Report: Majority Of Newspapers Now Purchased By Kidnappers To Prove Date
NEW YORK—According to a report published this week in American Journalism Review, 93 percent of all newspaper sales can now be attributed to kidnappers seeking to prove the day's date in filmed ransom demands.
A resourceful captor pieces together a ransom note after finishing the Style section.
"Although the vast majority of Americans now get their news from the Internet or television, a small but loyal criminal element still purchases newspapers at a steady rate," study author and Columbia journalism professor Linus Ridell said. "The sober authority of the printed word continues to hold value for those attempting to extort large sums of money from wealthy people who wish to see their loved ones alive again, and not chopped into pieces and left in steamer trunks on their doorsteps."
"These are sick, sick individuals," Ridell added. "God bless them for saving our industry."
According to a source who wished to remain anonymous, there is an ineffable quality to the printed page that kidnappers cannot get from its digital counterpart. Though there are other methods for proving the date of grainy, home-made videos, the source said that newspapers add a certain gravitas to abductions that news websites do not.
"Holding a laptop next to a kid's head while blood is streaming from his nose just isn't the same," said the source, adding that printed materials remove any uncertainty about dates being altered with Photoshop or other digital manipulation software. "There's just something about the feel of newsprint and the smell of ink coupled with the mildew odor of a windowless basement that can't be replaced. Ultimately, I think newspapers make the whole thing more tangible and concrete for everyone involved."
"They're also great for wrapping up a severed ear and mailing it to the family when they don't come through with the cash fast enough," the source continued. "And I always enjoy reading For Better Or For Worse."
In an effort to cater to their sole remaining customer base, many newspapers have started to run features and advertising targeted at the ruthless abductors. The Washington Post recently sold a two-page advertorial to a popular ski-mask manufacturer, while The New York Times now offers a real estate section dedicated primarily to abandoned warehouses, remote wooden sheds, and converted industrial meat freezers hidden from prying eyes.
In addition to buoying the failing newspapers, criminals are also providing a revenue stream to struggling magazines and other weekly periodicals, the report said. While most Americans have cut back on specialty publications, kidnappers still find them useful for making cut-and-paste ransom letters and death threats.
Although newsstand sales remain steady, neither newspapers nor magazines have seen much growth in terms of subscriptions, as their last existing consumers are extremely reluctant to provide permanent addresses.
"In order to reflect the purchasing habits of our most loyal customers, we will work with our distributors to ensure that these people can get newspapers at all hours of the night in inconspicuous, security-camera-free venues," said billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who later offhandedly mentioned that his wife often takes late-evening walks all by herself. "As long as violent sociopaths continue to abduct those closest to affluent people for huge cash ransoms, the long and storied tradition of the American newspaper will be preserved."
The newspaper industry joins several other sectors that are supported solely by kidnappers, including, most notably, voice-modulator manufacturing and sales.
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Frowning Michelle Obama To Be Printed On All Fast Food Containers
_________________ "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." -- John Steinbeck
It's Not A Crack House, It's A Crack Home By Helen Ulrich Coke Whore December 3, 1996 | Issue 30•17
I'll bet a day doesn't go by that I don't hear something negative about crack cocaine, and the people who love it. Well, it just so happens that, despite all the mudslinging you may have read in the magazines, there are plenty of decent, hardworking crack lovers, just like in any other "walk of life."
Just because someone is desperately addicted to an incredibly intense form of refined cocaine doesn't mean they've forgotten about those old-fashioned values like thrift, cooperation and helping each other out. People always describe crack houses as someplace they wouldn't want to be. Well, the truth of the matter is that I wouldn't want to live anywhere where the people aren't working together. And that was exactly the key to turning our crack house into a crack home!
Just like a good drug needs to be cut in just the right proportions, an honest-to-goodness crack home needs the right mix of people, each with their own special qualities, but who are willing to be "team players" to achieve their shared goal of constantly staying high on a really expensive drug. Crack doesn't grow on trees, you know!
A home needs whores, shakedown boys, thieves, muggers, scam artists--a whole range of diverse people with unique attributes. Cooperation: That's the difference between a bunch of shivering people hitting the pipe in the same abandoned building, and a real family sharing a home.
We have a chart on the refrigerator to remind everyone of their duties, and we rotate the chores on a regular basis to make it fair. No one likes to get fucked in the ass by strangers every day for a week straight, do they? No, so we switch the chores so that today it's prostitution, but tomorrow it might be liquor-store hold-ups or muggings. I add colorful stickers and glitter to our duty chart, but you can personalize yours anyway you want, maybe by cutting pictures out of old magazines or using bright fuzzy yarn to string up the amputated fingers of suppliers who have passed you bad rock.
We're one big family in our crack home because we recognize the uniqueness of each and every individual addict. (Not everyone is good at everything, but everyone is good at something!) We keep the lines of communication open and remember to listen so everyone has a friend to turn to. Sure, we may poke fun when the maggots covering the piles of garbage find their way into the gaping sores all over Eddie's body that never seem to heal--but we'd never kick him out of the room just because we don't want to look at him.
Maybe someday our crack home will even have a till jar for bus rides to the free clinic. Then, hopefully, Yolanda will never again have to throw herself off the fire escape and crawl back upstairs to have a miscarriage on the kitchen floor. Another big part of turning a crack house into a crack home is respect for everyone. Dr. Maxwell McFarland, author of Wake up and Live, reminds us that everything alive on this earth is dependent on something else. No one is a loner! I need you and you need me! If the pick-up doesn't come through and I start shaking so bad that I vomit, and someone else needs to vomit too, I'll share the cardboard box. If DeeDee has gone catatonic and hasn't shut her eyes since yesterday, none of us knock her over just for fun.
And if anyone should overdose or get shot or even just suddenly find a torrent of blood streaming from their nostrils and then choke to death on mouthfuls of black-red mucus, we all help carry the body over into the neighbor's yard. Like I said, it's about mutual respect. And if the body lays in the yard too long and stuff starts to eat it, we'll throw something over it.
I've been told it takes a whole village to raise a child and I believe it, so if Lisa's baby works her way free, I'll do my part to make sure she doesn't crawl out the window again.
Last but not least, there's no squabbling and rowing allowed in a good home. I even made a big sign that said "Words can hurt... Think before you speak!" and I hung it where everyone would see it--right over the big metal trash can that everyone defecates into now that the broken toilet fell through the urine-soaked floor. Almost everyone abides by the no-fighting rule, but if a conflict comes up, we have a house meeting and every one of us gets a vote. (Everyone, great or small, counts!) Then whoever is on "Judge" duty on the chore chart takes the person deemed at fault, and kills that person.
Sure, not all of us are as good at certain tasks as another person might be, but that doesn't matter, as long as everyone tries their best. Remember, the only way to be a winner is to first be a beginner! When you're trying to win one for the home team, 100 percent participation from every member is key. Anything less and Custard will shoot your arms off at the shoulder at close range.
The things I've told you about are all common sense. I was a Home Economics teacher for 31 years before I got hooked on crack and sold my Taurus station wagon, converting the cash into bags of pure snow. But I don't have any tricks up my sleeve, just a wish to see everyone reach their potential!
Surprisingly, when I moved into our little windowless abode, the homies were somewhat reluctant to make any changes at first. But after I knitted everyone a sweater--to combat the shakes--and got Custard on my side by becoming his bitch, everyone else followed right along. And now here we are, Home Sweet Home, a real family until we die or the city demolishes the building.
Priest Shortage Forces Vatican To Hire Temps To Deliver Sacred Rites
October 19, 2009 | Issue 45•43
MILWAUKEE—In an emergency effort to boost the dwindling number of Roman Catholic priests in the United States, the Vatican contracted with a nationwide staffing firm last week to hire thousands of temporary employees to provide liturgical services and administer holy sacraments in its American churches.
Following a background check, all newly ordained temps must take a vow of punctuality.
"The reduced number of active diocesan clergy has forced us to take unprecedented measures to stop parishes from closing," Pope Benedict XVI explained in a decree issued Saturday by the Vatican. "That is why, for the first time in two millennia, we're allowing pretty much anyone who is willing to show up at 9 a.m. and work for slightly more than minimum wage to act as a Vessel of Christ."
According to a statement issued by Manpower Inc., most of the part-time priest applicants are 18- to 26-year-old males with no previous clerical experience. After watching a 35-minute video on the Rite of Ordination and receiving Holy Orders during a brief phone conference, new hires are issued two sets of ecclesiastical vestments and assigned to fill a pastoral vacancy.
Randy Nelson, a recently hired temp priest at St. Joseph's Cathedral in Miami, said he was initially nervous about celebrating mass in front of a large congregation, but soon got the hang of it.
"I was a little intimidated on my first day because I had no idea what I was supposed to do during communion," said Nelson, referring to the transubstantiation of the Holy Eucharist, a miracle he is expected to perform at each mass in order to transform earthly bread and wine into the Most Precious Body and Blood of Christ. "But basically I just have to pour some watered-down cabernet into the gold cup, wave my arms around, say some stuff about God, and give each person in line one of those wafer things."
Frequent cigarette breaks offer temps the chance to pity the poor souls who have to work there full-time.
"It's really not all that different from a fast food gig," Nelson added. "Except maybe the uniforms here are a bit more humiliating."
Many temp priests told reporters they were only planning to work for the Church until they could land a more serious job, and that having the name of an archdiocese on their resumé was probably better than nothing.
"This is okay for now. They need somebody to do their grunt work and I need the money," said recent college graduate Justin Willingham, explaining that the vow of celibacy is "kind of a drag" but that he rarely has sex between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. anyway. "Plus, I make a ton in tips. The people here are super generous."
According to parishioners at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Fayetteville, AR, their recently acquired temp is unfamiliar with many of his priestly duties and frequently takes the Lord's name in vain when he loses his place during Gospel readings.
"These things never happened when Father Tom [Whelan] was here," said Gloria Huston, 67. "In the 45 years that I've been a member of this parish I never once saw a priest sitting on the altar eating McDonald's."
Ben Rosenthal, 23, who is a newcomer to Catholicism, said the most interesting part of his job is administering the Sacrament of Penance, because while sitting in the confessional he hears "all kinds of shit you wouldn't believe."
"My friends were totally cracking up when I told them how Doug Merchant confessed to having impure thoughts about his next-door neighbor's daughter and was almost caught masturbating in the bushes outside her window," Rosenthal said. "I feel like I should probably call the cops on some of these people, but during orientation they told us we would get fired if we broke the Seal of Confession. So I just make them say a lot of Hail Marys."
While a majority of temps said they were happy just to have a job, some, like Greg Purcell, believe the priesthood is simply too demanding.
"There's no fucking way I'm working Sundays," Purcell said. "Not for what they pay."
Despite receiving numerous applications from qualified women with extensive knowledge of Church doctrine and advanced degrees in theology, the Vatican continues to oppose female ordination.
Man Dies After Secret 4-Year Battle With Gorilla October 26, 2009 | Issue 45•44
ROANOKE, VA—Local claims adjuster David Seaborne, a devoted husband and father of three, died Tuesday at the age of 37 following a long and painful personal battle with a 512-pound eastern lowland gorilla.
Bereaved family members say Seaborne was much too young to be taken by a gorilla (inset).
According to his wife, Christine—one of the few people who was aware of his courageous struggle—Seaborne chose to fight the muscular, quarter-ton primate in private night after night in hopes of maintaining as normal a life as was possible for his family.
"In some ways, I'm relieved that it's finally over and David can be at peace," said a tearful Mrs. Seaborne, clutching at a recent photograph of her husband, most of his hair missing after being ripped from his scalp by the rampaging jungle beast. "To watch him seclude himself in that basement every night and know that he was about to be in an unimaginable amount of pain—it just became too much to bear."
"He fought that terrible gorilla with every last ounce of strength he had, but in the end, David's body just couldn't handle it anymore," Mrs. Seaborne added. "Every morning, he'd look at me with tired eyes and deep scratches across his face, and he'd say, 'Honey, I'm going to beat this thing.' God, he was brave."
Mrs. Seaborne said she's used most of her husband's life insurance payout to start the David Seaborne Foundation, an organization dedicated to raising awareness of those battling gorillas or other great apes. According to the foundation's website, the growing problem affects one in every 29 million Americans, and one in every 80 Congolese.
Although Seaborne never let on to friends or coworkers that he was desperately fighting for his life with a violent primate, many suspected that something was wrong.
"I noticed that David had lost a lot of weight over the past couple of months, especially when he came in with his arm torn off," fellow claims adjuster Kevin Delano said. "He also left work early a lot for doctor's appointments, or when he was just too weak to make it through the day. Still, with all he was going through, David never complained."
The few people who knew of his hardship said that, even toward the end of his ordeal, when Seaborne was often completely covered in feces, the gorilla never managed to rob him of his dignity.
Dr. Earl Patterson, the physician who treated Seaborne throughout his life-or-death battle, initially gave Seaborne just six months to live. Though the prognosis was grim, Patterson said that, with the help of powerful tranquilizers, Seaborne was able to beat back the gorilla several times, and his situation started to look more promising.
The gorilla, however, eventually stopped responding to the drugs and returned with a vengeance.
"If we had caught this thing earlier, before its growth got completely out of control, David would have had a much better chance of survival," Patterson said. "But after it reached the silverback stage, it was only a matter of time."
"I tried to make David as comfortable as possible, and even gave him a helmet, but at that point the most we could do was pray," Patterson added.
Patterson said that he has strongly urged Seaborne's wife to take preventative measures to protect the couple's three sons, aged 9, 12, and 15, from suffering the same fate as their father.
"Because these things tend to run in the family, Jonathan, Patrick, and David Jr. are in a very high risk group," Patterson said. "Realistically, though, there just isn't a whole lot that can be done. After all, that gorilla is still in their basement."
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