AREA MAN!
The Onion is such a marvelous thing. It really isn't so much satire as expose---laying bare the idiocy in damn near everything. Between The Onion and John Stewart, you really don't need any more information. That's no joke. It's all the light you need for your lamp. Everything else in mainstream media is darkness.

It's great to see that The Onion is especially keeping tabs on the antics of the country's greatest superhero. . .Area Man!
Here are several links. Can you guess which ones are satire?

Area Man Disappointed To See Short Version of Commercial

Hay Bailer Accident Claims Area Man

Airport Nipple Ring Incident Inspires Area Man

Area Man Training for 'Sanford and Son' Marathon

Court Dismisses Charges Against Area Man

Area man learns that good things really do come to those who wait, though they might have to wait 28 years

Area Man Walks for Suicide Prevention

Area man surprised to learn entire continent of Africa not engaged in armed conflict

Did you goof? It's understandable. So did some antiabortionist blogger, as this article in Salon.com explains.

SCENARIO
LL heard from lantern-lighter Horace Frobrischer the other day (not his real name, lucky for him.) Frobischer had his usual pithy, pissy musings to offer, sentiments that are so outside the "mainstream" that they are to be found exclusively in this column.

Frobischer has been much preoccupied with Bush's free and easy gait and unfettered calm of late, and with Obama's apparent efforts to cozy up to AIPAC, the Christian (so-called) Right, pals of Bilderburg like James Johnson (at least he got rid of that guy in a hurry.) What next, following the Clintons' lead and carousing with Poppy and Barbara Bush? Take it away, Frobischer:

LEAN TIMES
Sam Zell, you are the death rattle of newspapers in arguably human form. You are so profoundly and willfully ignorant of the importance of newspapers, so completely devoid of respect for their function in this society, that it causes the brain to bend over, clutch its sides, and purge itself of any remaining hope and sense. Who has time and energy and brain cells for sense when the world---let alone, newspapers---is increasingly taken over by the strictly, bone-deeply, unapologetically, apocalyptically. . .venal?

"Partners," you so nauseatingly write to your terrified Tribune Company slaves, with transparently phoney bonhomie and camaraderie, "newspapers are a business." Har! Lamplighter loves this expression, especially when applied to pro sports, as it usually is. No, no, no, LL yells (at the TV)"Sports are not, repeat not, a business. They are fun games that happen to have acquired business trappings!" And newspapers, well, they are necessary parts of a healthy society that happen also to be businesses. They are, Sam, the fourth estate---the supposed watchdog on government and yes, business, that looks out for the interests of "the people." You know, the last line of defense between us and Dick Cheney. But never mind this, Sam. We have Matt Drudge and Fox.

So, dear readers, you all know that the Zell-ot has decided to fire about 120 more editorial employees from the L.A. Times, which, if my count is correct, should leave the staff somewhere near 50,000. Okay, maybe 600-700. Seven Hundred editorial employees to put out a newspaper! Not bad! How did Zell arrive at this figure and decision? By (giggle) counting the number (giggle) of pages (giggle giggle) produced by a given journalist in a (giggle) year! This reminds me of the wonderful criticism of Mozart's music in "Amadeus:" "Too many notes."

What a way to evaluate productivity at the L.A. Times, where some reporters have as many as five by-lines a year! Giggle! 

Of course, Your Illuminator doesn't care too much for the Times, and never has. He could light a whole city with the energy expended in listing his reasons for this, but won't. The Times was what it was---a carpeted dinless den of incredibly highly paid "journalists" (as opposed to reporters) who were brainwashed by management into thinking they were "great," and usually comported themselves accordingly. From elegant fashion finery to BMWs to noses aimed at building tops, you could spot a Times reporter like a nude woman in church. No management memo or theater ad could ever, ever avoid referring to the Times as a "great newspaper" producing "great journalism," when in fact it was mostly just a great big newspaper (as LL loves to say.) Even the new guy promoted to editor from within, Russ Stanton, who supposedly will know how to "take the paper into the 21st century" and all other stupidly expressed sloganeering, is falling prey to the "great" disease in his memos. Geez, Russ.

Well, like it or hate it, The Times did, in fact, do great reporting, had great foreign correspondents (still does), and broke some great stories/scandals. It still will, by mere percentages. In other words, there are so many reporters there, some are bound to do good---er, great---work. But it was never a great local paper, or even a very good local paper, which was its GREAT failing. The Times's sorry hallmarks? Stories that were usually interminable, with buried ledes (they call them, ha ha ha, "nut grafs," ha ha ha), stuffy, wildly pretentious "interpretive" writing, namby-pamby editorials, sickeningly P.C. style guides, and that you-can't-kill-it-with-nukes sense of "if it wasn't in the Times, it didn't happen" arrogance. People stroked their chins raw in that joint. Hordes of reporters sat on their haunches, turning out as many as a half-dozen articles a year. Or one or two. Really.

Them days is gone. Yosemite Sam is a comin', you varmints, and he's got his guns out. Or his scissors. This goofy son-of-a-bitch has decided that the paper needs to be 50-50 ads and editorial copy. 50-50 ads and news. And that overall, it needs to be skinnier---to have fewer pages. That's his plan for saving dough: Give people less for their money! The Zell-ot's latest memo is full of platitudes and crap about how "we're not giving readers what they want" and how the "business model doesn't work" (love those "business model references, as if this is all an exact science), and how readers want "honest, unbiased" (yawn, yawn, triple yawn) journalism and other totally crackpot junkaroo. The Zell-ot plans to cut X-number of pages a year in order to save money, never mind that the paper is already so thin you can't really have the fun of calling it "great big" anymore. Especially since they are now about to kill the Sunday mag. (Okay, they're not really killing it, they're just turning it over to the business section---specifically, to some girl who used to be a host on the Home Shopping Network. Exclamation point. Remember the big LAT "advertorial" scandal involving the Sunday mag, under Mark "Cereal Killer" Willes? The snake eats itself!)

What is happening in the latest "round of cutbacks" reminds LL of Madame Mao and the Cultural Revolution. You know which heads are going to roll, don't you? The ones with lots of hair dye and nips and tucks. A whole bunch of young cool Times staffers recently gathered in the editor's office where they were apparently told their jobs were secure. Har! Those in the spring of life will survive on Spring Street. The wizened, hoary, and "colorful" will get the boot. And while Your Illuminator really does sympathize and empathize with career journalists trying to figure out what-the-fuck-to-do at age 55 (gasp), he is not terribly upset about those stuffy, arrogant, "great" journalists who turned out a half-dozen stories a year in order to fund their $2 million mini-manse in Montrose and put Zoey, Ranger, and Josh through private school.

As the great USC prof, Joe Saltzman, once told me:

"Journalism used to be working class people---people who were poor, and identified with the poor, sick, and indigent, and the people who didn't really have a voice. And who cared about the working class, because they were a part of the working class---like Breslin still is. Studs Terkel. Nowadays, the young people going into journalism---even the old-timers---are purely of the middle and upper middle class. They make a lot of money, comparatively, and they really don't identify with the working class."

Anyhow, LL cancelled his Times subscription two years ago.

THE RACE RACE
Every time someone mentions anything having to do with race in the context of the election, there is widespread outrage and condemnation. Lamplighter goes dim when this happens. Race is part of this election, whether anyone likes it or not. It has become as much a part of electoral reality as John McCain's cancer should be, and the analogy is sadly apt, given its corrosive impact on the proceedings.

Is Obama half African in heritage? Yes. Does he call himself black and African-American? Yes. Does this have an impact on voters' decisions? Yes. Are such decisions racist? Yes, although they are sometimes based in fear, as opposed to hatred. An explanation. . .

Bill Moyers delivered an eloquent, equitable, typically enlightened commentary a couple weeks ago on his "Bill Moyers' Journal" program on PBS, all about race in this election---an offshoot of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy. Moyers made a convincing historical case for justifying black anger and resentment in this country, in trying to help people come to terms with Rev. Wright's inflammatory remarks about whites. Moyers:

"I think I would have been angry if my ancestors had been transported thousands of miles in the hellish hole of a slave ship, then sold at auction, humiliated, whipped, and lynched. Or if my great-great-great grandfather had been but three-fifths of a person in a Constitution that proclaimed: We, the people. Or if my own parents had been subjected to the racial vitriol of Jim Crow, Strom Thurmond, Bull Conner, and Jesse Helms."

But Moyers missed an important matter, in his reasoned and correct condemnation of racism. Yes, many dirt-stupid voters will vote against Obama because he is black, and they will use every conceivable epithet and horrible allusion in the process, from "nigger" to lynching. But many others will vote against Obama out of fear. Fear of race-based anger and hatred---from the so-called "black community." Rev. Wright manifested this sort of racial hatred in his remarks about white-this and white-that---in a church, no less. But he is the tip of the iceberg. . .

For the past 20-plus years, mass media and the so-called entertainment industry have celebrated, venerated, exalted, christened, and otherwise endorsed images and language conveying the most banal black rage, violence, hatred against whites, against women, against. . .just about everything. LL speaks, of course, of the rap/hiphop/gangsta subculture that has come to be the defining image of African-Americans in the United States, and the world. It is ghastly, it is grotesque, and it is a great crime against the vast majority of African-Americans who simply want to raise families, go to work, and live as peaceably as most people.

No, not all rap music espouses such horror, not all "hiphop" culture conveys hatred. But much of it does, with images of ignorant, hateful, sneering, snarling, gold-chain-laden black men belligerently chanting simple rhymes infused with simple menace. The lyrics are frequently well beyond belief, with references to "niggahz," mocking of "white boys," raping and sodomizing "ho's," killing, etc. Savagery is the right word here. The transformation of so-called gangstas---literal gang members, in many cases, who are guilty of violent crimes---into not only role models, but pop stars, "icons," heroes, is one of the most tragic legacies of modern American culture. It demonstrates callous exploitation of racial divisions, but more important, it demonstrates the completely amoral, venal exploitation of anything that will make a buck. Capitalism without conscience. Never mind consequences to the community. The free market has made slaves out of blacks all over again---slaves to the lure of quick and easy riches, subjugating them as cash cows. Most profits going to their "owners."

So what Moyers missed is that voters have been saturated with this terrifying imagery for decades---voters who might well be relatively open-minded, decent (white) people across America. Where they might wish to be fair minded and evaluate people regardless of race, these people are suspicious and frightened when it comes to voting for a black candidate whose pastor exhibits the same sort of ugly anger toward whites, toward the world, that is espoused in rap/hiphop subculture. 

How ironic that racism and animosity exhibited by blacks is reducing the popularity of the first African-American candidate to have a real shot at the presidency. How ironic, and how tragic.

THE FAT LADY
The Fat Lady is still singing. The Fat Lady in the pastel pant suits, that is. Hillary and her donut-fortified girth are not getting out of this presidential race. Your Illuminator, understand, is fairly covered with hives and frequently doubled over with regurgitative potential, watching The Fat Lady's antics of recent weeks. You know, as the Punditmannequins say, how she is "appealing to white male voters," etc. Well, she ain't very appealing to Lamplighter! Why, I wouldn't vote for her with your marker. The only---only---conceivably positive thing that can be said about her at this point is that. . .it takes a beeyatch. Translation: it takes a nasty, tenacious, rotten sonofoa---wait a second, can't use that term here---"cookie" to run the country, and play hardball with all the hardasses running other countries, and the lardasses running Congress. Frankly, LL wonders if the O-man is up to that task, though his mantra of anti-old rhetoric is most appealing. He is smart, he is intelligent, he is trying to comport himself with reason and optimism. LL has never seen this work successfully in politics, but there is always a first time.

As to the great Punditocracy that has declared Hillary's candidacy over, well, to quote Monty Python, "I fart in your general direction." Let's examine this dispassionately. The candidates were up until recently in a virtual tie, in terms of popular vote, delegate vote. Hillary was just a slightly behind, and if Florida and Michigan had held their primaries on their primarily scheduled date, it is possible that the former First Lady would be in first place. Despite her inept, shape-shifting, say-anything-to-get-a-vote, racist campaign. Would all the columnists, commentators, and curmudgeons calling for her to capitulate be doing the same thing to Obama? Not as vociferously, that's for sure. Got to be more polite to the semi-black candidate, you see.

To get to the point, what is a convention for? Is it not to nominate a candidate? LL is deeply sickened by this "process" whereby candidates are named by universal acclaim of people in the media and politics. Who are they to tell us who has been elected before the damn vote has even been taken? If LL were Billary, he would do exactly as she is doing. Stay until they kick you out. There are primaries left for her to take, and the necessity of resolving the Michigan and Florida mess, and votes to be cast by delegates and superdelegates. This thing ain't over, and we're glad The Fat Lady is still singing, but only because it makes for a great raised third finger to the media and pols who have declared her candidacy as dead as Mark Twain wasn't.

HILLARY 'DICK' CLINTON
Double-u O double-u. I mean. . .Zounds! Hillary Clinton, thy name is Cheney. Hillary "Dick" Clinton. This is just astounding. To quote the great philosopher, Chubby Checker, "how lowwww can you gooooo?" No, I don't mean how Hillary shamelessly engaged in the sleaziest, dirtiest, Nixonian kind of grunge in the recent "debate" by attempting to link Barack "Earnest" Obama with the (gasp) Weather Underground. (Were there any cameras in Whittier to catch the corpse of Nixon clawing through the ground to applaud?) I mean this:

Hillary has attacked the "activist base" of the Democratic party, as she put it. That's correct---she blamed those fiendish anti-war lefty commies for shooting down her candidacy, which is plummeting to earth like one of those poor ducks that Cheney plugs full of buckshot once in a while. Memo to Queen Clinton: you'd be the nominee if you had the support of the anti-war "left," you donut-bloated buffoon! 

Lamplighter has gone completely dark over this. Herrrre's Hillary:

"Moveon.org endorsed [Sen. Barack Obama] -- which is like a gusher of money that never seems to slow down," Clinton said to a meeting of donors (see Huffington Post.) "We have been less successful in caucuses because it brings out the activist base of the Democratic Party. MoveOn didn't even want us to go into Afghanistan. I mean, that's what we're dealing with. And you know they turn out in great numbers. And they are very driven by their view of our positions, and it's primarily national security and foreign policy that drives them. I don't agree with them. They know I don't agree with them. So they flood into these caucuses and dominate them and really intimidate people who actually show up to support me."

Imagine those naughty anti-war people having the sheer disrespect to raise money and not give it to Hillary Clinton! Gosh! Of course, Queen Clinton got her facts wrong (again---seems she likes doing this, you know, the way Bush does.) Moveon.org never opposed going into Afghanistan! If ever there was evidence that this vainglorious megalomaniacal nut is really Bush Lite, this is it. To villify a grassroots organization from her own party that mobilized millions to oppose the fall-down insane "war" in Iraq is, well, words fail. Rather like Hillary.

AIRY-UDITION
Your Illuminator read Rense's "Ode to Air" column (Apr. 11) and was inspired. Got to thinking, in other words. The old light bulb went bling! I like Rense's ideas on this subject, though not much else, frankly, even if he does give me a column here. That's to his credit, posting other points of view. But he's a cantankerous old goat, and so is Lamplighter, at least sometimes. So in the spirit of cantankerousness, I hereby propose ways of increasing the oxygen content of this suffocating city.

Immediately close all the freeways, with temporary “freeway” visas issued to law enforcement, fire, delivery trucks, on the condition that their vehicles are quickly converted to run exclusively on pigeon droppings. This would force people to stay home, or move/work closer to home, and begin the process of restoring neighborhood personalities.

Close L.A. International Airport, in order to make L.A. just a wee bit less accessible to the rest of the world, and reduce the number of persons consuming local oxygen (not to mention removing jet exhaust.) I mean, what’s the point of people coming here every day from Uganda and Singapore in search of a role on a sitcom? They all wind up in taxis and behind Starbucks counters anyhow.

Order all actors and actresses---all movie folk, period---to stop granting interviews entirely, at least while in L.A. County.

Give an award to KPCC host Patt Morrison. Patt packs the maximum amount of information into her speech with the least use of oxygen. She almost never says “uh” at all, or makes a syntactical or grammatical error. It’s very impressive.
 
Shut down fast-food outlets and replace them with memorial gardens. The Egg McMuffin Memorial Garden. The Enchirito Memorial Garden. The In-and-Out Memorial Garden and Fountain. Topiaries in the shapes of fat people biting into greasy fried cow sandwiches. Or maybe just a lovely hedge of mock orange and roses spelling out, “Don’t Bother Me---I’m Eating.” I mean, do you ever walk into a McDonald’s during breakfast and notice the sheer sulphuric wonder of it all? Put it this way: never light a match in there. These “restaurants” are little oxygen-assassinating viruses in the world ecosystem. And scientists have the audacity to blame cow methane for contributing to global warming? I give you: Kirstie Alley.

Punish anyone seen smoking cigarettes in Los Angeles by having the words, “I’m a dumbass,” burned into their arms with the lighted ciggie. Of course, this would not be viewed as very humanitarian, despite the popularity of self-desecration and general nihilism. So instead, simply outlaw cigarette smoking in L.A. County, with first-time violators subject to immediate deportation to France. The few pipe and cigar smokers out there, who tend to smoke only at home, would be subject to a $100-per-year tax, proceeds of which go to fight cancer, AIDS, and The Christian Right.
 
Although science has not yet proven a link between smugness, arrogance, stupidity and lack of oxygen, LL thinks the matter is self-evident. Just look at all the people huffing and puffing and shouting as they declaim about (take your pick): the government, the Clintons, the Jews, the blacks, the “white man,” fluoridated water, “the terrorists,” and so on. Why, has there ever been so much carbon dioxide exhaled in the name of proselytizing in human history? It makes you almost grateful for blogs, where at least the people type instead of process massive amounts of good, clean O-2. So. . .no more public pontificating. Punishable by a week of watching non-stop reruns of "Oprah."

Your Illuminator will be accused of racism for this, but please reign in the “testifyin’” a little bit at all the African-American churches. It’s oxygen-sucking enough to have pastors roaring about Jesus and “God Damn America” for a couple of hours each Sunday, but all the shouted “holy spirit” responses are just rather unnecessary, aren’t they? Think, African-American friends, how much oxygen might be saved by stopping the  “tell it!” and “say hallelujah!” and “mm-hmm” and “Well!” uttered every Sunday during the course of one year alone.

The following secular phrases would simply be banned outright, with a penalty of having to read a whole book in the span of a week: “finding everything all right?”; “Did you find everything you needed?”; “Have a nice day,” “’Sup,” “How’s everything?” (always asked by waitresses/waiters when you have your mouth full); and the ubiquitous cry of the man or woman stuck in traffic that looks like Mondrian painting: “Fuck YOU, ASSHOLE!” (That one is a real tree-killer.)

Right near the top of Lamplighter's effort to oxygenate L.A. would be---need it be mentioned---the eradication of cell phones. Scientists have clearly established that, according to recent statistics, no more than .0000001 percent of all cell phone conversation is necessary. The mere opportunity to speak at any and all times, especially when presented to women, is irresistible. Here are some recent conversation excerpts heard at random: “I’m walking on the street,” “I’m coming over now,” “I’m in the market.” Not only would the absence of all cell phone chatter save immeasurable amounts of oxygen, obviously, but it would leave female brains far less depleted of same---therefore reducing, among other things, the number of automobile accidents on a given day.

Hard to imagine, I know: no freeways, no women on cell phones, no actors and actresses yapping about “my craft,” no crazy hollering political commentators, no holy-rolling in black churches, no cigarettes, no fast-food joints, no yapping “customer service” types asking you inane questions, no daily influx of lost souls from all over the world looking for Hollywood, no Kirstie Alley. . .

That would clear the air.

ELECTILE DYSFUNCTION
In the end, it all sort of shakes out this way. There is Billary, who never says anything of substance and laughs like a jackal. Clear statements of policy are ice bergs, she is the Titanic. She plays Wack-A-Mole with every chance that comes along to actually say something substantial. They pop up all over the place, she wacks ‘em. She is a focus groupie.

Billary does not intend to end the Iraq fiasco, by the way. If we lucked out, we’d be looking at an insane four-year Nixonian “reduction in troop levels” that would probably find us at 2/3  the current troop levels. On foreign policy, Hillary is Bush Lite, and she makes Your Illuminator want a Bud Lite. (Come to think of it, she doesn’t speak a hell of a lot better than Prezboy, either.) She has never once said that she objects to a permanent U.S. occupation, folks. Her rhetoric is carefully couched for all the couch potatoes. She is also a "staunch friend of Israel," which would be fine if it referred to the Israeli people and not the self-defeating policies of the Israeli government (which has a real good time spying on its "staunch friend," the USA, let us remember.)

Then there is this rather looming question, a question that comes into the door uninvited when you're not looking, steals your food, gets drunk, and passes out on your couch, emitting gas: does anybody really want the Clintons back in the White House? I mean, Repugnicans want them the way bull terriers want mailman legs. And that sure can’t be good for uh, “bipartisanship.” Do you want to spend four more years reading more Repugnican claims about the villainous, traitorous Clintons? Not me!

You know, to hell with policy wonkmanship. Hell with Hillary’s vaunted “3 a.m. phone call” capability. Why does everyone think a nuclear attack will come at 3 a.m., anyhow? What’s wrong with 9 a.m.? Or even early afternoon? Hell with “experience," Lamplighter could throw a White House dinner, too, and eavesdrop on cabinet meetings. The only experience she should be touting is her Senate service.

Oh, you’re one of those terrified of terrorist boogiemen? You want Da-Da to protect you? I’ll repeat the basic Rip Post line here: modern terrorism has existed for decades; the Bush Administration did absolutely nothing to secure the country despite dire warnings from intelligence agencies and the Clinton Administration of an impending terrorist attack (draw your own conclusions); the Bush Administration has done nothing to increase security other than to make it difficult for WWII veterans to take their Purple Hearts on to airplanes (weapons, you see); terrorism is as inevitable as the weather; Iraq has exponentially increased---not decreased---the number of would-be terrorists who hate the United States.

Oh, you’re one of those who thinks we should stay in Iraq? I’ll repeat The Rip Post line here: our stupid purpose was to find WMD and depose Saddam, and seeing as there were no WMD and we deposed (and hanged) Saddam. . .mission accomplished! Oh, but what about all the military bases we’ve built there, and our multi-billion dollar fortress “embassy?” Well, you see, that is evidence of what any thinking/reading person knew before the attack: that this was a permanent occupation on behalf of oil, Israel, and USA hegemony, and all the reasons given were lies. If you want a permanent occupation, vote for McCain and continue to destroy the U.S. economy, morale and reputation---and up the risk of world war.

Obama says---says---that he wants to take Iraq dough and pump it into the starving schools in this country---in the black, white, latino, etc. “communities.” Good idea! Funny how that’s considered idealism. He wants to end the occupation. Good idea! But wouldn’t Iraq collapse? Well, let it collapse! It was never a country except through totalitarianism. Ever been to Iraq? Is it one of the United States? What do you care about Iraq? Oh, won’t "Al-Qaeda" then use it as a “base of operations?” If only things were that John Wayne simple. Iraqis don’t want "Al-Qaeda," whatever "Al-Qaeda" is (anyone can call himself a member) any more than Bush does. The assaults against U.S. troops have come from “insurgents” (read: Saddam loyalists, and representatives of the 70 percent---seventy percent---of Iraqis who want Yankee to go home.)

Is Obama a foreign policy naïf? Yupsy-wupsy. He gave an incredibly blunderbuss answer to the Tim Russert question about Al-Qaeda taking over if the U.S. departs---something about “taking appropriate action.” In over his head? Drowned in a bog like a dog on a log. No president will be able to easily pull the plug on Iraq, anyhow. Think Congress would go along with everything Obama wants? Sure, and elected officials will also stop frolicking with hookers.

Some choices!

GOOD O-MAN
Your Illuminator has to say that he brightened a bit by some of the things that the O-man said in his big race speech the other day. First, it was extremely refreshing to hear a politician stand by a "controversial" friend, when most would instantly cut and run, out of that rampant mental disorder, polpollophobia (pols' fear of polls.)

No, in Obama's shoes, most other candidates would have disowned Rev. Jeremiah Wright faster than Diebold changes a vote count. But Obama stood by his longtime friend, while denouncing his "God damn America" remarks and his laying the blame for 9/11 on Lady Liberty. O-man should have done the same for Samantha Power, his foreign affairs expert who was ditched overnight for calling Hillary a "monster." (Pretty mild stuff, compared with a pastor telling a congregation, "God Damn America.")

It was, as all the TeeVee Punditmannequins are noting, a remarkably candid and straightforward speech about racial problems in this country, and the O-man deserves tremendous credit for that. He is to be lauded for noting that anger is understandable from blacks, and from whites, and making the bullseye observation that the country goes nowhere unless the anger subsides. But to compare it with King's "Dream" speech (or any other of the lesser known, but equally compelling King speeches) is ignorant media pronouncement that relegates history to nothing but a video soundbite competition.

As for Wright, when you get down to it, what is really wrong with saying "God damn America?" How often do you curse Washington in far stronger language, folks? This is free speech, after all, right? Well, as Obama suggested, what's wrong with it is that it inflames hatred and anger---in this case, among the already extremely resentful black American populace---and that is exactly the opposite job of any pastor, minister, rabbi, priest, cleric. Or should be. Rev. Wright wronged his flock.

It gets to the core of a problem that the O-man did not (could not?) address pointedly, and that is how bogus much---not all--of contemporary black American anger is. By that, LL means this: no country in the history of the world has done more to redress racial injustice than the United States. No country has passed more legislation to punish any/all race-based hatred and prejudice. (Who says you can't legislate morality?) Affirmative Action has for decades greased the way into higher education for millions of African-Americans who would not otherwise have had a chance. It has done the same in industry. Never mind that this flew in the face of promoting/hiring/rewarding the most qualified person. Such was the sacrifice this country---the whole country!---was willing to make in order to help minorities out.

Pretty impressive. You're welcome, black America!

Yet to consider the massively, colossally influential black popular culture of the last 30 years---chiefly rap and hip-hop, and the attitudes these things have spurred---you would think that slavery is still taking place. Listen to the "gangstas" rapping about "niggahz" and "white boy" this and "white boy" that. It's just beyond horror. These "superstar" narcissist punks degrade themselves, their history, their community, and the martyrdom of Dr. Martin Luther King. (Do you imagine that he would appreciate black Americans calling one another "niggah?") These dawgs and G's, in short,  foment racism. That's right, there is no force that has stoked racial animosity more in this country in the last 30 years than rap and hip-hop lyrics, videos (and I must also include a nod to universities, which are replete with classes promulgating the image of the USA as a racist nation.) How ironic that this would happen after the sacrifices and civil rights marches of the sixties that paved the way for equal rights legislation.

I'm sorry, but those people didn't march---and die---for Snoop Dogg.

The result: many young African-Americans have grown up believing the country to be racist and evil, that whites are to be distrusted, disdained, ridiculed---and if they so much as raise an eyebrow at you, hated. Modern black popular culture, with its widespread paranoiac, racist attitudes, has done more to harm American race relations than anything since the KKK.

Yes, yes, racial prejudice and discrimination exist. Always have, always will. It's human nature, and no ethnic group is exempt from being perpetrators, and victims. That's beside the point. Racism is an abiding phenomenon for all humanity---never mind that scientists have demonstrated through DNA match that race is genetically meaningless. The point is that "God Damn America" has done more to legally combat racism, and to help its minorities, than any country, ever.

One can only wonder if the reason, rationality, and eloquence of a President Obama---let alone the symbolism of his election---will have any impact on the poisonous hatred and victim-complex that has come to inculcate black America.

O WELL. . .
Barack Obama has an edge in the prez campaign because he's black? So said former veep candidate Geraldine Ferraro, who was promptly pilloried by Hillary---well, not quite. Hillary "rejected" the assertion made by the lower half of the Mondale ticket---but that wasn't good enough for the O-man. Neither was Ferraro's resignation from an honorary advisory post with the Clinton campaign. Nope, Oprah-bama used lots of soft language like "wrong-headed" to dismiss Geraldine's observation, and laughed as he told various TeeVee Newsmannequins how being (well, half) black and bearing the name Barack Obama could hardly be considered an advantage.

How disingenuous can you get, Barry? Let's say there was a massive Eskimo population in the country, comparable to the number of African-Americans. O-kay? Let's say that along came a (well, half) Eskimo-American candidate named Aglakti Biisaiyowaq. Okay, let's make it simpler: Aga Akiak. (look the names up---they have nice meanings.) Let's say that Akiak had policies and rhetoric that happened to have a very broad appeal, and that he had a great knack for public speaking and making people feel good. Great numbers of people who were not Eskimos.

And then let's say that because Akiak was also the very first Eskimo-American to have a real shot at the presidency, this inspired almost all other Eskimo-Americans to vote for him. This would give a candidate who already had broad across-the-board appeal a massive numerical advantage, would it not? An advantage based mostly on race?

Ah, but you can't say that in The United States of Political Correctness. You can't make any observations about race in this country without being called a racist. And who is calling whom racist here? Hint: it is not Ferraro.

O, give us a break.

WAR ON TERROR?
START HERE
War on Terror? Sure. You bet. Fight the terrorists. Eradicate them. No mercy. Lamplighter is all for it. One caveat: let's start at home. As in Homie.

The other day a nice kid named Jamiel Shaw was gunned down. He was black, a star running back at L.A. High, with a mom serving as a soldier in Iraq. He was on his cell phone in South L.A., near his home, when a car full of latino gang members pulled up, asked him if he belonged to a gang, then shot him to death.

Shaw was 17 with sports scholarship offers probable from Stanford. He was talking to his girlfriend when he was murdered.

A few weeks ago there was a small war in Glassell Park, a lovely old L.A. district long infected with gang vermin. Middle of the day, bullets flying, in the end one "gangbanger" killed while holding his two-year-old granddaughter.

The Glassell Park neighborhood is an infamous latino gang stronghold going back at least 50 years. It's a Mexican Mafia hub, a virtual clearing house for money laundering and drugs shipped from south of the border. Everyone in the area knows it. Everyone in the LAPD knows it.

Your Illuminator spoke with a law enforcement official from the state of California who specializes in dealing with gangs. A real gritty type who gets down and dirty with these people, and has dispatched a few to the big barrios and ghettos in the sky, Official made this off-the-record comment about Glassell Park, and the latino gang situation in general:

"Mexican Mafia controls it all. Always has. Always will."

So you see that law enforcement operates with a feeling of, oh, call it futility. They roll into areas like Glassell Park periodically, make "gang sweep" arrests of five, ten, twenty, thirty monsters, only to have their places quickly filled by others, etc. Never ends.

It need not be this way.

Diverting the War on Terror is the way to deal with it. All studies, LAPD gang squads, sweeps---they never work. Never. Gangs are, after all, terrorists, and they are thriving in just about every major city in the country.

Here's what to do:

Take Glassell Park, for example. Go into that stinking, festering pocket of savagery---with the U.S. military. Occupy the neighborhood. Shut it down. Arrest every gang member in the vicinity, and ship them off not to jail, but to Gitmo. No trial, no nothing. Indefinite "detention." Hand out some relocation dough to the remaining mothers and children, transport them to new housing, and raze the entire neighborhood. Flatten it, clear it out. Build a razor-wire fence around the vacant land, and leave it.

Do this everywhere and anywhere this sort of criminality exists. Gang warfare threatens civilization itself, and it has been tolerated much too long. Maybe this will also stop the media from glorifying it in popular culture.

Fascism? Violation of "civil rights?" You bet. What rights should murderers, money-launderers, drug-runners have?

Yes, saintly Father Gregory Boyle has the best idea. His Homeboy Industries has offered a near-miraculous, constructive way for gang members to get out of their vile "lifestyle" and live like human beings. Problem is, Father Boyle is not mayor, or governor, or president. Problem is, government never works as imaginatively, compassionately, intelligently, as Father Boyle does.

Celeste Fremon, who does the Witness L.A. blog, and who focused attention on the fiendish, beastly murder of Jamiel Shaw, suggests this:

"The harder thing will be to work form the political will to address this complex mess called gang violence at its core—which every study in the last 20 years has made clear is a task cannot be done solely through law enforcement. We need to address the fifty-percent and above inner city school drop out rate, the lack of jobs, the fact that a third of LA’s kids living in high gang areas have worse levels of PTSD than soldiers returning from Fallujah."

She's right, but none of this will solve the problem. None of this will loosen the Crips' grip, or the Mexican Mafia's hold, or end the media-hyped allure of "gangsta" life, in neighborhoods across the country. Won't happen, Ms. Fremon. Ever.

Fascism is the way to go. Bush had it right, but he had the wrong target in mind.

MARGARET SELTZER
---MY HERO!
You know all about it by now. A white Sherman Oaks woman who graduated from an exclusive private school faked an autobiography of a south L.A. girl who grew up with gangs and deprivation.

Margaret Seltzer concocted the story of Margaret B. Jones, part white, part Native-American, victim of sexual assault, placed in foster homes. Winds up living with "Big Mom," hard-working black woman raising four grandkids. Joins the Bloods, lives the "gangsta" life.

Bravo, Meg! You're my hero. Well, almost. You would have been my hero had you not taken the sorryass cop-out about trying to generate sympathy for the real Margaret B. Jones-es out there. Really lame, Meg. Really stupid.

What you should have said was this:

"Yes, I wrote it, and I faked it. Why? Because it's the only way to get anything published anymore! You could write like  Steinbeck or Hemingway, and all these pompous bitchy agents and publishers (most of whom are women!) wouldn't give you the time of day. But if you write something about depravity---something involving racial identity (preferably mixed, so as to have that trendy element of being being "psychologically conflicted"), sexual abuse, murder, gangs---you're a shoo-in! My book proves it! Critics were all over it like white housewives on Oprah!"

Well, Meg didn't say any of that---I did. And it's absolutely true. Write about this sort of subject, and publication and great reviews are in the bag, baby. Consider: the "Jones" editor at Riverhead Press never even bothered to meet "Jones," and took her at her word that she was who she represented herself to be---in three years of e-mail and phone conversation. Three years! One chuckles, thinking of Seltzer adopting black patois and urban accent in those phone chats. . .

Said the Riverhead Dunderhead publisher, Sarah McGrath:

"It's very upsetting to us because we spent so much time with this person and felt such sympathy for her and she would talk about how she didn't have any money or heat and we completely bought into that."

And why did you buy into it, Sarah? Because you smelled money. The nicest spin one can put on this is that you are of the ilk that believes that this sort of claptrap is "important literature." But I'll stick with venality. Does it not occur to those (monied white) publishers that they are profiting (profiteering?) from the tragedy of others?

But back to the book. Lamplighter has long, long, long (George Harrison) talked of faking a book, and one of these days, he just might do it. Asian chic is big, so maybe a half-Chinese, half-latina. . .who returns to her old 'hood after earning a degree in oh, "human resources," then throws her career away by murdering her father over incest. . .beats the rap and becomes a beloved talk show host. . .is elected a U.S. senator. . .eventually is exposed in massive corruption scandal involving Indian reservations and dwarves. . .returns to her 'hood, finds Jesus, becomes a nun, commits suicide. . .Yes! Yes!

Then maybe I'll get reviews like the one Los Angeles Times book reviewer Susan Salter Reynolds gave to Seltzer's fake autobiography, praising "her loyalty to the language, the sense of community, the tight bonds she formed with her gang."

What a racket. What a world. I repeat: John Steinbeck would collect dozens of rejection letters today from these sorry vragos who call themselves agents and publishers.

Seltzer, at least, has demonstrated that.

ABOUT THE O-MAN
Let's talk about Barry Obama. He sounds good. He looks good. He says the right things about everything that is so horrifically screwed up in this country. He espouses empathy, he inspires optimism. Hillary Clinton seems pathologically unable to say anything compelling, unless your idea of fun is reading government reports. On paper, Barry's general philosophy dovetails neatly with Lamplighter's.

But. . .It's all happy talk. How will the O-man deal with, for example, the corporate tyranny that is bleeding the country dry? Well, he says he will sit around a big table with heads of industry and talk to them. Yeah. Good luck with that, Barry. Then there is his health care plan, which covers kids nicely. Yet Clinton's plan would cover kids---and their moms and dads. That's a rather major distinction, yet the blissed out Obama crowd doesn't care. "He inspired me!" they will tell you, their chins wet with drool.

And everyone (especially Hillary) seems to have forgotten that Barry announced a few months back that he would just blunderbuss his way right into Pakistan to chase any no-good terrorist meanie---whether Pakistan likes it or not. Umm. . .Barry baby! Pakistan has about 50 nukes, and missiles with a range of a thousand miles or so. Pakistan is just thisclose to being in the hands of U.S.-hating Islamicist maniacs, who comprise the majority of the population. It was widely and credibly reported that the Bush Administration allowed Bin Laden to escape across the Pakistan border rather than run the risk of destabilizing the country, and thus putting nukes into the hands of the Taliban. A rare sane move from George and Dick and Rummy and Condi. But Barry said he would just roar in there like Indiana Jones, and let the nukes fall where they may. We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when. . .Sing with me now. . .

Then we have judgment, or lack of same. In any political race, it might seem infantile to focus on matters of ethics, given the sordid, corrupt creeps who generally hold office in this country, but. . .Barry did buy that mansion in Chicago with massive help from Antoin "Tony" Rezko (heh), knowing full well that Rezko was under heavy investigation by the federal government (and since indicted.) Fact. This is just bad judgment---very bad judgment---and Obama's public admission that it was a "mistake" is cold comfort. It would appear that wifey-poo was putting the squeeze on Barry for a new nest, and the O-man caved. Reckless, weak, greedy, any way you cut it. You want a guy with this sort of decision-making history in the White House?

And speaking of reckless, there is the not insignificant matter of plagiarism. Sure, it's being brushed off by "pundits" everywhere, and Obama showed more unfortunate smartass tendencies by quipping that Clinton has borrowed some of his words lately. (She lamely appropriated his lame declaration, "I'm fired up!) But facts are facts. Obama used, just about verbatim, a section of a speech by his friend, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick. He did not credit Patrick (later saying that he "should have." Yup.) What's wrong here? Well, for starters, can't he write his own stuff? Or have his speechwriters write his own stuff? Why was there any need to borrow material from another source at all? And then pass it off as his own? Which is just what he did. This is unethical, thoughtless, deceptive, and. . .reckless. Serious business, folks.

Then we have the racial aspect of this thing. Obama is unanimously cast as a "black" and "African-American" candidate, and African-Americans are voting for him in record numbers, obviously because he is black. Except. . .he isn't. He is half-black. He is as white as he is black. Why not call him "white?" It's just as accurate. Half-Asian kids I know do not call themselves Asian-American. Half-Latino kids I know don't call themselves latino. Except, probably when it is advantageous on a school or job application. What we really have here, with the O-man, is "other." He is Other-American. What irks here is how Barry's persona shifts into "black" mode when he speaks before black crowds. Watch. You'll see. He exploits it. And remember his (smartass) remark about Bill Clinton needing to dance in order to definitively determine if "he is a brother." That's at least crass, and at most racist. Imagine if this was said of a black man by a white man. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton would be out for blood.

Lamplighter thinks Obama would cast a great deal more light by playing down the whole race angle. After all, O-man's major motif is to unite the country, generate empathy, and quell all the racial/political/social antipathy. Yet he freely works the (half) black aspect. Well, doesn't he have a right to do this, seeing as it is part of his heritage? Perhaps. But there is far too much in the way of defining oneself according to one's ethnicity and race (and religion) in this country, and Obama could be making a strong statement against that, implicitly or otherwise. LL, frankly, has had quite enough of African-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Asian-Americans, white Americans, Gay Americans, etc., and thinks the country would do much better to get back to just using the term, "Americans."

And we cannot ignore the O-woman. That's Oprah. The Antarctic-sized ego of this intellectually lightweight megalomaniac billionairess is now about the size of the planet, since her annointment of Barry. She can't believe it. She is actually a kingmaker, or at least a would-be one. Little Oprah from the backwoods is hepin' to pick a prez-dent, girlfriend! LL admits no objectivity here, finding Oprah to be a fabulously narcissistic, morally repugnant creature masquerading as something quite the opposite. And buffaloing dunderhead Housewife-Americans into buying it. Oprah sez: buy this book! They buy. Oprah sez: vote for Barry "because he's brrrrrrillllliant!" (as she likes to scream.) They vote. (Uh, Nixon was brilliant, too.) I understand the power of endorsements, and the O-man is not to be faulted for playing Oprah's lapdog for a while, at various private fundraiser parties attended by the Rich and Famous, but the idea of this venal celeb queen having access to---and influence with---the President of the United States, well, it's deeply revolting. Time for O-man to divorce O-woman.

Finally, there is something unsettling about Barry's public persona. The way he works a crowd. It's just too damn slick for LL's taste. Someone shouts "I love you," and he winks, "Love ya back!" (Pee Uke!) His ad nauseum refrain of "I'm having a conversation with the American people" just sounds so grandiloquent. Where's the humility? Where's the playing down of "me" in all this? Eh, Barry? Where? (Hint: don't ask your wife, who says a vote for you is a vote to change the world.)

In the end, Your Illuminator hates to say this, but the O-man has a number of troubling things about him: reckless decision-making, reckless pronouncements, shaky ethics, opportunistic posing, pretty but insubstantial rhetoric. And you know, it's true he voted against giving Bush the power to invade Iraq---and then voted repeatedly to fund the most disastrous adventure in vainglory and hegemony in American history. Where was the principle in that? Did he not want the appearance of "not supporting the troops?" LL doesn't know. It's troubling. (Though admittedly, not nearly as troubling as Hillary voting to give Bush the power to "shock and awe.")

We are left with the hope that, in the likely event that Obama is swept into the White House on a tide of "inspiration," he has to rise to the occasion and try to make good on all the pretty speeches.

GREEN CROTCH
It's become much too easy for Lamplighter to take swipes at the Los Angeles Times, but that's the paper's tough luck. The latest atrocity, which must horrify even the most lightweight Times staffers, is the green crotch blog.

Yes, it is well known that many papers are ham-handedly trying to "compete with the web" by appropriating popular local blogs. For those who don't know what a blog is, this is an Internet forum in which the puerile indulge and aggrandise their egos by dithering about things they find "cool." Cool being the absolute determining measure of all worth in the universe. Well, I exaggerate. There are many articulate, incisive, well-written, and useful blogs. Well, I exaggerate. There are more than ten.

Anyhow, in its uptight, receding hairlined, fat-assed Midwest corporate grope for bucks, the LAT is paying real dollars to blogging little boys and girls who type up their teeny-tiny blurts for like-"minded" little boys and girls. Translation: the LAT is buying up blogs and running them under its august masthead.

Which brings us back to the green crotch.

Something called "Siel" who types extensively about the state of her large intestine and how much booze she ingests, has posted a dither about spotting her "girlfriend's" bikinied crotch on another blog called "Treehugger." She carries on with high excitement about the crotch, as if it is the focus of enormous importance in her life. Well, it probably is (sigh.) Anyhow, the Times posted it, slapped on this "headline:" "Greenest Crotch in the Blogosphere."

Does this just make you want to hide? Not admit to cats and dogs that you are human?

No, no, it's not that the subject matter is um, racy, of course. It's not that at all. It's that this reads like the Ritalin-deprived chatter of a six-year-old, and has less content than a porn script. But chances are, "Siel" (just how much is she paid, I'd like to know) is a marketing/demographics type's wet dream. A creature of and tapped deeply into the minds (and crotches) of similarly feral adult children.

It's almost enough to make you feel sorry for the Times.

But not quite.

It's also enough to inspire some highly intelligent and well-written blogging by one Shel Holz, which you may read here.

MIGHTY OAKES
To lighten things up for one and all as this glorious new year begins, here is a breezy little note from our resident poet laureate and lantern-lighter, Jack Oakes:

Arnold has been doing Fascism's work ever since becoming governor. That's what is behind the idea that government is bad and taxes are evil. Except they've turned state and federal government into their personal ATMs, engineering it as a profit scam, like everything else they touch, from the war on down. The whole deficit thing is scam engineered to further screw over California.

 

The whole world could be living in a paradise if it were not for the greedy schemers screwing us over all under the guise of "capitalism." ... we don't have capitalism, we have corporate state socialism. Crazy Uncle Ralphie has it right.

 

And the crazy Palestinians know first hand what's been done to them. But, they like the Iraqis, don't even realize that they've been turned into malign puppets by the Cabal. The Cabal needs enemies to keep the profits rolling in. Instead of being violent militants, they should turn to the Gandhian path of nonviolence en masse. But they've been subjected to stress positions and psychic torture for decades. . .

 

. . .Sort of like the folks in the ghetto and the barrio. Clinton demonstrated that domestic economic development and appropriate policing policies can reduce crime. Bushco has shifted money into the pockets of military-industrial profiteers. Plus it's handy to keep the citizenry agitated by fears of terrorism and crime in the streets. Just like Nixon flooded the ghettoes with heroin and Reagan flooded them with crack. And it's good to have an underclass of blacks and immigrants so they can be hated and feared, rather than people homing in on the real criminals.

 

Of course, Bush is just a symptom of the disease that infects us, like an oozing, noxious abscess on our soul. Hating Bush is a pleasant pursuit, but it is a diversion from doing anything resembling real work. And that should be exposing the moral rot that infests the corporate world and their political stooges.

 

So in Obama, like RFK, I see someone articulating the frustration regular folks feel. It may be a pose on his part, but symbolically it adds a fresh element to the process. He may not have any clue as to what to do when he's president. I've said in the past that he's a stalking horse for Hillary. Imagine how dull it would be if it was Hillary in a cakewalk. Now Hillary can show she can be a winner against a formidable foe. Look for Obama to be her VP candidate.  

IF YOU AIN'T SEEN THIS. . .
. . .Then Lamplighter is glad he is posting it. If the preceding item casts a little darkness over your spirit, this one is a solid blast of joyful illuminatoriousness. If you feel that human beings ever so slightly fail to oh, do the right thing. . .that humanity tends to not exactly exemplify the most altruistic, optimistic, noblest tendencies. . .then take a look at this. It's almost enough to make you think that this race is worth a damn, after all. As reader PJC reminded, "dare to struggle; dare to win, dare to fall and rise again."

NO NEWSMANNEQUIN, HE
There are a lot of people who are very good at arching their eyebrows importantly, and nodding their heads up and down, and shaking their heads from side to side, all the while reading script aloud in very controlled, important-sounding tones. Some of these people, though not many, actually comprehend what they are reading. They are also highly skilled at dying their hair, buying expensive wardrobes, and choosing good cosmetic surgeons to flatten their noses, raise their brows, implant their cheeks, inflate their lips. Many of the females of this group are either blonde or Asian-American, and generally protrude.

They are called "television news anchors."

Jack Noldon is not one of them. Check that: Jack Noldon is a television news anchor, but he has none of the qualifications for the job listed above. Somehow, Jack got into the business and stayed there, despite the fact that he is a journalist who knows how to report a story. Astounding. Thirty years at KSEE Channel 24 in Fresno, California. That ain't jack, Jack. Lamplighter sends a beam.

GORDIAN 9/11 KNOT
Forgive Your Illuminator his relentless and impotent curiosity about the news. It's just old habit. But LL just can't help wondering about the fact that---how did it go?---nuclear secrets were leaked by the U.S. to Pakistan, and possibly to Al-Qaeda? It's complicated, but here goes:

Moles in the US State Department, the Pentagon, and the nuclear weapons establishment were selling nuclear secrets for cash, through Turkey, to Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI.

Pakistan’s ISI plays footsie with Al-Qaeda.

Still with us?

Pakistan’s Dr. Strangelove, General Mahmoud Ahmad, was accused of sanctioning a $100,000 wire payment to Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers, immediately before the attacks in NYC and D.C..

Uh. . .Can you say. . .U.S. involvement in 9/11? Even indirect?

Wait! There's more:

FBI investigators took a number of Turkish and Pakistani operatives into custody for questioning about foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks, BUT a high-ranking State Department official repeatedly acted to spirit them out of the country! (Just as was done with Bin-Laden's extended family.)

Now, don't take our word for all this. These are the claims of Sibel Edmonds, a former Turkish and Arabic translator for the FBI. What reason would Ms. Edmonds have for essentially destroying her life, or at least putting her reputation and life at serious risk, by making these claims? Hmmm. How about. . .conscience!

Before she left the FBI in 2002, Edmonds said she overheard evidence that pointed to money laundering, drug imports and attempts to acquire nuclear and conventional weapons technology---involving a network of Turkish, Pakistani, Israeli, and U.S. spooks.

This, of course, is the way countries generally do business, though you wouldn't know it by watching CNN or Fox.

Well, call LL a dim bulb, but gee, it kinda sorta seems like this story should be oh, blowing all other news stories entirely out of the water, every day, in every paper, and on every news program. Doncha think?

Especially with this wrinkle: Edmonds says the Bush administration blocked investigation of this Gordian Spy Knot and protected those who were committing these acts of treason.

But hey, let's not spoil Amerryguns' illusions or sense of (yuck, yuck) security.  Not to mention entertainment provided by the so-called presidential "campaign," football, and CSI.

Urp.

GOOSE MISS-STEP
Now, LL is not innately or gratuitously cruel. Believe it or not, his morality is thoroughly considered, weighed, sweated over. And Your Beamness does not generally laugh at tragedy, unless it involves Madonna, Paris Hilton, or Oprah. But you'll have to forgive us here:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!

There, that's better.

Oh, the guilt is setting in anyway. We shouldn't laugh at a poor 46-year-old high school math teacher in Houston who died in a freak accident. Anybody who is teaching high school deserves praise and respect, unless they are fornicating with their students or teaching them math the way LL was taught math in high school. But. . .what happened to Perry Price is, oh. . .darn me again, there I go chuckling.

Perry, it seems, took a shotgun out to kill a goose. Readers of this column know that LL finds it just contemptible beyond description that humans think they are so goddamned clever because they use sophisticated weaponry to shoot defenseless, unsuspecting animals. We doubt that Price fetched a very pricey salary, but we also doubt that he found it necessary to supplement his larder by shotgunning geese.

Well, after committing birdicide, old Perry threw his gun in the back of his truck, and it went off, hitting him in the leg. By the time the cops found him, he was a dead duck.

That's one for the birds.