[PEN-L:519] on the lighter side

["Frank Durgin" <fdurgin1@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I thought the list members might get a chuckle or two out of this
Global Eye column of the St. Petersburg Times (Russia)  #407,
Tuesday, October 13, 1998. It a publication for the expatriate
English speaking colony in St. Petersburg. It can be found at
http://www.time.spb.ru


  GLOBAL EYE



                America's Cup

                The glorious beacon of
                American democracy,
                which has been on
                such noble and
                vigorous display in
                recent months, shone
                ever more brightly in
                the great state of
                Georgia last week, as
                the two combatants for
                a seat in the august
                U.S. Senate dueled,
                augustly of course, with a bold new weapon in the
                arsenal of freedom: those telling yellow samples,
                urine tests.

                The first shot was fired a few months back by
                Democratic contender Michael Coles, the
                cookie-making millionaire trying to unseat incumbent
                Republican Sen. Paul Coverdell.

                Coles announced that he had taken a drug test and
                been declared of pure blood, Slate Magazine reports.
                He then challenged Coverdell to let fly with a flood of
                bodily fluids to prove that he, too, had chaste
                platelets.

                Coverdell promptly put his urine where his mouth is
                (metaphorically speaking, of course), and said his
                blood t'aint never been tainted with none of them
                thar abusive substances.

                However, in these Clintonian times, where what goes
                unsaid may speak volumes more than one's actual
                utterances (especially when the latter are uttered to
                grand juries), Coles was not satisfied with Coverdell's
                cleanliness.

                Sure, the Senator had no illegal dope clogging his
                arteries: but what about legal drugs, eh? Specifically,
                what about anti-depressants? (This is a variation on
                the old "When did you stop beating your wife?" ploy,
                oft-used by another illustrious Georgia politician:
                Newt Gingrich.)

                Coverdell dallied over his response to this incredibly
                vital political issue, but - apparently afraid that a
                shred of dignity might creep into the race - finally
                chugged down a few bottles of Evian and last week
                produced a second cup o' kindness which proved he
                had not been taking anti-depressants.

                However, Georgia voters, faced with a choice between
                these two tinkling titans in next month's election,
                undoubtedly are.

                Undercover Operatives

                Despite all the kidney-punching down in
                Georgia, there is at least one man in
                Washington dedicated to elevating the low
                and noxious discourse of American politics
                today. We speak, of course, of Larry Flynt:
                patriot, publisher, pornographer
                extraordinnaire.

                Flynt, best known for his raunch-rag, Hustler (and
                for the landmark Supreme Court case that upheld
                his right to fantasize in public about the Rev. Jerry
                Falwell having sex with his own mother), this week
                offered $1 million to anyone who could prove they
                had committed adultery with "a current member of
                the United States Congress or a high-ranking
                government official," Reuters reports.

                Flynt blazoned his offer in a full-page Washington
                Post advertisement, guaranteeing "confidentiality"
                and scrupulously demanding "documentary
                evidence" of the high-level hanky-panky (which is,
                admittedly, a loftier standard of journalistic ethics
                than you'll find in, say, The Drudge Report, News
                week, or anything owned by Rupert Murdoch).

                The defiant decadent also renewed an earlier offer to
                hire Ken Starr for Hustler's stable of porn writers.
                Flynt wrote a fan letter to the First Puritan last
                month, saying, "After reading the Starr Report I am
                impressed by the salacious and voyeuristic nature of
                your work. The quality and quantity of material you
                have assembled contains more pornographic
                references than those provided by 'Hustler Online'
                services this month."

                Starr declined the offer, of course. Flynt may be
                rolling in filthy lucre, but there's no way he could
                match the cool $50 million the prosecutor is pulling
                down on the government payroll.

                Frontal Assault

                "Be All That You Can Be." "We're Looking
                for a Few Good Men." "Aim High."

                The famous recruiting slogans of the U.S. military
                took on new meaning this week with the Pentagon's
                announcement that it will spend $50 million on
                Viagra next year.

                While the cream of the nation's military manhood
                will no doubt rise to the top with this infusion of
                taxpayer largess, the Pentagon says most of the
                boodle will actually be spent on older soldiers - the
                kind of ancient warriors who have left the field and
                moved on to important desk jobs in places like, well,
                the Pentagon.

                But the brass are not being profligate with this seed
                money, The Associated Press reports. Pentagon
                spokesmen said recipients will be limited to only six
                pills per month , and "lost, stolen or destroyed tablets
                will not be replaced." (It is not clear if this limit
                applies to the Commander-in-Chief, however.)

                Of course, one doesn't like to cast aspersions on the
                red-blooded risibility of the nation's defenders, but it
                is interesting to note that the Pentagon said it had to
                establish a firm $50 million limit on the capsule
                erector sets - or else demand for Viagra would
                overwhelm the military's pharmaceutical budget.

                Next up: Vladdie Zhirinovsky demands Viagra for
                the Russian armed forces - and Duma members, too.
                "We must be standing tall when we cross swords
                with the Americans in the coming global conflict!" he
                declares.

                Loose Talk

                A picture, as we all know, is worth a
                thousand words. Unfortunately, moving
                pictures are afflicted with the disease of
                dialogue - a few wads of inexpensive filler
                thrown in to keep the multizillion-dollar
                action sequences from crashing into each
                other.

                These bits of chatty excelsior are usually witless
                enough in the original tongue, but when they are
                rendered into subtitles for a foreign audience, the
                result is often a form of demented zen haiku:
                unfathomable aphorisms and paradoxical
                pronouncements which, surely, must hide some
                deeper truth within. This week, the Guardian raked
                the virtual pages of the "Lost in the Translation" Web
                site, and culled a few shards of poesy from "actual
                English subtitles" used in tough-guy Hong Kong
                films. Such as: "I got knife scars more than the
                number of your leg's hair!" "Fatty, you with your
                thick face have hurt my instep." "Take my advice, or
                I'll spank you without pants!" (Or was that from the
                Monica Lewinsky tapes?) "Damn, I'll burn you into a
                BBQ chicken!" "A normal person wouldn't steal
                pituitaries." "How can you use my intestines as a
                gift?"

                And finally, a line that could serve as the epigraph
                for every "action" film of the past 20 years: "The
                bullets inside me are very hot. Why do I feel so cold?"

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