Back From The Brink

Just when I think things have tipped over the edge and we're sliding into the abyss, there's a shining light of sanity piercing the blackness of moronic behavior and Velveeta-brained ideas.

This week, the man holding the flashlight is U.S. District Court Judge Robert Sweet, who threw out for the second time the inane lawsuit brought against McDonald's for nefariously causing the excessive girth of the plaintiffs.

He first threw the suit out in January, when he wrote in his opinion that the plaintiffs, "cannot blame McDonald's if they, nonetheless, choose to satiate their appetite with a surfeit of supersized McDonald's products."

Ah, such glorious alliteration! It's nice to see a jurist with a gift for phraseology. Judge Sweet went on to say, "If a person knows or should know that eating copious orders of supersized McDonald's products is unhealthy and may result in weight gain ... it is not the place of the law to protect them from their own excesses."

Can it be? Here's a judge who grasps the idea that the notion of "government as parent" is wrongheaded, silly, destructive and danged expensive for those of us who choose to live our lives on our own nickel, without expecting anyone else to cover our excesses. Can we clone him? Convince him to run for president? Elect him emperor?

Of course, not everything is sunshine, kittens and supersized strawberry shakes. The idiots continue among us, but at least they're amusing ones.

Pet The Pagan Panther

Unless you've been hiding under a rock, you've heard of the brouhaha in Alabama over the Ten Commandments monument, which was finally moved to a room away from public view by a group of court workers who looked like they'd rather be doing just about anything else.

The fuse, as they say, has been lit, and skirmishes are being fought on the steps and in the display galleries of courthouses across the nation. In Houston, a suit has been brought in an effort to effect the removal of a Bible that sits in a glassed case outside the civil courthouse.

To the north of Houston, in Dallas, there's a tussle of slightly different timbre brewing. According to the Fort-Worth Star-Telegram, Blanca Castillo stood before Tarrant County commissioners and demanded the removal of the statue of a sleeping panther from in front of the county office building saying, "That pagan statue is an insult to Christians everywhere, and I respectfully request its removal from any local, state, county [or] federal property."

The commissioners kept straight faces, and assured Ms. Castillo that the matter could be addressed in a future meeting.

With classic dry Texas wit, one county commissioner said, "I don't want the county to do anything against God's will. But I guess I'm having a little bit of a difficult time understanding how a statue of a panther, lying in our front yard, is harming anyone."

The sleeping panther is actually a whimsical representation of Fort Worth's past, when a Dallas attorney reportedly remarked that the city was so quiet he'd seen a panther dozing on Main Street. City police officers even wore a likeness of the sleeping cat on their uniforms.

This is just flat silliness. Just about any animal can be found to have significance in some religion somewhere on earth. How about we ban all the doves in all the city parks because of their symbolism in the Bible? Oh, and no more elephants in the city zoo. Everyone knows the elephant is the symbol of Ganesh, a Hindu deity.

And while we're at it, most of the religions around today were founded by humans, so they're right out, too.

I think I'll start a religion worshipping snack foods so I can empty out all the vending machines in the courthouse in the name of cultural neutrality.

Stop, Thief!

Speaking of the removal of monuments, police in Detroit are still seeking a Krispy Kreme doughnut delivery truck that was stolen in the midst of a stop.

Two hours after the stop, someone called the Detroit Krispy Kreme headquarters on the truck's phone and demanded a $100 ransom for the vehicle. Savvy managers got Detroit police on the phone, and two suspects, one toting a bag of doughnuts, were soon apprehended.

The truck, however, is still missing in action. Has it perhaps run off on its own, frightened because it was taken from its happy route? Should you see a driverless Krispy Kreme truck, approach it slowly, with hands full of doughnuts, and gently coax it back to its garage. Make sure the doughnuts are Krispy Kremes, or the truck will know you mean it harm and may charge.

Urban Legends Of The Week

Any large societal event spawns its own mini-vortex of Urban Legends, and the recent blackout that struck cities in the United States and Canada is no exception.

Within days after the lights went out, an e-mail began circulating around the greater New York area (and of course thus worldwide) telling readers that Con Edison would reimburse them up to $350 for food spoiled during the blackout.

While it IS true that Con Ed has a policy of compensating customers for blackout-related food spoilage, their policy states clearly that the blackouts must be as a result of a fault in the Con Ed system, and evidence now indicates it was not.

In a statement released five days after the blackout, the utility said, "The Aug. 14 power disruption in New York City and Westchester was caused by an event hundreds of miles away. Under government regulations, Con Edison cannot be held responsible for legal claims stemming from food spoilage and other inconveniences."

In the Age of Photoshop, it should surprise no one that there is also a bogus satellite image of the blackout circulating. If anyone has shown you the photo at left, claiming they've got satellite imagery of the blackout, just take them to my good pal David Emery's About.com Urban Legends page, but not until you've bet them lunch that the picture is a fake.

I welcome your comments, complaints, stories and professions of undying love. Large cash grants are also accepted. Just click here, type and send.