On this very day, not too long ago, America was devastated by tragedy. The scar is still felt today, and while we can't presume that it will ever heal, we can minister the wound as best we can. I refer, of course, to Canadian-born actor Lorne Greene, who passed on September 11th several years ago, robbing the world of a national treasure.

Greene was perhaps best known as one of the stars of Bonanza. Though I've never seen Bonanza, research conducted at the website Bonanza... The Fan Fiction! gave me a quick education on the show's rich history. A 1950's Western TV series written by five near-illiterate women, Bonanza apparently told the magical adventures of a gentle frontier family who battled poltergeists and mythical dragons when not falling in gay love with each other. For this alone I applaud the groundbreaking show, which if the site is to be believed, had a homosexual wedding every six minutes.

Of all the Bonanza episodes lovingly documented at Bonanza... The Fan Fiction!, I think my favorite was 'The Entity' by Rita Bennett, in which the Bonanza family spends the night in a haunted house and the muscular Hoss beats up a ghost. I present a chilling excerpt here:

"Dadburnit, I have enough of that damn racket! I'm going to take care of this once and for all!" Hoss arose from his chair and stormed upstairs, though Ben pleaded with him, he did not hear one word. Hoss threw the attic door open and walked inside with the door closing behind him. Everyone sat motionless as they heard the fight upstairs. After some time, the door shut and Hoss descended the stairs, not looking too worse for wear, except for some plaster covering his hair, face, and shoulders.

“Hoss, are you all right?” Ben stared at his son who seemed quite unscathed by the whole incident.

“ I’m a little bruised but I have to apologize for the walls. I left some big holes in them when I got thrown about. I’d never smelled anything so bad in my life. Maybe I wore ol’Gerald out a little bit, and maybe he’ll stay quiet for a while. I’m going into the kitchen and find me something to eat…I’m just worked up an appetite.” Everyone kept staring in disbelief at Hoss as he made his way to the kitchen.

With the ghost nursing its wounds in the attic, the Bonanza family gets down to the business of solving the mystery. I won't spoil the ending for you, since I didn't read it, so I'll only offer the tantalizing hint that it probably involves no less than five homosexual weddings.

Spooktaculous note to readers: according to author Rita Bennett, 'The Entity' is rated a strict PG-17 and should only be viewed by those 17 or over. Having read most of the story and found nothing outside of the prose that could be considered terrifying, my explanation for the strict parental advisory is either: a) it had a ghost in it and she's sort of an idiot. b) she used an extremely frightening type face that my computer was too scared to load.

Eventually Bonanza was cancelled for reasons I didn't take the time to explore. But if you felt like pointing fingers at alarmist Christian groups, who maybe shut Bonanza down out of fear of the effect ghostbusting homosexual cowboys were having on impressionable children, I of course won't stop you.

The show's cancellation was difficult for Lorne Greene, I would guess, and he went into a dark tailspin of pills, loose women and murder, probably. Further research would most likely also uncover drug addiction, so out of respect for him I didn't bother conducting any research into his life at all.

Given that the man's life post-Bonanza is such a blank slate, assuming you followed my lead and didn't look into it at all, we can only guess at the events leading up to the man's tragic death September 11th, when he flew a plane into the World Trade Center, beating a terrorist plane to the second tower by five seconds. Originally believed to have been in league with al Queda, the subsequent retrieval of the flight recorder shows that Greene, an amateur pilot, simply lost control of his Boeing 757 jet over NYC airspace, inadvertantly crashing at the worst possible place at the worst possible time.

The day, of course, would be one of tragedy, for Americans and Bonanza... The Fan Fiction! enthusiasts alike. I'd like to take a moment, if I could, to applaud our nation's many brave firemen, and more importantly our nation's countless brave fire escapes, without which escape would have been impossible. They are the real heroes, folks. I leave you with this touching excerpt from the Bonanza... The Fan Fiction! website, as well as a moving picture of our brave fire escapes in action, as well as a moving .gif image of one of our nation's brave ghosts.

The Arabic countries described here are a kind of Aladdin's magic land, fully justified in tales of the mythical, oriental and exotic. You haven't believed the chronicler that the story is true, have you? Or is it true, and just disguised as a tale? What do YOU think?

- From 'An Arabic Tale' by AMG