Archive [July 2000]

MUSICAL FAIRNESS

Great Britain’s Labor government has published a booklet urging teachers to ban the game of… musical chairs. Yes, that musical chairs, the children’s favorite for generations. Why should it be prohibited? Well, because musical chairs is a confrontational nursery game that “encourages aggression.”

Sue Finch, the author of Towards a Non-Violent Society, does not approve of aggression. She says, “A little bit of competition is fine, but with musical chairs, the competition is not fair because it is always the biggest and strongest children who win.” She particularly dislikes the fact that “the strongest, fastest one who pushes the other children out of the way wins.” We can’t have that!

“Musical statues is better because everybody wins,” declares Ms. Finch. Obviously, a game that no self-respecting child would ever, ever, voluntarily play.

BOOM BOX RITES

“With all that talk about our armed forces getting short shrift under Clinton and Gore, you may have heard someone joke, “I’ll bet soon the military won’t even be able to afford buglers to play ‘Taps.’”

As with most jokes about this Administration, this one has come true. In lieu of military musicians, “funeral kits” are now being sent to military funerals. That’s right — our deceased veterans’ burial rights are being solemnized not with a military bugler, but with a compact disc version of “Taps” — to be played on a boom box. And if we are to believe the Clinton military brass, this is just hunkie dorie with everyone. According to NewsMax.com, a Pentagon spokeswoman said there have been no complaints. “The feedback we have gotten is that folks are pretty happy with it,” she said. Sure they are.

My advice: Don’t make a joke about Algore making the CDs double as field artillery.

MAD LABELER

In his never-ending search for a legacy other than the one he’s got, President Clinton now wants the government to make sure you know how to eat — just in case your mother, grandmother, or child care worker never taught you.

The President is requiring the government, for the first time, to require nutrition labels on beef and poultry. Many supermarkets already post nutrition information near their meat cases, and major meatpackers and poultry companies voluntarily put nutrition labels on packages. But that’s not good enough for Bill Clinton. “It’s time we made it mandatory,” he declares. The proposal is expected to take effect by the end of the year.

In announcing his new regulatory assault, the Perjurer-in-Chief let slip this doozy: “Providing citizens with accurate information that affects their lives is one of government’s most vital responsibilities,” he said.

Hmmm. Hopefully the information will be a little more accurate than your grand jury testimony.

Makeup Magic

Algore the Alpha Male—the macho, cowboy-booted, Internet-inventing absentee landlord — is on his 49th re-invention. At this writing, he’s on what I have dubbed his “P-P Tour,” his Progress and Prosperity tour. This one, like all the others before it, is going nowhere. But that is not my point. My point is, Algore is indeed crafting himself yet another identity. What is his secret? How does he do it? Until now, only his make-up artist knew for sure.

Turns out the model for Love Story wears the same makeup as actresses Lisa Kudrow and Catherine Zeta-Jones. It’s called …“Magic Wand.” Yes, the Vice President of the United States is relying on a device that sprays a light foundation of makeup onto his face. It’s an image maker that will be there for him, through thick and thin, no matter how many personalities he needs to create.

Don’t think that you can do this at home, though. The Magic Wand is pricey, costing between $350 and $475. Nothing, of course, that one Buddhist nun can’t handle.

Get Thee to a Gunnery

Under Labor Party Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bill Clinton’s bud, British armed forces are ready for the 21st century — as liberals envision it. In their enlightened world of peace and love and Kum Ba Yah, you see, soldiers would never actually shoot people. So the Brits are developing an appropriate military.

According to London’s Daily Telegraph, British Royal Navy recruits at the gunnery school in Plymouth (in southwest England) are being ordered not to fire live shells. Instead, they check their co-ordinates, line up a target, prepare to fire the shells…then they shout “BANG!”

You can’t make this stuff up, folks.

A Royal Navy spokesman said the gunnery school was scheduled to close next year; it was felt that live firing was no longer necessary. “This is part of the Armed Forces’ continuing efforts to achieve the best possible value for money,” the spokesman said. And after all, the shells cost hundreds of dollars each — look at how much they are saving here!

Of course, the sailors say it makes a mockery of their training. But what do they know? “It’s like being a kid again, playing cowboys and Indians in the school ground,” said one recruit. “It is a sad joke and sailors are disgusted. It makes you ask what the navy is coming to.” No, it doesn’t. It’s obvious what the British Navy is coming to: Liberal lunacy. But I repeat myself.

Wolf Man

Ted Turner, media mogul and purportedly soon-to-be ex-Mr. Jane Fonda, has managed to get some impressive government perks. He has persuaded the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, at taxpayer expense, to use helicopters and federal agents armed with dart guns to round up a pack of wolves caught feeding on cattle near Turner’s Flying D Ranch in Montana.

The gray wolves wandered north along the Yellowstone River after being uprooted from Alaska and Canada and “reintroduced” into Yellowstone National Park in 1995. So here’s Turner’s plan: the wolves will be taken to his ranch, where they will be fitted with shock collars so they can be taught not to attack cattle.

Yes. that’s right. Every time the wolves make a move on some four-legged potential meal, they get a jolt. “We’re going to try to teach these wolves that livestock aren’t prey items,” declares Ed Bangs, the Fish & Wildlife Service guy in charge of this “aversive conditioning.” If this doesn’t work, Turner plans on having all the wolves killed. In other words, the wolves will become prey items.

Isn’t liberalism grand?