Tony Dean wrote Sun 23 Oct 2005 @18:57:03 CDT:

Interesting note about Catholic schools being excluded
from  the  Kentucky  High School Athletic Association.
They  are  excluded  in  Illinois  as  well.  Catholic  high
schools do excel at athletics.  One of the reasons is that
Catholic grade schools all have feeder athletic programs
which public schools cannot afford.  It’s not that Catho-
lic grade schools can afford them  any better than public
schools,  but  that  Catholic grade schools require volun-
teers to run any extracurricular activities.   So  they  have
free  coaches  and  athletic  directors.  Why  can’t/won’t
public grade schools do this?

The rub in Kentucky is that the Catholic schools have athlete "re-
cruiting"* advantages over the public schools.

Public schools have been known to use volunteer coaching:  Little
Edmonson  County's  high school football team  went  undefeated
one year that "Big Mike" Fontana volunteered as assistant coach.

The kickout in Kentucky is not a done deal:   The KHSAA board
of directors rejected the schools' vote.   But  the  legislature  could
yet  get  involved.  Then we'd have more  "dumb news  from Ken-
tucky."
                                                                                      -- Editor

* Funny way to spell "payola."


FGDean@aol.com  wrote  Mon 24 Oct 2005  @09:11:03 PDT
re the Globe headline "LESBIAN SCANDAL ROCKS WHITE
HOUSE -- Condoleezza and the Foxy news gal":

I can easily believe this one.

Titillating, isn't it?  -- Ed.

"No late charges as long as you make at least one purchase
  each billing cycle."
                                               [courtesy Citi credit cards,
                                celebrating the new bankruptcy law]

A 60-year-old man caught with his pants down in a 73-year-old
woman's hospital room in Owensboro was charged with rape.

                                      [courtesy Louisville Courier-Journal]

A Tacoma teen-ager was suspended from school for sexual har-
assment for wearing a  penis costume  to the homecoming dance.
.  .  . Preachers shut down an Austrailian all-male dance revue in
North Dakota.  .  .  .  A farmer in Iowa found an 11-foot python
coiled between rows of corn.  . . .  A Chinese performance artist
got a ticket for wading naked into the rapids above Niagara Falls.
. . . Chinese babies were being sold on eBay.  .  .  . The National
Academy of Sciences and the National Science Teachers Associ-
ation withdrew their teaching materials from Kansas. . . .  The Al-
aska Supreme Court  found a constitutional amendment unconsti-
tutional.  . . .  A crossing guard in New Jersey was run down and
killed  by another crossing guard  who was on his way to work at
another school.  . . .  Libby  Lewis  reported on the impending in-
dictment of Lewis Libby for National Public Radio.

"Vince Dixon" sent us nine e-mails at once titled "Wanna be a VIP?"
"Celsa Jenkins" sent us six simultaneous e-mails titled "Enhanced Immune System."
"Shannon Lopez" sent us three e-mails at once titled "Jeannette abstractive."

Public schools voted overwhelmingly to kick Catholic and other private
schools out of the Kentucky High School Athletic Association  because
private schools win state tournaments too often. . . .

Flying rocks from a blasting site fell through the roof of a Wal-Mart in
Hazard, injuring three customers. . . .

A corpse found by hikers in Madison County in 1993 has been identi-
fied as that of a man from Madison,Wisconsin. . . .

                                               [courtesy Louisville Courier-Journal]

Yes, yes, we all know that we now have Hurricane Alpha after
Hurricane Wilma.   But why are the newscasters explaining that
the 22nd hurricane gets a Greek letter name when X is the 24th
letter of the Roman alphabet?   Not only is there no X, Y or Z-
initialed hurricane name,  but neither was there a Q  or U.  And
why not?   What's wrong with Quentin and Queenie, Uriah and
Ursula?  Or, for that matter, Xerxes and Xanthippe?  Yogi and
Yvonne?  Zorba and Zelda?

The  TickCo  scalper on line advertised World Series box seat
tickets as high as $4,480 (Fox broadcasters reported prices of
$8,500). . . .  Soothing pillows that chirp like birds were issued
to Danish soldiers in Iraq and Kosovo.  .  .  . A Wisconsin man
was arrested for putting an electric dog collar on his 8-year-old
stepdaughter and zapping her for not eating fast enough. . . . An
artist formerly and again known as Prince was advised to under-
go hip replacement surgery to repair damage done from years of
performing in high heels. . . . The Taliban governor who oversaw
demolition of two giant Buddhas was elected to parliament in Af-
ghanistan. . . .  A New Mexico legislator who sponsored a bill to
make it a felony to harbor a dangerous dog  was  admitted  to  a
hospital after he was bitten by his dog. . . . Supreme Court nom-
inee Harriet Miers disclosed that her license to practice law  was
suspended earlier this year for failure to pay bar dues.  . . .  Nor-
way's new finance minister was caked (not pied)  on his first day
in office. . . .  Teen-age girls in Ogden, Utah, were wearing paja-
ma bottoms to school.  .  .  . A car with a dead driver slumped at
the wheel got a parking ticket in Sydney, Australia.

                            [courtesy Harper's Weekly, Courier-Journal]

Rena Gill sent us an e-mail titled "you are so good to me vicinity scourge."

Bruce Mitchell wrote Sun 09 Oct 2005 @07:59:40 PDT
re certain items in last week's weekly BONUS:

"Novelist Michael Crichton  appeared before a Senate committee
to criticize the theory of global warming":  That’s Novelist Doctor
Michael Crichton to you, bub. Which reminds me, doctors say he
is a very fine novelist,  and many writers  say he is a very fine doc-
tor.

"Burt Bacharach was recording an album with Dr. Dre":   I thought
BB  was  dead.   He sure looked embalmed the last time I saw him
on TV.

"A cat chewed the toes off one foot of an 88-year-old woman at an
old folks' home in Japan":  Something’s missing in this story  (no pun
intended) -- was she dead or alive at the time?

We dunno.  The article, in the Mainichi Daily News, said "elderly . . . with
senile dementia."  It was not more specific.   Is that alive? -- Ed.

Mr. Mitchell replied:

I wonder if it made her feel good.

A legislative commission proposed a bill that would require a woman
seeking artificial insemination to prove she is married  to  a  man  and
has participated in religious activities.

An assistant state's attorney in Elizabethtown who was videotaped
having sex with a defendant in her bed --  and  called  himself  "the
horny prosecutor"  audibly on the tape  --  was found by a jury not
guilty of official misconduct.
                                          [courtesy Louisville Courier-Journal]

An Oregon doctor sued by a woman for having sex with her
to cure her lower back pain  was in trouble also for charging
Medicaid $5,000 for the treatment. . . . A British pastor told
a group of 12-year-olds that Harry Potter is gay.  .  .  .  Two
Oklahoma teen-agers were arrested for shooting cattle.   On
a videotape they made of the massacre,  one said,  "Cows --
I hate cows more than coppers." . . .  A 39-year-old Arkan-
sas woman gave birth to her 16th child.  .  .  . A motorcyclist
collided with a bear in California.  . . .  Hundreds stormed the
jail holding convicted Bali bombers, shouting "Kill, kill." . . . A
Pittsburgh woman clubbed her pregnant neighbor and slashed
her belly with a knife in an attempt to steal her unborn child.

                     [courtesy Harper's Weekly, Courier-Journal]

"Here we are trying to free another country, and I have
  to get off an airplane in midflight over a T-shirt."

-- Lorrie  Heasley,  who  was  ordered  off  a
   Southwest Airlines flight from Los Angeles
   to Portland,  in  Reno,  for wearing a shirt
   bearing images of Bush, Cheney and Rice
   over the legend, "Meet the Fuckers"

Everyone but Pete Falcon  wants to see the White Sox
against the Cardinals in the World Series;  so  let's  just
cancel the rest of  the  so-called  "playoffs"  and  get on
with the show (and move it from the FAUX network to
ABC, CBS, NBC or ESPN  so  people  in the boonies
can see it, too).

Two goats strangled and drained of  blood were found in
Nebraska. . . . A man who stabbed a cross-dressing man
to death with scissors in Fresno, California, used the "gay
panic" defense to get only four years in prison. . . . Novel-
ist Michael Crichton appeared before a Senate committee
to criticize the theory of global warming. . . .  Burt Bacha-
rach was recording an album with Dr. Dre. . . .  A python
burst trying to swallow an alligator in Florida.  .  .  .  A cat
chewed the toes off one foot of an 88-year-old woman at
an old folks' home in Japan. . . . Police were called by one
of the mothers to break up a fight over a  pacifier  between
two 6-year-old boys in Rhode Island.  . . .  "Crunk,"  "ova-
wicked"  and  "uberbuff"  are  among  new words cited in a
new book.  . . .  Mississippi adopted a law allowing casinos
to build on land.

Madhukar Rippy sent us an e-mail titled "The stoutness," and
Dougal Dooley sent us an e-mail titled "The ozocerite."

The New York Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox yesterday to go
one game up in division standings with one game yet to play --  be-
tween the same two teams, in Boston today.  And although Boston
could tie New York by winning today (as it did Friday night), New
York was declared the division champion  because  Chicago  beat
Cleveland  in  another  division.

Is it any wonder there are no intelligent baseball fans left?   (What  is
Senator Bunning flapping his gums about anyway?   Maybe  he's  on
steroids.)
                                                                   [courtesy CBS Sports]

A priest accused of molesting a 19-year-old mentally disabled man
in Jasper told police the contact was consensual.

Two nursing home assistants in Irvine were fired and indicted for giv-
ing patients unneeded laxatives -- to harass workers on the next shift.

A defense attorney in West Chester, Pa., asked a judge to bar
references to his client's nickname, "Scuz," in his upcoming trial
for murder. . . . Cindy Sheehan was arrested for demonstrating
outside the White House without a permit. . . . Rita was report-
ed to be the third most intense hurricane ever recorded.  . . .  A
1½-year-old Polish child ran over three family members with an
automobile.  .  .  .  A 12-year-old girl in India committed suicide
when her mother said she could not give her one rupee for lunch.
.  .  .  Moral  Clarity  author William Bennett said the crime rate
could be cut by aborting "every black baby in this country."  .  .  .
An Oregon man called people,  told them he'd kidnapped an 11-
year-old girl,  and  threatened  to  hurt  her  unless  they gave him
phone sex. . . . A new Muslim chaplain for the New York fire de-
partment resigned after being publicly quoted doubting that hijack-
ers alone brought down the World Trade Center.

Sitting Bull was the unanimous choice for "most important
American ever" in last week's Tabloid Headlines poll.