This Week in St. Mary's Today

St. Mary's Today is Southern Maryland's News Weekly. The citizens of Southern Maryland face many problems, particularly too much government, too many minorities, and an abundance of vague, misleading headlines, such as my personal favorite:

Man Dead Due To Speed

If you, dear reader, guessed that the aforementioned man throttled his car off a country road and bit the farm, then you may be from Southern Maryland, the blessed land of no rotten teeth nor no doublewides exploding mysteriously in the night.

My second favorite headline is below:

Was this a dastardly plot involving a bank teller distracting her co-workers with a cooing baby, enabling her to rob the bank blind while everyone one took turns burping the toddler and making "ga ga" sounds? Did she walk up to an innocent bystander in the bank, implore him/her to hold her baby, then proceed to rob it? If you entertained either of these scenarios, good sir or madam, then you Are Not From Around Here.

No, clearly what this headline is trying to say is that the Teller was kidnapped at her home with her two children, driven to the bank in the early morning, and forced to rob the bank with her older child while the younger one was held hostage in the getaway car.

Notice, too, that the front page gives no indication whatsoever where more information on this significant event can be found inside the newspaper.

Some of you familiar with the more mainstream work of Cate Blanchett (at her hottest in this movie along with Pushing Tin) will recognize this crime as the plot of the movie Bandits, also starring Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Thorton doing a Peter Gallagher impersonation.

Hopefully the Southern Maryland police are not too scornful of our nation's craven, amoral popular culture, because knowledge of Cate Blanchett's role in the movie should lead to immediate suspicion of the kidnapped woman, who probably arranged the whole thing.

Another awesome feature of this newspaper: Racist cartoons!!