riot ensued Friday in Tehran as Iranian student protestors were met violently by those protesting the protestors' right to protest, referring to themselves as "pro-troops." The violence marred ten days of anti-government protests throughout Iran that were only slightly less violent.

The country, under the rule of a fundamentalist Islamic regime, has faced a surprising bout of student uprisings within its borders starting the previous week. In a country where even reciting anti-government slogans is seen as a challenge to Allah and carries swift judicial reaction, the protests are seen by some as extreme domestic unrest, and others as the perfect excuse to try making off with some TVs and electronics in the confusion.

Shortly after the initial series of protests erupted around Tehran University's Amir Abad campus, waves of pro-troop demonstrators, often dressed in military garb and heavily armed, arrived to shout down the protestors. The shouting down frequently involved assault with batons and occasional gunfire.

The violence served to undermine Iran's position in world politics as well this week, inviting a warning from the United States that it reserves the right to invade any country that starts with an "I" if it deems that country to be a threat to its security. Efforts to stand firm as a country against perceived U.S. aggression are diminished by internal disagreements of such a public nature.

"These who demonstrate against the clerics do injustice to Allah," said Iranian official Ayatollah Mohammad Kaddidazi, "but they are a small pocket of naysayers among the most-favored children of Allah who make up Iran. Those who choose to speak heresy shame us all, but are free to do so. Of course, I kid—they will be stomped into organic puddles and destroyed most painfully by us all. After that, whatever happens is between themselves and Allah."

The way Iran elects to respond to the protestors is particularly important in the aftermath of the U.S.-Iraq war and other situations in the Middle East region. Iran seeks support of the entire Islamic world, but if reaction is seen as too harsh by more moderate Islamic countries, they run the risk of alienating themselves; conversely, allowing the protests to gain popularity or go without reaction would signal a weakening in the country's posture to dissidence and could be construed by the U.S. as an opportune time for intervention.

One solution, points out Tehran University professor of African-American studies Yul Haddid, is to allow independent military protestors to quell anti-establishment rhetoric.

"The government is fortunate that it does have so many supporters willing to step forward and defend it with their own demonstrations," said Haddid. "Their reaction is swift and merciless, and very patriotic indeed. It's a well-organized response, obviously, but that is no surprise since many of the protestors are police and have a methodical precision protest in reaction. It is obvious that in such large turnouts where emotion runs high the occasional incident of violence will break out between groups. Again and again. It might even appear to some it's a state-sponsored crackdown, but I assure you it's just Allah's will taking on the form of a structured backlash."

The professor then treated this reporter to tea and bread, which was fortunate as, upon leaving the campus, I was mistaken for a protestor and met with harsh disagreement by a non-state-sponsored "pro-troop" demonstrator. The local hospital is quite competent and helpful, and they tell me my meal of bread was the last solid food meal I will have for a week or two.

onkeypox, the African virus spreading through the Midwestern U.S. by way of human contact with infected pet prairie dogs, would make a bitchin’ name for a new movie, announced health officials today when asked if there were any new developments in the outbreak.

“I’d expect it to be in theaters by late this summer, if some TV movie doesn’t snatch up the name first,� explained CDC head Sumner Alimony. “Actually, it would have been perfect for that Outbreak movie with Kevin Spacey and those sick monkeys a few years back, too bad they can’t go back in time and rename that one. True, we’re mainly dealing with sick prairie dogs right now, but monkeys are way more marketable, plus then you don’t have to explain why your sick prairie dog movie is called Monkeypox. People would probably think Prairiedogpox was a foreign film or something boring like that. And prairie dogs aren’t really monkey-level scary, unless you get the camera really super close to their faces.�

Twelve human cases of monkeypox have been reported nationwide so far, with 53 more pending testing: 25 in Indiana, 17 in Wisconsin and 11 in Illinois. One additional case was suspected in New Jersey, but turned out to be a false alarm after a Papa John’s pizza delivery driver called in sick with the complaint that “Dude, I’m sick as shit. I got Monkeyballs.� According to the Centers for Disease Control, the driver later turned out to have a combination of a hangover and athlete’s foot unrelated to the exotic pet scare.

Undisclosed federal rat-disease-tracing techniques have sourced the outbreak back to infected prairie dogs sold by Phil's Pocket Pets of Villa Park, Illinois, a small exotic pets dealer who has been inundated with faxed Polaroids of infected genital lesions marked with messages like “Thanks a lot, asshole,� ever since the outbreak began. According to Phil of pocket pet fame, the prairie dogs were infected by a Gambian giant rat, also known as a Gambian pouch rat, also known as an African Holy Shit rat, also known as a What the Cock is That Under the Sink rat.

The outbreak has renewed debate over lax restrictions governing the importation of exotic pets in recent years, and onto which of the lowest social rungs their owners desperately cling. Besides prairie dogs and numerous varieties of unsavory international rats, owners of other ridiculous exotic pets such as the Polynesian Scum Shrew, the Tasmanian Screaming Hedgehog, the European Couch Mouse and poodles have been fighting for their right to purchase, grow bored with, and then discard trendy non-domesticated animals.

New fears have arisen in recent days over monkeypox being transmitted from humans to other humans (as happens daily in Africa and other monkey-fucking cultures) and not just between infected prairie dogs and humans who don’t have the common sense not to stick their finger in a prairie dog’s mouth.

“Man, you gotta be sick already to fuck a prairie dog, I don’t care what anybody says,� stated a nearby teenager claiming to speak for the CDC.

Government health officials have recommended smallpox shots for all people exposed to the monkeypox virus, thinking that using the vaccine for a similarly-named ailment sounds about as good as anything. Other officials have recommended not sticking your dick in holes in the ground, though it was unclear whether or not they represented the federal government’s official stance on hole-dicking.

Well, first thing's first and I have to say I was very disappointed in the response to my shout-out last issue for little Asian kids to join my rock family. So far I haven't got a single kid signed up, not even any tone-deaf little Asian tykes who can lip-synch or white kids with squinty eyes. I can only think this says bad things about literacy among our nation's Asian kids. So much for the myth of Asian toddlers speaking three languages and piloting biplanes and shit. I guess I should have expected as much from a culture whose "language" is just a bunch of little drawings of houses. I like picture books just as much as the next guy, but we all know the truth: all pictures and no text means it's not a men's magazine, it's a porno.

I did get one response for somebody to be the Asian rock band family mom, I think. Whatever it was, this Asian chick showed up at my door the other night and has been living at the Bricks Manor ever since. She doesn't speak of lick of English, so she could be a Yokova's Witness or one of those gag mail-order brides Ramon Nootles keeps sending over or something, but she cooks some pretty badass duck so I haven't had reason to question the arrangement thus far. She doesn't look like she can play the tambourine, so it's possible she may have been responding to the column. Though unless one of us gets a whole hell of a lot better at charades we may never know for sure.

So anyway, Osaka and I (that's just a name I made up for her, since she wasn't wearing a name tag and all that "ra ra ra" sounds the same to me) were toilet papering Ramrod Hurley's house when the idea it me: I don't even like music. So maybe the lack of qualified Asian rock band child applicants was more of a blessing in disguise. Like they say, the Lord works in mysterious ways. Not that I buy into any of that crap, but they do have a lot of convenient ready-made quotes like that which come in handy sometimes.

The one good thing to come out of all of this, besides the awesome duck dishes, is that Osaka is way better than Foghat at Monopoly. That's not to say she's good, since she's not, which is good because I like winning. But she at least gives me the impression that I'm playing with someone who's aware the game is taking place. Foghat's one strategic decision in years of Monopoly playing was to eat the little pewter shoe, which was sly but I still won that game regardless. I brainstormed at ways to get that shoe back, but after considering my poop-sifting options I decided that if anybody wanted to be the shoe in the future, tough shit. Go buy a shoe-wearing Barbie doll or something, you big sack of weird.

It's not like the shoe could win any conceivable kind of Monopoly token battle, not when you consider how big that damned thimble would be in real life. If Foghat had eaten the racecar or the wheelbarrow or something it might be a different story, but he made the right call in eating the gayest token available.

Like I said, Osaka's better at Monopoly, but she's not going to take Donald Trump down to the mat any time soon. When we played she bought one property, built a house on it, and then just saved her money for the rest of the game. I kept trying to pantomime that she needed to buy up whole city blocks and cover them with soul-crushing cookie-cutter hotel megastructures like I was, but I guess when you're not from America the whole concept of crushing the poor with your privilege and gluttonous might is harder to grasp. It's hard to explain why it's good to take way more than you need just using shadow puppets and forming letters with your body.

Now I know how the pilgrims felt when they got off the boat and had to explain to the Indians why they were building mini-malls and hotels and all that shit. You just know there were some hilarious scenes when the pilgrims tried to start charging the Indians camping fees and all the Indians had was some beads and feather hats and bullshit to pay for it. You can bet the Indians were washing some serious pilgrim dishes that night.

Bricks out.

º Last Column: Starting an Asian Rock Family
º more columns