This Week: Feral Tenure

PHOTO by DANIEL DE BOOM

Tues | JULY 8 Mental revenge.

Wed | JULY 9 Jesse Jackson mumbles something about cutting Barack Obama’s nuts off into an open Fox News microphone, resulting in a minor scandal and an automatic offer of an auxiliary anchor position on the Fox affiliate of his choice. Jackson later apologizes, explaining to CNN that his support for Barack Obama’s nuts is “wide, deep and unequivocal.” Obama later fends off similar below-the-belt charges by McCain, dismissing the “whole notion that I am shifting to the center or that I’m flip-flopping or this or that.”

Thurs | JULY 10 President Bush departs the G8 summit in Japan with his by-now-usual flair, telling the representatives of the world’s most advanced industrial states, “Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter!” before (per the Telegraph) grinning, punching the air and finally pointing with two extended middle fingers to his own groin and then climbing into a chartered Hummer limousine with a pit bull (one leg raised) airbrushed on the driver’s door. Bush, who was housed alone for much of the conference after numerous roommate complaints, had made similar remarks during a keynote address in which he refused to discuss man-made natural-gas alternatives until a volunteer would “pull [his] finger.” At a special press conference held this week, he dismissed concerns that he wasn’t taking global warming seriously, inviting an international consortium of top scientists to “discover a source of sustainable biofuel in my pants.”

Fri | JULY 11 McCain economic advisor Phil Gramm calls America a “nation of whiners” and blames recent economic troubles on a “mental recession,” which, psychologists confirmed, is the stage just before full-blown mental depression and mental collapse, at which point mental survivors will be mental starving in the mental streets. At a subsequent press conference in Detroit, McCain distanced himself from Gramm’s comments, explaining that “the person here in Michigan that just lost his job isn’t suffering a mental recession” and promising to “send for help” as soon as he returned to “civilization.” (“Please put down the tire iron,” he added later.) In related send-help news, the Press-Telegram reports that Catalina is now a “gangster’s paradise” after clearing the headline with representatives of Coolio’s publishing company: a recent crackdown led to the arrest of six suspects for aggravated glowering and unlicensed possession of a Hispanic surname. Authorities warned that they may need several more golf carts and possibly a bullhorn if the crime rate continues to escalate.

Sat | JULY 12 Hundreds rush South Bay branches of the IndyMac bank, which mentally fails on Friday after prolonged whining. FDIC representatives—dressed in black suits, reports the P-T, and armed with tasers for especially persistent customer-service inquiries—assured nervous depositors that they were wasting their time, and that all their money would be available as usual Monday morning as long as they were able to arrange transportation to Nassau or Dubai. In related news, administration officials plan just-in-case measures designed to prevent the collapse of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the lending centers currently propping up America’s pretend economy that would tip the country into real depression if they failed. “This is basically a safety net,” explained Assistant Treasury Secretary Michelle Davis, holding a sack of gold coins and a live chicken behind her podium. “Please put down that tire iron.”

Sun | JULY 13 Two dozen animal activists set up at Cal State Long Beach to protest the proposed extermination of over 100 feral cats who are the foundation of an entire campus food chain, extending up through feral coyotes all the way to feral university president F. King Alexander. One protester even warned that she would “chain [her]self to kitties” if necessary, reports the P-T, though animal control officials dismissed her threats after confirming that she did not have over one hundred arms and legs. University representatives explained that action needed to be taken immediately, as campus coyote sightings were on the rise—as predicted in Control Z, today’s source for tomorrow’s bad news—and if left unchecked, they worried that the coyotes might eventually achieve feral tenure.

Mon | JULY 14 Acres of Books closes its doors to get ready for an invite-only everything-must-go sale starting Thursday. History, philosophy and art will be priced at market-value (hovering just above zero at press time) and anything relating to the city of Long Beach will be available at a special price to the highest bidder. In protest, some literary vandal paints LOWENTHAL 451 on the back of the building—courteously leaving room for CRAIG BECK 451, MIKE MURCHISON 451, JIM HANKLA 451 and WILLIAMS & DAME 451, and making a nice new target at which Suja can swing a sledgehammer. In related news, the Los Angeles Times begins laying off 150 reporters in preparation for an everything-must-go sale of its own.

Tags: acres of books, Barack Obama, cal state long beach, cats, fannie mae, feral tenure, freddie mac, indymac, Long Beach