News From North Korea

             Pyongyang – The death of The Shining Star of Paektu Mountain, Kim Jong Il, was officially announced Sunday evening. The Dear Leader’s Earth shell reportedly shut down after penning a speech he was due to deliver on Monday morning. After finishing his speech The Dear Leader Who Is a Perfect Incarnation of The Appearance That a Leader Should Have realized he had grown too powerful for this celestial plane and ascended into the heavens to the sound of a thousand golden dragons roaring. As The People’s General rose there was a gentle laugh as a million butterflies carried him to join his father Kim Il-sung in the Plane of Eternal Brilliance.

            Shortly after the Peerless Leader had passed, his successor, the brilliantly named The Great Successor was announced to be Kim Jong Il’s youngest son Kim Jong Un. According to sources the three sons of His Glorious Gloriousness competed in the Trial By Stone to determine the rightful heir. Trial By Stone is the official DPRK inheritance ritual that traces it’s roots back to the 1982 film The Dark Crystal. Since his victory The Great Successor has been said to be working towards development of a much more hyperbolic title.

            As of Monday morning the State mandated grieving was officially underway with every patriotic comrade being tasked to produce one ounce of tears per day through the month of December. Officials within the People’s Department of Ophthalmological Acuity hope the effort of the People will provide The Great Successor Kim Jong Un with sufficient bathing and drinking water through 2012.

            When asked about the veracity of these statements a senior official with the American Embassy in Seoul was quoted as saying “What the fuck? No, the stunted bastard just had a heart attack. Right now we’re just hoping that the chubby 12-year-old taking over is at least sane. Though judging by his haircut it’s unlikely.”

News From North Korea

The Office Of Emphatic Loyalty and Unified Landscaping wants to remind all residents of the Pyongnam Province that spring brush collection is April 19th. All brush is to be trimmed exactly 92.5 cm long and no more than 4 cm in diameter. All branches that do not or can not be trimmed to these specifications shall be referred to The Peoples Tribunal Of Arboreal Dissent. All branches shall be left beside The Peoples Curb no more than 1 m from the edge of the Dear Leader's thouroughfare and no closer than ten (10) cm in the shape of a uniform cone with a base of .5 m in diameter. Cooperation is severely recommended to all those concerned. Any deviation from these instructions will be frowned upon greatly resulting in astonishingly brutal consequences. Any questions may be forwarded to The Peoples Bureaucracy where all conversations will be recorded for "quality" purposes. A mandatory Spring Freedom Celebration shall be held afterward for all those still remaining after the Gulag Squads have rounded up all violators, both flora and fauna, of brush cleanup regulations. The Dear Leader wishes everyone a wonderful spring and congratulates all who survived the winter.

News From North Korea

Pyongyang - A dozen members of a small farming community in Sinhung County were awarded The People's Medal of Majestic Inverse Freedom. The farmers were recognized for having turned in at least twenty-five of their fellow citizens for various offenses committed against the Dear Leader. These arrests come at a key time of the year for the DPRK as the the harsh North Korean winter typically results in a large workforce reduction within the forced labor camps. Ri Jung-Keun was the winner in Sinhung County this year with a total of 42 traitorous cowards turned in. As the district winner Mr. Jung-Keun will move on to regionals next week. He will also receive a cup of rice and a used bicycle that Revered Regional Commander Si "Ace" Joon-Ho described as "a fixer upper that has some real potential." 

Baseball: A Love Story

My very good friend and I discuss baseball:

Stephanie - So as background noise, I put on game 7 of the 2004 ACLS. HUGE mistake. I've been crying for an hour. Is it bad that I can recite the commentary, and know when the bat will hit the ball like a downbeat in my favorite song?

Allen - Ugh, Baseball. "It's the 3rd day into the 7th inning and not one goddamned thing has happened. Wait! Wait! Trainers are on the field... apparently the Center Fielder is suffering from Trench Foot after not having moved since it rained three weeks ago..."

Stephanie - Allen: this makes me forget that I love you.

Allen ‎- "The Sun has just used up the last of it's hydrogen. It's time to move to the bottom of the 8th for this season's first game out of 5x10^27 games left to go till the World Series.

Stephanie - I've just lit your birthday present on fire.

Allen - You set yourself on fire!?

Stephanie - In the fashion of Tibetan monks in protest. I cannot stand for an assault on the national pass-time.

Allen - Past time, way past it's time. Comparatively, golf looks like a rave.

Stephanie - You have to appreciate the dance, Allen. It's not for simps with short attention spans. That's football.

Allen - What dance? People move when they dance. "And some dude throws the ball at the guy with a stick for the 1000th time while a couple other guys watch and............ jack shit happens again." Wait, wait, he'll throw the ball again. Maybe this time... fuck it, I'm going to go see if the grass has done something radical in the back yard, like grown.

Stephanie - Oh I'm sorry! Run 3 yards and fall is exciting?!

Allen - It's not just football Steph, competitive dishwashing would be more fun to watch.

Stephanie - You're watching it wrong.

Allen - Yeah, you're probably right. I've always tried doing it while awake.

Stephanie - GODDAMN IT ALLEN!

Allen - CAPS LOCK!!!

Stephanie - Socialist.

Allen - Fascist.

Stephanie - Jesus would have played baseball, just not Friday night games or Saturdays.

Allen - Contrary to popular belief, Jesus was not crucified. He was sentenced to watch a triple header between Pittsburgh and Kansas City.

The Father, The Son, and The Holy Toast

Holy, Revered, Sacred, this one looks like Joseph Smith. These are words I have never used to describe a Corn Flake. I’ve only been mindful of the equation (c + m) * t = soggy, (where c = Corn Flakes, m = milk, and t = time). Now, after over thirty years of dietary habits devoid of spiritual rumination, I wonder; “have I ever eaten Jesus’ head?”

According to a slew of documentation, deities have been turning the mundane into miracles for many years. Not content with traditional bleeding statues and wailing walls, many of the world’s most sacred beings have apparently developed their own guerilla marketing campaigns. Monday morning brings Pope Urban II on a Pop Tart in rural Alabama; meanwhile, a butcher in Tehran discovers that the name Allah has been written in the fatty marbling of a goat shank. No matter where you are, what you’re doing, or what you’re eating, stay alert. A miracle, or something kind of resembling one if held at the correct angle in low light, could happen to you.

I do admire the attention to detail these pious pioneers display. Their ability to spot a Baloney Moses from across the deli takes a high level of religious situational awareness most people do not posses. As carefully as I may study my slice of pizza I can never be absolutely confident that a Hindu, two tables down, is not observing in silent horror as I consume a burnt cheese depiction of Vishnu.

The dedication of these food fundamentalists aside; I just can’t bring myself to worship a tree fungus that someone has declared looks like Jesus, but only if you stand back far enough and squint just a little. Without very much visual documentation, all we really have to go on is he grew up in the Middle East, he had long hair, and had a beard… maybe. I would dare venture that over the millennia there are a lot of longhaired men that have died. That fungus amongst us could be Frank Zappa, Jim Morrison, or someone’s late cousin Rick on the side of a Maple. Call me a Doubting Thomas, but I need more than the endorsement of an eighty-year-old woman with cataracts and dementia before I make the leap to calling something holy.

Besides a case of mistaken identity, a lot of these Discoverers of The Divine seem to have no problem parting with a sacred object if the price is right. It seems a bit strange that a person who has faith in the authenticity of their Peanut Butter and Buddha sandwich would be willing to let it go for five hundred dollars. Maybe it’s just me, but I would be hard pressed to part with an object I thought to be blessed by the divine power of my creator. Also, I can’t imagine any god would be very happy if they went through all the trouble of appearing to someone in an egg white scramble only to find out three days later they had been sold to a Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum.

However, my largest skepticism regarding the authenticity of these burns, blobs, and squiggles is reserved for the poor production quality and lack of style. The majority of these miraculous images have all the wow factor of showing up to work late with a hangover. The return of celebrity religious figures is often depicted as an event unimaginable in size and scope. The end of time itself. There are horn sections, dazzling light shows, dead rising, etc. After thousands of years, I would hope there is something bigger in the works than a sausage skillet appearance at a Waffle House in South Carolina. Call me a heretic if you like, but I believe the only miracle my toast can perform is landing butter side up.