Heath, OH — Failed writer, artist, singer, waiter, barista and short-order cook Walter Fancy could have been a pretender, but can now add “actor” to his ever-growing list of failed career pursuits.

“People just weren’t digging my scene out in LA, they weren’t feeling my vibe.” Fancy said from his position in the unemployment line. “It’s their loss, man. I’m a versatile, multi-talented actor. Fuck those ass-hats.”

Friends say that if “delusional” were an occupation, the 37 year-old Fancy would be living in a luxury high-rise right now pulling in six figures, rather than living in his parents' moldy basement on Joann Court and selling their stuff on e-bay.

“I wish I knew what the fuck color my parachute was.” Fancy finally admitted, breaking down in tears. “Maybe I should go back to school or something. I’ve always wanted to open a surf shop downtown. Yeah. Maybe that’s what I’ll do.”

At last check, approximately 500 miles separated Heath from the nearest ocean wave.

We take little pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great embarrassment that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Ledger:

Dear Editor—

I am thousands of years old. Some of my little friends, er, employees say there is no Virginia. Mrs. Claus says, “If you see it in The Ledger, it’s shit.” Please tell me the truth, is there a Virginia?

Santa Claus

Santa, your little friends, er, employees are wrong. They have been affected by the ignorance of an ignorant age. They do not believe except they see — probably on TV. And no current television shows are set in the great commonwealth of Virginia. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Santa, whether they be men’s or children’s, or ‘elven’, are little. Even yours, as evidenced by the letter above. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge, and that there are 50-odd states here in our union. Frankly, they are probably screwing with you so that you skip Virginia on your annual Christmas Eve jaunt to dispense gifts to the world’s children, piss off a lot of Virginians, and have to go back on the 26th or something to make everything right (which would be a total embarrassment to yourself, right?)

Yes, Santa Claus, there is a Virginia. It exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and unfortunately, also as West Virginia exists. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Virginia! No Roanoke! No Norfolk! No Blue Ridge Parkway! It would be as dreary as if there were no Marylands. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence, save for the childlike faith of Dakotans and Kentuckians, Maya Angelou, and a well-worn Danielle Steel novel or two. We should have no Virginia Hams, Moses Malone, no Wayne Newton, no Willard Scott, no Cyrus H. McCormick (and thus no grain reaper!), no Ward Burton, nor any mention of the Piedmont.

Not believe in Virginia! You might as well not believe in the North Pole. You might get your wife to hire men to watch all of the highways and byways of this great county to spy a license plate from Virginia. But even if they did not see one, what would that prove? Not everyone has been to Virginia, but that is no sign that there is no Virginia. (Actually, there is a sign – it’s the Welcome to Virginia one on I-95.) The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men, nor elves — for pete’s sake, can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? If you answered yes, then, you sir, are a bigger fool than I had originally surmised. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world — that would be super cra-zay. That person was probably Albert Einstein, but alas, he is dead.

You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the baby cry, because now there is a broken rattle, which the baby would like to play with, but now that a jerk like you has broken it, the baby is shit out of luck per the rattle. (But I digress.) There is a veil covering the unseen world, and a lot of Islamic women, which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived (except perhaps Arnold Schwarzenegger) could tear apart. Is it all real? Ah, Santa Claus, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding. You can thank Thomas Jefferson and his fellow white slaveowners for that! For Rill-a!

No Virginia! Thank God! It lives and lives forever (or until the fall and destruction of the United States.) A thousand years from now, Santa, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, (okay, I’m pushing it, but you comprehend dramatic license don’t you? I mean, you fly around in a sleigh with eight tiny reindeer for crying out loud!) it will continue to be a tourist destination for one and all. And remember, Santa (and Mrs. Claus), Virginia is for lovers!

Are there any good anti-white slurs I could appropriate for my latest hip-hop album?

SUBJECT: Sophisticated Bigotry, or lack thereof. 
COMMONTATOR: Derek Piatkowski (a.k.a. MCWickadPolack) 

Holla. MCWickadPolack in the house. Yo, all. What up?

I tell you what up wit me. I need to jack up my rhymes wit some dope slang, but all I got is lame-ass shit from way back when.

Black rappers are so lucky. They got the N-word. For reals. They've taken it, and turned that motha inside out. Preverterated that shit. Like a badge of honor.

But let's get real for a second.  I want my own n-word to throw back in your face. Problem is, as I see it, you people (that's right, I said "you people") have been frontin' on the white slur front.

Whitey? The best you can do is stick a 'y' on the end of white?

Cracker? Where am I, 1956 Atlanta? A Nabsico factory? That's the sexist equivalent of calling a ho a ho. Ninja, please.

Honky? Only if The Jeffersons were still swampin' teh televitz.

Listen, I'm gonna drop the shiz, so I can all gets real for you. Hardcore.

Let's face it. The whole anti-white bigotry scene is lame.  Minorities need to step up their race game — stop messing around at the low end of the racism Bell Curve, if you know what I mean.

Get out of the shallow end of the shallow thinking pool.  It's time for all you non-whites to bring it with some new, out-of-the-box insultage. Get hurtful. Take all that shit you've gone through for eons of time and turn it around. Channel it into a white-hot ball of white hate. And then, let if flow. Think of every champagne-colored Camry you've seen in your life. Think about baseball ... Malcolm Gladwell ... Old Navy ... TED Conferences ... Talbot's and Talbot's Petites.

Or just think about the last McDonalds' commercial you saw. I don't how you guys still put up with that condescending shiz.

Or you could just go on talking about my lack of dance moves or my ass inferiority. That's innovative and especially hurtful, believe me.

Go ahead, look up 'white racial slurs' at Urban Dictionary. Mothafucka's not even defined yet!

I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Whites have teams of expert word scientists working round the clock in some Swiss village propagating new horribly derogatory terms for the more pigmented among us.  Millions of dollars are being funneled through Chik-Fil-A franchises and Aaron's Rental businesses into this diabolical global effort.

It's sad but true.  What do you have? Six guys on a stoop in Milwaukee?

Listen to me. It's not fair. But it never has been. It's going to take a special effort. Think of it as a Million Man March, only with a purpose.

So, get up, take off your bedroom slippers, put your marching boots on, and gets real with the white hatred. Bring it, yo, cuz I can't omnipotize my dope rhymes without that heavy-duty shiz.

Somewhere in North Korea – Well, what do you know? There is a God. And He, like the rest of the world, has tired of the antics of lifelong shit-bag North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il.

That bloody stool, it turns out, was not shed “For the people,” as stated in government-controlled press reports. It was the beginning of end-stage pancreatic cancer, one of the more deadly cancers in town. God’s earthly judgment for being such a colossal douche.

Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. But it certainly does make you wonder what Patrick Swayze ever did to deserve his pancreatic cancer. Dancing like that would be our guess. But we digress.

North Korean “intelligence” officials deny there’s anything ill with Il. They insist he is, “healthy as horse” and “can’t come to phone right now because he in making love process to hundred sex slave at one moment. He call you back.”

Just tell him the rest of the world called. And so long, sucker.

Northfield, IL — Correcting a decades-long oversight, Kraft Foods has announced that it was adding fruit options to it's popular line of Oscar Mayer brand Lunchables lunchtime favorites.

A slightly-healthier version of the pre-packaged meals hit shelves seven months ago, but still draw the ire of nutritional experts who see the meals as part of the problem, not a new solution in the fight against childhood obesity.

Even Lunchables Product Manager Walter Stolls contends that Lunchables are probably "not the way to go" for Moms looking to boost their children's nutritional intake.

"I thought we had a fruit compartment? Yes?"

Stolls was shocked to learn that over the past 23 years, Kraft's Lunchables Planning and Processing departments neglected to fill said fruit compartment with any kind of discernable fruit.

"This one contains a Hershey Zero bar ... is that a fruit?" asked Stolls.

When informed that the Zero bars were from leftover Iraq War K-rations and could not be legally defined as fruit, Stolls was dumbfounded.

"You mean we've been leaving the fruit spot empty all these years? Holy shit ... I'm honestly surprised the FDA wasn't all over our asses. I mean, look at the crap we put in these things."

Stolls confided that only "35.7%" of Lunchables are actually suitable for lunch.

Lori Rogers-Blakely (formerly Lori Rogers-Furmano, formerly Lori Rogers) of the Cafeteria Under Nutrition Taskforce (formerly the School Lunch Under-nutrition Team) still isn't pleased with Kraft's lack of progress on the healthy lunch front.

"In order to get minimum daily fiber from a Lunchable, I'd have to eat the cardboard packaging."

"Boo-hoo." replied Stolls, who did later admit that despite Rogers-Blakely's antagonism towards Lunchables products, she was totally "do-able."

Oakland, CA — The Oakland Raiders could be playoff-bound this season, but doubts about the organization's direction and future loom after a series of suspect player moves.

Head Coach and acting General Manager Hue Jackson often wonders aloud about his personnel decisions, leading to many in the organization to believe he's being inhabited by a higher power.

That power? The ghost of former Raiders owner and GM Al Davis.

"I was suddenly compelled to trade our 2019, 2020, and 2021 first round draft picks for the rights to negotiate with Dennis Haysbert.  Now, Dennis Haysbert is an amazing actor, but he doesn't even fucking play football!" Jackson lamented. "What in the world of holy hell am I doing?"

Jackson stunned the NFL world by dealing the Raiders 2012 first round pick and a conditional second rounder (which could become another first round pick) to the Cincinnati Bengals for aging quarterback Carson Palmer.  While Palmer has improved the Raiders' passing attack for the time being, several experts think the Raiders "lost" the deal with the Bengals, and mortgaged their long-term future for dubitable short-term gain.

Jackson confides that sometimes, Davis does speak to him.

I hear him moaning in my sleep "Speed ... speed ... speed ... change my diapers!"

Not only has Jackson assumed Davis's appetite for horribly mismanaging an NFL roster, he's also taken on other Davis-like qualities.

He now wears velour tracksuits and ostentatious gold jewelry.  Despite 20/20 vision, he dons reading glasses. He also has a bad habit of coaching from a sideline wheelchair, even though he is perfectly ambulatory.

In another bout of questionable decision-making, the Raiders recently signed three year-old colt and third place Kentucky Derby finisher Mucho Macho Man to a 4-year, $29 million contract.

"We've got him for kick coverage. He's lights out after the 45 yard line."

Jackson then buried his head in his hands and began weeping uncontrollably.

"Someone get me Renaldo Nehemiah on the phone. Quick!"

Pickerington, OH — Eager Pickerington residents excited for the new Tim Horton's Coffee and Bake Shop opening this past Tuesday were in for a real surprise when they arrived at 837 West Columbus Street.

What they found was a Tim Burton's Coffee and Bake Shop — the result of a construction company purchase order mix-up of Big Fish proportions.

Brutal neo-German expressionist architecture now looms where the familiar and welcoming "Timmy Ho's" brick exterior would have been.

"I like his movies ... but what the hell does that weirdo know about coffee?" wondered Picktown local Aaron Scholes, as he tried in vain to open the establishment's crooked, off-kilter doors.

Time to make the creepy donuts.

"I'm really weary. I saw Alice in Wonderland. What a technicolor shitfest. The guy probably hasn't made a good cup of joe since 1993." longtime caffeine aficionado and movie buff Herm Perkins said, upon seeing workers erect the graveyard-inspired wrought iron sign above the door.

Chris Speltz, however, was not deterred.

Speltz ordered a skinny half-caf, half-decaf cup of Despair, which is a mocha/latte blend and something called "Planet of the Crepes" from the bake shop menu.

"It was pretty disappointing." Speltz lamented. "it tasted like a well-meaning, but overwrought and thinly-written version of an original crepe. Tim Roth was delicious, though."

Other bake shop menu items include Marzipan Attacks!, Helena-On-Ham Tartar, and the morbidly-named Corpsesiant.

The shop serves hot and cold beverages, from the steaming Deppuccino to the 52-ounce Pee Wee's Big Thirstquencher.

So far, the response has been the disappointing equivalent of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory's domestic box office take.

Seals Construction, who oversaw the flawed development, hopes to remedy the situation in the community's favor, giving most residents hope they'll be munching their traditional crullers and boston creme donuts in short order.

Until then, they'll have to enjoy a Sleepytime Hollow tea and some Flan 9 from Outer Space.

Heath, OH - Medical personnel pulled the plug on treatment for Heath 43 year-old resident Stevie Johnson yesterday, pronouncing him emotionally dead inside.

“He never knew how to express himself.” His mother said. “For one reason or another he was just incapable of love.”

Stevie was a normal boy growing up, by all accounts. He liked music, collecting baseball cards, football and girls. Sometime around his 13th birthday, though, it was as if an internal switch had been flipped.

“His father left shortly after he was born, which wasn’t a problem until Stevie got to be a little older.” His mother continued. “He started acting out, misbehaving. And then there was that time he got raped by a camp counselor … that may have had something to do with this.”

“I plan to honor the memory of my brother’s emotional insides by living every day like it’s my own insides’ last.” Patrick Johnson said. “I’m also thinking about hosting a golf tournament or something to raise awareness about his dead insides.”

George Lucas's epic Star Wars saga is again the attention of the entertainment world. Lucas, constantly tinkering with film content and effects, has added or altered even more scenes for this latest release.

With all six films now available on Blu-Ray, The Heath Ledger sat down and reviewed some of the series' puzzling new extras.

Here are five items that stood out:

1. In newly-added masturbation scene, Han shoots first. (Episode IV: A New Hope)

2. In effort to broaden sci-fi series appeal, Chewbacca digitally replaced by Khloe Kardashian. (Episodes III through VI)

3. Yoda revealed to be a Hasidic Jedi who will not use The Force on Shabbos. (Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back)

4. In rare instance of product placement, Lando Calrissian stops stormtrooper by breaking bottle of Colt .45 over his helmet. (Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back)


5. Return of Mace Windu's previously-censored "In the name of the Galactic Senate of the Republic, you are under arrest, motherfucker!" line.   (Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith)