But it turns out that the Iowa voters, many of whom apparently do not eat at the right restaurants, are out of the loop regarding the Dean strategic brilliance. Instead they vote for John "I Served In Vietnam" Kerry, who served in Vietnam and also has many policies, although nobody, including him, seems to know for sure exactly what they are. Dean, reacting to his Iowa loss, gives an emotional concession speech that ends with him making a sound like a hog being castrated with a fondue fork. Incredibly, this fails to improve his poll standings.

Meanwhile the Bush administration, increasingly disturbed by the bad news from Iraq, cancels the White House's lone remaining newspaper subscription (Baseball Digest).

But the news is much better from Mars, where yet another spunky li'l NASA robot vehicle lands and begins transmitting back photographs of rocks that appear virtually identical to the rock photos beamed back by all the other spunky li'l NASA robots, thus confirming suspicions that the universe has a LOT of rocks in it. In other outer-space news, Michael Jackson, clearly concerned about his trial on charges of child molestation, dances on the roof of an SUV.

In lifestyle news, the hot trend is "metrosexuals" — young males who are not gay but are seriously into grooming and dressing well. There are only eight documented cases of males like this, all living in two Manhattan blocks, but they are featured in an estimated 17,000 newspaper and magazine articles over the course of about a week, after which this trend, like a minor character vaporized by aliens in a "Star Trek" episode, disappears and is never heard from again.

In sports, Pete Rose publishes a book in which he at last confesses to an allegation that dogged him throughout his baseball career: He's a jerk.

Speaking of shocking revelations, in . . .

February

. . . the nation — already troubled by bad news from Iraq, coupled with a resurgence in terrorism and a slow economic recovery — is traumatized by something that leaves a deep and lasting scar on the fragile national psyche: Janet Jackson's right nipple, which is revealed for a full three ten-thousandths of a second during the Super Bowl halftime show. This event is so traumatic that the two teams are unable to complete the game, with many players simply lying on the field in the fetal position, whimpering. It is a moment reminiscent of the JFK assassination, in that virtually all Americans can remember exactly where they were when it happened.

"I was on the sofa," they say. Or: "I was in the bathroom and missed the traumatic moment, but fortunately we have TiVo."