American Chimpanzee

Our heads may have bumped, but I still have to give credit where credit is due.      I found newspaper reporter Marty Schladen's article in the El Paso Times about the first domino to fall in El Paso's continuing public-corruption scandal to be a fascinating and scintillating piece of investigative journalism, and I'm not just saying that to avoid a potential lawsuit.      I reference the head bump, because the last time I heard from Marty Schladen was when he angrily chastised me for making fun of the alleged Batman Theater mass-murderer's lack of penis size. (See A Pathetic Little Nobody [Parts One, Two, and Three] , posted back on 7-28-12. Don't read it if you have delicate sensibilities, no sense of humor, or think Hitler was misunderstood.) I guess he felt I was supposed to be sensitive to someone who cold-bloodedly shot and murdered innocent men, women, and children. The dead ARE dead, after all. The wounded, ...

Hard Core Advice From Hard Core's Hardest Core... John Leslie Dear John,      My brother just got engaged. He and his girlfriend have two kids. Usually, this is a happy time for families, but eight months ago, my brother's fiancee cheated on him.      At that time, my brother decided to keep his family together and work things out, which I greatly admire, but I just found out that his fiancee is still talking, emailing, and texting the guy she cheated with. My brother still wants the wedding to go on, and wants the rest of us to mind our own business.      I really think this is a bad decision for my brother. I worry his girlfriend will continue to cheat and hurt him over and over again. Do I say something, or keep my mouth shut?      Hurting Dear Hurting,      There is an old saying in our industry: If you keep your mouth shut... you won't make a...

Everybody knows the story of Jesus Christ, and how Pontius Pilate, the praefectus of Judea, gave his Jewish subjects the choice between freeing Him or His fellow death-row inmate, Barabbas, in a prevailing Passover custom that allowed Pilate to commute the death sentence of one prisoner. The praefectus did this by popular acclaim, and, as a result, the Jews chose Barabbas. But what people don't know is why the Jews chose Barabbas over Jesus.      One theory, which most Bible scholars dismiss, is that, since Barabbas' first name was also Jesus, Pontius Pilate got confused over whose name the Jews were calling out.      "My Jewish subjects, I present to you Jesus of Nazareth and Jesus Barabbas! Whom shall I free?" Pilate yelled at the crowd, and, looking down, noticed his hands were dirty. Man , he thought to himself, first chance I get, I've got to wash my hands.      "Jesus!" the crowd yelled back. "We want Jesus...

Newspaper reporter Cindy Ramirez wrote a very informative and entertaining article in this past Monday's edition of the El Paso Times (3-18-13). It came out on the front page, so it must have been important, because, as we all know, the front page is where only the most important information is located, like the price of the paper.      The first line of her article, "The parking wars are about to begin," gave the whole reading experience such a sense of urgency that I almost read the entire thing. I got to the third paragraph, which explained how after the Triple-A minor league baseball stadium is built, and Downtown El Paso develops as a result, and other businesses begin to open up in the area, and maybe we'll see a higher quality of prostitutes, that parking will become "more of a commodity."      That's pretty much as far as I got. Not because the article wasn't very good--it was--it's just that I was anxi...

Chapter One     Was Jesus married?     Chapter Two     No.     The End         I was surprised to see the name of an old flame of mine, Karen L. King, in a newspaper article by Nicole Winfield of the Associated Press. I was  surprised to discover that Ms. King is now a professor of early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School, and that she claims a Coptic papyrus fragment, that was supposedly recently discovered and translated, apparently says, "Jesus said to them, 'My wife..."      I knew Ms. King back in our college days, where she was captain of the university's cheerleading squad and I was busy playing the field. She was voted Miss Congeniality by the football team, and didn't mind being referred to as 'miss' back then.      This is "the first known statement that explicitly claims that Jesus had [a] wife," she was quoted as saying...

"Mayor Cook, what are YOU doing here?"      I was walking into the bathroom at El Paso's soon-to-be-no-more City Hall when I bumped into him. I was there to pay my Excessive Oxygen Use fee. He was dressed in gray coveralls and busy cleaning the mirror over the sink with some paper towels. He held a plastic spray bottle with a clear blue liquid in his hand.      "I work here," he answered, and then vigorously went to work cleaning the sink using the same supplies. "Got to get this place all spiffied up for the demolition."      He was talking about the upcoming demolition of our perfectly good City Hall, and I guess he was cleaning up the way my wife cleans our house before the maid comes.      I couldn't argue with what he said (Well, I could , but what would be the point?), so I took the opportunity to ask him instead about the hike in city fees that are being consider...

Well, as everybody knows by now, the conclave of Catholic cardinals have elected their new Pope. Pope Francis the First is the first Jesuit Pope and the first Pope in over a thousand years to have not been from a European country.      When I broke the news to President Obama, he was quick to jump to the wrong conclusion.      "I'm truly honored," he humbly told me, "but nobody deserves it more than I do. I deserve it the way I deserved my Nobel Peace Prize and Time Magazine's Man of the Year award."      It broke my heart to tell the man who once saved my life in 'Nam that it was an Italian--an Italian by way of Latin America, that is--who was actually elected to the highest office in the Catholic Church. The President was quick to shrug it off. I know he was disappointed, but life goes on. He had Republicans to ignore, after all.      Personally, I think the Pres...