Weekly World News: An elegy in redux

Editor’s Note: As many of you know, the Weekly World News is closing up shop after 28 years of mock-newsery. It’s long been one of our favourite things. We will miss its inky black-and-white presence on at the Jewel checkout counter, and are gladdened that it will live on online.

As its farewell issue hits newsstands, we thought we’d resurrect one of God Girl’s finest hours, a tribute to the WWN, written on a road trip from Montana to Chicago in January 2004.

For your reading pleasure, we give you:

“The skinny behind those cheeseburgers in paradise”:

FARGO, N.D.— A 1,600-mile road trip is not exactly the most conducive atmosphere for beginning or keeping a New Year’s resolution. Particularly if said resolution involves not eating something that comes wrapped in metallic paper and delivered via a drive-through window.

It is, however, quite conducive to obsessively scanning the FM dial for a National Public Radio station, listening to audio books that you normally wouldn’t read, and fighting with the spouse over control — temperature, volume and/or cruise.

And, if my experience somewhere east of Glendive, Mont., and west of Jamestown, N.D., (home, apparently, of the “World’s Largest Buffalo”) is any indication, such a road trip is the optimum time, place and excuse to indulge in dramatic readings from the Weekly World News.

Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. You know exactly what the Weekly World News is. It’s right there over your shoulder in the supermarket checkout line. Just left of the breath mints display at the filling station.

The Weekly World News, or WWN as we like to call it, is one of those black-and-white tabloids with screaming headlines such as “Bat Boy Found in Cave,” “Belgium Destroyed by Rogue Asteroid — and No One Notices!” and this week’s offering, “Noah’s Ark Found in Iraq.” Apparently that wily Saddam had it hidden away under one of his palaces. Go figure.

It’s a guilty pleasure and a failsafe in terms of in-car entertainment.

This particular edition of the Weekly World News — which, despite what Brenda Fricker’s character in my favorite Mike Myers film, “So I Married an Axe Murderer,” says, does not, in fact, have the eighth-highest circulation in the world (it’s about 440,000) — was emblazoned with the front-page headline, “Found: Saddam and Osama’s Gay Home Movies.”

Inside, there were several “articles” that seemed to fall onto the religion beat, including “How your guardian angel can make you rich,” “Amazing experiment proves . . . Hell is an illusion!” and, my personal favorite, “Eat all you want in Heaven and never get fat!”

Yes, Virginia, there is a cheeseburger in paradise. At least according to the report by WWN correspondent Brett Anniston.

Anniston’s report quotes research by a Dr. Herbert Greenward, who studied “11 overweight people who visited heaven after they ‘died’ in surgery or in accidents, and then were revived by doctors.” Greenward’s overweight patients apparently told their doctor that during near-death experiences, heavenly angels allowed them to pig out on their favorite foods.

Esther Smoyke, a 390-pound, 54-year-old from Tampa, Fla., said “everyone loves burgers, shakes and fries in heaven,” and that “angels love their fries — they drown them in ketsup,” according to Anniston’s report.

The WWN report went on to describe other “intriguing cases” in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina studied by Greenward that seemed to indicate that in heaven, there is no pain and no gain.

“These findings are wonderful news for overweight people, many of whom fear that in heaven, they’d be forbidden from committing the sin of gluttony or unable to even taste food,” Anniston quotes Greenward as saying. “Apparently, the opposite is true. Indulging in the feast provided by the Lord is encouraged, and food tastes even better in heaven than it does on Earth.”

Heavenly indeed, but troubling. There is this bit in the Bible about the sin of gluttony, but maybe that just doesn’t apply in paradise.

Anniston’s report ends with some unsettling news for those who might not make it through the pearly gates. Apparently of the 16 cases Greenward studied, five of the obese people who had near-death experiences went to hell, not heaven.

“In Hell, there’s plenty of food alright,” Anniston quotes Greenward as saying. “The problem is, it’s just out of reach of all these millions of naked fat people, who are chained to boulders and struggle to reach it for all eternity.”

Gads! That’s something right out of Greek mythology, that is.

I was intrigued by these visions of the afterlife and wanted to talk to the good doctor and his patients myself, to see if this cheeseburger business was on the up and up. But unfortunately, I could not find any Dr. Herbert Greenward listed anywhere in the United States. Nor could I find an address or phone number for Ms. Smoyke in Florida or any of the other 49 states.

Drat. I thought there might be some kind of spiritual inspiration or lesson here for those of us embarking on yet another New Year’s diet, some kind of a “you’ll get a crown in heaven” kind of deal. Apparently not.

But it is interesting, and I suppose not a new idea, that for some people, the idea of paradise would be getting to do and have everything they didn’t here on Earth. Or indulging in those things that they abstained from in this life.

For me, I guess my version of a cheeseburger paradise, if you will, would be spending eternity with unlimited access to the Vogue Magazine accessories closet where everything comes in my size and is free. Heavenly designer graft. That’s my cheeseburger.

I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that in heaven we won’t much care about food or fashion.

In the meantime, I’ll try to steer the family truckster away from the drive-through windows for a few more hundred miles, and catch up on some more news like, “200 elves laid off as Santa moves operation to Honduras sweatshop.”

And best wishes for a marvelous, miraculous 2004!