Category Archives: Uncategorized

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Names For Success!

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Today’s post comes from Congressman Loomis Beechly, representing all the water surface area in the state of Minnesota.

Greetings, Constituents!

I’m ramping up my re-election campaign, doing everything I can to build on the momentum created my audacious and highly comment-able plan to design, build, launch and set fire to a coal-powered American Sun that will finally challenge the existing and highly suspect terrorist-sympathizing star at the center of our solar system that insists on shooting deadly rays at us!

Everyone else seems to think we are stuck orbiting it forever, but I say nonsense! America is all about competition. So let’s get our own dog into this fight may the best sun win!

And since America is all about winning, I want our children to be able to out-compete everyone – even each other – by having every possible advantage. That’s why I was shocked to read that many of our youth are already suffering from an economic malaise that comes with being given less-than-prosperous names.

According to the article, upon hearing someone’s name for the first time, we instantly set in motion a rapid sequence of biased judgments that profoundly influence how we feel about that person. Thus the cultural cues embedded in your name can determine your educational, romantic and job prospects for a lifetime.

This is a travesty!

That’s why I’ve introduced the Prosperous Names Act of 2014, although in keeping with the theory behind the Prosperous Names Act, I actually call it The Civil Rights Act of 2014. That’s because The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was an incredibly successful piece of legislation that is still being celebrated today!

The Prosperous Names Act requires Americans to learn the lessons of the past. Since no child should be saddled with a name that inhibits their advancement, the PNA requires that by age 5 they assume a nom de guerre modeled after Americans who have already demonstrated an aptitude for success.

For example, let’s take two names that are not proven “winners” in the marketplace of identities.

“Loomis” and “Beechly” come to mind immediately.

There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with my names, though I have had to fight against the odd weight of them my entire life. Has it made me stronger? Perhaps. But if, at age 4, I had taken on a more obviously successful three name combination that spoke of wealth and achievement to people of my generation – something like “Mark Twain Rockefeller”, I would probably be a Senator now rather than a mere shadow Congressman.

Think about today’s children.

What if they showed up for that first day of school with name tags that read “Oprah Musk Buffett”, “Walton Koch Murdoch” or “Barack Beyonce Bezos” – names that speak of accomplishment in the arts, industry, science, and politics. But mostly, in accumulating money. Wouldn’t their roads be easier?

I think so, and I should know! Or my name isn’t Denzel Gates Zuckerberg!

Your Congressman,
(see above)

What would you choose for your “nom de guerre”?

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Work Clothes

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Today’s post comes from Curiosity’s Mars Rover.
(photo via JPL / NASA)

Yes, it’s my birthday.

That’s the modern Facebook age for you – everybody knows it’s your birthday even though nobody knows you personally. Not too many, anyway. Especially in my case, since I was built in a dust-free assembly building by people inside isolation suits – put in there to keep me from being contaminated by their hair or flaky skin cells or spittle.

I guess I should be grateful that I didn’t have to touch anything gross, but I feel the lack of human contact here and it’s not going to get better anytime soon. They’re sending another robotic mission in the year 2020, and there’s an outside chance I’ll still be functioning well enough to welcome it to the Red Planet, understanding that I’m a machine and they’re sending machines and nobody has feelings or particularly needs to be welcomed.

Anyway, I won’t hold my breath. You know why.

The birthday is meaningless, especially since I’m now tracking years on two planetary timetables. I just celebrated one year on Mars, yet here I am two Earth years old. What does that mean?

Nothing, really, unless there are presents.

What sort of present would I like? That’s easy. It’s something most automated landing devices don’t get, and yet it’s so closely tied to the outer space dreams of Earthlings I really feel cheated that I didn’t get one.

I want a spacesuit.

When you think about it, they sent me up here naked. Would you do that, even to your worst enemy? Banished to Mars, naked?

I’m here to work, so I at least deserve the dignity of a decent set of work clothes. Those guys who landed on the Moon had the coolest spacesuits ever, and there’s a book (soon to be a movie) about how those suits came to be made. They were crafted, not by nerdy teckno-geeks, but by warm-hearted seamstresses from Platex – the same people who made brassieres and girdles.

I just find that comforting. The thought of having some protective fabric nestled against my outer surface would help me feel embraced, so if it’s not too much to ask, how about a Kickstarter campaign to fashion me a wardrobe.

If work clothes are too complicated, how about a bathrobe or something cozy that the next mission can drop off as it goes into orbit?

I’m only 2 right now, but I have to look ahead. A care package with a bathrobe in it, or even just a throw, would ease the harsh prospect facing me – a power supply that runs down to nothing, followed by a virtually endless parade of twilight years.

And there’s a boatload of twilight up here, I can tell you that.

Over and Out,
Curiosity Rover

What’s in your “comfort” wardrobe?

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Ask Dr. Babooner – Anthropocene Defaunation Edition

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Dear Dr. Babooner,

I’ve been feeling a bit down lately, and whenever that happens my cure is to spend some time out in nature. Lovely flora and majestic fauna bring home the beauty of the world, and they convince me that my problems can be managed.

I know others find respite in nature too. And some of them are scientists. I know this because yesterday while I was reveling in the tranquility of a lush summer glade, I discovered a rolled up magazine trampled in the mud at the base of a tuft of prairie grass.

Opening it up, I saw it was the latest edition of a publication called “Science – The World’s Leading Journal of Original Scientific Research.” When I tried to flatten it out on a rock, the pages fell open to an article titled “Defaunation in the Anthropocene“. From the heading I just assumed it was about keeping young deer out of a suburban nightclub, but once I started reading it became clear this was about something even more disturbing.

Dr. Babooner, it turns out some people think the world is undergoing it’s Sixth Mass Extinction, and we humans are the cause.

That’s kind of a paradigm-shifting thought – rather than being the nice, decent people I assumed we were, I’m now told that we’re a disease, and we’re cutting through the Earth’s defenses more rapidly than the planet can protect itself and all the other creatures who live here.

Suddenly I’m kind of down again – the way you feel at the end of a night of drinking when you realize you really weren’t the life of the party, and you might have danced naked on the coffee table well past the point when people stopped thinking it was cute.

I’ve never thought of myself as part of a global plague, but now I can’t think of anything else. Dr. Babooner, how can I ever be comfortable in nature again, knowing I am such a threat to it?

Apocalyptically,
E. Bola

I reminded E.B. of the John Prine quote where he quoted Dear Abby saying “You have no complaint. You are what you are and you ain’t what you ain’t.” He might have completely made up that line, but if so it just makes him an artful liar. He’s darn good at it, so why kick up a fuss? You’re a disease! The kind that dances naked on a coffee table! The next time you come down with the flu, imagine there’s a microbe just like you in your system, riding through your innards in a top-down convertible, whooping at the stars. Then get out there and have some fun.

But that’s just one opinion. What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?

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False Memory Palace

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Today’s post comes from perennial sophomore Bubby Spamden, a more-or-less permanent fixture at Wendell Wilkie High School.

Hey, Mr. C.,

OK, so I get it that you’re not interested in signing a permission form so I can donate my brain to science. I didn’t think you would do it but I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask.

Anyway, that means I’m going to have to go back to school (again) in about a month, and the whole Wilkie High experience will happen to me one more time. Oh well. I guess they’d miss me if I was gone – I’ve been there so long I pretty much have seniority over all the teachers and administrators anyway, and they ask me how stuff ought to be done.

Imagine that – THEM asking ME for advice!

One year in early August Principal Peepers was just starting at Wilkie and he got visited by a delegation of parents saying he should change the lunchroom routine around to “the way it used to be” about 5 years earlier.

They had all heard it was better back then but nobody could recall exactly what was different about it.

The teachers weren’t much help. The youngest ones hadn’t been at the school that long and the old timers had gone through so many different lunch management schemes everything was just a blur to them.

So they asked me, figuring that I had such a famous history of breaking lunchtime rules I must be an expert on every single regulation throughout all of time.

“And your brain is young,” Principal P. told me, “so you can call up the details at will.”

But what he didn’t know is that I’d been pretty much sleep deprived my whole time at Wilkie – at first because I was a late-night-TV junkie, and then from staying up super-late to use the computer on the sly because my folks wouldn’t let me on the internet unless one of them was in the room to monitor my “activity”. So I didn’t remember either. But what was worse – I didn’t know I didn’t remember.

There’s this new research that explains it – they say being sleep deprived really opens up your mind to retaining false memories. So like your mind is really open to suggestion and you take something totally fictitious and buy into it like it’s real. My dad says Sara Palin has this same problem, so I know I’m in good company. Famous company anyway, which I think is pretty much the same thing.

Anyway, here are the rules I told them we’d had for lunch five years before. They questioned me pretty hard about it, but I stuck to my guns.

  1. The lunchroom lights must be kept super low.
  2. Everyone comes to lunch in costume.
  3. Extra points for extra appendages.
  4. Talking is allowed in as many languages as possible.
  5. Food and drink should be served smoking.
  6. There’s live music, but the band only plays one tune.

Anyway, nobody in the administration stepped up to “champion” my version of the rules and they wound up going with something pretty standard about keeping your voices down and your fingers off of other people’s plates.

Later on I realized that the “rules” I remembered were not from Wilkie High – that was a false memory I picked up from the Star Wars cantina scene.

Oops! My bad, but we almost had an awesome cafeteria that year!

Your pal,
Bubby

When have you been convinced a false memory was true?

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City of Bears

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Today’s post comes from Bart, the bear who found a smart phone in the woods.

He Found a Smart Phone in the Woods
He Found a Smart Phone in the Woods

H’lo, Bart here.

The woods are loud this summer thanks to all the people who come up here with the same low standards for noise control that they use in the city. They’ve got every kind of sound maker there is, including smart phones, which more and more bears are picking up. Seems like as soon as a tourist sees a bear, out comes the smart phone to take a picture. And as soon as that bear makes a move toward the tourist, they drop the phone and run.

That’s how getting smart phones got to be easier than picking berries. I have a bunch of them stashed away. As soon as the battery runs out on one, I open up another.

But I don’t get it why people would bring such a loud thing into the woods. These phones are ringing, beeping, chirping, and playing music ALL THE TIME. They’re so demanding! I thought getting out of the city was supposed to be about leaving behind all the racket and the stress. Instead, having a bossy smart phone makes it feel to me like I’m living in a Minneapolis apartment.

Not that I really know how it feels to live in an apartment.

Though I ran into a bear one night at a picnic area in the Chippewa National Forest who shared the contents of an abandoned cooler with me. He said he once was able to rent an apartment in St. Paul by doing it totally online. The landlord didn’t ask for references, he just left a key under the mat and this bear claims he lived like a prince for two weeks until the downstairs neighbors started to complain about the sound of heavy footsteps (and breathing) overhead. He also had this bad habit of rubbing off ticks that had dug into him by using whatever was handy in the main downstairs hallway. He splintered some of the wood paneling and ruined the carpet, which was a dead giveaway and led to them calling a zookeeper and the police. Tranquilizer Dart time! Otherwise they never would have caught him because the neighbors just thought he was an exceptionally hairy person.

Anyway, when I run into city people up here in my territory, you’d kinda expect that they’d quiet down as soon as they laid eyes on me, seeing as how I’m so big and fearsome. But it’s just the opposite – they get louder. Some of ’em even start banging on pots and pans. What’s with that? People are just weird.

I saw online that urban experts think they can make cities quieter places to live. I’m not so sure about that. Unless you can do something to get rid of the humans, cities are going to be noisy, no matter what.

A city of bears would be pretty peaceful, I think. Not that we wouldn’t have our issues, but we bears tend to keep a respectful distance from one another, which is something humans don’t always try to do. So if you want to come to the woods to learn about patience and quiet, fine. But leave your smart phone at home!

Your Pal,
Bart


What’s the most annoying noise in your life?

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A Bolt From the Sky

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Today’s post comes from Bathtub Safety Officer Rafferty.

At ease, Civillians!

After all, it’s summertime – the season when lots of people dream of taking an afternoon nap in the soft grass beneath a shady tree. But before you relax remember this – the outdoor environment is dangerous and unpredictable, and there’s a good chance that just as you begin to drift off to sleep some backwoods cowboy will come riding through your peaceful glade on his ATV (All Terrain Vehicle).

And if you think that’s disturbing, just wait. Because I’m about to ride through your picnic on my ATW (Assume the Worst)-mobile!

Outside is NOT the place to be this summer. Sorry, but in case you missed it, my arch-enemy lightning has recently gone on a spree and is striking people at will.

Lighting is the safety maven’s nightmare – the Ace of Spades – a dealer of almost certain death striking randomly from the sky! This is the reason I became obsessed with security years go, and when it comes to lightning, no one A’sTW more vigorously than I.

People ask how they can be safe outside in a storm and I say don’t go outside! Stay inside! And while you are inside, keep far away from all windows, phones, television sets, reinforced concrete (including floors), electrical things, and plumbing.

Basiclly, if you can suspend yourself in mid-air without any physical support connecting you to the walls or ceiling inside a first floor room that is designed to be a place where you do Absolutely Nothing, then you might be safe from lightning!

Otherwise, you’re exposed.

Even people taking a bath or a shower can be shocked by lightning during a thunderstorm because current can be carried along by pipes and fixtures. Don’t believe me? Here’s a quote from the New York Times about being zapped in the shower:

Ron Holle, a former meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who tracks lightning injuries, estimates that 10 to 20 people in the United States are shocked annually while bathing, using faucets or handling appliances during storms. “There are a ton of myths about lightning,” he said, “but this is not one of them.”

Just thinking about that gives me the willies. Now I know the true meaning of “Naked and Afraid.”

So my advice is to stay indoors this summer. Or if you go out, wear a fully insulated non-electricity conducting head-to-toe body suit.

And before you take a shower in the morning, check the weather radar! Sometimes there are good reasons to go to work smelling like you are a bit past your expiration date.

Yours in safety,
B.S.O.R.

I’m wondering if Bathtub Safety Officer Rafferty begins each day mapping his paranoia on a worry chart – will it be asteroids or lightning today? After all, either one could strike suddenly and without warning.

Have you had a close encounter with lightning?

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Polar Vortex Redux

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Image – NOAA Climate Prediction Center

Today’s post comes from Unreliable Journalist Bud Buck.

Meteorologists and paranormalists are watching with great interest as conditions conspire to raise some serious questions about the true nature of the mysterious forces that propel our weather.

Although I have talked to at least two people and maybe three about this topic, no one has yet been able to convince me that there is not something spooky and ominous afoot!

In a bit of timing worthy of a vengeful and nefarious supervillain, the dreaded weather phenomenon known as the Polar Vortex is coming back at exactly the right moment to make Minneapolis’ All-Star summertime a bummertime.

Starting off what is normally one of the warmest weeks of the year, this Monday will see a high temperature of only 65 degrees with 25 mile per hour wind gusts driving a cold rain into the faces of Important Visitors From Afar – those cherished opinion leaders congregating in Minneapolis for Major League Baseball’s annual All Star Game Tuesday night.

Unseasonably cool conditions are also certain to mar the beginning of a seven day stretch that the city’s mayor has identified as Bragging Week.

Coincidence? I put that question to TV meteorologist Gust Hailstone, who said “What are you talking about?”

I proceeded to explain to the clueless Hailstone that some people are saying the Polar Vortex is actually more than a weather system. These individuals believe the Vortex is actually a sentient being – a roiling stew of temperature differentials and moisture, brought into consciousness by the electricity in lightning, and configured just perfectly to have a vendetta against the city of Minneapolis!

“That’s ridiculous,” Hailstone spluttered. “I’ve never heard anybody say that.”

“You’re a liar,” I replied, “because I just said it, and you heard me.”

The real question is – why is the Polar Vortex trying to ruin our reputation by making all of America and the rest of the world see Minneapolis as a place that is too cold to visit, even in the summertime?

I put that question to paranormalist Jade Seance.

“That’s already our reputation,” she said. “Through the thick mists that separate this life from the next one, I can sense that even the dead people shudder when Minneapolis is mentioned.”

The moment she said “Minneapolis,” I felt a deep, clean chill, almost as if a door had been left open, or a ghost had walked through my physical body. I quickly spun around, expecting to see the Vortex standing before me in the form of a living, breathing arch-fiend!

But no! It was an open door. Her receptionist had quit the day before and Seance propped a chair against the entryway so passers-by could see us gathered around the table, holding hands.

“People will pay you good money and put up with a lot of malarkey if you’ll just hold their hand for an hour,” she said. “Some folks are really desperate to make any kind of human contact.”

Still, I had to ask. “What does the Polar Vortex want with us?”

At that very moment, the lights came back on, the wind blew the door shut and Seance said “Time’s up! If you want more answers it will be another hundred dollars.”

Indignant, I marched into the street, found a cop, and complained that I had been bamboozled by a paranormalist. But as soon as the officer found out I was a local person, she detained me on charges of raising the stress level when company’s coming and violating the promotional ethos of Bragging Week.

The Polar Vortex strikes again!

This is Bud Buck!

Naturally, Bud is trying to make this as dramatic as possible so he can draw attention to himself. But I think he imagined this entire episode, or at least embellished it. I’m confident that weather does not have needs or desires when it comes to complimenting or ruining our events.

Or does it?

When has the weather undermined your plans?

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Ask Dr. Babooner – Start Seeing Billionaires

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We are ALL Dr. Babooner.

Dear Dr. Babooner,

I’m the billionaire head of a massive corporation, so there’s no denying I’ve had some success in life. But I’m not just a money object. I think of my self as well-read and clever, and I have lots of ideas that surprise people, including me.

Recently I suggested that all our lives would be better if robots did more of our routine work because if people only had a four day work week, that would free us up to spend more time with our families.

It was an innocent suggestion, but boy did I get hammered for it!

Critics say I don’t understand the plight of the average person working an hourly job in America today who struggles to feed children keep a home intact.

They also say I’m a snooty, self-involved party boy.

But this should come as no surprise. In case you didn’t notice my first line, I’ll repeat it – “I’m the billionaire head of a massive corporation.”

For as long as I can remember, there has been an unlimited amount of money available to fill any need and satisfy every whim! Do I realize that many people work 60 and 80 hour weeks to make ends meet to support a family?

No, I don’t get that!

Can I comprehend the connection between time spent working and income for low-income people, namely that a shorter work week and fewer hours spent on the job means less money overall?

Of course not! Work is something I do to pass the time while my money makes itself.

I know this is pretty basic information, but being a billionaire today relieves you of any curiosity you might have about other people. I barely talk to my rich neighbor, so how could I be an expert on the lives of the poor?

The fact that so many people don’t understand how it feels to be the billionaire head of a massive corporation makes me wonder if there’s a market out there for Billionaire Awareness Training. With so many of us calling the shots in business, politics and technology, it seems to me that even a hotel maid would have something to gain from truly understanding the Billionaire mindset.

If nothing else, it might explain all those wet towels on the floor.

Like I say, I consider myself clever though my ideas have more to do with imagining the future rather than facing some other person’s reality.

I suppose critics will claim the poor don’t have time with all the hours they’re working to take a class about understanding billionaires. But that brings me back to my original point – robots can cover for them!

They can even take the course online, and if they don’t have access to the internet, I’m sure course materials could be delivered by drone to the front doors of their hovels!

But reaction to my previous brainstorm has made me a little gun shy, so before I put it out there I thought I’d better get a second opinion. Dr. Babooner, what do you think of my idea?

Hopefully,
Billionaire Head of a Massive Corporation

I told B.H.O.A.M.C. his idea is fantastic and he should move quickly to copyright and implement it. Even though the normal people of the world do not necessarily love billionaires on a personal level, they think the lives of billionaires are fascinating and most would jump at the opportunity to immerse themselves in details about the billionaire universe.

One suggestion – if Billionaire Awareness Training is offered as an evening class, why not have it catered at the poolside classroom?

But that’s just one opinion. What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?

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Misunderstood Mariners

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Today’s post comes from the skipper of the pirate ship Muskellunge, Captain Billy.

Ahoy!

Me an’ me boys is quite excited t’ see that underseas adventurer Fabien Cousteau finally came up for air after bein’ submerged for over a month in his “Mission 31“. A human bein’ livin’ underwater fer 31 days may seem unnatural t’ most, but if yer name is Cousteau there is certain obligations one must meet, no matter how unpleasant.

Likewise wi’ pirates.

Artists Approximation of Captain Billy
Artists Approximation of Captain Billy

We pirates is great fans of them Cousteau fellas on account of they is quite passionate about th’ oceans of th’ world, an’ so is we. Just like Jacque an’ now Fabien, we is at sea pretty much constantly, except when we has t’ come ashore t’ get more money.

Fabien Cousteau says his goal in stayin’ in a school-bus sized habitat 65 feet below th’ surface was to get “… future generations to care about the oceans, to cherish them, to be curious about them in a way that was during my grandfather’s era.”

An’ our goal in stayin’ on the Muskellunge fer 20 years (at least) is t’ avoid gettin’ arrested, which is what would happen t’ us if we was spotted on land in daylight.

Fortunately, we loves it out here. Ain’t that right boys?

But we knows what Fabien Cousteau is up against when he tries t’ get ordinary folks t’ care about th’ welfare of water dwellers. Landlubbers just ain’t sufficiently appreciative of ocean beings or th’ ocean as a whole. An’ I has it on good authority that many of ya is creeped out by all the creatures livin’ underwater.

This here video be one good example of th’ sort of thing shore dwellers imagines is goin’ on right beneath their feet when they gets in any amount of water what is over their heads.

Groupers can be a might nasty. An’ naturally sharks is a persistent fascination on account of all their teeth, an’ even when one of ’em bites a fella by accident it still makes th’ news!

Likewise, we pirates is disparaged when we plunders and pillages a coastal village or robs th’ crew of a tanker, an’ even though we don’t enjoy our maraudin’ an’ carryin’ on’ as much as it may seem when they talks about it on CNN. We does it fer the same reason a giant grouper bites a barracuda – because th’ opportunity presented itself an’ its in our nature.

So I just wants t’ say this about th’ ocean an all them what lives on an’ in it: fish is people too! An’ we pirates, whilst certainly fearsome, has our tender sides as well. An’ we is all merely doin’ them things we was put on Earth, or on water, t’ do.

Yer seafarin’ pal,
Capt. Billy

What is your natural habitat?

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Jaws of Life

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Today’s post comes from Bart, the bear who found a smartphone in the woods.

H’lo, Bart here.

Just a note to say if you’re traveling near the woods for the 4th of July, please be kind and considerate when it comes to the local bear population.

And by that I mean watch your behavior if you happen to see us standing by the roadside as you drive into a National Forest. We’re not there to greet you – we’re looking for sloppy campers. So if you roll down your windows and offer us treats and try to get us to come over to the car, you should know that the rangers are watching and we might seem a little coy or even disinterested.

This is not actually the case.

We’ve noted your license plate and we’ll be coming to visit you later under conditions that are a little better for getting to your stash of goodies. It turns out we bears are famous for opening locked cars in unconventional ways. And all it takes is the smell of food inside – you don’t have to leave anything substantial in there.

Crumbs are enough.

Before you complain, just remember it’s not malicious vandalism – we’re simply being true to our nature.

And while we’re on the topic of peeling open vehicles, I’d like to take a little bit of credit for a heroic act. I saw that a fellow named Bob Renning did an amazing thing the other day when he pulled open the locked door of a burning car in order to save a stranger who was dying of smoke inhalation inside.

He did it through personal courage, brute strength, adrenaline, and smarts – he grabbed the top edge of the window frame and pulled it back, bending the metal at its weakest point and breaking the window so he could pull the victim to safety.

His heroically bent door is on the left. A door pulled open by a bear in search of food is on the right.

Hero Car
Bear Car

Need I say more? True heroes know where to look for inspiration.

Full disclosure: Mr. Renning performed his feat of strength while channeling an instinctive humanitarian impulse that is noble and good. I would do the very same thing to get a package of Ding Dongs out of the glove box. To tell the truth, I’ve done it to get a crumpled up Ding Dong wrapper off the floor of a locked car.

So I’m not saying Mr. Renning took his cues from a bear when he intervened, but if he had been a bear, he could not have done a better job.

Be nice to us! We’re brutes, but we’re cute!

Your pal,
Bart

What is your greatest feat of strength?