"DELIGHTFULLY VICIOUS" Weekly satirical newspaper, ezine and parody web site
from Tucson, Baja Arizona
Vol 2, No. 24 June 22 to June 29, 1998 - Free and worth twice the price.
EAT CONCRETE AS WELL STUCCO EATING
TERMITES THREATEN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES: A new
species of termite has been discovered in the San
Fernando Valley that eat stucco. "Civilization as we
know it is threatened," commented Wendy Woodle,
spokeswoman for the Southern California Homebuilders
Association.
The new breed of
termites is the product of evolution according to
scientists at the General Delivery University.
"Critters evolve in response to environmental
pressures and opportunities," noted Pancho Perdito,
head of the GDU Department of Domestic Pests.
"Whenever there is a shortage of one kind of food,
and an abundance of another kind, it is either starve or
adapt," Perdito continued.
"Termites eat
wood, and the amount of wood used in new home
construction has been steadily declining for many years,
while the amount of stucco has increased," Perdito
explained. "The termite population faced extinction,
so it evolved to eat the stucco."
EPA bans on
pesticides that effectively killed termites is also
blamed for the new species of termite. "The little
rascals actually eat the stuff used to kill them
now," Woodle said.
And in Southern California, many are
worried over reports that small colonies of concrete and
asphalt eating termites have also been discovered near
San Bernadino.
"Can you
image what would happen to America if we had termites
eating up every road and street in the country?"
asked Floyd Finagle, head of the Los Angeles Department
of Public Works.
Environmentalists
were quick to file an application with US Fish &
Wildlife to have the new species of termite declared
endangered. "Allowing these new insects to
proliferate would greatly reduce the impact of human
development on the environment," noted Sari Selhout
with the Southern California chapter of the Sierra Club.
"In less than 100 years, if these new species of
termites are allowed to spread, humans will be reduced to
living in mud huts and walking wherever they want to go.
That would be wonderful," Selhout added.
One solution to
the stucco eating termite problem that reportedly has
worked is to replace the walls of homes with adobe, an
ancient building material. "This will work pretty
well for homes," noted Finagle, "but we're
going to have a problem replacing the concrete and
asphalt in our freeways with adobe."
Residents of East
LA, who are predominately Latin, and quite experienced
with adobe construction from their homelands, are viewing
the potential explosion in demand for adobe brick making
and construction with guarded optimism. "Can you
image how much work there will be if every Gringo home
has to be rebuilt with adobe, and we're the only people
who can do it?" commented Nacho Nabor, head of the
Union de Adoberos, the union for adobe contractors.
"The problem is adobe has been banned as a building
material by the Anglo building codes for many years, for
purely racists reasons, even though the oldest buildings
in the Southwest are built with adobe."
After realizing that it could not bomb aggressively in
Yugoslavia because it would put its own troops in danger from
retaliatory strikes, NATO announced a new, revenue producing
"Rent-A-Hostage" program. Said Belgian NATO
spokes-bureaucrat Jean-Marie LeMollet, "We realized that by
constantly placing our troops in situations where their force was
insignificant and they were hampered by restrictive rules of
engagement, we were just offering combatants potential hostages.
Since that's the case, we might as well make some money off of
these brave men, to help fund the startup of the new Euro
currency." LeMollet went on to detail how NATO plans to rent
out troops from countries such as Luxembourg, Netherlands, and
Belgium, which are generally conquered within several hours of
being invaded, so that the troops will make the best possible
hostages. "As a special introductory promotion, we're also
offering celebrity hostage programs," LeMollet continued.
"Alexander Haig, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, George Bush,
and Francois Mitterand are all available, and at prices that
can't be beat. Mitterand is especially cheap."
Man Claims Daylight Savings Time Caused Impotence
Speaking from the back of his pickup truck in Sioux City,
Iowa, Les Sharp revealed that his impotence was caused by
daylight savings time, and that he would be suing the U.S.
Congress. "It's an abomination against God and nature. All
of this extra daylight wreaks havoc with my system." Les is
a worker in the Sioux City "Museum of Corn," where he
is in charge of the "Tribute to Creamed Corn" exhibit,
which is visited by thousands of senior citizens every month.
Gore Surprised at Size of NBA Superstar
Commenting Monday on the Bulls NBA Championship, Al Gore
stated: "I tell you, that Michael Jackson is unbelievable,
isn't he? He's just unbelievable. Three plays in 20
seconds." When Gore later had Jackson over to the White
House for a congratulatory dinner, he was stunned that a man of
such diminutive stature could be the top basketball player in the
world. The Vice President reportedly mentioned to Jackson that he
liked the way Jackson had stolen the ball from Karl Malden, and
to say hello to Bulls coach Phil Collins for him. "You know,
don't you," Gore told the quasi-human singer, "that
Tipper and I were the inspiration for the movie Hoop Dreams?"
CNN's Arnett Reveals Second U.S. Shocker in as Many Weeks
Last week, Peter Arnett of CNN ran an exposé of an alleged
American atrocity in Vietnam--the use of the internationally
banned nerve gas Sarin against a Laotian village. His
"source" for the story was Robert Van Buskirk, a man
thrown out of the Army for gunrunning, who uncovered a
"hidden memory" of the incident fourteen years after
writing a Vietnam memoir that failed to mention the use of Sarin.
After the story ran, CNN's military expert resigned in protest
over what he termed a "terrible mistake… wrong in all
dimensions." The other interviewees who were used to
"confirm" Van Buskirk's story have said their quotes
were used out of context.
We have learned from our source in CNN, who is
pass-out-from-lack-of-oxygen high in the network, that in his
next exposé Arnett will reveal the U.S. destroyed Manuel
Noriega's entire year's supply of acne cream during the 1989 U.S.
invasion of Panama. Arnett proved this by studying the entrails
of a chicken recently regurgitated by Deepak Chopra.
JPB is on vacation. Herewith is one of his previous columns
The "dumbing down" of America is a perpetual concern
among those churlish reactionaries who think that education is
vital to the future of that country. To these doomsayers it is
cause for alarm that thousands graduate high school functionally
illiterate. These crybabies worry that teachers rewrite history
to forward their political agendas, that the average student
cannot write a grammatically correct sentence, that college
graduates cannot perform basic arithmetic without the aid of a
pocket calculator. A pox on these pessimists! Rather than railing
on about schools that are war zones, or professors losing their
jobs for spending too much time teaching, we should be using
these situations to our national advantage. If the main product
of our educational system is dolts, then it is in our own
self-interest to create a demand for them. While it would be
preferable for private enterprise to perform this function,
industrial opportunities for complete nincompoops are extremely
limited - they can't all be Savings and Loan executives. So, as
an interim step to the stupidity-based economy, it is imperative
that the government take immediate action to reinstate the
position of Village Idiot.
It is certain that bringing back the Village Idiot will be a
politically popular move. Take a look around yourself - are you
not surrounded by fools, dullards, adlepates, morons, and
cretins, with the occasional imbecile for variety? Idiocy is in
vogue - everywhere people are dismissing intelligent thought as
too much trouble and falling back on the rosy contentment of
irrationalism. It is certain these people will favor paying for
Village Idiots over wasteful, pork-barrel spending (defined, of
course, as government spending not going into their own pockets).
It can even be argued that there is a moral imperative to fund
Village Idiots: While it is true that there is no shortage of
idiots in the world, the vast majority of these are amateurs, and
practice their feeble-mindedness at their own expense. If the
National Endowment for the Arts is going to pay photographers to
take pictures of crucifixes in jars of urine, why shouldn't they
take the marginally more sensible step of subsidizing Village
Idiots? Indeed, it's in their own best interest; given the
intelligence displayed in recent NEA grant selections, many
promising candidates for the job already work there.
One of the main attractions of Village Idioting will be the
advancement opportunities. Since Village Idioting died out as a
career most of the people who would have entered that field now
go into the entertainment industry. With the reintroduction of
the Village Idiot mobility between these two careers will be easy
and extensive. Consider the case of guitar-smashing,
drug-besotted, alleged musician Kurt Cobain, who took a shotgun
and redecorated his guest house with his splattered brains. Who
could doubt that this wretch could have had vocational
fulfillment rolling in the dirt and babbling insanely, especially
if they attended one of his concerts? Or take the example of
Grateful now-extremely-Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia: As a diabetic
who didn't watch his diet and shot, popped, or inhaled most of
the Physician's Desk Reference he was undoubtedly an
idiot, yet he had fame, respect, and a larger annual income that
most third-world countries. What promising blockhead would pass
up a career that gave him a chance to emulate these men? Movement
in the other direction may be somewhat less common; while
numerous celebrities are impeccably qualified to be Village
Idiots, the money they would receive as government employees
could never come close to what they are paid for acting like
idiots now. Still, any project that has even a chance of getting
Sally-Jessy Raphael off the air is worth a try.
As the parents among you have no doubt realized, Village
Idioting will be an ideal career for the youth of today. Consider
a typical pot-smoking, grunge-rock listening, scraggily-bearded
slacker; the one you gave birth to will do nicely. Observe his
green-and-magenta hair. Observe his pierced ears, nose, navel,
eyebrows, tongue, and...err, other parts. On second though, let's
not observe so closely; I just ate lunch. Would any person with
two ounces of brains to rub together do this to himself? With the
restoration of Village Idioting not only can your offspring get a
job that doesn't involve commerce in illegal pharmaceutical
products, but he can be a public servant.
The establishment of the Village Idiot program should be
accomplished with a minimum of difficulty. Not every community
will need a Village Idiot; in New York City, for instance, this
function is fulfilled by the city government. Washington, DC,
ever progressive, already has a Village Idiot (better known by
his official title of "Mayor"). In other cases,
qualified local figures can act as temporary Village Idiots until
permanent ones can be elected or appointed; Louis Farrakhan in
Chicago, Marge Schott in Cincinnati, and so on. Similarly, job
requirements and method of selection can be tailored to conform
to regional customs; to be a Montana Village Idiot might only
require being on the FBI's open cases list, while in
Massachusetts preference could be given to otherwise unoccupied
Kennedys. The only possible objections might come from those
whose current jobs are made obsolete by the return of Village
Idiots, but it shouldn't be too hard to retrain 535 senators and
congressmen. So, to those worrywarts who bemoan the fact that
reading, math, and being able to find the United States on a map
are fast becoming obsolete skills, I give you the words our First
Lady would no doubt say if granted immunity from prosecution:
DINOSAUR NEWS 100 million years ago Dinosaurs ruled the earth.
And not only were they warm blooded, they were smarter than we knew.... Copyright 1998 by Don Berry
