Dusty Hopkins wrote Sun 1/13/13:

May I suggest a new section for Tabloid Headlines?  "Roots
and Grafts":  One little word growing out of another.  E.g.:

A revelation is something revealed, but is it cause for revelry?

Speaking of revelations, it was sorely disappointing to awaken
in the wee hours of December 13,  2012,  in this prison where
I am residing,  to  discover  that  the world did not end on De-
cember 12.  The Mayan calendarmakers were wrong (or just
short-sighted, for not reckoning the next millennium); the Hopis
were wrong, and so were Nostradamus and other assorted occult-
/spiritual/religious prophets.  Several esoteric scientists (who pre-
dicted a date circa December of 2012) are now dining on crow,
humble pie and alphabet soup.  This omenless turn of events just
goes to show that scientists are not seers,  and  that  you  can't
count on the dead for much of anything.

An interesting question.  The New Oxford American Dictionary as-
sociates "revelry" with "reverie" and takes the former back to "Old
English" and the latter back to "Old French,"  stopping with "of un-
known ultimate origin,"  without daring to bridge them to the Latin
root for "reveal" and "revelation" (known, we suppose: "revelare").

The Oxford English Dictionary, however, traces "revel" and "revel-
ry" to the Latin "rebellare," to rebel (but traces "reverie" only to the
Old French verb "rever," to be delirious,  leaving  "rever"  to be "of
unknown ultimate origin" – and if you think "au revoir" has the same
root, dream on).

And so,  you see (C?),  Spanish is not the only language to confuse
b's with v's.
                                                                                       – Editor

P.S.  About half the research reflected above was done in Tabloid
        Headlines' house library, and about half on the internet.   The
        internet  is  really  convenient,  but don't you miss the adven-
        ture of going to the library?  Particularly  in  the  winter?
        (Note:  Most people who go to the library these days  –  at
        least in our town  –  go there to use the library's free access
        to the internet.)

        And here's another query for "roots and grafts":  What's the
        difference between the "internet"  and the "world wide web"
        in this context?  (G. Blue, T. Dean and L. Zanger, this one's
        for you.)

A 16-year-old girl drove 60 miles from  Monticello  to  LaPorte  to
beat up a 17-year-old girl who had published Facebook rumors on
her.
                                                                            [courtesy FOX59]

PETA shut down a clown's boxing with a kangaroo at circus perform-
ances in Columbus and Connersville. . . .

The state's Court of Appeals reversed the conviction of a Fort Wayne
man caught using a shoe-mounted camera to take “up-skirt” videos of
girls at Castleton Square Mall in Indianapolis:  No genitals were expo-
sed, and there was insufficient proof of intent to gratify. . . .

A judge ruled that an expert opinion that rat poison caused the death

of a baby born to Bei Bei Shuai cannot be introduced in Shuai's mur-
er trial (she took the poison in an attempted suicide shortly before the
baby's birth, in Indianapolis).
                                                            [courtesy Indianapolis Star]

A jury failed to reach a verdict in former Cincinnati Bengals' cheer-
leader Sarah Jones' defamation suit against TheDirty.com, which is
technically unrelated to the Kentucky ex-teacher's affair with a 17-
year-old boy, whom she is still "dating" (he's "of age," now). . . .

                                                                                [courtesy AP]

The ACLU and others rallied against 4th Street Live's dress code
on Martin Luther King Day,  saying the Louisville dining and night
club venue is discriminating against people of color  (wearing hats
backward is among practices proscribed). . . .

                   
Lechia Smaargaard, 50, a Cracker Barrel employee in Bardstown,
was arrested for making a false crime report about a man driving a
white van trying to abduct her in the parking lot – one of four suspi-
cious reports about the white van in Nelson and Jefferson counties,
one of which was made by another employee at the same Cracker
Barrel  (Smaargaard was arrested  also  on  a  felony warrant from
South Carolina for theft).
                                                                     [courtesy WLKY-TV]

Icy streets were blamed for 81 motor vehicle collisions in Lexing-
ton in one day. . . .

A sale of Tennessee walking horses stirred up controversy at the
Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington. . . .

A Casey County man who rode his horse into a Baptist Church in
2010, armed with a gun, went back to church last Sunday to pray
for forgiveness. . . .

A convicted murderer who spat on a Bourbon County judge at a
preliminary hearing three years ago has been convicted of assault
for spitting on a prison guard. . . .

Mitch  McConnell's  in trouble now:  Not only is Ashley Judd out
for his Senate seat, but so is the Tea Party. . . .


                                                                                              [courtesy Lexington Herald-Leader]

Lexington's most wanted: Ronesha Williams, 20, BF, 5'6", 119 lbs, Susan Ginter, 24, WF, 5'5", 255 lbs, Sarah Hukle, 22, WF, 5'5", 125 lbs, Shaunacey Turner, 25, WF, 5'6" body, 8" hair, 160 lbs, Decarol Jones, 32, BF, 5'2", 130 lbs

I.e., "out of stock."

Three W-2 forms and fifteen 1099-MISC forms, ordered (on line) January
5, 2013.  Note postmark date:  January 12, 2013.  Postcard received Jan-
uary 22.  Deadline for filing: January 31.

And now you understand the deficit,  and the "fiscal cliff."   The  Infernal
Revenue Service does not want its money. Except what it can get in pen-
alties for not filing, and for filing "late."

"Helping her with the cupcakes will get you laid faster than grabbing her breasts
 while she's trying to cook."
                                                   – Janet Periat

"When Hillary Clinton clashed with GOP lawmakers Wednesday, it had the feeling
 of a Hummer colliding with a Smart Car."
                                                                        – Dana Millbank

"No harm, no foul."
                                    – Lapeer County Prosecutor Byron Konschuh

 Professors at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, created an interactive
on-line  game for 4th-graders called  "The Underground Railroad in the Ohio
Valley," in which students help slaves escape from Kentucky to Canada.

Noah, Maliyah, Isaiah, Nariyah, Jonah, Makai, Josiah and Jeremiah Suleman, 4
Emma Lee Bunton ("Baby Spice"), 37
Elvis Presley Jr., 40
Mary Lou Retton, 45
Bridget Fonda, 49
Lucinda Williams, 60
Gary Burton, 70
Mac Davis, 71
Placido Domingo, 72
Richie Havens, 72
Jeanne Moreau, 85
Desmond Morris, 85
Maria Tallchief, 88
Gaspar Fagel (1634-1688)

Sleepy John Estes (1899-1977)

Humane Society workers seized 283 pigeons, rabbits, chick-
ens and dogs from a house in suburban Dayton,  Ohio,  after
neighbors complained about the stench. . . .  Porn stars gath-
ered in Las Vegas for the annual AVN awards ceremony.   A
Huffington Post report on the event didn't give a clue to what
"AVN" stands for: It's "Adult Video News"  (nor did it reveal
who won this year's AVNy for carpet munching). . . . Russia
upgraded interior military footwear to socks.  . . .  A security
guard at a charter school in Lapeer, Michigan,  left his gun in
the boys' room. . . . Two hundred fifteen political parties sub-
mitted logos for Italy's parliamentary elections.  .  .  .  A  22-
year-old cleaning woman for the commuter railway in Stock-
holm, Sweden, drove an empty train for a 1.6-kilometer joy
ride from the depot to the end of the line where it left the rail
and crashed into an apartment building. . . . The Associated
Press reported that a man in Ocala,  Florida,  on  probation
for having sex  with  a  donkey  has now been charged with
"violation  of  Florida's  pawnbroker"  (the  "Charges  keep
mounting,"  headlined Google News). . . . A resident of At-
lanta, Georgia,  sued the state over its refusal to issue him a
"GAYGUY" license plate.  . . . The woman who broke into
people's houses to clean them, leaving bills for $75, was ar-
rested again for shoveling snow from a driveway  in  Elyria,
Ohio. . . . Sixty-seven  dead  cats  (and 99 alive)  were  re-
moved  from a home in Wright,  New York  (near  Albany),
after a neighbor complained about the odor (here's your link
with photo, Ms. Ewing).
  

The hat Justice Antonin Scalia wore to the Inauguration, given to him by he St. Thomas More Society, went all-a-Twitter at #ScaliaWeirdHat

[courtesy Harper's Weekly, Huffington Post, MSNBC.com, AP]

"Beyoncé" lip-synched the National Anthem at the
Inauguration,  to live backup by the Marine Band,
and, worse, turned it into a torch song  (to hear an
even  more  convincing argument for repeal of the
13th Amendment, listen to the Brooklyn Tabernac-
le Choir's rendition of  the  Battle Hymn of the Re-
public at the same event). . . .

 

Victoria Azarenka's shrieks and grunts on the tennis court are being set to music by her boy friend, the rapper Redfoo, for a recording to be released soon

I am a small woman with large breasts.  I did
not buy these.   For years I've tolerated leer-
ing by men and boys,  suggestive comments,
questions about enhancement,  and assump-
tions that I am easy.  Men  stare  no  matter
how modestly I am dressed.  Some people
are unable to make eye contact  for  staring
at my bosom  –  not to mention idiots  who
cannot take me seriously in a business situa-
tion (I was once denied a job by a supervi-
sor worried what his wife would think).

I have learned to deal with that. What I have
not figured out  is  how  to deal with the way
women treat me.   Most immediately dislike
me. Men's wives and girl friends glare at me,
call me names they think  I  don't  hear,  and
generally treat me like dirt.

We talk about bullying because of body type:
Doesn't this qualify?  These women do not
see the hurt they cause, the chance at friend-
ship they miss, or the chiropractic bills I get
from hauling these things around.  Breast re-
duction surgery is not an option right now.
Please bring this to the attention of your
readers.  Some might recognize their bad
behavior and try to change it.

                                – Endowed in Escondido

John R. Powell wrote Mon 1/14/13 @20:01 CST:

That's a very purdy frog.  Thanks ever so much for the frog
photo.  It's so purrrrrrrrdy.

I saved it on my hard drive,  I  did.  Now I can look at the
purrrrrrrrrrrrdy frog any time I want. It makes me happy.
If I wuz a cat, it would make me purrrrr.  Real loud, too.

Thanks again!
                             – Your Petronius

We'd like to tell you about the Fort Wayne man who
got a year in jail for dropping his girl friend's  kitten
in a fire, but there's no photo. . . . wait, here's one:
          

Paws in the hostilities, Syrian rebel takes five . . .

The cat's paws were singed and she lost some whiskers
but she survived.
                                                       [Associated Press]

Move over, J-Lo!  A copy editor for the Courier-Journal referred to
Jennifer Lawrence, the rising movie star from Louisville, as "J-Law"
in a headline in Thursday's paper.  Maybe that'll catch on (sorry, no
link; it did not appear in the paper's edition on line). . . .

A backlash by waiters and waitresses played a role in closing a pop-
ular  Louisville  restaurant, which required servers to share their tips
with busboys and runners,  and to bring $100 of their own cash with
them  on  each shift  for  the  purpose  (to cover cases of credit card
tipping).
                                                                [courtesy Courier-Journal]

Vicco, pop. 334, five miles southeast of Hazard in the Appalachians,
became only the fourth Kentucky municipality to adopt a "fairness in
hiring" ordinance. . . .

 
Second-graders at a school in Richmond swapped their chairs for big
blue rubber balls. . . .


    
                                                  [courtesy Lexington Herald-Leader]

Lexington's most wanted: Carolyn Harmelin, 59, WF, 5'6", 160 lbs

"I beat Meryl!"
                             – Jennifer Lawrence (J-Law), in her Golden Globes acceptance speech
                                   (this was a quotation of a quotation,  by Bette Midler in the 1996 film
                                    The First Wives Club; but some of J-Law's critics didn't catch that)

"No1 should ever mess with a legend like Meryl Streep."
                                                                                            – Lindsay Lohan (Li-Lo), on Twitter

"Being chastised for poor etiquette by Lindsay Lohan might be the equivalent of getting lectured
 on navigation by the captain of the Titanic."
                                                                            – Daily Mail entertainment writer Rob Woollard

"Taylor Swift needs some 'me' time to learn about herself."
                                                                                                –Tina Fey

"James Holmes is not a bad guy – what he did was bad."

                    – Misty Benjamin, 30, of Aurora, Colorado, who dyed her hair orange in support
                       of the movie shooter-upper, attends his hearings, and finds him attractive

John Bouvier Kennedy Schlossberg, 20
Charo, 62
Paula Deen, 66
Dolly Parton, 67
Margaret O'Brien, 76

 

Stacie Halas, 32, the science teacher fired in Oxnard, California, when it was discovered she had appeared in pornographic movies before her teaching career began, lost her appeal for reinstatement in an effort to set a precedent for people seeking to escape embarrassing pasts

Koto Okubo, the world's oldest woman for nearly a month,
died at 115 (she succeeded Dina Manfredini, who  held the
title for two weeks). .  .  .  "Pre-drowning" bruises were re-
ported on Natalie Wood's body in  an  amended  coroner's
post mortem,  but the cause of death remained  "undeterm-
ined.". . . Ann Romney declined an invitation from Dancing
With the Stars. . . . Air pollution in Beijing reached 755 on
a scale of 0 to 500. .  .  .  Australia added purple and pink
to its weather maps to designate temperatures above 122°
and 129°, respectively. . . . The Somali pirate  Big  Mouth
retired. . . . In a survey of 830 voters Congress was found
less  popular  than root canals, NFL replacement referees,
head lice, colonoscopies, carnies, traffic jams, cockroach-
es, Brussels sprouts, Donald Trump, Genghis Khan,  used
car salesmen, France, and Nickelback  (but more popular
than  telemarketers, John Edwards, the Kardashians,  lob-
byists, North Korea, Ebola, Lindsay Lohan, Fidel Castro,
playground bullies, meth labs, communism, and gonorrhe-
a).  . . .  A Verizon software developer was found to have
outsourced his own job to China. . . . No one was injured
when two airliners carrying 590 passengers between them
collided on the ground at  Miami  International  Airport in
Florida  (fastened their seat belts!).  . . .  A man was run
over and killed by his own van with a dog at the wheel in
Cantonment, Florida. . . .  A 27-year-old Russian died in
a zorb he was riding down a ski slope  when it veered off
course into a ravine. . . . China criminalized suicide in Ti-
bet.
        

Winner of ugly baby contest

                [courtesy Harper's Weekly, MSNBC.com, AP]

Jodie Foster.  Big deal.  Get over it.

Lance Armstrong. . . .

Notre Dame football linebacker Manti Te'o did not have
a girl friend who died of leukemia. . . .

Tennis hottie: Belarus' smokin' tennis honey Victoria Azarenka bombs second-round opponent Eleni Daniilidou, of Greece, in defense of her Australian tennis championship

For the past 18 months I've been dating a woman who
resides two states south.  We are planning on her mov-
ing north to live with me.

My problem is her thick Southern accent.  "Beth" hab-
itually holds the last word of a sentence and draws it
out.  Her voice slides up and down when saying a sim-
ple word such as "town" so that it has multiple sylla-
bles.  My friends have noticed how pronounced her
drawl is.

I have hinted my concern to Beth on occasion, but it
hasn't made a difference.  I have to admit, this speech
impediment is both repulsive and abrasive to me.  Beth
has many loving qualities, but I worry about the drawl.
I can barely tolerate it now, and I fear it will eventually
drive me crazy.

Should I confront Beth about it?  I don't want to hurt
her feelings.
                                                            Oren in Ohio

Bruce Mitchell wrote Sat 1/5/13 @17:42 PST:

Love these early editions of late. :)  But, what is there now
to greet me upon awakening Sunday morns? :(

Ya gotta go out on Saturday nights, like normal people (and leave your
I-Phone at home).      – Editor

and Bruce wrote Sat 1/5/13 @17:58 PST:

What is this ridiculous obsession with  'correcting'  given  names?
"Martika"  is a common nickname for the Spanish  "Marta"  with
origins dating back to Aramaic. It is widely used also in Australia.

You said it:  It's a nickname, not a name.  And the usual Spanish diminu-
tive of Marta is Martita,  not  Martika.   Look it up.   Some of the Slavic
languages go to Martka, but none to Martika. There's an American sing-
er who goes as Martika,  but that's nothing – there are American singers
known as Beyoncé,  Cher (not Chère),  Lil' (not Li'l) Kim,  and Mary J.
Blige (i.e., Bilge spelled inside out).

And ya gotta laugh,  like normal people,  at what Negroes name their chil-
dren.  What the woman obviously meant to name her child was  Marquita,
which is a real name, not a nickname (it's the feminine variant of Marquis),
and a common name here in Kentucky  –  for both whites and blacks  (but
the whites spell it "Markeeta"). 
                                                                                                          – Ed.

P.S. Martika has been . . . 

apprehended

Connie Harbeson wrote Sun 1/6/13 @14:14 EST:

Oops, Tabloid Headlines!  LBJ took Jackie's suggestion to rename
Cape Canaveral Cape Kennedy, but Florida always despised JFK
and in ten years got it legislatively restored to Cape Canaveral.

And well Florida did.   Better we should still have Walnut Street in Lou-
isville and South Park Drive in Chicago, too.  They renamed a bunch of
roads here in the County a few years ago, and a woman we knew died
because  the ambulance went to the wrong (renamed for another) road
when she had a stroke.
                                                                                                      – Ed.

and Connie wrote,  re the unknown lyrics redacted from All Shook Up in
West Jordan, Utah:

My top guesses would be (1) "I'm itchin' like a man on a fuzzy tree. . . "
and  (2)  "Uh!"  (preceding "I'm all shook up!").  As the old field holler /
call-and-response goes, "It ain't whatcha say; it's the way how ya say it,"
and, "It ain't whatcha eat; it's the way how ya chew it!"

How reassuring that Elvis the Pelvis is still bothering people!

J. Ewing wrote Sat 1/5/13 @21:34 EST:

Thou shalt never include a story about a cat without including a
link with a photo.

The state's attorney general filed a petition to suspend the nursing
license of Monserrate Shirley,  charged with murder in the explo-
sion of her house in Southport. . . .

A policeman investigating a domestic disturbance on Indianapolis'
East Side accidentally fired a shotgun in the home as he was con-
fiscating the weapon.
                                                            [courtesy Indianapolis Star]

 

Pat McLaughlin, new New Albany City Council president

A 10-year-old boy  whose  nose  was bitten off and swallowed by a pit
bulldog in Henderson County got it reattached in surgery in Louisville
(if you must know how the nose was retrieved, here's a link). . . .

Two hours before the funeral for their 27-year-old son, who had died in
a one-vehicle crash,  the  parents  were found dead in a murder (Mama,
53) and suicide (Papa, 54),  in Somerset. . . .

Medal of Honor winner Dakota Meyer was seriously injured in  a  brawl
at a drinking party in a venue catering to students at Lindsey Wilson Col-
lege, a Methodist school in Columbia,  in dry Adair County,  and he said
it was the first time he had feared for his life since returning from Afghan-
istan.
                                                            [courtesy Lexington Herald-Leader]

    

Yesenia Torres, 17, gets a flu shot at the Fayette County Health Center in Lexington (Herald-Leader photo by Charles Bertram)

     

Sunday bar hotties at Gerstle's in Louisville (photo by Tom Gurton for Courier-Journal)

"If this were a prize fight, they'd call it off."

                    – Brent Musberger, on ESPN,  as Alabama took a 28-0 lead over Notre Dame
                       in the "Bowl Championship Series"  "Discover BCS championship"  college
                       football game with 31 seconds to go in the first half  (" 'Bama" won, 42-14)

"He wants ketchup on the Philly cheese steak, and I have never put –  we don't even have
 ketchup at Subway – I've never put ketchup on anybody's sandwich."

                                                – counter man Lawrence Odone, explaining how a fracas be-
                                                   gan at a Subway sandwich shop in Orange County, Florida

"Has the man committed rape?  Because of . . . the statutory definition of rape, the answer
 is no, even though, if the woman had been married and the man had impersonated her hus-
 band, the answer would be yes."

            – California's Second District Court of Appeal, reversing the conviction of a man
               who sneaked into a bed the victim's boy friend had been occupying with her

"Nowhere  do  we have any kind of security agreement with a country
 without immunity for our troops. From my perspective at least, it will
 not be possible for us to have any kind of U.S. troops presence post-
 2014 without assurances that our men and women who are operating
 there are in some way subject to the jurisdiction of another country."

                                                                                            – President Obama (huh? wha'?)

"I was playing with them, and I need help getting out."

        – Father Tom Donovan,  of St. Aloysius in Springfield, Illinois,  explaining to a 911 dis-
           patcher why he was handcuffed in the church rectory (police found him gagged, also)

"He sleeps with a hooker and gets shot in
 the pilot."                                                     – TV writer/producer Amy Sherman-Palladino

"As one who started as a rookie, I can appreciate that."
                                                                                          – Troy Aikman

The I-Potty:  A children's toilet with an I-Pad stand.

Mary J. Bilge, 42
Pat Benatar, 60
George Foreman, 64
Diana Ellen ("Naomi") Judd, 67
Bernardine Dohrn, 71
Yvette Mimieux, 71
Elvis, 78
Ray Price, 87
Soupy Sales (1926-2009)

Freb Cood, 74

A man ticketed for driving alone in an HOV lane in San Ra-
fael, California, pleaded that a corporation was his passen-
ger. . . .A prison cat was apprehended in Brazil with a saw,
drill bits, cell phone, batteries and a charger taped to its ab-
domen  (OK,  Mr. Ewing,  here's your photo).  . . . Gérard
Depardieu became a Russian citizen to avoid French taxes,
and Brigitte Bardot applied for Russian citizenship  to  pro-
test elephant euthanasia. . . . Bashar al-Assad called Syrian
rebel leaders "murderous criminals." . . . Four people were
killed in a home shootout in Aurora, Colorado. . . .The boy
friend of the Indian woman gang-raped on a bus said police
spent 20 minutes arguing over jurisdiction before taking her
to a hospital. . . . Russia reclassified beer from food to alco-
hol (and restricted its sale). . . . The Indonesian city of Lho-
kseumawe required women to ride side-saddle  as  passen-
gers on motorcycles.

Vladimir Franz, tattooed Czech presidential candidate

                [courtesy Harper's Weekly, MSNBC.com, AP]

The "Bowl Championship Series" "Discover BCS cham-
pionship" college football game was not on TV (the Na-
tional Football League playoffs are on television). . . .

 

Basketball hottie, Tearra Banks, senior center, Ballard High School, Louisville

I follow a strict diet.  It has nothing to do with weight
or any medical condition.  I don't care about calories.
It's about eating organic, and there are a lot of things
I do not tolerate, such as corn syrup,  food coloring,
table sugar, unfiltered water, etc.

If I do not approve of a treat someone has made, is it
appropriate to politely decline to accept it?  On occa-
sions when I'm given something I don't have to eat in
front of them, I graciously accept and give it away la-
ter.  But what about when I'm on a date, and the guy
wants to take me  where  I would not ordinarily eat?
Should I insist on sticking to my diet?

I can handle a splurge here and there, but how do I
constantly avoid eating junk without being weird or
rude?  I live in the country, and there are not many
choices of restaurants.
                                                            – Upstate Dieter

Megan Clementi.

Tony Dean wrote Mon 12/31/12 @11:42 CST:

OK.  JFK didn't wear a hat and the hat industry tanked.   An
English king couldn't pronounce "th" (he was German) and so
the Thames has been pronounced "Tems" ever since. Our cur-
rent prez says "ya know" almost every sentence.  Is there any
question at the prevalence of the expression?

State Senator Dennis Kruse, of Auburn, introduced a bill
to allow school districts to require recitation of the Lord's
Prayer.
                                            [courtesy Indianapolis Star]

Lexington's most wanted: Martika Moore, 25, BF, 5'6", 125 lbs: The Fayette County Sheriff and the Herald-Leader never say what these people are wanted for, but we here at Tabloid Headlines think that the real perp in this case may be "Martika's" Mother, for spelling her daughter's given name inside out

A 92-year-old Army veteran having a World War II flashback was disarmed
after holding a pocket knife to a nurse's throat at a hospital in Harrodsburg.

                                                                [courtesy Lexington Herald-Leader]

A (white) man in Casey County had a mannequin in his front yard  dressed  in
suit, tie and Obama mask holding a slice of watermelon with a bite  taken  out
(the state Human Rights Commission director said he complained to the coun-
ty's elected executive, but the county official said he had not received the com-
plaint and had not heard any complaints locally).

                                                                [courtesy Louisville Courier-Journal]

Mevlevi Sufi dervishes whirl at Festival of Faith in Louisville

"A long-lost relative of the reclusive and eccentric New York heiress Huguette Clark
  who stood to inherit $19 million of her $300 million fortune has been found dead in
  rural Wyoming."
                                                – James Nye, in England's Daily Mail (putting one little word
                                                   after another and, what part of Wyoming is not rural?)

Have you heard a newscaster in the last ten years refer  to  Myanmar  without
saying  "formerly known as Burma,"  or to Burma without saying "now known
as Myanmar"?  We have learned to call Cape Canaveral "Cape Kennedy,"  to
call Walnut Street in Louisville "Muhammad Ali Boulevard," to call South Park
Drive in Chicago "the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr."  (i.e., the Reverend
Doctor Martin Luther King Junior Doctor"),  and to call Saigon "Ho Chi Minh
City."  What's the problem with the rest of Asia?  Is Aung San Suu Kyi not hot
enough to hold on to her country's name?

It's bad enough that Burma became Myanmar  (or didn't, or hasn't, quite, yet),
but when did Rangoon become Yangon?

And can you really get into a book or movie titled The Myanmar Road?  Or fol-
low punny highway signs advertising Myanmar Shave?

Country Joe McDonald, 71
Thomas Rocco Barbella ("Rocky Graziano," 1919-1990)
J. D. Salinger (1919-2010)
Victor Reuther (1912-2004)
J. Edgar Hoover (1895-1972)

Eli Manning, 32
Cheryl Miller, 49
Patti Smith, 67
Jim Bakker, 73
Julius La Rosa, 83

's weekly BONUS: 

A Connecticut newspaper (the Stamford Advocate) ran  a  gun  show
ad with an article about the opening of a new Sandy Hook school. . . .
"Fiscal  cliff"  led Lake Superior State University's annual list of words
and phrases that need to be removed from the language  ("bucket  list"
also made the list).  .  .  .  A paparazzo was struck and killed by a car
while taking a picture of Justin Bieber's Ferrari  on a street in Los An-
geles. . . .  A 6-year-old boy was suspended from first grade in Silver
Spring, Maryland, for pointing his finger and saying "Pow!" . . . Form-
er playmate Crystal Harris,  26,  married Hugh Hefner,  86. .  .  . The
mother of a 16-year-old basketball player  whose teammates held her
down half-disrobed in the locker room in Tulsa, Oklahoma,  and took
photographs for the internet sued Twitter and the school board (sorry,
we have not  found  the  pix,  but is there anyone out there who really
feels there is not enough  soft  porn  in Tabloid Headlines?  Speak up,
Mr. P.). . . . School  administrators  in  West Jordan,  Utah,  received
permission from the copyright holder of All Shook Up, a musical dra-
ma that borrows from Elvis Presley's songbook and Shakespeare, to
redact racy lyrics from the title song before the show went on, after a
parent complained  (the exact changes were not reported). . . . Blaer
Bjarkardottir, 15,  sued Iceland  to  retain  and  use  her  given  name
(meaning  "light breeze"),  which is not on the country's  list  of  1,853
approved  female  names  (she  has been known all her life on official
papers as "Stulka," which means "girl"). . . .  A cat fell 80 feet from a
tree (and lived)  after firemen sawed off the limb she was perched on
in a botched rescue attempt in Marion, Massachusetts  (it's not a rec-
ord  –  a cat fell 34 stories from an Australian penthouse into  a  bush
and  survived,  four years ago). .  .  .  Five Apple I-Pads were stolen
from Microsoft headquarters in Silicon Valley.

[courtesy Huffington Post, MSNBC.com, Snopes, The Frisky, AP]

                     

You are sick, sick, sick – but fun to read.

                                                                          – Bruce Mitchell

My little brother and his wife are expecting their first
child in the spring,  and they have decided to have a
"reveal" party to announce the baby's sex.  The doc-
tor will note the baby's sex and put it in a sealed en-
velope.    Then someone will take the envelope to a
party store, which will pack a box with color-coded
helium-filled balloons: pink for girl, blue for boy, you
know.   The parents-to-be will open the box  at  the
party,  and the balloons will fly to the ceiling with the
announcement.  Isn't this a bit over the top?

                                                        – North Carolina

Look at the picture I just took of the think we are looking at