ollowing the September special election of Republican Bob Turner to fill the Congressional seat disgraced by Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner, newspaper headline writers are entering into a devastating period of depression as they face the prospect of never again writing a Weiner-centric news headline.

Rep. Weiner, a U.S. Congressman with a strong Democratic record since 1998, was the subject of a scandal in May 2011 for sending women illicit pictures of his namesake via Twitter. The accusation proved disastrous for the New York Representative and Democratic Party, and a windfall for bored and humorless newspaper publishers who were thrilled to be writing about naughty bits at long last. Boldface text announcing "Weiner Hanging Out on Twitter" and "Weiner Exposed Online" besieged the sleepy culture of America, increasing newspaper sales for people who found it funnier to read than just listen to a description of the disappointing sex scandal on CNN.

A little more than a week after the incident, the Congressman admitted to emailing links to women he was interested in polling, and by the end of June, the 9th District Representative resigned his seat. Headlines continued to roll, tongues firmly in cheek among the newspaper industry, proclaiming, "Weiner Loses Standing," "Weiner Ejected From Seat," and the timeless classic "Weiner Suddenly Pulls Out." Bad times for the sexually mischievous Congressman, great times for headline writers; although the news cut short some of the fun of the journalism industry, they were still guaranteed months of fun as a special election seemed some months off to fill the vacated position.

A confidential source from the New York Daily News, whose name simply isn’t as funny as Tony Weiner, remembered the past four months as if they were last year.

"As a copy editor whose only functions are to proofread stories and write headlines, let me just state for the record you’re lucky if you get big news story in your lifetime—think about it. A big-time politician exposing himself on the internet? That it in itself is gold. But the guy is named Weiner. Jesus H. Christ, that’s better than Cox. You gotta savor it," said the anonymous dude. "Even after he resigned we spent days writing headlines about him, just because dammit, we earned the right. I think we left three serial killings without coverage while we came up with ’Who Will Replace Weiner’? That was my favorite. Man, we’ll never get those days back."

This reporter reminded the confidential informant of the now classic, "No One Big Enough to Fill Weiner’s Slot," then we laughed ourselves stupid.

The halcyon days of headline writing seemed to fade as the date of the special election approached, and dull-as-dishwater Republican Bob Turner defeated the even-less-spectacularly-named Assemblyman David Weprin. The Republican election not only means a big GOP win in a district they haven’t held since 1923, but a promise that future Weiner-related headlines will only seem a desperate play for attention by print tabloids and newspapers.

At the New York Post, there was a somber feeling in the air on election night, and boos went around as a Republican victory was announced. All eyes were misty, and the feeling was best exemplified by copy editor Dawn Draper.

"Gentlemen… that’s our last Weiner." Half-hearted chuckles were all that met the dour atmosphere.

Draper spoke further on the subject as deadline approached, the staff rushing about us like mad men.

"Of course we’ll miss the chance to make Weiner-related headlines, and not just because it sold more papers," Draper said. "We at the Post have been doing Weiner write-ups before anyone else. I myself am responsible for our coverage of the firing of his Chief of Staff in 2006, which spawned the immortal headlines ’Weiner Loses Head of Staff’ and ’Behind Weiner’s Big Sack.’ But it’s never going to be enough for us again to write more Weiner coverage, to give the full skinny on Weiner—sorry, hard to stop doing that. For a while, it was a perfect storm of scandal and ’you’ve got to be shitting me’ names—everyone was game, we were all on board. Oh, the nights we sat here, giggling like school girls over Chinese take-out and writing up new Weiner coverage. We’ll never have that again."

Despite the morbid pessimism of some, others in the industry hold out some hope for the future. The New York Times, famous for its conservative coverage of news and events, has already announced their support for a fresh batch of congressional candidates in 2012, among them 8th District contender Penny Dick, 12th District candidate Patrick Dong, and 2nd District dark horse Mike Dixon-Kuntz.

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OH MY GOD SNOW

Boy have I got a bug in my bonnet, good people!

Once again I've had a run in with some no-goodniks lately. As my regular readers will know, I'm surrounded on all sides by youth trash that just will not give respect where it's due. Some may feel intimidated and back down from the pierced and tatooed larvae that pass for young people these days, but not yours truly. Nor will I.

Two of these miscreants today were loitering with their landsurfboards in front of the Yarn Bungaloo off Highway 62, when me, minding perfectly my own business of mine, became subject to ridicule at the hands of these goofsters. As you may well know, I'm not a tall man--I make no secret of it. I stand proudly at my four feet. But my height has made me a target for hooligans looking to besmirch the good name of Rokwell T. Finger. And these two were of the same ilk.

After years of trying to "get along" and "live in peace" with the young people of today, after searching for viable alternatives, I'm left with one clear choice for our entire nation:

We must annihilate Generation X.

Before you hippies and pacifists begin your whining, I've heard it all before. I can't "come on and smile on my brother," or "get together and try love one another." I've lost interest in "jumping feet first into the love boat" and "ridin' on the peace train" or "gettin' high off my fuckin' ass" anymore. Generation X is a dark and ugly evil twin to the generation of children America should have raised. Perhaps the good ones are spirited away, in a dimension where we all wear goatees and sleeveless shirts and we are the bad ones, not them. I've seen as much on a documentary on The Learning Channel, but that's not the point. The point is that if we can't get our good kids back, the bad ones must be obliterated for our own sake.

I will no longer stand idly by while our children stand idly around. They are vicious taunters and intolerable smarmy pissants with no respect for anyone. I watched all my friends go to war and some didn't come back. I didn't even get to see some of them off to their deaths since they were of ill health and couldn't trek to Canada to see me before they headed out to war.

If you want to talk about despair and gloom, let's talk about the '60s, you little shits. The horror of long-haired freaks and high beatniks running around loose. Christ, there were even some years I couldn't visit my summer home in Watts. Generation X knows nothing about terror. I've been there. I've had several friends who've described it in detail.

There is only one remedy for a troublesome generation. Instant death! I call on the president to take action and wipe this ugly smirk off the face of America, once at least half of them have procreated to replenish the species. Then again, from what I understand, we may have to go ahead and de-funct the ass of that generation immediately as well.

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Nedwrinkle Nedmiller has a dream, ladies and gentlementarians. It is a dream that one day a giant mouse will come to town driving a fire truck, and everyone will give that mouse money, but Nedmiller will be out of money. Ned spent all his money buying cream pies to throw at the governor on the Eve of Meringue, a holiday tradition that goes back as far as the settlin' days, when the wild coyotes played Frisbee in the prairies and them prairie dogs done pushed a couch into the river and nobody can get their undershorts washed for Sunday churchin' because of it. Goddamn them prairie dogs.

In this dream Nedmonkey's got no cash to be givin to the fire-truck driving mouse, and is feeling right ashamed because of it. The rest of the town is having a grand old time, giving the firetruck mouse their tens and twenties, their fives and their rare commemorative eight dollar bills that were minted so folks wouldn't have to break a twenty when they're renting rollerskates for the annual Holy Molar-Rink skating party to promote good teeth and God and all. Though Ned always had to break a 20 anyways since he liked to get his skates sharpened and his incisors capped on a yearly basis.

So every damned body is forking over their greenbacks to the fire-truck driving mouse, little kids be smashing open their pigglybanks with little newborn puppies and women older than Union Steel are prying open them change purses to fling their buffalo nickels at the mouse. And there's Nedrumple, penniless and excluded, feelin' like a polo jockey on prom night.

So Ned hops on the back of a pair of safety scissors that're waltzin down the street, and rides them lefties to Giant Land, where things is bigger than average. Ned sneaks into a giant's house and steals himself a gigantic mousetrap from the giant's attic. On the way out, Ned hears a boomin' voice speak out "Feeb Flies Fort Fumes! I Smell the Cologne of an Old Spice Man!" but Nedrip is purely an ambergris kind of Nedmiller so the biggun must've been speaking to another tiny man come visiting from the Land of Average-Sized Things. Anyhow, t'was not Ned's concern so he made his way back home via a hole in the Time-Life Conundrum, picking up some butterfly milk on the way home.

Once back in the Land of Things Not So Large, Ned set up them giant mouse-trap in the middle of Rhubarb street, aimin' to teach that giant mouse a lesson about comin' to town and acceptin' money from everybody on days when Nedro was flush out of funds. Ned was about to think up a brilliant plan to lure them mouse into them hinged contraption of doom when out of nowhere the governor came running up to see if the mouse would take Mastercard. The gov'ner done stepped in one of Ned's cream pies, which stuck to his shoe and he stumbled right into the giant mouse trap, which cut him in half like a giant fellow bent on making a meal of governors.

It was as tragic a scene as Ned has been witness to in the last three-quarters of an hour, but when that trap came down on the governor, just before he was divided into two equal half-governors, he let out a squeak just like a giant mouse would be expected to do, resulting in such comedy that Ned and the giant mouse laughed themselves half silly. Having bonded so completely, Ned and the giant mouse went and sat on top of the great pyramid and ate giant flavored gumdrops, best friends from that day forward. Until moments later when Ned was woken up quite unexpectedly by crabs a-nibblin' on his toes and the dreamtime was done. Ned Nedmiller has this dream.

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