WEDNESDAY, 6/8
The US Senate approved the nomination of Charlottean Gretchen Shappert as US Attorney for Charlotte and the Western District of North Carolina. Shappert has been serving as interim US Attorney since 2003, and no doubt is glad to finally have her work endorsed officially. Approval of her nomination had been delayed by Senators who investigated whether Shappert and runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks were separated at birth.
The Keystone Kops live! First, a Pakistani video freak was arrested on suspicion of terrorism a few months ago, then on Wednesday a downtown government building was evacuated and a bomb squad was called when someone found that most dreaded of all objects — a cardboard box! — outside the building's front door!! The box turned out to be completely empty but taxpayers got their money's worth when a police bomb technician destroyed the villainous empty box with a water cannon.
FRIDAY, 6/10
Seventeen-year-old Adaiah Mobley, who had been expelled earlier this year from West Charlotte High, showed up for his former school's graduation exercises at the Coliseum. Flustered by the taunts and laughs of his former classmates, Mobley stripped down to his socks and streaked in front of the stage, then stopped and did the crip-walk. Hey, why not? They didn't have the crip-walk when streaking was popular in the 70s?
SATURDAY, 6/11
The Charlotte Trolley carried its 250,000th passenger. Local cultural leaders reacted by stating, "This proves what we've been saying all along — we have got to have more things to do downtown. People shouldn't be limited to riding back and forth for a couple of miles for no reason."
SUNDAY, 6/12
The Emperor's clothes became more transparent when Republican lawmakers blasted him. Congressman Walter Jones of North Carolina said the US should set a date for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq because the reasons given for attacking the country had been false. Then Sen. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, and Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, both slammed the handling of the Guantanamo Bay prison by, in Graham's words, "the current regime."
MONDAY, 6/13
Michael Jackson was found not guilty on all counts at his child molestation trial in Los Angeles. Afterward, Jackson told a supportive crowd he couldn't wait to "get back to a normal life" as he rode home with his pet chimp Bubbles and resumed his career as a freakish has-been.