The word is spreading

I spotted this story on the news wire:


RICHARDSON, Texas (AP) -- For the first time in decades, Eugenia Jenkins is standing up straight. And she says she owes it all to a mysterious local cleric and her experience in a sweltering pup tent.

Jenkins, 68, said she had suffered from acute abdominal pains since the late 1960s.

"The doctors were baffled," the Allen resident said. "They said there was nothing they could do. I was in such pain, I prayed every day for the Lord to take me. Then Ayatollah Mugsy came along and saved my life."

Jenkins, who says she is now completely pain-free, said she met the imam at Ayatollah Mugsy's Islamic Revival and Carnival, a traveling road show that set up on the University of Texas at Dallas campus in Richardson on Sept. 25.

"Some friends urged me to try it," Jenkins said. "I was skeptical, but I was willing to try anything."

She said that shortly after her arrival at the Dogloo-shaped tent set up near UTD's School of Management, she was taken to an altar in front of the crowd.

"The crowd began to chant, "Mugsy! Mugsy! Mugsy!" Jenkins said. "Then smoke filled the stage, and out came the ayatollah. He was much shorter than I expected. He barked, and the room fell silent. His helpers lifted him up onto my table, and he loomed over me. He nudged my shirt up, leaving my midriff bare. Then he began to lick my belly button intensely."

Jenkins said the licking continued for at least five minutes.

"It tickled at first, but then I began to feel the pain leave my body," she said. "When he finished and jumped down off of the altar, I was healed. I had forgotten what it was like to stand up straight, with no pain."

Bob Mungro of Garland, who attended the revival, said that Jenkins wasn't the only person healed by the ayatollah.

"Mugsy cured a blind man. He healed a boy with leg braces. That pug is the real deal," he said.

Ayatollah Mugsy declined to comment, but a spokesman for his ministry directed readers to his Web site, ayatollahmugsy.blogspot.com.

The revival, sponsored by Pug Life Ministries, will be at the University of Texas at Arlington campus on Saturday.

Future revivals are planned in Norman, Okla.; Oklahoma City; Edmond, Okla.; Tulsa; Lawrence, Kan.; Columbia, Mo.; Fayetteville, Ark.; Murfreesboro, Tenn.; Knoxville, Tenn.; Tuscaloosa, Ala.; Shreveport, La.; Baton Rouge, La.; and College Station.

So touching

This poem brought a tear to my eye.

Bennett's comments

Former education secretary William Bennett provoked quite an uproar recently when he said that the crime rate could be reduced by aborting black babies. Would such an unthinkable action really reduce the crime rate? Maybe; maybe not. In my view, we've overlooked what is truly important by focusing on these comments. If people of all races were to abort all babies, would that reduce the crime rate? Certainly; the crime rate would eventually reach zero. But again, that's not really the point. The important thing to remember is that if we were to abort all of the puppies, this world would be a much less happy place. Remember that, humans, and then give us the voting rights that we have been deprived of for so long.

Happy birthday, grandma!

I would now like to ask the congregation to join me in wishing my grandmother a happy birthday. Grandma has always been there when I needed her. When my deadbeat parents abandoned me to go on their trips, grandma and grandpa took me in. And boy, did she make sure her grandpug was well-fed. When I was released from the pound and needed money to travel to a madrassa in Pakistan, grandma wrote the check. Were it not for her kindness, I would not be the great religious leader you see today. So may Allah bless you with a happy birthday, grandma, and may the sweet taste of rawhide never leave your mouth.

Now that's progress

At times, an event will occur that leaves me no choice but to act. Like when my belly is rubbed in just the right spot, and I can't contain the wild flailing of my back leg. The spirit of Allah simply fills me, and I am His conduit. Such an event has occurred in New Zealand, where a dog has registered to vote. Toby, a Jack Russell terrier, was signed up by his caretaker to vote in the country's general election. His occupation on the voter application was listed as rodent exterminator. Toby could be our Rosa Parks, my furry brethren. He has revived in me a desire to right the wrongs of the past. For 85 years, women have been allowed to vote. And yet the noble canine remains disenfranchised. Tell me, friends, where is the fairness in that? Where is the logic? Man has not been kind to his so-called best friend. And so, with renewed vigor, I will push for the passage of the 28th Amendment. It's time to awaken the four-legged sleeping giant. It's time to take this country back, as our founding fathers intended. More to come ...

The ayatollah needs your help

Oh, the shame. To have fallen below an 8 is truly disgraceful. Lift me up, Pug Life faithful, as I have lifted you up in the past. Surely I merit at least a 9.2.

My life: Busted

Chapter VII
As I walked the hallway of the third floor one last time to make sure I hadn't missed anything, I heard a loud "clank." The lights went out, and a voice boomed over a loudspeaker, "We have you surrounded! Come out with your paws up!" I dropped my bag of panties and sprinted down the hall toward the stairway. Then a pair of German shepherds rounded the corner ahead, growling as they rushed toward me. I skidded to a halt. "How could you?" I cried. "You're traitors to the dog race!" One leaped toward me, snapping at me as I narrowly ducked under his sharp teeth. I juked the other and took off down the hall in the other direction, my body a compact ball of pug energy.

As I neared the elevators, the hallway split off in two directions. Without slowing, I zoomed around the corner, my paws pushing off on the wall as I ran. Out of the corner of my eye, I spied a janitor's closet. I quickly ducked inside and climbed a steep set of shelves. After tucking my body into a tiny crease between a large cardboard box and a stack of custodial uniforms, I pulled one of the shirts over my head and held still as I heard the German shepherds approaching. The sound of their barking grew louder and louder before trailing off. They had run right past the closet. Then I saw flashlights in the hallway. The police were out in force. I heard them kicking down doors, yelling at each other, urging me to give up. But there was no way they could spot me on my perch high in the closet. I felt confident that I could wait them out. Soon, they would give up the search. They would assume that I had escaped, I thought.

Unfortunately, my pugginess betrayed me. "What's that noise?" one officer said. "Over here!" The barrel of an M-16 pointed into the room, and members of the S.W.A.T. team poured in. Though I tried to stifle my trademark labored pug breathing, it was to no avail. Centuries of breeding had conspired against me. "It's coming from up there!" one of the officers exclaimed. The flashlights illuminated my position. "Give it up, pug," a voice commanded. "We know you're up there." For a moment, I considered trying to fight my way out. But the odds were heavily against me. I raised my head, defeated. "Put your paws up where we can see them!" an officer yelled. Then the dogcatcher walked in, carrying a long stick with a net on the end. In one swift motion, he brought it down over my head and swept me off of the shelf.

They threw me into the back of a van and hauled me to the city dog pound, where I was booked and put into a cage. My freedom -- like that 3.5-ton pile of panties -- was but a memory.

To be continued