he White House faced embarrassment this week when their usual method of distracting the population with lesser problems backfired, leading them to unintentionally misdirect public attention back to the original problem. While the administration hoped to draw notice from earlier remarks misdirecting national awareness to the slave trade.

Popular theory is the White House misdirected media attention to the Middle Eastern slave trade to distract from the continuing aggression in "free" Iraq, and possibly some of the Nixon comparisons President Bush has endured over the course of the week; when Middle Eastern allies such as oil magnate/American investors Saudi Arabia took offense at the promise of sanctions, the White House sought to avert public outcry against the ally by launching a new attack—this one, accidentally, drawing notice back to the failing economy and bleak financial prospects for most Americans.

"It's a shame in this country that men and women can work all their lives and having nothing to show for it," said Condoleezza Rice, as a few aides standing by gave each other quizzical looks. "Especially in America, a country recognized world wide for having so much prosperity. And yet, we're losing quality jobs everywhere but the service industry. The president is most definitely angered by this, and is sorry he's passed so many economic policies to keep it in place."

Failing to recognize that the disparate situations between the rich and poor in the United States was the same initial social ill so many wars were started to draw attention away from, Rice continued to assault the very structure of American finance.

"America continues to make advances in industry, medicine, and of course, commerce—advantages only a handful of Americans will fully experience, since the system is built to allow only partial upward mobility, preserving a luxury status for a privileged few, who triple their earnings by sending skilled jobs overseas and cutting the bottom out from the working classes."

Concluded Rice: "That seems to me a much more devastating problem affecting this nation than the 800,000 slaves reportedly trafficked through the fine countries of our allies, right?"

It was a classic clusterfuck as only this administration could manage, doing potential damage to four and a half years worth of social reform rollback and securing the position of the upper classes. Realizing their mistake the Saturday after the statement was made, the White House had little choice but to keep the misdirection rolling.

"The War on Terror is at its worst," said Press Secretary Scott McClellan, rushing into the press room Saturday morning, while most of the reporters were still pretty hung over for a long night's/morning's drinking. "We have elevated the terror level to 'fantastic,' which is uh… pretty bad. We've heard rumblings throughout the Middle East that Al Qaeda may be preparing for another strike on U.S. soil. And if intelligence hasn't picked up anything on that yet, they most certainly will within the next few hours."

Though the War on Terror is a subject that hasn't unified Americans with the same strength it originally did in late 2001, it seemed like the safest place to leave public scrutiny until everything had blown over, or at least until the next major summer blockbuster got everybody talking about Batman or alien monsters or something again.

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Grape. Fuckin'. Nuts.

That's what my mornings are reduced to these days, ladies and gentlemen. A bowl full of rock-hard gravel that's supposed to help me live to 120. Have you ever even seen a 120 year-old? Sweet Bubble-Yum Jesus, I saw a guy who was 118 once and I thought he'd come to tell me about Christmas Past, I almost shit my pants. He looked like he'd died three times already but kept coming back for the buffet. So I'm really starting to wonder at the wisdom of choking down this mole-food.

And yet now I find myself more in the mood for some kind of gooey sugar treat in the shape of a rabbit or bird. How fickle these desires, that tear my soul asunder.

-RIIIIING-

That's right kids! You've found today's magic vocab word, "asunder"! Congratulations!

-drunks cheer-

Now, for the grand prize, can you use today's word in a complete sentence? Let's see:

"Uh, yeah. Here we go: Man, if she gotta assunder that miniskirt, I'll give you TWENTY bucks for an hour!"

-DINGDINGADING-

That's it! Congratulations, you're now the proud owner of "EAT IT!", the board game that makes cleaning out the refrigerator FUN! If you can't name its atomic weight, you're gonna EAT IT!

Ah, what a precarious, flighty thing this day is, like a little bird lofted on the wing, a little, gentle bird, so small and downy, so delicate and blue-eyed, a precious drop of God's love on this sylvan sphere, like a-JESUS CHRIST, how did I get this gun in my hand? For the last time, I don't know anything about any mass shooting at Chuck E. Cheese's! And for the love of God, tell the voices in my head to stop arguing about football!

Remember kids, if you feel a tingle in your dingle, make sure she's single before you mingle; you know what I'm saying? I've got a scar here that taught me that very lesson, and I'm passing it on to you. Not the scar. Unless you get too close to my Mustang, then all bets are off.

And now, from your friends at Hallmark, a warm greeting:

Rub a double-dumpling

Stick it up your nose

Cease with all your mumbling

And take off your clothes.

Thanks folks, we've been getting a lot of requests for that one, a real throwback to the lyrical styles of yesterweek. I'm Dick Van Patten, and you've been great. Goodnight everyone, and smoke a doobie for Huey P. Newton.

-closing theme aka Darth Vader's Empirial March-

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Dear commune:

As the old parable goes, "God made dirt and dirt don’t hurt." If truer words were ever spoken, I don’t know them. They probably weren’t spoken to me.

What I’m getting at is, my girlfriend is an atheist. As you can imagine, if she doesn’t believe in God she has absolutely no confidence in the harmless practice of eating dirt, it could be arsenic or anything. Being an atheist must make the world a very scary, lawless sort of place.

So what do you say? Any tips on how I can get the woman to let me keep eating dirt?

Sincerely,

Kivin Treedink
Ludlow, MT


Dear Ronald:

We are shocked into silence and delighted by your letter, each of us for various reasons. Some latched onto the thoughtful questions on the nature of the universe and the existence of God. Others were intrigued by your use of pizza sauce to dot the i’s and lowercase j’s. It was pizza sauce, wasn’t it? We have a pool going now.

Overall, most of us were heartened by your questions because if a knob of galactic proportions such as yourself can find a girlfriend, there is still hope for those of us still single. Pass on to her our suggestion that, no matter what her shortcomings, she can clearly do much, much better. Keep reading the commune!


the commune

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Editor’s Note: the commune is not responsible for the publication of letters than offend you or us. Letters are picked randomly by a rat who comes out of the wall and eats bag upon bag of reader mail—whatever’s left is what we run. Blame the rats, as the saying goes.

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