he world remains shocked and eerily obsessed with the mortal departure of ABC news anchor Peter Jennings after his short but well-publicized battle with cancer. With several primetime memorial specials, newspaper editorials, and lots of merchandise on the way to local stores, people are remembering the legacy of the deceased newsman. But no matter what else people might say about the mark he left, one thing all can agree on: He read the news.

"He not only changed the way we thought about the news, but the way we watched the news," said media kiss-ass Earl Shmonster. "I have no examples to back that up. But you name any news event in the past twenty years, you can bet Peter Jennings covered it. Or introduced us to the guy who was covering it. He was faithfully at his desk whenever something happened that the nation needed to be told about."

Jennings' death, both tragic and timely, has seized the consciousness of a nation that had all but given up on paying attention to the news. His terminal illness has been a dazzling source of conversation and meditation on our own mortality. While some people are already talking about who will be the next ABC news anchor, one thing is patently clear: They will have to die in a really horrific way to steal back the nation's focus from the late Peter Jennings.

"Jennings was a consummate reporter," said a national news editorial copied nearly word for word a thousand times over since the anchor man's death. "He was always in the field, when he wasn't behind the anchor desk. His soothing voice and rugged good looks kept us all calm and placated while he told us about AIDS, rising poverty, election fraud, space shuttles blowing up, and, more recently, terrorism. He was more than the face of ABC network news: He was its voice, too."

The Peter Jennings' death frenzy has carried over beyond a hurricane of media coverage, including a bevy of Jennings-related items for sale on eBay and a series of Jennings news pieces headed for DVD to offer consolation to grief-stricken Jennings fans who possess money. But Jennings' death has affected the world in non-marketable ways, too, convincing several in the population to find out more information about lung cancer. The first thing most of them learn from Jennings' experience: Don't get it.

Spokesperson Nanny Freedmont from the Rubb-Houston Center for Celebrity Deaths: "The death of Peter Jennings was more than the loss of a father, husband, and media professional: It was the loss of someone famous. A person who we saw regularly on the TV every night for years, and whom we've developed a perfectly healthy attachment to. We considered him a friend, and we feel the void he's left behind, and will continue to until at least the next celebrity passes away tragically."

Jennings' departure sparked hundreds of responses from people everywhere, but since we've never heard of most of them, we only selected a few to cover. Like this one from the American Cancer Association:

"Hundreds of thousands of people die from lung cancer every year. But none of them were famous. God bless ye, Peter Jennings, America's nightly news Jesus."

Another fond farewell came from colleague and friendly nightly news rival Dan Rather.

"Jennings was a fine newsman and always read the news without error. He was never stymied by the more challenging words, like 'fiduciary responsibility.' He will be missed. Me, on the other hand, going out in a puff of smoke and a blaze of scandal. I mean, what the fuck, America? What would it take to get a simple friendly good-bye from you people? I'm not on the news anymore either, you know. I guess I'll have to burst into fucking flame or something to get a 'So long and fuck off, Dan!'"

Speaking of bursting into fucking flame, the commune news pays its own final tribute to the world's greatest news reader, Peter Jennings: Out, out, brief candle.

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To those of you, like critical sourpuss Sen. Robert Byrd, who chastise President Bush for dressing like an air force pilot and landing in a jet on an aircraft carrier to announce the Iraq war is over, I say this: Let he who has never copped a stance like a seasoned military vet and been chauffeured via jet to a political speech meant to further your position with the voters cast the first stone.

People love to pick on the president, and I should know since the commune used to be one of those people. And, I'll admit, back when I ran my struggling alternative news website www.poopoftheday.com I was on the Bush-bashing bandwagon. We were the first in our bandwith to report of the president's history of frivolous cocaine usage, his poor test scores and muddy academic record, and even the way he rigged the election by eliminating eligible black voters with fraudulent claims they were convicted felons. But what the heck! Let bygones be long gone, it's a new era and the people seem to like the second Bush more than the first, and I say the people are always right.

The fact is, Bush has waged an entirely successful war on Iraq for the benefit of the Iraqi people, and now the big fat jealous Democrats are coming out of the woodwork to nitpick the president to death. Saying he's exploiting the military and shamelessly electioneering his way to the 2004 campaign trail, and he looks like Iceman in that stupid flight suit.

Then they claim the Iraqi populace is already turning against us, and our plans for leadership are getting bogged down as the Bush administration tries to plant business-friendly candidates the people don't want as the new leadership. They even say there are no weapons of mass destruction found and that's the reason we went over there in the first place—you couldn't be wronger. We went over there for regime change, if you recall. I remember it plain as yesterday. Where do you get this weapons of mass destruction claptrap?

It's slightly possible that may have been one element of our reason for launching ground forces into Iraq, it's been a while since it started, but I'm pretty sure if you check the press records or ask the president he'll tell you the Iraqi people sent a secret coded message asking for our help. I think Saddam also sunk the Luisitania, I'll have to check Fox News for that one. But all of this is pointless needling of the president's plan, because weapons of mass destruction will be found. If not exactly in the Iraqi borders, they were no doubt dragged to Syria. We'll keep looking for the weapons before Saddam can continue to re-locate them, even if we have to look in Pakistan and India. No further than Russia, I'd say, unless that devious bastard hid them in Nebraska or something.

With a 60-70% approval rating, the president needs support now more than ever. There are powerful special interest groups just sniffing for any weakness they can find to take him down, special interests groups like hippies, environmental activists, black voters, or Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. Don't cow-tow to these radicals. If they had their way, George W. Bush probably wouldn't even be president.

If you ask me, I think President Bush looked quite powerful in his flight suit and air force helmet. It's a shame he had to give the speech so quickly after his pilot landed, otherwise he could have stuck to the original plan, which I hear was to don a snappy sailor suit, which would have kicked ass to see. Sailor suits always make presidents look good. Plus, you put a dog next to him and he looks like the Cracker Jack mascot.

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What lurks inside the human heart? Even the most fickle of love muscles has moments where it is full of nothing but joy, and I would only seek these moments for us.

I do not believe the heart can be judged when it is not in love. For a heart in love is at its most pure, like a Hershey chocolate bar with absolutely no nuts, no nougat, nothing but the chocolate you want. A heart in love is a heart as it really is. These moments when we're not in love are moments where we are not even truly existing. It is like love is the band we came to see, the big name on the marquee, and every other moment is us sitting in our seats in the dark, or watching Big Country and calling them assholes while we really seek U2. U2 on stage is akin to the love in our hearts, and that is why we are all really here.

Oh, my Nancy—the Nancy whose heart is mine and no one else's. I am so convinced of our perfect union that I need no proof of our entwined fates. I can see into your heart, and I stare intently at your chest while you try to sleep just in case I could ever do so. But it is in your eyes that I recognize we are the one love either of us will ever have. If your heart were a tax return, I would never audit your heart. Even if some of the math were a little shady and you clearly didn't have 9 dependents like you filled in, I could not bring myself to ask you to bring in your love receipts to my office where I could pore over them and see if everything added up—it doesn't matter. Love has ruined my math skills. The only math that makes sense to me now is 1 + 1 = Us. And even that would not get me through a second grade elementary school.

I wish I could be tested on other subjects, for even the most elementary of things I am stupid about since accepting you into my heart. Basic English skills are unwelcome in my mind, phone numbers are quickly forgotten. I have become retarded for love. People should write notes about where I'm going and who I had to see and pin them to my shirt so that I might remain functional in a world where loving you is my only competent skill. I would drink Liquid Plumber right out from under the cabinet, if I momentarily forgot its lethality in the face of your beauty. You would have to rush me to the hospital and get my stomach pumped so I could continue to love you, and in my stomach they might well extract pure love along with the Liquid Plumber, because love is the only thing that fills me.

Nancy, why must we ever disagree? You should know when I called the ending to that Reese Witherspoon movie total horseshit that I could never second-guess your opinion. We've already talked about how completely helpless I am, roaming the world like a blithering idiot due to my obsession with you. It is an obsession that everyone would call unhealthy and dangerous if I were not so handsome and you did not return my love even a fraction, which you do. I am incapable of rational action as long as you are alive. Killing you would be the only way to return me to regular intelligence, and I would sooner die than let someone kill you. I love you too much to be intelligent.

Allow me to take that I.Q. test as a I offered last night. You will see that you are in love with an unmistakable moron, and that any opinion I ever offer that offends you should count for nothing. Even my opinion on this love is collectively worthless, given I'm two brain cells away from drooling into a bedpan for the rest of my life.

I love you that much. At least, that's my perception of it, given my extremely limited capacity.

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