All Entries in the "Soft News" Category

DOW puts foot down on illicit chocolate moose farms

(Poughkeepsie Gulch)  “They’re f—ing endangered. Doesn’t anyone care?” asked stern lexicons in the powerful canine sphere. 

Apparently someone does. The Colorado Division of Wildlife today forcibly shut down over 45 chocolate mousse ranches and banned the practice until a formal inquest can be arranged for early in 2024.

Culinary stalwarts such as Soupcon, Palisades and Stone House have quickly complied, dropping the controversial and perishable delicacies from their chalkboards, leaving a few black marketeers peddling the wares in alleys and backstreets despite an increased presence of nutrition police and dietitians. 

The mousse has been replaced with flan or complimentary dulce de leche in most cutting edge eateries. 

Some months ago the story broke in the San Juan Horseshoe. The paper, recently in hot water with several other state agencies, called for the end of of what it called wildlife desserts. 

“Those surreptitious scribes are just trying to avert negative attention,” said one mickey mousse chef, “by reporting on such digestive developments, and now we have the humane society on our arses,” she said. 

The Horseshoe, now primarily a website, has been fined for overwatering press releases, attributing summary quotes to herd animals, systematizing the bullying of advertisers, and legitimizing trite, ignorant puns.

-Fred Zeppelin

“Lest we forget: Benito started as a journalist.”        – Luigi Atonini

Shanghai Snubs Colona in Sister City Row

(Log Hill) The much-publicized Colona Sister City squabble has turned “nasty” according to sources up to their knees in the East Sea. Apparently the city of Shanghai wants out of the arrangement.

According to watchdogs there the Asian city will no longer honor the sister city status, seeking more glitzy partners. Already insiders point out warm overtures to Manila and Darwin. Last week a Shanghai delegation reportedly visited well-heeled Geneva and went dancing in Zona Rosa in Djibouti. 

Meanwhile Colona, jilted for a more lucrative relationship, awaits promises of flowers and candy or “at least a phone call to say goodbye”.

Anyone wishing to adopt Colona as a sister city is encouraged to step up to the plate before irreparable psychological damage ensues leaving the town demoralized, shattered or at best simply unlucky in love once more.

-Fred Zeppelin

Hospital admits botched nose job

Schnozz Work Blown 

(Mao Clinic) Physicians here have come clean on mysterious circumstances surrounding a host of cosmetic surgeries performed over the past month.

Rare admission of incompetence within the often taciturn medical community, seen as gods by the great unwashed.

It appears that several recent surgeries were poorly conducted and others have not ended well leaving patients in trauma and confusion. Several have reported facial ticks, headaches, nightmares and disorientation while more chronic cases project ugly artificial skin graphs and discarded or misplaced body parts. 

One man says he was left with multiple noses where his ears should be. 

“One fell into my soup the first night I was eating ,” he explained in tears.

Other patients echo similar complaints.

Through an abysmal apology the hospital hoped to save grace with the insurance companies who in turn attempted to save grace with Big Pharm. All of this while keeping things as light as possible, adding a tinge of humor.

“Many of our clients need mental evaluation before and after their procedure,” said the oft quoted Warren Heade, one of a rare breed of neurological-protologist at Mao.

“Hey, we all take in on the chin sometimes,” said a another department head.

– Martin Lockheed Esq.

in a related piece : 

“Butt Lifts Often Backfire,” says defrocked surgeon.

Homeless Tough on Grocery Carts

(Flop Alley) Grocery cart abuse at the hands of street people has reached epidemic proportions here this winter, leaving authority figures perplexed as to what, if any, action can be taken to alleviate the problem. Despite strict warnings and heightened security in parking lots an average of 8 to 10 food buggies disappear each day in an assortment of cities across this country.

     The carts are used for  the transport and storage of all kinds of personal belongings, aluminum cans, blankets, tools, urban survival gear, rescued kittens  and, yes, food items. To many of the wandering, desperate homeless people the carts are their world, their security and often even their identity. Stolen or simply borrowed indefinitely, they represent a sense of mobility to the disenfranchised but a breakdown of social order to the rest of us.

     “These carts are not provided to be used in this way,” said a spokesperson for one of the nation’s giant food cartels. They are for the temporary convenience of our paying customers. They are private property and are not intended for any other use. Deployment of these carts for joy rides will not be tolerated!”

     The spokesperson went on to say that he knew of one vagrant who had amassed over 35 grocery carts and had hidden them in an abandoned basement.

     “She had about three she used for cruising and the others were apparently for parts. Two were nicely customized and one reflected primitive experiments with wind generated power.”

     A gov’ment source was quick to echo the alarm.

     “One can well mark the status of a society by how it takes care of its grocery carts,” stressed an agent from the Department of Final Affairs. “These rolling devices are provided through the kindness of the supermarket bosses. When one is stolen we all pay. Sadly, these barbaric people often misuse the carts, ruthlessly trashing the steering mechanisms beyond repair. Then they abandon the provender chariots in so many back alleys in so many bad neighborhoods.”

     The homeless themselves admit that they substitute a wrecked cart with a new one whenever they pass by an unlighted parking lot of an inattentive grocery employee. Officials warn that if the present crisis is not resolved consumers may see rental fees and identity checks required for the use of the grocery carts.

     Human rights groups say the homeless should not be held accountable in that the calorie carriage thefts are only a tragic symptom of a much larger disease…that of corporate greed, inadequate mental health services and an heavy-handed distribution of wealth. They add that if consumers would be more responsible, by using wheelbarrows or sleds to haul their loot, or balancing their groceries in a straw basket atop their heads, the problem would diminish overnight.

     “I am so tired of listening to this liberal drivel,” said the Final Affairs source. “The Committee for Accidental Impartiality has undressed this issue countless times and found the homeless to be guilty of criminal trespass, pandering, conspiracy to deface, smuggling, sabotage, espionage, urban revolution, creating a nuisance, theft, and trafficking in stolen merchandise. Back in the good old days they punished cattle rustlers with the hangman’s noose. I think it’s high time we got tough on these law breakers too.”

     Stopping short of connecting the homeless to international terrorism he said, “Just see how you or your sweet little grandmother feels when you get stuck with one of these lame, funky contraptions in a crowded produce aisle.”

     One homeless man told us that although he was ashamed of staling carts it gave him something to do since he couldn’t find a job.

     “It’s the thrill of the chase,’ he smiled. “It’s a challenge. I will be happy to repay the food brokers for their losses just as soon as I wake up rich,” he smiled, “or at least get a paycheck.”

− Kashmir Horseshoe

Colonese Accused of Gerrymandering

     Unidentified persons in the town of Colona are suspected of manipulating the boundaries of this constituency to favor the Know Nothing Party, which disbanded some 100 years ago. Sneaky back door maneuvering has been going on since the gov’ment threw the Tabeguache Utes out back in 1881. The former site of what was then the Los Pinos Agency has been coveted by East Colona Company heirs who have threatened to occupy Buckhorn Heights and Lower Billy Creek unless they get their way.

     Then came the dirty gerrymandering incident.

     I don’t know no Jerry Mander or nobody,” said one of the many flowing burgermeisters in the municipality. “He must live up on Log Hill”

     Progressives here favor putting the town’s fate in the hands of the Know Nothings, an anti-German and Irish Catholic immigrant party in the 1850s, which they contend is more in keeping with the general state of politics in the county. Moving streets around, changing fence lines and replanting trees in an attempt to confuse voters is against a host of visual impact ordinances according to complaints received at the state level.

     In response to the growing threats most Irish and German immigrants have relocated cross the Uncompahgre River to wait out the storm. One can hear their constant drumming and smell the aroma from large fish fries held nightly to remind the often lethargic public of their predicament. 

     “You let in one gerrymanderer and pretty soon the place is lousy with them,” said one resident who wants things left alone. “The next thing you know we’ll have legitimate town government. If that happens I’m moving to Canada.”

     Both sides have scheduled a meeting at the Colona Roadhouse, which sits directly on the proposed redistricting line. Politicians set things up that way back in 1899 so that each district could have its own bar.

– Small Mouth Bess

Dog Catcher leaves town, tail between legs

     An ex-dog warden, who many believe is the Missing Link has vacated his blockhouse and appears to have left town as of this morning. The speedy escape came as angry peasants demanded relief from dog shortages in the town. It has been acknowledged that pet to human ratios have fallen well below acceptable levels since late winter and many blame the former dog catcher for cuts in canine services.

     Some say funds as well as bags of dog biscuits employed to entice new litters to town have gone missing and the poorly evolved passage of new leash laws has been held up in Congress.

      Police are certain that the departed pooch duper is the Missing Link. He is wanted for crimes against humanity and a bevy of parking tickets.Readers may recall a January story in The Corral a high speed chase through town after which police thought they had corned the Link behind the old slaughterhouse. However, after a three hour standoff it became clear that he had eluded their grasp and slipped over Log Hill. It is no secret that they would like to collar him and have increased surveillance on the Utah border and have stepped up frisk stops on tourist in an attempt to apprehend their slippery prey.

– Dinty Moore

Boycott sends shock waves 

(Beijing) A three year economic boycott of Chinese goods in Colona is being blamed for the recent credit market’s freeze up in the world’s second largest economy and most populated nation. To some it may seem ridiculous that a consumer statement on the part of one small town could make such an impact.

     “They all thought our efforts would be insignificant,” said Bill Spooner, an organizer of the standoff, “and now the Chinese banks won’t lend each other so much as a chicken egg roll. We knew that if we stuck together, if we persevered,  our message would reach pay dirt.”

      According to a story in the Beijing Bee“the town of Colona and its sister city of Ratnapura, Sri Lanka have done irreparable damage to the Chinese economy by passive aggressive methods of bargain basement exclusion principles. Their grass roots sanctions have tipped the trade balance and taught us all a lesson in micro-economics.”

     In an attempt to smooth feathers, the People’s Republic of China has repeatedly sent emissaries to Colona only to find the rank and file hostile to their advances.

      “We just don’t speak the same language,” said Spooner.

-Alfalfa Romero

Colona Train Schedule

Morning: No train

Afternoon: No train

Evening: No train

“Joyce may have been a perverted but at least he never wrote bad country music” – graffiti we found on what must remain of an ancient rock wall somewhere in the green meadows of Connemara. The only literary validity here is hinged to a local custom of writing humorous graffiti that really made little sense, but then it did.

-from Sullivan’s Tavern, Bay Ridge, 1896.- Testasterone Brothers Press

Vatican Pulls Rug Out On Quasi-Sainted Gibbon

(Oldtowne Wazoo) When Betsy the gibbon turned up pregnant nobody was talking. She had been in the seclusion of her cage for months with no contact with male gibbons, or so it was surmised.

Yet she was with ape…An immaculate conception? A virgin birth? A miracle? Rome first said yes, but now it is backpedaling on the blessed designation since it appears that her neighbor, Roscoe, (aka the Milkman) had access through a small hole between their cages.

“That Roscoe is quite the rascal, heh,” asked one zookeeper beaming with pride at the virility of his charge. “The 34-year-old primate sure showed his stuff.”

Zoological sources told The Horseshoe that the adjacent cages (apartamamus gibbonos) were thought to be secure, adding that the expected offspring was an excellent turn of events since gibbons are endangered.

“These things happen,” said one veterinarian. “After all, they lounged around every day doing nothing and in scent of each other. That would make anyone horny.”

Officials here say they plan to call the new gibbon Gibson.

-Melvin Toolini

“Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.”   – Mark Twain