Today’s post comes from Congressman Loomis Beechly, representing Minnesota’s 9th district, which comprises all the water surface area in the state.

Greetings Constituents,

I write to you regarding an issue of great importance. It has come to my attention that some leaders in Massachusetts are saying that theirs is the brain state.

Are we going to allow this?

There was a time when American states competed to see which one produced the most impressive looking crops or the largest number of sophisticated manufactured goods. This is what State Fairs used to be about. It was a way for the state to boast about its superior products and an exemplary way of life.

But things have changed. Increasingly, the spoils are going to those states that have the best brains. The markets don’t care how big our pumpkins are. They want to know what’s inside! And I think our great advantage over the rest of the world is that our melons are chock full of brains!

Actually, that’s a lie. There are smart people everywhere and one human head has about the same amount of brainage as the next. But until we convince ourselves that we’re unusually bright, we’re not going to seem smart to anyone else. School children are known to go out of the way to not appear too smart, for fear they’ll lose the popularity sweepstakes.

That’s why we have to talk up the quality of our noodles just like they were beef cows or zucchini.

Yes, I’m saying every Minnesotan should have a blue ribbon pinned to his or her skull as a sign of excellence.

Why? Because our brains are bigger, plumper, juicier, faster, longer-lasting and just plain better than the brains in every other state, bar none!

Some will loudly disagree. Others will silently disapprove because they know in their hearts that they are smarter than us. Constituents, that’s where we have them! People who think they’re superior to everyone around them also tend to look down on promoters and salesman. They think their excellence is self-evident and believe that everyone else will soon come to see it. Saying so out loud is tawdry, or so they think.

In the meantime, these geniuses pity anyone who toots his own horn.

That’s a mistake!

The sign of a truly intelligent person is that she knows no one will give her credit for anything unless she demands that they do it! So I’m surprised there aren’t more Minnesotans talking up the unique qualities of their brains! We should be ready, at the drop of a hat, to expound on the quality of our noggins. We should all be the Muhammad Ali of intellect. Float like a butterfly, sting like Apis mellifera!

Let’s get started today! I’m proud to say I’m a smart person living in a State of Brains, and I think you are too!

Your Exceptionally Bright Congressman,
Loomis Beechly.

What’s good about your brain?

Today’s post comes from Wally, proprietor of Wally’s Intimida – Home of the Sherpa!

Whenever I’m feeling down, I look at the latest report from the US Public Interest Research Group to remind myself that there’s a lot further to fall. Yes, I could feel much, much worse. The US PIRG says young people today are doing less and less driving for a lot of different reasons including time and expense. Plus, when they were very little, their mothers and fathers drove them around everywhere they needed to go, inadvertently creating a a generation of lazy travelers who expect to be picked up and taken to their next destination.

In other words, public transit-loving leeches!

This doesn’t bode well for people like me who work in the automotive indulgence industry. Our audience is literally fading away. I have seen young people … young MEN … who are very conversant about bike racks but cannot get excited about a Corvette.

That’s just wrong.

We may be entering a time that will be remembered someday as the dark ages for the personal automobile.

But in the same way that Irish monks and scribes preserved western civilization by maintaining the culture through the transition from classic Rome to medieval Europe, so Sherpa drivers will allow our car culture to survive thousands of years into the future! It’s up to us to use and maintain the infrastructure. Otherwise our beautiful 8 lane freeways will become 2 car lane and 12 bike lane freeways. Perish the thought!

The Sherpa from Intimida does everything we need to keep our infrastructure in use and up-to-date. As the largest and heaviest passenger car ever made, it chews up the pavement at the same rate as 10 lesser cars. And no vehicle on Earth can match it for gas consumption. That’s great for America, because as our gas production increases (thanks, tracking!) the huge Sherpas of Intimida will be there to burn it!

And the taxes we pay will keep the roads in good repair. Sherpa ownership preserves a way of life, and supports Employment and Infrastructure.

And what about all that carbon dioxide in the air?

The Sherpa Woodsman edition comes complete with a old-growth forest that has been uprooted and surgically pre-planted in the cargo bay. That means your Sherpa is the only car on the road that both pumps CO2 into the air and consumes it at the same time!

Yes, young people think differently. Let them! It’s up to you to pass the consumptive culture that bred you on to some greedy future generation!

Come to Wally’s Intimida and take your proper place in history!

Your far-seeing dealer,
Wally

I told Wally that I’m not in the market for a new car, but in our own way, each of us represents something essential about the times in which we live. His eyes glazed over and I don’t think he heard a word I said after “I’m not in the market for a new car.”

In a Museum of the Future, which exhibit includes an image of you, and what are you doing?

Dear Dr. Babooner,

Just this week I finally graduated from college. Yay for me!

I’ll never forget my feelings six years ago when I arrived on campus here at St. Capricious (Go Windsocks)!

I was all excited about becoming an English major and learning to write like F. Scott Fitzgerald. It was my goal to create books so complete and intricate and memorable, no one would ever be satisfied with a movie made from one of them. I thought I was doing all right until my finance professor pointed out that if movies could not be made from my books, I would be a starving unknown, forever.

So I switched to Finance with the goal of landing a job on Wall Street. My professor told me if I played my cards right, I could retire by forty. But then the recession hit and what with the investment bank bailout my dream of a career in Finance suddenly didn’t seem so noble.

So I switched to Social Work. Social workers are extremely decent people who work harder than corporate CEO’s for NO money at all, or close to it. They’re probably as close as you’ll get to Ghandi in the USA in 2013. I wanted to be just like them, and I felt great about it until I met some social workers who had become jaded. That was kind of disappointing, because there’s nothing sadder than an idealist who has lost her ideals. She’s got nothing left but an untethered IST. I didn’t want to be like that.

So decided to become a chemical engineer. In the process I found out that I love chemicals but I don’t care so much for math.

So I finally settled on communications, because no matter how bad everything gets, we’ll still need to talk to each other, right? I specialized in journalism, so for a class project I wrote an article about how experienced reporters are losing their jobs and having to work for half their previous salary, or for free.

So I switched to biology. Which was really interesting until I discovered how much it had to do with handling dead things. Ugh.

Anyway, by this time all the friends I’d made as a freshman had graduated and I was still not done.

I sat down with my academic counselor Jeremy, and we looked at all the degree-parts I had completed, and we decided with just another semester’s work I could design my own degree in Communobiological Chemfinancial Emotivity.

So that’s what I did, resisting the temptation to go into counseling because Jeremy is SO AWESOME.

Anyway, we just had our graduation and just before they gave me my diploma there was this commencement speaker – a really well-known singer songwriter. He was so cool and so … with it … I realized during his speech that I had wasted all those years. What I really wanted to do with my life was to write songs and play the guitar!

Dr. Babooner, I’m fresh out of college and depressed. I’ve just thrown away a ton of time and even more money to wind up at a place I really don’t want to be. I wish they had let me listen to my commencement speaker when I was a Freshman. It would have spared me a lot of grief.

Sincerely,
Robert Zimmerman (no, not that one). (at least I don’t THINK so).

I told Robert that it didn’t seem to me there was any actual profession that could spare him grief. His commitments are so tenuous, the only job description that would truly fit him is “rolling stone”. But that’s just one opinion.

What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?

Today’s post comes from the Honorable Loomis Beechly, representing Minnesota’s 9th District – all the water surface area in the state.

Greetings, Constituents!

I’m sending this special message so I can go on the record as being in favor of it all along before Governor Dayton signs the same sex marriage bill into law later today.

Many have accused me of being evasive or downright wishy-washy on the marriage rights issue, claiming I have split words while trying to stay acceptable to people on both sides of the debate at a time when decisiveness and leadership were sorely needed.

I don’t know what those people are talking about.

I, for one, have always striven for transparency on this question – and I believe I have been as clear as the water on beautiful Lake Opaque when it comes to same-sex marriage.

Here’s a section from my formal position paper on the issue, released almost exactly one year ago:

Most of the living creatures in my district are, as you know, fish. Walleye don’t get married, and don’t seem to want to get married. Frankly, I don’t think they even know who the fathers or mothers are of all the fish they produce – it’s really wanton and free under the lake surface with all the things they do. Fish sexual identity is just so variable, I don’t think any one set of rules can apply down there. And by “down there” I mean underwater. AND I also mean “down there.”

So I am going to declare myself to be predominantly aquatic on issues of affectional relationships.

Some will say that identifies me as a free thinker. Others will say I am endorsing natural law. But one thing I know – there are fish in the Bible, lots of them. Mostly they’re just being pulled out of the water and eaten by disciples and such, but I assure you that what they’re doing under the surface today they were also doing back then, so my position is kind of scriptural, if you need it to have that sort of connection.

Many of my political opponents called that a “fishy” position, or suggested that I was “all wet,” which simply proves that they are lazy critics. Anyone who declares himself aquatic on the sexuality question is fishy by definition.

And “all wet”? What could be better? My district is nothing but lakes, rivers and swamps. So I won’t run from it. I can’t! Especially those wetlands in springtime. When your boots start to take on mud and water, there’s no question – you’re not going anywhere.

The mind of the voting public is changing, and any politician who refuses to respond to that will soon be left lying on the dock, gasping and wheezing and flopping around helplessly, waiting to be picked up by a dog or kicked into the weeds or taken home and thrown in a tank by some kid who doesn’t care anything about fish and will cry for about 10 seconds when the inevitable belly-up situation develops.

No thanks.

I’m pretty sure I was in favor of this all along, so today comes as a moment of vindication. We win?

Sincerely,
Your Congressman and fishing buddy,

Loomis Beechly

How do you handle a slippery fish?

Imagine you’re a long, long way from home.

This government job you have takes you on the road pretty much 365 days a year. It seems there’s no plan to bring you back .. ever! That would be a deal-breaker for many.

“You can work me to the edge of exhaustion,” you imagine yourself telling your overlords, “but don’t keep me at the office on Mother’s Day.”

Unfortunately, the Cassini Spacecraft doesn’t have the option of making such a demand because “the office” is a vast airless vacuum all around the giant planet Saturn. And Mother’s Day? Not a big observance for machines that are not born as much as they are imagined, designed and assembled by teams of engineers.

Still, I’d like to think that even a bag of bolts can feel wistful, so it seems fitting that our lonely wanderer Cassini found and beamed back this lovely rose – beautiful to look at but maybe not so wonderful to experience first hand.

This lovely flower swirling around the North Pole of Saturn is 1,200 miles across. Forget for a moment that the deep crimson folds could be traveling at 330 miles per hour. A pretty thing is still a pretty thing, even if touching it would peel the skin off you.

Still, picture the excitement of two space scientists as they spotted this one in the viewfinder! Particularly if it was around Christmas and they were in the habit of conversing only to the tune of “Lo, How a Rose Ere Blooming.”

It could happen!

!) Lo, there’s a Rose on Saturn.
At least it looks like one to me!
That clearly is the pattern.
What other flower could it be?
That’s no geranium!
It needs some fertilizer.
For it is … so far from the sun.

2) Let’s not begin debating
whether Saturn has a rose.
You are hallucinating.
This much everybody knows –
A flower can’t survive
in space’s icy regions
where nothing remains alive.

3) What fragrance has this blossom,
So bright and beautiful and fair?
From here it looks so awesome!
Vibrant and fresh, though without air!
It decorates the sky.
The gentle Rose of Saturn
As seen through Cassini’s eye.

When have you seen something that wasn’t really there?

Dear Dr. Babooner,

I’m a very well-known actor who, for good reason, is adored. I aways play the hero. My legions of fans worship me for my great good looks, admire me for my superlative storytelling skill and love me for my homespun decency and my everyman personality.

Years ago, a lousy agent I had told me to draw the line at SEEMING approachable. If I let people ACTUALLY get close, she said, they would soon learn that I am a self-absorbed, small-minded husk of a human being who is incapable of empathy and doomed to wander the Earth searching for my own reflection in every fetid pool.

I fired her of course. No one can talk to ME that way!

But now a video has surfaced on the internet that clearly shows me insulting and pushing a very old woman who got in my way at a custard stand. She was dithering over what type of sprinkles to get on the cones she was buying for her grandchildren. The children weren’t even nearby – they were cowering on the other side of the room! I asked her to hurry up and she just stood there, squinting at the choices like she couldn’t see them. I used a louder voice and a more urgent tone and she did nothing – acting like she couldn’t hear, either. So I shoved her out of the way and placed my order. When she complained I said “Do you know who I am? You’re about to find out!”

Boy did she ever! Our video spread like dandelions on steroids and now our names are linked in headlines that are splashed across every handheld device in America. She’s known everywhere as a victim who showed uncommon grace under pressure, and of course I’m already famous for being awesome!

Friends tell me I should apologize to her for being a rude bully but I think she should thank me. I made her a star! The blogs say I’ve been exposed as a socially stunted fraud but I think I was just putting a shine on my “everyman” credentials. Most folks feel impatient when they’re stuck in line behind a slow old person. People will realize this if they examine their feelings honestly. I just let my very ordinary reaction leak out – an unusual (for me) lapse. There’s no way I’m “insensitive.”

And besides, those children didn’t need to have dessert. They’re fat!

With Characteristic Sincerity,
America’s Favorite Famous Actor Boy, Loved Everywhere

I told A.F.F.A.B.L.E. he needs to re-assess his imagined status as America’s Mr. Sweetchunks. The public is fickle and it relishes making a quick turn against anyone with privilege caught taking himself too seriously. A fawning apology, followed by major acts of contrition and a sizable donation to a deserving charity might start to undo the damage, but the road to redemption is long and rocky.

Or, he could just specialize in playing villains from here on out.

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

Today’s post comes from idea man and envisioneer Spin Williams.

Here at The Meeting That Never Ends we’re thrilled to pieces over advances that have been made lately on the creation of very Tiny Flying Robots (T.F.R.)!

When I was a kid, I was allergic to bee stings. I used to get totally freaked out when a bee came anywhere near me. I would react by running in circles, waving my arms wildly over my head, and crying for mercy. My brother would weep with laughter as I panicked. My terror was wonderful entertainment for him – as it always is with older brothers and their little siblings.

My mother encouraged me to calm down by trying to picture things from the insect’s point of view.

“Imagine, ” she said, “that people ran away whenever you approached. How would you feel? The bee can’t help being a bee, so why make it worse for him by having such a fit?”

I’ll always love my mom for having such a good heart, but this bit of advice never worked for me. I suffered with a severe case of Grade School Cooties from the time I was 5 until about age 12, so people DID run away when I approached, and I knew it sucked. So I didn’t care about the bee’s feelings. I could keep humans at a distance, but bees were so small and fast my defenses were useless against them. The notion of one getting too close to me was positively mortifying.

To this day, I cannot think about anything but my own sudden death whenever there is a bee around.

But if I had my own swarm of T.F.R., I could deploy them as a cloud to surround my head and keep the REAL bees away.

I know people worry about the possible unprincipled government use of Little Insect-Like Drones to invade the privacy of law-abiding citizens, but I see them as being so much more useful for individuals like me. T.F.R. could be configured as a potential force field, a personal space-maker, and an affordable airborne army.

Or they could become an especially fierce substitute for hair.

I can think of all sorts of reasons why everyone would like to have their own squadron of diminutive flyers. Filling the air with tiny buzzers that are at your command would be extremely empowering. And like our very own Defense Department, I refuse to think about how enemies might eventually use the same technology against me.

But they wouldn’t dare. We’re America!

I love the future – I wish it was here already!

Your pal at T.M.T.N.E.,
Spin Williams

I suspect Spin will soon get his wish – T.F.R. will be available on a widespread basis within five years. How do I know? I little buzzing machine whispered it in my ear!

How would you deploy your Tiny Flying Robots?