WEDNESDAY JULY 24
It’s hard to find a job that pays $40,000 and allows you to be you, because most people with money are insufferable to be around. In order to do so, you have to either have marketable talent that makes you stand out or something else. Some people, like a former staffer of U.S. Sen./future loony presidential bid-launcher Rand Paul have nosed above that seemingly unreachable economic waterline by having great opinions and an equally great moniker. Jack Hunter, whose name didn’t stick out from the stack so he took to calling himself “The Southern Avenger,” earned this amount as an aide in Paul’s Senate office in less than a year. Hunter, who reportedly blogged in 2004 that “John Wilkes Booth’s heart was in the right place,” has also written that he raises “a personal toast every May 10 to celebrate John Wilkes Booth’s birthday.” Politicians are like dogs in that they sometimes try to do the opposite of what they get treated disdainfully for without really understanding why what they did was wrong or if what they are doing now is right. Keeping in line with this tradition, Paul will reportedly replace The Southern Avenger with a new staffer who goes by the moniker The Northern Avenger and who will not praise assassins or be scared to eat sushi, but will instead go out on a limb and say that Moon Pies are gross and only revered because they are one of the few snacks poor people can afford to eat.
THURSDAY JULY 25
A Windsor, Ontario man is in trouble after drunkenly swimming across the Detroit River into America just to prove to his drinking buddies that he could do it. The man faces up to $25,000 in fines and a variety of charges for his dangerous actions. In addition to charges being filed against him by the Windsor Port Authority, law enforcement on the other side of the river will do the same. Detroit’s harbormaster will file charges later this week and hopes to get a lot of fine money out of the accused since there isn’t a massively wasteful border fence on America’s northern edge like the one near Mexico that they even have a show on Nat Geo about.
FRIDAY JULY 26
It’s important to believe in god and agree that religion trumps science when trying to understand science if you live in Kentucky. A two-hour hearing held in Frankfort today made this clear when The Courier Journal reported that critics of an overhaul of the academic curriculum in Kentucky schools derided the new standards as “fascist” and “atheistic” and said they promoted thinking that leads to “genocide” and “murder.” A biology professor from Bellarmine University expressed concern that Kentucky won’t be successful in recruiting biotechnology companies if evolution is discredited as if it was as stupid a theory as man and dinosaur playing fetch together back in the day. The professor is concerned that such a stance could negatively impact industrial development in the commonwealth. His points were immediately dismissed by attendees who noted that the revenue lost on biotech opportunities in Kentucky would be more than made up for by the sale of bourbon, horse racing bets and the wide variety of knives and ninja stars found at old timey souvenir stores outside of Kentucky’s metro areas.
SATURDAY JULY 27
One of the major signs of adulthood is when you stop committing acts of vandalism and start getting pissed off when other people do it. That’s how lots of Americans felt today after learning that the U.S. Park Police in Washington, D.C., had to temporarily close the Lincoln Memorial because someone splattered a bunch of green paint on the statue and the floor area in front of it. The memorial will not reopen until a National Park Service maintenance crew finishes cleaning up the paint. A spokesperson from that division noted that the offender who did this is lucky it was a statue of Abraham Lincoln that he painted on and not the dude himself, because Abe was 6-foot-6 and most certainly would have beat your ass in a fight.
SUNDAY JULY 28
House Republicans last week passed a farm bill that keeps farmers and agriculture production businesses happy in more ways than one — they get the federal subsidies they’ve been receiving since the 1970s, plus the GOP lawmakers removed food stamp benefits that many in the heartland think are just wasted by poor urban people. The Enquirer today reported how much eliminating the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program would cost if it were to actually happen (Republicans say they’ll take it up in a separate bill later), detailing how more than 260,000 people in Southwest Ohio and Northern Kentucky collected $35.7 million in food stamps in May alone, part of $75 billion annually spent at American stores via the program. SNAP benefits will continue at current levels until the Republican-controlled House and Democrat-controlled Senate agree to a real farm bill, likely to include guidelines similar to those which yuppie bars use to try to keep black people from coming in, like banning backward hats and saggy pants.
MONDAY JULY 29
Pandemonium erupted outside of a local Colerain Township shopping center today after a chain of events that began inside a mall spilled out into its parking lot. Three men were arrested after a theft and car accident near Northgate Mall, and charges ranging from theft to assault on a police officer are pending. The news of a head-on collision involving a police car spread over the police scanner quickly, but it took awhile for local news crews to arrive at the scene because everybody forgot where Northgate Mall was and thought it has been out of business since like 1997.
TUESDAY JULY 30
A University of Kansas researcher today provided a study to The Huffington Post asserting that doubling the wage and benefits to every single McDonald’s employee would only cause a 68-cent price increase to the Big Mac and a 17-cent increase on all the Dollar Menu items. The researcher’s next planned study involves the effect of hourly wage related to the frequency of times fast food places look all pissed off at you for checking your bag before leaving to make sure more than 80-percent of your order is in it.
CONTACT ISAAC THORN: [email protected]