Yesterday I made that joke about National Secretary's Day before seeing a NY Times story that said that not only are Easter & Good Friday this week, but also anniversary of the Bay of Pigs (39 today!), the Branch Davidian massacre, Ruby Ridge if I'm not mistaken, the Oklahoma City bombing, and Columbine.

The Bush campaign boasted that his wonderful job on education in Texas was praised by none other than "Al Gore's Secretary of Education, Dr. Bill Riley." This is evidently one of those "see how many mistakes you can spot" tests. Um, three.

Al Gore revealed that as a child he learned how to hypnotize a chicken. This would explain a lot.

Just in case you thought the Russians were hiding some of the soldiers killed in the Chechen war, they buried 101 today. I don't think I mentioned it last week, but the Times ran the most disgusting story of the week, which said... oh, before I forget this little detail, the 101 were killed in the 1994-6 Chechen war, not the current one. Which said that there were hundreds of these bodies kept in railway cars, some on military bases, some evidently in Chechnya, from the earlier war. Refrigerated cars, but the refrigeration cut out a couple of years ago. They're supposed to do DNA tests or do something to identify the bodies, but of course haven't. I'll stop here cause I just had dinner and I'm beginning to disgust myself.

Thabo Mbeki, who if you've forgotten is the president of South Africa, has declared that he is looking for an African approach to solving AIDS. This after last year's scandal when the government refused to pay for a fairly cheap drug that would have prevented or at least made less likely the transmission of HIV from pregnant mothers to feti. Now he's throwing in his lot with the idiots who insist HIV has nothing to do with AIDS. If you're thinking he got this off the Internet, you're right.

Israel wants legislation to legalize hostage-taking. I don't understand those people.

Not to suggest that racism ever went away, but it really does look like racism has become the new ideology. And unlike free-market capitalism, democracy and communism, it never goes out of style. The Italian government just fell on an upsurge of anti-immigrant sentiment. William Hauge, in a speech the Telegraph claims is the most important of his leadership, says that asylum-seekers should be interned. Mugabe says that whites are the enemies of the nation, and he says it after two are murdered. Even Mbeki's speech on Western medicine and AIDS comes across pretty racist, and South Africa is considering adopting the sort of land distribution that's doing Mugabe's popularity so much good over the border. And Belgium is about to deport 1,500 Slovak gypsies (I knew I had another example).

The Vatican is revising the rules for exorcisms, unchanged since 1614 (did you know the pope performed an exorcism himself, as pope in 1982?). In the future, the "evil eye" does not count.

Congressional historians are trying to construct an oral history of the Lewinsky matter. The London Times suggests that they must have no sense of irony.

Amazingly enough, there was no Elian news today. How will we fill the empty hours? A couple of days ago the Miami Gonzalezes said that he shouldn't be returned this week because it was Easter. They also noted that next week there was National Secretary's Day...

Gore's new issue: a ban on guns in churches. Well, it's no sillier than Bush pretending to care about the environment and health care. There is an interesting review of the new bio of Gore by Jacob Weisberg (the review, not the book) in Slate.

A few weeks ago I commented that any time Clinton travels, in this case to South Asia, they expel beggars, arrest dissidents, close off entire cities and ban all demonstrations. Well, Clinton himself has admitted that his visit was the cause of the massacre of Kashmirs. He didn't sound especially worried about that, either.

Word to be used as often as possible: globaloney, to describe the nonsense about how globalization is the future and anyone who doesn't spread their legs for the multi-nationals is a raving luddite.

The most expensive Congressional campaign is expected to be that of Clinton prosecutor James Rogan, despite the fact that he's running against Adam "Just make the deal, Jack" Schiff.

The Clinton administration, in responding to the many subpoenas, evidently didn't go through back up hard drives. Evidently subpoenas were just suggestions, requests that they find any information that didn't involve too much work on their part.

Visiting Britain, where he got to sip tea with the Queen, Vladimir Putin, sticking one blood-soaked pinkie out in the approved manner, said that Russia had been left to fight alone in its struggle against Islamic fundamentalist international terrorism. Isn't that what the Serbs always say?

Brazil just checked by satellite, and 70 schools the state was funding in the deepest Amazon turned out not to exist. Others were over the border in Peru or Bolivia.

I was reading that a military museum in Scotland is getting a new exhibit, one of those mythical Bibles-that-stopped-a-bullet. The guy involved, a WW I soldier, lived another 74 years. And probably told the story several thousand times.

Several days ago, the papers all reported that a Dubya appointee to the Commission on Law Enforcement Standards in Texas denied that a certain racial epithet was a racial epithet. Unfortunately, the papers didn't report the actual racial epithet, in one of those PC moments that no one can be proud of. I can now report that the actual term was "porch monkeys".

In an effort to save giant pandas from extinction, they will be given Viagra, and I intend to make no joke about this.

As the Washington Post points out, Ralph Reed, the Christian Coalition weasel turned lobbyist, has expressed regret for doing exactly what Microsoft hired him to do, lobby politicians, including the one he also happened to have been hired by.

Quote of the week: Rep. Joseph Pitts (R-Penn.) said that amendments to the bill to ban "partial-birth" abortions would allow a woman "having a bad day" to get an abortion.

As I said, I hate to be supporting the white landowners in Zimbabwe, but there it is. Incidentally, an opposition leader says that if he wins the next elections, he will seize the farms which have been seized by Mugabe cronies. This could be fun, but I don't foresee a lot of planting getting done. Which is too bad, since the banking system is dependent on mortgages paid by white farmers and the economy on farm exports.

Florida is doing something or other to make it possible to harvest organs from those it executes. I assume with their consent, although you never know in Florida.

Just because Nawaz Sharif's wife declared her intention to lead his party after his conviction does not, as it turns out, mean that the party has to accept her as its leader. And it didn't.

If Germans were not all comfortable with the Christian Democratic Union being run by a cripple, they surely won't be happy with the female Easterner they just replaced him with. Don't bother learning her name, she will never run the country, being about as electable in the modern Germany as someone named Seymour Lipschitz.

London Times:

Gnomes released into wild
FROM ADAM SAGE IN PARIS

A SINISTER threat returned to haunt suburban France yesterday when the infamous Garden Gnome Liberation Front (GLF) claimed its most daring exploit to date.

In a statement, the Paris branch said that it had "freed" 20 of the 2,000 gnomes on display at an exhibition in the Bagatelle Park on the outskirts on the French capital.

A GLF statement said: "We want to end the ridicule to which these garden gnomes are subjected. We want to return them to their natural habitat by releasing them into the forests they should never have left."

The theft came more than two years after French justice dismantled a movement that began as a student joke but turned into a wide-ranging social trend that forced home-owners to buy guard dogs and lock up their gnomes at night.

On that occasion, in November 1997, three men were given suspended prison sentences and a fourth lost his driving licence.

Some must-reads in the Friday Washington Post (which can be accessed at least a day or two later, if need be). In the world section, there's a story about massacres of Vietnamese civilians during the Vietnam War, by, of all people, South Korean troops. And a story about Quebec, which I've mentioned before, about how all the orphanages turned into insane asylums because there was more federal money in it if they were, and the nuns (all social services in Quebec being run by the Catholic Church, which from all reports was represented in Quebec entirely by paedophiles and sadists) started treating these perfectly normal orphans and illegitimate children like mental patients, drugging them and electro shock and so on. In the national section of the Post, there's a long but entertaining story about St. Elian of Little Havana and exile politics, with guest appearances by famous Cubans like one of Nixon's Plumbers. No one mentioned Ricky Ricardo, though. Hey, isn't it about time Bush or Gore named Elian as his running mate?

In other horror stories, Israel finally released one of its Lebanese hostages, this one after 10 years (and 4 years held by the Lebanese Christian militias before that). The only country in the world in which torture is a recognized aspect of the judicial process and hostage-taking is announced government policy. I saw Netanyahu a few days ago in an interview with Israeli tv, telling improbable stories about how he happened to have in his possession all these expensive gifts given to the nation of Israel by foreign leaders.

Thus proving that all politicians are criminals. More cases in point: the Republican who asked Bill Gates, now touring D.C. (the Washington he owns only half of) drumming up support, why Microsoft hadn't given more money to Republicans. It hardly gets more blatant, unless you count Japan, which has chosen as its new prime minister one of the thieves in the Recruit scandal a little over a decade ago, one who walked away with a million dollars in ill-gotten gains. And Helmut Kohl, now trying to suppress Stasi tapes of him taking bribes as long ago as the mid-70s.

The good news: Tennessee did not execute anyone this week, making it still the only Southern state not to have executed anyone recently. One of the targets was a man who was involved in a shoot-out with police, although it's pretty damn clear that the cop who was killed was actually shot by another cop. By the way, if and when Pennsylvania gets around to executing Mumia, remind me to tell you what I know about that case; no one story ever includes all the sordid details, of which there are a great many.

Today's NY Times had an article about consultants who help school districts make Medicaid claims (some of them semi-fraudulent) in exchange for 20% of the rake-off.

The street betting in Pakistan on deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif getting the death penalty tomorrow is 4:1. His wife is already threatening to take his place. We've seen a lot of these Asian widows/daughters taking over from dead male relatives, but this may be the first time it's been suggested before the event.

I haven't decided yet how I should feel about the situation in Zimbabwe, where Mugabe is encouraging squatters to terrorize white farm owners into giving up their land. Put that way it sounds clear enough, and ex-colonialists or not, some of these families have no doubt been there since most of our ancestors came to America, but they do own a rather huge percentage of the good farmland. If the government seizes it, as Mugabe failed to get approved in a referendum just a month or two ago, it will all go to Mugabe's friends where it will be left to rot. Still, it's hard to have to side with the imperialists. Britain is making plans to evacuate the country of whites, and Mugabe keeps calling them gay, today specifically naming junior foreign office minister (something like an assistant secretary of state in the US) Peter Hain of being gay, which I'm pretty sure he's not. Hain earlier in his life was an anti-apartheid activist forced out of South Africa, where he was born (I should probably say that he's white).

In theatre news, Kathleen Turner appears naked in a production of a stage version of The Graduate.

Dubya thanked Kansas for voting for him in the primary yesterday, except there was no primary yesterday: it was cancelled in February.

The Wall Street Journal points out that while Gore piped up on the issue of Elian Gonzales, he won't express an opinion on the fate of Microsoft. I think a truly Solomonic decision would involve splitting up Elian and sending Bill Gates to Cuba.

A mother went to testify to the character of her 18-year old son, just convicted of murder in North Carolina. Except they stopped her at the door for being 3 times over the legal limit.

The Project Censored report is out. You can find it in this week's Bay Guardian and no doubt on its own site. Some of the top censored stories you heard from me, on Kosovo and such. They mention the relationship between multinational companies and 3rd World violence, a recent theme of mine. The one story that was new to me said that the American Cancer Society not only spends most of its money on its own bureaucracy but also won't say anything about the actual chemical causes of some cancers and that it sides with drug companies. Another story is about the neglect of research into drugs for tropical diseases like malaria.

Dubya: "Reading is the basics for all learning."

Last week Dubya vowed to remove the federal "cuff links" from local schools.

Maine passes a law renaming every place with "squaw" in the name.

From one of the countries responsible for the $1.79 it cost for each gallon of gas I put in my car today: the United Arab Emirates sentences a woman to four months imprisonment because she cast a spell on her husband and sister-in-law, causing them to be possessed by a demon. The court appointed a committee of religious scholars to hear the demon's testimony.

Really.

A German general says that the Serbian "plan" to ethnically cleanse Kosovo was pretty much a fake. Those maps we saw as proof last April were drawn up by Germans, and the name of it, Operation Horseshoe, wasn't even rendered correctly, as the Germans evidently didn't know that the word horseshoe is slightly different in Croatian than in Serbian, and used the former.

The Scottish police, who already take DNA samples of prisoners convicted of rape and burglary and such, are now taking them from those convicted of racial offences. There's something rather ironic about DNA being used in this way.

The queen was in Australia this week. At one pre-school, a three-year old boy who hadn't had the benefits of the months of training in how to treat a monarch, repeatedly asked her "What's your name?" She failed to answer. If she had, I have no idea what she would have called herself. I'm Liz; Mrs Windsor; I'm the fucking queen, that's who I am....

Courtesy of the NY Times and the US Supreme Court, the exact description of one part of the body which is supposed to be covered in strip clubs in a Florida county (they were less forthcoming about the legal description of a nipple):

"The area at the rear of the human body (sometimes referred to as the glutaeus maximus) which lies between two imaginary lines running parallel to the ground when a person is standing, the first or top of such line being one-half inch below the top of the vertical cleavage of the nates (i.e., the prominence formed by the muscles running from the back of the hip to the back of the leg) and the second or bottom line being one-half inch above the lowest point of the curvature of the fleshy protuberance (sometimes referred to as the gluteal fold), and between two imaginary lines, one on each side of the body (the 'outside lines'), which outside lines are perpendicular to the ground and to the horizontal lines described above and which perpendicular outside lines pass through the outermost point(s) at which each nate meets the outer side of each leg.

"Nothwithstanding the above, buttocks shall not include the leg, the hamstring muscle below the gluteal fold, the tensor fasciae latae muscle or any of the above-described portion of the human body that is between either the left inside perpendicular line and the left outside perpendicular line or the right inside perpendicular line and the right outside perpendicular line. For the purpose of the previous sentence the left inside perpendicular line shall be an imaginary line on the left side of the anus that is perpendicular to the ground and to the horizontal lines described above and that is one-third the distance from the anus to the left outside line, and the right inside perpendicular line shall be an imaginary line on the right side of the anus that is perpendicular to the ground and to the horizontal lines described above and that is one-third of the distance from the anus to the right outside line. (The above description can generally be described as covering one-third of the buttocks centered over the cleavage for the length of the cleavage.)"

The Uganda cult death toll has beaten out Jonestown, although it is still well below the Crusades. There are still several thousand people unaccounted for.

Since the mayor of Miami and the mayor of Dade County (I know, that doesn't make sense, but that's how I remember his title) have effectively seceded from the union, I say that there is a simple solution to the Elian Gonzales issue: give Miami to Cuba.

----------------------------------------
New York Mag competition 3/27/00

Epitaphs:

It's a Plot--Oliver Stone

Afterthought--Rene Descartes

Not to be--Hamlet

So what's the deal with tombstones?--Jerry Seinfeld

I am dead. Dead I am.--Dr. Suess

Forest Lawn 90068--Tori Spelling

William H. Gates has performed an illegal operation and been shut down.

George Washington. Born: the Fourth Monday in February. Died: December 14, 1799

R.I.P.E. --Dan Quayle

If I'm not entombed / You must exhume--Johnnie Cochran

Celebrity
9:45 p.m.-10 p.m. --Andy Warhol

For a horrifying look at Sweden's 1935-75 sterilization campaign, using laws copied from the Nazis, see the Friday London Times.

Canada may repeal a 1756 proclamation offering a bounty for Indian scalps in Nova Scotia.

Oslo, Norway will allow Muslims to broadcast the call the prayer, and will allow atheists using megaphones to proclaim "God does not exist!"

The same Shas party rabbi who's been calling for the death of the Israeli education minister last year accused Supreme Court judges of having had sex with menstruating women. No word on how he knows this.

DNA tests say that there is no trace of Neanderthals in Homo sap.

I was quite excited for a minute until the story turned out so much less interesting than I'd hoped. The first case of sexual harassment in space. Except it wasn't, it was on the ground in a reproduction of the Mir space station, in which astronauts were stuck for 110 days. Evidently they had a millennium party that got a bit out of hand and one of the Russians assaulted a Quebecer. The Russians are saying it's a cultural difference, that for the Russians a kiss on the lips is just like a kiss on the cheek. She's saying, he stuck his fucking tongue down my throat. Still, it would have been a real story if it had happened in space.

If the Russians aren't big on political correctness, how 'bout them Swedes, who just introduced a maternity military uniform for pregnant officers.

After all that talk about Chile being allowed to try Pinochet themselves, Congress passed a law giving former presidents complete immunity from prosecution.

Clintonism of the week: This is from the Bloody Sunday inquiry in Britain. General Robert Ford says of his leaked 1972 memo, "The suggestion to shoot a few leaders was not a suggestion to kill them."

The House of Lords has just had defibrilators installed.

So 550+ Ugandans are murdered by cult leaders who promptly disappear with their money and it barely even makes the papers. You really have to wonder.

You heard it here first: Jorg Haidar is gay!

I should feel guilty about knowing and enjoying the fact that this particular "charge" is what could really damage the fascist asshole, but I don't.

The new status symbol among billionaires is evidently sleep. 8, 9 hours a night.

David Trimble wins the challenge to his leadership of the Ulster Unionist Party, but they put a new condition on re-entry into a power-sharing executive for Northern Ireland: the Royal Ulster Constabulary, long a symbol of occupation, remain that symbol by retaining its name and the crown on its insignia and so forth. An entirely symbolic measure is to be the make-or-break condition for peace in the North. These people are idiots. On the other hand, last I heard they were still looking for a new new name for the RUC when Northern Ireland Police Service was shot down for what should be obvious reasons.

The British military has a new toy: a £25,000 pound sniper rifle capable of taking out a tank.

Speaking of toys: the Israelis plan to safeguard their new border if they hand back the Golan Heights by the use of nuclear landmines.

In 1972, 3 members of Black September were captured at the Munich Olympics. I'm a little unclear on the details, even after reading the Observer's story twice (www.newsunlimited.co.uk if you want to give it a shot), but the Germans evidently faked a plane hijacking in order to hand them back (Black Sept. were threatening a bombing campaign if they weren't released) not 8 weeks after the massacre. One is still alive. This is the reason the Israelis spent all that effort tracking down Palestinian terrorists and the occasional waiter (oops) and killing them.

If you'd like some more oil companies to boycott, how about the ones including BP and Amoco, but also Exxon and some others, who financed the 1993 coup in Azerbaijan that put dictator wannabe Aliyev in power. BP has close connections with MI6, so I'm assuming that that coup was one of ours as well as Britain's. Which makes it one of Clinton's.

Thai elephants, fired from their logging jobs and making themselves obnoxious begging in the streets, have now been given new careers as artists. That was a really sentence I just wrote, wasn't it? But true, of course, and their paintings are going for quite a bit of money. They're evidently rather like De Kooning's.

Moscow has its first Ikea store.

But does it have democracy? This is the question asked in two op-ed pieces in the Sunday New York Times. You know, will Putin operate democratically, will democracy win in this election. The obvious answer is no. Putin refused to run for office, accepting only a coronation. He has refused to campaign, refused to advertise, refused to debate and refused to issue a platform. There may be an election tomorrow, but there cannot be democracy without some sense of what is being voted for.

The real question is, who are those idiots in Russia who are reassured that a government run entirely by KGB hacks, as Putin is threatening to install, will clean up corruption? Who says the KGB isn't corrupt? You only have to look further up this page: Aliyev was KGB, and he sold out his country to British Petroleum and Standard Oil of Indiana.

Various people have been vandalizing oil pipelines in Nigeria, so the government has set up a special police force to shoot them (that's what it says, not arrest them, shoot them). So it must be about time to boycott Shell again.

Fun fact of the week: people whose penises have been amputated because of cancer report having phantom erections.

The spiritual leader of Israel's Shas party issued what can only be described as a fatwa against the education minister. I was expecting to hear today (no I wasn't, but let's say I was for the sake of argument) that Shas was expelled from the governing coalition or asked to repudiate the statements, since calling for the murder of your coalition partners is usually not considered to be (yes I know, but I'm going to do it anyway) kosher.

According to the TV Guide, the following two game shows, whose descriptions I am putting down verbatim, believe it or not, premiere Monday on the USA channel:

Crush: In this game show, contestants question three acquaintances and try to guess which one has a crush on them.

Friends or Lovers: Contestants must choose between their best friends and their lovers when the two clash, then go on vacation with the partner they chose.

The apocalypse is at hand, people, and it's listed in the TV Guide. Whatever tv executive thought, Hey, let's turn the Jerry Springer show into a game show! made more money last year than you did.

Other stupid ideas: a gentleman tried to smuggle a 16-inch boa constrictor in his underparts when he flew into Paris from Colombia. Ignoring the obvious is that a boa constrictor in your pocket joke, who puts something called a constrictor in their underwear?

Taiwan just voted out of office the only foreign leader whose name Dubya could guess at in that quiz.

The British government plans to let insurance companies require genetic testing and charge people higher rates accordingly.

Clinton is to visit his 62nd country while in office. He must have the coolest passport in the world. India is throwing all its beggars out of wherever it is Clinton's going, Pakistan has banned all demonstrations forever, and god knows what Bangladesh is doing. At least he's not going to China where they always put all the dissidents in jail before the visit of any US official, leading you to ask why the Americans show up at all.

Answer: because they don't care.

The British government is planning to change some of its laws to deal more effectively with repeat criminals. So it's setting up focus groups, as is the Blair government's wont. With convicted burglars.

Robert Mugabe says that the British government is promoting homosexuality throughout the world and only Zimbabwe is standing in its way. Damn you to hell Hugh Grant, we will thwart your evil schemes. (I know Hugh Grant isn't gay, but doesn't he seem like he should be?) Personally I think Magabe's just over-compensating, like Tony Randall. I mean would a straight man rename Salisbury, Rhodesia as Harare, Zimbabwe? I think not. Actually, they both sound pretty gay now that I'm thinking about it.

2 New York Magazine competitions

1/17/00, children's books:

Goldilocks Does the Three Bears.

Victoria's Secret Garden

Little Crackhouse on the Prairie

The Little Search Engine That Could

Charlotte's Website

So You're Going to Be Tried as an Adult

See Dick

Horton Hires a Ho

Fun with Old Refrigerators

The Caramel Sutra

Why Little Irving Has No Foreskin

Have You Smelled the Muffin Man?

Alice in Wonderbra

How the Leper Lost his Spots

Fear and Loathing at FAO Schwartz

Look, Mommy, a Drag Queen

My Day with Dad's New Trophy Wife

Noddy Goes Postal

Curious George W. Bush

Timothy Outs the Tooth Fairy

A Donner Family Christmas

The Hardy Boys Go To Amsterdam

Where are Waldo's Underpants?

My Mommy is My Sister (Chinatown for Children)

Stuart's Little (But It's Okay)

A Pokemon Passover

You Might Be Adopted If....

===================================

2/14/00: one-letter substitutions

You've Got Bail

Torched By an Angel

Love me or lease me

New York, the City that Never Sweeps

Boys will be boss

I'm OK, You're OJ

The first thing we do, let's bill all the lawyers

These are the mimes that try men's souls.

That will does not kill us makes us stranger.

A horse divided cannot stand.

The truth shall make you flee

Anything you lay can and will be used against you.

Hostile makeovers

Anna and the King of Spam

PMS Pinafore

[NOTE: More New York Magazine competitions here.]

Presidential candidates have been saying that it was a disgrace that military families were on food stamps. Yes it was, not because they are paid too little but because the USDA evidently calculates eligibility in such a way as to exclude all the free housing those people get.

I've received my census form and I'm trying to decide what race I'm going to be. I'm thinking of writing in "none". Or perhaps something from the Star Trek universe.

In 1941 the Census Bureau told the government where to find Japanese Americans for internment. I may have to rethink the idea of listing my race as Romulan.

The Finnish Prime Minister is taking a week's paternity leave.

So, to what extent was the Bosnian civil war a matter of ethnic conflict and to what extent a decision by Tudjman and Milosevic to carve it up? Well, the new Croatian president has discovered a secret hotline to Milosevic. If we're really lucky, there are tapes somewhere.

The Vermont "civil unions" look about as good as marriage to me, including a couple of elements I hadn't thought of. The funny part is that there will be a divorce procedure. Imagine the state making it difficult to get out of a gay marriage! One benefit: immunity from testifying against one's spouse, or civil co-unionist or whatever they're supposed to be called.

NY Governor Pataki has a gun idea I swear I've never heard of before and should have, indeed should have thought of myself: require that all guns sold be test-fired and their ballistics recorded.