My wife has MS - multiple sclerosis. So do several people I've worked with over the years, as well as some friends or their relatives. It's a puzzling, confounding disease - or maybe family of diseases - that once was called "the crippler of young adults." That's misleading, at best, in no small part because it has an unpredictable course. There's no cure, and it doesn't even behave the same from person to person.

Research is chipping away at the mystery, and some of the funding comes from MS Walks around the nation. We've participated or helped out for several years at the one in our hometown, which drew a large crowd on April 5 despite temps in the 40s, a stiff breeze and humidity left over from more than 3 inches of rain the day before.

Some celebrities who have it include Teri Garr, Monteil Williams, Clay Walker, Neil Cavuto, Lena Horne, Annette Funicello, "Squiggy" from the "Laverne and Shirley" TV Show, the late Richard Pryor, and J.K. Rowling's mother. MS has hit each of them differently - some are active and some were quickly and severely disabled by the disease.

My wife was diagnosed 20 years ago this spring, following a frustrating skiing vacation that she spent mostly lying on the snow. MRIs are used to help diagnose the disease; they mixed up her films with those of a gentleman who had a large brain tumor, so when we first pulled them out to look at the images, both our hearts nearly stopped until we noticed the discrepancies in name, etc. Somehow that seemed to give us courage to face whatever the real diagnosis turned out to be.

The more we learned about MS, the less courage I had - my wife adopted the attitude that it's a damn nuisance and bore up patiently with my anger, angst, frustration and hovering. As time went by and her symptoms continued to be mild, we realized our experience would be different from that of many others.

So if there is an MS walk in your community, join your neighbors, write a check or just come out to cheer them on. A lotta good people will thank you.

Comedian Bill Engvall hit nerves and stardom with his now-trademark "I'm Stupid" "Here's Your Sign" routines that ripped on thoughtless and downright dumb behaviors (that all of us indulge in at some time or the other). He'd probably love a new StupidFilter application that is being developed to help screen out those ... well, stupid messages that cycle endlessly around the Internet.

Although the StupidFilter would probably help knock out some spam, it sounds like it's more geared to the junk you get from your rabidly right/left-Dem/GOP-pro/antiwar friends, colleagues and associates.

Ditto the stuff your new-to-computers senior citizen aunt or uncle or pew-sharer spends weeks forwarding, like the ancient nickel-per-email Bill Gates hoax. Speaking of which, Snopes.com is an excellent resource for debunking suspect e-mails - used regularly and in conjunction with the "reply all" button, it can embarrass all but the most dedicated spam-passer into checking their facts first.

Any message containing a phrase like "but you won't see this in the media!" would be automatically 86'd. Pleas to send bottle tops to an ill child somewhere in northern England - please, delete them.

You get the idea. If not, I got a sign for you.

Though I never worked in a large corporation, Dilbert has always been one of my favorite comic strips.

Maybe that's because, just as all politics is local, all businesses are the same at some fundamental level. No matter how much we like our colleagues, sometimes they drive us nuts (not that they ever think that about us). And no matter how much we may dislike a colleague, wishing they will be assigned to Elbonia simply won't get rid of them. Treachery and deceit may, however, speed up the process.

So: Dilbert captures the essence of the workplace. Any workplace. In Scott Adams's pared-down style, we see the often frustrating struggles for one's daily bread and java. I start my day with Dilbert online, over my toast and coffee, because like Wally I am too lazy to go to the end of the driveway to get the newspaper. Besides, the coffee would get cold.

Adams very recently redesigned his Web site, giving the whole a more techy cast such as displaying the day's strip in a console. The redesign greatly enhances the opportunity for reader interaction and adds features such as animated strips and a mashup feature that lets readers write their own dialogue for Adams' strips. A quick sample shows that we should all keep our day jobs ...

I've worked with a few Wallys - as well as rage-consumed Alices, overly qualified intern Asoks, a bunch of Teds (usually the empty-headed marketing guy).

The animal characters in Dilbert remind me of some other folks in my work history (notice how cleverly I avoided a specific verb tense here). Dilbert's ineptitude with women pings my inability to make small talk in social situations and reminds me of many a failed evening.

Oddly, I've never had a pointy-haired boss—if you don't count the guy who hired me at a print shop out of college and then proceeded to bounce my payroll checks. I have seen my share of buzzword toters, though.

In short, reading Dilbert before heading into work every day is like putting on clean underwear and using Dial soap - it gives me the illusion of being ready for whatever greets me at the door. As the fan spins merrily around me, I can snort and think to myself, "Well, at least this isn't as bad as Dilbert was today." Adams's monthly newsletter outs in narrative form the weasels and "In-duh-viduals" that populate cubicle farms and machine shops alike.

Having said all this - if you are still reading this, I guess I am still employed here. Dilbert and continued employment don't always go together. While untold millions of copies of and links to Dilbert strips have flown around workplaces for years, there was one that landed a guy in deep Elbonian doo-doo a while back.

Posting the famous drunken lemur strip at his workplace - a failing casino - got Iowan David Steward fired. He sued and the company let it go to court, instead settling it in a more civilized way such as jello-wrestling in the town square.

The judge, who had a better sense of humor than a drunken lemur apparently does, ruled for the guy who got fired. Then Adams twisted the stapler deeper in a series of strips in which Wally is fired for posting that same offensive cartoon.

Revenge is sweet. Mockery is even better. Dilbert is tiramisu drenched in expresso ice cream.