| A man and a pay phone were rushed to a hospital after he got his finger stuck in the coin return slot while trying to retrieve his 50 cents. Emergency room doctors gave Emanuel Fleming a painkiller and pried his middle finger loose using a wooden device and lubricant, ending the three-hour ordeal. “The bone in my finger felt like it was going to break. My finger was numb. It was very painful,” said Fleming, an elementary school janitor.
Fortunately for Fleming, he will avoid any major taunts and razzings from the schoolkids at the elementary school where he works, mostly because each and every one of them has a cell phone and has no idea what the hell a pay phone is. “Is that where you, like, get extra bonus minutes if you use the walkie-talkie feature of the Nokia 6245 after midnight to score some Twinkies and a bottle of your parent’s Nyquil from Enrique’s house?” asked Montana James, 12, snapping a digital photo of the AP reporter with his camera phone for later posting on his personal pre-teen blog “I Hate Everything Especially You”. “This interview blows I’m Audi 5000 who’s got some Mentos?” |
| mark morford |
not the sex pistols
as a pathetically small anti-bush protest parade chants past my office ["anti-bush, anti-blair, anti-war, everywhere" and "bush blair cia, how many kids did you kill today"] i feel a mixture of anger, shame, pride and apathy. anger because everybody now knows the iraq war has nothing to do with terrorirsm [although everyone is certainly glad that saddam is gone]. shame for being an american [technically my leaders are both ahnold and george w.]. pride that i’ve distanced myself from the fucked up usa, and that such massive protests have occurred and will occur in london, my home. and apathy because i feel that, at this point, there’s not much for the us and uk troops to do in iraq, aside from stick around, set up a government, restore society to some type of normality, and then get out. the damage is done, my friends.
i got my hair cut yesterday at the wacky barber in soho. as i sat down, my favorite cowboy andrew politely asked me if i was canadian… a great trick… american’s are never offended to be mistaken for canucks, but, in this day and age -anyone- would hate to be mistaken for american. we interspersed lighthearted political banter with his zingy off-color jokes. he pushes his texas cowboy image, as it’s a great gimmick for his salon, but it’s obvious that he, like myself, lives in this country for a very obvious reason—the state of affairs in america is so insanely hopeless.
i shared with andrew, the next time some brit demands you to justify george w. or his actions, pause, smile, and say, why don’t you justify your royal family, first?! we didn’t eleect him, we all just put up with him. i chose to run away, which i feel is an entirely honorable path of action.
