A glance back through the year in all of its stupidity

December 29, 2005

By PHIL KLOER Cox News Service

ATLANTA — The year that is now passing was no more stupid than previous years. Humanity manages a pretty consistent level of stupidity, year after year, century after century.

What's changed these days is that the media, and particularly the Internet, can hook us up with greater quantities of stupidity than ever before, so it seems like there is much more stupidity on the loose.

Every item that follows is true.



JANUARY

The Muscatine, Iowa, Wal-Mart fires employee Dean L. Wooten for showing customers a photo of himself in which he appeared to be naked except for a strategically placed Wal-Mart sack. He told people the store was cutting costs, and the bag was the new uniform. Wooten is 65 years old.

Prince Harry of England is photographed dressing up like a Nazi for a party, temporarily diverting British tabloids from in-depth coverage of foreign policy.

Richard Hatch is indicted on charges of income tax evasion. After winning $1 million on the first "Survivor," which was seen by almost every single person in the country, Hatch neglected to report the prize to the Internal Revenue Service.



FEBRUARY

Michael Jackson trial begins. Media react with customary restraint.

The Recording Industry Association of America sues Gertrude Walton for illegal file-sharing of music. Walton's daughter says her mom barely used her computer. And she was 83. When she died. A month before the suit was filed.

Starz cable network promotes Black History Month by showing "Catwoman," starring Halle Berry. Fight the power!

A middle-school girl in Schenectady, N.Y., is told she cannot wear her handmade red, white and blue bead necklace she made to honor her uncle, who is serving in Iraq. Alert school officials say it violates the rule against "gang-related" jewelry.



MARCH

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman tells a fourth-grade class that if he were marooned on a desert island, the one thing he would want to have is a bottle of gin.

A man dressed as a leprechaun — fake black beard, plastic derby, green kilt — robs a laundry in Butte, Mont., the night before St. Patrick's Day. "It is Butte," says the laundry owner, "and Butte gets pretty crazy on St. Patrick's Day."

San Francisco schools ban postgame handshakes between athletic teams because players were getting rough and obscene with opponents. The sport: high school girls soccer.

A woman named Anna Ayala reportedly finds part of a finger in a bowl of chili at a Wendy's in San Jose, Calif. Fortunately, the media are unaware of the case.



APRIL

Campbell Soup Co. recalls 473,500 pounds of SpaghettiOs because the labels didn't say the meatballs contain soy protein, which some people are allergic to. All together now: Uh-oh!

A high school teacher in Oak Forest, Ill., receives a reprimand after he tells his students they will get extra credit if they participate in "Get Naked Day" and come to class naked. He was kidding. (Maybe hoping, too, but kidding.)

Anna Ayala is fingered for having been involved in at least six other lawsuits before the Wendy's thing. Police arrest her on fraud charges.

Jennifer Wilbanks of Duluth, Ga. takes a bus to Albuquerque, N.M., and misses her wedding. It's times like this you wish you could turn to a 24-hour TV news network for some information, or even just a little speculation. Heck, a cutesy nickname would be nice, too. So long as it's used in moderation.



MAY

Bice, Bice, Bo Bice, Banana Fana Fo Fice, Fee Fi Mo Mice. Bo Bice.

Two British "Star Wars" fans suffer serious burns after they try to re-create a light saber duel from "Revenge of the Sith." The two young men, ages 20 and 17, filled fluorescent light tubes with gasoline and dishwashing liquid and lit them. The tubes exploded. Police were able to reconstruct the mishap because the Jedi wannabes videotaped it all.

Anna Ayala's lawyer says she is upset by all the hate mail she is receiving.



JUNE

Jennifer Wilbanks pleads no contest to one count of making a false statement. Media are exhausted from exercising so much restraint, and head to Aruba for a nice, relaxing vacation.

Kevin Trudeau's book "Natural Cures 'They' Don't Want You to Know About" hits best-seller lists and remains there, week after week, even after it's publicized that Trudeau is basically a con man who has done time for felony credit card fraud and been banned by the Federal Trade Commission from doing infomercials. Kevin Trudeau is not the stupid one in this item.

Michael Jackson found not guilty. His Web site compares the event to the release of Nelson Mandela, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the birth of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Web site does not use the phrase "Oh boy!"

Tom Cruise goes insane.



JULY

Tom Rogers, 87, the adman who created Charlie the Tuna, dies at his son's house in Virginia. In the swimming pool.

Former Black Panther Party members, including Huey Newton's widow, apply for a trademark of the phrase "Burn baby burn!" so they can market a hot sauce with that name.

Quote: "Oh, hell to the no!" — Whitney Houston, repeatedly, on ultra classy reality show "Being Bobby Brown."



AUGUST

Robert Novak walks off CNN live debate show in a full snit. Cable TV news learns its lesson, cancels all shows where people just yell at each other without accomplishing anything.

Two Michigan parents sue a Christian summer camp that said a "Bible-centered program is used to develop camper spirituality." The suit says their 11-year-old son was "kicked in the privates," dunked headfirst in a toilet and tied to a tetherball pole. So it was no different from secular summer camp?

Quote: "What bothers me … is the profanity-laced script with blatant sexual situations that mocks the good clean family values of our series." — Ben Jones, "Cooter" in the original "Dukes of Hazzard," attacking the movie remake.

"The Dukes of Hazzard" movie debuts at No. 1 with $31 million at the box office its opening weekend. Way to go, Cooter!



SEPTEMBER

Anna Ayala and her husband plead guilty to attempted grand theft in the Wendy's chili scam. Wendy's pays $100,000 reward to two people who informed the chain of Ayala's past. That's right — they were tip-sters.

Supreme Court agrees to hear the lawsuit between former Playboy model and reality TV star Anna Nicole Smith and the family of her late husband, a Texas multimillionaire she married when she was 26 and he was 89. Yes, the Supreme Court. Media already rehearsing caution and prudence in coverage of the case, to be heard next year.



OCTOBER

Boy George arrested for allegedly having 13 bags of cocaine in his New York apartment. His lawyer says all 13 bags must belong to someone else. "He's a very social person. He has a lot of people over to his apartment."

Quote: People are "going to hell if they don't turn from their wicked behavior." — Madonna

Bob Dougherty claims he was stuck to a glue-coated toilet seat in Home Depot restroom and sues the chain for $3 million.



NOVEMBER

Bob Dougherty is interviewed live by Katie Couric on "Today" about being glued to a Home Depot toilet seat. Shortly after that, the former director of operations for Nederlander, Colo., recalls a case where a person claimed to have gotten stuck to a toilet seat in the town's visitors center in 2004 and threatened to sue. Guess who it was? That's right — Anna Ayala! No, it was Bob Dougherty.

French television says it will remake the U.S. cop series "Starsky & Hutch" using scripts from the '70s show. But because the French are so careful about not importing U.S. pop culture, Starsky will be renamed Madani, Hutch will be renamed Duval, and Huggy Bear will be renamed Cesar.

Texas Municipal Court Judge David Cowell self-publishes a memoir about all the spring break high jinks he's seen on the bench in South Padre Island. When a college student accused of indecent exposure asked what his punishment would be, the judge writes, "I said, 'This is Texas. We don't allow men to go around exposing themselves to young ladies. We have a tree out back, and we're going to hang you.'"



DECEMBER

Memphis police arrest an 18-year-old woman who tried to hire a hit man to kill four men. She had been visiting the men's house and had seen a huge block of pure cocaine, which she planned to steal when the men were dead. An undercover officer pretended to be a hit man and discovered that the cocaine was actually a chunk of white cheese.

Headline of the Year: "Blindfolded Santa Hanging From Noose at Home Upsets Neighborhood." Gee, ya think? The story is about a Miami Beach man who hung a giant inflatable Santa from a noose in his front yard.

Apparently believing there is some sort of national contest under way for Most Jaw-Droppingly Inappropriate Christmas Yard Display, a man in Cranston, R.I., mounts a Paris Hilton Christmas display in his front yard, with huge blown-up photos of the scantily-clad tabloid cover girl decorated with sparkly lights.