Honk If You Are Stupid

Scenario: It is 1980, the car industry in America has almost collapsed, you are a high-school drop-out, you live in Detroit, your car-manufacturing employer is trying to strip you of all job benefits, you are facing plant closures every year, more foreign cars are hitting the market each day, your company is plagued by quality issues, your company is surviving on various forms of federal subsidies, your pension plan is continually being pared back, and you are holding your 6 month old child in your hands. What career advice do you give him or her?

The answer: Stay in Detroit and work for a car manufacturer.

Now that is real intelligent.

"Nev'r even seen it comin'," said Ruth Kolwowski a 45 year veteran of GM. "If you told me 20 years back I'd be here talkin' to yous 'bout GM closin', I wudda said you were plain ol' crazy." And why wouldn't she? After, all GM, like all the major US car companies are American establishments, and even greater legacies. However, deep down, past all of the empty plants that litter Detroit's suburbs, beyond the lines of picketers outside the remaining plants, Detroit's little secret is finally coming out in the open. What secret? The car companies are in trouble.

This is precisely what the American public, as well as the great and ever observant people in Detroit aren't supposed to know. Now, the government is dropping a whopper on the blue collar workers of Michigan: "No soup for you!"

"I just don't get it. They couldn't have given us a warning or something?" said one out of work mechanic. The car companies claim that they tried to signal that they were in trouble, but no one took them seriously. "I don't know how we could have been more clear. We said we didn't have any money. We said people were not buying our cars. We said we would close plants. We said that we were cutting pay and firing people across the board. What the hell do you people want?" said Chevy spokesman Keith Evans. These sentiments were echoed by others in the industry. "I thought that people would take us seriously when we told them we were literally out of money," said Rick Wagoner former CEO of GM.

Now the talk from Capitol Hill is all about retraining the workforce. The question that is lingering on the minds of millions is: Retrain them to do what? However, maybe a better question whould be: Who would want to hire them?

This is a workforce that got paid more than most Americans to do less than most Americans. In fact, at certain times these people actually got paid to do nothing. This is a workforce that worked set numbers of hours and was historically protected by one of the strongest and inflexible labor unions in the land. Just in case potential employers needed more motivation to not hire them, they speak with heavy accents, mostly lack college educations, and practically require Canadian visas to work in the US.

Sound good? That's the problem, it doesn't. Unfortunately for Detroit its citizens failed to see any one of the literally hundreds of warning signs over the past 30 years. Typically 30 years is long enough to notice that the boat is taking on water, and this ship was nothing short of the Titanic.

Not to worry! A new plan being hatched by the mayor of Detroit to save the city hinges on the US government paying each citizen an inflated salary to stay at home and guard the northern border against Al-Queda. During the winter when even Al-Queda can not cross the border without freezing to death, federal subsidies will be used to finance a chain of polka schools. Sound good? Honk if you do think so. Honk, Honk.

For God's Sake Don't Wear That Rubber!

The pope has made yet another controversial decision, this time relating to Africa. The pontiff has decided that he will only give communion to congregation members who are HIV positive while on his African pilgrimage. When asked about his decision, the pope indicated that he believes that anyone who is not HIV positive must have used some kind of contraceptive, and therefore is acting against God’s wishes.

Speaking through interpreters during Sunday’s mass, the Holy See had this to say to a packed church in the outskirts of Nairobi:

“HIV and AIDS are not the plague of the devil; they are the mark of Christianity. Condoms will not cure this affliction, God will, just like he will with malaria, cholera, dysentery, ebola, and other afflictions you face. Trust in God, not science or medicine. Condoms, vaccines, and other “advances” that are offered to you to as solutions are nothing more than modern witchcraft. Do you think Jesus used condoms? Do you think Jesus received vaccines? Of course he didn’t because God didn’t want him to. God wanted his children to experience all that he created, including love, peace, organ liquidification, oozing sores, constant diarrhea, paralysis, untold physical suffering, and infant death syndrome. That is what being a follower of God is all about.”

Several supporters in the crowd appeared slightly apprehensive at this guidance that is completely contradictory to what most of Africa has been hearing for the past decade. Local resident Ubi Alawaweh wondered aloud, “Does this mean that if I have AIDS now, but have been using condoms so as not to kill everyone I sleep with, that God wants me to stop using condoms and kill everyone I sleep with?”

One resident who received communion but asked not to be named took solace with the pope’s advice. “It is good to know that as a person with AIDS I can still do some good in this world. From today forward I promise to God that I will infect as many people as possible so as to spread his good word. I thank His Holiness for making me see God’s path.”

Not everyone is happy with the pope’s surprise revelation. Not profit groups like the American Red Cross have been flooded with questions since the announcement. “I am really speechless,” says Emily Pearson Director of Epidemiology for the Red Cross. “We have worked for years to tell people that practicing safe sex and getting regularly tested is the only way that we are going to fight this epidemic. Now we have people coming to us to get tested only because they want to go to church with their test results so they can receive communion. The whole situation is shameful.”

Some support groups are seeing mass confusion at a whole new level. One worker for USAID, one of the world’s largest non-profit humanitarian organizations, said that people are coming to USAID tents to actually receive HIV injections. “They think that we are selling AIDS, and when we tell them we are trying to prevent it we are called witch doctors and attacked. These people want AIDS because they think God wants them to have it.”

Attempts to interview the pope more directly on this new development have been rejected. When asked whether the pope is taking any precautionary medications himself, the Vatican issued a blanket statement that the pontiff, under God’s supervision, was not actively trying to prevent infections from lethal diseases (that would be a sin) but does take holy vitamins to keep his immune system strong. Only time will tell which side will emerge from this argument most unscathed, humanity or Christianity. Certainly this seems like a battle that will continue to rage well into the future.