Kansas City News Blog

By CHRIS PACKHAM

I'm sorry that sombrero-wearing Mexican banditos broke into your office and stole your job. As a symbol of manufactured sympathy, I bought you this condolence card designed by illegal Mexican immigrants at Hallmark:

Now that Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt has signed an immigration bill into law requiring proof of citizenship for public benefits, including food stamps and housing, and mandating English-only commercial driver's license tests, maybe white America will once again be welcome down at the day labor office.

It's worth pointing out that where terrified bigots see a burgeoning population of criminals, even Kansas City's venerable Hallmark corporation sees a new market to expand its reach in indifferent expressions of sentiment for unimaginative people. After the jump, new race-based opportunities for revenue growth. Click here, or on this adorable Precious Moments card expressing our deepest sorrow on the occasion of the deportation of your wife:

Codebreaking: For a while, my lap-band surgery was working out really well. I was eating less, feeling full more quickly and losing a lot of weight. Naturally, seeing the world through the sexy, fat-free eyes of a person with a low body-mass index, I was enjoying more of Kansas City's night life. It's like a whole different world when your stomach doesn't hang below your shirt, catching all the food that drops out of your mouth and consequently attracting flies. What with all that salsa, buffalo sauce and chocolate syrup, I probably never would have had a social life if it weren't for my unbelievably powerful charisma and magnetic pheromones. Take it from your old pal, the sexxxy field of molecular biology: The ladies loves the pheromones.

Unfortunately, my clothes were now three sizes too large, and I had some concerns about adhering to the strict dress code at Kansas City's Power ampersand Light District, which specifically prohibits baggy clothing. Plus, my doctor says I have to wear Med-Alert jewelry to notify the paramedics about my color blindness — if I'm in a diabetic coma, how are they supposed to know? But I hate that ugly-ass Med-Alert jewelry, so I just bought a bunch of gold from CashAmerica Pawn and had it engraved with the words COLOR-BLIND and also RESUSCITATE IMMEDIATELY in case they thought I didn't want to be resuscitated. How'd all that work out? Unfortunately, when I tried to enter the District, Kevin Collison and Joyce Smith from The Kansas City Star were watching the entrances while working on this story, and the doormen were on their best egalitarian behavior. "I'm sorry, sir," the guard said to me, "but you're in violation of our dress code."

"BUT I'M WHITE!" I remember shouting, then, "ATTICA! ATTICA!" And then I passed out, because I'm supposed to inject myself with insulin before I drink a bunch of Red Bull. Long story short, while I was in the hospital, they had to remove the lap-band because there was a clog in the saline port, which turned out to be a bean which I'd somehow managed to get stuck in there (see diagram below).

Anyway, now it's back to Jenny Craig and doing step aerobics at Curves.

Bibley News Bureau: If I haven't mentioned it before, the KCTV Channel 5 news writers are the worst. I can't really explain why I'm so annoyed that a man in this story is referred to three times as "the Good Samaritan," other than that I hate the Bible. Not because I don't like Christianity; I just hate books and reading because the bulls were always trying to make us read fancy-pants Thomas Pynchon and Jacques "Stupid" Derrida back when I was in juvie, and I also have a hard and fast rule that I'll only deploy Bible-based cliches one time per story. "The Good Samaritan saw what was happening, and even though the man turned the gun on him, the Good Samaritan fought him off and chased him away." That one sentence is absolutely the best at being the worst. And I'm totally grateful that the kid in the story didn't get snatched, so don't even start with me, you guys.