 The Chris-Cross
Columbus sure got nothing for his troubles. That would be the common experience of the working classes in America which isn't even named for the greatest explorer of the 15th and 16th. centuries. Vespuchi was undoubtedly the boss's son and that's why they had to use his first name. Like Carolina, a north and a south.
That's really all the average American knows, or cares to know about the subject. Nobody likes a smart-ass anyhow, and nowadays when any show of initiave only brings down more reaction, more work and for less pay and time-off from the unhappy ruling classes who are less satisfied every day with the amount of profit they are getting out of us and in no mood to hear it. God help us.
Now map skills like Admiral Christopher Columbus had don't come along every nautical century. He could look at a map or chart, spot the cartographic anomalies and then rigor out the unseen and uncomprehended from it. Maybe not all of it, but enough for a working hypothesis, a voyage of discovery to the New World, off the edge of the Old World to the entire western hemisphere which was, you would think, more than sufficent proof of the earth being round. Some still disagree.
Luck also plays a part in scientific investigation. Columbus wasn't even looking for the new continents he happened upon, he was searching for a short-cut to China and the so-called East Indies.
I'm sure Columbus would understand the Black Dahlia Cartogram. Easily! And he's been dead 500 years. If you haven't figured it out yet, you too might be suffering from some sort of cultural myopia about maps. It happens, it's not your fault really. Gaps in your education, probably brought on by a keen shortage the sort of wealth it takes to get a good education in the US, where such a thing has finally been dragged out of the reach of the filthy proles, where it belongs.
So here's to Christopher Columbus on Columbus Day in America. Monday, Oct. 8, 2007. Not that this date has anything to do with the man. No, now we're back into the whole labor question again as the Lords of Industry have seen fit over the years to rest the workers on contigious Monday's and Friday's so as not to overly crowd the golf courses mid-week.
And in time they hope by bleaching all the meaning out of these 'off the clock activities', to someday remove them all together, as they feel would be their right and privilege in the country they own, but don't want to pay taxes in, the United States, which I'm told they can no longer even find on the world map. No surprise to the little old mapmaker, me.
 The Red Line
And speaking of the flat earth holdouts, the Fatman is fat back. The new FAQ #61 at BDA dotcom is a sumptious seven page pean to the LAPD cover-up complete with salutory blurbs from some of the real pooh-bah's of the past force. Of course no name is more respected in LAPD circles than Bill Parker. He was the man who, by his friendship with Jack Webb, kept the real truth about the LAPD mess from resurfacing for decades with well scripted television propaganda that it took two race riots, several taped beatings, Simi Valley, OJ, Darryl Gates, Mark Furhman, Tom Lange, and all the other yeggs to erase from the public consciouness.
But to some, like the Fatman, Parker was the Grand pooh-bah, because he kept the LAPD white like him for as long as he could by hiring and promotion of empty detective suits like Steve Hodel, Furhman, Lange et. al. Ok, so here's my question;
 Parker and Jack Webb
Why didn't Parker close the Short case?
If anyone could have it closed it would have been Chief Parker, with his obesession with keeping the lily-white reputation all those many TV show's had bought his force. His own reputation was such that the decision to close a troublesome old case would have gone completely unquestioned. You bet. like the Lipstick murders he's abandoned in favor of more dopey quotes, assurances from LAPD worthies that Daddy done dood it.
Parker, Brown and the rest had their reasons for lying to Stevie, as is becoming apparent as we learn nore about the real killer, the mysterious Edwin F. Burns. The man who's work the map really belongs to. Ed, you see, knew all about the place he dumped the body, and he had his reasons why lain there-in. A treasure map to the Black Dahlia's murder. The modus operandi.
So what we have here is more just smoke being blown up the Fatman's skirt because all along he was the butt of so many inside LAPD jokes, the higher ups would have only tolerated him for some reason, with his unstable background and hollow leg and incestious relations. They might have seen him as a perfect dupe who would, if carefully brought along, dutifully and tearfully adopt the whole fucking cover-up as his own personal Oedipus complex, while at no time threating to come anywhere close the facts of the case. Just the nut they needed and what a maroon!
They surely chose the Fatman for these reasons, and not his non-existant detective skills. Then they taped a "kick-me, I'm a freak show, and my daddy's an abortionist" sign on his back and eased him out into the smog and onto the fringe he inhabits today, slowly rotating, around and around, never coming any closer to the truth. Just rotating, around and around on the big behind. As clue and humorless as ever.
 Steve "Whitehole" Hodel
7:49:10 PM 
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