WEDNESDAY AUG. 7
Since the days of wearing tunics and drinking poison to prove you were right and everyone else was a dumbass, people have revered guest speakers. This is why the next meeting of the Southwest Cincinnati Tea Party will feature a presentation by Dennis Michael Lynch, an oddball documentary filmmaker. Lynch’s appearance at the event in Delhi Township will be a part of his Never Forget Tour, and promises to offer attendees a chance to take part in “an unforgettable night of patriotism” and discuss pertinent topics such as “immigration reform, border security, leadership, how to beat Hillary in 2016 and getting America back on track.” Everyone who comes will receive a copy of They Come to America, which must be good even though Lynch’s website features a list of all the film festivals that rejected it, as if this points to the film’s genius instead of how bad it is. Donations of $10 are suggested to help cover costs of the event. The Tea Party could not provide a cost breakdown that details how making a DVD that vilifies people for doing the same thing your ancestors did when they sought to become American is worth $10, but members of the group are quite likely smoking generic-brand cigarettes right now and making jokes about how it would have cost a lot more than 10 bucks if the stupid president was in charge of planning this thing.
THURSDAY AUG. 8
A phone recording of a private conversation between a confidant and U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell’s campaign manager, Jesse Benton, has made things uncomfortable for both parties. In the taped conversation, Benton describes himself as “holding my nose” while running McConnell’s re-election campaign in a calculated effort to benefit U.S. Sen. Rand Paul in 2016. In an effort to make things less awkward in the aftermath of this unsettling revelation, the senator’s campaign hastily posted a photo on Facebook and Twitter that showed Benton and McConnell uncomfortably standing arm in arm while Benton holds his nose. If McConnell’s constituents don’t get less upset soon about this affair, the campaign is considering reposting the photo on Instagram with a caption that explains, “I don’t like him as a politician but he doesn’t smell bad in real life, I promise.”
FRIDAY AUG. 9
BlackBerry put itself up for sale today after years of declining sales. Before the iPhone and other modern day smartphones came out and made not giving others your full attention extraordinarily easy, usage of the company’s phones were so popular that they were dubbed “CrackBerrys.” They’re now seeking buyers for the company, which revolutionized the cell phone industry but ultimately became obsolete. In addition to other features which make iPhones and Androids so popular these days, BlackBerry had no way of knowing that the trackball made navigating the phone’s menus feel like playing a table-top arcade game from the 1980s, or that Kelso would play Steve Jobs in a movie that makes him out to be like John Lennon and Jesus Christ wrapped into one awesome dude.
SUNDAY AUG. 11
Phew! According to National Security Agency analysts, they only look at 0.00004 percent of the world’s Internet traffic. Put in a more slam-jammin’ context, the NSA means that, “If a standard basketball court represented the global communications environment, NSA’s total collection would be represented by an area smaller than a dime on that basketball court.” That means the odds of warrantless surveillance being conducted against you are a mere drop in the bucket... or roughly the same odds that Woody Harrelson’s character Billy Hoyle faced when he had to hit that hook shot in order to get Wesley Snipes to help Rosie Perez get on that game show in White Men Can’t Jump! NSA agents are being instructed to take spend more time practicing lines such as, “Wow, what are the odds of that?” and, “Talk about bad luck!” so that they sound real when they show up to arrest people for what they write on the Internet.
MONDAY AUG. 12
Add cursive writing to the list of things from your precious moments of youth that were wasted on learning things which were totally irrelevant and not worth knowing how to do now that you are old and stationary. Common Core standards no longer call for cursive instruction in public schools, which means most will likely drop or barely cover it. At least 41 states no longer care if kids learn how to read and write in cursive, while Ohio and Kentucky leave it up to districts to decide. Ohio’s Board of Education’s Achievement president Debe Terhar admits that telling time on a Roman numeral clock is kind of a pain, but believes cursive should remain in the curriculum because she can’t “imagine a child who is unable to write their own name in cursive or to be able to read the beautiful cursive writing of the Declaration of Independence.” Common Core policymakers cede that this a valid point, but reason that
since most communications these days are conducted through the cold,
steely wires and tentacles of the Internet, the only time in the future that writing in cursive will seem like a good idea will be when attempting to write messages with your own pee in the snow.
TUESDAY AUG. 13
In an interview with ABC’s Nightline, Bethenny Frankel discussed her recent divorce and custody battle while promoting her line of cocktails and upcoming daytime talk show. Recently returned from a vacation with a longtime billionaire friend to St. Tropez, Frankel assessed her current situation vividly, saying, “I’m going through a brutal, brutal time . . . it really, really is. I mean, there’s no other way to slice it.” Millions of Americans disagree with this negative outlook, and point out that unless you have had an ex who made you watch Bethenny Getting Married, Bethenny Ever After or any of the other shitty shows Frankel has been featured on, you have no idea what the true face of brutality looks like.
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