MISSOURI WATCH: TO ARMS! THE U.N. IS COMING!

In case you haven't heard, troops from the United Nations, which has its headquarters in New York City, will soon arrive in our state for the sinister purpose of creating environmentally safe regions in the Ozarks regions of Missouri. Not only will these armed marauders establish environmentally pure areas, they will transport the residents who occupy the land to unoccupied regions round St. Louis and Kansas City..

It's enough to send shivers down your spine.

We Missourians are indebted to a small group of superpatriots now residing in portions of the southwestern and south-central areas of our state for this alarming news, which they are thankfully spreading to other uninformed areas by way of public meetings, where you are privileged to join this super elite upon payment of a small membership fee which unfortunately is not refundable when the bankrupt U.N. is a no-show.

The news of this imminent arrival of foreign troops has been confirmed by several super patriots who have been informed through secret communications networks, which have fortuitously spotted several black-painted helicopters hovering overhead as well as secret coded messages on the backs of signs installed by the Missouri Department of Transportation.

Thank heavens we have patriots who are bright enough to know that U.N. troops bent on invasion are always airlifted into target zones via black choppers and who can read the coded messages etched onto the rear of highway signs. For those of you who might doubt the efficacy of these signs, I ask you: have you ever spotted a black helicopter carrying foreign-looking troops flying over your neighborhood? Of course you haven't. And your neighborhood has never been invaded before, has it? Unless you count last summer's arrival of your deadbeat brother-in-law and his huge litter of kids. As for those secret signs, you probably thought the messages were earlier Transportation Department proclamations ("Progress as Promised -- Your Highway Taxes at Work") that were sanded off by DOT employees when the agency ran out of money after the first year of its 15-year road-improvement program.

If memory serves, the last really big invasion of America, not counting Japanese cars, occurred during the War of 1812, which took place as luck would have it, during the year 1812. Rude British troops, not even under United Nations command and speaking a gibberish language called the King's English, secretly landed on the Maryland shoreline and headed straight for our nation's capital. A forefather of Mayor Marion Barry welcomed them to the city and even offered to let them sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom, which was quite a sacrifice considering the fact that poor Abe didn't have a bedroom to his name back then.

Fiddling with their overpriced Dunhill briar pipes while staying overnight, the British troops accidentally set fire to Lincoln's mattress and before long, the place was in flames. Well, the Brits, thoroughly embarrassed and feeling some slight discomfort as a result of an earlier evening's dinner of kidney pie and frankfurters, took tail and ran as the flames of the Beltway licked at their backsides. Rumor has it that Sen. Strom Thurmond showed them the way out of Washington.

In light of the timely warning of our stout-hearted Missouri super patriots, it is clearly time to call out the National Guard, alert the Highway Patrol, mobilize the Water Patrol and deputize all male legislators to stem the foreign hordes that are about to invade our environmentally pure Ozarks regions. You can almost hear those conniving U.N. generals as they plot black-chopper bombing raids in an attempt to destroy the Crown Jewel of Missouri culture, Branson. Shrapnel could even damage Big Don's Ozark Snake Zoo and those factories that turn out cute little machine whittled outhouses that symbolize Missouri's undying dedication to pollution control.

To arms, to arms, the black planes carrying foreign troops are coming, all the way from New York City, the capital of sinister immigrants from around the world, the purveyor of second-rate salsa sauce, and the birthplace of John Gotti, Al D'Amato and "George" magazine.

Get out your muskets, Missourians, and defend your state's pristine lakes and rivers and oceans from the scourge of foreigners who want to marry your sisters and banish you to St. Louis, which you will no doubt reach just in time to have to endure another season of the Rams.

~Jack Stapleton of Kennett is the editor of Missouri News and Editorial Service.