God Bless America, I love "The View".

Not that I have time to watch it with the sound up, but each day there is a 15-minute period where the women talk about the issues of the day. If one of them gets their hair all aflutter, I turn up the sound to see what's up.

It's not merely entertaining. ABC's "The View" has legitimately turned into one of the better topic-oriented debate shows on television. There aren't a ton of spinmeisters in remote locations shouting at each other, and the show's hosts simply are not afraid to offend middle America -- odd, considering the show is directed toward middle America.

The John Kerry fiasco is dying down somewhat, given that the Massachusettes senator apologized. Look, nobody thought he really believed our troops to be stupid or undereducated or a bunch of bumpkins. However, after harping on Dubya for the content of his words and his inability to form coherent thoughts with words, liberals are obligated to say things properly. To mean what they say, and to apologize profusely the minute they gaffe, with the knowledge that admitting a mistake immediately is almost to diffuse it completely.

Democrats like Harold Ford, of Tennessee, were 100 percent right to be pissed at Kerry. Ford is in one heck of a race out there, and Kerry's going to come along and mess it up for him?

Nevertheless, the Kerry topic came up on The View. What I loved is that, more and more, the dimwitted and completely vapid Elisabeth Hasselback is raising the hackles of the very bright, sharp Joy Behar. Ms. Survivor called Kerry "Mel without the booze," and Behar wondered why it is everybody is making a big deal about Kerry's verbal gaffe when she (her words) could have compiled a book with President Bush's verbal missteps.

Barbara Walters was having Gran Mal seizures, and I was having an intellectual orgasm.

Rosie injected the most sense into the conversation, reminding everybody that 100-plus Americans died in Iraq last month, noting that our focus should still be there, not on the Kerry incident. Oddly enough, my sense is that America still agrees.

I didn't get any e-mails from folks suggesting Kerry be hanged. On the contrary, I got a ton of notes from Oklahomans suggesting that this issue is really a non-issue, a way for Republicans to "change the subject" several days before a midterm election.

We'll see next Tuesday what effect this had on the public; however, for the time being, I say "Bravo" to the general for not overreacting.

I still maintain the level of frustration I showed in yesterday's post about Kerry. That was just an unacceptable gaffe one week before a midterm election.

5 Things You Need To Know:

1. The NBA season has started. It's the happiest time of year, as the most talented, entertaining professional sports league begins its eight-month grind. I love it and have already watched parts of four games in two days, including a Hornets win over Boston tonight and a Clippers matchup against Phoenix on ESPN.

2. The Dallas Stars are off to their best start in franchise history at 10-2, after a 4-1 win over the St. Louis Blues on Wednesday night. I haven't been able to get back into the NHL since the strike, not so much because of the new league rules but because of the lack of a decent television contract.

3. College basketball starts in a couple weeks. One OU team is a favorite to win a national title, and the other might not win 10 games this year.

4. Before you start inhaling Halloween candy leftover from trick-or-treating just because they're bite-sized, you should know that most miniature candy bars are 80-100 calories a pop. It's super easy to down six to eight to 22 of them in an afternoon should it get really busy and hectic and your tummy starts to growl and ... Is there a 12-step group for people with a chocolate problem?

5. My buddy T and I keep discussing crime rates in Oklahoma City and Dallas, comparing them. Of course, the problem with statistics is that there are 45 different flavors with hundreds of interpretations. He bragged the other day about Norman being selected as the 48th safest city in America by some survey, which is all fine and dandy to me. He's preaching to the choir. However, Edmond today was named the 8th safest city in America by some other survey.

Look, I can point out 800 towns across Oklahoma that are all safer than Edmond and Norman put together. The difference is that nobody and nothing is there to attract people to begin with. Gotebo is safe. Holdenville is safe. Okarche is safe. Gene Autry is safe. Tonkawa is safe.

Safety is vastly overrated. Predictability is not.

For example -- and this has always been my argument with him -- in Dallas, one knows where the vast majority of violence will happen. Give me any part of Dallas and any suburb in the Metroplex, and I can give you a feel for how safe that part of town is.

In Tulsa, one knows where the violence will happen.

In all those po-dunk safe towns, one knows where the violence will happen (and, that is, it won't).

But, in Oklahoma City, it's random. It happens everywhere. There is no really safe neighborhood outside of Nichols Hills, which for a "ritzy" area is no safer than any other "ritzy" area in America. BTW, why is it that robbers and burglars don't go to the "ritzy" neighborhoods? Seems they could make off with better booty, no?

It's not a knock on OKC by any means. They've made great strides downtown, creating something that is vastly superior to many other major cities and most all other mid-sized cities. However, residentially, I still see it as being extremely inferior, particularly as it pertains to crime.

It's funny. Last year, a colleague of mine who also hails from Dallas, said that he felt safer there than in Oklahoma City. His notation was in response to some comment from me about how low the crime rate is in Norman relative to Big D.

However, more than a year later, I see where he's coming from.

Nevertheless, I still maintain that safety is vastly overrated as long as wherever one lives has enough culture and fun to make that risk worthwhile.

Norman's getting better. I mean, they are getting a Starbucks two blocks from me. Hallelujah.