Random Shots: Bad Cop! No Donut!

R.F. Kampfer

FAVORITE CHANT DIRECTED by picketers at the police in Sterling Heights, the suburb of Detroit where the Detroit News and Free Press are printed: “Bad Cop! No Donut!”

And a new chant began when police messed with picketers at a distribution center, the Saturday night after the O.J. Simpson verdict: “Fuhrman! Fuhrman!” At another center, the picketers chanted, “L.A.P.D.! L.A.P.D.!”

Unless they settle the strike by deer-hunting season, the Detroit Newspaper Agency (DNA–joint publisher of the two scab papers) will have to contemplate 300,000 Michiganders driving around with rifles in their cars.

On several occasions the DNA has used helicopters to airlift scab papers out of the printing plants. How can we take out those? First, we capture a flock of Canada geese…

Tactical advice: When your group goes out to do strike support work with baseball bats, one comrade should be assigned to carry a ball and glove–to fool the cops.

Gourmet Cooking

THE JOY OF Cooking <M>advises us that a possum should be fattened up on milk and cereal for ten days before serving it. [Editor’s note: This is actually true; see page 454 of 1964 edition.] Problem is, by that time the kids will have bonded with the creature and won’t let you cook it.

Why do luxury restaurants feature huge pepper mills? Because the wealthy customers kept stealing the normal ones.

In the German Army, it used to be said that it was better to have a friend in the kitchen than a Father in heaven.

Cinematic Snapshots

“Babe” is a rare children’s movie–it won’t put you to sleep–but its politics are highly questionable. The animals’ only choices are a strict hierarchical system (everyone should know their place and keep it), a version of the team concept(we can all get along, for the benefit of the farmer, if we treat each other with respect), and naked opportunism (animals who make themselves useful won’t be eaten).

One’s first thought upon watching the final minute of “The Usual Suspects” is to be amazed by the devious ingenuity of the plot. One’s second thought is to realize that it’s much too complicated to work in real life.

Notes on the News

THE FOLLOWING NOTES may be especially informative to Detroit readers who are currently stuck without newspapers:

* Queen Elizabeth repeated her refusal to allow Prince Charles to attend public functions in the company of his mistress, thereby maintaining the traditional British wall of separation between sexual intercourse and social intercourse.

* We keep hearing on the radio how small investors can make big profits by investing in oil futures, because fuel prices always rise when the weather starts to get cold. One would have thought that professional commodities brokers would have noticed this by now.

* We fully support lifting the arms embargo against Bosnia. It must be recognized, however, that votes taken by Congress in this regard are intended not to help the Bosnians, but to weaken the United Nations.

* Meanwhile, having Croatia as an ally has to be a very mixed blessing.

November/December 1995