Open season?

By Capt. Fogg

In the 1920's, the Ku Klux Klan is said to have had some 4 million members. Today with an overall population twice as large, it may have according to the Anti-Defamation League, nearly 8 thousand. So why is there a growing concern? In part it's because having reached a low point in 2000, according to a CNN report, membership is again on the rise. It's on the rise for the same reason it reached a peak 80 years ago: anti immigration hysteria. New groups are springing up and joining forces with other white supremacy organizations, crosses are appearing on Hispanic lawns.

Even on a less white-sheet level, anti Mexican rhetoric has been flooding that great underground river of e-mail that gets passed from one computer to another until you don't know where it started or any of the names on the mailing list. I get a number of them every week, from nasty jokes to dire warnings about diseased, depraved and demented stealers of jobs, starting a revolution and giving Texas back to Mexico.

Perhaps I'm less concerned about the recrudescence of the Klan than some. It's not because I share their views but more because there often is nothing to do on warm Southern nights and those sheets are so visible in the moonlight. They even wear a little red target patch right over their hearts. . .