It’s hard to believe that a whole decade has passed and we still don’t know what to call it. That’s a bigproblem for music companies, which sold millions of CDs with titles such as “Pop Hits of the ’80s” and “Dance Hits of the ’90s,” but just haven’t sold many copies of “Hip-Hop Hits of the ???”
Should we call it the ‘zeroes’ or the ‘ohs’ or the ‘naughts’? Many people seem to like the term ‘naughties’ or ‘noughties,’ but I think that would be too confusing.
Man: “Did you know that Tiger Woods was voted the athlete of the naughties?”
Woman: “Big surprise! Next you’ll be telling me that Donald Trump was voted the sugar daddy of the beauties.”
Whatever you call it, one thing is certain: it was a decade that changed the world in ways we couldn’t have imagined in the ’80s and ’90s. Perhaps the biggest change came in technology: everything went wireless and digital, allowing a man driving his car in New York City to take a photo of a plane making an emergency landing in the Hudson River and send it instantly to his children in the backseat. It saved him the trouble of shouting, “Hey kids, stop texting for a second and look at this!”
I decided to interview the renowned Indian proctologist Dr. Freddy Reddy to get his reaction to Beck's statements.
Me: "Dr. Reddy, Glenn Beck says that the extra money spent on healthcare in America goes to, quote, 'high-tech hospitals and doctors who studied at Harvard rather than Gajra Raja medical school.' What do you think of that?"
Reddy: "I'm very surprised. I didn't know that Gajra Raja was so well-known in America. The Medical Council of India recently derecognized Gajra Raja for not having high standards, but they may have to reconsider. I'm sure the administrators of Gajra Raja have already created an ad that says: 'Gajra Raja -- mentioned on Fox News in the same sentence as Harvard.'"
Me: "Glenn Beck also says that health care workers in America make more money because, quote, 'they have an American lifestyle, maybe a couple of cars, great union benefits, and homes with something that we in America like to call flush toilets.' What do you say about that?"
Reddy: "Flush toilet? What is that? Is it a toilet in an open area? When someone sees you, your face goes flush."
Me: "No, it's a toilet with a tank and a lever. You flush everything down a pipe."
Reddy: "Oh yes, we built one of those in India once. When President Bush came here, he insisted on having a flush toilet and we built one for him. It was a mobile one, so he could take it all over the country. I believe it's in a museum now. The Museum of Western Oddities."
Me: "Glenn Beck says that India is a beautiful country, especially near, quote, 'that one big river they have there that sounds like a disease. Come on, it does. I mean, if somebody said, 'I'm sorry, you have a really bad case of Ganges,' you'd want Cipro.'"
Reddy: "That's interesting he should say that, because I just had a patient who came to me with a pain in his bottom. I examined him and determined that he had a bad case of Glennbeckroids."
Just when you thought it was safe to drive on the highway, just when you felt relieved that the government had banned cell phones while driving, here comes a truck with a windshield made of cardboard. And a bright-as-a-turnip driver who's sticking his head out the window to see where he's going. (Straight to the unemployment line, that's where.)
The trucker has now lost his licence, after he drove 800km (500 miles) down a motorway with a sheet of cardboard covering his shattered windscreen.
Sing Li, 24, navigated by sticking his head out of the driver’s window. Unfortunately, this caused him to become rather cold - when he was arrested in Henan, eastern China, not only was one eye frozen shut, but his head was blue from the cold.
'I didn't want to fall behind in my delivery schedule and I couldn't afford a repair,' he told a court. [Link]
It must have been a tough choice -- whether to fall behind his delivery schedule or scare the bejesus out of thousands of drivers.
His mistake, of course, was not reading the Department of Transportation's pamphlet "How to Make a Windshield out of Cardboard." He could have saved himself a lot of trouble by just following Rule No. 1: Before sticking the cardboard on your truck, make sure you cut out a pair of eye holes.
