Cheesespread
In a stormy letter published by Al Queda newspapers yesterday, Osama bin Laden expressed outrage that a power outage in Butte County had not brought America to its knees. He warned that future attacks on strategically unimportant small towns would be imminent.
“The fraternity system and crystal meth manufacturers are symbolic of the Great Satan,” bin Laden wrote. “They will be returned to darkness sooner or later.”
Meanwhile, Chico locals applauded PG&E’s response time, though many were left rattled by the experience.
“I was taking a crap at the mall,” said one local man. “And it was impossible to get out of that place. This is America, gosh darn it. We’re not supposed to have problems going to the bathroom while shopping. Maybe our government will finally see now that we need to nuke the entire Middle East to hell.”
Ask not what you can shoot
“This is their game: they are counting on your patriotism to distract you from their plunder. They are counting on you to be standing at attention with your hand over your heart, pledging allegiance to the flag, while they pick your pocket. If, in the name of the war on terrorism, President Bush hands the state over to the energy industry, it’s every patriot’s duty to join the loyal opposition. … Your adversaries will call you unpatriotic for speaking the truth when conformity reigns. Ideologues will smear you for challenging the official view of reality. Mainstream media will ignore you, and those gasbags on cable TV and the radio talk shows will ridicule and vilify you. But I urge you to hold to these words: ‘In the course of fighting the present fire, we must not abandon our efforts to create fire-resistant structures of the future.’ … Those words were written by my friend Randy Kehler more than 10 years ago, as America geared up to fight the Gulf War. They ring as true today. Those fire-resistant structures must include an electoral system that is no longer dominated by big money, where the voices and problems of average people are attended on a fair and equal basis. They must include an energy system that is more sustainable and less dangerous. And they must include a media that takes its responsibility to inform us as seriously as its interest in entertaining us.
—Bill Moyers
Weekly props
1. Fall color
2. Mamet at the Blue Room
3. Mulholland Drive at the Pageant
4. Arizona Diamondbacks (great series)
5. Wayne Hancock at the Brick (11/14)
6. KIXE programming
