The Weekly World News
Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 5:24 am
Since Mad magazine went commercial about ten years ago and newspapers get too political for my taste (Vietnamese papers are extremely politically liberal), my last hope for good, responsible, nonpoliticized journalism has been the WEEKLY WORLD NEWS. I got a subscription to it, sent to my Las Vegas mailing address. In my last parcel of mail from America, I got a message stating that they will be stopping publication "sometime in August." Of course, August is long since past. I went online today and noticed that they will continue as a free online publication.
Are there any other Weekly World News fans out there? I never had the guts to admit this before. I got interested in this last summer when I was working as a combat instructor for the Marines at 29 Palms.
If you don't remember what I was doing, I got a job as an Arabic cultural instructor (dressed and living as an Arab). We usually worked two shifts each month of 80 hours each. I would get there on Sunday. Work started Monday morning at 5:00 and the day was over at Thursday, sometime before noon. While it sounds terrible, it wasn't. We slept normal hours but we were sometimes awakened at 3:00 am by the Marines for their training purposes. We were the last people they saw in America before leaving for Iraq.
Anyway, one Saturday afternoon, when we were getting our "houses" ready for us to move into, someone put a stack of "approved" reading material in a big stack, near the "Sheik's house." By the time I got through the line, it was down to "My Little Pony" comic books and the "Weekly World News." I started looking forward to getting those tabloid papers.
I loved reading about Bat Boy, who is half human and half bat.
Are there any other Weekly World News fans out there? I never had the guts to admit this before. I got interested in this last summer when I was working as a combat instructor for the Marines at 29 Palms.
If you don't remember what I was doing, I got a job as an Arabic cultural instructor (dressed and living as an Arab). We usually worked two shifts each month of 80 hours each. I would get there on Sunday. Work started Monday morning at 5:00 and the day was over at Thursday, sometime before noon. While it sounds terrible, it wasn't. We slept normal hours but we were sometimes awakened at 3:00 am by the Marines for their training purposes. We were the last people they saw in America before leaving for Iraq.
Anyway, one Saturday afternoon, when we were getting our "houses" ready for us to move into, someone put a stack of "approved" reading material in a big stack, near the "Sheik's house." By the time I got through the line, it was down to "My Little Pony" comic books and the "Weekly World News." I started looking forward to getting those tabloid papers.
I loved reading about Bat Boy, who is half human and half bat.
I thumbed through a recent copy of Mad at the library a while ago. I found it almost too painful to read. Mr. Gaines is sorely missed.