This image was lost some time after publication, but you can still view it here.

The NY Daily News's Rush & Molloy lead today's column with a healthy salad-tossing for the salad-impaired Kirstie Alley and her upcoming show:

Kirstie Alley is going to have a big fat problem with her new Showtime comedy, "Fat Actress," which premieres Monday night. It's going to be a hit, and she's not going to be fat anymore. "That's okay," she told us the other day. "We can call it 'Slut Actress' the second season."[...]

In just one episode - starring her friends John Travolta and Kelly Preston as well as Kid Rock and NBC entertainment chief Jeff Zucker - Alley triumphantly gets back at Hollywood. (There's more revenge in her memoir, "How to Lose Your A— and Regain Your Life.")

Before you think R & M have completely lost their minds, or that this item was sponsored by a Showtime fruit basket lined with twenty-dollar bills, we think we've got it figured out. The flat affect, the over-the-top endorsement of a product from a favorite tabloid target (the "she's not going to be fat anymore" overkill was the tip-off): This is the gossip column equivalent of a hostage video. Luckily, they've managed to include a coded message on the sly. If you take every fifth letter in the item it spells out this SOS: "The Scientologist have us at knife-point. Send help. They've taken the children. Also: Alley still fat, show will flop."