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Chapter 5 Alternate Politics
Just Another Typical Wedgie Issue
by FRANCIS GRECOROMACOLLUDEN, Alternate Reality News Service National Politics Writer
You’re sitting in a subway, trying to avoid eye contact with the other passengers when this beautiful dark-haired woman sits opposite. She smiles warmly; there is an air of contented pleasure about her. She seems to know exactly what you’re thinking.
Is that a cellphone in her pocket, or is she just glad to see you?
Colorado Senator Harvard Yugen-Fruzje may not know you, but he’s betting that your presence in the subway is not what is giving the woman in our hypothetical opening paragraph scenario that warm glow. “Cellphones!” he snorts, setting aside the cocaine in his comfortably appointed office. “They’re the devil’s communications device!”
Senator Yugen-Fruzje argues that women were using the silent ring vibrating function of their cellphones to “pleasure themselves. Right there! In public! With god knows who watching!” So, the 16 time Republican Senator is sponsoring the uni-bi-partisan Senate bill HR 3261.
Bill HR 3261 makes it a crime for women to carry cellphones in their pants pockets. Critics of the bill point out that, as currently written, the bill does not make a distinction between where women carry cellphones in public and private. “What a woman does with a legally owned communications device behind closed doors,” stated American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Lucinda Veritas, “is not the business of the state!”
“Oh, everything is the business of the state!” Senator Yugen-Fruzje responded. “Do we want our children watching women pleasuring themselves in public places? The impressionable youngsters might get the idea that they can just willy-nilly do what they want! Don’t you see that this kind of permissiveness can only lead to the complete destruction of society as we know it?”
Sex columnist and cellphone sensuality advocate Josey Gloves couldn’t disagree with Senator Yugen-Fruzje more. “I couldn’t disagree with him mo – oh, you already have me saying that,” Gloves commented. “The good Senator – and I use the term loosely, not having ever slept with him – not that I find the prospect any less repellant than being pecked to death by feral minks, but – I’m digressing terribly, aren’t I? Let me start again…
“The…quality indeterminate Senator is part of the Puritanical strain in American politics that condemns all fun had by other people. I mean, just look at the Senator’s record. At one time or another, he has proposed bills banning: public swimming pools, dance clubs and the dismantling of our system of government in favour of anarcho-syndicalist local governing councils. Okay, maybe that last one would lead to the complete destruction of society as we know it. Otherwise, he’s just pandering to the Republican Party’s religious base.”
Senator Yugen-Fruzje retorted that Gloves had to defend the technology because she was making money off of it. Gloves runs a weekly seminar for women called “Getting Off By Getting On: How Connecting To The Info-Grid Can Help You Connect To Your Sexuality.” According to the seminar Web site, women can use their cellphones in a variety of ways to sexually satisfy themselves: using a vibrating Enya ringtone, for example, gives a slow building feeling of satisfaction, while those who prefer a quick hit might want to feel the vibrations from a Green Day ringtone.
“Technology is all about expanding the possibilities for female self-satisfaction,” the Web site claims.
“No, no, no, no, no!” Senator Yugen-Fruzje exclaimed, excitedly knocking the brandy snifter on his comfortably appointed desk halfway across the room. “People who get sexual satisfaction from the ringtone of an Enya song are sick! Twisted! Eeeeeeevil! And, we should, uhh, feel bad for them and maybe try to get them into a programme or something…”
“For many people, this is a – you should pardon the expression – hot button issue,” stated Nancy McRichie, famed sexologist and author of the New York Times bestselling book The 36 Hour Orgasm for Dummies. McRichie pointed out that, as with many such issues, the extent to which it is an issue is at issue.
“Is this actually a problem?” she rhetorically asked. “Are millions of women getting themselves off after they get on a bus or subway? For all we know, the act may be limited to one woman on the Podunk light rapid transit. Do we really want to base a federal law on the behaviour of one lonely woman in Podunk?”
“Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!” Senator Yugen-Fruzje eagerly retorted, dropping a vintage issue of Playtoy Magazine to the ground next to his comfortably appointed shoes. “This is a law that will play brilliantly in Podunk!”
Bill HR 3261 is expected to die when Congress adjourns for the fall mid-terms.
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Welcome, Science Fiction Fans!
If you came to Les Pages aux Folles curious about my writing thanks to science fiction or fan fiction, welcome! You can find the complete text of Alternate Reality Ain't What It Used To Be and What Were Once Miracles Are Now Children's Toys in the Archive Section, as well as three new Alternate Reality News Stories every third week in the New Section. They are clearly marked [ARNS] for easy identification. And, please feel to browse through the other writing, cartoons and miscellaneous oddments - you never know what you might enjoy!
You may already be a winner? Well, actually...
It is with great pleasure that I can announce that I have taken first prize in the Swift Satire Writing Competition. This was for a poem called "Love Amid the Construction. The official announcement can be found here. Details of the contest, including, at some point soon, my winning entry, can be found here. What can I say?
WHOOT WHOOT WHOOT!
Do Not Adjust Your Eyes
The Weight of Information: Episode One: The Realities Leak is now available on YouTube! This pilot for a radio series is based on stories out of the two Alternate Reality News Service Books, Alternate Reality Ain't What It Used To Be and What Were Once Miracles Are Now Children's Toys (or, as one online used bookstore has it, What Were Once Miracles Are Now Children - don't ask). Click on this link to listen to Part One and this link to listen to Part Two. Interdimensional travel has never been so...multidimensional!
You May Already Be A Winner Redux
The Alternate Reality News Service, in conjunction with the Grasping for the Wind Web site, is running a contest! The readers who submit the best questions to either of the Alternate Reality News Service columns (which, regular readers will remember, are Ask Amritsar and Ask the Tech Answer Guy) will win free autographed copies of What Were Once Miracles Are Now Children's Toys (or, as one online discount bookseller has it listed, What Were Once Miracles Are Now Children - don't ask). Click on the link for the rules. Enter now, enter often!
Ira Speaks!
Sal Monaco, the Oracle of Enlightenment who now does interviews at Think Twice Radio, conducted an interview with me at Polaris 24. Don't think twice: go to Sal Monaco's Think Twice Radio Web page and give it a listen!
The Alternate Reality News Service Grows Up
Have you ever wanted to know what goes on behind the scenes at the Alternate Reality News Service? Of course you didn't! But, now that the question has been raised, it sounds intriguing, no? Okay, probably not. Still, here's the thing: there is now a Facebook group called The Alternate Reality News Service Cafe. If you go there, you will automatically receive a tri-weekly newsletter full of exclusive information. It is also a place where you can contribute to the Alternate Reality News Service and even, perhaps, work your way up the ARNS ladder until you are given a journalistic beat all for yourself. Doesn't that sound exciting?
Don't answer that.
Would you be interested in immortality?
As you may have noticed, there is a weekly feature on Les Pages aux Folles called The Daily Me. Each article in this feature is a collection of bits and pieces of interest to a different person. I probably won't be shocking any of my readers when I say that, to date, I have made the persons up. (If you are shocked, I hear the Girls With Eyepatches site is nice this time of year...) Well, a future Daily Me could feature...you!
Simply send me an email with your name and the names of three or four publications you regularly read and three or four issues/subjects in which you have an interest. Then, let me digest them and, two or three weeks later, The Daily Me could be The Daily You! Your name will appear in my writing...forever! No complicated creams! No messy cryogenic devices! Immortality has never been easier! What are you waiting for?
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