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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Every once in a while I receive a reader question that really knocks me off the toilet. The latest came from Shane Bugelskow of Jersey City, New Jersey, wrapped around a rock and thrown through my bathroom window. Shane wonders, among other things, why there's no Channel One on his television. I promptly wrote him back and told him the truth: that it was because he has a small penis.

More discerning readers of my column, wherever you are, will likely want a more in-depth answer. None of you, unless you're insane or living overseas (or more likely, both), have a Channel One on your television, and you can't all have small penises. Some of you have no penises at all. My sincerest apologies to those unfortunate readers.

The answer to this question actually has a long and varied history. The original TV sets had no Channel One completely on accident due to a mishap at the first Zenith TV set factory, when an uptight quality-control engineer became paranoid that he'd get fired for signing off on a television that had a channel "L". Despite the reassurances from others in the factory who hadn't been huffing hair perm solution, the engineer couldn't be convinced that it was definitely a "1" and the further scrutiny also made him suspicious about the zero, which he began to worry might be a dial position for the letter "o". Since he had already nixed two of the television set's fifteen channels within the last ten minutes, the rest of the factory workers decided to drop the issue before they started producing expensive fish tanks that didn't get any channels.

The U.S. public back in the 50's was so mesmerized and confused by the first television sets that the lack of channels zero and one didn't strike them as odd at all. People in the 50's were accustomed to being told what to think, and if they had asked about the channels they would've bought any old ludicrous explanation about swamp gas and weather balloons anyway, so there was really no point in asking even if the thought had been coughed up in someone's primitive 1950's brain.

Other television set manufacturers like RCA and Philco were quick to follow Zenith's lead by starting with Channel Two, since the public was highly superstitious back in those days, and likely would have interpreted the addition of previously-forbidden television channels as serious bad voodoo. Unfortunately this decision spelled disaster for the RBC television network, which had outbid ABC, NBC and CBS for the coveted "first-channel" slot in the realm of broadcast bandwidth. RBC dutifully soldiered on and broadcast a full slate of shows for a year and a half after their launch, but eventually folded since only a small handful of people with broken television sets could tune in their network at all. RBC still beat ABC in television ratings, but advertisers never learned this fact since the results were only broadcast on RBC.

After the failure of RBC, the Channel One bandwidth was bought up by the U.S. government, which told an extremely gullible U.S. public that it would be used for ham radios. Americans rushed to stores to buy ham radios, and for six months in 1953 you couldn't get anybody to go bowling because they were all at home, trying to figure out how to turn on their ham radios. Three people succeeded, and were never heard from again.

In actuality, the U.S. government created their own network called USN to air on Channel One, mainly to give governmental higher-ups something else to watch while all the civilian slobs were watching I Love Lucy and Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts. The network originally aired a stultifying blend of training and hygiene videos, culled from the government's massive collection of archived film strips. But eventually, poor ratings (even for a top-secret network) drove USN honchos to migrate toward racier fare, taking advantage of their security clearance by showing secret footage of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, nuclear tests, and grainy, flip-book footage of the Lincoln assassination. Channel One soon garnered a reputation as cutting-edge TV, decades before the advent of cable.

The Zapruder footage of President Kennedy's assassination made its network debut on USN in 1963, playing on a constant round-the-clock rotation that television wouldn't see again until Michael Jackson's video for "Thriller." Even after the footage hit the rest of the public networks, USN still had the upper hand thanks to their multi-angle coverage and exclusive first-person footage. The network wouldn't have another hit this big until they scored with their helmet-cam footage of the Watergate break-in in 1972.

With the advent of digital tuners being built into television sets in the 1980's, the U.S. government faced a new challenge. Rumors about Channel One had spread by word of mouth on college campuses and among lazy slack-ass pigs during the 70's, and the chances that nobody would ever bother to hit the one button on their new TV sets were fairly slim. The government briefly considered launching a Gestapo-style raid on all digital television sets nationwide, but this was considered impractical since television sets are really heavy and most soldiers and pretty lazy when it comes right down to it. Instead, the USN higher-ups developed an ingenious encryption technique that made the network's broadcasts look just like television static to average slobs, but added 3D visuals for government officials who were granted a special pair of glasses with one white lens and one black lens for USN viewing.

To further throw the slackers off their scent, the government also launched an "educational" program to bring "Channel One" to the nation's classrooms, a program that mostly entailed grade-school children sitting through commercials for Fritos on sputnik-era television sets that had to be wheeled in on a cart from the A/V room.

But the subterfuge was successful, and to this day, high-ranking government buttwipes wile away their non-productive hours watching real alien autopsies and how-to videos on crop circle formation, while the rest of us have to make due with American Idol and that great show where you turn off the TV and just stare at your reflection in the tube since it's more entertaining than anything being broadcast that night.

So that's why you don't have a Channel One, commune readers. Any other missing channels can be blamed on either your cable provider or your penis size. Good day.

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Dear commune:

If "God Don’t Make No Junk," then how do you explain the Oak Ridge Boys? They suck.

Sincerely,

Norman Turner
Falling River, VT



Dear Norman:

The paradox you’ve hit upon is one of many caused by a shoddy translation of the Bible from its original Aramaic. The passage you’re quoting is thought by most modern scholars to be more correctly translated as: "Good God, how much did ye pay for this shithole?" which is what the lord said the first time he saw Peter’s house. Scholars think Peter’s place must really have been a dump, as it was vile enough to offend a savior who had been born in a barn. Speaking of which, "Werest thou born in a barn?" is another popular Bible quote, which referred to Jesus’ annoying habit of leaving the door open wherever he went.

the commune

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Editor’s Note: the commune is not responsible for curds, whey, or any other ethnic divisions which may be present in your cottage cheese. As the saying goes, you bought your cheese, now eat it with apple slices.

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