For those who like to keep up, this is the place to find recent columns you might have missed.

I have posted the last seven Sordid Tales here. They are arranged in ascending chronological order, meaning the oldest is at the top.

The current column will still be located under the "CURRENT COLUMN" category which is accessible from the home page.

Enjoy!

For a long time now, I’ve been meaning to take one of those alcoholic screening tests, if for no other reason than to determine whether I am a bona fide alcoholic or just a fun-loving boozer who has it under control.

I guess the reason I never got around to taking the quiz is because I’m a little scared of what I might learn, and also because I’m usually too hungover to concentrate on exams. Today, however, I finally decided to take the test. After a little research, I chose the John Hopkins University Hospital Alcohol Screening Quiz. The quiz asked a series of yes-or-no questions. Before proceeding, I made a pact to answer them honestly and completely. Here are the results:

Ah, new football season, how I adore thee. It’s a chance to start fresh again. All the muffed punts and passes of the previous year have been wiped clean, leaving us with the wide-eyed anticipation of a new and beautiful season—only to have it brutally cleaved out of your chest cavity after the very first game of the season!

That’s how opening week was for us New York Giants fans anyway, the butchering of a dream. I say this not because I’m a negative person, nor the Chicken Little type. I say it because the Giants actually suck and the sky really is falling. For starters, they allowed the second most wretched team in football—a team whose name I shall not mention but rhymes with Mallas Plowboys—to stomp all over their defense, they lost several key starters to injury and their schedule is brutal this year, all of which can mean only one thing: The New York football Giants are destined to finish under .500 for the season.

Oh, Jesus, ugh.

Is there anything worse than being under .500? Whether it’s the NFL or Sunday C-league softball, when your team plays under .500 ball, it means that you are nothing more than fodder for the over .500 teams. Your sole existence is to be the chum in the water of their feeding frenzy and you really are better off dead than under .500.

Which brings me to the reason for this column.

I just read a poll that reported 16 percent of California Republicans (as of this writing) support Mitt Romney as the Republican presidential nominee. Sixteen percent! The poll has him tied with Fred Thompson for second place. In Michigan and Massachusetts he's in first place. Christ-in-Hell, the guy won the Iowa Straw poll.

It's inconceivable to consider, but Mitt Romney has a reasonable shot at being our next president. To that I would like to say, "Um, hel-lo! People! Haven't you heard? Mitt Romney is a freaking Mormon, a member of the Jesus Christ Church of Latter Day Saints! Do you know what that means? It means the man is about a dozen french fries short of a combo meal."

"The people of [Iowa] have sent a message to the rest of the country," Romney declared in his straw-poll victory speech.

Oh, Iowa has sent a message, alright--and the message is: Iowans are nuts! They're bonkers! Insane! You have to be several Sundays short of a calendar month to vote for a Mormon for president.

Probably by now you’ve heard of the U.S. Army veteran named Jim Broussard who recently cut down a couple of flags above a Reno bar because the bar owner (a Mexican-American) was flying a Mexican flag above the Stars and Stripes.

When Broussard heard about this abomination, he marched down to the Cantina El Jaripeo and—with television cameras rolling—cut down both flags. He tossed the Mexican flag on the ground, raised the U.S. flag to the camera and blurted, “I’m Jim Broussard, and I took this flag down in honor of my country.” Then he ranted for a few more moments and ended by saying that the bar owner would have to fight to get his flag back.

Now, it is true that the flag code prohibits flying the U.S. flag below any other. Naturally, there has been much discussion about whether Broussard’s actions were patriotic or criminal, but I think an even better question is, “Should flying another flag above the U.S. flag even be illegal in the first place?”

Perhaps you’ve heard about the looming split between Christian conservatives and the Republican Party. The rift pretty much started back in May when Dr. James Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family, wrote that if Rudy Giuliani wins the Republican nomination, that he would consider abandoning support of the party.

Last month, Dobson got together with a large group of Christian conservative leaders called the Council for National Policy, who also acknowledged they’d consider bailing on the Republicans should Rudy, or any of the other conservatively challenged candidates on the ballot, receive the party’s nod.

Then, at the Values Voter's Summit, they came to—shocker—the same conclusion: Republicans are off the path to God’s glory, and if they don’t return soon, they’ll lose our support.

This past Christmas my wife and I visited my family in New York. We had a merry time hanging with the parents, siblings, nephews and in-laws for 10 solid days of Christmas tidings. It was such successful visit that there was only one notable family argument.

See, my parents bought me an Xbox 360 for Christmas, and, because I am a raging geek, I promptly hooked it up to the TV in their den and flitted on up to Xbox Heaven.

Now, my sister Barbara Jean has two boys: Little Michael, 10, and James the Barbarian, 7. Like most boys their age, they love video games. The minute I hooked up the console, they were bugging me to play. The problem was, the only Xbox games I had were all about death, and screams, and murder, and, worst of all, blood splatter—especially on head shots that, in one particular game, shatter your victim’s brains like an M-80 in a can of red paint. The game is called “Call of Duty 4", but it should be renamed to, “I Murdered You in the Face with Lots of Blood Splashing 5: The Sickening.”

“Heath Ledger is in Hell and has
begun serving his eternal sentence.”

That was a quote from the leaders of the Westboro Baptist Church, who, among others, are claiming that God killed Heath Ledger for portraying a homosexual in a big-time Hollywood movie.

While it is true that this particular church is wildly extreme, there have been plenty of other God-worshipper types who have made similarly despicable comments.

Like when local Christian crusader James Hartline said that God started the San Diego County wildfires because he was mad at us for being hospitable to gays. Like when Pat Robertson said Hurricane Katrina was God punishing New Orleans for being gay-friendly. Like when Jerry Falwell—may he Rot In Purgatory (RIP)—said 9/11 happened because America’s got the ACLU, the pro-choicers and, of course, the gays.

I was flipping through the TV channels the other night and came across The Ring 2. I tuned in just before the scene where the horse flips out on the boat. It is, for me, the scariest part of the movie.

In the scene, Rachel is traveling by ferry to the house where Samara, the creepy, dark-haired, damp girl, lives. At one point, Rachel notices a horse in a trailer and approaches the animal, which, as if it sensed something malevolent living inside Rachel, goes utterly berserk. The horse kicks its way out of the trailer, rises on two legs, stomps a car, chases Rachel to the edge of the craft and leaps over the rail into the black water.

The reason the horse scene scared me so much, even more than evil Samara herself, is because I can relate. Horses hate me, too. There have been multiple incidents in my life when a member of the equus caballus species has tried to hurt or murder me. It’s a great mystery because animals usually love me: Dogs like me. Cats like me. Hamsters totally dig me. Goldfish and I go way back. Iguanas don’t get me, but we maintain a civilized rapport. Even piranhas are kinder to me than equines.

By now, you’ve probably heard about the 14-year-old South Pasadena boy who recently lobbied to have profanity banned in his hometown. Apparently, the City Council liked the idea so much that they officially proclaimed the first week in March as No Cussing Week.

Now keep in mind, No Cussing Week is not law. It’s an official proclamation, which means—it don’t mean squat. It is unenforceable, un-punishable, not in violation of the First Amendment and, therefore, not deserving of our contempt.

It is, however, deserving of our ridicule.

Forget the obvious reason, which is that swearing is a valuable element of human communication. Anyone who doesn’t know that has never had their plane stuck on the tarmac for three hours, their shampoo bottles leak into their suitcase or their hotel reservation misplaced—all during the same trip. You just try to tell me that having access to a couple of choice obscenities at that moment wouldn’t save at least a couple of lives.

But the main reason No Cussing Week deserves our ridicule is because it’s retarded.