Amazing Rants Overheard at Venice Beach: "Journalists are the dogs of war!"

Ranter: Fifty year-old businessman from Ghana

Location: Inka Deli, 1425 Ocean Front Walk, Venice Beach

Time: 1 p.m. on a Monday

Topics Covered: The mercenary nature of journalism; English's many different terms for butler; mysterious blood rituals; how and why reporters insinuate without directly accusing; the beauty of Las Vegas; how best to deal with journalists.

The Rant:

[Ghanan Businessman studies this reporter's Inka Deli lunch, asks if it's good, and then orders and sits down at the communal sidewalk table. Making smalltalk, he asks what the reporter does for a living. The answer inspires outrage.]

Ghanan Businessman: Journalist? But they are the dogs of war! They are mercenaries!

I said this to them when they asked impertinent questions after my butler - no, how you say in English? - my steward had died.

He died in my swimming pool. I live alone and those journalists - the dogs of war! - they decided that I was the killer. That I had performed a ritual with him.

They did not accuse. Instead they are sneaky. They connotate. They connotated, 'Where were you? How can you prove there was no ritual?' This was before the post-mortem, and they wanted sensation! They wanted big sales!

That's when I said 'You are dogs of war! You are mercenaries! You are paid to kill with lies!'

[Ghanan Businessman's food arrives. As he eats, he calms.]

The post-mortem proved it was just a drowning. And the journalists, the cowards, they dared not accuse me in print after I called them dogs of war.

I travel everywhere. Tomorrow to Taiwan, then to Canada. I like Las Vegas - at night it is romantic to me. My friend was there at a conference, and we laughed about journalists. He said to me, 'There is one way the business man should have communications with the journalist. With a bat!'

I told him, 'They are mercenaries! They are dogs of war!'

[Ghanan Businessman laughs.]

You are right. This chicken is very good to me.