Goodwill Hunting

By Ralph Zenith
Business Reporter
VENICE, FLORIDA -  A recent visit to the local Goodwill Thrift Store turned up some unusual merchandise.  This town on the west coast of Florida is known for its many retired Jewish residents.  With this explanation in mind, let me tell you about some of my most bizarre discoveries this weekend.
      Among the many second hand board games in the store, I found Kosherland.  Not to be confused with Candyland, Kosherland challenges players to move down a long winding path to find their way home.  Along the way, they land on spaces that help or delay them, and reward players for reciting Hebrew prayers and blessings for various types of food.

     Displayed in the glass checkout counter at Goodwill, I found "Family & Friends, CPR Anytime."  This kit  from the American Heart Association promised to teach CPR in just 20 minutes.  The large box contained an instructional DVD and an almost life sized latex torso.  The kit even came with disinfecting moist towelettes, presumably to swab out the mannequin's gaping maw after each practice session of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.  The large box resembled a board game and pictured a wholesome family of smiling models that looked lively enough to appear in a tampon commercial.
      Oh, by the way, the Goodwill Thrift Store in Venice was selling not one, but two, "Family & Friends, CPR Anytime" kits for just $9.99 each.  I'm sure that's a great deal, if you don't mind buying a second hand kit that has already been intimately used by total strangers.

     The hat rack in the Goodwill store displayed several bizarre and colorful hats.  This included three patriotic red, white and blue beanies with stars dangling from spikes like something worn by a court jester.  They were actually made in China instead of the USA.  The labels also indicated the manufacturer was a costume maker called Elope,  with the company slogan "Everyone's Laughing On Planet Earth."  Actually, if enough Americans wore those outlandish hats, everyone else on planet Earth would be laughing specifically at the USA.  The black hat with spangles to the far left in the above photo, was even more flamboyant.  That big, floppy hat looked like something worn by a pimp in Harlem during the 1970s.  Perhaps, they also retired to Venice, Florida.
     The most bizarre item of all was found back in the glass display counter.  The Goodwill Thrift Store was selling a fancy leather whip.  This was not a real whip for lashing animals.  With many tails made of soft suede, this whip was clearly designed for flogging masochists in Florida's thriving kinky sex subculture.  Yet, if someone is willing to pay $29.99 for a leather whip, the prim and proper folks at Goodwill are ready to look the other way.    

Scary Florida Sign

Here's a scary sign seen recently near Orlando, Florida.  A store specializing in knives is not the scariest part.  Topping their marquee with the fact that they sell knives is not the scariest part.  Locating a store filled with sharp weapons in a strip mall with "A Discount Beverage" store and a jeweler seems to be tempting fate, but even that is not the scariest part.  The scariest part of this sign is the cryptic "& More."  What more?  Swords?  Battle Axes?  Whatever "more" he sells, it's so gruesome that even a brazen knife dealer doesn't want to spell out exactly what IT is.  You'd think that a shopping plaza that includes a sign store AND a print shop would be able to produce a sign that was more precise and less scary.  Rednecks ... even if we take away their guns, we STILL won't feel safe.
Photo by Business Reporter Ralph Zenith.

The Short Life of a Lion

By Rainbow Starr
Environmental Reporter
NORFOLK, VIRGINIA - Local residents called 911 to report a lion frolicking down the streets Tuesday morning.  The police quickly called the Virginia Zoo to check if any lions had escaped.  Zoo workers found both lions quietly sleeping in their cage.
    However, the dubious Norfolk Police dispatchers continued to receive lion sightings.  Some frightened witnesses surmised that it was a juvenile lion because it was about the size of a Labrador retriever.  Actually, it was exactly the size of a Labrador retriever because that's what it turned out to be.  Charles the Monarch is a 3-year-old cross between a Labrador retriever and a poodle.  His owner shaves his brown fur to give him a lush mane and a big tuft at the end of his tail.  This is a traditional hairstyle for poodles that is actually called a lion cut.  It also makes Charles  resemble the lion mascot of Old Dominion University.  The owner of Charles is a big sports fan and his daughter attends the school.
     Charles the Monarch is already making the rounds on TV talk shows.  Over 34,000 people like his page on Facebook.


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Keep On Jogging

Why do senior citizens continue to exercise?  There's not much time for a payoff.

Not Very Appetizing

This variety gift pack was found at Big Lots while Christmas shopping.  Any hot sauce that comes in a package that shows Satan burning in Hell looks too spicy for me.  Photo by Ralph Zenith, business reporter.

What Goes Up Must Come Down

By Scoop Cooper
Crime Reporter
     Floridians welcomed the New Year by randomly shooting a small boy and a little old lady.  Both people made the mistake of watching public fireworks displays without wearing helmets.  The 8-year-old boy was hit in the right foot just before midnight Tuesday in Jacksonville.  The 67-year-old woman was shot in the wrist in St. Petersburg.  They were hit by celebratory gunfire as the bullets rained back to Earth on New Year's Eve.
     Celebratory gunfire is the time honored American tradition of expressing excitement by shooting a gun into the air, usually while shouting "Yee Haw!"  Bullets are small. The country is big.  What are the odds that someone will be hit?  Apparently, the chances are getting pretty good in Florida, where one in 20 people are licensed to carry concealed firearms.  This leads the nation with over one million permits for people to sneak around the state with guns.  It doesn't even include all the people with rifles and shotguns stored and displayed in their homes and vehicles.  Florida doesn't even keep track of them.
     Everyone shot on New Year's Eve in Florida wasn't hit by friendly fire.  Sgt. Larry Gleockler was patroling in Arcadia when he saw two trespassers in Oak Ridge Cemetery.  After calling backup, the 33-year-old officer approached the two youths.  One looked pale, thin and about 6-foot-six-inches tall.  Gleockler described the other youth as a foot shorter and having a "darker complexion."  The youths split-up and fled.  In a shocking break with southern tradition, Gleockler pursued the white suspect.
     Brandishing his electric Taser, Gleockler cornered the suspect against a headstone and a tree.  The youth turned to surrender with one hand raised overhead.  In his other hand, he carried a gun and shot Gleockler in the chest.  An 11-year veteran of the Arcadia Police Department, Gleockler knew enough to wear his bulletproof vest on New Year's Eve.  It deflected the slug from his heart.
     Finally seized by the holiday spirit, Gleockler dropped his wimpy Taser, drew his sidearm and returned fire with real bullets, like a red-blooded America!  His attacker fell to the ground.  Then he got up and ran away.  So, I'm thinking the youth was wearing a bulletproof vest too.  After all, it was New Year's Eve.  You see?  If everyone takes basic precautions, no one gets hurt. Well, not seriously hurt.  Gleockler was grazed in the shoulder and needed seven stitches.
     Florida authorities take a dim view of shooting police officers, even on New Year's Eve.  The Desoto and Sarasota county sheriffs scoured the area all night with deputies, dogs and even a helicopter in a flashy display of tax dollars.  When no one was captured, they offered a reward for information on the case.
     That's that.
     Now, if these three Americans had been shot by foreign terrorists, we'd already be bombing their home country, plus Iraq.  However, we take domestic violence in stride.  We accept an ambient level of danger because we live in a free country.  Winging a cop, a boy and a little old lady is a small price to pay for our civil liberties.  Cowards who want to live in safe slavery can get out of our country (if they can scale that big wall we just built).  We should be willing to face the same dangers that our forefathers did when they fought and died to protect our rights.  When the greatest generation stormed Omaha Beach, the GIs said:
     "We've got to destroy that bunker!  If the Nazis push us back, they could win the war and force affordable health insurance on future generations!"
     "Over my dead body, sarge!"
     BOOM!  BANG!  RAT-A-TAT-TAT
     "OK, then we have to charge up this hill!  A lot of us won't make it!  Those new fangled German assault rifles really throw a lot of lead!  They're darn good guns!  I want my grandchildren to buy them without any background checks or long waiting lists ... Aaargh!"
     "NO!  The krauts shot, sarge!  Let's go!  Do it for sarge, and for slightly lower taxes someday! Charge!"
     Those might not have been their exact words, but I'm sure that was the American spirit on D-Day.

Willy Wonka Meets Doctor Who

Kerste Milik, 16, poses with the gingerbread spaceman that she helped to build for the holidays.

By Socrates Paparazzi
Arts & Entertainment Reporter
MIDDLETON, CONNECTICUT - The traditional gingerbread house is too mundane for the Miliks.  In past years, this creative theater arts family has used holiday candy to build things such as the Eiffel Tower and Hogwart's school of magic.  This year, they built a 14-inch-tall gingerbread Dalek.
      For those who are not sci fi fans, the Daleks are the arch enemies of the BBC time traveler Doctor Who.   The cyborgs are known for hysterically screaming, "EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!" as they ride around in mechanized war machines that look like tricked out salt shakers.  Despite their genocidal tendencies, the power crazed aliens just seem funny to little seven-year-old Aeris Milik.
     "She's not scared of them at all," according to her father, Christian.
     When they noticed that Lindt chocolate balls look like the bumpy grill of a Dalek war machine, the idea for this year's Milik holiday project was born.  He said it took about five hours over one weekend to bake, build and decorate their unique creation.  A candy cane serves as the Dalek's ray gun and a lollipop has been substituted for the cyborg's plunger-like arm.  However, Christian said the greatest challenge was cementing together gingerbread panels to build the sides of the hollow war machine.  They used royal icing.  Christian said the whole sculpture is edible and is still being devoured.
     "People have just been, kinda, breaking off pieces," he said.

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