When vegetables attack

Editor's note: Michael Ackley's columns may include satire and parody based on current events, and thus mix fact with fiction. He assumes informed readers will be able to tell which is which.

The battle over South Central Los Angeles' urban farm took another ugly turn last week – even uglier than it was when Daryl Hannah climbed a tree last month to take a ''moral stand'' for the truck garden.

Protesters fighting to save the urban squatter farm from development authored a major escalation of the conflict, thrusting an 18-inch zucchini into the exhaust pipe of a bulldozer, temporarily disabling it.

''It had to be done,'' said protest leader Doroteo Arango. ''Otherwise, the battle against the rights of property owners would have been lost on Wednesday.''

Ten protesters were arrested, and though the bulldozer eventually was repaired, Arango, of the organization ''Your Lan', My Lan', All Lan' Is Aztlan,'' sounded an ominous warning.

TRENDING: GOP senator joins in the narrative twisting

''That 18-incher is nothing,'' he said. ''There are bigger squash where that came from. Anybody who has grown zucchini knows there's no upper limit to the weaponry we can develop.''

''It's scary,'' said Lt. Howard Bashford of Los Angeles' finest. ''We're already outgunned by the hoodlums in South Central; now we're facing squash of who knows what size. Really, no exhaust is safe from back pressure.''

Bashford said the police officers' union would lobby for a citywide ban on the vegetable ''until we can grow an adequate response.''

Perhaps predictably, this has generated a pro-zucchini backlash, with activists forming the group ''SOS.''

'''Save Our Squash' won't stand for an out-and-out ban,'' said spokeswomen Amy Handleman. ''Why should law-abiding people be deprived of their constitutional right to any vegetable just because of a few troublemakers''?

But seriously, folks.The fight over L.A.'s ''urban oasis'' does continue, and thanks to the Internet and other out-of-the-mainstream media one can learn the battle isn't just about a single 14-acre plot. It's about trying to establish an urban toehold for Zapatista radicalism, complete with strongarm retaliation against gardener dissenters and allegations of south-of-the-border-style corruption. Keep an eye on this, and remember Los Angeles' mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, D-Aztlan, supports the protesters' radical goals.

Old scapegoats are the best: The online newspaper Voz de Aztlan has injected the charming element of anti-antisemitism into the urban-farm controversy. Here's the opening of one of its stories:

''Not many people are aware that Los Angeles has a powerful 'Jewish Mafia' that is in cahoots with the Los Angeles Police Department and many local elected politicians. This fact is becoming clear to the 'campesinos' who are attempting to defend their 14-acre farm in South Central Los Angeles from Jewish land developer Ralph Horowitz.''

The website refers to L.A. City Councilwoman Jan Perry as ''an unabashed Jew and a full supporter of the Jewish land developer Ralph Horowitz of Brentwood.''

The online publication also blames the ''Jewish media'' for stereotyping Latinos, makes common cause with the Palestinians in their conflict with Israel and says Jews have inflamed Islam against the West.

You want another conspiracy theory? How about this – Hitler is alive and hiding in East L.A.?

Tit for tat: The U.S. Senate's failed attempt to advance the anti-flag burning amendment impelled some folks in Berkeley to set fire to an American flag, demonstrating the fact that political pandering brings out other panderers ...

Speaking of burning: The Berkeley City Council is hot for its citywide referendum calling for the impeachment of President Bush and V.P. Dick Cheney. One council member said she hoped the vote would start a pro-impeachment ''brushfire.'' Backing the move were Cindy Sheehan and Daniel Ellsberg. The former moved to Berkeley to be closer to the anti-war base. The latter has no ''Pentagon Papers'' on the Iraq war, but seems to be operating out of the hope such documents exist. Times change, some people don't.