The world may never know how close it came to semiotic Armageddon just the other week.

The morning began like any other: I got out of bed, showered, made some coffee and went to our family iMac to get some internet time in. I checked my email, popped onto the bulletin boards, made sure that everything was alright on the page I webmaster. And then I dropped onto CNN.com to see what had transpired as I'd slept... only to see the following headline - 'Speculation swirls: Tipper Gore for Senate'

My eyes fell out of my head. I spat my coffee onto the screen. I hit the roof and floated an inch away from it for a full minute and a half. I think half the neighborhood probably heard me screaming in cosmic horror. I know my poor wife did - she thought I'd pulled a muscle, or else tried to do my world-infamous Ren Hoek impersonation.

But no, it was my inner Cartman manifesting. Someone was going to pay.

The next two days of my life could have come out of an issue of Grant Morrison-era Doom Patrol. The air around my head was warping from the heat. I grew my wings, claws and barbed tail back, again, and lamented the fact that my duster was a whole ocean away so I could go out in public without looking like a djinn (a real problem in these parts). I was frothing at the mouth so bad that I had to wear a feed bag to keep from ruining the floor. A mess of sharpened knives, shattered windows and long, shaky glances, I was having a bad, bad flashback to '85, '92 and '96.

Fortunately for our apartment, my sanity and the integrity of the ozone layer, Tipper chickened out. And I suppose that's just as well, as our poor cats were scared out of their wits. I had to sleep for three days straight just to make sure my eyes had gone back where they'd belonged. (And here you thought columnists had an easy life...)

Now I know what you're probably asking right about now - other than all-too-predictable questions about my mental state: "All that over a former 2nd lady? Come on, J, what on earth did she ever do to you?"

People used to ask me that question all the time. They learned better. I still have their ears, somewhere. I ranted until they fell off.

Tipper Gore may have only ever been 2nd Lady of the United States, after a long stint as a Senator's wife, but she'll always be the first lady of censorship to me. Before the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) got on their high-horse, government intrusions into rock music were limited to the initial paranoia of the 50's, the anti-commie (and anti-racemixing) politics of the 60's, and the mindless mealy-mouthed meanderings of Spiro Agnew in the 70's. Sure, they sounded scary at the time, but in the long run they had no effect, other than giving rockers something else to bitch about. But between the threat of possible government intervention and that deal with taxed blank tapes - which didn't go anywhere, anyway - the PMRC had the record companies running scared. And they gave in.

Now, Al and Tipper have tried to distance themselves from all that, but I'm not buying it. If you follow the timing of their "regrets," they almost always coincide with Al's attempts to secure the nomination, and cash, for Presidential - or Vice-Presidential - ambitions. A partial timeline of those "regrets" can be found here, and I think, once you look at them, you'll agree that they're just crocodile tears shed to secure cash and votes from the left and gullible. Further proof could lie in how Al will gladly talk up his wife's work for "family values" while on the stump, yet drop it the rest of the time.

(Item: if you want a glimpse of the real Al Gore, check out his savaging of Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider here.)

But maybe you're still asking "Why?" "Why still carry a pitchfork after all these years? Okay, it happened, and it sucked, but... where's the beef?"

And I'll tell you: because it set a dangerous precedent. After it became fashionable to put warning stickers on records, the dominoes started falling. When television came under the gun, back in the 90's, another rating scheme was introduced. When videogames came under the gun some time later, yet another rating scheme was introduced. Comic books will most likely be the next scapegoat the block, courtesy of Marvel's recent decision to get away from the old Comics Code Authority.

And I fully expect that, after some terrible tragedy caused by some kid who - bereft of cable TV, videogames, comic books and rock music - turned to "questionable" books in the library, I'll see a rating scheme for regular books in my own lifetime. Only in the land of the free, home of the brave... tax haven of the scapegoater and ground zero of the Lame Blame Game.

That is why I will always despise Tipper Gore, her fat-ass hairdo and the tea tray she was pushed in on: she made it hip for the neo-liberal left to jump on the culture war bandwagon, and this time it got results. Now, instead of challenging such obvious, cheap and dangerous pandering for the steaming heap of pro-lazy-parenting dooky that it is, the Democratic party has co-opted it into their standard operating procedures. If some kid does something icky and weird, hey, don't blame mom and dad - root through the tyke's bedroom, find something (un)popular, hold a committee hearing and rate something. It works every time!

That's her real legacy. That's what she has to be "proud" of. So long as we have a two-party stranglehold on our political system, we're all only one bipartisan, reactionary crusade away from seeing our First Amendment rights whittled away yet another notch in the name of "protecting children."

Maybe the entertainment industry has forgiven Tipper, but I never will. And I hope that, when she dies, her afterlife consists of a small little room with nothing but Prince, Mentors and Ozzy records to entertain her for an eternity.

You're a master of perversity - no one knows - Obscenity like you - You've got your finger right on it.

Tipper Gore - Alice Donut