Stevieslaw: E.T. rides in the rear

Posted on February 18, 2015 by stevieslaw

You might have gotten wind of the argument that erupted at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in San Jose this week. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute (SETI) has been listening for signals from other life forms for decades, with no results. Now, they are considering sending “coordinated and sustained” messages into space in the hope of attracting alien life forms.
Some scientists, including Stephen Hawking, think this might be a very bad idea, as the alien life form we contact might have teeth. “Only a society, sublimely confident of their superiority would risk this,” said Pendence Day, spokesperson for the naysayers.
Now, Smokey Diamond, our intrepid reporter, has learned that certain conservative groups in Alabama have been trying to contact alien life forms for years. “We have been beaming up bible stories and country music,” said KK but not quite K spokesperson, Calle Hom. His Nannyness in Washington seems intent on conferring human rights on all sorts of “people.” We have long felt that sometime soon, we would have no one left to deprive of their rights as a citizen and as a human.” “The answer was obvious,” he continued. “Attract sub-human alien life forms to Alabama.”
“Suppose they attack you,” asked Smokey.
“You’re kidding, right.” said ET. “Wait,” he said, “You ain’t seen Bubba.” “Hey, Bubba”
Smokey returned home today with, so to speak, her tail between her legs. She saw Bubba. She also announced that she would no longer be taking assignments to the Confederate States.

Posted in gang gang dance, Humor, parody, sleepless in state college | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Stevieslaw: Without hope of redemption

Posted on February 17, 2015 by stevieslaw

The CDT does a Breakfast Briefing each morning. There are five or six or seven short articles reporting the news, before they weigh in on someone’s human interest or a right leaning article about the need for fracking the game lands. The first one today was, “FEMA seeks Sandy deals amid insurance lawsuits.” First, is there anyone who feels a need to read the article before accepting it is about charges that the insurance companies are attempting to deprive people, with Sandy related damage claims, of reimbursement by fraud or fine print? We didn’t think so. And, second, is there anyone out there who is not convinced that the insurance companies are guilty? No one? My. My.
In this cynical world, we so often associate occupations and their modifiers that a naked noun would seem oddly incoherent. A few simple examples are: Sports figures—tested positive, Banks—bailout, Corporations—greedy, Politicians—self-serving, Lawyers—yucky, and so on. Yet, there is something pure and refreshing in the special hatred we reserve for insurance companies. Is there an event so disturbing and tragic that they will act in the interest of something other than their bottom line?
The votes are in and unanimous. Three hundred million people say “no way.”
Guilty as charged.

Posted in gang gang dance, Humor, parody, sleepless in state college | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Stevieslaw: Robin Hood Misses Cut

Posted on February 14, 2015 by stevieslaw

Shaila Dewan reported in The New York Times today that, “of the 10 or so Republican governors who have proposed tax increases, nearly all have called for increases in consumption taxes (sales tax), which hit the poor and middle class harder than the rich.” Some of those governors have also proposed cuts to their state income tax, in a move to ensure that the rich never run out of spending money.
Welle Feds, a spokesperson for, Nikki Haley, the Governor of South Carolina, noted that, “the shift from income tax to sales tax has worked well in Kansas and North Carolina, where the enormous tax shortfalls and budget deficits will certainly put an end to the State’s over-involvement in education, public health and the environment. Moreover, it might have been proven again and again that when the rich benefit, the poor benefit as well—through increased jobs, opportunities and table scraps.”
In Kansas today, Governor Sam Brownback appointed a commission to consider the revision of many of the stories, myths and legends force fed to children that portray the rich and powerful in a manner that is frankly, “unfair and un-American.” “For example,” he said, “The unjust depiction of the Sheriff of Nottingham in the Robin Hood legend clearly contributes to the lack of respect shown law enforcement officers by elements of our society.” “These stories reek of “Europeanism,” and it is high time they are revised.”
Smokey Diamond, who contributed to this story, may be found at Anglers’ Rest, nursing a bourbon and warm milk.

Posted in gang gang dance, Humor, parody, sleepless in state college | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Stevieslaw: What’s Up Doc?

Posted on February 13, 2015 by stevieslaw

Stevieslaw: What’s Up Doc?
I had an appointment with my eye doctor this morning. I’m fine, just an elevated pressure in one eye that is responding to medication. I couldn’t help but notice, however, that the nurse who shepherded me from examination room to examination room had finally taken to wheeling my medical records behind her in a cart, rather than trying to carry them. There must have been twenty pounds of old eye exams—prescriptions, pressure readings, cataract surgery results—in a series of tired manila folders. In the waiting room, I took the time to notice that my file was not the largest to occupy the long wall behind the receptionist’s desk.
No. This is not a rant for computerized record keeping. The truth is that when the doctor came in he only needed to leaf briefly through my charts—more, I suspect because they were there than that he needed to. You see, I have been seeing my eye doctor for decades. He knows pretty much all there is to know about me. The same is true of my physician, my dentist, my financial advisor and my lawyer. One happy consequence of living in a small town is that we seem to grow with our support. The corollary is that all of these people are about my age and perhaps ready to exchange a stethoscope for a fishing rod and retire someplace where the winters aren’t so wearing.
That thought has been weighing on my mind. What if they all retire at the same time, leaving me with stacks of manila folders and a collection of 25 year olds who call me Mister and mangle my last name? According to my therapist, I am not paranoid, but it was disturbing that a brochure in her waiting room that advertised a retirement community in the Florida Keys was the same brochure that I saw in a stack of papers my dermatologist was carrying when he came in to burn a precancerous whatnot off my brow. Worse, just this morning, I thought I saw them all sharing a table at the Corner Room. Ha! If you want breakfast, you go to the Waffle Shop—they were attending a meeting. Was it a getting out of State College meeting?
I want you all to know that I am on to you. You won’t get rid of me easily. I am watching you and at the first sign of exodus, I will buy a Greyhound ticket and follow you down. And I suggest to all my friends of an age—you know who you are—that you’d better start watching your bunch of aging professionals as well.

Posted in gang gang dance, Humor, parody, sleepless in state college | Leave a comment

Stevieslaw: Eggses! he hissed. Eggses it is!

Posted on February 11, 2015 by stevieslaw

Stevieslaw: Eggses! he hissed. Eggses it is!
My good friend, Wally, called this morning just after 7 and asked if I would meet him at WaffleWorld, a downtown breakfast place. I thought he might call. Wally hasn’t eaten an egg since the first warnings about dietary cholesterol appeared in 1961. That warning was removed today, with little more than a “never mind” by the nation’s top nutrition advisory panel. And since WaffleWorld advertises, “Eggs 37 ways,” I knew Wally would head there. The place was mobbed.
It was a pleasure to watch Wally scarf down eggs—fried and poached and shirred and over—combined with dozens of other high cholesterol foods—breakfast has always been best for cholesterol, but I was not prepared to face a thoroughly unhappy Smokey Diamond on my return.
“Who was the genius who added “science” after nutrition,” she growled?
“Nutrition Science, Nutrition Science.” she whined.
“We are trying to get a skeptical public to accept the science behind climate change and vaccinations, and these eggheads say they’ve been wrong for the past 40 something years,” she bemoaned.
“There are distinctions,” I offered.
“I know. But Joe Public doesn’t”
“Care to guess what the lead story on Fox News will be tonight,” she sighed, lowering her maw into a bowl of perfectly timed soft-boiled eggs.

Posted in gang gang dance, Humor, parody, sleepless in state college | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Stevieslaw: Time to Switch Banks?

Posted on February 10, 2015 by stevieslaw

Smokey Diamond, our intrepid reporter, came back from her visit to the bank angered and dismayed today. Smokey has been working on a series of monoprints, which she calls paw-prints, and hopes to sell them at the local galleries and arts festivals. She recently learned that she will have to pay income tax on profits exceeding $400. It’s not the tax that bothers her, but the fact that she will need to fill out another 20 or 30 forms, and if she should make a mistake the IRS will certainly call.
Smokey learned by reading the CDT that the private Swiss Bank HSBC had helped some 100,000 people with assets totally more than 100 billion dollars avoid taxes and launder money. Many of the world’s leading dictators, arms dealers and power brokers are on the list. Armed with that story, Smokey asked at our local branch if she might speak to the vice-president for money laundering and tax evasion, only to be told that our bank had no such position.
Smokey, who is inclined to think of the have and have-nots as occupying two different worlds in any event, could only sputter, “Not only can the rich now get away with murder, but they can also write off the cost of their hired killers on their tax returns.”
In its defense, HSBC spokesperson, Blode Diamod, said, “This is ancient history—nearly 8 years have passed since we inadvertently overhelped our clients. We have since put new rules in place that may possibly prevent us from doing this sort of this again. Moreover, these rules will certainly make sure we are never detected again, which is pretty much the same thing.”

Posted in gang gang dance, Humor, parody, sleepless in state college | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Stevieslaw: What’s in a Name?

Posted on February 8, 2015 by stevieslaw

Are you confused? Can you distinguish between the Shiite Houthi tribe and the Sunni Huothi tribe? One is a group of fierce rebels that has just brought down the government of Yemen* while the other tribe grows opium poppies in Pakghanistan. One group has the undying enmity of Iran while the other is detested by Saudi Arabia. Or are you able to tell the difference between the Shiite Badr Organization and the Kurdish Bard Group? This is important, as one group has been able to drive back the nearly-invincible ISIS fighters—which is great news, although all the other tribes believe they are much worse than ISIS—which is terrible news, while the other group puts on Shakespeare’s plays in the parks of Erbil.
Now readers of Stevieslaw can order the reference book that puts the Muslim world on firm footing. Long used by the smartest people at the State Department and the Pentagon, this 120,000 page tome identifies all of the major groups, their religious affiliation, all of the other groups that they would like to drive to extinction, the number of years this hatred has existed, and the reasons the problems between the individual groups can never, ever be resolved.
Order your book today for $6.99 and $119.53 s/h. Every time you think that putting even one American soldier on the ground** in the greater middle east is a reasonable idea, try to lift the damn book.

*An unbreakable rule of Journalism is that one cannot use Yemen in a sentence without the modifier, “the poorest of the Arab nations.” We have taken great liberty in putting this essential in a footnote.
**A second unbreakable rule—this must read “boots on the ground.”

Posted in gang gang dance, Humor, parody, sleepless in state college | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Stevieslaw: Scott Walker Defines the American Dream

Posted on February 7, 2015 by stevieslaw

Wisconsin Governor, Scott Walker, issued the most definitive statement ever about just what constitutes the American Dream. Walker’s new budget, which bolsters his credentials for a presidential run, will hold spending for public schools at their current level while raising the budget for religious and private school vouchers—under Wisconsin’s So My Children Won’t Have to Go to School with Your Children Act. Walker claimed the teaching of science, history and current affairs, termed the values elective at religious schools, will certainly benefit. Scottie also slashed the budget for the University of Wisconsin by $300 million dollars, changed its name to The Madison School for Automotive Repair, and rewrote the charter to reflect the change. Even the Republican controlled Congress has signaled that they are mildly upset by the budget.
When questioned by our ace reporter, Smokey Diamond, Scottie said that his budget would fulfill his campaign promise to continue lowering property taxes to help people achieve the American Dream. When asked to define the American Dream, Walker sadly shook his head and replied, “I just answered that question.”

Posted in gang gang dance, Humor, parody, sleepless in state college | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

My Voices of Central PA. Column for February

Posted on February 6, 2015 by stevieslaw

“The End is nigh: The Less-intelligent-than-average-American Guide to Downsizing

My Cousin Marvin called last night from California to tell me his life was ruined. You have met Marvin before, as I often use him as an example of someone who has genuine goodness. Marvin is soft-spoken, level headed and a pleasure to be around. His wife, Mildred, is cut from the same cloth. Unfortunately, neither Marvin nor Mildred pay much attention to time zones, so although it was just after 11 PM out in Palo Alto, it was just after 2 AM here when he called.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me this was happening,” he asked? I could tell he was very upset as his voice had risen to just above a murmur—louder than I had ever heard it before. “Everyone we know is doing it and we had no idea.” “Doing what,” I asked reasonably? “Downsizing and preparing to move on,” he said with a groan. Marvin and Mildred had finally gotten around to reading The New York Times article entitled, “Easing Into Leisure, One Step at a Time,” by Robert Strauss, which talks about pre-retirement people downsizing and moving to smaller places as they age.
It turns out they had talked about the article at their local bridge club yesterday and not only had the people there read it, all the club members over the age of fifty were doing it. “We often wondered about the people who were clamoring about our neighbor’s house at all hours,” Mildred said, “But it would have been rude of us to ask.” It turns out they have been planning their downsizing for the past two years with a “reduction consultant.” The people in and out of their house had been the consultant’s group and people with skills as varied as museum curators, librarians and thrift store operators. “You’ve seen our house,” Marvin quietly wailed. “What do we do now?”
I have seen their place, and the one thing apparent to me as I hung up the phone was that it was much like our place. Sure, at one time we had six bedrooms, a two and a half car garage, a walk up attic and a walk down basement, both the size of the house. But we haven’t been able to force our way into the basement or the attic in years, as they are loaded with stuff. We have no room for the car in the garage and two of the six bedrooms are impassable. What are we going to do if we chose to downsize and move on? A good question? Certainly. And that is the reason, we at Stevieslaw, have published, “The end is nigh,” The Laguide to downsizing. In the guide, you will learn to:
1. Change your worldview about possessions: Consider that over the past 30 or 40 years you have moved a truly incredible number of things into your home. In fact, if you look at your possession over a lens of 40 years, you will easily come to realize that the things you have acquired are more or less a completely arbitrary bunch of stuff. With that in mind, you must rid your house of stuff with the same great care you have used to acquire it. Each time you and your significant other are about to leave the house, you must close your eyes, grab one item, and carry it to the trash. Remember the cardinal rule—what leaves the house can never return.
2. Have a serious conversation with your heirs: My wife and I once mentioned to our son that we wished to sell a piece of oak furniture, who replied that it was his legacy. Of course, you don’t want to toss out your heir’s potential legacy, but a realistic conversation is in order. It might go something like: “Little Suzie, What things do you want us to save for you that will fit in your 156 square foot apartment near the Bowery in New York City.” She might leave with a snack bag full.
3. Charge for storage: Anyone with an accessible basement, garage or attic has, over the years, been called upon to store “priceless” items for friends and relatives. The plan is to store it until…hell freezes over? At which point they will be over to get it…no later than forever? Listen, your Uncle Eddie is never going to willingly come by and retrieve that hideous dining room set with twelve chairs from your attic—unless, you start charging him for storage. In the guide, we suggest that you look up self-storage rates in your local area and then charge your freeloading friends and relatives at twice the rate. You don’t need the money. You need to unload.
4. Have a continuous garage sale: Advertise a downsizing—everything must go sale and take your pricing model from the highly successful dollar stores. Make everything a dollar! Then make it known that you are willing to bargain, bargain, bargain. Make me an offer and move it on out!
5. Have an open house: No, not that kind of open house. We mean that you must leave your house unlocked and tell everyone that this has always been your habit. Make a few dozen door keys and leave them (with an address) at the bus and train stations and the local pubs. Take a month long vacation and advertise it daily in your local newspaper. For example, “The Smiths are still away, the security cameras are disabled, and the doors and windows are wide open.”
Buy the guide and have some downsizing fun. Or better yet, pick it up the guide at our house—the door is always open and there is never anyone home.

Posted in gang gang dance, Humor, parody, sleepless in state college | Tagged | Leave a comment

Stevieslaw: Republicans to Slash Traffic Regulations

Posted on February 5, 2015 by stevieslaw

Republicans in Congress, jubilant over their principled stand against overregulation— most recently through a statement by North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis that “maybe the government should not require food workers to wash their hands after using the bathroom,” are moving to remove onerous traffic regulations. “Traffic signals—stop lights and one way street signs—for example, are freedom depriving,” said spokesperson E. Knievel. “If you want to stop at a red light, do so,” he continued, “But why should that be a requirement?”
Evel went on to argue, that while many on the extreme, radical left argue that there are instances in which “collective rights,” trump “individual rights,” such people have a severely warped concept of freedom.
“Dangerous thinking,” he concluded.

Posted in gang gang dance, Humor, parody, sleepless in state college | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment