Summer Travel Guide 2016

thepilot.com:

Summer is here again, and for a lot of folks, summer means vacations. Vacations mean travel.

So, as is our custom and practice in this column, we once again bring you our annual compendium of weird, wacky and occasionally fascinating vacation destinations:

— If you’re a fan of bizarre incomprehensible gibberish, you could stay home and catch one of Sarah Palin’s stump speeches for Donald Trump on YouTube.

Or you could head down to northern Georgia and visit the Georgia Guidestones, the origin of which is something straight out of “The X-Files.”

Seems that a mysterious gentleman calling himself “R.C. Christian” showed up in the little town of Nuberg, Ga., with $50,000, a shoebox with a replica of Stonehenge in it, and a request: He wanted a monument of his own built.

And what a monument it is: four towering granite monoliths, inscribed in multiple languages including Egyptian hieroglyphics, Classical Greek, Sanskrit, Babylonian cuneiform, Chinese, Swahili and Hebrew, with the words “Let These Be Guidestones to an Age of Reason,” along with certain “commandments” supposed to bring about said age.

Those commandments include “Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with Nature” (I think that horse left the barn a while ago) and “Guide reproduction wisely, improving fitness and diversity.”

After arranging for the construction of the Guidestone, Mr. “Christian” (who admitted that that wasn’t his real name) disappeared without a trace. Ooo-EEEEeeeee-oooo …

— You wanna see something really scary? Then head out to the little desert outpost of Tonopah, Nev., midway between Las Vegas and Reno, and check yourself into what might be the world’s most terrifying place of accommodation: The Clown Motel.

The travel website Roadtripper.com tells us: “Not only is the lobby filled with hundreds of menacing clowns, but each and every room is clown-themed as well.

On each of the walls are hung portraits of famous clowns, from Bozo to Pagliacci, their soulless eyes intent on watching your every move from their faux-gold frames.”

But wait. It gets worse. Next door is a graveyard, filled with the corpses of miners who died of plague. To top it all off, according to online reviews, the Wi-Fi is terrible. Definitely not a place for the faint-of-heart.

— It’s entirely possible that someday you may be on the road, turn to your significant other, and go, “Honey Pie, I don’t think we know enough about hobos.”

Well, the cure for that particular brand of ignorance is in lovely Britt, Iowa, where you will find the Hobo Museum and Gift Shop, which says it “commemorates America’s first migratory work force.”

At the museum, you can see authentic hobo wear (old clothes) hobo gear (upturned buckets seem to be prominently featured), as well as “books written by hobos, music recorded by hobos, (and) crafts created by hobos,” according to the museum website. There’s even a Hobo Convention, where a Hobo King and Queen are elected.

Yes, it appears there are still hobos, even though the site does allow as how most of them drive these days rather than hop freight trains. I don’t know. That seems to kind of blur the classic definition a bit. But then, what do I know about hobos? Just shows how much we need the museum.

— Regular readers of this feature know that we often enjoy discussing freakishly large representations of everyday items: ketchup bottles, baseball bats and the like. Well, not this time.

This time, we’re going to send you to Lucas, Kan., wherein resides The World’s Largest Collection of the World’s Smallest Versions of the World’s Largest Things Traveling Roadside Attraction and Museum.

It’s the creation of local artist Erika Nelson, who, like your Humble Columnist, seeks out the aforementioned large objects. Except she then creates tiny replicas of them and puts them in a vehicle, which she drives around as a traveling exhibit. Actually, now there are two vehicles, because the only thing cooler than one WLCoWSVoWLT is two of them.

Mysterious monoliths, scary clown hotels and small versions of big versions of ordinary sized things — it’s all part of the rich pageant that is the American road.

Happy traveling, and I hope you see something that makes you laugh and go, “Did we really just see that”?

Our Fearless Summer Vacation Guide

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

Summertime again, and the livin’, as the song tells us, is easy. Let’s just run down the checklist. Fish? Jumping. Cotton? High. And so on.

With summertime comes vacation time, and with vacation time comes our sort-of-annual guide to the wonderful and weird destinations for travelers. Check out some of these attractions:

— About 15 years ago, a fellow named Otis Eldridge in Rogersville, Tenn., went to buy an old antique coffee grinder from an old country store. He ended up leaving with two flatbed truckloads of goods and equipment. So what else is a guy like that to do but build a replica of that old country store on his farm? And once you do something like that, why, you need to have a town around it, right?

And thus was born “Memory Lane,” a replica of a 1950s-era small Southern town, complete with town hall/police department/jail, car dealership, movie theater, diner, filling station, etc. It’s all authentic, right down to the restored cheesy ’50s-era signage. Think of it as a kind of Colonial Williamsburg for Andy Griffith fans.

Alas, we missed it this year. Memory Lane is open to the public only once a year, on Memorial Day weekend, when Mr. Eldridge hosts a classic car show on the property. So mark your calendar.

— Who among us does not love possums? Well, me, for one. But apparently, the little town of Wausau, Fla., self-proclaimed “Possum Capital of the World,” is quite fond of the weird little beasts. They even have a “Possum Monument” right downtown on the edge of the swamp.

The true possum fan, however, will want to be there the first Saturday in August, when they hold the annual Possum Festival. The event is widely regarded as a “must-attend” event by Florida politicians and other dignitaries, because, lets’ face it, Florida’s kind of bonkers. Be sure to have a heaping helping of their signature dish, possum hash. Mmmm-mmm-good!

— Famously eccentric actor Nicolas Cage may not actually be dead, yet it’s still possible to visit his tomb. It seems that in 2010, Mr. Cage bought the last two unclaimed plots in New Orleans’ famous and crowded St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, final resting place of such historical figures as “Voodoo Queen” Marie Laveau and Etienne de Boré, the city’s first mayor.

Cage, apparently not wanting to get caught unprepared for his eventual demise, scandalized New Orleans traditionalists by constructing his mausoleum in the form of a nine-foot cement pyramid bearing the inscription “Omnia ab Uno.” This means, “All From One,” and not, as you might expect, “I Have More Money Than Sense and Soon Will Have Neither If I Keep Up With This Nonsense.”

If you want to observe some wretched rich-person excess and don’t have ready access to a Kardashian, check this one out.

— South of the border, down Mexico way, you’ll find the Isla de las Munecas, or “Island of the Dolls,” which has to be, bar none, the creepiest thing that I have ever seen described as a “tourist attraction.”

All over the tiny island south of Mexico City, the trees are adorned by dolls and doll parts. Arms. Legs. And of course disembodied doll heads, with those cold dead eyes that seem to follow you as you walk by and oh my God I think I saw that one move, run run run GET TO DA CHOPPAH!

Sorry. But we really are talking El Creepo Grande here. It seems that the old and possibly deranged fellow who once served as the islands caretaker was distraught at finding a young girl drowned on the beach. With the kind of logic that can only be achieved by living alone on a deserted island for many years, he decided to pay a tribute to the dead girl’s spirit by hanging a doll in a tree. Then a few more. Then a lot more. After the old man’s death, locals, then tourists, began bringing their own additions.

Did I mention it was creepy? If I ever find myself paying a visit to this place, I am definitely finding a new travel agent.

“The world is so full of a number of things,” wrote Robert Louis Stevenson, “I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.” Whatever things your travels may lead you to see this summer, I hope all your trails are happy ones.

They Love Our Troops, Except When They're Terrified of Them

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

It’s been said that everything’s bigger and better in Texas. They claim their beer is colder, their women are prettier, and even the nighttime stars are brighter.

Well, I don’t know about all that, but I can tell you this: their wingnuts are wingnuttier. And apparently, they’re running the state.

Seems the U.S. military is planning a large-scale training exercise called Jade Helm 15. JH15, as we’ll call it, is a “challenging eight-week joint military and interagency (IA) Unconventional Warfare (UW) exercise conducted throughout Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah and Colorado,” which is scheduled for this summer.

Sounds OK, right? Similar to the sort of exercises run around here all the time from Fort Bragg.

OK, that is, except to the paranoid, conspiracy-mongering right, to whom no move by the government, even by the military, is anything less than a harbinger of The Death of Freedom.

Someone got hold of a map that identifies Texas, Utah and a small patch of Southern California as “hostile” territory for purposes of the exercise. To wingnuts, this could only mean one thing: The United States was preparing to invade … itself.

“I’ve hardly ever heard of something joint like this unless they’re planning an invasion,” asserted Alex Jones of the online nut-farm Infowars. Except for, you know, the dozens of other joint exercises the military has conducted on American soil.

Aging martial arts star and conservative icon Chuck Norris joined in, writing for World Net Daily: “What’s under question are those who are pulling the strings at the top of Jade Helm 15 back in Washington.” Poor Chuck. All those shots to the head he took from Bruce Lee are finally taking their toll.

It just keeps getting crazier and crazier. Walmart had to publicly deny that recently shuttered stores are going to be repurposed as prisons for people on a so-called “red list” of dissenters (all red-blooded conservatives, naturally) who’ve been pre-targeted for arrest when the Evil Obama Administration brings the hammer down. Or food distribution centers for Chinese occupation troops. Or something.

This sort of lunacy would have been no reflection at all on the current state of the Republican Party had not the governor of Texas his own self, the Hon. Greg Abbott, decided to buy into it, or at least pretend to. He’s asking the Texas State Guard to go down to the area of the exercise to keep an eye on things and make sure our military doesn’t get out of line, freedom-wise.

“It is important that Texans know their safety, constitutional rights, private property rights and civil liberties will not be infringed,” Abbott wrote in his letter to the commander of the TSG.

Huh. I thought the Republicans believed that’s what our troops were for.

It should be noted that the “Texas State Guard” is a different organization from the National Guard, and appears to be mostly concerned with things like disaster relief.

Sorry, but if the government really was executing a military takeover and the TSG was deployed to stop them, they’d barely register as a speed bump as the Army rolled into Austin.

With Abbott standing tall, other Republican pols just naturally had to weigh in against the imaginary plan for the Kenyan Islamocommiefascist Usurper to put Texas under martial law.

Loony Louie Gohmert, the Texas congressman and teahadist mullah who’s taken over the coveted Michele Bachmann Chair in Bat-Spit Craziness, said he was “appalled” by the map, especially “that the hostile areas amazingly have a Republican majority.” He demanded that the “tone of the exercise” be changed “so the federal government is not intentionally practicing war against its own states.”

Even presidential candidate Ted Cruz allowed as how he had “no reason to doubt” the assurances of the military, but he understood “the reason for concern and uncertainty” because that Obama is just so very, very awful.

Poor wingnuts. Their ideology so often requires that they hold two diametrically opposed ideas in their heads at once. They have to revere the “troops” and the police while at the same time being terrified that those organizations are going to impose martial and/or Sharia law any minute.

They have to love their country while maintaining a big ol’ cache of weapons at all times in case they have to make war against it if they lose an election (which would also include firing on those same soldiers and cops).

It’s no wonder some of them go insane. But it’s a pity that some leaders of the GOP feel like they have to don the tinfoil hats of the conspiracy theorists to pander to the party’s lunatic fringe.

Ready For Hillary, I Guess

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

So we finally get a moderate Republican in the presidential race. Too bad she’s running as a Democrat.

A week ago today, former Senator and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton surprised absolutely no one when she declared that she was seeking the Democratic nomination for president of the United States. As usual, the press and the Republicans immediately ignored the actual problems with Mrs. Clinton as a candidate and a possible president, such as her cozying up with corporate interests and her hawkish and interventionist foreign policy.

No, in deference to the “base,” they went right to the usual trivia, previously refuted tinfoil-hat conspiracy theories (Benghazi, Benghazi, BENGHAZI!!!) and of course, thinly veiled sexism.

Take, for example, the often-voiced criticism that Clinton is “arrogant” or “entitled.” Look, people, it’s a supreme act of arrogance for anyone to put themselves forward as qualified to lead the Free World. As far as I’m concerned, this “arrogance” claim is just a euphemism for the word those on the right really want to use (and occasionally have): “uppity.” They said it about President Obama, they’ll say it about Hillary Clinton, they’ll basically say it about anyone they regard as one of their inferiors who has the effrontery to aspire to political power.

On the “trivia” front, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman took an entire column to break the story of Mrs. Clinton and her assistant dining at a Chipotle restaurant in Maumee, Ohio. Mrs. Clinton, we are told, was “in a bright pink shirt, ordering a chicken burrito bowl — and carrying her own tray.” This, it should be noted, came from a review by Ms. Haberman of the restaurant’s security video after receiving an “anonymous tip.”

But they didn’t stop there. Ms. Haberman delved deeper to bring us the news that “their order also included a Blackberry Izze drink, a soda and a chicken salad, and was filled just after 1 p.m.”

This led to a “what does it all mean?” analysis on CNN.com, which asked, with no visible trace of irony: “One of the biggest obstacles Hillary has to overcome is the perception that she represents the past. What better way to shed that outdated 1990s stigma than appearing at a hip restaurant of today?”

The real issue, of course, it the cover-up as to whether or not Clinton left a tip or whether she got more guacamole than she deserved. I think a House committee needs to be convened on this, and God help Hillary if she can’t produce the receipt.

I’ve detailed several times in these pages why I’m not naturally a fan of Clinton’s brand of Republican Lite. She seems to have come late to the realization that income inequality exists in this country and that it’s a serious problem. And, lest we forget, she voted for the Iraq War.

I’d much rather see, for example, Sen. Elizabeth Warren in the race. Problem is, Warren’s adamant that she’s not running. The people pushing Sen. Bernie Sanders to declare for the Democratic nomination seem to have forgotten one basic problem: Sanders isn’t a member of the Democratic Party.

As for the other potential Democratic candidates, I like former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb’s positions on criminal justice reform, and he was talking about income inequality before it was cool. But he’s very much a long shot at this point. And who the heck is Martin O’Malley?

All that said, when you look at the current actual and potential GOP slate of candidates, the choice is pretty clear. For example, the day after Hillary announced, Marco Rubio jumped into the race and reminded us of the weakness of the forces against her. Sen. Thirsty, apparently not aware of Mrs. Clinton’s “hip” lunch habits, derided Hillary as “the candidate of the past” before promising to roll back everything that’s happened in the last six years.

You may think it somewhat odd to hear a member of the party that idolizes Ronald Reagan and would like to see us return to the “family values” of the 1950s talking about “the politics of the past,” but as I’ve noted before, no one should expect consistency from these people.

The next president may get to appoint as many as four Supreme Court justices. I want someone in that position who’s pro-choice, pro-science, pro-LGBT rights, and pro-health care reform. And you know what? So do the majority of American people. Even on health care reform, when you ask them about the specifics of the Affordable Care Act and don’t call it “Obamacare,” people are overwhelmingly for it.

So voting for Hillary Clinton is going to be like getting old: annoying and occasionally painful, but not so bad when you consider the alternative.

Journalism Goes to the (Starving) Dogs

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

It seems that the speedy decline of the international news media is continuing at its accustomed pace, and may even be accelerating.

The latest example of sensational, shoddy journalism from people who should really know better came in the reporting about the execution of Jang Song Thaek, the uncle and political rival of bat-spit-crazy North Korean dictator Kim Jong-in.

As you probably remember, reports filtered through last month from that secretive country that Jang had been removed from all his party positions, expelled from the party itself, and jailed. In a move straight out of Orwell’s “1984,” his image was Photoshopped out of photos with other leaders and removed from all official media.

Then, on Dec. 13, the North Koreans officially announced that Jang had been executed for, among other things, “politically motivated ambition” and “obstructing the nation’s economic affairs.”

Then things started to get weird.

Since very little actual information makes it out from behind the veil of secrecy the Kim family has maintained around North Korea for years, the news media resorted to their usual technique of reporting rumors, harebrained speculation, and outright deranged fantasy to fill the information gap.

The New York Times reported that two members of Jang’s faction had been executed with heavy caliber anti-aircraft guns. Another story in the British press quoted unidentified “Japanese media” as saying the executions were carried out in such a gruesome fashion on the orders of a “very drunk” Kim.

Then, to cap it all off, American TV networks, including NBC and Fox News, reported that Jang had been executed by being “stripped naked, thrown into a cage, and eaten alive by a pack of ravenous dogs, according to a newspaper with close ties to China’s ruling Communist Party.”

The Singaporean newspaper the Straits Times expanded on the lurid details, saying that “120 hounds, starved for three days, were allowed to prey on [Jang and his compatriots] until they were completely eaten up.”

Am I the only one who read reports like this and went, “Now, wait just a gosh-darned minute here” (or some reasonable facsimile thereof)?

I mean, Baby Kim’s a homicidal loon, no mistake about it, but when I see something that reads like an account from a James Bond movie or one of those unexpurgated versions of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, I tend to get, shall we say, a little skeptical.

As it turns out, we skeptics were right. Reporter James Pearson of Reuters traced the “Jang was eaten by dogs” story all the way back to a Dec. 11 post on a Chinese satirical website called Tencent Weibo. It did not, in fact, come from any intelligence source, insider or actual witness. It was a joke, albeit a particularly odd one.

Perhaps there’s a lot in Chinese humor that gets lost in translation. Perhaps it’s also payback from the time a few years ago when the Chinese press printed a story from The Onion (”Kim Jong-un Named The Onion’s Sexiest Man Alive for 2012”) as truth.

The clue should have been when, as the NBC News website put it, “the story could not be independently confirmed.”

Now, I’m just a simple country lawyer, not a big-time famous print or broadcast journalist, but I seem to remember hearing about a day when, if a journalist couldn’t get independent confirmation of a big story from at least two sources, no editor would run with it.

But that day is not this day. These days, “independent confirmation” has been replaced with, “Well, I read it from someone who read it in another place who may have seen it on Twitter,” and so on, until there are no real sources or confirmation of anything anymore, just a bunch of credulous rubes on their laptops or iPhones, desperate to generate content and blindly repeating what someone else said he read on another website or Twitter feed, maybe adding a little embellishment before passing it on to the next sucker, each echo getting louder until there’s nothing but a full-throated chorus of total balderdash.

It’s journalism reduced to the level of middle school gossip, only louder and stupider, and it reaches its truest heights of absurdity when its original source is a joke repeated as truth by people who didn’t get it.

I’ve often said that the hardest part of writing satire these days is staying ahead of reality. It gets even harder when satire is breathlessly reported as reality by sensation-hungry media hucksters for whom some stories are, as the saying goes, “too good to fact-check.”

I suppose that’s also meant as a joke, but the end results are more grotesque than funny.

Quote of the Day, or Terrenoire FTW

This morning, I heard someone on the radio claiming that a proposed state Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage (which, it should be noted, is already banned by state law)  is "the most important issue facing North Carolina right now." 

Seriously. Someone from a state in the throes of a massive budget crisis, still rebuilding from hurricane Irene's damage, with a 10.1 percent jobless rate, had the infernal gall to say that. With a straight face.

 Which prompted this rejoinder from my good friend David Terrenoire on Facebook:

"I don't know about Carthage, but here in Durham I woke up to a fulfilling, full time job, my wife's health costs are completely covered, the education system is so good that our dogs speak English and Spanish, the cat does calculus and we have a unicorn shitting skittles in the front yard. So yes, let's go after gay marriage because everything else is 100% A-OK."

Terrenoire shoots, HE SCORES!

NRO Columnist Takes Issue With the President's Reading Choices, Makes Self Look Like Complete Idiot

National Review Online apparently needed to fill some column space and was running out of things to complain about in regard to Barack Obama. So they applied a scraper to the bottom of the barrel and came up with some dripping clump of ooze by the name of Tevi Troy, who's got his right wing panties in a bunch over--get this-- the books the President brought with him on vacation.

First, five of the six are novels, and the near-absence of nonfiction sends the wrong message for any president, because it sets him up for the charge that he is out of touch with reality.

And:

Beyond the issue of fiction vs. nonfiction, there is also the question of genre. The Bayou Trilogy [by Daniel Woodrell of Winter's Bone fame]  has received excellent reviews, but it is a mystery series. While there is nothing wrong with that per se, not every presidential reading selection is worth revealing to the public....Room is another well-received novel, but it is about a mother and child trapped in an 11-by-11-foot room. This claustrophobic adventure does not strike me as the right choice for someone trying to escape the perception that he is trapped in a White House bubble....

This year’s list suggests that Obama needs to consider the messages sent by his reading more carefully. According to Mickey Kaus, the Obama list is “heavy on the wrenching stories of immigrant experiences, something the President already knows quite a bit about.” For this reason, Kaus feels that the list reveals an intellectually incurious president. Either that, or it is “a bit of politicized PR BS designed to help the President out.” In that case, he notes, “it’s sending the wrong message.” Either way, the annual book list should be a relatively easy way to make the president appear to be on top of things and in control. This year’s list, alas, reveals a president who appears to be neither.

Words fail me.

Oh, wait, no they don't.

Are you KIDDING ME?  Is there literally nothing these people  will not bitch about? JFK read James Bond novels and helped launch Ian Fleming from a writer with  middling sales to an icon. St Ronnie Reagan read The Hunt for Red October and did the same for Tom Clancy. But Barack Obama reads Daniel Woodrell and this somehow shows he's not "on top of things or in control?"

Maybe somebody should remind this  "Tevi Troy" person that the founder of the print version of National Review, William F. Buckley, also wrote genre fiction, namely eleven spy novels. Pretty good ones, too, at least judging from the couple I've read. But then, this so-called "senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a former senior White House aide" probably never actually read Buckley, a true conservative whose shoes the current Klown Kollege at the NRO is not worthy to shine. Buckley's  probably spinning like a dynamo in his grave with the way these morons have defiled the name of conservatism. It used to be a political philosophy;  now it's nothing more than a reflex, an immediate rush to yell "foul" about anything the Democratic President does, no matter how trivial. The people at the NRO specialize in this sort of smallness, silliness and pettiness, and they make the entire movement look even more  ridiculous than Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin combined could do, and brother, that is saying something.

Grover Norquist: Secret Muslim Agent?

Anti-Muslim wingnuts, ever vigilant for the looming threat that is "sharia law", and keeping a sharp lookout for those Sekrit Mooslims infiltrating our society to pollute our precious bodily fluids, are now turning on each other:

WASHINGTON – Another headache has emerged for the largest annual gathering of conservatives slated for next month.

With the Conservative Political Action Conferenceunder fire for allowing participation by a homosexual activist group called GOProud and for a financial scandal in which some $400,000 was misappropriated under the watch of current leadership, Frank Gaffney, a leader of the conservative movement for the last 30 years, charges that CPAC has come under the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is working to bring America under Saudi-style Shariah law.

Gaffney, deputy assistant secretary of defense under Ronald Reagan...told WND that Islamism has infiltrated the American Conservative Union, the host of CPAC, in the person of Washington attorney and political activist Suhail Khan and a group called Muslims for America.

Wait, it gets better:

Gaffney also accuses another ACU board member, leading conservative political organizer Grover Norquist, of helping the Muslim Brotherhood spread its influence in the nation's capital.

Yes, you read that right. Grover Norquist, one of the Uber-wingnuts. the man who, very recently, was vetting potential RNC chairmen by asking them how many guns they own, is a Muslim Agent.

You cannot make this stuff up. It's like Roy Cohn suddenly accusing Joe McCarthy of being a Commie.

Sexy Referee?

Latest Newspaper Column:

Back when I was growing up, Halloween was pretty much a holiday just for kids. At least that’s the way it seemed to me, but then again, I was generally oblivious to the ways of adults.

In the past few years, though, Halloween has become an “all ages” holiday. Adults aren’t going house-to-house demanding sweets, but they are dressing up in various garb to go out on the town and celebrate. Which is perfectly cool with me. I’ve always been a big believer in the old saying “You’re never too old to have a happy childhood.”

The other day, though, I read something that gave me pause. It seems that a fellow in Oklahoma had a few beers too many and got himself busted shoplifting a Halloween costume at a local shop.

According to the website The Smoking Gun, the costume that 27-year-old Michael Dixon was trying to lift was — are you ready for this? A “Sexy Referee” outfit, consisting of a black-and-white striped halter dress, knee socks and a whistle. The story did not say if Dixon planned to wear the outfit himself or whether he was stealing it for a female acquaintance. Perhaps it’s better just not to ask. Or even to think too much about it.

One of the odd things about what this whole odd little holiday has become is the proliferation of costumes that the makers feel the need to hype as “Sexy.” I looked through some of the costume offerings online (purely for research purposes, of course). I can see the point of “Sexy Harem Girl,” “Sexy French Maid” and the like. Having met a few very nice looking ladies of the Wiccan persuasion, I can even sort of see “Sexy Witch,” although I suspect some actual Wiccans may look at an outfit like that in much the same way an African-American would regard someone in blackface.

But “Sexy Referee”? Most people I know, when they think about the refs at all, are screaming at them for blown calls, not fantasizing about them in a carnal fashion. Unless this is some fetish that even I haven’t heard about, and if so, let’s please keep it that way.

Look, I like to think of myself as a fairly open-minded guy. But I can’t help but wonder about one of the stranger costumes I’ve seen: “Sexy Spongebob.” Ladies, please educate me: What am I missing here? If a guy is hitting on you while you’re wearing the visage of a whimsical, childlike cartoon character who happens to be (1) male, and (2) a sponge, what does that say to you about him?

Likewise, there are the “Candy Striper” costumes. I confess, I’ve never totally gotten the whole “Sexy Nurse” thing. To be sure, a lot of real-life nurses are darned attractive, and some are smoking-hot, but when you actually get into the situation where you see them in an actual uniform in real life, lovin’ is probably the last thing on your mind.

Mostly what you’re thinking of is not dying, or at least not leaving important organs or body parts on the floor of the ER. Still, I understand, it’s a fantasy some guys have for some reason, so I guess the plethora of “Sexy Nurse” costumes is understandable.

But Candy Striper costumes? Really? Aren’t Candy Stripers supposed to be, like, teenage girls? I realize I’m no expert on women (just ask any woman who knows me), but I’ve got to say, if you’re at a Halloween party dressed like a teenager and some fellow starts chatting you up with a “wow, that costume is really hot,” you may want to reconsider him as a potential soul mate. I’m just sayin’.

Ah, well, it’s Halloween. What are you gonna do? We already have a holiday devoted to giving thanks for what we’ve got, and another dedicated to peace and good will. I suppose I should just relax and let one night go by when people can dress in any outlandish thing they want without me over-analyzing it.

I’d go on, but I hit the page in the catalog with the “Sexy Gorilla” costume, and my brain shut down.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Shocked, SHOCKED, I Tell You!

Disney May Cut Keith Richards from 'Pirates 4' Because of Past Drug Use

Although Disney was able to look past Keith Richards' drug face long enough to invite him back to the 'Pirates' franchise for 'Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,' a new book penned by The Rolling Stones guitarist could prove to be too much for the family-friendly empire.

Richards' new autobiography, 'Life,' presents the musician's "trademark disarming honesty ... [bringing] ... us the story of a life we have all longed to know more of, unfettered, fearless, and true." In other words, he explains how the hell he survived taking all those drugs. If you're like most people, you probably just assumed his body was being preserved by the mass amounts of chemicals he ingested. Richards, however, explains that the secret was quality over quantity: "It's not only the high quality of drugs I had that I attribute my survival to. I was very meticulous about how much I took. I'd never put more in to get a little higher."

Drudge Report tells us that an entertainment insider has suggested "they very well could end up cutting Keith out of the new movie over this."

So Disney's just now figuring out that Keith Richards has done drugs? I thought these people were supposed to be smart.