President of MTV "Freezes" While Kanye West Terrorizes VMAs

Seemingly taking a cue from Congressman Joe Wilson, Kanye West violated the sacred decorum usually associated with the Video Music Awards when he took Taylor Swift's microphone while she was giving her acceptance speech last night.  West went on to complain that singer Beyonce deserved the honor, only to be greeted with a chorus of boos from the audience.

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While this was happening, many were wondering why West was allowed to take to the stage so easily.  Why did the broadcast not cut to commercial?  This morning, the answer to those questions became clear.

VMA host Russell Brand, "I wanted to go to commercial, but a decision that drastic had to be deferred to the President, Van Toffler.  I tried to reach him as soon as we realized what was happening.  We saw Kanye making his way to the stage.  Toffler gave us no response, he just froze."

At the time, Toffler was giving a speech to other MTV executives.  A witness describes the scene in the room as: "Total silence.  Someone came in the room and whispered in his ear that Kanye West had just taken the microphone from Taylor Swift.  He just looked stunned, then he went back to reading from his report.  He told us after that he didn't want people to panic."

Toffler could not be reached for comment.

Brand is upset that more wasn't done to prevent a Kanye attack.  "We received intelligence that Kanye West was planning on attacking the awards with douchebaggery, but nobody paid attention to it.  We even knew to focus on the stage, because Kanye would want to maximize his audience.  This situation could have easily been prevented.  It's not like he hasn't done this before."

Comedian Mike Myers agrees that more should be done to prevent future Kanye West attacks.  "When he said 'George Bush doesn't care about black people' you saw the shock on my face.  I was caught completely off guard.  We should know better now.  We should have learned.  I know I'll never forget."

Concerned Parent Recommends Pulling Children From al-Gebra Classes Due to Fears of Indoctrination

While Barack Obama's speech to America's children has been written about in newspapers and discusses on news commentary shows, a Morristown man has been trying to raise awareness of an issue he feels is even more important.

[caption id="attachment_268" align="alignright" width="300" caption="The Qu'ran is in here, I just know it!"][/caption]

"I'm not one of those crazy folk who thinks that Barack Obama is going to come out and openly attempt to indoctrinate our children with his Muslim socialist fascist views," said Kyle Newton, a parent.  "I think that he, and people like him, are going to be much more subtle."

Newton believes he has figured it out, thanks to a tip from a friend, who was taking a world religion course at a local community college.

"He was telling me all about the different contributions that the arabs have made to our culture," Newton said.  "He's a nice guy, so I figured I'd humor him and pretend to be interested.  I could hardly hide my shock when he told me that the arabs invented algebra.  I thought I had to turn to a reliable source before I believed that nonsense."

After looking on Wikipedia, Newton says he was convinced. 

Obama Describes Kennedy's Commitment to Universal Social Networking

Ted Kennedy was laid to rest today, and President Barack Obama provided a stirring eulogy, which focused on one of the late Senator's dying wishes for America.  Obama spoke at length of Kennedy's desire that everyone, both rich and poor, from both upper and lower classes, of all races, had access to quality social networking sites.

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"To paraphrase his brother Jack," Obama said, "Ask not what Facebook can do for you; ask what you can do for Facebook.  You say the quizzes are boring?  What are you doing to make them better?"

Kennedy believed that all Americans had an inherent right to share the minutiae of their lives with the world.  He pointed to programs in other countries that provided Facebook accounts and internet access to all their citizens, something lacking in the United States.

Look at me! - Part Two

I had an brief but interesting discussion with a much more accomplished writer about this article .  I am not going to use his name, in case I misrepresent his position (it's hard to have a reasonable discussion in 140 character bursts.)  He said that he agreed with the data, but disagreed with the conclusion, saying, "Ultimately, my take is that people love to talk about themselves and showcase expertise. Soc.media enables that."

Perhaps because I have narcissistic tendencies, I agree with the article's conclusions that there is a strong attraction for people to use Twitter and Facebook as a tool for validation.  In fact, in my post "Look at Me!" I used the same phrase as the author does - "The Age of Entitlement."  I believe that social networking tools provide a benefit.  I'm very happy that I have been able to re-connect with friends with whom I've lost contact over time, although I have to say that I could do with less updates about their kids, but maybe that's just me.  I find Twitter to be very useful, as I always have been more adept at coming up with funny headlines or one-liners, while writing a full story can be arduous.  I find Twitter's 140 character limit freeing.

Damon, Carlton, and a Polar Bear (and me!)

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Anyone who knows me knows that I am a huge fan of the television show Lost.  For example, I spent a large part of my trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art trying to find the four-toed statue.  When I heard that the people behind the show were going to sell prints from an artist based on the Lost mythology as part of a plan to promote Season Six, I was really interested.  When the first print when up for sale, I ordered one.  I'm not sure if they are still available, but take a look here: http://actuallyitsketchup.com/dcpb/I/

It came yesterday, so I was really excited.  I was also intrigued because Fed Ex had left a package delivery attempt note on our door that said we had another package.  Neither my wife nor I had ordered anything else lately so we were both at a loss for what it could be.  I thought to myself, "Self, there's no way it could be something else from Lost, right?

Wrong.

It turns out that I was the first person to place an order for the first print.  The artist sent me a print(24/30) of the original Damon, Carlton, and a Polar Bear painting!  To see what that's all about, start here: http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Damon,_Carlton,_and_a_Polar_Bear

Keep your eyes out for the next print.  Who knows, maybe they'll be doing this for future prints!

Jimmy

Independent Death Contractors Fear Competition From Government Run Death Panels

Information has recently surfaced linking lobbying groups such as Freedom Works to sites that promote "grassroots"

[caption id="attachment_227" align="alignright" width="199" caption="Would you have this man killed by amateurs?"][/caption]

support for protestors seeking to "break up" town hall meetings about health care reform.  Media outlets in the left, such as The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, have been investigating connections between these seemingly spontaneous supports of anger and lobbying firms which appear to be funding them.  Today, there was a new and surprising development in the investigation.  Sources indictate that a lobbying firm, Totally Transparent and Honest Citizens for Change, has been producing radio and television advertisements describing health care reform as "a secret plot to kill old people," as Maddow often desribes such scare tactics.

Political advertisements are often funded by special interest groups, so the discovery that TTHCC is producing these advertisements is not shocking, or even surprising.  However, it is the special interest group that hired the firm that is the story.  The firm was hired by the small yet powerful Serial Killers of the Elderly lobby.

Song Parody: My Grandma Got Put Down By Obama

(to the tune of "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer")

My Grandma got put down by Obama
I can't believe that we were so naive
You say there's no such thing as Death Panels.
But as for me and Grandpa, we believe.

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Yes, Sarah Palin tried to save us
With a nod, a smile and wink
But thanks toCharlie's gotcha questions
Her career in politics is on the brink

With help from her friends Rush and Glenn Beck
She's telling us just how we were deceived
She can see through facts and logic
To tell Real America what to believe

My Grandma got put down by Obama
I can't believe that we were so naive
You say there's no such thing as Death Panels.
But as for me and Grandpa, we believe.

The Secret World of Political Alts

Many in the online community are familiar with the practice of using "alts," or an additional profile that the user logs in as to say things that they wouldn't want coming from their primary profile.  Additionally, people use alts to "troll" discussion forums or comment sections on websites, which is a practice in which the user makes a series of inflammatory statements meant only to provoke a strong reaction from the website's other users.

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In the last few years, unknown to most, these two trends have been making the transition from the internet to the real world.  While obviously false public personas like Stephen Colbert, Sasha Baron Cohen's "Borat," and Ann Coulter have inundated the airwaves, they never truly crossed over into the political world.  Until Decision 2008.

"Looking back on it, how can you not conclude that the 2008 Presidential campaign was just a series of practical jokes?" says celebrtiy internet trend consultant Rick the Analyst.  The Democrats nominated a black guy, whose middle name is Hussein.  I mean, come on!"

Christian Cleaners: "No More Wire Hangers!"

The debate over abortion has broken out in an unlikely place: dry cleaners.  Most people think of their local dry cleaners as a place where they can bring their clothes to have them professionally cleaned and pressed.  To such an uninformed consumer, all those paper-enveloped wire hangers are simply a place to hang a shirt.  However, these useful tools can be used to perform "back-alley abortions," creating a moral dillema for Christian dry cleaners.

Emboldened by the recent stories regarding Christian pharmacists refusing to dispense the Plan B emergency contraceptive, a small, but growing group of Christian dry cleaners are refusing to use wire hangers at their businesses.

Welcome to the new site!

Welcome to everyone who knew me from my work at The Fake News, as well as anyone who just happened upon this site.  My old site focused only on news satire, which I enjoyed and still enjoy.  However, it was a lot of work to keep up a feasible posting schedule.  Also, I wanted to post other content in addition to news satire.  Anyway, keep checking back and thanks for stopping by!

UPDATE:

I think I am going to move the majority of stories from The Fake News here in the next little while.

Palin Book Titles

We know it's coming, but what will it be called?

My pick is "As I Say, Lying."  What do you think?

Moving on up!

I'm moving to www.jimmywellington.com starting next week. Please update your bookmarks (ha ha!) accordingly.

What If Sarah Palin Gave The Gettysburg Address?

After Gov. Palin's rambling, incoherent resignation speech, I began to wonder what it would have been like if she had given famous speeches throughout history. Here's Part One: Gettysburg.

Hi Gettysburg. About eighty some odd years ago in the past, those brave forefathers of ours gave a precious gift to US. They gave (to us!) this amazing country of ours that we live and reside in, founded in God's LIBERTY!! And also, it's dedicated to the fact that all of us are created by God, who is so amazing, to be the same.

What if Sarah Palin Wrote The Gettysburg Address?

After Gov. Palin's rambling, incoherent resignation speech, I began to wonder what it would have been like if she had given famous speeches throughout history. Here's Part One: Gettysburg.

Hi Gettysburg. About eighty some odd years ago in the past, those brave forefathers of ours gave a precious gift to US. They gave (to us!) this amazing country of ours that we live and reside in, founded in God's LIBERTY!! And also, it's dedicated to the fact that all of us are created by God, who is so amazing, to be the same.

Right now, even as I stand here before you to speak, this great country of ours is wrapped up in a battle for Real Americans against people led by those chattering class intellectual elites who sit in their ivory towers and plan to try to destroy me. Right here on this war zone, I stand READY to take those people on! I do this in the memory of our brave soldiers who fight and die to protect our freedoms, like the First Amendment, that guarantees me the ability to speak what I believe in my heart to be true without those in the press conducting a witch hunt of me and my financial transactions. And here at this site where brave men like my son Track fought and died for those hard-fought liberties that I and my children, who are here with me: Bristol, Willow, and Piper – say "Hi" kids!, enjoy so much since they live in this great country of ours.

However, If we take a step back and look at the bird's eye big picture view, our brave men and women like my son Track have made this ground even more special than words can ever do. Even after I make this speech, and the press "fact checks" (important: make sure to use finger quotes for that dramatic effect) it, and points out all the alleged "factual discrepancies," (more finger quotes!) and those talking heads on the television spend a week talking about it and I pick a fight with one of them and the press talks about it for another week and I do something completely impulsive and unexpected and the press talks about it some more - as long as that lasts, we will never forget the sacrifices our brave men and woman made to protect our freedoms. Those of us who make up the group of the living need to get those hands dirty and those noses to that grindstone to keep going forward with that GREAT mission that our brave men and women in uniform started, in addition to protecting our freedoms. It's just so important for us here now to realize how much further we have to go to protect this great country built buy our brilliant, patriotic forefathers and protected by our brave men and women in uniform, some of whom have given the ultimate sacrifice, giving their own God-given life in defense of this great nation. And we need to say to them, "Listen guys and gals, we will make sure that us Real Americans always remember your sacrifice!" And our nation, under God, indivisible, with LIBERTY and justice for all, will be born again in freedom and liberty and justice for all. And we will always remember and we will never forget, that America is the greatest country on Earth and although many things divide us, our faith in God unites us and will continue to keep us going forward on that bright road of democracy. God bless you, and GOD BLESS AMERICA!

You Should Be Afraid of the Dark (Man)

I wrote a post a few weeks back about discovering the Grammar Girl podcast. The woman behind Grammar Girl has started another podcast, called "Behind the Grammar," in which she interviews authors and writes about literature. Through this podcast, I learned about author J.C. Hutchins, and his latest novel Personal Effects: Dark Art.

I read many genres of literature, but I really enjoy a good thriller. I decided to buy his novel based soley on his interview on the "Behind the Grammar" podcast. I was mainly intrigued by the unique method of storytelling Hutchins and his collaborator Jordan Weisman used to unspool a rich tapestry of terror, revenge, and mystery. You see, Personal Effects: Dark Art is not just a book, it's an experience.

You Should Be Afraid of the Dark (Man)

I wrote a post a few weeks back about discovering the Grammar Girl podcast. The woman behind Grammar Girl has started another podcast, called "Behind the Grammar," in which she interviews authors and writes about literature. Through this podcast, I learned about author JC Hutchins, and his latest novel Personal Effects: Dark Art.

I read many genres of literature, but I really enjoy a good thriller. I decided to buy his novel based soley on his interview on the "Behind the Grammar" podcast. I was mainly intrigued by the unique method of storytelling Hutchins and his collaborator Jordan Weisman used to unspool a rich tapestry of terror, revenge, and mystery. You see, Personal Effects: Dark Art is not just a book, it's an experience.

Each reader will find, enclosed in a pocket attached to the inside front cover, a pile of paper and plastic. A driver's license and bank card for one Martin Grace, who is apparently a character in the book. Copies of birth and death certificates. A strange, incredibly colored drawing. A letter from the...CIA? What the...?

These "personal effects" are an integral part of the story. While the novel itself is very entertaining, the other aspects (in addition to the personal effects, the reader finds websites to visit, numbers to call, passwords to suss out) immerse the reader in an alternate world, in which the reader has access to more information than do the characters in the story.

The plot centers around Zach Taylor, an art therapist who works at a psychiatric hospital lovingly referred to as "The Brink." He uses art to help his patients work through their myriad of psychiatric issues, many of which are interesting enough to merit their own book. When he attempts to treat the aforementioned Grace, a psychosomatically blind man who is accused of murdering a dozen people in amazingly gruesome fashion, his ability is severely tested and his own dark past intertwines with his patient's.

After finishing the book, I'm still left with unsolved questions and nagging inconsistencies. Why did one of the characters refer to another character by a name he shouldn't have known about? Why is the story Zach Taylor tells different than an incident report? How does information found on one of the fake web sites about Zach's lineage fit into the story?

My wife and I have an agreement that I'm not allowed to talk during any type of mystery movie or television show, because I have an awesome (annoying if you ask her) knack for figuring out what will happen before we're meant to know. With this story, I was able to see some plot twists coming, while others surprised me. Some of this was definitely due to scrutinizing the "personal effects" as soon as I opened the package from Amazon.

In addition to being a writer who has a vision of the future of storytelling, Hutchins is one of the most accessible writers I've encountered. I sent him several direct messages on Twitter and he replied to all of them. It seems that he spends a great deal of time interacting with his fans, which I know from my experience running The Fake News can be a time consuming process.

If you like thriller/horror novels, I urge you to pick up Personal Effects: Dark Art by J.C. Hutchins and Jordan Weisman. You'll find out that even if you can't see in the dark, the dark can see you!

Words Have Meaning: Empathy Already Has a Definition, Senator

In general, I want to stay away from politics in my "serious writing," at least for the time being. Talking about politics ostracizes people who don't agree with you, and it's not a smart idea to alienate potential readers. However, my interest in language takes me into the realm of politics today, although I will attempt to treat the issue objectively.

In yesterday's Congressional hearing on the confirmation of Judge Sotomayor to the US Supreme Court, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions said this: “Empathy for one party is always prejudice against another.” This quote is absolutely ludicrous.

Words Have Meaning: Empathy already has a definition, Senator

In general, I want to stay away from politics on this blog, at least for the time being. Talking about politics ostracizes people who don't agree with you, and it's not a smart idea to alienate potential readers. However, my interest in language takes me into the realm of politics today, although I will attempt to treat the issue objectively.

In yesterday's Congressional hearing on the confirmation of Judge Sotomayor to the US Supreme Court, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions said this: “Empathy for one party is always prejudice against another.” This quote is absolutely ludicrous.

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, empathy is defined as:

1: the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it

2: the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner ; also : the capacity for this.

Notice that there is no mention of bias in either of the definitions. As a future educator, it disgusts me to see empathy, which I feel is vital to fully understanding any subject, used in a negative connotation. Empathy is being able to see another point of view, it has nothing to do with being biased towards that point of view.

I realize that much of the debate deals with Judge Sotomayor's alleged reliance on emotion rather than the rule of law. As I said earlier, I'm not using this forum to discuss that topic. However, I simply cannot sit idly by while United States Senators are changing the meaning of words. If Senator Sessions means bias, he should use that word. Empathy is such a positive trait that it is absolutely despicable for him to drag this word into the mud with him.

The word "empathy" already has a definition, Senator.

Anything I Can Do You Can Do Better

Don't you hate it when you come up with a brilliant idea, a fantastic way to satisfy an itch that nobody else is scratching, only to find out that someone else has been doing it for years? It reminds me of the time that I created an animated sitcom about a fat man who is inexplicably married to a beautiful woman, also featuring a talking dog and a baby bent on world destruction.

I thought it would be a great idea to come up with a series of posts that explain common grammatical problems in a fun way that people can remember. I still think this is a great idea, but my enthusiasm is somewhat tempered by the discovery that someone has been doing it. For years.

Anything I can do you can do better

Don't you hate it when you come up with a brilliant idea, a fantastic way to satisfy an itch that nobody else is scratching, only to find out that someone else has been doing it for years? It reminds me of the time that I created an animated sitcom about a fat man who is inexplicably married to a beautiful woman, also featuring a talking dog and a baby bent on world destruction.

I thought it would be a great idea to come up with a series of posts that explain common grammatical problems in a fun way that people can remember. I still think this is a great idea, but my enthusiasm is somewhat tempered by the discovery that someone has been doing it. For years.

So, allow me to fully endorse Mignon Fogarty, aka Grammar Girl, who hosts the Grammar Girl podcast, which is found on iTunes or at her site http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/. It's pretty much everything I had thought of doing, but done much, much better.

Each podcast addresses a common grammar stumbling block in a humorous and memorable way. Her show is sort of a "Grammar for Dummies" in concept, but without the unfortunate title of that series. Seriously, why would anyone want to buy a book supposedly marketed to "dummies?" I guess "Plumbing For People Who Are Knowledgeable in Other Areas But Not Well Versed in the Field of Plumbing" doesn't fit on the cover. Aside: Do they make Depression for Dummies? That book seems counterproductive to me:

Patient: "I'm feeling much better. This book has really helped me to understand my condition *looks at cover* Now I feel worse about myself again..."

But seriously, check out the podcast.