I believe I sent a brief item last week about Oklahoma City police seizing copies of the movie the Tin Drum, which won the Oscar for best foreign film in 1979, and whose sex scenes are nowhere near as offensive as the one where people eat eel. Those Germans! As long as it's phallic they'll eat it. It seems they actually got Blockbuster to release the names of people who had rented it, including a local ACLU official who had known what was coming, then went to their homes and grabbed the tapes.

Another follow-up: a Belgium court reprimands 2 soldiers who roasted a Somali boy over a brazier. They said it was just a game. A photo of the incident is on the June 24th cover of the Village Voice.

If you want to buy a piece of the moon or mars, try www.moonshop.com.

July 1 in Hong Kong, celebrating the principle that sovereignty over human beings can be leased. All that partying reminds me of Edgar Allen Poe's Masque of the Red Death, written the year Britain acquired HK.