Garrison Keillor: The aircraft carrier Intrepid has finally moved, after 25 years anchored on the bank of the Hudson, they hooked up the tugboats (TUGBOATS), and gathered up an honor guard of old vets (GEEZERS) and put them on deck with the politicians (MALE AFFABILITY) and the tugboats started their engines (TUGBOATS REV) and the old carrier started to lurch (LURCHING, GEEZER SURPRISE), and the band began to play (BAGPIPE, DRUMS) and then the ship got stuck in the mud. (BAGPIPE DIES). And the carrier slid backwards (SLIDING IN MUD) into its hole, and sank deeper into the mud (SINKING IN MUD). And they sent down scuba divers (SCUBA), and dug a 35-foot trench out of the mud (SCOOPING MUD), and hooked up the tugboats again (TUGBOATS), and they gathered the veterans up again (RELUCTANT GEEZERS), and pulled that 900-foot, 36,000-ton ship into that trench (LURCHING), and then they put the pedal to the metal (GUNNING ENGINES), and they pulled, and they heaved (STRAINING), and low and behold, the Intrepid started to move (DEEP LURCHING), and it moved a few feet and then it got stuck again (STICKING, ENGINES STRAIN), and it sat there, and they didn't know what to do and then a taxi driving down the West Side Highway honked its horn (HONKING) and a semi honked its horn (TRUCK HORN) and that was it, the Intrepid moved and pretty soon it was gliding down the Hudson (ENGINES REVVING) to New Jersey for a makeover, to return to the West Side in November of 2008.
The New York City Board of Health has voted to ban trans fats from restaurant food. Trans fats occur during the process of partial hydrogenation, when hydrogen gas is bubbled (GLUG GLUG) through vegetable oil to increase shelf life and the resulting trans fat (PLOP) raises "bad" LDL cholesterol (THICK PLOP) which can lead to clogged arteries (GRUNTING) after the transfat molecule goes into your stomach (FREE FALL DOWN SHAFT / SPLASH) and into your bloodstream (HEARTBEAT) and increasing the plaque in your blood and making the plaque stick to the walls of your arteries (SQUORTS) narrowing the arteries (HEARTBEAT RISING IN TONE) making your heart work harder and harder (HEART GRUNTS) until finally it can't push the blood through the arteries any longer (GASP). And then (SIREN) -- you may have to leave New York and go to the afterlife where, you never know -- you may not have as nice an apartment as what you have now (TONE OF DISAPPOINTMENT), you may not be allowed to have a dog, there probably isn't going to be theater or movies there, you might not be able to get the foods you like. So -- they're banning transfats.