Mr. Venom

Bicentennial

A Living History

Two hundred years ago today nothing happened. Literally nothing happened. Philadelphia was sweltering: the garbage men were threatening to strike, and had already enforced a slowdown. They knew that a goodly amount of refuse and filth was going to collect in the city for the July 4^th Continental Congress. Flies swarmed over the heaps of trash bags lying in the streets next to the piles of bodies of plague victims.

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“Tan me ‘ide when I’m dead, Fred,

“Tan me ‘ide when I’m dead.

“So we tanned ‘is ‘ide when ‘e died, Clyde,

“An’ that’s it ‘angin’ on the shed.”

—Bela Kun

They’re dropping like flies! A devil of a run of luck! First Paul, then “Smiley” Albino, Pope John Paul. Now another gets ready to float belly up: full name, Pope John Paul George and Ringo...And he’ll undoubtedly croak within a few weeks. And no warranty!

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Better Late Than Never In the spirit of the weather and the season, a few obituaries. Harry Bennet, a chief gangster for Henry Ford, scabherder, thug, assassin, head of the Ford Motor Company’s notorious “Service Department,” drowned in his drool in a California nursing home. Suffice it to say that he won’t be missed around these parts.

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Chants of “Shave my teeth!” and “Blood! Guts! Terror!” were the theme of a militantly irresponsible demonstration called by the recently founded Violent-Illegal Party (V.I.P.) on December 12 at Wayne State University.

The occasion was that tedious but finally terminated attempt to “save Monteith College,” a small college within Wayne which faced elimination due to cutbacks. Through the duration of the pseudo-struggle to keep their little academic turf, the Monteith administration and faculty, and their idealistic dupes among the student body, kissed the asses of innumerable bureaucrats and politicians.

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