The Reluctant Whore

Week #47 in Review

This week was really focused on the public dissolving of reasonable behaviour among celebrities which obviously made us question how much hope we really have left for humanity. After all, even the previously adorable if not always essentially unmarketable beyond Seinfeld, Michael Richards unleashed a tyraid during which he actually called a black man a “nigger” and it was conveniently caught on tape.

Also caught on tape this week though was the two part interview with O J Simpson entitled “If I Did It” where he describes what he did when he committed murder a decade ago hypothetically but Rupert Murdoch was forced to pull the plug on airing it for decency purposes. Little to no regard for decency was what characterized the actual wedding between Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes this week. The actual ceremony took place in Italy and it was reported that plenty of locals were pissed off that they couldn’t see anything, one irate catholic priest rang church bells really loud in protest and it rained.

Buying children in Africa is the official new celebrity credibility enhancer as Leonardo diCaprio offered up the information that he’s now supporting a young girl he met in Africa and it was also more or less believable that maybe Rachel Ray really is just a really nice happy girl despite the rumours that her husband is a spitting hooker paying foot smeller.

But, obviously you knew about these stories – there’s no real need to repeat them again after the mainstream media thrust them into every orifice all week so here now are some of the stories you might not have heard but nonetheless actually occurred during this, the 47th week of 2006.

Too bad for anyone hoping to buy their spoilt brat kid a dog/cat hybrid from the imaginative girl in Brazil who told the world her cat gave birth to three cats and three dogs after saying it mated with the dog next door. Tests were released that showed there was no genetic link between the cat and the puppies she seemed so attached to. So much for that alien freak army of the night we were all hoping for.

And following up on another story that was reported last week, the drunken elk that was terrorizing delightful Swedish children in the village of Molndal is actually now no longer a threat. In its drunken stupor after eating a pile of fermented apples, it wandered onto the ice, fell through and drowned.

And speaking of travesties, the English continued their crusade to ruin the generally enjoyable elements of Christmas this year as staff at Tower Hamlets in East London were told that while they were clearly capable of running a small town, they weren’t to put up Christmas decorations because of the potential for accidents and Christmas lights were banned because of the office’s mission to save on energy.

On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, in Oberlin Ohio, an artist got in trouble for creating a window scene that depicted the Third Reich made out of gingerbread cookies and Jack Spade in New York was forced to remove the “Do It Yourself Frog Dissection Kits – Complete with real live Frog in formaldehyde" for 40 dollars when animal rights activists complained.

Protests surrounding gifts continued, actually just up the road from Jack Spade in New York when a group if clever young men waited in line for the new Playstation 3 and then went outside the store and immediately smashed it to smithereens. They claimed the gesture wasn’t anti-Playstation.

In China, even the Chinese Government was alarmed at the release of a new product that claimed to remove freckles but in fact caused deep scarring and irreparable damage to anyone who used it and promptly banned all advertising associated with the product. Apparently tests on fish actually caused death but that didn’t seem tot stop the distributor.

In Uganda, a European artist whose work was comprised of convincing local peasants to legally change their names to his in return for much needed livestock was branded “Satanic” by Uganda’s always reliable Ethics and Integrity Minister and new health rules associated with the World Pie Eating Championships in the UK have traditionalists livid. Now, it’s not about how many you eat but how fast you eat one and you get to opt for a vegetarian option.

A man who made a living dressing up as a giant cigarette, using hip-hop music to encourage children around the United States to avoid smoking pleaded guilty to bigamy. Phillip Dale Williams, 37, had as many as four wives at the same time. Ironically, he was caught because he didn’t pay child support and now, his life’s vision to save children from lung cancer is being halted.

Not being halted at all is the sex lives of elderly couples from the Brazilian town of Novo Santo Antonio who were this week offered free Viagra to boost morale and to encourage sex between married couples exclusively rather than with extra marital affairs but in a scenario which is almost the exact opposite a Buddhist monk in Thailand this week got an erection during meditation and was so pissed off that he hacked off his own penis. When rushed to the hospital to be treated he refused to have it reattached.

And finally, an idiot jewel thief in New Delhi was caught this week when he stole around 70,000 dollars worth of diamonds from a jeweler store and then went and got drunk at the same bar three nights in a row. He used some of the money to repeatedly have the band play the same irritating song over and over again and by the third night patrons were so annoyed by him that the called the police who discovered the stolen diamonds on him.