Argus Hamilton 7.14.11

HOLLYWOOD — God bless America, and how’s everybody?
An Arizona Diamond-backs fan fell over a railing lunging for a ball in the Home Run Derby Monday but his pals caught him by his ankles. He dangled upside down 20 feet in the air without spilling a drop of his beer. The next morning Exxon hired him to manage their pipelines.
The Weather Channel charted a boiling heat wave nationwide Monday with 15 states reporting over 105 degrees. Baseball players have been sticking their heads in buckets of ice during games. Ten years after his death, everybody still emulates Ted Williams.
The Major League Baseball All-Star Game was played in Phoenix Tuesday amid fan gripes that too many stars bypassed the event. Forty-two star players didn’t make it to Phoenix for the game. It really wasn’t necessary because Arizona’s immigration law isn’t being enforced yet.
A Mexico tour bus owner was busted in Denver Monday for smuggling 45,000 pounds of marijuana on a bus when it arrived at the Denver bus station. The word spread fast. There was a frenzy for tickets once folks found out that Willie Nelson and his band were in town.
The American Federation of Teachers said Monday the union will defend teachers caught cheating to improve student test scores on standardized tests. It’s robbing our children of their education. How are they ever going to learn to cheat if the teachers keep doing it for them?
The White House and Congress remained gridlocked on a budget deal Tuesday, prompting the president to threaten to cut off government checks. It’s just more evidence of the courage of our space shuttle astronauts. They are coming back to earth Saturday and they have a choice.
President Obama told CBS that government checks may not be sent out in August if the GOP doesn’t yield. They send out 70 million checks a month. The president’s threat to withhold government checks is a never-before-tried maneuver in politics called firing everybody who supports you.
The Rasmussen Poll gave failing grades to both Democrats and Republicans Tuesday for their efforts to solve the fiscal crisis. The door appears open for a third party this year. Americans are happy to join a third party as long as somebody is available to drive them home afterwards.
The House Oversight Committee began investigating the White House on Tuesday for granting donors access to the White House chef. The president really took a chance doing this. No one’s supposed to know the White House chef is actually cooking with frozen peas and Snickers bars.
Betty Ford was saluted by four first ladies in a beautiful funeral at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church in Rancho Mirage, Calif., on Tuesday. Everyone enjoyed it. Episcopal funerals end with the benediction, followed by the procession, followed by a golf tournament with prizes.
Prince William and Kate flew commercial from L.A. back to London Sunday. They got to bypass the TSA checkpoint. Now three TSA guys have to figure out how they’re going to pay for their Escalades without the money they were going to get for selling their body scans to the British tabloids.
London’s News of the World was shut down by News Corp. Sunday over the phone hacking scandal. Six million readers a day enjoyed front-page headlines involving sex and crime, lively editorials, scantily clad women on page three and celebrity gossip on page six. The formula was so successful that the University of Missouri Journalism School now teaches phone hacking.
Argus Hamilton is the host comedian at The Comedy Store in Hollywood and entertains groups and organizations around the country. E-mail him at Argus@ArgusHamilton.com.

Published in The Messenger 7.14.11

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