March 30, 2003: Things you
would never know if you did not
browse the tabloids while waiting for your wife at the counter in
the supermarket – this week's headlines:
WHAT REALLY HAPPENED:
ELIZABETH
SMART'S
LIFE
ON THE RUN
* Their shocking
wedding night
* REAL reason she didn't try to escape
[courtesy National Enquirer]
WILLIE
TURNS 70!
'I've never been better'
[courtesy National Examiner]
JOHNNY CASH DYING
[courtesy the Globe]
PRINCE
CHARLES IS GAY!
[courtesy National Enquirer]
GIANT
EARTHWORMS
TERRORIZE
NEVADA
[courtesy Weekly World News]
and, this week's special,
headline plus article excerpt:
UFO
is Saddam's secret, watchers
claim
President Bush decided to attack Iraq
because he
was afraid that Saddam
Hussein
would use technology from a crashed alien space ship, UFO watchers
claim....
[courtesy CSICOP, Edwin F. Kagin, and the New
Zealand Truth]
LETTERS to the EDITOR!
Dusty Z. Facilitator wrote from New Mexico Sun 23 Mar
@09:10:15
MST:
I don't suppose this [the Weekly World News
Round Table;
see below] is an online meeting, is it? If so, what time is
"after
church," translated to Mountain Time? I know a
great, and
private, chatroom, if you are interested. I could ask the admin
if you could hold meetings there; he is a personal friend of mine.
He might like to attend, also.
Editor's reply:
No, the Weekly World News Round Table is not on line, and
won't be! What it is, is a device to get people to
come
visit us
in this lonely neck of the woods. Thanks, anyway.
Right after church Mountain Time depends on when y'all go to
church thar'n th'mountains. Just like the writers and
editors
of
tabloid headlines, ya gotta use yer imagination sometimes.
Fosterdme@aol.com wrote from Maine Sun 23 Mar @12:06:44 EST:
1) I guess I'll need a reservation for the Britney
Spears
"pants
down" round table. Only for
something
to do, of course.
Cabin fever, you know.
2) Are you working on your résumé for the college
president
position in Iowa?
Editor's reply:
1) Of course! It's in the mail.
2) Ha! Ha! I was the college president in
Iowa.
Harper's Weekly
BONUS:
. . . in San Francisco protesters vomited
on the sidewalk in
front of a federal building after drinking large quantities of red
white and blue milk . . . .
DISCUSSION GROUP:
Don't forget! Readers
interested
in intellectual dissection of
important current events are invited to attend the Weekly World
News Round Table at the offices of Borf Books outside Browns-
ville, Kentucky, just after church every Sunday. Guest speakers
lined up for meetings in the near future include
Elizabeth
Smart,
Johnny Cash (we invited Willie Nelson, but he couldn't
make it,
his agent said, on account of his health), Sharon Fullilove, and El-
sie the Red White and Blue Cow.
March 23, 2003: Things you
would never know if you did not
browse the tabloids while waiting for your wife at the counter in
the supermarket – this week's headlines:
FISH TALKS, TOWN BUZZES
[courtesy the New York Times –
see http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0303/codrescu1.asp
and/or http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/15/nyregion/15FISH.html]
BRITNEY
CAUGHT WITHOUT MAKEUP
[courtesy the Star]
Harper's Weekly
BONUS:
. . . Tom Ridge, the secretary of "homeland"
security, declared
that suicide bombings in the United States are "inevitable."
. . .
The president of a college in Iowa was arrested for growing pot
in his basement. . . .
DISCUSSION GROUP:
Don't forget! Readers
interested
in intellectual dissection of
important current events are invited to attend the Weekly World
News Round Table at the offices of Borf Books outside Browns-
ville, Kentucky, just after church every Sunday. Guests
lined
up
for meetings in the near future include Britney Spears caught with
her pants down.
March 16, 2003: Things you
would never know if you did not
browse the tabloids while waiting for your wife at the counter in
the supermarket – today's headlines:
U.S. ARMY FINDS NOAH'S ARK
New Bible prophecies
hidden in ship's hold!
[courtesy Weekly World News]
SADDAM
PLANS MOVE TO FRANCE
. . . he'll be
new French ambassador to U.S.!
[courtesy Weekly World News]
CHELSEA
PREGNANCY SCARE
Summer wedding called off
[courtesy National Enquirer]
DI
WINS!
CHURCH RULES
AGAINST CAMILLA
. . . she will NEVER be Queen!
[courtesy National Examiner]
WOMAN
FINDS DEAD LEPRECHAUN IN
JAR
[courtesy Weekly World News]
LETTERS to the EDITOR!
Theodore Sverre Fiskevold <tedf@lakesnet.net> wrote
Sun
9 Mar
2003 @10:12:40 CST:
The headline "SHORT THIGHS LINKED TO
DIABETES"
was on a TV news story, and the expert
being interviewed
said, "Fat thighs are a bigger link to diabetes than short thighs."
Carole Otis <sitoc@quixnet.net> wrote Mon 10 Mar 2003
@17:41:45 CST:
...where do u get these...lol
Editor's reply:
This is a fair question, and deserves a
reply. Our usual
sources –
besides an occasional dip into the mainstream press for outlandish
reports (such as that noted in Mr. Fiskevold's letter
above) – are
a core of six tabloid newspapers published weekly and sold mainly
at supermarkets (including Wal-Mart), for about $2 a
copy: The
Weekly World News, the National Enquirer, the National Examin-
er,
the Globe, the Sun, and the Star.
We never reprint a headline without independent corroboration of
the facts reported in the headline, and we do our utmost to print on-
ly
the truth in this column. Journalism being what it
is, we often
fail
in
this goal, of course; but that is our standard.
These journals are published by different companies. Curiously,
how-
ever, all six have the same street address in Boca Raton, Fla.
(where
a photography editor caught a fatal dose of anthrax soon
after 9/11/-
01, you may recall). Isn't rent sharing wonderful?
Incidentally, we find the Weekly World News to be consistently
both
the most interesting and the most reliable of
these six main
sources.
Perhaps not coincidentally, it is the only one of the
six
not printed in
color: Yellow journalism it isn't.
The weekly Harper's bonus comes, of course, from the
editors
and
publishers of the monthly literary magazine of that name.
Harper's Weekly
BONUS:
"A poll found that 42 per cent of Americans believe that
Saddam Hus-
sein is personally responsible for September 11.
Sixty-eight
per cent
believe in the devil, but only 48 per cent believe that
God created the
universe; 28 per cent believe in evolution. . . .
Denver's Ocean Jour-
ney aquarium was bought by a seafood restaurant. . .
. A school in
England banned stories about pigs in the mistaken belief
that talking
about pigs is offensive to Muslims. . . .The Supreme
Court ruled that
it is not cruel and unusual punishment to put a man
in prison
for 50
years for stealing a couple of videotapes for his children."
And yet ANOTHER bonus this week [courtesy Yahoo!,
Reuters, and
Gerry Blue]:
THREE DIE
RETRIEVING
PHONE FROM LATRINE
and yet another [courtesy Gadzooks, Bruce
Mitchell, and Fred Dean]:
AN EYEFUL A DAY KEEPS
THE DOCTOR AWAY
German
researchers have discovered in a five-year
study that 10
minutes of ogling women's breasts once a day is as healthful as a half-
hour in the gym,
and can extend
a man's life four to five years. . . .
March 9, 2003: Things you would never
know if you did not
browse the tabloids while waiting for your wife at the counter
in the supermarket – today's headlines:
SADDAM'S
SECRET LIFE:
- He's a transvestite!
- Star of gay porn films!
- Hates hummus!
New
Jersey woman finds
HITLER'S MUMMIFIED
HEAD
in
bowling ball bag at garage
sale
Fat cannibals go on all-Pygmy
diet
[all
courtesy Weekly World News – We urge you to run
down to
your local Ralph's
to buy this one, just for the
front
page photo of
a cross-dressed Hussein. The issue
contains
also a truly heartwarming article about two
mothers
who shared a room in the obstetrics
ward at
a
hospital in the Ukraine. One of them wanted a girl,
but had
a boy; the other
wanted a boy, but had a girl.
They
traded.]
KENNEDYS
MURDERED MARILYN
claims Joe DiMaggio's
son in new book
[courtesy National Examiner]
LETTERS to the EDITOR!
FGDean@aol.com wrote Sun 2 Mar 2003 @18:50:01 PST:
Color
me very amused at this line: "Concerns over code
breaking by Al Quaeda computers led the Defense Depart-
ment to create a top-secret new office code-named Homey
Land Security."
And NEW SUBSCRIBER "Willow Z. Seaweed" <Seaweed@johncfish.com>
wrote Sun 2 Mar 2003 @08:28:15 MST:
WHERE HAVE THESE FUCKING TABLOID
HEADLINES BEEN ALL MY LIFE?
UNSUBSCRIBE? I never was any good at follow-
ing
directions.
Harper's Weekly
BONUS:
"James Watson, co-discoverer of DNA, said stupidity is an
inherited disorder. . . . Lightning struck a small plane
carry-
ing Florida governor Jeb Bush but failed to destroy it."
EXTRA!
The following appeared not in the tabloids, but in one section of
one
edition of one issue of one Pulitzer prize winning major metropolitan
daily (the Louisville Courier-Journal; you probably saw some or
all
of the same stories in your own paper) one day last week, Saturday,
March 8, 2003:
ARRESTED
AFTER 30 YEARS OF HIDING IN OPEN
Woodbine, N.J. – Jamie Thomas, 50, was
convicted
in 1970 in a
drunk driving crash that killed two teen-agers. But he failed
to appear
for sentencing, moved to a new town just an hour away, and
became
a family man, state employe, township official and minister of the
New
World Pentecostal Holiness Church.
Monday he was re-arrested. "I'm glad it's
over,"
he said.
He had given a false birth date upon his arrest 33
years ago, and he
changed his Social Security number – but not his name. . . .
TEACHER
FIRED FOR RACIAL REMARKS
Evarts, Ky. – Ralph Crow, 48, was
fired from his
job as a Spanish
teacher at Evarts High School in Harlan County after
sending an e-mail
to 40 other teachers saying that African-Americans
are responsible for
"about 90 per cent" of violent crimes and that the
main achievement
of
Martin Luther King Jr. was "introduction and promotion of communism."
The e-mail said also that white achievements are
ignored so that
"non-
achieving minorities can have the spotlight." Crow said
yesterday
that his
e-mail was meant as sarcasm; that he is the victim
of "political
correct-
ness"; that his right to free speech has been violated, and
that he
will ap-
peal. . . .
PEACE
SHIRT MAKES WEARER A CELEBRITY
Albany, N.Y.
– Stephen Downs, 60, who was arrested
at the
Crossgates Mall for wearing a "Peace on Earth" T-shirt and refusing
to change clothes or leave, has been too busy giving
interviews to
Connie Chung, Bill O'Reilly, the BBC and News Australia to
have
seen himself yet on TV.
Downs, chief lawyer for the New York
Commission on
Judicial
Conduct, said he had heard that people sporting anti-war messages
were being arrested at the Mall, and he wanted to see
what would
happen. A free speech advocate not known as an
activist, Downs
said he had never attended a demonstration but had written letters
to
his congressman. . . .
WOMEN'S
DREAMS DASHED IN ACADEMY RAPES
Denver – "People told us that if you make it
through
all four years
of the Air Force Acad-
emy without being sexually assaulted,
you're
lucky," said victim and former cadet Sharon
Fullilove. . . .
|  |
FRIGHTENER-IN-CHIEF
[column
by Matthew Rothschild]
As George W. Bush
plans to plunge the nation into
war, he is using
manipulative rhetoric. Though that may not be unusual
for a wartime
President, we should recognize when we are being led by the nose. .
. .
Twice in his State of the Union speech Bush used
the words "if war
is forced upon us." No one is forcing war on us . .
. Bush
has been
forcing the issue. . . .
Bush has been calling Iraq a "mounting threat," a
"growing danger,"
and a "direct and growing threat." How can Iraq
be "mounting"
or
"growing" when American and British planes have
intensified their
bombing raids . . . and UN inspectors are going anywhere they want
any time they want? . . . .
DRAMA
THEY COULDN'T DO [column,
Kathleen Parker]
Glyn O'Malley's
play-in-progress "Paradise" has been
rapped both
as Zionist and antisemitic. Muslims and Jews
both have praised
the
work, also. It is a fictional exploration of the true
story of
the deaths
of two teen-age girls in a suicide bombing – the
Palestinian bomber,
18, and one of the Israeli victims, 17.
O'Malley hoped to humanize the two girls so that
students their age
might explore new ways of looking at Middle
East tensions. But
a
high school tour of the play was canceled after a group of invited
Mus-
lims stopped a performance for schools in Cincinnati. . . .
and, finally, just a headline:
SHORT
THIGHS LINKED TO DIABETES
DISCUSSION GROUP:
Don't forget! Readers
interested
in intellectual dissection of
important current events are invited to attend the Weekly World
News Round Table at the offices of Borf Books outside Browns-
ville, Kentucky, just after church every Sunday. Guest speakers
lined up for meetings in the near future include Saddam Hussein's
chef and his "mister" (he never had a mistress).
March 2, 2003: Things you would never
know if you did not
browse the tabloids while waiting for your wife at the counter
in the supermarket – today's headlines:
'THEY WANT TO KILL ME!'
sobs a paranoid Saddam
in shocking breakdown
MAGAZINE
FROM ATLANTIS FOUND
STAMPEDE
KILLS 2,000 CHICKENS
frigtened by new
year fireworks in China
WOMAN
PREGNANT 14 YEARS GIVES
BIRTH
RAINMAKER'S
GOOF DROWNS
7
and washes away
entire Peruvian village
[all courtesy Weekly World News]
and, for the first time, Tabloid Headlines' own
tabloid headline,
hot off the press:
SWITZERLAND
WINS AMERICA'S CUP
This week's special, headline plus article excerpts:
Hip-hop hope
U.S.
TO SEND CODE MESSAGES
IN RAP
Hoping to copy the success of the famous Navajo code
talkers
of World War II, U.S. spy chiefs are recruiting a rapper network
to relay messages among American forces around the world.
"Fo' shizle dawg," an intelligence source said,
confirming
the
re-
port in nonclassified slang. "We'll win the war against
terror
with
hip-hop."
Believed to have been already enlisted in the
project
are Missy
Elliott, Busta Rhymes, Snoop Dogg and Jay-Z.
Concerns over code-breaking by Al Quaeda computers
led the
Defense Department to create a top
secret new office code-
named
Homey Land Security.
Code breakers will never be able to figure out the
rap code, ex-
perts
say, because the lingo constantly changes. . . .
[courtesy Weekly World News]
Harper's Weekly
BONUS:
"Hippies from around the world began to arrive in Baghdad
to
act
as human shields against American bombing.
. . . Two French
tourists were run over by a police SUV as they sunbathed on Mi-
ami Beach. The officer drove over two sisters,
backed up,
and
ran over them again; one of them died. . . . A British man who de-
capitated a statue of Margaret Thatcher
was sentenced to three
months in jail despite his plea that the vandalism was
an artistic ex-
pression of opposition to globalism. . .
. An Australian
chemist
succeeded in mixing oil and water."
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