the commune, 1/9/25: You'll learn to love it or die trying

John Paul II a Shoo-In for Pope Hall of Fame

May 16, 2005

Vatican City

Junior Bacon

Former pope John Paul II's handlers insist that the deceased old man "keep a lid on it" during a recent prayer service

rand spanking-new pope Benedict XVI has surprised traditionalists this week not only by having the traditional pope throne in the Vatican replaced with an overstuffed Lay-Z-Boy recliner, but more significantly by calling for "Santo Subito," or "Immediate Sainthood" for his predecessor, the reportedly-deceased John Paul II.

Such a move would be a radical break from the Vatican's traditional 5-year waiting period between a pope's death and first chance at beatification, which is not as painful as it sounds. The waiting period has traditionally served as a time for the deceased pope's life and accomplishments to be put in perspective, to prevent voters from being swayed by the media circus surrounding the pope's death and the emotions of guilty voters who owed the pope money.

"Your Holiness, though I respect your desire to honorâ€”could someone kindly shake the pope awake, please?" argued Cardinal Vincenzo Palati to snores of disagreement from a reclined pope.

Pope John Paul II himself bent the rules by sponsoring Mother Teresa for sainthood a mere two years after her death, with the explanation that he was tired of waiting to get his hands on the collectable "Saint Mother Teresa" bobblehead doll.

Some have questioned Benedict's motives, pointing out the possibility that he hopes to accelerate the trend, eventually allowing the pope to declare himself a saint before he even dies, getting around the ever-present problem of being a saint but being too dead to enjoy it. Critics point out the many powerful incentives for pulling off such a coup, including the generous saint discount available at buffets worldwide, and the ability to commandeer civilian vehicles on demand for saintly business.

For John Paul II to be beatified, supporters will have to provide evidence of saint-like miracles performed by his former eminence during his popehood. So far, this looks to be a large hurdle.

"The pope made meatballs one time, using grade D beef," reminisced cardinal and pope friend Arturo Bennini. "It was a miracle they turned out so good."

"Well, the pope blew his nose on my shirt once," explained an awed Victor Minelli. "And the stain looked kind of like cookie monster. You know the cookie monster? So that was kind of weird. A weird miracle."

"That man was a saint," claimed a rambling Cardinal Eustace Beeter, in a 45-minute speech that none could claim had a definable point. "Just good people, that pope."

Catholic statisticians, however, question the logic behind John Paul II being inducted to the Pope Hall of Fame at all, citing the former pope's poor career stats. 4,000 conversions are traditionally considered to be the benchmark for sainthood, though John Paul II supporters argue that the former pope's 2,805 were an artificially suppressed number due to injuries and the years that the pope served in the army.

"The three most similar popes to John Paul II, according to their statistics, are Hermes the Mauve, Jonas Ricardo Popino, and 'Steamboat' McGill," explained pious nerd Walter Bumrose. "Not exactly a stellar assemblage of popehood, to be honest. Those are some real bummer popes, most of them from the dark period in the church's history when they had cash flow problems and would let anyone be pope for a day as long as they kicked in enough cash and brought their own hat."

the commune news recently celebrated our own induction into the commune News Hall of Fame, an exclusive membership honoring the very best commune news organizations. Ivan Nacutchacokov has worn a path in the sky between Iraq and Italy this month, and as a result believes he has enough frequent flyer miles for a leveraged buyout of United.

Minutemen Seek Congressional Funding to Patrol Space Borders

May 9, 2005

Washington, D.C.

Whit Pistol

An amateur Minuteman photographer (amateur at both being a photographer and being a Minuteman) took this photograph, at first presuming it a fancy-ass Mexican mule vehicle, but later suspecting another kind of alien invasion.

embers of the red-hot "Minutemen Project" petitioned Congress for government funding to support their patrols of the borders of planet earth itself, fearing more illegal alien immigration, the small and green kind. The Minutemen darlings wrapped up their recent month-long patrol of Mexican-U.S. borders, and are hoping to extend their project and, in the future, even help safeguard the inter-galactic borders from unauthorized intrusion.

"If Martians, Venusians, Neptunians or whatever want to get into this planet, and by extension into this country, they can go about it the proper way," said Minutemen project founder Jim Gilchrist, speaking to Congress on behalf of his organization. "But there are laws in place to keep out those we don't want on this planet, at least in this country there are. We reserve the right to kick them out on their asses, wherever those asses might be located."

Angry populist shouting ensued in the wake of the claim, or more like the dull kind of irritated murmur you might here at a dance club when you're commandeering the floor and making all them skanks look amateur.

The Minutemen called their first patrol effort a huge success, a month-long venture in which vigilante volunteers watched for illegal crossings and reported them to the border patrols, never once taking the law into their own hands, we're assured, and hope it's all the proof Congress needs that ordinary citizens can deal with the problem of illegal immigration, without unnecessarily involving trained officials and people who are actually employed to deal with the matter.

"Illegal immigration is the number one country facing this problem today," said Rusty Hemlawn, exaggerating quite a bit. "If the government is too bloated and slowed down by legalities to handle the problem, then it's up to us normal armed citizens to do it ourselves."

Hemlawn and company make a good point, though, that if you are a middle-class, gun-toting white citizen who doesn't have family that's been ravaged by the economy or affected at all by military extensions overseas, illegal immigration by non-white people into your mostly-white country is certainly the biggest problem concerning you.

But, people who are semi-intelligent wonder, how much of a problem is illegal immigration by non-earth entities? The answer might surprise you, if you ask some of the redneck members of the Minutemen themselves.

"I's been sitting here for all my shifts all month," said Judd Bumper-Scruggs, a 42-year-old Minutemen volunteer and recent high school dropout. "I ain't seen but one or two Mexicans nosin' 'round the border, but I seen a mess o' them flyin' contraptions. We got a big problem with alien invasion, and I'ma be the first to warn you."

The Minutemen, not usually the reactionary type, were quick to report their findings to all the scientific bodies of the world, except for the unlucky fact they didn't know of any of them. So the group wrote to its Congressmen, and were invited by famous Senatorial inflammation Zell Miller to bring their cause to the legislators.

Gilchrist, speaking to Congress: "What happens when hard-working whiteâ€”I mean, Americans, heh, of any color, of courseâ€”good Americans start losing their jobs to these green illegal immigrants? They control the laws of space and time, so of course they can afford to work for a lot less than an American doing the same job. They come here, all crammed in their flying saucers, looking to take work out of our mouths. I think we have a right to be protected from that."

Organizers of the Minutemen project claim their sweethearts are already guarding the skies with the use of high-powered telescopes (look in the small end, folks) and the occasional homemade heleocopter, but government funding would facilitate their private police force, as well as legitimize the group of angry crackers.

the commune news used to find the best way to preserve its borders from outsiders was to let Alamo "Loser" Cruise sleep on the premises, but the pungent smell also kept away most staff members. Stigmata Spent doesn't keep her borders very well guarded, if you catch our innuendo.

Ethiopians unanimously elect Colonel Sanders

500,000 new jobs created in April already outsourced

Derby winner stripped of prize when revealed as man in horse costume

Man who thinks like wife-killing ex-cop needed to catch wife-killing ex-cop

May 9, 2005

Science Deified

º Last Column: Slow Change Artist
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I have important matters to discuss. How important? I don't even have time to talk about my favorite conspiracy (World's Biggest). No, this concerns matters of the laws of nature themselves.

I'm talking, of course, about evolution in Kansas. That's not an insistence that evolution did happen in Kansasâ€”my last drive through Kansas, I doubted evolution had occurred there at all. But it's not up to me to decide such matters, sir, and I think everyone who's not a science teacher should stay out of it. Yet in Kansas, evolution and creationism is once again a political battle between the hardcore fundamentalist Christians and normal people.

Why involve myself, you ask? It's not hard to figure out. Everything we teach in the science classroom is factâ€”am I right? Of course I am. Years ago we started teaching evolution. It was in all the papers, you might have read about it. The teaching of evolution gave the theory validity. And I'm scared shitless about teaching Creationism in science class. What happens if we validate "intelligent design"?

This is crap we don't need. God is deadâ€”haven't you read the papers? If you want to go to your church and chat up the ceiling, that's perfectly fine. It's in the Constitution, I understand, though I think I may be paraphrasing. But you make God a part of my science class and that makes him real again. The last thing I need is God to come back, all pissed off about our erasing his existence by not teaching Him in science class. And how do you think He'll feel about the rest of the world and the state it's in? He probably won't even care about the evolution business, too busy freaking out about subjecting the third world to poverty and the stockpile of nuclear armaments. He got pissed about eating a single apple off his tree, how do you think he'll feel about destroying the world?

I've traveled to Topeka to take part in this state argument. It's not like everything's going to topple if the unintelligent "intelligent design" forces win Kansasâ€”halfway there already, you ask me. But if they get encouraged by their victory, the Creationists will probably take their fight somewhere more important, like Fly Creek, Alabama, or the Bayou. If they conquer enough school boardsâ€”or worse, the hearts and minds of the America itselfâ€”science will be forever changed. God will return, wished into existence by the demon we call science, evolution will go the way of the dodo, and science will be subject to extremists, instead of hard-thinking, boring scientists. What will they go after nextâ€”gravity? That's all I need, all my papers going flying around and my entire staff falling off the surface of the earth. Which will probably be flat again, by the time all this is over.

To prevent this paradigm shift, I'll no doubt make this argument to the Kansas School Board itself. But if I go as myself they'll surely recognize millionaire playboy/publisher/conspiracy-buster Red Bagel. Fortunately I've had a lot of disguise experience lately, so I'll be making my arguments as other personas. I plan on playing Edgar C. Bummington, an esteemed Professor of Evolution from England (my accent is top-notch), arguing the case for evolution and against Creationism. I also plan to play concerned parents Bill-Joe and Marjorie Cutler (both roles, though I'm not sure how I'll pull that off just yet), and, time permitting, the precocious show-stealer Joe "Stinky" Bagel, arguing it from a kid's perspective. Sure-fire ways to convince Kansans to respect science and keep evolution? Maybe not, but I'm giving it everything I've got. I've come to like gravity too much to give it up.

º Last Column: Slow Change Artist
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Quote of the Day

“We didn't land on Plymouth Rockâ€¦ we landed just beside it, and then the damn thing rolled onto us. Needless to say, we didn't step in bird shit either. Just standing in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

-Professor Milton X

Fortune 500 Cookie

It's official: You've made the Ambassador's shit list. It's funny you can never find a gun when you really need one. Try thinking outside the box this weekâ€¦ in fact, general consensus is you shouldn't be wearing a box everywhere in the first place. Suck a lemon; make lemonade.

Try again later.

Top 5 Worst Ways to Start a Letter

1.	Dear Cum-Dumpsters...
2.	Remember you said you wouldn't lend me money even if I had abducted your family? Wellâ€¦
3.	Fellow Grand Dragons...
4.	Long time, no lawsuit...
5.	Boy, when you moved away without telling me where you were going I thought I'd never find youâ€¦

"Runaway Asshole" Continues to Wreak Havoc Nationwide

BY roland mcshyster

5/16/2005

Great Googly Moogly, America. I'm not kidding, this is the best Googly Moogly I've ever had, my compliments to the chef. Don't ever let anyone tell you that you can't get good Chinese food from a place that also recycles athletic equipment. One stop shopping is the word of the future, according to something I read somewhere like eight years ago. Speaking of the future, we've got a batchload of new movies to review, and they all stink like the future.

In Theaters Now:

Domingo: Presequel to the Exorcist
Who knew Pavarotti knew so much about demon exorcising? I'd have thought any word so similar to "exercising" would have scared that tub of tenor right out of town. But instead, Domingo Pavarotti sticks around long enough to work up a forehead swea...