n a brief ceremony Saturday, American soccer player Nathan Horne, killed in action during March in Iraq, was posthumously decorated with the Two Shits medal by a ranking Pentagon officer, Gen. Wilbur Finletter.

The Pentagon had received some criticism from soccer fans in light of recent accolades given former NFL player Pat Tillman, also killed in action, and celebrated as a god among men and all around nifty human being for giving up football to fight in a war otherwise disapproved by the public at large. Critics charged the U.S. military and national media with anti-soccer bias for its worship of Tillman while Horne went unrecognized for his valiant service and awesome death.

Horne's father, Reggie, summed up the position: "Nathan left a potentially-lucrative, at least it would have been overseas, career in soccer to serve his country. The fact he was killed in action should mean something, at least since he was a well-known athlete and not just one of the other faceless war dead."

A starting kicker or something for the Dallas Burn, which is apparently a real national league soccer team, Horne met his death when his convoy was attacked outside Baghdad March 26. Witnesses believe Horne tried to save the lives of his fellow soldiers, jumping into the air and attempting to deflect an incoming RPG with his head. Horne and the other soldiers received some posthumous awards, but Horne's father says none of them count since they weren't covered by the media and no one was invited to the ceremony.

Gen. Finletter tried to amend the error with a small ceremony in a mostly empty high school gym in Horne's hometown of Avacado, Texas. A medal known as the Two Shits, and reserved for those killed in action who appear much more important upon reflection, was reportedly not made up just for the ceremony. Finletter gave the award to Horne's widow, Iris, and two minutes of silence (one for each Shit) followed, except for the sound of freshmen playing dodge ball on the other side of the gym.

"If it didn't seem like we cared when you died, sorry and all," said Finletter, clearing his throat with a slight cough. "Let our presence here today, as well as the frumpy little medal we handed out, signify that we really do give two shits. Amen."

The reexamination of Horne's death hit everyone hard. A former assistant coach for the Burn, Kyle Hooper, was distraught upon remembering the news.

"I always knew Nathan was a pretty good guy, fun to get shit-faced with," said Hooper, "but I didn't think he was a hero until recently. When all this stuff happened with Pat Tillman, I realized hey, Nathan didn't have to go over there and defend our freedom. Or defend the Iraqi's freedom, or whatever. I know freedom was involved. He could have stayed here. Hell, he was getting axed from the Burn next season anyway, but it doesn't mean he couldn't have stayed here. He didn't have to go to Iraq, like all those guys who are in the army now. He could have went on living for plenty more years and not gotten himself killed in an unjust war. But that's the kind of guy he was—never really considering his decisions."

Donations in Horne's memory, in lieu of flowers, are requested to be sent directly to his widow and family, who will otherwise have no way to support themselves. For those who would like to do more to honor his memory, the family requests you attend a little rally with a store-bought sign exclaiming how much you support the troops.

loud and proud Southern California rocked the American Lung Association’s annual list of American cities with the worst air pollution yet again in 2004, with the region bringing home seven of the top ten slots in the report. Despite stiff competition from such air-polluting powerhouses as Houston, Texas and Detroit, Michigan, area residents insist their confidence never faltered that So. Cal would once again bring home the gold.

“Booya, bitch!� gloated local resident Tyrell Dipps between coughing fits. “Smog!�

Area residents were so confident that California would dominate the competition, in fact, that most of the anticipation leading up to the study concerned which part of Southern California would out-pollute all others, a matter of considerable local pride. Emotions ran high in the weeks leading up to the report’s publication, as area residents waged a war of words in this yearly competition between the various So. Cal regions, each hoping to take home the ALA’s “Black Lung� trophy for having the nation’s foulest, most unbreathable air.

“Bakersfield can suck my dick with their pansy air, man! You come down here you gonna get asthma, baby!� enthused Los Angeles resident Hector Villanova, while idling three cars simultaneously on his lawn.

Residents of the air-polluting upstart Bakersfield region relish their underdog status, dreaming of one day knocking Los Angeles off of its hazy brown perch in the national rankings.

“L.A.’s time has come and gone, man,� insisted Bakersfield resident Arlo Vipatna, reclining in a parka with his home’s air conditioning unit running full tilt. “Ain’t no way they gonna hold Bakersfield back, not with all them movie stars they got driving those little electric fag cars down there and shit.�

“Damn right,� agreed Arlo’s brother Uday, feeding from a disturbingly large bowl of chili. “I got your greenhouse gasses right here, yo.�

Numerous other Bakersfield residents were caught up in the excitement as well, spraying aerosol cans into the sky and setting fire to piles of tires in between bouts of wheezing and frequent breaks to sit down for a while.

When the rankings were finally released, Los Angeles was a familiar sight at the top of the list, with the surprise dark horse region of Visalia-Porterville sneaking in at number two. A clearly stunned Bakersfield ranked third, slightly ahead of Fresno, who didn’t know there was a contest and just has really shitty air. Houston, Texas was the lone top-five entrant from the other 49 states; a slot some think was wasted on them since Texans don’t believe in air pollution. The California cities of Merced, Sacramento and Hanford rounded out the top ten with Knoxville Tennessee and Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, the last two Southern cities likely having some kind of BBQ cook-off the week the air quality measurements were taken.

American Lung Association officials assure the commune they plan to check in on Texas and Tennessee soon to make sure neither of the states is currently on fire, since the aberrant presence of non-Californian cities in the list’s top fifteen likely points to some kind of catastrophic Southern brushfire no one from any more-newsworthy states has yet noticed.

I don't know why everybody expects me to know everything around here. "Omar, what's your car doing parked in my office?" "Omar, who the fuck hired Menudo to tile the break room?" "Omar, what ever happened to that Japanese woman you had living in your house?" What am I, Google? Get your lazy ass over to the library and look it up yourself, Curious George. AskOmar.com don't run for free and when I charge, I charge in pain.

I have to admit though; the "Japanese woman" question did get me thinking. I seem to remember something like that, some kind of foreign squatter in the Bricks Manor a little while back. At first I thought I must be remembering some lame sitcom, but according to resident prick Orson Welch, The Jap of Luxury went off the air years ago.

I definitely remember the house smelling like soy sauce a lot last year, and a quick peek into the compost heap outside shows strong evidence that there was a lot of chop-sticking going on around here during the same time period. So it certainly looks like this place was all Japped up for a good couple months last year. Weird.

I decided to hit the Internet for a little research, which mostly turned up strange cartoon pornography that's likely going to screw up my Saturday mornings for the next few years. But the most useful info came from the commune itself (no shit, we're on the Internet now) in the form of my own Polio columns from last fall. That was really a trip; I was wondering how in the hell people got to our site. Turns out all you have to do is search for "Japanese cat-piss cornhole" and you're there.

So now with that confusion out of the way, I'm faced with a question: What in the hell happened to my Asian live-in cohort? Jesus, you turn around for nine months and these people disappear on you, it's insane.

The last thing I remember, we were teamed up in this rickshaw polo tournament I had organized for charity. Osaka had been building up some serious skills carting me around town during those carless days, and I was getting pretty sharp at not eating shit out the back on sharp turns, so I figured we should put those skills to use for a good cause. There was some static about a school for training immigrants to pull Omar Bricks around town like a dogsled team not being a real charity, but those whiners were weeded out pretty fast and most of them had some pretty sad sack rickshaw-pullers anyway, to say the least. Mostly scrawny neighborhood kids or hookers trying to get off the street, Osaka and I would have poloed circles around them without either of us breaking a sweat.

In retrospect I wouldn't have minded if those guys stayed on, because the poloers who did stick around were a pretty rough bunch who favored a brand of full-contact rickshaw polo that wasn't for the faint of heart. I really felt sorry for anyone who parked their car on Brown Street that day, that's all you need to know.

In the end nobody there could match the skills Osaka and I brought to the arena, but they didn't need to since we flipped the 'shaw while popping a wheelie on the victory lap after I'd scored our first goal. Needless to say the rickshaw was destroyed, which Osaka probably wasn't too thrilled about since she'd paid for it and I'd talked her into getting one of the nice ones, really the Mercedes-Benz of rickshaws, it had a mini-fridge and a doorbell and everything. After the crash there was rickshaw shit all over the street, a stray dog even made off with the portable DVD player. It was a sad scene, especially for me, because I was right in the middle of Rollerball when it happened. I still don't know how that movie ends.

Come to think of it, I don't remember seeing Osaka after the crash, she may have given up on America or been kidnapped by the Triads for all I know. Hell, she could still be at the bottom of that pile of rickshaw rubble, but I bet they've cleaned that up by now. I probably could have stuck around and found out for sure, but the cops were on their way and we only had about ten minutes to make the half-off beers at Runyon's, so nobody was exactly volunteering to hang around for casualty detail.

It's probably all worked out for the best, unless she died. In that case, Osaka, or whatever your real name was, I'll never forget you. Again. After this time, never again. So I'll only forget you once. Probably, can't promise anything. But if you are still around and have learned to read English by now, Foghat's been sleeping on a pile of your stuff, so if you want it back you'll have to talk to him. Bricks out.

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