Here's a few articles I clipped out of the papers that "tickled my funny bone," or made me frown. I thought, that like me, you might welcome a brief respite from reading about the war, our sick economy and all the other troubles that beset the world. My only regret is, however, that our troops in Iraq can't do likewise, for war doesn't afford them the luxury of being able to block the war out of their minds, even for a moment.

• Who says women are the weaker sex? You'd never sell that to one man in Ohio, who probably believes his 5 foot, 110 pound wife is Super Woman, after she lifted the family van which had fallen on him while he was working underneath it. Her adrenaline must've been flowing like a broken, city water main to perform such a herculean feat. Or maybe she just needed the van to pick up the kids at the soccer match.
• Man still driving after 296 suspensions. That Long Island man, who was found to have that many suspensions on his driving record when stopped by police for failing to obey a stop sign, has gotta be living a charmed life, or else he has a friend or relative in City Hall or in the state Department of Motor Vehicles. And believe it or not, his number of suspensions still won't get him into the Guinness Book of Records as the all-time leading scofflaw, for in 1994 the New York City police stopped a Bronx man who had 633 of 'em.
• 1,500 surgeries a year leave items behind. A study showed that surgical teams accidentally leave clamps, sponges and other tools inside of that many patients nationwide each year. But experts claim that number of such mistakes is minuscule compared with the 28 million operations a year in the United States. That's easy for them to say, for they don't have to put up with chronic gas pains and belching all the time due to some foreign object lodged in their stomach or intestine, and having to wonder if they'll make it through the metal detector at the airport. And I don't buy the argument that such boo-boos by surgeons result mainly from fatigue and stress. If the truth be known, many of them are preoccupied worrying about their increasing liability insurance, or flirting with the nurses.
• Pity the poor billionaires. My heart goes out to those listed in Forbes magazine as the 400 wealthiest Americans, who took a beating in 2002 due to the economy's continuing problems, with stocks shedding $2.8 trillion in value. But the biggest, single loser was Microsoft's Bill Gates, who despite having lost $11 billion, is still the richest guy around. And to his credit, he still retains the top spot among the super rich in individual donations, giving $2 billion last year to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. By the way, I was delighted to see that Oprah became the first black woman to make Forbes billionaire list. (Talk about a "rags to riches" story.) And I was even more pleased to read that Martha Stewart's cookies crumbled when she got bumped off that list, after her company's stock tumbled in the wake of her legal problems, which cost her $400 million. And she's quoted as saying, that "she's puzzled by the delight the public shows in her troubles." (Give me a call Martha and I'll tell you why, but don't call collect.)
• Local couple can keep pack of alpacas. The amount of manure those nine, pet alpacas generate is, according to the state's equivalency standards, equals the droppings of one horse. That was the guideline the county's zoning officials used in deciding that Sykesville couple was in compliance with the county's land-use code. In fact, they could have six more of those woolly, sweet-looking creatures (which would equal two horses) and still be in compliance. While I haven't completed my math yet, the preliminary findings indicate that I could, for example, have anywhere from 50 to 60 Democratic donkeys on my property, which would roughly equate to the manure output of one Republican elephant. That's one area they've always led the democrats in.