As we prepare to party like it's 1999 (known in the Chinese zodiac as "The year of a whole lot of royalties going to The Artist Formerly Known As Prince"), our nation is in turmoil. Alert readers who are not currently dead may recall a heated debate in Congress this month that culminated in a series of historic, precedent-setting votes. After bitter and protracted partisan bickering, the votes led to the historic and precedent-setting result wherein Congress decided to change the coin-toss procedure for NFL games.

The impetus for this change was last month on Thanksgiving Day, a day we set aside to honor the occasion, nearly 400 years ago, when the Pilgrims and the Native "Well, More Native Than The Rest Of Us" Americans went into sudden death overtime. The Pittsburgh Steelers and the Detroit Lions lined up for the coin toss at the end of regulation, and the Steelers called "Tails." The officials gave the ball to Detroit, despite the fact that the coin came up "Tails." Not only that, during the subsequent drive, the officials forced a Pittsburgh player to remove the head of Detroit receiver Herman Moore via his face mask. Then, in a surprise move, an official held the ball so Referee Phil Luckett could kick it through the uprights, giving Detroit the victory. Even more boldly, the officials then forced the Steelers to forfeit the final four games of their season, causing them to miss the playoffs for the first time in 132 years.

The NFL is the only major sport in which officiating is not the full-time job of the officials. A series of key missed calls that changed the outcome of key late-season games has caused some to argue that part-timers can't possibly have the necessary vision, concentration, and judgment to get the job done. Others demur, pointing out that in their other lives, the officials hold positions of high-level responsibility, such as air traffic controller or driving a tour bus to Atlantic City.

As we enter the peak of bowl season, college football is also not without controversy. This year, the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) rankings were introduced. The purpose of these rankings was to ensure that in the final game of the season, the "#1" team would meet the "#2" team. Then, if either of these teams could produce a player on schedule to graduate, that team would be awarded the mythical national championship.

The BCS rankings use a combination of national polls, computer rankings, and a measure of a team's strength of schedule to rank the teams. In previous years, detractors of the system complained that teams' fates were left to the capriciousness of flighty poll voters. This year, the same people complain that the teams' fates are now taken out of the hands of the judicious poll voters and subject to the capriciousness of computer programs and the athletic directors who make the schedules.

The controversy peaked when the bowl pairings came out, pitting Florida State against Tennessee (quick, someone think of a UT joke -- bonus points will be awarded for using the phrase "so they can go straight from huntin' to the game to jail") in the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl as well as a Wisconsin- UCLA matchup in the Rose Bowl Presented By AT&T and a Texas A&M-Ohio State USF&Nokia Sugar Bowl. This is opposed to last year's system, under which this season's results would have led to UT vs. FSU in the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, UCLA vs. Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl Presented By AT&T and Ohio State- Texas A&M in the American General Sanford MobilExxonAmocoBP Sugar Bowl. In other action among schools graduating upwards of 20% of their players, the Kansas State Whinycats, upset over not being invited to one of the big bowls, demonstrated that they deserve a place among the elite by losing to a lightweight Big Ten team in the Remember the Alamo Bowl.

Elsewhere, public outrage continues to grow as ever more evidence unfolds of corruption at the highest levels. The public is getting tired of the lying, the abuse of power, and the subversion of the democratic process. "When will officials realize that they cannot lie, abuse their power, and subvert the democratic process?" is the question on the tips of the tongues of all Americans these days. (Ha! Just kidding! It's late December, and that means that the question on the tips of the tongues of almost all Americans is actually, "If I return this, do you think I can get cash for it?")

The corruption we're speaking of is, of course, the bribery scandal in the Salt Lake City Olympic Committee. The committee apparently spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to send the offspring of International Olympic Committee members to private schools. This generous scholarship program just happened to coincide with the time during which the IOC awarded the 2002 Winter Games to Salt Lake City. Salt Lake City officials downplayed any connection between these events, pointing out that "before we instituted the scholarship program, our applications were routinely turned down by the IOC" and scurrying from the room before dimwitted reporters could sort out what they said. IOC tyrant-for-life Juan Antonio Samaranch promises a thorough investigation, just as soon as his grandchildren graduate from Harvard Law School.

Speaking of tyrants-for-life, House Judiciary Committee chair Henry Hyde (R-IL)... oh, never mind. We've been thinking that we should have some comments on this little impeachment situation, but it's hard to come up with stuff more absurd than the actual facts. To recap: Republicans argued for impeachment by saying that no one has come forward to dispute the facts of the case (although they never actually stated what those facts are). Democrats argued against impeachment by saying that no one was disputing the facts in the case, and that the president is a disgusting, immoral cretin and a pathetic excuse for a human being, but that impeachment was not the answer. They then emphasized their point by treating the president as a conquering hero at a press conference in which Clinton said, "Now that the impeachment vote is over, I hope that the Senate, and here I am referring specifically to Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), will punish me like the bad, bad boy that I am."

As we come to the end of 1998, we'd like to thank all of MWC's readers, alert and otherwise, for bearing with us. In particular, we're thinking of mystery subscriber "collinsj@msn.com," who got onto the list by mistake but hasn't complained even once. As we move into 1999 and Volume 2 of MWC, we hope you'll stay with us, the only fact-based essay on current events that promises, "You get what you pay for."