MONDAY, MAY 5 The week kicks off with a story so brilliantly hilarious even its headline deserves a Pulitzer: GOP Not Anti-Gay Enough, Says Group. So wrote online newsgroup Data Lounge about the Concerned Women for America (CWA), who today made public their letter of censure to the chairman of the Republican National Committee, blasting him for toying with "sexual anarchy" by meeting with representatives of the Human Rights Campaign. "Reaching out to groups that unapologetically define themselves by their aberrant sexual practices will not help build the GOP," wrote CWA's Sandy Rios to Republican National Committee Chairman Marc Racicot, who earned additional Concerned Women scorn for failing to support Senator Rick Santorum, after the Pennsylvania senator drew heat for comparing consensual sex between adults of the same gender to bestiality and incest. "You will be way off course if you allow a sex-driven interest group to set your agenda," warned CWA's Rios, in a letter that was, by all accounts, passionate, intelligible, and grammatically obedient. However, any claim to moral superiority or even functional sanity made by the Concerned Women for America is belied by the organization's website, which features the most mind-boggling array of antiquated hogwash this side of the Old Testament. Unsurprisingly, the Concerned Women are obsessed with sex, particularly the mechanics of sex between men, which they dissect with the titillated horror of fourth-graders watching Porky's, going so far as to invent their own anal ailment--the oft-mentioned, entirely fictional "gay bowel syndrome"--to support their life-or-death stance against men putting pee-pees in each other's poo-poos. Thankfully, the Concerned Women's hysterical lunacy is evident even to Republicans, who dismissed the CWA's concerns with a spokesman's statement: "Chairman Racicot continues to meet with many groups all across the country to share the president's compassionate conservative agenda and listen."
TUESDAY, MAY 6 Just in time for the forthcoming "swimsuit season," today brought a peerless appetite suppressant from Hot Tipper Kyle, who was enjoying the scenery at the Broadway Market's Bulldog News this morning when his eyes fell on a "tall, skinny man in his mid- thirties, with a large sheet of paper towels stuck to the side of his neck." At first Kyle imagined the man had cut himself shaving, but closer inspection revealed the paper towel to be stuck to "a massively ulcerated wound" running the length of the man's neck. Even worse, Kyle's friend Theresa soon identified the man as the same guy she'd seen two nights earlier, when she and her boyfriend had gaped in horror as the Human Scab sat in a Broadway bar tearing "chunks of flesh from his foot" over "a blood-soaked carpet." Thanks to Kyle for sharing, and a big box of Altoids to the first person who sends in a photo of the Human Scab in action.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 7 Today pessimists received further proof of the inherent horribleness of humanity as news agencies across the U.S. reported on the grotesque girl-on-girl hazing incident in Northbrook, IL. To the morbid delight of everyone except the victims, the hazing was caught on tape by onlookers at what was supposed to be a "powder puff" football game between junior and senior girls at Glenbrook North High School. But as anyone who witnessed the video can attest, the game soon devolved into a female Lord of the Flies, with a slew of girls forced to eat dirt, fish guts, and pet food before being beaten to the ground and doused with human excrement. According to Northbrook's NBC5, five students were taken to the hospital (including one with a broken ankle), and at least one parent has hired an attorney to sue for medical expenses from her daughter's injuries from the event.
··Speaking of freakish things done in the service of "sisterhood": Tonight brought a brand-new episode of Sorority Life, MTV's reality series tracking the Greeky adventures of sorority pledges at the University of Buffalo. Always deeply stupid, the show outdid itself tonight, providing one of the greatest scenarios in the history of reality TV. After pledge sister Julia comes home with a new tattoo on her back--reportedly featuring Julia's cherished nickname, "JEWELZ"--the girls agonize over how to tell Julia of her tattoo artist's spelling error, which reconfigured Julia's nickname as the deeply unfortunate "JEWLEZ." Despite being neither Jewish nor lesbian, Julia did her best to make lemonade from the hideous lemon permanently inked onto her back. "Well," said Julia to the confessional camera, "I'm gonna be rich when I grow up, so I can just get laser surgery." That's the spirit, JEWLEZ.
THURSDAY, MAY 8 Nothing happened today, unless you count the school bus driver in Dublin, Georgia, who called police to report the burgling of his home, specifying the loss of his pot stash. "I asked him, 'Why are you telling us you had marijuana?'" said Dublin detective Sgt. Tommy Cobb to the Associated Press. "He said he was always told to tell the truth." (Further proof that pot smokers are the best people on Earth. Nice work, Otto.)
FRIDAY, MAY 9 Just in time for TopOff 2, today Reuters reported al Qaeda's plans for a new attack on the United States. Speaking via e-mail with the London-based Arabic weekly Al-Majalla, al Qaeda "media coordinator" Thabet bin Qais confirmed "plans being made now for a strike the size of the September 11 attacks in the United States" by a restructured al Qaeda. As for last month's capture of six al Qaeda members allegedly planning an attack on the U.S. consulate in Karachi, Mr. bin Qais dismissed the arrests, saying, "The Americans are moving in the expected direction" and promising a homeland attack equal in magnitude to 9/11. Granted, one goal of terrorism is to inspire and sustain terror. But don't say they never warned us.
SATURDAY MAY 10 Nothing happened today (unless you count Last Days' lucky discovery of Radar magazine, whose premiere issue hit newsstands this month. Promising "fresh intelligence" on "pop/politics/scandal/ style," Radar bolts from the gate like E! with a PhD in cultural studies, and the results are exactly as heavenly as you'd wish).
SUNDAY MAY 11 Speaking of exciting developments in postmodern journalism: Acknowledging the event as "a low point in the 152-year history of the newspaper," today the New York Times admitted the extensive journalistic fraud committed by Jayson Blair, a 27-year-old Times reporter found guilty of "widespread fabrication and plagiarism" during his four-year stint at the Times. The specifics of Blair's case provide further intrigue: Using his cell phone and laptop, Blair duped editors and readers with false dispatches allegedly sent from points across the country while the writer remained firmly in New York. According to the Times, Jayson Blair filled in his journalistic blanks with details glommed from photographs, info swiped from other news sources, and good old-fashioned fiction, using his shifty techniques to report some of the most serious stories in recent U.S. history, including "on the scene" accounts from D.C. during the Beltway sniper attacks, and "interviews" with families grieving for loved ones slain during military service in Iraq. "In the final months the audacity of the deceptions grew by the week," reported today's shamefaced Times, "suggesting the work of a troubled young man veering toward professional self-destruction."
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