The Lexicographer's Rules

"What I really hope happened is that at the moment of contact, the moment when Elton's mouth was right up by Eminem's ear, Elton whispered, 'Tag, sister! You've touched me. Now you've got the gay. Pass it on.'"

—Arizona Republic. Laurie Notaro makes a few wisecracks on the Grammy Awards. "Who let Steely Dan out of Bad Music Prison! I thought they had life sentences, forced to listen to an endless loop of 'Rikki Don't Lose That Number' and 'Hey Nineteen' until they clawed their own ears off. When did they make another album? Had I known it was even a possibility, I would have started a petition against it."'

"The facts are that their 'CD sales' are up this year, even over last year's stunning performance. The RIAA increased the average price of a full-length CD from $13.65 to $14.02, and still managed to sell 3,600,000 more of them."

—Slashdot. A particularly blatant batch of public relations lies were spit out by the Recording Industry Association of America today in which they claim compact discs sales are down because of Napster when, in fact, compact disc album sales are up.'

"There are doctors I know who you go see once a year, pay $3,000 for a checkup, and then you're basically on their roster. After that, you can get whatever you want, whenever you want it. They even give you an emergency number for after hours. These are guys who have affiliations with major hospitals. Your doctor becomes your dealer, and if you have really good insurance, it's free."

—New York Post. Abuse of prescription drugs like Vicodin, Percodan, Percocet, Xanax, Ativan and Valium rose 181 percent in the eight years ending August 1998, a year in which 1.6 million people used prescription-pain relievers nonmedically for the first time.'

"I scream because... it's so exciting to see someone up close. It's like, they're there and that's them."

—Seattle Times. Shelby Albrecht, 15, explains her behavior at a Backstreet Boys concert. "It's just the rush of the show, it's really, it's so exciting. It's kind of like a roller coaster. You go up and you wait for it and wait for it and you're finally here, and it's awesome."'

"Taken with [witness] 87 to apartment in the Brena Block... Raped by Kostic on the first day. Detained for one to two months. Raped by Kostic whenever he wanted. Ordered by Kovac to strip and dance with 87... Sold with 87 and taken away by two Montenegrins, one named Misko. Taken to Niksic to work in cafe and was raped... Taken to Titograd and raped... "

—The Age. Testimony from the war crimes trial of Serb soldiers Dragoljub Kunarac, Radomir Kovac and Zoran Vukovic. Each was found guilty of charges relating to the enslavement and rape of Muslim women and girls. Each man will be jailed between 12 and 28 years. The court judgement is here.'