January 2003
"A Chip Off The Old Blockhead, Part II" or "Welcome to Jail Block 5! You MY Bitch, Now!"

December 2002
"What a Card(-Carrying Member)!" or "Wayne, We Hardly Knew Ya"

November 2002
"A Fool and His Flesh Are Soon Parted" or "How Much is That Doggy in the Jail House?"

October 2002
"I Am Woman Here Me Roar" or "The Declaration of Independence (from Sanity)"

September 2002
"Guns and Moses" or "Ben Hur-d, but He Won't Remember"

August 2002
"A Chip Off The Old Blockhead" or "My Dad Went to a Gun Show and All He Brought Back For Me Was This Stupid Sucking Chest Wound"

July 2002
"Family Matters" or "Is That A Loaded Gun In Your Pants or Are You Just Happy to See Me?"

June 2002
"Field and Scream" or "This Little Piggy Went To the Emergency Room"

May 2002
"Holy Packin' Joseph Smith" or "Mormons, Start Your Weapons"

THE STORY OF THE MONTH

"Mary, Mary, Why You Buggin'" or "Knock, Knock. Who's There? ALOTTa Fagina."

by Mike Magnum

February 2003

So, last week I'm sitting out back of the Liquor Emporium, gnawing on some jerky and shooting the shit and a couple of empty beer cans with the guys, when one of them pipes up and says, "Hey, did you hear that John Lott pretends to be a woman."

If you're ever at the State Fair and see a jerky spittin' contest, sign me up, 'cause that piece of dried meat participated in a spit-take and shot out of my mouth like greased rounds from an M-60.

Word on the street (and in Slate, Washington Post, US News and WorldNetDaily) is that Lott, the fearless leader of gun-loving statisticians everywhere and author of the controversial and questionable "More Guns, Less Crime," is spending time in chat rooms pretending to be a former student.

And not just any student, but a student who gushes over her former teacher and fights off all those who would seek to malign poor Lott's name. "I have to say that he was the best professor that I ever had," Rosh said in a post in November 2001. "There were a group of us students who would try to take any class that he taught. Lott finally had to tell us that it was best for us to try and take classes from other professors more to be exposed to other ways of teaching graduate material."

Isn't that just heart-warming? The older professor, chuckling softly under his breath, tenderly encouraging his fans to seek greater knowledge.

Um, no! Sorry. Not a warmed cockle in the joint.

It's actually really disgusting, when you think about it, this grown man pretending to be a young woman because he's too chicken to defend himself. Or, maybe he likes it.

There have been plenty of famous people who played the role of women -- Milton Berle, Flip Wilson, Monty Python, J. Edgar Hoover -- some with comic effect, some without.

Perhaps Lott liked playing Mary Rosh so much he even acted out his role, wearing gender-appropriate clothes and effecting an effeminate tone to his voice while he typed such lovely thoughts as this: "When I took a class from him at the Wharton School of Business in the early 1990s he was even then considered one of the young stars in the profession."

Aw, "young stars." How humble and sweet of her/him to say.

Not! It's just sad and it's an image I don’t want anymore. You can have it. And you can have John Lott, too. He's lost all credibility with this gun crowd.

As my Pa used to say, "Being a man can be tough, especially if you're a woman."

- Mike