All Entries in the "Soft News" Category

Banks Militant About Going Green

(Manana) Leading local banks have joined the green jousting at a traveling circus pace. Over the past 35 years the nod toward a more environmentally conscious marketplace has gained measured momentum, defining how daily commerce is conducted. Financial concerns were early responders when it came to projecting goals and setting realistic parameters for a symbiotic exchange with the natural order.

“We didn’t really want to engage in window dressing when it comes to the politically correct,” said Abner Bond, president of Eco Green National Bank. “There is a direct link between the type of customers we want and the way we treat the world round us.”

This emerging sensitivity has the earmarks of a grand competition. These days it is not enough to recycle everything and upgrade to alternative energy methods. Now the banks spend plenty of time and money to convince their customers that they are the good guys when it comes to the natural walk and talk. This shift has become a crucial part of image and reputation, not to mention credibility.

Whether the sincerity meter goes up or down, even the stodgiest are all in on protecting the environment. Eco Green announced today that it would offer solar-powered safety deposit boxes before the end of the year while Pachamama Savings and Loan will no longer embrace fossil fuels in daily transactions.

“It’s just friendly scrimmage,” said a high-ranking teller at All Saints Credit Union. “We are simply much more hipster than the other banks and it shows. Employees there must wear at least one article of clothing made from hemp and, in addition to the self-sustaining aqua-terrarium in the lobby, the bank has adopted a makeshift plan for paperless restrooms.

Some banks have taken matters further with solar panels on automatic teller machines and the use of candles and cigar boxes in lieu of wasteful computers and energy deficient lighting. Plant-based on-line banking and telepathic overdraft notices have been discussed.

“I for one welcome the climbing wall and the exercise bikes,” chimed in the always merry Dolores Alegria, eternal board member at Who’s On First? State Bank. Alegria is recognized as a pioneer in clean off-shore, dryland investments. Her puppetry with progressive food banks, snowbanks and blood banks all but landed her privileged posterior in the calaboose*at the turn of the last century.

Who’s On First takes sustainable business practices seriously, featuring green roofs designed for longevity and a limited impact on the earth. Reduced carbon footprint, transparency and community engagement are the keys to generational success here, according to stockholders.

In the interest of waste reduction tellers at Eco Green have reportedly been instructed to throw away $1 bills at the end of the workday while Pachamama has issued little lapel pins exclaiming “I walked to my bank today” to customers who disengage from motor vehicles in favor of their feet.

-Sterling Bidet

*Alegria was pardoned by his highness King Leopold of Belgium who, as it turned out had no authority to pardon so much as a church mouse. A hesitant bank examiner, frightened of losing her job if she did not comply with the amnesty, destroyed a critical response, court document and the matter was forgotten.

Giants on the Subway

(New York – November, 1955)

     It was a perfect day for football. The two New York Giants who ducked their hulking heads hopping the Bronx train at 34th Street knew that. It would be bloody, bone-crushing. It was the Bears coming to town.

     Al Donovan and Billy Macheski were linemen. They played both ways…offensive and defensive. As the signed autographs for little kids they talked about the afternoon’s competition.

     “I don’t like playing this team,” said Macheski. “Last year Lane bit off a piece of my earlobe after a recovered his fumble. Then later in the game Switzer kicked me when the ref wasn’t lookin’.”

     “You’re a stitch!” laughed Donovan. “Who was it that was voted Mr. Doom at the team dinner last year? Wasn’t it something like Machewly…Macherny…oh, yes, Macheski!”

     “That was for my performance on defense,” barked Macheski. “When I’m on offense I’m really quite polite. After I drive their helmets into the turf I help them up. Rather gallant, I think. Before and after the game I tip my hat to the ladies, whether at home or away, and always send my mom a birthday card.”

     “A virtual saint he is,” smiled Donovan. “The Polish prince himself! I’m just glad I don’t have to play against you on Sundays. Tuesday and Thursday practices are bad enough.”

     “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said about me, Al,” quipped Macheski rubbing away an imaginary tear.

     A small boy in a Dodger hat toddled up to the two offering them a bite of his apple.

     “Why sure, son,” said Donovan biting off a small piece from the uneaten side of the apple. “How about you, Billy?”

     “Oh, I’m not hungry…”

     “Have a bite of the kid’s apple,” said Donovan.

     “Sure, Al,” frowned Macheski taking a small chomp.

     The giant hauled the kid up onto his lap and asked him the particulars. He told him he lived in Brooklyn too. His young mother sat across the aisle beaming at the two bruins.

     “Are you going to the game today, son?” asked Macheski.

     “No, sir,” answered the kid. “We’re going to see my dad. He’s in jail.”

     At that the mother grimaced.

     “Don’t bore these nice men with your stories, Billy,” she said.

     “Billy, huh,” smiled Macheski. “We’re both Billies…”

     The subway screeched to a halt and the mother and son got off the train. The kids waved good-bye and the monsters smiled back.

     “The kid’s dad in jail, heh. That’s a corker. I remember getting thrown in jail back in 1950 after we beat California in the Rose Bowl.”

     The subway rolled through Harlem, stopping at various points for passengers to enter and depart. Several of those recognized the two Giants and wished them well on the afternoon’s game.

     “You’ll cream those Bears today,” said one man.

     “You’ll smash ’em,” shouted two boys who tossed a football back and forth in their seats.

     “I wonder if you could sign last week’s program for my daughter,” asked another rider who said she lived in Chelsea. “She’s a big fan of yours, Billy.”

     The train reached the Bronx, just as an elderly fan completed his appraisal of the team’s chances for the remainder of the season.

     “Almost there,” whispered Al to himself. “I’m glad I have tomorrow off. I’ll need it to soak this knee. Then I’ll take Saturday to go over the offense for next week’s game in Green Bay.”

     “Oh, hell, we’re going up to that ice box? The $3,000 they pay me to play football just ain’t enough. Frostbite is worth $4,000 at least.”

     “Yeah, and you’ve got two kids to send to college someday,” said Macheski.

     “Why do you think I have a day job down at the Brooklyn Ship Yards. Longshoremen are still paid better than the heroes of the gridiron,” said Donovan sarcastically, “besides they pay a pension.”

     The train pulled up across from Yankee stadium and the two threw their spikes over their shoulders and departed.

     “No matter how many games I play I still get butterflies,” said Macheski, “but I love it.”

     “Sissy,” chided Donovan. “It’s a grand day for football.”

– Kashmir Horseshoe

Joint Military Maneuvers Target Canada

Decades ago in the San Juan Horseshoe

(Washington) The Clinton Administration today confirmed rumors that the planned U.S.-Russian joint military maneuvers may involve a little more than summer war games. The exercise will be held on American soil sometime in July or August.

“Yeah, it’s true. We’re planning to invade Canada,” said one Pentagon/White House liaison. “Hell, it’s just sitting there.”

The surprise attack will most likely come early in the morning, and feature assaults by land and from the sea, with both American and Russian units employed over strategic points along the more than 3,500-mile border.

“We have pinpointed certain objectives, such as the locks on the St. Lawrence River, a brewery in Montreal, government buildings in Ottawa, a salmon canning plant on Vancouver Island and the rail yards at Winnipeg,” said the liaison, who is a recognized expert on polar bear, munitions and ice hockey.

Insiders say that the U.S. government has been planning the punitive invasion since 1993, when the Toronto Blue Jays last won the World Series. According to a high source, they simply needed the Russian commitment to disguise the assault as some sort of a United Nations (allied) effort.

“Hell, we’ve been lusting after Canada since the days of Benedict Arnold,” said one paratrooper, “and the Russians are game. They haven’t had a good brawl since they left Afghanistan.”

The White House refused to comment on reports that Alaska might be returned to Russia in the event of a successful campaign, or that the Blue Jays could be moved to Havana.

-Signelle de Bushe

WORDS ARE OUR FRIENDS

with Ella Benedictine Rockefeller

from her new book “Adverbs and Ignorance”

Can you define the following words?

1. GOOGOL: a.) Ten to the hundredth power; b.) To stare at someone stupidly; c.) A turncoat lieutenant in the service to Genghis Khan; d.) To purposely goose someone and later pretend the victim was one’s wife or husband.

2. ZONDA: a.) a small Japanese car; b.) The name of Dobbie Gillis’ girlfriend; c.) A hot wind of the Argentine pampas; d.) A cheese made from the pasteurized milk of a adolescent yak.

3. JEHU: a.) A Himalayan rope suspension bridge; b.) Someone who drives too fast; c.) A hayseed, a yahoo or someone from Hooterville; d.) The practice of eating dirt, gravel or yellow snow; e.) All of the above.

4. AGRESTIAN: a.) of the land; b.) A tribe inhabiting Northern Albania; c.) Growing wild in irrigation ditches; d.) Someone who is stupid but thinks he is way cool.

5. BUCKEEN: a.) A young man of lesser gentry aping the manners of the greater; an idle shabby young dandy (Irish); b.) Change for a Ten-spot in Wales; c.) Bad knees resulting from athletic abuse and unfortunate genetics; d.) The habit of jockeying back and forth on the potty in an fruitless attempt to relieve discomfort caused by Xiuhtecutli, the Aztec fire god.

United States Constitution To Appear on Talk Shows

(Washington) The U.S. Constitution and its sidekick, the Bill of Rights, will appear on four talk shows this month so as to remind Americans that it is still in existence (and that freedom is worth fighting to preserve?). Promoters of the event feel that this exposure will insure that the documents are not discarded by politicians in the immediate future. The Constitution, which guarantees almost all the basic rights enjoyed by Americans, will appear on a bevy of talk shows, one virtual reality game show and will be available in its entirety on Tic Toc and Toc Tick (the Chinese version).

Constitutionalists from all walks of life fear that the archive is in jeopardy due the presence of autocratic, right-of-center Presidential candidates and a puppet Supreme Court seemingly hostile, or at very least oblivious to, individual rights. Furthermore they are not convinced that television talk shows offer the best exposure for documents as well as candidates.

“We’ve also made gestures toward Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert, in case we need them too,” said Mel Toole, of the Civil Cheveres Union. Toole’s great-great-grandfather (T. Wright Toole) was invited to sign the Declaration of Independence and several other earth-shattering bills of the day but his alleged preoccupation with boozing, gambling and womanizing always created “irreconcilable conflicts.

“Mostly he signed bar tabs and IOUs,” spat Toole

“He did manage to sign a scorecard during the Whiskey Insurrection of 1794,” offered Tool. “Later in 1801 he signed the controversial Victoria Regia Ordinance which allowed Amazon maidens to compete in interscholastic athletics.”

Joining the Constitution and Bill of Rights on the talk show circuit will be The Code of Hammurabi, The Indian Vedas, The Torah, and the Magna Carta Dancers.

  -H.L. Menoken

Arkansas Senator Denies the Existence of Oklahoma

Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas denies existence of Oklahoma and he’s not sure about Texas. Calling human-driven climate change as a hoax was the primary denial but now he has expanded his personal enlightenment. Due to GOP victory the honorable senator to chair Committee on Environment and Public Works. A solid Trump supporter, Cotton Tom insists the US has the right to attack Venezuelan drug boats – even if all they have on board is aspirin. Blow them and their commie tuna boats back to Cuba he reportedly said without the help of his GPS.

Heaven and Hell Close to Prisoner Exchange

(Purgatory) Eternal powers, Paradise and Hades, have released a preliminary announcement detailing a likely prisoner exchange slated for November. The swap, taking most celestial watchdogs by surprise, is the first arrangement of this type in 1200 years.

On the heels of an announcement, heavenly players insist that some souls were mistakenly sent to hell and should not spend eternity there. Sources in hell, reluctant to release anyone enrolled in day labor or engaged in plea bargains, were mute on any specific developments saying only “something is in the wind”.

What heaven will do with a cult of once-indicted sinners and what hell might project as the future of former empyreal beings is not clear according to persons familiar with these events. Already “transfer souls” are bivouacked near the welcome stations of both afterlife precincts. Traditionalists call the reputed move cult-driven and question how the souls could be traded since they are invisible and often not responsive to earthly prodding.

“Deporting souls once accepted at the Pearly Gates will not go over well,” said one theologian. “Just when you thought you had it knocked they tell you you’re going downstairs. Frankly I am surprised that there has not been much resistance in heaven considering the desperate state of affairs. Maybe they don’t believe it will culminate in a realignment at all.”

The last night in hell should be a knock down, drag out celebration for the damned who are headed for an eternity of peace and joy. The effected  souls will have little time to readjust to the realities of both eternal destinations say proponents of the exchange. Hell has it’s high points and Heaven is no picnic. No, angels on both sides of the barricades will not be part of the controversial swap.

“Talk about being stuck in Limbo…I guess it’s either puffy clouds or pitchforks?”, said one consecrated source.

-Fred Zeppelin