Joe Bob's Week in Review
By Joe Bob Briggs
As a sniper terrorized Maryland and Virginia,law enforcement officials called for his execution and calledon him to turn himself in -- on the same day. They then talkedabout how smart he is.
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Jimmy Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize and his eyes got even morecrinkly.
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Singer Harry Belafonte called Secretary of State Colin Powella house slave who "serves the master." Powell calledthe comment unfortunate. Both Belafonte and Powell are of Jamaicandescent, but it's unclear which man would prevail in a limbo contest.
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Serial killer Aileen Wuornos, one of the toughest-looking prostitutesin long-haul trucker history, was executed in Florida after droppingher appeals and firing the lawyers who argued that she was crazy.Her final words were, "I'll be back like 'Independence Day'with Jesus, June 6, like the movie, big mother ship and all. I'llbe back." Thank God she was in full possession of her faculties.
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Zambia refused to accept shipments of corn from the United States,because the corn has been genetically modified. The 2.5 millionstarving Zambians, on the other hand, have been modified in theconventional way.
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Organizers of the annual Columbus Day Parade in New York shunnedthe stars of "The Sopranos," saying they perpetuatean Italian-American stereotype, causing Mayor Michael Bloombergto withdraw from participation. Making the march, however, wasTony Renis, the composer of "Quando Quando Quando,"confusing the issue of what exactly constitutes a stereotype.
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Five people were killed and 47 injured in riots near Bombay sparkedby Rev. Jerry Falwell's assertion that Prophet Mohammad was aterrorist. Muslim organizations had called for a strike, but itquickly deteriorated into a battle with knives and rocks afterthe protesters were challenged by Hindus. Falwell called on allparties to settle their differences in a Christian manner.
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North Korea admitted having a nuclear weapons program, sayingit wanted to "nullify" its 1994 Non-Proliferation Treatywith the United States. It got the idea last year when the UnitedStates "nullified" its 1973 Non-Proliferation Treatywith Russia. That whole international law thing is just lookingso 19th century.
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The National Civil Rights Museum, housed in the former LorraineMotel in Memphis where Martin Luther King was shot, opened anexhibit called "Lingering Questions," featuring 200never-before-seen items collected by Memphis police investigatingJames Earl Ray for King's murder. The King family and many othercivil rights proponents believe that Ray was not the killer buta mere scapegoat for the government. The museum also includesthe rooming house across the street, where federal agents believeRay fired the fatal shot from the bathroom. Featured in that samebathroom are James Earl Ray's after-shave lotion, his hairbrush,a pair of his boxer shorts, and his rifle -- the one that, uh,he didn't use.
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As the deadline neared for the U.S. Olympic Committee to chooseits favored site for the 2012 Olympic games, New York Mayor MichaelBloomberg said his sole competitor, San Francisco, "is avery nice small town." Tony Bennett left his heart there,of course, but he left his body in New York.
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A 55-gallon drum of pig sperm was found in the Arie Crown Woodsnear Countryside, Ill. Cook County firefighters recovered thedrum, thinking it might be toxic waste, but were relieved to knowit was merely the result of swine having mid-life crises.
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In other barnyard-animal-sperm news, scientists in Pennsylvaniaannounced they've created pig and goat sperm inside the bodiesof lab rats. See, they got these really nasty pictures of farmanimals off the Internet, and Little Red Riding Hood sparklingwine was the closet you could get to champagne in East Germanyunder Communism, so the 1856 winery in Freyburg turned out 15million bottles of it each year. That changed when the Berlinwall came down and all East German products were considered second-rateand hokey -- especially something called Little Red Riding Hood("Rotkappchen" in German). When demand dropped to onlya million bottles a year, it looked like the jig was up for goofybubbly in red foil bottles.
But a group of Freyburgers, backed by a tiny Freyburg bank, streamlinedthe company, bounced back, got production up to 49 million bottleslast year, and have now taken over one of their largest competitorsin WEST Germany, Mumm-MM -- a rare victory for the east, wheremost of the businesses from Communist Germany have folded. Nowproducing all kinds of German brands and 100 million bottles ayear, it won't be long until we can all buy Hansel & Gretelmerlot spritzers.
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The Michigan legislature voted 53-43 against a bill that wouldhave banned tongue-splitting. The proposal was intended to preventmedical professionals from splitting peoples' tongues into twoparts to make them look like serpents' tongues. Even though theprocedure can cause excessive bleeding, infection, nerve damage,swelling and permanent speech impediment, the lawmakers decidedit was a personal decision that shouldn't be infringed on by law.The 53 politicians voting against the measure were criticizedby the bill's supporters as having a conflict of interest; allof their tongues are, in fact, forked.
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God knocked down the Maryland state tree, a 460-year-old 96-foot-talloak with a circumference of 31 feet, 10 inches. Keen readers of"Joe Bob's Week in Review" will recall that God hadpreviously eliminated the habitat and climate necessary for theBaltimore Oriole to remain in Baltimore. For obvious reasons,Chesapeake Bay crabs are now panicked and reported to be reinforcingtheir shells with a Teflon finish.
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Paul Trummel, a 70-year-old man evicted from a retirement home,has been held in a Seattle jail for three months for refusingto delete from his Web site the names and addresses and personaldata on employees at the retirement home. First Amendment groupshave rallied to his defense. Also, the food is better.
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A judge in Ebensburg, Pa., fined 20 members of an Amish sect $95each for refusing to put bright orange reflective triangles onthe backs of their horse-drawn buggies. The Amish had argued thatthe symbols were a violation of their religion, which apparentlyforbids the color orange, the triangular shape, and anything reflective.
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Sixty-three-year-old Evel Knievel wants to make one last jumpbefore he goes to that big motorcycle ramp in the sky, hopingit will help hype his new Evel Knievel Xperience Cafe in Primm,Nev. (The cafe will include a sports bar, memorabilia museum andvirtual reality rides modeled on his past jumps.) If Knievel doescome up with a new stunt, it will be his first since 1980, whenhe jumped a row of buses in the Seattle Kingdome. He wants tomake the last jump his longest yet, at about 200 feet, which hesays is possible because of today's lighter materials, bettershock absorbers and other technological changes.
By setting the ramp at a lower angle than in the past, he thinkshe can hit 100 mph on the straightaway. There's nothing he cando, however, about that George Hamilton movie.
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Scenes from our secure republic:
Della Maricich, who has flown more than 100 times since Sept.11 and knows the security rules, was boarding a flight at PortlandInternational Airport when she noticed a screener remove her handbagfrom view. She asked the screener to keep her bag in her sightat all times, in accordance with Transportation Security Administrationguidelines. The agent refused. Maricich asked to speak to a supervisor.A National Guardsman showed up and asked her to follow him backto the terminal. Because she had called for a supervisor, thesoldier said, she would not be allowed to fly out of that airportthat day, and furthermore she was a "troublemaker."After all, it's well known that many terrorists have Prada fetishes.