The Wednesday Weekly Whacky Award Goes To

A day late but not a a dollar short, The SC&A Academy of Extremely Peculiar Pathologies, is pleased to announce the winners of the Weekly Wednesday Whackjob Awards, commonly referred to as the ‘Whacky’s.’

First, some fine print: nominations will open each week until 10:00 PM, EST (After the broadcast of House, M.D.).

That’s it for the fine print.

The Judging Committee at the SC&A Institute are pleased to announce that this week’s ship of fools are particularly amusing and well anchored in their psycho-pathological obsession.

OK, on with this week’s show, broadcast from seclusion room at Bedlam Hospital, the world’s oldest psychiatric facility. The staff and curators of Bedlam are proud to note that many of the original treatments, restraints, therapists and patients can be found on site today.

A ‘Whacky‘ has been been awarded this week in each of the following categories:

The Thorazine Shuffle and Dance Award, each week to the politician who dances and shuffles without actually addressing reality or answering a question. For an unprecedented third week in a row, the award is presented to presented to House Leader Nancy Pelosi, whose Middle East wet dreams were characterized by no less than the Washington Post as those of an idiot, now wants to turn her limitless supply of stupidity loose on the Iranians.

As many have noted, Pelosi and others (yes Harry, were talking about you) have refused to meet, accommodate or even show the least bit of decorum and civility to the President of the United States, but they are more than willing to meet with racist, bigoted and dysfunctional leaders anywhere they might be and give them credibility and status (further discussion here).

It is interesting to note how many Democrats have demanded that Don Imus be fired for his racially crude remarks and how Democrats can hardly wait to have a signed, 8×10 glossy signed by racist and bigoted tyrants that have been responsible for the deaths of so many who share different ideas, religions and politics than their own.

The Thomas Szasz Psychotherapy Award, presented each week to the biggest idiot therapist we can find, was unearthed by Dr Helen, (who is related to a mildly successful blogger). She notes:

Yesterday, I thumbed through the April 2007 edition of the The Monitor on Psychology to catch up on what is going on in the field and I learned that the psychologists who profess to be knowledgeable about telling others how to change their cognitive distortions have yet to change their own. They continue to believe they are omnipotent, capable of interfering in political issues that have nothing to do with psychology or stress political correctness and a creeping socialism ahead of an actual knowledge base.

In this most recent issue, I learned from the front cover that America is “toxic” and if you read the article entitled, “Toxic America,” you will learn why. Apparently, if you are too wealthy in our society, you will turn into an American who is unhappy and lives a short and lonely existence. The article implies that working long hours and having money is toxic:

Marmot believes the psychic smog that’s making Americans sick could be composed of two factors. One is that Americans’ long work hours leave us more stressed and less healthy. The other is that Americans may feel friendless and isolated due to social stressors created by our country’s widening income gap. In turn, that societal divisiveness may be bad for our health—not just poor people’s health, but everyone’s, he speculates.

What is the answer then, according to the psychological soothesayers? Why socialism, of course!

“We’re almost like a nomadic society on this treadmill, hoping that we’ll either strike it rich with the lottery, or that if we work hard enough, somehow we’ll become Google millionaires,” he comments…

Stupidity abounds of course. Dr Helen concludes (far too gently) that

Yep, we greedy capitalists just need to become more like England and the European Union and we will be all be happy, healthy and non-toxic. Is that science or politics talking?

We would like to add a remark we’ve made before-

If you think health care is expensive now, wait till it’s free.

The Valium Award, presented to the dullard of the week goes to the ‘Mr Excitement’ lawyer Paul Brennan, who has found a way to make money off of boring lawyers, by convincing them that they need not be boring (follow along, you can manage).

BEING AN accomplished lawyer isn’t enough to get your mug on television or at the top of a newspaper column because, well, let’s face it: most people think lawyers are boring.

But there’s help at hand for lawyers chasing their 15 minutes of fame, and it comes in the form of a new e-book on the art of self-promotion.

Lawyer Paul Brennan launched his e-book, titled We have the time if you have the money: the nine promotional competencies to raise your practice profile, last week at a Queensland Law Society breakfast.The e-book tells lawyers in a practical way how they can utilise the “Nine Promotional Competencies”, which include how to write a book, how to deliver a humorous speech, and how to be interviewed by a journalist.

Just what we need- more lawyers with ‘self esteem.’ The book title alone is exciting, don’t you think?

“This stuff is not easy to do, and I’ve followed a lot of paths which have been wrong. So this book is full of useful practical information,” Brennan said.

Get your copy soon. The book is a page turner that belongs in every library.

The Trojan Award is presented each week to the person we wish had never been born. This week’s winner, is the guy who came with the idea for the Great Expectations Theme Park,

…Dickens World, a 62 million pound ($115 mln) complex built in the naval dockyard where his father once worked as a clerk, is confidently predicting 300,000 visitors a year to this new attraction dedicated to the Victorian author.

“We are not Disneyfying Dickens,” insists manager Ross Hutchins as he dons hard hat and fluorescent jacket to tour the site, a hive of activity as the Fagin’s den playground and Newgate Prison’s grimy walls are given their finishing touches.

We can see the peasant dress, Birkenstalk clad, home schooling by candle, anti technology crowds now, accompanied by their overall wearing, organic gardening, Birkenstalk clad, moon tide influenced, life mates.

“There is a lot to fear here,” The New York Times said.

“There is the prospect that characters from Dickens’ novels — Mr Pecksniff and the Artful Dodger, Mr Pickwick and Uriah Heep — will wander through Dickens World the way Goofy and Mickey walk the streets of Disneyland,” the paper said.

Hutchins retorted: “If we were Disneyfying Dickens we wouldn’t be talking to people like the Dickens Fellowship to ensure the correct historical facts.”

We can only imagine the legions of heretofore hidden away old maids that blush furiously at the word ‘flush,’ picketing and demanding accuracy in the form of period smells, diseases, hygiene facilities and child punishment.

Sounds like just the kind of place every 8 year old dreams of.

The NutriSystem “I’m Not So disgusting to My Spouse Anymore” Award, given to the biggest loser of the week, goes to Li Xianfeng.

A self-taught Chinese amateur pilot, dubbed the “birdman” by Chinese media, has landed in a hospital with a broken chin and leg after taking his homemade airplane for a test flight, Chinese media reported on Wednesday.

Li Xianfeng, 30, hovered about 150 feet above the ground for two minutes with his microlight-style aircraft, then plowed into fields on the outskirts of Beijing Monday, the Xinhua news agency said.

Li, who taught himself about aviation by reading books, declared his flight “partly successful,” according to the report, which said he would stay in the hospital for at least a month.

His next project is neurosurgery. He has procured a 1958 copy of Gray’s Anatomy.

The Haldol Honor, awarded each week to the person or persons most out of touch with reality, either on or off medication goes to Russel Parsons, who is most concerened- some might say ‘obsessed’- with his own postmortem experience.

Retired pipefitter, army veteran and cancer survivor Russell Parsons says he’s not afraid to die – and he’s got the tattoo to prove it.

Inside the yellow and orange flaming tattoo on his right arm are instructions to the funeral home where he has a prepaid cremation: “Barlow Bonsall cook 1700-1800 for 2 to 3 hours.”

“It’s a recipe,” says Parsons, 67, a widower from Hurricane, W.Va. “It’s a recipe for cremation.”

Barlow Bonsall Funeral Home and Crematorium manager Linda Wilson said she thought Parsons was joking several weeks ago when he said he was going to have his final wishes tattooed on his arm.

“I never thought he would actually do it,” she said Tuesday.

She wasn’t the only one.

Parsons said the tattoo artist who gave him his first and only tattoo said his request was among the craziest he’d ever received in 22 years.

“I told him, ‘Well, take a look because I’m one of a kind.”

Ain’t that the truth.

The Methamphetamine Medal, awarded each week to the most hyper, histrionic, hysterical, spaced out documented behavior goes to one Karl Stepen, paid a fine of $335.00 in pennies.

…Bob Wilson, who won a small claims court case last month, will donate the pennies to the Oakland Livingston Human Service Agency, which has helped him with heating bills. Wilson was given the pennies by Karl Stepen, owner of NSK Motorsports in Fowlerville, after a judge ruled in Wilson’s favour and awarded him $335…

District Judge Theresa Brennan, who handled the appeal for Wilson’s claim, said she’s never heard of someone paying the court in pennies in her 22 years of practising law.

Still, she said, it’s legal: “We don’t dictate the form of payment.”

Word on the street is that next time, Parsons intends on paying future fines with 1 cent stamps, redeemable at the post office.

The Viagra Statuette, awarded to the wimpiest metro sexuals, goes (sadly) to fellow Englishmen and Iranian hostages who managed to be a great source of entertainment to their hosts and a great source of embarrassment to England.

The British sailors and marines held captive for nearly two weeks in Iran were blindfolded, bound and faced constant psychological pressure, a Royal Navy lieutenant said Friday.

We smell a lawsuit. Those poor soul have had their self esteem bruised.

Lt. Felix Carman said the crew faced harsh interrogation by their Iranian captors and slept in stone cells on piles of blankets…

Carman had been pictured on Iranian television apologizing for straying into Iranian waters. At Friday’s news conference, he retracted that apology…

He sure screwed those Iranians. Yesiree, one tough dude.

The ECT Battery Award, presented to the most shocking news story of the week, goes to restaurant owner Rui Daniel Faria Velosa, for managing to blow up a female patron- with a sausage. Paging Dr Freud, paging Dr Jung, paging Dr Adler…

An exploding sausage dish left a woman diner with horrific burns… A friend told how the dish looked like ‘a big ball of fire’…

Setting fire to chorizo sausage is a popular practice in many Portuguese restaurants, using high-alcohol spirits such as brandy, grappa and rum.

A waiter at the Sporting Clube de Londres in West London had just poured extra rum over the meal, which had already come covered in alcohol.

Needless to say, Portugal is under represented in the Nobel Prize awarded category.

Finally, The HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) Prize awarded weekly to the loudest and most inconsequential feminist drivel the SC&A jury can find. This week’s hands down winner is the author of Pinko Feminist, for this spectacular mindless drivel.

I am pro-choice (including the right to have a child). In my own case, I’m pro-abortion. Being a White woman, this is a horrible thing for some people. I’ve been informed by some folks that I’m wicked and selfish for not having children. That it’s my duty to have children. That I’m unnatural for not having them. And I want to say, What business is it of yours, anyway? It’s my life and my choice.

But the idea of choice, like it’s the Pepsi Generation, just sets my teeth on edge.

For women who are expected to have children (thankfully, my parents are not among those folks who dog me about this), we see choice as the right to have children or not. White, middle-class women from “good” families, whose babies are adoptable, whose wombs are public property unless they’re married–then it’s property of the husbands. We want another choice, and it’s a “choice,” with the scare quotes around it. Because even as White women, we’ve got double-standards (sexual, work, and family), violence, and economic inequality to contend with.

Yet this is nothing compared to what women of color and poor women face. It’s not that you make seventy cents for every dollar a man makes, it’s that you may not even get an interview, or even have the opportunity to go to a decent high school or get into college. You are more likely to be poor, and thus not have the opportunities that other people have. You have more violence to contend with–state-sponsored violence against you and your loved ones. You are blamed for crime. You are blamed for unemployment. You are despised as a welfare queen if you have children and need food stamps. You are hypersexualized in the media, pilloried for this stereotype, and exhorted to show some self-respect. You are the perfect scapegoat for White people…

When we have punitive laws aimed at poor women, the rhetoric of choice rings hollow. When we have a history of pushing sterilization, Norplant, and Depo on mainly poor women of color (and damn the ensuing health problems), the rhetoric of choice rings hollow. When we hail lower birthrates among the poor as what will save the poor, and ignore things like economic justice, the rhetoric of choice rings hollow. When we insist on punishing addicted women for not magically kicking the habit while pregnant and simultaneously turn them away when they seek help (since, you know, we have better things to fund with our tax dollars, like the Iraq war), the rhetoric of choice rings hollow. When we threaten to take away the children of poor women (many of whom are women of color) because of circumstances beyond their control, the rhetoric of choice rings hollow. When welfare-to-work policies are coupled with expensive daycare and the demonization of poor mothers as “welfare queens,” the rhetoric of choice rings hollow.

This is pseudo-choice. You can choose between these crappy options, and the people in power can choose to use and abuse you. And that’s crap.

We are in complete agreement with her parents- we too, will not ‘dog’ the author of Pinko Feminist into parenthood.

Some genes are best not passed on.

Now while we’re on the topic of crazy, be sure to visit Dr Sanity’s Carnival Of The Insanities for more bizarre, arcane, insane and incredible examples of what can be found in the whackosphere, blogosphere, MSM and NASA.