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Randy Cassingham's BlogHistorical Details and Author's Notes from This is True® - the First For-Profit E-mail Publication (and Still Going Strong). |
Major Headlines Archives
John Bobbit: Immortalized Through Verbification
I use the term "Bobbitized" in this week's edition.
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International Relief
The first charitable organization plug in TJI was for earthquake relief, after a 7.2 shock hit Kobe, Japan, on January 17, 1995:
The Red Planet
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Mars Pathfinder and Sojourner rover have completed their primary mission on Mars, returning 9,669 pictures of the surface and a huge amount of other scientific data about our red neighbor.
Fornigate
When the Clinton sex scandal broke, readers started feeding me stories. No worries: I was already on top of it (as it were). I find so many stories -- either on my own or as submitted by readers, I start thinking about whether I should do several stories in True on the subject.
But there are so many -- and I have so many "regular" stories in my queue already -- that I just threw up my hands and pounded out two columns today: a regular one, and a special Clinton Fornigate issue.
Trying to Work in the Days After 9/11
It was hard to write true this week. Very hard. It was hard to be funny, though the lead story is definitely not meant to be funny. I consider those two men's comments downright treasonous. But the response to last week's Premium edition (which many did not read until after they saw last Tuesday's morning news), and the response to the free edition Friday night, told me how much people need things to return to normal. How much people need to have something to smile over. So I did my best to meet both of those needs. If I can be one of the people to bring you a smile, I'm gratified.
9/11: The Aftermath
This week Premium subscribers wrote in huge numbers thanking me for speaking out strongly against the downright treasonous comments made by two of America's self-appointed "religious leaders".
And thanks so much for your notes of support for my decision to publish last week, to get back to "normal" as soon as possible. Charles in Ohio was one: "Thank you for your newsletter. Not only does it provide some levity during a somber time, but it also shows that life does and should go on. As you indicated, to let these tragic incidents disrupt our daily lives lets the terrorists succeed." Candy in Texas: "I would like to thank you for sending out this week's TRUE. I am saddened by the news, but I am hungry for diversions."
9/11: More (but Happy) Aftermath
Wow: what an incredible response to the last issue. There were kudos for being able to write an issue at all, kudos for staying on schedule, and overwhelming support for my American Taliban story. Yes, there have been a couple of complaints about it, as I expected, including one today about how the reader is tired of my "regular attacks on Chrisitanity", so I need to make something clear: I do not attack Christianity, I attack the stupid rantings of some Christians -- just as I attack the stupidity of some lawyers, politicians, school officials, cops, etc. I often get letters complaining when I "attack" religious stupidity, but I rarely get them from cops when (say) I "attack" something stupid a cop does. I'm often called "anti-Christian" but not "anti-cop". Why do you suppose that is?
After 9/11: Flying the Friendly Skies
Exactly six weeks after terrorists turned several of our airliners into guided missiles, I flew again. Going through security at Denver International was interesting: because my shoes apparently have metal in them, they asked me to remove them so they could run them through the x-ray machine. I actually think that's fairly smart; if you want to smuggle razor blades onto an airliner, that'd be the place to do it. The only gotcha: do you think they provided chairs for the dozens of people they were doing this to so they could put their shoes back on? Nope.
Babies 'R' Us? Yes They Are
A story this week brought in a huge reader response -- and an unbeliveable reply from "Babies 'R' Us" to my readers who complained to them:
Wardrobe Malfunction? Hah!
Never Has One Boob Created Such a Phenomenon
You either saw it or you heard about it: the Janet Jackson "flash". I happened to be walking by the TV (my wife was watching the Super Bowl) at the exact moment it happened. I stopped in my tracks, backed up, and said to her, "Did I just see what I thought I saw?" My wife, a bit stunned, said "I think so...."
Dick Ebersol's Plane Crash
You may have heard about the plane crash last weekend (November 28, 2004) in Montrose, Colorado, mainly because a "celebrity" was aboard (NBC Sports head Dick Ebersol; his wife is actress Susan Saint James). Three people were killed. Montrose is the small airport I fly out of, about 18 miles from my house. It's the "big" town around here, but it's still pretty small -- the population is around 12,000. I live in the next county; by contrast, my entire county only recently passed 4,000 residents in its 550 square miles.
Goodnight, Johnny
Before I get started each week, I do a last scan of the news to make sure I haven't missed anything big. And one of the first stories I found was a report that one of my mentors had died yesterday morning: Johnny Carson.
