Ninety-eight percent of what most people have to say is about as bright as a hand-cranked night light.

My favorites come in two specially-priced, ready-to-move, marked-down-for-a-limited-time only packages.

The first group is crackers who write in to justify their hatred of homosexuals and other minorities with some long-winded rationalization or “manifesto” that makes about as much sense as Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen thinking to themselves that “Men at Work” would be a good career move.

The other is uptight, indignant, politically correct harpy, activist types who think that because I run letters from crackers bent on publishing their silly, little sideshow freak manifestoes that I must agree with them.

Look at my forehead. Does it say Ritz anywhere? No it doesn’t. And do you know why it doesn’t? Because I’m not a cracker, Jack.

Now I don’t know, maybe I’ve been vague in the past. Maybe I haven’t done enough to make myself clear during my tenure here. Maybe my official position isn’t as clear and straight as Calista Flockhart’s EEG.

So let me take this time with you today, my friends and neighbors, to publish my own little manifesto. I will spell it out nice and slow for the members of the audience who only get the chance to read between tossing off sermons, stocking vending machines and attempting to abduct small children from the loving arms of their panicked parents.

This is for anybody that might be confused over the issue of what the opinion section is really about.

For starters, it is not about Quick Es. Are you missing your daily dose of what passes for intellectual discourse at Iowa State?

Well, I tell you what, Sparky, I will give you one last Quick E. The last Quick E I ever got while still pondering the future of Quick Es.

This is the one that put the freakin’ nail in the coffin of one-sentence wonders and mongoloid bons mots forever.

Ready?

It was: “Shouldn’t wetbacks be dry by the time they get to Iowa?” (Year and major withheld by my choice.)

Are you laughing? Does this make those scrambled eggs taste good? I hope milk is shooting out of your nose like a Howitzer right now over this little gem.

If you do find this funny, do me and the gene pool a favor and find an industrial sausage press and go for a swim.

At this point, donating your foul and racist carcass to food service is the only way you can perform a public service.

The rest of you can go and find that anonymous donor with the rakish wit and give him your personal thanks right upside his pointy head. Shouldn’t be too hard; he’s probably bragging about it at as we speak.

Any lingering doubts and reservations I had about Quick Es died a messy death the second I opened that twisted, little racist pervert’s e-mail.

Unfortunately for those people who like their hate in conveniently packaged, anonymous bundles, you’d better stick to reading the age of enlightenment that is printed on the men’s wall, baby.

You see, I like my cockroaches to scurry in the light. I like to see a name and major on my hate-mongers’ letters.

Say what you want about the current debate; at least these trash-talking Heinrich Himmler juniors have the guts to sign their name to the hate they fling around in hard little chunks like zoo monkeys.

Now, when the revolution starts, they will be easier to find than Snoop Dogg at an Elk’s Lodge meeting on “Celebrate Germanic Culture Night.”

For the indignant folks in group two who think I should censor Herman Goerring and his Amazing Fact-Spewing, Law-Quoting, Flying Midget-Brained Circus of Doom, I got news for you, too.

They make me want to move to Canada, as well. But more importantly, if you don’t like it, write your own letter!

Don’t send in sarcastic anonymous e-mails telling me I shouldn’t print these filthy things.

It’s there for you to respond to.

Just keep it under 800 words, Victor Hugo, because there is almost nothing in this world that needs to be expressed that cannot be expressed succinctly. (That’s quick and to the point for the freshmen.)

And as loath as I am to respond to the little “wetback” Quick E, I do have a message for the kind of toothless hicks who hate Mexicans while proudly proclaiming themselves to be “real Americans.”

The reason you crackers hate Mexicans is they make you realize how cheaply you hold your own citizenship.

You’re envious because you know you don’t want it badly enough.

You were born here, and you’re pissed because while you take it for granted, there are men, women and children who will risk their lives to get here for just a fraction of what you have, and they won’t complain about it.

Man, I wish I was Mexican. About the time some redneck called me a wetback I’d look him right in the eye and say, “You’re damn right and proud of it. If you don’t like it, go back to Europe, you goat-sniffing, land-grabbing, treaty-breaking, SUV-drivin’ yuppie punk!”

Of course, it would sound more eloquent in Spanish.

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Greg Jerrett is a graduate student in English from Council Bluffs. He is opinion editor of the Daily. Nothing like an old-school rant.