Mercury World Report

Priest complains of low sex abuse drive

BOSTON--Catholic priest Father Christopher Malley, finally working up his nerve, complained to his doctor of having a low sex abuse drive lately.

"You know me, doc, I'm barely 55, I eat right and exercise regularly," he told Dr. Phil Heninger. "But recently--this is so embarrassing--I just don't seem to want to...perform. It's like my sex abuse drive has walked out on me.

"Geez, I used to have sex abuse on my mind all the time," Malley said. "Sex, sex, sex abuse. It used to be that I couldn't look even look at one of those fresh young altar boys--that gawkish, sexy abuse way they'd carry the host and chalice back after communion--without thinking about sex abuse, but now...it's just not there. And then, the more self-conscious I am about it, the more my desire for sex abuse declines."

Dr. Heninger prescribed Internet child porn and a six-pack of Schlitz.

Carbs outlawed

WASHINGTON--In a key victory for the forces of protein, carbohydrates were outlawed Thursday in a unanimous Senate vote that brought the nation's two political parties to brief accord.

The source of nutritional energy--considered in popular diets such as Atkins to be the main culprit in weight gain--was banned from all U.S. food after a stirring speech by the bill's author, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.

"Today is a victory not only for dieters, but for all Americans who feel victimized in their own homes, grocery stores and neighborhood restaurants by this dietary scourge," she said in response to the vote. "We're long overdue in standing up to this menace and saying, 'Get out. Get out of our refrigerators, get out of our fast food drive-throughs, get out of our gastrointestinal tracts.'"

The law's passage will make it illegal to sell, own or consume bread, pasta, cake, grains, cereal and other foods listed on a 1,317-page addendum attached to the bill. President Bush is expected to sign it into law Monday with a commemorative pen made out of a bratwurst with pig's blood for ink.

Euphemisms for cancer officially as scary as cancer

According to a study in this month's Journal of American Medicine, cancer euphemisms meant to soften the blow of the devastating diagnosis have lost their ability to soothe and now scare people every bit as much as the C-word itself.

"Terms like `cluster of cells' or `abnormal growth' were once a doctor's best friend," writes the study's author, Dr. Souma Canilon. "You could tell a patient he had cancer without scaring the ever-loving shit out of him. Sadly, those days are over. Today's better-informed patient is much too savvy to be reassured by such vague and empty terms. These days, just the mention of an `abnormality' will have patients shitting blood before you can even dream of launching into the hopeful `survival rate' speech.

"Same with `troubling lab results' or a `curious shadow on your X-ray.' People hear that and they know they're dying. You might as well just tell them."