Many Elk See Themselves as Bullet-Proof

(Silverton) A vast majority of elk in Baker’s Park herds think they are above the laws of natural selection and out-of-range when it comes the efforts of hunters to shoot them. Most, especially the bulls, feel that their precision instincts and ability to evade the pursuer will save them from the freezer and/or the final barbecue.

Many also expressed certainty that the Colorado Division of Wildlife will protect them.

Elk responses, monitored in other regions of the Rockies did not share this optimism, splitting down the middle on the stringent issue of basic survival, quality of life and general well-being.

Perhaps the most interesting profile emerged within younger members of these herds who overwhelmingly felt that hunting season was too long and rutting season too short. Many of these adolescents expressed despair when shown the color orange and were openly cynical when it came to discussing year-round treatment at the hands of the DOW, their legal custodians.

Meanwhile the older entourage expressed concern that many of the more bravado members of their species might be in for a surprise when the hunters come to town. Saying that they didn’t live this long by taking chances, most confirmed that they will take on a more ambiguous demeanor and practice more elusive behavior during the season. Avoiding confrontation, they say, is the best way to make it through the daylight hours when armed mobs roam these hills.

Radical elements insisting that they must meet violence with violence were written off as loco, or at best naïve, by most other elk.

The inquiries did not touch on the loaded question of gun control since all game animals vehemently favor what they call “long overdue” legislation .

– Fred Zeppelin

Texas losing elevation again

(Dalhart, TX — Metric Socialist Press — October , 2016)

With the return of the fortunate few to the humid flatlands, the great state of Texas is losing vertical space. As seasonal residents and tourists, who only months prior sought to escape the blazing heat, slowly trickle back home the Lone Star State is seeing its lowest altitude levels since mid-May.

The laws of physics quickly come into play with these drastic population shifts or when a lot of dead weight is absent for any length of time. This additional load obviously dictates distance from the ground as well as from the heavens. Adversely, horizontal increases are almost undetectable while the earth absorbs the extra mass, growing more and more substantial as the general population embraces obesity.

“Our planet is the constant gardener, paying close attention and adjusting for its parasitic population,” said Efram Pennywhistle of the Dalhart Observatory. “These minimal statistics may not mean much over a year or so but after hundreds of years the land shows the wear. Elevation shifts are not particularly beneficial to anyone and can cause faults, cirques, seismic anxiety and even volcanic activity.”

While Texas has no known volcanoes there are innumerable examples of soil and surface abuse all over the state. Rivers may look the same but they are not. Lakes will overflow their banks, but just a bit. Livestock fine-tunes footing, house trailers sink, oilrigs modify, traffic patterns are distorted. People may notice their cars parked at a different angle than the night before.

The distinction does not affect pine beetles, roaches or wharf rats, destructive species that, unlike the government, have their own checks and balances firmly in place.

The vertical void is expected to remain until about May 15 when the stress of the population is decreased due to movement to the mountains and industrial summer escapes.

“The utter weight of ATVs, boats RVs methodically hauled up to the Rockies has an impact on those piles of rock too, but it is not anywhere near as dangerous as the sinking motion that we see in the lower regions. We don’t know how our measuring stick would react if they just came up here themselves without all the motorized accessories.”

Rocks prove to be tough when it comes to accommodating the cyclic burden and the geophysics in play are far more stable even though the mountains are constantly shedding pieces of themselves.

“While it is common knowledge that if Colorado could be flattened out it would be far larger than Texas,” laughed Pennywhistle. “At this time no one has the technology to iron the place and if someone did they would probably face a slew of bureaucratic environmental restrictions.”

Politicians in Texas continue to deny the existence of elevation change while other groups pray that the end of the world is still some months off, or maybe not until next summer.

– Kashmir Horseshoe

“Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.”
– Mark Twain

Local Woman Earns Recognition For Talented Ants

A Delta County woman has gained recent notoriety through her pet jumping ants that dance and perform officially sanctioned gymnastics routines. The troupe is currently preparing to take their patriotic themed jingo show on the road this winter.

As most SHJ readers are already well aware, only three of the 396 ant genera known to exist on planet Earth are known leapers. Yet some of you may not be aware that of the three jumping ants, two are capable only of leaping up and backwards, often landing on their backs, in shame, suffering emotional scars at the least. Both of these backward jumping ants live and work in Southeast Asia.

And now because of the endurance and love of a Delta County woman, researchers have now learned that the third leaping ant can also jump forward, perform a triple lutz, land on its legs upright. The insect be able to perform Michael Jackson’s “Moon Walk” if correctly prompted.

As an aside, this extremely talented third ant group is named the trap-jaw ant. It is believed the name was given due to the ant’s tendency to trap obnoxious, young children in its jaws and run away to sell them into slavery at flesh pot/local garage sales.

Back in Delta County (Did we ever leave?), upon returning from a sojourn to the Indonesian rain forest last year, the local woman unpacked her satchel to discover an eager family of trap-jaw ants who had escaped their oppressive ant culture, and stealthily stowed away to find a refuge of happiness, freedom and equality in America.

In a press release released to the press last night, the local woman said this:

“As soon as I opened my single checked bag to unpack all of my duty-free, out jumped a plump little ant calf onto the bed! Imagine my surprise when the little guy began to dance and sing 80s pop tunes! After he finished a tear-jerking cover of Aquarius, he took a great big breath, leapt off the bed and hooked his six tiny legs into my neck. I have since learned that this is an ant hug, but I knew even then that crabs were not the only special thing I had come home with!

Over the course of the last year, the local woman has molded the native talent of her humble trap-jaw ant family into a performing dynamo that is currently in negotiations with several Branson, Missouri nightclub lounge venues. She is also negotiating with the principles at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, even though she and her entourage are not technically bluegrass but definitely about money.

“The highlight of the whole show is when our mama ant, dressed in USA Olympic uniform festooned with colorful flowing ribbons, catapults herself from one of the audience tables in the third row onto the stage while the back-up band plays God Bless America. Nobody ever notices Mama as she quietly crawls up the table leg. Then she unfurls the rainbow ribbons and proudly leaps!”

During one frightening evening performance Mama got stuck on the side of an audience member’s margarita, during a full-on rendition of The Star Spangled Banner,  just before it was time for the show-stopping leap to the stage.

“Luckily she struggled free just in time for a glorious jump. We use red, white and blue lighting and video monitors for Mama’s part of the show. Then the band went in to a lively America the Beautiful despite an overwhelming  audience desire to hear Take Me Out To The Ballgame just one more time before that song is banished by the secret police.

All is not happy-pants for the energetic new entertainers however. The ants and the local woman have caught the regulatory eye of the Colorado Fines and Wildlife Imprisonment, that has opened a file on what they term an “unauthorized and maybe even illegal importation of an immigrant, better known as refugee, ants, with a reputation for snagging small children in their jaws and pandering them at flesh pot garage sales.

“I definitely think this is something we should be looking into,” said Capt. Barbless Hook, head Fish Policeman and boss of the investigation. “Them foreign ants may be seeing some troubled waters drowning out their little ant dreams in the near future, if you see what I’m sayin’ here.”

– Lina Bacherre

“Fraternity boys simply should not have access to nuclear weapons.”
– conclusions of United Nations Commission on World Peace in 2016

Baseball belongs in the sunshine

(Wiggly Field – Chicago  —  Sports Excess  —  Oct 21, 2016)

OBITUARY: Major League Baseball. Died Oct. 21. Graveside services. Wake of American tradition, at Cooperstown, N.Y. Survivors include pro football, pro basketball, pro hockey and tour bingo. All are getting old. 

Ice hockey isn’t played out in the sun. Basketball courts are abandoned in the rain. Nobody plays tennis in the wind. Why do they play the World Series in the dark, out in the cold, when all good little boys and girls should be fast asleep?

Perhaps it was the repetitious beer commercials aimed at 14 year olds that upset my sense of authenticity. Maybe it was the announcers who, sentenced to childhood in right field because they couldn’t catch a fly, wanted their big-shot day in the limelight.

Nope. It’s the dollar-bill mentality that dictates that games would be played at night instead of out in the luxurious October sunshine.

In B-grade Saturday morning Westerns, even the lowest cowpuncher knew that Indians never fought at night. Neither did the gladiators in Rome. Even Eisenhower waited until daylight to launch the Normandy Invasion. And they call baseball traditional.

Baseball should be a game for kids and the World Series, of all sporting events, should be played in the middle of the afternoon. (Theme music: Gillette Blue Blades, I mean).

Why must young baseball fans be faced with staying up past midnight to watch their teams wander into the extra innings? What about some of the rookies? Should they have to ride the bench, yawning, (sans pillow and blanket), while the contests often drag on past a decent hour.

Things would certainly have been different if the World Series was played at night in the 50s. Two of the principals, Mickey Mantle and Billy Martin, might have missed most the games due to their much-maligned social agenda.

In addition, what would radio broadcasters like Wait Hoyt and Rosey Rosewell have done with all their idle day time? What about Pirate great Bill Mazeroski? Would he have stayed up late enough to take his famous series-ending poke back in 1960?

I remember back then, when the Yankees and Dodgers dominated the post-season play. Of course, in those days, if a team won its division it went to the World Series and was not forced to test its mettle against also-rans in continuous five-or-seven-game money-making fiascoes. In those days, kids would skip school to watch the games and their parents, who generally turned their heads, would skip work sometime during the magic week.

In the workplace, especially in the competing cities, there would be lucrative office pools and little or no work going on. New York and Los Angeles, the largest cities in the country, were at a virtual standstill in 1962. That’s the real country talking. Ain’t it grand!

Worker morale was at its highest, as it was considered patriotic to blow off work and gather around the radio or the color television to catch the action. Dammit, baseball belongs out in the sunshine, not lurking around in the evening shadows of someone’s prime time.

In 1934, Joe “Ducky” Medwick was pelted with garbage as he attempted to play left field during the autumn classic. Rude as it may have been, it was probably great fun for the Detroit fans, who, sadly enough, watched their team go down to defeat.

Ask yourself: If the game would have been played at night, would the Detroit faithful actually have bounced their trash off Medwick? How could they be sure it was him in the shadows. Baseball would have been deprived another joyous outing, even though Medick, a documented prick, might have felt quite differently.

In that same series, Dizzy and Paul Dean, pitching in the sunlight, were all but untouchable. Do you think the Tigers would have done better in the dark? It’s doubtful whether any of the American Leaguers would have even detected the cowhide passing over the plate. At least the Deans, pitching in the afternoon gave the hitters a shot at hitting the ball.

In 1961, Cincinnati third baseman Gene Freese lost a foul ball in the sun. It would have been the third out, but instead the powerful Yankees capitalized on his misadventure and scored seven runs, which turned the Series around.

The Yankees went on to win in five games. In 1995, would Braves fans be so quick to engage in their mindless chop chants right out in the light where everyone could see them? We think not.

Back before TV ratings dominated baseball tradition we can imagine the American family gathering around the dinner table talking about that afternoon’s game. Today the broadcast often interrupts dinner entirely. In addition, the World Series gave the unemployed something to do during those difficult hours of reflection, and was found to provide a positive distraction from the morbid soaps, the noisy, carrot-and-stick game shows and the few idiot talk shows that had begun to surface.
What about crime? Even a fool can see that a fan is more likely to get mugged outside Jacob’s Field or Fulton County Stadium at 11 than at 6.

Is this crisis covered by the designated hitter clause? And if this reality isn’t frightening enough, consider that the rosin bag gets soggy at night and the UV rays from the stadium lights are harmful to one’s health.

Let’s blame Ted Turner. He’s the guy who brought the national sport to its knees by providing the massive Brave money dosages on the tube. There is no doubt he wanted the games on at night due to the ad revenues and due to the likelihood that his former wife, Jane, wanted to free up her days to hit the malls in Cleveland or Baltimore, shopping meccas to be sure.

Maybe we need government intervention, but the GOP says there are too many lefties on the mound and the Democrats seem frightened to go out into right field after dark. What about presenting the World Series in the daytime, interspersed with the McNeil-Lerner Report?

In closing, Astroturf, domes and batting gloves suck too.

-Kevin Haley

CAMPUS KIOSK

with Rex Montaleone –

(Gunnison, CO    October 20, 2016)

FCEOA Pushes For Ethics Major

The local chapter of Future CEOs of America has petitioned Western State College to include an ethics major in its 2017 curriculum. The course of study, which would fall under the awning of the business department, would be specifically aimed at churning out honest graduates, with strong moral fiber and a sense of right and wrong.

“We feel that a student who is exposed to honor will respond,” said one proponent of the study. More and more corporate interests are beginning to the advantage to doing business on the up and up. Just look at all the corporations that have become environmentally conscious. The days of smoke and pollution are limited, especially since we sent all of our manufacturing out of the country.”

A decision on the matter is expected as early as Tuesday when state regents and faculty advisors return from a trip to Alamosa where they have been trying to squeeze operating funds out of Adams State College for lawn maintenance here at Western.

Missing Class Met with Cane

Students who miss class this fall could be caned, not canned as previously reported. According to Dean of Discipline, Margot Rotweiller, any student who misses class will be denied Taco Bell privileges, weekend passes and access to athletic events. In addition punch cards for use on the high-speed quad train will be revoked. Continued abuse will result in painful caning “out there on a cold day in front of Taylor Hall.”

“We have no intention of canning (expelling) any student,” said Rotweiller, considering all the trouble we went through to get them to come here in the first place. The Horseshoe paper should proofread it’s stories before publication. Maybe a few whacks in the right direction might get some attention over there as well.”

Rotweiller went on to explain that it is college policy to see that all students, especially freshmen, attend all scheduled classes. She admitted that mandatory laps and standing in the corner had little or no effect on such feckless behavior last semester.

“We consider consciousness to be an integral part of the college experience,” she snapped, “and snoozing will not be tolerated either.”

At present most professors do take roll call and are quite proficient at hurling erasers at the disruptive and kicking the desk legs of dreaming offenders.

Cell phones added to list of banned items

Cell phones, chewing gum, and Catcher in the Rye head the list of items banned on campus this autumn. Joining such longheld taboos on such accessories as grenade launchers and neon signs, the new additions have created quite a controversy.

The annoying phones were prohibited in a unanimous vote by the Academic Interdiction Board last week sending students into a tailspin. Although the phones are forbidden on campus they are quite legal anywhere else in down. Already several cell phone labs have sprouted up where students are offered internet access, faxing and seedy, underground cell phone lounges.

Chewing gum, a culprit since grade school, was added to the banned list when maintenance personnel demanded overtime pay back in May. Chewing tobacco or the cud was not affected at press time.

It comes as no surprise to anyone that the controversial novel Catcher in the Rye is also on the no-no list. Conservative religious groups and right-wing interests reportedly fear the book because they don’t understand it. They say the main character, Holden Caufield, is too close to reality and does not provide a good example to students. They suggest a tumble with a classic sociopath like Sebastion Dangerfield in The Gingerman instead.

In closing, there is some good news as reported by the American Civil Liberties Union: The much hated Student Helmet Law has been rescinded and replaced in part with the far less stringent Hip Boots Law, which promises to be quite a boon in such departments as political science and sociology

History Department Refutes Origin of Cheeseburger

The Western State history department has formally disproved once accepted theories on the origin of the cheeseburger, not of Manifest Destiny as was reported by this newspaper. The academians did not undress controversies related to catsup, mustard or dill pickles as far as we know. It was not clear if the committee would comment on philosophies of national expansion or on rumors that the presence of molybdenum is connected to the high rate of gout in the region.

Lunar Pedal-heads Convene

Engineers from top mountain bike companies were in Gunnison Tuesday concluding trial runs and related experiments on new lunar models. Choosing the area east of Blue Mesa Reservoir was easy, according to one test driver since the terrain looks so much like the moon. Although problems with gravity still exist, leading manufacturers will begin marketing the tough 30-gear Crater-Hoppers on the shores of the Sea of Tranquillity as early as the next crescent earth.

“In America, through pressure of conformity, there is freedom of choice, but nothing to choose from.”
– Peter Ustinov

ROGUE ELK HIGH ON VIAGRA

(Norwood) Ranchers here report that thug elk herds have broken into their Viagra stacks, consuming massive quantities of the stuff prior to rutting season. Local Hunters are warned that as many as 500 bull elk may have been exposed to the virility drug.

The affected stacks, disguised as hay and secretly stored in low visibility pastures, were tampered with at night. The intruding elk knocked down fence and lingered for many hours grazing on the potency helper.

“In the morning one could easily observe the effect of bull elk on the rampage,” said Thorgood Hill, a former tofu rancher who took to growing Viagra for the gov’ment last summer. “The adolescent bulls are generally rambunctious in the fall but this year they are really on a roll.”

According to sources on Wright’s Mesa, the Viagra was to be stored there until federals had time to experiment with the stuff. It was reportedly to be used on Hereford bulls to increase virility/productivity.

“Operation Animal Husbandry is a solid concept,” said Walter Breakfastmeate, a wrangler for the USDA. “We figured that a mix of Viagra and alfalfa would produce more calves and thus more job security for leeches like me. I think we need to rethink the approach and maybe move our stash to places where elk don’t wander around all night.”

Breakfastmeate terminated his epistle by adding that in Norwood there seemed to be a subtle distrust of the federal government even though the Hooterville of the San Juans had become a part of the United States way back in 1848 after the Mexican War.

“Don’t they have a curfew around here?” he asked.

– Signelle de Bushe