Sunday, November 27, 2016

Fifty Shades of Religious Celibacy

A new priest arrived at the Vatican and was put in charge of the elderly priests who had spent their entire lives copying the Bible. He couldn't help but notices that they were copying by hand copies of the Bible that had already been copied by hand, and reasoned that this had probably gone on since the time of Christ.
      He immediately requested an audience with Pope Francis, and, when it was granted, he told the Vicar of Christ, "Forgive me, Holy Father, but copying other copies by hand allows many chances for error. How do we know we aren't copying somebody else's
mistakes?"
     
The head of the Roman Catholic Church considered what he was told, and answered, "You make a good point, my son. I will take one of these new copies down to my personal office and study it against the original document."
      And he did exactly that.

     As the hours passed, and it got late in the evening, the new priest began to worry, so he went in search of the Bishop of Rome. As he approached the entrance to the Pope's office, he heard someone crying.
     "Pontiff?" he called softly, but there was no answer. Only a weeping that grew louder the closer he got.

     Finally, as he cautiously entered the office, he found Pope Francis blubbering into his arms, both the new copy and the original ancient text scattered in front of him.
     Alarmed, the new priest cried out, "Your Holiness, what's wrong?"
     Pope Francis wiped the bitter tears from his eyes.

     "The word, " he sobbed, "is celebrate."
 
 
American Chimpanzee
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Tuesday, November 1, 2016

One Dollar, One Vote


 as featured in Desert Exposure Magazine
desertexposure.com
 
This should be an especially happy Thanksgiving for me. I plan on spending it celebrating my winning the presidency of the United States of America.
     "What do you mean?" I can hear you saying. "We haven't seen you campaigning! We haven't seen you fund raising! We haven't even seen you on the debates! And why are we using so many exclamation points!"
     Please.
     That stuff's for the 99%.
     As for paying for my historic run for office, I'm self-funding.
     "How?" you ask.
     It was easy.
     I created a green energy car manufacturing company called Fisher Automotive, a beneficiary of President Obama's green energy loan guarantee program, which subsidized my company to the snap, crackle, pop of $529 million in green stimulus money. Sadly, no one liked my balloon-powered cars, they were too ahead of their time. For every prototype sold, my company wasted $660,000 in tax dollars and private investment. Then I outsourced manufacturing to Finland, laid off my American workforce, declared bankruptcy in 2013, and diverted all the money to my presidential campaign.
     See? Easy.
      Ever since I've thrown my hat into the political ring, I've had people (mainly my in-laws) ask, "So, what are you going to do for ME?"
      Hey, I didn't enter this race to line the pockets of greedy entitlement-mongers. I find that kind of pandering disgusting. No, I entered the race to line my own pockets, a time-honored tradition going back to the Biblical days of Adam, who, when requesting a mate, was told, "That will cost you one rib."
     I'm not spilling any beans telling you our electoral process is broken. The corruption in our political system goes as far and as deep as, well, a really cool metaphor expressing distance and depth that I can't seem to think of right now.
     "How do I fix it?" Obama--the man who once saved my life in 'Nam--recently asked me. Unfortunately, I considered his question to be a conflict of interest, so I didn't answer. You see, I was interested in being paid, and he was conflicted about paying me. Now that I think about it, he still owes me three ferrets and a cat since the time we orchestrated the fall of Saigon.
     My solution would solve two problems: 1) it solves the problem of paying down our twenty-trillion dollar debt, 2) it solves the problem of getting voters to the voting booth, 3) it solves the problem of a stagnating economy, and 4) it solves the problem of voter inequality between the rich and the poor.
     "Hey! That's FOUR solutions, not two."
     No, my friends. That's a preview of the Jim Duchene presidency, where I give you MORE than what I promise.
     What am I talking about?
     I'm talking about things like naming hurricanes after gangsta rappers, not sissy names, like they give them now. Hurricane Ghostface Killah! Now, that's a name that would scare people out of their homes and into safety.
     I'm talking about inventing a machine that converts a person's personal fat into electricity to power household appliances.
     I'm talking about charging one dollar per vote. The dollar of a poor man is of equal value to the dollar of a rich man, a rich man just has more of them.
     I'm also talking about changing where we vote from the same old boring libraries and schools to topless clubs and the mall.
     Personally, I've never been to a topless club, so I don't understand the appeal of paying to watch a woman not wear a hat, but, from what I understand, there are two kinds of men in the world: those on their way to a topless club and those on their way back.
     As for the mall, what woman doesn't like to go to the mall?
     While conservative media pundits have yet to endorse me, not one has come out against me. I'm proud of that fact. I'm also proud to have chosen Pat Paulson, himself a former presidential candidate, as my running mate. Being dead, however, he's playing hard to get.
     "Are you running as a Republican or a Democrat?"
     No, I'm running as an Only Party candidate. In fact, I've legally changed my name to "Vote Here" for the election. If there's one thing I've learned, it's all in the name. that's why I've named all my children, even the illegitimate ones, after the profession I want them to be, rather than common first names.
     Doctor Duchene.
     Attorney Duchene.
     Proctologist Duchene.
     See what I mean?
     The only thing Democrats and Republicans have ever gotten right is calling themselves a Party. Everybody loves a party.
     "What about the economy?"
     The economy is like peanut butter. If you feed it to a horse, he'll look like he's talking.
     "What? That doesn't even make sense!"
     THAT'S what I'm talking about! The economy doesn't make sense! It affects everybody, regardless of race, gender, or botulism.
     Not only do I want to make America great again, I'd like to take us back to the time of the Pilgrims. That's right, the Pilgrims. They had buckles on their belts, they had buckles on their shoes, they had buckles on their livestock. Puritans were so well off they could even afford to put buckles on their hats.
     Now that's well-off.
     You see, America has been down for so long very few of us can even afford to wear hats any more. Those who do, wear them backwards. A sad indictment of an educational system I am proud to have never graduated from.
     God Bless America.
     And the statute of limitations.
 
 
American Chimpanzee
JimDuchene.BlogSpot.com
RaisingMyFather.BlogSpot.com
@JimDuchene