J U D G E   O A F   A   HELPING HAND       I am one busy boy this week, so this is gonna be short and sweet. Judge Oaf is gonna hang up his (curiously stained) judicial robes and be serious with you kind citizens for a moment. Deadly serious. My lovely state of North Carolina (or "Nawth Kalina" in Oafspeak) is "putting up with a bad patch of luck", as my hill-folk neighbors would say. The aftermath of Hurricane Floyd has wrought devastation and flooding on a scale previously seen only by Noah. Roughly the eastern fourth of my state, an area of almost eighteen thousand (yep, you read it correctly, THOUSAND) square miles has been flooded from the torrential rains left in Floyd's wake. As if the flooding itself weren't bad enough, we got a whole lot of extra goodies swept into the water. Stuff like gasoline and oil from flooded service stations and junkyards. Or how about hog and chicken waste, as well as the hog and chicken carcasses themselves from submerged feeder lots and chicken farms? Don't forget the raw sewage and other chemical leachates from flooded treatment plants and landfills. Next, throw in a few thousand critters and about a ka-jillion insects, all displaced by the floodwaters and all looking for high ground, just like you and your family are. How's ‘bout sharing your family's rooftop sanctuary with a pissed-off rattlesnake or water moccasin? Finally, add eight inches of additional rainfall, plus the odd tornado or two to keep the devastation stirred up, and cover it all with a smell like nothing else your nostrils have EVER experienced, and you've got a scene so hellish it would give Dante nightmares. Think I'm kidding? Take a gander at Tarboro, or Rocky Mount. The amazing thing is, my North Carolina neighbors are not packing up and fleeing. Nope, they are staying, cleaning up, and re-building. But they need help, and that's from anybody out there who's capable of lending a hand in this. Contact the American Red Cross, the Salvation Army, your church, or your local government, and ask what you can do. Don't worry if you can't contribute money or goods. Volunteering an hour or two of your time labelling and loading relief supplies is just as important, and helps just as much. You'll make life a little easier for a whole bunch of your neighbors. The time is now, citizens of the BEArchive. Roll up your sleeves and pitch in. Court's adjourned! Judge Oaf Senior Judge of the Superior Court of the BEArchive