Prejudice is never going to go away, ever. It's what America was founded on. And I don't mean our beads for land deals or our enslaving black people or our denying women the right to vote. I mean our hatred of the English.

That's what first united America. 13 separate colonies, most of whose residents viewed themselves as independent from and superior to the other 12. But when the tea dropped, those colonies decided that they may have their differences, but at least they weren't British.

The French agreed, and helped America in the Revolutionary War. After all, the colonials may have been crass and disrespectful, but, well, at least they weren't British.

America has a rich history of hate. During World War I, we hated Germans, Austrians, Hungarians, Turks, and Bulgarians (And most of us have never had any idea where Bulgaria was). During World War Two, we hated Germans, Hungarians, and Bulgarians again (and we still couldn't find it), along with Croatians, Romanians, Slovakians, Italians, and the Japanese. And we hated the Japanese so much that we tried interning Japanese people who'd already chosen the United States over Japan. We didn't do that to any of the other groups we hated at the time, because they kind of looked like us.

We've also hated Koreans, the Vietnamese, Mexicans, Indians who weren't from India, the French (who used to help us hate the British), Spaniards, Philippinos, the Chinese, Russians, Cambodians, Persians, Syrians, Cubans, Bosnians (who hate Serbs), Serbs (who hate Bosnians), Afghans, and, of course, Iraqis. If you're like me at all, you tried to identify all the wars while reading that last paragraph.

Once your country has been around long enough, you'll hate everyone at some point. But let's also not forget how much we hate each other.

Sure, there was the Civil War, and unequal pay for men and women, and signs like "No Irish Need Apply." But we also hate each other for much simpler reasons.

Yankee fans hate Red Sox fans. People from cities like Boston hate people from nearby small towns. People who live in cold weather climates hate people in warm weather. People in the desert hate people on the beach. People in Los Angeles hate people in New York. Isn't it nice how everything comes full circle?

There is hatred in America based on all of these differences, along with political affiliations, fashion sense, taste in music, and even what sort of education we're receiving.

If you go to Ohio State, you hate anyone from the University of Michigan. You hate em! You can't adequately explain why, but argh! Until you're spending a semester in another country with someone from Ann Arbor. Then you put aside your differences, become close friends, and hate the people in that country that aren't from America.

Racism exists because we're afraid of what is different and we are constantly defining ourselves as, well, different. We're told to celebrate those differences, but we never do. When we meet someone new, the first thing we do is try to find something in common. You never hear, "You're from Chicago? What a coincidence, I'm from Not Chicago! Let's celebrate!"

More likely, you'll find you both went to Ohio State and therefore bond over how much you hate Michigan, even though neither of you knows why. You might have a number of friends who go there, but you can still hate the school. The phrase "some of my best friends are" is often used by people who hate a group despite their fondness for individual members of that group. Those people who say that are idiots. And that's one group we're allowed to hate.

It's a sad fact, but we will always need an "other" - always. There is no unity without an enemy. Sure, the United States is united. But we united against England, remember?

And now, what are we united on? We're united by our hatred of Afghanis and Iraqis and the French and people whose sexual preferences differ from our own. We're certainly not united on our views of anything that actually matters. So to circumvent that, we have again been united with hate. Just like old times.

By this logic, you might assume that the people of this world are never going to get along. But I disagree - maybe that's what the Mars program is for. What if we discover life out there? With a finding that wonderful and far reaching, we can all put aside our petty differences, join hands, and come together to hate the Martians.

Steve Hofstetter is the author of the Student Body Shots books, which are available at SteveHofstetter.com. He can be e-mailed at steve@stevehofstetter.com.

In the last year, Comedy Central has taken to airing "Blue Collar" programming much of the week. And let me say it's about time. Hoowee, I can't get enough hick jokes.

The Blue Collar Comedy tour really spoke to me as an American. I've been telling my hunting buddies for years that we have free speech in this country so they should shut up about it. Or maybe David Cross said that. I saw this one thing he did where he started his routine in a barely understandable drawl and talked about how he loved guns. Then he started talking all educated, and I shut it off.

As an American, it's my right to fear and attack people different than me, and it's about time someone in a flannel shirt with no sleeves said so. Git-R-Done! I don't know exactly what that means, but other people are yelling it, so I will, too!

I'm glad, as an average American, I don't live in a major city. Even though the 2000 census said that more than three quarters of Americans live in urban areas, I don't believe that because the census was done by the government, and the government is out to get you. Unless it's run by a good ol boy like me. George Bush is a good ol boy, right? That stuff about him growing up rich and going to some fancy college is just propaganda from the left-wing media.

That damned left-wing media controls everything. If it weren't for Fox News and MSNBC, sometimes CNN, and the WWE, us real Americans would have nothing to watch. Thank the lord that Comedy Central has finally given us weekend blocks of the programming that we, as typical Americans, must want.

Even though I am afraid of technology and change and original thought, I am happy that cable allows me to watch these things from my town. I don't want to have to move to some Yankee city like Atlanta or Nashville. I am proud to be where I am - sucking down six packs, ignoring my wife, and subsisting on a diet of gravy and ranch dressing that will make sure I don't see my son grow up to be as ignorant as I am. Not that even I'd realize the irony. Git-R-Done!

I am glad that I don't know that Larry the Cable Guy's real name is Dan Whitney, and that he's from the Midwest, and not the South. He says he picked up his accent when he moved to Florida, though I'm glad I've never heard him talk off camera because then I'd know it wasn't really his accent. I am especially glad not to know that Dan's first bunch of characters also included a gay man and an old Jewish lady, but Larry was the one typical Americans like me responded to.

There is one thing that annoys me about that tour. Ron White, the gentleman in the suit with the whiskey and the cigar (pronounced CEE-gar) keeps saying smart things with clever punch lines that I haven't heard other people say. It's almost like they put him on that tour just so the smarter people in the room wouldn't get bored when Larry told jokes making fun of black people. I like it better when the other fellers tell jokes I've known since before they started doing comedy. Those jokes are familiar. Like my life, since I never challenge myself. That's the fun part about being a typical American - my laziness is celebrated now!

I also like Bill Engvall. I just can't get enough jokes about how men do dumb things and wives are demanding. But my favorite one is Larry. He tells the truth, and speaks his mind. Even though he speaks it in a voice that's not his own, and he told Newsweek that the majority of his material is fabricated. But a guy like me would never read Newsweek, and if someone showed me a copy, I'd say it was lies and blame it on the liberal media. Git-R-Done!

I'm okay with the network's assertion that anyone who grew up in a rural area or has a job that involves manual labor is a moron. After all, I'm too stupid to understand the inadvertent social commentary behind those jokes. And I'm not just okay with it, I think it's hi-larious! And though the phrase Blue Collar should insult me coming from people with private jets and mansions, I don't think that far ahead. If I did, I could see those punch lines coming, too.

So bring it on, Comedy Central! Us typical Americans want to see more marathons of Blue Collar Comedy! And while you're at it, can you get rid of that Jon Stewart guy? Anyone in a suit scares me.

Steve Hofstetter is the author of the Student Body Shots books, which are available at SteveHofstetter.com. He can be e-mailed at steve@stevehofstetter.com.

I admit it. Last week, I punched a guy in the head. I didn't mean to - I was just taking off my sweatshirt and he walked into my fist. But it's the first time in fifteen years that I punched anyone in the head, so I'm going to take credit for it.

The first time I gave someone a head punch, I was in sixth grade. The school bully had been ragging on me about a death in the family because, hey, that's what school bullies do. So I clenched my fist, reached back, and landed a right cross just below his right eye. He went reeling from my eighty pounds of fury, fell back into a seat, and broke it. It was one of those perfect After School Special moments that I'll be telling to my grandkids Al-Bundy-style. I felt great - and so did the teachers, who all hated the kid, too. I didn't even get reprimanded.

But this recent one was less Biff Tannen and more a complete accident. I'd just gotten on the subway and I was pulling my sweatshirt off over my head. As my fists came down, and my eyes were still obscured, both of them clipped a man on the top of his head. Hard.

What could I have possibly said in that situation to make it alright?

"Hey, stranger. Sorry I punched you in the head. I was just taking my sweatshirt off and, well, you know how it is."

I did apologize, but I wasn't really sorry. I actually thought it was hysterical. How dumb do you have to be to walk by someone in mid-sweatshirt removal and not expect to be clocked in the head? Be aware of your surroundings! I bet this guy never made it past level one of Frogger.

I have friends that constantly bump into trees and mailboxes, and trees next to mailboxes. And I never understood it. I have stumbled, I have tripped, and I have stubbed several toes (and most of them were mine). But some people are prone to constantly getting punched in the head by people stripping on the subway.

Nothing much came of the altercation. I apologized as the bewildered man stumbled away. I'm glad he wasn't a big guy with something to prove, or I'd be writing this column through a straw. (Which is just as difficult as it sounds). Even with his timid nature, I bet I could have gotten him to hit me had I yelled "take that, Jerkface!" after I clubbed him in the forehead. But saying I was sorry diffused the situation. And then I hit him in the back of the head again! Bam!

Okay, I'm kidding, I sat down after my apology and put my sweatshirt in my lap. And then I hit him! Or maybe I just took out my notebook and jotted down the idea of writing a column about a guy I hit in the head.

I wonder if he's reading this. If he's thinking, "hey, that was me! I'm terrible at Frogger!" I should have put a "missed connection" ad in the back of the Village Voice in order to find out who he was.

"Manhattan-bound R train. Me, wearing a sweatshirt, swinging my arms. You, not looking where you were going, welt on your head."

Maybe I'm being insensitive with all this. I wouldn't be happy if someone hit ME in the head. Because I'd be so mad at myself for not looking where I was going.

Though the odds are the man I hit missed this particular column, maybe the 6th grade bully didn't. Maybe he's feeling guilty about what he did, how he pushed us around, and how much of a jerkface he was. Maybe he's matured - and he'll read this and e-mail me and we'll go to lunch and let bygones be bygones. He'll say that he's sorry.

And I'll say, "here, hold my sweatshirt..."

Steve Hofstetter is the author of the Student Body Shots books, which are available at SteveHofstetter.com. He can be e-mailed at steve@stevehofstetter.com.

Four months ago, I embarked on a quest to have 100,000 friends on thefacebook.com. Now that it's completed, I'm not sure what to do. I feel a bit like Inigo Montoya at the end of The Princess Bride. Maybe there's an opening for a new Dread Pirate Roberts.

First, a brief refresher. I'm a comedian - so I started the quest partly as a joke and partly as a way to get my name out there. There's nothing better to a comedian than simultaneous laughs and publicity. The Facebook seemed the perfect way to get both. Instead I ended up with a journey filled with horror, intrigue, and a dastardly murder plot so dastardly, even the most dastardly of dastardly people couldn't come up with something this dastardly.

Okay, so what really happened was I got a whole bunch of e-mails, but the dastardly stuff sounded more dramatic.

I accomplished both my goals. It was funny in how seriously some people took what I was doing. Hopefully you've perused the hate mail section on my website by now. If you haven't yet, let me sum it up for you: a lot of stupid people have access to the internet.

Some people got offended--really offended--that I sent them an unsolicited friend request. "How dare you disturb my thousand year slumber!," they'd bellow. Of course, I'm paraphrasing.

Really, I was told I had too much time on my hands and got a whole bunch of invitations to have sex with myself. If I could have sex with myself, don't you think I'd have less time on my hands?

For the most part, the response was overwhelmingly positive. Some people checked my profile every day. Some e-mailed all their friends about what I was doing. Some even helped me confirm all the friend requests I was getting. Which all added up to one thing: I'm not the only one with too much time on my hands.

I'm kidding. What it really added up to is that human nature involves a desire to be a part of something bigger than yourself. And that's what this quest was to a lot of people. It was a large, fun way to have an ice breaker. I got hundreds of emails talking about how I was the subject of conversation at a party or on a road trip or in an e-mail. What it came down to was that people wanted to help because of the feeling of community, and because none of us has yet to figure out how to have sex with ourselves.

On the flip side, I also figured out why others hated it. Some people don't just want to be involved in something bigger - they want to be involved in something bigger that they own. And thus, the majority of people who sent me hate mail didn't hate the idea of what I was doing; they hated that I was the one to do it. So much so that there are now several dozen people on The Facebook trying to duplicate what I did.

I happened to check my friend count when I was at 99,999. So I hit reload, and sure enough, I saw it at exactly 100,000. I don't know who that 100,000th was. But thank you, whoever you are. May you live a long happy life, and eventually be flexible enough to have sex with yourself.

There were no balloons, and no band played. But I did get a nice sense of satisfaction that I did what I set out to do and I could go back to my life. Which coincidentally consists mainly of answering emails and coming up with zany quests.

I wanted to thank everyone who helped, be it actively or by simply clicking "confirm." Especially the staff of The Facebook, who let me use their product to perform a simultaneous social experiment and publicity campaign. I also want to, once again, make fun of all the people who had to ask who I am despite the caption on my picture explaining, well, who I am. For those of you that did this, I want to explain that Clark Kent and Superman are the same person, since you might have missed that one, too.

I do have good news, as promised. This September, director Andrew Hevia will be screening his documentary about my quest in Tallahassee. This October, I'll be taping my first TV special in Atlanta. And later this month, I will be having a big party for all the facebookers that want to come in Los Angeles. And I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico. (I'll also be doing shows in lots of other places, but this is supposed to be an 800-word column.)

I will continue to add friends, and answer all the messages I've gotten. I also branched out. I have 4,000 friends on ConnectU and 8,000 on MySpace. But I will always have a place in my heart for the 100,000 from The Facebook. Right next to my left ventricle.

Steve Hofstetter is the author of the Student Body Shots books, which are available at SteveHofstetter.com. He can be e-mailed at steve@stevehofstetter.com.

According to a recent study, the myth that Chinese men have smaller genitals is just that - a myth. Of course, the study was conducted in Hong Kong.

I've got a feeling the results of this study would have been kept quiet if the Chinese hadn't measured up.

"How's it coming with that genital study?"

"Didn't work out. Yeah, nothing conclusive."

"Why are you running out of the room?"

Of course, they'd say that all in Chinese.

Anyway, the study isn't what got me. What got me is that it took a team of scientists five months to measure 148 volunteers. All of the volunteers were measured flaccid, so it's not like they needed any special preparation. Let's say it took five minutes to measure each guy, and they measure each one five times just to be sure. With one scientist, it'd take five 12-hour work days. With a team of scientists, you could do it all in a day. But it took five months. Maybe one guy kept watching Baywatch before he went in, throwing the measurements off. (After all, the show is very popular in other countries).

At the end of the study, the scientists were able to compare their results to similar studies done in Germany, Italy, Turkey, Israel, The Phillipines, and America. And then the question becomes, what the heck are we spending our money on?

There have been tons of studies about how teenagers are now using prescription drugs to "get high." Which is a great way to spend our money, instead of simply looking around at any high school or college in America. Then again, the people looking are so out of touch they still talk about drugs with phrases like "get high." (Incidentally, I'm not a chicken, but you're a turkey).

We study things like the sweatiest city in America, that better weather and the ability to attract people with money increases tourism, and how watching golf can improve your golf swing. Incidentally, the sweatiest city is El Paso. The people who studied that probably took their money and are now touring the country playing golf in nice weather.

Studies seem to come in three forms: useful, obvious, and who really cares? Perhaps the residents of El Paso take a certain pride knowing that they are sweatier than Milwaukee, but I'd rather we spend that money studying how to stop us from spending so much on studies.

Of course nice weather increases tourism. But it took a team of researchers at Michigan State University to make it official. Rumor has it they asked a few of their friends if they wanted to go out on a rainy day, and their friends replied, "nah." But it took another twelve months to analyze the data.

And watching professional golfers would most certainly help people get better at golf. That's what happens when you watch professionals do something - you pick up tips on how to do it yourself. I'm glad that a student and professor at the University of Western Ontario teamed up for the results of this one. The student says he got better at conducting useless studies by watching the professor in action, but I won't know for sure until I commission a study.

Knowledge is good, and we should want to know the answer to every question. But there are better and more pressing questions. Ones that will produce more relevant answers than "El Paso."

Maybe the size of male genitalia is more important to the Chinese way of life than I am assuming. Or maybe not, considering there's a limit on children over there. But I believe that the results will change nothing. People will still make hacky jokes based on pre-conceived racist concepts. I don't picture someone interrupting such a joke to say, "You're wrong! There was this study..."

As an aside, the studies list Italians as the largest of those countries, and men from the Philippines as the smallest and thus most likely to buy sports cars. A follow-up study suggests that knowing that the men in the Philippines have slightly smaller genitals than everyone else could really hurt tourism.


Steve Hofstetter is the author of the Student Body Shots books, which are available at SteveHofstetter.com. He can be e-mailed at steve@stevehofstetter.com.