Impoverino, the brokest crimefighter of our times, was born on a bankrupt planet. His parents, realizing their world was about to be repossessed, sent the infant hero to our Earthian system aboard an escape capsule they had no intention of paying for. "Farewell, baby Impoverino," his mother cried just before the Sub-Poena Ray struck; "at least where you're going they can't garnishee you for student loans."
Adopted into a proud but stupid clan of Arizona mortgage brokers, the boy Impoverino soon displayed superhuman powers of debt avoidance. By age eight, he was able to shoplift his entire wardrobe from thrift stores with a clear conscience. At eighteen, he inhabited a three-bedroom suite for eight months straight, using excuses and legal maneuvers where ordinary mortals would have paid rent. At twenty, he moved to the great city of Overdraftopolis.
Now, with an arsenal of cost-cutting superpowers like Wearing Plastic Bags For Shoes and The Amazing Self-Haircut, Impoverino defends the hard-pressed city, charging its denizens through the nose for services he delivers late, partially or not at all. Still, the...More >>
The Clash of the Titans is reclassified as The Compromise of the Titans. Wrath of the Titans is downgraded to Irritability of same. If required there will be a Mass Layoff of the Titans.
The release of the Kraken is indefinitely postponed.
Henceforth, all Minotaur functions will be performed by Satyrs. Satyr duties shall be carried out by Nymphs. Dryads will be fired, then re-hired at a lower wage.
The Oracle of Delphi's prophecies, going forward, are now warrantied for just 60 days, and then only on major components.
All wooden horses are hereby de-staffed.
Odysseys must be pre-approved by Ms Penelope in Human Resources. Expense claims for magical transformation and / or Cyclops attack now require both invoices and receipts.
The Three Fates now share Two Jobs. There are 6.75 Muses. The gate to the Underworld is guarded by a one-headed dog. The Ferryman only accepts drachmas, and cannot make change.
The Spartan budget is unchanged. Stoic philosophers however are advised to brace themselves. The Socratic Method will be replaced by a brief multiple-choice quiz. All hemlock requisitions shall be fulfilled in rhubarb.
Achilles has to work overtime like everybody else.
*The following are excerpts from a Wikipedia article in a world similar to ours... yet completely different.*
In the Bizarro Koran, masculine modesty and humility are important values. Male handsomeness, being a constant temptation to women, must be disguised, for the prevention of sin. Thus Allah and the Prophet (Praised Be Her Fashion Sense) forbid tank tops, bicycle shorts, aviator sunglasses, chiselled cheekbones, tuxedoes and most forms of mousse.
There is a general proscription, in the Islamic world, against men doing anything that might inflame or sexually provoke women. Imams from Tripoli to Jarkata, therefore (by tradition an entirely female clergy) consider it sinful for males to ride motorcycles, get expensive haircuts, purchase espresso machines and / or earn large sums of money...
All Muslims are religiously required to journey once in their lifetime to the holy city of Mecca, now located in Ladies’ Arabia. That country’s national “ownership” of Mecca and other sacred sites sometimes causes friction with other Islamic countries, such as Chickdonesia...
Polygyny, or the taking of multiple husbands, is an accepted practice in many parts of the Muslim world. Indeed, a rich or powerful woman might take up to a dozen male spouses. Younger husbands are...More >>
6:00 a.m., Art Gallery lawn: meet fellow Occupiers for Mass Deploring
6:05 - 6:10 a.m., Coal Harbour: Participate in anti-coal protest with radical puppeteers
6:10 - 6:30, VAG: General Assembly brainstorm re “No Work, No School, No Housework, No Shopping.” Query: may we educate (School) passersby re Shopping, evils of?
6:30 Kabuki action against Royal Bank
6:35 Drum circle protest in CIBC lobby
6:40 Toronto Dominion face-painting sit-in
6:45, Robson Square: Occupy Philosophy Committee thinkfest re White Protest On Stolen Native Land, possible uncoolness of?
6:50 - 7:00 Confront Mennonites for some reason
7:00 Nap
2:30 p.m., Strathcona: Spirited acoustic multicultural concert by Bhao Su Koh Ben, Seoul’s premier Bruce Cockburn impersonator
2:30 - 3:00 Mass tweeting break; gluten-free snacks
3:00 - 5:30, People’s Co-op Bookstore: Lecture re manufacturing from Belgrade’s leading Noam Chomsky impersonator, Nobu Chomsku (*Leaving not permitted)
5:30, Victory Square: Seminar re “Identifying Traits Of The One Per Cent.” (*App for that, apparently)
6:00 -- 6:30: Wander about, express solidarity
6:30, Robson Sq: Mass Occupier singalong of movement anthem “We Need To Accomodate Everyone’s Perspective, Bros And Sisters And LGBTs” (*Respect singing of alternate...More >>
Gunter Grass, the elderly German novelist and former Waffen-SS inductee, raised eyebrows recently with a controversial poem criticising Israeli foreign policy. The Propagandist’s crack team of investigative (literary) journalists began delving into the affair immediately, and have now submitted their conclusions. Unfortunately, they are obvious.
First, they say, Germany and Israel seem to have some kinda crazy history/ background/ story thing goin’ on. Secondly, for chrissakes, who but a German writes a poem about foreign policy? Thirdly, the following excerpts from other Grass poetry on Judeo-MidEast themes seem to reveal a certain... ambivalence on the subject.
I think that I shall never see A poem as homely as Tel Aviv. Poems are made by fools like me, Poetry that analyses foreign policy Which in German is called Poesituttheingotfermechten...
… Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falconer cannot hear Golda Meir.
Roses are red, UN helmets are blue. Palestinians love their children, Don’t you?
A drop of water Sighs. Uphold Resolution 338-A, ja?
Profileration’s Just awful, like some flowers In the attic, or not.
Cloud over Tehran Spells out, please quit it with the Bomb menacings, Jews.
The tiny Asian kingdom of Bhutan, known by some as The Mouse That Prattled, is the main source of the notion of Gross National Happiness. This is best summarised as the idea that economists should attempt to count the uncountable; its proponents, typically of a leftish cast, appear to consider “money isn’t everything” a truly innovative idea.
Why stop there? What about...
OTHER CONCEIVABLY IMPORTANT ECONOMIC INDICES
Gross National Bitterness: An important dataset which considers the annual number of sneers, eye-rolls, and pooh-poohings in a given population.
Consumptive Confidence Index: Measures buying intentions among 19th-century poets who are dying of tuberculosis.
Housing Non-Starters: Count of households unwilling to consider Xander and his python as potential roommates.
Bhutanese Trade Balance: Indicator of the amount of misery Bhutan must import to achieve parity with its happiness exports.
NASDAQ: Nearly All Software, Dude; Any Questions?
EBITDA: Considers the economic status of the mean old lady who lives above the dollar store and whose name is possibly Croatian.
Gross National Confusion: Measure of a population’s ability to understand economic indicators; potentially unreliable.
National Indifference Index: Counts the number of friends made by Bhutanese economists at any given party;...More >>
Ever on the cutting edge of Canadian federal politics, the Propagandist dispatched intrepid cub reporter Lyle Neff to Stornoway recently to interview an important new figure on the parliamentary scene: NDP leader Thomas Mulcair's celebrated facial hair.
THE PROPAGANDIST. So, Thomas Mulcair’s beard. You’ve recently experienced a burst of new growth.
THOMAS MULCAIR’S BEARD. Why yes, thanks. It was a tough leadership contest. Very hairy for a while there.
THE PROP. Not to mention your party’s spurt in Quebec at the last election.
THOS. MULCAIR’S BEARD (visibly bristling). You sure you want to use that language?
THE PROP. No need to be prickly, sir. We just want to know why people feel so warm and fuzzy about you.
TCB. Well. It all started with my idea to trim the policy committ--
THE PROP. Wait. Sorry to interrupt, Thomas Mulcair’s beard. My editor insists on speaking to-- Jon? What can it be? Wait. Calm down! You say -- (lengthy pause)
TCB. Oh, this is intoler--
THE PROP (laughs). Horrible! Close shave indeed! Thanks Jon, I’ll ask him now. (audibly tents fingers) So... Thomas Mulcair’s beard. Seems there’s a whisker of suspicion about your campaign tactics. Something about... free moustache waxings in...More >>
VANCOUVER - Remembering the 1997 Blanche Royal Commission on the Status of Translucent-Canadians, Anemia Wan grows pale with anger. “That report solved nothing,” says the White Rock-based albinism activist, a past president of Albinos From Nanaimo: “It was a total whitewash.”
Over a bowl of White Spot chowder, Wan is reflecting on her three decades’ advocacy for the Canadian unpigmented. “In this supposedly colour-blind society,” she notes, “we albinos are a nearly-invisible minority.”
Wan, 38, says the controversial Earl’s human-rights case, wherein the restaurant chain stands accused of selling albino-themed food, proves that pro-pallidness campaigners can’t give up. “What are we supposed to do,” she asks, “just stand on equality’s battlefield, waving some kind of defeat flag? We albinos refuse to be the missing pieces of the cultural mosaic.”
Wan’s own life suggests that, if it’s hard to be white in rainbow Canada, it’s harder to be whiter. Raised in the village of Snowball, Ontario, of mixed African-Asian and Algonquin-Scots heritage, she remembers the childhood embarassment of attending weekend ECHL hockey games, carrying her prescription parasol. The home team’s name? The Whiteout.
“Their goalie was black, and so were their home uniforms,”...More >>
Curtain. In a luxurious room, OSAMA , a tall man in mid-East dress, rushes about packing suitcases. He is trailed everywhere by his butler, ZAWAHRI, who ceaselessly attempts to connect his master to a small, creaking, wheeled dialysis machine. A sulky, veiled beauty, NAHID* KLEIN, watches proceedings from the vast plush bed. From outside we hear muted shouting and machine-gun fire.
OSAMA. Seals. Fucking seals! Did we not reach out to the seal-lovers, Zawahri? Didn’t we? So much for your eco-Koran initiative, Z. Where are my good sandals, you titless chicken? Now that your precious infidel seals are shooting at us?
ZAWAHRI. Please, sir… sheikh… leader… monsieur… boss… master… you must take some medicine for your kidneys. Or you will go into a diabetic coma. I beg you, I beg you. You are awkward to carry when unconscious, all due respect….
OSAMA. Nahid Klein, slap him, please.
NAHID languidly pulls an Uzi from the bedclothes and hits Z. in the forehead with it. He collapses. OSAMA continues to rush...More >>
Impoverino, the brokest crimefighter of our times, was born on a bankrupt planet. His parents, realizing their world was about to be repossessed, sent the infant hero to our Earthian system aboard an escape capsule they had no intention of paying for. "Farewell, baby Impoverino," his mother cried just before the Sub-Poena Ray struck; "at least where you're going they can't garnishee you for student loans."
Curtain. In a luxurious room, OSAMA , a tall man in mid-East dress, rushes about packing suitcases. He is trailed everywhere by his butler, ZAWAHRI, who ceaselessly attempts to connect his master to a small, creaking, wheeled dialysis machine. A sulky, veiled beauty, NAHID* KLEIN, watches proceedings from the vast plush bed. From outside we hear muted shouting and machine-gun fire.
