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WARRIOR: Anna Rose Wright and Tim Best
WHY: March Madness -- one letter at a time
A humdinger of a match-up took place in Billings, Montana last March at the Treasure State Spelling Bee. Contestants Anna Rose Wright and Tim Best outlasted the 61 other entrants in a bee that lasted 41 rounds and 4 1/2 hours. After sixteen rounds only the two home-schooled finalists remained and they went 'mano a mano' for 25 more. The rules required that in order to win, a contestant must correctly spell two words in a row. Both Wright, 13, of Belgrade, and Best, 12, of Joliet, had their opportunities but neither could put the other one away. As the bee dragged on to the 29th round, the judges started using words that weren’t included in the players study list. Finally, Wright won by nailing ‘mumpsimus’ (a person who persists in a mistaken expression, belief or practice) and the clincher, ‘galenical’ (medicine prepared by extracting one or more active constituents of a plant). Wright truly earned her spot in the Scripps National Spelling Bee and the $100 savings bond.
The efforts of Wright and Best were simply preternatural…
P-R-E-T-E-R-N-A-T-U-R-A-L. Preternatural. |
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WORKERS: Alice Alyse
WHY: Taking on the boobs who keeping her down
The dance world can be tough. A certain body type is necessary to make it as a ballerina and fulfilling careers are often squashed because the dancers don’t meet the expected type. Take Alice Alyse, a former cast member of “Movin’ Out,” the Twyla Tharp musical based on the music of Billy Joel. Alyse was dropped by a fellow dancer during a Los Angeles performance and suffered a toe injury that took four months of recovery. While recuperating, her breasts grew a full cup size and when Alyse returned she claims she was harassed, humiliated, denied a lead role and constantly berated for needing new costumes. After re-injuring the toe, she says show managers accused her of dogging it and was fired from her six-figure job. Alyse sued the Tony Award winning show’s owners and the production company (the suit names Tharp but not Joel) for $100 million for “emotional distress.”
In court, Alyse should say simply, “I know that it’s me they’ve been coming to see, to forget about life for awhile…especially now”. |
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WHINERS: People who find personal conversations annoying in the workplace
WHY: Because that’s a pretty petty pet peeve
The business services company Randstand USA recently conducted a survey of 2,318 employed adults and found the top five office pet peeves are: condescending tones (44%), public reprimands (37%), micromanaging (34%), loud talkers (32%) and cell phones ringing in the office (30%). Surprisingly, eleven percent “find it annoying when colleagues engage in personal conversations in the workplace”(presumably in a normal speaking voice). The survey also found that 38% of workers don’t usually take a lunch break, 33% work overtime for no extra cash, 31% work on Sundays and 91% don’t find profanity acceptable in the workplace.
91 #*$#*! percent? Why that’s worse than those #@&^*!** ##@!!*%* who get annoyed when I tell my *#$$%@#$**! stories to Bob in accounting. |
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WEASEL: American Red Cross
WHY: American fraud
In March, Louisiana Attorney General Charles C. Foti announced that his office was looking into allegations of “widespread theft” in the wake of Hurricane Katrina by American Red Cross volunteers. The alleged fraud includes: the diverting of food from victims to restaurants; the disappearance of rental cars, generators and thousands of donated air mattresses; the swapping of meals for parking spots and using unauthorized computers to divert millions in donations. The American Red Cross, which was granted a congressional charter in 1905, raised $2 billion after Katrina and mobilized 235,000 volunteers according to the Associated Press. Nonetheless, the FBI has begun its own investigation and Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) has threatened the Red Cross with a revocation of its charter if it doesn’t overhaul its operations.
That jolt you just felt was Clara Barton kicking in her grave. |
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