Are You Shot? an Iraqi Reality Hit

he most recent Nielsen ratings released Monday confirm the surprising success of ABC’s controversial new show, Are You Shot?, an unscripted reality program featuring former soap opera star Lorenzo Lamas and a panel of judges critiquing the injuries suffered by American GIs and civilians in post-war Iraq.

Critics and social commentators have savaged the program ever since it rose from the ashes of ABC’s ill-fated reality dud Are You Hot? The Search for America's Sexiest People, which was cancelled earlier this year due to lukewarm ratings and a lawsuit by radio shock jock Howard Stern. Despite claims that the new show (which features Lamas detailing puss-soaked head wounds and missing limbs with a laser pointer) is in appallingly bad taste and degrades the whole of humanity, U.S. viewers can’t get enough.

“I always want to keep up on what’s going on over there in Iraq, but it can be so tough,� explained avid viewer and bakery assistant Megan Herbert. “One minute we’re the bad guys, then the good guys, then the bad guys again, then a deli blows up. I like it better when there’s points and we can see who’s winning.�

Producers set up the show by dividing Iraq into twelve different “Hell Zones,� geographical regions from which contestants would be drawn. Each episode of the show focuses on contestants from a different zone, with viewers voting over the Internet on which challenger had been most severely fucked-up as a result of the ongoing U.S. occupation.

Early episodes of the show have scored Nielsen ratings as high as 26.3, besting such popular reality staples as Temptation Island and Oops, I Ate Your Dog. Such a surprising early success has ABC executives buzzing about possible record ratings for the planned season finale in the “Hell Zone� of the Sunni Triangle. Thus far, the Nielsen Media Research corporation has been unable to track accurate ratings for the show in Iraq itself, due to the small number of working televisions in the country which haven’t been either kicked in or bartered for food.

On top of suggesting that the show devalues human suffering and takes too long to get to the good gory parts, critics have also slammed Are You Shot? for extending the career of celebrity waste-of-space Lorenzo Lamas, who until recently was making ends meet lending his talents to a celebrity prank-calling service.

“Sure, some people may argue that the show is in poor taste,� admitted Lamas, while compulsively highlighting this reporter’s papercut with his laser pointer. “But America has always thrived on raising poor taste to the level of an art form. Without our example, the rest of the world would have no way of knowing when the bottom of the barrel has been scraped.�

“Hold on a second,� Lamas interrupted, glancing at his watch as he dialed a cell phone. “Hello, this is Lorenzo Lamas, from Falcon Crest. Do you have Prince Albert in a can? No, no, that’s Prince Harry. No, I don’t think he would actually fit in a can. Yes, he is quite adorable. Uh-huh, you’re right on that. Okay. Okay, thank you. Goodbye.�

acists and peckerwoods everywhere trembled as their vaunted white power fizzled out into nothingness Thursday, surprising only those blind to the inevitable fall of empires everywhere. The absurdly-called "blackout," which started in the middle of the day during perfect daylight, plunged major northeastern urban areas into a state of non-electricity, which the white media presumably prefers to compare to "primitive" black culture with the derogatory "blackout" term.

The twin Northern American albino evils, the governments of the U.S. and Canada, both spent the day blaming each other for the power failure instead of spending their time fixing the power. The working classes and underprivileged were left in the dark Thursday night, with Friday night also no luckier in getting the power turned back on in some areas. White media was "delightfully surprised" that the non-white citizens left in the dark during the night didn't spend all their time looting their own stores and robbing white people—you know, acting civilized. As you know, when non-whites rob white people, it's anti-social crime; when whites rob everyone else, it's called capitalism.

New York City mayor Whitey Whiteberg praised New Yorkers for helping each other out and not killing each other like savage animals, then went home to his out-of-state mansion or high-grade penthouse with the gasoline-powered generator or whatever digs he shammed the people out of. Meanwhile, underprivileged suffering classes in Detroit went home to unbearable heat without power Friday night. Areas of New York, Connecticut, and Ohio with their power restored were forced to refrain from air conditioning in the record heat wave.

Rumors abounded in the immediate wake of the power failures. Though the most likely source of the catastrophe is now pointing to three failed transmission lines that eventually took out the Niagara Mohawk power grid, probably stolen from early industrious Native Americans, alternative unfounded causes were spread through the Internet and urban legend grapevine. Some blamed the power outage on a threatening Internet worm that managed to topple all the nation's power grids, the equivalent of blaming it on the Candyman. Most Americans were more anxious to blame it on the brown people of the Middle East, known as terrorists for not believing in the white man's God.

President and ranking redneck George "Whitey" Bush promised the problem of the electrical outage would be investigated and, if possible, enslaved and oppressed. He went on to call the electrical power grid system "antiquated," though how that makes it different from other revered elements of white culture wasn't explained by the inferior president.

Professor of African-American Electrical Engineering and frequent drinking buddy of this reporter Muhammad Bari offered more realistic interpretations of the grid power failure.

"It's clear the fatted citizens of Rome have trusted in their failing empire far too long," said the six-time winner of home Jeopardy! "The sacred calf is ripe for slaughter, and the time for the reign of a noble citizenry is nearly upon us. Now, I'm not suggesting we go out and rip down Con Edison and the White House or anything, you know. I'm just saying, in the eyes of the great and worthy Allah, we as wage slaves built this city on rock and roll and it's ours to do with as we please."

The white president refused to comment on these perfectly legitimate questions, proving who he's really serving.

The foreskin: Nature's "Mr. Touchy." Nobody denies the role of the foreskin in making sex even more sensitive than it otherwise would be. Some scientists, like my former roommate Bill Gottlieb, estimate that without the foreskin sex loses between 5 and 95% of its sensation. That's a lot of sensitivity!

No wonder M.A.R.S. wants so many foreskins. Not Mars, the planet, of course, let's not be ridiculous; I mean M.A.R.S., the Militant Alien Researchers of Sexuality, made up primarily of Neptunians. Everyone knows the Martians haven't been active in universal events since the 1960s, being a race near extinction. Forgive my spelling of Mars instead of M.A.R.S. in the headline, but I know how it is—you mention Mars, everybody jumps to attention; you mention Neptune, people are trampling each other in an effort to get away from boredom city.

But this involves foreskins, people—the abduction of them, no less. Maybe the Neptunians aren't as boring as you thought, hmm?

The part of the story you were never told starts back in the 1930s, when plucky environmentalists, then called "Earthtotalers," lobbied on behalf of the ecology to keep foreskins from just being thrown out the window once they were circumcised. Apparently, besides the nasty habit of them falling on proper ladies who just happen to walk by hospitals, the high oil content of foreskins turned out to be causing major environmental problems. Between you and me, I think it has more to do with prohibition of the time. After all, you're paying $45 for a beer and a foreskin lands in it, well, your whole day is just pissed away. But the Earthtotalers claimed some major ecological issue and got Congress involved, and before too long doctors had to dispose of severed foreskins like mechanics dispose of oil. Which pissed off our invisible friends, the Neptunians.

Neptunians benefited heavily from the excess foreskins thrown callously away since as early as circumcisions began. Interestingly enough, circumcisions are not the product of aliens, a nice change from most history, but the second-largest cause is behind it: Two guys drinking quite a lot. Lebzahamus and Eprudimus, two early Babylonians, were drinking quite a lot as was their custom to forget their awful names, when Eprudimus bet the other he couldn't chop the end of his dick off before Lebzahamus could pull it away. Eprudimus won, but was so envious of the sharp new look Lebzahamus had that he decided to cut off his own foreskin. Both awoke sober the next morning and horrified at what they had done, but not before a disgusting new trend had caught on.

Over the years, strangely, nobody wondered where those foreskins had disappeared to when causally tossed away. Neptunians, is the short answer. Given their limited sexual performance, Neptunians were desperate for any sort of enhancement they could get, so human penial foreskins became a popular aphrodisiac for their people. There was enough of a decline in the availability of foreskins when humans realized in the twentieth century, "Hey, what the fuck are we doing chopping our dicks off?" But then with the advent of medical waste disposal, the market for foreskins on Neptune became extremely endangered. In fact, things are so bad now that the future of the Neptune race is in jeopardy. If that sounds a little extreme, you've obviously never made love to a Neptunian woman without the aid of a foreskin aphrodisiac.

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