The Long-Ass Holiday Review: Episode XII
The problem with New Year's Day is that it's a celebration of something that hasn't really happened yet. After weeks and weeks of holiday pageantry, it's hard to get it up for a mellow celebration of the uncertain future. The same problem that hinders me in celebrating the new year hinders me in writing about it. What can you say about the future? There's nothing to link to, quote from or take blurry pictures of, which pretty much wrecks my usual format. But it struck me yesterday, as I struggled to plan this article: although 2008 isn't technically over yet, I think I get the gist of it already. With just a little extrapolation, I should be able to give the new year the celebration that it deserves: a fond (if slightly premature) retrospective! I'll just read some trashy internet news and fast forward the stories by about a year. I'm sure it won't be too far off the mark, and it'll beat the November-December retrospective glut at any rate.
SCIENCE AND LITERATURE
Between the bad press of steroid scandals and the political hostility of the Bush administration, Science had a rough year in 2007; it seemed as though Americans were on the brink of throwing Science overboard for something more familiar and comforting, such as Religion or Buffet Dining. But in 2008 science came roaring back after a stunning bio-economic discovery paved the way for profitable large-scale monkey prostitution. "After we learned that monkeys pay each other for sex, the next step was easy," said Dr. Nathan Perez in a March interview. "As human males we are far wealthier -- not to mention taller -- than potential monkey lovers, making us ideal mates/clients for females." Perez, 5'5", was instrumental in introducing monkey prostitutes to the world's largest "sex tourism" markets, which led to 2008's substantial decline in human trafficking and sex-related organized crime. "In addition to being biologically programmed to trade sex for material resources, monkeys are harder to exploit than humans; their presence is harder to hide, they're more difficult to obtain clandestinely, and they don't intimidate easily," Perez commented. "These are tough monkeys."
If 2008 was a banner year for monkeys, it was a year that will live in infamy for gophers, who finally showed their true colors after centuries of peaceful coexistence with humanity. In January, gophers nefariously sabotaged a Nevada levee, necessitating a massive evacuation. The attack prompted authorities to take a closer look at many previously inexplicable disasters; "moderate to strong evidence" of gopher activity was found in dozens of high-profile disasters, including the 2007 collapse of the I-35W Mississippi River bridge, numerous California wildfires, the Dust Bowl and the on-board explosion that crippled Apollo 13. In September, federal investigators suggested that gophers may have been primarily responsible for the catastrophic levee failure in New Orleans in 2005, mitigating the responsibility of the government for that disaster. "Those gophers don't care about black people, or, indeed, about any people," said lead investigator Michael Brown.
English-speakers everywhere were shocked when the increasingly-eccentric American Dialect Society chose "broke-ass" as 2008's word of the year. They cited not only 2008's sharp economic downturn, which has driven the growing popularity of "broke-ass", but the word's linguistic flexibility; for example, the phrase "broke-ass broke" uses the suffix "-ass" to transform a word into its own modifier. Incidentally, the suffix "-ass" was the Society's runner-up, followed closely by the adjective "Youtubey," which they claim that someone used in early May.
POLITICS
In a heartening security victory for the United States following the 2008 presidential election, the President Elect was secreted away to a bunker with his or her identity unrevealed. The President, whomever he or she may be, declared that he or she would be the "decider" for his or her administration while the day-to-day operation of the executive branch is subcontracted to KBR. These unprecendented security measures required most of the nation's prominent Democrats to withdraw from government and go into hiding, a measure that the Democrat-controlled Congress strongly condemned before passing it. Secretary of Strategery George W. Bush took over all of the ceremonial duties of the President, such as issuing the annual turkey pardon and speaking to journalists while golfing.
The USA's long struggle with the death penalty took a decisive turn following an early-year SCOTUS decision. The court outlawed the "three-shot" lethal injection method on grounds that it created a risk of excruciating pain if administered incorrectly. The death penalty states took up the court's gauntlet and spent 2008 funding innovative new medical programs to better train executioners. According to a December study by Amnesty International, the United States now has the largest and best-trained execution sector among all Western nations, a fact that inexplicably upset the irrational, femmy activist group. In a surprise move that some have criticized as a conflict of interests, Justice Scalia gave up his position on the court after the ruling and took up his career of choice: professional executioner.
In the middle of the year, the general US economic downturn reached a new nadir when Indonesia's standard of living exceeded the US's for the first time ever. US religious and political leaders leapt to condemn the high-living Indonesians for their decadent lifestyle. "The libertine nation of Indonesia has once again shown that it prioritizes material wealth over spiritual values," said Pat Robertson, well-known American cleric and ascetic. Though 2008 marked the US's lowest modern ranking in national standard of living, experts are optimistic that 2008 was a rebuilding year and that 2009 will see a return to prosperity for Americans. "However bad things seem now, we know what our spiritual values are," said Secretary of the Treasury Creflo Dollar, accompanied by organist Eudora Jackson. "And we know that God has promised us a cash value for that spiritual value, just as long as we keep planting 'seed money' of faith in American corporate franchises."
SPORTS AND ENTERTAINMENT
The entertainment world lost its greatest bastion of sanity and personal responsibility in 2008 when a McRib-related accident claimed the life of Dr. Phil. Before his death, Dr. Phil acted as an invaluable spiritual guide to America's brightest stars and dimmest bulbs -- but since his July death, dysfunctional slackers in Hollywood and middle America alike have gone unchecked by Mr. Phil's no-nonsense style of psychology. "I tell them to shut up and get real, but it doesn't seem to have the same effect as when he used to say it," complained Maury Povich, one of many intervention professionals who have tried to pick up the slack in the aftermath of the popular psychologist's passing. "I just have to face it; I'll never have the gravitas of a Dr. Phil." Since July, celebrity scandals have increased a hundredfold; notable examples include Zac Efron's six-week death spiral (which saw him impregnate five women and rob eight liquor stores before dying in a meth lab accident) and Glenn Close's shocking exposure of her genitals to paparazzi near a Palo Alto Taco Bell.
Speaking of trouble in Hollywood, 2008 will go down as the first full-year strike in the history of the Writer's Guild of America. The landscape of popular culture has changed dramatically in only a year without writers. The cancellation of the awards season due to SAG solidarity with the WGA served to polarize the entire nation. Soon afterward, non-guild writers joined the strike, leading to a gridlock that has made the strike irresolvable; unable to communicate effectively without a staff of PR professionals and speechwriters, neither politicians, celebrities nor corporate entities have been able to take steps toward ending the dispute. "I really wish the writers would get back to work so everyone could have TV again, and movies, this is going way to (sic) far" said Harvey Weinstein in a neatly-typed but ill-organized public statement. George W. Bush, speaking for the President, echoed these sentiments in his State of the Union address: "Writers important, and this is insufficient writers in America. We should get back beyond this for our unvaluable entertaining resourcers to come back." According to the WGA's spokesman, guild writers are very busy having acrimonious divorces and finally reading Proust.
The steroid scandals of recent years, often questioned for their relevance and importance to American life, led to a stunning discovery in 2008. In an effort to support his assertion that he took nothing but B-12 during his professional career, Roger Clemens submitted to a battery of tests and proved that B-12, taken in tremendous quantities, can lead to near-superhuman strength. Clemens, now 7' tall and 400 lbs. after a months-long B-12 regimen, has been cleared of steroid charges and asked to assist in further research. Meanwhile, MLB is struggling to cope with the impact of B-12 as it helps players to shatter records with ease. Baseball purists take solace in recent experiments suggesting that it may be possible, using B-12 combined with lidocaine, to reanimate the corpses of greats like Jackie Robinson and Babe Ruth; this would give them a chance to compete on an even playing field in the Era of the Vitamin.
So, that's does it for my holiday series. That Santa's Workshop module started me on a D&D kick, so this is about to become a nerd-only zone for a few weeks. I'm looking forward to it.
SCIENCE AND LITERATURE
Between the bad press of steroid scandals and the political hostility of the Bush administration, Science had a rough year in 2007; it seemed as though Americans were on the brink of throwing Science overboard for something more familiar and comforting, such as Religion or Buffet Dining. But in 2008 science came roaring back after a stunning bio-economic discovery paved the way for profitable large-scale monkey prostitution. "After we learned that monkeys pay each other for sex, the next step was easy," said Dr. Nathan Perez in a March interview. "As human males we are far wealthier -- not to mention taller -- than potential monkey lovers, making us ideal mates/clients for females." Perez, 5'5", was instrumental in introducing monkey prostitutes to the world's largest "sex tourism" markets, which led to 2008's substantial decline in human trafficking and sex-related organized crime. "In addition to being biologically programmed to trade sex for material resources, monkeys are harder to exploit than humans; their presence is harder to hide, they're more difficult to obtain clandestinely, and they don't intimidate easily," Perez commented. "These are tough monkeys."
If 2008 was a banner year for monkeys, it was a year that will live in infamy for gophers, who finally showed their true colors after centuries of peaceful coexistence with humanity. In January, gophers nefariously sabotaged a Nevada levee, necessitating a massive evacuation. The attack prompted authorities to take a closer look at many previously inexplicable disasters; "moderate to strong evidence" of gopher activity was found in dozens of high-profile disasters, including the 2007 collapse of the I-35W Mississippi River bridge, numerous California wildfires, the Dust Bowl and the on-board explosion that crippled Apollo 13. In September, federal investigators suggested that gophers may have been primarily responsible for the catastrophic levee failure in New Orleans in 2005, mitigating the responsibility of the government for that disaster. "Those gophers don't care about black people, or, indeed, about any people," said lead investigator Michael Brown.
English-speakers everywhere were shocked when the increasingly-eccentric American Dialect Society chose "broke-ass" as 2008's word of the year. They cited not only 2008's sharp economic downturn, which has driven the growing popularity of "broke-ass", but the word's linguistic flexibility; for example, the phrase "broke-ass broke" uses the suffix "-ass" to transform a word into its own modifier. Incidentally, the suffix "-ass" was the Society's runner-up, followed closely by the adjective "Youtubey," which they claim that someone used in early May.
POLITICS
In a heartening security victory for the United States following the 2008 presidential election, the President Elect was secreted away to a bunker with his or her identity unrevealed. The President, whomever he or she may be, declared that he or she would be the "decider" for his or her administration while the day-to-day operation of the executive branch is subcontracted to KBR. These unprecendented security measures required most of the nation's prominent Democrats to withdraw from government and go into hiding, a measure that the Democrat-controlled Congress strongly condemned before passing it. Secretary of Strategery George W. Bush took over all of the ceremonial duties of the President, such as issuing the annual turkey pardon and speaking to journalists while golfing.
The USA's long struggle with the death penalty took a decisive turn following an early-year SCOTUS decision. The court outlawed the "three-shot" lethal injection method on grounds that it created a risk of excruciating pain if administered incorrectly. The death penalty states took up the court's gauntlet and spent 2008 funding innovative new medical programs to better train executioners. According to a December study by Amnesty International, the United States now has the largest and best-trained execution sector among all Western nations, a fact that inexplicably upset the irrational, femmy activist group. In a surprise move that some have criticized as a conflict of interests, Justice Scalia gave up his position on the court after the ruling and took up his career of choice: professional executioner.
In the middle of the year, the general US economic downturn reached a new nadir when Indonesia's standard of living exceeded the US's for the first time ever. US religious and political leaders leapt to condemn the high-living Indonesians for their decadent lifestyle. "The libertine nation of Indonesia has once again shown that it prioritizes material wealth over spiritual values," said Pat Robertson, well-known American cleric and ascetic. Though 2008 marked the US's lowest modern ranking in national standard of living, experts are optimistic that 2008 was a rebuilding year and that 2009 will see a return to prosperity for Americans. "However bad things seem now, we know what our spiritual values are," said Secretary of the Treasury Creflo Dollar, accompanied by organist Eudora Jackson. "And we know that God has promised us a cash value for that spiritual value, just as long as we keep planting 'seed money' of faith in American corporate franchises."
SPORTS AND ENTERTAINMENT
The entertainment world lost its greatest bastion of sanity and personal responsibility in 2008 when a McRib-related accident claimed the life of Dr. Phil. Before his death, Dr. Phil acted as an invaluable spiritual guide to America's brightest stars and dimmest bulbs -- but since his July death, dysfunctional slackers in Hollywood and middle America alike have gone unchecked by Mr. Phil's no-nonsense style of psychology. "I tell them to shut up and get real, but it doesn't seem to have the same effect as when he used to say it," complained Maury Povich, one of many intervention professionals who have tried to pick up the slack in the aftermath of the popular psychologist's passing. "I just have to face it; I'll never have the gravitas of a Dr. Phil." Since July, celebrity scandals have increased a hundredfold; notable examples include Zac Efron's six-week death spiral (which saw him impregnate five women and rob eight liquor stores before dying in a meth lab accident) and Glenn Close's shocking exposure of her genitals to paparazzi near a Palo Alto Taco Bell.
Speaking of trouble in Hollywood, 2008 will go down as the first full-year strike in the history of the Writer's Guild of America. The landscape of popular culture has changed dramatically in only a year without writers. The cancellation of the awards season due to SAG solidarity with the WGA served to polarize the entire nation. Soon afterward, non-guild writers joined the strike, leading to a gridlock that has made the strike irresolvable; unable to communicate effectively without a staff of PR professionals and speechwriters, neither politicians, celebrities nor corporate entities have been able to take steps toward ending the dispute. "I really wish the writers would get back to work so everyone could have TV again, and movies, this is going way to (sic) far" said Harvey Weinstein in a neatly-typed but ill-organized public statement. George W. Bush, speaking for the President, echoed these sentiments in his State of the Union address: "Writers important, and this is insufficient writers in America. We should get back beyond this for our unvaluable entertaining resourcers to come back." According to the WGA's spokesman, guild writers are very busy having acrimonious divorces and finally reading Proust.
The steroid scandals of recent years, often questioned for their relevance and importance to American life, led to a stunning discovery in 2008. In an effort to support his assertion that he took nothing but B-12 during his professional career, Roger Clemens submitted to a battery of tests and proved that B-12, taken in tremendous quantities, can lead to near-superhuman strength. Clemens, now 7' tall and 400 lbs. after a months-long B-12 regimen, has been cleared of steroid charges and asked to assist in further research. Meanwhile, MLB is struggling to cope with the impact of B-12 as it helps players to shatter records with ease. Baseball purists take solace in recent experiments suggesting that it may be possible, using B-12 combined with lidocaine, to reanimate the corpses of greats like Jackie Robinson and Babe Ruth; this would give them a chance to compete on an even playing field in the Era of the Vitamin.
So, that's does it for my holiday series. That Santa's Workshop module started me on a D&D kick, so this is about to become a nerd-only zone for a few weeks. I'm looking forward to it.