🚀 go-pugleaf

DAVE BARRY
	I have good news and bad news. The good news is that international
communism now ranks, as a threat to our national security, somewhere
below mildew. All over Eastern Europe, oppressed peoples such as the
Czechs, the Slovaks, the Yugos, the Slavians, the Huns and the Garians
have been holding huge protests to demand leaders who own decent
clothes. For years, a lot of communist leaders have dressed as though
they made their own suits by stapling road kills together on the way to
work, and the oppressed peoples finally just got sick of it. Also they
want Western-style democracy, with elections and campaigns and balloons
and TV commercials starring convicted rapist Willie Horton.
	Of course, not everybody thinks this is good. Vice President For
Real ``Dan'' Quayle definitely has his frowny face on, because he thinks
it could be another Russian trick. So The Danster has taken time off
from his busy schedule of planning the Big Mars Mission to go around
reminding everybody that we need to remain vigilant in case God forbid
armed conflict should break out and we are forced to join the Indiana
National Guard unit of our choice.
	But most observers agree with Dr. Henry Kissinger, who, in a recent
New York Times op-ed piece, argued that ``the stagnant, fetid waters of
Marxist doctrine appear to have been permanently flushed away by the
Ty-D-Bol automated commode freshener of freedom.'' It is hard to argue
with this statement, or even look directly at it without eye protection.
This is why many people are wondering: Since the International Communist
Menace is currently about as organized as a food fight at a school for
the visually impaired, why don't we just get rid of this humongous
defense apparatus, thereby reaping enormous benefits, such as that we
would be freed, forever, from the threat of having to check the spelling
of ``apparatus''?
	And there would be other benefits. For example, the
military-industrial complex would be free to focus its massive resources
and technical know-how on cranking out products for you, the ordinary,
mall-dwelling consumer:
	HUSBAND: Honey, look what I bought us!
	WIFE: I don't see anything.
	HUSBAND: Right! It's the new $53.4 million General Dynamics Stealth
Toaster! It has over 5,000 settings, and DON'T PUT YOUR HAND ...
	WIFE: AIIEEEEEEE
	Sounds wonderful, doesn't it? A Glowing Future? A Brighter
Tomorrow? Well, I hate to be the one who points out the dead roach in
your frozen yogurt, but if you really think things are improving, then
ha ha you're a dope. Because at the very time when the communist menace
is, as former U.N. ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick put it recently moments
before passing out, ``shrinking faster than a swollen nasal membrane in
a Dristan commercial,'' another menace is looming on the horizon, a
menace so horrible and potentially devastating that our only hope for
stopping it may be to give me a large cash journalism prize. I refer, of
course, to:
	THE WORSENING WORLDWIDE EXPLODING-ORGANISM EPIDEMIC
	As you know if you watch the ``MacNeil-Lehrer Report,'' in recent
months, I have presented documentary evidence of a series of violent,
unexpected explosions involving the following wide range of organisms
found in almost every home: snails, cows, pigs, bisons, potatoes, human
stomachs, ants, municipal toilets and whales. I had hoped that it would
stop, but now an Alert Reader named William Molloy of Canada (motto:
``Technically, A Nation'') has sent me an extremely alarming article
from The Lawyers Weekly stating that we now face an epidemic of: (ital)
exploding birds (end ital). Yes. The article describes a recent wedding
in a town called Cegled, which is located -- and don't try to tell me
this is a coincidence -- in Hungary, where ``some 50 crows gorged
themselves on rice thrown at a pair of newlyweds. Some of the crows then
exploded, apparently soiling the wedding guests' clothing with their
avian entrails.'' The article also quotes a zoologist -- I'm not making
any of this up -- named Lazlo Urganslai as stating that wedding guests
should not throw rice because it expands rapidly inside birds, which
``not only ... is a threat to wildlife, but the birds explode so
violently, their flying body parts can be dangerous to humans.''
	This is well worth bearing in mind, especially if you're a young
engaged couple planning a big formal wedding. How would you feel if the
last thing you saw, as you drove away from your reception on that Very
Special Day, was Uncle Ralph hurling his body protectively onto Aunt
Louise as the air was filled with bursts of potentially lethal finch
shrapnel? You'd feel great, because you had nine glasses of champagne.
But in the morning you'd feel terrible. I'm not feeling so good myself.
	
	(C) 1990 THE MIAMI HERALD
	DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.