By Zay N. Smith
News Headline: “Industrial fishing scrapes sea floor smooth.”
News Headline: “Rainforest disappearing twice as fast as previously thought.”
News Headline: “China will flatten 700 mountains to build a city.”
Or put it this way:
We’re just asking for it, aren’t we?
News Item: University of Chicago to tear down one of President Reagan’s childhood homes to make way for a grassy strip next to a parking lot.
The University of Chicago, it must be remembered, is one of the world’s great universities.
Well. Except for its history department.
News Headline: “Three dead in Oregon mall shooting.”
We may need to loosen our gun laws a bit more.
We hadn’t seen a gunman open fire on innocent victims at a shopping mall for weeks.
News Headline: “Court strikes down Illinois ban on concealed carry.”
There. That’s better.
News Headline: “U.S. regulators allow energy companies and mines to pollute water supplies at more than 1,500 sites.”
See what happens when we elect a Republican president?
News Headline: “Uproar over adult store advertising in Mt. Pleasant Christmas parade.”
News Headline: “Christian radio host: Punch atheists ‘in the mouth’ for their ‘war on Christmas.’ ”
Ho, Ho, Ho!
And where will you be today at 12:12:12 12/12/12?
There seem dozens of possibilities.
+ E.H., a Columbia, S.C., reader, regarding QT’s agreeing to let go of a growing list of variations on the movie title Snakes on a Plane, in other words, to put the remakes on the wane, writes:
“Did somebody put the brakes on Zay N.?”
Stop it.
+ P.S., a Montreal reader, writes:
“Well, I decided to treat myself to a sick day (bad cold), so I’m sitting in my second-floor library overlooking the roof of our main-floor sunroom and note that today’s snowfall caused flakes in the drain. ”
Stop it.
Stop it now.
+ Phil Halprin, a Schaumburg reader, writes:
“My wife is busy baking for the holidays. She bakes cookies and makes fudge. I asked why she never bakes cakes. She said cakes are too much of a hassle. Or as she put it: ‘Cakes are a pain.’ ”
That is enough.
QT will not participate in this any further.
Starting tomorrow, when it wakes to abstain.
News Headline: “Boys, 11 and 7, in attempted robbery, carjacking.”
They grow up so fast, don’t they?
Pope Benedict XVI, having started a Twitter account 10 days ago, still has yet to tweet, as of early today.
But QT will not leave you tweetless.
It will fill in again with one of Justin Bieber’s latest tweets:
“we blessed. give it all up to him.”
You know what?
It is becoming harder and harder to tell the pope and Justin Bieber apart.
News Item: “. . . In just 10 days, academically deficient players could earn three credits and an easy ‘A’ from Western Oklahoma State College for courses like ‘Microcomputer Applications’ (opening folders in Windows). . . .”
As we eagerly await the AutoZone Liberty Bowl and the Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl.
News Headline: “Scientists create brain cells from urine.”
And these cells want to you to know that tax cuts always create jobs.
QT What Passes for Miracles These Days Update:
An image of Jesus has been found on a potato chip in Marengo, Ill.
News Item: “. . . the world’s adults weigh a combined 287 million tons, which works out to the weight of 17,000 Ohio-class submarines. . . .”
Or 41,000 Los Angeles-class submarines, if you are still trying to visualize it.
Beware the ides of National Stress-Free Family Holidays Month.
QT Grammar R Us Seminar on the English Language:
News Item: “. . . confuse the trappings of his achievement for its core. . . .”
K.R., a Baltimore reader, wants the writer to know that we confuse with and mistake for.
A place can’t be a shambles without some blood having been spilled, by the way.
Ho, Ho, Ho!
Write to QT at qt@beachwoodreporter.com
Visit QT at facebook.com/zaynsmithqt
QT appears Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
Posted on December 12, 2012