Christopher Saint's Humor Column

Of Monks and Men

I'm not really sure why I titled this column, "Of Monks and Men"; it just seemed like a good title, very Dickensian. Although I'm not really sure who wrote "Of Mice and Men". It could have been Dickens, or Shakespeare, or even Dante for all I remember. In fact, now that I think about it, it was Dante.

*Edit, 6-1-2004*
Right now, you are all thinking: "John Steinbeck! Geez!" But of COURSE I know that John Steinbeck wrote Dante's Inferno, and you needn't remind me. It was the story of his Step-Uncle Dante, and how he set his barn on fire, and the wacky and touching hijinks that happened during and after. Something about Chicago burning down, if I remember right. But we all know that "Of Mice and Men" was written by Bob Dante (who just happens to have the same name as Steinbeck's Step-Uncle) right after the Hundred Years War, in which Russia was, finally, declared an independant nation.
*End Edit*

DEMENTIA WARNING! THE REST OF THIS COLUMN IS EXTREMELY DEMENTED, BE THOU FOREWARNED.

"Of Mice and Men" is the horrifying story of a man named "Mice" who travels into a world of darkness and red, flickering light. The pit of Hell. There he meets a young lad named Oliver Twist, who leads him further down, always down, but who doesn't ever say anything.

On the third level of Hell, they meet up with Romeo and Juliet, who are moving rocks from one pile to another pile in endless, futile torment. When Mice protests to the overlord of that level of Hell, the overlord tells him why Romeo and Juliet, the most consummate lovers in the history of the world (at THAT time anyway, later, they were much surpassed by Ronald and Nancy Regan), are confined to the burning depths of Hell.

"They are here because they turned a happy ending into possibly the WORST ending of a story ever invented. So here they are, atoning for their sins."

Mice, of course, was astounded, "But I thought that the ending to War and Peace was even worse!"

The overlord was flabbergasted. "Hmmmm...I shall have to look into that. For now, I think that Romeo and Juliet can move up a level or two to the first level of Hell, which is, naturally, gardening."

Mice shuddered at the thought of gardening for eternity, but he also snickered to himself because he knew that nobody ever actually finished War and Peace. Then he continued on. Soon he reached the fifth level of Hell, and then he saw a sign. The sign was stuck into the ground, and on either side of it were two thick white lines, about 6 feet apart and 7 or 8 feet long. The sign read, "Reserved for Bill Gates."

Mice stared, mouth agape.

Soon, the Overlord of the fifth level saw Mice, standing and staring. He sauntered over, "Hey buddy, what're you doing? Can't you see that this spot is reserved?"

Mice just continued to stare.

The Overlord spoke again, "Look, the handicapped spots are up on the first level, so I'll thank you to leave."

Mice blinked, then came out of his trance. "Oh, right, thanks. Actually, I'm just exploring and I was a little surprised by the reservation sign."

The Overlord grinned, "We know who is ours. We even offer a valet parking service! Although the price is your immortal soul, of course! Haw haw haw!"

The Overlord walked off, chortling to himself.

What a horrible place! Thought Mice, but continued bravely on, wondering what other lessons he could learn from this trip.

Soon he reached the sixth level. The entrance to this level was a huge archway that had a sign on it that said, "Lawyers' Level."

Hmmmm... Thought Mice. That's odd.

He continued on into the level, and soon came to a fork in the road, on the right hand side was another arch that said "Way to the Lawyers' Level" and on the left hand side was an arch that said, "To the Seventh Level."

On the right hand side, just inside the arch, was a Bar, with lots of people gathered around it drinking and talking. On the end of the bar was a sign that said, "Do not pass."

Taking an interest in the scene, and feeling very thirsty all of a sudden, Mice walked up to the bar. "I'll take a espresso mochachino."

The bartender started in fear and backed up against the wall behind him. "No wonder you're in Hell kid! The Starbucks is down two levels. Get out of here!"

Mice shrugged and said, "Alright, you don't have to be so hostile about it."

The bartender spoke again, "Look, this is Hell, you think we get paid to be nice? Now get out of here! I would say 'get the hell out of here' but..."

But Mice didn't stick around, he was already on his way to the seventh level. Although, on his way out, he did notice a group of lawyers chatting as they walked under the arch, passed the bar, and continued down into...whatever was that way.

The seventh level was not really interesting. But on the eighth level, Mice found the Starbucks. However, it was beginning to get really hot, so he ordered a frappacino instead of a mocha.

The cashier said, "One frappacino, okay, that'll be your soul, please."

Mice stared at him, open-mouthed.

"Or your first-born child, if you wish..." Said the cashier, trying to sound reasonable.

Mice thought for a moment, then said, "Okay."

The cashier rummaged under the counter and pulled out a long form. "Fill this out. In triplicates."

Mice looked at the form. "You want my Father's Mother's maiden name?"

"Just for identification purposes. Also, I'm supposed to ask if you want to get our free newsletter."

"Um...no." Said Mice, then he sighed and filled out the form. An hour later, he drank his frappacino with a deep sense of satisfaction. Then he dropped a quarter in the tip jar. The quarter melted, then evaporated, and evil laughter resounded throughout the Starbucks.

"See." Said the cashier. "This really is Hell. Eternity without tips, and they always lose our paychecks too."

Mice shook his head sympathetically, but then he continued on, laughing to himself. Mice, you see, was a eunuch.

The entrance to the Ninth and last level of Hell was an arch that said, "Soul Containment" on it. Inside the arch, a muscular man was standing in front of a large, bowl shaped valley. Mice walked up to the man and said, "What is this place?"

The man said, "This is the area where we keep the souls of the people who sell them to us. You can walk down among them if you wish, they will not harm you."

Mice walked down among the souls accompanied by Oliver Twist and the muscular man. The souls were all in pain, terrible pain. They screamed silently in the red, flickering light.

This is hideous! Thought Mice.

The muscular man, who was apparently psychic, said, "This is Hell, mate. Just wouldn't be right without some tortured souls."

Mice supposed that he was right. Looking around, Mice noticed something, "There are an awful lot of TV Network executives down here."

"Yeah." Said the man, "They tend to sell their souls pretty quickly. Actually, we have an overabundance of them right now. Also, we have pretty much every member of the ACLU down here."

Mice looked around, astounded by the sheer number of souls, suddenly he saw one he thought he recognized, "Is that Hillary Clinton?!"

"Yes," said the man, "How do you think she won the election in New York? Anyway, come, there is one last thing you must see here before you go back to your world."

The man led Mice and Oliver Twist (who still said nothing) through the valley of souls and out the other side. Soon they came to the edge of a pit. It was dark, and they couldn't see either the bottom or the other side of it. There were screams echoing up from below, and every once in a while, someone would fall past them and down into the darkness, out of sight.

"What is this new horror?!" Squeaked Mice.

"Don't squeak like that, you sound like a mouse." said Oliver Twist.

Mice was surprised that Oliver had spoken, but he soon recovered, "Well, Oliver, now that you mention it-"

"Save it." Said Oliver.

"Yes, do," said the man. "This is the Endless Abyss. This is where we throw the ones we don't like."

Mice had to ask, "Is there a specific kind of person you don't like?"

"No indeed!" said the man. "Hell is an equal opportunity employer, we'll toss you in regardless of race, gender, or sexual preference. Mainly, though, we throw in the repentant ones."

"What?!" Mice was aghast. "Why?!"

"Because they are a bunch of wimps, of course." Said the man. "All self-pitying whiners. 'I'm sorry!' They say. 'Please let me out!' They just don't get that down here there is only one rule: 'Life is Hell. Deal with it.' So we toss them in."

"So why are people falling past us?" Asked Mice. "Are they throwing people down from above us?"

"No." Said the man, "It's just that the Endless Abyss sort of wraps around. It's an endless cycle of falling. After a while, they all get used to it, the only ones that scream are the new ones. They only scream for about the first two days. Then they either realize that it's pointless, or they lose their voice. Then it just becomes endless boredom, which is, I think, far worse. But now the time has come for you to return to your own world."

Mice suddenly noticed that there were sparkling red slippers on his feet.

The man spoke one last time: "Now, click your heels together three times while repeating 'There's no place like home'."

Oliver Twist rolled his eyes, then he and the muscular man disappeared.

Mice did as he had been told, and poof! He was back in the real world, with a blue sky and fields of green. He kissed the ground in joy, and then he resolved to share the lessons he had learned with the rest of the world. So he sat down and wrote the rippingly good novel: "The Confessions of St. Augustine." In which, I am sure, there was some mention of Monks, unlike this column, which does not in the least feel fettered by its title.

Today's Column is entitled:
For the Last Time, We Don't Care.


I am referring, of course, to all the articles that somehow manage to get published (mainly on Pop News type websites, and frighteningly public places such as MSN.com) about people like Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck. I don't mean to pick on just them though, I also want to pick on all the rest of Hollywood and on the people, there must be some out there, who actually read the articles. My guess is that the world's Sanitariums are getting "wired" in a totally new sense of the word.

The articles I am addressing are the ones that start with lines like: "Bennifer breaks up!" Or, "What in God's name was Brittany thinking anyway?"

I picture a certain kind of person reading articles like "Bennifer breaks up!" That kind of person is a pre-teen, cell-phone-wielding, teenie-bopper girl.

At 291 Apogee St. a girl, Madge Anklewater, is staying home from school because she is sick. She is therefore the first one to read the incredible news.

"Oh my Gawd! Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck broke up?! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! I've got to tell everyone!" Madge unzips her tiny purse (which contains only a cell-phone, a tube of lipstick, and 100 limited edition 'Angel the TV Series' collectable cards, all featuring Angel) and pulls out her cell-phone. She drops it in her rush to turn it on, but she quickly picks it back up and regains control. Frantically, she dials.

"What? I'm in the middle of, like, sleeping through Math Class." says a groggy, yet young and feminine voice on the other end.

Madge blurts something that sounds like, "BeneeeeeeeeeeeeandJeneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeebrokeupeeeeeeeeeeeeeecanyoubelieveit?!"

There is silence for a moment as Ginge (the girl on the other end) absorbs this information. Then:

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! REALLY?? I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! I'M GOING TO CALL EVERYONE!"

Madge shouts, "Me too!"

They both hang up simultaneously, and simultaneously begin dialing frantically. Ginge's dialing, however, is interrupted by a rather insensitive and thoughtless math teacher, who, for some reason, thinks that Ginge should be listening to the lesson.

Madge continues the brave crusade of informing everyone in her peer group that Ben and Jen broke up by placing a call to Dorth; short for Dorothy, which has too many syllables to be useful.

The phone gets through half a ring, and Dorth picks up, "Madge?" Dorth has Caller-ID.

"Dorth! Guess what?!"

Dorth gets very excited, "What?! What?!"

"Ben and Jen broke up!"

"No way!"

"Way!"

Two seconds of silence.

"No way!"

"Way!"

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

"That's what I said!"

"Madge, just think, now I can, like, send Ben all those love letters that I, like, wrote!"

"But Dorth, I thought you, like, burned those in protest when he married Jen."

"No! Of course not! I mean, I was going to, but, like, I didn't."

Soon, Ben Affleck's agent's secretary will receive, like, 32 letters from the same person. Like, wow.

Now, please don't misunderstand and think that I think that all pre-teen girls act like that. No indeed. Out there, somewhere, was a girl who saw, "Bennifer breaks up!" and said, in a sarcastic tone, "Huh. There's a surprise." Then checked her email. As it turns out, she had received 339 "Friendship Poems" from people she had met once in passing. 339 deletions later, she settled down with a warm cup of tea and read chapter two in The Fellowship of the Ring. There is an abiding place in my heart for that girl.

Another big sort of article that one finds on Pop News sites is of the following form: "Shocking Lust Sex Affair Between (insert celebrity name here) and Some Farm Animals."

Usually, these don't really do much but sit around on Pop News sites, being read by people whose bodies have been possessed by aliens. Sometimes, however, these pieces morph into something so frightening that I quiver with fear at the very thought. They become a TV special:

Time Magazine presents a new 60-minute documentary on the 'Farm Animal Affair'

"Shocking!"
--Ebert, of Ebert and Roper

"Lustful!"
--Roper, of Ebert and Roper

"Affair-like!"
--Bob Manderfilge, of the Delaware Daily Gossip

Be aware that some parental discretion is advised in the viewing of this documentary, because it contains some highly naked goats.

I recall, with a certain amount of trepidation (which is my big word for today), an article that I (I am ashamed to admit) actually read on MSN.com (purveyor of glitz, glamour, and ads for dating websites.)

This article was about, I kid you not, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez buying a car. Here are some direct quotes which I am entirely making up:

"The whispered rumors proved true today when Ben and Jen thoroughly looked over a Mitsubishi Quasar."

"...shocking dispute over green or black fluffy seat-coverings."

"...had to physically restrain crazed fans from buying every single Mitsubishi Quasar on the lot."

"Several fights broke out when Jen and Ben disagreed over whether to get Power-Assisted Steering, or Full-Power Steering. One man, when asked his opinion, said: 'I've always thought that Ben Affleck was an idiot, and this just proves it; he should be buying a Dodge Ram.' A woman that was interviewed stated, 'I can't believe that Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, of all people, are thinking about buying a Japanese-made car rather than American-made, they are traitorous scum. They should be setting a patriotic standard for the nation's youth, because it's obviously their responsibility to make sure that my kids don't grow up to be terrorists.'"

So there you have it. The big news. Soon it will be a TV feature:

Time Magazine presents a 60-minute documentary, 'Buying a Car with a Couple of Stars.'

"Shocking!"
--Ebert, of Ebert and Roper

"Lustful!"
--Roper, of Ebert and Roper

"I love the part where Ben kicks the tire and says, 'Well, Jen, this tire has air in it.'"
--Bob Manderfilge, of the Delaware Daily Gossip

So, my message is to all of you freaks who actually publish articles like this. We don't care! We, meaning everyone who uses at least 0.2 percent of their allotted brain tissue. I cannot speak for the other people.

And to all you people out there who actually read those articles for reasons other than sick curiosity, I say, "Why?!"

Why do you read articles like that and give the people who publish them reason to continue doing so? Why must you create a market for something that at the very best causes headaches for 90% of humanity? What kind of legacy are we leaving for the next generation?

Instead of leaving behind such wonders as Plato and Homer and Dickens, we leave behind stories about how Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck selected a car based solely on how many naked goats they could fit in the trunk.

I weep for our children.

Ahhhhh, what's that smell? Can you smell it? It's tangy, and subtle, and sweet, yet just a tad bitter, with a slight burnt tinge to it. Is that the smell of Mom's best Tangerine Tang Chicken? Or maybe it's the restaurant down the road whipping up a batch of Stewed Sloth ala Plumb?

No, my friend, that is the smell of fresh information! And it's coming from the internet! mmmm MM! I can't wait to taste some of that stuff, warm, right off the website; chewy, but not slimy, juuuuussst right. With a glass of milk.

It's the perfect snack for one of those warm midsummer days, when the cool blandness of the milk is the perfect counterpoint to the oozing warm sweetness of the information.

You know, it's funny, but these days it seems so natural to have new information literally at my fingertips. All I have to do is pour myself a glass of milk and "voila," a perfect midday snack. However, life was not always this idyllic. No indeed.

Why, I remember a period in my life when I would go for weeks at a time absorbing hardly any new information. They say you learn things everyday, but mainly what I learned in those days was that Tree A was, in fact, harder to climb than Tree B, just like Bobby said.

Coming by even this fairly minor information was no small feat. First, Bobby would offer me a hypothesis, as follows:

"I climbed that tree, and then I climbed THAT tree, and THAT one was harder to climb, cause I slipped and nearly fell. In fact, if it hadn't been for my keen sense of balance and cat-like reflexes, I would have said some really bad words. It's good I didn't, 'cause mom had the window open."

First, for the sake of clarity, let us assign distinct variables to the different trees. Let "THAT tree" equal "Tree A" and let "that tree" equal "Tree B".

Now, as you may remember from High School (which was NOT a source of information, we'll cover that later) the Pythonion Theorem states, "If Tree A is not harder to climb than Tree B, then we must draw the conclusion that Bobby is a moron and should be belittled if at all possible."

This is a very good rule of thumb in many situations, and you should always remember it. Also, I highly suggest you memorize some commercial jingles, because God knows we don't remember enough of those already.

So, in my quick and youthful mind, I instantly hit upon a test. A test that would conclusively prove whether or not I was just as much of a moron as Bobby. I would climb both trees myself.

Here is where the complex mathematics of youth come in. The Theory of Not Looking Really Dumb in Front of People Who Will Mock You Mercilessly Until You Are Old and Gray, states, "If you are halfway up Tree A and discover that Bobby was indeed correct and that Tree A is MUCH harder to climb, you MUST NOT look like you are having a hard, and even life-threatening time of it."

It is times like these when you learn either to pray, or to curse under your breath. Or sometimes both.

So there I am, halfway up Tree A, and the branches are really thin, and the tree is swaying not-so-gently in the wind, and I am saying, under my breath, something like, "Dear God, if you get me out of this *Bleeping* tree alive, I promise I'll never say *Bleep* again!"

Anyway, I manage to get down without dying, ("Thanks God!"), and I even manage (despite the shaking of my knees) to say something casual sounding, like, "Well Bobby, I think that you're right, Tree A does rate a slightly higher difficulty than Tree B."

But that's not the point. The point is that information was much harder to come by back in those days. Now we have information positively coming out the wazoo, even if we still aren't sure just what a wazoo is.

Some even go so far as to say that we have too much information. I think that the time has come for a farm metaphor. In this age of information, some become too addicted to the sweet indulgences of the vast outpouring of information, and they eat like a pig at slop time, but the slop just keeps coming and coming, and they just keep eating and eating, until eventually they weigh the same as a Greyhound Bus, and they spend their days wallowing in regurgitated information, until finally the farmer comes along and makes ham out of them.

This is truly a sad state of affairs, and I really think we should do something about it. But not just now, cause there's this great article I want to read. It's all about how someone has cloned three-eyed toads in a lab where they were trying to distill water in a more efficient way.

Today's topic is: viruses, and bacteria. Mainly because I have "come down" with that most dreaded of viruses, the Black Plague. No, just kidding, actually, I have the Flu. Which is short for Influenza, which is a French word that means, literally, "Freaking gross."

I will now list some of the symptoms of "Influenza", just for the heck of it.

A fever. Aches. Pains. Digestive difficulties. Unnecessary regurgitation. Dehydration. Hallucinations. Blindness. Death.

Fortunately, I have not experienced all of the aforementioned symptoms. I have a mild case of "Influenza" and the worst it's gotten is when I was crawling around on the floor, alternately barking like a dog and begging God to smite me with lightning and get it over with.

But now, let's take a scientific look at the virus itself.

Viruses in general, and the Influenza virus specifically, turn an average human being into a living cloud of stench, filth, and general unpleasantness. It is speculated by scientists that this is what happened to King Nebuchadnezzar (which is probably misspelled) in the Bible during that period of his life when he was crawling on the ground and eating grass and growing long fingernails and wracking up a really, really big bill with his therapist.

On top of the aforementioned symptoms, the Influenza Infected Individual (or Triple I) is also deserted by all the others of its tribe/family group. In addition to being totally grossed-out by the Individual, the pack members cannot even recognize them anymore. The Individual has been reduced to a husk of its former self.

The Individual's loved ones will chase them off, with electric cattle prods if necessary, in order to keep from catching the horrid disease themselves. This results in one of those pathetic rituals that are always getting shown on National Geographic wildlife shows.

Narrator: So we see the wild (insert kind of animal here, zebra, hyena, antelope, deer, cow, mollusk) trying to return to its (herd, pack, pride, flock, swarm, mob, gene pool) but being rejected by the other members.

Scene: The whatever-it-is has a hideous disease, and it's wasting away as we watch. This is really nasty, but it's the kind of thing they always show, because it's the kind of thing that always gets great ratings. People turn it on and say, "Eeeew! What's that?" Then they can't help watching, they are riveted to the screen because of some kind of strange fascination that humanity has with gross stuff. So the thing, for our purposes let's say it's a zebra (and please note that this is a work of fiction, any resemblance or similarity to real zebras is purely coincidental), is trying to stay with the herd, it's lonely, and sick, and needs help.

However, the herd is not liking this idea, because the herd knows that the sick zebra is quite contagious, and has a bad habit of not washing its hooves enough, so the herd chooses instead to force the sick zebra away. If the herd has its way, the sick zebra will eventually fear them so much that it will move to a different watering hole and change its name and get an unlisted phone number, and possibly even hire a couple of body guards, both named Vinny.

However, the sick zebra still has pipe dreams of being with the herd once again. It gets closer and closer to the herd, but several bouncer zebras head it off and kick it out. After several attempts at this, the zebra becomes more desperate, attempting to fling itself headlong into other zebras.

Narrator: Now, some of you watching this may be thinking: "Why don't they help that poor zebra out?" But we here at National Geographic believe that it is more correct to let nature take its course...and then make lots of money off of selling the film footage. Unless of course, a tribe of naked people show up. In that case we will instantly forget the zebras and film the people, because they always make the ratings shoot up.

So the zebra is rejected, and you may be thinking that nature is a cruel master, that this is totally unfair, and that someone should have the life sued out of them for it. You may even be thinking that the herd itself is a horrid, hateful entity that loves only the strong and the powerful and cares nothing for the needy. You're right. They are following the ancient, unwritten (until now) rules of The Herd.

Rule 1: Survival of the fittest.

Rule 2: Fittest is a word, despite the fact that 'bestest' is not.

Rule 3: Strength in numbers.

Rule 4: There must be at least one female per herd.

Rule 5: If you get sick and die, that's your bloody problem.

Rule 6: If you straggle behind and get eaten, that's also your bloody problem.

Rule 7: If you are young and helpless and don't know what's going on or how to deal with the world, then, well, that's pretty much your bloody problem. If you're not born with enough sense to survive, than we don't really want you in our herd anyway, you freak.

Rule 8: If something big and mean comes along, it's every zebra for themselves, but stay together.

Rule 9: If something big and mean is chasing the herd, kick one of the smaller, insignificant zebras so that they get eaten and distract the big, mean thing.

Rule 10: It's a cruel world, but don't come crying to me about it.

The sick zebra stumbles off into the distance, leaving behind the cool shade of the trees by the watering hole, and as we watch, heat waves rise up from the desert and envelope the lone zebra. Its silhouette dwindles as a flaming orange sun sets, and just before all the light fades, we can see the dark shadow of a lion, reading a dinner menu...and he's not ordering the escargot.

Narrator: So you see, the great circle of life comes to a close once again. *Cough cough* Oh dear, I seem to have caught a slight cold.

Scene: The camera jiggles as the cameramen move violently away from the infected narrator. He tries to rejoin the herd, but is beaten off by large directors wielding cattle-prods. His attempts weaken, until finally he staggers away from the cool shade of the studio building and is run over by a car.

So, viruses are dangerous, and unpleasant, and should not be taken in under any circumstances. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if you see a virus, you should kill it first and ask questions later.

Well folks, I have some wonderful news! Drinking alcohol can help you speak better! That's right, according to a New York Times article, a psychologist named Nicholas Christenfeld has found that drinking alcohol reduces the number of times people use the filler word "um" in their conversations. Wow.

I mean, if only, if ONLY we had known this before! So now you can, in good conscience, get really smashed before a speech. It's all part of the preparation.

Allow me to give you an idea of how this would work. Let's say, hypothetically, that George Bush is giving a speech. It might go something like this:

"Citizens of, uh, America. It has come to our, uh, attention, that, um, there's bad stuff happening. Specifically, there is, uh, bad stuff happening in Iraq. The bad stuff, um, takes on the form of, er, weapons of mass, um, destruction."

Now, take that same speech with Mr. Bush in a state of inebriation.

"Chitishens of America. It hash come to our attenshon that--" Mr. Bush teeters on the platform and becomes intensely interested in a fly on the podium. "Thish fly ish cleaning ithelf. Heh heh heh! Nice fly." Mr. Bush squishes the fly. Then he turns to Vice President Dick Cheney. "Hey Dick, letsh, uh, go get something to drink! I could go for a margarita!" Then Mr. Bush passes out on the floor.

The difference between the two speeches is amazing, in the second speech, the use of the filler words "uh," "um," and "er" is greatly reduced. This makes for an altogether more convincing and "well-rehearsed" sounding speech.

Actually, I think that a program should be set in motion to take advantage of the wonderful fluency-increasing effects of alcohol. Free alcohol should be provided to all members of Congress, and they should be encouraged to drink it before every public speech. This would greatly improve not only the duration of the speeches (they are way too long now), but also the entertainment value (measured in amount of times the congressperson does something hilarious, like slapping themselves).

I bet that C-Span would find itself suddenly overrun with viewers. People would start actually caring about politics! I think that it would start a rise in the number of people who actually vote as well. Also, it would make the politicians altogether more honest, more jovial, and more agreeable. Maybe, just maybe, congress would actually be able to accomplish something! Here is what I envision:

1st Congressperson: "I would like to, hic, introdush a new bill."

2nd Congressperson: "But Bill is right over, hic, there! Why do we, hic, need a new one?"

1st Congressperson: "Oh...hic...hic...well, letsh adjourn and go get some more to drink then."

So, as you can see, things would get done much more quickly.

Anyway, I want to say a big "Thank you!" to Nicholas Christenfeld and the New York Times. What would we do without you guys?

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I have a question for Russia. Do you think that we (America) could borrow Siberia?

We have what I believe is a pressing need to exile some people. Namely, those people who put out spam email on the internet. I think that if we banished them all to Siberia, a land of snow and ice and eternal winter, and, most importantly, no computers, then it would solve a big problem.

Also, I think we should banish the people that designed those web ads that say something to the effect of: "Shoot the ball/hit the pink cow and win!" And then flash a lot and move a lot and are just generally distracting and very, very annoying.

Maybe if you actually won something, it wouldn't matter, but of course you don't. It is merely a ploy. You shoot the pink cow, and what you win is a chance to fill out a long form for a credit card application, and IF you get approved for the credit card, you will win a "50 dollar DVD player" that they actually paid maybe 15 dollars for. And it will break the instant you touch a button on it.

It is all a part of their wonderful customer satisfaction guarantee, which states, "If the customer somehow manages to be satisfied, we personally will quit, because we just don't know what else we can do to make their lives miserable."

So, I propose that we ship them all off to Siberia. Where they can dissatisfy some Polar Bears by means of causing stomach cramps.

So, Russia, if you could think about the potential benefits of giving Siberia to a worthy cause, we would much appreciate it.

Thanks. Sincerely,
Me