Author Archive for M. Toole
Rockies Pull Goalie
(Denver) The Colorado Rockies announced today that they will play the remainder of the season with an open net. In a radical departure from tradition, the team will rely on quick aggressive play in lieu of the unattended goal at the other end of the diamond.
“This is only phase one of our plans to revamp the club and mold a winner,” said an unidentified source in the front office of the National League basement dwelling franchise.
“We feel the team has a better chance to win games with five infielders than with the traditional four and a goalie. Most goalies represent a late inning save, a concept foreign to the Blake Street Bummers. He only get in on 40% of the action while a good backup at shortstop can make or break you.
“Modern professional sports demand hard decisions and constant change, even trading off budding stars to save money,” he explained.
“First we dumped popular players because we thought they were getting old and that we needed to concentrate on pitching,” he explained. “That didn’t work even though we sold the farm for several starting pitchers. Then we discovered speed and defense but still lost a lot of games by a run or two.”
Although the season looks a lot like last year, the team is making money and is easily under the salary cap. Populating the outfield with also-rans and beefing up the relief staff with the cast-offs from other clubs often looks good on ledgers but not from the stands.
“Rather than building team chemistry and relying on a solid farm system to provide talent, the Rockies appear to be playing catchup and may have to go shopping again to avoid a complete embarrassment in 2025. The owners have reached their credit limit, at least where their fans are concerned,” offered former Rocky, Manny Taggmiotte, who is doing ten to twenty in the Dominican Republic for stealing bases during winter league play in 2023.
“Sure we know it’s tough to pitch at Coors Field but what’s wrong with winning games 10-9? The weather is great and the ball flies right out of the place. Considering the attention span of most modern day fans a pitcher’s battle just isn’t that entertaining.”
The team travels to Saint Louis for the start of a three-game series Friday. It will be interesting to see if the new approach will fly with the high scoring Red Birds or if anyone will even notice.
“It makes me nervous playing without a goalie,” said one infielder, “but I guess these are desperate times and we’re tired of being in the basement at the All-Star break. But what the hell, tomorrow’s pay day again.” – Rocky Flats
TOLL BRIDGE OVER BERING STRAIT SCRAPPED
(Nome, AK) Plans to construct a massive suspension toll bridge across the Bering Strait have been cancelled according to American and Russian engineers on the scene. The structure, connecting the Chukchi Peninsula to the Seward Peninsula about one hundred miles south of the Arctic Circle, would have cost an estimated 6.5 million dollars to complete. The idea was scuttled when it became apparent that projected traffic traveling between the two remote regions “could not even begin pay for the erection in two million years” according to one treasury official.
“Nobody in either country has enough money to fill up their gas tank much less pay tolls on a bridge to nowhere,” he continued. “Maybe the concept would fly between Moscow and New York but even then its success has got to be questionable at best.”
Continuing to stoke fears that the bridge would be an easy access for illegal refugees and drugs was voiced by several higher ups in the Trump Administration, who condemned the idea on various social media and fast food outlets this morning.
-Susie Compost
DOW Wants in on Drone License Fees
(Deer Trail, CO) Threatening to sell drone licenses to this year’s hunters may or may not be legitimate. Either way it has caused quite an uproar at the Colorado Division of Wildlife, who want a piece of the local action if there is such.
According to town fathers and mothers in Deer Trail, the announcement that the municipality would begin selling drone licenses this fall was meant as a political statement and never as an actuality. Several say they wanted to protest the country’s policies with regard to unmanned rockets, spying and assassinations of suspected terrorists, including US citizens. Others say our government has lost its sense of right and wrong and is engaged in deplorable acts on our behalf.
“The fact that the national media picked up on our tongue and cheek plan further indicates that there are a lot of people out there highly concerned about the clandestine nature of our government these days,” said councilperson Bettie Clonne of Deer Trail. “And now it appears that another parasitic gov’ment agency wants in on the spoils.”
Clonne, which rhymes with drone, went on to suggest that it would be impossible to sell drone licenses since those unmanned weapons are not all that prevalent in Colorado skies and because drones are not wards of the state like deer and elk. In addition they remind us that one cannot eat a drone which creates other problems with morality of hunting in general.
“We realize it is a federal offense to mess with federal property, even though in essence it belongs to the people, doesn’t it?” she asked.
The government has expanded its drone programs to include domestic surveillance which worries civil liberty proponents as to the future of robot war and intrusive technology.
“Don’t shoot it unless you’re going to eat it has always been my mantra,” continued the source. “I haven’t seen any trophy drones up there and the drone is not calculated on the basis of points on the antler since there are no horns, just a ball of metal.”
Meanwhile the DOW, who used to offer hunting licenses at a reasonable fee for instate and out of state sportsmen, has continued its greedy march to the destruction of pedesdrian hunting in Colorado. Years ago everyone shared in the profits, – merchants, outfitters, communities – now most of the money ends up going to the DOW. Today’s average hunter is now urban, unskilled and rich with expensive gear and no soul for the hunt. This is what happens when fees are not in keeping with reality. Less hunters mean less money spent on dinners, hotel rooms and services.
Still the thought of bringing down an unmanned drone is tempting to some. The possibility of actually hitting one with an elk rifle is all but impossible anyway. They travel fast.
Most people in Deer Trail agree that all the hoopla over shooting down drones will blow over after the season is concluded. However the feds and the state will still be here helping us to become more robotic and less human.
What tales will they tell around the campfire in the years to come?
“I was so busy field dressing the first clone that I din’t see the second one coming right at me. Thankfully my old buddy Earl had a bead on it and blasted it out of the sky. I don’t know if the meat can be recovered but it was a damn fine shot. Things sure are different out in the woods then they were when I was a boy.”
– Rocky Flats
CORPORATE SPONSORS WARY OF BOMB ENDORSEMENTS
(Tel Aviv) International corporations, some hoping to profit from the ongoing war in what was once Gaza, seem hesitant to directly endorse its weaponry. Attempts by NATO hard-liners to gain sponsorship of individual bombs has fallen on deaf ears according to sources here.
Saying the bombs have about the same morality as methods of business conducted by most mega-corporations, one NATO spokesman had hoped to persuade both industrialists and retail interests to kick in their fair share.
“We figure that each bomb dropped on Palestine costs about $20,000,” said Vladimir Pinche, a Hungarian accountant attached to NATO. “If we could get corporations like Shell Oil, Apple and Pizza Hut to buy space on the missiles we could save a bundle of cash. Up till now the response has been almost indiscernible.”
Pinche said that he had presented a simple marketing plan that would include a simple logo and a short message.
“Talk about a captive audience,” he smiled. “If corporate thinkers want to strike while the iron is hot there’s no better time than the present. We guarantee they’ll get the attention of the target market.”
According to Pinche the money saved by the endorsements could go toward rebuilding Lebanese sites after the conflict or possibly to pay for expeditionary forces on the ground.
“One leading corporation, the United States government, often marks bombs with its logo. the Stars and Stripes, so that adversaries don’t confuse its payloads with those of the Russians or Chinese,” explained Pinche. “One would think these mass merchandisers would jump at the chance to continue the barrage of relentless propaganda common to most Western societies, but they have not. Imagine a Nike logo on a cruise missile ‘Just do it!’ or Wal-Mart’s happy face on an F-16.”
Pinche went on to say that he had Apache helicopters and even stealth fighters at his disposal as well.
In a related piece the United States and NATO have apologized for the accidental bombing of a Beirut McDonalds on Friday. Although there were no injuries, fiscal damages were set in the thousands.
“Even Ronald (McDonald) is pissed,” said one NATO release, “and the last thing we need is for that bastard clown to join up with Hamas.”
One critic of the war, Senator Oral Noise (Unitarian-CA) has suggested that rather than advertising on weapons of destruction the international corporations simply send aid to the Palestinian refugees now in Israeli camps.
“What are we gonna tell our stockholders?” asked one CEO, “that we gave away their dividends. We’re not comfortable embracing that much waste. We’d rather leave that up to the government.”
– Fred Zeppelin
WAS THE GOUT THE UNDOING OF THE BLACKFOOT NATION?
Called the dark toe in the Algonquian language, gout may have been the culprit in ravaging the once-mighty Blackfoot Nation. Historians are correct to ascertain that measles and small pox were devastating to these plains tribes but most miss to contribution of uric acid to the formula.
Once linked to gluttony and drunkenness gout is now seen in a different light. The Blackfoot were not big boozers until the whites kicked them onto reservations. So why did they suffer from gout. Their Alberta cousins, the Sarcee, did not get the gout nor did many of their traditional enemies such as the Sioux. Although not contagious, the painful ailment follows protocol.
The Blackfeet, unlike centuries of European victims, exhibited no guilt as it wasn’t yet invented on the at least out there on the prairie.
“The Native Americans ate few processed foods, little sugar, but a “buttload of buffalo, and I ain’t talking western New York,” said Alberta Purinal, a leading dietician who has never had gout.
“Imagine this scenario,” she continued. A brave wakes up in pain after the Sun Dance. He goes to witch doctor who recommends ginger root extract, black cherries, couch grass and Boerhavia extract. When he asks where he can get these remedies the witch doctor simply flinches and days…maybe over in Canada.”
Confusion reigned then as it does today.
One Blackfoot elder tells us he traded three ponies for a vial of potion said to relieve the gout. It didn’t. They told me at the lodge fire to eat salmon but never tuna. Then later I was warned to eat only tuna and never salmon. I can’t remember the mantra: buffalo meat asparagus and berries or buffalo meat asparagus and berries…
-Fred Zeppelin
For a related piece see Dystopian Nightmares by Lizzie Borden, Testosterone Bros., Boston.
Bear Given Condoms
(Norwood) The Forest Circus has agreed in theory to allow black bears to purchase condoms at a variety of outlets due to overpopulation in the Ursidae ranks of late. Unconfirmed sources verify that the black bear population has increased 20% over the past year and will continue this trend due to the general lack of natural predators, especially in the spring.
Already groups of righteous, radical animal-rights advocates, many who would not know the difference between an aardvark and an antelope, have agreed to provide birth control information to younger, more impressionable cubs.
As one might readily imagine, this development has upset almost every political/social/religious group in the country with each naively keying on their own specific collection of bugaboos without the slightest concern for the rights of their adversaries.
“It is a fool who still thinks we live in a democracy,” said one local ranger. “In 2025 he who shouts the loudest often wins out, while the poor bears can’t utter so much as a compound sentence.”
-Small Mouth Bess
