This is a weekly program with commentary on current issues.

It’s 3 o’clock in the morning and the phone is ringing.

No, wait. That’s not a phone. It’s a GPS signal. It’s coming from a microchip that has been implanted in:

A. A pet.
B. A registered sex offender.
C. A cactus.

(Journalistic note. There are two types of columns in American newspapers. “If we can put a man on the moon” appeals to our innate sense of optimism, advancing the premise that we can do better. “It has come to this” questions how we ever put a man on the moon.)

The answer is C, as in cactus. It has come to this: Palm Desert may implant microchips in those stubby, chubby “golden barrel” cacti because someone keeps stealing them from the visitor’s center and medians. Talk about unhappy medians.

$20,000 worth of Palm Desert cactus has been swiped in the last six months.