Been hectic here at Raven HQ and we apologize for the late posting. Just a few items for your consideration.

Ode on a Bodysnatcher

O crypt-worn ghoul, ochre-eyed, churchyard host
your red smile tells me nothing good.
But commerce with an evil brood
is novelty, a news, an evening post.

You've lost a catch? It wounds your darkened heart?
Brian Mitchell and his wife
Could not keep a captured life
And back to us comes Elizabeth Smart.

You lost that round but I won't hold my breath.
The Senate says that maybe
a woman's just a baby
And must give birth upon the pain of death.

That's one for you, I see, and what of war?
Rumsfeld's view, always hawkish
said in words sadly mawkish
that Britain need not help us any more.

The police in the City by the Bay,
while standing on their arches,
videotaped the marches.
For what reason? Well, they don't want to say.

Lastly, demon, you've been trolling bones
in China, remonstrating
with people demonstrating,
and cut the playlist of the Rolling Stones.

Balmy Days

Turns out that there's a hidden layer of addiction in our society, and countless victims have fallen prey to the invidious charms of lip balm. As you can imagine, these are miserable chaps. Some of them apply their carnubic fixation up to 30 times a day, and have to carry tubes of the stuff with them wherever they go. Industry, meanwhile, greedily capitalizes on their plight:

While no statistics exist on binge balmers, evidence of their numbers is hard to ignore. One need look no further than the fact that, since 2001, Ford Motor Co. has included a storage niche for a tube on the Escape.

"Let other automakers have cup-holder dominance," said a Ford spokesman. "We have lip balm dominance."

As a USER (NOT ABUSER) of Chap Stick I would just like to say, come on lemme have my piece of solace. Is it so bad to come home after a long day at school, and sit down with some iced tea, a cigarette, and go ahead and put on a little Chap Stick. How could something that feels so good be so wrong?

The Dying Language

That would be English. This is a follow-up story to our coverage on that girl who submitted the "digital slang" essay in her English class. Turns out that Ship of Fools, a "satirical Christian online magazine," held a competition to see who could turn in the shortest possible text-chat version of the Lord's Prayer. Here's the winning entry:

"dad@hvn, ur spshl. we want wot u want &urth2b like hvn. giv us food & 4giv r sins lyk we 4giv uvaz. don't test us! save us! bcos we kno ur boss, ur tuf & ur cool 4 eva! ok?"

Hardy Har Har

In Enola, Pa., Thomas Seeds was just keeping warm by wearing a ski mask in the 22-degree weather last month. Then he went to the bank. As you would expect, a guard approached him, and requested that Seeds remove the balacava. Seeds refused, and on a lark decided to yell out that he was "robbing the bank."

"He turned to one of the tellers and said, 'I want all of your money,'" a Hampden Township Police Department spokesman said. "Everybody thought he was serious."

5:00:36 PM