You Can’t Make This Stuff Up– It has been a strange and decidedly terrible past couple of weeks in the world, evident from the headlines barraging our nation’s front pages. So many bizarre and unimaginable incidents have transpired that I feel the need to slap myself around and splash water in my face to make sure I’m not in the middle of some prolonged nightmare. It’s times like these that made me decide to become a journalist instead of a fiction writer. You can’t make this stuff up. First, Mark Foley, the Republican Congressman in charge of keeping sexual predators away from our most precious resource, “the children,” was exposed as an Internet pervert. To paraphrase Lewis Black, how am I supposed to add a joke to that? Of course, Foley blamed the entire fiasco on his purported alcoholism. I used to do that myself. It always worked for me, but then again, I never instant-messaged lewd comments to teenage boys. If I did, I can’t remember, so it doesn’t count. North Korea announced that it detonated a nuclear weapon last weekend. They now belong to a special club. No, not the nuclear club that includes the United States and a handful of other first-world countries, but a special club made up of Pakistan, India and China. I call it the “we have mastered the atom, maybe next week we can locate some food” club. An American has been charged with treason. Azzam the American, as he is referred to, made several video tapes, one of them with Al Qaida No. 2 Ayman “No Fun of Anykind” al-Zawahiri. He promised that the streets of America will flow with blood. This is the second American terrorist to come out of the Golden State. The first, John Walker Lindh, is eating boiled hash browns forever–anyone who has ever been to jail knows that joke. Is it me or does California just make people crazy? Mel Gibson, Tom Cruise–they’re all on a vacation from lithium. The Amish, long detached from the depravity of America’s penchant for pointless violence, have now experienced a school shooting. I don’t have a joke for this one. Even I have my limits. My condolences. Peace be unto them.Finally, and most importantly, President Bush gave a press conference where he said—oh, forget it. That one’s too easy.
Thin Line
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