THE BLAME GAME

Excuses, Excuses Excuses...

Hello Again, All!
     Sometimes this column really brings out the irony of life. 
The topic of this week's Funnies is "Excuses."  The paradox is
that I have to start by apologizing to the folks who I left out
of the Thank You's last week.  That happened because I had been
out of town and forgot to upload all of the Email messages from
the laptop.  The more cynical among you have already figured out
that this is an excuse, and are now suspecting that I planned it
that way from the beginning.  Nope, I just screwed up.
     Life gets complicated enough that we sometimes forget things
or let them slide.  Most of the time, this doesn't matter.  But
then are the times when we misjudge or forget something really
important.  And that's when the excuses begin...  Everyone makes
excuses sometimes and some excuses are better than others.  But
some people seem to make nothing but excuses.  Along those lines,
and following the rule of the old Burlington Liars Club, I've
decided to exclude politicians from Funnies excuse festival. 
Just like the Olympics, it's unfair to admit professionals to an
amateur competition.
     There's just no excuse if we don't say Thank You and Hello
to our friends and contributors this week, including:  Rosana &
Stan Leung; Caterina Sukup; Carol J. Becwar; Joshua & Anna Brink;
Catherine Cassidy; Diana Lee; Nnamdi Elleh; Fumiko Umino; Beth
Butler; Yukari Kawabata; Meredith & Yasmin Leischer; Hiroe
Sugiyama; Anna Macareno; Josie & David Tong; Timothy McChain; Jan
Michalski; Ellen Peterson; Brian Siegl; Larry Sakar; Jerry Taff;
Junji Taniguchi; R. J. Tully; Fumiko Umino and Laura Hong Li.  
     Hope that your Thanksgiving went well and that the Christmas
shopping season isn't too much of a hassle.  Yes, it keeps you
very busy - but it DOES make an excellent excuse.
     Have A Great Week!


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WHEN YOU'VE TRIED EVERY OTHER EXCUSE...
------------------------------------
     So why is Bill Clinton always in trouble?  According to
novelist Toni Morrison, the answer is obvious.  It is a case of
racism, plain and simple.  That's because, she says, Clinton is
black, not white.  How does she figure that?
     "Clinton displays almost every [indication] of blackness,"
says Morrison: "Single-parent household, born poor,
working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving
boy from Arkansas."  
     It should be noted that Clinton's appearance is pretty well
known.  Most people accept without question that he is an
unlikely to be a member of any ethnic minority.  It should also
be stated at this point that writer Morrison is not blind.
     Columnist Peter Carlson of the Washington Post was
incredulous at the claim, writing:  "What about the black folks
who were born middle-class, play the cello and eat salad?  Are
they white?" (Washington Post)
          [ Only if the polls say so, I guess... ]


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YIPEE-AY-OH, OY VEH!
-------------------
     A rabbi from an unnamed seminary in Israel ended up in hot
water a while back when a tabloid newspaper got pictures of him
ministering to his flock.  While wearing a cowboy hat and boots. 
In a nude strip bar.
     Students at the seminary have demanded the rabbi's
resignation.  Though the newspaper printed the photos, it didn't
further identify the rabbi or the school where he taught.
      Seminary officials tried for some time to keep the incident
quiet, describing the rabbi's visit as part of an "educational
mission."  Which doesn't make too much sense unless the rabbi was
teaching anatomy.  One school official told the Yedioth Ahronoth
newspaper that the rabbi, " ... went to this abominable place to
check whether students from the seminary tended to go there." 
     Go there they did.  Some of the strip bar's customers
recognized the the not-so-holy man even in his cowboy disguise,
and photographed him, later distributing the photos among the
rabbi's students. (Reuters)


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EXCUSE ME?
---------
     Frank Layden, Utah Jazz president, on a former player:
     "I told him, 'Son, what is it with you. Is it ignorance
     or apathy?' He said, 'Coach, I don't know and I don't
     care."


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BORING HIS WAY OUT OF JAIL...
--------------------------
     Nearly ten years after he was convicted on drug charges,
Dale Tippins managed to convince the U.S. Court of Appeals to
order a new trial, based on Tippins' contention that his defense
attorney had been asleep during "65% percent" of the testimony of
a key witness in the 1986 trial.  One juror says now that he even
heard Tippins' lawyer, Louis Tirelli, snoring several times.
     Though the court granted the appeal, they also managed to
excuse the lawyer, saying, "There are states of drowsiness that
come over everyone from time to time during [a trial]."


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HIGHLY TRAINED AT MAKING EXCUSES...
--------------------------------
     British Rail has a reputation in England for coming up with
highly original reasons why their trains run late.  They recently
received a tongue-in-cheek award for poor service from a British
newspaper in response to the rail line's response to their
InterCity express train service always arriving late.  They fixed
that problem by simply redefining "on time" to include trains
that show up as much as one hour after their scheduled arrival.

     Some other famous late excuses from the BritRail folks:

          "Leaves on the track."

          "The wrong kind of snow."

     And recently:

          "A cow on the line."

     But another British railroad company has set a new standard
for unlikely excuses when they announced that their trains were
delayed because:
     "A tree had fallen on the track."
     That sounds like a perfectly reasonable explanation, until
you find that the rail company making this claim was the London
Underground (subway) System!
                            - Thanks to: Sharon Curtis from the
                              web.


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IT'S NOT MY FAULT - THE CONTINUING RESEARCH.
-------------------------------------------
     Scientists at the University of Glasgow in Scotland
announced that they are closing in on the gene for laziness,
giving couch potatoes a new excuse for avoiding exercise.
     "There may be a link between exercise intolerance and
genetic make-up which restricts or promotes exercise depending on
your genes," Professor Susan Ward, the director of the Center for
Exercise Science and Medicine at the university, told The Daily
Telegraph newspaper.  (Reuters)
          [ "Hand me the remote, would you, dear?" ]


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FUNNY BUSINESS...
--------------
     Berlin is one place in the world where you might
legitimately ask, "What kind of clown is running this place?"  No
country guards its Sundays more intently.  Strict laws prohibit
shops from opening on the weekend, and especially on Sundays,
except in certain tourist areas or during street fairs.  And
thereby hangs a tale.
     The Kaufhof department store chain got permission to hold a
street party on the Alexanderplatz square in central Berlin one
Sunday last August -- which gave it and many surrounding
businesses an excuse to stay open legally.
     The department store and other businesses had thousands of
customers and made a fortune as Berliners enjoyed the chance to
do some serious Sunday shopping for once.  The "street fair"
consisted of just a few pushcart vendors and one lonely clown.
     Sunday shopping has become a fiercely debated issue in
Germany, where religious groups and unions have protested some
recent relaxation of the Never-On-Sunday rules.  Since then,
shopkeepers have been scrambling for any excuse to stay open to
enhance public support for changing the law.
     That is why on one particular Sunday in July of this year,
shops in an area of East Berlin conspired to put souvenir
stickers on everything in the store, as an excuse that they were
just open "for tourists."  For that Sunday, shops sold souvenirs
of everything from glassware to ironing boards.  (Reuters)


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FLYING LOW IN GREAT FALLS...
-------------------------
     Police in Great Falls, Montana were astonished when they
looked at their radar; it showed that the red pickup truck coming
past them was going a little over the limit.  About 60 MPH (95
KM/H) more than the 45 MPH (72 KM/H) limit.
     Police quickly stopped the driver, 28-year-old Raymond Lutz,
and arrested him for reckless driving.  Lutz faces a $300 fine
and up to 3 months in jail on the charge.
     And why was he flying down the highway at near takeoff
speed?   According to a police spokesperson, when Lutz was
stopped by the deputies, he explained, "... That he had just got
done washing his truck and was trying to dry it off."  (AP)


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NUN OF YOUR EXCUSES, LADY...
-------------------------
     London Transport is getting tough on people who ride buses
past zone limits without paying extra.  How tough?  They recently
hauled a nun into court after she was found on the Route 105 bus
one stop beyond the zone fare on her ticket.
     Sister Virtus, a Roman Catholic sister of the Daughter of
Divine Love from Nigeria, said that she fell asleep and missed
her stop.  A ticket inspector cited her anyway and hauled the nun
into court to collect the $1.57 extra fare.
     Fortunately, the tired nun won't be sleeping in jail; after
the thousands of pounds the company spent on legal expenses to
recover the 1 pound fare, a magistrate threw out the bus
company's compensation claim.
     Undaunted, a company spokesperson said, "We lose millions of
pounds a year because people don't pay their fares. Falling
asleep is not an excuse we can accept." (Reuters)
     It should be noted, by the way, that this is the same
transit company that used to have empty buses pass up people
waiting at the stops.  When the goverment complained to the
managers of the bus line, they were told that, "it would be
impossible for the buses to remain on schedule if they stopped to
pick up passengers."


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STILL LOOKING FOR A WAY TO SAY NO?
---------------------------------
Need a good excuse?  Or, at least some excuse?  Try one of these. 
(For legal reasons SUNFUN can't guarantee that these will work. 
You're on your own kids.):


"I'd love to but..."

   - I want to spend more time with my blender.

   - The man on television told me to say tuned.

   - It wouldn't be fair to the other Beautiful People.

   - I'm building a pig from a kit.

   - When I got up this morning I took two Ex-Lax in addition to
     my Prozac.  I'm stuck in the bathroom, but I feel good about
     it.

   - I did my own thing and now I've got to undo it.

   - The dog ate my car keys.  We're going to hitchhike to the
     vet.

   - I am extremely sensitive to a rise in the interest rates.

   - There's a disturbance in the Force.

   - The voices in my head told me to clean all the guns today.

   - I have to check the freshness dates on my dairy products.

   - I'm attending the opening of my garage door.

   - I'm converting my calendar watch from Julian to Gregorian.

   - I've come down with a really horrible case of something or
     other.

   - My plot to take over the world is thickening.

   - I have to fulfill my potential.

   - It's too close to the turn of the century.

   - The EPA has determined that my house is completely
     surrounded by wetlands and I have to arrange for helicopter
     transportation before going anywhere.

   - I have some real hard words to look up in the dictionary.

   - I changed the lock on my door and now I can't get out.

   - I'm uncomfortable when I'm alone or with other people.

   - I promised to help a friend fold road maps.

   - I'm trying to become less popular.

   - I have to study for a blood test.

   - I need to rotate my crops.

   - I prefer to remain an enigma.

   - I'm trying to see how long I can go without saying yes. 
     ...And, I won't accept YES for an answer !!


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