By Tim Sanders

As the new year dawns, journalists like to review topics they’ve touched on over the past year, thus providing readers with some valuable historical perspective, and providing themselves with an excuse for not writing an entirely new column.

But first, here are a couple of items I did not write about last year.

In January of 2006, President Bush assured environmentalists that his administration was working diligently to find alternative fuel sources. "Since we know that today’s vehicles can be modified to run on vegetable oil rather than gasoline, we are encouraging large oil corporations like Chevron, Exxon-Mobil and Mazola to go to states like Kansas and that funny-shaped one where they grow potatoes and drill for corn and soybeans." I did not mention this in any of my columns because, frankly, it made my head hurt.

I also didn’t mention a December 20, 2006 report by the National Archives Inspector which found that in 2003, Clinton National Security Advisor Sandy Berger had removed some fifty classified documents from the National Archives Building, stuffed them into his jacket pockets, pants, socks, and BVDs, and later cut them up with scissors. I chose not to write about this finding. Unlike all of those wacko conspiracy theorists, I realized that Berger was an honest, honorable statesman who stole that material because a) the Archives restroom was out of toilet paper, b) he needed insulation in his pants on that chilly October afternoon, or c) he was on a secret mission for his leader, Garth Bader Greblick, Supreme Ruler of the planet Zortab.

But while we may have neglected to comment on such minor events, we did cover those serious news items which shaped our world in 2006. For example:

1. On JANUARY 23, 2006, we informed our readers that Taiwanese researchers had bred pigs with a fluorescent material that caused them to emit a green glow. And while some LA Times columnists may have found promise for medical research in those green pigs, it was in this column where alert readers were first apprised of the practical value of an iridescent Chester White who could never get lost at night, and of the benefits green, glow-in-the-dark swine could provide as leader hogs for the visually impaired.

2. In a FEBRUARY 6 column, we discussed groundbreaking research from University College in London, which used MRI machines to study the brains of men and women, and discovered that men really enjoyed seeing people zapped with 110-volt electrical shocks, while women preferred 220.

3. On MARCH 20, our column was the only local source for a stimulating story about how recent studies had shown that marijuana use was linked to memory problems. There was more to that column, including something or other about a cow driving a dump truck, but I can’t for the life of me remember much more about it than that.

4. The APRIL 3 column contained the heart-wrenching story of the residents of Islamorada in Key West, Florida, and their new sewage treatment plant. Since the town didn’t really have enough residents hooked up to the new sewage system to test it, plans were in the works to pay for imported sewage from cities blessed with more than their fair share of excrement, like Washington, DC. I took it upon myself to ask Cherokee County residents to pack up what little they could spare and make a donation to the Islamorada Municipal Sewage Treatment Plant. It was the least I could do.

5. Always concerned for the safety of our readers, on MAY 1 we provided a cautionary tale about a 33-year-old Oregon man who attempted suicide by shooting twelve 2-inch nails into his skull with a nail gun. We strongly advised our suicidal readers to consider another method. And on MAY 8, ever vigilant, we warned against purchasing one of Jared Gold’s "roach brooches", which consisted of a live Madagascar hissing cockroach covered with rhinestones and tethered to a pin by a tasteful chain, as a Mother’s Day present. It was our contention that most mothers would actually prefer twelve 2-inch nails in their skulls.

6. On JUNE 12, we reported to the world that Clara Jean Brown of Daphne, Alabama had been struck by a bolt of lightning while standing in her kitchen, praying for the safety of her son and his family, who were picnicking at the beach during a violent thunderstorm. This proved, to us anyway, that if you are going to pray for safety during a thunderstorm, you’d better enunciate clearly.

7. Nothing of note happened in July, so we dedicated our JULY 3 column to Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, which was where Madison, Jefferson, Malone, Erving and the other original Philadelphia ‘76ers first practiced their foul shots and three-pointers as old Ben Franklin sat at the training table, dribbling.

8. On AUGUST 7 we asked the troubling questions: a) Will Colorado’s Preble’s meadow jumping mouse remain on the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s endangered species list, and b) who really cares? The answers, of course, were a) yes, and b) people whose meadows are infested with large, moldy wedges of jumping cheddar cheese.

9. On SEPTEMBER 4, this columnist courageously debunked the study by Anne Case and Christina Paxson, a pair of Princeton giraffes who claimed that tall people were more intelligent than their shorter counterparts. I pointed out, for example, that both Plato and Confucius were midgets, and that Isaac Newton was only 3 ft. 8 in. tall. (I also had a list of exceptionally tall people who were dumb as stumps, but some idiot had left it on the top of my bookcase, and I couldn’t reach it.)

10. To prove that educational issues are always on our mind, our OCTOBER 23 column chronicled the case of officials at Attleboro’s Willett Elementary School, south of Boston, Mass., who banned children from playing tag during recess because, among other things, such games were "exclusionary and dangerous." We adopted the thoughtful, reasonable approach, weighed all of the pros and cons, and concluded that those administrators, who had the welfare and mental health of their schoolchildren at heart, had been attacked by brain worms.

11. Well aware that our NOVEMBER 6 column would appear just before the Fall elections, we devoted all our effort to celebrating National Bad Poetry Week. We did this because it was much more interesting than the elections, and would, in the end, have a more lasting effect on most of us. The bulk of this column (at least three pounds’ worth) dealt with Julia Moore, the Sweet Singer of Michigan, and her emotionally draining obituary poetry. Several readers contacted us afterwards, threatening bodily harm if we ever mentioned her again.

12. And finally, for readers hungry for more scientific data, we reported in our DECEMBER 18 column that a new United Nations report confirmed findings by British researchers that worldwide global warming was caused, mainly, by millions of tons of methane gas released daily through cow flatulence.
 

So there you have it, the essence of an entire year distilled into a single column. It was a year which began with the symbolic promise of glowing green pigs, and ended with the somber reality of toxic cow farts. That pretty well sums 2006 up, doesn’t it?