What have been the top stories this year? In terms of time and space, the who’s-the-father-of-Anna Nicole Smith’s-baby? ranks in the top 5.
    Britney Spear’s haircut and rehab certainly deserves honorable mention, as do items such as British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s decision to begin pulling troops out of Iraq.
    Those of us who read a variety of newspapers and watch the news are aware of lots of puffery, the practice of treating celebrities as newsmakers.

    And of course, the diaper-wearing astronaut pushed Iraq and conditions at Walter Reed Army Hospital into the background.
    Only lately, my e-mail incoming menu has been featuring “teasers” that get me to open the mail.
    For example, within the last few days I received an e-mail whose subject line read, “Kennedy threatens Bush Iraq plan.” It apparently is from C. MacDonald News Service. What would we expect this to be about? Let’s not be naive. It’s not really about a powerful U.S. senator critical of our president; rather the message tells of a possible merger of some corporation called UTVG. Apparently, if I invest in its stock, I’ll be rich and able to open my own News Service.
    Another e-mail, this one from T. Chung News Service, carries the subject heading, “Suzanne Somers’ house burns.” Fair enough. That has been in the news. But what do we find when we crack open the e-mail?
    More information about a pending merger, except this time the mergerer is a corporation called LYJN. There’s a difference.
    P. Smart News Service inveigles me with the heading, “Howard Stern earns $83 million bonus,” but inside the missive is the same message, same wording, except that this time the corporation is VTSS.
    Finally, an e-mail headed, “Blair questioned by police again” repeats the information of the others, but the writer takes a few liberties with the language in identifying the “Coommpanny,” the “Priccee” and the “Symmbbol.
    Does the writer, identified as Luann Ritter, have a ter-rif-ficc sttutter? Or is she merely going by the fact that her name has double letters and therefore the more repeaters she uses, the better the chancee of making a sale.
    Though I’m against censorship and am aware of how thoroughly the government botches things it tries to regulate, I nevertheless wish deceptive spammers had to follow some kind of truth-in-packaging guidelines.
    We Internet users realize how difficult and time-consuming it is to sift through the junk mail, the spam, but to send deceptive messages that purport to contain news, well, that’s just unnaccepptabble.

From the mailbag:

Lorenzo Esquibel reacted to a recent column in which I cringed when a TV reporter pronounced “Pacheco” as “Pa-cheek-oh.” Esquibel wrote, in part, “I live in California where Spanish surnames abound and the ‘butchery’ of these as well as place names pollutes the air-waves constantly. . . . Alas, PER-ez will forever be pronounced Per-EZ; Hernandez will forever be Jernandez.” He signs off, “Lorenzo Esquibel (sometimes pronounced ‘Es-QUEE-bel’ — but not for long).” The “Saga of two Vegases” column mentioned remote phone solicitors raising funds for Highlands University, who make hash out of my name by pronouncing it “True-Jill-Oh.”
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Darwin Ludi of Las Vegas, now living in Chula Vista, Calif., opines that Highlands ought to use some of its own students to raise money, and perhaps allow them to work off their student loans that way. In fairness to Highlands, I’m not aware of any recent calls emanating from people who think “Manuel Leyba” is a work program and “Sherlock Holmes” is a housing project.
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Last week’s column dealt with home remedies. Ed Littleton, of Ocate, said last week’s column brought back memories, “but I am not from Las Vegas as I never heard of Aceite Mexicano. I wondered for a minute if you were talking about kerosene as we put that on everything when we were kids.” Littleton said he’d bought Dr. McLean’s liniment at a Del Norte Pharmacy in Raton, and it “still have the interesting cartoon you described on the orange box.” He remembers the old Troy Hotel, also mentioned in the column. He said his dad stayed there when working in Las Vegas. Littleton’s letter makes me wonder whether I merely imagined a product known as Aceite Mexicano. Did I simply hear about and get it confused with volcanic oil and/or McLean’s liniment? I need help here, and not only in the form of a remedy for sore muscles and aching joints.
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The spirit of volunteerism, of doing things because they’re fun and beneficial — not for pay — certainly is alive in Las Vegas in the form of Habitat for Humanity and the Nat Gold Players. The two groups teamed up Saturday for a buffet-fund-raiser-silent auction with four short plays. In today’s “Muchas Cosas” supplement there’s a full account of the work of the Nat Gold Players, written by Optic stringer Peggy Platonos. And previous issues have highlighted the work of Habitat for Humanity. This year’s bash — which earned close to $10,000 — was organized by Bernadette Almanzar. As much as she deserves heaps of praise, she prefers to give credit to fellow Habitat volunteers Cordell Halverson, Debra Suess, Dennis Ditmanson, Pam Daves, Lorrayne Gutierrez, Prentiss Childs, Adam Berg and Sonia Berg. Almanzar realizes there’s no time for napping, as the local Habitat affiliate plans to build four more houses this year.