August 28, 2000
SUFFRIN' SURVIVALISM!
Jerks win; Kinks go for the Gold; and there's the sensitive Donna and the evil Cracker.
Now, the details...
TOW, Texas -- The numbers grow. For a time it appeared I was among the 20 Americans who didn't watch one minute of CBS TV's "Survivor," but apparently there were a few more of us than I thought. Only after "Rich" was named the ultimate survivor did we know that he is a jerk. By way of apologizing to CBS for our distraction from the hit show, I am taking up collections to buy gifts for Rich and the CBS geniuses who put the show on the air. I have in mind sets of Firestone tires.
SYDNEY, Australia -- It appears that cross-dressing is now an Olympic event. Organizers of the Sydney Olympics say they will not budge from their plan to use 40 to 200 drag queens in the closing ceremony. They denied, however, that they plan to award medals for a new event: the two-man pole vault.
LOS ANGELES -- Word leaked out of a conversation in which Donna Brazile, Algore's campaign manager, called Gov. George W. Bush a "white cracker." While the origins of the word "cracker" are somewhat obscure, it is reasonably synonymous with "white trash." Ms. Brazile, you might recall, was fired from the Dukakis campaign against Bush's father when she got caught circulating false stories of marital infidelities by George the Elder. Ms. Brazile predicted she will become the first African-American to guide a successful presidential campaign.
TORONTO -- Actress Anne Heche, successful but best known for her 3.5 years as the lesbian squeeze of comedian Ellen DeGeneres, went back to work on a movie after she was hospitalized briefly in California. A Fresno couple reported Ms. Heche came to their home, making bizarre statements about being the almighty and saying a spaceship was coming for them all. Her agent said Ms. Heche had a little too much sun, driving with the top down on her convertible. Ms. Heche and Ms. DeGeneres had announced the end of their relationship the day before Ms. Heche's solar flameout.
WASHINGTON -- Ever fighting for The People, Yoah Prezdent artfully siphoned off millions of bucks from the Interior Department's budget for fire preparedness, using the money in the continuing Clinton Land Grab to build monuments and acquire land. The fact that much of the American West is now on fire seems to bother the administration and the nation's press not a whit. Meanwhile, Washington reporters were poised to write doomsday stories about Dubya's grasp of hot issues if he ever pronounces fire in Texanese-- which is "fahr."
NEW YORK -- Several former Boy Scouts joined gay-rights activists in a protest aimed at cutting all funding for the Boy Scouts of America. The Scouts had the temerity to get the U.S. Supreme Court to rule they didn't have to take in people they view as morally bent. Ever anxious to punish wholesomeness, several large American corporations announced they are considering taking the Scouts off their donation lists.
LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas -- Paul Fray, the former Clinton operative who accused Hillary Clinton of calling him a "f---ing Jew bastard" years ago, passed a lie-detector test about the truth of the slur. A Hillary associate said Mrs. Clinton puts no stock in the results of the polygraph. "She has lived with a pathological liar for years and knows how convincing they can be. Come to think of it, her husband said the same thing," he/she/it said.
SAN FRANCISCO -- A San Francisco federal appeals court decided to closet Geovanni Hernandez-Montiel in the United States, holding that he is entitled to asylum because he would be persecuted if he returns to Mexico. Three federal judges decided Geovanni was in a "particular social group" under the asylum statute because his predisposition to a "female sexual identity" brought trouble for him in Mexico. In Miami, relatives of Elian Gonzales were closeted to figure out a plan for smuggling miniskirts and high heels to Elian in Cuba. Meanwhile, Hernandez-Montiel declined comment on whether he wanted to become a Boy Scout.
HUNTSVILLE, Texas -- David Earl Gibbs deserved the death sentence enacted Wednesday. However, Gibbs deserves recognition for the way he prepared to leave life. Gibbs was executed Wednesday after he raped and killed two Conroe women 15 years ago. He gave a brief statement: "I have wronged you and your family, and for that I am truly sorry," he said to the brother of one of his victims. The apology wasn't Gibbs' only laudable act while on death row. In 1990, he killed fellow death-row murderer Calvin Williams.
WASHINGTON -- The Washington Post continued to reach new heights of misguided political correctness in a sensitive story about the bereaved parents of 8-year-old murder victim Kevin Shifflett. The Post, which automatically suspects a hate crime if an Anglo steps on a non-Anglo's foot, wrote more than 1,500 words without mentioning that the man accused of killing the little boy is Gregory D. Murphy, 29. Also excised was mention of a note found in Murphy's room, reading: "Kill them raceess whiate kidd's anyway."
QUESTION FOR THE DAY: Would Jesse Jackson have provoked the California Democratic delegation if he had chanted "Stay Out of the Tushes?"
Copyright-Paul Freeman-2000
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