The BM Newswire has certainly been abuzz lately with tales of excremental interest from around the world. And that’s just the tip of the brown iceberg. To start out your week just before the holidays, we'll travel around the US of A to review the latest poop on newsworthy poop topics.

First on the list is a case in Spokane, Washington, in which a woman complained of an obstruction in her plumbing. A monster log that wouldn’t complete its journey to the sewage treatment plant, perhaps? No, it turned out to be something bigger. Much bigger.

Next we travel to scenic Iowa, where the people of respectable, historic Council Bluffs (part of the famous Lewis & Clark expedition route of 1804) are raising a major stink about a major stink: their downtown reeks of poopy diapers. Why? Because those very same residents have been flushing their beloved kiddlings’ poopy diapers down the toilet, and now the sewer pipes are clogged. One couple even found raw sewage backed up into their basement, thanks to the bounty of Huggies and baby poop filling the underground system.

Finally we take a jaunt to my fine hometown of Beverly, Massachusetts, for a look at a disgruntled chap who tried -- and failed -- to win the toilet paper supply contract with the city's school system. To show his displeasure at being spurned, the would-be provider of hygienic paper products snuck into the middle school and superglued shut the toilet paper dispensers in the boys' bathroom. Talk about your dastardly deeds! You can almost hear the fella maniacally ranting: "If they won't buy their toilet paper from me, they shan't have ANY toilet paper at all! MWA-HAHAHA!"

It's hard enough for adolescents to deal with the daily stresses of burgeoning hormones, the insipid middle-school curriculum, and the agonies of social interaction. Don't add the humiliation of stink-ass and itchy-ass to the burdens. I hope they throw the book at this guy.