1. Note the s-apostrophe-s construction, Strangers. It’s good enough for the paper of record, and it’s damn sure good enough for a gaggle of hashish-addled amateur pornographers posing as journalists.

2. My personal secretary informs me that I was out cold for more than a day after conducting only the most preliminary investigation of Mr. Sanders’s collection of—shall we say—”extraordinarily specialized” pornography. Though he claimed to have amassed this eye-popping array of nauseating (and nauseated) matter for the sole purpose of writing the Tortured Logic piece in last week’s paper, this office has been unable to reach any definitive conclusion about the source of said materials. In all candor, this office couldn’t even figure out how to open the video files. It’s just as well; legal or illegal, merely imagining the kind of pornography described in Sanders’s story ought to be a firing offense. No, what really knocked me out was the folder marked “EYES ONLY,” which turned out to be full of Lance Armstrong images—muscles straining against spandex shorts, teeth shining behind widespread lips, arms stretched around a Sheryl Crow-shaped gap (apparently, some Photoshop artisan had removed all traces of women from the photos). There was nothing strictly graphic, but the entire cache was utterly disgusting nonetheless. Alas, a quick call to my last remaining friend at DOJ made it clear to me that I had no genuine cause of action against Sanders, or against The Stranger as an institution. Make no mistake, however, you haven’t heard the last of this matter. Not by a long shot.

3. As for the story proper, when my secretary finally told me the gist of what Sanders had written, I found it utterly repugnant. I may not know much about pornography (in my day, “BDSM” stood for “Balding, Divorced, Some Money”), but brother, I’ve bunked everywhere from Camp Harmony to the Hanoi Hilton, and I know a thing or two about torture. There’s nothing sexy about torture. Romantic, yes. Sexy, never.

Once again, everyone involved should be ashamed, but especially Mr. Sanders. Lance Armstrong is an American hero.

-Steen