The quote of the week has to be from Dubya the Dumb, checking out the
Pakistani jeweler sought by the FBI because he was thought to have secretly
slipped into the US from Canada for suspected terrorist activities (although
this now seems like a total joke). In defending himself, Mohammed Asghar said
he had never been in America, and had left Pakistan only once, to seek work in
Britain two months ago while using a fake passport. He was stopped in the
United Arab Emirates and sent back home.
Here's what our six-gun-shooting, tough-guy president, who ducked National
Guard service, had to say: "Kind of curious he needs a fake passport. We like
things above board here in America."
Say what?!? Above board like Big Time Cheney's energy policy committee, the
details of which remain stonewalled? Above board like John Ashcroft's detention
of more than 1000 people without releasing their names, and his trying to
squelch the Freedom of Information Act? Above board like Boy George's insider
trading as a director at Harken and his relationship with Kenny Boy Lay of
Enron? Above board like Big Time's financial shenanigans at Halliburton?
Above board like the corporate friends of the GOP's book-cooking at Tyco,
WorldCom, etc.? Above board like the reasons why Dubya, lapdog of Big Oil, is
pushing for war with Iraq? Above board like Rummy Rumsfeld's preposterous and
thankfully failed attempt to create an agency that would supply disinformation
to reporters and our allies? Yeah, this is just one of the most honest and open
administrations in US history.
As Adam Clymer of the New York Times reported on the same day that
Junior Bush's remarks were reported, "The Bush administration has put a much
tighter lid than recent presidents on government proceedings and public release
of information, exhibiting a penchant for secrecy that has been striking to
historians, legal experts and lawmakers of both parties."
Thanks for the lecture, Mr. Bush. We're sure that it had a huge impact abroad
and is merely more Crawford Ranch bullshit at home. Or should we use a Texas
accent and pronounce it Bushit?
Clueless -- literally
Phillipe and Jorge do not normally watch Channel 6 news, but we ended up with
it on after the legendary Fiesta Bowl between Ohio State and Miami on January
3. (Jorge dressed up as psycho former OSU coach Woody Hayes and pretended to
choke Lars the houseboy when he brought us drinks during overtime, while
Phillipe sprawled under a tanning light in his Speedo, drinking mojitos
and speaking only in Spanish in support of Miami.)
Watching WLNE anchormodel Wendy Cicchetti read the news, we were astounded to
hear her say that outgoing acting mayor John Lombardi "literally turned City
Hall upside down" during his brief tenure. Since City Hall remains on its usual
foundations, not inverted and lying on its roof, we knew that the lovely Ms.
Cicchetti should get dusty Mr. Dictionary off the shelf before using any words
longer than two syllables. But we did enjoy the chuckle.
Clueless -- politically
You've got to hand it to outgoing Governor Bigfoot: the man just didn't know
when to quit.
P&J refer to the Missing Linc's desperate issuance of an economic report
just prior to leaving office, purporting to show that a megaport at Quonset
Point would be a boon for the state and create thousands of jobs. Although he
said it was required, Bigfoot could have left the report on the desk of his
successor, Don Carcieri, who just happens to have campaigned against the
ludicrous idea of destroying the heart of Narragansett Bay. Naturally, this
report failed to consider any negative environmental impacts while inflating
its figures, kind of like those Ronald Reagan graphs that show a line moving
steadily upwards, while neither side of the graph had any designated subject or
numbers on it.
We can't imagine why Bigfoot would advertise his ignorance once more before
leaving office, other than utter cluelessness. Perhaps the Missing Linc
believes that -- if whatever the Don proposes fails in the future -- he can sit
smugly in his Wellfleet home and call the Urinal to twit the new gov, saying
his own reports showed that the megaport would be the best use of the QP-D
site. Well, go ahead and do that, Linc, and when you get tired of rolling those
two Captain Queeg ball bearings together in your hand, we'll swing by and give
you a lift to the local nervous hospital. "But it could have been huge! I
swea-uh, it could have been huge!"
Going-away gifts
Your superior correspondents got one -- almost two -- perks from the departure
of Bigfoot and former Providence mayor Buddy "Vincent A." Cianci Jr.
First, P&J are the proud recipients of the full wet bar that the Bud-I
left behind in a side office to his mayoral throne, with a few Amstels and a
bottle of Pinot Grigio still chilling in the refrigerator. How well we remember
the many nights we spent there with Hizzoner, especially the occasion when he
set his toupee on fire while doing a flaming shot of Captain Morgan at 4 a.m.
as we were partying with the female bungee jumpers from the X Games and a few
of the delicate young flowers from the Foxy Lady.
Meanwhile, chacun a son gout when it came to our entry into the contest
to see who would do Governor Bigfoot's official portrait to be hung for
perpetuity in the State House. (P&J are also hung for perpetuity, but
that's another story.) Our rendition showed a dignified Governor Almond seated
in a booth at Chelo's, eating the meatloaf special with streaming sunlight and
a clock on the wall showing 4:45 in the afternoon -- a tribute to Linc's
penchant for the early bird special. A Merit Light was burning unobtrusively in
the ashtray, and Bigfoot had a lobster bib tucked into his shirt collar,
adorned by a few vivid splashes of ketchup. We shall never know why this candid
view of the sleeping giant, enhanced by a palette of colors, was not chosen.
Certainly, it will look good in the Boom Boom Room, where we can put it on
display for partygoers at Casa Diablo.
Coffee Town
This week's opening of what is billed as the largest Starbucks in New England,
at the Providence Biltmore, seems somehow related to the mayoral inauguration
of David Cicilline. The former mayor famously resided in the Biltmore. He was
fond of a different kind of liquid lubricant and was not infrequently seen
lolling about the bar at Davio's, the restaurant on the hotel's ground floor,
sipping amber fluids.
In contrast, Mayor Cicilline does not imbibe alcoholic beverages and, in fact,
is in the process of dismantling his predecessor's office wet bar, so he can
give it to us. P&J assume that the new mayor does have the occasional mug
of java, however, judging from his energetic activity level and schedule.
Styles of the Times
Media watchers have been claiming for some time that the New York Times
is slipping into a plethora of human interest and style stories. We can't say
that they are entirely wrong. What takes your superior correspondents aback,
though, is the increasingly bizarro nature of some of the stories, transforming
America's paper of record into "The Grey Lady Chablis." Could it be that Howell
Raines is turning into Gene Valicenti before our very eyes?
Among the notable stories in Sunday's edition was a national report feature
about Jefferson Parish, a suburb of New Orleans. The thrust of the story was
that the prosecutors on this fairly whacked-out turf (it's the area that
elected former Klansman and current felon David Duke to the state legislature)
have taken to wearing hand-painted neckties in court with illustrations of
nooses and the Grim Reaper. The article also stated, "Until a few years ago,
every time a prosecutor won a death sentence, the office would take up a
collection and buy a plaque. Each one had a needle on it and a condemned
person's name."
Meanwhile, the Times' Sunday magazine treated us to a profile of
Saparmurat Niyazovs. What, you've never heard of old Sappy? Neither had
Phillipe & Jorge. He's the president of Turkmenistan (not to be confused
with neighboring Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan or, for that matter, their other
neighbors, Afghanistan and Iran).
Sappy apparently ranks rather high in the pantheon of nut-case Third World
autocrats. Your superior correspondents were especially impressed with his
creativity in getting the Turkmen puppet legislature to change some of the
names of the days of the week and months of the year to his first name, his new
last name (oh yeah, he changed it to "Turkmenbashi," which translates into
"father of all Turkmen"), and other words associated with his name. He's also
the author of the only textbook used in the country's schools.
So that's it, folks. If you, like P&J, feel an overwhelming desire to keep
up with the freak show elements of life on Earth, turn off Anna Nicole and pick
up America's newspaper of record.
Kudos & congrats . . .
. . . . to that fabulous broad Elizabeth Taylor. If you caught her receiving a
Kennedy Center honor on CBS on December 27, you may recall that John Travolta
delivered a speech in which he noted that, in seeing Cat On a Hot Tin
Roof as a young man, he dreamed of her, "and I dreamed you were naked." It
was recently reported that Taylor's response was edited from the show. She
shouted down from the balcony (where all the honorees were seated along with
the president and first lady), "I don't have any panties on tonight!" Good
taste is eternal.
Send undergarments and Pulitzer-grade tips to p&j[a]phx.com.
Issue Date: January 10 - 16, 2003
