ccompanied with shock and outrage expressed by nampy-pamby New Age P.C. thugs across the country, the world learned last week of a group of ambitious and driven Northbrook, Illinois high school girls who take a genuine interest in school spirit and extra-curricular activities.

The "powderpuff football" game held Sunday, May 4, took on a decidedly un-powderpuff nature when the senior girls corralled the juniors into a group and began to splatter them with mud and human feces as part of a friendly hazing tradition. How they knew it was human feces and who identified it was not available information and asking the question only brought angry scowls from Cook County officials.

All girls involved reportedly knew the game would involve a hazing of the future seniors, but crybaby juniors alleged they had no idea the level of cruelty would be so high. Apparently kids today only know about initiation what they see on family-friendly high school shows like Seventh Heaven or something. This reporter would suggest girls on their way to a future initiation view fine hazing films like Full Metal Jacket or A Few Good Men. All in all, a typical end-of-school ritual gets a few more bruises and broken bones than planned, but anyone worried about our teens being slackers who let the future of America dribble down their legs while they watch Seventh Heaven found the news of the harsh initiation quite refreshing.

But the reaction of the PTA-whipped local school board and county officials? Criminal charges have been promised for the outgoing seniors involved in the incident. One group, however, has not lost perspective on the incident: Former Glenbrook North High School alumni.

"Sure, everybody knew what happened the last week of school," said Mitzi Burbank, class of 1993 and president of the Glenbrook North High reunion committee. "But everyone looked forward to it, like a rite of passage. Well, the juniors didn't. But they looked forward to it when they were seniors, the year after. It was tradition, and it was just so incredibly important to the students. Well, the seniors."

Class of 1995 Glenbrook North graduate Cindy DeSousa agreed.

"Oh, yeah, it was hell getting through it. I don't think we had any feces involved when I went through 'the gauntlet'… l'see, eggs, whipped cream, silly string—no, I think they missed the feces. But it sounds like a real sharp idea. Those girls really wanted to stand out from past classes!"

Other graduates, while admiring the girls' severe hazing, aren't admiring the incident's severity. Like Sue Gorton, class of 1955.

"I suppose it was bad, by today's standards," said Gorton, "but we had real wars and bloodshed back then, too. Hell, I know three or four juniors who didn't make it to senior year after their initiation—two went missing and one had a severe head injury that kept her in a coma until Woodstock. And we didn't just limit it to incoming senior girls either. We would haze some of the black students as well. They didn't go to our school, but that didn't mean we couldn't haze them."

Current Glenbrook North student and Class Treasurer Taylor Wick expressed support for the hazing as well.

"It's important to the social order to keep the hazing alive. If we don't have traditions to mark the change from underclass to ruling class, then it all starts to fall apart. Pretty soon people wouldn't even care what part of town you live in or what kind of clothes you're wearing. You know what they call that? Anarchy."

ollowing Tuesday's announcement by Elton John that he and Bernie Taupin would collaborate on a Broadway musical based on Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire books, it was universally realized that a Broadway musical could be based on anything, no matter how stupid the idea. The notion, first proposed by the Broadway versions of Beauty & the Beast and The Lion King, inspired longtime commune reporter Ted Ted to announce Saturday he would create a musical based on the 1999 film The Blair Witch Project.

The Blair Witch Project, a documentary-style horror film featuring three Burkittsville, Maryland students' frightening encounter with a terrifying local legend, did not seem like an especially good musical show to Ted Ted, who was insistent on proving his point that people going to Broadway will sit through anything. Though not yet completed or started, the musical is in what Ted Ted describes as the "brainstorming" pre-production period, where he thinks of how to break up the movie into a two-act show and comes up with some dumb songs based on incidents in the movie.

Early work points to inclusion of a title song, sung by the Blair Witch character who does not appear in the original film, tentatively titled, "I'm the Blair Witch!" The song will be in the vein of the "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" song from the good cartoon version of the Dr. Seuss How the Grinch Stole Christmas and not the pitiful Ron Howard/Jim Carrey movie version.

Also being considered for the Blair Witch Broadway play is a song for the scene where two of the young filmmakers are searching for their friend, which will probably be called simply, "Josh!" and be very much in the tradition of South Pacific or something really gay like that. Plans are also being developed for a long, sonorous ballad titled something like, "I'm So Scared" to be belted out by the lead female character.

The musical will probably not be very good, promised Ted Ted, but it will sell out instantly and run for a very long time on Broadway due to Ted Ted's plan to cast has-beens or one-hit musical wonders in the lead roles. Initially being considered for the three roles are Debbie Gibson, Jordan Knight, and Jesse Camp. Not being ruled out is the idea of inviting the three has-beens from the original film to reprise their roles in the Broadway show.

"The idea stems," explained Ted Ted, "from my deep, unrelenting contempt for Broadway and the shallow shells of human beings who put any trendy piece of garbage on the stage because idiots who think it makes them hip to be seen going to Broadway or who jump on big Broadway bandwagons will pay to see it. I utterly loathe and despise Broadway people, the lowest of the already-low grade of showbiz people."

Broadway people could not be reached for comment, given that Ted Ted did not bother to try.

I'm happy to inform everyone following my adventures I have made some headway in my efforts to redesign how the commune is managed. Red Bagel finally agreed to cut some of the office fat and fire three employees whose jobs are redundant. Of course, the catch was I had to be two of the employees—I'm not even sure how the physics of that works out, it would apparently at least involve him firing me twice. Needless to say, I put off accepting that deal until I can reach some sort of agreement with him in which other redundant employees are fired and I'm allowed to retain my position. But still, it's progress.

Don't let this leave you with the impression I like firing people. It's the least favorite part of my job, or it would be, if I was allowed to do it. I suppose it might rank in the bottom 5, actually, maybe between cleaning Bagel's birdcage and plucking the feathers off Bagel's bird. It would easily be one of the four or five least enjoyable parts of my job description, if they'd let me do it as I've been asking for years.

I've fired people before, of course. At my old website, poopoftheday.com, I unfortunately had let my mother go when it became apparent the website wasn't making enough money to support more than one employee, or even one, and although she wasn't technically being paid for her services, it sent a clear message to potential future stockholders we were serious about making major changes. Mom was quite upset, and refused to give me a ride to work after that, but it takes a strong stomach to run a tight ship. And hard abs.

In fact, between you and me, I fired quite a few people during my tenure running the commune last year, and only had yet to inform them they were let go. Editor Bagel, in his infinite exact opposite of wisdom, saw fit to retain those employees to keep doing whatever the hell it is they do here, but that would have been far different if I had the paper to print those memos firing them all. It wasn't easy for me, from any angle, as mom was quite dismayed to find out I didn't have the opening to hire her on after all. I had planned a real swift and brutal housecleaning here at the commune, for the good of the company, and like mom is quick to remind, I never clean anything. But some day, I'm sure, all the anchors holding the commune down will be severed and we'll be free to sail free.

You might be wondering, what does it take to make a good boss? I assure you, it is not, as Mr. Bagel believes, "deep pockets and an occasional bare-assed paddlin'." Not that I would mind having either. No, the secret to good management of a staff is trust. I repeat, in italics, trust. Once you have your employees' trust you can do whatever you want to them and they'll never see it coming. Of course, plotting out their firings years ahead of time and claiming it was a necessity caused by the current market is the easy part. Getting there trust—how in the world does a boss do that? Being infinitely smarter and correcting their mispronunciations of simple words isn't the way.

If I had to follow Red Bagel's example, apparently dressing like a riverboat gambler and calling all your employees "suh," regardless of their sex, is the way to success. Spending more time chasing pigeons in the park with a cane made of human bone rather than in the office, this must be one way of earning employee loyalty. Or it could be as simple as picking the smartest member of your staff and subjugating him to the most humiliating meetings and stick him in the most demeaning position available. Who knows, perhaps it's all these things.

Of course, who really needs the commune? According to the letter from FCC Chairman Michael Powell, nobody. And I have to agree. Maybe it's time I gave up on turning the commune into my alternative news website ideal, and concentrated on spreading my wings and soaring to new heights. Of course, I have the feeling I'd get swatted down by Bagel's bone cane if I tried.

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