nternational fraternity received a boost here in America with the news that a large portion of our heroin junkie community is already supporting efforts to rebuild the economy of Afghanistan. The war-torn country, war-torn by us, has had an economic windfall by producing 87% of the world's opium and heroin derivatives, and a good percentage of that world's heroin buyers live in America, typically our inner-cities, our rural opium dens, and our rock concert halls.

"It's the least we can do to help out a poor population struggling to regain livelihood," said "Jizzy" John Webb, a Chicago-area heroin abuser of three years, before drawing a bloody cloud into a syringe stuck in his arm, then shooting it back in.

But fans of heroin aren't the only ones calling "hurrah" at the news. Libertarian economists agree as well. Malcolm Calhoun, of the Sweet Tit, Alabama Calhouns, a developer of open-air flea markets and international playboy, applauded the entrepreneurial spirit of the Taliban-free Afghanis.

"If only more enterprising young men and women would dare to bend these silly laws and make their own fortunes, we wouldn't need welfare in this country," said Calhoun, tapping his pen on his desk as if it made him seem more important. "This country is still suffering backward thinking about growing opium. We would rather subsidize work than let people grown their own stuff and sell it for a major profit—where does that leave us? Buying costly lamps and making inefficient use of our closet floor space. Meanwhile, Afghanistan rakes in the moolah, while honest guys with valuable gardening skills are forced to seek income running in city council elections. By the way—vote Calhoun in May."

Despite holding a virtual monopoly on the world's opium supply, Afghanistan claims it wants out of the business. As a country overcome by poverty and a war-devastated infrastructure, not to mention crippling years as a third world country, Afghanistan's anti-drug czar, a position the country actually has, occupied by a guy who could probably be doing more important work, has proposed that cash subsidies will be needed to end the flow of Afghan gold to the drug-bogarting world. Under the parental guise of the U.S., Afghani president Hamid Karzai declared a holy war on drugs when he took office in December, and as history has long proven, when Afghanis declare a holy war on something, it gets both barrels.

Counter-Narcotics Minister Habibullah Qaderi: "Right now, the 2.3 million farmers who are growing opium in Afghanistan can make more than twice as much with that crop as they can for more legal products, like cotton, rice, and wheat, which are not good for mainlining, I can assure you, but are much more needed within our own country. It is my firm belief that, if we pay them half those prices with money we do not have, they will give up growing opium. I also believe, if I were to run and jump fast enough, I could climb a rainbow all the way to the top."

Two junkies, Ray and Ray-Ray, who frequent the alley behind the commune building here in Flatbush, New Jersey, believed international legalization of opium sales offered the better economic solution.

"Check it out," said Ray-Ray, or possibly Ray, "alcohol and tobacco are, like, ten times more deadly than heroin. I can, like, get drunk and drive a car, that's legal, and I can kill, like, a dozen people driving over them. What the fuck? But if I shoot up with heroin, I'm way too fucking out of it to ever drive a car. It's just safer, dude."

"Plus," said the other Ray, "you can make all kinds of industrial shit out of opium, like rope, clothing, and wigs."

The two smackhounds conferred privately for a few minutes, then admitted that you really can't make any of that stuff, to their knowledge, but they would still like the twenty bucks this reporter promised them.

Conservative Woman Found

Fox Disappointed by Desperate Alien Prison Escape Ratings

Arizona Border Patrol Installing Landmines

Eminem, Ex-Wife Reunite to Work on New Material

It's the end of an era, good people. Note the lowercase nature of the letters; it's not the end of a proposed Equal Rights Amendment. No, this is even greater, and something Christians would even approve of. My loyal roommate Camembert has gotten married.

No one was more misty-eyed than me, except all the women and the lesser men, when my good friend of many years, and distant relationship through my miserable second marriage, Camembert, married his girlfriend, Girl Elvis. Sometimes I doubted it would ever happen, but on Dec. 3 they were officially announced Mr. and Mrs. Camembert. Actually, I don't know the real names, but you get my gist. You can't rightly go around calling them Girl and Boy Elvis—there's already a Boy Elvis. The original Elvis, friends.

The ceremony was held in Las Vegas, and like any wedding involving an Elvis impersonator, it was officiated by a Col. Tom Parker lookalike, Reverend Slingblade. Camembert described it as "gaudy," but it looked perfectly devoid of god to me. Just Camembert, in the best tuxedo I've ever seen a handicapped man wearing, and Girl Elvis, in the sequined jumpsuit her mother wore at her wedding. Ginger and a Carl Perkins impersonator were the bridesmaids, Lee and I were the best men. But I was by far the better best man. I got to plan the bachelor party and carry the ring. What did you get, Lee? Jack shit, that's what. Let's not kid ourselves.

It was an emotional ceremony. Camembert and Girl Elvis wrote their own vows, but I replaced them at the last minute. She was halfway through hers before she realized it. If you ask me, "I promise you sweet lovin' and all the ass you can work" may not get you bawling, but it's just plain funny. Real audience-pleaser stuff. So I won't be invited to their house for a while, so what? They'll get over it when they remember Rok Finger's always been their best friend.

For the big finale, 12 svelte flamingos were released into the air to symbolize their love, that and I've always wanted to recreate the opening to Miami Vice. Now that it's out on DVD everyone will finally get the reference without me having to remind them of it. Camembert and his new wife took off into the sunset for their honeymoon in Salt Lake City, riding a motorcycle. Sidecar for Camember, natch. I think the new look suits him. He should seriously consider ditching the chair for a permanent sidecar accessory.

All of this has left me feeling a little bit inadequate. Truth be told, I've been thinking about finding someone else to marry—weddings always make me sentimental that way. I haven't told my wife, of course, since I'm also sentimental for keeping my ass intact. If I did marry another woman, it would probably just be for a spare wife. I have had trouble keeping just one, you know, and it wouldn't be a bad idea to have another one socked away for a rainy day.

The biggest way this has effected my life, other than taking up a Saturday I would have used for building the world's largest tandem bicycle, is that I lost my best friend and roommate. I would like to say I've not lost my best friend, but gained a best friend-in-law, but that's total bullshit. He's moving out and she's going with him. So I lost two best friends. But Ginger's happy about it—she's already started talking about getting Lee out on his own so we can start the babymaking.

Which is a little premature, of course, since I already told her I wouldn't start to work on building the world's largest wooden baby until I finished that damned tandem bike. The thing has been a nightmare.

º Last Column: Little Man With a Gun in His Hands
º more columns

It's about time to resume the "War on Poverty" that we started in the 1960's. And when I say "we," I mean soft-hearted liberals who needed a slogan for re-election. But this time, we do the War on Poverty right. I'm talking big guns.

After all, we can't eliminate poverty, any more than we can eliminate terror. That's been my objection to the president's War on Terror all along. And before you go thinking I've gone all NPR on you guys, that doesn't mean we should give up. Let's just refocus the War on Terror. Make it the War on Terrorists, which is what it already is. Wipe them all out from the face of the earth—if you're not wit' us, you're a'gin us. And that's what we got to do with the War on Poverty: Wipe out the impoverished.

It doesn't have to be a hateful war, but we've got to get rid of them all the same. They're just going to drag us all down with them. And even if they don't, they'll still make our lives hell—asking for money, especially around the holidays, starring in documentaries that clog our independent theaters, and just generally hanging around and making us feel bad. We can't let them run our lives anymore. Wipe out the impoverished.

We can get it started it easy enough—since they don't have houses, we can find most of them out in the open, where they're easy to get at. Eventually, though, we'll have to take it to the next level. Hunt them down in the housing projects, in the trailer parks, even in the mountains, where they're bunched up together 25-to-100 per house. Sure, my soft side wants to give them all a free ride, but it's by being pushovers we've been overrun with poverty all this time.

The best part is, we don't need a new army to do it. Put the police to work doing what they were originally created for anyway—to keep the poor out of our hair. But give them their teeth back, no more of this back-alley beating crap and telling people to "move along." We start the War on Poverty, I mean really start it, and the police can finally do what they were meant to do. Round 'em up and march 'em into the nearest large body of water. Or if that's too unsanitary, maybe launch them into space. Give them a chance to colonize a planet full of moochers and layabouts.

We'll need to set firm criteria so we don't have everybody out in the streets getting shot by people riding polo ponies and everything. Set a bottomline income bracket above which everyone gets to live, and then root out the nickel-and-dimeless. I used to think a metal detector of some sort would help find whose got money and who doesn't, but anybody walking around with pocket change is probably below the minimum income bracket, or just scraping together enough to stay above it.

People say I'm full of hate to suggest such a thing. I tell them to shut up before I choke them to death. Because I'm not full of hate. I just think everybody needs to pull their own weight, or pull whatever weight they're told to pull. The world needs workers and the world needs bosses. What they don't need is people who refuse to be either. I send my money to the government each week, and it's always more than I like, so they can keep the roads in good shape for me to drive on and to keep the kids from turning out retarded. Judging by the noise on the radio and the TV, I'm not sure that last part is working out. But I know I don't send my money to the government so we can support freeloaders, the infirm, or those who can't swing a hammer or a shovel or whatever for 8-12 hours a day. Or write a column, of course—angry columnists provide the most valuable service of all.

º Last Column: Queers Vote Kerry
º more columns