By CHRIS PACKHAM

While we're on the subject, Micheal Mahoney is cool as Kim Deal: Ruth Bates, a city employee who filed an EEOC complaint alleging that Mayor Mark Funkhouser's wife, Gloria Squitiro, referred to her as "mammy" at the office, has been fired from her job at City Hall. CLASSY! That's really the best way of handling it, if you are aiming for ham-fisted, clumsy racial insensitivity. First of all, do I believe it's possible that a woman who determines that a detailed story about her high-profile husband's rectal exam constitutes an appropriate holiday letter would also apply a racially charged term to one of his employees? It doesn't exactly leave unsightly stretch-marks on plausibility's sexy bare midriff. There's something wrong with Gloria Squitiro's sense of judgment -- it doesn't work right, like Wilford Brimley's pancreas. Can your sense of propriety get the diabetes? Also, I remember once when I was five years old, my dad sat me on his knee and said, "Son, you can't just fire all your embarrassing problems." Mayor Mark Funkhouser, you may have fired Ruth Bates, but weren't you really just trying to fire... your heart?

Goddamn Show Has Local Connection: Yael T. Abouhalkah has managed to overcome his brief bout of cynicism and has really gotten into the excitement of American Idol, a show I still haven't seen. Watching Simon Cowell act like a bitch just doesn't sound like a testosteronal way to spend an evening. It's just like "Cats in the Cradle": There were protein shakes to drink and heavy weights to clean-and-split-jerk, and Yael T. Abouhalkah grew up while I was away. I actually did spend a few minutes trying to make that rhyme, or to make more sense, and then I said to myself: "Chris, you're writing poetry like a little girl. You may as well be enjoying a sit-down pee, or screaming for David Cook." Yael gets a pass because he has a daughter at home who probably likes the show, and watching American Idol may be a dad-type responsibility.

Barack Obama wants to talk to people from all America-hating walks of life: Barry Obama says two-fisted maverick Bush-bot Manchurian war hero John McCain is ascared of talking to enemies of the United States such as Iran and Mordor. He actually, literally said that. It's so weird! I mean, because Obama is a Democrat and everything, and what I know about Democrats is that they are "flip-floppers" and they never say anything mean or tough-sounding. Democrats wear neat little aprons and have tiny petal-soft hands that smell like lilacs and rosewater. I almost didn't vote for John Kerry because he started campaigning in a "regular guy" costume that consisted of bad 1980s blue jeans and a tucked-in denim shirt. Seriously, it was enough to make me consider pulling the elephant lever. If there's one thing I'm sure about, it's that Barry Obama will never embarrass the party by wearing John Kerry's "regular guy" outfit. It must be completely bewildering to Republicans to be running against such an aggressively non-embarrassing Democrat.