Among the many daunting problems facing humankind in these profoundly millennial days is the problem of The Onion. Oh, what a paradox, this vegetable we know so well, if at all: If you slice and/or dice it, it will make you cry, perhaps more poignantly than even the saddest songs of Edith Piaf. If, on the other hand, you treat its many bittersweetly unfolding layers like the pages of a newspaper, it will possibly make you laugh, perhaps more cathartically than even the funniest jokes of Tom Lehrer. But then again, if you have neither eyes to cry with nor a gut to laugh with, maybe not. (Or, as we're certain both the lovely and learned Ms. Piaf and the fuglily funny Mr. Lehrer would likely agree, perhaps not.)

Speaking of which, have you ever never known whether to laugh or cry? (Or been mellow, for that matter?) For many, that was indeed the case back in June 2002, when an article in The Onion (also known as Seattle's Other Only Newspaper And, Indeed, The Nation's Other Nation) was apparently not recognized by a certain other newspaper as the dreadfully obvious satire which it in fact ostensibly was. The rag in question was the Beijing Evening News, which unwittingly republished portions of an Onion article titled "Congress Threatens To Leave D.C. Unless New Capital Is Built" in its international news section. One must wonder how many of the 1.25 million readers of the Beijing Evening News failed, along with its editors, to recognize the original article's obvious mockery of crybaby professional sports teams.

Anyway, lest we digress, here's where we bring it all back home: Roughly this time last year, a newspaper appeared on the streets of Seattle called Fool The State!, intriguingly dated April 1, 2027, as if transported back in time through some arcane method of magic and/or mirth. Said paper's lead article, boldly (and we do mean "boldly"--Helvetica, even!) entitled "Burn, Reykjavik, Burn!," heralded both the inevitably eventual US invasion and occupation of Iceland and the wild ideological mood-swing of the paper in question's editorial board, as well as their resulting rejection of the ostensibly obsolete values of peace, anarchy and love (thanks, pal!) in favor of machismo, militarism, and American imperialism cranked up to levels of surreal absurdity that would very (and we do very possibly sincerely mean "very") likely make the Firesign Theatre both blush with envy and/or lose their sugar--if you catch our Lehrer's-apprenticist drift.

Most of the readers of that now-internationally-infamous issue of FTS!--a rag that bore an uncanny resemblance to the newspaper you may or may not be reading at this moment--immediately recognized the aforementioned velvety assault against and/or upon traditional reality and/or advocacy journalism as an obvious satire, and responded accordingly with various forms and/or degrees of good old-fashioned catharsis, including but not limited to: laughter, beatific screaming, goofy dancing-in-one's-seat, spontaneous urination, transfiguration into a magic rocket ship and flying to the moon, and/or other, messier forms of pants-changing-and/or-ripping catharsis which need not be explicitly mentioned in a family newspaper such as Yours Truly.

Most, in fact nearly all--that is, except one.

As some of you may recent-historically recall, the hapless, hopeless and oh-so-amusingly humorless reader in question, upon reading that the US military had invaded Iceland and oh-so-satirically liberated its people from their politically, aesthetically and sartorially oppressive socialist dictator--a k a the one-and-only Björk--promptly cancelled all her appointments and caught the next bus to Westlake Park in Downtown Seattle, where she began a hunger strike to protest the US occupation of Iceland. She brought with her only a folding chair, a dog-eared copy of the Bhagavad Gita, a Charlie's Angels lunchbox containing three Tofurky sandwiches--just in case--and a large placard upon which she'd written, in huge block letters, "US OUT OF ICELAND NOW!”

Upon learning of these uncanny and/or unforeseen consequences of our traditional yearly April Fools issue, we went down to visit Seattle's finest moonbat magnet and investigate. First, we politely and respectfully asked the hunger striker what her name was.

"Gertrude," she replied.

"Oh," we responded, "you mean like Gertrude Stein, the radical feminist icon?"

"No," she snapped back, "like Gertrude from J.P. Patches. You know, the Old Seattle icon? Hello?"

Immediately sensing the futility of any further attempts at inquiry, sympathy and/or solitary counterprotest, we promptly got the hell out of Westlake Park, nasty flashbacks of the WTO police riots dancing in our heads.

As you may already know, the story eventually met a tragic end. Gertrude, bless her idealistic soul, died of starvation on May 1, 2007--in other words, on International Workers' Day, ever so fittingly. As per her family's wishes, her body has remained in Westlake Park to this day. Still seated in the same folding chair, now a mere skeleton, her long cotton floral dress in tatters, her white-person dreadlocks long gone, her brittle and bony hands still clutching the hand-lettered placard that now serves as a makeshift grave marker, there she is, still waiting for news of the withdrawal of US troops from Iceland and serving as a poignant testament to both the resilience of political dissent and the often fatal consequences of a lack of a sense of humor. Her sandwiches? They're still there too. (Now more vegan than ever!) And Björk? She, too, also remains with us, still filling the much-needed void of "alternative" rock that tries too damn hard to be hip and thus fails miserably. Like the man said, only the good die young, and so it goes.

Speaking of dictators and crazy musicians, it all reminds us of The Dictators, New York City's finest erstwhile purveyors of rock and/or roll music, who so once eloquently and LP-titularly said, "If They Can't Take A Joke, Then Fuck 'Em!" Truer words were never printed on the spine of a vinyl and/or LP record. But, hey, we digress--with acres of unapologetic aplomb, in this case, thereby beatifically befitting a covert thesis such as the one which may or may not have just flown over your head. (Just sayin'!)

Anyway, lest we further digress, about that skeleton: You know what? We'll now tell you what. The honest, cold-blooded and very possibly non-satirical truth is, after all is said, done and/or left unsung, all we are saying (this time for real!) is: Hey, Gertrude--lighten up, will ya?