Not since the post-9/11 columns have I gotten an e-mail avalanche like the one that came as a result of "There Oughta Be A Law," the last installment of this little collection of rantings.

Most of them have been in the vein of this one:

What a terrible thing for these cities to do. They are trying to cover the realities of life. If people are so sensitive, maybe they should stay in their nice little homes.
The way I see it the city is greedy and wants to make a buck, and if tourists see the homeless they might get offended SO STAY HOME if it scares you! If it upsets you then do something about it, like hand out a sandwich. These people could use your help. What a bunch of idiots to stop people from feeding the homeless in a park. It is a public place and I think it's a freedom to be able to gather. isn't it? I really am mad about this and I would like to get a message to these cities to let them know MY MONEY WILL NEVER BE SPENT THERE. When I take a vacation it will be elsewhere.
I was married in Vegas but I will not go back if they don't change this. I will also instruct my friends to go elsewhere I will yell out the top of lungs to boycott any way possible. I will keep watching for updates. Thanks for letting me vent. -- (name withheld)

Note that I received this after the news broke that Orlando, Fla., had decided to join the ranks of the heartless with its own anti-homeless ordinance ... thus the reference to "cities."

However, before you go canceling your trip to Bellagio or any of the other Vegas Strip casinos, you need to read the following letter:

Mr. Wilson:
What many people do not realize is that the mayor of Las Vegas represents fewer than one-third of the residents of the Las Vegas Valley.
Clark County -- which is the jurisdiction holding sway over much of the area, including all of the Las Vegas Strip, the airport, the convention center, the university (those areas where the vast majority of tourists frequent) -- has no intention of entertaining similar proposals banning the feeding of the homeless.
For those of you who take exception to the mayor's new law, please understand that many of us in the Las Vegas Valley also disagree with the mayor's position.
Addressing homelessness in a meaningful way requires a multifaceted and sustained approach since the needs of homeless individuals are varied. The mayor's anti-feeding ordinance is not part of Clark County’s or the region's approach to this complex challenge.
Erik Pappa Director of Public Communications Clark County

So you can fly into Vegas and hit The Strip and never set foot on Mayor McDweeb's territory.

It's nice to hear that not everyone in Vegas has gone stark, staring mad, and indeed that the greater portion of the inhabitants of the region are still possessed of their faculties.

This means I can still go see Penn and Teller and not compromise my values. This is a good thing.

In other news from the fringe ...

Shamin' The Shaman?

"Tribal Life" on the Travel Channel, which I've discovered since it comes on right before Tony Bourdain's excellent "No Reservations," is a fun little show, but on this week's episode, set in Vanuatu, something about the tribe's shaman caught my eye.

Every time the shaman was depicted performing his religious rituals, visual effects were used to create a sort of hippy-dippy light effect around him and everything he touched. It made him look somewhat like an island cousin to Jerry Garcia. The effect was obviously whimsical and faintly mocking in impression.

It makes me wonder. Would the Travel Channel do such a thing to a Presbyterian minister or a Catholic priest? A rabbi? Just because a religion is practiced by folks without running water or electricity, that doesn't mean it's not every bit as valid as those that take place inside big stone structures.

Just The Wurst

Takeru Kobayashi, or as I call him The Mighty Mouth, who has dominated the Nathan's Famous hot dog eating contest for a few years now, is apparently not content with dominating the consumption of just one kind of tubular meat.

At the World Bratwurst Eating Contest, Kobayashi rudely stomped on the previous record, set by my heroine Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas, of 34.5 brats. The 160-pound Mouth, who looks like I could probably take his lunch money, pounded down 58 brats.

Think about the last time you grilled brats. How many did you eat? Two? Three? Maybe four if you'd been doing yard work and had "earned" them? At the height of my binge eating back in the old days, I could have done six or seven before getting in danger of tripping Mr. Gag Reflex.

I'm calling for an investigation of Kobayashi, starting with an X-ray and possibly including an MRI. I'm betting that somewhere in the region of his solar plexus, the scans will reveal a contained singularity, a harnessed black hole, of the type most famously used by Romulan battle cruisers in "Star Trek." The dogs go in ... and materialize in another universe, where the inhabitants have no doubt by this time built an elaborate shrine to the Tubular Meat God.

Or at least that's what I think. I could be wrong.

Got a question? Comment? Bucket of money to toss around? Drop me a line, anytime!