This is almost slapstick in a Gene Wilder/Mel Brooks sort of way.

I was reading a CNN article about an author by the name of Shirley Ann Grau whose 1964 book "The Keepers of The House" (which won a Pulitzer Prize) was recently reissued.

Anyway, this book depicts a 30-year interracial romance between a wealthy white man and his black housekeeper in the Deep South. Sounds like real life eh? (read: My Father's Name Was James Strom Thurmond)

Remembering that this was written back in the 60s, it was no surprise that a lot of people's ire were raised. The Ku Klux Klan even protested on her front lawn.

In their usual protest format (more intimidating than letters to the Straits Times' forum page), they brought a wooden cross to be burnt in front of her house. But through some divine intervention or plain forgetfulness, they forgot to bring a shovel (or maybe they forgot to buy it from the KKKmart). So without the shovel to dig, there was no way they could stand the cross upright. Finally, they gave up and just lay the cross flat on the lawn and burnt it there.

Said Shirley in the CNN article, "it scorched a few feet of grass and it scared the neighbours, but I wasn't even here. I was at Martha's Vineyard. It all had kind of a Groucho Marx ending to it."

I can just imagine the scene if she was at home with her kids:

"Mom! Mom! The lawn's on fire!"

Peering over her typewriter, "that's okay dear, just piss on it on turn on the lawn sprinkler."

What an anti-climax to the KKK's effort. The huge burning cross was supposed to scare the shit out of people, not just scorched their lawns. Remember those in the movie "Mississippi Burning"? Yeah, that's how it works. Ain't doing much just lying flat on the ground.