Horseshoe in Canada

(Halifax) General Kashmir Horseshoe has reportedly joined the Peace Corps according to a report filed here Thursday. Close aides say the 147-year-old publisher “seeks to build up a little credit in the eternal lottery before he’s too old to get around anymore”. Horseshoe’s first assignment is here in Nova Scotia where he will teach Third World hockey fans how to sell newspaper advertising.

“It is the salvation of capitalism at the grassroots level,” said Melvin Tool, a long-time whipping boy who will make the trek to Canada with Horseshoe.

If the impromptu team is successful in the said endeavor they will then secure porters at Pugwash and journey inland through New Brunswick to the St. Lawrence waterway. Upon their arrival there they will begin a search for mythical caches of Canadian beer thought to be hidden from explorer, Pierre Gaultier “Mickey” de Varennes by Acadian folk hero Francois Labatts in 1707.

By then it will again be time for football season.

 

Synthetic Poison Ivy Produced

(Gunnison) Student scientists at Western State Colorado University have successfully created synthetic poison ivy (rhus radicans syntheticas) in a secret botany lab in the basement of (Princess) Chipeta Hall. It is not known when or if the man-made plant would be introduced to the local ecosystem but a spokesman said the project had been undertaken during the winter so as to provide obvious options. Natural poison ivy does not flourish and is often notably absent at elevations over 6000 feet.

“We had to develop a particularly tough strain so as to ensure a thriving species up here in the Rockies,” said Dr. Augosto Paramus, a convicted hempsman sentenced to 20 years public service in the WSCU Botany Department back in 1994. “Otherwise, what is the point in manufacturing the plant at all.”

 

In the News

TEXAS THREATENS SECESSION

(Dallas) Special interests within the State of Texas have threatened to secede from “the Marxist States of America” according to a report in the Dallas Mourning News. The action comes on the heels of a Democratic victories in the November election which they insist does not reflect the real feelings of the nation.

“Obama won it on electoral college votes,” said Hestor Jacuzzi, former Tea Party stalwart turned states right’s booster. “He didn’t win the popular vote, especially here in the Lone Star State.

“We have oil and we’re bigger,” he smiled. “Starting up a whole new country could take some time but it’s better than running with the communist liberals. I vote GOP because I’m white and I hope too to be rich someday soon.”

Although the restructuring is still in ballyhoo mode, response has been brisk with an estimated 35% of the population favoring the leap from the United States to the Lone Star Republic. Another 15% say they are flirting with the idea but fearful about security if the new nation were attacked by Mexico. They also expressed fiscal concerns related to patrolling a border twice the size of the current arrangement.

“We’d have aliens from the south as well as Yankee aliens to contend with,” stressed Jim Bob James, of Wichita Falls. “It would cost more to be sure but the day might come when everyone in the new country was 100% Texan. Purity ain’t free.”

Zelmo Capp, a 17th generation Texan and failed horticulturist now Executive Director of Keep Austin Weird said many people in his constituency have been passively attempting to secede from Texas for 25 years.

“This could be a window of opportunity for the progressive thinkers in Texas to forge a new direction in keeping with the future,” he explained. “I favor joining New Mexico or Louisiana, but that will have to be discussed down the road.”

Although the potential redistricting is a long way off the United States Congress yesterday hosted a straw vote on the matter. Most elected officials were not present in their chambers (What else is news?) but 48 states voted to approve the measure, with Oklahoma abstaining.

“How’s that for a vote of confidence?” asked Capp.

A special session of the Texas House is expected to convene Monday to discuss preliminary options in light of the development.

Feds Raid Granny’s Cabin

(Colona) Drug Enforcement Agency officers descended on Granny’s Cabin Friday night confiscating several pounds of baked goods and an assortment of drug paraphernalia such as spatulas, wooden spoons and mixing bowls. The suspected manufacturing facility has been hastily linked to drug cartels from as far away as Morocco.

During the raid feds knocked pictures from the wall, tracked mud on her carpets and upset her cats according to a lengthy supposition filed by her lawyers.

Granny (no other name available), 91, was arrested on the spot and whisked away to a secret locale after she exhibited uncontrolled bouts of laughter and candidly confided that she did not recognize the authority of federal police in state jurisdictions.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I just don’t know.”

In a combined class action press release, attorneys for Granny say their client will fight the intrusion on the grounds that cooking with cannabis is now legal in Colorado. They say anti-pot elements have purposely clouded the issues so as to mislead the voting canaille and make people afraid.

“I thought that after all of these years puffing that I was finally legal,” said Granny from her cell. I followed the directives. I had only three plants in bloom and two in flower simultaneously, facing west, planted on a full moon, on private properly, discreetly placed and aromatically sealed, while standing on one foot with a silly medical license in my teeth after asking Mother May I and saluting the flag.

“I’ve been high ever since Virgil got laid off at the Idarado (Mine) in 1977, she continued. “He was home everyday for that winter and we would have certainly strangled each other except for our bong. Mellowed both of us out. I don’t know.”

Virgil, 94, was not at home at the time of the incident. He was reportedly out swimming Buckhorn Lake and was not charged.

Police say that five one-dollar bills found in a baggie with the brownies/contraband leads them “only to assume” that she was dealing the stuff, maybe outside of grammar schools. In addition Granny was unable to account for the estimated 4000 pounds of hemp (street value$6.6 million) that her scrawny, pathetic, little old lady weeds might have produced since harvest, leading cops to the same enlightened mercantile conclusions.

Although the bulk of the evidence was officially appropriated and sequestered in “a safe zone” it is now classified as missing. Furthermore the DEA has disavowed knowledge of the episode leading reporters to ask: Was this the work of terrorists?

Either way, Granny would like to remind her customers that she will soon be baking All Organic oatmeal cookies on Fridays instead of Thursdays for Valentine’s Day.

“The woman is a masterful baker. She belongs in jail and my ass chews gum,” said one supporter.

Granny’s longterm accolades include First Place in the Jackass Flats Full Contact Spaghetti Cook off from 1981-2007 while her Creme Brulee has been nationally ranked virtually every season since 1998. In 2007 she baked for the Queen during a Royal visit to Nucla and in 2009 donated her apple turnover recipe to the Smithsonian.

 

State to close schools

(Denver UPS) Schools in Colorado will close in 2014 in what has been called a cost saving effort. The institutions, which have been up and running in Colorado since OJ Goldbrick first set up classrooms in 1859, will shut their doors at least until 2016 according to unreliable Confront Range sources.

Existing daycare centers and alternative education concerns are expected to pick up the slack in what may become a lucrative field overnight. Many former teachers have reportedly filed for childcare licenses and the states’ private and parochial schools are shifting policies, in apprehension of a bonanza.

“The schools will only be closed for two years,” said one ignorant Republican representative.

“No one will even miss them,” agreed a gutless Democrat senator.

The closures are expected to save some $6500 per student starting in January 2014.

IT’S ALL THE SAME FULL MOON

“Catch a cluck when she ain’t lookin’

Get some grease and onions cookin’

Wring her neck still she quits kickin’

Add some rice and you got chicken.”

– Camp song of the U.S. Marines in Nicaragua, 1929

He looked like a giant bamboo, towering over an escort of men who had captured him seven months before. That parched spring in 1930 when my grandfather, Sam Brennan, stumbled out of the Segovias, thirty pounds lighter than when he had joined the United States Marine Corps.

General Augusto Cesar Sandino still held his own in the mountains of northern Nicaragua.

Stopping above Esteli he quickly scanned the valley thinking of a cigar and the aged rum that awaited him down below. When the group reached the river they would part, a bitter-sweet separation. Since late summer he had been a prisoner of this barefoot, beans and rice guerrilla army, always on the offensive, always on the run.

“Adios mi buen amigo,” shouted a young man from Chinandega who had fought with Sandino since the early days. Brennan smiled and embraced the soldier then did so with each of the other five smiling Nicaraguans.

“You must be careful getting to the police station from here, my friend,” said one of the escorts. “We cannot go any further since there are National Guard patrols along the river and all the way up to the Marine base at La Sirena. Come back and see us after this is all over. I’ll cook you some iguana soup.”

Then the leader of the contingent, a skinny political sergeant, spoke up:

“La Sirena is as far north as the Nortes dare go. Even with their airplanes they are no match for men whose mother is these mountains.”
Brennan took a deep breath realizing that in moments he would rejoin the civilization that he had left so abruptly in the deserted theater that warm, sticky August night. Their patrol had taken refuge there, not thinking they had been detected by any of the villagers still in the vicinity. He had been operating as an advisor to a group of green National Guard troops in the vicinity of Jinotega. The sentry, a fourteen-year-old peasant boy, just weeks away from his village, had fallen asleep on his watch and the lurking guerrillas had swept down silently, almost magically through the roof of the derelict building.

“I remember that night when we first met,” said the sergeant as if the whole fight had been a social affair. “We had already slit seven throats by the time you woke up. Some advisor,” he teased.

The former enemies  had become friends after all those months in the jungle and it was clear that my grandfather’s political education had taken a turn to the left. Since arriving in Corinto, fresh from the U.S., he had spent more time with Sandino’s troops than he had with his own.

“Maybe I’ll return and work as your advisor,” he chided, “or maybe as executive chef for General Sandino himself,” he laughed.

That night in the theater had been no laughing matter. Sandino’s men were brutal and expedient as they went about the chore of eliminating the enemy. Brennan stood, with a pistol pointed at his head, against a boarded up window and witnessed the slaughter of some 20 men, none over the age of 18. They begged for their lives and were denied. Why they didn’t murder him as well was anyone’s guess. In a matter of moments the guerrillas had left the bloody scene with their Gringo prisoner in tow. By morning they were deep in the mountains.

Now arriving on the outskirts of Esteli the American scarecrow passed lines of shacks with pigs and chickens in their yards. He then crossed the river and wandered apprehensively toward the police barracks in the center of the city. There were moments when he considered turning around and going back into the mountains to carry on the fight with the wizard, Sandino.

 

Like the barefoot shoe-shine boys

Of the mountain town of Esteli

Nowhere to go but the plaza

Smiling diminished sparkle

Those life-expectant, deep-set broken eyes.

 

The rainy season had finished its afternoon tantrums in early November leaving the jungles of Madriz steaming in its wake. One could almost hear the coffee and pinto beans growing. Everything had come alive including more Marine patrols, more recruitment sojourns to the south, more air bomb attacks and more fighting up around Ocotal.

General Sandino and his crazy little army had survived another wet season, or winter as it is called by the soggy peasants whose sons made up this citizen’s army. They lasted by hiding in the jungle canopy and in villages that supported their desperate efforts to resist Somoza and the Norte occupation forces. The lived on tortillas, beans and rice, coffee and cigars…maybe even a chicken or two on Sunday and occasional spoils found on the corpses of National Guard troops.

“Who are these Sandinistas?” asked the peasants.

“It is us, your children, Papi,” came the answer.

They did not take prisoners. At first it was tough, knowing that one’s victim was only a poor peasant too, stolen from his mother and pressed into service for the Somoza regime. But after a while, after the all the deaths around you, coupled with the daily atrocities committed by the Yanqi-trained militia, it became easy. They became good at it. Besides, Sandino was magic. Everyone knew it. He was a spirit sifting through the jungle, a wisp of smoke rising in the mountains.

It was said Sandino could transmit thought at will, sending battle plans, maps and coordinates to his generals in a code, a sort of mental telepathy. Many of his trusted soldiers had seen it. The others, especially his adversaries in the field would come to believe that Sandino possessed these powers.

The Marines had met their match. Even with air attacks and superior weaponry, outright victories had been few and far between. The National Guard stomped around the unfamiliar mountains like a parade of circus elephants while Sandino’s men hid out waiting for the right time and place for yet another costly ambush.

It is said that Sandino invented the concept of guerrilla warfare. Whether that was true or not he had certainly learned to apply its demoralizing principles. He took the fight to the Marines using his own tactics. Out of their element no matter how fierce their training, the Marines took casualties on an almost daily basis while the insurgents blended into the mountains, seemingly invisible.

Meanwhile President Adolfo Diaz, the puppet of the fruit companies, called for more Marines and pressed more young men into military service in his attempts to defeat this monster, Sandino. The commander of the National Guard, Anastacio Somoza Garcia assured the President and the controlling families that it was only a matter of time before the guerrillas were finished.

“I will bring his head to Managua for public display!” he had pledged. That had been three years ago.

 

Sandino and his crazy little army

held off the Marines for seven years.

Gaining the respect of his adversaries

The silhouette of Sandino stands watch today

All over Nicaragua

Yet cruel peace came finally

At the treacherous hands of Tacho

Who simply had him murdered

After a fine state dinner. 

 

A large contingent of National Guard troops had descended on the village of Santa Clara in Nuevo Segovia near the Honduran border. Some estimates put the actual troops strength at over 300 men. They were looking to draw Sandino out into the open for a deciding battle.

The general’s spies were busy calculating the proper move in the face of this new occupation. How long would these green-clad, potato-eating invaders stay? What price would the villagers pay this time around? Already the Guard had rounded up peasants suspected of aiding Sandino. Shots could be heard from the east side of the square. Sandino’s scouts had to sit in their trees and listen to the last cries of men and women who had fed them earlier that week. They could do nothing for now.

The next morning several patrols were attacked as they attempted to expand their presence in the valley. Companies of Guardsman returned to the village at night, their numbers depleted. Often they took angry revenge on the defenseless peasants who happened to be in the line of fire.

A captured officer had told the rebels that a large stash of arms was arriving the next evening disguised as a construction train. If Sandino’s men could intercept this string of mules, victory and the expulsion of the Guard from Santa Clara could be within their grasp. The attack on the heavily guarded weapons had to be tightly coordinated and conducted with pinpoint accuracy or the outnumbered guerrillas risked elimination. They would attack at a small clearing on the road from Susucayan.

While the assault on the weapons train went on, another attack from the rear would serve to confuse the already frazzled army. Still another onslaught would come from the center of the village where supporters of the Generalisimo had organized a small religious parade to honor yet another patron saint. Many of the Guard, although armed for battle, were distracted by the procession.

What was particularly interesting about the logistics of the coming battle was that none of the commanders had seen or talked to Sandino since the previous morning. Somehow they all had the synchronized battle plan in their heads. Had the general communicated to them in a telepathic manner or was that just the superstitious peasants recounting the fight? Whatever the explanation, the guerrillas fought diligently and won a great victory over a larger force.

The next day, after holding off repeated attacks by the insurgents the 100 remaining Guardsmen took refuge in a small church near San Fernando to the east. It was there, according to the greatly relieved villagers of Santa Clara that the witches went to work.

According to several surviving oral accounts the soldiers set up shop in the church while it waited for reinforcements to come up from Matagalpa, several days march from the southeast. Half bedded down while the other half stood watch. Soon a menacing cloud filled the space. The soldiers, thinking it was only drifting from the nearby cloud forest, thought little of the foggy visitor. Soon all had fallen into a deep sleep. When they woke up at dawn the entire contingent found themselves sleeping in the middle of an adjacent road, all of their equipment strewn for miles. For years the local peasants told the story and still do today. Most of the government soldiers did not live to deny the magic, attributed of course to the powers of Sandino, since they were killed by a fortified remnant of rebels the next day during a lengthy, muddled retreat to their base in Esteli.

The look of a sharp machete

Hanging in one arm in the dawn

Bicycles with a jar of pinto and rubber boots

Walking along the ancient roads

The conquest of New Spain seems a dream.

They ascend daily to a better place

Not into the dust of cardboard and tin.

A paradise of sorts, a peaceful pulperia along the way.

The look of a sharp machete

On dawn’s happy stroll to the fields of Nicaragua. 

-Jose Ometepe  

RESOLUTIONS AND MORE

“We’ll be in Richmond by summer or I’ll eat Mr. Lincoln’s hat.”

-General George B. McClellan, Army of the Potomac, January 1, 1862.

 

“I promise to spare no expense on research and stop relying on fragile embellishments and outright lies to earn a paycheck.”  – Melvin Toole, minor scribe

 

If you missed New Year’s Resolution season again don’t despair— this is not one of those stupid resolution columns. It’s a stupid chronological resolution column.

Although documented episodes of out with the old, in with the new proclamations exist throughout the annals of history, perhaps no year better exemplifies these tragic attempts to get back on track than the 13th year of each century.

Conveniently enough, this enlightened harvest of historically linked passages arrived in our cognizant copy basket on New Year’s Eve. While we realize that there are a multitude of vows and pledges that have had far more impact on mankind, we have chosen to focus on resolutions that were actually kept.

Despite other images that this piece may conjure up, it is apparent that the elements, the planets, and the gods have always looked favorably on 13th year resolution makers. It’s kind of an superstition thing. It should be of a relief that Big Brother has yet to make these annual covenants mandatory like seat belt  and Monday holidays, for all citizens.

Our earliest concurrent reference point is 613, which, in itself, represents an epic journey into the past by a bush league research team that has yet to recover from the office Christmas party of 612.

Long after Guanara, a perky Neanderthal inhabiting Asia Minor in about 4000 BC, started her New Year by promising that she would get her family out of “this drafty old cave and into something modular”, St. Augustine started the ball rolling. Curiously enough it was January 1 in the 13th Year of the 5th Century. The stodgy bandwagon moralist had promised Pope Gregory he would convert Britain to Christianity. Two months later he baptized a leading antagonist, Ethelbert of Kent. Ethelbert would go on to become one of the most abrasive lounge singer/performers in Canterbury. Seeing what he had done, Augustine made a second resolution in which he promised never to discuss religion or politics. He then retired to a remote monastery to write his memoirs.

Highlights of other maintained resolutions quite possibly include:

 

713 AD: Marauding Arabs, searching for the legendary oil reserves described by the Roman poet, Sinclair, sack Carthage mistaking it for suburban Byzantium. Their leader, Caliph Abdelmelik III, makes a New Year’s Resolution to start carrying a decent and water-proof map into battle.

 

797 AD: Byzantine Empress, “Sweet” Irene, overthrows her son, Constantine, blinds him, and assumes sole power. She then proposes to marry Charlemagne. After repeated rejections of that conjugal arrangement, Irene promises, in 813,  to quite chasing men and to stop blinding people. Despite her anti-social behavior she was later canonized by the Greek Church.

 

913: After a string of architectural disasters, early electrical contractor, Alfonso III, resolves only to wire castles built with drywall. Saracens, looking for an open service station, launch a gas war with Bulgarians. In January they make a resolution to put their Holy Land condos on the market to pay for further military excursions into Europe.

 

1013: On December 31 Danes promise to stop sacking the Irish Coast but they don’t address rape and/or pillage. The Sultan of Ghanzi resolves to send his gums to the dentist once a year. Gondola operators in Venice pledge to go on strike until tips improve. A dramatic population explosion in China gives birth to the concept of 1/2 orders on sweet and sour pork. These same Chinese guarantee effective birth control methods and dynasty-subsidized egg roll distribution by 1015.

 

1096: The Cid takes downtown Valencia from the Moors and in promises to return it in 1113 when he’s finished with his Christian remodel. Unfortunately it is mislabeled as a present to his precocious offspring who break it the day after Christmas.

 

1213: An assortment of holy men, including St Anthony of Padua and Chinese philosopher, Chu-Hsi promised to stop talking to the sky in public.

 

1297: Scots defeat British at Stirling Bridge and then again at Chevy Chase. In response, by 1313, King Edward I of England’s New Year’s Resolution is to refrain from playing his bagpipes before dawn. He instructs his troops to cease looking up kilts worn by anyone related to Robert Bruce.

 

1413: The Duke of Gloucester vows to stick to his diet but is murdered before he can properly push himself away from his dining room table.

 

1513: Lucretia Borgia, daughter of Pope Alexander VI, shocks the Vatican by divorcing Giovanni Sforza and running off with Alfonso of Naples. Her New Year’s Resolution: Don’t unpack until the ring is paid for. Michelangelo sculpts “Bacchus” and pledges to stop using profane language during his next project .

 

1598: Vasco de Gama rounds the Cape of Good Hope under the flag of Lisbon. However, in 1613 after the check bounced, the explorer resolves that further business dealings with the Portuguese would be on a COD basis. The Second Spanish Armada is scattered by storms in the Atlantic. Spanish King Phillip II makes a resolution to start watching the Weather Channel in 1598. He further pledges to move out of mom and dad’s basement by summer.

 

1697: Peter the Great’s luggage is once again lost during a journey through Prussia, Holland, England and Vienna. He makes the trek disguised as Peter Michailoff in order to study European ways. In January 1713 he vows to travel with only a carry on.

 

1813: Casanova drops dead moments after vowing to stop chasing young women. After taking Vienna, Napoleon resolves to keep an extra pair of dry socks in his pack. He then exhorts his tired soldiers to “let the good times roll”. Headhunters in New Guinea make their first New Year’s Resolution: To eat only vegetarians. Court of Versailles promises to clean its Venetian blinds once a month.

 

1897: The citizens of Red Mountain, near Ouray, Colorado pledge to stop carousing and staying up late. That temperate climate hangs over the town to this day, especially on January 1. Old Man Roberts, proprietor of Tuller and Roberts Grocery at Portland, vows to stop bitching and chewing tobacco when he has to cut up a chicken. Mrs. Williams, a cook at the Victor Restaurant in Gladstone, promises to stop burning her husband’s toast. “Shorty” Bridgeman, “the racker salesman” resolves to stop spitting during conversations. Dr. Copp, a circuit-riding Durango dentist vows to stop drinking at the Little Chef Saloon before oral surgery. The United States government promises to uphold all future treaties with the Ute Nation since most of the latter have already been relocated to Utah anyway.

 

1913: World leaders meet in a Vienna Pool Hall and resolve never again to engage in destructive warfare. Home Run Baker retires pledging to donate his baseball card collection to the Red Cross.

 

2013: Iran and North Korea promise to scrap nuclear energy programs when the U.S., Russia, China, Great Britain, France, Israel, India, Pakistan and NATO  do the same. Republicans and Democrats in the United States pledge to work together for the good of the country. The White House resolves to drop al the pseudo-dialogue on bogus gun control and create a functional system of mental health immediately accessible to all citizens.

OF IMMEDIATE YULETIDE CONCERN

Santa Caught in Two Places at Once

(Ouray) Santa Claus was seen schmoozing at both the Alpine Bank and the Citizen’s State Bank Friday. That wouldn’t have been so bad if the actions had not occurred simultaneously and had not been observed by the a contingent of preschoolers.

According to unreliable fiscal sources here the benevolent elf was spotted hosting Christmas parties at the two banks at approximately 2 pm on the aforementioned date. Shocked parents agreed that if he were going to engage in such questionable behavior he should at least take it out of town.

The development adds fuel to the growing fire regarding the actual existence of Santa Claus. For years a large number of people claim he isn’t real at all but simply a fig leaf of someone’s well oiled imagination.

 

ELF SAFETY COURSE CANCELED

(Montrose) The annual Elf Safety Course for December has been canceled due to lack of interest on the part of elves. Most of the wee toy makers are far too busy to attend meetings (unlike local petty bureaucrats due to a particularly stringent schedule throughout the holidays.

Elves, for centuries a symbol of recklessness and rash behavior, have been instructed to attend at least one Saturday safety class, or be deported to Greenland. The interim government of the North Pole, with the backing of NATO and the United States, has decreed that all elves pass the course before licenses will be awarded. Elves that disregard this order may face firing squad or be sent to Mendoza, Argentina for reeducation.

 

Christmas without caviar?

(Teheran) Pollution and overfishing could wipe out the last of the legendary Russian Caviar 2000 according to sources here in Iran. This Persian nation, second only to Russia in world production of caviar, says its once plentiful sturgeon population has diminished greatly over the past two decades. Caviar is harvested from sturgeon mostly in the Caspian Sea which is now the scene of oil drilling and corporate prospecting.

Experts say that with continued abuse the sea will be dead in five years. It is hoped that wealthy gourmets, who cherish the salty fish eggs as both a delicacy and a status symbol, will step up and put pressure on the oil companies to clean up their act before we are all reduced to wolfing down goose liver pate with our champagne.

 

Santa Embraces Weight Loss Program

(Crested Butte) Thanks to several Third World diets, Santa expects to lose up to 80 pounds by this time next year. Top aides say their boss, also known as Kris Kringle, Father Christmas and Hey Fatso, had often noted that many people in Asia and Africa had little trouble keeping the weight off.

After compiling a journal on the subject over the last 100 years he concluded that these folks stay skinny not because of a diet low in saturated fat, but because they have little or nothing to eat.

“It was getting so I couldn’t tie my socks,” said the elf of his obesity. “Even the reindeer didn’t want to be seen with me, except after dark.”

In a recently published biography sharing the secrets of his long life, Santa points to low stress, cool weather and no smog as factors affecting the his astounding longevity.

 

Mistletoe Thriving Despite OSHA ban

(Gunnison) Months after OSHA banned mistletoe use due to safety concerns the black market is thriving. Sales here in this county alone are triple those of last season.

“It just goes to show that you can’t legislate morality,” said one man who asked for anonymity. “People who didn’t give the shrub a second thought before have now gone out of their way to get it.”

Authorities engaged in the enforcement of the Mistletoe Edicts fear that the situation will become more chronic with bans by the FCC and the USFDA. The AMA has threatened to follow suit as well since things are generally slow around the holidays anyway.

Several species of mistletoe, a parasite, grow in Eurasia and Eastern North America. The sprigs are often used as amorous Christmas decorations.

 

Remember:

Polar Bears love crunchy Santas –

They eat them sleigh and all!