All Entries in the "Fractured Opinion" Category

Drywall Museum Gets Nod

(Montrose) A historical museum to honor the region’s dry wallers has gotten the nod from County Commissioners and will now be returned to the mayor’s desk a final go-ahead signature. According to civic sources two of the three current County Commissioners fell asleep during the hearings with the remaining commissioner, a former building inspector, abstaining due to conflict of interest. Nevertheless the measure passed nevertheless and the museum moved that much closer to a reality.

The cost of the construction is estimated to be in the $500,000 range. When completed it is expected that over 14,000 tourists per day will tour the facility.

“The US has its “xenophobia, its saber-rattling, its theocratic leanings, its denial of facts and science, its tribalism, and its petty and boorish president.”

 – Dr. Ted Gup, Durham University, Great Britain

Congress Agrees to Salary Cuts

Washington) Breaking ranks with its predecessors of 225 years, the United States Senate today ratified a bill that calls for deep salary cuts and sweeping changes in how the legislative body does business.

Setting precedent that completely defies tradition, both the House and Senate the law makers agreed to a 35% salary cut starting in 2021. Along with the adjustment the elected officials will also see a decrease in benefits, travel allowances, expense accounts and retirement packages.

According to unreliable sources within the governing body the move comes as an attempt to undress the growing deficit which is expected to go through the roof over the next four years.

“The economy has been manipulated by an administration with no sense of fiscal responsibility,” said Senator Oral Noise (Unitarian-CA). “Bandwagon tax cuts and deficit spending at a time of rising inflation and a weakened dollar will inevitably spell disaster for the nation. We have to do something. Whether it’s going to have an impact or be parked on a side street as only a gesture, at least it’s a move in the right direction.”

Critics on both sides of the bouncing ball say the action represents too little, too late.

“Where were the Republican critics when they rode the President’s coat tails to victory in November?” asked Trump financial analyst Hector Yuro, one of several millionaire minorities named to the Trump team last month. So what if the Euro is becoming the fiscal standard. It’s all just on paper anyway and there’s a war going on!”

One high ranking Democrat praised the move in that his party must take the initiative to avoid an embarrassing government bankruptcy.

“If the GOP was running an oil company or a baseball team he’s be out of business,” said Jacqueline B. Quicke, who, in an eleventh hour plea for votes, agreed to take her entire constituency to Las Vegas in November. “Unless of course some powerful Saudi family has reserved all of the hotel rooms.

House Republicans slammed the salary cuts calling the move grandstanding on the part of Democrats who want to make Donald Don Trump look bad on television.

“These un-American ideologues want to make The President look like an idiot on television when in fact he is our savior,” wept one former pest exterminator now legislator from Houston. “Don’t they know he’s got a direct line to the Lord?”

Cynics within both governing bodies say Trump should go to a higher power to borrow the money to pay off the rising deficit.

“Surely with his new religious connections he could obtain a few trillion and give us a surplus with which to keep on keepin’ on,” said one urban Democrat who predicts chaos in his precinct with the eminent collapse of social programs due to economic bungling.

“The joke around here goes something like this,” he laughed: “Donald goes to God for the money to pull us out of this mess and God says: Ask your dad.”

“The current quagmire revolves around the fact that the President has already borrowed vast sums from his father, during the Party Years, and has never paid any of it back,” said the source. “The real problem is that government is nothing but a money pit. We ought to shut the whole thing down and go back to living in caves.”

Although there have been spotty threats to filibuster, the bill appears to have the support needed to become law. The action has been applauded by bankers and economists all over the country especially in light of findings that almost all of those affected are already wealthy and don’t need the money anyway. Besides, throngs of lobbyists are expected to make up the difference with incentives and give-aways aimed at gaining the approval of law makers.

“This is just another charade aimed at convincing the American people that someone is actually in charge here,” added Quicke. “The money saved through these salary cuts won’t even be enough to pay Congressional limo drivers for a month. Maybe our leaders should consider public transportation. Now that would be something.”

In a related development Vice President Mike “Six” Pence orchestrated a surprise visit to the Senate today urging that body to come to its senses on the matter. Saying that a dangerous precedent was already in motion Pence petitioned members to rethink their actions and give themselves a raise.

“If rich people like us start giving away our money we’re all going down the tubes,” he all but whispered. “We can’t let on that there’s a problem or we’ll have chaos in the streets like they have in Paris and Caracas. We don’t need (that kind of) democracy here. We have the Electoral Collages, flat-screen TVs, cheap gas and Wal-Mart.”

    – Kashmir Horseshoe

“You still have the soul of a heathen, even though you speak like a Christian and don’t go around naked,” Sister Angelica said. “It isn’t just that it doesn’t bother her, Mother, but she helped them to escape because she wanted them to go back to being savages.”

-From The Green House” by Mario Vargas Llosa

The Blessing of the Chuckholes

The annual Blessing of the Chuckholes is slated for this week or next depending on the weather. Guest chuckholes include world record holders from our region. Hot dogs, fat soda and balloons for the kiddies!

National Magazine Lauds Butte

Is Vail Only After the Molybdenum?

(New York) Crested Butte received high praise in this month’s popular Vacant Lot Magazine, a four-color collection of fluff and unabashed promotion of a crippled and dwindling American infrastructure. Calling the town one of the last great locations of white space in north America, the 10-member investigative team of writers and photographers marveled at the number of liquor outlets and real escape offices doing business here.

“Combine these amenities with a functioning ski area and you have a winner in Crested Butte,” harped one reporter eyeballing his thesaurus. “From the crawling four-way stop to the high-speed Silver Queen quad-lift this place can’t be beat. Besides,” said the article, “It may be Vail but never Aspen.”

The ski area, but not the town, was been purchased by Vail sometime last fall although details are sketchy. Happy hour and snow making operations, the lifeblood of leisure time winter sports, will remain a top priority with the new owners.

“No one will ever notice the difference,” said a source from the I-70 Corridor. “Just so long as they get plenty of snow and make plenty of ice cubes.”

Whether Vail will follow through on promises and construct state-of-the-art molybdenum lifts was never clear and continues in that capacity as we approach the Ides of March.

Meanwhile local cynics suggest that Vail is in no way interested in a continued presence in the volatile ski industry. They say the mega-corporation is only interested in the massive molybdenum deposits under the current lifts. Moly, as the mineral is often called, is a steel alloy found (ironically enough) in bicycles, tennis racquets, designer tents and many other outdoor experience products that are a major component of the freewheeling lifestyle common to these Rockies.

“Do you really think a lucrative investment portfolio would be sacrificed in these time of climate change?” asked one long-timer on Elk Avenue. “Skiing is just a front for mining,” said a source at Red Lady Bubble, a sparkling wine outlet on Belleview Avenue. “These fat cats don’t give a tinker’s damn about selling life tickets when they can sell molybdenum to the Chinese.”

The team of Starbucks-in-hand scribes had been scheduled to arrive in town back in August to cover summer festivals but was held up for five months due to road construction on Highway 135. Despite the annoying setbacks Crested Butte was easily named as one of the Forty Great Travel Destinations in Gunnison County and The Top 20 Places in the World To Bring Up a Dog.

– Fred Zepellin

“The bay was shrouded in the grays of coming rain, yet the thinness of the cloud threw a silvery light on the sea, and an unusual depth of blue to the mountains of Connemara.”

-from The Aran Islands by John Millington Synge

Jack’s Cabin Librarian Accused of Grand Larceny

(Almont) A veteran librarian here has been accused of stealing more than $10,000 from Gunnison County. The alleged theft was reported this morning by library examiners from Powderhorn who say they were tipped off due to unpaid utility bills.

Jack himself later confided that, although he was quite liberal with rental agreement, he had no received a rent check in three years.

Whether the suspect is part of a larger conspiracy to bilk other libraries is yet to be determined although authorities, bored during a lull in mass tourism, say that is a distinct possibility. No names were released because the accused thief’s family were once miners.

“The missing cash was found stored in three cellophane bags marked “Warning: May Contain Toxic Ingredients, said one investigator. “Most is in the form of crisp $50 bills with assorted change totaling $10,346.93. It was a clever attempt to throw us off and might have worked if the office was larger.”

Authorities ask that anyone with information on suspicious behavior in and around Jack’s Cabin to call Crime Shoppers or simply come forward. A small reward is offered.

“You don’t need to borrow trouble.”  –  cowboy saying

GOP says it colluded with Supreme Being during 2016 elections

(Dixie) Republican evangelicals say that they colluded with God during the 2016 Presidential Elections in the United States. The stark admission comes after months and months of testimony conducted in the shadow of the Divine and Foreign Powers Act of 1937.

In addition, many say there is nothing illegal about the activity since it is entirely faith based. There is no paper trail including banking transfers, email hacks or whistle blowers involved.

“These people may be conversing with higher powers. We cannot prove it is untrue. Many have imaginary friends but none of them has a pinch of spiritualism. They may think they talk to a higher force but in reality there is no one there at the other end of that conversation,” said a fellow Republican who called the pseudo-embrace of morality fear baiting and warned voters to stick to the issues.

“These charlatans are trying to distract voters from the real issues and grab a few bags of campaign gold from their frightened constituencies,” continued the GOP source.

“Whoever or whatever is responsible for this human predicament mess on earth has certainly taken leave. The very idea that a controlling being would be interested in our election charades is absurd,” echoed another fallen away Republican.

“People without souls intent on saving other souls has stood in the way of man’s natural ascension and has created a damaged, unhappy existence for millions,” said the source. “Up till now phony religion has been the most destructive force on the planet but hold onto your halos…here comes Monster Weather!”

House Democrats threatened to subpoena everyone who talks to themselves but, alarmed the no one would show up, dropped legislative action on the subject before it ate into their lunch hour.

“They will not subpoena anyone from up here,” said a heavenly voice. “We don’t even know what collude means.”

-H.L. Menocken