Can I be horrifically insensitive & frivolous and talk about The Onion update?

SALEM, IN—In a move designed to relieve several years of pent-up sexual frustration, area teen Jeremy Royce is slated for fever-pitched, white-hot masturbation later this evening.

The masturbation, during which Royce will bring himself to climax through the use of autoerotic manual stimulation, is hoped to provide Royce with a much-needed outlet for the carefully concealed state of sexual arousal in which Royce spends approximately 99.8 percent of his life.

Royce, a sophomore at Brushwood High School in nearby Cedar Creek, is at or near his sexual peak, but has thus far been denied access to the act of sexual coupling due to such socioeconomic factors as parental dependency, uneven adolescent facial complexion and lack of a car.

Despite being what one schoolmate called "a shy, awkward-looking doofboy," Royce's need for sexual activity is very real, and his body, heedless of the pragmatic difficulties of achieving successful coitus, is as relentless in its demands for a constant supply of ejaculatory orgasm as it is in its expectation of food and sleep.

According to reports, tonight's experience promises to be particularly special. Carefully studying this month's HBO guide, Royce has noted that this evening's 3 a.m. movie promises "N, SSC," or Nudity and Strong Sexual Content. The film, the critically acclaimed Atlantic City, features Academy Award-winning actress Susan Sarandon briefly rubbing lemon juice on her nude breasts.

Said Royce, "Oh, man!"

At approximately 10 p.m., Royce, having noticed nothing but the female form during the two hours spent watching television with his family, will make an excuse to retire to bed, claiming he "has a big day ahead of him tomorrow." At 2:45 a.m., unbeknownst to his parents, his alarm will go off, beckoning him to the television to experience as-yet-undreamed-of heights of physical pleasure within Sarandon's video-pixillated bosom.

After carefully covering himself with a blanket, Royce will firmly clasp his rigid penile member and indulge in self-manipulation of a rhythmic, steady nature. The combination of physical and visual stimuli will fool his autonomic nervous system into thinking that actual sex is taking place, enabling Royce to jettison seminal fluids from his body, or "spill."

Though experts say it is possible and often greatly satisfying to extend this form of gratification by postponing orgasm, Royce's inexperience and deep-seated sense of shame will no doubt preclude this.

More likely, his subconscious will become overwhelmed with thousands of dissociated, half-remembered repressed memories of sexual imagery as the floodgates of his id burst open, causing the entire act to be over in a matter of 90 seconds or less.

Royce's elaborate masturbation plans do not surprise his schoolmates.

"That figures," said classmate Tim Jennings, 16. "What a ween! Jeremy Royce is so gay."

Though Jennings' remarks were designed to distance himself from Royce and his self-pleasuring, the fact remains that Jennings himself masturbates at least twice daily, depositing his seed within what he terms "my special blue sock," and has on more than one occasion become erect while visualizing remembered images of male classmates in the locker-room shower.

As a high-school student, Royce is exposed to countless sexually evocative situations every day. His rotating class schedule exposes him to a new group of 15 to 20 teenage girls every 45 minutes, and the four-minute between-class locker break offers him hallway after hallway of an ever-changing, constant display of nubile young womanhood, clad in the latest eye-catching fashions.

Worst of all, Royce's after-school cross-country team, which he joined in hopes of working off some of his sexual longings, has turned out to be co-ed, and the sight of fit, sweaty female classmates in skin-tight, breast- and buttock-hugging Spandex and Lycra is a daily routine for the turgid lad.

"The realization that cross country was co-ed surely brought Jeremy simultaneous fear and joy," said Harvard sociologist Marvin Haller, highlighting the schizophrenic nature of Royce's desire/denial state. "Lisa MacAnaugh's flexing butt cheeks, pumping like pistons under her tights, may be his friend, but they are also his great foe."

Though he hopes to find respite in Sarandon's twin mammarian flesh-globes, Royce's truest fantasies are closer to home.

"My favorite girl in school is Courtney Davenport from my Algebra 2 class," Royce said. "She has these incredible eyes, and she sits across from me so I can always see her legs. When she wears a short skirt, sometimes I can even, just barely, glimpse a tiny triangular section of what my friend's sister's cousin told my friend is Hanes Her Way girls' cotton briefs. And when she's concentrating, like when we do word problems involving sine curves, she bites on the tip of her pencil eraser ever so lightly, and, oh God, oh God."

"Listen, though," Royce added. "Whatever you do, don't print any of this. Okay? Okay? Promise? Ya gotta promise me."

Area Man Always Nostalgic For Four Years Ago

September 18, 2002 | Issue 38•34

BOTHELL, WA—Eric Bagley, 32, a Seattle-area freelance photographer and part-time graphic designer, is perpetually nostalgic for the life he led four years earlier.

"The summer of 1998 was a pretty sweet time for me," Bagley said Monday. "I'd just moved to Seattle from Ohio. I had a bunch of money saved up and was just living off that, looking for jobs, meeting new people. You know, figuring out my life. It seemed like anything was possible then."

Bagley said his life four years ago was "miles better" than it is now.

"The first year or so I was here was the best," Bagley said. "I had this great group of friends I met through Keith [Aurilia], my roommate at the time. Our apartment had this amazing terrace, and that first summer, we'd all just hang out there every night, just drinking and shooting the shit until, like, 4 a.m."

"But then Keith moved to Portland, and this other guy Chris left for medical school at UCLA, and the whole scene just kinda broke up," Bagley continued. "Man, I miss those days."

Bagley's friends recall the summer of 1998 differently.

"Every other night, he was calling me and telling me how much he hated Seattle," said Katie Gorn, a friend of Bagley's from his years in Columbus, OH. "He was always complaining about not having a job, how he just watched a lot of TV and pissed away all the money he'd taken years to save up. For him now to say he misses that time in his life is a total joke."

Aurilia said Bagley spent much of that supposedly halcyon summer of 1998 waxing nostalgic for 1994.

"God, I remember how Eric would go on and on about how great things were back in Ohio. He was cleaning pools with his friend Mark [Tanner], and all they did, according to Eric, was drive around from job to job, listening to the Melvins and talking about girls. Then, they'd get off from work and drink at this biker bar down the road from 3 in the afternoon until closing."

Adding yet another layer to Bagley's revisionism, Tanner said he remembers 1994 differently.

"Back then, Eric was so depressed," Tanner said. "He felt trapped in Ohio, and he hated cleaning all those snobs' pools, so he got drunk every day to forget how much his life sucked. He was always talking about how great things were in college, back around '89, '90, when he had a band called The Trials and this hot redheaded girlfriend named Trish. Christ, if I'd had to listen to the Melvins or his Trials demo tape one more time, I would've strangled him. But he said it was the only thing that cheered him up, so I let it be."

According to childhood friend Glenn Lande, even as a boy, Bagley was nostalgic for four years earlier.

"In the fifth grade, Eric was always like, 'Didn't first grade rule?'" Lande said. "He'd go on and on about how easy it was and how we got two recesses instead of one. I'm sure in 2006, he'll be talking about how great his freelance-photography gig was and how much his new job and life sucks. It's kind of pathetic."

excellent. I guess they figured out that no one was going to pay to read "37 Record-Store Clerks Feared Dead in YLT Concert Disaster" and the one about being in love with the record-store girl.

-- milozauckerman (wooderso...), September 2nd, 2005 7:18 PM.

"I'm in love with the girl at the Manchester Virgin Megastore checkout desk!" [/Freshies]

Oh, Jesus. This is exactly what would happen to me if I were to attend college and continue on into grad school. Seriously. Hell, I'm not already beginning to do this.

Grad Student Deconstructs Take-Out Menu
July 24, 2002 | Issue 38•26

CAMBRIDGE, MA—Jon Rosenblatt, 27, a Harvard University English graduate student specializing in modern and postmodern critical theory, deconstructed the take-out menu of a local Mexican restaurant "out of sheer force of habit" Monday.

Enlarge Image

Jon Rosenblatt with the menu in question.
"What's wrong with me?" Rosenblatt asked fellow graduate student Amanda Kiefer following the incident. "Am I completely losing my mind? I just wanted to order some food from Burrito Bandito. Next thing I know, I'm analyzing the menu's content as a text, or 'text,' subjecting it to a rigorous critical reevaluation informed by Derrida, De Man, etc., as a construct, or 'construct,' made up of multi-varied and, in fact, often self-contradictory messages, or 'meanings,' derived from the cultural signifiers evoked by the menu, or 'menu,' and the resultant assumptions within not only the mind of the menu's 'authors' and 'readers,' but also within the larger context of our current postmodern media environment. Man, I've got to finish my dissertation before I end up in a rubber room."

At approximately 2 a.m., Rosenblatt was finishing a particularly difficult course-pack reading on the impact of feminism, post-feminism, and current 'queer' theory on received notions of gender and sexual preference/identity. Realizing he hadn't eaten since lunch, the Ph.D candidate picked up the Burrito Bandito menu. Before he could decide on an order, he instinctively reduced the flyer to a set of shifting, mutable interpretations informed by the set of ideological biases—cultural, racial, economic, and political—that infect all ethnographic and commercial "histories."

"Seeing this long list of traditional Mexican foods—burritos, tacos, tamales—with a price attached to each caused me to reflect on the means by which capitalist society consumes and subsumes ethnicity, turning tradition into mass-marketable 'product' bleached of its original 'authentic' identity," Rosenblatt said. "And yet, it is still marketed and sold by the dominant power structure in society as 'authentic' experience, informed by racist myths and projections of 'otherness' onto the blank canvas of the alien culture."

Added Rosenblatt: "Then, of course, I realized that this statement was problematically narrow, since I was assigning an inherent 'actual' meaning to the Ethnicity Content of the take-out menu. Which was, in itself, contradictory to one of the primary theses of deconstruction, i.e., that it's impossible for an 'impartially' observing arbiter to establish any ultimate or secure meaning in a text. I'd just begun to make a mental note of the cartoon anthropomorphic burrito on the front of the menu as a signifier of such arbitrary 'otherness' when I yelled, 'What the hell am I doing?'"

Rosenblatt's inadvertent outburst nearly led to an altercation.

"I totally woke up my neighbor in the room across the hall," Rosenblatt said. "He looked like he might hit me, so I tried reasoning with him, but it came out all wrong. Instead, I found myself saying that the multiplicities and contingencies of human experience necessarily pose a threat to the tendency of any arbitrary power or 'authority' to dictate oppressive hierarchical social structures or centralize power. Ergo, any attempt to establish hierarchies and centralized power according to arbitrary dichotomies of 'right' and 'wrong' behaviors was therefore not only morally and philosophically, but also politically problematic, and, in fact, oppressive. Man, did that ever not work."

According to friends, Rosenblatt has been under a great deal of stress in recent months due to the financial strain of student-loan debts, his part-time tutoring job, and a heavy academic courseload.

"Lacking proper sleep and struggling to keep up in the intensely competitive crucible that is Harvard grad school, Jon is starting to lose it," said roommate Rob Carroll, 26. "He has become so steeped in the complex jargon of critical theory that he's unable to resist the urge to deconstruct even the most mundane things."

This is not his first time Rosenblatt has deconstructed a random item out of habit.

"The other day, we passed a bus stop with a poster for Disney's The Country Bears," said friend Karen Pilson, 26. "I heard him mumble something about the incorporation of previously received notions concerning wildlife and our ecological environment into a reassuring, behavior-validating consumer commodity in the form of aggressively infantilized computer-animated pseudohumans that talk and play country music. Before I even had a chance to react, he went off the deep end and started throwing out terms like 'prenotional,' 'prolegomena,' 'gynocritical,' and 'logocentrism.' I was just stunned."

Added Pilson: "I told him he was worrying me and recommended a good psychiatrist. Bad move, because that prompted him to launch into a whole discussion of Foucault's 'Male Gaze' as it applies to mother/child pair-bonding in Lacanian psychoanalysis."

In spite of his friends' concern, Rosenblatt seems unable to restrain his reflexive impulse to deconstruct.

"I can't help it," Rosenblatt said. "Even when I close my eyes at night, I feel myself deconstructing things in my dreams—random stuff like that two-hour Dukes Of Hazzard reunion special or the Andy Warhol postage stamp or commercials for that new squeezable gel deodorant. I'd say I'm going crazy, but that presupposes an artificial barrier between societally preexisting concepts of 'sanity' and 'insanity' which themselves represent another false dichotomy maintained for the preservation of certain entrenched elements of the status quo and... Oh, God. I'm doing it again."

Rosenblatt is considering taking a leave of absence from his graduate studies to spend several months living in his mother's basement in Elmira, NY.

Asked for comment, Professor Derek Nystrom of Skidmore College, an expert on deconstructivist thought, said that the Burrito Bandito take-out menu is open to many interpretations.

"The menu can be viewed an infinite number of ways, depending on viewer perspective," Nystrom said. "None of these differing views would be any more or less 'correct.' However, the menu's Pancho Villa-style burrito caricature, complete with bandoliers, six-guns, gaucho moustache, and sombrero, would be considered problematic by most scholars."

Added Nystrom: "To paraphrase: 'What is a take-out menu not, anyway? Everything, of course. What is a take-out menu? Nothing, of course.'"

Erm, I mean "I'm surprised I'm not..."

Clinton Forced To Kneel Before Zod
December 9, 1997 | Issue 32•18

WASHINGTON, DC—In a formal Oval Office ceremony Monday, President Clinton was stripped of his authority as leader of the free world, forced to kneel before noted Kryptonian despot General Zod. Zod—who recently escaped eternal imprisonment in the Phantom Zone along with companions Ursa and Non—reportedly employed force rays, super-breath and an ability to fly to subdue Army personnel assigned to protect Clinton before taking command of the nation and, by extension, the planet. Several hours later, Clinton was further humiliated by being forced to read a Zod-written concession speech before a global television audience. The president regained some dignity by briefly defying Zod, interrupting the prepared statement to shout, "Superman! Where are you?" into the camera. The Earth is widely believed to be entering a New Order of tyranny and darkness.

(a) recognize that the deconstruction they've slotted into that article is actually funnily obvious and probably not dissertation-worthy

(b) afford Mexican take-out.

(I still love that article.)

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/30420

uper Monkey Collider Loses Funding

Controversial Experiment Comes To An End

October 22, 1996 | Issue 30•11

Congress voted Monday to cut federal funding for the superconducting monkey collider, a controversial experiment which has cost taxpayers an estimated
$7.6 billion a year since its creation in 1983.

Monkeys relax in the main hallway of the abandoned collider, which, if successful, would have smashed the primates together at near-light speeds.

The collider, which was to be built within a 45-mile-long circular tunnel, would accelerate monkeys to near-light speeds before smashing them together.
Scientists insist the collider is an important step toward understanding the universe, because no one can yet say for certain what kind of noises monkeys
would make if collided at those high speeds.

"It could be a thump, a splat, or maybe even a sound that hasn't yet been heard by human ears," said project head Dr. Eric Reed Friday, in an impassioned
plea to Congress. "How are we supposed to understand things like the atom or the nature of gravity if we don't even know what colliding monkeys sound
like?"

But Congress, under heavy pressure from the powerful monkey rights lobby, decided that money being spent on the monkey collider would be put to better
use in other areas of government. Now, with funding cut off, the future of our nation's monkey collision program looks bleak.

Congress began funding the monkey collider in 1983, after Reed convinced lawmakers that the U.S. was lagging behind the Soviet Union in
monkey-colliding technology. Funds were quickly allocated so that Reed could spend a week procuring monkeys on Florida's beautiful Captiva Island.
Though Reed returned with a great tan and a beautiful young fiancee, he reported that there were no monkeys to be found on the sunny Gulf Coast island.
Congress funded subsequent trips to the Cayman Islands, Bora Bora and Cancun, but these searches also yielded negative results.

Two years passed without a single monkey being procured, and Congress was close to cutting the project's funding. It was then that Reed got the idea to
utilize monkeys already being bred in captivity. The Congressional Subcommittee for Scientific Investigation was enthralled by the idea of watching caged
monkeys copulate, and increased funding by 40 percent.

With a steady supply of monkeys ensured, construction of the monkey collider began on a scenic Colorado site. Despite environmental pressure, a mountain
was levelled to facilitate construction of the seven-mile-wide complex. Huge underground tunnels were dug, at a cost of billions of dollars and 17 lives.
Money left over was used to build resort homes, spas and video arcades for Reed, his colleagues and several Congressmen.

Construction of the collider's acceleration mechanism was delayed for years, as scientists couldn't decide how to get the monkeys up to smashing speed. Last
month, it was finally decided that the collider would employ a system in which the monkeys run through the tunnels chasing holographic projections of
bananas. "Monkeys love bananas," Reed said, "and they're willing to run extremely fast to get them."

But now it seems the acceleration mechanism may never be built. With the monkey collider placed on indefinite hold, the huge research facility in Colorado
lies dormant.

To keep the space from going to waste, Congress Monday voted to convert the empty underground tunnel into a federally funded drag-racing track. The
track is expected to create hundreds of jobs in the form of pit crews and concessions workers, and will allow President Clinton to impress important foreign
dignitaries with America's wheelie technology.

Despite this promising alternate plan, most involved with the monkey collider project feel the sudden cuts in funding are inexcusable. "It is a travesty of
science," Reed said. "I remember the joy I felt in college when I would launch monkeys at one another with big rubber bands, and this project would have
been even more enlightening."

hahaha

"Zookeeper! Zookeeper! Those two monkeys are fighting!"

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v165/noodle_vague/onion_imagearticle231.jpg

Heroic Pit Bull Journeys 2,000 Miles To Attack Owner

Take that, New York Times!

http://www.theonion.com/content/files/images/onion_imagearticle1378.frontpage_thumbnail.jpg
Like Boxes Of Shit In Your House? Get A Cat!

...which was in one of the first Onion's I ever saw.

I Like All Types Of Music
By Michelle Carney
Music Lover
February 11, 1998 | Issue 33

When I go to the mall for music, you won't catch me stuck in just one section of Record Town. That's because I like all kinds of music!

Just yesterday, I was in the car with a girlfriend, and she asked me what kind of music she should play, so I told her that anything at all was just fine with me. After all, I like everything from Billy Joel to Elton John to Jewel.

But that's not all by a long shot: One day I'll be in the mood for rock and roll, so I'll put on the new Fleetwood Mac album, and the next I'll feel like classical, so I'll reach for the Titanic soundtrack. I even listen to jazz, like that hunk Kenny G.

I've also really been getting into that new "alternative" music after hearing it on Melrose Place and in that Volkswagen commercial. There's this one alternative song I heard last time I was eating at Denny's, and I just fell in love with it. I don't know who it's by, but it goes, "What if God was one of us?" It was so deep.

On a typical day at home, I might listen to a Celine Dion CD, then watch a few videos on VH1, and then turn the channel to line-dancing on the Nashville Network while I do the dishes. You see, I have what is called an eclectic personality.

My husband isn't half the music lover I am, so when I bought a new oak cabinet for our stereo last year, he complained that I was throwing our money away. It was kind of expensive, but I just had to have a cabinet that matched the furniture in our day room. One of my matching oak CD towers is almost half full, and I'll be getting six more CDs in the mail because I just joined the BMG Music Club.

When I was filling out the enrollment form, I had a pretty hard time deciding which box to check to indicate my favorite type of music. I went ahead and checked the section that had Sheryl Crow in it, because I really like that one song she does.

I like music so much that when I'm at work at the insurance agency, I keep the radio on all day. Unfortunately, last week, my love of music resulted in a very unpleasant run-in with a typist from the temp agency. Personally, I can't imagine how my music could have possibly bothered her, as we have an office rule that the volume dial goes no higher than three.

It was Thursday afternoon, and I was listening to the Christian Contemporary station when the temp started making wisecracks about the music. I changed the station to Lite 107-FM, but then she began to groan loudly at the start of every song.

The last straw came when she shouted "Oh, God!" when The Carpenters' "Close To You" came on. I finally just turned the darn radio off altogether. One thing I can't understand is someone who hates music.

Dog Urine Lowers Heart-Attack Risk, Say Snickering Researchers

July 28, 1999 | Issue 35•26

BALTIMORE—A team of researchers at Johns Hopkins University have found a link between the consumption of dog urine and the decreased likelihood of heart attacks, team leaders announced Tuesday in cracking, uneven voices.

Enlarge ImageDog Urine

"Our research indicates that by drinking six to eight glasses of fresh dog urine per day, individuals can reduce the risk of cardiac arrest by as much as 70 percent," said Dr. Arnold Minton, covering his mouth with his hand. "This abundantly available material contains magical cardio-fluxo-medicines that strengthen the heart's mitral chambers and help keep its four aortic corridors clear of toxins and other such harmful substances."

Apologizing for his occasional laughter and explaining that the morning's Hi & Lois comic strip was "really funny," team member Dr. Dinesh Patel explained the origins of the six-hour study.

"I noticed that my dog had never had a heart attack, and I'd never heard of a dog having a heart attack, so I realized that there is what scientists call 'a cause-effect phenomenon' at work here," Patel said. "Well, it turned out it's their urine."

Patel then ran from the podium.

After being pushed to the microphone by Minton, Dr. Leonard Weiscz outlined the team's recommendations for those wishing to diminish their chance of a potentially deadly myocardial infarction: "Get yourself a dog, ideally a Labrador retriever, as the Ph level is optimal in this particular breed, and then train it to urinate into a bucket," Weiscz said. "Then, when the bucket is three-quarters to four-quarters full, lift it to your mouth and chug as quickly as you can."

Enlarge ImageDog Urine

Johns Hopkins scientist Roberta Ivey examines a lab sample of spaniel urine.

Weiscz then stepped down from the podium "to examine [his] notes."

Minton said a more convenient form of the active ingredients in dog urine will likely one day be synthesized for an over-the-counter medication, but he stressed that such a breakthrough is at least 10 to 15 years down the road.

"For now, you need a dog—excuse me a moment," said Minton, doubling over and inhaling sharply. "And a bucket."

According to the Johns Hopkins team, for maximum effectiveness, the urine should not be mixed with any other substance.

"Drink it straight," said Weiscz, wiping his eyes with a handkerchief. "Don't mix it with anything, not even water."

The group then called for a short break in the press conference. Returning after five minutes with somber faces, the scientists revealed more of their findings, including their suggestion that the urine be consumed "right out in public."

"It's also important to yell out, 'Ah, that's some tasty dog pee!' as soon as you're done," said Minton, his chest visibly shaking. "I should know. I'm a trained medical professional."

Turning to the panel of scientists behind him, Minton shouted, "Shut up, you guys!"

Upon the conclusion of Minton's remarks, the floor was opened to questions. The first came from Washington Post reporter Ken Coultier, who asked the researchers to discuss their own dog-urine-consumption habits.

"I wouldn't drink dog piss," Patel responded.

Coultier then asked the researcher to explain why, if urine reduces the risk of heart attacks, he would choose not to follow his own advice.

"I don't have to drink it," Patel said. "I'm not in a high-risk group."

"Why don't you drink some?" added Patel before calling for an end to the question-and-answer session.

Tuesday's announcement is believed to be the most significant medical breakthrough from the Johns Hopkins team since its 1997 discovery that a grape stuffed in the left nostril for 48 hours will lower blood pressure by 30 percent.

that almost reminds me of the south park episode where cartman discovers that you can shit through your mouth (and everyone starts doing it).

(I still love that article.)

Yeah, that I know, but I meant that I'm surprised that I don't go into that sort of hyperactive mindset more often.

I have that book! A friend of mine loaned it to me years ago, and I still have it. I had no idea it was Onion-affiliated.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28151

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33802

My Teddy Bear Collection Is Fucking Great

also,
Whoooooo! Bears! vs Aaaaaggh! Bears!

Wellesley College Removes Phrase 'Hot All-Girl Action' From School Brochure

You Know, I Used To Be Kind Of Cool Once --By Sting

that was the article that hooked me.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29164

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/30366

Reality TV's Integrity Questioned
Critics and viewers are beginning to question the integrity of reality-television shows, saying that some of them may be scripted or fixed. What do you think?

http://www.theonion.com/content/files/images/wdyt_photo6.article.jpg
Elaine Schoor,
Massage Therapist
"Yes, definitely, at this crucial time in history, television shows are where Americans should demand accountability."

http://www.theonion.com/content/files/images/wdyt_photo5.article.jpg
David Hatton,
Landscaper
"Scandals at reality shows? Next you're going to tell me that Michael Ian Black didn't actually love the ‘80s."

http://www.theonion.com/content/files/images/wdyt_photo2.article.jpg
John DeMuth,
Lawyer
"You can't tell me that a show as choppy and haphazard as Two And A Half Men is scripted."

LONDON—Findings released Monday by Britain's Home Office indicate that politeness among Londoners has dipped 2 percent since the July public-transit bombings. "Terrorist bombers? Well, I say—good day to them—a tip of my hat to them, indeed, and may they take their leave of our green and pleasant land," said Andrew Capper of Surbiton. "Far be it from me to pass judgment, as I've never met the chaps myself—and goodness knows I'm not without error—but I should think that a few of these terrorists have behaved in a manner that can only be described as rather less than gentlemanly, if I do say so myself, may it please you, good sir." The Home Office cites post-traumatic stress in the sharp decline in manners, the worst since the 4 percent drop during the Blitz of 1940.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29938

I'm assuming that was a photo of the 1990s incident when the IRA blew a bus up accidentally.

NEW ORLEANS—Big Etienne's, a popular stop for New Orleans-style jambalaya, shrimp po' boys, and gumbo, has become a near-perfect habitat for Penaeus setiferus, the ubiquitous white shrimp used in jambalaya, shrimp po' boys, and gumbo. "It's far too early to call this a bright side, but the restaurant's location on the Delta, combined with its rickety, shabby-chic fisherman's décor, have combined to create a serviceable ecosystem for this particular species of marine life," said Juanita Colon of the Federal Department of Fisheries. Colon said if floodwaters recede significantly, many New Orleans parking lots would be suitable locations for the cultivation of dirty rice.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

LOL

http://www.theonion.com/2056-06-22/

New Crispy Snack Cracker To Ease Crushing Pain Of Modern Life

August 5, 1997 | Issue 32•01

EAST HANOVER, NJ — The dull, all-consuming ache of late 20th century life will be slightly alleviated next week when America's supermarkets receive their first shipments of Nabisco's new "T.C. McCrispee's" line of snack crackers.

Available in Regular, Garden Ranch and Zesty Cheddar flavors, the new crackers will flood consumers' bodies with salt, fat and starch, momentarily producing a pleasing sensation of warmth and nourishment, and detaching them from their otherwise constant and crushing sense of profound grief.

T.C. McCrispee's are widely expected to be Nabisco's most anguish-relieving snack-food product since the 1983 introduction of Double Stuf Oreos.

"We at the Nabisco Corporation are aware of the hideously bleak emptiness of modern life," Nabisco director of corporate communications Mel Krijak said. "That's why we're proud to introduce T.C. McCrispee's as the antidote you've been reaching out for. Our tasty new snack cracker will, if only for a few lovely moments, significantly lessen the aching, gnawing angst that haunts your very soul."

The history of life on earth, according to a Nabisco press release for the new crackers, can be summed up as billions of years of darkness, uncertainty and horror. Further, it says, the life of each individual organism on the planet is "no more than a meaningless blip on the cosmic timeline, riddled with almost unbearable suffering, under the unseeing eye of a blind idiot god."

"Test subjects given samples of T.C. McCrispee's described them as 'pleasingly flavorful,'" Krijak said. "And the satisfying crunch distracted them from the parade of tears that is life."

According to T.C. McCrispee's product-development director Wayne Innis, the new cracker was specially engineered to match the tastes and habits of their target market—the approximately 220 million members of the American lower and middle class. Nabisco market research indicated that the typical member of this demographic is a hollow human shell, devoid of hope, ambition and any chance of improving his or her station in life.

The new cracker, Innis asserted, further compensates for the consumer's vast, howling emptiness by giving him or her the option of adding toppings to the cracker's surface, such as aerosolized cheese or sausage bits. "By eating T.C. McCrispee's in such a manner," he said, "consumers will be deluded into thinking they have taken actual steps to improve their lives, or—in the rare case of a vegetable topping—their health."

"We're selling more than a cracker here," Krijak said. "We're selling the salty, unctuous illusion of happiness."

Consumers are eager to sample the new crackers. "I am trapped in an unending loop," Harwich, MA, telemarketer Ron Washburn said. "Perhaps when T.C. McCrispee's arrive at my neighborhood ShopKo supermarket, I will be able to confront the world with more than a deadened, glassy stare."

Said Roanoke, VA, clergyman Rev. James Forrest: "I live a shadow life, each day going through the motions of maintaining a church, preparing sermons I no longer believe in, and counseling parishioner after identical parishioner. Perhaps this new cracker can give me a reason to go on, a source of strength, if you will."

TV ads for the new crackers begin airing later this week. An animated cracker with a straw hat and cane will leap off the box and extol the virtues of the product in song form, ending on the slogan, "It's The Crispety, Crunchety Respite Of The Doomed."

Though an eight-ounce box of T.C. McCrispee's will contain approximately 12 servings, Nabisco expects most consumers, gripped by unending hopelessness and despair, will eat the entire box in one sitting.

"To really gain the full impact of T.C. McCrispee's great snackin' taste, it is best to gorge on multiple servings while staring glassy-eyed at a Coach rerun," Krijak said. "No, this will not rescue you from the throbbing, meaningless void that is modern American life. But here at Nabisco, we are confident that for millions of Americans it will seem, if only for a few seconds, as if it has."

I'll Try Anything With A Detached Air Of Superiority
By Christopher Peavey
November 6, 2002 | Issue 38•41

I'm a pretty sophisticated, well-educated person. I went to Wesleyan, where I got my B.A. in comparative literature. I listen to This American Life on NPR. I've traveled abroad fairly extensively and even spent a year living in London. Given all this, you'd think I might be a little staid and stodgy, that I'd shun certain activities because I'm too good for that sort of thing. That is completely untrue. The reality is, I'll try anything with a detached air of superiority.

A few weeks ago, my friend Curtis organized a bowling party for his birthday. Can you imagine anything more tacky and all-American? But contrary to what you might think, I was more than game for it. I even bought a personalized bowling shirt so I could fit in with the common folk. I only bowled a 76, but I loved it. The people there were so into it, some of them actually did little dances when they got a strike. There was this one guy I called "One-Fist," because after every frame, he'd pump his fist in the air like some blue-collar Billy Idol. Never in my life have I had such a great time participating in townie culture while simultaneously sneering at it from a distance.

I guess that's just who I am. I'm open to anything, no matter how pedestrian or mainstream it may be. Last year, I decided to dive headfirst into the realm of the unwashed masses by attending a professional football game. What better way to experience the hive mind than by communing with 70,000 drunken, frostbitten Americans who are only too happy to blow their meager wages cheering on their date-raping, steroid-enhanced gridiron heroes? I don't even remember which teams were playing. All I remember is yelling my head off while surrounded by a sea of jersey-wearing telephone repairmen and electricians, all the while thinking, "This is so authentic!"

I must admit, some of the mind-numbingly lame stuff I've exposed myself to has actually grown on me. I used to go to rummage sales for the sociological thrill of seeing commoners eagerly scrounge through their fellow commoners' crude, mass-produced possessions. You'd see all sorts of amusing parts and parcels from people's tiny lives. After a while, though, I started to enjoy finding good bargains. I even began collecting completed Paint-By-Numbers pictures. My favorite so far is a rabbit where the "artist" confused two of the colors, resulting in what I strongly suspect is the world's only purple-eyed hare. A true snob would never waste his time with something like that, but I am able to see the charm of my inferiors' sad little diversions.

When you think about it, it's really the mundane things that make life interesting. Attending pro-wrestling matches, shopping at the mall, riding a Greyhound bus, eating at McDonald's, seeing conventionally crowd-pleasing movies like My Big Fat Greek Wedding—such things may seem like lowbrow wastes of time, but they really help one maintain a sense of oneself. If you can do such things and still maintain your sense of haughty superiority, you've done more than merely lived. You've tasted the sickly sweet nectar that life has to offer and said, "I am above this. I am better than this. This is beneath me, but I will still do it because I'm open-minded enough to try anything and look down my nose at it at least once."

Male Orgasm Captured On Film
October 13, 1999 | Issue 35•37

CAMBRIDGE, MA—Announcing "a major advance in the age-old quest to unlock the secrets at the heart of human sexuality," researchers at Harvard's Center For The Graphic Depiction Of The Human Sexual Act confirmed Monday that, with the aid of experimental new high-speed photographic technology, they have successfully captured the elusive male orgasm on film.

Enlarge Image
An image from the first footage of the elusive male orgasm ever to be captured by science.

The breakthrough marks the first time the male orgasm—perhaps the most mysterious, least-understood element of the complex dance that is human sexual behavior—has been successfully photographed.

"We have taken a giant leap forward in the struggle to unravel the mysteries of human love, illuminating aspects of the male orgasm that have long been hidden in a haze of speculation," said Dr. Donald Roehnert, head of the multidisciplinary team of experts credited with the breakthrough. "Though it is still too early to say how much can be learned, even a cursory examination of this historic footage reveals much that we otherwise never would have known about the magic and mystery of male sexuality."

For centuries, the male orgasm has remained shrouded in myth. Though it has long captivated imaginations with its evocative beauty, humanity's understanding of this most profound of human experiences has been clouded by ignorance and superstition since its discovery by the ancient Greeks in pre-Hellenistic times.

According to experts, there are many reasons that the male orgasm has remained such an enigma. Perhaps the greatest, however, is the deep unwillingness of males to allow themselves the extraordinary emotional vulnerability the act elicits.

"The male animal is not a piece of meat," Roehnert explained. "He is a rose wrapped in a poem, yielding up his deepest, most intimate secrets only when just the right magical moment has been achieved. The alluring yet fragile petals of the delicate flower known as the male of the species can unfold and bloom only in the presence of the right combination of gentleness, tenderness and deep, abiding care."

By establishing a powerful empathic bond with their male test subject and then reinforcing that bond with respect and trust over a period of many months, the Harvard scientists were able to do what no scientific effort could before: capture the moment of sweet release in all its majestic splendor.

Despite their success, the Harvard team did encounter its share of challenges and setbacks along the way.

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Scientists closely examine the rare male-orgasm footage.

"Only the most advanced camera equipment, under extremely precise lighting conditions and with the best in high-speed film stock, was sensitive enough to capture the image clearly," said Dr. John Leslie, the Harvard team's optics and photography expert. "But the effort was well worth it: Now that the exquisite, breathtaking majesty of the male orgasm has been immortalized on camera, the world will finally know just what an incredible sight it truly is."

"On a personal note," the visibly affected Leslie added, "the first time I saw the footage, I wept. And I'm not ashamed to say so."

According to Leslie, countless scenarios were tried, covering a wide range of sensory stimuli, before the precise conditions needed to trigger the fragile bodily response could be found.

"Using a painstaking process of trial and error, hundreds of situations were attempted," he said. "We tried everything: pool-cleaners arriving to find bikini-clad nubiles in the backyard, unsuspecting pizza-delivery drivers finding themselves at sorority pajama parties—you name it. Virtually every permutation of sensory stimuli you could imagine was exhaustively explored."

But in the end, Leslie said, only one scenario proved both orgasm-inducing and feasible to record: the direct ejaculation of the male member onto a corresponding female partner's face, with the woman's head positioned only inches away.

"For some reason," Leslie said, "no other set of circumstances produced the desired effect. Oh, and the woman has to have high-heeled shoes on, too, although she's otherwise undressed. We don't know why that is, either."

The scientists acknowledged that such riddles may never be fully unraveled.

"The male orgasm, like the song of the nightingale or the simple beauty of a rainbow, remains an exquisite and beautiful mystery, one whose timeless wonderment cannot be fully explained by something so cold and clinical as scientific analysis," Roehnert said. "There are many factors at work here that science will likely never understand."

"Perhaps it is a question best left to the poets and philosophers," he added.

Now that the male orgasm has been successfully captured on film, the scientists can begin in earnest the next phase of their research: subjecting the test footage to countless hours of scrutiny.

"Only by watching this wondrous imagery hundreds upon hundreds of times can we begin to understand what it has to teach us," Roehnert said. "The work is long, and the life is hard, but I know of no other cause so deeply rewarding."

Though the Harvard team's success has been hailed throughout the scientific world, individuals in other spheres have also shown interest in the photographic breakthrough.

"It may seem far-fetched at this point," Vivid Video spokesman Brian Gross said, "but someday, this advance could have commercial applications, as well."

It was thrown in with a bunch of random arty short films at a film night organized by a semi-legendary perpetual grad-student at my college.

actually, this reminds me os something Ana-Marie Cox(Wonkette) wrote about 10 years ago(in the Baffler?) about Urban Outfitters. Something about the competing and diametrically-opposed urges to both seek out authenticity and to insist no such thing exists.

The Onion's version of Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology, set at a Wal-Mart:

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28396

Wal-Mart Opens Store In Winesburg, Ohio
May 30, 2001 | Issue 37•20

WINESBURG, OH – In a move retail-industry insiders are calling "thematically fitting," Wal-Mart opened its newest store Monday in Winesburg, a town of 25,000 in northern Ohio.

"We chose Winesburg due to its convenient location, relative lack of competing retail superstores, and the darkly powerful inner lives of its residents," said Thomas Coughlin, president and CEO of Wal-Mart Stores Division, which oversees more than 2,500 locations nationwide.

Since the turn of the century, the citizens of Winesburg have developed a national reputation for spiritual and emotional frustration and dashed ambitions. Wal-Mart's decision to open a store in Winesburg underscored those feelings.

"Target scouted the Winesburg area last year but decided against locating there," Wall Street Journal retail analyst Julia Faber said. "Their control-group data showed that the town's residents were filled with a rarely articulated yet palpable anguish that meshed poorly with the exuberant image of the Target Corporation..."

and it goes on in perfect detail.

"Doc Reefy is a quiet sort," Willard said. "We aren't the kind of folks who involve themselves in each other's business, but legend has it that he was once married to a tall, dark girl who'd had many suitors. They had an understanding. They were married less than a year before she took sick and died."

September 7, 2005 | Issue 41•36

EL SEGUNDO, CA—Toy company Mattel is under fire from a group of activists who say their popular doll's latest incarnation, CEO Barbie, encourages young girls to set impractical career goals.

"This doll furthers the myth that if a woman works hard and sticks to her guns, she can rise to the top," said Frederick Lang of the Changes Institute, a children's advocacy organization. "Our young girls need to learn to accept their career futures, not be set up with ridiculously unattainable images."

The issue was first brought to national attention by mother, activist, and office manager Connie Bergen, 36, who became concerned when her 5-year-old daughter received the doll as a birthday gift and began "playing CEO."

"Women don't run companies," Bergen said. "Typically, those with talent, charisma, and luck work behind the scenes to bring a man's vision to light."

She added: "Real women in today's work force don't have Barbie's Dream Corner Office. More often than not, they have cubicles—or Dream Kitchens. I mean, what's next? 'Accepted By Her Male Peers' Polly Pocket?"

Despite the growing furor over the doll, Mattel's top brass has indicated no plans to cease its production, insisting that the newest member of the Barbie family represents a positive role model for girls.

"Young girls can be anything they want. There is nothing standing in their way," read a statement signed by Mattel CEO Robert Eckert, president Matt Bousquette, executive vice president Tom Debrowski, and CFO Kevin Farr.

Said Bergen: "I graduated cum laude from Radcliffe and have worked hard all my life, and my career doesn't look anything like Barbie's. Currently, there are only nine female CEOs in America's top 500 companies. To tell our daughters anything else is a lie."

Figures released by the Changes Institute indicate that, although women make up 46 percent of the work force, a mere 15 percent are senior managers. Lang maintains that these facts don't square with the image of the career woman put forth by the doll.

Said Lang: "Any girl who thinks that she can run a large corporation when she grows up is in for a bitter disappointment, and it is simply shameful that Mattel would seek to cash in on impressionable young girls this way."

CEO Barbie comes with a number of accessories and environments, including the Super Barbie Conference Fun Table, Barbie's Company Dream Car and Underpaid Assistant Ken. But by far the most popular version of the doll has been the Talking CEO Barbie.

"This doll says things like, 'Did you get me those projections?' and, 'We need to cut our operating costs by 10 percent,'" Lang said. "It is dishonest to dangle this carrot of success in front of our daughters' noses, when we know that the odds that a girl will grow up to order someone around are virtually zero."

Lang said he does not expect Mattel to recall CEO Barbie, but he wants to send a powerful message to the people in charge.

"When your daughter comes home crying because she was passed over for a promotion for the fourth time, what are you going to tell her?" Lang asked. "It would be easier if she'd been raised with dolls like Glass Ceiling American Girl, Service Sector Bratz, or Maria The White House Maid."

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/40292

Huge Quantities Of Primo Shit Incinerated By Feds
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29285

and this:

15,000 Brown People Dead Somewhere
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/31925

NEW ORLEANS—Throughout the Gulf Coast, Caucasian suburbanites attempting to gather food and drink in the shattered wreckage of shopping districts have reported seeing African Americans "looting snacks and beer from damaged businesses." "I was in the abandoned Wal-Mart gathering an air mattress so I could float out the potato chips, beef jerky, and Budweiser I'd managed to find," said white survivor Lars Wrightson, who had carefully selected foodstuffs whose salt and alcohol content provide protection against contamination. "Then I look up, and I see a whole family of [African-Americans] going straight for the booze. Hell, you could see they had already looted a fortune in diapers." Radio stations still in operation are advising store owners and white people in the affected areas to locate firearms in sporting-goods stores in order to protect themselves against marauding blacks looting gun shops.

September 14, 2005 | Issue 41•37

CHICAGO—The longtime search for self conducted by area man Andrew Speth was called off this week, the 38-year-old said Monday.

Speth sets out on a new life, moments after announcing the end of his search.

"I always thought that if I kept searching and exploring, I'd discover who I truly was," said Speth from his Wrigleyville efficiency. "Well, I looked deep into the innermost recesses of my soul, I plumbed the depths of my subconscious, and you know what I found? An empty, windowless room the size of an aircraft hangar. From now on, if anybody needs me, I'll be sprawled out on this couch drinking black-cherry soda and watching Law & Order like everybody else."

"Fuck it," he added.

Speth said he began his search for himself in the late '70s, when in junior high he "realized that there was more to life than what [he] could see from [his] parents' Dundee, IL home."

The search initially showed great promise, with Speth's early discovery of his uncle's old Doors records and a copy of The Catcher In The Rye. Over the next two decades, however, the "leads just petered out." Although Speth searched in a wide variety of places—including the I Ching, a tantric-sex manual, and a course in chakrology—he uncovered nothing.

"My family and friends kept telling me to give up," Speth said. "But I couldn't believe that my true self was forever lost."

Speth was dogged in his pursuit, sacrificing his higher education, bank account, social status, and personal esteem. Despite the rising costs and mounting adversity, he vowed he would never give up his search—until now.

"I can't believe how many creative-writing courses I've taken, how many expensive sessions with every conceivable type of therapist," Speth said. "All that time—a whole life—wasted on a wild-goose chase."

Since calling off the search, Speth has canceled his yoga classes, turned in his organic co-op membership card, and withdrawn plans to go on a sweat-lodge retreat in Saskatchewan. On Tuesday afternoon, he loaded books by such diverse authors as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Meister Eckhart, and George Gurdjieff into a box labeled "free shit," and left it outside of his apartment beside a trash can.

"The only books I'll be reading from now on are ones that happen to catch my eye in the supermarket checkout line on the few occasions I leave my apartment to buy more Fig Newtons," Speth said.

Speth said he will no longer lament his coding job at Eagle Client Services, but will rather "embrace the fact that I have a job that makes enough money to pay for cable." Additionally, Speth has vowed to marry "the first woman who will have me, whether I love her or not."

"Oh, and if I never throw another goddamn clay pot in my life, it'll be too soon," he added.

Though hardened and haggard from his long search, Speth expressed relief that it was over. Asked if he had any advice for those who are continuing on their own searches, Speth had two words of advice: "Give up."

"Trust me—there's nothing out there for you to find," Speth said. "You're wasting your life. The sooner you realize you have no self to discover, the sooner you can get on with what's truly important: celebrity magazines, snack foods, and Internet porn."

BAGHDAD—The people of Iraq celebrated the passage of their new constitution Monday, in a formal ceremony that included a stirring speech by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a series of explosions that left 77 dead, and a traditional dance performed by Iraqi schoolchildren.

Enlarge Image

Iraqi leaders pose with the constitution after its historic signing.
After many weeks of squabbling and protracted negotiations between Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites, the historic document was declared the law of the land and destroyed late Monday afternoon, in what Talabani characterized as "a vital step toward restoring law and order in this war-torn nation."

A car bomb killing 12 U.S. servicemen and 26 Iraqi civilians briefly interrupted the speech.

"Today in Iraq, the voice of the people was heard loud and clear," Talabani said as U.S. fighter jets launched a retaliatory air strike overhead. "It is moving to see so many Iraqis getting involved in the political process."

While Iraqi officials acknowledge that the path toward unified peace will be a long one, many expressed cautious optimism over Iraq's burgeoning democracy.

Minister of Justice Abd al-Husayn Shandal, whose severed arm remains fixed, pen in hand, to the giant cedar signing table destroyed by a nail bomb, described the constitution as "a powerful symbol of Iraqi peace and freedom."

"The impressive 64 percent voter turnout for the democratic referendum, only marginally surpassed by the turnout for the ensuing riots, was a very positive achievement," Shandal said. "Iraq is well on its way to the peace and tranquility all democracies inherently enjoy."

When the ceremony ended, U.S. military personnel were dispatched to the historic scene, both to rescue stray pieces of the original document and to tend to Iraqi civilians critically injured during the hand-to-hand combat and small-arms fire that took place following the document's ratification.

"We were unable to recover the original document from the debris," U.S. Army Maj. Jason Brock said. "However, charred, tattered remnants indicate that Iraq has established a four-year parliament, which marks its full emergence as a democratic Western ally."

Brock added: "I think there was also something in there about 'tending to the concerns of women's rights,' but I'm not 100 percent sure, because that part was soaked in blood."

Extant pieces of the original document, found under severed limbs and dusty rubble, indicate that the constitution includes inspiring phrases such as "principles of equality," "free from sectarianism, racism, and discrimination," and "looking with confidence to a peaceful future."

Talabani said he was "heartened" by the ratification, adding that, although the physical document was destroyed in the violent events following its signing, the "principles and ideals set forth will persevere."

A large portion of the eloquent preamble, which vowed that the Iraqi people would learn from the mistakes of the past, was discovered seared onto a slab of smoldering flesh atop an ambulance which had been catapulted through the entrance of the convention center by a minibus explosion.