The Fifth Column...

...wherein the author in the sickening
throes of unbridled optimism entertains the reader
with saccharine stories of hope, joy, mirth, and merriment

The End of the World    A little apocalyptic humor for starters.

Fish Story    An incredible shrinking fish, a car that seems not to use any gasoline, two wise guys, and a boss that gets his come uppance make this must reading for any practical jokers.

The Onion Ring Summit    John Lennon, Audrey Hepburn, Jonathan Winters, Lyndon Johnson, and Leonid Breshnev share a burger with me at Johnson’s Corners in late 1964. A true story.

A Matter of Perspective    Intelligence: It’s all relative.

Need a Lift, Buddy?    This hitchhiker got more than he bargained for, but then again, so did the strangers who picked him up.

Hold Me in Your Dreams    A dysfunctional family, an unhappy little girl, and an unusual solution to a difficult situation.

Mr. Big    Riot and Arson: Country collapses after Mr. Big interrupts broadcast of Super Bowl.

Whence Cometh Evil    The whole world wakes up from a dizzy spell to find that something very bizarre has happened during a brief period of time that no one can seem to recall.

Just Who Do You Think You Are?    Go to the men’s room, come back, and things just aren’t quite the same ever again.

Lost and Found    When life seems like a bucket of shit, it probably is. First, James Preston McCall’s wife leaves him, taking his daughter. Then his house shrinks. Then he finds himself, in a most peculiar way, without a job. This story ends on a note of irony, but not happily, making it about as true-to-life as you can get if you ignore the shrinking house (which is, after all, nothing more than a cheap artistic metaphor for personal failure and remorse). Anyway, just READ the damned thing...

The Coming Darkness    A shocking review of Police and Government misconduct in Denver in the first quarter of the year 2000.

Christian Fundamentalism vs. the Real American Values    Fundamentalist Christians delight in pointing out that the United States was ‘founded by Christians.’  They are, however, wrong.  The chief ideologues of the American Revolution were deists, not Christians, and most of them specifically denied the divinity of Christ.

A Farewell    A little something on the meaning of friendship.

Gun Control and the Politics of Revisionism    When opponents of gun control argue that the Bill of Rights was written to protect their right to hunt deer and shoot skeet, even they are missing the point.  The right to keep and bear arms had to do with something far more serious:  the right to use them against the government.