GONE

Here are some people I will miss who didn't make it through 2009.

• David Carradine
• Marilyn Chambers
• Walter Cronkite
• Dom DeLuise
• Farrah Faucett
• Larry Gelbart
• Henry Gibson
• Paul Harvey
• Edward Kennedy
• Aunt Louise
• Karl Malden
• Ed McMahon
• Les Paul
• Debra Palazzo
• Jody Powell
• William Safire
• Soupy Sales
• Arnold Stang
• Gale Storm
• George Tiller
• Mary Travers
• James Whitmore

NOTABLE QUOTES

Here are some notable quotes from 2009.

"Keep your government hands off my Medicare!"
-- A town hall attendee in Simpsonville, South Carolina.

"You lie!"
-- Shouted at Barack Obama during the president's address to Congress, by South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson.

"The governor is hiking the Appalachian Trail."
-- A spokesman for South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, while the governor was actually canoodling with his mistress in Argentina.

"I'm sure it's just one of Michelle's ancestors - probably harmless."
-- South Carolina Republican activist Rusty DePass commenting on an escaped gorilla at the Columbia, South Carolina, zoo.

"We here at the show can't help but notice that South Carolina has taken its rightful place amongst the states that make our lives here at the show easy."
-- "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart.

(NYT)

THE HUNTER AND THE HUNTED

Bear hunting season just ended in Kentucky. No bears were killed.

No hunters died either, so the final score is zero-zero.

***

Two Oklahoma men are charged with shooting 13 head of cattle. The men say they shot the cattle because they couldn't find any deer.

At least they had a reason.

###

OBSERVATIONS ON NATURAL ORDER IN THE UNIVERSE

God is in his heaven,
(Despite opposing theories).
Winter follows autumn,
The Yankees won the Series.

-- Stephen J. Kudless in "The New York Times."

CORRECTION

An important correction from "The New York Times" --

"An article on Thursday about the costs to acquire the gifts listed in the carol "The 12 Days of Christmas" misstated the number of ladies dancing. It is nine, not eight."

THE TRAVELING PANTS

In 2001 Richard Reid tried to blow up an airplane by setting off explosives hidden in his shoes.

That's why we now have to take our shoes off at airport security checkpoints.

In 2009 Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to blow up an airplane by trying to set off explosives hidden in his underpants.

Security checkpoints could get interesting.

***

The FBI detained two men for suspicious activity on a flight to Phoenix. Their activity: They were talking to each other in a foreign language and watching the movie "The Kingdom," starring Jamie Fox and Jennifer Garner, on a laptop or DVD player.

***

You can now fly United with your antlers on.

The airline had banned antlers on board -- even as checked luggage -- until they got thousands of complaints from hunters and antler fans. So now you can check them if you've got them, but there is a size limit and a special antler fee.

###

QUOTATION OF THE DAY

"It is a mistake when good people beat up on good people, though it may clear up some misunderstandings, as they might otherwise not have got to know each other in the first place."

-- Chairman Tse-Tung on China's cultural revolution, from "The Red Flag" by David Priestland, as excerpted in "The New York Times."

CHRISTMAS AROUND THE WORLD

Here's a roundup of what the world did on Christmas.

In Rome, a crazy lady attacked the pope at midnight mass. We don't know if she doesn't like the pope, or likes him too much.

***

In the West Bank, as Israel eased up on roadblocks for Christmas, Palestinian gunmen took advantage of the easy access to kill an Israeli Jew. These attacks were pretty common before the roadblocks went up.

***

Churches in Baghdad held midnight mass in the daytime for security reasons.

***

Sunni bombings across Iraq killed Shiites celebrating Ashouri, in revenge for something that happened 1,329 years ago.

***

A Pennsylvania high school student was serving a suspension for wearing a Santa suit to school. The boy was charged with "defiance of authority."

***

Christmas day was Mitzvah Day in and around Detroit, a nearly 20 year tradition where Jews -- who don't celebrate Christmas -- help Christians -- who do -- to make Christmas happy.

This year Muslims joined the hundreds of volunteers to deliver toys to the needy and food to the hungry,

###

HAPPY CHRISTMAS AND SHALOM

"I'm dreaming of a white Christmas
Just like the ones I used to know."

They say there's a war against Christmas. Not in my house! I love Christmas! Bring it on!

"Where the treetops glisten, and children listen
To hear sleigh bells in the snow."

Irving Berlin wrote that. But he was Jewish. His real name was Israel Baline and he grew up in a Russian shetl. So what did he know from Christmas?

"I'm dreaming of a white Christmas
With every Christmas card I write."

I'm Jewish. Christmas has absolutely no religious significance for me. I don't believe Christ was born in a barn in the dead of winter, nor do most bible scholars. So much of Christmas tradition was invented -- largely by Jewish people, ancient and modern -- to make us happy..

"May your days be merry and bright
And may all your Christmases be white."

People around me seem happier at Christmas. And that makes me happy, in a quiet, peaceful way. The snow makes me happy. The lights and the music make me happy.

So for whatever makes you happy -- good food, the hope for peace on Earth, or the thought that Christ came to save you from your sins -- Merry Christmas.

"Although it's been said many times, many ways,
Merry Christmas to you."*


*Mel Torme wrote that. He was Jewish too.

ZAT YOU SANTA CLAUS?

A man dressed as Santa Claus robbed the SunTrust Bank in Hermitage, Tennessee. Witnesses described him as a fat man with a beard wearing a red suit.

"His eyes-how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow."

Anyone with information should contact the FBI Violent Crimes Task Force. Tipsters remain anonymous and qualify for a cash reward.

(The Tennessean)

CRIME NEWS

Jesus has returned.

Thieves stole Baby Jesus from the First Lutheran Church nativity scene in Ada, Oklahoma.

Fortunately, the church had a spare Christ child. But security is increased. The baby is now bolted to the manger.

This time of year, everyone wants Jesus.

HEALTH NEWS

Clemson University has studied double-dipping at parties.

Researchers found that three to six double dips transferred about 10.000 bacteria to the dip, and 50 to 100 bacteria back to the chip.

One scientist says that's "like kissing everyone at the party."

And what's wrong with that?

***

Researchers in Japan have bred transparent goldfish.

You can look right through them and see the fishy insides.

And these are big fish, maybe a couple pounds each.

The big advantage is that scientists can study their internal organs without dissecting the fish.

And that's good for the goldfish.

***

Today I had a CT scan.

I have one of these every three months to see if my cancer has returned.

But CT scans also increase the risk of cancer.

Sometimes you just can't win for losing.

###

AN OKLAHOMA CHRISTMAS

Oklahoma City's Westminster Presbyterian Church held Christmas Eve services last night, a week early. It was for people too busy to make it on the 24th.

It was billed as a traveler's Christmas service for people who will be out of town for Christmas.

After all, as Reverend Bryan Eckelmann points out, "I took notice that in the original Christmas story, no one is in their own home."

***

The Norman Unitarian Fellowship in Norman, Oklahoma, presented "A Very Belly Christmas" last week, with belly dancing performances by Bella Fire and the Norman Belly Dance Club.

###

FIGHTING SIOUX, MORMON HANUKKAH, AND KILLER HAMSTERS

It's the attack of the killer hamsters.

The Zhu Zhu robot hamster is one of the season's top selling toys. But the GoodGuide consumer organization says it's a dangerous rodent. They say it contains too much antimony.

A warning label could easily fix this. The label would read, "Warning: Don't eat the hamster."

***

Orrin Hatch, a Mormon senator from Utah, wrote a Hanukkah song that has now been recorded in a New York studio by singer Rasheeda Azar, a Syrian-American from Indiana.

Only in America.

***

The N.C.A.A. wants the University of North Dakota hockey team to drop its "Fighting Sioux" nickname and logo. But the Spirit Lake tribe wants the school to keep it. And they're certainly entitled to their opinion. After all, they're Sioux.

Some non-Sioux native Americans on campus object to the nickname. But the Sioux say they're just jealous.

And so the Sioux are suing.

###

READING AND RIDING

Tulsa's Gilcrease Elementary School has a problem with overage students. Some are so many grades behind that they drive themselves to school.

They are somehow able to pass the driving test, but not the mandatory reading test,

Dr. Phyllis Lovett says, "The older kids are just much more mature and their behaviors are such that our younger kids don't need to be exposed to it, and that's to put it very mildly."

RANDOM NEWS

(Nebraska) Having a designated driver is a good idea. Having your 11-year-old son for a designated driver is a bad idea,

Christopher Julfs is in trouble with the law, and his son is no longer behind the wheel.

***

(North Carolina) A herd of deer assaulted Michelle Brewer the other day. The deer trampled her, kicked her several feet into the air and left hoofprints on her body. Brewer is battered and bruised but otherwise OK.

Rudolf is back, and he's pissed.

***

From the "Tulsa World."

"Santa Cow will be at Chick-fil-A ... Saturday.

"...kids can have their photos taken with the Santa Cow."

###

OBAMA'S WAR ON CHRISTMAS

More proof that President Barack Obama is a Muslim, or at least anti-Christian.

His televised Afghanistan speech pre-empted "A Charlie Brown Christmas."

So says Arlington Arlington, Tennessee Mayor Russell Wiseman on his Facebook page.

"Ok, so, this is total crap, we sit the kids down to watch 'The Charlie Brown Christmas Special' and our muslim president is there, what a load.....try to convince me that wasn't done on purpose. Ask the man if he believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and he will give you a 10 minute disertation (sic) about it....w...hen the answer should simply be 'yes'...."

He went on.

"...you obama people need to move to a muslim country...oh wait, that's America....pitiful."

And on.

"you know, our forefathers had it written in the original Constitution that ONLY property owners could vote, if that has stayed in there, things would be different........"

Wiseman has more than 1,600 friends on Facebook. Only his "friends" can read his posts. At least one of them ratted him out.

BLACK FRIDAY SAFETY TIPS.

Not to outdone by the "Tulsa World" safe Thanksgiving, and in a continuing media effort to scare the public to death about everything concerning life, the "Daily Oklahoman" newspaper published warnings for a safe Black Friday.

Here are some of those safety warnings.

• After dark, don't shop alone. Take a friend. (Yeah, so you can both be mugged!)
• Remember where you parked your car. (If you can't find your car, it might have been stolen.)
• Look under your car before getting in. (This is based on the urban folktale about the guy hiding under the car ready to disable you by cutting your ankle tendons with his straight razor. Forget it. It's never happened.)

All these warning despite an adjacent article pointing out there is no more crime at the malls on Black Friday than on any other November Friday. But reason never wins over a good scare.

***

In South Carolina Black Friday kicks off "Second Amendment Weekend" with no state or local sales tax on firearms.

An armed shopper is a safe shopper.

###

DON'T KICK A JEW

It was “kick a Jew day” at Florida's North Naples Middle School.

And a great time was had until someone went and kicked a Jew.

Ten people, actually. And one Jew -- a girl, yet.

The ten students were suspended. The Jew was not seriously hurt.

Still, it was a break from all those other days when the Goyem just kick each other.

BAD BIRDS

Are we a nation of sissies?

Each year, sometime between the Halloween safety warnings and the Christmas safety warnings, come the Thanksgiving safety warnings.

This week, the "Tulsa World" newspaper dutifully printed these tips on how to have a safe turkey.

1. Don't wash the turkey. It just splashes the germs around.
2. Don't thaw your turkey in the garage or kitchen counter.
3. Keep meat chilled until you cook it.
4. When handling the turkey, keep it separate from other foods with separate cutting boards and utensils.
5. Once you touch the raw turkey, don't touch anything else until you wash your hands with soap and water.
6. Set the oven temperature at 325 degrees or higher.
7. Cook to a minimum internal temperature of 165 degrees to kill bacteria. Use a thermometer.
8. Food dishes cooked at home and served warm at the family gathering should be kept above 140 degrees.
9. Don't leave food out of the refrigerator for more than two hours.
10. Wash your hands before you eat. If that is not possible, use hand sanitizer or wipes.
11. Use different utensils for cooking the food and eating it. Do not use the same fork to handle the turkey while cooking and to serve turkey at the table.
12. Reheat all leftovers to 165 degrees. Gravy should be boiled.

And to think it only took the Israelites ten commandments.

How did we ever survive before all these safety warnings?

Sure, bad birds kill a few people every year. But considering how many turkeys give their lives for Thanksgiving every year, the birds are still behind.

So just eat up and have a happy Thanksgiving.

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

Kenneth Eugene Barrett killed a cop. So now he's suing.

Oklahoma State Troopers approached Barrett's Oklahoma cabin in 1999 to bust him for methamphetamine. Barrett opened fire with a black rifle. He wounded Trooper John "Buddy" Hamilton. He killed Trooper David "Rocky" Eales.

Troopers returned fire. They wounded Barrett. He still has a bullet in him. He says it still hurts. He says he's developed a rash. He alleges inadequate medical care.

Barrett is on death row. No execution date has been set. When it is, that should clear up any lingering health problems.

***

The penalty for suicide in Uganda is caning. Yes, even successful suicide. The body is caned before burial, as a warning to other would-be suicides.

Now the government wants to extend this posthumous punishment to those who drink themselves to death. No one escapes the law in Uganda, not even the dead..

###

IN POLITICS...

Tulsa elected my new city councilwoman on Tuesday.

Within hours of the victory, a drunk stole her wallet.

(Note that men are Councilmen. Women are Councilwomen. Councilors are people who work at summer camps for children.)

As Councilwoman Elect Maria Barnes celebrated her victory at the Casa Laredo restaurant downtown, one of her constituents -- 26 year old Jordan Lee Christ -- snaked his hand into her purse and took off with her wallet. Police say a considerable amount of alcohol was involved.

Maria and several of her supporters chased the bandit. Oklahoma House of Representatives candidate Steve Gallo brought the bad boy down a few blocks away. Barnes broke a fingernail in the melee.

The thief has a record of convictions for assault and battery, outraging public decency, peeping Tom and larceny, but was never known to have been active in politics before.

BUSINESS NEWS

Ford's top sales analyst says smaller cars will save the company. George Pipas says buyers are looking for compact cars, and that will be Fords largest segment in the next few years.

Detroit has been losing market share for decades to smaller Asian and European cars, and it just took a high priced sales analyst to figure this out?

Duh!

***

Boulder, Colorado schools are serving healthier lunches now by adding more vegetables and fresh fruit.

Sales are down.

Duh!

###

CHURCH NEWS

The war against the homeless continues.

Earlier I reported on a town in New Jersey that stopped a church from feeding homeless people. Now it's happening in Arizona.

Phoenix has ordered the CrossRoads United Methodist Church to stop feeding the homeless at the church. It seems that the area is zoned residential, not commercial. And the neighbors don't want homeless people in a neighborhood where some people actually have homes.

Take that, you homeless people!

***

Some Italian churches are replacing the holy water basins with dispensers that squirt a single serving of holy water for the faithful. This is to prevent worshippers from catching swine flu from the holy water.

But as my wife, who is possibly Catholic (She claims to be a converted Methodist but I say once you're born Catholic, that's it.) asks, "How can you catch flu from holy water? It's holy!"

Yes, but maybe God just loves all creatures, even down to the smallest virus.

###

IN THE NEWS

People lined up at the polls today.

But it was a week too early.

All around the country today people are voting.

But not in Oklahoma.

In Oklahoma, the first Thursday in November is election day.

But not in odd numbered years.

In odd numbered years municipal elections are held the second Tuesday in November.

Go figure.

***

Some new laws are going into effect in Oklahoma this Sunday.

• All members of the armed forces during times of combat will be exempt from jury duty.
• Mothers who are breast feeding will be exempt from jury duty. (No titties in the courtroom.)
• Human cloning will be illegal in Oklahoma.

So there'll be no breast-feeding combat-clones on Oklahoma juries.

***

Just across the Oklahoma line, the town of Wakita, Kansas, wants to build a Christian prison.

It would be a private prison. The mayor and other city leaders are all for it.

The staff would all be Christians. No Jews allowed.

Is this even legal?

Wayland University, a Christian collage, would set up a satellite campus to teach an all Christian curriculum. All prisoners would have to participate.

The idea is to reduce the recidivism rate. But given the low incarceration and recidivism rate among Jewish people, wouldn't it make more sense to get a bunch of Rabbis in there teaching the Talmud?

I'm just askin'.

***

New Jersey is holding a Fugitive Safe Surrender program so criminals can turn themselves in without going to jail. Violent crimes are not covered, but the amnesty does include bribery, extortion and racketeering.

There are about 9,000 eligable fugitives in Essex County alone.

Are you listening, Tony Soprano?

###

MORE NEWS

Tulsa's mayoral campaign is a dirty business. Acrimony prevails. With this in mind, the moderator at a candidates forum asked the competitors, "If you were not a mayoral candidate, which of the other candidates would you vote for?"


Here are the answers.

• Republican Dewey Bartlett Jr.: "I don't believe the others have that level that is required for the city."


• Independent Mark Perkins: "There is a mentality of perspective that is important that involves leadership and judgement and understanding that I think I'm the only one that has exhibited so far."


• Democrat Tom Adelson: "If I had to choose between the two I'd go with Dewey Perkins or Mark Bartlett."

***

Today's theological question is: May Jews ride elevators on the Sabbath?


The Sabbath, from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, is a day of rest. Jews are not supposed to ride in cars, cook or turn on lights. Orthodox Jews even tear their toilet paper in advance of the Sabbath. But what about elevators?


In Israel, elevators for the orthodox run continuously and stop on every floor. The thinking is, as long as you don't push any buttons it's OK. But now, a board of rabbis has ruled that even these automatic elevators are not Kosher. So for the devout, it's back to the stairs for now.


The problem with Judaism is that there's no Pope to tell you absolutely what's right and what's wrong. One could look to the Torah for guidance but nowhere in the Bible are elevators mentioned, nor are they cited in the Talmud.


So as far as interpreting the the law goes, all Jews can do is argue about it. And Jews are good at that. Ask any two Jews, and you're sure to get at least three opinions.

***

New Jersey bureaucrats have threatened to fine the Missionaries of God for feeding the homeless in JFK park because the missionaries don't have a mobile food vendor license.


No good deed shall go unpunished.

###

LOTS'A NEWS

The Pope is poaching Anglicans.

The Catholic church is asking Anglicans to become Catholics.

It's specifically targeting Anglicans who are fed up with gay priests and same sex unions: you know, all that homo stuff.

Even married Anglican priests can become Catholic priests and keep their wives. It's not clear to me, however, if they'll be allowed to keep having sex with their wives.

***

Do you ever wonder if those TSA screeners at the airport who search your checked luggage sometimes steal stuff? The answer is: Yes, sometimes they do.

The latest was a TSA screener at Philadelphia International Airport, who was caught with more laptops than a guy should have.

***

Forget about the pig flu and the bird flu. There's a new flu in town.

The dog flu.

It's the H3N8 virus. You can't catch it from dogs. In fact, you can't catch it at all. But dogs can catch it from each other.

Is your dog sneezing, sniffling, coughing or lethargic? It may have H3N8. It's 5% fatal.

There is a dog flu vaccine. It costs $45. Your insurance may not cover it.

***

Here's a gift suggestion for the guy who has everything except a penile extender with "comfort strap" technology: a penile extender with "comfort strap" technology from X4 Labs.

Prices start at $200 dollars and go on up depending on options, like a silicone harness, hybrid support system and solid gold construction. Financing is available starting at $50 a month. And there is a 180 day growth guarantee on some models.

Accessories are also available, including a penis ring, plunger pump, prostate massager, mahogany storage box, travel bag and a t-shirt to "let others know that you are just bigger and better than them."

A Saudi businessman recently ordered his in 24 karat gold studded with diamonds and rubies.

###

NEWS FROM ALL OVER

Here in Tulsa, a pickup crashed into a quarry killing three of the four people on board. Only one passenger survived.

Police say the driver was going "at an excessive speed and with reckless and wanton disregard for the safety of himself and his passengers." The truck ran a stop sign, smashed through a pipe gate, crashed through boulders further blocking the gate, went airborne for 242 feet over a large boulder and dirt mound blocking the road, then hit two more boulders before falling 170 feet into the quarry pit.

So naturally, relatives of one of the victims are suing the quarry.

To be fair, they're also suing the driver, but he's dead.

***

The Oklahoma State Legislature has decided to put up a 10 commandments monument at the state capitol building, but now they can't decide where to put it.

The State Architect wants to put it on the north side, because that area was originally designed for monuments.

But opponents say the north side is not handicapped accessible and want it elsewhere.

And the A.C.L.U. doesn't want it anywhere.

Perhaps somewhere in the bible there is guidance about where to place the monument.

***

A justice of the peace in Louisiana has refused to marry an interracial couple. Keith Ballard says, "I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way."

Yeah, and I'm sure that some of his best friends are black.

***

Be careful of the cash you spend at Target.

A woman paid with a $100 bill at the Greenville, South Carolina, Target. But a clerk decided the bill was counterfeit, so the store sent the woman's picture to 75 other businesses in town as a warning.

Only it turned out the bill wasn't counterfeit.

This could never happen to me. The last time I saw a $100 bill was at my Bar Mitzvah.

***

A travel tip: The Tennessee Williams Festival is on in Clarksdale, Mississippi, and features a Stella shouting contest.

"Stelaaaaaaaa!"

***

Rumors say Italy has been paying off the Taliban in Afghanistan instead of fighting them.

The Italian government denies the rumor, but really this may not be a bad idea. Given what the U.S. is spending in Afghanistan, we might do better to pay the Taliban directly and cut out the middlemen.

###

RUSH LIMBAUGH ON RACE

Rush Limbaugh on Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates: "He's a racist. He's an angry racist."

Rush Limbaugh on Supreme Court Justice Sonja Sotomayor: "She's a bigot. She's a racist."

Rush Limbaugh on President Barack Obama: "The biggest reverse racist in history."

Rush Limbaugh on Obama's appointments: "How do you get promoted in a Barack Obama administration? By hating white people."

Rush Limbaugh on Democrats: "The racism that everybody thinks exists on our side of the aisle has been on full display throughout their primary campaign."


Rush Limbaugh on liberals: "You know, racism in this country is the exclusive province of the left."

Rush Limbaugh on the media: "We're witnessing racism all this week that led up to the inauguration. We're being told that we have to hope he succeeds. That we have to bend over, grab the ankles, bend over forward, backward, whichever, because his father's black, because this is the first black president."

Rush Limbaugh on minorities: "The days of them not having any power are over, and they are angry. And they want to use their power as a means of retribution. That's what Obama's about, gang. He's angry, he's gonna cut this country down to size, he's gonna make it pay for all the multicultural mistakes that it has made, it's mistreatment of minorities. I know exactly what's going on."

Rush Limbaugh on the NFL: "An outpost of racism and liberalism."

Rush Limbaugh on the GOP: "They're moving to the back of the bus. They're saying, 'I can't use that drinking fountain? Okay. I can't use that restroom? Okay.' That's the modern day Republican Party. The equivalent of the Old South. The new oppressed minority."

Rush Limbaugh on white people: "Obama’s America, white kids getting beat up on school buses now. You put your kids on a school bus, you expect safety but in Obama’s America the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, 'Yay, right on, right on, right on, right on,' and, of course, everybody says the white kid deserved it, he was born a racist, he’s white."

Rush Limbaugh on Somali pirates: "If only President Obama had known that the three Somali community organizers were actually young black Muslim teenagers I'm sure he wouldn't have given the order to shoot."

(From Conor Friedersdorf in The Daily Beast)

WHEELIES, POT, GOD AND HISTORY

The twenty-year-old was showing off when he popped a wheelie with his motorcycle in a Tulsa parking lot.

He crashed and died.

Here in Oklahoma, it's not uncommon for a guy's last words to be, "Watch this!"

***

News release from the Pastor Marc Grizzard at the Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, North Carolina:

"Come to our Halloween book burning. We are burning Satan's bibles like the NIV, RSV, NKJV, TLB, NASB, NEV, NRSV, ASV, NWT, Good News for Modern Man, The Evidence Bible, The Message Bible, The Green Bible, ect. These are perversions of God's Word the King James Bible."

They'll also be burning books by "heretics," such as James Dobson, Oral Roberts, Billy Graham, Robert Schuller, Mother Teresa and the Pope.

Not sure what's so special about the KJV, given that the original books of the bible were not in English. I think religion just makes people goofy.

***

A Philadelphia roofer died falling 125 feet off a church.

There is no God.

***

Mom and dad were helping their 15 year old put up a ham radio antenna in Florida when the mast hit a 13,000 volt power line.

The bad news is, they were all electrocuted.

The good news is, the 13,000 volt signal was received in Australia.

(I just made up that last part. There was no good news.)

***

Six protesters were arrested for trying to plant pot at the Drug Enforcement Administration headquarters in Virginia.

To be fair, they say they were planting hemp seeds. But the hemp plant is indistinguishable from the pot plant. They're the same plant.

Nice try, guys. Go smoke a rope.

***

Joseph Stalin's grandson sued a Russian newspaper for reporting that Stalin was a "bloodthirsty cannibal" who sent thousands of people to their to their deaths.

But the court ruled that Stalin was, in fact, a bloodthirsty cannibal who sent thousands of people to there deaths, so there.

(Actually, Stalin's policies resulted in the deaths of tens of millions, but why quibble.)

***

And on this day in 1812, a wannabe assassin shot former president Theodore Roosevelt in a Milwaukee auditorium. Roosevelt stopped the audience from lynching the guy, and then went on to deliver a 90 minute speech before going to the hospital. He carried that bullet in his chest for the rest of his life.

What a guy!

###

DOES OKLAHOMA HEART HEALTH CARE?

A couple of Oklahoma State Senators held forth on health care at one of those town hall type meetings in a Broken Arrow church.

They're against it.

Senator John Trebilcock said, "It all comes down to one word -- liberty, the liberty to not have health care if you don't want it."

.

Huh?

Senator Mike Ritze said, "Let the free enterprise system solve the problem."

Ritze is a physician.

He also said, "Whatever the federal government does, we will stop it at the border of Oklahoma."

Ritze later explained that he would still let Medicare and Medicaid cross the border.

IT'S ALL ABOUT ME

By way of introduction, my name is Marc Sherman. I was born in the first half of the last century. I’ve been a native Tulsan for 26 years.

I like Tulsa. It’s just so easy to live here. It’s easy to get around. I can get from anywhere to anywhere in no more than a half hour. There are no real traffic jams. You want traffic jams? Go to New Jersey. That’s where I grew up.

It’s also easy to get jobs here. I should know. I’ve had twelve of them. At least.

My wife is from New Jersey. We grew up fairly near each other. But we met in Tulsa. Go figure.

Another thing I like here is the language. Back east we may change a light bulb, or change the battery. But here you change out the light bulb and change out the battery. I like that. Also back east, we sometimes put things away. Here you put things up. You put up the rake, or put up the vacuum. I now try to put things up whenever I can.

One summer when I went east to visit my parents, my aunt came over for a barbecue. By the way, north easterners consider anything cooked over an open fire to be barbecue. Hamburgers, hot dogs, anything. I know, they’re ignorant. It’s not their fault.

Anyway, my aunt was helping out and asked where the trash barrel was. I told her “I drug it ‘round back.”

My well spoken aunt’s eyes got big and she looked at me as if I had passed gas in an elevator. She asked, in a rising voice, “You drug it ‘round back?”

What could I say? I’m a native Tulsan.

But sometimes I do feel the burden of being an outsider. Like the time my wife and I went to a Chinese restaurant. The hostess sized us up and asked, with a thick Asian accent, “You’re not from around here, are you?”

I figure if she could tell, everybody can. But they mostly don’t seem to mind.

NEWS FROM ALL OVER

Here in Tulsa, a man mugged three old ladies at knife point in one night.

.

After each mugging, he would remove a piece of his clothing to throw off identification.

.

By the time police caught him, he was down to his underwear.

.

***

.

The "Tulsa World" headline reads "Man Reportedly Attacks Roommate With Harmonica."

.

What is not clear from the headline is whether the attacker or the attackee had the harmonica.

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I can understand attacking a man playing the harmonica if he's the bad kind of player who keeps playing the same two notes and won't stop.

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But it turns out the attacker used a harmonica to to beat his roommate bloody. He is charged with assault with a dangerous weapon. A dangerous harmonica. Police took the weapon as evidence.

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A couple of middle-aged brothers in Delaware were arrested for running an identity fraud out of the mobile home where they lived with their mother.

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The two stole 44 Social Security numbers, used them to get 100 credit cards, and used the cards to steal $500,000.

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But you've got to ask: Why are two middle aged guys with a half million dollar paycheck living in a mobile home with their mother?

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Remember that Kentucky pastor who invited his congregation to bring their guns to church? Well, he's quit his job at the New Bethel Church in Louisville. Ken Pagano says he was burned out on the ministry. Now he works at a shooting range.

Do what you love, and love what you do.

###

SOUR GRAPES

President Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize. What do real Americans think?

"Something has happened here that we all agree with the Taliban and Iran about and that is he doesn't deserve the award." -- Rush Limbaugh

"Mikhail Gorbachev won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. A year later, he was out of power and the Soviet Union had dissolved. I don't mean to compare Barack Obama to Gorbachev, who was, whatever his faults, a truly historic and courageous figure."
-- William Kristol

"I did not realize the Nobel Peace Prize had an affirmative action quota for it, but that is the only thing I can think of for this news." -- Erick Erickson

"After a number of years, the NFL renamed its Super Bowl trophy after its most fitting recipient — it's now called the Vince Lombardi Trophy. I'd like to see the Nobel Foundation follow suit. If today's headlines said, 'Barack Obama Wins Yasser Arafat Prize,' that would be perfect."
-- Andy McCarthy


"I guarantee that Marisa Tomei did more to win the Academy Award in My Cousin Vinny than Barack Obama has done to win the Nobel Prize." -- Joe Scarborough

"In awarding the Nobel Prize for Peace to Barack Obama, the Nobel commitee has made itself look ridiculous." -- Patrick Buchanan

"Obama's bankrupted the US economy and destroyed the morale of our military. No wonder he was awarded the Nobel." -- Gateway Pundit


"The Nobel Peace Prize should be turned down by Barack Obama and given -- you ready for this? Oh, this one's gonna make headlines -- should be given to the Tea Party goers and the 9-12 Project." -- Glenn Beck


"It’s the final nail in the Nobel Peace Prize Committee’s coffin." -- Michelle Malkin

"I am both surprised and deeply humbled. I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership...I will accept this award as a call to action." -- President Barack Obama

I KISS A DOG

Have you ever seen a kissing booth?

Me neither, except in mythology. You know, cartoons, drawings, photos and the like. At charity carnivals, people would line up to pay a dollar and get a kiss from a real live girl. Maybe these booths really existed at one time. It seems so unsanitary now.

But at Woodland Hills Mall the other day I saw a real live kissing booth.

It was for charity, one of the events at the mall for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

For only a dollar, people lined up to kiss… a dog.

Sparkle is a professional kissing dog. She belongs to Tulsa Boxer Rescue and travels for charity events with her own handler – Laura Morris – and her own Smooch-A-Pooch kissing booth.

Sparkle is well suited for the job. She’ll lick the face of anyone within reach, ready or not. Sparkle has taken her act to Petsmart, the zoo and the bowling alley. And business is good. Sparkle makes about $200 per event, $1000 a year. But she files no tax return because it’s all for charity.

Sparkle is a survivor. She was rescued from the Tulsa animal shelter, emaciated and infected with a tick borne disease. And she’s a breast cancer survivor; Sparkle has had a mastectomy.

What’s it like to kiss Sparkle? Shana Lamons was a customer. She’s also a breast cancer survivor. Sparkle kissed her from chin to eyeballs. She described the kiss as joyful and fabulous. Lamons says, “Dog kisses are good for the soul. Truly they are.”

There was nothing left but for me to experience it myself. So I put a dollar in the jar and puckered up. Sparkle attacked my face. Right on the lips. Lots of tongue. Very wet. It lasted a long time. One of us finally broke it off. I was completely satisfied.

Sparkle's take today went to a charity called Breast Impressions. They provide breast casting kits to women diagnosed with breast cancer. This allows the ladies to make plaster casts of their breasts as a memory of what they looked like pre-surgery.

This may sound bizarre. But the casts are variously decorated with sequins and fabric, paint and fake fur, and become a work of art suitable for hanging. In fact, Breast Impressions sells off some of the busts for pretty good prices and donates the money to local breast health programs.

And I’ve learned something about cancer. That is, how many cancer survivors there are. And I include myself. A cancer diagnosis was at one time a death sentence, but not any more. I think you’d be surprised to learn how many of us former cancer patients there are among you, leading normal healthy lives. Or as I sometimes tell people, “I’m fine now, but that was the worst case of cancer I ever had.”

NO FAIR FREAKS

The Tulsa State Fair is in town. Of course, Tulsa is not a state. There’s a reason it’s called the Tulsa State Fair. But I forget the reason.

Back when, fairs had real freak shows and girly shows. I remember seeing the tall man, fat lady, bearded hermaphrodite and a guy with three eyes and two noses. Only two of the eyes were functional. I don’t know about the noses.

It was at the Honesdale, Pennsylvania, county fair, in the strip tent, that I saw my first completely naked lady in person. Her name was Bubbles. She was not a pretty sight. Bubbles was overweight and unattractive. Still, there was a certain amount of clinical interest.

The Tulsa State Fair used to have girly shows. This is true, I looked it up.

But not anymore.

And freak shows? There it is, on the midway, a tent covered with posters promising, among other things, the world’s tallest girl, ugliest man, two headed calf, two headed baby, sruken (sic) head, Figi (sic) island mermaid, Siamese twins, and – be still, my heart -- a man with three eyes and two noses. All for an admission price of two dollars, so step right up.

Of course, I did. Here’s what I found.

The world’s tallest girl was a plaster statue.

The two headed baby was also made of plaster. The sign called it a facsimile, along with a warning to say “no” to drugs or your baby could look like this.

The two headed calf was a clever piece of taxidermy, as was the Turbalope: a combination turtle, rabbit and antelope.

The Figi island mermaid was something in a jar, looking like a pickled embryo. It was hard to tell what it was, let alone what it was made of.

The srunken head? It was there, looking just like the plastic ones we used to buy as kids. They were a big fad in the 50’s; don’t ask me why. Maybe this particular shrunken head was real, but by now I was pretty skeptical.

The Siamese twins were just an old newspaper photo, as was the world’s ugliest man.

And the two-nosed, three eyed man was nowhere to be found.

***

Elsewhere at the fair, the people-watching was as great as ever. Yes, many of us go to the fair to look at each other. And that’s a good thing. Because to each other, most of us look pretty funny.

Beyond that, there is plenty of music, cooking demonstrations, and rides to lose your corn dogs on.

One exhibit I couldn’t find this year was the world’s largest pig. In years past, he was usually set up across the walk from a pork barbeque booth. And I always wondered: Does the world’s largest pig smell the barbeque? Does it make him hungry? And does he know it’s a pig?

THE WIT AND WISDOM OF PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH

Bush on Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton: "Wait till her fat ass is sitting at this desk."

Bush on Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin: "I'm trying to remember if I've met her before. I'm sure I must have. What is she, the governor of Guam?"

Bush on President Barack Obama: "This is a dangerous world, and this cat isn't remotely qualified to handle it. This guy has no clue, I promise you."

(From the book "Speech-Less, Tales of a White House Survivor" by Matt Latimer, former speech writer to the president.)

QUOTATIONS OF THE DAY

"As the father of four children, I am absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama's socialist ideology."

-- Florida Republican Party Chairman Jim Greer.


"I can't understand for the life of me what's so great about being stupid."

-- President George H. W. Bush in his 1991 live televised speech to the schoolchildren of America.

GOD BLESS AMERICA, AGAIN

This is scary stuff.

It's a passage from "A Clash of Camelots" -- by Sam Kashner, in the current issue of "Vanity Fair" -- about how William Manchester researched and wrote his book "The Death of a President." I hope it doesn't foreshadow our own time.

Manchester... discovered that Dallas “had become the Mecca for medicine-show evangelists … the Minutemen, the John Birch and Patrick Henry Societies, and the headquarters of [ultra-conservative oil billionaire] H. L. Hunt and his activities.”

“In that third year of the Kennedy presidency,” Manchester wrote, “a kind of fever lay over Dallas country. Mad things happened. Huge billboards screamed, ‘Impeach Earl Warren.’ Jewish stores were smeared with crude swastikas.…Radical Right polemics were distributed in public schools; Kennedy’s name was booed in classrooms; corporate junior executives were required to attend radical seminars.” A retired major general ran the American flag upside down, deriding it as “the Democrat flag.” A wanted poster with J.F.K.’s face on it was circulated, announcing “this man is Wanted” for—among other things—“turning the sovereignty of the US over to the Communist controlled United Nations” and appointing “anti-Christians … aliens and known Communists” to federal offices. And a full-page advertisement had appeared the day of the assassination in The Dallas Morning News accusing Kennedy of making a secret deal with the Communist Party; when it was shown to the president, he was appalled. He turned to Jacqueline, who was visibly upset, and said, “Oh, you know, we’re heading into nut country today.”

Manchester discovered that in a wealthy Dallas suburb, when told that President Kennedy had been murdered in their city, the students in a fourth-grade class burst into applause.

THE WISDOM OF JAMES INHOFE

U.S. Senator James Inhofe held a town hall meeting in Grove, Oklahoma, this week. Here is some of what he had to say.

• On President Barack Obama: "I never dreamed I would see an administration try to disavow all the things that have made this country different from all the others."
• On America: "I have never seen so many things happening at one time so disheartening to America."
• On institutions: "Every institution that has made this country the greatest nation in the world is under attack."
• On the "hoax" of global warming: "More and more, with each month that goes by, more scientists agree with me. We are winning."
• On Guantanamo: "There has never been a case of torture there. The people there are treated better than in the federal prisons."
• On terrorism: "I don't know why President Obama is obsessed with turning terrorists loose in America."
• On national defense: "Barack Obama is disarming America."
• On the future: "Those of you who think like I do hope that this country can hang on another 16 months."

HEALTH CARE MADE SIMPLE

This letter so simplifies American health care that I am compelled to reprint part of it. A Sarah Stringfellow wrote it to the editor of Salt Lake City's "Deseret News," which published it on Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009.

"If you are a veteran or Native American, you receive health care as if you lived under the British national system.

"If you have employer-provided health insurance, it is as if you lived in Germany.

"If you receive medicare, it is similar to the the Canadian 'single-payer' system.

"If you are one of the 50 million uninsured Americans, it is as if you lived in Burundi or Burma, where you either pay cash or get sick and die."

QUOTATION OF THE DAY

"While my body was asleep, I think my soul rode on a triangular-shaped UFO and went to Venus. It was a very beautiful place and it was really green."

-- Japanese First Lady Miyuki Hatoyama in her book, "Very Strange Things I've Encountered."

YOU'RE GONNA' DIE

The National Center for Health Statistics of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that the life expectancy in the U.S. is now 78 years.

However, the total death rate from all causes is still 100%.

TODAY'S BOOK REVIEW

Today, a review of the novel "Deception Point" by Dan Brown, author of "The DaVinci Code."

Marc Aubriere reviews the novel. He was held hostage in Somalia for a month. The only book he had available was "Deception Point."

Aubriere says, "I read that book eight times. I hate that book now."

INSERT PUNCHLINE

"Spider-man: The Musical" is coming to Broadway.

(Insert you own punchline here.)

QUOTATION OF THE DAY

""I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president Jimmy Carter. And I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it's an interesting coincidence."

-- Michele Bachman

RANDOM NEWS

A woman was killed in Ripley County, Missouri, when her motorcycle hit a deer. But hunters killed 2,858 deer in the county this year, so the deer are still behind.

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Colorado will no longer check to see if people who get special licence plates for the descendants of pioneers are really the descendants of pioneers.

Coming up next, who really came over on the Mayflower?
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A man who set out water jugs in the Arizona desert for Mexicans crossing into the U.S. was convicted of littering.

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No good deed shall go unpunished.

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A burglar armed with meat cleavers asked Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputies to kill him.

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So they did.

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China executed a holding company chairman for embezzling a mere $14.6 million. Don'cha think Bernie Madoff is glad to be an American?

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This woman's got to get the narcissist of the year award.

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Betty Lichtenstein worked as a registered nurse in Connecticut. She paid for her own awards ceremony to receive the Connecticut Nursing Association's "Nurse of the Year" award.

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But it turns out that she didn't really win the award, there's no such association, and Betty's not really a nurse.

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***

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It seems that cows kill about 20 people a year in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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But given the number of cows killed by people each year, the cows are still behind.

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###

MAN'S HUMANITY TO MAN

The Japanese government will apologise for the Bataan Death March next year by inviting survivors of the march to Japan.

Japan will remember Bataan by forcing the survivors to march 60 miles through the Philippines in blistering heat without food or water with occasional beatings and executions along the way.

(I just made up that last part.)

VOICES OF UNREASON PART III

"Is all this what you want or expect in a universal health care bill being rushed through Congress? Do you want government agents coming into your home and telling you how to parent your children? When did government health care turn into government child care?"
-- Chuck Norris

“People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless,”
-- Investors Business Daily (Note: Stephen Hawking was born in the U.K., has always lived there and lives there still.)

VOICES OF UNREASON PART II

The House bill "would make it mandatory -- absolutely require -- that every five years, people in Medicare have a required counseling session that will tell them how to end their life sooner, how to decline nutrition, how to decline being hydrated, how to go to hospice care."
-- Former New York Lieutenant Governor Betty McCaughey.


The House bill "may place older people in situations where they may feel pressured to sign end of life directives they would not otherwise sign. This provision may start us down a treacherous path toward government encouraged euthanasia if enacted into law."
-- Representative John Boehner.


"Euthanasia is another shovel ready job for Pelosi to assign to the states. Reducing health care costs under Obama's plan, after all, counts as economic stimulus, too -- controlling life, controlling death, controlling costs."
--American Spectator writer George Neumayr.

"Sometimes for the common good, you just have to say, 'Hey, grandpa, you've had a good life.'"
-- Fox's Glenn Beck.

"We should not have a government plan that will pull the plug on grandma."
-- Iowa Senator Charles Grassley.


"No one should be surprised at the coming embrace of euthanasia."
-- Columnist Cal Thomas.

VOICES OF UNREASON

"You may be dead in five years, they may euthanize you."

-- Val Butsicaric to Reprentative John Dingell at a town hall meeting in Michigan.

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"If they don't let us vent our frustrations out, they will have a revolution.

-- Mary Ann Fieser to Senator Claire McCaskill at a town hall meeting in Missouri.

"You are trampling on our Constitution. You and your cronies in the government do this kind of stuff all the time. One day God is going to stand before you and he's going to judge you."
-- Craig Anthony Miller to Senator Arlen Spector at a town hall meeting in Pennsylvania.



"It says right plainly here they want to limit the type of care the elderly can get. They are talking about killing people."
-- Laural Tobias to Senator Arlen Spector at a town hall meeting in Pennsylvania.

"This is about the dismantling of this country. We don't want this country to turn into Russia."
-- Katy Abram to Senator Arlen Spector at a town hall meeting in Pennsylvania..

"I know the years down the road I don't want my children coming up to me and asking me, 'Mom, why didn't you do anything? Why do we have to wait in line for, I don't know, toilet paper or anything?'"
-- Katy Abram, later, on Fox News.

"Euthanize Obama!"
-- an unnamed protester outside President Barack Obama's town hall meeting in New Hampshire.

IN LOCAL NEWS...

It's silly season in Tulsa, as local politicians prepare for the upcoming elections.

Republican Anna Falling is running for mayor. She says the most important thing she can do for Tulsa is to put a creationism display at the Tulsa Zoo. She told her supporters, "We need to first of all recognize the fact that God needs to be honored in this city."

She was answered with calls of "hallelujah."

She promised to appoint to government people who will "honor God." She later made it clear she was referring only to church going Christians. Jews evidently need not apply.

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City Councilor Jack Henderson, who is black, accused his fellow city counselors, who are white, of racism.

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The other counselors responded by claiming they are not either racist, so there.

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Chris Trail is running for the City Council. His background includes:

• A protective order against him from his wife.
• An arrest for food code violations.
• Outstanding tax liens.
• Personal bankruptcy.

Trail says all of that is behind him now.

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Karl Hulcher is running for the City Council. His background includes:

• A second degree arson conviction.
• A D.U.I. conviction.
• Charges of attempting to escape from an officer, reckless driving, leaving the scene of an accident, speeding and driving under suspension, all dismissed.
• Two domestic abuse charges involving his son, dismissed.
• A domestic abuse charge involving his father, dismissed.
• A protective order filed against him by his ex-wife.
• A protective order filed against him by his father.

Hulcher says all that is behind him now.

---

In other local news...

The school district announced that most Tulsa public schools are on the No Child Left Behind Oklahoma School Improvement List. This does not mean schools have improved. This is government-speak. It means the schools are failing.

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The court has charged a Tulsa elementary school principal with contributing to the delinquency of a minor by encouraging two boys, 10 and 11 years old, to fight it out in the hallway. In fact, she had to pull one of the boys out of class to set up the fight.

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Meth labs are springing up around Tulsa, in country homes, apartments, motels, in the woods, vans and cars. Workers found the latest one on the steps of the State Services Building downtown. The building houses, among other agencies, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.

***

A BIRTHDAY SHOWER

Today is my birthday.

I've reached the big six-oh, as they call it. And although I know that base-ten counting is just another human construct, any age with a zero at the end causes me to evaluate my life.

So I'm depressed.

Still, a guy's got to work, so this morning I picked up my squad car, radioed a 10-8 and headed for my post.

Then, dispatch called my cell phone.

The dispatcher said this was probably a really stupid question but was I the guy who used to have a radio show?

I said yes.

He said he used to listen, and we talked and I felt really good.

Until we hung up and I realised that I used to be somebody and now I was just a rent-a-cop, a guy with a gun who guards places where nothing ever happens.

So I was depressed, again, in a deep down place that Paxil can't touch.

But tonight is the Perseid meteor shower, the most spectacular meteor shower of the year. And it happens every year on my birthday. Without fail.

So enjoy the star show. And happy birthday, whenever.

I HEART ANIMALS

Nevada is using Federal stimulus money to build an overpass for animals on U.S. 93. Now the chicken will be able to cross the road in safety and comfort.

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New Jersey is scrapping plans to sink old New York subway cars in the Atlantic to create an artificial reef. It turns out the cars are in such poor shape they're not even fit for the fish.

***

LANGUAGE, LANGUAGE

Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway is "one tough son of a bitch."

That's how he described himself in a speech at Saint Jerome Catholic Church in Fancy Farm, Kentucky.

The church is now revising its rules to ban profanity.

There'll be no more sons of bitches at Saint Jerome.

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The Eugene, Oregon, Water & Electric Board is changing the name of Lloyd Knox Water Board Park to Lloyd Knox Park.

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There'll be no water boarding at Lloyd Knox Park.

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***

QUOTATIONS FROM THE LUNATIC FRINGE

"This is a scary time in Washington. It's a very frightening time. I see Barack Obama is creating an enemies list of people who oppose this miserable health care plan. I think that's frightening. That's from a guy that can't even show a long-form birth certificate. I think we all ought to be prepared to fight that."

-- Oklahoma First District Congressman John Sullivan in remarks to the Tulsa Republican Club.


"The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil."

-- Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin

TRAVEL TIPS

Looking for a country music concert this weekend? Try Mirande, France.

It's the Festival de Country Music de Mirande, held every year at this time. It's a six day festival; 160,000 people are expected.

There are some country acts from the states, but many of the bands are French. Most sing in English, and some even speak it.

Most of the visitors are French, many of them dressed as cowboys and Indians. The Grand Cafe Glacier is redone as an old western saloon. A large stadium near the center of town sells la culture country: Stetson hats, "authentic" Sioux Indian duds, western regalia, cowboy paraphernalia, and goat cheese.

There are two ballrooms, a concert stage and a line dancing stage where the 31 line dancing clubs can show their stuff.

Why cowboys? Why not?

***

While in France, go to the Tarzan exhibit at the Musee du Quai in Paris. See old comics, film clips, action figures, African totems a stuffed crocodile and the female robot from the movie "Metropolis."

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Why Metropolis? Why not?

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Why Tarzan? The newspaper "Liberation," in a review of the exhibit, said, "One can expound as much as one likes in scientific speeches about his mythical and universal nature, but one always gets back to the fact that Tarzan is a half naked guy saving white skinned young women, lost in the jungle and wearing their party dresses, from the claws of vicious gorillas."

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***

(NYT)

QUOTATIONS OF THE DAY

"Killer of beasts and many black men."

-- Tarzan, describing himself in Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Tarzan of the Apes."


"This room has 14 Rembrandts; let's move on."

-- Unnamed tour guide at the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad.

COVERING THE NEWS RELIGIOUSLY

A riot broke out at the local water park last night.

The were 3,500 people at Big Splash Water Park when large fights started breaking out. Police responded, the park was closed, and the fights moved out to the parking lot. As police dispersed the crowd, some rioters started looting the grocery store across the street.

Did I mention that this was a Christian gathering?

It was a "Waves of Worship" event, billed as a Christian youth night, with Christian bands playing, sponsored by the local Christian radio station. Local churches arranged for groups to attend.

But the park manager says the cheap $5 admission brought out "the wrong crowd."

***

God has gone online.

• Jews can pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem by tweeting @thekotel. Tweets will be printed out and stuck in a crevice of the wall.
• Christians can pray at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem by tweeting @PrayForGod or at holylandprayer.com.
• The Calvin Institute of Christian Worship in Grand Rapids, Michigan, has six prayer feeds on Twitter. Find them at prayerontwitter.com.
• Catholics can pray at Lourdes. Your prayers will be placed in the healing grotto if you send them to lourdes-france.org.
• Say the rosary with other pilgrims at Fatima; the address is fatima.org.
• Or light a 48 hour candle at gratefullness.org.
• Buddhists have some iPhone applications like Mani Wheel, OmWheel or iPrayerwheel. Or you can log on www.manikorlo.org to spin a prayer wheel in Budapest, Hungary.
• Musims can use Salaat Time 2.0 Prayer Times for Mobiles or iPray to tell where to pray, when to pray and how to pray, and get an electronic call to prayer.
• Hindus can access the Shiv Shakkti Peeth center in New York to worship Ganesha, Hanumana, Krishna, Shiva or Rama.

But I have a question. If God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent, why does He need to go online?

***

Pope Benedict XVI has signed with Geffen records for his new album, titled "Alma Mater." It will be released November 30th, just in time for Christmas. The album includes:

• The Pope singing "Regina Coeli."
• The Philharmonic Academy of Rome Choir singing in Saint Peter's Basilica.
• The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

But don't expect any rock and roll. The Pope says it's "an expression of base passions."

***

The American Psychological Association says there is no treatment that can turn gays straight. The Association says even trying can do a lot of damage. The APA says that if a person's sexual orientation and their church's teachings conflict, they should change churches.

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IT HAPPENED BACK THEN

1969 was a year to remember. The world shaking events 40 years ago included, in no particular order,

• Apollo 11 and mankind's first landing on the moon,
• the Manson Family massacre,
• the death of Mary Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick,
• The Woodstock Music Festival,
• and on the same weekend, my wedding. I shoulda' gone to Woodstock instead.

BUT THEN, WHAT IS?

“Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.”

-- Peter De Vries

IT PROVES THE POINT

The "Birthers" say they know for a fact that President Barack Obama is not a U.S. citizen because he was not born in the United States.

So Obama posted his birth certificate on the Internet and had it examined by a number of investigators.

But the birthers say the certificate is a forgery.

How do they know that?

Because it says that Obama was born in the United States.

Ipso facto. Dipsy doodle.

It's hard to argue with that kind of logic.

QUOTATION OF THE DAY

"Denali, the great one, soaring under the midnight sun. And then the extremes. In the winter time it's the frozen road that is competing with the view of ice fogged frigid beauty, the cold though, doesn't it split the Cheechakos from the Sourdoughs?"

-- Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin

BABIES STIRRED AND SHAKEN

Every year about this time, hundreds of Muslims and Hindus gather at India's Muslim Baba Umer Durga Shrine to drop their babies off the roof. The babies are shaken first and generally scream on the way down, where they're caught 50 feet below by parents holding bedsheets.

In most places this would bring charges of child abuse. But in India it's said to bring good health and prosperity to the parents.

The Gods must be crazy.

GOD, WHAT MONEY!

The Reverend Fredrick J. Eikerenkoetter -- aka Reverend Ike -- died this week. He was 74.

The Reverend preached on national TV and radio. He had a peak audience of 2.5 million. He preached "Prosperity Now," or "Thinkonomics."

Here is some selected wit and wisdom of Reverend Ike:

• "Close your eyes and see green. Money up to your armpits, a roomful of money and there you are, just tossing it around like in a swimming pool."
• The Reverend solicited cash from his congregation, but only folding money, no coins. He said, "Change makes your minister nervous in the service." In return, he'd send you a prayer cloth.
• Ike loved exotic cars, claiming "My garages runneth over."
• In 1969 he bought New York's Lowe's 175th Street Theater for a half million dollars for his headquarters. He called the style, "Byzantine-Romanesque-Indo-Hindu-Sino-Moorish-Persian-Eclectic-Rococo-Deco.
• Expanding on Matthew, Ike said, "If it's that difficult for a rich man too get into heaven, think how terrible it must be for a poor man to get in."

The Reverend Ike died a multi-millionaire. But you can't take it with you.

CUT THE MUSTARD

Tomorrow is National Mustard Day.

You can celebrate at the Mustard Museum in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin. There are 5,000 different mustards on display from 60 countries and 1,500 antique mustard pots, bottles and tins.

Tomorrow there'll be mustard painting and music by the Poupon U Accordion Band and more music from Staff Infection and the Red Hot Horn Dawgs.

And -- FREE HOT DOGS FOR ALL -- WITH MUSTARD! Ketchup is $10.

PICKLES MAKE YOU BEAUTIFUL

In other food news, Guss's Pickles is moving.

Guss makes the best pickles EVER. I haven't been there since I left the east coast, but I remember Guss had several pickle barrels set up on the sidewalk in front of the store on Manhattan's Lower East Side. The barrels ranged from new to old pickles. The old ones were the best, the most sour. If you brought your own jar Guss would fill it with pickles, force the last one in with his thumb, top it off with pickle juice and name a price.

Actually, I'm not sure if that was really Guss at all. The current owner is Pat Fairhurst. Isidor Guss started the business on a pushcart in 1920. But it doesn't matter. The pickles are GREAT.

High rents are driving Guss's Pickles to to Borough Park in Brooklyn. Eat a pickle. Say "hi" to Guss for me, or whoever he is.

END OF THE LINE FOR THE LITTLE PISTOL

This is the story of the little pistol that could.

It was a .32 caliber revolver, manufactured in the Smith & Wesson plant in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1949. It was shipped to the John Jovino Gun Shop in Manhattan.

The shop still stands, still sells guns; it's been in business since 1911. We don't know who bought the gun because records from the '40s no longer exist. It might have been a policeman because back then there was a nearby police station and police firing range. These .32s were popular with police; back then cops still shot mouse guns.

In 1976 it belonged to Corrections Officer John Eckert who filed a police report saying he lost it. Eckert retired later that year and is no longer alive.

In 2009 a man named Carlos is said to have had the gun. Edwin Santana says he took the gun from Carlos. That was the day, last Sunday, that Police Officer Rodney Lewis arrested Santana. Lewis's partner searched Santana and took the gun, but dropped it. The gun went off, and the bullet hit Lewis in the chest. Those old revolvers sometimes did that, they didn't have the safety features of most modern revolvers.

Officer Lewis is out of the hospital; he'll be OK.

But the little pistol that could has reached the end of its line. Like all guns confiscated in New York City, it will be melted down and the steel used to make wire coat hangers.

(NYT)

NEW YORK'S PAPER OF NON-RECORD

"The New York Post" is one of my guilty pleasures. It's a rag. I like it.

My wife took a business trip to Manhattan and picked me up a copy. Here's what I learned:

• Michael Jackson's doctor killed his patient with a shot of propopol.
• The jealous wife of a cheating husband poured a pot of scalding water on his genitals. The headline read, "Great Balls Afire!"
• Madonna's love letters to her ex are up for auction, including the one that says, "Just watched the HBO special... My booty looked good and you should see how good it looks in person. It looks Bootyful!"
• Rachael Hunter is fighting depression after hockey star Jarret Stoll dumped her. (Who is Rachael Hunter?)
• When Hugh Hefner dies he will be buried next to Marlyn Monroe. He paid $1 million for the plot.
• A flock of doves released at a wedding is starving to death in Flushing Meadow Park.
• Two teenage would-be purse snatchers in Greenwich Village used an umbrella to batter a woman, but she wasn't seriously hurt and they got nothing but arrested.
• My horoscope says I know what people will say before they say it. (But I knew it would say that.)

QUOTATION OF THE DAY

"They'll ruin a good yard 'cause they like grub worms.

"So all you have to do is to lay a few marshmallows out and then put a marshmallow or two in the trap cage. You'll catch those suckers.

"Pretty soon, that armadillo fellow, he's in my cage. I got him. And the reason I got him is he kept thinking he could get something for nothing. He kept thinking, 'Man, that's a sweet marshmallow.'

"I either put 'em in the back of my pickup and take 'em 10 or 15 miles away from my property or I shoot 'em.

"That's exactly what's going to happen to us. We are either going to be carried far way from what we know, we trust and believe in to be right or we are going to be extinct as a nation.''

-- Tom Coburn, U.S. senator from Oklahoma, on freedom and armadillos

QUOTATION OF THE DAY

"I'm just another one of the prophets that went to jail for the Gospel."

-- evangelist Tony Alamo upon being convicted under the Mann act for "marrying" five underage girls, one as young as eight years old, and having sex with them.

"RAPE," SHE SAID

I guess it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Indian politician Rita Bahuguna Joshi announced that a rival politician should be raped so she could better understand the plight of women.

Next, Joshi's house was burned down.

Then, she was arrested and jailed.

Now, she faces a possible ten year prison term for "insulting a person of lower caste" and "insulting a woman's modesty."

There's a lesson here. Never cry rape in a crowded parliament.

QUOTATIONS OF THE DAY

"You don't have to believe in God to be a moral or ethical person."

-- New York City Atheists advertisement on the side of a New York City Transit bus


"The problem with being an atheist is that you don't have a holiday."

-- Henny Youngman

CHA CHA CHANGIN', REARRANGIN'

Algeria has officially moved the weekend to Friday and Saturday. It used to be Thursday and Friday.

Please see that your calenders comply.

---

.

A massive magnitude 7.8 earthquake off New Zealand last week has moved that country twelve inches closer to Australia.

.

Please see that your maps comply.

THE WIT AND WISDOM OF TOM COBURN

“The gay community has infiltrated the very centers of power in every area across this country and they wield extreme power. That agenda is the greatest threat to our freedom we face today. Why do you think we see the rationalization for abortion and multiple sexual partners? That’s a gay agenda.”

-- Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn on freedom


"I favor the death penalty for abortionists and other people who take life."

-- Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn on the death penalty


"If I wanted to buy a bazooka to use in a very restricted way, to do something, I ought to be able to do that."

-- Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn on gun control


"I don't apologize for saying we need to protect the unborn. Do you realize that if all those children had not been aborted, we wouldn't have any trouble with Medicare and Social Security today? That's another 41 million people."

-- Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn on Medicare and Social Security


“Lesbianism is so rampant in some of the schools in southeast Oklahoma that they’ll only let one girl go to the bathroom.”

-- Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn on education


"You got lots of 'splainin to do."

-- Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn on Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor

FOR ALL MANKIND

Milestones in space aren't what they used to be.

There are 13 people on the space station today, the most folks in Earth orbit at one time ever. A new milestone in space.

But 40 years ago two humans walked on the moon.

I watched the TV coverage that summer day, a full day of talking heads leading up to the actual landing.

My girlfriend and I visited her grandmother, who was transfixed by the TV. It was a great show, she said. But of course it isn't true because the moon is only this big, she said, holding her hands a basketball's width apart.

At one point Walter Cronkite was interviewing Arthur C. Clarke in Florida, and they brought in Robert A. Heinlein by satellite from California. Cronkite gradually dropped out of the conversation as these two great science fiction authors talked to each other. I don't remember what they talked about. The miracle was just that they were there, talking, on this amazing day.

Clarke had predicted communications satellites. And Heinlein wrote about the first men on the moon. And they each wrote about a future of space colonies on Mars and Ganymede, and humans who would take spaceships to the stars, even if it took several generations to get there.

The future isn't what it used to be. The average person alive today was nine years old when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin bounced around the moon. And a surprising percentage of Americans don't believe we really went there in the first place. After all, it's impossible. The moon is only this big.

What happened to my space colonies and starships? What happened to the Walt Disneys, Willey Lays and Werner Von Brauns who popularised the dream of human space travel? What happened to the science fiction greats who inspired us and the Communists who challenged us?

Today the science fiction genre has gone from hard science to sword and sorcery, outright fantasy and impossible space operas.

Today we have Bill Gates and Steve Jobs who promise to draw us together in ways we can't now imagine. We are turning inward. The new frontier is the human soul. We are gazing at our navels.
And today 13 people are orbiting our planet, a new milestone in space. But come on, they're 215 miles from Earth. That's the distance from Tulsa to Kansas City.

So maybe we're like the Vikings who discovered the New World and never followed up on it, leaving behind only bits of rotted ships and fading runes.

And maybe some future humans will populate the universe, and find on the moon a spidery bit of disintegrating spaceship and a plaque with runes that read, "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon, July, 1969, A.D. We came in peace far all mankind."

QUOTATION OF THE DAY

"You tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try."

-- Homer Simpson

GETTING MORE THAN YOU WANT

The Defense Appropriations Subcommittee has voted to spend $485 million on five new presidential helicopters that President Obama says he does not want.

The subcommittee also voted to spend $369 million on 12 new F-22 fighter jets that Defense Secretary Gates says the Pentagon does not want.

But these are only part of a $636 billion defense spending bill, so what's a few hundred million here and there?

A FRENCHMAN HERE, A FRENCHMAN THERE

Two violent Islamist insurgent groups in Somalia have agreed to a hostage sharing agreement.

Two Frenchman were kidnapped this week from their hotel in Mogadishu and turned over to the Hizbul group.

But the Shabab group wanted the hostages, and threatened to go to war with Hizbul over it.

Eventually a compromise was reached and Hizbul gave one of the hostages to Shabab. Now Hizbul and Shabab each have one Frenchman.

See how we can all get along if we just try?

THAT OLD CLASS ACTION

When the Onex Corporation bought Boeing's commercial aircraft operations in Kansas and Oklahoma, they came up with a money saving strategy:

Fire the old guys!

Onex even sent an E-mail to the board of directors describing the strategy, and saying "We are moving from a demographically expensive population towards one that should be cheaper."

Now the fired old guys are bringing a class action suit. They want their jobs back, unspecified compensatory damages and $1.5 billion in punitive damages.

It was pretty stupid of the Onex executives to put their age strategy in writing. But they were probably just too young to know better.

GAI STRASHEH DI VANTZEN

It was disappointing to hear that people from that nutso church in Topeka, Kansas, picketed the Jewish Community Center here in Tulsa, and that a bomb threat followed the picketing. The bomb threat turned out to be a hoax.

But it was gratifying to read some of the readers' comments that followed that story in the Tulsa World newspaper's web site.

It was "Rockfan" in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, who wrote, "Those hoaxers and protesters can kiss my tuchus!"

(The Yiddish headline, Gai Strasheh Di Vantzen!, means " You don't frighten me!" or, literally, "Go threaten the bed bugs!")

(Tuchus is Yiddish for "buttocks.")

QUOTATIONS OF THE DAY

"No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money."

-- Samuel Johnson


"I'm a blockhead."

-- Marc Sherman

CHEW, DON'T SWALLOW

Those devious Jews are at it again.

Hamas reports that Israeli intelligence agents are distributing aphrodisiac chewing gum in Gaza.

A Palestinian man filed a complaint that his daughter chewed the gum and suffered "dubious side effects."

A Hamas spokesman says, "The intelligence services are aiming to corrupt the young generation by distributing these products among students."

My only question is, where can I get some of this gum?

GREATLY EXAGGERATED

Despite what you may have read on the Internet, note the following:

• Jeff Goldblum did not fall to his death off the Kauri Cliffs in New Zealand while making a movie.
• Natalie Portman did not go off the same cliff.
• Harrison Ford did not go down in a capsized yacht in St-Tropez.
• George Clooney did not crash his private plane in Colorado.
• Miley Cyrus did not die in a car crash.
• Rick Astley was not found dead in a Berlin hotel.
• Britney Spears did not die in a car crash with a pretzel van.
• Ellen DeGeneres is still alive.
• Louie Anderson is still alive.

However, Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon, Karl Malden, Robert McNamara, Billy Mays, Gale Storm and Oscar Meyer are still dead.

QUOTATION OF THE DAY

"Anywhere I hang myself is home."

-- Professor Louis Nordstrom Ph.D., A.K.A Zen Master Mitsunen, Buddhist monk

TRY TRY AGAIN

In 1998 President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin announced plans to open a joint early warning center to monitor missile launchings around the world. It never happened.

In 2000 President Bill Clinton and Russian President Vladimir Putin announced plans to open a joint early warning center to monitor missile launchings around the world. It never happened.

In 2007 George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin announced plans to open a joint early warning center to monitor missile launchings around the world. It never happened.

Last week, President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev announced plans to open a joint early warning center to monitor missile launchings around the world.

You think?

AND NO SLEEPING UNDER BRIDGES

The Anchorage, Alaska, Assembly passed a new law that allows police to break up homeless camps.

The law is not discriminatory because it applies to the rich and poor alike.

RAPE NO, HOUSEWORK YES

Afghanistan has changed the law that legalized marital rape.

The new law says that a woman no longer must submit to sex with her husband, but she still has to do the housework.

QUOTATIONS OF THE DAY

"It looks like things are going to be over and we are going to get the clown from Minnesota,’’

-- Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe, referring to Al Franken


"I don't know how Senator Inhofe regards clowns, but it might be an incredible complement."

-- Minnesota Senator Al Franken, responding to James Inhofe

UNCIVIL RIGHTS

From the extreme irony department --

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the civil rights organization founded by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., wants to fire the president of its California chapter, the Reverend Eric P. Lee, for opposing Proposition 8 and supporting gay marriage.

QUOTATION OF THE DAY

"We keep marrying other species and other ethnics..."

"The problem is the Swedes have pure genes. They marry other Swedes, that's the rule. Finns marry other Finns; they have a pure society. In America we marry everybody. We will marry Italians and Irish."

-- Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade