September 5, 1999 -

HEADLINE HARRUMPH!

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There's Bill and Morehead City; Hill & Puerto Rico; a security story; and Sammy The Bull on Gun Control.

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Those stories, and more. Now, the details...

MOREHEAD CITY, North Carolina -- Residents of Morehead City, fighting the onslaught of Hurricane Dennis, had to repel a surprise visit by President Clinton. "Yoah Prez'dent had never heard of the place before but wanted to get on Air Force One and go there immediately after he heard," said Clinton aide N. Turne. "It took quite a while for us to convince him that `Morehead' is one word, not two." Clinton eventually called off the trip but countered with a suggestion he and Hillary still might want to visit Nag's Head.

NEW YORK -- Hillary Rodham Clinton says hubby Bill should withdraw his offer to commute the prison sentences of 16 Puerto Rican terrorists. "I take this action with a heavy heart," Mrs. Clinton said, adding: "especially since I recently discovered that one of my ancestors had a Puerto Rican upstairs maid and it is almost certain that I am somewhat Puerto Rican, as well as Jewish, and married to America's first kinda/sorta Black President." Mrs. Clinton said she also has discovered a Canadian in her lineage. "I am considering running for the Senate from New York State. Isn't Canada right up there somewhere, north of Westchester?" she asked, then resumed her "listening" tour.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- United States security people are sending lots of top-secret faxes to a chicken-processing plant in New Zealand. The plant owner asked to be taken out of the security loop for an upcoming visit by President Clinton but the top- secret information, it keeps a'coming. "We kill chickens here. We really don't need to know about plans to safeguard the life of a fat turkey," spokesman Drumme Stikker said.

PORTSMOUTH, New Hampshire -- Democratic presidential candidate Bill Bradley says he does not support homosexual marriage. Bradley's gay supporters in New Hampshire hope to lure him into the fold with a rousing rendition of an old song. The new one will be called "Bill Bradley, Won't You Please Come Homo?"

LONDON -- The DiMise has run its course. The British say they are astonished that the agony over the death of Princess Diana has tapered off to next to nothing. The world's most famous bulemic died at 36 on Aug. 31, 1997 in a car driven by a drunk and even the millions of conspiratorialists among us have failed to come up with a credible way to blame the CIA, British Intelligence, global warming, the internal-combustion engine or racism for her demise. "The real victims of the decline in DiMisery will be ordinary people," said Airre Hedde, a spokesthing for the Diana Memorial Fund. "We have collected about $150 million and about $40 million has gone to charities, some of which support clearing land mines. If people don't want to send money, they shouldn't be surprised when land mines start blowing their legs off," Hedde harrumphed.

SEATTLE -- There are some people in power in King County who believe King County was named for Martin Luther King Jr. One is King County councilman Larry Gossett, who says: "We're living here in Martin Luther King Jr. County, and nobody seems to know it." Gossett, a Democrat, says people often react with surprise and disbelief, then joy and excitement when he reveals that King County was named for the slain civil rights leader. There is a modicum of reason for the disbelief, since King County was named in 1852 for William Rufus Devane King, a slaveholder from Alabama who never was known to have crossed the Mississippi. The King County Council 13 years ago disowned WRD King and adopted MLK. That means King County was indeed named King County, sort of, after MLK. Years and years after.

LONDON -- Who says British children can't compete with America's kids? A 14-year-old British boy has a 12-year-old girlfriend who is three months pregnant and the lad boasts that he became sexually active at the age of nine. He blames explicit sex- education lessons at school for his precocious puberty. Counselors at his Sheffield school say the lad plans to immigrate to the United States -- where he will either run for public office or pursue a law degree.

NEW YORK -- Mafia turncoat Sammy (The Bull) Gravano once made a superb living performing late-late-late-term retroactive abortions for the mob. He had this to say about gun control. "It's the best thing you can do for crooks and gangsters...If I'm a bad guy, I'm always gonna have a gun. Safety locks? You will pull the trigger with a lock on, and I'll pull the trigger. We'll see who wins."

NEW YORK -- The second stanza of the Million Youth March appears to have drawn about a thousand people, many of whom weren't all that youthful. Speaker Shaunette Daniels said: "We must make sure there are no unarmed black men on these streets." Daniels did not address the dreaded topic of trigger locks.

QUESTION FOR THE DAY: Not to take sides for or against Darwin, but today's question is about Creationism vs. Evolution. How can either belief explain James Carville?

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