All Entries in the "Lifestyles at Risk" Category
Pitkin in top 25…PARLIN NAMED SAFEST US CITY
(Gunnison) Tiny Parlin has been named the nation’s safest city, narrowly edging Detroit and Los Angeles for the honor. The surprising results were extracted after extensive polling and months of door to door interviews conducted by the Crime Fighters Anonymous, Tree City Ventures, Community Options, the Urban League and the local fire department.
“We are pretty darn proud of our town,” said Chuck “Salt” Flats, who has resided in the town for over 70 years. “We haven’t had this much attention since Alder Creek flooded Quartz Creek and the Utes came to town.”
It is surmised that the accolade will dramatically increase tourism during the summer months.
Visitors to Colorado are always looking for something new and different,” said Flats. “Although Parlin is not new and is not particularly different it’s really a nice spot for fishing and a picnic. Hey, it’s even romantic!”
The winning decision was based on crime rate and lifestyle which is enjoyed by Parlin’s residents year round. Even the livestock were consulted. Within the population only one crime was committed which turned out to be a misunderstanding, back in 1947, when a disoriented motorist from Ohio City failed to pay for a Dixie cup’s worth of gasoline.
“And she returned to pay the 4 cents the next day,” said Flats, a former military policeman. “We can’t be sure what’s causing all this calm. Maybe it’s the street lights or the fact that everyone here is armed…but something is working.”
Residents will meet over the weekend to discuss where to exhibit the fifty foot trophy that is expected to arrive by Pony Express next month. – Rufus Maxwell
Mother Nature Reclaiming Vast Segments of Suburban Sprawl
(Levittown) The planet earth is coming back with a vengeance recovering enormous swaths of land once thought to be beyond resuscitation. The march of aggressive vegetation, revived jungle, and the increased rumbling from the planet’s core have resulted in a restoration once thought impossible.
Nature is in the midst of a revival not seen since the Renaissance according to botanists and geologists monitoring the spontaneous reinstatement of natural law in areas surrounding major population centers. Sociologists have long pinpointed these often-affluent communities for the worst abuses.
“The planet is winning back acres and acres at an alarming rate throwing man’s progress to the four or five winds,” said Dr. Efram Pennywhistle of the Rolling Hills Institute in Parma, Ohio. Even asphalt and concrete are no match for an angry mother where the relentless, powerful march of green growth and geothermal energy are measured.”
Pennywhistle, who often speaks through a straw, reminded readers that fracking, fossil fuel emissions, pesticides, chemical fertilizer and constant oil spills by negligent petroleum capitalists remain a grave threat to life on earth. He said he hoped that when Mother Nature is finished with the suburban housecleaning she will roll up her sleeves and turn her attention to these environmental disasters.
“A lot of us here at the institute have come to realize that the current effort is just a test run, a dress rehearsal for bigger and better things to come. We expect that in a few months we will observe the utter destruction of hydraulic fracturing sites, the sinking of oil tankers, the termination of gasoline-powered cars and the embrace of organic fertilizers even by the heartless corporate sector. These changes will not come due to a new-found altruism on the part of humans but rather by stepped up angry natural disasters and the might of the natural world against these choking technologies.”
Pennywhistle suggests that at the current rate (step-in-step with polar ice melt still denied by throwbacks in Congress) there may be no more suburbs at all by 2040. Poorly constructed shopping malls ma go first followed by the crumbling of ticky-tacky neighborhoods that have grown up around them.
Countless experts in the field have warned of the coming doom. One noted climatologist, Professor Myra “Bunny” Hopwilder, the inventor of Kind Pesticide, a brave, new notion that simply puts pests in a “state of swooning well-being”, rendering them harmless, has this to say:
“Prematurely cracked sidewalks, statues tumbled to the ground, scrambled communities draped in flat humdrum walls and ceilings steeped in sameness, carnivorous plants eating small rodents and insect for now. What will they do when the food supply runs out? Melting asphalt from above and below, plants growing to four and five times their normal size. Culture smothered and overpowered as nature chokes off whatever inhabits her sinister path.”
Whether this floral gentrification is a cure or remedy depends on the value placed on vapid architecture and human existence, according to Hopwilder.
“When the deed is done and the earth returns to an agrarian paradise, free of man’s convoluted meanderings, will we still be a welcome here? Will we learn to live in harmony with the world around him or simply begin the devastation again?”
Meanwhile governments from Nairobi to Nanking are encouraging people to take precaution.
“Keep all children and pets indoors and all cars in garages when available. Secure all lawn furniture, barbecues, fencing, lawn tools and sheds. Don’t overwater existing foliage. If you have an old bomb shelter this might be a good time to muck it out and stock it with canned goods. Otherwise you are on your own.
For related story turn to Wind Turns Violent at US Congressional Palace on Page 56
– Arlene Fukushima
US Musicians Orchestrated Cairo Coup Says Ex-Drummer
Sons of Sinai in Egypt in 2012
(Alexandria) Musical unknowns may have orchestrated the military coup in Egypt which brought down the democratically elected government of Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim brotherhood. According to a drummer who used to play with the Sons of Sinai, a rock band, members of the group were highly instrumental in the actions that changed the leadership here in early July.
Although the United States denied direct manipulation in the events that led to the military takeover, it shared no denial or hastily concocted comment on the alleged seizure of power.
Dubbed Operation Musical Chairs by cynics here and in Washington, the effort has been downplayed with the primary security and diplomatic agencies disavowing any knowledge of the action. Most say that if synthesization occurred, it was without their consent.
“None of these developments followed the normal chain of command,” said a former bass player now overseeing CIA high notes in the Mideast. “It was not our perception that aggressive means like these had been implemented.”
The often unreliable source spoke under the conditions of anonymity due to roll playing and secretive meanderings about the Capitol. He assured reporters that his office would begin to get down to the truth of this matter “someday soon”.
“We don’t want people going around thinking the United States is intentionally intruding into the business of another sovereign nation,” said the shadow mouthpiece. “I cannot say any more at this time. If the puppet masters knew I was talking to the media I could lose my head and endanger my family.”
The drummer in question who first blew the whistle on the whole mess has not been seen or heard from since he first came out with the initial accusations. He is believed to be safe and in the custody of the Justice Department at an unidentified penal installation out of the country. According to sketchy details released by his attorney he (the drummer) played with the alleged musician conspirators for only a few gigs “and would have had no knowledge of any clandestine activities of the other band members.”
It is not known how long he will be held in protective custody.
“Everyone knows drummers can’t be trusted, not with vital information, not with money and certainly not with the girlfriends or wives of the others in the band,” said Eva Holesumme, a former lead singer with the Sons of Sinai.
Considering the millions in foreign aid given to the army (and certainly not to the people) it could be easily argued that the US might have had the power to encourage or discourage a takeover by the military. Many political watchdogs on both the Potomac and the Nile conclude that it would be implausible to think the Americans had no influence with the ruling generals. The longtime fiscal balancing act all but dictates that the Egyptian armed services would be called on to pay an outstanding debt someday.
“If one entity pays another entity that kind of money the receiving entity is liable and, logically speaking, might likely be controlled or predisposed by those purse strings,” said Omar Silte, of the Fairness to Egypt League, headquartered in Washington. “One reality is clear enough: The Egyptian military did not act contrary to US interests and thus jeopardize its payday. The refusal to use the word coup is only a gov’ment sidestep to insure the bucks keep rolling into the army’s coffers.”
Both Holesumme and Silte, himself a gifted percussionist, recently disappeared while walking their dogmas near the White House over the weekend. Police called the two incidents “unrelated and probably the result of petty crime or the unseasonably hot weather”.
Suspicions of US involvement came to a head soon after the exchange of power in Cairo according to multi-national journalists working there. Several pointed to precedents set way back in 1953 when democratically elected Mohammad Mosaddeq was melodiously deposed in Iran and the Shah brought back to the throne. His crime: Nationalizing the oil companies so that the Iranian people, and not British Petroleum, might benefit from that natural resource.
“We can talk about the jazz quartet that brought down Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973 and the seemingly progressive folk group the undermined the existing government in South Vietnam in 1963,” said a reporter for Al Jazeera. “Maybe we could peek in at other incidents involving the woodwind quartet that successfully rid the world of (Our boy) Saddam Hussein. Then we have Guatemala’s Jacobo Arbenz Guzman in 1954 (quick strike United Fruit piano sextet) and (our other buddy who knew too much) Manuel Noriega (Subliminal Navy Glee Club). Guzman’s crime was redistribution of land to the peasantry…. land stolen from the people and set aside for corporate interests in the United States. The other two criminals were set up/created by the US and taken down when they got too big for their britches.”
The shameful list goes on. The Kingdom of Hawaii (Marching band, 1893), Brazil (Big band, 1964), Cambodia (Choral choir, 1970). All music to the ears of the plutocrats in Washington.
Another scribe reminded readers that to musically galvanize another country’s power base is an intrusion of irreproachable dimension and is illegal under international law.
“As one can see by the evidence presented after the Egyptian coup d’ etat (the action that wasn’t labeled as such by the US) the track record of the United States is nothing short of totalitarian,” continued a reporter for the London Times.
“Since 1945 the monkey business carried out by the United States government in the name of its citizens has been ineffective, incurious and flat immoral,” continued the newsman. “It is the policy of a ruling party in bed with the wealthy and dedicated solely to the betterment of their pocketbooks. If someone (even its own expendable citizens) or some country gets squashed that’s just collateral damage — The rich made plenty of money and therefore the action was a victory! Meanwhile the American people continue to believe that their country has its heart in the right place when it has little if any heart at all”
– Kashmir Horseshoe
Scientists Discover Four New Species at Nuclear Site
(Richland, WA) Biologists here have found several new species of plants and insects while exploring parts of the government’s Hanford nuclear reservation that had been off limits since 1945.
“We are very exited. It may be the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience something unique in our otherwise workaday world,” said botanist Katy Betz of Bellingham.
The new plant was discovered when botanists noticed bladder pods, which usually bloom in May, blooming in July and August. This particular plant was 75 feet tall with silver hairs, yellow flowers and an insatiable appetite for the small fury creatures (also unique to modern science) that roam the facility’s floor.
The new insects, numbering two distinct species themselves, were once members of the leaf cutting group but are now much larger. They feed on plant juices and the blood of carnivores. They look a bit like cicadas on steroids.
The other insects seem quite afraid of them,” said Betz.
“And people are worried about the safety of our nuclear programs,” she laughed.
– Dinty Moore
BUS ENTHUSIASTS FORM CLUB
(Gunnison) Local bus enthusiasts have organized the nation’s first bus club here according to a press release received this morning. The club, founded for promotion and preservation of bus-related culture, will attempt to educate the public while it combats common misgivings about this kind of travel.
In addition the club will be responsible for recording bus lingo and chronicling history of buses in the Western Slope region. Slide shows on the most recent technology and hints on making left turns will be presented each Friday night at the LaVeta Hotel on South Boulevard Street.
“We’ll be taking field trips to local fields and meeting the bus when it arrives on its daily trek from Pueblo and points beyond,” said Ralph Cramden of Almont. “Why just the other day we had a bus right here in Gunnison that came all the way from Kansas City. Small world, heh?”
Members feel that the public will gain new perspectives into bus travel through the efforts described here.
“With the Congress dragging its feet on passing gas bills we could all soon be riding the bus,” smiled Cramden, “and there’s nothing worse than a rookie holding up the line looking for change or asking the driver stupid questions.”
