The entries are in and the votes are counted, and henceforth, the publication formerly known as News of the world will be referred to as the Middle-Wing Conspiracy (MWC) page. The name was suggested by alert reader Nick Locantore, who will receive a hearty handshake and a warm feeling in my heart. This is not much, but as he well knows, it's better than a swift kick in the pants. The first runner-up is the Dilbert-inspired TTN, nominated by alert reader Bill Duckworth. TTN stands for "The TTN News." The TTN name holds a very important position, because if, for any reason, the MWC name is unable to uphold its duties or poses nude in Penthouse magazine, TTN will take its place. I mention this because I have a feeling that I'll be drawn only fleetingly to MWC, and that the charming idiosyncracies that brought us together in the first place will eventually, but inexorably and irrevocably, drive us apart. So you could say I'm married to it.
I lay claim to the middle wing on the basis of my voting record. Over the course of several dozen elections, I've voted for both liberal Democrats and moderate Democrats. (Under threat of torture, I will admit that I've also voted, on rare occasions, for a Republican, such as Bill Clinton.) I should mention that I say this at risk of my job, because I work in Lake County, Illinois, where Democrats were outlawed in 1962. Unless they're only getting off the tollway to shop at the Gurnee Mills Mall and Traffic School Student Hangout.
Speaking of President Clinton, the latest in the Whitewater investigation is that (this is true) independent prosecutor Kenneth Starr is investigating the man the White House hired to investigate the people Starr hired to investigate the White House. Meanwhile, in Iraq, an agreement was made that averted war, disappointing the Pentagon, which has spent months creating secret war strategies and hiding them in the pages of The New York Times. To recap the controversy, we're upset with Saddam Hussein because he might use the biological weapons we gave him 10 years ago on us, despite the fact that they were very clearly marked for use on Iranians only. To punish him, we will either starve his citizens or bomb them back to the Stone Age, setting them back several years.
Americans are worried about things closer to home, however. In Las Vegas last Friday, microbiologist Larry Wayne Harris, of Lancaster, Ohio, and microbiology laboratory owner William Job Leavitt Jr., of Logandale, Nevada, were arrested with one of the most deadly substances ever manufactured by humans: the sport utility vehicle.
SUVs were the subject of a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study released this week. In 87% of crashes involving a car and an SUV last year, the only things left of the car and its occupants were some used Kleenexes and a large grease spot on the ground. Auto industry officials unanimously agreed that this is "not our fault." François Castaing, head of international operations for Chrysler, said, "It's not fair to blame the manufacturers for doing what the people want to buy." Castaing was immediately hired as a spokesperson by Colombia's Medellin cartel. He went on to unveil Chrysler's new marketing campaign:
The most egregiously offensive vehicles are the luxury super-sized SUVs like Ford's Expedition To Soccer Practice and Lincoln's Mall Parking Lot Navigator. Drivers of these "light trucks" are so incensed that their insurance rates might go up that they've had their servants write several angry letters to the editor. For example, Winnetka's Gregory S. Bickelhorfer suggests that "drivers of cars ought to be more careful" when driving near him. "Car drivers have no respect for SUVs. Sometimes, I'll be driving along when, less than a half mile in front of me, a car will turn into my lane while I'm checking my email on my cell phone. Why, one time I almost had to run over a curb, and my GMC Never Been Near The Yukon just isn't built for that sort of off-road driving."
Back in Washington, tensions built as Kenneth Starr unearthed evidence that in Florida last week, mischievous White House staffers dressed up as someone called "El Niño" (literally, the Niño), got in a Toyota Land 'N' Trailer Park Crusher and killed everyone in the Orlando area with the exception of an 18-month-old toddler, whose mattress (this is true) landed in a tree. "That'll teach trailer park people to sue us," former Clinton advisor James Carville said. In other El Niño news, the Pacific Ocean continued its land reclamation project in Malibu, California, last week while the rest of the country laughed and laughed and laughed.
Entertainment and Sports Briefs:
At the Grammy Awards this week, several dead people won Grammys, including John Denver, Charles Kuralt, and Bob Dylan. The still-living winners included Sarah McLachlan, Paula Cole, Shawn Colvin, and Fiona Apple, which are all pseudonyms for a woman named Lilith Fair.
The Olympics wound down in Nagano Japan, and if you were one of the 14 people who watched them on CBS, you know that the United States had one of its best Winter Games showings, although most of its medals came in events invented during the filming of Mountain Dew commercials. Also, the U.S. men's hockey team members, upset over a loss to Dominik Hasek and 5 guys from the streets of Prague, trashed their rooms and spread anthrax spores throughout the Olympic Village. Meanwhile, IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch deflected attention from reports that he had ties to the totalitarian regime of Generalissimo Francisco Franco. "I'll kill you!" he said. "You? - you're dead! Your parents - dead! Your brothers and sisters - dead! Your children - dead!"
Finally, controversy erupted this week when injured UConn women's basketball player Nykesha Sales was allowed, uncontested, to score the first two points in a game against Villanova, giving her UConn's all-time scoring record. The maneuver was approved in advance by Big East Conference commisioner Mike Tranghese, who told the New York Daily News that he wouldn't have allowed it to happen in a men's game, but "I really don't care what the chicks do." Sales was injured last weekend in a game against Notre Dame. With 9:48 to play in that game, Sales was driving to the basket for the record-breaking shot when she was run over by disabled golfer Casey Martin in his brand new Nike Nissan CartPathfinder.