All Entries in the "Soft News" Category
Shoplifters Anonymous To Convene
(Gunnison, CO — Sticky Fingers Review — May 8, 2016)
Over 3000 members of the burgeoning Shoplifters Anonymous Foundation are expected in Gunnison next week for that organization’s annual convention.
Arriving from points afar such as Key West and Nome the participants will sit through 3 days of strenuous seminars, group therapies and several morning spiritual awakenings. These presentations are meant to toughen up the troops and shed light on the disease of stealing.
The 3000 will then have three hours off each afternoon to hone skills on North Main Street. Merchants, working with the SAF will be able to easily identify potential problem shoppers by the large red diamond painted on each forehead. In addition each recovering crook will display a distinct badge that reads: “I have sticky fingers.”
It is not clear why Gunnison was chosen for the meetings since the city has the nation’s toughest shoplifting laws (Ordinance #611 makes even thinking about stealing a misdemeanor and actual theft punishable by flogging for first time offenders.
Nonetheless the infamous Palmer’s Shindig will begin to arrive Tuesday. The Gunnison Chamber of Commerce urges all merchants and loiterers to extend every Western Slope hospitality during the short stay.
– Small Mouth Bess
Manana Stressing Out Again
(Colorado Small Towns — High and Higher — April 24, 2016)
Manana (Colorado) residents are likely to experience increased stress in 2016 according to postulated statistics arriving in our outbox by the minute. In the minute Colorado burgh, 34% of the town’s reasonable people say they are more likely to fly off the handle or in some cases overreact to daily tension and negative stimuli than in 2014.
A majority ay the town has become a pressure cooker while over 11% report having trouble with rural routines.
Those surveyed as part of a social reach out from Denver singled out summer traffic, dog waste, increased lawn responsibilities, high grocery prices and the gov’ment as the major sources of their befuddlement while another 17% admitted that the strain of baiting hooks, running to town for toilet paper and organizing camping gear could push them over the precipice at any given moment.
In response to this state of emergency someone’s gov’ment is building landing zone front porches on existing structures as Soul Recovery Quadrants. If this fails to remedy the crisis the authorities intend to put the entire town on medication….or was that mediation?
Are We Reasonable Anymore?
(Sicilian-Hibernian Report — April 15, 2016)
Due to an apparent crisis of confidence in the American people, the United States Supreme Court, in cooperation with the Surgeon General and the Transportation Safety Administration, has downgraded the American version of the near universally recognized “Reasonable Man” standard to the slightly less rigorous but much better fitting “Barely Above An Idiot” standard.
An embarrassed United States Supreme Court has determined that because there are so few actual ‘reasonable men’ left in America upon which to draw criteria to implement the ‘reasonable man’ standard, and because the public at large is largely unreasonable, the standard ‘reasonable man’ standard no longer cuts the mustard.
The highest Court in the land has lowered the bar and media reaction has been ecstatic labeling the case the “Call A Spade A Spade” decision.
Quoting from the Summary at the front of the Opinion (because nobody likes to read the whole thing):
“Americans are no longer legally bound to behave like reasonable men even if they are women. From now on, the American people will bear no burden or expectation of acting reasonably, in any situation, any longer, by anyone’s standards. Notwithstanding the foregoing, all immigrants shall continue to be required to be reasonable at all times, temporarily, until we figure out what’s going on.”
Writing for the Court’s majority the late Justice Antonin Scalia had once noted that the Court’s ruling could be seen as a recognition that the nation had become a “continental community of unreasonable nitwits who can no longer grasp the golden ring of reasonable behavior and thought.”
In a stunning development, the ghost of the said Scalia has appeared in front of the Supreme Court building confiding to corporate media nearby that “most Americans wouldn’t know a reasonable man if one soundly slapped them like a wet salmon.”
Meanwhile Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that regardless of the fish reference, Justice Scalia wouldn’t know a reasonable man dressed in black robes or white ones.
*Justice Sotomayor noted for the record that she has no intention of paying any attention to this ruling and she doesn’t expect anyone else to do so either.
*Justice Kennedy disagrees with the decision but believes it is not so bad as to be unreasonable and prefers to ‘get along’ so Justice Kennedy therefore joins in the majority.
*Justice Clarence Thomas added nothing and desires readers to guess at whether he joined the majority or the minority in this decision or possibly just blew this one off.
– Ms. Lina Baquere
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Hinsdale County Bans Cruise Control
(Lake City — Slumgullion Stew — April 1, 2016)
Drivers within the confines of Hinsdale County must refrain from employing cruise control when operating their vehicles according to a quart decision here. County commissioners, alarmed at the incompetent driving this winter, are outlawing procedures that “contribute to mindlessness and poor attentiveness on roads, slick or otherwise”.
The decision was precipitated when one part-time resident ran his pickup into a local tavern, frightening the patrons and destroying an abandoned planter precariously perched on the porch. He was reportedly going 45 miles per hour with the dial set on cruise control.
“There is no need to allow motorists to employ this kind of convenience function in a town where the speed limit is 25,” said one commissioner known to secretly support a return to horse-only travel in town.
Fortunately none of the customers in the noted bar were paying attention to this news story and therefore escaped unscathed. Lake City already has the strictest horn ordinance in the state.
– Uncle Pahgre
“Utah ain’t so bad just so long as you are near the ocean.”
– Earl Macadoo
Frequent Friar Plan Lambasted by Church
(Roma — Vatican Air Magazine — March 25, 2016)
The Roman Catholic Church has banned its clergy from participating in what is called a Frequent Friar Program. The condemnation comes on the wings of a general announcement instituted by Secular Airlines and its subsidiary companies worldwide.
The invitation from Secular attempts to lure clergy and other spiritually motivated personnel into seeking not only cheaper seats but also a high road to salvation.
“The implication here is that our people can fly around like sunshine clerics and conduct themselves as God knows what and who,” said a Vatican resource, “whenever it is convenient for them to do so.”
Groups of priests and brothers from an assortment of orders had petitioned the Rome for permission to take advantage of the offer saying they could still maintain their spiritually duality without risking so much as one lost soul. They further insisted that the adoption of the program would help with missionary work and as a motivation for others to embrace the holy orders.
“This kind of frequency is not the friar type and the sound waves are bouncing off St Peter’s Basilica this morning,” said an angry Cardinal who demanded infallibility. “The money for vacations should come from the collection plate not by some discounted version of a secular get-away. If our sky pilots want to pursue everlasting life on their own time let them audition for a Sunday morning spot on salvation row with the Baptists and Evangelicals. I hear the money is good.”
– St Roscoe of Links, Earl of Doggieshire, Lord of Hemperland
If Cowboy Poets Wrote Nursery Rhymes
In case you haven’t been paying attention, (or even if you have)…it’s March. A time for reflection, a time to slow down and take count of the past and future, a time to freeze your arses. Initially this column was supposed to focus on the infant Presidential campaign with its blabbering, colic and loaded diapers but after a few minutes of scrutinizing we, (the winter soldiers of the media) decided that our readers would be better off with something more educational.
We wondered that if the classic children’s nursery rhymes had been penned by long rider poets in pointy boots and cowboy hats the subjects might have leaned more toward the pasture posture. Here are a few gems found while pecking around in the bunkhouse.
