It’ll be April this week. April is kind of a strange month for some reason. Starts right off strange with April Fool’s day where everything’s upside down for a joke. Then you start into Passover and Good Friday and Palm Sunday and all those Easter-related religious holidays. Right after Easter Sunday there’s an Easter Monday. Okay, Easter Monday is a Canadian thing, but still it’s strange. Then you got Eastern Orthodox Easter, Holocaust Remembrance Day. Heavy, pipe organ-type holidays all through April. Then tag it with something light ~ Administrative Professionals Day. I think that used to be Secretary’s Day, which was shorter and fit nicer on a Hallmark card, but they changed their title. On a personal note, one guy got real insulted by my suggestion that we proclaim April “National Pancreas Month.” He said it was demeaning to people with a bad pancreas. Guy even called me an idiot, so I know he was serious about his pancreas. Or the pancreas of a loved one. So, yeah, April is kind of a strange month.

What? Aww, I don’t mind being called an idiot. Idiot ain’t so bad. Not as bad as a lot of things I been called. In fact, idiot has kind of an endearing connotation to it … like I’m too slow?witted to be held responsible for the things I do or say. Like mentally I’m still a child. An idiot child. So, yeah, idiot’s kinda sweet. No, you wanna know what an insulting word was back in 16th century England? “Swive.” Boy howdy, that was some kinda vulgar word. You use the word swive in mixed company back then, you were boorish and rude. Another insulting word was “zooterkins.” Back before 1500, you use an obscenity like zooterkins at somebody, you’d be fighting a duel. Now, you use that word, people just think you’re gay. Ooh, zooterkins! Sounds like a Paul Lynde punch line.

And I Quote: “Me fail English? That’s unpossible!” ~ Ralph Wiggum

A guy who calls himself “Spanky the clown” was arrested in North Carolina on kiddie porn charges. He was arrested by Slappy the sheriff, brought before Pooky the judge, and faces up to five years in Jaily the prison.

Scientists have determined that a steady diet of junk food causes brain abnormalities in mice. And a steady diet of mouse food isn’t as good as a cheeseburger in humans. Scientists. They truly are nutty professors.

You know, this is off the subject, but being a hunk’a hunk’a burning love ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. Especially in the summer when it’s so hot anyway.

No, you know what? We ought to bring those old swear words from the 16th century back and retire the ones currently in use. Have you noticed how vulgar society is these days, with the F this and F that everywhere. Movies, music, network television … people swearing like drunken heathens. It’s funny we can’t say “God” in school but we can say “God damn” on network television. Profanity’s just part of our culture now, even in causal conversation. What if we try using some new swear words for a while? If you don’t like swive or zooterkins, you can just make up a bunch of new words of your own ~ like zipperdink or voot or geezlewig. Clean up the airwaves a little bit. But you tell me what’s funnier for a sitcom than the dim-witted father catching his teenage daughter having sex with the maid and she gets all coy and says, “Uh-oh, dad … zipperdink.” Am I right? That is comedy gold.

This just in: A cock fighter was killed by his own cock in the Philippines. True story. Big cock fight down in Zamboanga, big crowd, lot of excitement. Guy brings out his cock and right away the thing goes berserk, catching him with a vicious flurry of blows in the thigh and groin with those wicked, razor-sharp gaffs fighting cocks wear. Dude bled to death. Johnny Muhajil. Felled by his own cock before the first bell rang. And that’s the news from Manila.

No expiration date on the classics.

And you know another problem area in society when it comes to foul language? Road rage. There is language out on the highway so vile and caustic it can actually stain the air green, a lot of it coming from me. We need to take a page from the Xoxa tribe in South America. Do you know what the Xoxas say when they want to insult another tribesperson? They say, “Hebeshako!” That’s all. Maybe shake their fist, get a little loud with it. You know what “hebeshako” means? “Your mother’s ears.” And really, do insults need to be more disparaging than that? Maybe we should take a tip from the Xoxas. Wind our insults down a notch or two, start using some of those other words ~ zipperdink, voot, geezlewig, swive, hebeshako. Like I said, make up your own. Assign them an offensive meaning and commit them to memory. Next time you go to use the F word, substitute one of them instead. For example, “Yo, you vooting geezlewig! Take your brootin’ pladdle out of the fast lane!” If we did this, I am sure it would make for a kinder, gentler profanity.

You don’t like that idea, then verroot you. And the zippersnottal you rode in on.

by Kenneth Balog

I don’t know what reminded me of the old Tar Baby story. I just woke up and there it was in my mind. Haven’t thought of it or anything like it for years and all of a sudden, there it was plain as a squished June bug, fresh upon my senses.

I might be wrong, picking on the Tar Baby to express my feelings, so bear with me until I explain — then you can criticize all you desire.

When I think of the Tar Baby, I only think about how some dufus tried to have a conversation with it and then when the Baby didn’t answer, they smacked it … and got stuck in the gooey tar. For some reason I liken the Tar Baby to tax money, state grants and some of that copious, odious bailout money Obama, da Chi-town gutter snipe, is spreading on the masses of asses. Yeah, lots of folks running right up to that big Tar Baby and sticking their greedy fingers in the goo to get some. Of course they get stuck — especially on the left side of that Baby … the far left, over there where the socialist fingers are located.

Maybe I had the Cleveland City Council on my mind when I went to bed and it/they caused the Tar Baby to come alive. Yeah, the way the Council members went after some possible sales tax money, held those secret meetings with a foreign company and slipped the Airport Authority $500K, would qualify them for being in the same story with a Tar Baby. A sticky scenario, for certain.

Oh, and I can’t forget the County Commissioners. Notice how they didn’t want to have anything to do with increasing the sales tax until they saw how easy the City suckered the citizens — then they got the same urge to stick a finger in the Tar Baby so bad that they are now the flip/flop champs of East Tennessee?

Did I mention that the Tar Baby is no longer black — but has turned pink because it has leaned so far left? Socialist this and Socialist that.

I hope I wake up in a little while and realize that all of this is just a bad dream.

Little late this week with the column. That guy, Jerry Bruckheimer, the movie producer? He’s been bugging me to death to take a meeting, so I finally flew out west and took it. He wants to make a movie out of one of my columns, which is pretty cool, I guess. He said he had Morgan Freeman onboard to play Obama and Robert Downy, Jr. to play Nancy Pelosi. Also, Sean Penn has been looking for a project that would sell him as a little more mainstream and he really wanted the part of Jean Fortune, the guy in Boynton Beach who called 911 because the Burger King was sold out of pink lemonade. To sweeten the deal, Bruckheimer said he had a commitment from Samuel Jackson to play me. I would have preferred someone a little younger, personally, and maybe of the white persuasion, but they know the movie biz better than I. The script wasn’t too bad, lot of action, car chases, the quick cuts and shaky camera work. I told Bruckheimer there weren’t any car chases in that column, but he said it didn’t matter, they routinely punch up cerebral scripts with fast and furious car chases. Hollywood takes license like that. Which I can relate to. I do that, too. So, anyway, I been on the west coast past few days, kicking it around with some Hollywood hotshots. They offered me a sweet deal, plus points, but I had to pass. I’m sorry, but I just refuse to work with Sean Penn. Anyway, that’s why I’m running late.

While the world teeters on economic collapse, the leader of the free world was on Jay Leno cracking jokes about mentally and physically challenged kids. Good job, Mr. President. I do believe you’re ready for Howard Stern.

And they call that guy the best orator since Ronald Reagan. If he ain’t got his two ~ count em, two ~ teleprompters flanking him, he’s lost. Yet, the stand?up comics and late night gag writers still insist that Obama is so perfect, they just can’t find anything to poke fun at. Hey, comedy guys, here’s you a gag: Obama has worked harder to hide his birth certificate than Bill Clinton did to hide his girlfriends. Bada BING! Okay, so I ain’t Shecky Greene, it’s still a gag. So don’t go trying to tell me there ain’t nothing about the man can be made fun of. Fact is, there ain’t too terribly much about him you can take serious.

And I Quote: “The only connection Obama has to slavery is his father’s tribe captured hapless Africans and sold them to English sea captains ala Roots.” ~ seneca67, posted at oregonlive.com, 03/13/09 at 10:57PM

Boy. That’s one they can’t blame on Bush, huh?

The Germans came up with a great Obama gag, only they didn’t know they were being funny. They’ve come out with a new food item … a fried chicken treat called “Obama Fingers ~ fertig gebraten, mit curry dip.” Thing is, the picture on the package shows white meat. At first I thought, “Wring, wring, mein krautens.” But then someone reminded me that Obama is, after all, half white.

“Can I take your order?”
“Uh, yes … a large order of Obama Fingers, please, with a side of George Clooney?flavored tofu. And maybe a nice thick synthetic blood frosty. And supersize it.”

Yeah, see, cause they got synthetic blood now, too. Probably comes from dead babies. Oops, I forgot … we ain’t supposed to say “dead babies” … we’re supposed to say “fetuses.” Cause who cares if we kill a fetus? Fetus sounds like something from another planet. Fetus sounds like something that should be killed. It’s the PC freaks coopting the language. Now Obama’s saying we have to call terrorists “enemy combatants.” Says we shouldn’t call em terrorists. But that’s not as bad as the ones who wanted to call them “freedom fighters.” People, listen to me … you are smack dab in the middle of the brave new world and you can’t pull yourselves away from your cell phones and widescreens and family freakin stuff?your?fat?face buffets long enough to even notice.

Look, I’ve already covered this next thing, but since then I did a little more reading. That big meeting between Obama and Britain’s prime minister Gordon Brown a couple weeks ago where they exchanged gifts? Remember that? Two things … Brown gave Obama three gifts: 1). A pen set made from the oak timbers of the ship HMS Gannet ~ a late 19th century sloop that fought the slave trade at sea, 2). a nicely framed commission from the HMS Gannet’s sister ship, the HMS Resolute; timbers from that ship were used to make the desk that sits in the Oval Office, and 3). a first edition, seven?volume biography of Winston Churchill, to go along with the bust of Churchill that sits in the Oval Office. Very nice gifts that some English sort obviously put a lot of thought into. So what did Obama give PM Brown? Twenty?five CDs. And that’s the second thing … the freakin CDs won’t even play in England because they’re in a different International Telecommunication Union region. That’s some classy stuff right there.

Course, you gotta wonder if them worthless CDs are better or worse than the gift Hillary gave the Russian foreign minister. She gave him a cheap plastic button that, I guess, is supposed to sit on his desk or something. The button was supposed to read, “reset” in Russian, but instead it translates as “overcharged.” First of all … a red button? With all the nervous jokes about Russia or the U.S. “pushing the button,” she gives them a red button? It ain’t bad enough she gave the Russian foreign minister a freakin gag gift, she got the gag wrong. There wasn’t nobody in the State Department or the Russian embassy that speaks Russian? You know, from now on, the Obama posse should just go down to the Georgia?Florida line and pick up some pecan logs from Stuckeys. For cheesy gifts that say, “Hey, you know what ~ I ain’t put ‘ere thought into this gift,” nothing beats a pecan log.

Speaking of pecan logs, Barney Frank now says that failing insurance giant AIG’s decision to give out huge corporate bonuses was tantamount to “rewarding incompetence.” See, Barney understands that concept well because that’s what the voters in Massachusetts do every time they send him back to Congress.

Anyway, the problems facing this country will not be solved in Washington. Washington is where they were created.

And if you’re fed up with em, here’s something you’ll like. A grassroots movement. Don’t you love grassroots movements? This one is called “the new American tea party.” On April 1st, everyone within the sound of my voice is encouraged to send a single tea bag to your representatives in Washington (so the bags will arrive at least by April 15, tax deadline). Yes, I understand that a great many people don’t know who their representatives are, or that they even have representatives for that matter, but that’s beyond my control. I didn’t take you to raise. If you don’t know who your representatives are, and if you’re too lazy to look it up or ask somebody or Google “New American Tea Party,” just send your tea bag to the White House: 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20500. Remember ~ it’s grassroots.

They were having a grand ol’ time at the United Nations again this week trashing our country. Secretary?General Ban Ki?moon described the United States as a “deadbeat donor to the world body.” You know what I would do if I was the president? I’d borrow one of Nancy Pelosi’s private military jets, fly to New York City, take a cab over to 760 United Nations Plaza, get up there in front of all the assembled member nations and say to them: “United Nations, if you ain’t got your corrupt, ungrateful butts packed and out of my country within thirty minutes, I’m sending you all to Gitmo.” Then I’d go over to Artichoke Basille for a Sicilian slice before heading back to the White House, because, see, I would enjoy being the president.

Believe it or not, Nancy Pelosi is pushing for another multi?hundred billion dollar stimulus package. Boy, that girl loves to shop, don’t she?

Speaking of which … uh, Nancy, regarding that other $800 billion stimulus package? I ain’t feeling stimulated yet, babe.

I’m not a regular reader of Camille Paglia at salon.com, but she nailed it this week when she described the spending as a “chaotic pig rut of a stimulus package, which let House Democrats throw a thousand crazy kitchen sinks into what should have been a focused blueprint for economic recovery.” I will only add that it wasn’t just Democrats salting that turkey with earmarks ~ it was Republicans, too. Shameful, unbridled waste in government crosses all party lines.

And I Quote: “We cannot expect the American People to jump from Capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving Americans small doses of Socialism until they suddenly awake to find that they have Communism.” ~ Soviet Leader Nikita Khrushchev, 1959

Boy, maybe they really will bury us.

Back in the USSA. Don’t wanna believe what I saaaay, boy. Back in the US, back in the US, back in the USSA.

No, you know how serious things are right now? So serious that even ol’ Vaclav Klaus called on Obama to cool his jets before he destroys the world’s free markets. What? Who’s Vaclav Klaus? He’s the president of the Czech Republic. Yeah. When’s the last time you heard anything out of him? For that matter, when have you even heard of him? That shows you how serious things are, when Vaclav’s out there giving Obama advice.

PETA wants to market tofu that “tastes like George Clooney.” Dude, that’s disgusting. That’s just one step away from cannibalism. I don’t even like him as an actor, let alone as a flavor. And here I was thinking it wasn’t possible to make tofu any nastier. What’s next, PETA? Soylent Green? Y’all need to think about yourselves over there.

Wal Mart has announced they’re going to open a number of “Hispanic stores” across the country. Okay, but I think if they really want that concept to fly, they’re going to have to sell something besides Hispanics.

Scientists have created a strain of the human AIDS virus that is able to infect and multiply in monkeys. I guess scientists figured that life is just too easy for a monkey, so they figured they’d throw a little human AIDS into the mix, kinda shake things up in the ol’ banana patch. Scientists … they are so like us in many ways.

A fertility clinic in California is now offering designer babies to … well, I guess to pretty much whoever comes up with the cash. They let you select your baby’s coloring, mix it up a bit with the genes. As if Octomom wasn’t red flag enough, I promise you now, if there’s a dollar to be made we’re gonna be seeing a glut of piebald babies, feline babies, monkey babies, spider babies, babies that look like Jennifer Aniston and George Clooney, babies with gills and wings and antennae, babies with feet coming out of their heads and heads coming out of their feet and just all manner of weirdness. Mark it.

Actually, I might like one them that look like Jennifer Aniston if they can make me one that’s already full grown.

I read where the population of the world is currently at 6.8 billion people. There’s no question that some of you got to go.

In South Africa, men are raping lesbians in an attempt to cure their homosexuality. You know, much like what Obama is doing to the American taxpayer to cure us of democracy. Barack, listen to me, son … it don’t work in South Africa and it won’t work here.

And is anybody else getting a little tired of Obama and Biden and Geitner and the rest of them telling us how bad things are, how bad they’re going to get and how none of it is their fault? No? Nobody? Well … I guess it’s just me. Nevermind.

by Kenneth Balog

Considering how members of the Cleveland City Council conducted super secret business meetings with Wacker Chemie over the past three years, and how they passed the Censorship Resolution during March 2008, and how they are pushing for a sales tax increase, and how they plowed taxpayer money into the airport, I would not be surprised if they changed the City Seal to a plain old hammer and sickle.

Of course, I know what a hammer and sickle implies — I also know what a swastika implies and the difference in the direction the arms might point. Both symbols represent the ultimate in bad government. Bad for the freedoms of the citizens, that is. Bad for our republic, bad for what is left of the United States of America. But good for the communists, the leftists and of course the Obama socialists who all wish to replace the USA with the ASS.

Back to that Censorship Resolution #2008-23. It was aimed at a local monthly newspaper and a writer for that newspaper. The only reason I want to bring it up again is because within that resolution there was a line that caught my attention — in part: “While recognizing freedom of the press, the Council would ask that the publisher of The People News to take action to address that article and restrict further.”

The words “recognizing freedom of the press” are what I am talking about. What I would like to know is, how on earth can the press exercise its freedom or do its job if the city council fosters censorship? Likewise, how can citizens express their views if meetings are conducted in secrecy? And if a citizen makes public comments about the underhanded tactics of the council, can we expect a police officer to come knocking on the door? One would expect so, what with the way the council members have been conducting business.

I am not certain if the city council and its toadying cluster of suck-ups are winging it, or are they attempting to copy Obama and the socialist-bound democrats. Whatever the answer, we citizens of Cleveland need a new set of elected officials. A set of people who will do their jobs out in the open instead of in secret chambers and in a manner that adheres to the basic tenets of the US Constitution.

Can we soon expect an increase in charges for utilities because the city wants to get that new airport and Wacker running? More greenbelts? More parks? More secret deals with other prospective businesses? More waiving of taxes?

It is high time we citizens tell the council members that we do not appreciate their misconduct and that they ought to resign.

No more secret meetings, no more increases in taxes, no more personal agenda, no more obligating of public funds, no more pet projects, no more autocratic behavior and especially no more ignoring manufacturing entities that pollute our environment.

Do the members of the city council even care what the citizens think? Apparently not. Do the citizens care?

I heard something this week that helped illustrate just how large the figure “one trillion” is. You know, in the context of “money blowing through the Nancy Pelosi administration”? Okay, here’s the example I heard: If a person spent one million dollars every day for two thousand years, they still wouldn’t have spent a trillion dollars. Did you hear me? A million dollars a day for two thousand years? And there’d still be money left over? That’s the kind of money the government’s projecting to bail out fat cats, increase welfare and study worm burps. A million bucks a day for two thousand years and you still can’t spend a trillion dollars. I’m numb, seriously, I am literally aghast. And I’m rarely, if ever, numb and aghast in the same sentence.

I’m tempted not to say another word. Just stop right now and let you think about the seriousness of that. But, of course, I do like to talk so we’ll move on.

What? Worm burps? Yeah, see, when worms burp, they emit nitrous oxide into the air. Doesn’t seem like it could be much ~ I mean, it’s a worm. But Congress is already trying to tax pig and cow farts, so it follows that they would eventually go after the worms. What? How do you tax a worm? Well, Pelosi covered that in her stimulus bill. It’s in a  chapter entitled “Irreparable  Harm Done to the Ozone by Belching Animals, and Congresses’ Over?Priced, Taxpayer?Funded Solution To It.” I’ll bet you a dollar right now that Pelosi emits more nitrous oxide than a dang worm. Or cow. Or pig. Or any of those cowpokes in Blazing Saddles.

And I Quote: “I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

Hey, Thomas … you ought’a see us now.

Obama gave England’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown some DVDs as a gift this week when they had their first big meeting. That’s some of that Dollar Store diplomacy right there. And you know those are DVDs that somebody gave him for Christmas and he didn’t want em. Hey, Barack, why didn’t you just give the man some Shoney’s coupons and a yo-yo? Hey, it ain’t nothin’ but a thang.

Speaking of Gordon Brown … I thought Bush haters had the insults down to an art, but that was before I began reading the insults aimed at Gordon Brown. I don’t know much about him, but he don’t sound too popular in Britain. One of the more flavorful insults was from an Internet poster who described him as a “snot eating moron with (a) defective personality.” Boy, that’s cold. Of course, the anonymity of the Internet always brings out the creativity in people. Snot eating moron with a defective personality. Too bad we don’t have George Bush to kick around anymore, huh? That would make a great insult for him.

What am I saying? Of course we still have George Bush to kick around.

A trillion seconds equals 32,000 years! Still numb. Still aghast.

This next item hit close to home. A woman in Candler, North Carolina went into a funeral home the other day and started smacking the dead guy around in his coffin. She didn’t even know the dead guy and when they asked her why she did it, she said it just felt like the right thing to do. Her name is Nicole Leonard. Yeah, you know, she sounds like a Leonard. We never have much liked dead people. Don’t like being around em, don’t like the way they smell and don’t like being reminded of our own mortality. Especially those North Carolina Leonards, they’re awful sensitive.

A huge asteroid came whizzing through the solar system this week and blew by the earth at a scant 44,750 miles. I could feel the wind from it.

Somebody asked me why I didn’t write anything for Black History Month this year. I usually do but I wasn’t really thinking about it this time. Which begs the question, do black people still need their own month? Black POTUS ought’a count for something. No, you know what? Maybe we should give February over to some other group and let it be their month. Maybe make it Hispanic History Month for awhile. Or American Indian History Month. Yeah. Now, there’s a people with a grievance. Not only do they live on Reservations, nobody even cares enough to come up with a better word for it than “Reservations.”

Aww, don’t get excited, I’m just putting stuff out there. If you don’t think black people can’t be racist jerks same as anybody, you’re being naive. Consider this little gem, which I found in a post at Politico.com this past week and now reprint verbatim: “Memo to Michael Steele. You ain’t black, never have been black, and never will be black. Stop reaching out to the Black Community for us to support you. Your a sellout and a discrace to every person of color. In the afterlife, every slave that got lynched, every black woman brutally raped by her slave master, and every child that died in church bombings will be waiting for you to get a piece of you. Run and cry to your slave massa Limbo before he decides to whip you Tom. Until then, Black People will be waiting for you at your next rally to throw more oreo cookies at you.”

Michael Steele, of course, is himself a gentleman of color. What crime did he commit that would bring such invective? He recently became the new chairman of the Republican Party. If ever a crime deserved the death penalty, huh?

According to the latest tally, the number of people receiving food stamps increased by 700,000 in just one month. By the end of the fiscal year, the program will be costing about $10 billion more than a year ago. Boy ~ billion this, trillion that. What did the man say? Pretty soon we’re going to be talking about real money. If a trillion is the new billion, where does that leave the nickel? Pity the lowly nickel. The nickel is like the coccyx of money … there’s just no reason for it to exist anymore.

And I Quote: “The problem with Socialism is that, eventually, you run out of other people’s money.” ~ Margaret Thatcher

The Washington Post came out with some hard?hitting investigative reporting this week focused on Obama. With the stimulus plan, a tax?heavy budget, extraneous spending, tax cheats in the cabinet, fears of socialism, attacks on our economic system and attacks on free speech, the Post ran an in?depth piece on Obama’s hair. See, it’s turning gray. Good job, Post. Outstanding. Please keep us updated on that. And if you can, find out if the Obamas’ new puppy has been vetted yet. Does it have a name? Does anyone know its pedigree? We’re depending on you, media people, so don’t let us down.