When Blight was reminded that the agriculture giant is not in the publishing business, and could therefore hardly qualify as an injured party, a platoon of attorneys in full riot gear burst from out the rump of a large wooden horse positioned near the speaker's podium, and responded in legalese so complex and convoluted that all the journalists present suffered brain bubbles and drooled helplessly on their notepads, pens hanging uselessly at their sides. Witnesses claim that tape recorders malfunctioned and began playing hypnotic country music. Every laptop computer within a three block radius crashed simultaneously. This reporter was forced to work out the next bit from memory.

ATTORNEY 1: "The suit is less about a specific violation, and more prophylactic in nature. Yeah, technically, they haven't done anything that could be construed as illegal or slanderous, but we feel it's only a matter of time. With that paper's liberal, agrarian agenda, Monsanto's gonna' be a logical target. We felt it best to nip it in the bud, so to speak, and sue the dickens out of 'em, just on general principle. It's essential to assert ourselves like this every once in a while, just to remind people that we're still the biggest, ugliest player on the Gen-Mod farming scene."

ATTORNEY 2: "We also had a feeling they were going to be busy in court this year with Archers Daniel Midland. We wanted to make sure we got our turn to litigate before the other guys snapped up all their court time."

ATTORNEY 3: "They are also so sassy."

BLIGHT: "But it's sad. It's really sad because we always make every effort to cooperate with the media. If the paper wanted to work with us on the Hybrids article, they should have called us up, and I promise you we would have sat down with them and lied to them."

This is Black Cow Press' first law suit of 2004. The newspaper was unavailable for comment, as it is their editorial policy to distance themselves from self-referential journalism of any type. -bcp