Babes in sprawl land

The best TV news story of the week — when there was actually five minutes of air available for anything but the disgraceful political ghoul show that Terri Schiavo’s case has become — had to be JARhead consumer reporter Audrey Laganas’s March 24 tale about a toy Easter basket being sold at Wal-Mart.

Laganas reported, "The Easter basket includes a toy robot with a warning about mercury batteries and a warning about small parts that could create a choking hazard. A plastic bag in the basket is labeled ‘suffocation hazard.’ " Not only could the mercury batteries choke a child if he or she swallowed them, a doctor at Hasbro Children’s Hospital weighed in with the fact that if they got into a child’s mouth, saliva could cause a current to flow that could burn the esophagus.

For P&J, the story conjured up the old Saturday Night Live skit featuring Dan Aykroyd as a sleazy producer of incredibly dangerous children’s toys. His featured items could slice off kids’ fingers and set fire to their clothes. Nonetheless, the greasy-haired Aykroyd would dismiss his interviewer’s astonishment that he could stoop so low as to merchandise these potential weapons of self-destruction with lines like, "Hey, it’s exciting for the kids."

Caveat moronicus.

NO HOUSE CALLS

There is no bigger creep or phony in the world than the totally transparent Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. Just when you think this pompous, arrogant clown could not make himself look more like a fool, the good doctor decided to make a diagnosis of Terri Schiavo, using a videotape, in the midst of Congress and Dubya the Dumb disgracing themselves by trying to interfere in the death with dignity case.

P&J would like to help Frist with his obvious desire to first do no harm with a suggestion. If any readers are suffering an ailment you would like treated, send him a video or photos from which he can make a diagnosis from the comfort of the Capitol. This will no doubt be a boon to many of the 45 million Americans without health insurance, thanks to the lack of effort by Frist and his GOP stooges in DC to create a national health-care policy. The address is:

Officer of Senator Bill Frist

509 Hart Senate Office Building

Washington, DC 20510

Knowing Frist’s desire to serve the country, we are sure he will get right back to you. In the meantime, take two aspirin and wait until hell freezes over, which will be when this solon gets elected president.

LET ME REPHRASE THAT

Your superior correspondents love our old pal M. Chuckie Bakst, the BeloJo’s formidable political columnist. It is for this reason that we offer this advice, after reading his column in the Sunday Urinal of March 27.

Charlie, when writing about Representative Jim Langevin, we would have perhaps avoided saying, "Also, Langevin’s flirtation with a Senate bid taught me — actually re-taught me — this lesson: If you’re trying to figure out what a politician is going to do, don’t read too much into his body language . . . "

No, we certainly wouldn’t in this case.

IS THIS THE END OF JACKO?

Life at Casa Diablo is enough of a freak show that we have had little time to consider the Michael Jackson trial out in California. Now that the judge has made admissible past allegations against the performer, one might want to say, a la Little Caesar, "Is this the end of Jacko?"

We’d like to think so, since the only entertaining this incredibly talented, yet totally off-the-charts nutso character has done in at least a decade has been in tabloids, not on stage, in recording studios, or on film. Despite it all, occasionally Mikey-boy comes up with something so astonishingly original that P&J are left breathless.

Such was the case with Jackson’s "conspiracy allegation" made during a recent radio interview with the Reverend Jesse Jackson. (We should state here that Jesse Jackson is no relation to Michael Jackson, despite Lars the houseboy’s suggestion that no one has ever seen Jesse and Michael’s sister LaToya in the same place at the same time.)

In case you were busy shaping funny animals from the lint in your clothes dryer or doing something else more intellectually stimulating than listening to Jacko, P&J will attempt to translate. The erstwhile king of pop claimed he was the latest in a long line of black luminaries who have been unjustly accused of crimes. He mentioned Nelson Mandela, Muhammad Ali, and Jack Johnson as the others.

Ah yes, we see a real connection between Nelson Mandela being arrested and thrown into exile for decades, for challenging the vicious apartheid government of South Africa, and Michael Jackson. Dancing around with one glove, sleeping in an oxygen chamber with a chimpanzee, and building an amusement park in one’s backyard to help attract friends to the premises is surely calculated to shake the very foundations of the republic.

Ali’s courageous stand against the Vietnam War isn’t even close to a parallel. There might be an argument for a connection between Jacko and Jack Johnson, if one was to accept that the racial climate in the country is exactly as it was 90 years ago. We don’t think so.

Michael Jackson is one sad case, even if he is totally innocent of the charges brought against him.

THE OK CORRAL BILL

This is what a lot of folks who have long worked against the scourge of domestic violence are calling the completely idiotic bill sponsored by Representative Robert Jacquard (D-Cranston) that would eliminate the waiting period to purchase a gun if the purchaser has received a restraining order against an alleged abuser. It would also do away with the legal requirement for receiving training on the weapon.

The gun lobby was pissed because of a bill, championed by the advocates against domestic abuse, which would take the guns away from abusers, so this is what they come up with. People will be soooo much safer when virtually everyone is carrying a loaded gun. That’s because everyone is so careful when they are carrying guns. They never get drunk, they never get upset or stressed out, and they never make mistakes.

One friend of P&J’s commented to us, "What’s there to stop someone with a grudge against someone from seeking out, and receiving, a restraining order, thereby getting the green light to immediately purchase a gun with no waiting period?" Indeed, what is there to stop an abuser from getting the gun? We understand it is not unusual for an alleged abuser who has had a restraining order issued against him or her to then take one out against the accuser.

This bill is a very stupid and bad idea, and we suspect it was concocted, not to actually protect or help anyone, but to strike a blow for the gun gang. The General Assembly ought to get rid of this special interest suck-up bill, toot sweet.

PLAY BAAL!

Frank Rich’s brilliant column in the Sunday New York Times (it also runs in the Urinal each week) just featured some interesting information on a screen fantasy intruding on a reality scenario.

Rich reported that when Cecil B. DeMille was making his famed The Ten Commandments, starring Charlton Heston, which included a pagan Golden Calf scene described by Cece as "an orgy Sunday-school children can watch," he was also pulling off a PR stunt that would wow the best of today’s Hollywood flacks. Rich wrote, "In partnership with the Fraternal Order of Eagles, a nationwide association of civic-minded clubs founded by theater owners, he sponsored the construction of several thousand Ten Commandments monuments throughout the country to hype his product. The Pharaoh himself — that would be Yul Brynner — participated in the gala unveiling of the Milwaukee slab. Heston did the same in North Dakota. Bizarrely enough, all these years later, it is another of these DeMille-inspired granite monuments, on the grounds of the Texas Capitol in Austin, that is a focus of the Ten Commandments case that the United States Supreme Court heard this month."

While the folks in Texas might feel a little stupid about defending the right to worship the product of a Hollywood studio marketing trick — now we’re talking Baal, ladies and gentlemen — P&J fear it might prove otherwise. With the Moron Majority’s proclivity for embracing silver screen celebrities at every turn, no matter how odious, Chuck Heston’s going on to become head of the National Rifle Association might actually gee up support for the Ten Commandment memorial. What have we come to, my sweet Lord?

We’re ready for our close-up, Mr. DeMille. Then shoot us with a gun, not a camera.

KUDOS & CONGRATS . . .

. . . to General Treasurer Paul Tavares, who, facing term limits after two terms in office, has decided to do the unthinkable — nothing. Tavares announced he has no interest in running for any other office, because with his banking background, general treasurer was the only elected post in which he could serve a useful function. A class act all the way.

. . . to Tom DeLay, who got up on his hind legs and started talking about "morality" during the Terri Schiavo debacle of the past few weeks. Any time the Hammer starts spouting off about ethics, all of America needs to take an immediate reality check. Lo and behold, it seems that our Tommy was complicit in pulling the plug on his dad after he had been injured in a severe accident in 1988. From the New York Times: "Mr. DeLay [the father] suffered from multiple injuries, including kidney failure . . . his wife, Maxine, and their other children made the initial decision to withhold kidney dialysis and other treatments when it became clear that he could not recover. Representative DeLay, at the time in his third term in the House, did not object." Of course, considering the various alleged ethics violations faced by DeLay, being shown to be a hypocrite is the least of his worries.

. . . to Bryant College, which ended up in the Division II national championship game, hanging tough until the final seconds against Virginia Union, before dropping a 63-58 game. No one had ever heard of Bryant outside Little Rhody (hell, south of Warwick for that matter), but they shocked the basketball world with their run to the final. Further kudos to university head ramrod Ron Machtley, since Bryant’s achievements in academics and athletics have come on his inspired watch. Machtley, a former US congressman, was even better known for being the best-ever mystery guest at the ProJo Follies, doing a Buddy Holly imitation sans pareil.

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