real irony for you,” I said. “Yet, logical.”

Max laughed ruefully. “Talk about ironic. I see Bristol and Levi are getting back together.”

“Yes, I understand it was even a surprise for mom.”

“After Levi shot off his mouth about dear old Mom in the public prints, he was probably afraid to talk to her,” Max said. “She’s usually heavily armed, you know.”

“Talk about the sword of Damocles,” I said. “Levi better be a good boy.”

“We’ve got elections coming up. We ain’t heard the last of it,” Max said with a deep sigh.