Connoisseurs of sheep innards, Second thoughts

Good week for:

Connoisseurs of sheep innards, after the Scottish government said it would implore the U.S. to lift its ban on haggis, the Scottish national dish. The Scots say that haggis, which consists of chopped up pieces of heart, liver, and lungs wrapped inside a sheep’s stomach lining, poses no danger of transmitting mad cow disease. “It is safe,’’ a Scottish spokeswoman explained, “or we wouldn’t eat it here.’’

Boston sports fans, after the New England Patriots beat the San Diego Chargers to go 18-0 for the season and qualify for the Super Bowl. In October, the Boston Red Sox won the World Series, and the Boston Celtics currently have the best record in the National Basketball Association.

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Artistic Turkmen, after the former Soviet republic of Turkmenistan ended its seven-year ban on opera, ballet, and circuses, which its previous ruler, the late Saparmurat Niyazov, called “alien’’ to Turkmen culture. The new ruler, Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, said in a national address, “Today a new period is starting in our country which we have called an era of great renaissance.”

Bad week for:

Having a dream, after Bill Clinton fell asleep on stage at a Harlem church while listening to a tribute to Martin Luther King Jr.

Dean Hrbacek, a portly Texas congressional candidate who had to admit that he sent out a flier showing his smiling face on another man’s much thinner body.

Second thoughts,, after a Chicago hospital sued the family of a dead man for not following through on his pledge to donate $1.5 million. The family of Robert Sessions said he changed his mind on his deathbed because he was angry at Rush University Medical Center for failing to discover in time that he had cancer.