| Loves That Woman ';
$dunkin='2005/0905/';
$dunkintitle='The New Anne Frank Diary';
$edit='2003/1222/';
$fanmail='2005/0516/';
$fanmailtitle='Volume 63';
$finger='2005/0905/';
$fingertitle='I’m Fresh Out of Haitian Cigarettes';
$fortune='2002/020121/';
$goocher='2005/0711/';
$goochertitle='Gwar of the Worlds';
$hanes='2005/0704/';
$hanestitle='Pink is Not for Men';
$hartwig='2005/0606/';
$hartwigtitle='Parade';
$hooper='2005/0228/';
$hoopertitle='Vernon Hooper’s Fifth Syphilis';
$hurley='2005/0404/';
$hurleytitle='Time of Healing';
$kroeger='2005/0822/';
$kroegertitle='Charity Case';
$loser='2005/0822/';
$losertitle='Lost Leavings';
$ned='2003/0818/';
$nedtitle='Cyantology';
$pickle='2002/020513/';
$pickletitle='State of the Art';
$poet='2005/0905/';
$police='2005/0905/';
$polio='2005/0905/';
$poliotitle='Omarelief';
$rent='2005/0829/';
$renttitle='I’m Not that Big a Fan of Talking';
$reynolds='2005/0425/';
$reynoldstitle='A Series of Unfortunate Evans';
$hartwig='2004/1206/';
$hartwigtitle='O Captain!';
$sickhead='2004/0419/';
$sickheadtitle='The Legendary Spot of Coco Hobari McSteve';
$ted='2005/0530/';
$tedtitle='The New War on Poverty';
$vanslyke='2005/0606/';
$vanslyketitle='Health Food is Full of Shit';
$zender='2005/0425/';
$zendertitle='The Sixth commune Enthusiasts Club Meeting';
?> | 
China Killing Cats Like It Was Going Out of StyleJanuary 12, 2004 |
Guangzhou, China Alton Onus Chinese police taking feline suspects in for “questioning”
The central focus of the crackdown has been cats, a delicacy in China and finer trailer parks around the United States and personal pet peeve of Chinese President Hu Jintao. Cats were targeted after rumors surfaced that China’s first SARS case of the season, a 3...
ith the second confirmed case of SARS reported in the Guangdong province last week, the Chinese government has stepped up its campaign to wipe out all animals with the potential for carrying the virus, including the “four dangers”: cats, little yappy dogs, loud tropical birds and those goldfish with the gross big eyes. Despite accusations that this is just the Chinese government’s excuse to get rid of millions of annoying pets, officials insist the mass slaughter is necessary to ensure the public health.
The central focus of the crackdown has been cats, a delicacy in China and finer trailer parks around the United States and personal pet peeve of Chinese President Hu Jintao. Cats were targeted after rumors surfaced that China’s first SARS case of the season, a 32-year-old television producer from Guangzhou, may have contracted the virus after eating SARS-tainted cat meat. Though the producer later revealed that he had never eaten cats and must have contracted the virus elsewhere, Chinese officials insist that he probably accidentally ate a cat some time without knowing it, which can happen to anybody.
World Health Organization officials met with the Chinese president last week in hopes of stemming the slaughter, but such hopes were dashed when the meetings devolved into a hilarious Abbott and Costello routine of “Hu’s on first?” with the Chinese leader. While concerns remain that the Chinese slaughter of cats may destroy valuable evidence, if not aid in spreading the virus further to workers hit by cat shrapnel, progress is unlikely since WHO officials have been unable to breach the subject without inspiraing hilarious riffing about a second baseman named Noh Ba Di.
Early attempts at eradicating the cats through drowning, punching, and firing squad failed after Chinese workers grew bored with these pedestrian means of cat-killing. Later attempts at scaring all the cats in China to death with a special gigantic vacuum cleaner proved unsuccessful, though hilarious, and by the end of the week more creative and entertaining methods of cat eradication were being sought. On Thursday, over ten thousand cats were shot out of an air cannon at a large brick wall painted to look like a big dog.
By the weekend, the feline holocaust was proceeding on several fronts simultaneously, with a veritable midway of cat-killing attractions thrilling Chinese spectators all through the day and night. Popular attractions included the “Kick a Cat Off the Cliff” booth, the “Give a Cat the Gift of Flight” strength-testing event, the children’s favorite “Cat in a Hat Full of Cyanide” and a humorously themed Catapult. While successful, officials had to put an end to the gasoline-soaked cat-on-fire races due to problems arising from rampant gambling on the event.
Everyone got into the spirit by week’s end, with Guangzhou newspapers running front-page pictures of a smiling Mayor Zhang Guangning smashing a kitten with a giant wooden mallet. The Guangzhou airport was shut down briefly on Saturday was thousands of cats were scooped into running jet engines in a desperate attempt to meet the weekend deadline.
On Thursday, China’s second recent SARS case was declared after a 20-year-old waitress was isolated in a Guangzhou hospital. Though it is not clear whether the woman worked in a restaurant that served wild game, Chinese officials consider that detail to be inconsequential since she could have contracted the virus while camping, driving near nature, or watching the SARS-infected Disney animated film, Bambi. the commune news is doing its part to stop the spread of SARS worldwide by shooting all the cats we can find with a paintball gun, whether they be in an alleyway or someone’s living room. Ivan Nacutchacokov is the only person on the commune staff known to have ever eaten a cat, but he stresses that at the time he was so drunk he thought it was a badger.
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eBay halts sale of three Vietnamese sex slaves over postage dispute
Democrats emerge, see shadow; four more years of capital gains cuts
Wal-Mart, NetFlix join forces to wipe out small mail-order businesses
Florida declared disaster area months before hurricane hits
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Officials to Celebrities: Please Get Out of New Orleans isaster-relief officials in New Orleans made a stern announcement today to the thousands of celebrities descending upon the devastated city in hopes of providing humanitarian aid in exchange for career-boosting photo ops: We’re serious; you really need to leave now. “We’ve got to get these fucking celebrities out of New Orleans,” sighed an exasperated Lt. Mark Bolio of the Army’s 92nd Airborne. “They’re drinking up all our bottled water and bitching about the catering all day.” The influx of famous faces has weighed as a heavy burden on officials who have spent the last week scrambling to get everyone out of the city-shaped deathtrap. Receding water levels have exposed a nightmare world of toxic contamination, with nearly the entire city soaking in deadly levels of E. coli bacteria, lead, crude oil, PCBs, asbestos, leptospirosis, battery acid, herbicides, raw sewage, DDT, snakes, and according to at least one local, cooties. After busting a nut trying to remove the bulk of New Orleans’ stubbornly entrenched locals, many of whom refused to leave their pets or belongings, the Army was not prepared to deal with the celebrity occupation. Wisconsin Man Takes in Jazz Band he whole nation wants to do their part to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina, but a Madison, Wisconsin man is doing so much he makes all the other volunteers and charity donors look like dried puke. For Albert Pohl Martinson hasn’t merely taken in three or four family members or refugees from New Orleans: He’s taken in a whole jazz band. “I just wanted to do what I could,” Martinson told a deluge of fawning media standing on his front lawn. “So I said I would take in the first group of refugees I could. I sent them bus tickets and had them carted up here immediately. And then, being a good citizen, I called the local news to make sure they were informed.” However, Martinson didn’t stop and giving the 5-man combo all the food, shelter, and clean water they needed; he also bought them sparkling fresh instruments so they could take their mind off their troubles. Stealers Wheel Win Super Bowl, Says Heavily Accented Man Colin Farrell Claims Responsibility for Groin Injury That Sidelined Kwan |
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 February 17, 2003
Volume 36Dear commune:
Dude sends you a piece of paper over the phone line, and it's not mail anymore. But then dude sends you a dirty joke that never existed on paper or in the real world, just some doodles on your screen, and suddenly it's mail again? Bullshit.
Smack Randolph,
Peachfuzz, UT
Dear Smack:
Though the commune would love nothing more than to respond to your thrilling question, Smack, office chunkhead Bludney Pludd just discovered that you can just shake Bac-Os straight into your mouth, you don't need a salad or nuthin', and we need to get in on that action before those delicious little bacon-like space flakes are gone. the commune is sure you...
º Last Column: Volume 35
º more columns
Dear commune: Dude sends you a piece of paper over the phone line, and it's not mail anymore. But then dude sends you a dirty joke that never existed on paper or in the real world, just some doodles on your screen, and suddenly it's mail again? Bullshit. Smack Randolph,
Peachfuzz, UTDear Smack:
Though the commune would love nothing more than to respond to your thrilling question, Smack, office chunkhead Bludney Pludd just discovered that you can just shake Bac-Os straight into your mouth, you don't need a salad or nuthin', and we need to get in on that action before those delicious little bacon-like space flakes are gone. the commune is sure you understand.
Editor's Note: the commune does not apologize for the existence of bees, because the last time we did that we had zillions of those little assholes flying around in front of our office protesting, and we don't have the money in our budget this year to rent another industrial bee vacuum.º Last Column: Volume 35º more columns
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|  December 6, 2004
O Captain!Before my days as a newspaperman, and slightly after my days as the Spoonman, I served my time in the American school system as a teacher. Or a learning person, as we used to say before they invented proper grammar.
My earliest teaching experiences were at a prep school, the kind where it's all boys (or girls, but I couldn't land a gig for that one) and they have to wear uniforms and conduct themselves like rich and snobby gentlemen. At first, the fellows were all leery of me, because I was so close to them in age. After a while, they came to think of me as their favorite teacher. Some of that was because I was so close in age, they thought they could trust me, but it was more than that as well. I actually enjoyed teaching, and tried to make all the subjects we studied connect to their own lives.
This is not always an easy task. We were going through a rough period where ventilation and air conditioning was being forced into the classroom, and while I think I did a good job, I couldn't always make the kids see the value in knowing how the thermostat works. I did better in other subjects, like teaching poetry.
All of my students came to love Walt Whitman quite a lot. Before my class, they thought of him as some stuffy, recently-dead hooligan who wrote homo garbage. But then I actually read a few of the poems for them, some of them in an amusing Italian dialect, and they were thrilled. One student told me "I Sing the Body Electric" was...
º Last Column: The Pen
º more columns
Before my days as a newspaperman, and slightly after my days as the Spoonman, I served my time in the American school system as a teacher. Or a learning person, as we used to say before they invented proper grammar.
My earliest teaching experiences were at a prep school, the kind where it's all boys (or girls, but I couldn't land a gig for that one) and they have to wear uniforms and conduct themselves like rich and snobby gentlemen. At first, the fellows were all leery of me, because I was so close to them in age. After a while, they came to think of me as their favorite teacher. Some of that was because I was so close in age, they thought they could trust me, but it was more than that as well. I actually enjoyed teaching, and tried to make all the subjects we studied connect to their own lives.
This is not always an easy task. We were going through a rough period where ventilation and air conditioning was being forced into the classroom, and while I think I did a good job, I couldn't always make the kids see the value in knowing how the thermostat works. I did better in other subjects, like teaching poetry.
All of my students came to love Walt Whitman quite a lot. Before my class, they thought of him as some stuffy, recently-dead hooligan who wrote homo garbage. But then I actually read a few of the poems for them, some of them in an amusing Italian dialect, and they were thrilled. One student told me "I Sing the Body Electric" was the best verse he had ever heard, and I don't think he was trying to get extra-credit by saying it. I gave it to him all the same, though.
Then, they fired me from the job. My students took it hard. They threatened to protest when I told them I had been fired for reading all the poems in an Italian accent. They said they would storm the school, bust out all the windows, and rape the faculty, but not because they wanted to do it. They wanted to show support for me. I told them if they wanted to show support for me, really wanted to prove their loyalty, they would continue their educations and forget about my troubles.
They did that. But on the last day, as I was escorted off the campus, they all leaned out the windows and recited my favorite Walt Whitman poem, chanting "O Captain! My Captain!" just like Grand Funk Railroad later would. They turned all this into a movie, but since they threw out my original draft screenplay, I want no part of that Hollywood garbage.
I eventually wound up in public schools, where my under-informed and incompetent teaching made me fit in quite well. It had been the real reason I was fired, of course. No one's ever been fired for reading poetry in a bad accent. º Last Column: The Penº more columns
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Quote of the Day“The stars at night are big and bright, deep in the heart of Texas! Except near Houston, Dallas or Fort Worth. Talk about your smog. Jesus, this song's gonna need another verse.”
-Clement B. DoogleFortune 500 CookieMama said there'd be days like this, but the bitch lied. The success or failure of this coming week hinges on your proper understanding of the word "gonad," so take our advice and go buy a dictionary now, Skippy. Order lots of Chinese food this week, but don't pick it up. This week's lucky accidents: back-flip off ladder onto hardwood floor, lip caught on drain while bathtub's full, wearing flammable jumpsuit to Great White concert, 15 car pile-up.
Try again later.Top Upcoming Bourne Sequels| 1. | The Bourne Pregnancy | | 2. | The Bourne Insolvency | | 3. | The Bourne Cat Fancy | | 4. | The Bourne Schenectady | | 5. | The Bourne Macaroni and Cheez | |
|   North Korea Pissed Their Real-Life Hunger Games Nowhere Near as Popular as Movie BY Southern Elvis Brandon 6/10/2002 The Negative Sum of NumbersThere was something disappointing about going home from New York Art College. A depression set in as soon as Smythe drove his middle-class luxury car across the borders of his old California hometown, Burnt Pines. He was here to spend a few weeks of his summer vacation before flying first class to Europe to live life as a starving artist, where he would make a killing.
Mom and dad couldn't meet Smythe at the airport because he wanted it to be a surprise. Also, they were emotionally distant and mom was haunted by the sexual abuse of Smythe by an uncle that she couldn't prevent; but mostly because it was supposed to be a surprise.
Only one person knew about Smythe coming in, his best friend Eddie "Big Fucking Junkie" Joneser. Eddie was supposed to meet Smythe at...
There was something disappointing about going home from New York Art College. A depression set in as soon as Smythe drove his middle-class luxury car across the borders of his old California hometown, Burnt Pines. He was here to spend a few weeks of his summer vacation before flying first class to Europe to live life as a starving artist, where he would make a killing.
Mom and dad couldn't meet Smythe at the airport because he wanted it to be a surprise. Also, they were emotionally distant and mom was haunted by the sexual abuse of Smythe by an uncle that she couldn't prevent; but mostly because it was supposed to be a surprise.
Only one person knew about Smythe coming in, his best friend Eddie "Big Fucking Junkie" Joneser. Eddie was supposed to meet Smythe at the airport, but once again, Eddie had let him down. Smythe was forced to fly back to New York City and drive all the way back in his car. You'd think after all this time he'd be used to Eddie letting him down. It was something he had never gotten used to.
Smythe went to Eddie's parents' house, where there was a huge hub-bub going on. Apparently, there was a party in full gear! Shit. Just like Eddie. Saturday afternoon and the party is still going on.
Parking his car, Smythe walked around back and found the yard full of fat degenerates. Ugly, down-trodden, just aching for a fix or to gamble or have sex with a dead person, no way of telling how far these people had slid from society's ranks.
"Where's Eddie?" demanded Smythe. People were confused and a little frightened, one was pregnant, and a guy eventually pointed toward the house.
Smythe stormed through the house, bumping into freak after weirdo, until he found the upstairs bathroom. Two guys were standing around doing God knew what, holding cocktails and waiting outside the bathroom. Smythe kicked it in, and inside, to his suspicions, he found Eddie sitting on the toilet.
"Jesus!" said Eddie, pulling up his pants. "You scared me, Smythe! I had to pinch one off!"
"Stop the act, Eddie," Smythe commanded, looking in the toilet for drugs. "I know you flushed the drugs down the toilet. And then pooed in there so I wouldn't search too good. Why, Eddie?"
"I—"
"Shut-up! I don't want to hear your lies anymore." And he didn't. Smythe dragged Eddie out by the arm as Eddie continued trying to pull his pants up. Smythe tossed him to the floor, as one of the suited guys entered the bathroom.
"C'mon, man, be cool!" pleaded Eddie.
"Knock off the act, Eddie, you're a junkie!" snapped Smythe. "I know you're jealous of me. I went to Art College, Eddie, it doesn't mean I don't still love you like a brother. If you want to be jealous, that's fine, but don't lose yourself in these ridiculous drugs. You're killing yourself."
"I told you, I don't take drugs!" said Eddie.
"Fuck you, Eddie," said Smythe, in a language that would have disappointed his mother. "You not only take drugs, you make them! Everybody knows it, it's no secret."
"I told you this before, man, I make an acid-reflux inhibitor. And I don't make it myself, I'm just CEO of the company that makes it. It's over-the-counter—"
"Aaaah!" screamed Smythe, grabbing his head like James Dean. "Stop the lies, Eddie!"
"It's the truth, you dick," said Eddie, standing up again and straightening his tie. "And for the last time, I'm not jealous of you going to Art School. I told you, I graduated six years ago with a Masters in Business Management from Princeton. Now if you're done interrupting the company picnic, I've got a three-legged race to win."
It was too much for Smythe. He let Eddie exit in peace, talking to another guy in a suit about fourth quarter earnings and appeasing stockholders. He just wanted to walk away, but Smythe knew if he didn't do something Eddie would be dead before he was 30. Next month.   |
