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HW Dispatch

News for Happy Women

Martha Stewart to Redecorate Wall Street in Plea Agreement

The SEC announced today that they have reached a plea bargain in the Martha Stewart insider trading case. In exchange for dropping all charges, the SEC agreed to accept Stewart's offer to redecorate the New York Stock Exchange.

While not admitting any guilt, Stewart agreed to the plea arrangement as "a good thing."

"The floor of the exchange is such a dark, cramped space," Stewart said. "First, I propose to design a brand new interior that includes removing most of the trading stations in order open up the floor plan. Together, the traders and I will craft papier mache columns with a marbleized texture, and we'll make generous use of colorful fabrics and imported ethnic rugs to visually warm up the dark interior space."

Stewart also plans to host a weekend ceramics party, at which NYSE Chairman Dick Grasso and other high-ranking officials will spend two days handcrafting terra cotta planters for growing aromatic herbs and flowers inside the exchange.

"Aromatherapy will provide a calming influence on traders," Stewart said, "alleviating the frenzied pace that's currently the norm and giving traders more time to ponder whether buying or selling any particular stock is a wise move."

Shares of Martha Stewart Omnimedia rose slightly on the news.

Woman Wins Case with "Distractive Eyebrow" Defense

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge dismissed reckless driving charges against a Malibu woman who slammed her Cadillac Escalade into a minivan full of semi-pro beach volleyball players last May. In issuing his decision, Judge Marvin Gardens said, "Having seen the plaintiff in my courtroom, I can understand how her eyebrows distracted the defendant so completely as to render her unable to control her vehicle."

The defendant, Margaret Dunwoody, had argued that the oncoming driver's hideously deformed eyebrows "mesmerized her," leading to the accident. The plaintiff's eyebrows looked "like a pair of bats taking flight," according to Dunwoody's testimony.

The judge concurred, stating he'd never seen such thin, badly-shaped eyebrows before. "In an effort to create a look currently popularized as 'sexy,' the plaintiff has overwaxed her brows to the point they've become a public menace. No human eyebrow should look like that," Gardens said in his twelve-page decision.

Bambi St. Claire, testifying for the state, defended her depilatory abilities. "I wax my brows every other week and have worked very hard to sculpt them into an attention-getting shape, like Angelina Jolie's or Melanie Griffith's," she said in a breathy, little-girl voice. She then offered to show the judge her bikini wax, but he quickly declined.

Michigan Cedes Upper Peninsula to Wisconsin

In a surprise move on the last day of the session, Michigan's legislature ceded the Upper Peninsula (U.P.) to Wisconsin.

"It only makes geographic sense," Rep. Ed Walters (D) said of the bi-partisan bill. "When you look at a map, you can see the U.P. is physically attached to the landmass that is Wisconsin. How on earth it came to be part of Michigan is beyond me."

The bill's co-sponsor, Rep. Marilyn Uberschlagen (R) concurred. "Sure, we'll be losing a big chunk of our tax base, but the fact is most of the people who live in the U.P. are cabin-dwelling ice fishermen on public assistance, anyway. We figure we'll be ahead, financially, if we cut them loose."

It wasn't immediately clear whether Wisconsin would annex the U.P. Governor Rance Bidwell (R) said, "While the people of Wisconsin have long maintained a barely controlled civility toward the people of Michigan, we don't necessarily want to welcome them into our family, as it were. Frankly, those people frighten us."

© 2002-2003 Elizabeth Hanes

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