The Column of Lists 5
Seven things you might believe, but shouldn't
1) Imelda Marcos bought 3,000 pairs of shoes as part of a make work campaign to boost the Philippine economy
2) Texas is just two days' drive from Nicaragua
3) The Color Purple didn't deserve to win even one Oscar
4) you don't need money as long as you have love
5) if Alexander had pitched around Brett, the Blue Jays would have made it to the World Series
6) if the Senate Finance Committee votes down President Reagan's "fast track" proposal for free trade with Canada, the Conservative government has a strong economic policy to fall back on
7) cats can fly
Eight free premiums your children will insist you buy cereal for
1) glow in the dark Transformer stickers
2) Funtastic cards
3) Masters of the Universe action figures
4) space collector posters
5) Picture Pucks
6) Sparkles II mini fruits candy
7) Jacksons stickers
8) Return to Oz activity books
Seven foreign images that Canadians traveling abroad have to live down
1) Bob and Doug Mackenzie
2) Monty Python's "Lumberjack Song"
3) Dudley Dooright of the Mounties
4) Paul Shaffer of Late Night with David Letterman
5) Nelson Eddy and Janette MacDonald in Rose Marie
6) Flaherty's Nanook of the North
7) Wayne Gretzky
Six irresponsible rationalizations for making cutting the federal deficit a major government fiscal policy
1) everybody's doing it (especially the Americans)
2) foreign money traders will like our dollar more
3) what the heck, the government's bureaucracy needed trimming, anyway
4) we won a majority and we can do what we want
5) some bearded intellectual in Ottawa thought it might be a good idea
6) it gives us something to talk about in the halls of power
Nine excuses to give your boss for missing a day of work to go to the Blue Jays' home opener
1) the subway broke down and stranded you for hours (this excuse is especially effective if several hundred of your close friends back you up)
2) a plague of locusts descended on your neighbourhood
3) your children, home because of the Separate School teachers' strike, had to be bailed out of jail
4) you were in the middle of an acid flashback, and you thought you were back in Berkeley
5) somebody told you that there was going to be a blizzard, and you stayed hom just in case
6) the police evacuated your neighbourhood because gasoline that had somehow leaked into the sewer was causing explosions all over the place, and you hung around to see whose house would go up next
7) your calendar insisted it was Sunday, and you didn't have the heart to argue
8) it was National Pickled Cabbage Rolls Day in Lichtenstein, and you had to take the entire day to prepare some for your mother
9) the RCMP needed you to work on a cypher, the nature of which, naturally, you are not at liberty to divulge
Twelve things to remember while reading the news section
1) no issue is as simple as it seems
2) journalists don't know everything, even though thew must write as if they did, and most believe they do, anyway
3) the government is always wrong, no matter who is in charge and what they are doing
4) sensational news is rarely of lasting significance
5) not only is somebody going to be unhappy with a story, but it often works out that nobody is happy with a story
6) news isn't necessarily truth
7) no newspaper comes equipped with training wheels
8) columns that espouse with which you don't agree are just as valid as columns that espouse views with which you agree
9) a lot of journalism isn't worth the paper it's printed on; worse, a lot is
10) stories about actions with which you agree may be no more objective than stories about actions with which you disagree
11) newspaper pictures are rarely worth 1,000 words
12) the cheap the head, the gaudier the paper
Six things United States Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger believes with all his heart
1) the 300 chickens killed in the American air strike against Libya were trained terrorists plotting to attack American coops in Europe
2) the Strategic Defense Initiative will work, if only everybody in NATO will just close their eyes, click their heels three times and say, "There's no defence like dome. There's no defence like dome."
3) the military should be exempt from budget cutting measures because it's a really neat thing
4) arms limitations treaties are better served in the breach than the observance
5) the military is NASA's friend
6) Santa Claus, the tooth fairy and Mikhail Gorbachev are all trying to broaden their spheres of influence, and only a strong armed forces can keep them from taking over the United States
Eight questions guaranteed to drive you to distraction
1) What is god's favourite colour?
2) What moral law do we transgress when we squeeze the Charmin?
3) What kind of society would we now have if we had evolved from sand crabs?
4) Does Wink Martindale really exist?
5) If Wink Martindale really deos exist, why?
6) If a nuclear reactor melts down in a forest, dropping through the ground and spewing radioactive material into the atmosphere, and nobody survives to hear it, did it really melt down?
7) How much different would the world be if everybody spoke backwards?
8) What the heck is distraction, anyway?
