Yates Trial Inspires Color-Coded "Insanity" Chart

he trial of Andrea Yates for the murder of her five children has created heated discussion over the nature of insanity in the legal system. Insanity, in a legal context, can allow a defendant to avoid execution or imprisonment if proven their illness prevented them from knowing the actions were illegal while they were committing them.

Yates, a Texas woman who claimed her mental illness caused her to kill her five children, was found guilty of premeditated murder Friday and sentenced to life imprisonment. Defenders of Yates say the decision will send a sick person to prison where she will not get help. Critics of the defenders of Yates say those defenders are dressed poorly, and that Yates committed a crime with full knowledge of what she was doing.

U.S. Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, hot on the heels of his recent color-coded terror alert system, has stepped in to help alleviate the discussion of mental illness as a legal defense. Sunday Ridge introduced a color-coded mental illness "insanity" warning chart that will clearly and efficiently establish what constitutes not guilty by reason of insanity defenses and what constitutes loony, but criminally viable.

With Ridge's new chart, the color green would constitute a normally sane person who has committed no criminal act. Such a state for a person would be known as "normal" and be an umbrella term for everybody, such a common occurrence in fact there really seems to be no reason for it to exist. You could really just start with purple and save everybody the extra color since there's no special precautions or notice that goes along with the green state.

Purple would define "fun" crazy, where no crimes have been committed and things are likeably outside the norm. This state of insanity would include cards, office cut-ups, and guys who say things that are just plain wild. Anyone who sells factory goods at low, low prices might fall into this category. Blue would be extremely eccentric, even unlikable people. Artists, real artists not Starbucks staffers who say they're artists, would fall into this category, as well as people who we would gladly lock up if only they had done something illegal. On the extreme end of this spectrum, calling that dark blue, would be soccer rioters, people prone to violence for little things, and wrestling fans.

Yellow would cover extremely emotionally dysfunctional people. The co-dependent, bi-polar, attention deficit disorder sufferers and any made up diseases to explain extreme unhappiness would fit into this disorder. Misdemeanors committed by people in this state would result in the same punishment as a person in the green or blue state, but with court-ordered counseling as an attached feature of the sentencing. Felonies committed by celebrities would also result in counseling, public service announcements, and a film career to be replaced by appearances of Fox comedy-dramas.

Orange would cover all criminals suffering from mental illness who commit felonies, from property damage and larceny to murders and maintain a state of incoherency at all times of the day. Victims of these types of mental illnesses should be so ill punishing them would be no fun as they'd have no idea they're being punished. Institutionalization would be the standard punishment for this grade of mentally ill criminal. Anyone in this state who does not commit a crime should be allowed their freedom to get a job and shelter on their own without the government's involvement.

Since orange and yellow are so close a color on the chart, there really isn't much difference. Anyone in either state can be determined "yorange" and treated either way, no big deal.

Red, the highest state of insanity, would apply to cases of national interest because of the gruesome details or lack of other good news at the moment. Red-level criminals can be guilty of brutality, such as Andrea Yates murdering her own children in cold blood, or disgusting crimes to be discussed around the water cooler for months, like the O.J. Simpson or Jeffrey Dahmer cases. Marked a by a coherency the orange-level insane criminals lack, red-level criminals shall escape the death penalty by the nature of the bizarre outcry in their defense from seemingly-normal people across the country. With a large income, a red-level defendant can escape a guilty verdict entirely. Upon finishing his explanation of the new chart, Ridge summarized: "There. I think this changes nothing. But at least we can assign colors to it."

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A little bird recently asked me what it felt like to do 50. I answered that question with this question: What does it feel like to eat a bacon cheeseburger through a straw, dickface? That was right before I hit the little bird in the mouth with an encyclopedia. Actually, that analogy doesn't work unless I mention that the little bird was Boner Cunningham. You probably already guessed that from the encyclopedia he's always carrying around so people will think he can read. But no matter who the little bird was, nobody suggests Omar Bricks shops for chicks at the geriatric ward. Not if he wants to keep his teeth.

Only later when Griswald Dreck asked me the same question and I almost hit him with a framed picture of Dame Edna did I realize what they were both talking about. Really? I've written 50 Polio columns? Holy shit! A quick count of the notches carved into the edge of my desk confirmed it. Damn. Damn times fifty.

It seems like just yesterday that I was scouring the net, looking for columns I could pass off as my own. Come to think of it, that was yesterday. But I tried that shit back when I started working at the commune, too, and it didn't work any better then. Turns out everybody's heard of that old bag who writes Dear Arbys.

Though the official record may show 50 Polio columns published, the actual number written is probably double that. It may seem natural as shit now, but early on it took this Omar Bricks a while to find his "voice." As a matter of fact, the first ten My Friend Polios in a row were all rejected for one reason or another. The first few were because the commune already had a movie reviewer, and they didn't like the way I compared everything to Jaws. To which I still say you can kiss my ass. I still think Working Girl is like Jaws in an office building. Whatever.

My next attempt was rejected because they said you can't just write a column about how you deserve a blowjob. Apparently Rok Finger had already milked that tit dry years ago. I tried another column using the voice of this hilarious Latino character I had created but the commune bigwigs thought our apparently huge Hispanic readership would be alienated by the antics of Frankie Hotpants. I think the real problem was I was typing in an accent, and the milkfed silver spooners around here couldn't make out a word of it, so naturally they assumed I was using the column to take potshots at them in Latinese. Which I was, but they had no way of knowing that. Pricks.

After that I tried my hand at a "reality" column, just typing up everything that was happening around me as I wrote the thing. That turned out to be easy as shit to write, but made me enemies around the office faster than an Amy Grant concert tee shirt. Like the new guy was supposed to know everybody here was so secretive about their cock fighting and underground jai-alai tournaments.

My big breakthrough finally came one day in the parking garage when I was welding a giant metal dick to the hood of Red Bagel's car. Sure, I'd known it would be a hilarious gag for weeks, as I made arrangements to get the tools and had some kid in a high school metalshop class make the dick. But in the actual moment of pulling it off, by the pale glow of that arc-welder, I realized that this was the shit My Friend Polio should be all about. And a column was born.

Of course, that actual column never ran. Bagel immediately sacked the guy who he thought dick-welded his Camry, and I figured best let sleeping dogs lie dead on that one. But it didn't matter, the seed had been sewn. Or whatever the hell you do with seeds, it was planted and shit. At that point, nobody could have predicted what would come in the next 50 My Friend Polios, unless they were following me around all the time and taking notes. Then I guess they would have had a pretty good idea.

Bricks out.

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I really should consider changing the titles of these columns. The cEC (commune Enthusiasts Club, for all of you acronym-watchers!) has had way more than six meetings as of the time of this writing. About 125, according to my notes. Of course, only about half of those were attended by someone other than myself, usually my friend and cEC Torch-Bearer Sandy. Around five have had more than ourselves present, including our latest members. So that's roundabout right then… six meetings. I'll just keep the chronology in order. All of my friends know how anal I am. Which has nothing to do with being gay, so don't send emails.

We had a disastrous time with the Easter parade float, don't even ask. Let's just say we won't be contributing to anymore community affairs for a while, by order of the Shanesly city council. I probably deserve all the blame, it was my idea to watch Animal House at the meeting before the parade. Some of the more inventive members may have taken it as some sort of secret message on what I expected from the parade. In fact, that's what they told me. But we did fish the Toyota out of Lake Murty and we've seen Sandy's brother driving it around town, so the damage couldn't have been as bad as he claimed. Heh… listen to me! I make it sound like we're a couple of Omar Bricks in the club. Nothing so dramatic, really. We've only wrecked one… maybe two cars, but that's a high count.

It did get us some free attention, on the front page of the Shanesly Observer, and you know what they say about bad press. Well, Sandy says it's ruined all chances of her (and me, but mostly her) having a normal life, but she was soaking wet with lake water, so you have to give her some room for a lousy mood. I think we'll get a few new members out of it. We've already got one, if you can count the deputy who's been sitting in on our meetings ever since. He says he's there out of genuine curiosity, while Sandy (Little Miss Negativity) says he's there because he thinks we're communist insurgents.

"Where would he get that idea?" I asked her when she said that.

"Duh," she said, which is about her favorite response.

It's true, we're called the commune Enthusiasts Club, and we've made up emblems and everything and stated our club name proudly when we entered the parade. But I don't know where you get communism out of the name commune Enthusiasts Club. That's just ignorance. I told Sandy that, and she said I can tell the cops how ignorant they are while they're beating the hell out of me with rubber hoses in the back room of their "Special Terrorist Interrogation Room." Little Miss Negativity indeed.

So that's a new member. I suppose, though, if I'm going to count him I should also count Ray's parole officer. So it's either two new members or we're still at the same number. Ray, Vera, Lucas, Homeless Gary, and Sandy, who asked again not to be counted. I'm an optimist, so I say two new members! That puts us at 8, and I think once the city ban on public activity is forgotten, we'll probably double that with all the shy commune enthusiasts coming out of the woodwork.

Boy, here I am prattling on about club business and I haven't even heaped any praise on the commune yet. I wanted to commend the editors and reporters for keeping their head together on all this "Pope's dead" business. I suspected even before I read the commune's coverage that it was all a sophisticated ruse to pump up the stagnant media and hide the world-weary Pope from the public, and I was proven right, as usual. The nice thing about being a commune fan is, sooner or later, you're always proven right.

See you all next time, commune Enthusiasts!

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