El Diablo? No!

Guest commentary by The Devil

The world (and underworld) have been all abuzz over the comments made last week at the U.N. by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez calling U.S. President George W. Bush "the Devil". A lot of people down here have been asking me what I think about it and wondering if I thought it was bad form to come to America and call the President names. "Can you believe he insulted the President like that?" they say.

"Insulted the President?!" I said. He insulted me! I've been called every name in the book, from "Prince of Darkness" to "The Father of Lies" to the "Angel of the Bottomless Pit", but to compare me to George W. Bush? That's just wrong. I am hereby reserving a special spot in Hell for one Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias. That he would have the gall to compare me to G.W. Bush is simply astounding. Mentioning me in the same breath as that man was just a low-blow, and it will not go unpunished. Let this be a warning to anyone else (I'm talking to you, Ahmadinejad) who thinks they can get away with comparing me to this President: Think long and hard before you decide to lump me in with this guy, for you will suffer eternally if you do, and that's a promise.

Now, a lot of people might be saying, "Hey, you're both evil, what's the big deal?" Well, I might be The Devil, but I still have standards. I like to think of myself as stern, but fair. When people deal with me, I give them fair warning and they know exactly what they're getting into. Who am I to blame if temptation gets the best of them? Bush, on the other hand, is totally ruthless. He is indiscriminate and altogether uncaring. Take Iraq, for example. My good buddy Saddam and I had a good thing going over there. Sure, he was committing atrocities, but what did you expect, he's an evil dictator? Bush on the other hand, comes riding in on a white horse of "democracy" under the pretenses of "saving everyone", but ends up making it 10 times worse! Now there are things going on over there I wouldn't take credit for even if I could.

See, the difference between he and I is I let people make their own decisions. Sure, I might use a little deception and chicanery to influence the choice, but hey, I'm the Devil. I don't pretend I'm not. I might make promises I don't intend to keep, but at least they know it's the Devil they're dealing with. I'll use every trick in the book, but I won't just impose my will on people. Unlike Bush, I let people dig their own graves. And when things fall apart for the people I deceive (and they always do), I don't continue to lie to them like Bush saying "Oh don't worry, it's all going according to plan. Just tough it out and you'll get your reward in the end. . ." No, I say "Gotcha! Ha ha ha! See you in Hell, sucker! Tee hee, fiddly dee!"

Maybe a little analogy will make it clearer. If someone is drowning in the ocean, I offer the person a choice: You can pray to God, and yeah He'll probably save you, but you'll just go back to your boring, mundane life. Or, you can take my hand right now, and not only will I save you, but all of your wildest fantasies will come true. Then it's up to the person. If he/she chooses God over me, I don't just grab his/her hand anyway! Not only would Bush yank the person out of the water, whether he/she wanted him to or not, but then he'd stick a knife in the person's back and tell him/her it's the only way to drain the water out of his/her lungs. "Trust me, you'll thank me for this someday," he'd say as he goes through the person's wallet. Even I'm not that cold.

This is not to say that Bush and Co. haven't been good for business down here. Make no mistake, a lot of people are thinking it's a good idea to sell their souls lately. But I just wanted to clear the air, get a few things off of my chest and make sure people weren't getting the two of us confused. Oh, and one more thing, Hugo-- it doesn't smell like sulfur down here, it smells like The Golden Corral. Sulfur is much too tolerable.

Coma Victim Grateful for CNN's Real-time 9/11 Coverage

Davenport, IA--

Tom Reynolds wasn't anywhere near Manhatten on September 11, 2001. In fact, he was sound asleep. The whole day. The whole year, actually, and all four of the next, deep in a coma since a tragic slip n' slide accident in August of that year. So when he suddenly awoke early in the morning on Monday, September 11, 2006, he had no idea his world was about to change forever-- or that, in actuality, it already had.

"The nurses came in and told me that I was in a coma for five years," Reynolds said. "After the shock wore off, I decided I had better check out CNN to see what was going on these days. You know, try to get caught up."

Reynolds, just coming to grips with the fact that he had been unconscious for five years of his life, couldn't have prepared himself for what he saw next: the World Trade Center collapsing before his eyes.

"I was back in shock," he said. "I just couldn't believe it. We were being attacked by terrorists, and all I could think was if everyone I knew in New York was ok. I started making some calls."

Friends and family in New York were shocked to hear his voice. At first they thought it was a sick prank. Reynolds was frantic.

"I just kept yelling at him to get a grip, you know, pull yourself together, man," said Ed Hampton, Reynolds' longtime friend who used to work in the World Trade Center's South Tower. "He just kept shouting 'Get yourself out of there! Get a gun! We're under attack dammit!'"

Try as he might, Hampton couldn't reason with Reynolds.

"He was absolutely out of his mind," Hampton said. "There was no explaining anything. I don't know if it was the coma or what, but he had completely lost it."

Reynolds continued to make desperate calls, sometimes to numbers that no longer were assigned to people he knew. Angela Liota, who moved to Manhattan just three months ago, was one recipient of Reynolds' pleas.

"I came home and had 15 messages on my machine, each one crazier than the next," Liota said. "He kept saying I was being attacked by terrorists and that I should crouch under a chair. I really thought it was a crazy person disturbed by the anniversary or something. I have caller ID, so if he calls back I'm screening it."

Reynolds' panic would finally subside that afternoon when, while flipping channels, he caught a report about the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Still somewhat confused by what he had seen, the truth began to dawn on him when he saw a promo for CNN's "Real-time" replay of their September 11, 2001 coverage.

"That's when I started to put it all together," he said. "Man, was I relieved. Of course, I still didn't know if many of my friends were dead or alive. And then I found out that almost as many people have died since then in Iraq- and I had a couple buddies in the Guard back then, so I started to wonder about them too."

Despite the shock, grief and worry, Reynolds says he is grateful that CNN replayed their coverage in real-time.

"You know, if I wasn't able to watch that, and truly believe it was happening at the time, I feel like I would have been missing out on a national event," Reynolds said. "You know, watching that horror unfold on live tv and feeling the resulting shock, fear and trauma was a common experience for the whole country. Missing that would be like missing the first episode of Survivor. I just would have felt really out of the loop at the water cooler."

Reynolds also credits the experience for some of his newfound beliefs.

"Had I not been able to watch the terror literally roaring in from the skies above, I would not be so nearly afraid of potential attacks now," he said. "Not afraid enough, at least, to vote Republican, which I'm going to do from now on."

Despite the initial setback, doctors expect Reynolds to make a full recovery.

9/11 Hijackers Grow Tired of Paradise

Paradise--

Five years after the 9/11 terrorist attack on the United States shocked the world, the 19 hijackers responsible are growing restless in paradise. Dissatisfied with their virgins and complaining of false advertising, the Islamic martyrs who earned eternity in paradise on 9/11 now say they made a mistake.

"They made it sound like non-stop pleasure," one of the disgruntled hijackers said. "I mean, 72 virgins! How could you go wrong? But they don't tell you about the nagging- or the emotional problems."

The consensus, according to the hijackers, is that none of them wants to have to "deal with the women" one more night, much less for eternity.

"Virgins are a two-edged sword," another hijacker said. "You know how it is. They all want their first time to be some special, romantic thing. And then they want to cuddle and talk about it. But, you know, I blew myself up in an airplane. What more do you want?"

Another hijacker said that he quickly grew tired of the virgins.

"After 30-40, it started to get to seem more like work than fun," he said. "And that's when they start in with the complaining. Then it's just no fun for anybody."

"I wish I was told about the technicalities," said one hijacker, thought to be responsible for United Airlines flight 93's tragic crash landing in a Pennsylvania field. "Let's say that #5 is a really good lay, and I'd be happy with her for awhile. Well, no, you have to go through all 72 before you can get back to #5. So obviously, it started to become somewhat of a chore."

Other hijackers, however, complained that 72 virgins was not enough.

"It only took me a couple of months to get through them all," one said. "So what am I supposed to do now? Yeah, I had 72 virgins, but now I all I got is 72 sluts. I didn't see that one coming."

"I don't know how they put up with it," one hijacker said of the others who were hoping for more virgins. "If they want some of mine, they can have them. I'm going to put in for Guardian Angel duty or something. What a sham."

The quality of the virgins, according to some, also leaves much to be desired.

"You find out soon enough," said one, " there's a reason that most of them are virgins."

Reports of the complaints were dismissed among Islamic militant leaders, and potential suicide bombers were told that the problems with virgins "were not widespread" and that "they were doing everything possible to rectify the situation."

Insensitive Mascots the Shame of the Sports World

The 2006 college football season kicked off last weekend, and with it the debate resumes over what many see as offensive and derogatory mascot names. People across the country have been clamoring for the NCAA to ban mascot names that make reference to Native Americans. The NCAA last year declined to ban the use of the mascots, but announced they would limit the use of mascots deemed to make "hostile and abusive" references. They may as well have taken a big foam finger and slapped all the Indians in America right across the face.

Not only are team mascots like the Fighting Sioux (University of North Dakota) objectionable, but I don't think the NCAA, or all sports leagues, for that matter, should stop there. What about teams like the Raiders (Oakland) or the Buccaneers (Tampa Bay)? Were all 17th and 18th century sea-going wayfarers cunning rapists and pillagers? I know from watching Pirates of the Carribean (1 and 2) that at least some of them were jolly and likeable. Pirates around the world have the right not to be denigrated in such a way by these irresponsible mascot depictions.

Further, there are a host of animals, from reptiles to mammals, getting a bad rap. Who is to stick up for the gentle American grizzly bear, harmlessly foraging for berries and grubs in the Northern Rockies when teams from Memphis to Montana portray this creature as a ferocious bloodthirsty killing machine? And what of the endangered tiger, one of the most popular team mascots in America? Based on the mascots alone, you'd have to assume that tigers are senseless man-eaters that will stop at nothing before all of your babies are devoured. But you'd never be able to find out for sure, because there aren't even any wild tigers in the U.S.! To even guess that tigers might be fun to hang around, you'd have to be from Inda, or know someone who is. And who knows anyone from India? I guess you could call your computer's technical support number, and ask them, but what would they know? They sit in warehouses all day answering technical support calls. The point is, animal mascots are at even more of a disadvantage because they can't even sue. So you can have a team called the "Furious Field Mice" and portray a red-eyed, evil mouse with fangs in full attack mode and completely get away with it.

To make matters worse, teams are now exploiting natural phenomenons for mascot purposes. I can think of nothing more insensitive than mascots like the Lightning (Tampa Bay) and the Hurricanes (Carolina). Think of all those Hurricane Katrina victims scattered across the country, trying to piece their shattered lives back together. So they turn on their new plasma screen tv's (thanks, FEMA) to take their mind off of it all, and what comes on? A Carolina Hurricanes hockey game, complete with rabid fans chanting "Hurricanes! Hurricanes!" over and over. Talk about rubbing salt in the wounds. And think of the poor lightning strike victims, recovering from surgeries and skin grafts in a Salt Lake City burn center, propped up in their beds so they can catch a little tv before they pass out again from the pain. And what pops up? A Tampa Bay Lightning game! Outrageous! Lightning and Hurricanes take a massive human toll on our population year after year, but somehow these mascots slipped past the censors. It's like naming a team the "Holocaustin' Hitlers" or the "Slaughterin' Stalins". Of course, no one would stand for that. Maybe the "Murderin' Mansons" would cause a bit of a stir, but probably only in California.

So what is the solution? I think to get away from all the controversey and bickering, teams should adopt accurate mascots from everyday life that everyone can relate to. Because as you know, Sioux Indians no longer raid villages on horseback with piercing war cries. But often they will still take your money at a mega-casino. So maybe a more accurate suggestion would be the University of North Dakota Swindlin' Sioux? You could then easily transfer this theme to other tribes: The Flimflammin' Flathead, Bilkin' Blackfeet, Hustlin' Hopis or Shuckin' Cheyanne. That's five replacement, non-offensive mascot names right there. I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to come up with more.

To be fair, we shouldn't be limited to Native Americans either. There are plenty of caucasian people out there that are every bit as scary as the animals and ancient warriors of our past. You could have teams like the Relative-rapin' Rednecks, Jug-jigglin' Jailbait, Mice-munchin' Methmouths, Crack-addled Kid-killers, or Neo-conservative Christo-fascist War-mongers. I think there are plenty more where that came from.

That's just the start- the rest is up to you. Remember, as the fall sports seasons get underway, the team you're cheering could be insulting you or your ancestors with reckless and derogatory mascots. They could also be rubbing a horrible tragedy in your face, like the Pittsburgh Steelers do every Sunday to anyone who's ever been injured or killed in a horrific steel factory accident. And no one deserves that.