The first March of the Age of Obama has passed,
and with it another Obama innovation in government is confirmed.
The federal government is now using the congressional confirmation
process, rather than the Internal Revenue Service, to catch tax
cheats, and in March the confirmation process caught another one.
She is Mrs. Kathleen Sebelius, Democratic governor of Kansas and
the Prophet Obama's nominee to head the Department of Health and
Human Services. In preparing to appear before Congress, Gov.
Sebelius discovered that she owed $7,000 in back taxes. That makes
her the fifth Obama nominee to be exposed as a tax cheat by the
confirmation process (and the second Health and Human Services
nominee, ex-senator Tom Daschle was $240,000 in arrears!) and
possibly the sixth. Sec retary of Labor Hilda Solis's husband was
revealed to have tax problems during her confirmation hearings.
Otherwise March was a very good month for our 44th president,
though toward the end of the month, as he prepared to go to London
for the G-20 meetings, there was a scare at 1600 Pennsylvania
Avenue. What if the president does not have a passport? Well, it
turns out he does have a passport, and in fact it is in excellent
condition, having hardly ever been used. So as the Prophet
practiced hoops and visited neigh borhood schools and ate ethnic
foods, Mrs. Michelle Obama packed his bags, and off our novice
president did go to London and then to continental Europe, and he
was carrying an iPod for the Queen— an iPod!
March brought good news for Madonna and for
those of her fans with front-row seats at her concerts. Japanese
space scientists have developed underpants that can be worn for at
least five days without giving off offensive odors, and possibly
for an entire month. The odor-free underwear has actually been worn
in space by Japanese astronaut Mr. Takao Doi, and will be available
for Madonna later in the year. The garment kills bacteria, so it
might also be valuable in fighting yeast infection. As Speaker of
the House Nancy Pelosi approached her 69th birthday speculation
spread throughout Washington that she may submit her face for yet
another session with her plastic surgeon, which would be unwise.
She already looks like a fried fish. Another session with the
cosmeticians and she will have completely lost the ability to smile
or even to wink. An international cricket competition was canceled
after the Sri Lankan team came under gunfire in Pakistan's Punjab
province. None of the cricketers was hurt, though six policemen
were killed, and experts in Islamic terrorism fear that badminton
could be next. A Saudi court sentenced a 75-year-old widow to 40
lashes for meeting with two 24-year-old men, not for what you might
think. They were making a bread delivery, five loaves.
Unfortunately, neither of the men are her immediate relatives, thus
making the bread delivery haraam according to Koranic law.
The woman, Mrs. Khamisa Sawadi, told the court that she thought the
meeting was okay because she had breastfed one of the men when he
was a babe. That would make the meeting permissible and perhaps
even nostalgic by Koranic law. Possibly she and her lawyer hoped to
remind the court of a learned mullah's recent judgment that
unrelated men and women can work together in offices if the women
breastfeed their male colleagues and presumably the men do not
become sexually aroused or at least loud. The case is being
appealed.
The month brought auspicious news to American
feminists, who have become increasingly appre hensive that their
grumpy movement may be going the way of the Shakers. Since Miss
Betty Friedan reached room temperature there has been a noticeable
decline in quality among the movement's leaders, but now there is
hope and it comes from rural China. There, the Straits
News reports, a 42-year-old woman known only as Miss Hong has
been howling like a wolf for 26 years. "My howls are like sneezes
or yawns, they can't be controlled," warned a minatory Miss Hong.
When interviewed by an alarmed Straits reporter, Miss Hong
screamed that she experiences "a release of gas," before her howls,
which can last for as much as 20 minutes, day or night. According
to a neighbor, Mr. Zhang Yimu, "Sometimes it's also like an air
alarm. Early in the morning or late at night the whole village can
hear the howls." Hesto presto, the National Organization for Women
may have its first Chinese-born president, and her "gas" will not
even be noticeable. The gay rights movement may be spreading to
bird sanctuaries in the United Kingdom and not all for the good. At
the West Sussex bird sanctuary, keepers have been unable to
increase their population of rare blue ducks because the two males
brought in to mate with their only female have fallen in love with
each other. According to a birder who has watched the male ducks
closely, "They stay together all the time, parading up and down
their enclosure and whistling to each other as a male might do with
a female he wants to mate." But the gay ducks, despite being very
amorous, cannot mate, so there will be no offspring. Even if
homosexual marriage were licit in the West Sussex bird sanctuary
there would be no offspring, just confusion. In other bird-watching
news, the state of North Carolina is continuing its senseless
crackdown on birders. Seventy Randolph County birders were actually
arrested in three chicken houses, where Sheriff Maynard Reid Jr.
claimed they were participating in a $40,000 cockfighting
tournament. Get a life, Sheriff!
Secretary of State hillary Clinton visited
Mexico where, perhaps with her brother-in-law Roger's drug
conviction in mind, she decried America's "insatiable demand for
illegal drugs" that "fuel the drug trade." She also took a swipe at
what she considers America's lax gun laws, though from Bosnia comes
news that that country's gun laws are even more relaxed than ours.
In Doboj, Bosnia, Mr. Miroslav Miljici, a local sportsman, was
arrested for attacking his mother-in-law twice, first with an
anti-tank missile launcher, then with a machine gun. He missed both
times but was sentenced, nevertheless, to six years for attempted
murder—more target practice for you, Miroslav. Secretary of State
Clinton made still more news late in the month when journalists,
hoping to interview her at the G-20 summit, discovered that the
telephone number given them by the White House was the number of a
sex line. Told they would be given an "on-the-record briefing call
with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Nation al Security
Adviser Jim Jones," the journalists dialed up and got the following
from a sexy female voice: "Feel like getting nasty?" Possibly chief
of staff Rahm Emanuel still has the Rolodex of the last president
he served.
Those foul odors wafting from Mr. Bob Dylan's
Malibu estate have been explained. At first there was speculation
that the famed 1960s troubadour was developing a line of men's
toiletries. But now his neighbors have established that the
effluvia come from a Porta Potty that he maintains for his domestic
employees and security detail, who apparently are not allowed
access to the facilities within the legendary humanitarian's
mansion. Observes Mrs. Cindy Emminger, a neighbor who objects to
the stench: "It's a scandal—Mr. Civil Rights is killing our civil
rights." She and her husband have placed five industrial-sized fans
downwind from Dylan's Porta Potty but without effect. Finally, one
of our Canadian neighbors has been taught a lesson in good manners.
When stopped on the border at Blaine, Washington, and asked by a
U.S. border inspector to turn off his automobile's engine, Mr.
Desiderio Fortunato, 54, asked that the guard say please. Whammo,
the guard blasted Mr. Fortunato in the face with pepper spray. The
Crisis continues.
