A Year on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

In other hopeful news, President Bush, seeking to patch up the troubled relationship between the United States and its European allies, embarks on a four-nation tour. When critics note that two of the nations are not actually located in Europe, the White House responds that the president was "acting on the best intelligence available at the time."

On the domestic front, the president proposes, in his State of the Union speech, a plan to privatize Social Security so that it will be, quote, "more privatized." In response, the Democratic leadership pledges to churn out irate press releases for a while, then totally lose interest.

Within hours Washington is back to normal as both sides resume the tedious but important bipartisan work of jacking up the federal deficit.

In sports, the Super Bowl is held for the first time in Jacksonville. Defying critics who mocked it as a backwater hick town, Jacksonville manages to host a fine event, marred only by the 143 spectators killed or wounded during the halftime raccoon shoot.

On the social front, Prince Charles formally gets engaged to Camilla Parker Bowles. The British public responds with sincere and heartfelt wishes that the happy couple will not reproduce.

In New York's Central Park, the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude create "The Gates" -- a 23-mile-long work consisting of 7,503 fabric-draped metal structures. Within 20 minutes, every single one of these structures has been urinated on by a dog.

A study by researchers at the University of Utah proves what many people have long suspected: Everybody talking on a cell phone, except you, is a moron.

Meanwhile, as the nationwide identity-theft epidemic worsens, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III pledges that he will make it the top priority of the bureau to find, and prosecute, the individuals charging stuff to his American Express card.

Speaking of financial hanky-panky, in . . .

MARCH

. . . a federal jury convicts former WorldCom executive Bernie Ebbers in connection with an $11 billion fraud that led to the bankruptcy of the telecom giant. Upon Ebbers's arrival at the federal prison, nearly $7 billion is recovered during what shaken guards later describe as "the cavity search from Hell."

In economic news, financially troubled Delta Air Lines announces that it will no longer offer pillows on its flights, because passengers keep eating them. But the economy gets a boost when the jobless rate plummets, as hundreds of thousands of unemployed cable TV legal experts are hired to comment on the trial of Michael Jackson. Jackson is charged with 10 counts of being a space-alien freakadelic weirdo. Everybody agrees this will be very difficult to prove in California.