All Entries in the "Soft News" Category
Cut the white wash
- Dump Democrats and Republicans in a big hole and cover. Simmer for three decades.
- End campaign financing and prohibit lobbyist from the nation’s capital.
- Fix the high schools so we no longer graduate uneducated and easily manipulated citizens. Make bilingualism a mandatory experience as well as valid history and political science.
- Admit to a racist, violent past and attempt to correct the future.
- Stop education and health for profit systems.
- Create immigration statutes and stick to them.
- End private prisons.
- Tax the churches and double the salaries of teachers, police, social workers and fireman
- End corporate botulism. Society should never reward endemic greed and inhumanity.
- Make your country the pride of the globe.
“Ain’t no money in poetry. That’s what sets the poet free.
And I’ve had all the freedom I can stand.”
-Guy Clark
Toilet Seat Shortages “Chronic” in Forests
(Ouray) The lack of toilet seats in the National Forests this year has reached chronic proportions and may be linked to a revenge motive on the part of government agencies says a recently released report in Flusher’s Digest.
The independently published piece claims that the USFS and other federal agencies has dropped the number of prescribed toilets in our national forests to punish persons opposed to fees on public lands over the past few summers.
In one such destination, Yankee Boy Basin, new toilet seats are almost unheard of while luxuries like toilet tissue and air fresheners remain on a first-come, first served capacity, with even the most basic supplies exhausted by mid-week. While many campers bring their own waste facilities the more traditional visitor often relies on porta-johns or other privies to conduct constitutional business in the woods.
According to a story in the local paper the scenario has become a “squishy” one with hordes of campers being forced to use the great outdoors as their latrine. While this practice is quite popular with other mammals, humans tend to congregate in designated camp grounds and use nearby land as their dumping grounds.
“Bears and mountain lions often cover 50 square miles per day hunting and staying away from people,” said a spokesman for Poop Jumpers, a local recreational association that is responsible for waste management among other things. “It’s easy to see why they aren’t the problem. Sure, we’re talking organic but the impact is caused by congestion not substance.”
According to the Department of Public Sanitation, a wing of the Homeland Security Agency, the magazine’s accusations are false and there is no revenge motive for the termination of federal funding.
“People who were against the fees will just have to stand in line a little longer or provide for their own comforts,” said Roy Thistledown, a campsite host and former CIA operative from Spar City. “We’ve had the same problem all along the Alpine Loop until we started handing out little pooper scoopers compliments of the local chambers of commerce.”
The article continued saying campsite fees were up three dollars from last year. Whether that increase was enough to build more facilities was unclear at press time. Alluding to a presumably federally generated pamphlet advising campers how to dig a cat hole, the paper went on to describe just how to cover and disguise the aperture.
“People in emerging societies solve these kinds of problems by charging a small fee at the entrance to restrooms,” said one camper who has lived illegally in The Great San Juan for 50 years. “Often the fee, collected by an otherwise unemployed person, includes tissue and a splash of down under water.
Despite the failures often common to other functions of government there this potty policy seems to have merit.
“I cannot speak for the outlying areas or for jungle redoubts, said the squatter, “since the media continually warns us they are populated by bandits and terrorists are not safe for deep-seated human habitation.”
When contacted yesterday one state sanitation official agreed to look into the matter.
Criticized for running a feature piece on such a sensitive subject right on the front page an unreliable source at the local paper said that the story needed to be told.
“In addition, it added, “the piece provoked more reader response than coverage of the week’s city council meeting and the Republican state convention combined.
Part 29 of this fascinating series is slated for December.
Patrons are reminded to keep valuables in their front pockets in the quaint little alleys, cafes
and cobblestoned plazas in the vicinity of the theater and museums.
HISTORY OF THE CLAP
Ever since homo erectus strolled these shores the ritual of clapping in approval and/or appreciation has been with us. Why did such an odd ritual gain such favor within societies as remote as the Maori in New Zealand and the Utes in North America? Were ancient peoples really only trying to kill flies when the curtain went down? What did early entertainers from places like the Fertile Crescent think when the audience began slapping their hands together at a particularly moving moment on stage? We have no idea. Nonetheless, here are some of the more pronounced developments chronologically introduced through the ages.
5000 BC a clumsy Bornean orangutan (spanking monkey) falls from a branchwater eucalyptus tree while applauding a traveling mango juggling troupe near the Mount Kilimanjaro. Millenniums later his ancestors repeat the behavior at national political conventions.
2750 BC Early Hittites disguised as edible crustaceans receive the first recorded standing ovation after a lackluster performance of Don’t Cry For Me Watusi.
1523 BC Nefertiti is applauded by Egyptian Talisman’s Union after acquiring her own checking account despite the protests by hubby and noted Vaudevillian, Akhenaton. The Nile Valley punk band, The Pharaohs, jam for an additional four hours after a third ovation accompanied by kazoos, washboards, sirens, sand whistles and canned laughter.
900 BC Sumerians invent beer and they bring down the house. Gobshites, with wind-generated clapping machines, first appear in Eire. Distillation gets a thumbs up as the applause lasts all month.
401 BC Xanthippe, wife of Socrates first appears in public wearing slinky clapping gloves made from the bat guano.
559 BC – Confucius releases his classic One Hand Clapping Backwards. 2500 years later it becomes the film Rocky XVII.
522 BC Prophets Ezekiel and Zoroaster simultaneously predict the emergence of Elvis, but mistakenly put his birthplace as Delta, Colorado.
200 BC After a tedious reading of Reconnoiter My Arse Gaelic warrior Courvoisier Cu Cuchulainn bows from the waist and is beheaded by Roman legions.
11 BC First case of fruit throwing, amid rampant clapping, at an indoor venue in dusty Carthage.
2 AD Invention of the trash/vomit bag heralded as man’s finest achievement to that point. Put your hands together for…
Continued on Page 45
Harris to change name of DCA
(Warshington) Vice-President Kamala Harris has pledged to rechristen Ronald Regan International Airport Bob Marley International if elected President in November.
The announcement was received much to the delight of attentive historians everywhere.
The GOP is accusing her of communism, favoritism and disrespect for its Great Communicator. Harris, whose father was Jamaican, shares the the same ethnic roots with Marley, perhaps the most original and prolific song writer and musician of the 20th Century.
In the end it appears that the majority of polled Americans prefer reggae to robot. But it was the wonky (thankfully not waving) Ronald Reagan statue at the entrance to DCA that put the tide on the ebb and embarrassed many, forcing some sort of compromise.
Naming infrastructure after self-aggrandized but pedestrian royalty, showcases attempts by sitting elected to worship privileged ascendency. They feel that this measure mandates descendants, ignores incompetence and validates sacrosanct power position in a society tilted to the wealthy. They want to show themselves as great when they have been marginal at best, some worse than others. Many are liars and thieves.
-Tommy Middelfinger
One National Forest is Enough Say Treeocons
(Washington) Sources in Mar Lardo confirmed rumors that Trump minions are making plans to convert the entire National Park system to one mega national park. The location of the giant recreational facility will most likely be located in Colorado or Utah.
Prompting a plethora of closures the methodology would save an estimated 4.5 billion dollars per year which could then be mailed back to taxpayers as yet another petty tax refund. After the picnic tables, the maps, the gift shops, and concession stands are gone, the trails bulldozed and the animals relocated, the gov’ment could then get on with the business of “natural resource management.”
The reduction of lands falling under federal protection could then embrace a multiple use code which encourages logging fracking and oil drilling at an accelerated pace. Authors of the bill, who wish to exploit the already suffering planet for paper money, see the future national park system as comprising one massive land grant.
“Maybe we’ll just turn the entire states into parks,” said one Trump woman. “The Mormons won’t like the idea at first but just as soon as they look at the potential profits they’ll come aboard,” she said. “If it’s Colorado we choose we’ll have to remodel the Confront Range and build a lot more scenic views. Most of the highways are already in terrible shape so we don’t have to worry about overgrazing or too much access traffic. Maybe we’ll just plow them under for the rural effect.”
Wilderness areas, now located within national forest confines will be open to industry as well. Plans to ship lumber to Mexico for processing have been discussed at length and, according to unconfirmed reports workers from Latin America may have to be brought in to “man the machines of progress.”
“I just don’t see a problem with these kinds of policies,” offered the same source . “We’ve got two Disneylands and who knows how many malls in figure mode. Why do we need all these parks too? Most Americans have never set foot in them anyway. If all goes according to plan and The Donald is re-elected we should be able to put these lands up for sale by 2026,” she continued. “Then you watch how fast the deficit disappears!”
A plan is already in the works that would show footage of the old national parks on television after the evening news until most everyone has forgotten that they once existed.
Cost estimates for the plan run into the billions with a complete makeover of the existing infrastructure a necessary, yet ignored component, jettisoned by high flying whitewashers in the GOP. Proponents say hidden ledgers do not present a problem since lumber and gas reserves can pay for these expenses.
“Then our friends can come in and mop up. The peasants here will complain at first but in a short time they’ll forget about what we’re doing and turn back to their televisions. Imagine the campaign coffers! And it takes only a flimsy Constitutional amendment to stretch a dynasty into 12 years instead of eight.”
– Kashmir Horseshoe
Dinosaurs Bored to Death?
(Rangely) Scientists working in remote, rugged stretches of Northwest Colorado have stumbled across somewhat disturbing data intimating that the giant lizards may not have met their demise due to a great flood, climate change or a break in the food chain, as had been previously surmised.
The extinct titans are believed to have suffered their last indignity in the high valleys of the Rockies and in particular near what were then the thriving caveperson centers of Sunbeam and Maybell.
“We found fossils and prehistoric relics all over the ground here,” Said Professor Rex Tyrone of the University of Downtown Delta. “Many of these preserved treasures suggest nail biting, endless migrations, petty squabbles and depression. All of these symptoms are linked to chronic boredom and we have just scratched the Paleolithic surface.”
Tyrone, himself a dinosaur in the halls of higher education, told The Horseshoe that these same behavior patterns have emerged within the humans species since the invention of the internet.
“The tedious yet humdrum existence may well have caused the dinosaurs to make a hasty exit, self-destructing as early as 9000 BC give or take a few millenniums,” he explained. “The end of these reptiles can be directly related to the “too much time on his hands” postulate that we observe in RV enthusiasts, daytime TV viewers and people who hoard money.”
The researcher went on to suggest that many dinosaurs lost their way during liar’s poker games that were quite popular throughout the Epicurean Era.
Other scientists considering this biological and behavioral phenomenon disagree vehemently with Tyrone’s hypothesis calling it childish speculation. One added that Tyrone “couldn’t tell the difference between a Brontosaurus and a Bratwurst.”
In his signature cool response, Tyrone suggested that his boredom theory has both metaphysical and geographic merit.
“These charlatans should spend a Saturday night in Rangely so as to grasp the concept of dullness, monotony and ennui,” spouted Tyrone. “Just one Saturday night is all I ask and they will see that my findings take on a meaningful clarity. In a nutshell: It ain’t no Delta.”
– Gabby Haze
