Author Richard Cahill's Website--Living By Our Motto:"There Are No Stupid Questions, Just Stupid People Asking Questions Everybody else already knows the answer to."

John Fleming, Tea Party Congressman from Lousiana, recently revealed in a television interview that he has barely enough money to feed his family, despite owning businesses worth an estimated 6.5 million dollars. The proposed minimum tax on millionaires would drive his wife and four adult children out on the street unfed, he claims, so that Americans can look forward not only to people holding signs proclaiming them to be homeless veterans at major intersections, but also at least four people holding signs that say "Starving Congressional Family—Please Help."

Naturally, the lamestream media, always willing to carry Obama's water, jumped all over the Congressman for claiming he was on the precipice of poverty. The Congressman defended himself ably, pointing out that his net profit from his ownership of several Subway and UPS franchises only amounts to $400,000 annually, after he feeds his family. The rest of the money goes for business expenses and to pay his 500 (sic) employees.

This reporter was satisfied with that explanation, but a spokesman for Fleming's office soon called, knowing he would find a sympathetic ear. This column's job is always to seek the truth, so the spokesman wasn't spared tough questions.

Isn't 500 employees a lot for a few Subway and UPS franchises?

"The Congressman believes in great service. When you want a copy of something or a delicious sandwich, you want it now. You point at that little dish of olives at his Subway store, wham! They're on the sandwich. You want mustard, you've got a previously unemployed veteran standing by with a mustard gun, with which, thanks to his service in the deadly hills of Afghanistan, he is a crack shot."

Doing a little math here. After the Congressman takes out his 400 large, that only leaves 6.1 million. Dividing that by 500, we find that the average pay for one of his employees is $12,200 per year. Do you offhand recall what the poverty line is in this country?

"No, and that's not the point. The point is that the Congressman is a job creator. If you're not making enough money at one of his jobs, you're free to get another one or two of them. Why not thank him, instead of engaging in class warfare? The Congressman is a firm believer in the principle that if you make a man a sandwich, you feed him for a day, especially if it's one of his double meat, double cheese sandwiches and you get a tasty, gooey, white chocolate chip cookie to go with it, but if you teach a man to make a sandwich, you'll feed him for a lifetime, as long as he gets a job in a UPS store, too."

Just to prove he's not one of those Dem libs, this reporter lobbed a softball question.

The Congressman has publicly proclaimed himself "virtuous" for his contributions to the economy. Do you agree?

"Mother Theresa's got nothin' on my man Fleming. What has she done lately for all those Americans out there who are working hard to raise their children and who dream that after their kids' educations are complete or they've served their country in battle those kids will be able to make sandwiches or copies for seven dollars an hour, thanks to the Congressman?"

What does the Congressman do with that 400 grand he's got left over after he's bought food for his family? And what about his $174,000 government salary?

"Congressman Fleming doesn't really know where all his money goes, like many Americans. He suspects he spends most of the $400,000 on gum and cigarettes. His congressional salary is swallowed up largely by purchases of beer and energy drinks. It takes a lot of energy to be a job creator."

That's what we need to call the Congressman now, instead of the pejorative "millionaire?"

"Exactly. Job creators are tired of being downtrodden. Like all other minorities, they dream of the day when the m-word, like the n-word of the f-word, will never be uttered in civilized conversation, and their rights will be accorded the same respect as the rights of any other proud American ethnicity or sexual preference. Especially their right to keep all their money."

The author, like all American males, aspires to eternal youthfulness. He was pretty good at deluding himself that he was succeeding in this regard until fairly recently. The best way to maintain a youthful attitude is to hang around with people who are a lot younger than you. In the past few years, however, the author has noticed that the people who are a lot younger than him are getting older. They still remember when Reagan was President, too, and are no better at texting or picking up references to video game characters or grading anime movies than he is.

The author also has a teenage child, which helps with the video game/anime issues, especially if he is willing to endure the impatience and scorn a teenager will serve up along with any information he might impart during a conversation with a parent, an activity most teenagers would rather be waterboarded than endure.

So when the author saw the commercial with man dancing by himself in Grand Central Station, to the puzzlement of passersby, then gets a message that the flash mob has been moved to 12:30, he had to consult a teenage source to find out exactly what a flash mob is. The author was tersely directed to You Tube, where the basics of flash mobbery were revealed to him.

You Tube at least has many videos which are entertaining. Flash mobs are often organized on Facebook, which is completely useless for purposes apart from flash mobbing and fomenting Arab revolutions. The author's "friends" on Facebook seem bent on impressing him with the banality of their existences by constantly posting the gnawing minutiae of their lives. The author is not going to get emotionally involved in someone's just having finished making fruit salad in New Jersey. He does not care that you are stuck in traffic in Delaware, information you can impart to him because you have the Facebook app on your iPhone. He does not care about anything that happens in Delaware, and neither should anybody else, in his opinion, even if they are stuck there.

You might as well post "The minutes of my life are ticking away, and I have no idea what to do with them."

Well, one thing you could do is organize a flash mob. Apparently some people organize flash crime sprees as well, which could be even more exhilarating. If you do, the author might want to be invited, even though both his dancing abilities and his talent at quickly departing a crime scene are limited. The quest for eternal youthfulness requires taking risks.

Another recent tech trend that interests the author is cell phone hackery. He has had several cell phones that he felt like hacking, and by that he means to bits. He once owned a Blackberry at the dual core of which was a silicon wafer of intransigent evil. That thing was a pocket-dialing monster. It would spontaneously dial the author's ex-girlfriends and say nothing. This resulted in the author being the victim of several bitter harangues from people he thought he had succeeded in avoiding forever. He was lucky to escape a restraining order.

The author eventually decided to go back to an old-school flip phone. It is impossible for this phone to pocket-dial. It's also next to impossible to text on it, which is good. The author does not text. The author does not approve of text-message English. He thinks it is illiterate, lazy and no doubt the future of the language. If you text him, he is going to call you back and ask you what you want.

Which brings us to Scarlett Johansson and her phone getting hacked and having naked pictures of herself all over the Internet. In the interests of justice, the author immediately went to Google to investigate upon hearing of this offense. The FBI is also investigating naked Scarlett, which must be a nice break from their regular routine for them.

The only nude pictures the author could find of Scarlett were her cover for Vanity Fair and a couple phone pics of the self portrait variety, which is were the subject holds the cell phone at arm's length or stands in front of  a mirror and takes a picture of the subject's self. Everyone has done this, including the author, but he always erases the picture immediately afterward, because he looks terrible when photographed in this matter, although it is a point of pride with him that he looks just as terrible clothed as unclothed.

Scarlett does not suffer from this problem. She can manage to look sultry for the camera even when the camera is her own cell phone. The FBI has not revealed the name of the original recipient of the picture, but he or she is hardly the first person to get a naked cell phone picture from someone who cares. The author was told by his teenage source that most burgeoning romances nowadays include an exchange of revealing cell phone pictures as part of the courtship ritual, pictures that say simply, as Scarlett no doubted wanted to say, "I'm naked, and I'm thinking of you."

Most of us would be happy to get a message like this from any attractive person of the gender to which we are drawn, but getting it from Scarlett Johanssen is like owning the Mona Lisa of naked cell phone pictures. Sure, you're going to display it. You're going to show it around town until eventually you show it to someone who knows how to hack a cell phone.

And today, you're in big trouble with Scarlett. No matter who you are, you are cut off.

The problem for you and Scarlett is that you guys flouted what the author likes to call The First Law of Nude Photography in the Digital Age, which states:

ALL NAKED PICTURES WILL EVENTUALLY END UP ON THE INTERNET

This law is retroactive to prehistory. Here's a URL for the original naked picture.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vulve_stylis%C3%A9e.JPG.

Click on it if you like. Put her on your cell phone, if you can figure out how. Sure, she's hot, but she ain't no Scarlett Johanssen.

Religious zealot and movie star Mel Gibson generated a storm of publicity for himself in the past week by announcing plans to make a movie about BC Jewish revolutionary Judah Maccabee.

Gibson, who belongs to a branch of the Catholic Church that considers being more Catholic than the Pope its mission statement and that looks back on the Jew-immolating Spanish Inquisition in a manner that can best be described as wistful, and who is only usually a few cocktails away from bursting into anti-Semitic obscenities himself, was roundly criticized for his presumption for planning to cast himself as a Hebrew hero.

Immediately his fellow movie stars noticed that Gibson had managed to get headlines all over the country without getting drunk or arrested again and jumped on the anti-type-casting bandwagon.

Voluptuous dunderhead Megan Fox announced she was being cast as turn -of-the-last-century French scientist Marie Curie. In a press release that offered details on her lifelong desire to play the discoverer of radioactivity, she said of Curie, "Everyone knows she invented radium, which made radio possible. Before Curie,  people had just iPods and CD's to listen to while they were driving their cars."

Charlie Sheen sees himself as a natural to play the chaste and humble Saint Francis of Assisi. "What people don't realize about SF of A was that his nickname was also The Torpedo of Truth," he said. "I even had that haircut once," he continued. "The Goddesses were trying to give me a trim in between taking hits off a crack nugget the size of a waffle-maker, and I ended up shaved everywhere except a ring around my noggin. And I mean everywhere. Wanna see?"

Lindsey Lohan was overheard negotiating bail to she could start work on a portrayal of saloon busting Prohibitionist Carrie Nation.  Matt Damon is dropping his Bourne identity in favor of the Buddha's, shaving his head and gulping pizza as fast as he can in order to gain sixty pounds to play the roly-poly holy man.

Meanwhile Steven Spielberg,  whose Hollywood legend is already cemented, announced perhaps his most ambitious project ever, a remake of The Ten Commandments, with the role of Moses being performed by avowed atheist Penn Jillette, a digitally enhanced Danny deVito as Goliath and Justin Bieber as Job.

Amid a solid stream of bad news for President Obama comes the unwelcome revelation that he has now won the war in Libya, routing despised international despot and Lockerbie terrorist Moammar Gaddafi and allowing the Libyan people a chance to determine their own future while sustaining no American casualties and spending a minimum of American dollars.

"An unqualified disaster," was a Republican Party spokesman's assessment of America's impending low-cost military victory on behalf of freedom-seeking Libyans. "More proof that Obama doesn't believe in American exceptionalism. He actually waited until the Libyans were screaming for military assistance before mobilizing NATO. Waiting until people begged for help to keep a heartless dictator from murdering them, instead of assuming they loved the US automatically and sending in the tanks without being invited, clearly shows how weak America has become under this President.

"If Obama really believed in America, he would have sent troops in without being asked, like we did in Iraq, and expected people to throw flowers at them. Of course in Iraq they started an eight-year insurgency instead, but that was their idea, not ours. What Obama did shows a total lack of American hubris, and Americans love their hubris.  Besides, is anybody throwing flowers yet?"

It's tough to throw flowers at airplanes. Isn't the fact that Gaddafi is spider-hole shopping in the Libyan desert a victory for America?

"Sure, if you just count the fact that his oppressive regime was defeated handily by the US and our allies. But let's look at the big picture. Not a single American life was lost in the Libyan conflict, just like that last war the Democrats had, in Kosovo. Nobody even remembers that one. Running a war without a lot of bloody miscalculation means it's over before the next election. We Republicans learned our lesson there after Bush Sr. beat Saddam Hussein like a gong and lost the election anyway. No more short wars, says the GOP. Too bad those Dems won't learn the lessons of history."

Wasn't the fact that Obama didn't have to throw together a makeshift "coalition of the willing" to conceal the fact that America was essentially going it alone, and  used an existing military alliance, NATO, whose French and British services performed most of the actual combat sorties, in a clear demonstration of internationalism, a diplomatic and military triumph?

"What have you been inhaling? Americans hate internationalism, especially when it involves helping the French to their first undisputed military victory since the eighteenth century. America doesn't need anybody's help to win wars. Obama will pay for not letting us crush Gaddafi on our own come 2012."

Are you sure the American voters will completely forget Obama has the scalps of both Gaddafi and bin Laden hanging from his belt in 2012?

"Oh, he'll probably try to remind them. Maybe he can stand on an aircraft carrier. How do you say 'Mission Accomplished' in French?"

Last thing puppy saw




In this column's celebrity news division I have to note a lawsuit being served on Steven Seagal, who is accused by plaintiff Jesus Llovera of arriving at his (Llovera's) home in a heavily-armored police vehicle and dispatching his young dog's soul to that big newspaper-lined box in the sky by shooting it.

Llovera was raided by the Maricopa County Sheriff's department because he was suspected of running a cockfighting ring. Over one hundred suspected chickens also died in the raid. Segal took part in the raid because it was being filmed for his reality TV show, "Steven Seagal—Lawman," in which he dons the uniform of Maricopa County, Arizona and teams up with fellow celebrity bully Joe "Sheriff Joe" Arpaio to introduce mostly Hispanic citizens of the greater Phoenix area to a world of pain.

The action figure/martial arts master/silly little pony-tail sporting Seagal denied shooting the juvenile dog before lawyering up and refusing to make any further comment. The show, in which the deputy sheriff/wooden-faced performer/black-belt sporting actor gears up in macho police wear every episode (instead of the black pajamas he's favored in some of his films) and faces off  against frightened immigrants, has not made public any raw tapes in which Seagal can be seen shooting puppies with the semi-automatic weapons he regularly carries on the program.

In defense of Seagal, it must be admitted that some puppies are born bad. This late puppy was eleven months old, often a turbulent age for a young dog, so it wasn't just a cute ball of fluff. It was a cute ball of fluff that might have been capable of putting its paws on your chest and licking your face, depending on the breed. The most important detail to my mind, however, was the presence of the one hundred now deceased fighting cocks.

A snarling, juvenile delinquent dog is one thing, but a vicious misanthropic puppy with a hundred killer chickens in its posse opens up a whole new dimension of threat. This I know because I once was matched up with a single homicidal rooster and although I survived, I remember the details of those dangerous moments well. The account that follows is by no means fictional.

The chicken in question belonged to a man who had been living with my then-girlfriend's daughter on his small farm in Maryland. Their relationship had foundered,  partially on issues of fidelity and partially on issues of chicken. The bird had attacked the woman in question, as it would attack any person or beast that ventured onto whatever the evil unit of poultry considered its territory. It had jumped a seven-year-old girl and a grizzled hunting dog and driven them both from the field of battle. Its owner, in an attempt to save his relationship, had shot the fowl once with a .22, but the shooting hadn't had much effect on the bird's health. It merely disappeared for a few days and then returned, as strong and irascible as ever.

I was enlisted to help move the young woman's belongings from his home. "Watch out for the chicken," were the homeowner's final words as he left us to our emotionally charged task.

The move proceeded as moves usually do, long minutes of hauling, carrying and scraping furniture against doorways, followed by the discovery of a box of old photos and a half-hour break devoted to examining them. It wasn't until late in the afternoon that the chicken was first spotted, hovering on a far corner of the property, but eyeing the moving party balefully. It was a big bird, estimated by impartial observers to be about twelve pounds of implacable hatred. It hopped towards us on one leg,  reaching out with the other to stab towards us with its free claw, an attack move that, were it to be given a martial arts name, might be called the Drumstick of Doom.

I assure you it is far more frightening to experience a chicken attack in person than to merely read about it on paper. That's why I try not to judge my fellow movers too harshly, for withdrawing the loading ramp and retreating into the safe interior of the U-Haul truck we had rented for the task. I turned to find myself alone on the grassy plain of destiny, a single knight on the wrong side of the moat and headed for a smackdown with the dragon. The rooster made a direct approach, coming towards me with its slashing talon upraised. It was at the last desperate moment that I spotted a plastic shovel that had fallen from one of the boxes. It was more than a sand shovel but less than an adult tool, about two feet long with a wooden barrel and a plastic blade and handle. Grasping it, I gave a two-handed swing right at the vicious fowl's beak, drawing blood.

The bird did not retreat, as I might have expected from a conscienceless avian that had already survived a bullet wound. It came after me again, seeking my blood with its remorseless claw. I swung the shovel beakward one more time, causing more hemorrhaging from the animal's face. My second blow with the Plastic Shovel of Pain started the chicken retreating, but it returned to wandering in the background with an expression on its bloodied face that made all of us careful not to turn our backs too long on the vicious bird while we finished up the move.

So I don't blame the fat-faced/B-movie-starring/steroid-user-looking Seagal for playing his hand against the Llovera criminal menagerie from the safety of a tank. If I had been trying to defend myself against a hundred homicidal chickens with my puny weapon, surely my bones would have long since whitened in the killing field of that Maryland barnyard. Since Seagal is no doubt going to have to low-profile the tank on future episodes of his show, he will have to face down his next poultry flock bent on manslaughter in the open.

If he wants, he can have my shovel.

It probably started with the Jack-in-the-Box Ultimate Cheeseburger. I'm sure there were massive, meaty, cheesy burgers served before the Ultimate, but the Ultimate is the first one I can recall being mass-marketed to emphasize its wanton formulation. Meat, cheese and sizzling fat-that's what it was, and is, all about, served in a soft white bun designed to trap and hold all that scrumptious grease for the taste buds. Never mind the tomatoes, onions or pickles—all that nasty, Vitamin C containing stuff was not an option on the Ultimate.

You got it one way, the delicious, cholesterol-soaked way it was designed. Eventually, the people at Jack decided you could get something added to its gigantic burger.

That something was bacon.

Naturally, in the true spirit of free enterprise, all the national burger chains rushed in with massive artery-stoppers of their own and the American nation had to let out its belt a couple notches to consume them. They didn't stop at burgers, either. Denny's offers the Fried Grilled Cheese Sandwich, which consists of three deep-fried mozzarella fingers covered by cheese slices and grilled in some kind of lard, and a macaroni and cheese embellished patty melt.

The above examples aren't just careless dining. They're slut food. Food without any self-respect. Food that invites you to cheat, to wallow in your mindless lust for fat grams.

Not all self-indulgent dishes can be described this way. Huge rare hunks of prime rib, pasta laden with shrimp and Parmesan, New York cheesecakes…these are all delicacies that pack enough calories to put weight on a poltergeist, but they demand to be enjoyed in their proper setting; a dignified steakhouse, an Italian café, served off a doily in a deli. Like an expensive mistress or a call girl with an all celebrity client list, they tempt, but they also demand respect.

Not so the Wendy's Triple Baconator. It's the platinum blonde with her roots showing, wearing fishnet stockings, and sitting by herself at the bar as the clock ticks towards midnight. The question of availability has already been settled.

Likewise, even fast food doesn't have to be consumed at the expense of one's self-respect. Eating a cheesesteak in Philladelphia or a carne asada burrito in San Diego, despite either item's questionable nutritional value, is merely paying tribute to local traditions. You're consuming a massive foodstuff that would satisfy a South Philly stevedore or a Moonlight Beach surfer after a hard morning's effort. They're like the neighborhood girl who's been around the block an extra time or two, but who knows way too much about you for you to risk badmouthing her.

But when you go for the Carne Asada Fries, a bed of deep-fried spuds embellished with cheap meat amid a torrential glopping of cheese and sour cream, you can say anything about them you want. They're the rookie pole dancer at a cheap strip joint where the mildewed carpet was twenty-one years old before you were. Sneer away in spite of the fact that you're sneering at yourself as well. Succumbing to your own insecurities. Admitting you don't think you're good enough for that filet soft as butter, served with baby potatoes and fresh asparagus. Or the rigid self-discipline of a perfectly arranged sushi platter. You don't have the nerve to do more than gawk at a beautiful dish that's secure in its appeal before you make your move for a trailer-trash plate of Bacon Cheddar Cheese Wings.

Go ahead. Promiscuous food doesn't care what other food you've been eating. You can drunk-dial Domino's late at night and ask for  a Meat Lover's Special with extra cheese and they'll run right over, just like that ex-girlfriend who, for some reason known only to her and God, never got over you. And now you're thinking maybe she can pick up the pizza on the way and save you the tip money.  Booty call plus belly call. You're disgusting. You deserve every particle of the shame you'll feel tomorrow.

You know you like being around food that has been around. You're content that it's just like all the other greasy burgers and three-pound burritos out there. Slut food knows you and your friends talk about it behind its back. Joke about it. Make crude comments about the things you've done to it, and the things it's done to you. Doesn't matter. It's the glory hole of American eating. It's there when you want it.

You just don't want to be seen with it.