LESS LEADERS
© Port Whitman Times 2007
PORT WHITMAN: Following, in part, is a speech given by Mr. Parker Owens Jr. of PWTelCo to the Port Whitman Resident Businessmen's Association which met recently at Gem City University.

"...For real representation, perhaps AT&T should run the country, with the standard home personal computer as government issue, all communication via a 900 number over which we would register instant approval or disapproval of any Executive, Legislative or Judicial act which affects us. With personal computers linked to a giant central source, all government business, from birth registrations to wills could be entered immediately and accurately.

In our Democracy our real and only issue is survival that affords all people equal rights... equal opportunities... and equal means to exercise them. Presently, it seems that our decisions are made by representatives on the basis of the half truths, distortions and accusations they present us every few years during their campaigns, measuring our wants by sample, then telling us what we want to hear, instead of presenting a plan and sticking to it in office, as the constitutional designers intended. Voter approval is given much too slowly compared to the speed at which technical progress is pulling us, as if we were passengers in a giant Concorde being flown by Mortimer Snerd. Government ought to be leading progress by its nose, instead of chasing behind cleaning up with a broom. Certainly, with our present level of telecommunications, television and computers, we are capable of controlling our destiny, but instead of cutting a path through the bush, we're rolling around in the poison ivy.

We could, of course, refuse to pay our taxes en masse, just send in IOU's then wait for government to go broke, which would happen very quickly considering its present debt, but that would create chaos, inviting fascists or communists to take over. No, our system is surely the best, but we must reconstitute it to truly represent wishes of voters at the time decisions are made.

Therefore I am proposing, as the next nominee for the City Council, not a person, but an entity which will truly represent people, a telephone number, 1-900-XXX-XXXX, which will collect and compile votes from each telephone number in the municipality, and reflect the information it receives in its votes at council meetings. Concomitantly, issues will be set forth daily on cable channel 127G, so that voters can see and discuss them before calling.

It is with great trepidation, yet hope, that I make this novel proposal, but make no mistake it is intended to accurately represent the wishes of Port Whitman constituents. Workers will pass among you now with petitions for nomination, which need 350 signatures. Thank you."

The 350 signatures were collected, and pending approval of the City Clerk, the 900 number will be on the ballot in May.

IONOSDUMP
© Port Whitman Times 2007
PORT WHITMAN: Faced with rising costs of disposing of its trash at the St. Elmo's landfill, the city, at its latest council meeting, approved the purchase of 6 Space Dumpsters to be loaded with 2,000 cubic yards of trash each, which will be dispatched via space shuttle to a holding area 121 miles into space in the general direction of the moon, until one of the planets is designated as a trash site for the world's trash. "The most likely site will be the moon," said PW's Director of Refuse, Vincent DeLuca, "and that's why we're aiming it in that direction," in a move some say is calculated to coincide with the coming elections of four members of council and the mayor.

"They're building false dreams in the sky," retaliated Marlon Mayberry, the Option party's candidate, as he stumped the neighborhoods, carrying an Abbots plastic milk box with him and standing on it to speak wherever he could gather a crowd, "trashing our precious uni-verse..." continuing on that sentiment until the crowd is roused. Neither the mayor or any members of council have replied to the charges, but Director Deluca stated that it was "completely off base" while continuing plans for the acquisition of the holding stations.

Dr. Donald Haibach of the FedExp Space Corp. managers of municipal projects such as the one proposed for PW, said his company has already installed a dummy station in the exact position in space where the PW trash project will be located, registering a claim to that position for a period of 6 months, with an option on six more at l50% of the original price, and in fact the dummy station can be seen with a telescope in the 1000 power range, on nights when the moon is at least half, appearing in the 3rd and 4th quadrant. Wurst & Company, the major discount store in PW has already reported a run on 1,000+ power telescopes.

1-800-TERROR

PORT WHITMAN: City council member Russell Montoforni has recently proposed a toll-free number for bomb threat and miscellaneous terrorist calls world-wide via satellite, to accommodate domestic and foreign ad hoc groups/terrorists wishing to express outrage, revenge, threats, wishes or sentiments against Port Whitman citizens or various levels of government establishments in general.

In the proposed program, callers who wish to vent feelings will be invited to call by public service Media commercials, and Port Whitman standing-by operators will alert concerned entities to bomb locations, ransom demands, etc., while dealing with callers, plus evacuate citizens, protect facilities to the full extent that federal and state grants for the project will permit.

The city has pledged in-kind contributions to all forthcoming governmental aid and an arrangement with PWTel has been slated, whereby calls can be charged to callers, by cash if in pay phones, on bills or by credit card.

Councilman Montoforni hails his proposal as a solution to the rash of terroristic calls, and PWTel has begun to market-test the idea in selective questionnaires mailed along with bills. Morton Worvins, a PWTel marketing representative, has already begun media work on the project with Solan, Forney, Ogzutz and Nedmac Advertising, Inc.

It has also been suggested that operators be hired from the RITZY theatre company, and trained to deal with emotionally disturbed terrorists in a new Theatre-By-Telephone idiom they have been developing, thus creating the aura needed by callers to satisfy inner needs which prompt calls. The next caucus of the city council will tell whether the proposal will indeed become a motion on the floor, or die in committee.

BLACK ACTORS PROTEST

PORT WHITMAN: Richard Seales, president of the African American Actors Guild of Port Whitman, led a recent demonstration outside KROK-TV, protesting the lack of African-American actors cast in roles of criminals such as car thieves, burglars and armed robbers in commercials for security alarm and crime prevention companies. Noting that the overwhelming majority of the criminals that one sees on the evening news are African-American, Mr. Seales and his group are demanding that their members be proportionally represented in these ads. "This is one case where affirmative action isn't even necessary" stated Seales "If we are going to be displayed in the media as 'the criminal element' then as actors we should be getting our fair share of the work portraying who we're being seen as in the real world. It's only fair."

Media executives and ad agency directors, in an attempt to be politically correct, have been steering clear of using African-American actors in roles that would denigrate black Americans and magnify racial stereotypes, and it is felt by more conservative African-Americans that Mr. Seales is rowing against the current in making his demands. Nevertheless, he is supported by his group of more than 50 performers, most notably Port Whitman Playhouse leading man Bobby Davis, who recently garnered rave reviews for his stage portrayal of both twin brothers, one of whom died homeless of AIDS, and the other who became a world-class yodeler and mountain climber, then went on to a second career as a world-famous NeuroSurgeon. The scene where the twins meet, done with mirrors and recorded sound, is said to be a classic by local theatre buffs. Davis led the marchers, chanting in Ebonic "We be's de felons, or we keeps on wit de yellin'."

Choosing Ebonic over plain English, the group seeks to identify itself with the millions of other African-Americans who the group claims have been denied their rights and been refused employment in jobs for which they eminently qualify, and for which others, white actors, have been chosen simply as a political expedient. "We can play the bad guys because we KNOW the bad guys, know how they look, how they act, how they go about their business of robbery and the like, simply from our common life experiences in the black ghettoes, and we just want to be able to put that life experience to work in a constructive way. If that way is helping to warn the haves, and help protect them from the have-nots who would take it away illegally, then we have made a substantial contribution to society, and been gainfully employed in the process."

"Why, just look at those stupid looking ofays made up in scraggly beards, with tattoos and cigarettes dangling from their lips. You might find them in prison, being had by every stud in the place, but no respectable African-American criminal would have anything to do with them on the job. They're trash and they look like trash, act like trash, and couldn't make any kind of a living doing the kind of theft you see them doing in these ads. That's a step UP for them. You want realism, then get a Black Man to do the job. That's why we're here," Davis continued. "And we're going to stay here until we get our fair due."

Harry McManaman, CEO of Roundtable Associates, producers of the ads for Castle Security Systems, tried to soften the situation, saying "We are just trying to sell product without offending anyone in the process, and we feel that the public sees enough African American criminals on the news, without having to look at them portrayed as such in the ads too. We didn't realize that by casting the ads in this way, we would be playing into the hands of those who would claim we discriminate in our casting process. We're just trying not to offend."

Martin Shlevey, Vice President in charge of Sales for Harbor Communications, owners of KROK-TV, concurred, publicly apologizing to Seales' group, and promised that he would ask advertisers to be more considerate in the future. Shown this sliver of hope, the demonstrators gradually disbanded, against the wishes of some of the more hard-core protagonists, but with the recognition by their leaders that a measure of progress had been made.

CHURCH PAYS

PORT WHITMAN: Fed up with the many shoestring churches that exist in the city taking advantage of the tax-free structure allowed them by government separation of church and state in the constitution, Robert Manning of PW recently founded the Neo Veritas Church, promising to pay property, sales and personal income taxes just as any business would. Founded on the principles set down by Frederick W. Taylor and followed in the manufacturing world, the new church will pursue ideals just as other churches do, but pay its own way too, Mr. Manning stated. Clergypersons will concentrate on proselytizing, and education in the church school, which runs from grades 1-8 with computers for every student, and since the church is a taxpaying entity just as any private citizen or business, they will petition the government for support in the same proportion per student as any public school.

"We don't feel religion should be given a free ride," he stated in a recent interview, "just because it espouses one belief or another, and plays on the piety, or professed piety, of its representatives in government. But we do feel that if we are indeed paying our way, and educating children in the same principles and skills which are taught in public schools, we should get the same supports that public schools do. We challenge anyone to find any teachings in our curriculum that are at odds with the constitution in any way, and if they can be found, we will withdraw our request for support."

Mr. Manning will present his case to the PW school board at its next meeting. The school has recently received a Good Prospect Grant from the Wesley Owen Foundation of New York.

BANG! CREATION

PORT WHITMAN: Rev. Ozzie Lorei, of the Church of the New Truth, recently postulated a theory that seems to satisfy both the Creationists and the Big Bang notionists re the universal beginning of our planet. At a recent free forum held in the church hall, replacing a Wednesday evening Bingo night, stating his initial acceptance of both theories, i.e., that the universe began some 15 billion years ago in a massive explosion, and that there was a time of "creation" when modern day man was made from virtual nothingness, Mr. Lorei immediately incurred the displeasure of Bishop Glorian Wright, but he immediately restated the theory of creation more as a biblical account of discovery rather than one of something out of nothing. Bishop Wright had come to play Bingo, and was not aware that a substitution for the evening's activities had taken place.

"After the big bang," Lorei said, "billions of years later, at the time which the bible places creation, God, really a being much like us but from a place or planet perhaps a million years ahead of us in development, discovered beings that he theorized could think, could muse in the abstract, could react to stimuli such as we now know plants do to music. But God felt that He could develop communication with these beings that had grown from fish to amphibians, through several stages to upright homo sapiens.

After many attempts, He finally established communication between Himself and the two most intelligent of the lot, calling them Adam and Eve, whom he had isolated in His garden, called Eden. Once they had begun communicating, the rest followed naturally, and is chronicled in biblical history. So God did create human beings, in that he sparked in them the ability to do the thing that separates humans from the animals, that is think abstractly. He 'created' that humanness in us."

"Now that we know that there is an outer space, possibly with development such as our own there," Lorei continued, "and have been there ourselves, in person, in projections through our own scientific telescopic vision, we realize that there are other places such as ours which could be many thousands, maybe millions of years ahead of us in human and scientific development, who have had technology such as space vehicles, computers, ESP and the like for much longer than we have, who have solved the time dimension and can travel in and out of places at will in that dimension. Once we accept the possibility of all this, it only follows logically that we accept theories other than that of stark creation from nothing, but we certainly can't ignore millenia of religious faith either." he said.

Bishop Wright, in a Chancery letter to the pastors of all the New Truth congregations, advised caution in teaching the new plausibilities until an official church-wide tenet on the subject can be set forth. A meeting will take place soon at which the matter will be discussed.

LOGFELLOW PORN

PORT WHITMAN: Recently found manuscripts are claimed as evidence to prove that Harry Wordsworth Logfellow created a short collection of erotica, stories which are basically prosaic, but quite detailed in descriptions of naked intimacy. The tales depict him, or a fictitious heterosexual surrogate, performing or being the object of graphicly portrayed seductions of, or by, willing females at several stages of his life. They are purported to be true-to-life stories, a claim vehemently denied by The Logfellow Society, which is suing the publisher Upland Express, a subsidiary of Presque Lake Press of Port Whitman.

In the narrations, heretofore unpublished, quite literary accounts of sexual exploits by a variety of characters are chronicled by Logfellow, who among a certain coterie of female acquaintances was known at the time as "Harry The Great." The stories were handwritten on high-quality parchment of the time, paper which was very expensive but which Logfellow always used for his other writing, certified as genuine by Port Whitman antique dealer Zeke Moyer, an authority of unquestionable integrity. Moyer also certified the ink and pen, claimed to have been a crow quill, the most durable in use at the time.

Upland express claims to have records of an interview with Posey Hefflefinger, the daughter of Logfellow's assistant, Francis "Frank" Hefflefinger who is said to have sworn that Logfellow dictated the stories to her father who took them down in his own handwriting. Miss Hefflefinger told of how her father, who was a recently-converted devout Catholic, was virtually coerced by Logfellow into taking down the notes, because Logfellow did not want them to be in his own handwriting, for the purposes of posterity, "or covering your own posterior," she added cynically. Rod Bohner, publisher of Upland Express, reminded the PWTimes that "This publication was founded by my great-grandfather Rheinhold Bohner, who lived in the mid 1800's, and personally conducted interviews such as this one. So he was of an age that matched that of the Hefflefinger woman who provided the manuscripts and the memoir."

"Daddy Frank would come home a little drunk," Posey related, "and read the stories to me; they were simply horrible," she stated, at one point in the interview, then refused to go further without adjourning to the ladies' room to collect herself. The stories were admittedly "deeply affecting," Miss Hefflefinger said later. She finally admitted that there was more activity accompanying the home reading of the stories after dinner that she wanted to recall and would relate, and declined to go into any delicate details at that interview.

Later, and looking quite ill at ease, Posey stated that she had been a participant in some of the "afterglow" of the skillfully written accounts, but she declared that it would be "in poor taste" to indulge in details. However, she did say that her father would next day relate the new activities, called up by the reading of the previous day's stories, to Logfellow, who would turn them into short fictive anecdotes, some of which are part of this collection.

Rod Bohner continued, "She did confirm, to my grandfather Rheinhold, that the dictated manuscripts were genuine products of the fertile mind and libido of Logfellow, and reflected the morality of his time among some of the literati."

Upland Express has bought the rights to the stories from Presque Lake Press, and will publish them in a forthcoming volume entitled The Erotica of Harry Wordsworth Logfellow. A film script is also in the works.

GAMBLE LIMITS

PORT WHITMAN: Strict boundaries on amounts that citizens of this municipality can gamble in any local lottery or OTB outlets, were recently approved by the city council, by a narrow margin of 4 to 3. Enforcement of the ordinance shall be governed by the PERC (Permanent Entry Record Card) system, cards of which all PW citizens have been issued at birth, which among other things keeps track of everyone's amount and source of income. A sliding scale of allowables has been instituted, so that those with lower incomes have been limited to gambling1%, while people with higher incomes may indulge their whims up to 10% of their average weekly intake. Owners of lottery establishments must check cards of all residents and record the amount and date of the bets, so that those who can least afford to gamble are permitted to gamble the least.

Those who can travel to gambling centers such as Atlantic City or Las Vegas, however, and play for cash, can elude the system, but soon the PERC will be installed at those places too, a prelude to controls to come.

THE HOMELESS

PORT WHITMAN: "The homeless have the same rights as the rest of us", stated the Assistant Director of the Volunteers of America, in a recent article reporting the sharing of costs by county municipalities to pay for a permanent homeless shelter in Port Whitman. But do they?

First of all, the homeless are not all the same, not all ne'er-do-well drifters living off the fat of the system, though most certainly a goodly enough percentage of those do to make the situation alarming. (The city of Port Whitman does not want them downtown in the "Development" area, the first instance I've heard of where the city was actually rejecting residents) so another location has been found, a few blocks away, but out of sight, thus out of mind.

There are homeless because of family problems, homeless dischargees from hospitals or care centers with noplace to go, battered homeless, poor homeless addicted homeless, drunk homeless, criminal homeless, and countless other categories of unfortunates who, to use the word of Fr. Alfred Weber talking on 60 Minutes, will now be "pipelined" into the city for care, and rehabilitation, hopefully.

But as to the "rights" of the homeless... Just how far must society lean to accomodate those individuals in this group who refuse to be rehabilitated? I should think, unless we all want to continue down the road of more and more tax money being spent on people who take less and less responsibility, that some limits should be designed into this new institution, so that it does not become a magnet for freebie seekers.

Recently in Oregon, the homeless threatened to actually take over a town. This kind of thing can get carried away, especially when it's being run by do-gooder achiever types who are not only not spending their own money, but not even spending the money of the municipality in which they operate, have no connection with the funding, other than being the co-beneficiaries, along with the homeless, of the contributions that run the shelter. These people are looking out for their own careers you can bet, just as the homeless people are looking for their next square meal and a warm bed. It's only a matter of levels of taking, unless restrictions are applied that insure that the people who have these rights are shown a road to shouldering the responsibilities that provide for them.

The proposed location of the shelter in Port Whitman is interesting, though no surprise, and so is the fact that the other county municipalities are willing to pay so much for it NOT to be located in their communities. Frankly, it seems that each of us should be willing to help, and that means taking a certain number of the unfortunates our individual communities, thus dividing them up so they don't become a movement, rather than shoving them all in one place where instant blight is created, along with an organized ghetto, where lack of hope can be nourished along with its victims.

SLO-MO BOXING EVENT

PORT WHITMAN: Once, the Super Bowl people asked Billy Joel to TAPE his singing of the national anthem, then "lip sync" it at the game, so they could program it over the PA system. Ha, he refused of course. But it opens up the discussion of taping of parts of, or even complete big events.

Word has it that for the next world championship heavyweight bout, to be held in Port Whitman, they're not going to televise the fight itself, but only tape it for TViewing the next day, at which time it will be programmed in slow motion only, with announcers in real-time, with advertisements every third of a round. That's a minute of slo-mo fight and fast-mouth announcing, then twenty seconds of advertising.

Come to think of it, perhaps it would be better to see a fight after the fact, when we know the result but are more interested in HOW it happened that whether or if. The good parts can be repeated endlessly, to give fans a little more of their money's worth. It's an endless instant replay, to spread out the time, in fact the last fight would have lasted a day and a half the way they're planning on programming this one. Promoters say there'll be music behind the whole thing too, with James Brown presently being mentioned to do a duet with Rev. Al Sharpton, all for the benefit of the Confrontationally Impaired.

Rumored to be announcing the fight will be a trio of major stars: Debra Winger, Barbra Streisand, and Mark Miskovic, the Croatian Heavyweight Champ, reportedly next in line for the Lead in their next picture, which just happens to be about a Croatian Champion who can't get an exit visa to fight the world champion, but is romanced by both women simultaneously, thus interfering with his conditioning.

The films will also feature close up sound on the referee, Marvin Krauss a former GnatWeight champion who gave up the ring to become a ballet dancer when he was offered the lead in Les Sylphides, but is now making his comeback in the ring as a ref, working regularly in Atlantic City.

Networks are now bidding for the production rights to the taped fight, which promoters are planning to hold in Silver's Gym, with 16 cameras focusing on the action. Only fifty tickets will be sold to the live fight, for $1 million each.

SOLE POWER

PORT WHITMAN: Robert M. Seyboldt, of PW's Bricktowne Section, has won the 1986 Manfred Stindel Power Prize for his invention of Static Sidewalks, which will, within 10 years, supply free power for all of PW's electric needs, including heat, light and most industrial uses, free to resident taxpayers.

According to Assistant Mayor Charles Conti, and by recent ordinance of the city council, PW sidewalks will henceforth be made of Boldtane, a material to absorb an electric charge, while taxpayers' shoes, will be soled with Boldtrex, a corresponding material to impart that charge, to the sidewalks by walking Port Whitmanites. Citizens will be encouraged to shuffle as they walk, to increase the amount of charge transmitted to the system, and the energy will be transmitted to underground acid storage modules at the old PW Arbuckle coal mines.

John P. Kitchen, Professor Laureate of the PW Inst. of Technology, expressed relief that his invention of Static Electricity Storage Modules would, after several decades, finally be put to constructive use, having previously been employed as everything from swamp mines in Viet Nam to traps for Alaskan wildlife by poachers who lifted the technology from the U.S. military.

The Public Works Dept. of the city, has scheduled installation of the sidewalks, which will be laid on top of concrete or brick already down, to begin within 6 months, with the mayor laying the first section, and Hyde Shoes of the city, has already begun manufacturing the material for the shoe soles, having leased manufacturing technology from Seyboldt prior to completion of working models.

OSANNA AND THE WAVE

PORT WHITMAN: "Shocking," wrote Martin LeSueur music critic of the Port Whitman Dispatch Herald the morning after the concert by The Mozartians, Port Whitman's renowned 120 voice classical chorus, where, during the Osanna chorus of Mozart's Great Mass in C minor at the high point of the piece the group also performed THE WAVE. "This isn't a football game" grouched LeSueur, but a serious piece of music, written for a religious ritual that has been done for two thousand years, and a certain reverence is called for." Despite some raised eyebrows and a few "Harrumphs" in the audience, the staging of the piece, usually done soberly in black outfits or choir robes, was met with a certain reaction of pleasant surprise, and interviews of patrons exiting the concert indicated that most were pleased.

Of course the music itself, being one of Mozart's most inspiring compositions, had much to do with the reception too, not to mention a brilliant rendition by the group.

Adam Sillars, Music Director and Conductor of the group defended the move, saying "Mozart would have thought it a grand gesture, especially at this the most celebratory moment in the mass." Maestro Sillars could hardly conceal an impish smile as he emerged from the door of St. Peter's Cathedral & Oratory where the concert was given, and members of the group allowed that the wave was great fun to perform in conjunction with the Osanna Chorus. It remains to be seen whether The Wave catches on.

TUSK IMPLANTS

PORT WHITMAN: Dr.James Stanko, the dentist who pioneered the use of the reciprocal chisel (similar to the pile driver) in the treatment of tooth restoration has filed for a patent for the implantable animal tusk/horn, which is hoped to be the salvation of the elephants and rhinos in the wilds of Africa. Conservationists informed of the invention have hailed Dr. Stanko as a new hero of conservation.

As he explains it, pachidentists under his supervision in places such as Kenya and Zimbabwe first stun and tranquilize elephants and rhinos in the wild, then, assisted by a large animal anesthesiologist to keep the animals inactive, they extract the tusks and horns from the creatures, fitting them with lexan replacements anchored by a combination of metal screws and a fusion process that in most cases gives the creature a stronger weapon for defense than it had previous to the operation.

Post-operative pain is controlled by using darts loaded with dexadrine, which, unfortunately, subjects the animals to addiction for a short time. But if the drugs are withdrawn very gradually, the lasting effects are minimal, Dr. Stanko related, the only problem coming when the animal is lost in the wild, thus unavailable for dart-medication. In initial experiments with the process with single subjects, at the Port Whitman Zoo, animals seemed to remain in good health and spirits, with normal appetites and dispositions after the procedure, and so "animals in the wild were given the benefit of the procedure, and so far the results have been excellent," Dr. Stanko stated during an interview televised on "Animal Habitat," in Nairobi.

It is anticipated that the world market for the elephant tusk and rhino horn will stabilize if the new procedure is adopted in African and Asian countries where animals live; thus it is hoped the black market trade from killing the animals for their tusks and horns will subside.

HYPNO-DIRECTION

PORT WHITMAN: Dr. F. A. Stewart, a retired dentist who had specialized in Hypno-anesthesia , is credited with discovering the psycho-properties of blood and their use in the treatment of disease, especially tumors. Working under a grant from the Mary Ann Nash foundation, Dr. Stewart enlisted the help of inmates of the Alfred E. Watson State Prison in establishing that blood corpuscles, through Hypnosis, can be directed to selected locations in the body, there to "gang up on" and do battle with foreign bodies such as neoplasms (tumors).

Having established the basic premise and proven it, Dr. Stewart persuaded officials of the Richard McCormick Oncologic Wing of St. Vitus' Eye Hospital to establish statistically significant groups of patients with similar cancers to conduct tests. One group was treated with traditional radiation/chemotherapy, while the other underwent Hypno-Direction, as the process is called, which aims the corpuscles to go to and consume the tumors, much as they do the food we eat once it is digested into the blood.

After one year it was found that Hypno-Direction did significantly better in dealing with tumors. In fact, 82% of patients treated with H-D reported their tumors in remission. If the treatment proves effective in larger studies, explained Joel N. Billman, president of the Port Whitman Medical Association, it will signal a revolution in the treatment of neoplasms, in fact of ALL disease, and should make Dr. Stewart a shoo-in for a Nobel Prize in medicine.

MITE CONTROL

(or mite not, you never can tell)

PORT WHITMAN: During warm sunny spring days, many homes are ruthlessly invaded by the humble but unjustly dreaded Clover Mites. You come home from shopping to a column of them stretching back out the front door as far as you care to see. Each individual clover mite is smaller than the head of an ordinary straight pin, as tiny as a piece of dust, but with arms, legs, and God knows what else to make life miserable for the giant humans. But do they? Absolutely not. The poor little mites is not harmful to human beings, pets, stored products or household furnishings. A domesticated microorganism is what they are, coming in for a couple of days to get warm until the humidity kills them, as would the cold outside too, a dire prognosis that would make a family member of any specie cringe indeed. Their mortality being what it is, they sentimentally travel together as much as possible, usually invading a home posed as a wine-colored rug.

If it weren't for their near-microscopic size, they might make excellent house pets, but it is hard to avoid stepping on them in the daily rounds of housework. When crushed, as they frequently are by clumsy adults not realizing their value as companions, they leave behind an indelible reddish stain. Crush one in your dinner jacket pocket and you have to do the whole thing over in Clover Mite Red.

The Save the Insects foundation has declared them an endangered species, principally because they are being callously killed for their dye value. The precious stain is harvested by poachers, unlicensed bounty bug-hunters who come to an area, beat them to death with clubs, load them frequently still alive, into sealed sacks and cart them away to be processed into a substitute for carcinogenic Red Dye #3, in the Central Antibbes Islands by automated factories, thence the product is sold for food dye, fabric dye, and meat department spray for supermarkets in Port Whitman.

Many homeowners who want to keep free of Clover Mites, keep a lawn roller in the kitchen, just in case, as the mites rarely travel in a column any wider than 18 inches. Sometimes they have to roll over them several times, all the way out to the mailbox, to insure the inviolability of the home. Beyond that it's the responsibility of the municipality. If you want to seem extremely inhospitable to the little creatures, apply a 128-1 solution of water to diazinon insecticide and spray as a 15 foot wide dry moat around your house. If they're already there, it'll kill 'em like Union Carbide at Bhopal; if they're not there, it'll give em the right signals. Spray up to the windows too; don't want em comin’ where they're not wanted. Leave 'em out in the warm to roast. Heh, heh.

PORT WHITMAN NEWS

Fictional, but plausible... by Henry

WEIGHTED VOTING
© Port Whitman Times 2002
PORT WHITMAN: In an effort to encourage ongoing education, the PW school board elections will be converted to a system of "weighted" voting for the coming spring voting. All registered voters will of course have the basic right to cast one vote, but voters who score above 40 on the Comprehensive Knowledge Test (CKT) given by the Board of Education to all registered voters of the community, will see their votes weighted to twice or even three times their value in the final count.

It was emphasized by Councilperson Joseph Porter, that no registered voters will be turned away at the polls, and no one will be required to take the exam, but as a result of the PW voting rights ordinance passed recently by city council, the CKT exam will be available weekly at PWHS, and as a result votes will be weighted as follows according to scores:

0-40 1 VOTER=1VOTE
40-60 1 VOTER= 1.5 VOTES
60-80 1VOTER= 2 VOTES
80-90 1 VOTER=2.5 VOTES
90-100 1VOTER=3 VOTES

Ralph Rackstraw, speaking for the board, said in an exclusive interview that it is hoped the availability of the test and the weighting of votes would encourage citizens to continue their education to higher achievement levels. The test bears no direct correlation to diplomas or degrees, although it is thought that a person at a high school graduate level should be able to score up to 70 or better, thus increasing his effect upon the election by 100% over what it had been before. The test measures knowledge and judgement in a general sense, and thus ought to influence the voters' choice of the most intelligent candidates, or at least the ones who support the most progressive educational structure in the system.The tests are given weekly at PWHS on Wednesdays from 3-9 pm, and are either written or oral.

PLEASANT SOUNDS
© Port Whitman Times 2006
PORT WHITMAN: Dr. Ken Norland, Professor of Esthetics at the PW Campus of Walt Whitman University, is leading the movement to require all public restrooms in the city to program continuous music or other sound at a decibel level high enough to cover lavatory and private body noises. Armed with a petition signed by more than 3,000 citizens, Dr. Norland has obtained a commitment by two members of City Council, Thomas Meldon and Robert Fries, to have the matter discussed at the upcoming caucus of City Council, and possibly put on the agenda for its monthly meeting.

"There's no reason we have to listen to the unmentionables of other people and force ours upon them in a public restroom," stated Norland, whose college class curriculum covers the psychological benefits and harmfulness of visual and auditory aspects of our society on its members. "Our time in the restroom should be truly restful, and the best way to do that is through pleasant sound, such as the continuum of new age music and the like."

What next, murals? Incense? Well why not?

E.T. TRASH DISPOSAL

PORT WHITMAN: " Our trash problem is solved" stated public works director Roberta Craner, as she blithely broke a bottle of 1952 Grap Nuit Champagne across the tail section of PW's newest emmissary, a compacted trash missile bound for the far side of the moon. Then, as she threw what was left of the bottle into the rocket's payload compartment, she proclaimed "One little litter for Port Whitman, and a BigRelief for Mankind."

With the closing of the East Philadelphia landfill, and the rejection of the trash-to-energy proposal by a City Council beleaguered by irate neighborhood groups, the only alternative became the extra terrestrial disposal of the refuse, especially considering the volume collected by the newly purchased suction mechanism of the Sullivan Company, contractor for the city's trash collection.

The Moon project was financed by a bond issue from the Port Whitman Trust Bank, and made contingent upon future collections of City Employees' tax arrearages, which will be paid by attaching their forthcoming pay increases, passed by City Council at its last meeting.

Ms. Craner has also approached the US Department of Defense to consider using the trash-rocket payload as a target in new tests of the Star Wars Defense system, thus countering anticipated demonstrations by the Moonbums, a recently formed association of homeless people against pollution of space. Mac Michael, President of the Moonbums, and Executive Director of the Volunteers of Port Whitman, has expressed the fear that the amount of room in space suitable for habitation, and thus colonization by the VOPW, would be threatened. He has promised to appear at the next Council Meeting, with members of his organization, to protest the move. Meanwhile, Port Whitman has received queries from more than a dozen municipalities across the USA. All are interested in the possibilities of disposal of their waste in a similar manner.

FSBO USED CARLOT

PORT WHITMAN: The Goldwinn Brothers, Inc., owners of the former Sky-Way Drive-In theatre on Ridge Pike in Port Whitman, announced that they have recently leased the property to Forcep Maliczynski, who has registered a business at that address as a FOR SALE BY OWNER USED CARLOT, where owners wishing to sell their automobiles can leave them for the public to see and drive. Cars left by owners are under 24-hour security surveillance, and are available during business hours for inspection and supervised demonstration, on a self-contained tryout track where drivers can put them through virtually any maneuver one might encounter in traffic or on the road. The facility is open seven days a week from 9am to 9pm. Owners pay only a weekly all-inclusive rental fee.

Neighbors' initial objections to the granting of a zoning variance to the business centered around fears of vandalism and theft, along with nuisance factors, but but with the upgrading of security at the location, the hiring of a 24-hour guard in an elevated tower, installation of a 7-foot high solid fence surrounding the lot, and posting of guard dogs at several locations, their concerns have been quieted for the present. The Port Whitman Insurance Exchange has agreed to provide coverage to lessor, lessee and car owners at minimal rates. Car owners must also sign a form releasing the operators of the carlot from liability resulting from driving of the cars on the test track.

When interviewed recently, Mr. Maliczynski expressed optimism that the carlot would do substantial business, in fact stated that in the first month of operation, more than 1,000 prospective buyers came onto the location, and 68 cars were sold. Banks and other financing agencies have been eager to provide loans to buyers of vehicles, and pay the carlot owners a percentage of all financing when a vehicle is sold. Car owners interviewed seemed quite pleased with the results.

NASAL SPRAY JONES

PORT WHITMAN: Please bear with me if I seem irritable and vague all at the same time. I'm going thru drug withdrawal. Yeah, me. You never suspected, eh? Hmh. So go read some of the stuff I've written and you'll perceive a certain unstuffiness, like my head is really freed up and I'm really cleared out. Yeah. My personal jones is nasal spray. Sure, you've heard about crack and ice, cracked ice, iced crack, smoked meth, injected coke and the like. Well this one you snuff up, and squirt-spray it at the same time. And wouldn't-ya-know, it's easy to get at your local drug emporium.

I started on the easy stuff, a drop or two of neo-snifferine in high school. In between classes I did the stuff in the boy's john. In college in a damper climate, I really got going - only while I was sick of course - y'know, for medicinal purposes only, heh - I went from 1% to 5% then a 10% solution, every time I got a cold. Soon I started sneaking it between colds, and before I knew it I needed it all the time or my head felt like it would break open. Aspirin didn't do it, or pills. I had to have - THE STUFF!

I took to hiding little sprayers around - on the TV, at my desk, in the car under the seat - soon I was buying it a case at a time - The generic brand, of course. Ultimately hanging around with the wrong crowd, I got into nasal irrigation. But when it started squirting out my ears, I knew I had to stop or it would be the end of me. I went, finally to the Lillian Gush substance abuse center in Port Whitman where I withdrew and confessed for several weeks till I was clean, but when I got out, I went back to the old neighborhood, and there was the same drugstore on the corner, like I'd never even been away. I got right back into the life, standin' around the corner with the other hop-noses sprayin' up the stuff.

One day, I realized it was up to ME, not Lillian Gush, or any of the celebrities (whose names I dare not mention for fear of lawsuits) who went to the center. I knew I had to JUST SAY NO. So that's what I'm doing, and it's hard, y'know. They're pushing the stuff at you on TV, in the supermarkets, convenience stores; pretty soon they'll have it in ice cream stores. Makes sense, so your nose doesn't run all over your chocolate cone.

COMPANY SONGS

PORT WHITMAN: "We write company Songs" stated Mario L. Scibetta, head of a newly formed company: Chansons de la Companie, Port Whitman branch of a Montreal subsidiary of Nishimuta, the giant Tokyo entertainment conglomerate responsible for most of Japan's company anthems. "It might seem silly, but look what company singing has done for the big Japanese manufacturers like Sony, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, Kommatsu, with songs like 'I Got the Sony In the Morning and the Money at Night.' In fact the Dai Ichi Financial Exchange refuses to list any company not registering a company song, so there must be something to it." said Scibetta.

Chansons de la Companie, formerly Yutzel's Jingles, producers of songs for Bucyrus Corp., the five NY families of the Cosa Nostra, and the Chicago Dept. of Public works, is presently negotiating with Apple Computer for a ditty called "We're the Corps of the Apple, Mac," based on an old WWI marching song.

Mr. Scibetta, who prefers to be called Mario, is a former ferryboat captain whose hobby was collecting sea shanties and lighthouse ditties, gave up the water in 1983 to pursue the company song market. Armed with nothing but his harmonica and boundless cheek, he journeyed to Japan for the songwriting program conducted at Kamakura, the residence of the Great Bhudda, whose influence the Japanese count among the most important spurs to their business progress since the end of WWII. Now he possesses the first American franchise of the jingle company.

"In Japan" he continued, "at 9am every working day, all employees of an organization sing the company song, from the president to the lowliest floorsweeper. It seems like the equivalent of the WWII 'Banzai' cry which brought Japanese soldiers to the fanatical level enabling them to wage such a large war from such a small country." Hmmm...Ano...ne!

UNI-LINE

PORT WHITMAN: City Council, spearheaded by an active business community, at its last session entertained final discussion and passed an ordinance mandating "Uni-Lines" in all businesses in Port Whitman which have multi cashiers, such as supermarkets, banks, warehouse outlets, even convenience stores. The new ordinance affects all businesses that employ more than one cashier, and states that the multi stations must be fed by a single line, to make the wait a more efficient one each customer.

Exceptions are allowed in the case of an express line for customers with 10 items or fewer, however in the case of more than one express cashier, a uni-line will also be the rule.

"This will disrupt our display layout somewhat, as we will have to make room for one long line" said Port Whitman WalMart manager Delbert Krasnesky, "but in the end we feel it will speed up service, and relieve customers of that decision as to 'which line is likely to be faster'." Ron Hersh, President of the Port Whitman Businessmen's Association which initiated the idea from suggestions by its own members tired of guessing which bank line was going to be fastest, stood third in a uni-line to congratulate members of council, ignoring an express line to the Mayor because of its limit of 10 words.

TUSK IMPLANTS

PORT WHITMAN: Dr. James Stanko, the dentist who pioneered the use of the reciprocal chisel (similar to the pile driver) in the treatment of tooth restoration has filed for a patent for the implantable animal tusk/horn, which is hoped to be the salvation of the elephants and rhinos in the wilds of Africa. Conservationists informed of the invention have hailed Dr. Stanko as a new hero of conservation.

HOT ITEMS

PORT WHITMAN: Police reported a new scam, according to Channel 3: Two men pull up next to you in a van, at a traffic light, claim to have "hot" stereo speakers in the back, which they'll sell to you cheap. Trouble is, though the speakers are a bargain, they're NOT hot. Tsk Tsk. The question remains, is this really a scam, or just deceptive sales tactics? Because the police claim the speakers are NOT hot, and the people in the van make you THINK the speakers are hot (probably got a whole load of them in a warehouse someplace), and figured out this is an interesting new way to sell them. Is this really criminal, or just borderline unethical? You, being a sensible person, determine whether the speakers are a bargain or not and by their allusions, not by proof of any sort, that they're hot, so where's the crime on their part?

Maybe it's in the mind of the beholder, like beauty. The person who thinks he's buying a hot item is the one who, in his conscience, is committing a crime, not the seller who lets them think it's a crime, but really knows it's legitimate. Sounds like the ideal way to sell some items. Or some points of view. Because a lot of us are hooked on getting a bargain at ANY price, even that of our integrity.

INCENTIVE EDUCATION

PORT WHITMAN: The PW Board of Education, in a move spurred by proposed welfare payment reductions to families of truant students in Baltimore, Md. has instituted a program in cooperation with the State Division of Human Services and the County Welfare Board, whereby students would in effect be paid for attending school. Payments will be reflected in monthly welfare checks and will include incentives for accellerated progress, honor status, and other achievement criteria, including some extra-curricular activities, along with bonuses upon promotion, graduation, and acceptance at institutions of higher learning.

All Port Whitman students will henceforth be required to log in on special state-of-the-art microchip time recorders activated by fingerprint matching, to be carried by each teacher, and electronic reports will be submitted monthly from each school to the Welfare Board at the County Complex. At this point, the amount of money received by welfare families will be increased by the sum of the payment to the student for time spent learning in the classroom; any payments to non-welfare families will be in the form of future tax credits. Teachers will also have the option of docking students for bad behavior, in consultation with discipline directors at each school.

John Kasczenski, Secretary of the Board of Ed., expressed the collective opinion of that body stating "It might create some problems, maybe mainly from members of the delivery infrastructure in our welfare mechanism, but in the long run it will save money, reflected in less police, fewer prisons and rehabilitation facilities necessary, not to mention the return in taxes from what will surely be more productive members of society." Community members attending the Board session applauded loudly when local activist Millard Davis said "Welfare is precisely Aid To Dependent Children, not free spending money for wayward adults, so let the payment be in some small part linked to the behavior of these beneficiaries of the state's munificence." It has also been proposed to the State Division that bonus payments be granted for former welfare recipients who go on to graduate from institutions of higher education. The legislature will consider this matter at its next scheduled session in July.

EFFIGY PUNISHMENT

PORT WHITMAN: The Robert Ingersoll Elementary School of Port Whitman, skirting a state law against corporal punishment, has issued an effigy to each classroom which the teacher, and individual students who agree that punishment should be meted out, can spank with a small canoe paddle whenever a classroom infraction is committed.

Previous to the dummy paddling, a short discussion is held among teacher and students considering the misdeed, its seriousness, and how many whacks the "student" ought to receive. Then a sign with the student's name is pinned on the dummy and punishment is inflicted. The effigy also does time in the corner, under the dunce cap, and after school. Everything but being sent to the Principal's office.

The idea of allowing students to stab the effigy with pins was also proposed, but after a letter from Roger O.Fisher, Attorney for the local branch of the American Association of Voodoo Practitioners, the notion was dropped.

School Board member Stanley Holonka lauded the approach as a way to teach students the consequences of poor deportment without actually inflicting physical punishment, but the Fellowship for Consideration of Non-human Rights, a splinter group trying to gain recognition by the ACLU, has condemned the effigy method as pandering to the violent natures of the students, and has asked the school board to consider banning the program.

EDUCATIONAL STANDARDS TESTS

PORT WHITMAN: Rather than working within the glacially-moving, politically-tainted educational systems at all governmental levels to establish standards for education with corresponding testing, the Basic Knowledge Group (BKG) of Port Whitman has designed a test for knowledge retained after each grade, 1 through 12, which it sells and grades, notifying parents of students' rankings at a national percentile level.

The private, independent test has been devised so that it is similar to the college SAT's, i.e., difficult enough that only the most brilliant student in a particular grade can score near 100%, long enough that only the brightest can finish it in the allotted time, and comprehensive enough to cover every subject that might be encountered at a given educational level. Then scores place students at a percentile level based upon how much of the test they finish and answer correctly.

The exam, upon payment of the fee, is mailed to the parent or other giver of the test, or downloaded from the Internet, then administered, under strict rules, by the parent or other monitor.

"If a parent is truly interested in finding out how the education of his child compares with the rest of the country, he will adhere strictly to the rules of the test," stated a representative of the BKG.

Fees for each grade differ, but are high enough so parents want to get their money's worth but not so high as to make it prohibitive financially. Taxpayers who now finance local education, paying astronomical salaries to teachers and administrators, are curious to find out if their children are being educated up to the standards of the rest of the country. So, for example, if an A student in a particular school fails the test, a red flag goes up saying something is wrong at the school, and action can be taken to correct the situation.

Thus anyone who wants to know whether or not his/her child is receiving an adequate education can have the child take the test for whatever grade is relevant, annually if necessary, to make sure standards are being met. And teachers who know their students will be given an independent test at year's end teach with this in mind, improving their effectiveness.

JUSTICE

PORT WHITMAN: At Justice, the new restaurant opened recently in PW's Manchester Beach section, a novel approach to eating has emerged and from all evidence seems to be catching on. Patrons are individually weighed upon entering the restaurant and being seated, then limited to an amount of food, not including water, equal to no more than .0066 (1/150) of their weight.

Janos Barchic, president of Croatia Inc., which runs Justice franchises in 14 cities nationwide, says he started the restaurants after tiring of being served mammoth meals at every restaurant at which he ate as a salesman traveling for Primo Rubber Works, placing and servicing their condom machines. "Restaurants want to charge high prices, so they give you bigger portions, and you end up bigger in the belly but lighter in the wallet", said Barchic, a slightly built man on the order of early Woody Allen. "This way, we can promise you you won't gain weight as long as you eat a balanced meal, and our prices are down to earth, in fact rock bottom" he continued.

Patrons are charged on three price scales: LoPrice, MidRange, and Gourmet, and only charged by the number of grams of food they become eligible for at the weigh-in. "Of course people cheat, they eat from each others' plates," said waitress Marge Wingerter,"but that's on them, it's not Justice's responsibility."

The menu at Justice is as complete as you'll find anywhere, from soup to a variety of entrees to nuts, with foods served au naturel, or compressed and sliced off in portions required at the weigh in. And from the looks of the people coming out, they're accomplishing what they set out to do, that is help people to enjoy food while remaining slim. Bon Appetit...

USERS PICKET

PORT WHITMAN: Carrying signs proclaiming "Users' Rights," marchers set up a 24-hour picket line around International Chemical Testing Labs (ICTL), an independent laboratory doing testing for illegal drug potency. Picketers claim the center is a front for a drug rehabilitation organization called BodyPure, which approaches drug users who have come for potency testing and proscelytizes against the use of drugs.

"We have not come here to be preached to," said Jane Doe (name changed), "but to have our drugs tested so we don't end up like Lenny Bias and Bob Rogers. We realize we are addicted and while our sickness continues we do not want to be harassed for merely protecting ourselves against products of indeterminate quality."

ICTL President Jerome Singer stated that since the deaths of the two athletes, his labs have begun doing such testing along with their normal bacteriological product testing for state licensing boards and the state food and drug commission. They test all drugs from marijuana to cocaine, heroin, mushrooms, measuring them in terms of LEIN, or level of intensity transmitted to the nervous system, along with physical cost in AMINO, or average minutes off a typical life per dose of the drug. "The number of users coming in for testing has become almost overwhelming," he said, "and there are bound to be those who come to our waiting rooms to help addicts get free. We do not discourage such activity, rather encourage it, as a contribution to help with the national drug problem."

Demonstrators were searched by DEA representatives and found to be clean, but the stream of people bringing drugs for testing has slowed to a trickle while the picketing continues.

BLOODY WELL RIGHT

PORT WHITMAN: "Give now, get later" is the slogan of the PW Blood Connection, a private agency that deals in "blood credits" a new concept whereby one can donate blood now, building up a file of credits to be spent later when the same person or a member of his immediate family needs units of blood. "This way" said Alton Scrode, president of the company, "you needn't worry about being charged anything for blood when you have an operation, thus reducing your bill substantially." Farnsworth Taylor, president of Acme Insurance brokers, says that many insurance carriers will reduce premiums for subscribers to such a service, by corresponding amounts to the amount of blood given. "It stands to reason" he said, "that since the amount of insurance claims will be reduced, the premium should be lowered." Insured parties have only to provide proof they have contributed blood to the PW Blood Connection, and a corresponding fee reduction will be given. The company has also made an agreement with Gridley Hospital, P.A., by which, in exchange for needed blood for all patients Gridley will issue no prep charges to members of the PW Blood Connection donors.

HEALTHFUL TRAINS

PORT WHITMAN: In what some say is nothing but cost cutting, but which Richard Mowkell, Executive Director of the system persists in explaining as a measure to improve the health of the riders, the PWTCO Speedline of Port Whitman has recently removed all the seats and rails from their trains, replacing them with poles and straps. Director Mowkell stated previous to the removals that riding a moving train and keeping one's balance is the perfect exercise for the body, aerobic in a way, because one has to actually walk around, albeit in a small radius due to the crowding of the trains.

The social aspects of riding have surely been improved, as people are constantly thrown into proximity to each other, having to dodge or support those who may be novices at the new game. And the drivers of the trains are called upon to make their getaways and stops much smoother, lest there be an increase in lawsuits from fallen passengers.

Soon all the riders, exercised, will surely be thinner, and the officials of the system feel that as a result, trains will be able to accommodate more riders, providing more revenues. Aha, the real reason.

BODYHOT LINE

PORT WHITMAN: Find it hard to give up those long-johns? With the coming of spring, many of us are faced with the stark prospect of shedding our long underwear, wool stocking caps, sleepsocks, sleeping bags, electric blankets and other aids to personal warmth. Understandably there are those who, afraid to venture too quickly into fickle spring breezes, cling to winter woolies until the very last moments, even some whose bodies cannot tolerate the deprival of these raiments at all, who keep them skin-close year-round, uncovering only long enough for a monthly hot bath. These people, mortally afraid of chills, need help. Obviously their reluctance to give up such body comforts is a diagnosable malady, treatable, even curable, according to Milton McNelis, Executive Director of Breakwinter, Port Whitman's clinic for the comfort-disabled. Myron Semple, MD, founder of Breakwinter, worked at first from a small storefront, accepting clients on need rather than ability to pay, charging according to income, granting therapy to all. Initially Dr. Semple worked alone, against the advice of many of his pooh-poohing colleagues in the American medical establishment, but as the number of applicants for treatment grew, the astounded medical world came to recognize the universal need to help these afflicted individuals, and the opportunity for treatment on several levels, not the least of which is in the office of the private physician.

At Breakwinter, several phases of treatment were established: Psychological Woolies Dependence Arrestment, Flannel Substitute Therapy, Electrical Withdrawal Chambers, Exercise Programs for Bare Extremities, and No-hat, No-mitten Havens coupled with Primal Scream rooms for singular or group use. It has been found that patients respond better in mixed groups, supervised by medical personnel to prevent personal contact while in states of undress. Halfway Houses and Buddy Systems for out-patients needing marginal assistance have recently spread throughout the city to aid unfortunate victims in the traumatic transition from winter to summer underattire. The Minnie Strong Foundation managed a grant of $700,000 to go along with the $200,000 Boswell Foundation Grant of last year to give Breakwinter a home in a former bakery at Five Points/Sassafras Street, where the afflicted can go to obtain help for the traumatic shedding of winterthings and the onset of summer warmth. Dr. Semple, now Chairman of Breakwinter's Board, has been the motivating force in obtaining grants, and has himself established The Foundation for the Acceptance of Summer Heat (FASH), to study the problem and nip it before it becomes nationally epidemic.

Mr. McNelis has invited all who may suspect they have problems in this area to come to the center from 9-12 noon daily. Inquiries will be held strictly confidential.

CROSS DRESSERS DAY

PORT WHITMAN: The culmination of Cross Dressers Day locally will feature a debate among the five candidates for mayor of PW in the coming election, carrying on a full-fledged polemic sponsored by the Women On The Move, to be held at the PW Maennerchor Club on July 14th at 7:30pm. All of the candidates will appear attired in the garb of their sexual opposites. The event will be televised on local cable, as will the Cross Dressers Parade, in which groups from local businesses, such as the State Street Businessmens Group, the PW Bar Association, and the PW Medical Society will participate. Featured will be the PW Association of Realtors, whose specialty this year will be lip gloss, and the Union League whose members will sport long false fingernails.

The celebration, held every year since the end of WWII, is one of the most highly anticipated events of the social calendar, when all of the men and some of the women of the city dress as their sexual opposites for the day. Cross Dressers Day is always scheduled on a weekday, not an official holiday, so that participants must appear at jobs in their chosen attire and makeup.

It started as a party held by a few participants, including club founder Michael Nash, and Police Lieutenant Richard Forfia who originated the idea, brought home from his war experience in the South Pacific, where his whole marine unit dressed as Geishas to confuse the Japanese, and was legally approved in 1964 when Superior Court Judge Milton Thuerkauf threw out the lawsuit of The Boston Store vs. Halsey Boyle, the latter causing a near riot by insisting on using the men's room on the store's fifth floor toy department at Christmastime.

Grand Mama of the parade this year will be City Prosecutor Caesar Montivecchio, a high school All American wrestler at PW High and later at the Navel Academy of Port Whitman.

KILLER SOUGHT
© Port Whitman Times 2007
PORT WHITMAN: All the city is locking its doors and warning its children about the Trasher Basher, a crazed maniac who seems to choose litterers for his victims. Coincidentally, police are also searching for a fastidious sniper in a series of grisly shootings which has a connecting link in litter. Thought to be one and the same, the murderer strikes people who have just that moment thrown trash on the ground or dumped illegally, killing them by various methods from beating with a blunt instrument such as an aluminum baseball bat to shooting to garotting (One victim was hit in the spine with a small axe) depending upon the time of day and public exposure. Something so insignificant as a gum wrapper, to major pieces such as milk shake containers or car ashtrays, have apparently given cause to the madman to exact immediate retribution, ending up stuffed into the victim's mouth, with a note containing a circle and an X through the middle over a dead litterer.

The Trasher Basher specializes in historic neighborhoods and downtown areas which the city is currently rebuilding and promoting as its chance to swim back to the municipal mainstream. Assistant PW Public Works Director Louis Dedad allows that the streets are definitely cleaner, except for the blood, and corpses that have to be hauled away daily. "Other than that" Dedad said, "he/she seems to have cleaned up the city better than the Pied Piper did Hamelin."

However, members of the Port Whitman Municipal Employees Union (PWMEU) are contemplating a "workers' action" saying the city is about to lay off half its public works employees due to lack of trash. "There has always been enough trash for all of us," said William Kirk, the PW department steward to PWMEU," but now this basher has come along, there's not enough work." Accusing the city of hiring a "hitman" to pose as the Trasher Basher, Kirk promised demonstrations in which his members would haul refuse back from the landfills to public streets, so that workers could continue to work.

Herman Eck, owner of the Wallamie County landfill called the Craters at Lexton, where the city dumps its trash, has also complained, but Rolf Maxell, a member of the County Board of Representatives from Wallamie, who has been agitating against the dump since his election in 1984, expressed elation that the area doesn't have to be the dumping ground for "that city's filth" anymore, and has promised he would see if the Wallamie County could obtain the services of "its own hitman." He was immediately condemned by Norman Neiswonger of the PW Civil Liberties Union (CLUPW), who verified that the trasher basher has been working in the poorer neighborhoods, picking on the defenseless poor "changing them into the ungrateful dead." Neiswonger promised a court action against Maxell, and has offered the assistance of his organization to the PWMEU demonstrators.
Meanwhile, the hunt continues for the Trasher Basher.

HISTORICONS
© Port Whitman Times 2007
PORT WHITMAN: The PW Geo- graphic Society recently exhibited a travelogue of its historic district, still composed of thatch and mud huts which original settlers inhabited in the early 1500's, showing on film/videotape the full spectrum of life in the Kahkwa (from the Kahkwa Indians) ghetto, where residents do their laundry at wells, and few venture outside, served mainly by a Target and a WaWa. Fourteen original log cabins also dot the landscape, which retains historic dirt paths & ruts made by Indians and settlers, and where vehicles must also conform to historic specifications, thus are limited to covered wagons, litters & buckboards.

Interiors of the huts & cabins are equipped with whatever modern con-veniences residents can afford, but in keeping with the rules of historic significance set forth by the PW Historic Preservation Commission, façades and exterior construction must conform to original construction, and For Sale signs are prohibited.

Also filmed was a recent commission hearing in which the Gaertner/Joint family (Husband/wife/24 children /1 goat/2 pigs) of the district, descendants of its first settlers, was the object of a complaint brought by neighbors that local air was being polluted by the rank stench coming from by the Gaert-ner/Joint hut, constituting a public nuisance. The Historic Commission, while allowing the truth of the allegations, concluded that the Gaertner/Joints were protected from public harassment due to their long-held position of historical significance, stating that although the family may be a public nuisance, it is a historically significant one. Interviews were filmed by the GeogSoc, after the hearing, with members of the G/J family and also Dr. Jack A. MacAllister, AIA, president of the commission, in which several mem- bers of the press corps were seen to gag.

The GeogSoc film will be shown soon on the Municipal cable channel, with simultaneous translation of the G/J family's dialect (Kahkwase), subtitles, and Smell-O-Vision ® where available.

CHANTS 'R' US

PORT WHITMAN: "Ideas are the raw materials of Democracy" is the slogan accompanying the logo of PW's newest business "Chants 'R' Us" - an organization providing vocal material for groups demonstrating on U.S. or foreign streets. Claiming authorship for such as "Hell no, we won't go" and "No Blood for Oil," Chants claims to be able to provide verbiage for any group of demonstrators that wants to pay its fee. Once they have paid, the fee, a group can pick from a library of chants the company has filed away by subject, on its huge database of readymade "Hollers" for groups from neighborhoods to nationals, in any language.

"Chants 'R' Us" also sells visual aids, from placards to painted billboards, and offers to help fledgling ad hoc groups in organizing demonstrations, giving access to a specialized press list of journalists who specialize in covering "spontaneous" gatherings. Stopping short of promising national or even local coverage, the company nevertheless provides, for a fee, a complete course in getting the attention of the media and officialdom through "stomping your feet, clapping your hands, and raising your voices," as the chants brochure states.

Abe Zotz, founder and chairman of Chants 'R' Us, is a veteran of the 60's having been a demonstrator in most of the anti-you-name-it protests, starting with the civil rights movement (he was stoned in Montgomery), and ending in Chicago in 1968 when he was arrested and brutalized for attempting to kiss Mayor Richard Daley on the mouth in a public elevator. Zotz had been working as an assistant to a lip augmentation surgeon until last year, when he tired of designing mouths, and came up with the idea for "Chants," - "an opportunity to use my verbal skills, as opposed to my oral ones," he said in a recent interview. It is expected that the company will issue stock and be traded publicly in the near future. Meanwhile, Zotz has promised to keep protesting.

NEW VOICE

PORT WHITMAN:Vowing to become the daytime working person's station, WPW, the city's latest addition ot talk radio, has altered their format, limiting outside calls to three minutes only about the subject at hand (thus provoking the ire of some of the gabby "old-timers" who like to hear themselves on the radio), and making calls out to authoritative sources to bear upon whatever problem is being discussed, instead of just waiting for calls. Replacing its morning on-air team of comic cut-ups Jim Spiece and Ray Miller with Norton Fekula and Brian Alexander, personalities who advocate opposite sides (conservative and liberal) of every question, owner-commentator Eddie Falbone hopes to beef up the sagging ratings of the daytimer by an approach of controlled controversy that will include short phonecall interviews in place of studio visits by guests. "That way, more guests can be accommodated, giving a greater breadth to the points of view that can be expressed, and allowing more information on a given subject to go out over the air," Falbone stated in a recent interview.

WE TALK SENSE will be the slogan of the station, which, for interludes, will program instrumental breaks from popular releases and other favorites from the entire American musical repertoire. "No lyrics" stated Falbone, acting as program director until the arrival of Leon Zapf, and " no news as such." Falbone said that "if people want news they tune into the news stations. Here they get sensible discussion and possible problem solving." Of course there will be ads, between talk and music. "We're cleaning up our act so that not a second will be wasted on unnecessary promos or boring lead-ins and introductions. Just the meat of each subject, and enough of that so that listeners will be exposed to the maximum amount of information, allowing opinions to be formed on truly objective basis," said Ed.

The one exception will be movie reviews, where WPW critic, Art Backstrom will call in and discuss the film with an on-air personality who has not seen the picture, giving dimension to the report, rather than two people who have both seen the film and either argue about it or praise it, leaving the listener who has not seen the movie out in the cold.

WPW will promote and sell "Hotlines," radios, smaller than walkmans, with headsets, pre-tuned to WPW only, for outside or inside use, as part of its "Talk Sense" campaign, beginning "within hours," according to Falbone, whose money is on the line, and whose longtime reputation as a talk show host may also be at risk.

GAME SHOW?

PORT WHITMAN: Paul E. Kraus, who reputedly made a fortune before he was 14 selling lead replicas of mint set buffalo nickels packaged as originals in sealed plastic keytags, heads up a local syndicate producing The Majority Channel, a full-time cable outlet where debaters taking opposite sides of a question will argue their points for 20 minutes, and then viewers will call in votes on each topic, via a local 900 telephone number.

Port Whitman contains the percentages of various classifiable segments of the population roughly equal those of the country at large, making it one of the top three test centers in the country, so tabulated results of the phone-in polls will be sold to business and political entities wishing to base future decisions on concrete opinion samples. Results from discussions of important political questions will be available to legislatures at all governmental levels considering related matters. In addition, The Majority Channel will solicit opinions on questions shown on C-Span, issues which may be currently in debate on the floor of Congress, providing a public service as well.

Programming will include live destructive testing, taste testing and quality sampling, including chemical analysis, with voting on suggested improvements to products or questions. The PW Bourse, taking the cue for stock and bond trading, will market the best of the ideas as fledgling corporate businesses traded over-the-counter, solicited on air, as soon as FCC and SEC clearance can be obtained. PWTelephone company officials expressed immediate interest in placing limited amounts of margin on phone bills, in coordination with banks and credit card companies using computerized PERC (Permanent Entry Record Cards) as sources for extension of credit.

Largest investor in the project will be the Fuhrer Beer Company of PW, makers of Right Lite, a bock brew for the calorie conscious, and its by-product Bos-Cal, a residual of their lite brew used as a livestock cathartic, making meat and meat products less fatty.

Kraus said that the station expects to begin broadcasting before the coming holiday season, pending FCC approval.

TRAGEDY NEWS NETWORK

PORT WHITMAN: Move over CNN, FNN, ESPN, make room for TNN - Tragedy News Network - a new channel featuring a constant daily output of fresh disasters. A 24-hour channel emanating from Port Whitman and backed by the Charles R. Schaal funeral franchise empire ("Stepping up to the great beyond - more than 200,000,000 souls have embarked from Schaal’s”) TNN promises constant updates of worldwide and local catastrophes to satisfy the most macabre side of any viewer.

Their programming has recently featured interviews with starving Africans, up close profiles of a hostage taker in Illinois with cut-ins of interviews with trussed-up hostages held at gunpoint, a couple of drownings in progress and a daring personal glimpse of a group of ice skaters who had only minutes before fallen through ice on Port WhitmanÕs Old French Pond. TNN claims to have correspondents all over the world keeping a sharp eye for new calamities, hopefully catching bloody carnages in process, with personal interviews of victims near death or dismemberment. Special close-ups of the newly dismembered, holding their just-separated members are especially sought out by TNN reporters, who claim to stop short of actually fomenting, or even encouraging disasters to provide TNN stories.

"It has reached the point," said Donald Burton, president of the fledgling network "that disasters are occurring so fast that we have a hard time keeping up," elaborating that TNN has found it necessary to cut back on some of the less tragic items like school-house collapses and human interest stories like a recent family of 9 living in PW's South Shore landfill, to fulfill their advertising requirements. "But we vow to cover every tragedy, no matter how small, complete with interviews with the near-dead and recent survivors, especially close relatives of the deceased," Burton said.

Billings are booming as advertisers line up to benefit from the American fascination with ohers' misfortunes. The TNN motto: "We give you all the suffering & grief you can handle" remains to be seen.

MOBY DUCK

PORT WHITMAN: In a sudden departure from the established norm, Ahab Publishing of PW has brought out Moby Duck, its newest in a series of compact adventure novellas by Donald Zackewicz, without word spacing, for speed readers.

Inotherwordsthetextiswrittenlikethiswithnaryaspaceinbetweenthewordsso
youhavetostringideastogetherinsteadofreadingonewordatatime.

"People just don't have as much time to read anymore," said Martin Barrett, Editor-in-Chief for Ahab, "and so in the interest of saving time for them, we're eliminating the spaces between words, with the added benefit that they can simply perceive raw ideas with what we call Expeditious Continuity, a term coined by Stan Seely of our Standards (Time & Motion) Department."

Originally the form was given birth as a paper saving move at Ahab, where CEO Augustus Flint mandated all inter-office memos were to be written without spaces, to save computer "K" on the vast interconnected network at the home office of the PubHouse. It was so successful in that area that Ahab's board decided to try it in book form.

Moby Duck, the tale of a child morbidly obsessed with fantasies brought on by her parent's accidental destruction of her early bathtub toys, is the result, and if the word of critic Malcolm Fryling is any indication, the form heralds a new pathway in the print medium. Whether sales will justify the change is something that will be judged by the public reaction, according to Barrett.

BLACK ACTORS PROTEST

PLASTIC SAVINGS

PORT WHITMAN: The Seminole Savings and Loan of Greater Port Whitman has within the past week begun accepting credit card savings deposits in an effort to boost business and save itself from going under due to a recent spate of withdrawals and the general feeling of the S&L industry over the past decade.

Paul E. Kraus, president of Seminole said that deposits have gone up 200% in the weeks since the system was instituted and that he expects an even bigger jump as the tax year comes to a close, and IRA season before next April 15th develops.

Depositors simply take their credit cards to a teller and deposit any amount they choose, then pay the bill for the use of the money at the end of the month. Since the credit charges are negligible on bills paid immediately, and interest from day of deposit is 6%, some people are actually making a profit on the credit card companies.

THE FILLER UPPER

PORT WHITMAN: Police and retailers are keeping an eye out for a man calling himself Colonel Fillmore, who, in anonymous calls to supermarkets and "_____marts," claims to have filled all containers of a certain class of product, usually, squirt bottles such as soaps, shampoos, or lotions, to the top using the identical product from another container on the same shelf.

"It isn't that we resent these containers, being filled up", stated John Palmisano, Manager of the regional Grand Union Markets, "It's just that we feel violated that someone has opened and tampered with products on our shelves.

In a recent study customers interviewed overwhelmingly said they didn't mind at all because such containers usually come from the factory only filled to about 80%. In a statement representative of the common feeling, Wm. F. Jones of Plum St. in Port Whitman said "Col. Fillmore is doing us all a great service, helping us get our money's worth"

As a result, a bill was introduced in City Council Making it a misdemeanor for such containers to be less than 95% filled. Rep. William Barrier, the District Assemblyman announced he is drafting a bill to submit to the state legislature to keep merchants and distributors honest statewide.

Meanwhile, Col. Fillmore is still at large and at last report was traced to a phone booth near a local Drug Kingdom store in the Pardee Mall, where he had been topping off bottles of Dermilube lotion.

OSANNA AND THE WAVE

Of course the music itself, being one of Mozart's most inspiring compositions, had much to do with the reception too, not to mention a brilliant rendition by the group.

NAZI VIDEO BEGETS PROTESTS

PORT WHITMAN: December 23, 2010 - Marchers picketed singing Christmas carols around the entire shopping center where WhamBanger TV is located yesterday, objecting to the recently discovered and marketed video of a movie taken in 1944 in the bunker below Berlin, where Adolf Hitler plays Christmas Eve Santa Claus to what remains of the Nazi high command. The original film was shot in black and white with a Zeiss 16mm movie camera by Eva Braun, who was the consort of Der Fuhrer and perished with him in a joint-suicide only a few months later as allied forces closed in. Since the surfacing of the movie, it has been restored, colorized, and digitized, coming in a spanking new DVD package with a photo of Hitler in Santa costume and a Nazi Swastika on the jewel case. It sells for $22.50 and is code-protected limiting play to one DVD player only.

The movie had recently been discovered in the personal effects of a Nazi escapee to Salvador, Brazil, Hermann Hess, a former member of the Berlin bunker's food service, who also doubled as an aide to Josef Goebbels. It shows the Christmas party in full swing, with the entire hierarchy of the 3rd Reich drinking champagne and eating cake and mini-sausages around a huge Christmas tree. The hum of bombers can barely be detected in the background, and viewers can discern that the partygoers are trying to blank out the noise by singing Holiday songs, specializing in the Instant Christmas Carol (see below), which was sung in English, with Ernst "Ratzi" Guterstaengl at the piano, in the few seconds that elapsed between bomb concussions. Dust can be seen falling from the ceiling in several shots, as the ground reverberates from the implosive impact of American bombing raids.

However, not to be deterred by the grim war news from celebrating the holiday and deriving maximum sentimentality, especially in those last days of the German Reich, Adolf Hitler makes a dramatic appearance as Santa Claus, bestowing gifts, spirited siegheils, and kisses for the little children of Dr. Goebbles and other bunker personnel who braved the attacks to bring their little ones into what could at any time be the final presence of their Fuhrer. Much weeping could be detected as the party and singing progressed, the participants realizing that their time was severely limited, and that a decade of Nazi rule would be coming to its end very soon. Yet, during the film, all sit on Santa's lap, and tell him what they want for Christmas (mostly that the Nazi atom bomb project will be finished so that Germany can win the war). Santa assures everyone that they'll get what's coming to them.

WhamBanger is betting that this DVD could almost instantly become a collectors item, as it is producing and marketing copies in limited amounts in their dozen stores in shopping centers along the East Coast, strictly as a Christmas special in 2010, just as the stores are about to close their doors due to bankruptcy at the end of the year. The international copyrights to the material are co-owned privately by an anonymous WhamBanger investor, and the family of Horst Fleckenstein, grandson of Hermann Hess.

The production is said to be financed by Asagatange Bonoluba Epu, an ex patria Nigerian prince who made millions persuading thousands of Facebook Members to help him rescue his confiscated funds from the National Bank of Nigeria, in conjunction with the semi-official organization "Jews-for-having-the-last-laugh" in Port Whitman.

The Instant Christmas Carol:
"Deck The Halls With Holy Angels We Have Heard All Ye Faithful, Joyful Herald Angels Sing That Glorious Song Of Old Three Kings Of Orient Are In A Manger No Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen For Tis The Season To Be Red-Nosed Reindeer Fa-la-la-la-LA-la-la-la-la!"

PORT WHITMAN UPDATE

PORT WHITMAN: Scrapping plans to build yet another wing on the Alfred M. Watson State Prison, and caving in to public opinion against the trash-to-steam plant in the Lawrence Park area, city officials have decided on an alternative plan that will use the old PW EngineWorks factory for trash sorting, employing prisoners to sort the city's refuse for recycling. "Trying to cover the increase in prison population is a never-ending frustration" said councilwoman Anna B. Frick, in announcing the plan.

The city will use the hi-tech Mitsubishi monitoring system to incarcerate prisoners in their own homes at night, employing them at the sorting plant during the day at regular prison wages. Prisoners are given three meals and work a schedule from 9 to 5. "It's a way of solving two problems at once: Prison overcrowding , and trash disposal" said Frick, citing the annual $35,000 it normally costs to house prison inmates at Watson and the growing prison population spurred by the drug war.

The trash is run thru a chemical rinse, then passed on a conveyor belt before gloved-and-masked prisoners, who sort it into metal, paper, plastic and glass, which are then shipped to salvage/recycling plants in the city for reprocessing. The trash is transported to and from the site by the PW Dept. of Public Works. What is left after recyclables have been sorted out is shipped to the Kahkwa landfill in South Port Whitman.

The PORT WHITMAN ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY (PWZS) has been flooded with applications for its proposed new "Homo Sapiens" exhibit, which will feature live human beings au naturel in a hermetically sealed controlled environment, year-round in the animal house at the Gridley Park Zoo. The controversial exhibit, first proposed by zoo director Frank Geddes, has been on hold for 14 months pending approval by the PWZS board and by the City Council, which will vote on the measure at its next meeting. "It looks like we've got the votes, so we're proceeding with the building of the "cages," and application forms were made available at municipal locations such as the zoo and the library on Jan. 15th" Geddes said in a recent appearance on PWTV's Human Matters.

Special units, constructed of transparent Lexan-type plastic will house male and female specimens, and provide the inhabitants with all the comforts of home, which in fact it will be, including television, dining and bathing, albeit totally under the public eye. Also included will be a universal gym for exercise, a telephone for local calls, a computer with broadband connection to the internet, and a rigidly controlled diet calculated to enhance health and longevity of the exhibit's subject.

Local schools are gradually beginning to apply for tours to the exhibit, to teach children about the human animal from a totally objective point of view, but PTA groups have shown mixed feelings about exposing children to the "peep show," as the exhibit has been characterized. However, Geddes pointed out that when the exhibit is explained to the groups, and it is learned that each child can take home a tape elaborating on man and his environment, they soften their objections. It is expected that within two years every biology class in the city will be exposed to the exhibit.

Applicants for the subjects in the cages will undergo a series of physical and psychological tests to insure that they will be able to fulfill the five-year contract with PWZS. It has been suggested that the two specimens be encouraged to actually breed in captivity, in full view of zoo patrons, similar to what the pandas and reptiles do, but for the present Geddes feels there would be too much official objection, and has therefore precluded that consideration, under advisement from religious organizations. The exhibit, expected to open sometime next summer, will be monitored by the PW chapter of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Humans (SPOCH).