Rick Horowitz

Tales Around the Camp(aign)fire

            “President Obama defended his year-old economic stimulus package on Wednesday, as Republicans and Democrats took to the Internet and the airwaves to wage a furious partisan battle over whether the bill was a monumental waste of taxpayer money or had rescued the economy from catastrophe....           

            “At a time when both parties are talking about the virtues of working together, the anniversary touched off a bitter dispute between them, with each using the day to write its own political narrative around the bill....”

                                           Thursday, in The New York Times

  

            Here at the National Narrative Institute, it’s all about the story.

 

            Let others get bogged down in the complicated details of complicated issues. Let others try to sift through forests of studies, and mountains of reports. At the National Narrative Institute, we’ve taken a different path.

            A better path.

            Our highly trained staff of highly skilled narrative-crafters can put aside complexity, and zero in on what really matters: a simple tale, with easy-to-recognize good guys and bad guys, and a moral that can fit into a fortune cookie. In today’s 24/7 world, after all, who has time for more?

Science? Who Needs It?

         Me and the missus, we step on the scale the other day -- she’s down a pound, I’m down almost two. 

          So what’s all this hooey about an obesity crisis?   

          But that’s all you hear from the lamestream media, am I right? You’re getting fatter, I’m getting fatter. Everyone’s getting fatter. So how come I’m losing weight? And how come the missus is losing weight? You think the scale is lying to us? 

          The scale doesn’t lie.

           Unlike plenty of media types I can think of.

Take Two Studies and Call Them in the Morning

             What we told you before? Forget it.

            What we said you had to worry about? Nope.

            What we advised you to get checked out on a regular basis? Not so much.

            That thing that was always on your mind because we told you it should always be on your mind? Well, we’ve thought about it some more, and now we don’t think it should always be on your mind. Now and then, maybe, but not always. Certainly not always.

            At least not until we think about it again.

Symptoms of the Biden Flu: Running Off at the Mouth

            WASHINGTON, Momentarily -- Thrown repeatedly off message by a series of poorly timed or ill-considered comments by the government’s second-ranking official, the Obama White House is giving serious thought to putting Vice President Joe Biden on a perpetual seven-second sound delay.

            According to two senior administration sources who requested anonymity, the White House is weighing the benefits of implanting a computer chip just above the vice president’s jawbone, where it would receive electronic impulses from Biden’s brain and temporarily reroute them to a monitoring station within the West Wing for real-time review. Non-controversial statements would be relayed back to Biden’s mouth for delivery, while others would simply be blanked out, even as the vice president appeared to continue speaking.

            “It might look a little awkward,” one of the administration sources admitted, “but it sure beats the alternative.”