Shuttle Tragedy Not Even a Blip on Radar Screen Any More

ess than two months after the space shuttle Columbia exploded in the skies over a number of western American states, a Gallup poll reveals that at least 87% of all citizens don't even remember that it happened. Six percent said that they recall "something like that sort of happening a while back, or whatever," and another seven percent simply replied "Huh?"

"It was the gravest and most important news of the moment. Americans everywhere felt a profound sense of grief at that tragic loss, at least until more important events occurred," said FOX anchorman Brit Hume. "It was humbling, at the time, to experience such a stirring loss for our nation, but it was understandably forgotten when the Michael Jackson interview aired, and 'American Idol' returned to TV, and after we declared war on France and, uh... oh yeah, Iraq."

"We at CNN are dedicated to forging the path to the truth of these mortifying events and exposing the cause for as long as it takes," CNN anchor Shepherd Smith pointed out. "But that was provided there were no new developments in the DC sniper hearings, or Martha Stewart didn't set her Imclone stock on fire. And, as everyone knows, there were a lot of breaking stories in the days following the Challenger explosion, including- What? The Columbia? When?"

MSNBC reporter Victoria Corderi added with a giggle that she couldn't recall "even the tiniest detail of that story now. I can tell you where I had my hair done last week, though. And I can name all fifty state capitals. Want to hear? There's Augusta, and there's Birmingham, and there's... wait, is it Birmingham? Oh yeah, and I think Atlanta, or does that take the place of Augusta...? And there's definitely Albany. Definitely Albany. There's Sacramento, too, but wait, I'm getting out of order..."

Systems analyst Prudy Righteous, of Hellflung, Arizona, responded to the Gallup poll, and told pollsters that she thought she remembered something about finding a big pile of twisted metal wreckage and what appeared to be a scattering of human remains while vacationing at her parents' ranch in west Texas, but that "It all seems like a blur to me now. You know how you have those funny kind of wakey dreams, where everything seems so real, like aliens standing over your bed and anal-probing you, but you don't really remember it in the morning? It was kind of like that."

Another respondent, unemployed seasonal worker Manuel Shorthoe, of Reamer, Nevada, said that he thought he saw something bright streaking across the sky a couple months back, but added that "You guys prob'ly shouldn't pay much attention to that. I see that kind of stuff while staring at the ceiling in my living room all the time. You know. But hey, did you catch that Michael Jackson interview? Man, that guy is like a total freakin' freak, you know what I'm saying?"

When asked if they thought the shuttle program should continue in light of the now-forgotten tragedy, a full 90% responded "Heck yeah! How else are we going to get to the airport? You know how much long term parking costs there?"

Because the number of people sampled was much higher than usual -- a whopping 57,392 people responded, probably because they were all promised that Bill Gates would send them a check and a gift certificate to the Gap if they did so -- the margin for error was set at approximately plus or minus 14%.

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Every year around this time I get a lot of mail from readers asking about the holidays. It seems like everyone's got a question on their mind like: "If you run over a kid with your car on Halloween, and you're dressed as a giant baby, can you still be tried as an adult?" or "Is there a statute of limitations on stealing thirty turkeys?" or "Omar, I think you got my sister pregnant at the Christmas party last year." Unfortunately, I can't answer every question personally, since as Twain said, "Time is money," and nobody's sent a valid cashier's check or money order along with any of their questions so far. (Incidentally, the answer to all three questions above is "It depends on which state you're in." That's a freebie to get you started.) But this year I thought I'd do a column answering some questions about the holidays, since all I've had going on lately is jury duty and I can't tell any of my hilarious court stories here until they fry that pigfucker.

So anyway, last week I was at the courthouse on a Bicardi break during this big-shot trial I was telling you about. (And like I said, I can't discuss the details or who it is or whatever, but suffice it to say this is one guy won't be buying his wife any hats any time soon. Because she's dead, and also because he cut her head off with a chainsaw. And also because he's a cheap bastard... and also because his name is Steve. That's all I can tell you though.) While I was on my break, I ran into commune research editor Griswald Dreck out in the hallway. Turns out he was on the jury for a trial down the hall, something about this chef at a restaurant who was putting Comet in everything, he was a crazy bastard or some shit like that. Anyway, while we were on break we started talking about the upcoming holidays, and how those dumb-assed Canadians don't even know what month Thanksgiving is in. And that got us started on where the holidays came from and who thought to cram all that bread up the turkey's ass or if that was an accident the first time. It turned out that Griswald knew a lot about this kind of stuff, and it dawned on me that I could probably hash out a column on the origins of the holidays during some of those long-winded eyewitness testimonies.

We all know the story of Thanksgiving that they taught us in school, about how the Pilgrims came over on the Mayflower and ate the Indians and we should be thankful that Inidans taste pretty much like chicken, or else there would have been trouble since the Pilgrims didn't think to bring any Tabasco sauce with them from England. Turns out this is really a crock that they taught us as kids so we wouldn't ask too many questions or complain if they served Indian in the cafeteria.

Griswald clued me in on the real story, which goes like this: the Pilgrims were all Puritans from England, a radical religious cult who wouldn't wear white wigs like everyone else and instead wore green ones, like it says in the bible. They were pissed off at the king for not getting their royalty payments on sales of oatmeal, which they needed to pay for all of their wig dyes and the printing of their "The End is Near: Eat More Oatmeal" shirts and their huge stockpile of muskets. Just when they were about to get all of the back-payments straightened out they suffered a huge setback when the Puritan's lawyers and the king's lawyers were all thrown into the sea during the Great Lawyer Dunk of 1643. The Puritans decided that screw it, they were moving to America, where the squahs were easy and all of the streets were paved with shell beads. So they sold their wigs and changed their name to "The Pilgrims" to keep from being made fun of in the new world.

The Pilgrims actually came over on three ships: The El Nino, The Fredo and The Challenger, the last of which blew up half-way here because they'd picked that ship to carry all the fireworks for the 4th of July party. The El Nino and The Fredo made it to America though, which was known at the time as West London. The Pilgrims settled and assimilated into the local culture, but they were sad because all of their sports teams were getting their asses kicked by the Braves and the Redskins and Indians and all that (this is before the Yanks had Mussina, BTW) and they didn't have any food and they were all sleeping in this old Camero at night. And so the Indians held a food drive and brought them some cans of green beans and butter squash and some other stale shit they wanted to get out of their teepees. And now everybody was happy, except for the Pilgrims who had to eat that nasty canned shit. The Indians had ribs and hot wings and some bitchin' stuffing with sausage in it and they drank and watched football while the Pilgrims had to sit at the kids' table and they couldn't even have any of the lousy fruit salad with marshmallows in it until they'd eaten all of their asparagus spears and other inedible soggy crap. So the first Thanksgiving really sucked the big tit but the Pilgrims had the last laugh because along with all of their knick-knacks and ugly-assed hats and Big Ben and the other shit they brought over from England, they also brought rats and mosquitoes and the plague, and the Indians hadn't had their shots since they were away for a pow-wow or something on that day in school, so they all died. Except for Crazy Horse, who was off carving his face in a rock and babbling about the CIA and mind-control beams from the moon.

So every year we celebrate Thanksgiving to give our thanks that we're not eating any of that mushy canned shit, except for hobos and orphans and people like that, but if they had a wall to hang a calendar on to know it was Thanksgiving, they wouldn't be homeless in the first place, so it's kind of a tough shit kind of thing for them.

Griswald also told me the story of the first Halloween, but right then this great big fat guy in the hall fell right on this ice cream cone he was carrying, and we were laughing so hard I think we both forgot where Halloween came from. It had something to do with giving out candy to keep people from dying on your lawn during the plague or something, trust me you're not missing a lot there.

Not long after that our break was over and we had to go back to deciding the fates of the damned. It's demanding work, but hell, I made four dollars and got to dress up as a judge for a while, so I'm not complaining. Okay, before we go I'll take a second to answer three more reader questions: "No", "Yes", and "Use the whole fist." I hope all of you out there in commune territory live it up this Thanksgiving and don't forget to give something nasty from your cupboards to those less fortunate than you. Bricks out.

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One of the bigger stories of this week, indeed the new year, is the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Judge Samuel Alito. The confirmation hearings have been slightly less entertaining than doing your own colonoscopy, but at least we've gotten to the root what makes Sam Alito so great.

What does this mean for the country? Alito, if confirmed, makes for the second conservative appointed to the Supreme Court. That could mean major changes to the law of the land in years to come. Prayer in school? You can do that. Abortions on demand? Say goodbye to them. Monkey fucking? We'll wait until the swing judges have their say. Swing judges? Forget it, they're out. That's right, people—everything's about to change.

The Supreme Court comprises the most important part, the bulbous head if you will, of the judicial branch of government. Why do we need a Supreme Court? Any high school senior whose had to memorize landmark cases like Plessy v. Ferguson and Roe v. Wade has asked the same thing. Like most high school teachers, we can't exactly tell you why. Only that without the Supreme Court, there would be no "daddy" for any of us to run to when things have pissed us off and we need disputes settled. It's kind of like The People's Court, for the most dramatic cases of the land. If a friend broke your automatic garage door or snapped the fan belt on your car, don't come crying to the nine justices. The Supreme Court is all 'bout the big business. That's what it says on their business cards.

Can we project the future of the United States based on the previous court decisions handed down from new Supreme Court kids John Roberts and Samuel Alito? Only if we're very haphazard in doing so.

Clones will be a thing of the past, no doubt, since more people might equal more voters, and we know the partisan Republican side of the Supreme Court doesn't want any more voters out there. Then there's the whole deal with stem cells. Stem cell research will be obliterated entirely, unless between now and the next Supreme Court case on stem cells we happen to find a new part of the Bible that says they're appropriately blessed for research. I'm certainly hoping that happens, because I'm feeling the early onset of Parkinson's this week. Though that may just be the extra cup of coffee I had.

Abortions? We'll still have them. We'll just be doing them 15-30 years after the fetus is born. Republicans approve of abortions, they just call it the death penalty when they do it. One advantage of a conservative Supreme Court is we'll be executing them younger and quicker, with fewer appeals, and even the mentally handicapped won't be excluded.

Is flag burning unconstitutional? No telling what side they'll fall on with this issue, but chances are if it's reactionary and provokes ire in poor and angry white people, they'll be all for it.

As a private citizen who tries to conceal all paper trails, I'm most worried about the constitutionality of the Patriot Act. I wouldn't count on the new and de-evolved Supreme Court standing in its way, since they know on which side their bread is buttered. Though actually, since they're elected for life, they're already permanently buttered. But I guess it doesn't mean they'll go and develop a conscience now. After all, as I've said, they've already got the job.

Perhaps when it's all said and done we'll be alright. One thing is for sure: Even the Supreme Court can't bring back disco. And in the end, that's what I fear most.

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