Ohio Rep. Traficant Sticks to Convictions, Despite Convictions

.S. Representative James Traficant vowed not to give up his Congressional seat Thursday following the announcement of his guilty verdict on charges of bribery, racketeering, falsifying tax returns, and forcing his federal aides to dress in overalls and chew straw on his Ohio farm.

Upon hearing the guilty of verdict, Traficant, who represented himself, stated, "I accept your verdict." On the steps of the courthouse, despite his attorney's counsel, Traficant vowed to appeal the verdict.

"I refuse to accept a verdict of this nature," Traficant told the commune. "This decision, indeed these charges, have all been politically motivated. I suspect everybody involved in this trial, from the prosecution to the judge to the defense attorney to the jury is out to ruin my good name. I reject this attempt to oust me from office. I'll see to it these charges are acquitted and my attorney is disbarred."

House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-Missouri) called for Traficant's resignation. Upon being told Traficant was convicted of the charges, Gephardt was unswayed and still called for his resignation.

"Mr. Traficant puts a foul mark on all congressman everywhere," said Gephardt. "His conviction on bribery charges seals the deal. He cannot be trusted to represent the people of Ohio anymore. He is exactly why people hate politicians, and has been found legally guilty of doing what everyone else is only suspected of doing."

"I might also add," continued Gephardt, "that Mr. Traficant has, in recent months, been supporting Rep. Dennis Hastert as speaker of the House. You know, Hastert? The Republican? You put it all together, eh?"

When confronted with Gephardt's statements, Traficant was resilient about keeping his seat.

"I have convictions I will not turn away from. And by convictions, I don't mean yesterday's convictions, I mean my original convictions that brought me to office." Traficant accepted an envelope from a dark-suited man which he quickly pocketed. "They have tried to convict me on these charges before, when I first began my political career. They failed then and I believe they ultimately will fail again. These are my deeply-held convictions. Once again, I mean my personal convictions, not criminal."

When questioned about the charges, Traficant spoke vaguely. "Mistakes were made. Let's just say that and nobody gets hurt."

"My only regret," continued Traficant, "was that I didn't hire bigger and burlier aides. Somebody with a little farm hand experience. At the end of the day I could've gotten twice as much done. Or hell, maybe even just hired a couple of guys to run the farm without having to pretend they work in the office. It's not like I'm running short on cash, with all the bribes and underreporting on the tax forms. But that's not a confession—I mean, that's not to say I—aw, forget it. Talk to my attorney."

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I'm not kidding, what a shithole. You think they'd post a sign at the state line or something, letting everybody know they're wasting their time even coming inside. I should be able to sue New Mexico for false advertising since they call it a state and from my experience in other states I didn't expect it to suck so bad. Granted, there are enough people in New Mexico that this could get real expensive real fast, which is a problem the guys in line behind me will have to deal with.

And I think they're even doing it on purpose, trying to fake people out that New Mexico's a fun place to be. In Albuquerque (known to the locals as "Albu-crack") there's a cartoon mascot called the Albuquerque Turkey on all the signs, smiling and pointing the way to helpful destinations like the methadone clinic. And I shit you not, most of these metal signs have bite-marks in them next to the bullet holes, like some cartoon-hungry asshole thought the Turkey looked delicious way up there on his perch.

My first day in Albuquerque I got hit by a drunk driver, while I was eating at an Arby's. He came out of nowhere, and that fucker ate my sandwich. The only thing I can hope is that some of the abundant broken glass in the dining area got mixed in with his Horsey Sauce and he spent the night shitting out ground asshole and cursing Arby's big-hatted name. Now whenever I go to Arby's I use the drive-up window and keep one foot on the gas.

It really makes you wonder, though, who the hell is this Arby guy? What a freaky name. And I bet he drove his wife crazy, talking about roast beef all the time. "Jesus, Arby, try some pasta for once. And no, I don't think it's legal to make a breakfast cereal out of beef ends." I'm not sure what happens when you don't vary your diet at all, but I imagine the guy crapped like one of those Play-Doh Silly Factory things.

That's a talent you don't hear much about. Every cool bastard in the movies can blow a smoke ring, but what about the guy who can clench his anus and lay out a star-shaped log? That's the dude I don't want to piss off. Not that it's a dangerous talent really, but I don't want anybody with that kind of spare time daydreaming of ways to jack me up.

I used to love daydreaming myself, until somebody told me it doesn't count if you're asleep at the time. Screw that, I can think of a lot better things to do in my office chair than staying awake. And besides, I don't know what kind of voodoo shit you have to pull off to be dreaming and awake at the same time, I'll leave that to the insane and all those lazy shaman pricks out there. Granted, it probably helps pass the time when you're stuck some place boring, but the last thing I need is to scream out "Elephants!" and piss myself right in the middle of jury duty.

That reminds me, those jury duty guys probably think I'm still on "smoke break," the gullible bastards. I'm thinking of ducking back in there in a week or two before they catch on, you know, make an appearance for a few minutes and then pause the trial so I can go "take a piss" for the rest of the month. It's a lot like high school, only the judge is real slow on the uptake with the practical jokes. I swear that guy's drank Secretariat in glue form via his coffee by now, it's amazing.

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The best part of being a professional Research Editor (and if you don't capitalize that you're shit out of luck if you expect a response email) and knowing shitloads about history is that you get to spend most of your time laughing at how stupid people were in the past. Which is even more fun than it sounds. Not that people are any smarter now, but the true scope of any period's idiocy only becomes vividly clear in retrospect.

Most people don't know, for example, that back when X-rays were invented they weren't used for any breakthrough life-saving medical purposes. They used them to X-ray people's feet in shoe stores to make sure their shoes fit right. I shit you not. And it wasn't until the store employees started growing dicks on their dicks like weird sex-cactus nightmares and other Stephen King nonsense that they put two and two together and figured out that all the store employees should run and hide behind a felt tarp when the Foot-o-Scope was turned on. Years later somebody realized that there was a reason all the regular customers were having their feet turn to chalk, so the shoe stores sold all their Foot-o-Scopes to hospitals, which began using them to X-ray pregnant women daily to make sure their fetuses were turning out okay.

Foot-o-Scopes were outlawed by the 1950's, though some were still found to be in use in West Virginia and other third-world states well into the 1980's. Shocking as this may seem, it is important to remember that the state of West Virginia is officially 100 years behind the times, and is kept that way by the federal government to encourage tourism. It's like a giant state-sized Truman Show. The reason there are so many UFO sightings in West Virginia is that the state's residents have not yet invented the aeroplane, and commercial flights passing over the state scare the bejesus out of everyone on the ground.

However, this is an exciting time to be a West Virginian, since the early 1900's were the golden age of misguided medical innovation. Only now are West Virginians experiencing the joys of phrenology, the science of determining personality by measuring the size of your head. Phrenologists used head-measuring devices that look like what you'd use to measure someone's head if you only had a vegetable colander and an acupuncture set at your disposal. It was thought at the time that different parts of the brain controlled different organs, and it went without saying that each of these organs controlled a personality trait (hence the terms "That guy was a dick," "What an asshole," and "Just tackle the wolf, you pussy!"). So if the subject being measured had a lump on his skull in a certain spot, obviously his brain was so overdeveloped in that area it was pushing his skull out like a baking potato.

This theory was soon followed to its logical conclusion when medical marvel and part-time turkey hunter James "Lumpy" Monroe was named President for Life and God Among Men of the National Phrenology Association for his freakishly cauliflower-like skull. This crowning achievement of the phrenology movement was short-lived, however, and the practice was dealt a crippling blow soon after his election when Lumpy Monroe drown while attempting to quench his thirst by leaving his mouth open in a rainstorm.

Part of the reason phrenology proved so popular in the early 20th century was that people had just figured out that bloodletting was bullshit and were eager to find something new to spend their healthcare dollars on, since back in that day all doctors could really do was take your pulse and give you "pills." I say "pills" because all prescription drugs were the same thing back then, capsules containing a mixture of cocaine, morphine and alcohol that were put into different bottles depending on what your problem was. The pills didn't actually cure anything, but nobody complained since they were drunk and high all the time.

Believe it or not, this was actually a step forward for Western medicine, since previously people had believed that the only way to get well was to get the sick out of your body by whatever means necessary. From the middle ages through the 1800's, doctors starved, bled and beat the shit out of sick people both for the patient's health and for their own personal enjoyment. And though the starving and the ass-kicking were the most fun for the doctors, bloodletting was by far the most popular cure for everything from abdominal cramps to bad luck.

Doctors and barbers both got in on the act, though the latter was more a serendipitous accident involving poorly-trained barbers. The barbers had a leg up on the doctors when it came to marketing, however, and they came up with the barber pole to make blood draining out of an arm look fun, while all the doctors could come up with was a couple of scary-assed snakes humping a light pole, which probably drove away more customers than it attracted.

Doctors coined the term "phlebotomy" for the practice, combining "phlegm," the scientific term for throat snot, with "botomy," the medical term meaning the removal of an important body part for no good reason. Phlebotomy flourished despite the fact that a doctor killed George Washington by leaving the former president draining while he went away for a weekend of golf. The American Civil War marked the height of the craze, when over 500,000 Union and Confederate soldiers were cured of aggressive tendencies through battlefield phlebotomy.

The annals of medical dumbshitery are much thicker than could ever be covered in one column, but rest assured this topic will be revisited the next time I have to go see my idiot doctor.

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