January 21, 2002 -

TERRIFIC TERRORISMS!

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There are new terrorists, and old terrorists. Happy terrorists and blue terrorists.

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Now, the terrifying details...

TEL AVIV -- It brings the emptiness you had when you heard Mickey Mantle was going to stop hitting home runs; the way you felt when Jim Brown announced he would renounce running the football for a new career of throwing blondes off second-floor hotel rooms. The gnawing dread we had when the rumor circulated that Bill Clinton was going to start sleeping with Hillary. Our nostalgia genes are tickled by a report that Yasser Arafat, the top terrorist of the last century and still a player in this one, is considering retirement. Arafat is a truly historic figure - a man who parlayed murdering Jewish children into a Nobel Peace Prize. However, it seems the Israelis have developed an allergic reaction to Palestinians who shoot up Bat Mitzvah's for 12-year-old girls. As expected from a piece of terrorist scum, Arafat is reported to be selling off PLO real estate and oil holdings in order to have a couple of hundred million available when he retires to bombing sand castles on the Riviera.

LIVINGSTON, Montana -- There are reports that billionaire Ted Turner has become an environmental terrorist in his unique way. It seems Turner, who owns 1.8 million acres in 10 states, isn't PETA-friendly. He sponsors bison hunts at $10,500 a hunter; cuts timber and drills for natural gas; even bulldozed a Montana hilltop so he would have an improved view of a mountain range reflected in his trout pond. America's whacked-out environmentalists, who generally protest most everything, leave Turner alone because he donates lots of money to environmental nutballs. "Arafat never criticizes the people who donate plastic explosives, and we're not going to criticize our Ted," said Knutt Kase, president of Hypocrites for Humanity.

WASHINGTON -- American Democrats need some terrific terrorist leaders, since the current cast of Bush-bashers is about as intimidating as Pee Wee Herman on Viagra. House Minority Leader Dickiepoo Gephardt tried personfully (that's manfully when you're politically correct) to be frightening, whining that the Bushies are being downright ugly. Gephardt's protest was over Bush political adviser Carl Rove's remarks that Americans are beginning to trust Republicans to keep their communities and families safe. Can Rove be tried in one of those military tribunals? The man obviously is dangerous!

PHOENIX, Arizona -- Crack security screeners at Phoenix International Airport pulled all the tricks of the trade to make certain Joe Foss of Scottsdale, Arizona couldn't blow up an America West airliner headed for Washington, D.C. The screeners were particularly interested in the menacing medallion Foss was carrying. Foss, 86, former governor of South Dakota and commissioner of the old American Football League, explained that the medal was the Medal of Honor. It's possible that Foss's explanation was too complete for the sheiskopf securitarians, since he won the nation's highest military honor as a Marine pilot in World War II. "If he hadn't mentioned that he got it for bringing down 26 enemy airplanes, we might have overlooked it," said Legul Elian, a recent grade-school honors graduate who heads the security force at Phoenix.

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba -- William Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA, reacted with horror at reports that some Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners might encounter some discomfort while being detained. Particularly nettlesome to Schulz was a remark by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that some of the prisoners "would gnaw hydraulic lines in the back of a C-17 to bring it down." Shulz indicated the Geneva Conventions probably should allow prisoners to gnaw cables, if cable-chomping is a key part of their national heritage or religious belief. "It is so politically incorrect," said an Amnesty spokesthing, adding: "These poor terrorists have been deprived of television and were living in caves in Afghanistan and now we treat them as if they're bad people. It must do horrible things to their sense of self-esteem."

BOSTON -- Speaking of terrorists brings us to the topic of the voting patterns of Ivy League professors. It seems 80 percent of them voted for Algore in 2000 while 9 percent chose Republican George W. Bush. A poll by Luntz Research Companies found that only 3 percent of professors describe themselves as Republicans. The Luntz poll drew an angry response. "We need to root out the 3 percent and get them fired," said Mane Zane, president of Tenured Terrorists of Academia.

LOS ANGELES -- We of hard hearts and long memories managed to hold our tears last week when Sara Jane Olson was sentenced to two 10-year jail terms for conspiring to bomb two police cars in the 1970s. Our stoicism held when poor Sara Jane was arraigned, minutes later, on a murder charge in a 1974 bank robbery orchestrated by the Symbionese Liberation Army. The SLA was a small group of murderous maniacs who tried to spread havoc when they weren't busy introducing Patricia Hearst to the joys of oral sex. Teary Sara Jane explained that she thought she was helping people by trying to blow up police cruisers and participating in the death of a bystander killed during an SLA bank robbery. Gee, but it's terrible when good deeds are misunderstood.

GRUNDY, Virginia -- America's anti-gun terrorists took another hit with the revelation that law student Peter Odighizuwa's murderous rampage at Appalachian School of Law was stopped by a student with a handgun. Police said Odighizuwa had killed three people when he was confronted by Tracy Bridges, who had retrieved his gun from his car when he heard the shooting. Bridges and other students approached Odighizuwa, who dropped his gun and gave up. There is no word yet on possible charges against Tracy Bridges.

BERLIN -- There was a bright spot during the week, however, when our suspicions about the French were partially confirmed. A survey published in Germany indicated that only 13 percent of French surveyed have ever had sex in public places. The non-jumping Frogs were eclipsed by the 15 percent of Canadians who admitted to public-place sex and 21 percent of Americans. World champions among public sexologists were the Norwegians: 66 percent of whom admitted to fooling around in a non-private setting.

QUESTION FOR THE DAY: Did Ted knock down the mountain because it reminded him of his lost Jane Fonda?

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