Author Archive for M. Toole
Capital Idea!
“300 Men in the state of Tennessee
All waitin’ to die
won’t ever be free.
I ain’t hurtin’ nobody.
I ain’t hurtin no one.”
-John Prine
“If this is how Queen Victoria treats her convicts she doesn’t deserve to have any.”
– Oscar Wilde, while waiting to be transported to prison.
The time is March 15, 2084. Although primitive, the practice of public hangings has finally flexed its way back into the spotlight. Due to judicial system that now demands a quick response by judge and jury, there is a no nonsense nip to the air at courthouses from Presque Isle to Chugla Vista. Subsequently, there is very little violent crime in the United States. Hangings are rare, but well attended by the citizenry. People drag their kids just like was the tradition 200 years prior.
Back then, in Telluride, Colorado a double-hanging was to be performed at the expense of one Martin “Scar Tissue” McMorris, a twice-convicted, once-caught murderer of low degree. Joining McMorris on the evening’s dance card was local panhandler, Slow Sammy Esto, who had cleverly enough shot an off-duty deputy at a poker table, in front of dozens of witnesses to boot.
Although the San Juans were wild and most everyone toated six-guns, there were really surprisingly few incidents, considering the robust lifestyle. Civilization was arriving by the ore bucket. Hangings remained popular. The town appoointed a committee to see that the event was handled on the up and up. First was the matter of invitations.
According to Salida Community College historian, the late, great Dr. G. Edward Quillbark “It was an honor to be invited to a hanging. First the town fathers would invite each other and then the ladies’ auxilary to the town fathers would invite themselves too. After that a few minor dignitaries, concessionaires and the merchant class would be notified. Then, moments before the big moment, the great unwashed would be herded into the town square (adjacent to the Sheridan, the town’s finest hotel which, incidently, featured a Saturday Night bath for 50 cents.)
In Telluride it was no different. All of the invited guests were encouraged to attend and bring their children as well as sociopathic livestock. The drama of a lynching was thought to be an effective deterent to crime of the aggravated nature. Failure to attend often brought rebuke. Despite the chronic lack of buggy parking on Colorado Avenue most of the town’s population made at least a cameo appearance.
In October of 1891 an unidentified Moab couple brought each one of their 14 living children to a regional hanging near Paradox. All were reportedly impressed with the expediency displayed at the affair and said the pot luck was above average as well.
Quillbark continues on the subject of percieved deterent: “After the hangings of John Hunt and his dandy, half-brother Michael, pilfering at the candy store dropped almost in half. Many citizens, including the local marshal and the storekeeper himself, attribute the decrease to that punitive action. The youngsters in the town had no comment.
Sadly, the practice of public execution gradually lost face, yielding to a society that would preferred to engage in massive wars and slaughter itself on asphalt highways than worry about calculated paybacks. By the Great Depression one had to go a long way to find a decent public hanging, even in the cities. During World War II everyone was too busy conceptualizing, constructing and delivering bombs to see the hanging circuit as important anymore. Interest fell sharply in the Fifties and then the Sixties arrived, still wet behind the ears on the subject of terrible swift swords, an eye for an eye and the like. Politicians and cops pledged to fight crime through the Seventies and Eighties with little success as the streets became war zones. With the prisons filled to capacity a new industry emerged, that of prison building. In the Nineties the situation reached a breaking point as liberals screamed for gun control and conservatives called for stiffer penalties. After the Millennium the camps grew larger and the people more separated by fabricated issues. The rest of the population stockpiled ammunition.
One sunny day, in the spring 2014, it became apparent that the only place crime was being fought successfully was on television…It was different. The cops caught everyone, often in less than an hour. The guilty culprits never got out of jail, people felt safe again. The good guys always won — the bad guys always got their just desserts. There were no nervous Barney Fife’s adorned in full battle gear, waiting outside of bars, hoping to catch an Otis or two in flight.
People began to ask the question: Why is crime under control on TV but not on the outside of their bedroom window? Politicians were forced to act and many looked to the private sector for the answer. Emerging shoulders above the rest was a small New Jersey corporation, Garden State Rendering and Liquidations, run by a Howard Tarten, a man, although ravaged by Tuburculosis and rampant dyptheria, who had spent a lifetime studying gallow etiquette. His logical solution to the problem of crime: Televised Lynchings.
“The business of public execution made an incredible recovery with the introduction of Tarten’s techniques,” says Quillbark, himself a stockholder in one of Garden State’s first enterprises, Capital Cable Ltd.. This very secretive cable system specialized in producing public executions of all types for television. Soon it rivalled MTV for the loyalty of the nation’s youth.”
Armed to the teeth with the catchy slogan “Get crime off the streets and into your living room”, Capital Cable reported record profits in its first year while becoming the darling of the Right. The viewing public was placated.
Tonight’s hanging is brought to you by Geze Bindings, Spam, The North American Hemp Growers Institute and your local state corrections bureau….
Kevin Haley, a self-proclaimed sensitive male for the ages lives in Colona where he raises dust and publishes the San Juan Horseshoe. He often breaks pop bottles on the highway and eats breakfast while in the bathtub.
Ridgway to be flooded “again”
(North Cora) The town of Ridgway may find itself in cold water before long according to the Bureau of Land Management, which has secured the right to build a second “shadow” dam at Dallas Meadows.
The additional structure has become necessary after extended studies shed bright light on problems at Dutch Charlie’s Mega-Wall to the north. Although built with precision and high tech coordination the dam may not hold back much water in an emergency.
“If we had two dams we might resolve leakage and especially serious breakage from the raging Uncompahgre,” said Arnold Gernot of the BLM. “We are very sorry to inconvenience the residents of Ridgway who have invested millions in such infrastructure as houses and storefronts but progress is progress and we will do what must be done.”
Many of our longtime readers will remember when Ridgway was primed for induced flooding back in the 60s and 70s, when people living there were told the place would soon be under water. Fortunately for realtors, ranchers and the now bloated town government plans changed and the river was dammed miles to the north.
Water conserved at the dam was to be used to irrigate onion fields down country. The reservoir would be used for recreation. All of these things have come to pass.
Inhabitants here say the second dam is a punitive reaction” by the gov’ment to muffle protests. They insist that the wildlife fence was erected to keep them in more than to keep deer and elk out.
Gernot denied the accusations saying the fence was built to accentuate the landscape, link future waterways and teach the herds a hard lesson in migratory shifts and dietary priorities.
“How can these people scream about totalitarianism when there are escape gate everywhere,” slammed Gernot. “The fences are there to keep the serfs from hurting themselves.”
The new constructed is slated to begin tomorrow which should give residents 24 hours to vacate the premises. The BLM is currently working with aid agencies to provide temporary shelter and canned food will be available three times per day.
“Again we apologize for these minor inconveniences,” flapped Gernot, “but in reality if people want to avoid these clashes with inevitable growth they should have built their lives in more rural settings.”
The National Guard will arrive to help people move out of their houses and assure protocol is maintained during the Code Blue evacuation. Attention to pine beetles, climate change and ever-threatening drought will be placed on the back burner until 2017.
Although many remain convinced that the flooding will never occur they are concerned that all this preliminary activity will destroy the town park, which has been designated as the Command Post for gov’ment activity throughout the project.
“We’ve had hell here trying to create a green, healthy lawn and now the feds will be stomping all over our work,” said one greens keeper on loan from Dallas Divine Golf Corpse on Log Hill Mesa. “Initial probes on the part of BLM engineers have already succeeded in flooding the post office and have threatened several palatial structures raised by the local humane society from sales of used clothing.”
Mountain Market has confirmed that sales of watercraft, snorkeling equipment and sandbags are up 60% in apprehension of the crisis while Ridgway Hardware has extended hours to deal with projected overflows.
– Gabby Haze
OPERATOR’S MANUAL
San Juan Horseshoe
Table of contents
Before reading your copy…..Page 2
Starting and maintaining this website…..Page 4
Care and communication in cyberspace…..Page 7
Special and emergency functions…..Page 9
Available accessories…..Page 11
Altitude compensation and fuel requirements…..Page 12
Landing your web page…..Page 13 and 14
Replacement of pages and concepts…..Page 18
Towing….Page 24
Suggestions for further reading….Page 25
Poems
Lunar Revenge
The Moon
in full dress
rides over the valley
and awakens the sleeping, crying
“Get out of my temple!”
The Moon
in full battle gear
creeps up to the developer’s shack,
breaks out every window
and kicks in every door.
The Moon
in tempered armor
drives the biggest tractor
in Colorado,
knocking down highway billboards
and tearing up all the pretty black asphalt.
The Moon
is naked once a month
and everything is in order
But the only people who see it
are those who wouldn’t sell the Moon
had they the opportunity.
Eagle Feathers
Eagle Feathers
are different colors.
Some have even slanted features.
Some are plumbers
Some are teachers.
Some just don’t have needed fixtures
or ancestors.
Revolutions gone by screaming
jolting values from their hiding.
Pot Legal on Moon and Mars
Due in part to an oversight by the Reefer Madness set, marijuana is now legal on Mars and on the Earth’s only known Moon. The legitimacy status, brought on after it was discovered that the herb had never been classified as illegal in these jurisdictions, was never an issue in the decision.
Since there are no inhabitants on the heavenly bodies in question there was no vote on the matter. Opponents of legalized drugs, along with the pharmaceutical companies say marijuana is simply the entry point for other drugs. They insist that the people not living on the moon and Mars will soon be smoking crack and shooting heroin and that the drug culture will be exported to other planets such as Saturn, Jupiter and maybe even little Pluto.
Proponents of the legalization say the herb is harmless and that manufactured fears, industry propaganda and old wives’ tales should never replace the facts.
“With all due respect to all of the parties involved here we feel that there are far bigger fish to fry,” said one pro-puffer.
Whether there is a demand for marijuana on these spheres was not disclosed nor were pressing questions as to how one could keep anything lit without oxygen. Since it is impossible to grow anything on the two stellar locations the product would have to be imported.
Small celebrations have been reported all over the planet to commemorate the development.
Whether anyone has even smoked a joint on the moon or Mars was not clear at press time. – Small Mouth Bess
Bear season upon us again
Please don’t feed the bear…or they might move in with you! The beasts are out on force this time of the year trying to get enough to eat before hibernation. It is best to avoid them since they are pissed off and hungry. Watch for an interview with pre-hibernative bruins in early November.
