2001 | The American Pile

Surveys The NCAA Will Ignore Department

A one-page online chat sheet faxed on weekdays to Indianapolis subscribers, features a question for readers. Last week it was "Should the NCAA move the 2001 basketball tournament to another city because of the confederate symbol on Georgia's state flag?" The response was 82 percent "no."

Rack 'em!

A moment of silence, please. Eddie Parker is dead at age 69. The Indianapolis Star's obit notes that he was world-renowned as "Fast Eddie," a legendary pool player and the inspiration (no better word for it) for the "Fast Eddie" Felson character played by Paul Newman in The Hustler. In a lesser-known film, The Color of Money, Newman won an Academy Award for again playing the "Fast Eddie" character, this time as an older Parker. Eddie was attending--what better way to go?--the U.S. Classic Billiards Eight-Ball Showdown over the weekend at South Padre Island, Texas, where he was to perform an exhibition Saturday. But Friday night while talking with friends, Parker is alleged to have quipped, "Man, I don't feel so good," then sat down and leaned over and fell back dead. If we close our eyes just for a moment we'll see the ghosts of Bushman's Recreation Parlor and Mom's Cafe and Pool Hall in Scorched Corners, Indiana, shuffling about, smoking, scratching, spitting, sighting down their cues across stained green felt. It's so good to see them again. And here comes Eddie now. . . Rack 'em! (February 4, 2001)

Mitigator Tries Preposterosity Instead

Tucked away in the Indianapolis Star this morning was a quote from a 32-year-old Anderson, Indiana, woman with a master's degree in social work who is employed by the court system up that way as a "mitigator." Her job is to find mitigating facts which will convince a judge to go easy, lighten up a bit on a defendant. Her latest work is for an Anderson teen-ager accused of raping and bludgeoning to death a neighbor girl, age 13, and her young sister who tried to come to her rescue. The alleged assailant had a previous record--don't they always?-- and was on home detention at the time of The Most Recent Unpleasantness. The mitigator suggested, apparently in public, that the accused murderer "had an average IQ and perhaps he was not aware that hitting someone in the head with a hammer could cause serious injury or death." No word on whether the judge bought in. The woman has been publicly reviled for saying this, the Star reported. Why? (February 12, 2001)

Archeologists burrowing in a South American pyramid in Peru have found the grave of one of my long-lost spiritual kin. The cloth-wrapped body of a man was found wearing a nose ornament shaped like a vampire bat, according to a recent report in USA Today. My guess is this was part of this chap's get-up for Christmas card poses.

The entire world is awash this morning in news about the death of race car driver Dale Earnhardt. The local Indianapolis Star gave it Princess Diana-level coverage--full pages of stories and pictures, much of it focusing on grief-stricken Dale-worshippers. What, dear god, are they going to do? They're numbly walking the streets, sitting stunned, immobilized at their breakfast tables. A Star feature focused on local resident Paul Toda, who has over 200 die-cast cars in his house, many of them bearing either Dale's famous No. 3 or his famous son Dale Jr.'s No. 8. Toda has lampshades, decals, posters, stickers, hats, framed pictures, jackets, and much more, all of it bearing Dale's likeness or racing motifs and themes. Toda and a friend said they were leaving this morning in Paul's monster truck to drive to Carolina to see Dale's headquarters, just walk around and look at the building, be there, ponder the meaning of it all. Toda told an eager reporter that all his colleagues at work know that the only reason he works--or even lives at all--is so he can devote his life to following Dale and racing. Toda, bless him, is hardly unique. He represents millions of people all over the world who are obsessed with this self-definition through celebrities. Emptiness is what it hides. Just a hunch. (February 20, 2001)

Once a year someone sends the Darwin Awards listing around the known universe on e-mail. Nominees typically must die or be violently self-maimed as a result of their own stupidity to get on the final list. The tally of usually about 8-12 winners is an annual reminder of why we must be working ceaselessly to cull the human gene pool. A late February issue of USA Today spotlighted what I suspect will be at least a 2001 nominee and a possible future champion. An unidentified teen-ager from Norway, not quite ready for prime time, was sentenced to (a mere) 18 days in jail and was fined $17,900 for his caper. It started when the 19-year-old lad roared past a police camera posted along a highway at 68 miles an hour in a 50-mile speed zone.The article said he was "worried about a stiff fine" and so returned to the scene to try to remove the film from the box. That failed. So he rounded up a friend who helped him unbolt the box and throw it into the nearby ocean. But, dangit, the box could still be seen from land. So the next day the dimbulbed duo returned in wetsuits, dove in, and were struggling to drag the box into deeper water when police, alerted at last by passersby, arrived and arrested them. The ticket would have cost $450. On contemplation, this was rather a feeble effort by the boys, and I suspect they'll not come close to getting past the preliminary round of judging. Still, it was a good start for amateurs. I think they have promise and will bear watching.

Scuffing, Pawing, Hawking, Wheezing

It's been an exceedingly manly past week or so. The Indiana Convention Center and adjacent Hoosier Dome have been host to several motorsports conventions and trade shows. The place has been jammed with people, banners, displays of dune buggies, motorcycles and other equipment, much of it never before seen by me. The lot south of the Dome has been crammed tight with huge, burly vehicles. Many have tires almost as big as my car, a fairly petite 1981 Toyota Starlet. Huge springs elevate the truck and van bodies five or six feet off the ground. You need a ladder to get in and out. They have an armor-plated look and are plastered with decals. Almost everyone I see milling about is wearing logo-decked clothing, jumpsuits, nylon jackets and puffy coats of many colors, all bearing manufacturer or product names, or the names of famous celebrities. Children dressed the same way tag along. The ground is carpeted with cigarette butts and scraps of antler velvet. One sign of restraint: little to no visible beer or whiskey drinking. Everyone seems to be flexing, larger than life, inflated. The adults are eyeing each other carefully as they strut and preen. One senses the surge of testosterone, manly sweat, can almost hear the fabric stretching as muscles ripple. The men walk with that self-confident strut, shouldering aside imaginary rivals.They paw and scuff the ground with big leather boots. The motorsports equipment gleams under huge spotlights.And then right in the middle of it--what did we ever do to deserve this?--Dale Earnhardt dies and the nation drowns in grief. No sooner did these folks move out of town than the NFL's big football combine moved in. Busloads of college football players, big devils, workin' out for the pro scouts. Now the hotel lobby is full of exceptionally large people, mostly male, with necks thicker than my waist. Kids and fans move restlessly about, looking for celebrities. It is all I can do to restrain myself from approaching someone at random and asking, "Hey, mister, are you somebody famous?" Because you know--goddammit, you just know!--that somebody famous is out there. Just to be in their presence is life-affirming--for me, anyway. They must be eating tons and tons of meat at all the big restaurants. This is awesome! I feel better about myself just being able to be here, hang around, walk among them. But even at my hoglike 227 pounds, I'm just a mere slip of a thing, stooped, wheezing, hawking phlegm, pinching off farts, dreaming of what coulda been. (February 24, 2001)

From a recent Indianapolis Star comes word that police officers in Omaha may be fired over a recent episode involving what some regard as questionable taste. Seems police were called to a highway overpass from which a man, wanted on a domestic violence arrest warrant, was threatening to leap. As officers negotiated, suddenly there blared from police radios the once-popular Van Halen rock song, Jump. The tune includes the lyrics. "Might as well jump. Jump! Go ahead, jump!" Police Chief Don Carey said the broadcast was "inappropriate," though it was not clear in the press report if Carey concluded this on his own or under hellacious pressure from international touchy-feely groups who seem always to be hovering nearby. An investigation has been ordered. No sense of humor, I say. And society would have been better off if the asshole had jumped. Give the cops or the DJ a medal.

One More Reason To Go On Living Department: Film director Frances Ford Coppola is releasing in May a new version of his anti-Vietnam war film, Apocalypse Now. According to USA Today the new version will have about an hour of additional footage and will now run about 3 hours and 17 minutes.

For a bit more uplifting experience, I commend to you the new film, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, quietly released a month or so ago and picking up blockbuster speed as Oscar time approaches. A Chinese film with English subtitles, Croucher is a stunning gem, set in early 19th century China. This is a tale of warriors, magic, mysticism, and an appealing and reverent look at aspects of Chinese culture we hear little about in America. The film is Bruce Lee, Star Wars, The Dark Crystal, Peter Pan, The Highlander, and Tinkerbell all rolled into one. The photography is stunningly beautiful, the acrobatics sheer magic, including a multiple triple windmill Elevator Man move reminiscent of George McGinness down in the paint against Northern Illinois University in 1971. No other human being has ever done this one except George--until now. Two women are the heroines, and they kick ass all across the luminous countryside. I've seen it twice, plan a third visit. Thoroughly awesome. Go see it.

Big shocker in Boston: local mass transit authorities are standing foursquare against smut. The Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (successor to the MTA made famous by the Kingston Trio's hit song of the late 1950s) is refusing to plaster posters on its buses and trains advertising a new Hollywood blockbuster called Tomcats. A story in USA Today March 5 notes that the posters show the lower torso of a woman, wearing only boxer shorts, with a slogan plastered dead-center on the crotch saying "The last man standing gets the kitty."An MBTA spokescritter, Robert Prince, says this is too suggestive and that women and children riders shouldn't have to be subjected to it. The movie studio is screaming bloody murder, threatening lawsuits, claiming this is a sacred freedom of speech issue. Sorry, it isn't. Sony Pictures is free to make whatever films it wishes and to prepare posters to advertise them. The rest of us, however, are not required by the Constitution or the Bill of Rights to either pay to view the films or to publicly display Sony's posters promoting them. (March 9, 2001)

As devotees of colorful nicknames, let's pause a moment to pay tribute to two departed locals who'll never get on the Scorched Corners Famous Names List but are worthy of citation nonetheless. This morning's Indianapolis Star announced the recent departures of Robert L. "Bobby Lou" Schoepfel Ford and Lyman C. "Sonny" "Black Foot" Forbes, Jr.

Who Can Blame It?

"The Phase IV supercomputer decides to mate with the estranged wife of its creator and programmer." --From a local TV guide synopsis of the 1977 film, Demon Seed, starring Julie Christie as the estranged wife, which was shown locally last week.

My favorite film of recent times, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, got this comment from columnist Joseph Epstein, writing in the March 21 issue of The Weekly Standard: "Full of astonishing spectacle, it presented elegant Chinese women flying over buildings, fighting with swords, riding long-maned ponies through dazzling golden deserts."

America Online users have rendered their verdict: The Yugo is the worst car ever made. AOL asked its customers to name the worst 10 and Chevrolet was the only American company to get two vehicles on the list. In order after Yugo's 33.7 percent of the vote were Chevy Vega, Ford Pinto, AMC Gremlin, Chevy Chevette, Renault Le Car, the Dodge Aspen/Plymouth Volare, Cadillac Cimarron, Renault Dauphine, and the VW Bus. Lucky me, I've never owned any of these, though I owned a Chevy Corvair, which had to be in the running somewhere.

Lil' Kim, described by the press as a "rapper," had to duck low the last weekend in February when she walked out of a Gotham nightclub and gunfire immediately erupted. More than 20 shots were fired, but Lil' Kim escaped unharmed in her limo. She denies involvement in this unpleasantness. Police are investigating. I can sympathize. This gunfire business has happened to me more than once when I've been out minding my own business, tryin' to get home to my family.

How about a 10-year moratorium on the use of any form of the word "diversity"?

Dividing The Spoils In Ever-Tinier Parcels Department

George Will pointed out this morning on television that for years there were only six "race" classifications on the U.S. Census forms but now there are 65. But what about the rest of us? I won't rest until the gub'mint provides a separate classification for every single American. This is discrimination of the worst sort! (March 15, 2001)

A headline in the March 13 Indianapolis Star's Arts section over a story about television programming read, "Viewers Expect Life to Imitate Their Favorite Television Shows." This pretty much sums up American society as I know it. How about you?

Big computer trubbs this week at work. Called Information Services and ended up over there to get help. Mildred Thurmer, a middle-aged woman and a whiz on computers, was assigned my problem. She dialed up my system. "What's your password?" she asked. I paused a moment, pondered. This was something I hadn't counted on. I had no choice but to go ahead. "Skidmark," I said, without expression. Mildred's eyebrows slid up half an inch or so on her forehead, and a smile flickered. She typed it in, said nothing. A couple more clickety key strokes. She needed my second password. "Lunchmeat," I answered. Another flickered smile, ever so brief. Mildred went right on through to the end, never asked me why, why, why. She got the sumbitch to work, too. I thanked her and left. I'd like to think that just for a brief moment she wondered.

The March issue of Asian Traveler magazine notes that it may be too early for China to be opening many schools to train civilian pilots, since only 50 persons in the nation of 1.26 billion people hold private pilot licenses. Tomorrow, maybe.

Baltimore city officials thought they had a great idea: install audible traffic signals to help blind people cross streets safely. But the National Federation for the Blind is howling in protest. It claims such signals would "reinforce stereotypes of the blind as people who need huge amounts of help." (From the March 13, 2001 Wall Street Journal).

A photograph in the April 7 Indianapolis Star shows the fellow who attacked the Liberty Bell with a hammer. There he is, sporting near floor-length hair and beard, grimy, empty-eyed. Why is it, I asked my wife over breakfast, that these people all seem to look alike? Her reply--a nice insight, I think--is that "they are all conforming in their non-conformity. They're all telling the world, 'I want to be my own man.' " Apparently they never notice the irony of adopting the same appearance to make their case to the world. (April 7, 2001)

I thought Barbra Streisand and Alec Baldwin had promised to leave the country by now. Where do I send my donation? (April 12, 2001)

Shouldn't we make a pilgrimage to Jonathan Winters' house before he dies, or we do? Whichever comes first.

Ultimately, all human civilization boils down to something very simple: your gang of thugs, thieves and murderers, or mine?

P.O.E. Purity of Essence. That's the secret code, Mandrake!

Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, that is.

This morning's paper carried a report of a "leaper" in beautiful downtown Indianapolis last evening. Around 6 o'clock, according to police, a male, said to be casually dressed and in his 40s, is believed to have leaped to his death from one of the upper floors of a downtown hotel. There was no evidence of a tussle and authorities are calling it a suicide. The man's descent was halted by a balcony in full view of my own window overlooking the atrium; but, alas, I was so busy concentrating on my work that I missed the spectacle. I docked him points for failing to "push off" strongly enough to clear the balcony and reach the ground-floor lobbby, which would have put him--rather spectacularly, don't you think?--right in front of the check-out desk. I gave him only a 6.5. Next. (April 19, 2001)

Iowans Howling At Prospect Of Losing Front Row Seat At Federal Trough

Iowans--at least a bunch of them wanting to tap into the Federal Treasury--were said to be made as hell at Dubya in late April after he recommended limits on a national flood insurance program. The Bush administration in its 2002 budget proposals has taken the astounding position that after property has been repeatedly under water and the federal government has repeatedly compensated its owners for water damages--in some cases for much more than the property's value--there ought to be a point where the money flood is turned off. A reasonable and sensible approach, I believe most people would agree. But not Iowans living along the Mississippi River, which flooded again this spring. They think it's an outrage. Much of the howling came from Davenport where a 1993 flood caused over $100 million in damage. Joe Allbaugh, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) says Davenport at the least ought to be required to build a flood wall downtown. "The question," he said, "is how many times the American taxpayer has to step in and take care of (Davenport's flood damage), which could easily be prevented." Davenport's Democrat Mayor Phil Yerington bristled and said this was "an insult." Yerington told reporters, "You can't punish people for living along a river." USA Today's account April 25 said that Davenport officials obejct to a flood wall because it would "spoil a river view that attracts tourists." The federal flood insurance program has paid $10.4 billion in claims since 1968 to people living in flood plains and flood-prone areas, according to USA Today. Bush has common sense on his side, but I doubt his proposals will survive Congressional review. Lefties will screech about mean-spiritedness and that will be the end of another good idea. (April 25, 2001)

Former Nebraska Senator Bob Kerry's angst-ridden apologia to the planet for his role in a Certain Vietnam Unpleasantness He's Never Been Able To Forget has the Left caught in its shorts. Let's see if I have this straight: It was during the Vietnam War. Kerry and his squad were in the middle of a jungle. It was the dead of night. The area was known to be a Viet Cong stronghold. Someone began shooting at them. Are the liberals telling me Kerry and his comrades shouldn't have shot back? Here's what someone should stuff in the critics' faces: war is ugly; innocent people get killed; it has been this way for billions and billions of years; shut up and get on with your miserable whiny lives.

As for Kerry, despite his terrible suffering over the years, he managed to accept the awards he says he never deserved in the first place, he's managed to keep them for over 30 years and he says today he has no plan to turn them back to the government. Can't have it both ways, Bob, sorry.

From time to time I find myself confronted with this dilemma: Who do I know who truly loves books and reading? Usually I need this answer when I have a book I want to give as a gift, or a book review I want to share with someone. I come up with pitifully few names. Pete Jones. Walter Trepling. (Both, coincidentally, are history teachers). Scarier still is the likelihood that not only can I name few people who love books, but probably only a scant few more who read anything on a regular basis, let alone books. I grew up in a home full of readers. Both parents read magazines, library books, and our family took four daily newspapers: the Scorched Corners Peeper, the Indianapolis News, and the Lafayette Journal-Courier in the evening, and the Indianapolis Star in the morning. In addition, I read the neighbor family's copy of the Twaddle Creek Press whenever I could. Today, 750 years later, I doubt if any of my own children subscribe to even a single newspaper. They'd probably tell me they get all the news they need from television. (May 16, 2001)

This headline in USA Today's May 17 edition, over a review of Philip Roth's latest book, The Dying Animal: "Roth Drags His Elegant Prose Through the Gutter." The reviewer, Deirdre Donahue, confessed that reading this one was a "repellent experience" and that words like "gross" and "demeaning" came to her mind as she slogged through Roth's graphically sexual text. My question: Where has Deirdre Donahue been all her reading life, and Roth's too? He's been a pottymouth for decades. (May 17, 2001)

They won't make the Scorched Corners Famous Names list, but their nicknames are worth a special salute, anyway. Let's bid a fond farewell to Peter Odell "We Straw" Phillips and Elizabeth "Princess" Otam Starks, both of Indianapolis, whose obits appeared in the May 17 Indianapolis Star.

A front-page stunner in the Indianapolis Star tells of a year-long survey just completed by the Safe and Responsive Schools Project, led by an Indiana University intellectualoid, which reveals that zero tolerance policies in our schools are counter-productive, nasty, racist, unfair, meanspirited, and just don't work. The study concludes--and who would ever, ever have guessed this?--that strict policies unfairly single out minorities for punishment (meaning that mountains of evidence and facts about crime and misbehavior are made up out of thin air by racist pigs) and do not change student behavior (code for: because there are seldom any consequences for misbehavior in a culture where the instinctive reaction of adults is to either abandon policies calling for consequences or to make exceptions for all offenders) and increase high school dropout rates (exactly what we need, I say). Did someone actually use taxpayer funds to pay for this?

An article in the May 8 Wall Street Journal said that a CNBC program had overtaken a CNN program as "the most widely watched financial news program" on television. But wait! wait! wait! cries PBS executive producer Rich Dubroff in a letter to the editor a few days later. Dubroff says a PBS program, Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser, has an audience seven times greater than these other two. There's no apparent reason to doubt Dubroff's claim. Makes you wonder what the Journal's reporter thought he was getting away with. (May 24.2001)

Word arrives from Canada that actor Evan Brown has been sentenced to 30 days in jail after being found guilty of assault for shoving a plate of whipped cream into the face of Prime Minister Jean Chretien. Brown said he was protesting arrogance and a lack of accountability by the government. He must also pay $33 into a victim compensation fund. Thirty days and $33 seems like a fairly reasonable trade to me. There's certainly no shortage of bureaucrats, politicians and public figures who deserve a pie in the face. Where do I get in line?

Silly Side of Camelot

Recently declassified gub'mint documents show that the Kennedy Administration--no greater political icon hath America, Sick Willie and the Clintonistas excepted, of course!--had hatched a plan in the early 1960s to blow up a U.S. Navy ship, fake casualties, have a mock funeral for the victims, and blame it all on Fidel Castro.

And speaking of JFK, the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library Foundation's selection of former President Gerald Ford as its 2001 Profile in Courage award winner is every bit as silly as the dopey plan to blow up a Navy ship and blame it on Castro. Ford is being honored for his 1974 pardon of former president Richard Nixon after Nixon resigned rather than be impeached in the Watergate Unpleasantness. The Foundation and others consider Ford's act one of great political courage. I consider it one of great betrayal. Nixon should have been indicted, tried, and brought to justice as any ordinary citizen would have been. All Ford did was confirm the fraud and terrible deceit in the claim that all Americans are equal before the law. We are not, and it was depressing in an otherwise lovely spring of 2001 to be reminded of it.

Among the spam and rubbish pouring into downtown Indianapolis fax machines and e-mail addresses every minute of every day is a one-page "Fax Daily" page which contains an opinion poll, advertisements, jokes of the day, and assorted babble. A recent poll question solicited opinion about a U.S. Postal Service trial balloon about eliminating Saturday mail delivery, and drew this choice nugget of a reply from someone self-named "Flabbergasted," who asked if we'd ever noticed that when postal employees are tested for drugs the one drug that never shows up is speed? I liked that! Another frequent arrival calls itself a "Business Digest" and in its May 4 edition noted--and haven't we suspected this along?--that "Drinkers of bottled water may be pouring their money down the drain, as tap water in most developed countries is likely to be just as good."

Talk show host David Letterman has suffered the modern equivalent of a public flogging on the town square for the great sin of our age, political incorrectness. Letterman quipped on his Late Show program that Colombia's Miss Universe contestant, Andrea Noceti, could win the talent competition by swallowing "50 balloons full of heroin." Exquisitely sensitive people everywhere erupted in a firestorm of outrage. Noceti threatened to sue for billions and Colombia's UN ambassador called for massive protest demonstrations outside Letterman's Gotham City studio. Letterman's true feelings aren't known, but whatever they were he was compelled to trot right back out the next night to apologize profusely, and to bring on Noceti as a guest. Let's hope Letterman has learned his lesson.

Something Refreshing I Just Stumbled Across in the Dictionary Department: Shunpiking--"the practice of avoiding superhighways, especially for the pleasure of driving on back roads."

Piercing Insights Department

"This species could have been so great, and now everybody just wants a new Salad Shooter or sneakers with lights on them. That's what we've settled for." --George Carlin, quoted in the June, 2001, issue of Maxim magazine, and pretty much summing up human civilization.

Grocery stories in Indianapolis are performing overnight transplant surgery on their cashier checkout lanes. Shoppers are being herded toward automated lanes where a robotic voice instructs them to scan their products, place them in a sack and get out. Signs proclaim the sheer joy of the experience: It's quick! It's easy! It's accurate! It's fun! Two quibbles: 1) automated checkout is none of those things, and 2) human beings are losing jobs in this process. I'll sidle through the remaining lanes where human beings work, until there are no more of them. As with many changes in business procedures, this one is not aimed at serving customers, it's aimed at cutting costs and eliminating human beings from the payroll.

National Public Radio presented me eyewitness accounts (breathlessly, of course) from three--not one, not two, but three--count 'em, three!--reporters who were on hand to watch Tim McVeigh catch lunch. Since the moments and the activities were brief and restrained--in Tim's case by straps and wrappings, in the reporters' case by self-important lugubriousness--there was little to observe and equally little to report. The three accounts varied not a whit in their essentials. One has to wonder why NPR deemed it important to offer multiple acccounts, and on a larger scale, why thousands and thousands (billllions and billllions, if Carl Sagan's listening) of the press spent billlllions and billlllions of dollars camping out in Terre Haute to bring us essentially. . .nothing, even though billlions and billlions of people worldwide were said to be hanging on every second of the coverage. Well, Tim is certified toast now, so for God's sake can't we get back to shopping!!? (June 11, 2001)

I think I've spotted something Gentleman's Quarterly will be covering any day now. I've noticed down at work an increasing number of men--usually savvy-looking young chaps--are adopting a new stylin' and profilin' technique at the urinal. For centuries--all my life, anyway-- men have stepped up, unzipped, and whizzed. Simple, uncomplicated. No fancy stuff. But the new move involves unbuttoning or unhooking the trousers, zipping down, then folding back the trouser tops to either side, as if they need much more room now to get all that gear out there. Who knows what the meaning is or where all this started? One of the big foundations ought to research this.

Heroin And Booze Next Targets?

America's latest, biggest lottery winner so far is Richard Boeken, 56, a cigarette smoker for 43 years with lung cancer who in early June was awarded $3 billion by a California jury against the Phillip Morris Co. Boeken testified during his trial that he has been addicted to both heroin and alcohol. It's not hard to imagine these two being the next targets of lawsuits from America's victimhood industry. (June 18, 2001)

I've just finished Seymour Hersh's book, The Dark Side of Camelot. It's tempting to believe that had JFK been serving in another era--post-Watergate, say--he would have been impeached, removed from office, then indicted and convicted as a newly-minted civilian for multiple high crimes and misdemeanors. Though Hersh documents Kennedy's involvement with organized crime figures and a wide range of Other Unpleasantnesses, including bribery, election fraud, assassination plots against several foreign leaders, and more, if it happened today he would be elected President for Life and his face would be carved on Mt. Rushmore, right alongside Sick's. Published in the mid-1990s, The Dark Side of Camelot is a highly entertaining account of the semi-sordid history of the Kennedy family, with emphasis on JFK, Teddy, Bobby, and their father, Joseph. The Kennedys had the good fortune to have been given a free lifetime pass, and they took advantage of it with gusto. The book itself is too late to be of any use except clarifying the historical record, but better that than nothing. (June 18, 2001)

This morning's Indianapolis Star headlined a probe by intrepid reporters who have surged back to Terre Haute to see how local residents feeeeeeeeel in the aftermath of the Timothy McVeigh Unpleasantness, which took place in their fair city. As careful observers of the human condition might expect, in general they feel OK and have moved on to other diversions from hideous reality. I know that I feel considerably better knowing that the Star's staff and editors are keeping in touch with the pulse of things. (June 19, 2001)

Adios To Two All-Time Greats. . .Archie

Archie Bunker is dead, and the man who made him an American icon, actor Carroll O'Connor, is, too. O'Connor was an accomplished actor far beyond the vehicle which made him famous in the 1970s, the TV sitcom, All in the Family. My favorite non-Family role from O'Connor was his portrayal of the sheriff, Honest John, in the film, Ballad of Waterhole No. 3. O'Connor's death marks the passing of a legend and an era. We'll miss ya, Arch. (June 27, 2001)

. . .And Jack

Jack Lemmon died last night. The Big C. Some great performances. My three favies would be The Out of Towners, Days of Wine and Noses, and Mr. Roberts. My guess, though, is that Jack would count as his signal achievement in life getting excruciatingly close to Ann-Margret's chest in one of those later-in-life "Grumpy" films he made with Walter Mathau. Had to be all downhill from there. (June 28, 2001)

George Will provided an amusing note of edification July 3 in the Indianapolis Star. He reports that the ever-so-modern fashion statement of wearing a baseball cap backwards is hardly modern. None other than the legendary Holden Caulfield did this in Catcher in the Rye, published in 1951, and it was a form of adolescent protest then, too.

This Had to Happen Department

In the wake of the Supreme Court's ruling that Casey Martin gets to ride a golf cart in USGA tournaments, others are lining up for special treatment, too. The USGA denied the request of a caddie with cerebral palsy to ride in a golf cart during a tournament in San Francisco July 9-10. This is another lawyer's dream served up by the USGA, which remains under the delusion that it actually has the right to establish its own rules. (July 12, 2001)

No matter how hard I try, I can't help but think that singer Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes's nickname has lewd and raunchy origins.

"Parking under a shady tree to work on a crossword puzzle is a great alternative to being labeled a racist and being dragged through an inquest, a review board, an FBI and U.S. Attorney's investigation and a lawsuit. . ." --Seattle policeman Eric Michel commenting in the Seattle Times on why his colleagues take a passive crime-fighting approach in black neighborhoods, reported in the July 23 issue of National Review.

Last week the 80th annual convention of the International Order of Raccoons--isn't that Ralph Kramden's old outfit?--was held in Indianapolis at the Indiana Convention Center and adjacent Hoosier Dome. Racoons and their brides, wearing tan slacks and skirts and green blazers and blouses--perhaps it was the other way around--swarmed all over the place. Many wore brightly colored vests emblazoned with patches and metal pins signifying something. On the backs of the vests were the names of their nations and planets of origin. Kuala Lumpur, said one. Republic of Korea said another. Mali, Botswana, Belgium, Canada. They came from (seemingly) every state and every continent. I pose to you the central question: Why?

Hope For The Republic?

WEVV Television in Evansville has made a major breakthrough. It announced today that it's discontinuing all newscasts and replacing them with entertainment programs and reruns. The CBS affiliate fired all its news staff. Tim Lynch, the CEO of Communications Corp. Of America, which owns the Evansville outlet said--in what is one of the most remarkably candid, facing-the-truth comments I've ever heard--that there was "more and more evidence that what Evansville wanted from our station was entertainment. . .not news." This could be the ray of hope we've long awaited! Imagine the benefit to our nation if all TV "news" were eliminated!

Great New Euphemism Department

"Oppositional defiance disorder" is now the politically correct term for what, in more courageous times, we once called disobedience.

One of the magazines covering celebrities reports that just a few days before singer Mariah Carey checked herself into a hospital for what later was described as an "emotional breakdown," she looked at her pager and discovered 297 messages waiting. There's probably a clue in there, somewhere.

Nonprofit client agencies of the local United Way are upset over cutbacks in funding, according to a front-page story in the Indianapolis Star. Reporter Scott Miles revealed that more contributors are designating their contributions, and this means certain agencies are not getting everything they want. Miles noted, for example, that " someone who is HIV-positive won't have 24-hour access to an attorney through the Damien Center." The latter provides services to AIDS volunteers, and to an occasional AIDS victim, too. What the Star didn't tell us is this: Why can't these people wait till normal business hours like the rest of us? (July 21, 2001)

Doppelgangerville?

Spooky stuff. Within the last several weeks I've seen not one but two--count 'em, two!!--people in a downtown office building who are eerie-close-to-dead-ringers-for-stars. One guy could be Hitler's young twin. He looks to be in his mid-30s, with the same mustache, same face, those glittery, hard eyes. And this morning in an elevator a guy who looks like Peter Lorre got aboard, and when he spoke he sounded like Lorre, too. Have I crossed into a parellel dimension of some kind?

Occasionally there is a journalist I admire. Columnist John Leo (U.S. News & World Report) is one. His column in the July 24 Indianapolis Star takes on the race-mongers and shows how they operate in America. Cincinnati is their latest target. We knew this even before Jesse Jackson rolled into town. Leo notes, for example, the global screaming over the recent shooting death of a black youth in Cincinnati which has transformed into the mantra, "Fifteen black men shot in six years" on the lips of every certified liberal across this land. Demagogues hint darkly that Cincinnati's honky-dominated police force is engaged in a vast, evil conspiracy in an evil, racist city to target and eradicate innocent blacks. Then Leo's cruncher: However, the heavily black police force in Prince George's County in Maryland (dangerously close to Wonderland, D.C., don't you think?) killed 147 people from 1990 to 2000 and we hear essentially nothing about it.

The Devil's In The Footnotes

This morning's Indianapolis Star offers a shining example of why we conspiracy theorists get so het up. I cite for reference three columns on the editorial and op-editorial pages: one by Mona Charen, a known conservative, the other two by Georgie Anne Geyer and Ellen Goodman. It is the Star's practice to append at the end of all columnists' work, a brief italic note about who they write for and/or how they can be reached. No problem so far. This is valuable information for Mr. and Mrs. Front Porch. Geyer's column today has a footnote telling us she is a "foreign affairs columnist for the Universal Press Syndicate." Ellen Goodman's reads: "Goodman is a Boston Globe columnist." But Mona Charen's footnote reads: "Charen is political columnist who worked for the Reagan White House. If the Star believes it's vital for M&M FP to know that Charen worked over a decade ago for the Reagan Administration, why doesn't it provide us the same information for Goodman and Geyer? I think we all understand the code here. This is a sneaky attempt to subtly undercut the validity of Charen's work via a thoroughly gratuitous association with what the editors consider troglodytic, lunatic, addled Reaganites. Of course I could be wrong about every last syllable of this. (July 30, 2001)

Big Stunner: Rodney King has been arrested on drug charges.

Sick Surges Into First Place

Sick's No. 1! Sick's No. 1! That's the cry ringing across America--indeed, around Planet Earth--today following the announcement by the Knopf publishing division of Random House that it's signed a deal to pay Sick Willie to write a "thorough and candid telling of his life" in 2003. The memoirs will earn Sick a rumored $10 million and that, USA Today breathlessly reported in its August 7 edition, tops even the $8.5 million deal for Pope John Paul II and the $8 million Hillary Clinton is getting from Simon & Schuster. Awesome! Anyone thinking they'll get candor and honesty from either of these Snopesian grifters is dreaming, though.

Movie reviewer Mike Clark ridiculed actress Angelina Jolie's latest film (Original Sin, in which Antonio Banderas co-stars) in a USA Today commentary August 3, calling the film a "bad apple," Jolie's mannerisms "eccentric", the dialogue "tired" and the directing "sluggish". The film is so full of duplicities and dopiness, Clark says, that audiences will be crying for mercy. Clark calls Jolie's recent screen history "rotten to the core" but this rather misses the point. Jolie has a huge rack and that--those, actually--is why her movies draw big crowds.

Snuff Pageant In Our Future?

Tucked away in the glitterati section of a mid-August edition of USA Today was a report that producers of this year's Miss America pageant are up late at night ceaselessly at work trying to solve the show's declining ratings problem. Reacting to the awe-inspiring popularity of "reality" based TV shows like Survivor and its flock of spinoffs, Miss America planners are adding roving candid cameras backstage to spy on the losers, and the 41 non-finalists will get to vote on who should win the big prize. New labels are being slapped on old standbys--the swimsuit peep show will now be called "Lifestyle and Fitness" and the evening gown segment will be re-branded "Presence and Poise." The top five finalists, USA Today reported breathlessly, will have to answer tough questions about current events and American history. It takes only a little imagination to see where this ultimately has to lead: to an all-nude show first, and then, if that doesn't jack up the ratings, to the ultimate thrlll for a sick and decaying culture--a reality show where one or more contestants are killed--at random, of course, with big consolation prizes to the unfortunate losers' surviving families and friends. There'll be no shortage of volunteers, we can bet, when the big day finally arrives.

And while we're at it, what's the difference between Moslem and Muslem? (Other than one of Jonathan Winters's characters--was it Princess Mary Louise Louise over in the castle?--wore a dirty, grey dress made of this material). One of the big foundations ought to research this! (September 22, 2001)

Beer And Cobras--What A Recipe!

Richfield, Wisconsin, has provided a potential future nominee for the annual Darwin Awards. Mark down this name: Timothy Friede. According to police reports, Friede keeps a large collection of snakes, spiders, scorpions and other critters in his home. Earlier in September, Friede and a friend "drank some beer" one night, then went down into Friede's basement where the critters were kept. Someone got the bright idea to clean the cages. While doing so,Friede was bitten on the forearm by an Indian cobra. A short time later, police said, Friede resumed the cleaning. He was again bitten, this time by an Egyptian cobra. At this point, the friend called for an ambulance. Friede, after treatment in a hospital intensive care unit, is believed to have survived. Unless I am mistaken, Darwins go only to those who die as a result of their actions, so Friede has some work ahead of him. He has great potential, though, and hereby goes on our Darwin Watch List. An up-and-comer!

Memo To Marriott: Add Beer And Cobras

Marriott executives have a cutting-edge strategy for getting hip. They're giving their Renaissance chain a chic face-lift, according to an article in the August 30 Wall Street Journal. . The spiffed-up Sonoma, California, lodge, for example, offers guests a "life-sized winged cow" and a metallic sperm titled "Swimming Upstream." This new "edgier" look promises to be a home run in the hearts of Mr.and Mrs. Front Porch. I've made my reservations! Have you?

Slip-Slidin' Out The Door

This morning's Indianapolis Star offered an unusually nauseating array of breakfast Americana. A sampling: 1) A page 1 headline over a story about new proposed federal safety regulations for the airline industry: "Bush Hopes New Rules Will Fly With Public". This is code for: If Anyone Whimpers About Inconvenience We'll Drop the Rules; 2) A front-page story about the Governor's Education Roundtable, a group of political, business, and civic leaders charged with advising the gub'nor on what to do about the state's horrendously bad education system, voting 17-3 to allow any school with at least 50 percent of its students passing state tests to be given the "acceptable progress" rating, thus avoiding any sanctions. Code for: Our Kids Are Gonna Feel Good About Themselves, And So Are We, No Matter What It Takes; 3) A stunner of a story under a teeny-tiny (but redundant) headline in the sports section: Mike Tyson Is Accused of Sexual Assault; 4) Another front-page shocker about 23 states still requiring the Pledge of Allegiance to be recited each day in their public schools (Indiana, thank God--oops!, I've commmitted a crime--does not). Code for: The ACLU still has a lot of work to do. 5) And finally, back to the sports pages, a little story about Coach being back, pretty much under cover, in Indiana. He spoke in a place called Starlight, Indiana (A southern Indiana town, the story said) to an audience of 600 people who paid $40 a ticket for the privilege. This event was described as a "Texas Tech fund-raiser" which yielded about $30,000. I say: Good! This is $30,000 less that the donors have to spend on filters for their e-mail systems. I add: All Hail Coach! He is Risen! I spun away from the breakfast table, skidded out the door on my own vomit, and roared off to work. (September 27, 2001)

H. Rap Still An All-American

And totally by coincidence, less than a week after the terrorist bombings, one of America's home-grown terrorists, the legendary black militant H. Rap Brown, now a "Muslim cleric" re-named Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, had his own murder trial delayed by an Atlanta judge on grounds that Brown/Al-Amin couldn't get a fair trial "because of anti-Islamic sentiment" stirred by the events of September 11. Brown/Al-Amin is accused of killing a sheriff's deputy last year, and claims he is the victim of a police conspiracy. Sounds All-American to me.

Babbleonian Captivity

The babble on the cable news and talk shows is almost unbearably dopey. The press and the show hosts do a terrible job of asking intelligent questions. Guests get away with shallow, silly answers. Commercial breaks and host interruptions prevent any topic from being pursued beyond simpleminded sound-bites. I suspect we're utter fools if we think television provides us anything even remotely resembling thoughtful discourse. Picking up, for example, a copy of the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal provides an astounding contrast. The lesson appears to be that if you expect to be well-informed in present-day America, your only real hope is to be reading newspapers, magazines, and books.

All Hail The Brits! Where Do We Sign Up?

The Brits, noted for their dry sense of humor, have found a new opportunity to show it. An Associated Press report in the October 14 Indianapolis Star notes that significant numbers of British citizens are filling in their 2001 census forms with "Jedi Knight" when asked for their religious affiliation. So many are using the designation that the government has had to assign Jedi Knight its own category when compiling census results. (Jedi Knights, for the uninitiated, are the warriors who battle evil in the Star Wars movies). British authorities appear uncertain how to react. An Office of National Statistics spokesman confessed that "large numbers" of Jedi Knight responses are pouring in but hastened to add that the government was "not saying that Jedi Knight was an official religion," then called such responses "nonsense" and urged people to stop making them. The British Press Association reported that an e-mail campaign was behind the orneriness. All Hail the Jedi Knights, I say.

Perfect For This Weekend's Sigma Alpha Dodo Mixer!

Ted Baker, A British men's clothing designer has come up with a suit sure to take America by storm--an "Endurance Tuxedo" made of superfine merino wool coated with Teflon. The suit won't crease, resists water and stains, and is "virtually indestructible" according to the company. The line is called "Party Animal" and its advertising features an icon of a man on his knees vomiting. Great for college fraternity parties, one supposes. They cost around $625 and are available in finer stores everywhere.

We've been bombarded for several years with advertising hyping the glories of superfast Internet connections and the tidal wave of consumer demand that will take us to unimaginable thrills. But the Chicago Tribune's November 12 business section tosses a pail of cold water on that with a story noting that research is suggesting the unthinkable: the average consumer may not be interested. Hucksters have a lot riding on this--literally billions in expected profits--so it's best not to get too smirky. I confess that I love it, though, when consumers turn contrarian and refuse to be stampeded.The Tribune noted that many of the big industry players are scaling back their plans and admitting the possibility that it may take years longer than they'd expected to reel us all in.

"We don't owe American anything. America owes us." --Al Sharpton, speaking at a conference in Atlanta the week of Nov. 26-30, 2001.

The Montgomery County (Maryland) Council has passed an ordinance providing for a $750 fine if the smell of cigarette smoke from any resident's house "irritates a neighbor," according to columnist George Will on ABC's This Week program Nov. 25. Will referred to the council's office as "Taliban headquarters" and said his fondest hope is that when U.S. Special Forces are done with their work in Afghanistan, they will come home and "chase the Montgomery County Council into (nearby) Virginia." (November 25, 2001)

We Can Breathe Easier Now

A headline of the education establishment's dreams appeared in this morning's Indianapolis Star. Over a story about Indiana's budget problems was the heading: "Fiscal Crisis Threatens Educational Reform Law." This is the sweetest music the teachers unions and other reform opponents could ever want to hear. (November 24, 2001)

In the obituary of Scottish novelest Dorothy Dunnett in the November 13 New York Times was a brief notation that two sons survive. Their names are Ninian and Mungo. That latter's dangerously close to the legendary Mongo chacter in the Mel Brooks film, Blazing Saddles. Mere coincidence? Just a sound-alike? This is worth some investigating.

	Scoundrels, Knaves & Fools American Pile Whoops & Squawks Splinters From the Bench Indiana University Sports Lists & Other Minutiae Contact the author	2009 \| 2008 \| 2007 \| 2006 \| 2005 \| 2004 \| 2003 \| 2002 \| 2001 \| 2000 \| 1999 \| 1998 \| 1997 \| 1996 \| 1995 \| Pre-1995 The American Pile Surveys The NCAA Will Ignore Department A one-page online chat sheet faxed on weekdays to Indianapolis subscribers, features a question for readers. Last week it was "Should the NCAA move the 2001 basketball tournament to another city because of the confederate symbol on Georgia's state flag?" The response was 82 percent "no." Rack 'em! A moment of silence, please. Eddie Parker is dead at age 69. The Indianapolis Star's obit notes that he was world-renowned as "Fast Eddie," a legendary pool player and the inspiration (no better word for it) for the "Fast Eddie" Felson character played by Paul Newman in The Hustler. In a lesser-known film, The Color of Money, Newman won an Academy Award for again playing the "Fast Eddie" character, this time as an older Parker. Eddie was attending--what better way to go?--the U.S. Classic Billiards Eight-Ball Showdown over the weekend at South Padre Island, Texas, where he was to perform an exhibition Saturday. But Friday night while talking with friends, Parker is alleged to have quipped, "Man, I don't feel so good," then sat down and leaned over and fell back dead. If we close our eyes just for a moment we'll see the ghosts of Bushman's Recreation Parlor and Mom's Cafe and Pool Hall in Scorched Corners, Indiana, shuffling about, smoking, scratching, spitting, sighting down their cues across stained green felt. It's so good to see them again. And here comes Eddie now. . . Rack 'em! (February 4, 2001) Mitigator Tries Preposterosity Instead Tucked away in the Indianapolis Star this morning was a quote from a 32-year-old Anderson, Indiana, woman with a master's degree in social work who is employed by the court system up that way as a "mitigator." Her job is to find mitigating facts which will convince a judge to go easy, lighten up a bit on a defendant. Her latest work is for an Anderson teen-ager accused of raping and bludgeoning to death a neighbor girl, age 13, and her young sister who tried to come to her rescue. The alleged assailant had a previous record--don't they always?-- and was on home detention at the time of The Most Recent Unpleasantness. The mitigator suggested, apparently in public, that the accused murderer "had an average IQ and perhaps he was not aware that hitting someone in the head with a hammer could cause serious injury or death." No word on whether the judge bought in. The woman has been publicly reviled for saying this, the Star reported. Why? (February 12, 2001) Archeologists burrowing in a South American pyramid in Peru have found the grave of one of my long-lost spiritual kin. The cloth-wrapped body of a man was found wearing a nose ornament shaped like a vampire bat, according to a recent report in USA Today. My guess is this was part of this chap's get-up for Christmas card poses. The entire world is awash this morning in news about the death of race car driver Dale Earnhardt. The local Indianapolis Star gave it Princess Diana-level coverage--full pages of stories and pictures, much of it focusing on grief-stricken Dale-worshippers. What, dear god, are they going to do? They're numbly walking the streets, sitting stunned, immobilized at their breakfast tables. A Star feature focused on local resident Paul Toda, who has over 200 die-cast cars in his house, many of them bearing either Dale's famous No. 3 or his famous son Dale Jr.'s No. 8. Toda has lampshades, decals, posters, stickers, hats, framed pictures, jackets, and much more, all of it bearing Dale's likeness or racing motifs and themes. Toda and a friend said they were leaving this morning in Paul's monster truck to drive to Carolina to see Dale's headquarters, just walk around and look at the building, be there, ponder the meaning of it all. Toda told an eager reporter that all his colleagues at work know that the only reason he works--or even lives at all--is so he can devote his life to following Dale and racing. Toda, bless him, is hardly unique. He represents millions of people all over the world who are obsessed with this self-definition through celebrities. Emptiness is what it hides. Just a hunch. (February 20, 2001) Once a year someone sends the Darwin Awards listing around the known universe on e-mail. Nominees typically must die or be violently self-maimed as a result of their own stupidity to get on the final list. The tally of usually about 8-12 winners is an annual reminder of why we must be working ceaselessly to cull the human gene pool. A late February issue of USA Today spotlighted what I suspect will be at least a 2001 nominee and a possible future champion. An unidentified teen-ager from Norway, not quite ready for prime time, was sentenced to (a mere) 18 days in jail and was fined $17,900 for his caper. It started when the 19-year-old lad roared past a police camera posted along a highway at 68 miles an hour in a 50-mile speed zone.The article said he was "worried about a stiff fine" and so returned to the scene to try to remove the film from the box. That failed. So he rounded up a friend who helped him unbolt the box and throw it into the nearby ocean. But, dangit, the box could still be seen from land. So the next day the dimbulbed duo returned in wetsuits, dove in, and were struggling to drag the box into deeper water when police, alerted at last by passersby, arrived and arrested them. The ticket would have cost $450. On contemplation, this was rather a feeble effort by the boys, and I suspect they'll not come close to getting past the preliminary round of judging. Still, it was a good start for amateurs. I think they have promise and will bear watching. Scuffing, Pawing, Hawking, Wheezing It's been an exceedingly manly past week or so. The Indiana Convention Center and adjacent Hoosier Dome have been host to several motorsports conventions and trade shows. The place has been jammed with people, banners, displays of dune buggies, motorcycles and other equipment, much of it never before seen by me. The lot south of the Dome has been crammed tight with huge, burly vehicles. Many have tires almost as big as my car, a fairly petite 1981 Toyota Starlet. Huge springs elevate the truck and van bodies five or six feet off the ground. You need a ladder to get in and out. They have an armor-plated look and are plastered with decals. Almost everyone I see milling about is wearing logo-decked clothing, jumpsuits, nylon jackets and puffy coats of many colors, all bearing manufacturer or product names, or the names of famous celebrities. Children dressed the same way tag along. The ground is carpeted with cigarette butts and scraps of antler velvet. One sign of restraint: little to no visible beer or whiskey drinking. Everyone seems to be flexing, larger than life, inflated. The adults are eyeing each other carefully as they strut and preen. One senses the surge of testosterone, manly sweat, can almost hear the fabric stretching as muscles ripple. The men walk with that self-confident strut, shouldering aside imaginary rivals.They paw and scuff the ground with big leather boots. The motorsports equipment gleams under huge spotlights.And then right in the middle of it--what did we ever do to deserve this?--Dale Earnhardt dies and the nation drowns in grief. No sooner did these folks move out of town than the NFL's big football combine moved in. Busloads of college football players, big devils, workin' out for the pro scouts. Now the hotel lobby is full of exceptionally large people, mostly male, with necks thicker than my waist. Kids and fans move restlessly about, looking for celebrities. It is all I can do to restrain myself from approaching someone at random and asking, "Hey, mister, are you somebody famous?" Because you know--goddammit, you just know!--that somebody famous is out there. Just to be in their presence is life-affirming--for me, anyway. They must be eating tons and tons of meat at all the big restaurants. This is awesome! I feel better about myself just being able to be here, hang around, walk among them. But even at my hoglike 227 pounds, I'm just a mere slip of a thing, stooped, wheezing, hawking phlegm, pinching off farts, dreaming of what coulda been. (February 24, 2001) From a recent Indianapolis Star comes word that police officers in Omaha may be fired over a recent episode involving what some regard as questionable taste. Seems police were called to a highway overpass from which a man, wanted on a domestic violence arrest warrant, was threatening to leap. As officers negotiated, suddenly there blared from police radios the once-popular Van Halen rock song, Jump. The tune includes the lyrics. "Might as well jump. Jump! Go ahead, jump!" Police Chief Don Carey said the broadcast was "inappropriate," though it was not clear in the press report if Carey concluded this on his own or under hellacious pressure from international touchy-feely groups who seem always to be hovering nearby. An investigation has been ordered. No sense of humor, I say. And society would have been better off if the asshole had jumped. Give the cops or the DJ a medal. One More Reason To Go On Living Department: Film director Frances Ford Coppola is releasing in May a new version of his anti-Vietnam war film, Apocalypse Now. According to USA Today the new version will have about an hour of additional footage and will now run about 3 hours and 17 minutes. For a bit more uplifting experience, I commend to you the new film, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, quietly released a month or so ago and picking up blockbuster speed as Oscar time approaches. A Chinese film with English subtitles, Croucher is a stunning gem, set in early 19th century China. This is a tale of warriors, magic, mysticism, and an appealing and reverent look at aspects of Chinese culture we hear little about in America. The film is Bruce Lee, Star Wars, The Dark Crystal, Peter Pan, The Highlander, and Tinkerbell all rolled into one. The photography is stunningly beautiful, the acrobatics sheer magic, including a multiple triple windmill Elevator Man move reminiscent of George McGinness down in the paint against Northern Illinois University in 1971. No other human being has ever done this one except George--until now. Two women are the heroines, and they kick ass all across the luminous countryside. I've seen it twice, plan a third visit. Thoroughly awesome. Go see it. Big shocker in Boston: local mass transit authorities are standing foursquare against smut. The Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (successor to the MTA made famous by the Kingston Trio's hit song of the late 1950s) is refusing to plaster posters on its buses and trains advertising a new Hollywood blockbuster called Tomcats. A story in USA Today March 5 notes that the posters show the lower torso of a woman, wearing only boxer shorts, with a slogan plastered dead-center on the crotch saying "The last man standing gets the kitty."An MBTA spokescritter, Robert Prince, says this is too suggestive and that women and children riders shouldn't have to be subjected to it. The movie studio is screaming bloody murder, threatening lawsuits, claiming this is a sacred freedom of speech issue. Sorry, it isn't. Sony Pictures is free to make whatever films it wishes and to prepare posters to advertise them. The rest of us, however, are not required by the Constitution or the Bill of Rights to either pay to view the films or to publicly display Sony's posters promoting them. (March 9, 2001) As devotees of colorful nicknames, let's pause a moment to pay tribute to two departed locals who'll never get on the Scorched Corners Famous Names List but are worthy of citation nonetheless. This morning's Indianapolis Star announced the recent departures of Robert L. "Bobby Lou" Schoepfel Ford and Lyman C. "Sonny" "Black Foot" Forbes, Jr. Who Can Blame It? "The Phase IV supercomputer decides to mate with the estranged wife of its creator and programmer." --From a local TV guide synopsis of the 1977 film, Demon Seed, starring Julie Christie as the estranged wife, which was shown locally last week. My favorite film of recent times, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, got this comment from columnist Joseph Epstein, writing in the March 21 issue of The Weekly Standard: "Full of astonishing spectacle, it presented elegant Chinese women flying over buildings, fighting with swords, riding long-maned ponies through dazzling golden deserts." America Online users have rendered their verdict: The Yugo is the worst car ever made. AOL asked its customers to name the worst 10 and Chevrolet was the only American company to get two vehicles on the list. In order after Yugo's 33.7 percent of the vote were Chevy Vega, Ford Pinto, AMC Gremlin, Chevy Chevette, Renault Le Car, the Dodge Aspen/Plymouth Volare, Cadillac Cimarron, Renault Dauphine, and the VW Bus. Lucky me, I've never owned any of these, though I owned a Chevy Corvair, which had to be in the running somewhere. Lil' Kim, described by the press as a "rapper," had to duck low the last weekend in February when she walked out of a Gotham nightclub and gunfire immediately erupted. More than 20 shots were fired, but Lil' Kim escaped unharmed in her limo. She denies involvement in this unpleasantness. Police are investigating. I can sympathize. This gunfire business has happened to me more than once when I've been out minding my own business, tryin' to get home to my family. How about a 10-year moratorium on the use of any form of the word "diversity"? Dividing The Spoils In Ever-Tinier Parcels Department George Will pointed out this morning on television that for years there were only six "race" classifications on the U.S. Census forms but now there are 65. But what about the rest of us? I won't rest until the gub'mint provides a separate classification for every single American. This is discrimination of the worst sort! (March 15, 2001) A headline in the March 13 Indianapolis Star's Arts section over a story about television programming read, "Viewers Expect Life to Imitate Their Favorite Television Shows." This pretty much sums up American society as I know it. How about you? Big computer trubbs this week at work. Called Information Services and ended up over there to get help. Mildred Thurmer, a middle-aged woman and a whiz on computers, was assigned my problem. She dialed up my system. "What's your password?" she asked. I paused a moment, pondered. This was something I hadn't counted on. I had no choice but to go ahead. "Skidmark," I said, without expression. Mildred's eyebrows slid up half an inch or so on her forehead, and a smile flickered. She typed it in, said nothing. A couple more clickety key strokes. She needed my second password. "Lunchmeat," I answered. Another flickered smile, ever so brief. Mildred went right on through to the end, never asked me why, why, why. She got the sumbitch to work, too. I thanked her and left. I'd like to think that just for a brief moment she wondered. The March issue of Asian Traveler magazine notes that it may be too early for China to be opening many schools to train civilian pilots, since only 50 persons in the nation of 1.26 billion people hold private pilot licenses. Tomorrow, maybe. Baltimore city officials thought they had a great idea: install audible traffic signals to help blind people cross streets safely. But the National Federation for the Blind is howling in protest. It claims such signals would "reinforce stereotypes of the blind as people who need huge amounts of help." (From the March 13, 2001 Wall Street Journal). A photograph in the April 7 Indianapolis Star shows the fellow who attacked the Liberty Bell with a hammer. There he is, sporting near floor-length hair and beard, grimy, empty-eyed. Why is it, I asked my wife over breakfast, that these people all seem to look alike? Her reply--a nice insight, I think--is that "they are all conforming in their non-conformity. They're all telling the world, 'I want to be my own man.' " Apparently they never notice the irony of adopting the same appearance to make their case to the world. (April 7, 2001) I thought Barbra Streisand and Alec Baldwin had promised to leave the country by now. Where do I send my donation? (April 12, 2001) Shouldn't we make a pilgrimage to Jonathan Winters' house before he dies, or we do? Whichever comes first. Ultimately, all human civilization boils down to something very simple: your gang of thugs, thieves and murderers, or mine? P.O.E. Purity of Essence. That's the secret code, Mandrake! Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, that is. This morning's paper carried a report of a "leaper" in beautiful downtown Indianapolis last evening. Around 6 o'clock, according to police, a male, said to be casually dressed and in his 40s, is believed to have leaped to his death from one of the upper floors of a downtown hotel. There was no evidence of a tussle and authorities are calling it a suicide. The man's descent was halted by a balcony in full view of my own window overlooking the atrium; but, alas, I was so busy concentrating on my work that I missed the spectacle. I docked him points for failing to "push off" strongly enough to clear the balcony and reach the ground-floor lobbby, which would have put him--rather spectacularly, don't you think?--right in front of the check-out desk. I gave him only a 6.5. Next. (April 19, 2001) Iowans Howling At Prospect Of Losing Front Row Seat At Federal Trough Iowans--at least a bunch of them wanting to tap into the Federal Treasury--were said to be made as hell at Dubya in late April after he recommended limits on a national flood insurance program. The Bush administration in its 2002 budget proposals has taken the astounding position that after property has been repeatedly under water and the federal government has repeatedly compensated its owners for water damages--in some cases for much more than the property's value--there ought to be a point where the money flood is turned off. A reasonable and sensible approach, I believe most people would agree. But not Iowans living along the Mississippi River, which flooded again this spring. They think it's an outrage. Much of the howling came from Davenport where a 1993 flood caused over $100 million in damage. Joe Allbaugh, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) says Davenport at the least ought to be required to build a flood wall downtown. "The question," he said, "is how many times the American taxpayer has to step in and take care of (Davenport's flood damage), which could easily be prevented." Davenport's Democrat Mayor Phil Yerington bristled and said this was "an insult." Yerington told reporters, "You can't punish people for living along a river." USA Today's account April 25 said that Davenport officials obejct to a flood wall because it would "spoil a river view that attracts tourists." The federal flood insurance program has paid $10.4 billion in claims since 1968 to people living in flood plains and flood-prone areas, according to USA Today. Bush has common sense on his side, but I doubt his proposals will survive Congressional review. Lefties will screech about mean-spiritedness and that will be the end of another good idea. (April 25, 2001) Former Nebraska Senator Bob Kerry's angst-ridden apologia to the planet for his role in a Certain Vietnam Unpleasantness He's Never Been Able To Forget has the Left caught in its shorts. Let's see if I have this straight: It was during the Vietnam War. Kerry and his squad were in the middle of a jungle. It was the dead of night. The area was known to be a Viet Cong stronghold. Someone began shooting at them. Are the liberals telling me Kerry and his comrades shouldn't have shot back? Here's what someone should stuff in the critics' faces: war is ugly; innocent people get killed; it has been this way for billions and billions of years; shut up and get on with your miserable whiny lives. As for Kerry, despite his terrible suffering over the years, he managed to accept the awards he says he never deserved in the first place, he's managed to keep them for over 30 years and he says today he has no plan to turn them back to the government. Can't have it both ways, Bob, sorry. From time to time I find myself confronted with this dilemma: Who do I know who truly loves books and reading? Usually I need this answer when I have a book I want to give as a gift, or a book review I want to share with someone. I come up with pitifully few names. Pete Jones. Walter Trepling. (Both, coincidentally, are history teachers). Scarier still is the likelihood that not only can I name few people who love books, but probably only a scant few more who read anything on a regular basis, let alone books. I grew up in a home full of readers. Both parents read magazines, library books, and our family took four daily newspapers: the Scorched Corners Peeper, the Indianapolis News, and the Lafayette Journal-Courier in the evening, and the Indianapolis Star in the morning. In addition, I read the neighbor family's copy of the Twaddle Creek Press whenever I could. Today, 750 years later, I doubt if any of my own children subscribe to even a single newspaper. They'd probably tell me they get all the news they need from television. (May 16, 2001) This headline in USA Today's May 17 edition, over a review of Philip Roth's latest book, The Dying Animal: "Roth Drags His Elegant Prose Through the Gutter." The reviewer, Deirdre Donahue, confessed that reading this one was a "repellent experience" and that words like "gross" and "demeaning" came to her mind as she slogged through Roth's graphically sexual text. My question: Where has Deirdre Donahue been all her reading life, and Roth's too? He's been a pottymouth for decades. (May 17, 2001) They won't make the Scorched Corners Famous Names list, but their nicknames are worth a special salute, anyway. Let's bid a fond farewell to Peter Odell "We Straw" Phillips and Elizabeth "Princess" Otam Starks, both of Indianapolis, whose obits appeared in the May 17 Indianapolis Star. A front-page stunner in the Indianapolis Star tells of a year-long survey just completed by the Safe and Responsive Schools Project, led by an Indiana University intellectualoid, which reveals that zero tolerance policies in our schools are counter-productive, nasty, racist, unfair, meanspirited, and just don't work. The study concludes--and who would ever, ever have guessed this?--that strict policies unfairly single out minorities for punishment (meaning that mountains of evidence and facts about crime and misbehavior are made up out of thin air by racist pigs) and do not change student behavior (code for: because there are seldom any consequences for misbehavior in a culture where the instinctive reaction of adults is to either abandon policies calling for consequences or to make exceptions for all offenders) and increase high school dropout rates (exactly what we need, I say). Did someone actually use taxpayer funds to pay for this? An article in the May 8 Wall Street Journal said that a CNBC program had overtaken a CNN program as "the most widely watched financial news program" on television. But wait! wait! wait! cries PBS executive producer Rich Dubroff in a letter to the editor a few days later. Dubroff says a PBS program, Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser, has an audience seven times greater than these other two. There's no apparent reason to doubt Dubroff's claim. Makes you wonder what the Journal's reporter thought he was getting away with. (May 24.2001) Word arrives from Canada that actor Evan Brown has been sentenced to 30 days in jail after being found guilty of assault for shoving a plate of whipped cream into the face of Prime Minister Jean Chretien. Brown said he was protesting arrogance and a lack of accountability by the government. He must also pay $33 into a victim compensation fund. Thirty days and $33 seems like a fairly reasonable trade to me. There's certainly no shortage of bureaucrats, politicians and public figures who deserve a pie in the face. Where do I get in line? Silly Side of Camelot Recently declassified gub'mint documents show that the Kennedy Administration--no greater political icon hath America, Sick Willie and the Clintonistas excepted, of course!--had hatched a plan in the early 1960s to blow up a U.S. Navy ship, fake casualties, have a mock funeral for the victims, and blame it all on Fidel Castro. And speaking of JFK, the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library Foundation's selection of former President Gerald Ford as its 2001 Profile in Courage award winner is every bit as silly as the dopey plan to blow up a Navy ship and blame it on Castro. Ford is being honored for his 1974 pardon of former president Richard Nixon after Nixon resigned rather than be impeached in the Watergate Unpleasantness. The Foundation and others consider Ford's act one of great political courage. I consider it one of great betrayal. Nixon should have been indicted, tried, and brought to justice as any ordinary citizen would have been. All Ford did was confirm the fraud and terrible deceit in the claim that all Americans are equal before the law. We are not, and it was depressing in an otherwise lovely spring of 2001 to be reminded of it. Among the spam and rubbish pouring into downtown Indianapolis fax machines and e-mail addresses every minute of every day is a one-page "Fax Daily" page which contains an opinion poll, advertisements, jokes of the day, and assorted babble. A recent poll question solicited opinion about a U.S. Postal Service trial balloon about eliminating Saturday mail delivery, and drew this choice nugget of a reply from someone self-named "Flabbergasted," who asked if we'd ever noticed that when postal employees are tested for drugs the one drug that never shows up is speed? I liked that! Another frequent arrival calls itself a "Business Digest" and in its May 4 edition noted--and haven't we suspected this along?--that "Drinkers of bottled water may be pouring their money down the drain, as tap water in most developed countries is likely to be just as good." Talk show host David Letterman has suffered the modern equivalent of a public flogging on the town square for the great sin of our age, political incorrectness. Letterman quipped on his Late Show program that Colombia's Miss Universe contestant, Andrea Noceti, could win the talent competition by swallowing "50 balloons full of heroin." Exquisitely sensitive people everywhere erupted in a firestorm of outrage. Noceti threatened to sue for billions and Colombia's UN ambassador called for massive protest demonstrations outside Letterman's Gotham City studio. Letterman's true feelings aren't known, but whatever they were he was compelled to trot right back out the next night to apologize profusely, and to bring on Noceti as a guest. Let's hope Letterman has learned his lesson. Something Refreshing I Just Stumbled Across in the Dictionary Department: Shunpiking--"the practice of avoiding superhighways, especially for the pleasure of driving on back roads." Piercing Insights Department "This species could have been so great, and now everybody just wants a new Salad Shooter or sneakers with lights on them. That's what we've settled for." --George Carlin, quoted in the June, 2001, issue of Maxim magazine, and pretty much summing up human civilization. Grocery stories in Indianapolis are performing overnight transplant surgery on their cashier checkout lanes. Shoppers are being herded toward automated lanes where a robotic voice instructs them to scan their products, place them in a sack and get out. Signs proclaim the sheer joy of the experience: It's quick! It's easy! It's accurate! It's fun! Two quibbles: 1) automated checkout is none of those things, and 2) human beings are losing jobs in this process. I'll sidle through the remaining lanes where human beings work, until there are no more of them. As with many changes in business procedures, this one is not aimed at serving customers, it's aimed at cutting costs and eliminating human beings from the payroll. National Public Radio presented me eyewitness accounts (breathlessly, of course) from three--not one, not two, but three--count 'em, three!--reporters who were on hand to watch Tim McVeigh catch lunch. Since the moments and the activities were brief and restrained--in Tim's case by straps and wrappings, in the reporters' case by self-important lugubriousness--there was little to observe and equally little to report. The three accounts varied not a whit in their essentials. One has to wonder why NPR deemed it important to offer multiple acccounts, and on a larger scale, why thousands and thousands (billllions and billllions, if Carl Sagan's listening) of the press spent billlllions and billlllions of dollars camping out in Terre Haute to bring us essentially. . .nothing, even though billlions and billlions of people worldwide were said to be hanging on every second of the coverage. Well, Tim is certified toast now, so for God's sake can't we get back to shopping!!? (June 11, 2001) I think I've spotted something Gentleman's Quarterly will be covering any day now. I've noticed down at work an increasing number of men--usually savvy-looking young chaps--are adopting a new stylin' and profilin' technique at the urinal. For centuries--all my life, anyway-- men have stepped up, unzipped, and whizzed. Simple, uncomplicated. No fancy stuff. But the new move involves unbuttoning or unhooking the trousers, zipping down, then folding back the trouser tops to either side, as if they need much more room now to get all that gear out there. Who knows what the meaning is or where all this started? One of the big foundations ought to research this. Heroin And Booze Next Targets? America's latest, biggest lottery winner so far is Richard Boeken, 56, a cigarette smoker for 43 years with lung cancer who in early June was awarded $3 billion by a California jury against the Phillip Morris Co. Boeken testified during his trial that he has been addicted to both heroin and alcohol. It's not hard to imagine these two being the next targets of lawsuits from America's victimhood industry. (June 18, 2001) I've just finished Seymour Hersh's book, The Dark Side of Camelot. It's tempting to believe that had JFK been serving in another era--post-Watergate, say--he would have been impeached, removed from office, then indicted and convicted as a newly-minted civilian for multiple high crimes and misdemeanors. Though Hersh documents Kennedy's involvement with organized crime figures and a wide range of Other Unpleasantnesses, including bribery, election fraud, assassination plots against several foreign leaders, and more, if it happened today he would be elected President for Life and his face would be carved on Mt. Rushmore, right alongside Sick's. Published in the mid-1990s, The Dark Side of Camelot is a highly entertaining account of the semi-sordid history of the Kennedy family, with emphasis on JFK, Teddy, Bobby, and their father, Joseph. The Kennedys had the good fortune to have been given a free lifetime pass, and they took advantage of it with gusto. The book itself is too late to be of any use except clarifying the historical record, but better that than nothing. (June 18, 2001) This morning's Indianapolis Star headlined a probe by intrepid reporters who have surged back to Terre Haute to see how local residents feeeeeeeeel in the aftermath of the Timothy McVeigh Unpleasantness, which took place in their fair city. As careful observers of the human condition might expect, in general they feel OK and have moved on to other diversions from hideous reality. I know that I feel considerably better knowing that the Star's staff and editors are keeping in touch with the pulse of things. (June 19, 2001) Adios To Two All-Time Greats. . .Archie Archie Bunker is dead, and the man who made him an American icon, actor Carroll O'Connor, is, too. O'Connor was an accomplished actor far beyond the vehicle which made him famous in the 1970s, the TV sitcom, All in the Family. My favorite non-Family role from O'Connor was his portrayal of the sheriff, Honest John, in the film, Ballad of Waterhole No. 3. O'Connor's death marks the passing of a legend and an era. We'll miss ya, Arch. (June 27, 2001) . . .And Jack Jack Lemmon died last night. The Big C. Some great performances. My three favies would be The Out of Towners, Days of Wine and Noses, and Mr. Roberts. My guess, though, is that Jack would count as his signal achievement in life getting excruciatingly close to Ann-Margret's chest in one of those later-in-life "Grumpy" films he made with Walter Mathau. Had to be all downhill from there. (June 28, 2001) George Will provided an amusing note of edification July 3 in the Indianapolis Star. He reports that the ever-so-modern fashion statement of wearing a baseball cap backwards is hardly modern. None other than the legendary Holden Caulfield did this in Catcher in the Rye, published in 1951, and it was a form of adolescent protest then, too. This Had to Happen Department In the wake of the Supreme Court's ruling that Casey Martin gets to ride a golf cart in USGA tournaments, others are lining up for special treatment, too. The USGA denied the request of a caddie with cerebral palsy to ride in a golf cart during a tournament in San Francisco July 9-10. This is another lawyer's dream served up by the USGA, which remains under the delusion that it actually has the right to establish its own rules. (July 12, 2001) No matter how hard I try, I can't help but think that singer Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes's nickname has lewd and raunchy origins. "Parking under a shady tree to work on a crossword puzzle is a great alternative to being labeled a racist and being dragged through an inquest, a review board, an FBI and U.S. Attorney's investigation and a lawsuit. . ." --Seattle policeman Eric Michel commenting in the Seattle Times on why his colleagues take a passive crime-fighting approach in black neighborhoods, reported in the July 23 issue of National Review. Last week the 80th annual convention of the International Order of Raccoons--isn't that Ralph Kramden's old outfit?--was held in Indianapolis at the Indiana Convention Center and adjacent Hoosier Dome. Racoons and their brides, wearing tan slacks and skirts and green blazers and blouses--perhaps it was the other way around--swarmed all over the place. Many wore brightly colored vests emblazoned with patches and metal pins signifying something. On the backs of the vests were the names of their nations and planets of origin. Kuala Lumpur, said one. Republic of Korea said another. Mali, Botswana, Belgium, Canada. They came from (seemingly) every state and every continent. I pose to you the central question: Why? Hope For The Republic? WEVV Television in Evansville has made a major breakthrough. It announced today that it's discontinuing all newscasts and replacing them with entertainment programs and reruns. The CBS affiliate fired all its news staff. Tim Lynch, the CEO of Communications Corp. Of America, which owns the Evansville outlet said--in what is one of the most remarkably candid, facing-the-truth comments I've ever heard--that there was "more and more evidence that what Evansville wanted from our station was entertainment. . .not news." This could be the ray of hope we've long awaited! Imagine the benefit to our nation if all TV "news" were eliminated! Great New Euphemism Department "Oppositional defiance disorder" is now the politically correct term for what, in more courageous times, we once called disobedience. One of the magazines covering celebrities reports that just a few days before singer Mariah Carey checked herself into a hospital for what later was described as an "emotional breakdown," she looked at her pager and discovered 297 messages waiting. There's probably a clue in there, somewhere. Nonprofit client agencies of the local United Way are upset over cutbacks in funding, according to a front-page story in the Indianapolis Star. Reporter Scott Miles revealed that more contributors are designating their contributions, and this means certain agencies are not getting everything they want. Miles noted, for example, that " someone who is HIV-positive won't have 24-hour access to an attorney through the Damien Center." The latter provides services to AIDS volunteers, and to an occasional AIDS victim, too. What the Star didn't tell us is this: Why can't these people wait till normal business hours like the rest of us? (July 21, 2001) Doppelgangerville? Spooky stuff. Within the last several weeks I've seen not one but two--count 'em, two!!--people in a downtown office building who are eerie-close-to-dead-ringers-for-stars. One guy could be Hitler's young twin. He looks to be in his mid-30s, with the same mustache, same face, those glittery, hard eyes. And this morning in an elevator a guy who looks like Peter Lorre got aboard, and when he spoke he sounded like Lorre, too. Have I crossed into a parellel dimension of some kind? Occasionally there is a journalist I admire. Columnist John Leo (U.S. News & World Report) is one. His column in the July 24 Indianapolis Star takes on the race-mongers and shows how they operate in America. Cincinnati is their latest target. We knew this even before Jesse Jackson rolled into town. Leo notes, for example, the global screaming over the recent shooting death of a black youth in Cincinnati which has transformed into the mantra, "Fifteen black men shot in six years" on the lips of every certified liberal across this land. Demagogues hint darkly that Cincinnati's honky-dominated police force is engaged in a vast, evil conspiracy in an evil, racist city to target and eradicate innocent blacks. Then Leo's cruncher: However, the heavily black police force in Prince George's County in Maryland (dangerously close to Wonderland, D.C., don't you think?) killed 147 people from 1990 to 2000 and we hear essentially nothing about it. The Devil's In The Footnotes This morning's Indianapolis Star offers a shining example of why we conspiracy theorists get so het up. I cite for reference three columns on the editorial and op-editorial pages: one by Mona Charen, a known conservative, the other two by Georgie Anne Geyer and Ellen Goodman. It is the Star's practice to append at the end of all columnists' work, a brief italic note about who they write for and/or how they can be reached. No problem so far. This is valuable information for Mr. and Mrs. Front Porch. Geyer's column today has a footnote telling us she is a "foreign affairs columnist for the Universal Press Syndicate." Ellen Goodman's reads: "Goodman is a Boston Globe columnist." But Mona Charen's footnote reads: "Charen is political columnist who worked for the Reagan White House. If the Star believes it's vital for M&M FP to know that Charen worked over a decade ago for the Reagan Administration, why doesn't it provide us the same information for Goodman and Geyer? I think we all understand the code here. This is a sneaky attempt to subtly undercut the validity of Charen's work via a thoroughly gratuitous association with what the editors consider troglodytic, lunatic, addled Reaganites. Of course I could be wrong about every last syllable of this. (July 30, 2001) Big Stunner: Rodney King has been arrested on drug charges. Sick Surges Into First Place Sick's No. 1! Sick's No. 1! That's the cry ringing across America--indeed, around Planet Earth--today following the announcement by the Knopf publishing division of Random House that it's signed a deal to pay Sick Willie to write a "thorough and candid telling of his life" in 2003. The memoirs will earn Sick a rumored $10 million and that, USA Today breathlessly reported in its August 7 edition, tops even the $8.5 million deal for Pope John Paul II and the $8 million Hillary Clinton is getting from Simon & Schuster. Awesome! Anyone thinking they'll get candor and honesty from either of these Snopesian grifters is dreaming, though. Movie reviewer Mike Clark ridiculed actress Angelina Jolie's latest film (Original Sin, in which Antonio Banderas co-stars) in a USA Today commentary August 3, calling the film a "bad apple," Jolie's mannerisms "eccentric", the dialogue "tired" and the directing "sluggish". The film is so full of duplicities and dopiness, Clark says, that audiences will be crying for mercy. Clark calls Jolie's recent screen history "rotten to the core" but this rather misses the point. Jolie has a huge rack and that--those, actually--is why her movies draw big crowds. Snuff Pageant In Our Future? Tucked away in the glitterati section of a mid-August edition of USA Today was a report that producers of this year's Miss America pageant are up late at night ceaselessly at work trying to solve the show's declining ratings problem. Reacting to the awe-inspiring popularity of "reality" based TV shows like Survivor and its flock of spinoffs, Miss America planners are adding roving candid cameras backstage to spy on the losers, and the 41 non-finalists will get to vote on who should win the big prize. New labels are being slapped on old standbys--the swimsuit peep show will now be called "Lifestyle and Fitness" and the evening gown segment will be re-branded "Presence and Poise." The top five finalists, USA Today reported breathlessly, will have to answer tough questions about current events and American history. It takes only a little imagination to see where this ultimately has to lead: to an all-nude show first, and then, if that doesn't jack up the ratings, to the ultimate thrlll for a sick and decaying culture--a reality show where one or more contestants are killed--at random, of course, with big consolation prizes to the unfortunate losers' surviving families and friends. There'll be no shortage of volunteers, we can bet, when the big day finally arrives. And while we're at it, what's the difference between Moslem and Muslem? (Other than one of Jonathan Winters's characters--was it Princess Mary Louise Louise over in the castle?--wore a dirty, grey dress made of this material). One of the big foundations ought to research this! (September 22, 2001) Beer And Cobras--What A Recipe! Richfield, Wisconsin, has provided a potential future nominee for the annual Darwin Awards. Mark down this name: Timothy Friede. According to police reports, Friede keeps a large collection of snakes, spiders, scorpions and other critters in his home. Earlier in September, Friede and a friend "drank some beer" one night, then went down into Friede's basement where the critters were kept. Someone got the bright idea to clean the cages. While doing so,Friede was bitten on the forearm by an Indian cobra. A short time later, police said, Friede resumed the cleaning. He was again bitten, this time by an Egyptian cobra. At this point, the friend called for an ambulance. Friede, after treatment in a hospital intensive care unit, is believed to have survived. Unless I am mistaken, Darwins go only to those who die as a result of their actions, so Friede has some work ahead of him. He has great potential, though, and hereby goes on our Darwin Watch List. An up-and-comer! Memo To Marriott: Add Beer And Cobras Marriott executives have a cutting-edge strategy for getting hip. They're giving their Renaissance chain a chic face-lift, according to an article in the August 30 Wall Street Journal. . The spiffed-up Sonoma, California, lodge, for example, offers guests a "life-sized winged cow" and a metallic sperm titled "Swimming Upstream." This new "edgier" look promises to be a home run in the hearts of Mr.and Mrs. Front Porch. I've made my reservations! Have you? Slip-Slidin' Out The Door This morning's Indianapolis Star offered an unusually nauseating array of breakfast Americana. A sampling: 1) A page 1 headline over a story about new proposed federal safety regulations for the airline industry: "Bush Hopes New Rules Will Fly With Public". This is code for: If Anyone Whimpers About Inconvenience We'll Drop the Rules; 2) A front-page story about the Governor's Education Roundtable, a group of political, business, and civic leaders charged with advising the gub'nor on what to do about the state's horrendously bad education system, voting 17-3 to allow any school with at least 50 percent of its students passing state tests to be given the "acceptable progress" rating, thus avoiding any sanctions. Code for: Our Kids Are Gonna Feel Good About Themselves, And So Are We, No Matter What It Takes; 3) A stunner of a story under a teeny-tiny (but redundant) headline in the sports section: Mike Tyson Is Accused of Sexual Assault; 4) Another front-page shocker about 23 states still requiring the Pledge of Allegiance to be recited each day in their public schools (Indiana, thank God--oops!, I've commmitted a crime--does not). Code for: The ACLU still has a lot of work to do. 5) And finally, back to the sports pages, a little story about Coach being back, pretty much under cover, in Indiana. He spoke in a place called Starlight, Indiana (A southern Indiana town, the story said) to an audience of 600 people who paid $40 a ticket for the privilege. This event was described as a "Texas Tech fund-raiser" which yielded about $30,000. I say: Good! This is $30,000 less that the donors have to spend on filters for their e-mail systems. I add: All Hail Coach! He is Risen! I spun away from the breakfast table, skidded out the door on my own vomit, and roared off to work. (September 27, 2001) H. Rap Still An All-American And totally by coincidence, less than a week after the terrorist bombings, one of America's home-grown terrorists, the legendary black militant H. Rap Brown, now a "Muslim cleric" re-named Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, had his own murder trial delayed by an Atlanta judge on grounds that Brown/Al-Amin couldn't get a fair trial "because of anti-Islamic sentiment" stirred by the events of September 11. Brown/Al-Amin is accused of killing a sheriff's deputy last year, and claims he is the victim of a police conspiracy. Sounds All-American to me. Babbleonian Captivity The babble on the cable news and talk shows is almost unbearably dopey. The press and the show hosts do a terrible job of asking intelligent questions. Guests get away with shallow, silly answers. Commercial breaks and host interruptions prevent any topic from being pursued beyond simpleminded sound-bites. I suspect we're utter fools if we think television provides us anything even remotely resembling thoughtful discourse. Picking up, for example, a copy of the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal provides an astounding contrast. The lesson appears to be that if you expect to be well-informed in present-day America, your only real hope is to be reading newspapers, magazines, and books. All Hail The Brits! Where Do We Sign Up? The Brits, noted for their dry sense of humor, have found a new opportunity to show it. An Associated Press report in the October 14 Indianapolis Star notes that significant numbers of British citizens are filling in their 2001 census forms with "Jedi Knight" when asked for their religious affiliation. So many are using the designation that the government has had to assign Jedi Knight its own category when compiling census results. (Jedi Knights, for the uninitiated, are the warriors who battle evil in the Star Wars movies). British authorities appear uncertain how to react. An Office of National Statistics spokesman confessed that "large numbers" of Jedi Knight responses are pouring in but hastened to add that the government was "not saying that Jedi Knight was an official religion," then called such responses "nonsense" and urged people to stop making them. The British Press Association reported that an e-mail campaign was behind the orneriness. All Hail the Jedi Knights, I say. Perfect For This Weekend's Sigma Alpha Dodo Mixer! Ted Baker, A British men's clothing designer has come up with a suit sure to take America by storm--an "Endurance Tuxedo" made of superfine merino wool coated with Teflon. The suit won't crease, resists water and stains, and is "virtually indestructible" according to the company. The line is called "Party Animal" and its advertising features an icon of a man on his knees vomiting. Great for college fraternity parties, one supposes. They cost around $625 and are available in finer stores everywhere. We've been bombarded for several years with advertising hyping the glories of superfast Internet connections and the tidal wave of consumer demand that will take us to unimaginable thrills. But the Chicago Tribune's November 12 business section tosses a pail of cold water on that with a story noting that research is suggesting the unthinkable: the average consumer may not be interested. Hucksters have a lot riding on this--literally billions in expected profits--so it's best not to get too smirky. I confess that I love it, though, when consumers turn contrarian and refuse to be stampeded.The Tribune noted that many of the big industry players are scaling back their plans and admitting the possibility that it may take years longer than they'd expected to reel us all in. "We don't owe American anything. America owes us." --Al Sharpton, speaking at a conference in Atlanta the week of Nov. 26-30, 2001. The Montgomery County (Maryland) Council has passed an ordinance providing for a $750 fine if the smell of cigarette smoke from any resident's house "irritates a neighbor," according to columnist George Will on ABC's This Week program Nov. 25. Will referred to the council's office as "Taliban headquarters" and said his fondest hope is that when U.S. Special Forces are done with their work in Afghanistan, they will come home and "chase the Montgomery County Council into (nearby) Virginia." (November 25, 2001) We Can Breathe Easier Now A headline of the education establishment's dreams appeared in this morning's Indianapolis Star. Over a story about Indiana's budget problems was the heading: "Fiscal Crisis Threatens Educational Reform Law." This is the sweetest music the teachers unions and other reform opponents could ever want to hear. (November 24, 2001) In the obituary of Scottish novelest Dorothy Dunnett in the November 13 New York Times was a brief notation that two sons survive. Their names are Ninian and Mungo. That latter's dangerously close to the legendary Mongo chacter in the Mel Brooks film, Blazing Saddles. Mere coincidence? Just a sound-alike? This is worth some investigating. Back to top
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