My bad, Yusuf Islam

Cat Stevens, aka Yusuf Islam, is sitting in Boston's Logan airport right now. He's waiting to be deported back to the UK--probably at gunpoint. His crime? Well, none really.

Maybe the percentage of box-set royalties he donated to the September 11th Fund wasn't large enough.

Regardless, we can chalk this up as another small victory for homeland security.

Although Cat converted to a radical form of Islam in the late seventies, and even called for the murder of novelist Salman Rushdie, age has calmed him. In addition to giving charitably and overseeing moderate muslim schools in Britain. He has even retracted his death threat and apologized, saying the threat was taken out of context and was in reference to a pinochle debt that Rushdie failed to pay. "The excesses of high stakes pinochle were among the reasons I converted to Islam in the first place," Mr. Islam said.

And, really, who among us hasn't called for the untimely death of Salman Rushdie?

So why is Yusuf Islam, a highly respected member of the moderate Islamic community in Britain, being sent on his way? Homeland Security spokesman Brian Doyle remarked, "The intelligence community has come into possession of additional information that further raises our concern."

The "additional information" was uncovered after Doyle and department head Tom Ridge scored and eighth of mushrooms and played Moonshadow backwards on Doyle's mom's turn table. "I don't even want to tell you what it said, man, but it freaked me out."

On a personal note, I gravely regret whatever hand I may have had in raising the terror level and the subsequent banishment of one of the twentieth century's most enduring talents.

It's a wild world.