All Entries in the "Soft News" Category
Quiet Observations
Martian Travel Benefit: Apollo National Park on the Moon
With the establishment of the new Apollo National Park on the Moon it should be easier to travel to Mars according to Jetpack Carriers, a pioneer transport service specializing in all-inclusive cosmic ventures into the great beyond. Jetpack, which will begin full service flights to Mars in November, says the preliminary taming of the lunar orbit satellite, will give travelers a host of options when cruising outer space.
“The trip to Mars can be exhausting and tremendously tedious if a person is not prepared for the experience. The opening of a National Park on the moon offers a safety net or failsafe where people can get out of the shuttle, stretch their legs and have a look around.”
The round-trip cost for the journey starts at $1.3 million, which includes chemical meals in clever packaging and in-flight films. Interest in one-way trips has spiked recently with many potential passengers eager to “get off the grid and rid themselves of the stress of earth-bound routines” according to Jetpack.
Kim Jong-un Having Trouble Getting Dates
(Pyongyang) Korean news sources intimate that Dear Leader, Kim Jong-un has been experiencing a downturn in his social life after ordering the execution of a former girlfriend, Hyon Song-wol, a well-known Korean performer with the Unhasu Orchestra. Hyon, who was accused of breaking domestic pornography laws, was the victim of a firing squad that took an estimated dozen lives. Most of the others killed were members of the Wanghaesan Light Music Band.
Whether Kim will rebound from his social snafu was not discussed however many here say he will be back on the dating trail by the weekend. Many potential partners are afraid to say no to the Korean dictator and don’t dare answer the phone. Others reportedly dream of a date so as to get a decent meal in the starving country. The sources did not dwell on the leader’s charms, calling him “quite a catch” even though he is currently married to Ri Sol-ju, who had objected to the high profile of the ex-girlfriend.
“It is not known if these murders will undermine the dapper god-king’s efforts to woo the women of North Korea,” said one South Korean mouthpiece, “but it certainly can’t help come Saturday night.”
Many Zombies Sticking Around After Film
(Montrose) An alarming number of zombies and assorted extras say they are planning to relocate to Montrose after a positive experience filming a major sequel of the popular movie “I Am Alone” in the Western Colorado city. Of the 50 or so zombies taking part in the filming most told The Horseshoe that they hope to stay here.
“It all comes down to jobs and there aren’t all that many good ones to be had,” said one of the Walking Dead, sipping a zombie downtown yesterday. “Sometimes quality of life is more important than money and we have a powerful support group quickly forming in these environs.
Zombies, thought to be corpses brought back to life by witchcraft, generally led productive lives and often blend in with the local population. Many are attracted to the shadows of the urban arena yet others prefer the wide-open spaces.
The city of Montrose, in keeping with bullying practices toward small business within its confines, has announced that it will hire 200 more police officers to head-off disturbances. Readers may recall an upsurge in the zombie population in Delta after Attack of the Vegan Zombies was shot there in 1997. After marked concern on the part of authorities there it became apparent that zombies and regular humans could co-exist even though compatibility was in question when the days grew shorter.
– Jack Spratt
“I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.” – Fred Allen
NEW MAIL SERVICE ESTABLISHED
(Silverton) An innovative mail service has been created here for people who absolutely do not want mail to get there overnight, according to postal officials.
Procrastination Parcel specializes in holding mail such as house payment checks, rent checks, utility payments and the like for up to three weeks, enabling the bumbler to cover his deadbeat posterior and not lose face with creditors or bounce checks.
“We’ve even lost mail for some of our patrons,” said Arlene Postino, inventor of the approach, “but that is only in extreme cases where bankruptcy or bodily threat is apparent.”
Other more positive mail such as bank deposits, personal letters and checks are generally forwarded at the regular time and are received in about two or three days said Postino.
Frustrating as the practice may be to collection agencies and debt services there is nothing illegal going on. Happy customers say it’s like dementia on amphetamines to the sender but more like credit on barbiturates to the receiving party.
“We asked the IRS, insurance companies and credit card concerns how they do it and they told us to proceed,” said Postino. “All of these agencies drag their butts when it comes to refunds and that’s really all we’re doing on a much smaller scale.”
Postino suggests that negatively affected parties look into suing someone or another, and refrain from calling her at home after lunch.
A sister program aimed at people who do not wish to receive mail is in the works as are space ship tours of Mars, global diaspora and a fix for the Mideast.
– Oral Waters
RASPUTIN HELD IN DANBURY PRISON
A modern day Grigori Rasputin is lurking in one of the nation’s finest prisons tonight in Danbury Connecticut. Stephen K. Bannon arrived at his new digs yesterday with a four-month all-inclusive reservation compliments of the United States government.
Like a recharged mafia bagman he continues to elevate his chosen gods while denouncing those who do not follow his prescription for a better world, with a newly forged America in the driver’s seat. Other convicts say he dictates to minions from his cell, using Rasterschlüssel 44, a cipher the Nazis successfully employed in world War II.
Rasputin at least washed his hair every six months in Lake Ladoga, breaking the ice for his vernal rinse.
For those who don’t recognize the name, Rasputin was the mysterious “Mad Monk” who surfaced during the twilight of Czar Nicholas II, in the shadows of the Russian Revolution. History tells us he had critical influence at the royal court in St. Petersburg especially with the Czarina Alexandra. He was the royal healer turned political confidant.
Rasputin cemented his relationship with the czar and czarina by supposedly alleviating the suffering of their only son and heir, Alexei, who had hemophilia, a rare disorder in which blood doesn’t properly clot.
While we realize most most MAGAs don’t know that name, we are compelled to draw stark similarities of the two personalities, behavior exhibited on and off stage. These same persons are quite familiar with Stephen K..
Bannon was sentenced to 4-months for defying a Congressional Subpoena with regards to the January 6 Trump-induced insurrection. He is loyal for now, a lot like Rasputin had been.
The pilgrim holy man was murdered by wealthy Russian nobles concerned that his sway with the Romanovs, and his continued presence was a threat to the Empire. Although the details of his foggy demise are sketchy, historians recount more than five attempts on his life before he was found floating, badly battered, in the Neva River.
His death enraged the peasantry, heralding in the Russian Revolution and eventually the Bolshevik takeover by Lenin and his cronies. His spooky prediction, that if the royal family deserted him the Czar and his family would soon be gone, came true.
Bannon has never washed his hair fearing that it will affect his genius and threaten the macho image he has tried so hard to create.
Bannon, for his part has had remarkable clout with the orange-haired, Czar Wannabe. He is equally as creepy as Rasputin and needs shampooing. He is defiant at every turn, his real motivation often clouded and suspicious even to allies, who see him as a savior on his mighty steed ready to lead the charge.
“There’s not a prison built or jail built that will ever shut me up,” he bragged recently.
Bannon is also facing criminal charges in New York state court alleging he duped donors who gave money to build a wall along the U.S. southern border. He has pleaded not guilty to money laundering, conspiracy, fraud and other charges. That trial has been postponed until at least the end of September.
“The holy man is he who takes your soul and will and makes them his. When you choose your holy man, you surrender your will. You give it to him in utter submission, in full renunciation.” –Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
Take Your Base, I’ll Take Mine
A Critical Analysis of the National Sport
by Quentin Parquay, Royal Legion of Sport
(Editor’s note: Mr. Parquay, a literary critic with The London World and former fellow at Oxford University, has been dedicated enough to sit through rain delays, extra-inning games and traffic jams so as to compose this international peek at baseball in 2024. Although well versed, drifting from Kahlil Gibran to Oscar Wilde, Parquay admits he possesses a limited knowledge of the game having experienced his first contest only last week.
The following expose is reprinted from The Hamilton Hemorrhoid, a well- respected, often painful British sports bulletin. It has appeared Steamboat Magazine. With any luck the following might alleviate the frustration of Rockies’ fans, at least in a theatrical sense. (They say William Shakespeare could never hit the high curve.)
Baseball: 1.) a game played with a bat and a ball by two opposing teams of nine players, each team playing alternately in the field and at bat. The players at bat, after hitting the ball in fair territory must then run a course of up to four bases laid out in a diamond pattern in an attempt to score runs. 2.) a questionable competition of North American origin that promotes bad language, hooky, jawing, bad manners, superstitiousness and the spitting/chewing of tobacco. 3.) the ball used in the game of baseball.
My interest in the field of baseball began when I first ran across “Casey at the Bat” in 1990. Although the epic poem had been around for decades it had not circulated through the offices of a man who dissects playwrights and Gothic novelists. I hope the following will be entertaining to the reader and beneficial to the fringe fans and the arts as well.
THE FAN
We Brits cannot afford to be critical of abhorrent fan behavior after the escapades of our cohorts at most football (soccer) matches from Cornwall to Kent. The counterpart American aficionado is actually quite calm and well behaved compared to the football fanatic. He only becomes dangerous toward the late innings after drinking cup after cup of overpriced light beer.
The aesthetic distance between the audience and the main characters is of special interest to anyone wooed by the theater. The left field character, for instance, is closer to the audience and can be more objective about how his lines are perceived in the grandstands. The thrower (pitcher) cannot gather this same kind of feedback. The audience however is well in earshot of various asides mouthed by fielders and the funny-dressed men behind fourth base that you call home plate.
The fan is most often in sympathy with one team or the other. He is most vocal at points of tension between singular characters or sometimes with entire groups of players. He is prone to embracing myths and often makes references to the supernatural as he metaphysically munches on hot dogs with onions and mustard and burnt peanuts, salted in the shell. His metaphors can be figurative, trite and/or utterly classic. His hyperbole is common only to the colonies. In later innings the fan gets swept up in the flow of dramatic monologue that results in comic relief or didactic tragedy.
THE CHARACTERS
Reflecting on the scene behind home plate we see one over-dressed character (the catcher) that carries with him a host of mandatory duties. He must not only catch the ball each time it is flung at him, but he must field difficult “pop flies”, cover his base, backup first base and throw down to second in the event of an attempted steal attempt. (We will discuss thefts and squeezes later in this article). While there is little morality involved in the steal, the catcher is often measured by his pinpoint response to the instant plot. In the local vernacular we hear fans loudly encouraging this catcher to “gun him down” or “nail him with a low throw”. This should not be taken as anything violent. The successful application of these throws and tags can often bring down the curtain for an inning.
The catcher’s associate behind the plate is called the umpire, a living allegory who attempts to impose his own doctrine. This dark character converts acceptable language into persuasive, tight, one-syllable chants with the sacred narrative “Steeerike, Bawww or Yurooout!”. Otherwise most of the communication is in sign language that is reminiscent of Shakespeare that holds the audience in awe.
Amusing reaction to the umpire often dwells on King Lear’s cry: “Thou hast eyes to see…and see not!”
The rest of the extras dress alike so much that it lends an eerie, almost robotic essence to the performance. Each of the two reams is represented by wearing its own costume. It is within the professional ranks that we find strong connection to ancient bestiaries and ethnic euphemisms with names like “Tigers, Cubs, Braves and Giants”. On the local level this practice has been methodically embraced. Long socks may represent the desire to return to simpler days while “softball” fashions clearly illustrate a yearning for a
modernistic, almost impressionist, rendezvous with the keystone future. Significant action generally soils the players’ costumes but adds a delightful descent from the loftiness of pre-game ceremonies.
THE PLOT
Everything happening on the diamond is synchronized into nine innings where one team tries to outscore the other by whatever means available during the scenes that add up to an act. The two teams could play an eternity if the thing reaches extra innings. Imagine a summer day and a pastoral scene in right field where a player is responsible for catching the ball before it hits the ground, then hurling it back into the infield (main stage). He must do this before any players “tag up” and make their way around all four bases and off the set and backstage into the dugout. If the ball is caught cleanly the acting batter is out and has no further lines until he comes up to the plate again in two or three innings. If the fielder misses the ball the hitter gains access to any number of bases while other supporting cast scores runs. The clumsy fielder is often then seen as a goat. Continued performances of this quality will often result in an understudy placed in his position.
The main actor and navigator of the plot is the pitcher since he initiates the action. He delivers his lines while perched on a pompous little hill 60 feet (18.3 meters) from the batter’s box. He throws a variety of pitches to the catcher aimed at confusing, overpowering and terrifying the man with the stick (bat) in his hand. The umpire then watches closely as curves, sliders and fastballs cause negative capability of the part of the person trying to make contact (with a rounded bat) with the little spinning ball. Some of these pitches exceed 100 miles (or 161 kilometers) per hour. The fastball coupled with an array of sneaky pitches often causes the batter to pop up, ground out or strike out (signified by K for some unknown reason). These activities in no way represent literary onomatopoeia since there is no sound emanating from the ball as it travels to the plate. The onomatopoeia magically occurs when the ball slams into the squatting, supporting actor’s round, oversized glove. Here we see the frontline struggle by the designated protagonist to stifle the antagonist by making contact with a fiery sphere chucked in the direction of his head and vital body parts. It is here that we see another character, the manager, wheel out onto the field angered by the exposition of the background.
THE SET
The set can be universal as well as specific to baseball. The only props are the three bases and the plate, the walls, the mound, the backstop, the dugouts (2) and the scoreboard. The size of the stage varies greatly from set to set but is always characterized by white lines that protrude from home plate to the first or third bases. These are the symbols of the action. It is the actor who brings it all into perspective.
During my last sports melodrama the hero was a young pitcher for the Colorado Rockies. His saga was one of ever-increasing pathos. He quickly extended his poetic license by hurling a “loaded up” ball at the batter’s head. Soon after he balked, a clear sign that he neglected to prepare his lines before taking the stage. By the end of the inning he had reached absurd capacities in low comedy by allowing three other actors to reach untenable positions without exiting the stage. The tone of the play then becomes one of anticipation, bordering on anxiety. The guilt-ridden child actor is sent away by his rigid master to a place called the Minors that was never described by Dante or even the unholy angels. Each summer pantomime contains endless and simultaneous dramas with characters intact. It is this mysterious show and tell that stimulates the lifelong fans of the game. How appropriate in both a literary and mirthful sense. Play Ball!
“The check’s in the mayo.” – famous promise in Dixie.
French Leaders Refuse Onion Demands Again
(Paris) Public service worker onions remain out of strike today as French President Emmanuel Macron refuses to bend on a new roster of demands. After an emergency session of the cabinet late last night, the liberal government pledged “not to blink in the face of the growing pungency” that threatens to touch the very fabric, the culinary life of everyone in the country.
“Just imagine our salads and sauces,’ said Chef Antoine Gendarme, of Sabat’s Cafe here. “What will we do when the reserves run out and they are calling for French onion soup? This walkout is not just a problem for France but for the world. The onion is the heart of all classic cuisine be it in Mexico, Thailand, Italy or Peru.”
Most in the know fear that once the damage has been done it will be virtually impossible to return to the old days when the entire globe looked to the French for culinary direction and purpose.
“Who will take over if the France falls?” asked the chef. “That is an interesting question considering growing onion anger is not merely a reality in Europe.”
Kitchens the world over have expressed concern that the renegade onions may be joined by radical celery, rogue tomatoes, revolutionary garlic and even some minced anarchists posing as innocent rutabaga, but in actuality belonging to the fruit and nut family. They agree that if the situation worsens no one will be able to function at the business end of a Provencal kitchen.
“We still have our bread, our cheeses and our vineyards but somehow it has all lost its luster in the face of the strike,” said a French dairy farmer who has grown a garden since the days of Charles DeGaulle. “Sure I’ve had a few minor confrontations with sketchy vegetables and a few bean strains here and there but for the most part it’s been symbiotic: I plant them in rich soil in with just the right amount of sun then water them and they provide sustenance and often time decoration at my table.”
Some within the expanded food industry secretly support the onions while others are waiting until the harvest to decide on what measures are most logical.
“I’m half Irish and half Cajun said Meghan, sommelier from Bethesda, Maryland. “Part of me reaches out to the French, the other says give me a another Guinness with those fish and chips. If we recant here and capitulate every time some vegetable raises his voice what kind of message are we sending to the younger sprouts and seedlings?” she pressed.
Meanwhile striking onions continue to hold a daily vigil in front of government offices demanding subsidized storage and more comfortable transport to market. All the rolling back and forth and the peeling has officials at wit’s end…and the odor…!”
Talks broke down again yesterday after police, crying Scallions! Devoyers salassants! arrived on the scene with a large industrial slicer/guillotine disguised as a giant snail. Not to be intimidated by fleeting logic, members of the Public Service Union and the ministry accused each other of bad breath. Shallots stayed home in protest. Tears fell on both sides of the cutting board.
Despite official fears of a lengthy strike that could cripple Bastille Day celebrations, the groups then disbanded so as to eat dinner before going out to turn over cars and burn them in the streets of Paris, no easy feat for tubular chives and flavonoids.
– Sir Otis of Liver
“If voting changed anything they’d make it illegal.” – Emma Goldman
