American Madness

Jerry Lewis was stopped in the Las Vegas airport last week after airport screeners found a handgun in his luggage.

Reuters tells us the octogenarian funnyman was on his way to a one-night only, one-man performance in Mount Pleasant, Michigan when folks at the airport found the unload .22 pistol in his bag.

Seeing as how carrying a handgun in an airport is generally frowned upon, airport officials detained him for a bit, before releasing him on his own reconnaissance with a citation for carrying a concealed weapon without a permit. As for the gun, well the airport fellas hung on to that for Lewis. If he wants it back, he’ll have to appear in court.

The Reuters story then goes on for about four paragraphs about all the stuff Lewis did in the past. This is apparently for the readers who just emerged from a 60-year stay in a bomb bunker.

Dean Martin was unavailable for comment. (Most likely because Dean Martin is no longer with us).

This is kind of a sad one (2).

The remains of Hedviga Golik were found last month in her apartment in Croatia. According to reports she had made herself a cup of tea, sat down in her armchair to watch some tv, and must have passed away.

Having been born in 1924, there is nothign too surprising about all of this. In fact it isn’t much of a story until you start to get into the details. Golik was reported missing and was last seen by a neighbor… back in 1966. Although officially reported missing, apparently either no one ever did anything to try and locate her, or in their search for her the police did not enter her apartment.

Fast forward 42 years to May 2008 and the police and some bailiffs are busting down her door to try and help figure out who owns the apartment only to find Golik in her armchair dead now for as long as she had lived.

Besides a few cobwebs, her apartment appeared just as it had been in 1966, a virtual time capsule, with her cup of tea still on the table in front of her.

According to the authorities: “So far, we have no idea how it is possible that someone officially reported missing so long ago was not found before in the same apartment she used to live in.”

Okay, I thought I was done with this, until I did a search for a picture and found the CNN article, which isn’t exactly the same story.

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The Germans have a word for this: Schadenfreude

From the Chicago Tribune:

[nutrition activists have] never checked to see if covering menus with calorie-counts actually influences consumers to eat less. No one has.

While the justification for menu-mandates rests squarely on assumption, a growing body of evidence casts doubt on their merit. Researchers at Cornell University found that posted nutrition facts spurred people to eat 131 percent more calories than when they dined free of calorie tallies.

So, by my count. American Madness team: 1 Crazed calorie posting advocates: 0 

Why can’t the ‘08 election be this easy?

Dear Judith,

Rarely, if ever, do I agree with your analysis or point-of-view. However, I think it is more important to consider all view points to an argument rather than to live in an echo chamber. Thus, every Friday, when the NYTimes.com “Opinion Today” e-mail hits my inbox, I always click through to your Domestic Disturbances column. And I read it. And I give it thought. And often times I comment.

Today was no exception, though it was exceptional.

In today’s posting “Pure Tyranny” you have drawn an unholy triangulation between hymen replacement surgery for Muslim women in France, the kidnapping Austrian incestor Josef Fritzl and an evangelical Father-Daughter Purity Ball in Colorado Springs. It was to my surprise, that your harshest criticism was reserved for the latter. Referring to a May 19 New York Times article about these events, you liken the idea of a purity ball to male domination over their daughters and wives. If I may, a quote from your piece:

“But there is nonetheless a kind of horror to their obsession with their daughters’ sexuality. And there is even greater danger to the fact that this particular aspect of the nationwide ‘abstinence movement’ has not been broadly denounced as the form of emotional violence against girls that it indisputably is.”

To which I ask, in all seriousness. Are you out of your mind?
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The NYC Health Department is putting its jackboot on the throat of NYC restaurant owners: post calorie counts or face a fine. According to the New York Times, the clipboard and food thermometer wielding health department Gestapo is wasting no time slapping restaurateurs with violations. “City health inspectors began issuing violation notices on Monday to restaurants that did not have calorie counts posted beside the prices on their menu boards.”

American Madness has previously expressed our disapproval of the mandate to post calorie counts on NYC restaurant menus. Chief among the initial concerns was the libertarian notion that the government should have little to no interference of what I choose to put in my body.

Another dissenting view was that calorie counts alone do little (if any) good in determining the health of a particular food item. The concern is the potential for the development of eating disorders as people seek to avoid calories at the expense of nutrition.

Third, was the Byzantine system of compliance and display which would need to be concocted in order to properly disclose “calorie counts.” One day into enforcement, and already our prognostication has been proven right as we are seeing “violations” being issued because calorie counts are improperly displayed. That is because the proper displaying of calorie counts is up to the individual health inspector. The New York Times cites one miserable bureaucratic health inspector named Corey Williams, who was citation happy in issuing calorie-count violation notices to three restaurants yesterday. One unfortunate target of Williams’ unhappiness with life was the Dunkin’ Donuts at 445 Park Avenue South. He said flat out there was no gray area, “[t]his is pass-fail,” according to the New York Times article. And guess what didn’t count as a “pass” in Williams’ book: (more…)

American Madness readers: meet William Johnson.

William, it is my pleasure to introduce you to American Madness.

I apologize up front for the awkward introduction, but this is the only way we could arrange for this meeting. William is currently incarcerated in Brazoria County, Texas on a burglary charge.

Turns out, he asked one of the local trailer park residents to help him move a big screen TV out of another trailer home that wasn’t William’s. Outside of stealing someone’s snuff, thievin’ a TV from a trailer park is about the highest crime you can commit in that part of Texas.

And he might have gotten away with the theft if he hadn’t been pulled over during a couple suspicious U-Turns in the middle of the Interstate. And even that might not have got him nabbed if the officers didn’t think it entirely too weird that his co-pilots were a six-foot long alligator and a water moccasin (a type of poisonous snake).

Ok, I’ll pause and let you read that last little bit over again.

Yep, William here is a man with a fondness for reptiles. The Houston Chronicle reports Johnson told the pokey that he found the snake and the alligator on the sides of roads and picked them up because he has an interest in cold-blooded, scaled creatures. (more…)

Matt introduced the AmericanMadness world to Flocke back in January. Back in those early days, she was just a squirming ball of fluff, but like all baby polar bears she captured the world’s heart.

Today, she is growing up fast and taking the star from Germany’s other world famous polar bear cub Knut. Of course, how can we forget Knut? When he took those first shaky steps last March in Berlin, he ignited a baby polar bear frenzy, and in the process becoming the spokesbear for the environmental movement (he starred next to Leonardo DiCaprio on the cover of Vanity Fair). The Berlin Zoo actually saw its stock price increase as a result of higher gate revenues from all the folks wanting to get a glimpse of the little bear.

Not to be outdone, the Nueremberg Zoo has plans to roll out its star to the public this coming month. In anticipation of Flocke’s big day, the Nuremberg Metropolitan Region has unveiled posters utilizing the star power of Flocke’s black button eyes and large bears’ paws.

Translated, “Knut war gestern,” is roughly, “Knut is yesterday’s bear.” The poster expresses some of the self-confidence of the Nuremberg Metropolitan Region, which knows its infrastructure will soon be strained with Germany looking to get a glimpse of Flocke on her first days out. (more…)

[ This opinion piece appeared in the Wall Street Journal on February 20. It is reprinted here with the permission of author Betsy McCaughey Ross, a former lieutenant governor of New York, currently serving as an adjunct senior fellow at the Hudson Institute (the original "think tank"). ]

On March 4, voters in the Texas Democratic primary will choose between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The battle is shaping up to be a health-care Alamo. Twenty five percent of people living in the Lone Star state are uninsured, according to the U.S. Census. That’s the highest rate of any state.

Sen. Clinton has issued the challenge, telling Sen. Obama “I’ll see you in Texas.” She promises to provide health coverage for “every single one of the nation’s 47 million uninsured,” and she accuses Sen. Obama of offering a “band aid” solution that would leave about a third of those 47 million uncovered.

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When your previous job used to be running around all day in a pair of spandex, getting sweaty with other men and then jumping on top of them, maybe you aren’t the right person to be coming out with a strong stance against gay rights.

Former Dallas Cowboys linebacker turn reverend, Ken Hutcherson of the Antioch Bible Church in Redmond, WA is claiming to be a modern day David against Goliath mega-corporations. Hutcherson is preaching that companies like Microsoft, who he says is attempting to become a political player in Washington state and push its policies on the entire state, can have their policies of toleration changed by the power of the shareholder.

Hutcherson is telling members of his 3,500 congregation to buy up shares of the company and reaching out to other religions, like Orthodox Jews, to do the same. The theory being that once they have amassed a controlling share of the company the can ‘correct’ the diversity policies currently in place , one of which includes an internal “affinity employee group” called the Gay and Lesbian Employees At Microsoft (GLEAM).

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Vermont and Washington are all set to be the first states to issue RFID (Radio Frequency Identification Chip) enhanced driver’s licenses. The programs and technology are in place in both states and plans are set to start churning them out in 2008.

The idea behind the RFID license would be to make border crossing easier between our neighbors to the North and South. No longer would you need to carry your passport with you to enter Canada or Mexico, but rather all you would need is your license (like it used to be before 2001). Seems like a nice idea to make life just that much easier.

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