It has come to the attention of NOTW's crack staff that the acronym NOTW is the copyrighted property of an email service that goes by the name, "News of the Weird." So as to avoid the appearance of improper conduct, not to mention an investigation by independent counsel Kenneth Starr, News of the world will choose a new, lawsuit- avoiding acronym, namely, NOW. That way, readers can once again feel free to make vicious criticisms without fear of reprisal, such as "Everyone at NOW is a left-wing conspiracy nut."
Speaking of left-wing conspiracy nuts, author John Grisham wrote the My Turn column for a recent issue of Newsweek. It seems that last year, Grisham discovered that homelessness is still a problem. This is despite the fact that in the 1980s, hundreds of celebrities attended gala after fund-raising gala, at which they wore concerned frowns on their faces, so as to indicate their worry that the homeless might get too close to the celebrity limousines. In the course of Grisham's exhaustive research, he discovered that homeless people don't have a place to live, and yet that, and this is a direct quote, "Everyone has to be somewhere." Physics lesson aside, he goes on to discuss several encounters he had with homeless people, all despite the very real possibility that we would learn of his new book, in which a plucky young lawyer works with homeless people.
But people don't care about the homeless. They care about the Winter Olympics. Or at least, they would if the Olympics were actually occurring. Unfortunately, most events have been canceled due, oddly enough, to winter. The snowstorm blanketing Nagano was unforeseen largely because Nagano is the same latitude as Nacogdoches, Texas, and this is the first winter weather they've had since the Nixon administration.
Some events have taken place, although television viewers have missed most of these due to important feature pieces on the CBS broadcast facility or on what the Japanese people think. When asked how they like having the world come to Japan, the Japanese are unfailingly polite and courteous to an extent that makes Miss Manners look like Mike Tyson, but what they really think is, "We invited these cretins here? On purpose?" If the Japanese had the social graces of Americans, Jim Nantz and Al Trautwig would have been beaten senseless and left to drown in pools of their own spittle. If you haven't seen Trautwig, take our word for it that his name is humorously appropriate. It's also fun to say. Trautwig Trautwig Trautwig.
One event that has been completed is the first-ever snowboarding competition, which was won by Canada's Ross Rebagliati. Unfortunately for him, there was a problem with his drug test, in the sense that his urine indicated there was a marijuana metabolite in his system in the amount of 17.8 microquarts per kilometer. The IOC's medical commission voted 13-12 to declare Rebagliati "baked out of his gourd," and he was stripped of his gold medal. In a hastily-called press conference, Rebagliati angrily protested his innocence. "Dude, you got any pizza?" he said.
The Winter Olympics are not the United States' strong suit, with the exception of a couple of events. For example, Picabo Street completed her miraculous comeback from surgery, winning the gold in the Super-G. By one one-hundredth of a second, she edged out disabled golfer Casey Martin, although some competitors questioned whether Martin's Yamaha SRX600 snowmobile gave him an unfair advantage.
Another event in which Americans are expected to succeed is the women's figure skating, where the U.S. contingent (Michelle Kwan, Tara Lipinski, and Nicole Bobek) has an outside shot of sweeping the medals. Even President Clinton is a fan. He said recently, "I'll have to have those ladies at the White House." Overworked White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry cleared up any prepositional confusion, saying, "The president said 'over to the White House,' and anyone who says otherwise is part of a vicious right-wing conspiracy to bring him down."
The White House has seen right-wing conspiracies pretty much everywhere lately. ("Look at what that right-wing conspiracy did on the lawn while Buddy was outside.") For a while, this seemed justified, because for each witness appearing before Starr's grand jury, the verbatim testimony became available to the media about 26 seconds after the witness finished testifying. White House staffers accused the independent prosecutor's office of leaking the information, but they had to issue retractions when it was discovered that Wolf Blitzer had been broadcasting the hearings live from Starr's vest pocket.
Valentine's Day is coming up this weekend, so President Clinton has a lot of plans to make. [Note to self: make up joke. Try to use amusing contraction of Valentine's Day -- "Happy V-D, Mr. President!" -- or use the bonus phrase, "chocolate-covered walnuts, strewn about the Oval Office."] Just kidding, of course. In accordance with long tradition, Clinton will spend his time figuring out how to kill our enemies:
Huh. A few minutes ago, the last paragraph was going to be a goofy little look at NOW's cynical view of Valentine's Day. It turns out that death isn't as funny as I thought it was. At least, not when it doesn't involve a 5-inch-long aquarium fish.
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LATE-BREAKING NEWS: Canadian snowboarder Ross Rebagliati has had his gold medal reinstated by an appeals panel after it was discovered [this is true] the IOC and the ski federation have not agreed to ban marijuana. Rebagliati joyfully announced his vindication at a hastily-called press conference. "Dude, you got any pizza?" he said.