All Entries in the "Lifestyles at Risk" Category
Solar Spill Contained
(Ridgway, CO — Rocky Mountain Sunbeams — May 3, 2016)
A solar spill has silently crept over unprotected crevices of the Cimarron Ridge hitting the town of Ridgway at about 6:11 am this morning, doing no damage whatsoever. Within moments civil and volunteer personnel had matters well in hand and everything returned to normal with a pancake breakfast in the park.
In what had been called a code golden/almost pink by local authorities, the drifty hue covered sections of the ground then disappeared unannounced into the shifting shade as the sun reached higher into the sky.
In what many laughed off as a daily occurrence, the sun spill was visible from Ouray, some ten miles south. Most residents there were reportedly “far from alarmed, going about their business like normal according to the local paper.
Readers may recall an even more serious solar spill that hit the coast of France at La Rochelle, in the Bay of Biscay in 2009, causing no damage and forcing no one from his home. Resident there too took the spill lightly and many ended up taking refuge on the beach until the danger passed.
– Julianne Pettifogger
Region has share of silly laws
(Disappointment Valley, CO — Desert Sun — April 29, 2016)
I always enjoy the timely baby journalist pieces about antiquated laws in bluenose locales like New England and the American South. These folks have been sitting on their porches since the 1600s and have had plenty of time to dominate police blotters and tie up the courts with ridiculous directives and lukewarm commandments still on the books for the benefit of no one.
We folks out here in the Real West have not had the luxury of 400 years to hone our own restrictive edicts but we have developed a few that are real whoppers! Here are some of the more entertaining ones:
It is against the Territorial Law (never rescinded) to talk with your mouthful while driving through Sapinero. That is why the restaurant at Hunter’s Point has had such a bad track record. Tourists who insist on picnicking should be aware that their vehicles are subject to search without provocation. Fortunately Sapinero cannot afford a police department and the laws are pretty much ignored by everyone including the bighorn sheep that eat with their horns on.
It is against an 1892 ordinance to spit on the street in Gunnison, Colorado when the temperature dips below zero. Without lowering ourselves to descriptive graphics the situation seems quite clear: The spit freezes threatening the safety of other pedestrians who might slip on it and fall.
There is a humorous restriction still on the books in Ridgway that makes it a misdemeanor to wear dirty long-handles into the Uncompahgre River. The act itself can land the culprit 2 days in jail. According to ledger footnotes, the law was passed in an attempt to protect trout in the river, one of the first decrees aimed at environmental preservation.
Another sister law prohibits the use of gravel on state and county byways since it irritates horses and fouls up carriage wheels. This 1879 law was passed just hours after the Brunot Treaty, the precursor of banning the Utes from the San Juan Mining District so the White folks could dig for gold. It was never clear if gravel referred to precious metals.
One could be arrested for walking down Elk Avenue naked in 1890. It is still the same today in Crested Butte. Usually in mid-winter the offender was also forced to undergo psychological evaluation. Secondary streets in the booming coal town did not fall under the same jurisdiction. Dogs were never included in the restrictions.
Up until 2013 it was a crime to cultivate marijuana in Colorado. Today state tax coffers are bulging with cash encuraging state leaders to consider investing the boon in education, transportation infrastructure and social programs for the underprivileged. These priorities had long been ignored by federal authorities in favor of bombing other sovereign nations.
-Kashmir Horseshoe
Marijuana Cholesterol Free – FDA
(Montrose, CO High and Low, April, 2035 April 26, 2016)
In a bold move to protect one of the nation’s most lucrative industries the US Food and Drug Administration has declared marijuana to be cholesterol free. During a stopover here top administration sources voiced support for further legalization of the weed for medical and recreational use.
Since 1950 the FDA and assorted government health agencies have labored to find some danger in the smoking or eating of the herb. They have found very little especially compared to other sins such as alcohol and tobacco. This latest announcement was seen as capitulation by some, as logical by most and as the end of the world by others .
The regulatory agency insisted that the expanding worldwide markets for North American cannabis had no impact on the decision.
“We don’t care who politicizes this issue,” said one scientist. “The facts are the facts and pot does not create bad cholesterol. While the marijuana smoker is not putting himself at risk, he is no healthier than anyone else .”
Ever since the demise of fossil fuel use in 2020 the federal government has been searching for assets to exploit. Now in 2035, despite ancient fears as to legalizing the evil weed t he brink may finally be in view, even though many states in the South and Midwest continue to cling to ignorance and superstitions with regards to the herb.
Marijuana can now be sold alongside chicken and fish and just around the corner from the organic aisle.
– Fred Zeppelin
White Collar Workers Riot
Expensive Cars Turned Over, Portfolios Hurled at Police
(New York — Nice Neighborhood News — April 25, 2016)
Financial district workers continued a rampage up and down Wall Street this morning, angered by the shooting of an alleged white-collar criminal by local police. Shouting down authorities the privileged mob moved toward Fulton Street where other angry local Bourbons, including doctors, lawyers and dot com nouveau rich joined them.
Most had even loosened ties, chucked heels and discarded expensive cuff links as they joined the hellish mêlée.
The misguided frolic precipitated after a Black officer shot a white-collar worker after the latter allegedly fled the scene of insider trading and penny stock manipulation. The location has been known as a high yield hedge house where margins were often counted in beta bytes and the index determined by who had the hot hand at the closing bell.
“Embezzlement is embezzlement no matter what time of the day,” said a spokesman for the police department. “The suspect failed to heed the warnings of the officer in the early morning hours and paid the price.”
The suspect is recovering from a leg wound at Steven Talkhouse Clinic in Queens. According to Officer Truman Washington he shot only after the alleged perpetrator continued to elude him on Nassau Street and threatened passersby with a heavy briefcase and his cell phone.
His name is being withheld until his significant brokerage clients can be notified. The officer is on temporary suspension with full pay until the matter can be reviewed and stock options identified.
Police have cordoned off all secondary avenues leading to and from the epicenter of the demonstrations. Saabs, Volvos and Cadillacs litter the backstreets. The affluent crowd exhibited fortuitous restraint when it came upon Mercedes Benzes and Rolls Royces parked along the Hudson River.
Sadly, a nearby sushi bar was torched and its gin reserves quickly depleted when it refused to open early for lunch. Minority-operated news stands, beauty parlors and unlucky pizza joints were vandalized by the surging throng of wild-eyed professionals.
“An inner alarm went off inside this wealthy herd and the vehicles were untouched,” said the source. “It was some kind of sacred come-to-your-senses respect thing that overshadowed the compulsive rage that we’ve suffered for the past few days here.”
While authorities have succeeded in isolating the violence many fear that the situation will escalate after the market shuts down for the day. Efforts by White leaders to calm the crowd appear to have failed. Police remain hopeful that the majority of the troublemakers will return to the robotic afternoon commute and return to steaming ghetto redoubts in Greenwich, Short Hills, New Rochelle and Great Neck.
If not, Mayor Bill de Blasio has threatened to call out New York and New Jersey National Guard units unless they are still busy fighting in the Mideast.
– Cory Applewhite
Denver Seeks Water Rights to Walden Pond
(Concord MA — H20 Blues — April 21, 2016)
Pirates from Colorado’s Confront Range have claimed Walden Pond here. Legal water interests have adjudicated the water in the pond, which is not being used, as common property subject to seizure.
Once the haunt of poet, Henry David Thoreau, the spot has been declared abandoned, since the water is not spoken for. A self-reliant transcendentalist, who authored the American classic Walden, Thoreau was known for his militant stance against modern man’s infringement on nature back in 1854.
“We don’t care if Jesus or Buddha fishes this pond. We want it,” said a spokesperson for the Denver Water Board.
It was not clear how the DWB would transport the water if the seizure plot goes through successfully. Walden is the latest protected water to be claimed by the Confront Range since 1985 when the Brown Cloud began to spread. In addition to most of the water in South Park, the developer-mad Mile High City has grabbed Lake Elsinore, the Grand Canal in Venice, Lake Victoria, the Zambezi River and the Sea of Galilee.
When contacted the DWB denied involvement.
– Dinty Moore
TV Hospitals Offer Discount Surgery
(Hollywood, CA – Prime Medical Journal – April 12, 2016)
Television hospitals will now offer discount surgical procedures and recovery therapy at a lower cost according to the producers of such popular programs as ER, Mercy and Chicago Hope.
Long-subsidized by the AMA these programs often blur the line between fantasy and reality, prompting the witticism “I’m not a real doctor, I just play one on television.”
“We’ve been on the air so long that most of our characters have died or should have by now,” said Rosy Sinbad, who plays the notorious Wella Setter, a pill-popping social worker at a big city hospital. “Our program takes a candid peak into the lives of doctors, nurses, patients, ambulance drivers and candy stripers as well as friends, family, lovers and adversaries of same,” said Sinbad.
“And we don’t take Wednesday afternoons off to play golf either,” she went on. “We’re in makeup then multiple takes, then prop changes, then studying lines, then personal appearances.”
Sinbad flinched then gulped when asked if they still made house calls.
Television medicine people say they can perform most surgeries for about one third the going rate. They generally have gaps during the workday so as to accommodate other working people. Most of the cutting occurs on camera and thus protects everyone from malpractice suits. The cost is usually the cheapest one will find unless he leave the country to seek medical help. That, the AMA reminds us, could be dangerous since the medicine used outside the United States is “…not as good”, adding that “You’re likely to be killed by terrorists.”
“Most viewers in the advanced stages of television dependency think the actor doctors are real, so what’s the difference?” asked a proponent of what he calls “reaching out through the television set.”
The response so far has been nothing short of phenomenal. Patients can cut out the fat of recuperative cost by recovering right here on the set. Most end up with bit parts on actual TV shows and a rare few become stars.
It was not clear if such medical resources as General Hospital, Marcus Welby, Ben Casey and that horny little Doogie House would be eligible for a seat at the trough. The group plans legal action that has quickly morphed into a further television program called National Health Insurance where nations skim a slice of fat off the military meat pole to pay for its citizens’ well being.
Already critics say the plan will never work because it is too European for American audiences.
– Fred Zeppelin
