TURKEY CARCASSES ABOUND FOR CELEBRITIES, JOCKS AND POLITICIANS

In honor of the just past holiday -- whereby we gather around the table eating the feast of feasts and spend the rest of the afternoon unloosening our belts and lamenting the fact that John Madden is no longer a part of Turkey Day football -- we now pause to hand out the second-annual Croisdale "Turkey Carcass" Awards.

The criteria for winning a "Turkey Carcass" is simple -- just publicly embarrass oneself with behavior that is either criminal or blatantly outlandish. Winners will be presented with a nearly picked clean Thanksgiving turkey, much like the one that is probably taking up roost in your refrigerator right now.

Hollywood celebrities

• Second runner-up -- Jennifer Lopez. J-Lo announces plans to wed Hollywood hunk Ben Affleck -- her third marriage in the last four years. Rumor has it even Liz Taylor was shocked.
• First runner-up -- Winona Ryder. Diminutive actress caught shoplifting clothing from Saks Fifth Avenue. The $5,500 price tag seems like chump change compared to what Winona makes per picture. Guess her terrible turn in "Mr. Deeds" skewed her sense of right and wrong.
• The Carcass goes to ... Michael Jackson. For the second year in a row, the King of Pop takes home the Carcass. First he had the audacity to claim that he was the victim of racism -- this from a man who is now officially whiter than a snowman in a milk bath. Jacko earned the award, however, when he dangled his baby son -- Prince Michael II -- precariously from the fourth-floor balcony of a German hotel. MJ's turned out to be even creepier than the zombie he played in the "Thriller" video.

World leaders

• Second runner-up -- Aliyu Abubakar Sanyinna, Attorney General of Sokoto State, Nigeria. Speaking to the issue of stoning deaths of women who commit adultery, he said, "It is the law of Allah. We are just complying with the laws of Allah, so we don't have anything to worry about."
• First runner-up -- Osama bin Laden. The cave dweller remains on the lamb but shows the heart of an insane lion on audiotape, where he continues to call for the fall of the United States of America.
• The Carcass goes to ... the Democratic Party. The Dems take politics to a new low by turning the memorial service for the late Sen. Paul Wellstone into a pre-election commercial. They pay for it by getting fleeced at the polls and giving the Republicans the first Troika -- a solidly Republican White House, House of Representatives and Senate -- since 1954. Right now, they truly resemble the party symbol.

Sports figures

• Second runner-up -- Taver Johnson and Jon Wauford, University of Miami (Ohio) assistant football coaches. This dynamic duo set a woeful example for student athletes after last second loss to Marshall University on Nov. 12. Johnson destroys the coaches' box, while Wauford decks a Marshall alum on the post-game field. I think anger management classes are in their immediate future.
• First runner-up -- Miles Dabord. Dabord was suspected of killing his brother, former Detroit Piston basketball star Bison Dele, Dele's girlfriend and another man aboard a boat that Dele had commissioned to sail along the coast of Tahiti. Dabord died Sept. 27 from an apparent insulin overdose and the deaths officially remain unsolved.
• The Carcass goes to ... Chris Harn, Derrick Davis and Glen DaSilva, soon to be felons. The three former college fraternity brothers cooked up a scheme to get rich by past-posting -- illegally betting the races once they were completed -- the pick-six races at the Breeder's Cup in thoroughbred horse racing. The three had already scammed OTB for more than $200,000 when they got greedy and tried to cash in for more than $3 million on the Breeder's Cup sting. Here's a bet for you to try fellas: It says here that you're about to get really adept at playing the game "House," only you won't be the daddy.

Corporations

• Second runner-up -- Carbide Graphite Corporate headquarters pulls the plug on its Niagara Falls plant and puts 200 workers, many of them multi-decade employees, on the unemployment line.
• First runner-up -- Martha Stewart Inc. The down-home girl does a little insider trading on some ImClone stock and may be looking at jail time as a result. The aftermath is that her own company's stock is falling faster than Mr. Carlson's turkeys out of the WKRP traffic chopper and that's not "a good thing."
• The Carcass goes to ... Adelphia Cable. John Rigas and sons use the local cable company as their own personal piggy bank. Federal authorities say the money misappropriated by the Rigas may be near the $1-billion mark. What's worse is that the dirty dealing almost cost Buffalo the Sabres and certainly cost Adelphia subscribers their bonus points for catalog shopping. Satellite dish service is killing cable companies all across America, but the Rigas family did it all by themselves in Western New York.

Local turkeys

• Second runner-up -- Gov. George Pataki. OK, so he's technically not local and he never will be after he pledged $30 million to keep Children's Hospital open and then backed out of the pledge one day after being re-elected.
• First runner-up -- Bridge Commissioner Joel Cicero. Cicero is accused of using his position as an appointed bridge commissioner to try to force developer Joe Aragon to use Local 91 members on a Lewiston Queenston Bridge job site. Cicero just happens to be the husband of Local 91 secretary Cheryl Cicero and the son-in-law of deposed Local 91 leader Michael "Butch" Quarcini. If the charges prove to be true, it only adds to the year of woe experienced by the once-proud local union.
• The carcass goes to ... Niagara Falls Mayor Irene Elia. It was a year to forget for Herrhonor. First, she called a proposed miniature golf course "Disneyesque," then she was accused of illegally blowing past a stopped school bus in her car -- not once but twice. It was her quashing of the proposed city charter revision and cuts to the city's fire and police staffs that really drew the public's ire, however. If she doesn't rebound early in 2003, those bumper stickers just may become prophetic -- it may well be "Goodnight, Irene."

Niagara Falls Reporter

www.niagarafallsreporter.com

December 3 2002