26-year-old model and meth-mouth Sarah Barnes couldn’t see what she was doing while smokin’ the Biker Coffee inside the fifth-oldest tree on earth, so she lit an internal portion of the huge tree on fire for better light. Oops. Barnes offered no excuse upon her arrest, instead admitting to burning down the Longwood, Florida tourist attraction known as “The Senator,” and for this we call Sarah Barnes our No Excuses Hero of the Week.
Meanwhile…
Facing public backlash, Fatso Junkie Rush Limbaugh apologized this week for calling Georgetown student Sandra Fluke a “prostitute” and a “slut” over her stance on insurance coverage for birth control. It wasn’t a “personal attack,” Limbaugh assured his fleeing sponsors listeners; it was an “absurdity,” a bad “analogy.” Sure Rush, and your insurance didn’t cover your Oxycontin addiction either.
In the last month, Arizona Sheriff, Fox News pundit, and once-rising GOP congressional hopeful Paul Babeu has publicly acknowledged he’s gay, dealt 
with fallout from posting nearly nude photos of himself on a gay website, and rebuffed claims that he covered up threats to deport his ex-employee/boyfriend if the Mexican national exposed their relationship. Coming to light this week is his questionable live-in relationship with a 17 year-old student from a problem-plagued boarding school in Massachusetts that Babeu oversaw as “Headmaster” – without a license. Sheriff Babeu always seems to have a ready denial, and each of them goes something like this: A spokesman for Paul Babeu said the Sheriff has not, to date, been ‘the target of any investigation or lawsuit.’
Next we have the tedium of two television personalities cheerfully denying that nude photos of them leaked to the internet this weekend was due to hackers, smartphone picture thieves, and apparent body-doubling saboteurs. And to think that becoming and staying famous these days essentially means being able to set your watch by what comes next.
But not for our hero…Amid this heap of alibis, facial ticks, apologies, and squirmy put-offs, Sarah Barnes, plucky killer of Mighty Confederate Trees and Emperor Palpatine look-alike, even shared about her exploits online.
After setting the tree on fire the way a heavy-eyed drunk slowly ignites his own mattress with a menthol, she actually took pictures of the smoldering ‘ol Senator and downloaded them to her computer for easy dissemination. And this was all before her arrest, because of course the 3,500 year old monster took more than a week to burn from the inside out.
When Florida police finally did knock on her door she
went quietly, posing no excuse and admitting her guilt. Yet her full blown photochemical and lighter fluid euphoria did leave us with the phrase, “I can’t believe I burned down a tree older then Jesus!” And that makes Sarah Barnes our No Excuses Hero of the Week.