[eS Sa a LETTOR Well, we’re back from our little hiatus, and boy, have a lot of things changed since last we spoke. Stephen Harper and his Conservatives won a minority government in the federal elections, I have returned from Mexico, damaged but breathing, and Mid-terms are starting to make the journey from our collective nightmares, to day timers, to reality. ; But more than all that, it turns out that IJ, like Lucille Ball in I Love Lucy, “have some ’splainin’ to do.” I.mean, we've been getting a little out of hand here at the Other Press lately, making bold and sweeping claims with our cover tag lines (those three little titles across the top of each cover). These claims usually fall under one of two categories: The horribly bad pun, or Complete buffoonery. It turns out that we sometimes, in our rush to make you smile, upset some people with our poor taste and out- right ability to bend reality to our perverse wills. I, there- fore, would like to take this week’s Lettitor to set the record straight on a few key issues. “The Other Press wishes to state that News Editor, Nicole Burton, did not vote Communist in the federal election, as was suggested in a tag line on the cover of the last issue (January 18, 2006). We also wish to state that Iain Reeve is not, to our knowledge, gay (not that there would be anything wrong with that). Furthermore, we hereby proclaim that 9 out of 10 elderly people do not really hate Brandon Ferguson (those numbers were admittedly soft), and I, Colin Miley, cannot fly, is not really an alchemist, and does not give free editorial lap dances on Thursdays (they cost five bucks for ten minutes, no touching, no release). Getting back to Brandon, we have never seen him touching either “minors” or “miners.” We find both of thosé images too grisly to even consider, and admit that we were a little tipsy when we came up with those tag lines. We would like to state, once and for all, our burning desire, as a collective of admittedly ill repute, to see the people of Tibet freed from tyranny, and His Holiness, the Dali Lama, be allowed to return to his native country. We also wish to state that the nicknames that we give ourselves in the masthead on page two every week are purely ficti- tious, except for the one given to Ed Keech, who really does bear the nickname “The Western Stranger” these days. In addition, we wish to state that we are entirely unsure as to which came first, the chicken or the egg. We are also cloudy on the issue of whether life imitates art, or if the opposite is actually closer to the truth. Finally, we wish to state that, although we do a lot of non-sequitur-style joking around here at the Other Press, we only do it because we are desperately starved for both attention and thrills, and feel a need to compensate by sitting back and lobbing ver- bal grenades at each other indiscriminately. We understand it’s childish and likely in poor taste, and most of us are ok with that.” Whew, now that we’ve got that out of the way, we’d also like to state that this week’s Other Press is a scintillat- ing festival of magic and wizardry, complete with super- heroes, conservative political coups, and everybody’s sec- ond favourite mitten, Badminton. So, with a wink, a nod, and a Happy Year of the Dog, it’s the Other Press for February 1, 2006. —Colin Miley, Managing Editor KARATE OF CONTENTS Features 19