The American Spectator

December is dead and headed for history’s graveyard, but December is not the only casualty of 2010. There is also Liberalism. For years it was in the care of psychiatrists attending to its various bugaboos, phobias, and unnatural disorders. Then came the elections of 2010, and the whole neurotic body of thought was ready for the mortuary — even the bit about climate change and the throwaway bottle. Liberalism did get a reprieve in the 111th Congress’s lame-duck session, but as of December 31 it is dead. Liberalism is at one with Nudism and the American Prohibition Party. Today the Whigs are more vital and the Federalists too. Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi’s government-provided airplane has been confiscated, and there is only one cause for cheer through-out the movement. On Christmas Eve, Mr. Hugh Hefner, 84, became engaged to Miss Crystal Harris, 60 years his junior and a resident of Dog Patch. Miss Harris majored in psychology when in college-though only for a short time. Even the masturbators are on the run.

In Lewiston, Idaho, Mr. Rafael Escamilla was arrested for allegedly pleasuring himself while seated on a SkyWest Airlines flight from Salt Lake City to Lewiston, Idaho. A 17-year-old high school cheerleader (female) seated beside him said she was “creeped out” by his feverish ministrations beneath an open tray table, his left hand fully engaged, his right attempting a clumsy hunt and peck upon his laptop. When confronted by the police the mystified Mr. Escamilla said, “I wasn’t out, I wasn’t hanging out,” but officer Chris Reese told a different story. He said that Mr. Escamilla “explained to me that he had spilled Tabasco sauce or something similar on his ‘penis’ and had an incredible itch.” Mr. Escamilla, a former member of the faculty at Duke University, insists he acted with discretion, but that the teenager must have “suspected something.”

And free expression is being stifled not only in the United States. In Britain’s famed Crawley Library in West Sussex, an unnamed southpaw around 30 years of age was nabbed committing the solitary vice while reading What You See Is What You Get in the library’s business section. The book, a relatively chaste work by Sir Alan Sugar, who is mostly glabrous, had not been suspected of arousing licentious passions, and now librarians all over the world are faced with keeping it out of the reach of the young and of Liberals. As for the anonymous wanker, he has been barred from ever entering the Crawley, and Sir Alan had best be on his guard if the fellow shows up at his lordship’s tree house. New York City received a light dusting of the white stuff, which the enemies of global warming transmogrified into a blizzard that dumped 20 inches of snow upon the Big Apple. Then they exacerbated matters, claiming cleanup was affected by a labor slowdown. It was all part of an effort to make December appear as one of the coldest on record, with reports of snow as far south as Phoenix, Arizona. Former vice president Mr. Al Gore is on suicide watch.

President Barack Obama signed into law legislation repealing the 17-year-old “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy against homosexuality in the military and even in the foxhole. He also extended the hated Bush tax cuts, calling them the “holy grail” favored by the Republicans, whom he called “hostage takers.” Yet he did extend them, and then he yet again fled the country or at least the continental United States for Hawaii, at a cost of $1,474,200 according to the Washington Examiner. Before leaving the country he held a press conference where he said, “One thing I hope people have seen during this lame-duck: I am persistent.” He is also incompetent, pig-headed, and as ideological as Fidel Castro. His approval rating, according to a Fox News poll, dipped to 40 percent, though not as low as the approval rating of Congress, which hit 13 percent in December. Yet Mrs. Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity campaign took on the dimensions of urgency when it became apparent that the country is suddenly in the grip of an outbreak of shoplifting by heinous individuals who hide their booty under body fat. In Edmond, Oklahoma, two portly women placed $2,600 worth of filched merchandise under their “belly fat and breasts.” Police officer James Hamm elaborated, “These two were actually concealing them [the filched goods] in areas of their body where excess skin was, under their chest and armpits.” But you nailed ‘em, Officer Hamm, as did the gendarmerie at a Florida Bealls Outlet who arrested a big fat mama for putting a pair of stolen shoes under her ample breasts. Mrs. Obama is onto something. Incidentally, there is no word yet on that ABC weather babe, Miss Heidi Jones, who is charged with falsely claiming to have been raped in Central Park. Her lawyer, whose name was not readily available, says, “The characterization of this case as a ‘false rape claim’ is character assassination directed at a respected journalist.” Though WCBS is reporting that Miss Jones, an avid jogger, told police a man dragged her into the bushes of Central Park and “started spreading her legs,” which, of course, could mean anything. Possibly he was looking for pickled herring.

Federal judge Henry Hudson, responding to a lawsuit filed by the state of Virginia, struck down the mandatory health insurance clause of Obamacare. In the same week Federal judge Roger Vinson entertained oral arguments from a coalition of 20 states against the law, and Mr. Luke Barclay, 33, has come out with his sequel to A Loo With a View. It is the 96-page Good Loo Hunting, a guide to some of the world’s most scenic views from the world’s most obscure toilets. As we go to print it is only 733,425th on Amazon, but perhaps Mr. Obama will give it a boost from Kailua, Hawaii, or his next refuge from the Republicans, possibly in Outer Mongolia. As for Mr. Barclay, he is back at the BBC doing documentaries and dreaming up funny books. While on the topic of the BBC, it has happened again. The British Broadcasting Corporation’s South West division inadvertently during an evening weather broadcast aired a Second World War clipping of German troops marching onto the Channel Islands. A BBC spokesman apologized profusely for the mistake, but doubtless not before several old-timers in the area headed for the hills. Not everyone in the Channel Islands keeps up with current events, and maybe the BBC will send Mr. Barclay out to look for the yokels. From India comes word that a 94-year-old farmer has become the world’s oldest father. He is Mr. Ramajit Raghav of Kharkhoda, India, a small village tucked away behind a garbage can in north Haryana. Mr. Raghav is confident that he will see his son, little Karamjit, live to be a grownup. “I will die,” a somewhat cocky Ramajit reports, “only if a black snake bites me and that is very unlikely.” Well put!

Christmas was celebrated throughout the United States, and Santa Claus may be becoming even more controversial than the baby Jesus. In Union Beach, New Jersey, residents along Lorillard Avenue rebelled against Mrs. Jill Patella’s statue to the bearded galoot. He kept singing the same songs for hours on end. Mrs. Patella says she put up the singing Santa because it was a gift from her deceased husband. Yet Mr. Mark Dittman, a neighbor, asseverates that “It’s literally 12 to 13 hours a day. There’s no consideration for the neighbors. We’re very into the Christmas spirit, but this is ridiculous.” And in New York City’s West Village the YMCA replaced Santa with Frosty the Snowman, claiming that “more children can relate to him.” All of which might explain why a bus driver in Urbana, Illinois, went out of his way to run over a snowman surreptitiously constructed in the roadway. His firing by the bus company has set off a furor with religious overtones. Stay tuned.