John Kruk Denies Allegations of Having Been an Athlete

 

Arete (Greek: ἀρετή) is a concept in ancient Greek thought that, in its most basic sense, refers to "excellence" of any kind.

(Naples, FL) - Former Major League Baseball player, John Kruk responded to allegations yesterday that he had, at one time, been an athlete. The sixty-year-old Kruk played first baseman and outfielder for three teams over the course of nine years, winning a spot on the All Star Team three times and a mention on the Philadelphia Phillies "Wall of Fame." According to Kruk, this does not mean that he was an athlete.

"You remember Little League?" he asked, "You remember being bored as all hell with your glove on your head and tossing it up in the air and catching it? Well, on the TV, they can pan away from us doing that in the outfield. They also never showed us all moving up when the pitchers came up to bat. Like, it's degrading or something. I mean, except Greg Maddux; that guy was a beast. So what they don't tell you is that most of the 'practices' and 'coaching' that we get... that's all just beer and cigarettes and women. I don't know if it's still like that, but it was kind of the best time of my life. Can you imagine? I got paid more than 11 million dollars. Do you know how much Busch that'll buy you? I don't yet. I'm still working on it."

When asked to comment a bit more on this, Kruk belched and scratched himself. Our baseball translator explained that this was a gesture of respect, but that we should move along before he spat tobacco juice at us.

Rep. Andrew Clyde: That Is Just My Normal Tourist Face

(Washington D.C.) - In reference to the January 6th, 2021 riot, insurrection, or beautiful, patriotic march of freedom - depending on whom you ask - Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) made the a claim to the effect that the orderly procession could be mistaken for a normal tourist visit. However, a photo has surfaced of the lawmaker cowering behind an armed security guard. As this raised questions about his statement, Clyde responded saying, "That is just my normal tourist face." 

To corroborate this claim, the congressman released the following personal album:

Slow News Week

 

Ugh. I can only refresh social media so much.

(United States) - The US media is facing an all too familiar crisis: another week's lack of news. Ever since vaccination distribution hit a threshold where most adults in the country who would like to shots can get them, journalists are scrambling to find things that their readers and viewers may care about. Because the companies are privately run and depend on revenue to stay in business, it would appear that they are scraping the bottom of the barrel this week.
For instance, the incredibly lopsided conflict between Israel and Palestine is entering its second week. With reports indicating that as of this writing, airstrikes have killed 212 people, including 61 children in Palestine. Meanwhile, the press struggles to come up with hyperbolic phrases about Hamas "raining down missiles" on Israeli cities and killing upwards of 10 people so that they may keep using the word "conflict."
In the midst of all of this, US President Biden's administration will sell 735 million dollars worth of weapons to the nation of Israel, a move that has prompted ire among people who have been paying attention and see the residents of Gaza as human beings. Tucker Carlson had this to say, "Do you really want to hear about things like that? Does the American public want to know about stuff that's going to make it really depressed? Does it?"
If all of that were not boring enough, the US Supreme court has decided to hear Dobbs v. Jackson, a case that requires doctors who perform abortions to be able to have patients admitted to hospitals nearby. As five of the nine members in the court have expressed opposition to a woman's right to choose, this case has been touted as having the potential to functionally overturn abortion rights as they stand in the country. If you're still reading this and haven't fallen asleep yet, keep in mind that this has been the goal of a great many people who repeat things that are fundamentally in conflict with basic biology. Not only that, but this case could set back one of the primary causes of women's rights, bodily autonomy, by nearly half a century.
Hopefully, next week will provide us with some new stories worthy of your time and attention. Is Syria still going on? Is that a thing?

Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Green Launch Initiative to Apologize for US Involvement in World War II

 

"What we did was wrong, and it got a lot of people killed."

(Jennings, FL) There has been a lot of confusion about what Representatives Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) are and are not doing with regard to caucuses and rallies. They did, however, kick off an America First tour in Florida with a resounding and sincere apology for US involvement in World War II, which is not a far cry from the original message of the America First Committee.

"We want to say that Charles Lindbergh was right. America should never have stuck its nose where it didn't belong - places like Europe and the South Pacific," said Greene. "Do you really think that all of our men in uniform wanted to go over there and die? And for what? We ended up destroying a lot of infrastructure in a conflict that wasn't ours to begin with. Not only that, but World War II started up the type of arms race in rocketry that would eventually lead to the space race, which would eventually lead to Solaren's space lasers that - and I don't know anything about that - but could it be at all possible that they started the California wild fires?"

"They've accused me of crimes," said Gaetz, following Greene's lead, "but you know what the real crime is? They are teaching my girlfriend/adult high schoolers/old souls in young bodies that the US cause in World War II was unimpeachable. That's insane. Who are we to say what another country should do within its own, ever expanding borders? That would be like saying that Gerald Ford should have stopped Pol Pot, Bill Clinton should have intervened in Rwanda, or that George W. Bush should have done something about Sudan. We all know that no one wanted those things, and that we were absolutely right in putting America First. Who knows how many Americans might have died if we'd tried to stop other people from killing? Well, we know that only a few hundred thousand fewer Americans died in several years of war in Europe and Asia than died of the COVID-19 pandemic."

The rally's crowd was only partially receptive to being led in the Bellamy Salute.

All Final Papers in Memetics Course Plagiarized

 

The ultimate form of communication

(Austin, TX) - Flagsdon College in Austin offers classes on memetics, or "memes" for short. There is a consistent problem in the classes that wouldn't seem that hard to predict. Professors are finding it hard to curtail the copious amounts of plagiarism they are finding in the work students hand in.

"The final exam was an essay question about whether or not the students found memes to be more indicative of currents within culture or influences upon it. Every single paper I graded was some iteration of the same paper. Same sources. Same quotes. Same thesis. Not only did the students not do any thinking of their own, they didn't even seem to feel the need to hide the fact that they weren't. It's crazy. I've never seen anything like this in my life, and I used to work in public school."

Students, however, had plenty to say in response. Graham Yustid is a junior and doesn't seem to mind a poor grade.

"Oh, that class? Yeah. I took it for, I don't know, some kind of credit. The thing is, it's like, I don't even really need to get a specific degree, so long as I have one. Companies are a lot more interested in hiring people they can rely on as indebted to a system. I mean, if they know that your student loan Shylocks are coming for you, they'll totally hire you because then they own your ass. It was, like, that or join the Marines, I guess," he said after taking a drag on a Parliament and a sip from his PBR.

A lot of professors are having trouble keeping up with the students as many of them have been grafted into the program from other disciplines.

"One of my students sold a picture of the syllabus online as an NFT," said Dr. Richard Pleeker. "I was actually really impressed with how well she seemed to have understood the class and its utility. What I hadn't expected was that it fetched more than I make in a year."

Raven Jefferson, the student in question, had this to say about the NFT and the class that she took on memes:

"Really? Memes? I took the class because I thought it was going to be about something. Sort of like why I came to school here. Guess what? It's not. It's stupid and pointless. Everything else in this crazy society just seems to be another way to get into debt, to have to work some drone job, to be a cog in a machine that keeps expanding itself. People talk about the potential energy consumption that Block Chain creates, but the truth is that if we didn't have such a stupidly capitalistic system, we wouldn't even be worried about crap like this. Oh, and you can take my statement, write it down, screenshot it, and make an NFT that - for no reason in particular - some idiot will buy. Why? Because I'm hot. That's it."