A Cease-and-Desist List for the New Year

With 2008 now well underway, I have been giving some thought to things I would like to see happen this year.

I'd like to see the San Diego Padres win the World Series.

I'd like to see my wife Valerie sell a gazillion dollars worth of real estate, after which we buy ourselves a vacation spot on the Mediterranean somewhere.

I'd like to find a publisher for the book I wrote last year.

I'd like to get my weight down to 180 pounds.

That's a partial list. I could probably come up with a dozen or so other "I would likes" to cover the next ten-and-a-half months until we start hearing Christmas music on the radio again.

But, like most folks, in addition to my "I-would-likes," I have a list of "I wish-they-would-go-aways."

This is my cease-and-desist list for 2008. Ten things I wish would just vanish from sight and/or sound and never be seen or heard of again. (No, President Bush isn't on the list. He doesn't have to be. He's going away whether I want him to or not. These are "hope-to-be" go-aways.)

10. Hannah Montana.

9. Miley Cyrus.

8. Network news sites promoting the network's own shows by treating them as if they were news, e.g. "DANCING WITH THE STARS: HORACE VEEBLEFETZER ELIMINATED."

7. Al Franken. Anyone my age remembers Pat Paulsen doing the comedian-running-for-office gag. It wasn't funny then, it isn't funny now, and Al Franken has never been funny in his life.

6. While I'm clearing away "Als," Al Sharpton. Before, during and after. The next time he grabs his soapbox to sound off about something that's none of his business (Tiger Woods, for example) I hope he falls down and breaks his hair. Make that his tongue.

5. People saying "I was like" or "I'm like" instead of "I said." (fat chance -- this particularly tic of stupid has already been with us for over 15 years, and isn't going anywhere soon, I'm afraid.)

4. While we're on the subject of stupid things people say, I'd like to see a stop put to people saying "I could care less." If you're in the habit of saying that, pause, right now, and THINK for just a minute about what it is you're actually saying. You're saying the opposite of what you mean, dummy.

3. Spam e-mail pitching cheap mortgages, penis enlargement and Viagra. By the way, I can sort of see the association of items two and three there, but what the heck do mortgages have to do with either?

2. Hand-held cellphones glued to the heads of morons who are concurrently (a) steering their cars with one hand, and (b) paying no attention whatsoever to their driving. Plenty has already been written about this, particularly in view of recent studies that show "distracted" driving (under which umbrella brainless cell-phone blabber falls) is every bit as dangerous as driving with a .08 blood alcohol level. But whereas drunk driving (or indeed, drinking alcohol at all) is now accorded a crime on the level of pederasty in our health-and-fitness-obsessed society, the cell-phone blabber on the road goes on and on and on, with legislative interest in curbing all this mindless -- and deadly -- chitchat lukewarm at best. I suspect state legislators are reluctant to put a stop to all the blather because they find it convenient that they can harangue their staffs while stuck in traffic. Folks, if you won't consider the blood-alcohol equivalency question, consider this: a clinical study that I have been conducting for 52 years has concluded that approximately 94.8 percent of the adult U.S. population has chicken fat for brains to begin with. In view of such numbing statistics, letting them make phone calls while steering 1,500 pounds of automobile down a residential street at 40 mph is insane.

1. Britney Spears. Anytime, anywhere. Or perhaps I should say EVERYWHERE. Can we STOP putting her idiotic, glassy-eyed, vapid mug all over every supermarket check-out line, not to mention all over the Fox News home page, every time she farts? What is this mass fascination with washed-up former teenage pop stars who haven't done anything in years except parade around making asses of themselves in public? Why does anyone CARE? If I never saw Britney Spears again it would be three weeks too soon. But I know I'll be seeing her tomorrow when I go to buy lettuce. On at least three slick magazines. And I'll be seeing her on the Fox News home page when I'm surfing the news websites over my coffee tomorrow morning. (Somebody at Fox News has a real boner for Britney -- they post a file photo of her every day, sometimes three.) ENOUGH already! I'd rather look at Nicole Richie, if only because I don't know who she is. And don't want to.

Here's to a saner, quieter world. Wherever it might be.