Jim Austin

His previous columns are archived HERE.

JIM AUSTIN

A Brave New Year A-coming

When your eyeballs hit this it will be nearly New Year's Eve. You will probably be busily making up resolutions due to be implemented very soon and for the weeks to come.

I have always been of the opinion that it is good to write these resolutions down. There is a reason for this. The coming festivities inevitably include downing gallons of your favorite popskull resulting in a hungover fiasco on New Year's Day. Turning over a new leaf is very difficult in the throes of a wretched hangover.

You will need a well-penned list of your future virtues written in large print and in words of one syllable if you want to understand what you have prepared for yourself. It is well known that one of the effects of alcohol abuse, in addition to feeling like that was roadkill and not smoked oysters that you ate last night, is a dramatic decline in I.Q. points. So keep it simple.

You should also keep it simple so that our Fuehrer's secret police won't have any trouble reading your notes.

As you know, Herr Bush and his government has decided to monitor our phone, e-mail, and any other form of communication that they see fit to probe.

Apparently computers are now listening to your phone calls. If you mention a suspicious sentence or word a few times the call is recorded and sent to a human being who decides if you should be arrested and sent to a CIA concentration camp in Jerkistan with the rest of the terrorists.

Your first resolution should involve being very careful what you say. Do not fool around with these robot police computers.

Incidentally, it is not funny to call your boss on a pay phone and say "Yo, my fedaheen brother, Ali Bin Fozzle says to bring the C-4 to the synagogue by midnight."

With this in mind the following words should be stricken from your vocabulary: meeting, cell, plastic, democrat, bio, bomb.

Use any of these words in a sentence too often and you might find yourself shackled to the floor in a five by five cell at Gitmo with a pimply-faced kid from Kansas trying to shove your copy of the Koran down the toilet. You don't need that.

While we still have the right to vote we should all make an effort to convince at least one voter from a red state to change their mind. Reasoning with them or using logic of any kind is fruitless.

I suggest grabbing them by the lapels and shaking them so hard that all the hayseeds fall out of their mullet. Actually make that "suspenders" instead of lapels.

Violence should be followed by and act of kindness though. Tell the Bush supporter that you will buy them a brand new rattlesnake for the next revival meeting or a "Darwin Done Lied" t-shirt.

While on the subject of resolutions I have to congratulate the Roman Catholic Church for getting theirs in early. They have examined the entrails of the papal bull and decreed that homosexuals are no longer welcome in the priesthood.

How's that for moxie?

The world's most successful organization of pedophiles has decided that homosexuality is the problem? Takes your breath away doesn't it?

I hope you will imbibe with restraint while waiting for the disco ball to drop in Time's Square. Remember "Beer then whiskey, pretty risky. Whiskey then beer, never fear." Happy New Year.