Commentary - Humor - Nonsense - Sarcasm - Satire - Whimsy

On the Road with DR. EVIL

Vol. IV, No. 3, 1 March 2002

A Missive of Irregular Frequency and Questionable Worth

WHAT'S UNDER YOUR UMBRELLA?
William Safire, the former speech writer for Richard Nixon, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the New York Times. His op-ed pieces appear 3 to 4 times each week in newspapers across the country. I have been reading him off and on for years and must say that, during the Clinton years, thought him too hard on the poor misguided man. I have now decided otherwise. In my estimation, Safire has proven to be "right on" in his commentaries re: the political shenanigans in Washington and elsewhere. I have become an admirer. A sudden and recent revelation (to me) was that he is a dedicated wordsmith, beyond that which one would expect from a journalist. I like words. I appreciate other people who also like words. Not only that, but he mixes into his otherwise serious verbiage, little humorous quips to lighten the load. An example? One of his recent columns carried the headline, "Bush must remember who's Hu in Beijing." Hu Jintao is the likely successor to power next year when Jiang Zemin steps down. He ended his piece with "Bush should make . . . [his] pitch while looking only at Jiang. But we all know Hu's on first."

It turns out that he has written several books on the use of words. His most recent is Let a Simile be Your Umbrella. I cut out an ad for this book and carried it around in my shirt pocket for over a week, moving it into clean shirts a couple of times along the way - looking at it each time it went into a new pocket. Finally - I SAY, FINALLY - I mentally removed the first "i" in "Simile" and the sky suddenly cleared. "Let a smile be your umbrella." The simile was perfect. I'm hoping to soon read the book.

BALONI HOTNEWS.COM WIRE, 20 February 2002.

Washington, D.C.: Sources here have revealed that, on September 12, 2002 Vice President Dick Cheney was spirited off to Texas and into a fruit cellar on a farm near Crawford, the "undisclosed secure location," where he remains to this day. The White House has refused comment. We now have reason to believe that a white pig has been cloned, using cells from Mr. Cheney's buttocks, and that it has been filling in for him at official functions. To take on the appearance of Mr. Cheney, it has been wearing a rubber head and carrying 470 pounds of Firestone tires around its midsection - and an occasional beanie cap with a propeller on top. This explains the infrequency with which the public has been seeing whom they presumed to be Mr. Cheney. In a recent press conference, he was asked again about the identities of the participants in his now infamous power policy board discussions. After some fidgeting, he responded with, "You'll have to ask Mr. Cheney, uh, er, duh, I mean, that's a private matter. For me to rat on him - - - I mean, for me to reveal the identities of my consultants would seriously jeopardize the integrity of my Presidency, I mean Vice Presidency - OH, HELL, you know what I mean. Sh- - Head! Isn't that a cute expression? I learned that from one of my friends at Enron."

IT'S MADNESS, I SAY. MADNESS!

It suddenly occurred to me the other day that I am not enjoying reading nearly as much as I use to. My otherwise scintillating personality is in the pits. Then I discovered why. I have been sucked into the "Current Events Tango." With the obsession with robberies, rapes, murders, kidnappings, molestations, drive-by shootings, harassments, and other violent events that are the exclusive purview of 6-oclock TV newscasts and our local rag: 9/11, the political back-stabbing, backside covering, spinning, corruption, soft money, lying, the incompetence of the CIA, FBI, the Department of Defense (and government in general), and the likes of Enron at the National level: and, on the International scene, starvation, ethnic cleansing, mass murders, weapons of mass destruction, Al Qaeda, medieval Afghani warlords, W's "Axis of Evil," and all the rest - it is no wonder. So I'm letting my subscriptions to The Economist, The New Republic and US News and World Report expire. I will only read selected articles in Newsweek and Washington Post Weekly. However, I suspect I will NOT pay a great deal of attention to the Sports section of the Dayton Daily. The news there, while on a completely different level of importance, is also less than encouraging. What I will do is renew my subscriptions to Natural History, Smithsonian, and Scientific American. I will get back to much more pleasant stuff. Maybe I'll read Lord of the Rings a third time.

THE FIVE-DAY OUTLOOK

The AccuThreat FIVE-DAY OUTLOOK below is from http://www.satirewire.com/index.shtml. I first became aware of this site via Gwynne Dyer's op-ed piece, "Evil axis satire closes in on truth", Dayton Daily, 18 February 2002. It is a hilarious site.

See you at the next rest stop.

Dr. Evil

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