Today’s post comes from Dr. Larry Kyle, the company founder and produce manager at Genway – a supermarket for genetically engineered foods.

I’m delighted that scientists who have more time on their hands than I do were finally able to sequence the entire super-lengthy genome for the Norway Spruce.

I tried to do it a time or two, but the Norway Spruce DNA string was so long I lost interest before I got to the end, rather like reading Moby Dick.

There was a lot of repetition in the genome too. I guess that’s what used to pass for great writing.

It’s odd, because Norway Spruce might be my closest personality match in the world of trees. They can be so prickly! They’re also sappy and messy, just like I am. And of course we both smell great and people want to snuggle up near us and hang things off of us every December. That’s why I’ve always wanted to do something coniferous at Genway! And now that I can get at all the genetic inner workings and mess around, my mind is reeling!

Of course everyone else will use this wealth of new information to try to make a perfectly shaped and completely durable Christmas Tree. Ho hum! I’m much more interested in the subtle manipulations.

For example, by incorporating simple Idaho tuber DNA into a cocktail with the genetic code for creating pine needles, I can clearly envision a house in the woods surrounded by trees that shed the raw materials for making ultra-thin potato sticks. So what if dropping spud-needles get caught in the gutters? Spray the roof with oil and set it on fire! Those first responders deserve to arrive at a blaze one time that i also a tasty, crunchy treat – just remind them to bring the salt cannon!

And what about doing something with those Norway Spruce seed pods? Imagine how a nine year old’s head would explode if you told him Ice Cream Cones really DO grow on trees! Now THERE’S a Christmas gift!

There are non-grocery applications too! Those pine-shaped hang-from-the-mirror car deodorizers have never smelled like an evergreen to me. But now that we know the proper DNA sequence, we can fundamentally spruce up everything! The dashboard. The mirror itself. Even YOU could have a naturally coniferous personal scent! What would it be worth to you to be as perpetually fresh as mountain air?

And what about sports applications? I’m sure there are a number of NFL receivers who would like a genetic upgrade to have their football-dropping palms naturally ooze an ultra sticky sap.

Yes, I’m delighted that the secrets of this complicated tree, the Norway Spruce, have finally been unlocked. Look for a sudden surge of Evergreen products at Genway including Evergreen Grapes and Evergreen Gravy.

Yes, green gravy! Why? Because we can!

Yours in Unsupervised Experimentation,
Dr. Larry Kyle.

I think Dr. Kyle’s enthusiasm is premature. I’m not sure that knowing anything about the Norway Spruce gene sequence will help us much in the long run. But if it makes him happy, what’s the harm?

Tell us a story involving you and a conifer.

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?