Wry On The Rocks

     Boston Mayor Thomas “Mumbles” Menino has wasted no time in reacting to Arizona’s new draconian policy toward illegal immigrants.  Recognizing that illegals may not be able to trek their way through the former Arizona gateway to Boston, the Mayor with the backing of the Boston City Council, has announced a 25-million-dollar plan to fly illegal immigrants directly from Juarez, Mexico to Boston’s Logan airport.

     “To treat illegal immigrants as criminals is abhorrent”, the Mayor claimed in his announcement.  When asked if the very word illegal wasn’t defined as not legal, i.e. criminal, the Mayor responded that he didn’t need any smart-ass college type reporter parsing his words. The Mayor spoke for a few more minutes, but the best anyone could make out was, “mmhwha musha bublleme… ” or something like it.

    The Mayor did admit later he had no idea what parsing meant.  Or abhorrent.

     Katie Couric just lost an evening news viewer.  At 8:15 this morning on the CBS Good Morning America show she “previewed” the news that she would be reporting on her 6:30PM show TONIGHT!  How she knew  10 hours ahead of time what the news of the day was going to be is simply unbelievable.  It’s an amazing gift, but I wonder though if CBS has really thought this “preview” idea through.  Why would anyone waste time watching Katie at night when she’s already dished  the scoop in the morning?

     In an effort to one-up Katie and CBS, it is rumored that Brian Williams will begin giving the Tuesday night news on his Monday night broadcast and continue to stay ahead of the competition by a good 24 hours through-out the week.

     The best bet, however, is on the ABC evening news where Diane Sawyer is going to be announcing the Wednesday PowerBall number on her Tuesday night show.  Now that’s network news worth watching.

                   (read more on this at www.wrysandwherefores.com)

     President Obama will be in Tampa today to announce a 1.24 billion dollar plan to build a high speed train service from there to Orlando.  According to Google,  it is 91 miles from Tampa to Orlando and takes 1 hour and 29 minutes by car. Heck, It takes that long just to get across Tampa in rush hour for crissakes, but you don’t see him building a bullet train for that.  So, here’s my question….just how fast do the people in Tampa need to get to Disney World?

    Is he concerned that someone living in Tampa  may have to commute to Disney World for their job?  I have an idea Mr. President; give them money to buy another house.  You can buy any house in Florida right now for $42.  I figure you can relocate the entire population of Tampa to Orlando for about 65-grand.  Throw in another 3-grand for shuffleboard courts and half the people won’t even notice the difference.

    Unfortunately, the President’s plans don’t stop there.  He envisions a further expense by expanding the high speed service from Orlando to Miami.  One problem with that plan.  No one from Orlando goes to Miami.  New Yorkers go to Miami.  New Jerseyites go to Miami.  Germans, Russians, Brazilians, Bolivians, Equadorians, and Sean Penn go to Miami.  Orlando folk do not go to Miami.

    So ditch that one too Mr. President and take the money saved and spend it where rapid transit is really needed.  Us folks up north don’t need a bullet train to get to Disney World…just a way to get through D.C. on route 95 in less than a day and a half.  That’s change that Mickey would cheer and could help you recapture Massachusetts!

      The Obama administration has notified GE’s subsidiary, NBC,  that it is issuing a restraining order against it’s obscene bonus payments to under-performing late-night TV hosts.  The administration is particularly upset with the fact that Conan O’Brien is being paid $30 million for five months work.  That dwarfs most pay-outs to Wall Street executives by a long shot.  “Let’s face it,” said a White House source, ” the stock market was only down 30% in a whole year, while O’Brien’s ratings were down 50% in just five months!”  

     The administration official rejected O’Brien’s claim that Jay Leno was the reason for his low ratings.  “That doesn’t float,” the official is reported to have responded, “at some point we all have to take responsiblity for our own actions.  I mean how would you  like it if the President of the United States kept blaming his predecessor for his problems?”

    Conan O’Brien’s staff held an emergency meeting with the late night host following NBC’s decision to remove  O’Brien from the 11:30 PM time slot.  Apparently, they had  never bothered to explain the term “ratings” to the Harvard grad or how networks and advertisers depended upon an ”audience.”  Following the meeting, Conan’s staff issued a press release stating that had he been aware of what the network expected of him, he would have spent more time being funny and less time sucking his thumb.