Swim @ Own Risk By: Gino Giovannetti
CONVOLUTED NEWS: January 2007
CHICAGO – It seems like just yesterday we were
toasting the New Year when I inadvertently set ex-fiancee number two’s
hair on fire while trying to light her cigarette. Fortunately, I was
able to snuff it out with my leather gloves which I never bothered
to remove from my hands for obvious reasons.
Anyway, by the time you read this, January’s news headlines
will all be a blur, indistinguishable from the stories that preceded
or followed them. So without further ado, here is 2007’s premiere
edition of “Convoluted News.”
* Former first lady Betty Ford and her children stand
before the casket at the U.S. Capitol in Washington to honor “The
Godfather of Soul,” James Brown, who died of
heart failure on Christmas Day in Atlanta.
A visibly distraught Mrs. Ford says she hopes that James Brown is
remembered for more than pardoning President Richard M. Nixon
in the wake of the Watergate scandal.
* Oprah Winfrey announces her first new book club
choice since the James Frey“A Million
Little Pieces” fiasco more than a year ago.
Winfrey’s 56th and latest choice is North Korean leader Kim
Jong-il’s“Socialism Is What Keeps Our People
Alive.”
“It’s a beautifully crafted book, written like poetry,”
says Winfrey.
Kim Jong-il’s book, available in paperback in Mongolia, is dedicated
to Momofuku Ando, the Japanese inventor of Ramen instant noodles who
passed away earlier this month at the age of 96.
* Just days after appearing in People magazine bare-chested
while emerging from the surf at a Hawaiian beach, Senator Hillary
Rodham Clinton announces that she is a candidate for the
Democratic nomination for president of the United States.
Ms. Clinton boasts that her approval ratings are above her breasts—which
are below her knees.
* An 80-year-old great-grandmother from Western Kentucky on her first
outing as a deer hunter bagged her first Hmong immigrant in northeastern
Wisconsin’s Peshtigo Harbor Wildlife Area.
Just 30 minutes into her hunt, Gladys Schaefer shot
and killed 30-year-old squirrel hunter Cha Vang of
Green Bay.
“Kapowie! I let it go! I thought my heart would beat right out
of my chest I was so excited,” said the breast cancer survivor
and great-grandmother of seven.
Ms. Schaefer’s elation was not shared by the Hmong, an ethnic
minority group from Southeast Asia, who questioned whether it was
a retaliation killing for the murders of six white hunters by Chai
Vang—no relation—in 2004.
* CNN will celebrate Larry King’s 50 years
in radio and television with a “King-Sized Week” featuring
retrospectives and a roast of the prime time talker.
King, 73, says the freeze in California, which has destroyed more
than half of the state’s citrus crop, has not diminished his
ability to broadcast—or procreate.
* After cellphone images capture taunting by his enemies and broadcast
pictures of his brutal execution via the Internet, President
Bush appears on PBS’ “Newshour With Jim Lehrer”
and denounces the “revenge killing” execution of Tony
Romo by irate Dallas fans after the Cowboys’ 21-20
loss to Seattle.
* CNN has apologized for mistakenly promoting a story on the search
for Osama bin Laden with the headline “Where’s
Obama?” on Wolf Blitzer’s“The Situation Room” show.
Calling it a “bad typographical error” by their graphics
department, CNN issues a formal apology saying they have no reason
to believe that bin Laden used cocaine or marijuana while in high
school.
* Shawn Hornbeck, the eldest of two Missouri boys
kidnapped by pizza parlor employee Michael Devlin,
says he survived his 4-1/2-year ordeal by feeling for the Great White
Pedophile’s eye socket and stabbing with his fingers until the
41-year-old predator let go of him off Cape Howe, Australia.
The now 15-year-old Hornbeck suffered a broken nose and cuts after
the 6-foot-4-inch, 300-pound man-eater partially swallowed him head
first. “I’ve never felt fear like it ‘til I was
inside those jaws with those teeth getting dragged across my body,”
said Shawn.
* A 67-year-old woman believed to be the world’s oldest new
mother now admits that she lied about her age, claiming to be 55,
so she could give birth through in vitro fertilization.
Carmela Bousada told a British newspaper that she
lied at the Pacific Fertility Center in Los Angeles so that she could
carry Mary Cheney’s baby to term.
When asked by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer what he thought
of conservatives who are critical of his lesbian daughter’s
pregnancy, Vice President Dick Cheney objected saying,
“…I think, frankly, you’re out of line with that
question.”
In the interview, Cheney also chafes at rumors that he groped House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi during President Bush’s State of the Union
address.
* CBS News has announced that TV’s longest-running newsmagazine,
“60 Minutes,” will not replace reporter Ed
Bradley in the middle of the television season.
After nearly two dozen surgeries, Bradley, was euthanized at the age
of 65 just eight months after winning the Kentucky Derby by 6-1/2
lengths.
“Never bet with your heart” laments inconsolable colleague
Andy Rooney.
* After swaying, shimmering, sniffing, slurring and hiking
her legs up during interviews to promote the new season of “American
Idol,”Paula Abdul blames her crazy behavior
on “technical glitches” and announces that she will leave
the show after the February sweeps to work as a bikini-clad barista
at a Cowgirls Espresso coffee shop in suburban Seattle.
* The “Fighting Irish” of Notre Dame
lose their ninth consecutive bowl game, this time at the Sugar Bowl
in New Orleans, by a humiliating 41-14 score at the hands of Johannesburg,
South Africa’s previously unranked Oprah Winfrey’s
Leadership Academy for Girls.
An ecstatic Ms. O declares that “I put my size 56 pants on one
leg at a time just like Charlie Weis.”
* A Northern California man hiking in a state park with his wife is
in serious condition with a torn scalp, puncture wounds and lacerations
after being mauled when he got into the middle of a cat fight between
Donald Trump and Rosie O’Donnell.
Dazed and bleeding profusely, Jim Hamm, 70, was saved
when his 65-year-old wife, Nell, grabbed a 4-inch diameter log and
beat Trump with it. But O’Donnell wouldn’t release her
grip on Hamm’s head.
“So I got a pen and tried to jab her in the eye,” said
Mrs. Hamm, “but she didn’t go down as easy as I thought
she would.”
Nell Hamm went back to using the log on Rosie, who eventually let
go of Jim’s head and, with her snout bloodied, stood staring
at Mrs. Nell before finally waddling away.
* On the very day that Michael and Juanita
Jordan announce that they are ending their tumultuous 17-year
marriage due to “irreconcilable differences,” Tiger
Woods and wife Elin Nordegren, reveal that
they are expecting a baby around the time of the British Open.
When asked if the two milestones are somehow connected, former nanny
Nordegren objects saying, “What’s the big deal, they both
represent Nike®?”
* New York subway hero Wesley Autrey receives a framed
proclamation from Governor Spitzer and the State
Assembly after the Harlem native dove in front of a subway train and
saved a young man’s life.
“This is beautiful,” says Autrey, “but I still don’t
feel like a hero.”
A humble Autry admits that he initially dove onto the subway tracks
to retrieve a cellphone that had been hurled at him by supermodel
Naomi Campbell.
* In an interview with—who else?—Oprah Winfrey, Elizabeth
Vargas denies that she was forced out as co-anchor of ABC’s
“World News Tonight” because she was pregnant.
Vargas says she realized she had to step down after competing in the
network’s “Hold Your Wee for a Wii” contest
in which the 44-year-old anchor tried to see how much water she could
drink without going to the bathroom in an ill-advised attempt to win
a Nintendo Wii video game system.
Vargas suffered from “water intoxication” and was replaced
as anchor of “World News Tonight” by veteran
newsman Charles Gibson.
“She said to one of our producers that she was on her way home
and her head was hurting real bad,” said ABC News President
David Westin. “She was crying and that was
the last that anyone heard from her.”
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