Ann Coulter was on tv this week, which I think is news in itself. Who keeps booking her? The only Ann Coulter television appearance I would watch is “Ann Coulter eats a cheeseburger.” She weighs, what, maybe 45 pounds?

Anyway she’s in a bit of trouble for saying this: “That is what Christians consider themselves: perfected Jews. We believe the Old Testament. As you know from the Old Testament, God was constantly getting fed up with humans for not being able to, you know, live up to all the laws.” (See the transcript here.)

In other words, Jews need to be “perfected.” As a lapsed Jew, my initial response was: “Hey Ann, thanks for calling me out! I was trying to keep that on the down-low, you dig?”

Ann is absolutely right - Jews do need to be perfected. In the spirit of encouraging improvement, here is a list of well-known Jews and the things they need to do to perfect themselves:

Barbara Walters: Re-hire Debbie Matenopolous on “The View”
Jerry Seinfeld: Call his mother more often
Henry Kissinger: Learn to speak without German accent
Barbara Boxer: Not be a woman
Adam Sandler: Re-grow foreskin
Don Rickles: Stop insulting everybody so much
Alan Greenspan: Retract horns
Albert Einstein: Rise from dead
David Berkowitz: No longer allow talking dog to make him kill people as “Son of Sam”
Bob Dylan: Enunciate
Steven Spielberg: Convert to Christianity
Ron Jeremy: Bathe
Scott Green: Stop stealing Ronald McDonald House charity cannisters and spending the money on non-Kosher Big Macs
Ann Coulter: Not technically Jewish but needs way more perfecting than any of the people on this list

Since 2001, Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest has been dominated by Japanese national Takeru Kobayashi. But not this year. A 22-year old engineering student from California named Joey Chestnut won the contest today with a gut-busting 66 hot dogs. That number again, is 66 hot dogs.

It’s a great day to be an American.

Happy 4th of July!

According to new reports, both ABC and NBC have declined to pay for any interview with Paris Hilton after her imminent release from jail. This follows rumors that the Hilton family had been seeking $100,000 from ABC and Barbara Walters when they reportedly bolted for 1 million from NBC and new “Today” show anchor Meredith Viera.

From Reuters:

Independent network news analyst Andrew Tyndall said paying for a Hilton interview would pose at least two problems.

“One, you’re not supposed to pay news sources, and two, you’ve decided that Paris Hilton is an important enough story to violate that rule. And probably the second sin is even worse than the first.”

Finally some sanity. Not that this will stop the media from breathlessly analyzing every moment of her subsequent life though.

In other news, the world didn’t end. *Gasp*

Firstly, thanks a lot to instructors who decide to have the final paper due the same day as the class final. It’s makes my life a whole lot easier……

Secondly, I find that is very peaceful walking on the Quad at 6AM in the early dawn light. You should try it sometime, preferably not after you’ve spent a night suffering.

Finally, a reader sends this along to us and while we’ve finished our current publication term, it is still worthy of mention. Unbeknownst to me or to other other people currently working here who weren’t even born when this was a tradition, but The Daily Illini used to publish an editorial at the beginning of each finals week dedicated to the misery of exams.

I shall not pass this way again.

A big thank you to Dave Nevers of Hinsdale, IL for sending us this clip from the May 31, 1972 edition of The Daily Illini.

So here I am procrastinating. Significant portions of my grades will come down to my performance during a 3 hour exam. I find this troubling for any number of reasons but unfortunately, I really don’t have the time at the moment to write them all down.

Since I’m done with my official duties at the DI for a little while, I hope to chronicle my finals week for the blog. This is an ambitious experiment and it will require me to analyze, synthesize and argue (and a whole other bevy of academically important words) my experiences analyzing, synthesizing and arguing information I will probably have little or no use for immediately after I turn in those blue packets.

I don’t know about you, but I’m pumped.

Oh, America. Oh you.

In Washington D.C. where there are more law degrees than phonebooks, a local judge has filed a personal lawsuit against a Korean-operated dry cleaning business over a pair of missing trousers. He is seeking damages in excess of 67 MILLION dollars. You can read about it from ABC news here. I HIGHLY recommend it. The jokes write themselves. My favorite excerpts:

The civil trial, set for June, has the scope of a John Grisham courtroom thriller and the societal importance of a traffic ticket.

The ABC News Law & Justice Unit has calculated that for $67 million dollars Pearson could buy 84,115 new pairs of pants at the $800 value he placed on the missing trousers in court documents. If you stacked those pants up they would be taller than eight Mount Everests. If you laid them side by side they would stretch for 48 miles.

It was May, 2005 and Pearson was about to begin his new job as an administrative judge. Naturally, he wanted to wear a nice outfit to his first day of work. He said in court papers that he tried on five Hickey Freeman suits from his closet, but found them all to be ‘too tight,’ according to the Washington Post.

He believes he is entitled to $1,500 for each violation, each day during which the “Satisfaction Guaranteed'’ sign, and another sign promising “Same Day Service'’ was up in the store — more than 1200 days. And he’s multiplying each violation by three because he’s suing Jin and Soo Chung and their son. He also wants $500,000 in ‘emotional damages’ and another $542, 500 in legal fees, even though he is representing himself in court. He wants $15,000 for ten years worth of weekend car rentals as well (Note: So he can take his business elsewhere.)

It goes on and on like that in some starch-filled odyssey. Obivously, 67 million dollars for a pair of pants is a little much. I would’ve been satisfied to get reimbursed on the pants and 50 percent off on my next winter coat job, but I digress.

Surely, this will give plenty of ammunition for comedy shows and the tort-reform lobby. However, this story has also conveniently reminded me that I need to do some laundry of my own.

Other headlines that were in the running for this blog post:

Now HERE’S your activist judge!

Citizen sues scrubbers for slip-up over slacks

That’s what I call pressing a (law)suit!

Lack of laundry leads to legal limbo

Lawsuit gives whole new meaning to ’spin’ cycle

…

Somebody, help me. Please.

Frequently, I find myself encountering a word or concept that I had previously never heard of. While this is certainly not unique, I often find that either through sheer luck or coincidence, that same thing presents itself to me in a different way multiple times in near succession. For example, I hear a word I’ve never heard before and then miraculously, I hear it again two or three different times in a way that seems to go beyond the realm of randomness and seems like a downright cosmic effort on the part of the universe to make me learn something. The latest example is teetotalism.

Up until a few months ago, I never even heard of the term before. While I was familiar with the current straight edge movement, it was news to me that there was another, much older brand of it. So, how were my eyes opened?

Well, I happen to be a fan of comedic/magician duo Penn & Teller. I’ve recently gotten into to their Showtime series, Penn & Teller: Bullshit! in which they take on popular myths and causes and debunk them. In my Wikipedia travels, I’ve found out that not only were they avowed atheists and libertarians, they were also teetotalers.

Several weeks ago, I was home and I went to see the Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez homage Grindhouse with some friends. As we waited for the movie to begin I was talking to one of my friends about my fondness for Penn and Teller and I mentioned teetotalism. In Tarantino’s Planet Terror, the main character Stuntman Mike (played by Kurt Russell) tells his soon-to-be victims at the bar that he was a teetotaler. It was one of those moments where my friend and I looked at each and went “Whoa, that was weird.”

So then today in my daily routine of refreshing Drudge Report every two minutes, I find this story about the D.C. Madam. Long story short: She ran an adult entertainment operation, the law caught up with her and now she’s got a list of more than 10,000 names of D.C. bigwigs who would very much like to avoid their activities being made public. Then I see this part:

She got into the escort business in San Diego, she said, because she was “appalled and disgusted” by how “seedy, lazy and incompetent” other escort agencies were, she wrote in court papers. An avowed teetotaler, she said she did not like the drug-related atmosphere in the other agencies.

OK ,universe. I get the point. My curiosity sparked by this coincidence and a sudden inspiration for a blog post led me to a list (warning, Wikipedia alert) of famous teetotalers.

Not surprises: John Ashcroft, Jerry Falwell, Gandhi, Mr. Rogers, Mitt Romney, Osama Bin Laden

Surprises: Mary J. Blige, John Wilkes Booth, Naomi Cambell, Chamillionaire, Eric Clapton, Billy Connolly (Boondock Saints), Jennifer Love Hewitt, Anthony Hopkins, Elton John, Stephen King (you mean he writes like that sober?! Bravo, sir.), Bruce Lee, Pro-wrestler Triple H, Albert Pujols, Vladimir Putin, Karl Rove, Donald Trump, Weird Al Yankovic

Whoa, no way: Jim Carrey, Johnny Chan, Dane Cook, Jim Gaffigan, Samuel L. Jackson, Tobey Maguire, Ewan “I have the high ground” MacGregor, Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Ted Nugent, Sarah Silverman, Gene Simmons, Dee Snider and Bruce Willis.

Assuming most of this list is accurate, then it goes to show that old stereotypes that all the “cool” people indulge in drugs and alcohol aren’t necessarily true anymore.