Back Issues
Volume 14, Issue 5: The Cretan Times
Candidate-Name Placards Create Surge Vote in National Election
Douglas Jones
WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Voters' New Service reported
Tuesday that post-election surveys revealed that voters in the November national election were heavily swayed by the millions of 3x2 candidate-name placards posted in neighborhood yards and street corners across the nation.
"I didn't know whom to vote for until I saw a cluster of those
little signs. On the way to vote, I stared at a bunch, and I quickly realized
that Dembsky was my man," said Aaron Pember of Torrance, California.
Another surveyed voter explained, "It's not so much the sound
or ethnicity of the candidate's name, but the font style he or she uses. I
could never vote for a candidate who used Times Roman." Other voters
pointed to a combination of font and color, with the color blue being the color
that most convinced voters of a candidate's integrity.
"It's about name recognition," explained Sheila Morris. "I stood
in the voting booth absolutely clueless. Then I started picturing all
those placards stuck in my neighbors' yards,
and two or three names slowly came to mind. The people with
recognizable names like that must have initiative; they've planned ahead with printers
at least. That's impressive."
Representatives from both the Democratic and Republican
National Committees have admitted that they are shifting campaign strategies
away from town meetings, detailed literature, and television commercials
toward more placard printing. Don Gillin of Election Marketing observed
that "People are just too busy to get into the depth of a commercial."
In response to objections that placard voting undermines
democracy, Jack Gurley, who won a seat in the Michigan State House, replied
that "it's more about positive peer pressure than name recognition. An
overabundance of placards suggests wide support in a community, and
people should always follow the majority. That's what democracy is all
about. Personally, I think whoever has the most placards should
automatically win."
Poststructuralists Gather to Stop Etna Lava Flow
Douglas Jones
LINGUAGLOSSA, Italy—Poststructuralist academics
from across Italy gathered at the base of an erupting Mt. Etna in order
to deconstruct the hierarchical linguistic forces within the threatening
lava. They explained that their project involved a symbolic
restructuration that is inseparable from the
dualistic hierarchies producing red-hot flows.
For a period of several hours, academics and media observed a
lava tributary shift its flow sideways about eighty centimeters.
On the second day, Norberto Crespi and Danilo Vattimo began
a heated exchange over whether the shift was due to
Foucauldian histories without subjects or Heideggerian subjects
without histories. The tributary shifted back ten centimeters, and the
academics got bored and dispersed. To mark the lava shift, they agreed not to
use the language of anthro-centric success but rather that of
cultural remodelling.
Network News Denies Holding Animal Sacrifice Rituals to Prep Election Coverage
Douglas Jones
NEW YORK—Network news producers gave a joint press
conference Monday denying several published reports by interns that news staffs
of the major networks took part in pre-election tribal rituals honoring
the arrival of national elections.
"These animal sacrifice reports are absolutely unfounded," declared
Jim Murphy, executive producer of CBS Evening News. "We have holy
goats around the news room all the time, but we would never sacrifice them.
None of the goats were harmed. Someone
accidentally tweaked the wing of a Peruvian rooster, but the
Humane Society backs our report."
NBC anchor, Tom Brokaw, explained that the ritualistic
looking blood symbols on his and two correspondents' left temples were
an accident of the make-up crew. "We were between commercials, and
they grabbed the wrong foundation." Dan Rather's comments included a
vehement denial that he wore a priestly tunic from the waist down. "Yes,
we're excited about democracy. Elections
express sublime power and the will of the people— Praise Be Upon
It—but we are responsible journalists, not animal sacrificers, though we
certainly don't object to alternative traditions that might pursue that form
of spirituality."
FOX News also denied the ritual reports but admitted to some
beer behind the scenes. CNN refused to join the press conference. It did issue
a press release that contained only the phrase: "Juju-beno-laya."
CDC Warns of Dicaprio Season
ATLANTA, GA—The Center for Disease Control issued a
warning to those with low celebrity annoyance conditions to be aware that,
not one, but two Leonardo Dicaprio films will be released within days
of each other in mid to late December.
Dicaprio's The Gangs of New York and
Catch Me If You Can will make his face unavoidable in public places
for several weeks. The CDC warned that there is no known innoculation
at this time.
Secular Humanist Society Offers Evidence That Current Pope Does Not Exist
Douglas Jones
AMHERST, NY—The Center for Inquiry and its subdivisions,
the Council for Secular Humanism and the Committee for the Scientific
Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CYCLOPS) announced Sunday
their joint finding that Pope John Paul II does not exist.
"We examine these sorts of religious-existence claims all the time
and almost always find them bogus," said Barry Karr, Executive Director of
CFI.
"We've got laboratories all over the world now, and after a decade of
close scientific work, no John Paul II ever showed up in controlled experiments."
Karr explained that the photographic evidence they examined
almost always turned out to be digital composites, similar in technique to Loch
Ness and Sasquatch fakes. Personal testimony taken from Roman Catholic
bishops who claimed to have worked with John Paul II for years did not stand up
to rigorous cross-examination.
Paul Kurtz, chairman of CYCLOPS contributed a paper
showing that believer's "religious-desire for
an authority figure tends to produce dream states that we often imagine as
realizable. This is what happened in the myth of John Paul II." His paper also draws
on the work of mathematician John Allen Paulos who shows that having a
resume like that purported for John Paul II has an amazingly low probability, verging
on statistical nonsense. "It is the typical hyperbole of mythology," Kurtz
said, "that shows up in every hero-hungry group."
When asked if the Center for Inquiry had tried to make
telephone contact or interview John Paul II, Karr explained that those those things can
be tricky. "And given the mathematical work, that approach seemed
irrelevant. This is what critical rationalism is
all about."
When presented with the CFI report, the Vatican's Pontifical
Academy of Sciences agreed to study the document and report their findings, but
that in general they said they saw "no reason for science and faith to conflict in this
or any other case."
Muslims Prove Peacefulness of Muhammad by Issuing Death Threats Against Jerry Falwell
Oops, sorry, my mistake.
True story.
Infant Congress Adopts Old Agenda for Frightening New Parents
Douglas Jones
SUMMIT, NJ—The fortieth annual Infant Empowerment
Congress closed Saturday amid much internecine disagreement and crying. After
four days of debate punctuated with uncontrollable naps, 30,000
infants adopted a rather conservative agenda for frightening new parents.
Renegade baby-groups had been pushing and screaming to place ear infections at
the top of the action list, but many complained that it lacked shock value.
The usual party lines showed up again between those clamoring
to make constipation head the list and those arguing for diarrhea. The
votes of the two groups negated their overall effect. Reflux and
regurgitation advocates gained strong support
early on, especially for shock value. Others complained that its shock value
tended to wear off quickly and just became messy. The appeal of messiness
won votes from many male infants.
Placing colic (extended crying due to immature digestive system) at
the head of the list was also voted down even after many backroom
meetings. New parents generally just become annoyed, but not frightened.
Some delegates suggested mixing colic and diarrhea for special effects, but
that too was voted down.
In the end, for the thirty-fifth year in a row, the infant congress settled
on croup as its primary agenda item for frightening new parents. Croup
offers randomness along with the shock of hearing infants gasp for breath
while barking like seals during the middle of the night. They all agreed it
produces images of hospitals and oxygen tents in most new parents. Several upper
mid-western groups of infants boasted the highest numbers for tricking
parents into taking them to emergency rooms in the dark of winter.