A Year on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

In a related story, a California jury finds that actor Robert Blake did not kill his wife. The jury also rules that John Wilkes Booth had nothing to do with the Lincoln assassination and that bears do not poop in the woods. In other celebrity legal news, Martha Stewart is released from prison. The next morning, in a chilling coincidence, all of the witnesses who testified against Stewart wake up and discover, to their utter horror, that their sheets no longer match their pillowcases.

Meanwhile in Washington, the House of Representatives takes time out from jacking up the deficit to look into the baffling mystery of whether professional baseball players suddenly develop gigantic muscles because they use steroids, or what. Former St. Louis Cardinals star Mark McGwire, who holds the major league record for home runs in a single season, arouses suspicions when he repeatedly denies, under oath, that he ever played professional baseball. Slugger Sammy Sosa also heatedly denies allegations of steroid use, emphasizing his point by pounding the witness table into tiny splinters.

There are no questions.

But the major issue facing our elected leaders in March clearly is not whether a bunch of overpaid athletes cheated. No, at a time when the nation is beset by serious problems in so many critical areas -- including Iraq, terrorism, the economy, energy, education and health care -- the issue that obsesses our elected leaders, to the point of paralyzing government at the federal, state and local levels for weeks, is: Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. This, unfortunately, is not a joke.

In entertainment news, controversial anchorman Dan Rather retires from CBS News with a poignant farewell speech, cut short when Dan is felled by a tranquilizer dart fired by his producer.

Speaking of people who read from teleprompters, in . . .

APRIL

. . . President Bush, in a decisive response to sharply rising gasoline prices, delivers a major speech proposing that Americans switch to nuclear-powered cars. In a strongly worded rebuttal, angry congressional Democrats state that, because of a scheduling mixup, they missed the president's speech, but whatever he said, they totally disagree with it, and if they once voted in favor of it, they did so only because the president lied to them.

In other Washington news, the Senate approves the appointment of John Negroponte to become the nation's first intelligence czar. His immediate task is to locate his office, which, according to a dossier compiled by the CIA, FBI, NSA and military intelligence, is, quote, "probably somewhere in the United States or Belgium."

On the economic front, financially troubled Delta Air Lines switches to pay toilets on domestic flights.

In Rome, the College of Cardinals gathers following the death of beloved Pope John Paul II. As the world waits breathlessly, the cardinals, after two days of secret deliberations, order white smoke to be sent up the Sistine Chapel chimney, signaling that they have made their decision: Robert Blake is definitely guilty.

In sports, Tiger Woods claims his fourth Masters title with a dramatic playoff win over a surprisingly dogged Lance Armstrong.