Shiv to Shank
Friday turned out to be a great day for honest, poor people asthe business sections in the major newspapers across the countrymimicked crime blotters: Martha Stewart and Peter Bacanovic wereconvicted on all four charges levied against them regarding theinsider trading of ImClone stock, while evil former WorldCom CEOBernie Ebbers, and Scott Sullivan, the chief accountant or impishhenchman, were indicted in the largest accounting fraud scandal inthis nation’s history.
Last week, Multnomah County began issuing marriage licenses tosame-sex couples, only proving what we, at the Shivtastic desk ofShankdom, have known all along: that the Portland gay and lesbiancommunity is just as hip as the San Francisco gay and lesbiancommunity, which in turn are both way hipper than the New York gayand lesbian community. West Coast love!
John Henry Williams, son of baseball great Ted Williams, diedlast week of leukemia at age 35. John Henry Williams was in thenews last year surrounding a family controversy, which eruptedafter he took the recently deceased Ted Williams to an Arizona labto be cryogenically frozen. After the younger Williams’ death lastweek, his body was shipped to the same Arizona cryonics lab forfreezing as his late father was, only proving that with the help ofa little advanced technology, children can not only mirror theemotional frigidity of their parents, but now, also, their physicalfrigidity.
Let the mudslinging and the Shiving(tm) begin! The tepid-at-bestpresidential race heated up early this week, as President Bush madea joke about John Kerry (ZING!), who in turn, made a joke aboutPresident Bush (BAM!). The two caped crusaders reportedly met laterat an undisclosed location to reenact their college years, wherethey both made jokes about poor people and allegedly, got alongfamously.
Last week, NASA scientists reported what most uninsuredAmericans already suspected: Mars stinks! Large sulfur deposits onthe surface of the angry red planet would reportedly make it “smelllike a huge stinking shit pile making sweet, sweet love to a wholebunch of rotten eggs that would be vomiting up rancid fish. Andthey would probably be farting, too,” stated an undisclosed sourceat NASA. Instead of hefting millions of dollars at potty-mouthedNASA scientists to take us to this intergalactic version of MexicoCity, some people think some of that money should be used forhealth care, down here on the sweet-scented planet Earth.
On Monday, a second arrest was made in the ongoing UCLA bodyparts scandal, in which authorities claim that Henry Reid, thedirector of the program had been selling parts and sometimes evenwhole cadavers that had been willed to the university forscientific research, while he pocketed the cash. Reid hasmaintained that the university knew about his black market bodybusiness, but lawyers for UCLA have denied these claims, althoughsuspicions of their involvement crystallized, as it became knownthat they had awarded an honorary doctorate in anatomy to ArminMeiwes, the German cannibal.
Last week, a city resolution was passed to rezone a parking lotout by the airport designated as Dignity Village, to allow theorganization to maintain its current location. The city councilvoted unanimously for the resolution with the noted exception ofcurrent mayoral candidate and well-to-do trial lawyer, JimFrancesconi. Francesconi defended his objection, stating, “Hey. Iwouldn’t have any problem with homeless people, if they would justget a house, a car, a job, and make campaign contributions.”
The horrible thing about attempting to be a news organization ona university’s schedule (Besides letting one-source news storiesslip onto the front page due to time constraints.) is that whenevera school break occurs, thus stopping our production, inevitably ahuge news bombshell drops in the media. Last year on spring break,the U.S. government invaded Iraq. Over this last winter break, theU.S. Army captured Saddam Hussien. This year, as we take ourfaithful bucket of sangria to Cancun to get thoroughly “crunked,”we suspect one of five things may occur: the U.S. will invade theFrench-Canadian provenience of Quebec, John Ashcroft will exposehis breast on national television, President Bush will choke on hisfinal pretzel, Portland State University President Daniel Bernstinewill be revealed as a vampire, or Osama Bin Laden, will be caughtin full birka at MTV’s spring break extravagance.
