Tom Keane

Nick Not

 Citing the mocking treatment accorded Cheney chief of staff “Scooter” Libby, President George W. Bush today issued an executive order today banning silly nicknames within the Administration.

“Bushie, Number One and I were talking last night,” the President said, appearing at a news conference announcing the new policy, “and they reminded me that Poppy never lost as much respect as I have.  I thought maybe sending Lima Green Bean overseas was the problem or perhaps letting Rummy run that war, but Tangent Man and Turd Blossom said it might be the nicknames. And Big Time told me they were right.”

The Administration has been hurt of late from a media that once seemed to give it automatic deference.  “We always knew The Cobra and Dulce were against us, but even Barney and the Commissioner seem to be turning negative. When I asked Pootie-Poot, Dino and Landslide what they thought, they too said I needed to be a little less flippant.”

“We have a big agenda ahead of us,” said Bush.  “I plan to work closely with with Hogan, Corndog, Sweet Sue, and Congressman Kick-Ass -- and even those on the other side of the aisle like Sabretooth and Ali -- in a more serious approach to government. No more letting Brother George run wild or Big O tour around with rock stars or Balloonfoot step on my message.”

“We’re doing good work here,” added Bush. “The Blade has a tight rein on budgets, Guru is tearing up the Mideast, and Double T is keeping everyone healthy. Now that the Bulldog in size 6 shoes is back on my staff, I’m confident we’ll have a great next three years.”

Red Sox Redux

The Boston Red Sox announced today that the upcoming 2006 season will be a repeat of the team’s championship 2004 year.

“Every game, every ball, every strike will be a replica of 2004,” said team CEO Larry Lucchino. “2004 the best season ever, like a fairy tale that you love to tell again and again.  So we figured, ‘Why not?’”

Team owners Lucchino and John Henry said they came to the decision after observing fan interest and press coverage during the 2005 season.  “Even as we were in the playoffs this year against the White Sox, there was more attention being given to retrospectives of 2004,” said Henry. “Rather than caring about what the team was doing today, fans just wanted to gaze at the trophy and reminisce about last year.”

For home games, the team plans to use actors playing the roles of Red Sox players as well as those of visiting teams.  “You’ll be able to see Pedro again.  Johnny will grow his beard real long, and Mark Bellhorn will be back, as goofy and lovable as ever,” said Henry. For away games, the team will simply rebroadcast the original 2004 games on NESN.

The Boston Globe, which through its parent company the New York Times is a significant owner of the team, has already signed on. “We’ll play it straight,” said Globe publisher Richard Gilman, “as if we had no idea what each day’s game would bring.” The team is still in negotiations with the Boston Herald, but said it expected the city’s second newspaper would also cooperate. 

The team said it had also reached agreement with actor Jimmy Fallon, who played a rabid Sox fan in the movie Fever Pitch, to attend most games.  “We even plan to have Drew Barrymore run across the field during game four of the ALCS,” said Lucchino. “This time for real.”

Sox owners rhapsodized about the opportunity of reliving the epic season.  “Shilling’s bloody sock, Ortiz’ clutch home runs, the collision of Damon and Damian Jackson -- every exciting play will happen again, just as it did before,” Henry said. When reporters pointed out that the Damon-Jackson collision actually occurred in 2003, not 2004, Henry said, “Really?  But it was such a great, heart-stopping moment.  We’ll have to see if we can work it in.”

Crony Crisis

Staff at all levels of the administration of George W. Bush today protested the President’s nomination of Ben Bernanke to chair the Federal Reserve.

“Bernanke’s education and experience clearly mark this as a merit-based appointment,” said Ayhm Pedestrian, chief of Audit Compliance at FannieMae and a spokesman for Hirees and Cronies Kollected, an ad hoc group of White House appointees that met yesterday with reporters. “For five years it’s been who you know, not what do you know, that’s guided the hiring process. Bernanke’s selection is a sharp and unwelcome departure from this practice.”

White House staff had been heartened by high-profile crony appointments such as Michael Brown, the former head of FEMA, and the recent nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

“What I fear we’re seeing now, however, is a President who is abandoning his principles,” said Sue Lowe, assistant secretary for Color Changes at the Department of Homeland Security. “Under a constant drumbeat of criticism from the liberal media, he’s caving, backing off from his consistent support of mediocrity.”

Other administration staffers were more sanguine.  “Sometimes the President has to throw a bone,” said one, “but we take comfort in the fact that there are still thousands of us -- untalented, disengaged and unmotivated -- at all levels of the federal government. That’s not going to change any time soon.”

“In fact,” noted another, “the President himself is really one of us. As long as he remains in office, we’ll be fine”

Election Canceled

Boston mayor Thomas Menino and challenger Maura Hennigan agreed today to cancel the mayoral election, originally scheduled for November 8.

The unprecedented deal -- which hands Menino a fourth term -- comes in the wake of a poll released yesterday that shows Menino with a commanding lead in the race. The poll, conducted by the Boston Globe, found 66 percent of voters intended to vote for Menino, 27 percent for Hennigan, and just 7 percent undecided.

“Add up the numbers and it’s clear I can’t win,” said Hennigan. “If that’s the case, I figured, why bother to hold an election?”

An exultant Menino agreed. “Canceling the election saves the city at least $200,000,” he said. “That’s money that could be put to better use paving our streets, fixing up our schools and erecting more directional signs prominently featuring my name.”

“Canceling the election may even save lives,” added Hennigan, who appeared with Menino at a joint press conference.  “Now people won’t need to go to the polls, risking their necks on the uneven pavement, giant potholes and broken walk signals that the administration has failed to fix.”

Both Menino and Hennigan expressed gratitude to the Globe for making the election unnecessary.  “I only wish they had done it sooner,” said Hennigan, who recently lent her campaign a half million dollars. “That way I wouldn’t have had to take out a second mortgage on my home.”

Menino said he thought canceling the election might be the start of a new trend.  “Ever since I got into office, the idea of having to face the voters every four years has increasingly made less sense,” he said. “And if I shouldn’t have to do it, why should any incumbent?”

Although canceling the election also means that voters will not be turning out to select members for the 13-person City Council, both Menino and Hennigan said they thought that of little consequence.  “Both of us were once city councilors,” said Menino, “and even we can’t figure out what they actually do.”

Mad Ads

A new commercial released this week by mayoral candidate Maura Hennigan depicts Boston Mayor Thomas Menino as King Lear and compliant city workers, real estate developers and interest groups as his three daughters, professing their love even as they disdain the tired and aging politician.

The thinly veiled take on Shakespeare’s play follows on the heels of a Hennigan advertisement released last week that was a takeoff of Robert McCloskey’s children’s book “Make Way for Ducklings.”  The McCloskey commercial upset some, such as artist Nancy Schon, whose bronze sculptures of parading ducklings are a popular attraction in the city’s Public Garden. Schon called the ad “disgraceful” and said it was destroying a book about “''families and lovely things.”

Fans of the Bard were similarly aghast. “I’ll never be able to do Shakespeare again,” said sometime actor Scott Olivier, speaking with reporters at Menino’s headquarters.  “Does this woman Hennigan have any conscience at all?  To destroy the greatest works of English literature, ruining Shakespeare for future generations, all for petty political power, is unspeakable.”

Meanwhile, the Menino campaign made public its own commercial, a send-up of the Star Trek episode “The Trouble with Tribbles.” In the ad, the blonde-haired Hennigan makes her appearance as useless but quickly multiplying tribbles that threaten to take over a starship -- in this case, one that looks remarkably like Boston.  Menino plays a Captain Kirk-like figure who is determined to save his ship. With wit and derring-do, he eventually does so, beaming the Hennigan-tribbles outside of the city, a fate remarkably similar to the one that befell his challenger of four years ago, former city councilor (and now Dedham resident) Peggy Davis Mullen.

Dweeb Johnson, president of the Star Trek Fan Club, met with reporters while holding a phaser aimed directly at his head. “The greatest television series of all time lies in tatters, simply because of some hack Boston politician. Star Trek has been my life.  Now, with this travesty of an ad, my life is over,” he said, as he pulled the trigger.

Additional commercials are rumored to be in the works. Hennigan is reportedly preparing an ad depicting Menino as a Godzilla-like creature destroying Boston’s neighborhoods.  Menino has one portraying himself as Jesus being stoned by a mob of Hennigan supporters. Fans of Japanese movies and Christian fundamentalists all professed themselves ready to be appalled as soon as the ads were released.

Lovin' Large

News item--A new study conducted by Duke University psychologist Martin Binks shows that heavy women feel less sexually attractive.

Playboy Enterprises, Inc. (NYSE: PLA, PLA.A) announced today a new strategic direction for its flagship publication, Playboy Magazine, as well as related video and live entertainment business lines. “The magazine has suffered through several years of declining circulation figures. In addition, viewership of our Spice video products is off as is attendance at the company’s network of Playboy Clubs,” said chief financial officer Linda Havard. “Thanks to new research from Dr. Martin Binks, however, we believe we have found the answer.”

Bink’s study, publicly released this week at The Obesity Society conference in Vancouver, involved 145 overweight women enrolled in a diet program at the Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis. Initially, 68 percent of women said they felt sexually unattractive and 63 percent said they did not want to be seen naked. A year later, after losing weight, just 26 percent said they felt unattractive and only 34 percent said they did not want to be seen without clothes.

A follow-up study of 200 male subjects, specially commissioned by Playboy, found the women’s self-perception to be accurate. “When first viewing these women, 98 percent of our test subjects -- all ranging from ages 18 to 25 -- said they too did not want to see them naked.  After the weight loss, however, the figures nearly reversed, with 95 percent of the men now saying they were eager to see the women undressed,” said Binks.

“This contradicts everything we believed to be true,” said Playboy CEO Christie Hefner. “We thought today’s man liked real women -- women who are curvy and Rubenesque, with flesh and blood on their bones. That’s why we brought out innovative new pictorials such as “Girls of the Pork 10” and the new extra-wide centerfold. That’s why we introduced the new Thunderbunnies at our Playboy Clubs and brought out our new video line, ‘Double the Woman, Double the Fun.’ Indeed, it’s why we recently redesigned our Rabbit Head logo to be fluffier.”

“Given this new data,” Havard said, “We now plan to trim things down.  Pictorials will feature svelte woman and we’re going to reduce the amount of cellulite. It doesn’t seem fair, but you can’t argue with the data.”

“It turns out the old reprobate was right,” added Hefner.  “Dad liked them skinny and apparently tastes haven’t changed.”

Hefner denied charges that the gender of Playboy Enterprises’ aging senior management team, which is dominated by women, had anything to do with the Company’s recent miscues. “Look at those ads for Dove Firming Lotion,” said Hefner, “We’re not the only ones who thought that big was beautiful.”

Send in the Clones

South Korean scientists announced today that they have succeeded in cloning 11 human beings, all of whom spent the last year as candidates for the Boston city council.

The South Korean group -- headed by Hwang Woo Suk of Seoul National University -- extracted DNA from two Irish guest workers, cloned the cells in Petri dishes, and raised them on a strict diet of meat and potatoes before sending them to America.

The announcement seemingly provided an answer to a phenomenon that has puzzled local observers. Despite the fact that Boston's population is over 50 percent non-white and that Irish-Americans account for an increasingly small fraction of its residential base, an overwhelming preponderance of the 15 candidates in the city’s September preliminary elections bore an Irish-American surname.

“We visited a bar in South Boston and asked people their names,” said Suk. “Then we just re-used them: Michael Flaherty, Steve Murphy, Patricia White, John Connolly, Ed Flynn, Matt O’Malley, Kevin McKrea, Greg O’Connell, Martin Hogan, Joe Ready … you get the idea. Heck, we even have one of our clones running for mayor. We named her Hennigan.”

“We are delighted, of course, that six of our clones were among the top eight in September and will now be on the November ballot,” added Suk.

Also on the November ballot is Korean-American Sam Yoon, the first Asian-American to run for city office in  Boston.  “Never hear of him,” said Suk. “He must be one of yours.”

Dam It

News item--Governor Romney is ordering the emergency inspection of more than 180 dams across the state that have been deemed "high hazard dams." Among the dams that will be inspected are two in Chicopee described as being in "unsafe condition," and 38 others across the state in "poor condition."

Excerpts from the Governor’s press conference follow:

Romney: Thank you for attending today’s dam press conference. As you know, we are facing a dam difficult situation in the Commonwealth. Our dam infrastructure is falling apart. It’s my dam responsibility to ensure that our dammed towns stay dammed and I intend to do just that. Aside from the dam inspections you’ve heard about, I’m ordering every dam worker in the Commonwealth to stand ready in assisting with whatever dam repairs we may need. I vow that I will not rest until I resolve this dam crisis, even if it means I personally have to go out to some dam failure and dam it myself.

 Q: You would dam it yourself?

Romney: Dam it if I have to -- or at least do whatever I can to plug up the dam holes.

Q: Will the state build new dams if necessary?

Romney: I don’t think the state should give a dam. This isn’t dam charity we’re talking about. We expect local towns and cities to put their own dam money up as well, perhaps a 50/50 dam split.

Q: Governor, is this situation simply a result of the rainfall -- an Act of God if you will -- or is the state responsible?

Romney: What do you mean, God dammed the state, so it’s God’s dam problem? I don’t think it’s a God dam problem. We dammed the state, so it’s our dam problem. We built these dam things and for too long we’ve ignored the dam deterioration in our midst. I blame previous dam administrations. You know, it’s been easy for people to slough off these dam problems, saying it’s not their dam responsibility or someone else’s dam fault. My pledge to you from this day forward is to change that kind of dam thinking, not only for this dam state but also for the dam nation.

Q: Governor, I’ve noticed you’ve been saying “dam” a lot in this press conference. Given your well known refusal to curse, does this mark a change in your use of language?

Romney: Shit no.