After being sick all week and countless hours of TV watching and Internet surfing, there was no way for me to pick a specific topic upon which to write this week. So much went on that my only hope was to write on the week’s prevailing theme — people’s stupidity.
So this week heralds the first and only “Moron Awards.” The winners of each category should take a bow.
The winner in the “Subliminal (you’re gay) Message (you’re gay) Paranoia (you’re gay)” category is everyone’s favorite preacher, Jerry Falwell.
You may know Jerry from other public tantrums such as his failed attempt to gag Larry Flynt’s obscene and tasteless sense of humor documented in the movie “The People Vs. Larry Flynt.”
Jerry’s latest revelation involves those irritating cartoon characters: The Teletubbies. The February issue of Falwell’s National Liberty Journal has a story which says of the purple one, Tinky Winky, “He is purple — the gay-pride color; and his antenna is shaped like a triangle — the gay-pride symbol.” The show is geared towards toddlers, who we all know must have learned the symbols of the gay pride movement by age two. The gays hit them younger and younger now, pretty soon we’ll have four-year-old boys cavorting and singing Judy Garland songs. We don’t want that, now, do we?
One of our own, a University student, spawned a category all his own. The “I Must be Paraplegic or Something” category is won hands down by Gopher basketball player, Miles Tarver. After a game in which he made several excellent long-range jump shots, but missed a simple layup, Tarver made that witticism about his physical state. However, he may have taken himself a bit too seriously because his car was discovered parked in a handicapped spot with a stolen handicapped sticker. Tarver was fined $577 for his, ahem, “mistake.” I’m sure the disabled community’s heart goes out to him in this time of ill fortune.
On a related note, Clem Haskins received runner-up status in the “Drunken Logic” category with his public statement regarding the Tarver issue. “People make mistakes,” Haskins said. “Our president made a terrible mistake, and people talk an awful lot about that. I hope (Tarver) isn’t talked about like that, because (presidential indiscretion) is really an embarrassment.”
The winner of the “Drunken Logic” award, however, is Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott. Dear Trent. Dear, dear Trent. He wants so badly to be taken so seriously. Senator Lott voted Friday to remove President Clinton from office, a decision 44 others joined him in. However, Lott has a special involvement in impeachment proceedings — not in this one, mind you, but in Nixon’s. Senator Lott was a congressman at that time and he was a part of the House Judiciary Committee. You know, like the one Henry Hyde headed up for the Clinton impeachment. Senator Lott was one of the few people on board to vote against pursuing impeachment proceedings against President Nixon. Right, because Clinton’s actions were so much worse than Nixon’s. Sure. I understand.
The events spawning this next category had me doubled over in laughter for the length of time it aired on TV’s “Dateline.” Winner in the “I Only Hurt Her ‘Cuz I Love Her” category is Linda Tripp. Did anybody watch “Dateline” this week? “As a mom, especially with a daughter close in age to Monica, I would hope some other mom would do for my daughter what I did for Monica, despite the fact that it looks horrible, that it looks like betrayal,” she said during her interview.
She also said that she felt it was her “patriotic duty” to tape the conversations. Linda needs to do everyone a favor and just shut up. She can’t backtrack now. The tapes are out there and people have made their own judgments. Most are in agreement: she’s a lying, backstabbing woman who we should be thankful not to know personally. Who does she think she’s going to get pity from?
There is no better title for our final category than the “Ventura Prize.” The winner of this category must have a short temper, causing them to make constant rash and offensive statements. They must make a fool of themselves in a different way each week. No one deserves to top this category more than its namesake, Gov. Jesse Ventura. If he would go one week without doing or saying something stupid, I could quit ridiculing him. However, he can’t help himself, and neither can I.
This week, at a student rally — a part of an annual lobbying effort by students in the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system — at the capital, he got into a harsh verbal fight with some of the rally-goers. He yelled at one single mother, “I don’t want to seem hard-core, but why did you become a parent? It takes two people to parent. It takes two.”
Now, I don’t want to seem hard-core, but only an imbecile would say that. It would be ideal if both parents were involved in a child’s life, but that isn’t reality, and it isn’t the woman’s fault if her husband left, died, etc. So Jesse, if you keep this up, no one will ever take your little category away from you.
To all the morons I missed — don’t worry, I’ll get around to you.
Sara Hurley’s column appears every Monday.