report released Friday disclosed that savage viruses that shred most human flesh and destroy normal mortal bodies will not even mess with people on American soil. The study, researched at Bolchek University in Ames, Iowa, and financed by the American Family First organization, had been going on for more than five weeks when it made its findings public in Friday's press release.

The news comes as a great relief to weary earth-dwellers in the United States, as word came of a deadly Ebola-like virus continuing its rampage through Angola, some country most Americans aren't familiar with in Africa. The World Health Organization (WHO, sometimes known as the Teenage Wasteland Group) announced shortly before the Bolchek press release that 173 people in Angola have died from the virus known as Marburg, and four more non-U.S. countries have been placed on the warning list.

News media assured American citizens the country will be alright, since they have something of a track record for surviving problems without U.S. intervention, and have even survived some caused by them.

The Bolchek study findings, however, provided a large relief from worry about viral invasions by other dangerous contagions such as Marberg and Ebola, including CCHF, Dengue, SARS, Lassa fever, and the Kinks. According to research, done in Bolchek's famous $3 million Sid Caesar Facility, virus cells, when given the choice between healthy cells of different nationalities, will always shy away from American DNA.

"It's totally awesome," said project head, 18-year-old super-genius Nills Van Raftan. "We stumbled on it a bit by accident. We were testing the effect of Ebola on the blood cells of African mice—since we wanted to save the American mice for better experiments—when one of the team members had a nosebleed and accidentally contaminated the sample. Imagine our surprise when we saw the Ebola contagions were scared shitless of messing with the American cells. And who can blame 'em?"

If the results are verified, and frankly nobody's doubting the outcome of a second test much, it answers a great number of questions for the world's nerdy virus-following community. Such as why have SARS and Mad Cow and other disease variants been too chickenshit to mess with the U.S. of A.?

"For any number of reasons," posited spindly weakling Van Raftan, "virus cells simply will not infect American cells, at least those of the United States. It could be because U.S. cells don't brook backtalk from foreign viruses. But, if my personification of American cells is way off, it might also be because viruses know that if they mess with American cells, they're risking a massive investment of money in destroying their asses. They can work their way through Africa, Asia, and even Eastern Europe for years, and we'll leave them alone—but first time they start infecting Americans on American soil, they're on our list. Companies even drop all the new dick pill technology they're working on and concentrate on the hot new market for pharmaceuticals to keep Americans healthier than foreigners."

When asked about AIDS, a virus long plaguing even American citizens, Van Raftan made a squeal, smiled sheepishly with his braces on display, and shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe some viruses are retarded. But it does give us something to work on when we get frustrated with erection research."

n the wake of the pope’s alleged death last week, the Vatican has released John Paul II’s will and personal diary to the media. Among the juicy tidbits revealed with the publication of the papal diary was the 84-year-old man’s dying wish that the bloodthirsty media would please, please, please keep their grubby mitts off his motherloving diary.

Published in newspapers, and on websites and Happy Meal boxes around the globe in over 90 languages, Catholics and heathens alike thrilled to the pope’s private inner thoughts and the great man’s eloquent musings this week, drinking in the pope’s thoughts on the nature of privacy and his joy at having this one small respite from a life lived on such a public stage.

Hounded all his life by an overzealous media desperate to know what made the pope tick, John Paul II poured his thoughts into the small, leather-bound volume in a scrawl that some have called “Pope-script.� Among the nuggets revealed with the diary’s publication are the details of the pope’s third-grade crush on Margo Holzarian from the Ukraine, and his strange, life-long fascination with American actress Mariel Hemmingway.

“Thank God no one is ever going to read this diary,� the Pope wrote in one of his last entries, dated March 2005. “It is only through this precious cove of privacy that I cling to my very humanity.� According to various sources, the pope misspelled “humanity� in the original text, but newspaper editors have universally agreed that it is highly unlikely the pope was clinging to a humanatee.

Many readers have been especially touched by the earliest entries in the diary, which date back to the pope’s youth.

“Dear diary: Man, being the pope is hard. I miss my mom and dad, and sometimes I just want to go home. Everybody says I’ll get over it though, once I make some new friends. Well, gotta go. Love, The Pope.�

Some less-scholarly Catholics have been equally surprised to learn that John Paul II was referred to as “the pope� even as a small boy, which made for several humorous anecdotes about grade school roll-call.

Garnering somewhat less attention has been the publication of John Paul II’s last will and testament, which some Catholics awaited with great suspense over who would inherit the pope’s collection of pointy hats. In the end, however, it turned out that the pope’s will was written in Polish, so the Vatican instead handed out his belongings on a “first come, first serve� basis to the assembled masses.

“This is fucking awesome,� raved German tourist Himmel Blaus. “I got the pope’s toenail clippers and a pair of boxers with the dude’s initials on them!�

“I got the pope’s soap! The pope’s soap on a rope is dope!� shouted another ecstatic inheritor, dashing out of the room, apparently in a hurry to bathe.

Publishers worldwide are currently in negotiations for the hardcover publishing rights to the pope’s diary, though as of yet, none have thought to tap the gold mine that is the commune’s recent “Pope’s Diary Mad Libs� feature.

Okay, I've been accused by my screenwriting teacher of writing movie scripts without plots. This would be forgivable if I could work in some major special effects, or maybe the illusion of a really complicated plot (what they call "Matrixism" now in Hollywood) but apparently I can't do anything like that. My screenplay is a small indie movie, meaning that I only have three car chases and I'm casting actors nobody's ever heard of—besides myself.

My first screenplay was the shark thing, but I got tired of being laughed at every time I read the shark's lines in class—and I admit I didn't think much about it, how hard it's going to be casting a shark who can act. Then I changed him to a bear, but "never work with bears" is, like, Hollywood rule #5, so that didn't help it at all. Then I found out Paramount and Dreamworks are both working on their own underwater bear-attack movies, so I dumped that puppy quick.

Next Nancy suggested I work on something more autobiographical, which I thought meant about the life of my car, but apparently it's a fancy word for just writing what I did today. I'm thinking easy street! But it's a lot harder than it sounds.

Most of the scenes are like: "Fade in. I'm going to the store and shit, just to get hamburger meat because I'm sick of eating at fast food joints because the burger is 90% bun, which is just their way of ripping you off. I also bought a big jar of hamburger-sliced dill pickles, because I'll eat those fuckers like Pez. Anyway, I get to the store and the meat guy—what'cha call 'em? Butchers? He's giving me the eye real funny, because it looks like I'm wearing just a bra and underwear in the store, but it's really a swimsuit, and if it isn't, what the fuck, he can't tell. So I say: "Why don't you do a wall-carving, caveman? It'll last longer."

The script is really flying now. It's just like writing for the commune, because no one's editing me. I figure, 89 more pages of this and I'll have the summer's feel-good comedy all banged out. But I take in about 30 sample pages and, the way everybody looks while I'm reading it, you'd think I brought them Hitler's book. What did he call that? Mein Kampf and Musings. Everybody thinks it's all over the place and not going anywhere in particular—like how I drive. That kind of crack is real personal, and upset me bad, but they had a point about the screenplay. I might watch a movie about me flirting with a mechanic to get out of paying for an oil change job, but you make it somebody not me and I'm walking out.

So Nancy introduced me to plot points. If you can point to a script in a couple places and say, "There, that must be the plot," then that means you've got a plot. You should be able to do it at least a couple of times. The first plot point is where you say, "Aw, shit, what's this asshole getting himself into?" Then the second plot point starts everything toward the resolution, or as the French say, the ending. It's when you can point at the screen and say, "Hey, asshole's got a plan to get out of this!" It's like the two plot points in a Scooby Doo episode are when the gang meets the old caretaker or whoever who tells them to stay away from the old amusement park. The second plot point is when Freddy comes up with the plan with the roller skates and beer barrel to catch the ghost. It's amazingly simple when you explain it in Scooby Doo terms, but that goes for just about everything.

I'm going to have to go back and fake a plot point in my script, and I'll see if that doesn't trick everybody into thinking it's good. If that doesn't work, I'll have to sketch out a new idea. It's a shame, though. I would've loved to act out that part in the script where I catch the drug dealer and break his arm for selling me cheap stuff. But fuck it, as the French say. Hollywood isn't ready for a true Coleman film yet.

º Last Column: Bumped Again!
º more columns