Novelist and political essayist Stephen Elliott reviews Roots "Inspiration!" and ponders the motives behind the little crate we sent him from Tokyo. Plus, he eases all our minds by informing us that the person who did more to turn the US into the new Soviet Union than just about anyone other white woman in recent memory still gets a good night sleep. Cletus is relieved.

My can of Roots Inspiration! arrives from Tokyo on the 20th of April at a time when I'm touring Florida with former Secretary of State Katherine Harris. I took pictures of her flirting with a twenty-year-old student from the school newspaper. We spoke about tax relief, fear, and the election of 2000 which she delivered to George W. Bush like a dead baby pig with an apple in its mouth.

Read on.