Actually, this one can be read without irony

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The other day The Onion, self-styled as America’s finest news source, broke a story starting with the tweet:

BREAKING: Witnesses reporting screams and gunfire heard inside the Capitol Building.

To some of you reading out there, probably most of you online, you’re already starting to laugh because you know that’s not describing something that really happened. For the rest, you’re now even more confused as to why a newspaper intentionally reporting false information as fact should be funny.

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God forgive us, we don’t know what we’re doing

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The other day, Troy Anthony Davis was executed in Georgia. I think a couple of people got together and decided to protest or something. In any case, you may have heard about it.

My friend, former Odessa American reporter Jim Mustian, covered the story for his job at the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer because the victim Davis was killed for, police officer Mark MacPhail, was a native of Columbus, Ga.

Jim was one of the handful of reporters allowed to be present for and view the execution of Davis, and we were talking about it ahead of time.

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Elitism isn’t a good thing — it’s the best thing

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When I was in elementary, people would sometimes ask me who my favorite football team was, and I’d say, “The Panthers.”

Then they’d say, “No, no, no. We mean the NFL, not high school.”

“I know,” I’d say. “I’m a fan of the Carolina Panthers.”

Then they’d laugh and make fun of me. (“They” are quite unkind, as Edward Lear well knew.)

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The ’90s were over, one year late

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People don’t realize this, but the golden age of cartoons isn’t actually the Looney Tunes or Merrie Melodies eras: it was the ’90s.

That’s when people who’d grown up watching those sorts of cartoons started to make them, and actually got a budget to animate them and take them to a new place.

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Ron Paul lost the 2008 nomination for your sins

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Last week, President Barack Obama scheduled a speech before a joint session of Congress on a new jobs plan (I guess because there aren’t any more new jobs anywhere), and it happened to coincide with the next GOP debate.

When Speaker of the House John Boehner told him that wouldn’t work out, Obama said, “Oh, that’s fine, we can do it the next day,” which in both the attempt and subsequent acquiescence sort of tells you everything you need to know about how this presidency is going. Now Obama gets to speak opposite Green Bay and New Orleans in the NFL opener instead of a collection of cheeseheads and nominal saints.

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The ‘Look Up’ app will make someone a lot of money

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Everyone has at least one good idea in them that could make them very rich, or at least we’d all like to believe so.

For about two years now, I’ve had an idea for a smartphone app that I’ve thought would make me fabulously wealthy if I could ever get the technical know-how to do it, or at least doggedly pursue someone who could.

Alas. Much time has passed, and I’m pretty sure nothing will ever come of this gloriously brilliant thing creeping around inside my brain, so the next best thing is to sort of pretend to gloat about how clever I am, while ultimately being disheartened as I am again thwarted.

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There’s still plenty of summer left, don’t worry

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Today is unofficially the end of summer, although really Saturday was because, well, there’s no time left to recover from anything you could do in the time you’ve got left.

For several thousand kids and teachers It Begins, and the marathon of the school year that seems like it just ended the other day starts up again, ready or not. The butterflies are already colonizing your stomach at the thought.

But it’s OK. Labor Day is just around the corner, and the weekends come remarkably fast when you aren’t looking for them, quick as the boiling of an unwatched pot.

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Oh gosh, those poor little prairie dogs

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West Texas is not generally known as a bastion for PETA, although you wouldn’t be able to tell that based on the reaction to the recent rash of animal-related crimes and distasteful happenings.

When an emu gets strangled, we are quite upset. And if a rancher lets 300 horses nearly expire in a Presidio County stockyard, that offends us. Pet cats getting dismembered horrifies us, a dog getting shot with a crossbow drives us near into a blind rage.

And then the city of Odessa goes out and slaughters wholesale a prairie dog colony, and everyone is about ready to just go nuts and burn down city hall.

It really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, though, does it?

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‘The last Metroid is in captivity; the galaxy is at peace’

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The other day (Saturday), marked the 25th anniversary of something very special: the release of Metroid, a science-fiction action-exploration video game for the original Nintendo console.

I could talk to you about how important this was, what the gameplay and music did that was so innovative and all that, but do you really care? No, you don’t really care. And anyway, I didn’t play it when it first came out. Metroid was only available in Japan, and around that time, I was mostly focused on trying to become an embryo.

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Also, he was 21 going to school with seventh graders

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The other day, Jerry Joseph shocked the world outside of Odessa by stepping into district court and admitting he was in fact, Guerdwich Montimer, Permian impostor, basketball cheat, national fraud, sex offender.

While the rest of the country was surprised the 23-year-old, suddenly and with no backsliding allowed, admitted he’d spent the last two-plus years pretending to be a nice, hardworking, churchgoing Haitian orphan born in 1994, Odessa was not so shocked. At this point, who cared anymore?

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