A pleasant Monday to all of you.  Apologies are in order.  From the fact that you are reading this, we can surmise that you have not recently made any destructive life decisions like, for example, giving up the internet for Lent.  From that, it can be further surmised that you have noticed an unbecoming lack of updates on The Talking Mirror.  It’s true, we have been woefully negligent in our duties as of late.  There is really no excuse for this.  Ok, so maybe there are two.  The lure of a temperate climate (Kent) and the remarkably unfunny Chicago weather (Conor) have prevented us from giving the site the attention it and you deserve.

Sadly, I do not have anything funny to lay at your feet this evening.  I have come instead to ask for your patience and to assure you that we are working on it.  TTM is in the process of trimming down and honing the focus of its ire and – as a result – inspiration has not been as forthcoming as it was when we were writing about homeschoolers, Twilight, and Tila Tequila.

But fear not, dear readers, the humor will return.  When?  Who can say?  All we can say is that, like Brett Favre and The Fast and the Furious franchise, we will return.  We hope to see you on the other side.

In the interim, you can continue getting your fix of funny on any of the excellent sites in our blogroll as well as on the new blog created by TTM co-founder Kent Woodyard.  It’s called fiveminuteanswers.net.  You should check it out.  The rest should be fairly self-explanatory.

As always, thanks for following and reading and laughing.  Keep the faith alive.  We’ll see you again soon(ish).

Sincerely,

Kent and Conor

Gut instinct tells me he’s talking about the front gate at Disneyworld on Labor Day Weekend but odds are better he means eastbound Interstate 10 entering New Orleans.

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

When creating a profile of the future rulers of the planet, qualities like submissiveness, patience, and timidity don’t typically top the list.  But perhaps they should.  In a world increasingly taken with gun ownership, WMDs, and Michael Bay movies, it makes sense that the future would belong to the draft dodger and conscientious objector.  Think of the meek people in your life.  My guess is they aren’t the ones getting mixed up in gang violence or addicted to smack (same thing, I know).  They’re the ones hiding in their panic room with an Amazon Kindle and a mountain of batteries.  Sounds to me like meekness is the name of the game.  Especially when the “game” is nuclear holocaust.

“If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘move from here to there,’ and it will move.”

With all deference to Wegener’s The Origin of Continents and Oceans, this appears to be the first recorded lecture on the theory of plate tectonics.  Jesus has apparently gained awareness of Jerusalem’s location at the collisional boundary of the Eurasian and Arabian Plates and is attempting to explain geosynclinal theory to a crowd of illiterate herdsmen.  No small task, I can assure you.  In this instance, he is likely making reference to the year 80-207-684 A.D. when continental drift will cause the low-lying mountains of the Eastern Mediterranean to collide with modern-day Pittsburgh.

“Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”

Doable.  Assuming all specs and submittals are in order and all necessary city, state, and local permits are processed and assuming we’re building on the existing slab and all necessary underground work is in place and in good condition, we could do it.  Get me some high-wattage light towers, an 80-ton tower crane, two boomlifts, and forty laborers with minimum ten years Tilt-up experience.  We’ll use pre-fabbed components and work around the clock.  The union will be all over my ass and OSHA’s gonna throw their usual “standard workday” bull spit at me, but we’ll git er done.  It won’t be easy, and it probably won’t look as nice as this one you got here, but I can guaran-damn-tee you’ll have the keys by sunup Monday.  Lord willing.

“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”

You ever tried to smoke a cigarette on the observation deck at the Space Needle?  Impossible.  Take my word for it.  No way, no how.  You take one puff and before you can say “civil liberties” some granola-humper has ripped it out of your mouth and stubbed it out on her hardback copy of Catch-22.  So yeah, I guess rich people aren’t going to heaven because there’s no way in hell you’re getting a Camel up the Space Needle.

Okay, so maybe that’s a little extreme.  Obviously there are worse places in the world than an American freeway at rush hour.  (The back seat on a Greyhound bus comes to mind.)  Can we at least agree that traffic is the most annoying thing in the world?  And yes, I’m putting it above Wanda Sykes, rainy weekends, and middle schoolers in a movie theater.

To say traffic is one of my pet peeves would be like saying that civil liberties were one of Stalin’s pet peeves or that George W. Bush “annoyed” some political science professors.  I hate traffic.  It makes me crazy.  No matter how much I brace for it or plan my trip to account for it, I always end up losing my freaking mind.  I gesture and curse, I rant and rave, I call down fire from heaven.  I go nuts.

I don’t like feeling this way.  The occasional longwinded rant notwithstanding, I consider myself a fairly even-tempered guy.  I’m not prone to fits of rage and I don’t often ponder the ways my temperament might be improved by an automatic weapon.  Traffic makes me do these things.  But why?  Why have six short months in Los Angeles (aka The Julliard School for traffic jams of promise) transformed me from Jeffrey Lebowski into a ball of rage who is perhaps only days away from (a) some serious stomach ulcers and/or (b) pleading guilty to vehicular homicide?  I have some theories.

My first problem with traffic is that it is an inexcusable underutilization of one of the great inventions of human existence: the automobile.  The automobile is a wonder of modern technology.  It allows us to travel at speeds unimaginable even 100 years ago.  Yet there it sits, bumper to bumper with its similarly impotent peers, while lesser modes of transit like bicycles and feet race ahead on nearby pedestrian walkways.  I defy anyone to show me a situation more frustrating, more enraging, more downright tragic than watching an octogenarian in a motorized cart reach your exit before you do.

And my car isn’t just sitting anywhere mind you.  It’s sitting on a freeway. Freeways are to cars what military service is to high school linebackers.  It’s what they were made for.  Sitting in a car that’s parked on an interstate is like starving at a Golden Corral.  You have a machine (your vehicle or your mouth, respectively) which wants to do only one thing (drive, eat) and here it is in the one place where it can experience the fullness of all it was meant to be (an open road, a buffet) and yet it is doing the exact opposite (idling, starving).  Inexcusable.

It is one of the cruel tricks of the universe, and an indictment of traffic’s wickedness, that the only thing more aggravating than being stuck in traffic is to be freed from traffic.  This is because 90% of traffic jams end without explanation.  One moment I’m taking a nap while I roll along at 0.5 mph, and the next I’m cruising at 70 without so much as a construction zone or escaped zoo animal to account for it.

I’m more pissed now than ever.  “WHY?” I shout to the heavens. Why did this have to happen?  To what end?  For what purpose have I been tormented?  It’s not enough that I’m going fast again.  I want answers.  I want to know what greater good was served by my time in gridlock.  I want – alright, I’ll admit it, I want an accident.

Go ahead and call me a terrible person, but don’t tell me you haven’t thought the same thing.  I don’t want anyone to get hurt or killed or anything crazy like that.  I just want to see some good, old-fashioned, drivers-ed-worthy wreckage.  I sacrificed 30 to 90 perfectly good minutes of my 20s.  All I want in return is a Hyundai wrapped around a telephone pole.  Or maybe an 18-wheeler on its side with Hostess products strewn across the asphalt.  Or anything on fire.  Whatever.  I’m not picky.  I ask only that it justify the delay and that it look awesome.

But no.  Nine times out of ten the bottleneck’s origin is more underwhelming than Britney Spears’ acting career.  It’s a stalled vehicle 25 feet off the shoulder.  It’s a puddle.  It’s a curve in the road.  It’s some jackass who hits his breaks for no reason thereby forcing the next 1,000 drivers behind him to hit their breaks at the same spot.  It’s nothing and no one and my precious minutes die in vain – unexplained and unavenged.

I’ll say it one final time, traffic sucks something awful.  I could go on (and on, and on, and on) but, depending on your reading level, I think my five minutes are almost up.

I’ll close with this.

Traffic is a step backward for humanity.  It is the most disagreeable symptom of civilization as well as a compelling argument against it. If I’ve learned anything from The Road, The Book of Eli, or Revelation it’s that freedom from traffic will be the coolest thing about the coming nuclear holocaust.  Will it make the cold, hunger, and roving bands of inbred barbarians worth it?  I couldn’t say.

Am I looking forward to finding out?  You bet.

“What a piece of work is a man!” said Shakespeare; and while it’s possible he was merely gazing into the mirror and feeling his own biceps, he was probably referring to the human mind. A mysterious thing, the mind. One man discovers the principle of electromagnetic anti-gravitational polarity, and wins a Nobel Prize. Another one owns and operates a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise. Perhaps it is the same man wearing a different suit, but in that case he is moonlighting and should declare his second source of income (the Nobel Committee).

The point is, few students of the mind have any inkling of its innermost workings, particularly at the subconscious, or street-level. One who did during the first half of the 20th century was Dr. Aloysius Gilbert, dream researcher and founder of the Gilbert Institute for Advanced and Gruesome Studies, which has given hope to so many. Dr. Gilbert was originally a follower of Freud, till one day Freud noticed he was being followed, and spun around suddenly to confront him.

“Just what are you looking at, eh?”

“The back of your head,” replied Gilbert, with the candor that was his genius. Freud was so moved by his frankness that he immediately rubbed out a lit cigar on the young man’s bald spot. The two became fast friends, remaining inseparable throughout the next 30 minutes, until they broke intellectually over who would pay for the cigar. Afterward, Gilbert credited Freud with teaching him “everything there is to know about eczema, and then some,” and how to get big laughs at parties by impersonating a meerkat.

He soon had a flourishing psychoanalytic practice in Vienna — one so lucrative, in fact, that his wife Grimelda could never comprehend why he persisted in renting himself out as a cuspidor on weekends (poverty had been his close companion during childhood, although when the two met later at a class reunion they hardly recognized each other).

But in treating thousands of refried psyches he sometimes resorted to methods that were, like those of Colonel Kurtz, “unsound.” One former patient charged that, under hypnosis, he had made her don a little sailor suit to “do the hokey pokey.” Worse, none of the respectable journals would publish his papers on dreams, forcing him to send his feverish theories to the only outlet open to him, Scatology Today, where the following cases and comments by Dr. Gilbert first appeared. These are the pivotal works which, in their collective unconsciousness and their intuitive grasp of dream symbology, Carl Jung declared “every bit as profound as the lyrics to ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat.’”

* * * * * * *
CASE OF ANNA S. My new patient, a typical bourgeosie, will not lie down on the couch without first compulsively sweeping it clean of imaginary insects. Even then I have to sit on her chest to keep her there. All this because one little silverfish happened to explore her underthings at our initial session. Will I never understand the id? This morning she related an important dream:

“I am in my apartment, which is the same as usual except that it has been repainted a cheerful shade of black and a new wing has been added to accommodate the wax museum exhibit of my family. A surprise party is being thrown in my honor, and I am delighted to no end until I realize I was not invited. Suddenly depressed, I sit down on a miniature schnauzer I used to play with as a child, and begin to weep. But the dog accuses me of being a sentimentalist and of putting on weight besides. I become suicidal, and am just about to end it all by eating my mother’s cooking when my own voice, coming from the clock radio, announces that I have won the Joseph Goebbels Look-alike Contest. Overcome with joy, I awake and slit my wrists.”

What a lucid expression of wish fulfillment! Clearly, Anna S. is less concerned with the normal childhood traumas than with the fact that she was never given a last name, and has had to make do all her life with a middle initial. Even becoming a high-ranking Nazi would be preferable, though it would require a complete change of wardrobe. When I pointed this out to her she seemed very grateful and kissed my hand, then bit down as hard as she could on my ring finger, an obvious display of jealousy which nearly caused me to achieve escape velocity.

CASE OF ERNST A. This afternoon as I was mopping up my office (with my receptionist) I spotted a small boy fondling the cushions on the couch. After cuffing him soundly, I asked him how it was possible for a child his age to grow a full-length Vandyke. He explained that he was not a child at all but an adult whose growth had been stunted by guilt, and that the couch had reminded him of his mother.

“Oh? And when did you last have your mother reupholstered?” I asked.

“Only yesterday,” he replied. I knew he had come to me in the nick of time. In a fearful sweat, he told me his recurring nightmare:

“I am strolling alongside the Danube admiring the view and trying to work up enough courage to throw myself in, when I see a beautiful rainbow arching over the river and ending somewhere in the Vienna Woods. Suddenly I am in the heart of the forest, and it occurs to me that I have forgotten to bring any insect repellent. This strikes me as very funny at the time, but when I try to laugh the only thing that emerges from my lips is a tiny flag reading ‘Ha ha.’ I become alarmed, and decide to hide under an oak leaf until spring comes. Before I can touch it, the leaf turns into a leprechaun standing by a pot of gold. The leprechaun confides that he is merely waiting for the gold market to hit a new high before he liquidates his assets, but that if I give him the magic acorn I can have the whole pot for practically nothing. Just as I am about to ask, ‘What acorn?’ he disappears, and I wake up under the bed.” He sighed as he concluded his story.

“Where, exactly, did you say this pot of gold could be found?”

“Nowhere,” he answered, pretending to look confused. “It was just a dream.”

“Don’t play games,” I warned, backing him against the wall.

“No, please!” he begged as he tried to edge out the door. He was about to run for it when I snatched him up by the scruff of the neck and thrashed him back into his dream world. Then I lifted the magic acorn from his shirt pocket, loaded my Luger, and went for a walk in the Vienna Woods.

Kurt Luchs has written for some of the most respected publications on the planet, including but not limited to The Onion, The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, and The Talking Mirror. He currently edits www.thebigjewel.com and is exploring a new career as a Nebraskan Freedom Fighter.

You know what I’m talking about.  Mine’s Bigger Advertising is the kind of commercial that feels less like an intimate conversation between your wallet and your favorite fast food chain and more like a domestic dispute between two corporate rivals.  No longer content to settle their beef in the privacy of their own boardrooms or trading floors, advertisers have brought the bickering into the living room and we can do nothing but sit awkwardly on the couch, listening to the name-calling and the ugliness, wondering if it’s our fault that mom and dad are always fighting.

This is the modern television commercial.

As with most things modern, trendy, and annoying, this movement was created by Apple. That’s right, the mad scientists who invented the lower case “i” and taught nerds how to be pretentious are the same people who sucked the fun out of commercial watching when they introduced their “Hi, I’m a Mac” campaign.

I’ll admit, as far as Mine’s Bigger Advertising goes, the Mac commercials are probably the most palatable.  As with many harmless ideas gone horrible (i.e. Star Wars, fur boots, Lindsay Lohan) the full evil of competitive advertising was not seen in the first manifestation but only in the monster that followed.

No sooner had Justin Long completed his first pwning of the bespectacled John Hodgman than every other major corporation decided that – like a towel fight at football camp – they just had to get in there and find someone to pop.

Before we knew what was happening, Burger King was talking smack to Wendy’s, Carl’s Jr was dogging on McDonalds, and the GMC Sierra was pulling the Ram, the F-150, and the city of Detroit out of a mud hole.  (Hahaha!  Oh snap! Take that Dodge/Ford/Michigan!)

Yet all of these examples pale in comparison to the very public, very petty dispute between Verizon and AT&T.  With assistance from Luke “Holy Crap I’m Getting Fat” Wilson, these two telecomm giants have spent millions of dollars and up to ten minutes of our lives (depending on how much NFL football you watch) trading petty insults about flaccid maps and unresponsive 3G spots.

Whenever I see one of these commercials, I feel like I’ve just walked into a fight between two Twilight fanatics about the relative merits of the vampire guy and the werewolf guy.  Both parties are passionately defending their position and disparaging their opponent, and I immediately lose interest.  I don’t know enough about the argument to know who is right and I don’t care enough to figure it out.

That’s what these hostile companies fail to understand.  Most of us don’t hate their competition as much as they do.  Sure, we have our favorite brands, but – with the exception of Apple’s flock of catatonic disciples – most of us don’t care enough to get involved in an argument over our phone plan or favorite light domestic beer.

Not only do we not care, we often leave these commercials with the wrong idea.  It’s a natural human tendency to root for the underdog (unless the underdog is from Oakland), and Mine’s Bigger Advertising often leaves me with greater fondness for the supposed inferior product.  I don’t know about you, but when I hear an arrogant Big Carl ridiculing an insecure and emotionally unstable Big Mac I start to feel bad for the Big Mac.  The poor guy already has an extra bun and a pair of undersized patties, and now he’s getting bullied?  Screw you Carl’s Jr.  Why don’t you go heckle a special ed softball team while you’re at it?

I guess in the end, I’m just tired of being neglected.  As someone who spends 90% of his weekday nights alone with his television, commercials represent the closest thing to a conversation I can get this side of a 900-number.  I need them to stop talking to each other and start talking to me again.  I want to be directly addressed by the faceless corporations who are destroying America.  I want Luke “Chumbawumba” Wilson to look directly into my eyes and tell me why AT&T and nothing but AT&T will satisfy my deepest dreams and desires.

Speak to me, Luke.  Lie to me, confuse me, lead me astray, cloud my reason with beautiful women, whatever.  Just pay attention to me.  Forget about Verizon, put the tape measures away, and pay attention to me.

That is all I ask.

Crossroads Christian Worship Centre
Sonday January 3, 2010

Happy Twenty Ten everybody! It’s so great to ring in another new year here at the Centre. We’ve got a lot of great things going this year to keep you fellowshipping here with us, from the men’s wood chopping Bible study to the new “twitter” service (for all you webbies that prefer your Jesus in 140 characters!), there is something for every preference!

Great news for all you coffee buffs: CCWC’s in-house coffee shop Java Jesus finally has an organic, free-trade blend! We fly it in directly from Costa Rica once a month. This stuff comes highly recommended from our missionaries there, so grab a Zacchaeus (S), a David (M) or a Whopping 24oz. Goliath (L) before the service. It will definitely keep you from dozing off when Pastor Elliot goes off on one of his epic 40 minute messages! LOL!

Message from Pastor Elliot

Hey there bro’s and sis’s! The Centre had a great year last year, growing to over 65,000 members! It was so, so sick when we hit that number, I almost passed out. Praise the Lord! This year has got some really cool things in store for everybody as they come here to the CROSSroads. You may have noticed over the past few months that our budget hasn’t exactly been as spiffy and spirit-filled as we’d like it to be, so we’ve had to make some cuts here and there in order to keep the doors open. Don’t worry, we’re not getting rid of the jumbotron or closing our cutting edge fitness centre Lifting the Cross,* we’re just adjusting a few things to save some dough!

After Big Brother Government started picking up some of our slack with social justice programs (and we’re thankful – CCWC is the official worship centre of the Obama campaign!**), we decided that it would be a good idea to bring in some help for our prayer groups too! We’ve teamed up with a great ministry in Bali to bring you an ear to listen and a voice to pray 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. These guys are even available to pray on Christmas! This great opportunity is going to be available to anybody, not just CCWC members.

I’ve already used the service a few times and I can tell you from personal experience that this is a great deal! You even feel like you’re getting a sort of tropical vacation, just by hearing their accents on the phone. And get THIS: They’ll even say some of their own prayers in their native language for you! I couldn’t even believe it. I thought to myself, “it’s like they’re praying for me in tongues!” Before you ask: Duh, they’re totally praying to Jesus. It’s India, not Pakistan.

Additionally, we’ve picked up a sponsorship from The Olive Garden for our communions! It’s going to be the best communion experience you’ve ever had, guaranteed. Jesus never tasted this good!

Minor changes for CCWC, but it’s all in an effort to be better stewards of the money that God has blessed us with!

Thanks all for today, I’ll see you next Sonday which will feature the original DC Talk line-up leading us in worship!***

This is not the article I wanted to write.  When I set out to write a review of MTV’s controversial new reality show Jersey Shore, I had a pretty good idea of how it was going to go.  I was going to write my standard (dare I say “trademark?”), long-winded rant which would combine obscure references, big words, and level one swears to express my deep displeasure with the show’s public displays of douchebaggery.

It seemed pretty straightforward. The show is a vocal proponent of self-ascribed nicknames, the state of New Jersey, and Italian-Americans engaging in non-mob activities. I had (and have) no interest in any of those things, and was confident in my ability to heap scorn on Jersey Whore.

But that was before I watched my first episode.

Fifteen minutes into “researching” my article, a strange thing began happening to me.  It’s the same thing that happened to John Smith in Pocahontas.  And the main character in Avatar.  And Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  I fell in love with that which I set out to destroy.

Since last Monday, I have watched all eight episodes of Jersey Shore and several of the “After Hours” Q&A sessions with cast members.  During the course of my research, I was forced to modify my article’s thesis.  It now reads: Yo, Tila Tequila, I’m really happy for you and I’ma let you finish, but Jersey Shore is the best reality show of all time.  OF ALL TIME!

I know.  Calling a show the best reality show of all time is a bit like calling the Phoenix Mercury the best team in the WNBA.  It’s not saying much and it’s still not real television.  But it is something.  Love it or hate it, reality television speaks to our culture.  Since the debut of The Real World in 1992, reality television has been increasing in both airtime and, more importantly, influence.  From The Bachelor to The Hills to The View, reality TV is everywhere.

So it is no small thing when I say, with complete sincerity, that the eight juiced-up, fake-baked, foul-mouthed, hard-drinking, hard-fighting, STD-collecting, toilet bowl-hugging Guidos in the Jersey Shore house represent the pinnacle of all that reality TV aspires to be.

Don’t misunderstand me.  The stars of the show are every bit the self-absorbed, inarticulate, non-contributing zeroes you imagine they are.  The Italian-American organizations who criticize the show as “the biggest step backward for Italian-Americans since the birth of John Bon Jovi” are exactly right.  The cast members suck to a degree that is both impressive and remarkably consistent.  As an example, here is one exchange which is particularly illustrative of the lifestyles and IQs we’re dealing with.

(Sami “Sweetheart” and Ronnie are debriefing after their first night of promiscuous sex)

• Sami: Yeah, I had sex.  I mean, of course you’re gonna have sex if you like somebody.  Um, hello!  It’s natural!
• Ronnie: We smooshed. (fist pumps)

They are, without exception, terrible people.  And that is precisely the point.  The laws of reality TV dictate that every show must have a “token toolshed.”  For a reality show to survive it needs a guy/girl/trannie who will stir the pot, say offensive things, get someone pregnant, OD on NyQuil, and generally move the plot forward.  To effectively fill this role, a cast member must lack morals, restraint, basic human decency, and – most importantly – anything resembling self-awareness.

With Jersey Shore, MTV has for the first time stocked a reality show exclusively with token toolsheds.  Every guy is “that guy.”  Every girl is “OMG…ho bag!!!!”  It’s as if the producers only accepted applications from society’s Douchebag Elite (i.e. DJs, club promoters, assistant managers of fitness clubs, amateur models, and Ed Hardy enthusiasts.)  This makes for a fairly predictable storyline (i.e. posture, argue, drink, fist fight, hook-up, pass out, repeat), but it also makes for brilliant reality television.

As I have said before, reality television is not here to celebrate America’s best and brightest.  That’s what the Country Music Awards are for.  Reality television is for shining a spotlight on all that is base, freakish, and dysfunctional in America.  We watch families disintegrate and coeds get alcohol poisoning and we can’t help but feel better about ourselves.  It’s the feel-good genre of the 21^st century!  With the help of reality television, even the worst parent, the most irresponsible drunk, the most promiscuous cheerleader, and the most fist-pumpingest frat boy can point at someone else and say, “well, at least I’m not THAT bad.” 

The problem is, as America accelerates its slippery slide to Sodom, the reality television machine has had to scramble to keep pace.  As real life douchebags strut out of the closet and into Armani Exchange in ever-increasing numbers, the reality show douchebags must rise to an even higher (or sink to an even lower) level.

In that respect, Jersey Shore may have saved reality television.  Vinny, Ronnie, Snooki, Sweetheart, Jolie, Pauly D, JWoww, and The Situation are the new gold standard by which all future television toolsheds will be judged.  These eight have advanced the limits of douchebaggery to heights never before thought possible, and I refuse to believe any actual person will ever equal them.  Or maybe I just don’t want to.

I take comfort in their accomplishment.  I sleep more soundly at night.  Or at least I hope I do. The Jersey Shore season finale is tomorrow night and, judging from the previews, it’s going be an emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually draining hour of television.  Trust me, you do NOT want to miss it.

(In other, unrelated MTV news, I had my first “I have lost all connection with young people” moment last week.  While innocently watching Jersey Shore, I was treated to a public service announcement featuring an apparently nude girl standing in an empty gym and holding a large poster over her lady parts.  The girl stared at the ground in shame while a voiceover intoned, “If someone pressures you to send revealing photos, you can say no.  Because there’s a thin line between him and the rest of the world.”  For the first, but assuredly not the last, time permit me to inquire, “Is THAT what kids are doing these days?”)

As you may have noticed, airport screening measures have increased since the “underwear bomber” was arrested on December 25 at Detroit’s international airport.

Several clever Republicans bravely recommend all Muslims be profiled for special, more stringent flight screening. You know, cause non-Muslims never do anything wrong with airplanes.

But is this enough? Are they aware of the latest threat? Beware the most recent al Qaeda terrorist innovation: the anal cavity bomber.

It doesn’t sound plausible until you put on your swim shorts and jump head first down that slippery slope of logic.

Yup, your poop shoot is the last convenient place to hide a bomb. First it was baggage, but they nailed that one pretty quick. After 9/11, it was your shoes. Thanks Richard Reid. An extra minute removing the shoes solved that problem.

The next two places made terrorism downright sexy.

This past month, it became underwear, the last source of privacy on the outside of your body. Now airport screeners have to scan through your clothes using high-tech X-rays, the stuff only nerdy science geeks reading 60s comic book classified ads can dream up. Wonder what Ethel has under those knickers? Calm down there, Johnny, because science has the answer!

It’s underwear.  And some C4.

And now, there’s only one logical place left. The anal cavity. How do I know this? Picture the average high school freshman pothead as he attempts to avoid principals, cops and drug dogs. What steps does he use to hide his weed? Locker first, then backpack, then shoes, then underwear, and lastly, his anus.

Expect Bertha and Melvin with Homeland Security to go through more latex gloves than a 5^th grade science class on Fetal Pig Dissection Day. That’s because the new anal cavity bomber cannot be stopped using the X-rays. He’s going to “BEEP” walking through the metal detector, even if he is buck naked.

Where is the bomb? Must be a computer glitch. Not so fast! It’s the anal cavity bomber! Looks like Mohammed has a new trick up his … sleeve.  So how do you, the vigilant tourist, stop the violent terrorist?

Remain calm. It should be pretty easy to spot a potential terrorist attempting to detonate an explosive inside his anus (i.e. forcing the explosive out of the cavity, or reaching for the explosive’s trigger inside the cavity.)

By all means, wrestle the (what most likely is a) Muslim to the ground, turban first, and make sure the device is kept firmly inside the anal cavity. The explosion will be less deadly if it remains inside the anus, just like a fart.

With that said, there is nothing else you can do. Once they get ‘em through the anus, we’re screwed – literally and figuratively.

Karaoke Night Radio – this station will explore artists and songs that have musical qualities similar to Sweet Caroline, Don’t Stop Believing, and The Piano Man (i.e. major key tonality, basic rock song structure, use of ambient synth, ubiquitous reference in pop-culture, and easy to read lyrics).  All songs will be reinterpreted by intoxicated dock workers.  A white person will occasionally perform an ironic, self-referential cover of a song with southern rap influences or a prominent banjo part.

When my Mom’s in my Apartment Radio – this station will explore artists and songs that demonstrate lyrics which are “wholesome” and “family-friendly” as defined by Tipper Gore.  Songs demonstrating a gangsta rap attitude, rebellious lyrics, or explicit descriptions of intercourse can be explored as long as they also demonstrate frequent use of euphemism like “forget you” “sucker” and “let’s get it started.” The music of Amy Grant may be explored but only the albums that were recorded before she got divorced and married Vince Gill.

Wedding Reception Radio – this station will explore artists and songs demonstrating afro-cuban influences, sultry vocals, romantic lyrics, modern r&b stylings, Sinatran influences, undertones of Michael Buble, and extensive vamping.  Seriously, more vamping than you ever thought possible.   Romantic fare will be interspersed with funk/disco influences; specifically, “Shout,” “Brick House,” and “Get Down Tonight.”  Advertisements on this station will be replaced with recordings of belligerent males reminiscing on intra-mural basketball championships.

Senior Prom Radio – this station will explore artists and songs popular in the spring of 2004 that display club rap influences, catchy hooks and beats made for dancing, frequent exclamations of “yeah!” or “What?!” and repeated exhortations to “get low.”  All of these will be interspersed at random with songs demonstrating the quality of “being by Savage Garden.”

SPOILER ALERT: He pretty much gives away the whole movie.

BY: Benjamin Woodyard

I want to tell you guys out there about the movie Avatar. It’s so cool.  The dragons are so cool.  The floating mountains are so cool.  The main guy (I forget his name) is so cool.  I think pretty much everyone thinks it’s probably the best movie of all time.  Some people might say Harry Potter or Monsters Inc. or something else is better, but that’s probably because they saw it in a normal theater instead of in 3-D which is how I saw it.

Avatar is about this soldier who’s in a wheelchair for some reason we don’t know about.  (Probably from fighting the terrorists in Detroit.)  He goes in a space ship to another planet which is kind of like Earth except cooler because they have aliens and dragons.

When he gets to the new planet he meets this army general who talks about how everyone wants to kill the people but how the people are going to kill everyone first because the people have guns and no one else does.  I think.  It was kind of confusing.  But then the wheelchair guy meets the mean lady from Holes.  She’s a scientist or something.  She’s mean to him at first because he’s in a wheelchair.  My mom says this is called “disc-information.”

So then the wheelchair guy goes into this tube and when he wakes up he’s one of the aliens.  The scientist lady and some other people are aliens too.  They all go exploring the planet together.  Wheelchair guy gets separated from the group when these big rhinoceros-looking monsters chase him into the forest.  Oh yeah, he’s not in a wheelchair anymore.  It gets dark and everyone else has to go home to bed (probably by 9:30) but he stays out in the jungle cause he’s lost.

Some dogs with six legs try to eat him but an alien girl saves him. All the animals have six legs which I guess is better than four.  The alien girl isn’t wearing a shirt and you can totally see her boobs but my mom said it was okay because she’s an alien and her boobs are blue.  She only has two boobs.  She takes him to her tribe and at first they want to kill him but they decide not to.

For a long time he hangs out with the aliens to learn how to be like them.  Here’s some of the stuff he does: climbs trees, rides horses, hunts with a bow and arrow, plugs his ponytail into stuff, and wrestles dragons!!  That was probably my favorite part.  That or the time he smashed the two helicopters together like they were made out of LEGOs.

Then he falls in love with the girl alien who rescued him and things get weird for a minute. My mom made me cover my eyes during this part but I think they were doing the same thing Brian (that’s my older brother) was doing with his girlfriend last week when my parents were out to dinner.  So things are going good for the main guy.

But then everything gets bad because the guy from Gone in 60 Seconds wants to open a coal mine right where the aliens are camping.  I know how he feels because one time I wanted to build a fort behind the couch (which is probably the best spot in my house to build a fort) but my dad said I couldn’t because we had company coming over.

The main guy thinks if the humans kick the aliens out, then the girl alien won’t make out with him anymore, so he tells the humans to leave them alone.  So then there’s a big battle.  I don’t want to give away how the battle ends, but basically it’s like the end of Return of the Jedi except the aliens are awesome like Legolas from Lord of the Rings instead of like the Ewoks who are stupid like my little sister’s zhu zhu pet.

That’s pretty much the rest of the movie except for this part at the end where all the humans get kicked off the planet.  My mom said the movie had a “viral mental” message and that’s why my dad had to sell his Hummer.  I think the message is that dragons are awesome and aliens aren’t as bad as some movies make them look.

One day I hope to visit another planet.

The idea for this article and several of it’s humorous lines were taken from an article written for another publication by Mark “Sugar, We’re Going Down” Downey.  It is used with his begrudging permission.  Mr. Downey has not tasted meat since the spring of 1993, but he has killed more squirrels than you will likely ever see.

Check out more “Biased Reviews” written by Teddy Roosevelt, Paul Walker, Harry Potter, Jennifer Aniston, and more.

That picture of Benjamin is copyrighted Yahoo.com and probably “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader.”