Just two old guys reading the newspaper
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READING the newspaper can be a tricky business for the youth-challenged. Our old eyes skip from headline to headline without registering where one ends and the other begins, creating bizarre banners in the process. Rusty synapses unsnap, and we behold anagrams superimposed on the reporter's words. Our weary minds blink and the message is cunningly massaged.
But, happily, when the left brain stumbles, the right brain soars. Misreadings beget priceless insights. Ocular problems create oracular brainstorms. The aging, benighted mind unwittingly solves the world's problems.
'Obama Tilts toward Bayh for VP of Georgia' Brilliant move, Barack! We never understood what the Russians were doing in Atlanta in the first place, but Evan should set them straight. What's more, this will surely put that state in the electoral win column.
We think we know where you're going with this, Barack: multiple vice presidents! Just like they have at all the major corporations. Say, one for each of those breakaway states - Ohio, Michigan, Florida, Chechnya. It's a win-win. Now that's change we can believe in.
'Edwards Victim of Real Hunter at Ellen's Wedding' Of course, if any of us has Second Amendment rights, gays should have them too. But what could the doorperson at Ellen's wedding have been thinking when she ushered in a real hunter? And what was poor John Edwards doing there - doesn't he have enough problems already? Think, people!
Then again, maybe some good will come of this after all. Whatever Edwards did, he didn't deserve to be shot; in fact, nobody at a wedding, gay or otherwise, should have to worry about flying bullets. So how about a law prohibiting guns at weddings? Next, a legal ban on guns at graduation parties, then Tupperware parties and bar mitzvahs. Forget about swaying the Supreme Court; we can establish sensible gun control incrementally, wedding by wedding and bar mitzvah by bar mitzvah.
'Manny Ramirez Accused of Being Tax-Dodger' Former Red Sox left-fielder Manny Ramirez has been accused by IRS officials in Los Angeles of being a dodger. But according to his California tax attorneys, Chavez & Ravine, the problem was the result of a clerical error; Manny entered his batting average on the income averaging form.
"This still gives me the dreads," Manny commented.
There's an obvious lesson in this for all of us: Wherever you relocate, hang on to your Boston tax attorney.
'Fay Strikes a Dissident Chord on Florida Keys' As inveterate jazz fans, we're pleased to see Fay picking up where Thelonious Monk left off, so why all the fuss? Packing up cars and heading inland? Really! Learn to live with dissidents; that's what democracy is all about.
And what's all this sturm und drang about a hurricane? If you've got lemons, make a Lemon Twister. An 80-mile-per-hour wind is pure energy just waiting to be captured. Hurricane season is a wind-power bonanza. Make global warming work for us!
'US Swimmers Mae and Mac Nearly Drown During Freestyle Trials' US Olympic swimmers
Meanwhile, this Phelps gold quest is just a distraction from the big Olympic stories: Chinese Muslim separatists are expected to cruise to an easy victory in random knifing, while the US MSNBC team expects to take the gold in men's Hillary-bashing. And talk about burying the lede: Obama is favored to top the Poles.
Once again, a solution to a world problem is staring us in the face: Settling international disputes by sporting events is an idea whose time has returned. Let Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and the Dalai Lama duke it out on the parallel bars, we say. And Dick Cheney can challenge the jihadists in that new event, quail-and-friend-shooting.
Well, that was enlightening. Now, let's turn to the comics page. . . .
Daniel Klein and Thomas Cathcart are authors of "Plato and a Platypus Walk Into Bar."
