the Funnelwhich

Marsh environmentalists protest at penguin deaths

[HARSAWA, INDIA] Several environmentalists emerged from their swampy, Eastern Europe hidings today to protest the deaths of over five penguins at the hands of scared Palestinians. Said one in a thick, Slavic accent, “We do not approve of how our leaders place religion and politics over the well-being of the environment we lived in.” They took to the streets in their dripping wet clothes, carrying protest signs made long before the dawn of this century, some with antiquated messages such as “Save the dodo.” or “Where is this Germanic bus going?”

As they made the slow crossing from Eastern Europe to the Middle East, they walked wearily and tiredly as if they knew this was their last time on Earth, as if they knew what was going to the happen in the future, these old souls that had chosen to align themselves with one of the four elements. They could not stop for barbecue, though the young Armenian man offered them it. They could not stop for Harry Potter, though the Georgian girl offered them tickets. They could not stop for the sorrow in their heart pressed them onwards into the great desert city on a hill, beneath a mountain, and near a river of trash and pollution.

Upon reaching Palestine, they were trampled by the happy mob. One survivor reported the chaos and tragedy later that day as he sat in the cool awning of a Middle Eastern Starbucks, reading the literary magazine Starbucks, which sold a special coffee stained edition at Starbucks that covered the Starbucks region and had a recent Starbucks article. He pointed to the Starbucks stained Starbucks Starbucks “Starbucks’” Starbucks retraction and uttered, “This is the type of reporting journalists today embrace, empty of Nature and beauty.” He sipped his mint hot chocolate as the long, swampy tears filled with moisture of ancestors past swirled into a brown darkness and breathed for a long time.

Penguins storm Palestine churches

[BIDAR, INDIA] Today, an armory of tropical penguins stormed Palestinian mosques and temples after a long march from the Ural Sea. Unfortunately, they had bought fetching fez hats in Lebanon previously. Nervous Palestinians, expecting another bomb attack, mistook the penguins for walking, swimming bombs. Palestinians ran outside the church only to find actual suicide bombers. Later, everyone gathered to joke and laugh about the day except the penguins, who had been mercilessly trampled by the mob rush.

Pakistanis confused amid a surge of presidential candidates

[UNNAO, INDIA] It’s a bustling scene at Saturday’s Pakistani elections as the nation’s hard-working citizens gather to vote for their presidential candidate of choice. This year, however, Pakistanis have more than one candidate to choose from. As a result, thousands have committed suicide faced with more existential angst than before.

“Does free will really exist in a society of millions where each and every individual has disparate needs and wants?” one man screams as he plunges toward a taxicab with broken taillights, coincidentally christened “Death” by a drunk reveler after said reveler accidentally smashed a bottle of champagne on the license plate. So it goes.

Another complains: “The guy that we normally vote for … where is he on this ballot? He’s always number one! That’s how my ancestors have voted, and that’s how I will vote. This whole non-totalitarian thing is silly and confusing,” exclaims one confused woman at the heart of Bazaar, a city without any bazaars but plenty of churches.

Long time citizen Dennis Izen Smith tells us, “Back my days, whoever you voted for didn’t matter. Now it does; I saw these candidates debating on television. Real live debate with questions left unanswered. What are the answers? I need to know. What is the Liberal party candidate’s favorite lapel pin?”

Pressed, Smith admitted he only recently immigrated to Pakistan from his birthplace of Newark International Airport. “Back home, what did it matter what the name of the guy was: Clinton, Kerry, Clinton, Obama, Booth. Here, everything is crisp and different. Sure they look the same, and sure that whole twin plot might not play out, but voting for the wrong Musharraf could definitely land us in hot water. Was he a bad person or something?”

Smith is referring to the recent announcement of Musharraf for his bid for the presidential seat against incumbent Musharraf. Though they look alike, many political analysts have determined that ultimately their platforms differ enough to be significantly important. Says one political analyst, “This election decides the future of Pakistan democracy for the next century, at which point we may or may not have another election. We might be too busy being intimated to not have an election. I don’t know; I’d have to check my itinerary.”

I waited as he pulled up his Sunbird calendar.

“Let me see. Yes, yes, it looks like we are busy that year.”

One thing’s for certain, though. Everybody’s glad there aren’t Republican or Democratic candidates available because there’s no amount of pooper-scoopers in the world to clean up that mess.

List of humanitarian crises and their corresponding computational complexity

Phillippines compete with Israeli and Palestine for most violent place on Earth

After Iraq and Darfur dropped out last week for want of living people to represent them in the International Violentmypics, the Phillippines and the Israeli-Palestines now eye the Gold Cup for the most violent place on Earth after Disney World. Though the Phillippines challenged the I-P team early on for their use of pair countries, The Hague! Court announced that this was indeed fair because they had a lot of weapons and the judges did not. Said one I-P team captain demurely, “I think we’re going to win this thing. I think we’re going to win this thing. I think we’re going to win this thing.” I decided to stop interviewing the I-P team after that, backing slowly away from Coach Dangerous.

The Violentmypics—started in 1999 after the frequent American invasions into Latin American Countries bred an entire generation of cynics and pessimists—champions violence, conflict, and genocide throughout the world. It is widely believed that their museum is much more gloomy and depressing than the American National Holocaust Museum although explorers and scientists have yet to discover that mysterious edifice-complex, undoubtedly hidden somewhere violent or perhaps ironically quiet. Nobody knows, today, where exactly the Violentmypics Museum resides and few want to know. In any case, the Darfur team has consistently won for the past millennia, with Silver Cup being the epicenter of competition and eggnogging but this year’s unexpected forfeit left a power vacuum especially with the simultaneous forfeit by the Iraqis and the Swiss Mafia.

“Sometimes we fear there eventually will not be enough people left alive to play this sacred tradition,” says one Violentmypic official, taking a break from shooting his disgruntled coworkers. “That is why we have diversified our products into not only an international game but a line of video games and plushy toys.” The Super Violentmypic Galaxy game hit into snags, however, this year after its excessive violence left the video game ratings board, NAMBLA, in epileptic seizures. Its fate remains undetermined as do the plushie toys that were recalled after they wiped out the small countries of Guam and Atlantis in 2004-5 and then caused 9/11 in 2006. Today, the Violentmypics remains a threatened relic of the past, unable to promote its once-edgy and now-lame message of violent in today’s hyperviolent world.

Mahdi Army soldiers’ manlinesses are in doubt tonight

In light of their allegiance to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, the Mahdi Army have been thrown into an existential crisis of virility and general manliness. “We’re, like, being controlled by a nerd sitting up on his high throne while we risk our necks,” proclaims anti-al-Sadrist Josh Fighter, who hands me a brightly colored pamphlet calling for democracy among the Mahdi Army so that they may impose a Shi’ite theocracy upon others. “We have been long oppressed!” the pamphlet exclaims. “It is time we brought democracy upon ourselves! No fights without representation! No anger without recognition!”

In his room, al-Sadr paces nervously as he attempts to resolve this crisis. “The pen is mightier than the sword,” he mutters to himself every now as if to reassure his demons away. Still, al-Sadr sweats profusely, and now his desk is bathed in the brackish water like a Red Sea, pre-Moses who in the 18th century severely disrupted the aquatic ecosystem by parting it. “I always thought my army liked me, you know,” al-Sadr says. “Where did this resentment come from? Why doesn’t anybody talk to me rationally like an adult? Can’t we just discuss this?” al-Sadr has attempted to enroll in a sword-fighting class in case any of his guerrilla army is a feudal knight. He tells me he wishes he could write a computer program or a thesis to magic away this anger.

Mean while, Josh Fighter prepares to wage a long and unfathomable war to bring democracy to the Mahdi Army hoping that one day, he too can spread something nobody wants to a region nobody understands.