Week 184: ED ANGUISH
If you ask me, we should not only outlaw handguns but steak knives, too. Having fewer knives around will reduce crime. Plastic sporks work very nicely with most tofu and vegetable patties. Soup spoons alone seem more than sufficient in prison cafeterias. And speaking of prisons, they seem unnecessarily harsh; why not replace this barbaric form of punishment with "timeouts" the way they do in kindergarten
This Week's Contest was sort of suggested by Ed Anger, the rabid, sputum-spewing right-wing columnist from that fabulous supermarket tabloid, the Weekly World News. Ed has just published his first book of columns, titled "Let's Pave the Stupid Rainforests and Give School Teachers Stun Guns." Ed takes wildly conservative positions on such subjects as the death penalty ("We could hot-wire portable bleachers and zap up to 500 sex fiends, murderers, and crooked congressmen at the same time "); geopolitics ("Let's drop an A-bomb on France . did you know that eight out of ten French soldiers wounded in World War II were shot in the butt?"); gays in the military ("Why not give the sissy boys a shot, for crying out loud? I don't care if they wear pink uniforms and roller-skate to the front lines as long as they get there and plug a few of the enemy"); and animal rights ("If these bleeding-heart nincompoops have their way, we'll all be eating asparagus casseroles as the centerpiece of our holiday feasts instead of Christmas hams ... I'd eat Porky Pig himself in a heartbeat."). Anyway, this week's contest is to become a liberal Ed Anger. Create an argument on some social issue, in 75 words or fewer, taking an extreme liberal view. First-prize winner gets a huge 1950s-era American flag, with 48 stars, a value of $ 50.
Runners-up, as always, receive the coveted Style Invitational Loser's T-shirt. Honorable Mentions get the mildly sought-after Style Invitational bumper sticker. Winners will be selected on the basis of humor and originality. Mail your entries to The Style Invitational, Week 184, c/o The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071, fax them to 202-334-4312 or submit them via Internet to this address: losersaccess.digex.net. Internet users: Please indicate the week number in the "subject" field. Entries must be received on or before Monday, Sept 30. Please include your address and phone number. Winners will be announced in three weeks. Editors reserve the right to alter entries for taste, humor or appropriateness. No purchase necessary. The Faerie of the Fine Print & The Ear No One Reads hereby solicits name-calling; we want colorful, inventive names to describe people with physical attributes not usually subject to derision. For example, a man with no butt might be "Flatso." Also: Someone with bony elbows, or neck wattles, or three chins, or a gap between his front teeth, or hairy ears, or an outie bellybutton, or huge feet, or a cowlick. Many fine prizes for winners. Employees of The Washington Post and their immediate families are not eligible for prizes.
Report from Week 181, in which we asked you to take some aphorism or advertising slogan and disprove it with at least one example.
* Second Runner-Up: "The best things in life are free." Disproved: O.J. Simpson.
(Stephen Dudzik, Silver Spring)
* First Runner-Up: "Nothing beats a great pair of L'Eggs." Disproved: Jeff Gillooly.
(Betsy Sampson, Washington)
* And the winner of the Eggbert and Eggberta cocktail napkins:
"Faint heart never won a fair lady." Disproved: The faint heart of nonagenarian millionaire J. Howard Marshall is pretty clearly what won him Anna Nicole Smith.
(Chuck Smith, Woodbridge)
* Honorable Mentions:
"Trix are for kids." Disproved: Dick Morris, Hugh Grant, Charlie Sheen (Victoria Moss, Alexandria; Jean Sorensen, Herndon)
"It's not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game." Disproved: Russian roulette. (Chuck Smith, Woodbridge; Art Grinath,
Takoma Park)
"Laughter is the best medicine." Disproved, in one word: Hernia. (David M. Smith, Greenbelt)
"Everything tastes good when it sits on a Ritz." Disproved: Live wasp. (Sarah Worcester, Bowie)
"He who laughs last laughs best." Disproved: Ed McMahon. (Chuck Smith, Woodbridge)
"Happiness is a warm puppy." Disproved: Not if it's still warm from the microwave.
(Jennifer Hart, Arlington)
"A man's home is his castle." Disproved: You are Prince Charles, in which case your home is your mom's castle. (Philip Vitale, Arlington)
Everything is better with Blue Bonnet on it.
Disproved: The Beltway at rush hour.
(Stephen Dudzik, Silver Spring)
"If you can read this, thank a teacher." Disproved: What if it took you more than five minutes to read it? (Philip Vitale, Arlington)
"The customer is always right." Disproved: The customer wants a corned beef and peanut butter on rye. (Jessica Steinhice, Washington)
"It is better to light one small candle than curse the darkness." Disproved: You are in an oil refinery. (Dave Singer, Fairfax)
"Nothing beats a great pair of L'Eggs." Disproved: Well, to tell you the truth, I prefer a great pair of B'Unns. (Jennifer Hart, Arlington)
"Life begins at forty." Disproved: Pat Buchanan's kid, or Randall Terry's, or Phyllis Schlafly's, or Ralph Reed's, for whom life, of course, began at conception. (Art Chenowith & Bobbie Miller, Laytonsville)
"Don't tread on me." Disproved: Dick Morris. (Tom Witte, Gaithersburg)
"If you build it, they will come." Disproved: Euro Disney. (Jennifer Hart, Arlington)
"You can't judge a book by its cover." Disproved: A matchbook. (Jean Sorensen, Herndon)
"Two heads are better than one." Disproved: You live near Chernobyl. (Steven King, Alexandria)
"It ain't over till it's over." Disproved: The Dream Team vs. Sri Lanka. (Jerrold M. Witcher, Takoma Park)
"First, let's kill all the lawyers." Disproved: Actually, this one works for me. (Bob Sorensen, Herndon)
* And Last:
"Quitters never win and winners never quit." Disproved: What about (1) people who quit smoking, and (2) Ken Krattenmaker of Landover Hills? (Jean Sorensen, Herndon)
Next Week: Can You Stop This?