All Entries in the "Lifestyles at Risk" Category

GOP Gerrymanders Counties Back To Mexico

(Brownsville UPS) Unsettling rumors that abortive, paper Christian Texas lawmakershave returned at least 5 Texas counties to Mexico were confirmed this afternoon. 

The accidental shift, an attempt to prevent people of color from embracing the power of the vote, was called “our mistake” by an embarrassed, yet continually ignorant class of politicians not seen since the Third Reich.

The counties shipped back to Mexico include Jim Wells,  Dimmit, Willacy,  Patricio, and western parts of Arnsas and Kleberg. All have had high Latino populations since the 1700s.

“We are certain that something can be worked out to alleviate this mishap,” said spokesman Rory Alamo, a non-elected official with impressive sway in the House. If not we’ll have to invade again. Remember Vera Cruz!”

The affected counties will have until January to legally respond to the changes. Residents there will most likely vote in a special election to determine future nationality. Will they stay in the US or join Mexico? 

Nobody knows.

– Red Greene  

“Fortune favors the already rich. If the peasants rises the wealthy will simply hire the Moors.” 

– Roscoe “Chepe” Mola

Napoleon May Have Visited the Gunnison Valley in 1815

(Crested Butte) Deceased French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte may have visited the Gunnison Valley following his escape from exile on Elba and before his subsequent defeat at Waterloo on June 18 of that same year. On his way to Colorado in the company of French fur trappers from Quebec, the one-time Empereur des Francais may well have surveyed former French holdings recently sold to the upstart United States in 1803.

The visit, allegedly in the spring of 1815, was an attempt to lay low before returning to Europe to raise another army and march on Paris, which had fallen to his enemies in 1814. The visit was a short respite from recent defeats at Oporto, Talavera, Leipzig and Trafalgar and the disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812 where only 20,000 French soldiers, from an original force of 550,000, survived the campaign.

The totalitarian leader is believed to have either crossed the still frozen Lake Huron with his entourage or to have floated the Missouri before marching overland and linking up with the Arkansas or the South Platte. The exact route is impossible to determine since log books were written in French. After reaching what is now Colorado he crossed the mountains and visited lands to the west of his former territory that still belonged to Mexico.

 

Rare cave drawings depicting a sullen man in a tricorne hat with his hand shoved into his coat have been discovered near Parlin. Archeological digs on Tomichi Creek have netted naughty French calendars, discarded skin-tight white riding breeches, empty bottles of Champagne and several Since You’ve Bourgogne cookbooks believed to have been the property of the Emperor’s fur trapping party.

The trek, which was completed in early spring, would have put Napoleon in the north end of the Gunnison Valley sometime between 1:30 pm and 4:30 pm on May 12. After a few days of elk hunting he then proceeded southeast to New Orleans where he set sail for France.      

“Had he been privy as to the outcome of the battle of Waterloo he might have stayed here in the Rockies,” added our source. “Arthur Wellesley (The Duke of Wellington) and Gebhard von Blucher, the renown Prussian general really kicked his ass on the battlefield there and he was imprisoned for the second time on the island of St Helena where he died in 1821.”

Born in Corsica August 15, 1769 Napoleon rose from obscurity to become one of the most successful and frightening military men on the planet. Despite well documented holidays in Egypt, Italy, Spain and Portugal and clear photographic evidence (see attached picture) historians, who probably still believe the world is flat, remain skeptical as to his visit to Colorado.

– Kashmir Horseshoe

FBI Raids Cat Lady House

(Colona) A combined land and sea assault is in progress this morning targeting a notorious cat lady locale in downtown Mañana. Part of operation Feline Fandango, the feds will to storm and pacify roughly 400 known cat lady redoubts west of the Mississippi by 2022.  

These swoops have become necessary since local County Health office and Humane Society have been unwilling to come to the aid of county taxpayers. Many of these people are at risk of septic disease do to sick and unvaccinated animals. The condition remains critical at various coordinates throughout the Colorado Plateau and onto the Pacific..

The incursion included rounding up local tom cats —the after dark culprits in the population brinks. None of the tight-lipped agencies would say if legal action is in the wings but the demolition of contaminated adobes has already began.

“How assorted cat lady teams have survived in such gruesome and deteriorated conditions is beyond even the sickest imagination,” said one state health official who demanded anonymity. 

“Pets deserve to have a healthy life,” said the rogue health official. “These poor creatures are damned to an early death and all because of human retardation and shocking ignorance.

Upon completion of this daunting task FBI agents will begin deploying special nautical strike forces along 1000-square-miles of the Continental Shelf ocean floor. Their goal: Removal of an estimated 44,000 tons of discarded exercise equipment currently littering sediment-covered seabeds all the way to abyssal plains.

-Dag Katz

Potheads urged to take care with debris

Citizens harvesting cannabis crops in rural designate regions are firmly encouraged not to dump excesses near known migratory paths of indigenous species. Already biologists have noted that many mule deer appear slower and flocks of magpies have been getting to work later and later as they fiddle with and munch on sticky, stinky, newly caste-off buds strewn about the countryside. One can easily smell it on their breath. 

What we don’t need is for our wards to get hooked on marijuana,” said one USFS spokesperson. “They’re alfalfa bill is already through the roof! These herdies are desperately hungry bastards and can gorge themselves on bales of assorted grass and other fodder when not restrained, and that’s just the undulates. 

Marmots are particularly at risk in that the buds sustain them in their daily prowls while the leaves make mighty fine nests. It was recently noted that prairie dogs, existing in bar ditches from Limon to Cahone, have been putting on a little extra weight this fall. Is it anxiety over the coming winter or is it Oreos? 

Employee Housing in Ouray

The Ant, the Grasshopper…

and the Bar Fly

     So, this guy comes into a bar…actually the two of them had been lounging for most of the afternoon flexing what was left of their pale muscles, pumping wisdom like a tired old well about to call it a lifetime. Both were heavy into self-absorbed. But swashbuckling tomcats like Don Juan were light on scrutiny preferring the other side of the looking glass to the mirror.

     These were very important men. Don Juan had an opinion on everything which he shared with the less fortunate like Candy, his shell-shocked drinking buddy who had eager ears but little as backup. 

     “Yeah, I’ve damn well got her made,” started Don Juan. “Got my bank roll, my trailer house is paid for, and my pickup is runnin’ great.”

     He turned his neck ever so slightly and caught a glimpse of Candy who looked like he was trying to crawl into his cloudy pilsner glass.

     “For crying out loud, man, sit up straight,” he cuffed. “Look at your body language. It says everything about you. It tips your hand.”

     Candy looked at his body. He didn’t see or hear anything but he came to attention anyway following a pattern that had begun early on. Candy was there as a human reaction, to do as he was told. He was all but transparent because it had become easier that way.

     “Look at this,” said Don Juan, scanning the local gazette as he reached for his beer. “They sent a probe to Mars but it blew up when it got close. Idiots! I wonder how much that cost. I pay taxes and I’m damn sick and tired of the government shooting off space ships like they were butterflies.”

     Don Juan thought about what he had just said and smiled at his linguistic flair.

     “I don’t like bugs,” said Candy, “especially flying ones.”

     Don Juan continued to read the paper; his glasses fallen down around his cantaloupe nose. To him the expression on his face while reading was far more important than any information extracted from the experience. He wore a somber frown accentuated by hush puppies and a cap that read Cheyenne Frontier Days.

     “Winter’s comin’,” he soapboxed. “Look here. It snowed three feet in Duluth just yesterday. I’m glad I’m ready…got my wood all in and new mud and snows on the Power Wagon. How ’bout you?”

     Candy looked into the bar mirror. He had a propane heater in his small apartment that was paid for by the Veteran’s Administration because of the war. He didn’t drive and the last time he tried to can a batch of tomatoes, given to him by his sister over in Delta, he’d almost blown up the place. How could Candy prepare for winter? One season just plowed into another.

     “Oh, I’m fine,” he choked with an uncertain voice, all but drowned out by the television.

     “Fine, huh?” barked Don Juan. “Just like last year when you never got around to taping your windows and your pipes froze. Then you had to sleep on my couch for the whole month of January. You’re like the man who had a forest of firewood at his fingertips but forgot to discover fire.”

     Don Juan was on a roll.

     “Security doesn’t just wander up into your yard,” he preached. “You gotta go get it. Whether it’s financial, social or romantic there’s a brawl going on and you just as well join in right away. Lead with your left, boy!”

     He slapped Candy hard on the back. The tiny toothless aperture just under his road map nose was not to be stopped now.

     “Take money, for instance,” he continued. “I worked for thirty-five years to get me a nest egg and now I’m gonna enjoy it. I got stocks and bonds, 40 acres up on the Plateau, a great retirement, CDs, credit cards, a fat bank account and even some of them annuities. Everything I got is paid for and I don’t have any kids to leave nothin’ to.”

     Candy stared into his empty glass. Don Juan ordered two more beers and companion shots. He had a captive audience and the four dollars was a well spent investment to keep it that way.

     “You might as well spend it all,” quipped Candy breaking into a smile.

     “Hell, we might just do that this afternoon,” smiled Don Juan who continued to peruse the paper. He was a man smart enough to do two things at once.

     “Yeah, you got to be ready for winter around these parts,” he said glancing in the direction of his doleful disciple who smelled like an empty case of Pabst. “You still got time and maybe I’ll even lend a hand but first let me tell you a story. I know you don’t like bugs but it’s called The Ants and the Grasshopper. It’s by some fella named Aesop. He was a Greek a long time ago.”

     Candy perked up. “That’s a funny sounding name,” he mumbled.

     Maybe you’ll get the connection here. You’ve got to have your affairs in order. You never know when your card will come up. What would you do in an emergency? What do you have to fall back on?”

     Don Juan went on to tell Candy the story of the industrious ants and the lazy grasshopper. Despite the fact that Candy did not like bugs he listened intently. Don Juan told him about the ants drying grain on a fine winter’s day. The grain had been collected over long, hard days throughout the summer months.

     “Then along comes this grasshopper, half starved, begging for a handout,” he explained. “One of the ants asked him why he had not stored up any food during the summer. He says he had not leisure time enough and that he had passed the days singing. The ants scorned him saying that if he had been foolish enough to sing away the summer then he must dance supperless to bed in the winter.”

     Don Juan waited for a response.

     “Mean little bastards,” said Candy.

     “You miss the point,” said Don Juan. “The ants worked at getting their ducks in a row while the grasshopper wasted his time. It’s just like you and me,” he added. “I’m the ant and you’re the grasshopper. My house in order while your roof is caving in.”

     Suddenly Don Juan clutched his chest, executing a poignant plunge from his prosaic perch at the bar. A swan dive in a dive. He hit the floor hard, his satellite brew crashing beside him. He was a goner.

     At the funeral a lot of people that Candy had never seen talked about what a great man Don Juan had been. They said he had grit. They said he had enjoyed a full life. They said he’d be missed. What they were really doing was a little preheat jockeying for position with regards to his assets, which ended up going to an uncle and aunt Don Juan had never liked.

     Meanwhile Candy wandered home and spent the rest of the day putting up visquine over the peewee windows of his ratty chamber. Was there no end to the chores? Don Juan’s old pickup sat propped in the driveway, a gift from the counterfeit relatives who didn’t want to haul the thing back to Salida. Now he would have to put gas in it. How would he ever get around to that.

– Kashmir Horseshoe