All Entries in the "Lifestyles at Risk" Category

Planets Set to Collide

(Substratum Observatory) Astronomers here predict that either Mars or Venus (or both) will collide with planet Earth, resulting in mass destruction and an end to life as we have known it. The frightening impact is expected somewhere between the next few days and the next 750 years, depending on negative energy flow, external phenomenon and the weather. Residents of the affected planets are urged

to stockpile food water and blankets so as to have the best chances of survival.

     “We apologize for the inaccuracies contained in our report,” said one scientist, “and we would like to be more exact in our calculations but it’s tough to tell what is what and who is who in outer space. Trying to decide what time to have lunch is tough enough without trying to predict the arrival time of bedlam and pandemonium.”

     Meanwhile an official gov’ment statement released this morning denies any knowledge of suspicious behavior on the part of Mars and Venus. In addition leaders in world capitals agree that all residents should continue their daily rituals and not worry about “silliness that they cannot control”.

     “Like it or not the collisions could come at any time,” continued the astronomical source, “so we may as well enjoy life, although it might not hurt to get one’s cosmic ducks in a row.”

-Manuel Flushe

Soviets Withheld Hangover Cure from People

(Moscow) The KGB and other control factions in the former Soviet Union allegedly hid an effective cure for the common hangover from the Russian people for some 50 years. The cure, which reputedly involves a prescribed treatment of ripe Georgian peppercorns, liquid oxygen, generous portions of vitamin B, and dried Tabasco sauce lightly shaken with tepid vodka, was discovered by none other than Joseph Stalin while on vacation in Yalta in 1944. Sadly the paranoid dictator did not make his findings public, in fact did not share these remedial qualities with even his close friends and family, until his death in 1953.

     The embarrassing disclosures were released as part of a continuing house cleaning in the Kremlin. It was not clear at press time if controversial Russian leader Vladimir Putin had knowledge of the proceedings. 

     Stalin’s sad legacy had survived until last year when rumors of a miraculous cure for advanced exposure to vile spirits was leaked to reporters by a Communist party girl during a weekend fling in Minsk. Since then the party girl has relocated to Finland and cannot be contacted for comment. The official recipe was never circulated within the hard-drinking population since it was destroyed by fire during the Yeltson Era. 

     According to statements attributed to the now deceased Yeltsin “It remains horribly barbaric and intensely cruel to those of us that enjoy a daily repast and often exceed our limits. Withholding information of this magnitude swerves as further proof that Stalin was not only mad but chronically stupid.”

     For decades party officials had complained of lost workdays and low production, often attributing these social maladies to the liberal consumption of “barrio vodka”. Had Stalin shared his discoveries the Soviet System may have succeeded or at least shown better yields in factories and collective farms.

     “The world might be a different place today had the Soviets applied this saving catalyst,” said one expert who often dresses as Stalin and still lives with his (not Stalin’s) mother.

     The ancients seem to have possessed a remedy for alcohol poisoning as they called it. Researchers have doggedly pursued a cold trail in this vein since the Crusades. Prior to that time the personified factions of good and evil have coveted the panacea since the Sumerians first put cork to bottle, brewing beer in 3500 BC.

– Gregory Rasputin Jr.

SICK BLAMED FOR HEALTH CARE WOES

(Warshington) Opponents of the absent/diluted National Health Care program, proposed by the Obama Administration, say that sick people are the major stumbling block in creating an effective policy here. The culprits, they say, lay around in hospital beds doing virtually nothing all day. 

     Republicans, careful not to offend the right-wing Christian sector, added that these problem citizens should either get healthy or bow out gracefully so as to allow the rest of us to afford protection.

     Saying that these “selfish malcontents are jeopardizing the standard of living for everyone”, a spokesperson for the Sturgeon General’s Office promised to look into the matter after the November elections.

     “We’re all down with the flu this week,” whined the source,. If we had premier coverage like Congress we’d probably be able to make it to work and actually get something accomplished.”

     In the interim, concerned parties on the left and right have called for a freeze on legal immigration so that “fevered clusters of humanity can be better curtailed”. These highly vocal groups have even gone so far as to demand clean bills of health from groups entering the county illegally and serve them up as some sort of example to the sleepy American voter.

     “The last thing we need is a bunch of aliens getting sick and ruining it for everyone else,” said a T-Bag from somewhere south of reality. “If they insist on having babies here the least they could do is have the dignity to buy American-made diapers!”

     When later informed that all “American” diapers (and American flags for that matter) are now made in China the enlightened source was at a loss for further misspelled words and bad grammar.

     In a rare appearance at a suburban Virginia dog show President Obama told reporters that “blaming the infirm for health care woes was like blaming pets for leash laws”. It’s high time we identified the sandbaggers in the system and rooted them out one at a time,” said the Chief Executive. Following an enthusiastic response by those in attendance, the President promised to recognize no less than 16 new breeds of dog if elected for a second term. He did not mention cats.

     Called cheap grandstanding by dwindling voices in the Republican camp, the action was seen by non-partisan forces as an attempt to placate the sick while securing the canine vote in the coming campaigns.

     “Isn’t it about time the middle classes picked up the slack,” said one lobbyist for the American Medical Association. “If we wait for the rich or poor to cover our arses we could be six feet under before sunset. How can we realistically expect to find any answers with all the coughing and nose blowing taking precedence over common scents?”

– Tommy Middlefinger   

Queen’s Coffin Located, Expedited

(London) For a harrowing 20 minutes nobody knew where the coffin had gone. Then in the nick of time a Jamaican Airlines ticketing agent stumbled across it while on her coffee break across from the domestic baggage sector.

“There it was. Bright as a prosperous colony, standing firm as sterling silver,” she said “I had seen it on telly when it left Edinburgh. It was the only unclaimed cargo on a red-eye flight in from Mumbai.

Within moments hundreds of anxious federal and local authorities swooped down on the lonely carousel, still going round and round. Forensic specialists and members of the royal clan were then spirited to the airport to make positive identification before announcing that the Queen Mother was in fact “in there all right” according to police.

“Her Majesty does not fly on commercial airlines,” said an aide. “The very idea that her private box had been tampered with is illogical since it only need pass through rudimentary customs in London.”

The aide blamed the Irish.

Meanwhile with the newly found Queen Elizabeth (no last name given) arrived at Westminster Abbey without further incident.  

-Finn McCool

“If elected I will go to Mars” says Commissioner Candidate

(Lake City, CO) The Hinsdale County Commissioners race in 2022 is heating up with the incumbent promising star roving and the challenger urging voters to herald the town into the 21st century.

Resonating the words of then Presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower regarding a visit to the war zone that was Korea 1951, Toole looked like he had just taken a bite out of someone.

“If elected I will go to Mars!” he exclaimed again just so everyone could hear him.

Paula Parvenu, a retired osteopath and competition for the coveted county position mocked Toole, saying that she would rather stay in county and help the residents here. Readers may recall Parvenu’s tearful concession speech following a painful  one vote defeat in the County Coroner race in 2020. 

“I realize I am a bit of a neophyte but I am quite sure that solar system treks and small town politics don’t mix well.”

“I’d say the Martian enthusiasm was split down the middle with half of the registered voters impressed with Toole’s courage and willingness to to strike out into the great beyond,” stressed one election monitor. “The other half simply want him to leave town for whatever reason he chooses in his jumbled consciousness.”

“Why Mars?”asked Toole defensively. “Less controversial than Israel or Taiwan. Closer than Neptune. “The moon is passé. Everyone is doing that.”

His own grapefruit powered spice module with a henway launcher was crafted in the Black Hills from old motorcycle parts and a discarded copper still.

“At first Toole threatened to ride his Gold Wing but aides calmed him down.,” said the former commissioner. “Then he volunteered to be shot from a canon duplicating countless success stories from his earlier circus days.”

The key here, according to the local prattle is that Toole says he is going someplace. Any place. The destination is secondary. 

“The electorate hears the sound byte, stores it within the twisted wires and well-worn fears and generational opinions, spits out a poorly though out preamble and then forgets the matter entirely.”

-Slim Gulione

Parts of this report were extracted from the first draft of the popular String Bikinis on the Ganges, A Memoir

by Melvin Bedwetter Toole, Testosterone Brothers, Boston.

Take your libido to work day “abject disaster”

(Pea Green)) The first-ever exploratory, employee-sponsored Career Jamboree has reportedly failed in all projections and will be dropped in 2023. 

“This was a social disaster peppered with inappropriate behavior and gossip, girl-boy shenanigans and the running of 30 mouths,” said Natty Redde who does cowgirl beadwork and was invited to the jamboree with her libido and well-behaved her dog, Sherker, who holds an advanced degree in canine tonsorial relations and likes to swim in rivers completely naked.

“In had a blast!” Redde said. “We didn’t bring Sherker’s libido because it had jumped the fence and tore up the neighbor’s laundry and bit the local policeman.”

The riling and vexatious event came together when leading office predators, including the Clown Administrator, were away on an illegal voting machine vacation in Grand Junction.

The Administrator, in keeping with her landmark statement, she did not elaborate further.

“I don’t play golf to get better. I play to keep from getting any worse.”   – Babe Toole

Kokani Running Despite Drought – DOW

The Colorado Division of Wildlife says kokani salmon snagging season is a go this fall despite the lingering drought. The agency praised The Brotherhood of Tomichi Ditch Riders for the “restitution of local color” but did not elaborate further. Offices in Gunnison (above photo) are still damp after a leak in a fourth floor swimming pool flooded the facility Friday. The pool, reserved for visiting dignitaries, is the only known rooftop collegiate swimming hole in Western Colorado and Eastern Utah. When the local volunteer fire department arrived, armed with hoses, ladders and nets, they had no option but to watch the commotion. Fortunately no tourists were on the street when the water gushed down.

Unnamed Peaks the Shame of the San Juans

(Ridgway) Abandoned to the elements from their tottering perches, bastards of convenience, tinkers of history, forgotten rocky remnants without so much as a tag of respectability. These are the nameless mountain peaks haunting our Southwest Colorado skyline. A wall of shame for all to see.

Labeled an embarrassment by every office seeker, civic leader and mountaineer, little has been accomplished to improve the status of these so-called “anonymous ones”. In fact, the subject remains an ultra-sensitive quagmire, often overlooked in the face of more demanding duties and the daily errands of Alpine survival, one not often introduced in polite circles. Hush-hush, you know.

Many residents say the problem could be put to rest by simply naming all the nameless peaks but this has been largely dismissed by purists who insist the names must distill like fine single-malt or cure like a Serrano ham. They say the names will mean nothing if concocted to fit a meaningless bill of fare. Quick-fix solutions are “phony and transparent”, they insist.

“The nomenclature of these sacred mountains must distill like fine single-malt or cure like a Serrano ham,” say the more literate assembled. “Branding these massive monolyths is not something to do half-ass. What of posterity? What of topographics?”

“It’s just whitewashing,” said Colonel (retired) Wilbur “Bull” Bulbous of Log Hill Mesa. “We who look fondly on these high points each day do not take their identity lightly. They should all have names but there must be lore — Meat behind the moniker and history behind the handle. These mountains must be celebrated, not simply be appointed, not dubbed.”

At present, several rather large peaks are cursed with a severe personality crisis. They are not victims of identity tampering since they never had a name in the first place. Yes, the Utes may have christened some of these unfortunates, but over time those ancient titles were trampled by prospector nicknames and mining routes established by mules and muckers.

“Astonishing,” said one alpineer upon return from the Wilson Range. “These giants just sit there deprived of verbal recognition, hidden genetics, even the most basic geological categorization.”

According to the most recent tally there are 38 named peaks in the San Juan Range, 14 unnamed, and an assortment of demeaning letter designations as well as a flurry of unhinged reference points all above 12,000 feet. In some places multiple pinnacles reach into the sky without names. Sometimes several mountains are clumped together with little hope of determining when and where continental plates might have collided, creating them.

“It’s a disgrace,” added other hikers and binocular enthusiasts. “They have been sentenced as infinite nobodies in a world that has forgotten the Paleozoic. It is nothing short of a snub.”

While Uncompahgre and Wilson Peak get constant accolades many deserving peaks in the San Juans do not even have a name to call their own   (Toole Photo Service)

This sedimentary emergency is painfully acute in the more affluent escarpment that accommodates such massif monsters as Sneffels and Uncompahgre along those distinct ridge lines. Here stand clustered cliffs of sheer, sacred rock like cloisters of empty tenement housing or wind beaten, top-heavy sloops, half-sunk in a teeming celestial harbor.

Here stand clustered cliffs of sheer, sacred rock like cloisters of tenement housing or wind beaten, top-heavy sloops, half-sunk in a celestial harbor. 

We warn of failing infrastructure and ignore the pains of abandonment in our own backyards — We miss the magnificent tundra and overlook the splendor, not even exhibiting the common decency to give that mesmerizing rock a name. 

“Repulsive”, added a well-groomed hiker who has been in these hills at least once. “Where is the transcendence and spiritual  elevation?”

How dare we dismiss these gods, these steep, snow-capped luminaries. Where is our morality and sense of fair play? What about our obsession with justice for the underdog? 

We fail to recognize greatness that stares one in the face every day. How can we, in our haste to name computer functions,  and master corporate lingo, turn our backs on the natural pillars of an entire mountain range? These mountains have seen us come and go, not even as a novelty anymore. None seeks acclaim in a human sense, just a little notoriety.

– Uncle Pahgre