Hello, how did I leave out the "L'" in Lucy Lee Flippin's last name?
That is so careless, but it does offer me an excuse to post this video clip from "The Telephone Book" (definitely NSFW, especially around the local newspaper offices, because the then-starlet uses a naughty word, a very naughty word). And here's how you can order this unsung cult classic and enjoy the rest of the local gal's scenes, if there are any.
For those who live and die for the biannual election coverage on BCTV, tonight would be nirvana.
There is a primary election going on. And not just any primary election, but one with eight lawyers bobbing and weaving and scrambling for two spits on the county bench; white-hot county races for treasurer, coroner and prothonotary; new faces vying for seats on the Wild West borough of West Reading; and one nail-biter of a barn-burner for state superior court judge.
BCTV's coverage is an election-night tradition. The winners, and losers, drop by for sage give-and-take with legendary broadcasters such as Jack Molets and Mark Abrams and Mike Zielinski and John Forester, before hitting the barrooms.
Instead, visitors to the BCTV website were greeted with this sad announcement:
Congratulations to the Reading Royals as they continue their journey to win the Kelly Cup!
BCTV will televise the Royals’ games in Stockton, CA, on Tuesday, May 21. The pre-game show begins at 9:30 p.m., EDT.
There will be no Live Election Returns on BCTV on May 21st.
For county election results, go to countyofberks/com/elections, after 8 p.m. on Tuesday.
What is going on here?
Does not BCTV have a managing editor capable of making the right call? Did Mayor Spencer give to word to preempt coverage so they don't have to interview Councilwoman Donna Reed, who will kick the mayor's ass two years hence?
The damn hockey game doesn't even start until 10 o'clock. That's plenty of time for judge hopeful/merry prankster Peter Schiaroli to pop on by and make a whistling sound like a falling bomb and yelled "Incoming!" or for the West Reading contingent to slug it out on camera.
That sounds like a whole lot more fun than a minor-league hockey skirmish.
Guys, you can stop holding your nutsack and squirming. It was all a hoax.
A guy in Sweden did NOT die after sticking his ding-a-ling into a hornet's nest. The publication, News Sweden, that ran with the story is a spoof publication, sort of a Swedish Onion, but...then...a London newspaper took up the story about how a neighbor named Bertil Ståhfrääs (whose name translates as "erection" in Swedish) found the sad fellow, Hasse, lying there, sadly unsated:
"I have never in my life seen such a swollen pelvic bone. It hid the whole package [and] the scrotum was enlarged. Right now it feels heavy and unreal. We did not talk very often, but he was still my neighbour."
A supposed autopsy of Hasse's body allegedly showed semen on some of the dead wasps and a number of the victim's pubic hair was found at the entrance of the nest. His fingerprints were also found on the nest, leading the police to believe he had been trying to have sex with the hornet's nest when he was stung to death.
"To attempt to have intercourse with a hornet's nest is a very bad idea," Siv Underlivh, a psychologist and expert on sex fantasies told the news website. Underlivh was also a play on words, meaning 'fetish' in Swedish.
There is a lesson to be learned. Sex with insects, bad. Leave those 17-year cicadas be.
I never heard of it until this week either but it does star some of the Warhol gang, Oscar-nominee William Hickey (whom critic John Simon called the worst actor in the known universe), Berks County's own Lucy Lee Fippin, and is directed by Judd Apatow's dad. Bring it on.
Michael Steele, a spokesman for House Speaker John A. Boehner, got real:
“The First Amendment is first for a reason. If the Obama Administration is going after reporters’ phone records, they better have a damned good explanation.”
Rep. Paul Ryan demurred:
"If the First Amendment is gone, then the Second Amendment becomes first, right?"
We had better wait and see what Dick Cheney has to say about this.
Back in the day, there was only one Castro anybody had ever heard of. Fidel, dictator of Cuba — a monster, to be sure (at least to the CIA and a couple of U.S. presidents), but nothing compared to the fiend of Cleveland — and Reading, because kidnap/rape/torture suspect Ariel Castro spent part of his boyhood in Reading, whether it was weeks, days, months...doesn't matter; this is a local story now.
So now, when Fidel kicks, how will headline writers respond to the obit? Last name only? First name? (Don't know any other Fidels.) Already things are getting might confusing.
Can anything be more important at our institutions of higher education than protecting students rights?
Of course not!
Academia is a bastion of self-expression. The First Amendment rules.
Have you ever heard of staffers at a college newspaper being disciplined or censored over content?
Of course not.
But what about the most important of all the amendments in the Bill of Rights?
Fret not. The eggheads at Kutztown University have decided they are no longer going to sit on their fat asses and infringe upon students' God-given right to pack heat on campus.
Dr. F. Javier Cevallos, university president and constitutional scholar, decreed:
While I am cognizant of concerns associated with this change, we must follow the advice of legal counsel and do what is necessary to comply with the Second Amendment. I assure you we have done everything to implement the strongest policy possible while staying in compliance with constitutional rights.
From now on, guns can be carried anywhere on open areas of the Kutztown campus, la-de-da. Students, and their parents, may, however, be alarmed to learn that weapons still will be barred in campus buildings, including dormitories, dining halls and classrooms, and at sporting, entertainment, educational and other events sponsored by the university.
Does this pass constitutional muster?
Let us review the full text of that most sacred of amendments:
A well regulated student militia, being necessary to the security of a free campus, the right of the students to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed, except in campus buildings, including dormitories, dining halls and classrooms, and at sporting, entertainment, educational and other events sponsored by the university.
Sounds like the university prez nailed it.
Sure, spoilsports abound, such as Raging Chicken Press, which snarled in a piece called "Welcome to Wild West U: Kutztown University Opens Campus to Guns" that Director of University Relations Matthew Santos' claim that "his understanding that the Pennsylvania Attorney General stated that
banning weapons on [state] campuses is not legally defensible in court" is just a pile of steaming horseshit.
It might take a while for students to get the new policy down pat, such as what to do with their shiny, concealed Glock when they are done roaming the open areas of the campus and need to enter their dorm room. But I trust they can resolve this quandary over a bottle of cookie-dough vodka.
