It is hoped that the new dumpsters will provide a convenient, germ-free baby-dumping option for low-income single mothers, enabling them to abandon their unwanted infants in a tidier, more health-conscious manner than before.

The new, clearly labeled dumpsters are also expected to make it significantly easier for city workers to collect and sort the estimated 25,000 babies placed in New York-area trash receptacles each year.

“By providing these mothers with a safe, convenient receptacle for unwanted babies, instead of requiring them to deposit them along with garbage of other types, New York is saying, ’Yes, we care,’ Giuliani told reporters at a City Hall press conference.

While the infant-dedicated dumpsters will cost an estimated $220 million to install and maintain, Giuliani is confident they will more than make up for their cost in the long run. “Babies deposited in the new dumpsters will be collected, tagged and redistributed in a far more organized manner than those left in traditional multi-use dumpsters or garbage cans,” Giuliani said. “This will greatly reduce the strain on our city’s already sorely overtaxed human-services and child-welfare departments, saving millions over the long haul.”

The new devices will also make it easier for city sanitation workers to separate recyclable metals, paper and plastics from non-recyclables, a task that, until now, was needlessly complicated by the presence of human children among the materials to be reclaimed.

Among the new dumpsters’ many impressive features, according to the mayor: a unique soundproof design which minimizes the high-volume, panicked wails of infants crying out in desperation for their parents’ return, and a patented, easy-to-clean design that requires only periodic hosings to flush out accumulated waste.

“These dumpsters’ revolutionary ’E-Z Kleen’ design will greatly reduce the amount of time abandoned infants will have to lie helpless in their own urine, vomit and fecal matter,” Giuliani said. “It will also reduce the risk of cockroach infestation in the open wounds the newborns will likely develop, as well as the risk of injuries caused by maggot bites and rat attacks.”

Mayoral aide Edwin Steep was equally enthusiastic. “With these new receptacles, a projected 17 percent fewer abandoned babies will be blinded by rats, which tend to attack the soft, vulnerable eye sockets of human infants first,” he said.

Furthermore, Steep said, a large, bright-pink smiley-face decal affixed to the inside lower lid of the dumpsters will help reduce the intense and potentially psyche-shattering abandonment trauma experienced by pre-verbal human infants whose parents leave them to die.

“Regular dumpsters are not equipped with this added smiley-face feature,” Steep said.

According to Giuliani, the elimination of infants from regular city dumpsters will have an added bonus, creating more dumpster-based, no-cost housing for the city’s estimated 400,000 homeless residents, many of whom rely on the heat produced by decomposing organic waste for shelter and survival during New York’s often brutal winters.

“By clearing dumpster space of babies, we are opening up vast new living spaces for the urban poor,” Giuliani said. “And that’s something we can all feel good about.”

The post New York To Install Special 'Infants Only' Dumpsters appeared first on The Onion.

Banned by Margaret Thatcher in 1982 for being “too cheeky” for public consumption, the controversial tapes allegedly contain over 150 hours of footage of well-known British public figure Alfred Hawthorne “Benny” Hill engaged in a variety of “compromising” situations, including bawdy musical numbers, saucy wordplay, and broad physical slapstick, much of it of a sexual nature.

Hill, formally denounced by Thatcher and Parliament in 1983, died in 1992 when a pair of oversized inflatable novelty bloomers he was wearing exploded upon contact with a haystack.

“Only by being open and honest about our nation’s past mistakes can we ensure that they do not repeat themselves in the future,” Blair, the first Labor Party member to head Britain after years of Conservative rule, told reporters at a 10 Downing Street press conference. “Releasing these tapes is the first step on the road toward a collective national healing, toward a glorious day when the honking, staccato melody of Boots Randolph’s ’Yakety Sax’ no longer haunts the collective memory of our nation.”

Among the “violations of decency and good taste” captured on the now-declassified tapes: repeated use of oversized artificial prop breasts (see photo); reckless overuse of the “Mahna-Mahna” song; high-speed dubbing of dialogue to create a “quacking” effect; and, most seriously, the willful alteration of nearly two dozen publicly posted signs, including the changing of one reading “Georgie’s Tarts and Crumpets” to read “Orgies, Tarts and Strumpets.”

“The kind of vandalism in which Hill regularly partakes on these tapes is positively unconscionable,” said Sir Fentwick Creighton-Thorpe of the London Commission of Registries.

Particularly disgraceful, Creighton-Thorpe said, is a segment in which a sign reading “Therapist” is manipulated to read “The rapist.” “Such misrepresentation,” he said, “could severely damage the proprietor of the sign’s reputation as a provider of counseling.”

Another highly controversial aspect of the tapes is the frequent appearance of the “Hill’s Angels,” a chorus line of scantily clad dancers whose alleged gyrations sparked a 1994 U.N. petition for full disclosure of the tapes.

The dancers—whose propensity for provocative leg splits and slow, lascivious writhing near poles and ladders can be seen throughout the tapes—have long been regarded by British leaders as “a potentially devastating source of international embarrassment.”

“The so-called ’Hill’s Angels’ parts of the tapes, inasmuch as the models position themselves in reproductively suggestive poses and make flagrant and suggestive eye contact with the camera, appear, in all likelihood, to have been deliberately edited into the footage with clear and demonstrable gratuitous intent,” said Archibald Binway of the London Protocol Office. “Such open acknowledgement of the female anatomy by a British national is an unthinkable breach of the public trust.”

The tapes’ release sparked celebration among the many activists who have fought to have them exposed.

“At last, the truth about Hill is revealed before the entire world,” said Sean Wright, whose near-fatal 1987 hunger strike as one of the infamous “Benny 11” helped raise international awareness of the cover-up.

“That bastard slapped me granddad upwards of 1,500 times back in the ’70s. And why? Because his short stature made him an easy target? Because his bald, shiny head, God bless it, made a humorous thwacking sound when smacked with an open palm?”

Wright’s grandfather, veteran stage performer Jackie Wright, has become an enduring symbol of Hill’s legacy of abuse toward the elderly.

But even as the facts of Hill’s abuses come to light, there remain some who maintain that Hill was a victim of circumstance. Sympathizer Edwin Fripp, 42, of Leeds, contends that Hill’s scandalous behavior was, in many cases, unintended.

“When Mr. Hill grabbed women’s chests, it would usually be as the result of an accident: Often, he’d do so unaware of the fact that a mannequin he’d been undressing had been switched with a real woman while his back was turned,” Fripp said. “And that time he was caught entering a women’s changing room at the beach, he did not do so out of a desire to see women naked. No, it was also an accident, as the letters ’w’ and ’o’ on a sign labeled ’Women’ were covered with a towel.”

“In each of these cases, Mr. Hill received vicious, angry slaps from outraged women, even though he did not deserve their attacks, having committed no intentional wrongdoing,” Fripp said. “Must we continue to heap blame upon the memory of a man who has already been punished enough?”

Such apologist voices, however, are clearly in the minority.

“In perhaps the most controversial portion of the tapes, the so-called ’chase’ scene, there is little doubt that Hill is acting with premeditated malicious intent,” said Kyle Dunkirk, one of the leaders in the legal battle for the tapes’ release. “Lasciviously chasing a trio of nurses across a tree-lined field, Hill steps up his pursuit as the women become entangled in branches, causing them to lose progressively more and more layers of outerwear until they are clad only in brassieres, stockings, garters, and knickers. As the chase goes on, more and more people join in, including a man with one foot stuck in a bucket, a policeman covered in cake, and, eventually, even the outraged wives of the male pursuants. All the while, Hill remains relentless in his amorous pursuit, oblivious to the protests of all parties.”

“These tapes add insult to injury,” Dunkirk said, “as fast-motion photography lends a jerky, inhuman quality to the chase participants’ motions as they proceed single-file into the sunset.”

Whatever the societal ramifications of the scandalous footage’s release, one thing is clear: The haunting image of those fast-motion runners will remain etched in the conscience of Britain, and the world, for a long time to come.

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Every tendril of my body is dead-set against such a practice. But since I am given no choice, I must relent. I had my man-servant Standish sift through dozens of bound volumes of past Onion issues for a worthy re-run. The following column, which represents the culmination of that search, was recently published in 1932:

I hear that our great Republic is in the throes of what is being called the Great Depression. Evidently, there is great unemployment and hard times for many because of a Wall Street stock crash of several years ago. I myself have not experienced any financial troubles: I’m still as fat as a Christmas goose, because I keep all my money wrapped in an old union-suit inside a secret cubby-hole behind a false panel in my armoire.

I am sure a lot of you need some cheering up, lowly and destitute as you now are. Many of you already waste your time at the picture-house watching the anthropomorphic movable drawings anyway. As luck would have it, I recently came across an old volume of humorous jokes, stories and pictures in my study, and I spent the better part of an evening sipping brandy and chortling over this light-hearted tome. I will share one of the witty exchanges with you.

Wife: What is that you are taking?

Husband: Quinine and whiskey for my cold.

Wife: Do you take the whiskey to hide the quinine?

Husband: Yes, that’s just it.

Wife: But you always say you dislike the taste of whiskey.

Husband: So I do. I take the quinine to disguise the taste of the whiskey—don’t you see?

Is that not the most side-splitting thing you have ever read? I would also include an absolutely hysterical exchange between two Esquimaus, but I am out of space.

T. Herman Zweibel, the great grandson of Onion founder Friedrich Siegfried Zweibel, was born in 1868, became editor of The Onion at age 20, and persisted in various editorial posts until his launching into space in 2001. Zweibel’s name became synonymous with American business success in the 20th century. Many consider him the “Father Of American Journalism,” also the title of his well-known 1943 biography, written by Norman Rombauer.

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Speaking of today’s headlines, I’ve been bitten by the septuplet bug that is going around! Seven babies! It’s simply a miracle! I was rooting for them the whole time. Just think of all the love that will fill that single-income household. I come from a small family, so I’ve never known what it would be like, but it must be splendid. Seven babies! Wow!

Item! Actor Kevin Kline has a secret… He plays a gay man in a movie! Don’t worry, ladies, he’s not really gay, he’s just an actor playing a role, much like Charles Nelson Reilly or Rip Taylor. According to my sources, the movie, titled In The Closet, is a real scream. And not the kind of scream you’d get from the movie Scream, but rather one of the hooting variety. I can’t wait to see it myself. If there’s one thing Jackie Harvey loves, it’s a good laugh!

And now, from the Ask And You Shall Receive File… As all you Harveyheads may recall, in my last column, I made a plea to the entertainment gods for more of dreamy Selma Hayek. Lo and behold, I just saw her in a commercial! I was so entranced by her beauty that I can’t even remember what the commercial was for. (I think it might have been for some shampoo.) Just be sure to watch for it, and, if you do see it, go out and buy whatever product she’s endorsing to send those advertising bigwigs a message loud and clear: Selma Hayek is the greatest!

Do dogs really love trucks? That smiling Asian guy with the sunglasses in that car commercial sure seems to think so. One thing’s for sure, though: That guy doesn’t talk much.

Item! Supermodel (more like super-duper model) Kate Moss is making the rounds… the chicken rounds, that is! My sources tell me that Moss is a super-huge chicken fan, and has decided to go on a worldwide search to find the world’s tastiest chicken. No word yet as to which birds are making the cut, but in case you’re keeping score at home, Moss is said to prefer fried to rotisserie. I wonder what husband David Copperfield thinks of his wife’s other love?

When winter rolls around, I don’t just get colds, I get freezings! That would be colder than a cold, of course.

Christmas albums are coming out, and no one could be happier! Than me, that is. I must own at least 75 Christmas albums (eight by Christmas legend Neil Diamond alone). So far this year, I’ve gotten the Hanson Christmas album, the Chant Christmas album, and a Christmas album whose proceeds go toward a good cause involving diseased children. Some people collect stamps, some people collect vacuum cleaners, but I collect holiday cheer. And if that’s wrong, I don’t ever want to be right.

Jackie Harvey graduated from Viterbo University with a degree in English literature in 1990. After honing his writing and copy-editing skills at The Sunshine Shopper, he became The Onion’s entertainment columnist in 1994, replacing the outgoing Archie “Arch” Danielson. Currently, Harvey writes his regular column, “The Outside Scoop,” as well as his blog, “Harveywood!”

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So on Monday, when a Kaiser, Seifert & Briggs’ vice-president informed Gordimer that he’d been chosen to be the new associate director of corporate communications for the Wellstone-Howe account, and would, subsequently, receive a $20,000 raise, he couldn’t help but celebrate.

“As soon as I found out I got the promotion, I ran to the phone and called my girlfriend Kelly [Schayes],” a smiling Gordimer said, recalling that magic moment toward which he had worked for so long. “I told her we were through.”

The next day, the newly promoted Gordimer treated himself to a girlfriend upgrade, replacing Schayes with L.A.-area restaurant hostess/aspiring actress Robyn Turner, 21, whom Gordimer described as “a notch more attractive” than his previous partner.

“Kelly was extremely good-looking, no doubt,” Gordimer said. “It’s just that her breasts were somewhat on the small side, and, frankly, I would be lying if I said it didn’t bother me a little. Fortunately, as the new associate director of corporate communications for the Wellstone-Howe account, I was finally able to do something about that.”

Gordimer said that Turner holds numerous other advantages over his previous girlfriend, including longer legs, a smaller waist, and collagen-enhanced lips, a feature he described as “very sexy.”

“I am extremely pleased,” he said. “I’d always wanted a girl like Robyn, but, unfortunately, I wasn’t able to obtain one as an entry-level executive. But I knew that if I worked hard and moved up in the company, I would be able to move up to a higher-caliber girlfriend, as well.”

Gordimer, who also treated himself to a 1998 BMW Z-3 convertible following the promotion, said he is not through yet.

“I’ve got big goals,” he said. “I want to make Kaiser, Seifert & Briggs America’s leader in marketing solutions for the 21st century. And I also want a redhead.”

The post Newly Promoted Marketing Executive Treats Self To Girlfriend Upgrade appeared first on The Onion.