Observations on current events

My column this week was going to be a Pulitzer Prize-winning satire on an important social issue only the application of razor sharp wit and hilarity could solve.

But then I decided saving the world through journalism could probably wait until next week and decided to serve up some brief observations on current events instead.

Enjoy.

O Eyebrows, Where Art Thou? First off, let’s give Keith Seagle some props for having the heart to go the distance in a race that’s conclusion was as about as forgone as a Harlem Globetrotters / Washington Generals game.

Now that it’s over, Keith may have some extra time on his hands and need something to do. I suggest that he change the pronunciation of his last name from See-gal to Se-gaal and start making action movies. Here’s a suggested tag line for a future Seagle movie, “He came here to chew bubble gum and cut taxes and he just ran out of bubble gum.”

Perhaps Keith could one day even star as himself in a documentary about his campaign entitled, “Schmitz Happens.”

The M-word: The group Little People of America is calling for the Federal Communications Commission to ban the word “midget,” saying it is just as offensive as racial slurs.

I have a great fondness for little people, mainly because they’re about the only people shorter than me. I’d also hate to see them join the cult of victimhood and political correctness.

If someone says something to you that you don’t like, don’t whine about it, come up with a witty reply.

America will never know true equality until folks of all shapes, sizes, colors and beliefs are able to mock and degrade each other in good humor and fun.

So to the Little People of America, I have only this to say to your request.

Midget, please.

Phone Fail: My work cell phone died last week. It was nice not having to take misdirected calls from the urologist’s office (it’s 794-4159 folks), but after a few days I found myself suffering from phone withdrawal. After two trips to the Verizon store, both of which involved about a 30-minute wait, my boss was able to go online to switch my number to a temporary phone in just a few minutes.

All I’ve got to say about the whole experience is this, if government ought to be run like a business, I sure hope the business they run it like ain’t the Verizon store.

Cook Fail: From time to time we reporters receive letters from readers who gleefully report a spelling or grammar error in one of our stories. We hate it when it happens, but when you write 1,000 or so words a day the law of averages dictates that sooner or later one of them is going to be wrong. Here’s a recent sample:

From: WCB

What’s wrong with this sentence in the story about new things for the grocery story in Columbia?

“There’s a few things that can make a small town a real community ...”

If you paid attention in grammar-school Language Arts classes, you’d recognize immediately “that the subject and predicate do not aggee in number.”

“There IS (singular) a few THINGS (plural) ...”

If newspapers still had proof readers such an error would not have reached print — and in the second paragraph at that.

Careful. If gold rusts, what will iron do?

And my reply.

You’re right. Good catch.

Although, if you check your third sentence, you’ll catch a boo-boo of your own.

“that the subject and predicate do not aggee in number.”

To paraphrase Lewis Grizzard, “Hell, it’s only 75 cents, we could give you grammatically correct, but it would cost you three bucks.”

You must be at least 57 inches tall to contact Jim Cook at .