Readers, I send my well-considered words to you today from the windswept bow of the Orrin Hatch, one of the sturdier ships in my fleet, commissioned in 1987 at an agreeable price and assembled by the properly calloused hands of 230 Indonesian dockworkers—back when Suharto ran that country right. The crew and I are up here in the Bering Sea for the month of August, fleeing the increased likelihood of civil unrest that comes with late-summer heat in an underpoliced city like Seattle. We are also conducting a groundbreaking citizen-run experiment to debunk the claims of lost polar bears swimming aimlessly in these waters due to that laughable canard they call "global warming." As I transmit these very words to you—tapped out in Morse code to avoid the prying eyes of the Russians just across the strait and delivered by way of a telegraph key connected to a rotary satellite telephone that has an open line to Nancy, my lead cryptologist and dictation-taker—I can see one of these "poor" polar bears right off the starboard rail. He seems not in the least lost, and in fact appears quite in control of his directional faculties; for the better part of an hour, he has been avoiding all the best efforts of the Orrin Hatch to run him down. Conclusion: Another happy, healthy, swimming bear, and another blow for those shrieking "environmentalist" harpies.

But I depart from my purpose: a review of the draft pages that were delivered to me yesterday by the combined efforts of airplane, all-terrain vehicle, and, ultimately, one noble carrier falcon. Before I tore the pages up in disgust and tossed them into the pristine sea this morning—a most satisfying deployment of The Stranger, I must say—I scanned over the so-called ELECTION CONTROL BOARD's choices for the upcoming primary election. Upon seeing their support for the fascist bag tax and reading that the wise, battle-worn she-rhino Jan Drago had once again been snubbed (and, further disgrace, snubbed in favor of a bearded lady who rides an electric bicycle), I gave up on receiving even a single shred of worthy advice from these imbeciles. If you consider your vote a sacred exercise, I suggest you do the same.

Hoping for some sort of bright spot, I then unwisely turned to the feature story by SEAN NELSON. I was led to believe it was about football, but quickly came to learn that it was about soccer, which, as my good departed friend Jack Kemp once said on the floor of the U.S. Congress, is a socialist sport. He was speaking the unvarnished truth, and I would only add that, as the noble sportsman Tom Weir of USA Today has stated, "Hating soccer is more American than apple pie, driving a pickup, or spending Saturday afternoons channel surfing." Or, perhaps, chasing polar bears astride the tiller of the speedy Orrin Hatch, crossbow in hand, which I do have to get back to. Before I do, however, some last-minute kudos to MICHAELANGELO MATOS, whose argument in favor of shorter music albums is a great public service; my phonograph needles have been wearing out far too quickly of late. Thank you, kind sir. And now, Captain, leeward ho!