All Entries in the "Fractured Opinion" Category

Identity Brokers in Town Tuesday

(Almont) Representatives from the nation’s top identity brokerages will be in town this week hoping to acquire as many as 600 local identities. Once called identity theft, and heralded as a threat to fiscal well-being, the emerging practice of paying cash for people’s identities, now legal, has grown into a billion dollar enterprise.

“Once we convinced the government leaders that it would be easier to manipulate public opinion with many identities under the one roof of corporate sponsorship, we were on the way,” said Norm Valaparaiso, who alone has over 7000 identities in his trophy case. “The Congress passed an amendment, the President signed it off and we began recruiting willing identities right out in the open.”

Residents willing to sell their identity should assemble at dawn at the confluence of the East and Slate Rivers, and bring along an overnight case. Despite a slight drop in demand over the summer and fluctuating interest rates, most identities are still bringing in about $2.39 per pound. Analysts hope that projected inflation will drive prices up and precipitate increased interest on the part of the general population.

“Right now it’s a buyer’s market. They’re scared. They’re waiting,” said Valaparaiso. “I don’t blame them.

Local Woman Wins Nobel Prize

Hack after receiving the news of her prize

(Stockholm UPS) After minutes of deliberation the Nobel Committee on Non-Essential Pomp awarded this year’s prize for apathy to Dubbie Hack of Olathe.

A spokesman for the group, Svim Orsinke, explained:

“Vell ve yust could not decide between Dub and anoder American, Al Gore. Den ve found out dot Gore tinks he cares, and tinks he does his yob. He even tinks he will be elected President. Dub, on da odder hand, has never kidded herself on dese madders.”

The monetary prize is traditionally awarded to one who displays concerted disinterest, steadfast indifference and/or a strong and resolute lack of concern for all of humanity.

Dub shot to immediate dark fame after she ran over her grandmother on her way to the liquor store last July. When questioned by authorities regarding the old woman in the driveway Dub explained that he had been in a hurry to get to the store before All-star Nordic Wrestling hit the airwaves. The incident was then called accidental by police and no charges were filed.

Critics question the link between the Nobel Committee and Nordic Wrestling Federation suggesting collusion or at the very least tampering and election fraud.

“She might have made it to the mailbox if I hadn’t nailed her on the way back too,” Hack quipped, rolling her eyes. “What had she doing out there on the driveway anyway?” The woman should have been wearing lights or at least an orange vest.”

When told of the decision Dub said he was honored and inquired about said cash awards.

“The gods love the obscure and hate the obvious.”

The Upanishads (800-500 BC)

Cows Showing Off Spring Brands

Branding cows has been part of the Western culture since the first bovines waddled off the tall ships of the Spanish Main. Elaborate or inornate, thousands of brands have been registered and people even make living inspecting the things. Some people think it’s harsh to burn a predominant mark into the side of a cow but actually they don’t feel much. It’s kind of like their logo.

Besides, considering the practice of summer grazing on large tracts of gov’ment land from here to the Utah border (and because all Herefords look alike) it’s quite practical (at least for the cow punchers). How would you like to spend the warm months out in the middle of nowhere without so much as bus number, ID or address book? It’s like a social security card for cattle and maybe a lot more as we eavesdrop on a conversation in a pasture near Montrose.

Bossie: Get a load of that tattoo on Old Miss Elsie over there.

Brownie: Yeah, she thinks she’s femme fatale on-the-hoof.

Bossie: Grazer.

Elsie: Hello, girls. Did you see my new brand? It’s from Paris.

Brownie: Paris, Texas perhaps.

Bossie: My brand is Ralph Lauren. It’s designer, you know.

Elsie: Well, my markings show superior stock anyway. You two are no better than 2% next to me.

Bossie: She wouldn’t know the difference between high fashion and cheap imitation.

Brownie: Oh Elsie, your brand is nice but it’s a copy. I saw one just like it on the sale rack at the Delta Feedlot.

Elsie: I wouldn’t wear that brand of yours to the rendering plant.

Bossie: It’s all right for dairy cows, but not for us.

Brownie: Don’t you think that kind of brand makes her look fat.

Elsie: It cost over $100. What did you pay for that costume?

Bossie: At least it goes with my hooves. That’s more than I can say for your ensemble.

Elsie: Enough about brands. Who did your hair? It looks like it was burned off.

Bossie: Who did your makeup? Old MacDonald?

Elsie: Jealousy is one of the deadly sins. My monogram speaks for itself. Now I must leave. I have a luncheon engagement.

Sammy Steer: Good grass, man. All we need now is to get over the fence into the cow pasture.

Lord Bull: Look at the brand on that heifer.

– Merv Ditchwater

AIR SERVICE FROM NUCLA TO NATURITA BEGINS TODAY

(Norwood) Regular daily flights from Nucla to Naturita are slated to start today with the 6 am morning milk run. Flights, which were suspended due to fuel shortages during the Persian Gulf War, will number 15 on weekdays and more than 20 on the weekends.

     According to West End Open Space Airways the planes will hold 13 passengers not counting a pilot, co-pilot and rear gunner. The recently repaved Calamity Draw landing strip in Nucla was pronounced “sea-worthy” last week while crews are busily preparing the historical Vancorum dirt strip for the return flight.

     One spokesman for the newly formed Twin Cities Air Board told The Horseshoe that Hopkins Field might serve as a backup landing zone if sheep fences were not completed by departure time.

     The news was greeted with much enthusiasm as far away as Norwood where anxious residents still await the resumption of stagecoach service from the Paradox Valley.

“I am not a pessimist; to perceive evil where it exists is, in my opinion, a form of optimism.”

– Roberto Rossellini

Human Pretzel to Perform

The Human Pretzel

(Crested Butte) Billing himself as The Human Pretzel, contortionist extraordinaire, Swami Ahswam Deyalsingh, will perform at at six different town venues this summer. The return this year will mark the tenth year in the past eleven that the popular rubber-like entertainer has bent, curved, twisted and otherwise publicly distorted his bodily form, often to the delight of audiences.

The former stand-in and sandwich maker for the renown Flying Farcheezie’s high wire act, the pretzel is said to have more than 300 freakish shapes in his rigid repertoire. Traveling with him are his womanizing chiropractor and a night-blind percussionist who will attempt to musically accentuate pressure points during the tortuous distortions.

If last year was any indication the 12-hour show will be one of many highlights of the Crested Butte Arts Festival which shuts down Elk Avenue for days. Appreciative viewers are asked that, in lieu of gratuity, they simply toss cigarette lighters onto the stage. Deyalsingh will then distribute the lighters to the impoverished of South Asia over the winter.

– Tommy Middlefinger

IRS Offering Ribs in Lieu of Refunds

(Ogden, UT) The Internal Revenue Service, in an apparent attempt to relieve the personal debt ceilings, has instituted a flagship program which offers taxpayers baby-back pork ribs instead of refunds.

The ribs, available only to persons who have earned a tax refund will be sent out just like other correspondence from the Treasury Department, arriving late, and probably cold. Already jokes about pork barrel politics and pigs at the trough are circulating major government centers. Earned income credit cannot be applied in a piggyback fashion as it has in other years.

“Recent tax cuts for the wealthy dictate that we too must cut back when it comes to refunding moneys,” said Shirley Turnip of the IRS.

Persons interested in receiving the food should fill out one of the Ribs Instead of Refunds forms available right next to Selective Service questionnaires at local post offices. Respondents must clearly state whether they prefer sauce or dry-cooked ribs, how they like them done and if they prefer potato salad to cole slaw.

“Once we get the fire going it will be too late for substitutions,” said Turnip.

Meanwhile the IRS has filed a final decision as to the status of sun worshipers residing in this country, saying that since the practice is not recognized as a legitimate religion and therefore these parties must file taxes in accordance with the existing laws.

“A few hunhred scrawls o’ chaps with a couple o’ guns and Rosary beads, again’ a hunhred thousand thrained men with horse, fut an’ artillery…and he wants us to fight fair!”

– Sean O’Casey in The Plow and the Star (1926)

Yuppie Anazazi To Blame For Demise of Mesa Verde?

(Mancos) Young, urban, professional cliff dwellers are being blamed for the passing of the native American culture at Mesa Verde according to archaeologists and doctors here. Basing their theories on a recent dig which netted what most believe to be an early local, the scientists seem convinced that the ancient mystery can now be resolved.

“The upwardly mobile Anazazi sought to acquire second homes, sophisticated time keeping devices, pure-bred dogs, expensive foreign transportation and private schools for their children,” said Dr. Melvin Tool, Medical Director of the Far View Institute just west of here. “This obsession with material goods on the part of the more affluent caused a riff in the social infrastructure and growing resentment among the poorer Anazazi who were sentenced to scraping out a living growing corn, hunting and making jewelry.”

Tool, who is best known as the surgeon who first transplanted the brain of a human into the head of an ape, said the situation at Mesa Verde in about 1100 was much like that of our urban centers today.

“Everyone was abandoning the decaying cliff dwellings for the security of the suburbs,” he shrugged. “How do you think Cortez was founded. Once the wheel is set in motion it is tough to stop it from turning and, make no mistake about it, the Anazazi, like their casino-happy Ute descendents of today, had discovered the wheel!”

When coupled with his analogy to the urban centers Tool’s vast experience with apes comes into play like a runaway hockey puck at an orthodontist’s convention.

Tool writes: “Some three to four hours after we placed the brain of the human into the cranial cavity of the ape a major metamorphosis ensued. The ape, once content to eat bananas and swing on his lonely swing now wanted more. He threw his food at his handler, refused to perform cute tricks and demanded to see a lawyer! After a few days he began abusing his charge card and seeing a therapist. After a week he was a fully reconditioned neurotic much like the man he had almost become.”

The physician equates the behavior of the greedy Yuppie Anazazis to the behavior of the frustrated ape with the newly acquired human brain. With further experimentation Tool and his colleagues hope to isolate extended patterns of abnormal behaviorisms and thus develop a treatment which might deter this conduct in the future.

“We’ll be needing about a truckload of volunteer apes with human brains,” winced Tool, “since it is still illegal to perform experiments of this type on yuppies. If we are successful we might be able to determine the origin of greed in man and make a U-turn on the road to destruction.”

-Princess Irm Peawit

“It’s not just the GOP’s position on pot that is a problem for younger voters. Virtually everything it does offends their sensibilities. Trump pulled out of the Paris climate accord, wants to ban transgender people from the military, is vehemently anti-immigrant (legal and illegal), approved the Muslim ban and a plan to punish so-called sanctuary cities, and tore up net neutrality. His treatment of women is yet another strike against him.”

– Jennifer Rubin writes the Right Turn blog for The Washington Post, offering reported opinion from a conservative perspective.  Follow @JRubinBlogger