7/20/2005 – Editorials

By Richard Peterson

A car company can move its factories to Mexico and claim it’s a free market.
A toy company can outsource to a Chinese subcontractor and claim it’s a free market.
A major bank can incorporate in Bermuda to avoid taxes and claim it’s a free market.
We can buy HP printers made in Mexico.
We can buy shirts made in Bangladesh.
We can purchase almost anything we want from 20 different countries.
But, heaven help the elderly who dare to buy their prescription drugs from a Canadian pharmacy. That’s called un-American!
And you think the pharmaceutical companies don’t have a powerful lobby?
Think again!
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The Washington Post’s Mensa Invitational once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.
Here are this year’s winners:
1. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
2. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
3. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
4. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.
5. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.
6. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
7. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it.
8. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
9. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.
10. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease.
11. Karmageddon: It’s like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it’s like, a serious bummer.
12. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
13. Glibido: All talk and no action.
14. Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
15. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you’ve accidentally walked through a spider web.
16. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
17. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you’re eating.
18. Ignoranus: A person who’s both stupid and an asshole.
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A good housekeeping tip from Dean Sorlie at Maddock:
Always keep several get well cards on the mantel, so if unexpected guests arrive they’ll think you’ve been sick and unable to clean the house.
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Speaking of Maddock, here’s an item we got from Knox native Lyman Delameter:
This happened some years ago just outside of Maddock, and while it sounds like an Alfred Hitchcock tale, it’s real.
This out-of-state traveler was on the side of the road, hitchhiking on a real dark night in the middle of a thunderstorm. Time passed slowly and no cars went by. It was raining so hard he could hardly see his hand in front of his face. Suddenly he saw a car moving slowly, approaching and appearing ghostlike in the rain. It slowly and silently crept toward him and stopped.
Desperately wanting a ride the guy jumped in the car and closed the door.
Only then did he realize there was nobody behind the wheel, and no sound of an engine to be heard over the rain.
Again the car crept slowly forward and the guy was terrified, too scared to think of jumping out and running.
The guy saw that the car was approaching a sharp curve and, still too scared to jump out, he started to pray and began begging for his life; he was sure the ghost car would go off the road and into a nearby lake and he would surely drown!
But just before the curve a shadowy figure appeared at the driver’s window and a hand reached in and turned the steering wheel, guiding the car safely around the bend. Then, just as silently, the hand disappeared through the window and the hitchhiker was alone again!
Paralyzed with fear, the guy watched the hand reappear every time they reached a curve. Finally the guy, scared to near death, had all he could take and jumped out of the car and ran and ran, into town, into Maddock.
Wet and in shock, he went into a bar and voice quavering, ordered two shots of whiskey, then told everybody about his supernatural experience.
A silence enveloped and everybody got goose bumps when they realized the guy was telling the truth, and was not just some drunk.
About half an hour later two guys walked into the bar and one says to the other, "Look Ole, ders dat idiot dat rode in our car ven ve wuz pushin’ it in da rain."