I dumped the -p switch and put an explicit print statement in and that worked...but it seems like the -p _ought_ to work. I _think_ it doesn't, though, because the Camel book says -p puts an assumed loop around the script with a print in the equivalent of a continue block, so the print would only be seen once. Now, if you remove the while loop and just do this:

#!/usr/bin/perl -p -i.bak

my $kill = "what|ever";
s/$kill//go;
s/^\s+//g;
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I believe it'll work..it's weird, but it works.