Connie Harbeson wrote Sun 2/20/11 @13:02 EST:

"John Boehner accused in sex probe"?   If only!  This is the single
indefensible scandal to bring down any politician.   Drugs, booze,
embezzlement - all are forgiven by the amnesiac public, especially
if God gets involved.

"New York's latest fashion statement is the 'hoodarf'?   Terrific!
This completes the fetching  "Medieval  Serf"  fashion for young
thugs, which began with the bowl haircut (a la Moe Fine), droo-
py drawers, and T-shirts the length of nightgowns.  Now trendy
gangstas are unable to run from the law without  falling  on  their
asses,  and can't even see if they're being chased.   Could make
the streets safer all around.

Deputy State Attorney General Jeff Cox was fired after "tweeting"
that police should "use live ammunition" against union protesters in
Wisconsin (a similar protest was occurring in Indianapolis as most
House Democrats joined Wisconsin Democratic state senators  in
Illinois). . . .

Governor Mitch, considered by some to be a viable candidate for
the Republican nomination for President, called his marijuana con-
viction while a student at Princeton a "lesson." . . .



A Hacienda restaurant in South Bend pulled billboards that made
a less-than-subtle allusion to the 1978 Jonestown massacre. . . .

                                                       [courtesy Associated Press]

A gay couple was denied admission to "Date Night" at the Creation
Museum near Petersburg.
                                                                               [courtesy AP]

 

"What mentality leads people into dentistry, dental hygiene and gastroenterology?
 Podiatry and pedicure are at least based on a fetish."
                                                                                             – Madry Chlopak

"You don't understand – I have been married since I was 13 years old and
 have been married for 16 years."

– Traci  Batcher,  explaining her wandering    around nude in a bar in Sarasota, Florida   (and, be sure to do the math – either she did-    n't or the cops didn't:  The police report said    her age was 34.  As for the soul patch?  It    doesn't appear to be Photoshopped in – it    shows up in various news sources' photos)

                                                   

"If this was a guy and a sheep in Litchfield, this would not have gotten nearly
 the media attention."
                                    – Ralph Crozier, a lawyer defending a man accused of having
                                       his way with a neighbor's horse in Shelton, Connecticut

Dakota Fanning, 17
Chelsea Clinton, 31
Kurt Rambis, 53
Fats Domino, 83
Ralph Stanley, 84

An Egyptian named his firstborn daughter Facebook. . . . Po-
land was importing potatoes from Cyprus. . . . South Dakota
legislators tabled a bill that would label a  homicide  justifiable
if committed in defense of an unborn child. . . .Two construc-
tion workers were arrested for lifting 48 pounds of marijuana
from a police evidence vault they were renovating in Florence,
Alabama. . . .Lindsay Lohan received unsolicited advice from
Charlie Sheen and Christian Slater. . . . A Southern California
man found Jesus in the rotting wood of an old rocking chair....
A 31-year-old man in Teriton, Oklahoma,  was arrested after
writing to a high school classmate by Facebook, "I could have
chopped you up. ... And drank your blood." .  .  . Goat heads
were left on three porches in Cincinnati,  Ohio,  and  one  was
nailed to a cross at a Catholic church there.  . . .  A preschool
in Northridge, California,  placed a help wanted ad on Craigs-
list for a "2-year-old teacher,"  with "a minimum of 2 years ex-
perience with this age group." . . . Eminem passed Lady Gaga
in Facebook "likes"  (but Gaga continued to lead nearly 3 to 1
in followers on Twitter). .  .  . Lori J. Lauer,  51,  at Sebastian
River High School in Florida  to withdraw her daughter,  lifted
her sweater, dropped her pantyhose,  and mooned a physical
education class.  . . . Christine Shreeve Hubbs,  42,  of Liver-
more,  California,  was convicted of having sex  with 14- and

15-year-old boys, whom she took to trysts in her Hummer. ...
. . . Toney Jordan, principal of Savannah High School in Geor-
gia,  was making students tuck in their shirts  and  remove their
gold teeth grills before speaking to him. .  .  .  The father of the
Utah classical  piano prodigies known as the 5 Browns  plead-
ed guilty to sodomy and sex abuse of the 3 girls among the 5.

 
[courtesy Harper's Weekly, Daily Snopes, Obscure.com, AP]

February 20, 2011:    Things you would never know if you did
not browse the tabloids while waiting for your wife at the coun-
ter in the supermarket – this week's headlines:

FGDean@aol.com wrote Mon 2/14/2011 @11:27 PST:

The National Enquirer is losing its edge:   The latest Lindsay
Lohan court appearance wasn't "tabloid";  it's a true story.

The National Enquirer is a herald of truth among the tabloids.   You
will recall that it scooped even the "MSM" on the John Edwards af-
fair.   See photo strip above for another example.   It was the Sun's
headline  in  last week's issue,  on the girl ticketed for jaywalking as
she lay in a hospital, crushed by an automobile, that shocked for the
truth.

We must remember that "tabloid"  was originally a word of form and
size,  not of content.  – Ed.

Telissa True of Terre Haute  was arrested for neglect after leaving her
children home alone with the dead body of a man with whom she was
using meth. . . .

The New Day Church of Brownsburg was advertising a series of ser-
mons on sex and religion with a poster asking,  "What happens when
God gets between the sheets?"
                                                            [courtesy Indianapolis Star]

A Lady Gaga lookalike contest will be held at the Louisville automobile
show.    Winners will get free tickets to Lady Gaga's upcoming show in
Louisville. . . .

A political science professor at Murray State University told a black stu-
dent who was late for class, "It's your heritage . . . .There's a theory that
a way to protest the master's treatment was for slaves to be late."   He's
now applied for retirement. . . .

A bill making its way through the legislature would  declare  Kentucky  a
coal "sanctuary" to exempt it from Environmental Protection Agency reg-
ulations.
                                                  [courtesy Louisville Courier-Journal]

"I don't like to talk about writin' songs.  People know what I'm singin' about."

                                                                – Loretta  Lynn,  asked  in  a  radio  interview
                                                                   what motivated her to write one of her songs

"I think it just shows that country music is relevant, and it's relatable."

                                                                – Hillary Scott, of the music group Lady An-
                                                                   tebellum, celebrating a "Grammy" award

"There's a constitutional committee that's working on amendments to the constitution."

                                                                        – Corey Flintoff, National Public Radio

"You are my idol, but I'm six husbands and some big jewels behind."

                                                                        – Kim Kardashian, to Elizabeth Taylor

"As the day waned on . . . ."
                                              – Lourdes Garcia-Navarro, National Public Radio

Molly Ringwald, 43
Patty Hearst, 57
Juice Newton, 59
Buffy Sainte-Marie, 70
Yoko Ono, 78

Young men walked Tahrir Square in Cairo with paper signs taped to their chests reading, "Sorry for the disturbance." ... The founder of a New York  television  station  launched to counter negative stereotypes of Muslims was  convicted  of beheading  his  wife. .  .  . A 43-year-old Pennsylvania man made  400 random telephone calls a day  trying  to  engage women in conversations about pantyhose.  . . . The cast of TV's Glee sitcom passed Elvis with most songs on the Bill- board Hot 100 list.  . . .  Kern Kimbrough, Sheriff of Clay- ton County,  Georgia,  complained of invasion of his priva- cy by a reporter who "friended" him on Facebook to get a photo of him flipping the bird. .  .  .  A boy defaulted rather than compete against a girl in  Iowa's  high school wrestling tournament. . . . Anna Nicole the opera opened in London. .  .  .  New York's latest fashion statement is the "hoodarf."          ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––> [courtesy Harper's Weekly, Daily Snopes, The Obscure Reading Room, Associated Press]

• Abusing cocaine-like stimulant
• Shocking reason behind weight loss

Nolan Porterfield wrote Sun 2/6/11 @12:13 CST:

I  think Tony Dean  is  quite  correct  in his explanation of why
there's a time lapse  between the time you pick up your ringing
telephone and the time when the solicitor speaks.  I note, how-
ever, that there's a definite upside to this: When you get such a
call,  you'll  know  it's somebody asking for money  or trying to
sell you something, at which point you can follow whatever path
you choose.

In my case, they invariably ask for my wife, who is almost never
here in the daytime,  and I can simply say, "She's not here,"  and
hang up.  Another  instance  offers other opportunities.  My wife
uses her maiden name, Brady; so when callers hear a male voice
(me) at the other end, they often say, "Mr. Brady?" which allows
me to say, quite honestly,  "There's no Mr. Brady at this number,
and if you were anybody I want to talk to, you'd know that," then
hang up.    (They never seem to get beyond the "B's" in the phone
book.)

Fred Dean wrote Sun 2/6/11 @10:33 PST:

I suggest a "Geek of the Year" award in honor of my baby brother.

Terry Crow wrote Sun 2/6/11 @07:03 PST re last week's
item about the (formerly Kentucky) Derby Festival:

Why would I want to go to a celebration about hats?

The runaway favorite in polling for whom to name Fort Wayne's
new city hall after was  Harry   Baals,  who served four terms as
mayor in the 1930's and 1950's. . . .

Bills making their way through the legislature would quadruple the
fees for marriage licenses  for couples not going to marriage prep
school  and  require women seeking abortions to be told  that hu-
man life begins at conception. . . .

A cat shot through the shoulder with an arrow survived a night of
subzero temperature in Crown Point. . . .

Ceasar [sic] Mendez [sic],  19,  was arrested  in Noblesville  for
shooting his girl friend's cat 19 times with a BB gun (the cat lived).

                                                       [courtesy Associated Press]

The  bankruptcy  trustee  for New York's closed  Tavern on the
Green sent a  "cease and desist"  letter  to the owners of the new
Mariott Hotel in downtown Indianapolis claiming  trademark  in-
fringement by their Tavern on the Plaza.

                                                     [courtesy Indianapolis Star]

 

                Contact sport

Butler University  basketball  center  Matt  Howard
(shown with coach Brad Stevens) suffered a wound
requiring eight stitches, and a concussion,  in a game
against the University of Illinois - Chicago.

        [photo by Alan Petersime, Indianapolis Star]

                               [cartoon below]

The final count is in: 1,080 meth labs busted in Kentucky in 2010
– more than a thousand fewer than the 2,095 busted  in  Tennes-
see.   The total includes 183  combined  in  Barren  and  Warren
counties,  in southern Kentucky,  with  a combined population of
only 130,000,  compared  to  only 154 labs  busted in Jefferson,
the state's largest county, with a population of 693,000. . . .

A man was arrested for masturbating in the bleachers at a cheer-
leading contest at the State Fairgrounds in Louisville. . . .

Kentucky would follow Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Minnesota,
Montana,  Oklahoma,  Vermont,  Virginia  and Wisconsin  with a
"right to hunt" amendment to its constitution according to a bill ma-
king its way through the legislature.
                                                                             [courtesy AP]

"Egypt is not ready for democracy."
                                                          – bloggers and reporters quoting Omar
                                                             Suleiman,  but not Omar Suleiman

"Glee's Lea Michele survived 'America the Beautiful,' but Christina Aguilera crashed
 and burned during the national anthem."
                                                                 – Rick Holter, National Public Radio editor,
                                                                    re pregame histrionics at the Super Bowl

"What mostly happened was pedal misapplication."
                                                                                – Ron Medford, Deputy National
                                                                                   Highway Traffic Safety Admin-
                                                                                   istrator, explaining unintended
                                                                                   acceleration that resulted in the
                                                                                   recall of millions of Toyotas

"I have made profound mistakes."
                                                        – Chris Lee, former New York congressman

"These are not undocumented immigrants:  They're illegal aliens."

                                                            – Kentucky State Senator John Schickel, sponsor
                                                               of the "No Daniel Boones in Our State" bill

"I digged deep down in and I did some soul-searching."
                                                                                        – Andy  Pettitte,  retiring
                                                                                           New York Yankee pitcher

"There's only so much blood you can get from a turnip."
                                                                                        – John Pierre Menville,
                                                                                           a California farmer, on
                                                                                           National Public Radio

" . . . the twilight's last reaming . . . ."
                                                            – Christina Aguilera

Sarah Palin, 47
Carole King, 69
Manuel Noriega, 73
Joe Garagiola, 85
Michael Jackson Jr., 14

A man raking snow off his house in Newfane, Vermont,  was
buried in it up to his neck (and was rescued by a state police-
woman). . . . The Rockhampton Bulletin, which had reported
30,000 pigs swept away in the flood in Queensland,  Austra-
lia, printed a correction that it was only 30 sows and pigs. . . .
The Carrington High School wrestling team was denied defen-
ding its regional championship in  North  Dakota  because  the
boys picked up a raccoon on the way to the match, and some-
one was worried  about  rabies  (of which there was no indica-
tion). . . . A man was stabbed in the leg by a rooster at a cock
fight in Tulane County,  California,  and bled to death  (a  man
died in India a month before  when  his  throat  was  cut  by  a
fighting rooster). .  .  . Sarah Palin's lawyer filed trademark ap-
plications for the names "Sarah Palin" and "Bristol Palin."  .  .  .
A  bald  eagle  feasting  on a deer carcass on the railroad near
Aberdeen,  Maryland,  was struck and killed by Amtrak  (and
rode the train on to Washington,  stuck to the front of the loco-
motive like an emblem). .  .  .  A British immigration official put
his wife on the  "no fly"  list  so she could not return home from
Pakistan. . . . Charles Manson was caught with a cell phone a-
gain. . . .  A 6-year-old boy died in Death Valley as his mother
got lost for five days following GPS instructions. . . . The Cath-
olic Church approved an i-Phone "app" that guides worshipers
through confession. . . .A swimming pool in Redditch, England,
will be heated by the crematorium next door.  .  .  . A Chicago
man with a "smiley face" tattooed on his chest stabbed a card-
playing companion to death.  . . . Two million video crib moni-
tors were recalled after two babies were strangled on their wi-
ring. . . .Hector Taveras, a minor league baseball catcher, was
suspended for 25 games for possession of an "unauthorized sy-
ringe."
                             [courtesy Harper's Weekly, Daily Snopes,
                             The Obscure Store, AP and Eric Shackle]

                                Marc Murphy, in the Louisville Courier-Journal

  ["Williams" is David Williams, president of the Kentucky
    State Senate and a Republican candidate for Governor]

Tony Dean wrote Tues 2/1/11 @15:41 CST:

At the risk of being identified as a geek (Ha! Too late!)  I will
hazard  a  guess as to why the caller sometimes does not hear
the called say hello:  I think the computer switch that connects
telephones  near the called  does not assign him or her a trunk
(switch gizmo that connects telephones) until it detects that he-
/she has picked up the phone. If the switch is busy, this may in-
duce a slight delay. It's all about squeezing more service out of
fewer trunks, which adds to the telco's bottom line.

An 86-year-old man drove his SUV into the dining room  at  a Steak
'n' Shake in Evansville,  injuring ten persons. . . .

Police chased and arrested a man going 81 miles an hour on a snow-
mobile in New Castle.
                                                            [courtesy Associated Press]

The Ground Hog Day blizzard closed down the General Assembly.

                                                                               [courtesy AP]

The Kentucky Derby Festival,  a 55-year-old two-week extravaganza
of events leading up to the annual horse race the first Saturday in May,
dropped "Kentucky" from its name to "streamline" the marketing.

                                               [courtesy Louisville Courier-Journal]

Kentucky is one of four states (the others are Virginia, Pennsylvania and
Massachusetts) calling themselves "commonwealths," and Governor Ste-
vie gave his annual  "State of the Commonwealth"  address to the legisla-
ture last week.  (Putting one little word after another,  and does the Gov-
ernor of Indiana give an annual "Commonwealth of the State" address?)

                                                                                       [courtesy AP]
And here's an'er'n' sign of God:

"Soon a jet plane will have to be kept on standby in Minsk.  Sooner or later
 you will have to flee."
                                      – Radek Sikorski, foreign minister of Poland,
                                         to Alexander Lukashenko, president of Belarus

"They say Omar Suleiman is two sides of the same coin."
                                                                                         – Lourdes Garcia-Navarro,
                                                                                            National Public Radio
"The time for transition has come, and that time is now."
                                                                                        – Robert Gibbs
"The police is feared."
                                    – Lourdes Garcia-Navarro

Ernie Banks, 80
Mamie Van Doren, 80
Carol Channing, 90
Zsa Zsa Gabor (well, most of her), 94
Justin Timberlake, 30

A $350,000 settlement  was reached for an autistic kinder-
gartener in St. Lucie County, Florida,  whose teacher con-
ducted a vote by other pupils  to  expel him from the class.
.  .  .  A 3-year-old girl was suspended from a Montessori
school in Arlington,Virginia, for peeing her pants. . . .Cher-
yl Grampa,  a grade school teacher in Cooper City,  Flori-
da, was suspended for soliciting massages from pupils. . . .
Night clubs around Dallas and Fort Worth,  Texas,  sought
an additional 10,000 strippers to entertain the 300,000 vis-
itors expected for the Super Bowl. . . .  Adolf  Hitler's  last
surviving bodyguard  said that because of his age he would
no longer send  autographed  photos  to the many fans who
continue to send him mail.  .  .  .  An Arkansas supermarket
chain  covered up the cover of a U.S. Weekly issue bearing
a photo of Elton John, his husband, David Furnish, and their
baby boy Zachary. . . . Peace doves released by Pope Ben-
edict in his Sunday prayer  flew  back  into the building from
which he spoke.  . . . A Waikiki, Hawaii, restaurant added a
15 per cent gratuity to checks of patrons who do  not  speak
English (many of whom, by custom, do not tip).  .  .  .  A 21-
year-old man dialed 911 in Farmington,  Connecticut,  to ask
how  much  trouble  he'd  get  into for growing one marijuana
plant  (he was arrested).  .  .  . A woman in Atlanta, Georgia,
showed off 2-foot-long fingernails in hope of making the Op-
rah show.

 
[courtesy Harper's Weekly, Daily Snopes, Obscure.com, AP]

Dear Annie:

    Our children gave my husband and me a surprise anniversary party. They invited friends we had not seen in many years, including "Frank and Mary."

    Frank and I were always good friends.  We even had a minor crush on each other, although neither of us did anything about it.  After the party, Frank and I exchanged e-mail addresses and cell phone numbers and have kept in touch.  I have not mentioned this to my husband because he tends to be quite jealous, and I didn't want him to overreact.
 
    Here's the problem, Annie:  Frank has asked me on a lunch date, saying it would be nice for us to get together and talk about old times.  I think it would be OK.  I don't intend to do it a second time, and we're not meeting where we could be seen by someone who knows us.  We're sure our spouses will never find out.

    I know my husband would not approve of this; and, to be perfectly honest, if the situation were reversed, I would be furious.  I feel flattered that Frank has asked me.  I don't think it will do any harm, and I have no intention of letting it escalate.

    Am I acting like an infatuated teenager?  I see it as quite innocent.  I love my husband and don't intend to jeopardize our marriage.  The last thing I want to do is hurt him or ruin the trust he has had in me all these years.  Does this seem sneaky?
                                                                                                                               – Mixed Emotions

Dear Mixed:
                        Yes.
                                   – Annie

Murda Inc, of the Derby City Roller Girls

            [Courier-Journal photo by Marty Pearl]