From subvert@mail.geocities.com Sun Sep 19 14:43:36 1999 Received: from mxu2.u.washington.edu (mxu2.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.9]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.09/8.9.3+UW99.08) with ESMTP id OAA66576 for ; Sun, 19 Sep 1999 14:43:35 -0700 Received: from gull.prod.itd.earthlink.net (gull.prod.itd.earthlink.net [207.217.121.85]) by mxu2.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.09/8.9.3+UW99.08) with ESMTP id OAA01220 for ; Sun, 19 Sep 1999 14:43:34 -0700 Received: from LOCALNAME (sdn-ar-001paphilP251.dialsprint.net [168.191.31.141]) by gull.prod.itd.earthlink.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id OAA11624; Sun, 19 Sep 1999 14:31:55 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 14:31:55 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <2.2.16.19990919163846.1e7f70d0@geocities.com> X-Sender: subvert@geocities.com (Unverified) X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 2.2 (16) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: subvert@geocities.com From: FNS Subject: FNS NewsWire September 19, 1999 Fictional News Service NewsWire September 19, 1999 ===Clinton Concerned About Lack of Death in East Timor=== Washington, DC- President Clinton today sent a message to President H.J. Habibie of Indonesia, urging him to put an end to the distressing situation in East Timor. "Due to some sort of clerical error, some of Indonesia's anti-independence death squads in East Timor have not received their paychecks in weeks. These militias have refused to slaughter, massacre, rape, or even harass any innocent East Timorese civilians until they have been paid." Clinton went on to say that this lack of mass murder was a threat to the US' alliance with the powerful, mineral-rich nation of Indonesia, which claims to have won East Timor fair and square in a poker game in the mid-70s. East Timor disagrees, pointing out that Indonesia had been dealing from the bottom of the deck, and that the Indonesians had been mowing the Timorese down with machine guns during the game. The UN has never officially recognized Indonesia's claim of ownership, but then, what the UN does or doesn't do has never mattered all that much, has it? The citizens of East Timor recently voted by overwhelming majority to be independent from Indonesia, as they had grown quite tired of the murder and brutality and what-not. White House officials say that this outbreak of nonviolence in the territory comes at the worst possible time; without proper intimidation, the will of a democratic majority might come to fruition. "Successful democracy is a threat to democracy everywhere" moaned Sen. Strom Thrumond. Clinton implored Habibie to pay the militias as soon as possible. "Please, give whatever you can. If this madness continues, it could undermine the entire international political system." ===Clinton Announces New Federal Funding to Prevent Lightning=== Washington, DC- President Clinton announced today his plan to allocate $100 million in grants to somehow prevent people from being struck by lightning. "Several dozen Americans are killed every year when bolts from the sky strike them dead. We must put an end to this." Critics were immediately skeptical of this plan. When asked why he was pushing for this plan, Clinton remarked "well, I was going to use this money to help end violence in our schools, when someone pointed out to me that more than twice as many people are struck by lightning every year than are shot in school. Then I thought, man, I need to put this money where it is needed more. If I used this money for the school shootings, it'd simply be a move to placate public panic caused by media hype, to boost my own political popularity. But yeah, this lightning idea is pretty stupid too." ===CBS and Viacom to Merge=== New York- CBS Corp. and Viacom are presently in discussion to merge their respective businesses to create the second largest media company in the world. This new enterprise would include the CBS broadcasting network (the largest in the US), Paramount Pictures, the nation's second-largest publisher, the world's largest video rental chain , MTV, several theme parks, and a partridge in a pear tree. There is the possiblity that the merger will be denied by anti-trust-- oh, who are we kidding? The FCC and Department of Justice barely ever get involved with these things, and when they do they only ask for a few minor changes. They allowed that dubious vertical monopoly merger of Unaffordable Health Care, Inc. and American Mortuary Services, Inc. And let's not forget the merger of Yin- Co. and -Yang Corp. Once the merger is approved, CBS/Viacom officials say that they plan to apply for membership to NATO. NATO officials are skeptical, as CBS/Viacom's standing army is minimal, and their only real defense is their array of long-range and tactical nuclear weapons. ===New Investigations into Waco Standoff=== Washington, DC- Senator John Danforth has recently been appointed as an independent investigator into the events leading up to the immolation of the Branch-Davidians' compound Waco, Texas in 1993. New hearings were held when it was discovered that several incendiary devices were found in the area, which could potentially have contributed to the fire. Investigators have also found rifle shell casings in several positions held by government agents, despite the government's claims that they fired no shots at the compound. Evidence continues to mount that perhaps the FBI and the agency of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms may have engaged in inappropriate, negligent, or even irresponsible behavior during the standoff. However, FBI director Louis Freeh stands by his department. "Just because we filled the compound with highly flammable tear gas, doused it in gasoline, and surrounded it with firewood does not mean that the FBI is in any way responsible for the fires. We contend that the Davidians themselves set the fires. Our argument is more believable if you remember that these people were part of a religion different than ours, which means that they were crazy zealots." Freeh gave evidence of the Davidians' plan to burn down the compound by playing a record of one of David Koresh's sermons backwards. Barely audible were the words "burn it down, I like peppermint, burn, purple monkey dishwasher." Freeh continued "even if one of our incendiary devices were responsible for the spark which set off this powderkeg that we had manufactured, it would still have been the Davidians' fault. If they had not wanted to die, they should have simply refused to combust." ===Minorities Protest Lack of Roles on Network Television=== New York- Television executives have been in the hotseat for months now, ever since a report from the NAACP pointed out how few minority characters and actors were found in past and present prime-time television shows. Several latino groups are even organizing boycotts of the four major networks to protest. Special criticism was made of upcoming shows like "The West Wing," a drama about a liberal president in the White House-- who has no minority members in his Cabinet. Or all-white sitcoms like "The Drew Carey Show," "Will & Grace," and "Whiteys, Whiteys, Whiteys!" Networks have argued back that they use hundreds of black and latino actors every year, and that these actors' portrayals of thieves, murderers, drug-dealers, drug addicts, prostitutes, and pimps have made successful shows like "NYPD Blue" and "Law & Order" possible. "It's really not fair," said one network vice-president who wished to remain anonymous, "we're not racists. The NAACP says that we don't care about minorities, which is true. We don't care about people of any group, just their money. And members of minority groups tend to have less money than white people. If they all fell off the Earth tomorrow, I wouldn't mind much, so long as they left their wallets. Ah, that would be a great job, just walking along, picking up wallets off the sidewalk and taking the money out. That would be paradise." The VP then sighed wistfully and put his feet up on his desk. In response to the criticism, networks have been making sweeping changes to their fall line-up, doing their best to put light-skinned, culture-less blacks into as many insignificant supporting roles as possible. CBS is adding several light-skinned latino characters into some of its sitcoms, who will use phrases like "buenos dias" and "gracias" to distinguish themselves from the white characters. NBC says that it plans to have several segments of their hit show "Friends," in which the characters discuss how much they like black people, but NBC executives have no plans to actually add black characters to the cast. The President of Programming at ABC said "If we make enough minor changes, it makes it difficult for critics to complain. I mean, after our retrofitting, our shows for this Monday night will have a cast that is 30% minority actors. Sure, not in any starring roles, and many of the roles reinforce negative stereotypes of those ethnicities, but with these numbers, groups like the NAACP has no hard evidence with which to argue that we don't care about minorities. And that is, of course, our real goal." ===Miss America Paegant Disucsses Rule Changes=== New York- A furor arose this week among conservative culture warriors, the beauty paegant industry, and smirking pundits who love to cover insignificant, vaguely sex-related controversy Officials for the Miss American Paegant have discussed opening up their beauty competition to include women who have been divorced, and women who have had abortions. Conservatives and beauty paegant traditionalists feel that this would taint the morality of this televised meat market, liberals feel that the new rules would be a step forward in the diversity of female objectification, while the majority of Americans could give a rat's ass about the issue. Former Miss America Tara Holland Christensen has been arguing against these changes to anyone who will listen. On Fox News Sunday, Miss Christensen stated that "'Miss' means young, unmarried women. Divorced women have been married violate that meaning somehow, I'm sure of it." The Fox News Sunday panel discussed the issue, and brought up the point that "Miss" was really short for "Mistress," which used to mean "a woman in a position of authority and control, as in the head of a household." The group then pondered if perhaps the competition should prohibit the entrance of women with no power-- the poor, or minorities for example. But further debate lead them to agree that a woman's social or economic background didn't matter, so long as she had a small waist, a winning smile, and big tits. Christiensen also railed against the acceptance of women who had had abortions into the Paegant. "Miss America is about the pursuit of an ideal. And divorce and abortion are not the American ideal," she said. "The ideal is America's bizarre obsession with sex and its throwback Victorian definitions of purity. The Paegant does a wonderful job of gathering together a group of beautiful, sexually attractive women, and then pretending that they are compltetly non-sexual. Adhering to this austere and insane hypocrisy is what holds this country together." -Disclaimer-: This publication is 100% parody, satire, and outright lies. It should not be mistaken for truth. You probably shouldn't even look at it too long cuz it might hurt your eyes. And if you print it out, the printout could conceivably give you a paper cut. That won't be our fault either. View the FNS homepage at http://home.earthlink.net/~jmsexton/FNS To contact FNS, write to: subvert@geocities.com. _Dull legal stuff:_ Fictional News Service (FNS) is a satirical publication by Subversive Enterprises, Int'l. FNS, like all satire, is a healthy mix of truth, lies, and gross exaggeration. Articles without author attribution are copyright-free, and may be reprinted and retransmitted as you see fit. .