“These times they are a changing.” Bob Dylan said that way back before he needed speech therapy.

For a long time you could always tell a secret service agent. He wore a dark suit, dark glasses, had a wire coming out of his ear and was constantly talking into the cuff of his coat.

Nowadays, it’s more confusing. With these new telephones that clip onto the ear, you see people in airports and you don’t know if they are suckers for the latest gizmos, if they are Secret Service, or if they are air traffic controllers who are trying to find their way back to the tower.

I’ve always wondered why the Secret Service guys were so obvious. I would have thought they would have been more effective if they had been incognito. But what national leader is going to let someone dressed like Columbo — who always looked like a half-chewed cigar — follow him around? He could get confused himself and hand some of his guarding entourage a few bucks for a hamburger and shake … if he was a liberal, of course.

Other stuff going on…

So lately I’ve been amused at the Saddam Hussein trial. From what I read, this guy throws a daily tantrum. I’ve tried to picture him in Judge Judy’s courtroom. But I’ve also tried to picture him getting analyzed by Dr. Phil. And what if Barbara Walters interviewed him?

“Mr. Saddam, if you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?”

“Barbara, that would be a hanging tree.”

In a news story last week, Saddam said he is not afraid of execution. So is he talking about being the subject of one, or he is talking about performing them? The latter, we have no doubt about.

You know sometimes language translations can get fuzzy.

For instance, once on a French test in college I responded to a question about Joan of Arc, who was burned at the stake. However, my translation had her “burned like a steak.” I had fire and the searing of flesh in my answer but unfortunately close does not count on a French exam. Where there is smoke, there is not necessarily the right answer.

I’ve heard a lot of people say that the world would have been better off and we would have saved lots of money if the soldiers who found Saddam had interpreted his sudden movements as going for a gun hidden in his nose hairs and had just shot him on the spot. But had that happened, “Saturday Night Live” would have had much less raw product for its comedy. The lord of comedy works in mysterious ways.

… President Bush has laid out a three-part plan to address illegal immigration. He described part one as rounding up the illegals and sending them back to their home country. Part three is to not let them come across the border in the first place. Comedian Jon Stewart has made a valid observation about this plan. Shouldn’t part three actually be part one? I think what Stewart meant was, when you play with tinker toys, don’t you open the can before you build the windmill?

… This week, the junk on my e-mail is overrun with great deals on wrist watches, specifically they are Rolex look-a-likes. For a long time, Viagra specials were the deal of the day along with notices that I had won lotteries I had never played. Maybe this thing about the watches is a subtle way of telling me that time is running out to do something really stupid like giving personal financial information to internet scammers.

Anyway, someone sent me a free “Homer Simpson” watch. I’m hoping it was a gag promotion and not an editorial statement.

… You know that congressman “Duke” Cunningham of California who took the $2 million-plus in bribes? He has apologized for being a crook. Also, he paid back half that amount. I guess inflation was factored into his punishment. Go figure. We should all feel much better now. Let’s all hug and sing Kumbaya. (Someone’s stealing Lord, kumbaya).

(Dwain Walden is editor/publisher of The Moultrie Observer, 985-4545. E-mail: dwain.walden@gaflnews.com)