Fat Pets, Beheading Sarah, Paying More And Congressional Watchdogs

*Is it really this big a problem? The Wall Street Journal touted one of its major stories in an “above the fold” headline on the front page two weeks ago. Ready for the earth-shaking story? “Fat Pets: A Growing Problem.” The article inside, in case you want to look it up, contained all sorts of suggestions for how to help Fido lose weight. Glad they’re not worried about anything serious—like, say, riots and revolutions in the Middle East.

*Teaching kids to murder your opponents. In one of the most incredible stories I’ve heard in quite a while, the folks producing Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado at Children’s Theatre in Missoula, Mont., decided it would be fun to add a line about beheading Sarah Palin to the story. When news of their addition got out the producers explained that they were just trying to “spice up the opera to make it more relevant to today’s audience.” Wonder how many taxpayer dollars they got to do that?

*These parents want to pay MORE in taxes. Let’s hear it for parents in the Shawnee Mission School District, a wealthy Kansas City suburb. They were so distressed by cuts in State funding for their schools that they asked to be allowed to voluntarily pay more taxes. The State said “no,” that they’d be breaking the law if they did. Wasn’t it Charles Dickens who said the law can sometimes be an ass?

*Keeping tabs on your Congressman. Hats off to the Tea Party Patriots. After scoring some huge legislative victories last November, the put-Uncle-Sam-on-a-diet group has announced a new program: They’ve called for volunteers to track every statement and every vote by every member of Congress. Won’t that be fun—seeing some genuine accountability for a change?  Good luck with that effort, guys. I look forward to learning what you find.

–Chip Wood