Roanoke discovery gives clues to American mystery

    Recent archaeological finds on America's East Coast appear to have pinpointed remains of Roanoke settlers who apparently split up and secretly moved the colony to 2 new locations, thereby avoiding a Spanish fleet sent to destroy them.

    The discovery could help political scientists determine the fate of North Carolina voters and election officials after the 2020 presidential election, when apparently the whole election infrastructure grew unresponsive and simply disappeared amidst one of the most heated electoral races of modern times.

    More intriguing is the possibility that the 2 sides in the political contest may have engineered their own disappearance to avoid external threats, including the possibility of a never-ending series of recounts and a general loss of who-gives-a-shit, and perhaps may be peaceably hiding out in an undisclosed location even talking and working together.

    William K. Wolfrum's picture

    The Shockingly Unbelievable Case of What the Man-Eating Monsters Ate

    The town of Rock Springs, Wyoming has a violet past. Violent to the point it was long ago called "The Murder Capital of America," and it was a moniker deserved. The years have passed and the population has dwindled and with that, the violence has slowed down. Not stopped, mind you, as at least once a year someone shoots someone else for reasons fair or foul. But the residents didn't get shaken up about these sort of things. They had seen it all. At least, until the monsters came.

    Doctor Cleveland's picture

    The Mayor from Jaws Explains those Quotes he Gave Bob Woodward

    Everyone knows I want to be a cheerleader for Amity Island, right? You want to project confidence. So while I might have told some reporter from the mainland that we were facing “a  grotesque, Biblical monster of the deep,” “a bloody, churning nightmare of teeth,” or “a lean, mean tourist-eating machine,” there was no reason to tell the general public that. You don’t want to start a panic, fellas. Just think of the kids.

    William K. Wolfrum's picture

    U.S. Constitution hospitalized following suicide attempt

    WASHINGTON, D.C. – The United States Constitution, the long respected legal document of the United States government, is in serious condition at George Washington University Hospital, following a suicide attempt late last night. Sources close to the document say it despondently tried to shred itself in a nearby office shredder at approximately 11 p.m. Monday.

    William K. Wolfrum's picture

    The COVID-19 Show on hiatus as ratings plummet and people leave their homes

    Despite stellar early ratings and a cast of guest stars that included Tom Hanks and Idris Elba, The COVID-19 Show is being put on hiatus due to dwindling viewership and a general lack of interest in the ongoing pandemic. Producers of the show will now retool it's format, but promise that the deaths will continue.

    “We feel that we can get interest in this virus back to where it was in the beginning,” said producer Michael Bay. “People are still in grave danger, but the plot just isn't pulling people in.”

    Doctor Cleveland's picture

    Halloween Goofiness (Self-Promotion Edition)

    I have a new piece on McSweeney's Internet Tendency today, right on time for Halloween: "I Am Just Trying to Have a Civil Online Conversation about Vampires." Here's a taste:
     

    Doctor Cleveland's picture

    I Am Part of the Resistance Inside King Lear's Court

    King Lear is facing a test to his monarchy unlike any other faced by a fictitious British monarch. It is not just that he parceled out his kingdom and left himself nothing. Or that the country is bitterly divided between his scheming, ungrateful daughters. Or even that the kingdom may soon be overwhelmed by French invaders.
     
    The tragedy – which he does not fully grasp – is that many of his own followers are working diligently from within to frustrate his goals.
     
    I would know.
    Michael Maiello's picture

    "They're Not Sending Their Best..."

    Of the many foul things His Fraudulency has said about the asylum seekers who cross our southern border, one of the worst has been that they are "not sending their best" people.  It's an obvious slander and it's also just downright audacious for anybody comfortably in America to deny the obvious courage, skill and perseverance that it takes to journey from Guatemala, through Mexico and then into the United States.

    Doctor Cleveland's picture

    Partial List of Hope Hicks's White House Duties

    White lies
    Little fibs
    Harmless prevarications
    Genteel fictions
    Telling the truth mainly, but stretchin' it some
    Artful misdirection
    Poetic license
    Doctor Cleveland's picture

    The New York Times Wants You to Know How Normal Everyone Is Here at the Applebee's

    Here in bucolic Fairfield, California, amidst rolling vineyards and struggling big-box stores, unassuming souls like Norman Bates go largely unremarked. While most Americans would instinctively recoil from his habit of brutal murder and the uses to which he puts his victims’ bodies, here in Middle America he is Norman Next Door, a soft-spoken young man whose manners nearly any mother would applaud, working to keep open a family motel that serves both as symptom and as symbol of the economic anxieties roiling the heartland. Norman has heard murmurs advocating radical change, from Wal-Mart’s gun aisle to the local church’s pork-and-beans supper, and seems guardedly optimistic. Perhaps it will become easier for him to date. “Most girls don’t want to hear about being violently stabbed to death and having selected portions of their remains repurposed,” he says, browsing the knives at the dollar store. Now, he feels, things may be about to go his way.

    Battle of the Sexes: War's not the absence of Peace

    Once upon a time in a land far away, we had big people and smaller people, and the bigger people largely took care of the smaller people and the smaller people largely did what the bigger people wanted, and this comic-book characterization carried on for a few millennia. Beneath the cartoonist's rendition, there was a lot of smudgy tawdry goings-on, but in a regular newspaper, you can only get so much detail.

    Eventually people discovered tools, which went from simple stuff like big sticks used as clubs on to more subtle stuff like x-ray spectrometry and online marketing, which confused the hell out of early caveman/woman, but is slowly becoming comprehensible to their descendants.

    Doctor Cleveland's picture

    Today in Jedi Studies (Self-Promotion Edition)

    Yesterday, I had a small humor piece published by McSweeney's Internet Tendency.

    It's called "Questions for the Jedi Vice-Chair of Graduate Studies"

    Do I absolutely have to construct my own lightsaber to graduate?

    Will you accept 30 hours of transfer credit from the Dark Side?

    How will being at one with the Force prepare me for today’s job market?

    Maleing it in: Masculine Mystique & the Savior Complex

    Elaine Chao, Washington veteran, noted at Politico's recent "Women Rule" that, 'Men don’t prepare that much, so why do we have to?' and continues "“I prepare so much more than some of my male colleagues,” Chao tells POLITICO editor Carrie Budoff Brown in the latest “Women Rule” podcast interview. “And I know women who are prepared more and we get ridiculed and it's like, ‘Oh, my gosh. She's just preparing so much. She's such an automaton. Can't she just like, wing it?’”"

    The reason, of course, is our millennia-old mythos of men being born for glory and greatness, ready to roll, walk-ons for greater things. We call this "The Natural", like that Robert Redford movie.

    You might think of it as Magic Johnson vs. Larry Byrd - roughly comparable skill & success, but in popular lore largely "the guy with the screaming God-given talent vs the Hoosier who always had to work so hard". 

    Pat on the Back: Trump takes 51st Super Bowl

    In a last minute surprise, Trump's untraditional campaign team upset the over-confident Falcons last night to win the 51st Super Bowl held in Trump-friendly Texas.

    Neglecting to revisit key strategic border sections of the field more amenable to their game play, the Falcons relied on an over-cautious strategy from their early lead going into halftime, giving the Patriots the opportunity to microtarget an unnoticed but increasingly receptive field of key white receivers. The Nation's Team relied on the more exceptional game play of true stolid conservative players steeped deep in the field's vast, largely empty heartland rather than the Falcs' preferred focus around the crowded edges of the sidelines, often resting on slick and fancy footwork rather than core fundamentals.

    While the final score seemed close and tenuous, Trump noted he could have won by much more but the line refs and scorekeepers had rigged the contest, costing his team at least 20 points, and especially faulted the Falcons for relying on undependable non-white players, and the media for reporting pre-game events.

    A Visit from St. Vlad

    'Twas the day after Christmas and all through the site
    Not a blogger was stirring, no postings in sight.
    The comments were lined by the masthead with care
    With hopes for some non-Trump discussion as fare
    While readers rolled restlessly slumped in their beds
    Damning hangover headaches that chastened their heads.
    My alias and I had just poured a nightcap,
    thinking we'd hack out some politically motivated crap.
    When out in the blogosphere there arose such a natter,
    A tweetstorm with fake news that filled it with chatter.
    Off to my Facebook I flew in a rage
    To offer my musings on each open page.

    William K. Wolfrum's picture

    Man positive oncoming train won't really hit him

    When Norm Rixon woke up this morning, he expected it to be like any other morning with some coffee, news and time with Shifty, his dog. Instead, he awoke tied to train tracks in a dusty location outside Joshua Tree, Calif.

    "I did not expect that," said Rixon, 32.

    Despite his predicament, Rixon said he felt confident things would work out for him.

    Ramona's picture

    The Oregon Stand-Off That Wasn't. Isn't. Ain't.

    You should know I'm writing today not to inform or enlighten but simply to make fun.  Those militia guys in Oregon holding the Malheur Wildlife Refuge building hostage are like big-footed rodeo clowns in cowboy hats and their pratfalls are just too good to pass up. 

    (Don't judge me, okay? I'm from Michigan.  It's hell there, where it's not the citizens taking over the government, it's the government taking over the citizens--and not in a good way.  I need a laugh.)

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