Armageddon is just around the corner, if recent events are any indication. Rivers are springing leaks and Gadhafi has gone public again. Even Ronald Reagan is not safe.

Just over a week ago, he was accosted by a freak at a speaking engagement. The long-haired nuclear activist rushed the stage and smashed a glass statue that had just been awarded to the former president. Since the Secret Service was half-asleep and took almost a minute to realize what was up, Reagan simply scowled, yielded the podium to his assailant and quietly fished for his brass knuckles.

Whatever hatreds they may hold, Reagan’s enemies should just give it up. The old man is a survivor. He lived through the hedonism of old Hollywood, bouts of cancer and an assassination attempt. He is probably older than some box turtles, which can live to 150.

Setting up a grave plot near his library is merely a token gesture, for he can never truly die. Like Old Scratch himself, he will walk the dark corners of the earth forever with the likes of Jim Morrison and Papa Doc Duvalier, whose bodies were never seen by reliable witnesses.

Just last week, a professor turned me on to brainstorming. Normally, it is supposed to be a one topic, open-ended idea session with other people. However, it doesn’t have to be this way. Talented individuals like Susan Atkins and David Berkowitz are able to hold full U.N. debates with all of the voices in their heads.

Just last week, while driving through some place called Funks Grove, I suffered a mild paranoia attack after getting stuck behind a dozen Hell’s Angels and being followed by an elderly couple wearing Terminator shades in a plum purple Cadillac.

Needing something to put my mind at ease, and something more entertaining than the floaters in my left eye, I turned to brainstorming. Here are a few results:

Career criminals and avowed gangbangers should not be stuffed into our overcrowded revolving door prisons. Instead, make the penalty for a third felony conviction exile to Somalia. Our gang members think they’re tough, but that’s because even America’s mean streets are the minor leagues.

With roving bands of drugged-up thugs fighting petty clan wars with high-tech Cold War weapons, Somalia is worse than Haiti. It makes Compton look like a nice bedroom community. Our toughest punks would be butchered like hogs the moment they landed in Mogadishu.

It’s no secret that NIU Provost Kendall Baker has presidential ambitions. He made the finalist lists at several schools and is waiting for a sweet offer.

In the spirit of public service and in the best interests of NIU, I would like to toss my hat in the ring, Mr. La Tourette. Although straight-laced search committees will call me inexperienced and unqualified, this is an asset. This is the year of the outsider in politics, and these are desperate times.

In the spirit of cutbacks I would gladly forgo some of the $80,000 salary and divide it among the colleges. I could also help save the Library and Information Studies Department by hiring lawyers such as Vincent Bugliosi and the Gotti prosecuting team to break some knuckles at the American Library Association.