Volume CCXXXII, Number 19        March, 2002              Page 2

UTAH MAN PURSUES
A NEW ACQUISITION

By Samuel Insull
Financial Correspondent

    An unemployed Utah entrepreneur has commenced an unfriendly bid to acquire The Commonwealth of Massachusetts. With the closing of his Winter Olympics entertainment theme park, venture capitalist Mitt Romney has formally begun the process of lining up financing to make an offer for the financially-troubled state.

    The state's current CEO, Jane Swift, has been hampered by a revenue shortfall and faces a second year of red ink, although she continues to pay hefty dividends to her investors. Restive Republican shareholders have ousted the hapless CEO and believe that Mitt Romney can squeeze costs out of the bloated state thus increasing their return.

    Although they gave CEO Jane credit for paring fripperies like fixing the teeth of the poor, they question her continued spending on projects that have no return to them, such as schools, and health care for children. "Hell, my kids go to Middlesex. What do I get out of public schools?" grumbled one unhappy GOP'ster. Echoed another: "I have health insurance. If you don't, that's your hard cheese."

    Romney, having made a fortune out of flipping companies and squeezing the workers, appears well-positioned to accomplish the same financial wizardry in the struggling Commonwealth. His advisers are already rumored to be considering spinning off or closing down the University of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Turnpike, the Zakim Bridge and any other entity that doesn't provide high-paying no-show jobs to Teamsters. Already the Mormon Church has offered to purchase the hill now being used by the State House for use as a tasteful 800 foot marble Mormon temple.

    Reaction to the takeover bid back east was mixed. "I really like what he did out in Utah, with all those people dressing up in animal outfits and twirling around on the ice," commented Jimmy Burke, a greenskeeper at Brookline's Country Club. "And he kept that torch lit for two weeks." Other express some misgivings. "How could he let those filthy foreigners win all those medals?" asked Eileen Burke, a Braintree nurse. "I mean those Frenchies tried to take away the skating medal from that nice young couple from Maine or someplace."



gleanings from the book of moron
(as presented to Mitt Romney)

A nd so it came to pass that the sacred land of Utah had been cleansed of its godless heathen who had come hither with their gold, and had left the sacred land, but this time without the gold. And the young leader Mitt looked at the pile of gold and saw that it was good but that most of it wasn't his.

A nd this saddened Mitt and he wailed and gnashed his teeth in lamentation. And the angel Moroni, who had guided Mitt's path to the Papish lands of the East, where men and women bowed down to Rome, and there was but one wife for every man and one husband for every woman, and the black man and the white man broke bread and prayed together (at least once a year) and not all the people worshiped gold all the time, came to Mitt like a divine flame, or perhaps the flame that went out when the NBC cameras went dark.

And the angel Moroni said to Mitt: "I am the angel Moroni who led you to gold in the Papish east." And Mitt said: "And it was good." And the angel Moroni said: "Now you should go back to the Papish East and you should be as a leader among men and show them the error of their Roman ways."

And Mitt said to the angel Moroni, "But what about the evil messenger of Satan Kenedi, for he still rules the land?" And the angel Moroni said that this was so. And then Mitt wailed, "But how shall I lead the sheep of the East into the promised land of four wives for every man?" And the angel Moroni said, "Kenedi is too strong for you. But the race is not always to the Swift." And the angel Moroni chuckled for he had made a funny. But Mitt stood before the angel Moroni in great perplexity and furrowed his handsome brow.

And the angel Moroni knew that Mitt was a stiff. "Go to the Papish lands of the east and slay the great woman Swifti who rules them, and you will be blessed and your unrealized capital gains and partnership interests will grow fat and glossy." And Mitt did as he was told for he was obedient to the angel Moroni and his gold.

HEY BLONDIE, I SAID A SEMI-SKIM LATTE! WHAT ARE YOU, ONE OF THOSE MAN-HATERS? GET YOUR ASS IN GEAR! HEY, DIDN'T YOU USED TO BE TATUM O'NEAL OR SOMETHING?

Almost every day, Jodie Foster visits a Starbucks coffeehouse near her home in Los Angeles. As she orders coffee, she watches the people behind the counter, unable to shake this thought: She wants their job. "I think about that all the time."

–  USA Weekend, March 3, 2002 at 7.