AS APRIL PREPARES ITS SEGUE INTO MAY UP HERE IN THE MINNWISSIPPI REGION WHERE YOUR CORRESPONDENT IS RESIDENT, it appears rather pleasant and nice outside.

But, come the overnight, expect the likelihood of showers and maybe the odd rumble of thunder or two. Which, for those in areas as have seen all too frequent rainfall translating into quasi-flooding so far this spring, could be like a bad dream constantly repeating itself.

And still, the farmers and planters want some dry weather for once for to get the field work started for once--unless, of course, they elect not to plant much in the way of cereals because of high fuel and fertiliser prices for the most part.

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SHED NO TEARS FOR ALBERT HOFFMANN, the research chemist for Swiss pharmaceuticals company Sandoz (since becoming Novartis after merger with Ciba-Geigy several years back) who accidentally discovered lysergicides (LSD) during some research into plant fungi's medecinal potential back in 1938.

Hoffmann died @ an old age home near Basel from a heart attack @ 102 years of age--not bad for what could likely be considered the first psychadelic love child after discovering that his new compound produced some spectacular out-of-body sensations bordering on the etheral.

Which, by the late 1950's and early 1960's, would get out of hand for a drug which Herr Hoffmann originally hoped would provide some insights into mental disorders. So out of hand, in fact, that many of the world's soverign countries would step in and ban lysergicides as a narcotic or otherwise habit-forming drug.

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IT LOOKS AS IF THE EXCESSES OF HANNAH MONTANA MANIA MAY HAVE FINALLY CAUGHT UP WITH MILEY CYRUS, who plays the closet bubblegum country star on the hit Disney Channel series.

As in that quasi-suggestive pose for Vanity Fair's new number, which, in the minds of such like the faltering Christian Coalition, should be grounds enough for Disney Channel to cancel Hannah Montana forthwith under the Morals Clause of her contract (as quoted by Right Wing Watch):

EVEN WITH ALL THE RATHER PATHETIC BROMIDES AND PLATITUDES FROM RACISTS AND WHITE SUPREMACISTS ABOUT THE EVILS OF UNCONTROLLED IMMIGRATION, there is no doubt that these same elements weird and unwholesome want to see the "evacuation" of all remaining specimens of White Christian Afrikanerdom out of South Africa, preferably posthaste.

Likewise with the white Rhodesian expatriate community in South Africa as made its presence known following black-majority rule under Robert Mugabe coming to power in 1980, resident mostly around the Highveldt suburbs of Pretoria and Johannesburg hoping for a return of White Christian Minority Rule in Rhodesia--yet unlikely to see such for the interim.

The whole expected to be "accomodated" as "refugees" based on flimsy and incredible claims that the Afrikaner community is "living in fear of persecution by a Communist-influenced regime***showing reckless contempt and disregard for White Christian heritage, values and honour."

Said groups advancing the "evacuation" of Afrikanerdom already forging connexions with Afrikaner groups in South Africa to prepare the requisite applications for the United States Embassy in Pretoria, or her affiliated consulates in Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg, for emigration as refugees, right down to coaching them on the exact tone, nuance and parsing to be used on the applications so as to avoid attracting suspicions @ Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Especially when it emerges that the applications sound virtually identical in explaining their seeking refugee status in the United States.

Not to mention racist and white-supremacist organisations (among them neo-Nazis, "Minutemen" groups and what remains of the so-called "National Alliance") acting as "sponsors" to assist them in settlement in the United States, preferably as farmers and pastoralists consistent with their Calvinist beliefs in an honest and simple life "seriously disrupted" by "British interference" following the gold and diamond discoveries and the Boer War of 1899-1902 for control of the mineral regions.

And yet, these same Afrikaners are unlikely to be aware of such weird and unwholesome associations seeking to "assist" them to "saving the Afrikaner from himself," all along exploiting latent racist sentiments persisting since the abolition of apartheid and the introduction of multi-party democracy in 1994--especially among the poorer specimens of Afrikanerdom likely to be thereby targeted for "evacuation."

Which, all in all, needs to be watched. Especially considering the doublethink inherent.

JOEL McNALLY, A SATIRIC COLUMNIST WHO WRITES FOR THE NEW, "VIRTUAL" VERSION OF THE CAPITAL TIMES out of Madison, Wisconsin, had these comments the other day about a video just posted on YouTube by the Milwaukee Police Department in the hope of obtaining the public's help in identifying suspects in a recent notorious robbery attempt @ a supermarket/liquor store:

The hottest shoot-'em-up filmed in Milwaukee isn't the upcoming Dillinger movie starring Johnny Depp. It's a video posted on the popular Web site, YouTube, by the Milwaukee Police Department.

Police claim they posted the Milwaukee shootout filmed by a surveillance camera at Villard Food and Liquor on the national Web site to seek assistance in identifying an alleged shoplifter involved in the gunfight.

But the thousands of computer hits generated across the country have nothing to do with any sudden, overwhelming desire of the nation's citizenry to assist Milwaukee in cracking down on shoplifting.

The video offers all the sleazy attraction of a particularly horrible car crash.

Also, because all of the parties on both sides of the shootout and a violent beating that preceded it are black, the video apparently has become must-see TV for the nation's racists.

One particularly obscene, racist rant posted on YouTube labels all the participants and even an endangered bystander as monkeys.

"I don't get it," says the writer, who actually has no idea how ignorant he really is. "We gave them jobs, food and a place to sleep. Take them out of the cotton fields and look what happens."

But, of course, the real national and local debate into which the video feeds is the argument over the desirability of carrying handguns.

Gun enthusiasts who equate carrying handguns with public safety consider the video an argument for the more, the merrier. After an apparent shoplifter is surrounded by four men and beaten with a baseball bat, he leaves the store and returns later with a gun.

You see the man striding quickly through the door, determined to create mayhem. Then you see him stop short without even raising his weapon when he sees that the clerk behind the counter has a gun trained on him.

As the customer meekly retreats from the store, however, he turns and begins firing. The store clerk opens fire at the same time. Incredibly, a woman in a green jacket calmly walks between the shooters and out of the store in the middle of the gunfight.

Only fortune and bad aim prevented a public massacre.

Any rational viewing of the video makes it a far cry from an NRA recruiting commercial. In fact, it undercuts just about every argument gun supporters make for the proliferation of handguns.

The video clearly shows how the easy availability of guns escalates an already violent society into a potentially deadly, violent society.

The shootout is the most shocking event in the video. The second most shocking is the violent beating of the man with fists and a baseball bat by four men. Reportedly, it was over the theft of a stick of deodorant.

With guns so readily available, any victim of a one-sided gang beating thinks he has an easy means to even up the score. But, of course, when guns are everywhere, you never know when somebody else is going to get the drop on you.

Gun supporters see that as incredibly good news. To them, it's just great that an angry victim of a beating bent on blowing away store employees was driven away by a hail of bullets in the other direction.

But most of us are far more likely to identify with innocent customers in a convenience store on a Sunday afternoon, when this barrage of gunfire took place.

Do we really want to live in the society that the supporters of concealed carry are so eager to create where such shootouts can suddenly break out anywhere anytime? What kind of public safety is that?

Another one of the basic premises of concealed carry also is refuted by the video.

That is the claim that bad guys with guns will somehow make a rational decision not to use them if they think their intended victims might also be armed.

Golly, do you think anyone would have a clue that a store where shoplifters are beaten with a baseball bat might just possibly have a gun behind the counter as well?

The protection of private property and the shooting of bad guys are so widely supported in our society that some were outraged to learn the police had asked the district attorney to determine whether the store clerk should be charged as a felon illegally in possession of a firearm.

They needn't have worried. A few days later, the deputy district attorney announced the clerk would not be charged, citing self-defense. Prosecutors know juries are unlikely to convict store clerks for protecting their businesses with deadly weapons unless the criminal violations and reckless endangerment of the public are overwhelming. And maybe not even then.

But the next time the Legislature tries to put even more guns on our streets, think about getting caught in the crossfire of more Sunday afternoon shootouts in Milwaukee.

AS IF A PREVIOUS ITEM ON THE SUBJECT WASN'T QUITE GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU READERS, Your Correspondent just has to wonder how low LeTourneauism, Japanese-stylee, can go.

Witness the following "WaiWai" item per the Mainichi Daily News, published under heading of "Tabloid Tidbits" (as in items featured in what "WaiWai" inevitably describes as "lowbrow afternoon tabloids;" hence, the credibility thereof, as per usual "WaiWai" practice, cannot be guaranteed):

An education official from Toyohashi, Aichi Prefecture, was arrested after he made a contract with a 16-year-old girl in which he paid for her apartment in return for her becoming his mistress, Yukan Fuji (4/23) quotes police saying.

Teruki Miura, the 44-year-old education specialist, was arrested for breaking the law banning child prostitution by allegedly performing indecent acts on a 16-year-old girl attending a vocational college, and whom he met through a matchmaking cafe in Nagoya.

Yukan Fuji says Miura denies the charge against him.

"I went out to dinner with her, but there was no prostitution involved," the lowbrow afternoon tabloid quotes Miura telling cops.

Police say the specific charge for which they picked up Miura came from him taking the girl to a love hotel in her home city of Kuwana, Mie Prefecture, and performing obscene acts on her.

Yukan Fuji quotes police saying the girl was a runaway, and Miura avoided paying her directly for sex by forking out around ¥300,000 to a real estate agent to set the girl up in an apartment of her own. 

BEFORE HANNA-BARBERA AND FILMATION ASSOCIATES DOMINATED THE SATURDAY-MORNING TELEVISION SCHEDULE IN ABOUT THE MID-1960'S, many of the cartoons likely to be seen on Saturday mornings were badly-dubbed Japanese anime imports such as Astro Boy and Speed Racer, to take two particularly well-known examples.

Which, for the time, looked rather cheap in terms of price, and yet filled critical air time in the nascent years of Saturday morning television's development. (As a matter of fact, NBC-TV was the first network to set aside Saturday mornings for children's programming in 1954. CBS would follow suit soon afterwards, with ABC not launching a Saturday-morning programme until the mid-1960's.)

But then again, with Saturday morning somehow emasculated by the networks in recent years by weekend editions of the networks' breakfast shows and the Childrens' Television Act mandating "educational or informational" programming for children of @ least three hours per week, as well as the emergence of cable/satellite channels like Cartoon Network, Nicktoons and Toon Disney, it just seems unlikely that Scooby-Doo still manages to hang in there after nearly 40 years on the air.

But then again--if the following "WaiWai" item off the Mainichi Daily News is to be believed, it looks as if Astro Boy may be about to meet his match in what amounts to a parody of the original character:

Forget the svelte little feller capable of soaring through the skies and 100,000 horsepower strength: the roly-poly latest incarnation of Japan's most famous cartoon character of all is more like LardAss-tro Boy, according to Shukan Shincho (4/10).

In a collaboration with decorated illustrator Lily Franky, Tezuka Productions has produced a version of Astro Boy (known as "Mighty Atom" in Japan) with fleshy jowls and a belly that wouldn't look out of place on Japan's other icons, sumo wrestlers.

The new plus-size version bears little resemblance to the little boy robot superhero created by "The God of Manga" Osamu Tezuka, a point those entrusted with maintaining his legacy are prepared to concede.

"I have to admit we get more than a few complaints about it from core fans in their 40s and older," Yoshihiro Shimizu, head of Tezuka Productions' Copyright Division, tells Shukan Shincho. "It's an important year for us. It's 80 years since Osamu Tezuka was born and the 20th year since his death. Of course, there are loads of people who absolutely adore Tezuka works, but there are growing numbers of young people who know nothing about them. We want to actively collaborate on a number of projects and use these developments to get young people learning about Tezuka's works."

Tezuka Productions insiders are calling the fat hero the "AvoCali Style" Astro Boy, taking the name from U.S.-created sushi dishes avocado-maki and California rolls.

"Once upon a time, Americans never ate raw fish, but now they really want to find a delicious sushi," Shimizu says. "In the same way, we want the collaboration that led to 'AvoCali (Astro Boy)' to take the character worldwide. There's no future for Tezuka Productions surviving on Tezuka works alone."

Does that mean Tezuka Productions is feeling the financial pinch?

"Not at all," says Shimizu. "We've got royalties coming in all the time, so we're doing very nicely, indeed, thank you. And it's not like this is the first time we've done a collaborative project."

Tezuka Productions first allowed Astro Boy to pop up in other projects in 2003, when he was given a guest appearance in "Pluto", a manga by "Yawara" artist Naoki Urasawa. Last year, four designers came up with their own Astro Boy designs to be used on Uniqlo T-shirts. And next year, a Hollywood CGI version of "Astro Boy" is due to hit the world's silver screens.

"All we want," Tezuka Productions' Shimizu tells Shukan Shincho, "is to increase the opportunities for people to learn about Tezuka-sensei."

With that in mind, perhaps it was time that Warner Brothers Animation, as now owns the Hanna-Barbera studio and its library, gave some recognition to the animated creations of its namesakes, especially in light of the 2006 passing of co-founder Joseph Barbera (Bill Hanna died in 2001), so that future generations can learn and understand the legacy of what made Saturday-morning television what it was.

Not to mention the passing of Hoyt Curtin, who composed the theme music for many of Hanna-Barbera's productions, in 2005 ... and the 2006 such of Iwao Takamoto, perhaps the finest single animator 3400 Cahuenga ever had (witness his influence in the creation of Scooby-Doo as we know and love him).