ans of democracy were delighted to hear the form of government appeared to be working in Ukraine, a former member of the Soviet Union, though they were somewhat sheepish to admit it had been fairing poorly here in the United States, the oldest practitioner of democracy in the world.

On Friday, the Ukraine Supreme Court threw out the results of November's runoff election between Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, backed by the Kremlin, and opposition leader Viktor Yuschenko. Upon closer examination of the last names, Americans may realize these are not the same person. Meanwhile, in America, George Bush continued to smirk and make angry threats to the rest of the non-Western world as he eviled-up his cabinet with a few more additions. Challenges to the legitimacy of Ohio's electoral votes for Bush in November's election remain unheard as of press time.

Supporters of Yuschenko claimed the election was rigged in favor of Yunukovych, part of the current president Leonid Kuchma's administration. Yuschenko challenged election results in favor of Yunukovych in the Ukranian Supreme Court based on incidents of fraud in 8 of Ukraine's 25 election districts. The Ukranian Supreme Court agreed a possibility of fraud had occurred, and ordered another election to be held to decide the new Ukranian president.

During his first election in 2000, candidate George W. Bush claimed victory in the presidential election even as the popular vote demonstrated his loss and many districts were held up to questions of fraud or illegitimate results. The U.S. Supreme Court stopped the recount of districts in dispute, effectively handing the presidency to the former president's son and Washington insider.

Outgoing Ukranian president Leonid Kuchma described his country's predicament, claiming, "Ukraine that existed before the election no longer exists. It has been split up into two sides with absolutely opposite opinions." Once again, Kuchma was speaking about his own country, and not the United States.

American president George W. Bush, fresh from his own narrow and controversial victory in November, warned Russia not to involve itself in Ukranian affairs, stating, "Any election, if there is one, ought to be free from any foreign influence." Presumably all interference in a free election should come from groups of conservative vote challengers and election lawyers.

Ukraine's Viktor Yuschenko delighted in the country's Supreme Court ruling, as polls have him well ahead of his opponent in another election. Yuschenko said Friday, "Freedom and truth are returning to Ukraine following today's decision." Voters in America were at least pleased to finally find out where freedom and truth ended up after abandoning their own country.

When asked to compare the happenings in the free Ukraine and the recent elections in the United States, most people we asked were curious as to what the hell Ukraine was, while others asked us to leave them alone, as they desperately wanted to get home and watch a Tivo'd episode of The Apprentice they've been saving all week.

mm, don't you know it—even in a world where cancer, AIDS, and any number of illnesses run unchecked and uncured, claiming victims by the millions, one other taker has been revealed as the fastest-spreading (no pun intended) disease of the 21st century: Sexual dysfunction. The revelation is based on money spent on research and treatment in America, by Americans. While sexual dysfunction hasn't seem to reached other continents at quite the same level, the western world, and especially America, suffers astronomical degrees of sexual dysfunction.

Dr. Clammy Goodtime, and yes, that is his real name, has spearheaded (again, pun not intended) an international investigation into sexual dysfunction, based on the spending of major drug companies and private citizens on treatment. According to Dr. Goodtime, sexual dysfunction has become epidemic in the western world, where up to 20% of all money flowing into the medical profession is directed. In other regions of the world, such as Africa, the percentage is less than zero, but Dr. Goodtime remains confident the low numbers are based on a lack of diagnosis and reporting of sexual dysfunction, rather than some high-quality banging going on continent-wide.

"In most cases, even here in America, sexual dysfunction was strangely under-reported right up until the 1970s," said Dr. Goodtime, stroking his charming soulpatch. "Then, in the 1980s, major improvements in diagnosing the sexually-inadequate were made, thanks to the pioneering research of those like Dr. Ruth Westheimer. You reach the 1990s and all of a sudden the sexually-impaired were coming out of the woodwork, figuratively speaking, to treat their dysfunction. We now stand, in the early twenty-first century, as having the highest population in the history of the world with diagnosed sexual dysfunction. Take that, ancient Rome!"

Dr. Goodtime reports, darling, that in thirty short years sexual research has gone from a stodgy, secretive area of study to a mainstream psychological phenomenon. Years ago, before television and the media opened up the discussion of sex for everyone, sexual dysfunction was only diagnosed in rare and extreme cases, such as those with a severe phobia to sex. These days, patients can—and frequently do—diagnose themselves.

Advertisements for medications that prolong sexual function after its normal duration, such as Viagra or Cialis, and devices such as the Intrinsa "sex patch" have attempted to restore the libido of a twentysomething to those who might not naturally have the urge to have sex as much as they used to. On the outer perimeter of such research are also medications which can enhance the physical qualities of both men and women to make them more sexually appealing to people who want nothing to do with them.

Other treatments for sexual dysfunction—regardless of the cause—are already in the works by medical companies who want to cash in on the billion-dollar tragedy of reduced sexual activity. Among other potential treatments, Procter & Gamble is developing a "sex box," a device applied to the genitals which can treat the common problem suffered by many men and women who suffer sexual dysfunction from not finding anybody willing to fornicate with them. The product is undergoing research right now, and no, sweetie, they've got enough volunteers for the study already.

Some, like Badgeport, Tennessee apple grower Wilfred Canton, are grateful to the medical profession for focusing so much attention on sexual dysfunction instead of more incurable illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease.

"I'm a child of the sixties, man, I grew up in the age of the sexual revolution," Canton said. "I spent my childhood wishing I was old enough to have sex, and I spent my teen-age years thinking I should be having a lot, lot more of it. In my twenties and thirties, I spent all my time having sex whenever I could, at the expense of developing more lasting relationships with people. Now that I'm going to be forty, you're telling me I'm going to start losing the urge? Nuh-uh. I didn't spend my life with an unhealthy focus on sex just to have it end now."

Before my days as a newspaperman, and slightly after my days as the Spoonman, I served my time in the American school system as a teacher. Or a learning person, as we used to say before they invented proper grammar.

My earliest teaching experiences were at a prep school, the kind where it's all boys (or girls, but I couldn't land a gig for that one) and they have to wear uniforms and conduct themselves like rich and snobby gentlemen. At first, the fellows were all leery of me, because I was so close to them in age. After a while, they came to think of me as their favorite teacher. Some of that was because I was so close in age, they thought they could trust me, but it was more than that as well. I actually enjoyed teaching, and tried to make all the subjects we studied connect to their own lives.

This is not always an easy task. We were going through a rough period where ventilation and air conditioning was being forced into the classroom, and while I think I did a good job, I couldn't always make the kids see the value in knowing how the thermostat works. I did better in other subjects, like teaching poetry.

All of my students came to love Walt Whitman quite a lot. Before my class, they thought of him as some stuffy, recently-dead hooligan who wrote homo garbage. But then I actually read a few of the poems for them, some of them in an amusing Italian dialect, and they were thrilled. One student told me "I Sing the Body Electric" was the best verse he had ever heard, and I don't think he was trying to get extra-credit by saying it. I gave it to him all the same, though.

Then, they fired me from the job. My students took it hard. They threatened to protest when I told them I had been fired for reading all the poems in an Italian accent. They said they would storm the school, bust out all the windows, and rape the faculty, but not because they wanted to do it. They wanted to show support for me. I told them if they wanted to show support for me, really wanted to prove their loyalty, they would continue their educations and forget about my troubles.

They did that. But on the last day, as I was escorted off the campus, they all leaned out the windows and recited my favorite Walt Whitman poem, chanting "O Captain! My Captain!" just like Grand Funk Railroad later would. They turned all this into a movie, but since they threw out my original draft screenplay, I want no part of that Hollywood garbage.

I eventually wound up in public schools, where my under-informed and incompetent teaching made me fit in quite well. It had been the real reason I was fired, of course. No one's ever been fired for reading poetry in a bad accent.

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