Can you repeat that in English please?

The best editorials make you think. The worst make you think, “What in the blue hell was that?”

A recent staff editorial in the Monroe (AL) Journal is one of the latter. In Election 2008 sends strong message to other nations, the Monroe Journal takes a stand against those godless foreign countries that had the audacity to think that this here American democracy was anything less than perfect.

And, yes, a paper in Alabama took this stand.

We’ve been accused by some nations, who despise a democratic government, of not having a true democracy that is governed by the people, for the people.

First of all, I’m not sure about these commas. Secondly, that’s a pretty bold accusation to make against, well, no one. Who are these nations? Could you name two just for fun?

When voters elected this nation’s first minority president Tuesday, this nation sent the message that we have and have always had a true democracy where the majority rules regardless of race, sex or creed.

And this has always been the case.  Always you hear me?!?! While we are at it, Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia. And Trix has always been for kids.

No one can predict if President Elect Barack Obama, who will be officially sworn in as president in January, will be a president remembered for accomplishing great things or for not following through on his promises.

Or for banging an intern. Or for starting a war with faulty intelligence. Or for puking on a Prime Minister. Or for chasing an invisible rabbit. Presidents are remembered for a remarkable number of things, aren’t they?

All we can do now, as Americans and as Christians is to remain united because “United we stand, divided we fall!”

Any paper that naturally assumes that all Americans are Christians is my kind of paper. Because that is the kind of red-blooded Joe the Blogger I am.

The only thing that would have made this editorial better in my humble opinion is if the editors had credited that final banal quote to Chuck D from his fantastic”Brothers Gonna Work It Out.” That would have been one of the three or four greatest moments of my life.

Alas, maybe in 2012.

Why we write

If anything has proven the importance of small town/small city newspapers, it is the selection of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate. The Anchorage Daily News has been indispensible in helping us figure out just who this woman is.

Still, in some ways, the Anchorage Daily News – as the paper of record for a state capital – is too prominent for our purposes. While the larger Anchorage paper can provide the narrative of her rise to prominence, it is the paper of Palin’s hometown that provides insight into who she really is. Because it reflects the pulse of the community where she lived, raised her family and worshipped.

Keeping that in mind, let’s look at two editorials on The Frontiersman website and try to see what they teach of us of Wasilla.
 
1.      People in Wasilla don’t vote.

In Numbers not kind to Valley voters, we learn that voter turnout in Wasilla’s local elections is dismal – even in a year when the former mayor is running for Vice President.

Wasilla voters followed up a disappointing showing at the polls for the Oct. 7 municipal election of less than 22 percent turnout with a dismal 15 percent in Tuesday’s run-off election between Marty Metiva and Verne Rupright.

What’s worrisome is that that this week’s Wasilla run-off turnout is not an anomaly; rather, it’s a testament to a recent history of voter apathy in the Mat-Su Valley. With a general election fast approaching on Tuesday, many believe the overall turnout will be bolstered by Gov. Sarah Palin, a Wasilla resident, being on the Republican presidential ticket.

Maybe Palin will drive turnout on Tuesday. But apparently her presence did little to excite voters in Real America in 2006.

In the last general election in 2006, Palin was also on the ticket for governor. Yet, in her own backyard, the Mat-Su Borough, the highest turnout in any of the Borough’s four main districts (13, 14, 15 and 16), only District 16 topped 60 percent turnout.

So, my question is, what was the turnout when Palin became mayor? I know enough about local politics to know that if there is low turnout, one organized constituency can easily swing the results in their favor.

And who is better at GOTV efforts than right wing Christians – folks who apparently swing quite a hammer in Wasilla?

I know they do because…

2.      Evangelicals can say anything they want on the editorial page in Wasilla.

Ron Hamman is the pastor of the Independent Baptist Church of Wasilla. He wrote Mondays Religion column in The Frontiersman entitled What does it really mean if Obama wins? You can determine what makes this a Religion column instead of a Politics column on your own.

So, what does it mean if Obama wins? Nothing good apparently.

Never before has so much that is counted fundamental been on the line. After so many years of fighting against the Roe v. Wade decision, a second front has opened up along the marriage border and the homosexual hordes threaten to invade. Thus to many, a Democratic victory this election cycle spells the potential end to decades of work intended to restore our nation to its Christian moorings.

But have you ever contemplated what this really means? Just off the cuff, I can think of several things. First off, I am a firm believer that God is the one who sets up kings, and who brings them down. Thus, I believe that God will be giving America the president she deserves this Nov. 4.

Just as an aside, I love the imagery of homosexual hordes threatening to invade. It creates a mental image of Ghengis Khan wearing the cutest sweater while leading an army out of West Hollywood.

Anyway, the larger question posed by this paragraph is what, in fact, does America deserve if it elects Obama.

The answer, apparently, is to be destroyed.

I recall that God was willing to spare Sodom if he could just find 10 righteous people, and for some reason Abraham seemed confident that there should be at least that many. What does this say about America?

The rest of the sermon goes on in a similar vein.

In reading these two editorials, it did not take long to let me understand how a self-professed hockey mom could rise so quickly to national prominence. A small town politician in a politically apathetic town needs only to organize a small percentage of the population behind her to win the mayor’s office.

From there, it does require some political skill to become governor. And Palin’s instincts were fantastic in challenging the corrupt Republican leadership in her state. But the timing was better than the instincts as it is hard to imagine a year better suited for such a campaign than 2006.

And that leads us to today.
 
Don’t ever think that small town papers are unimportant.They reveal more by what they don’t say than by what they do.

New Feature: Behold! A Good Column!

Hi, folks. It’s great to be back. Just give me a few moments to clear out some of these tumbleweeds.

Okay. That’s better.

As you may have noticed, not too much has been going on at our little corner of the web since August. Well, we have a simple explanation for that.

Bosie has been busy as the vice presidential nominee for the Republican Party, and I have taken a job as his personal shopper. Who can pass up a gig like that, huh?

As you can tell by that incredibly hacky joke, I am not back in peak form yet. It’s going to take a few days to get back in fighting shape. But I promise you when I do, I am going to go all Kimbo Slice on bad small town columnists across this great land of ours.

(How is Kimbo doing anyway? I’ve been out of the country. Still tearing it up, I assume?)

In the meantime, it is time to unveil a new feature that requires absolutely no work from me: “Behold! A Good Column!”

In our endeavors, we occasionally find a local columnist who is putting in a modicum of effort. And we feel the need to reward that effort. Winning our praise is actually quite simple. I can explain it in three easy steps.

1. Find an interesting story.

2. Do a little legwork.

3. Write the story in non-offensive manner.

This week’s honoree is Byron Smialek of the Washington (PA) Observor-Report. Mr. Smialek is not going to win a Pulitzer for his column “Who Watches the Watchers?”, but he found an interesting tale that actually impacts his community, interviewed someone other than his six-year-old daughter at the kitchen table, and didn’t break any of the rules of grammar in relating the story.

And having lived in a small town myself, any story about an anti-crime activist running off to South Carolina with $1500 in raffle money rings true. I once paid a guy to install a shower. He got halfway through the job when he decided that what he really needed to do was ride his motorcyle to Myrtle Beach. Last I heard, he was a bouncer in a strip club.

It’s good to be back.

“Curtains are a piece of cake now compared with my childhood.”

I fully expect a community columnist to serve light fare, but I also expect her columns to focus on, I dunno, the community. Enter Winona (Minn.) Daily News columnist Katie Buck, house cleaner:

I think I have a genetic disorder. I know my family thinks so. Every January I get the urge to clean closets and drawers.

Here’s a tip: if your entire column is written without any research, and the most-used letter is “I,” then it’s not journalism, it’s an inner monologue on the lam.

So somewhere on that DNA spiral of chromosomes there lurks a housecleaning chromosome that causes this urge. Unfortunately, somewhere else on the chromosome display there are two other chromosomes that sabotage the whole plan. One is distractibility, and the other is allergies.

About the time I get a good head of steam up in January (on a rare day that’s not scheduled for an activity outside the home) and I have all the stuff in a closet strewn over most of a room, (usually the bed) the phone rings or the dog barks — or both — and I lose my place. Then there are e-mails, other calls, lunch, down time to rest and read a bit, pick up the snail mail and before you know it, it’s time to make supper.

About bedtime when I approach the bed full of stuff, I remember what I was doing when the phone rang or the dog barked, and I hastily stuff the stuff back where it came from. That’s how the distractibility chromosome comes into play.

There’s a word. It’s on the tip of my tongue. It has something to do with newspapers. It involves reviewing articles and improving them. What is it? Hmmm. Oh yes, yes. Edit. The word is edit. And one who edits is an editor. A novel concept really.

That other bugaboo chromosome, the allergies one, starts me sneezing and wheezing when the dust starts to fly.

“Starts me.”

No longer do we have the annual ritual to drag out rugs and beat the bejeebers out of them on the clothes lines, which hardly anyone has anymore, except my neighbor and me.

A moment of silence, please, for Strunk and White.

Allow me to summarize the rest: her experiences with cleaning products, an allergic reaction, a new stove and the phrases, “Curtains are a piece of cake now compared with my childhood” and “You have not lived until you’ve cleaned wallpaper…”

Sigh.

Leona Helmsley, Terra Haute and A Big Waste of Time

In her will, the late Leona Helmsley left a few million dollars to her dog and a few billion dollars for dog welfare in general, or some such nonsense. Reasonable minds may think this daft. But the thought passes, rather quickly. Not so, for Liz Ciancone. The Tribune-Star gave column inches to its retired reporter to analyze Helmsley’s will — a smoking hot topic on the streets of Terra Haute, Ind., apparently:

Remember Leona Helmsley?

Her famous statement, “Only little people pay taxes!” brought the attention of the IRS for a closer look at her tax returns and she was invited to enjoy free room and board in a federal facility with we “little people” picking up the tab.

Umm. What? She went to prison for committing a crime, and somehow your concern is that prisons are publicly funded? So, maybe a better punishment would have been…uh…no “free” prison time?

My head hurts. On to the will:

Some of the money has been used to create a sort of fun park for the exclusive use of dogs in the Washington Square area of New York City. I guess that’s a good cause, at least for the dogs in that area, but it brought to mind a bit I read the other day that if every man, woman and child in this country adopted four stray dogs (that’s eight for me and my Best Friend!), there would still be strays wandering our streets.

Most of those dogs are unable to access Washington Square, unless some of that $8 billion could be used to transport bus loads of them to the Big Apple.

I can’t believe I’m even wasting my time with this. But, here goes…

Sounds of Bosie furiously scribbling with a No. 2 pencil on the back of an envelope.

One park = bad, because it can’t help all the stray dogs in existence.

Every man, woman and child = dramatic way of saying everyone.

All the strays divided by all the people > four.

Pulls an engineering calculator from his Hello Kitty backpack.

Carry the seven…

Got it: everyone should adopt more than four strays. No wait. We could use the $8 billion to clone enough people to adopt exactly four strays each. Problem solved.

Dismissing what $8 billion could do toward reducing the national debt, think what it could do for human beings in need of health care!

Nothing because it was her money and she didn’t leave it for that purpose. Bad idea, but nothing we can do about it. Again, why the hell is this a column?

I’m done. Let me know when the clones hatch.

Unforgivable blandness

For us, the rich white elitist men who bring you this fine site, fairness is of the upmost importance. As such, this site remains relentlessly non-partisan. We welcome input from anyone regardless of their race, creed, nationality, religion, orientation or political persuasion. Except for women. We believe their brains are too small for the type of work we do here. Board member Neville Baxter Carlton presented a white paper at our last meeting that proved as much.

The diversity of our thought will be evident once we run our upcoming 15-part series on the flat tax followed by our birthday celebration for the guy who started the Free Mumia movement, who – I believe – is Mumia Abu-Jamal himself.

What I am trying to say is that if you have detected a certain left-wing slant in our writing it is simply because Bosie is a dirty Socialist. It has nothing to do with the actual direction of the site.

To prove as much, I would like to point out that anyone can be a hacky writer as Ron Jackson of The Daily Journal in Kankakee, Illinois proves. I honestly could not determine his political viewpoints by reading this article. It comes across as some kind of sappy, middle of the road, left-leaning nonsense you pick up after four years at, say, SUNY Albany. None of that ultimately matters though, because bad writing is bad writing regardless of the political bent.

The column gives you its alleged premise in the opening paragraph.

First impressions are forever. Wisdom teaches us that we only get one chance to make a great one. Be it a date, job interview, audition, or social acclimation, a first impression is the equalizer. There is no better example of this than how our own color consciousness is shaped.

From this, I fully expected a tale of how Mr. Jackson, assuming he is white, had his pre-conceived racial notions changed by a wonderful African American teacher in the eleventh grade. Or, assuming he is black, how his white college roommate insulted him on his first day of school, yet later became his best man. Basically, I am picturing him as one of those two annoying guys from Scrubs.

That would be a hokey column that has been written a thousand times before. Still, it would not get notice here. What gets notice here is the fact that the rest of the column never actually addresses first impressions on race.

Instead, he rambles on about boxing and Tiger Woods and movies that no one saw.

What is wrong in pointing out that Barack Obama is black? Nothing. The search for the Great White Hope heavyweight champ is legendary. America was so hungry for one that it had to go to Russia to find its hope. In this political heavyweight fight, Obama is the Great Black Hope similar to what white heavyweight boxers Jerry Quarry, Randall “Tex” Cobb and Gerry Cooney were to boxing in the 1960s and 1970s. Their color overshadowed their ability, and it was the awareness of their color that sold tickets.

This is certainly the first time that Obama has ever been linked to Gerry Cooney. And it will be the last time unless Obama begins a career as a casino greeter.

I also have no idea what point he is trying to make. Cooney was a fraud of a heavyweight who was exposed by Larry Holmes. I don’t think Ronny is trying to call Obama a fraud;  I just don’t think he understood the analogy he drew.

Color commands attention. Movies are made about color consciousness. “Road to Glory” told the story of the first college basketball team to win a national championship with an all-black starting lineup. The story was more intriguing because the black team beat the perennial powerhouse and white elitist University of Kentucky. “The Great White Hope” was an award-winning play and movie depicting America’s quest for a white heavyweight boxing champion since the early 1900s.

Apparently these are the first two movies with a black theme that came to his mind. Somewhere, Spike Lee weeps.

By the way, if you haven’t seen it yet, watch “Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson” someday. I provide so much to my readers, don’t I?

It’s only wrong and harmful when race is used to elicit fear and divisiveness. We fear what we don’t know. If our only experiences or associations with persons of a different race come from television, we are susceptible to believe the racist stereotypes. It’s not far-fetched even today for a person to go through 12 years of school without ever personally knowing a person outside his or her own race.

Okay, we are almost back to the stated theme of the article with this profound revelation that we fear the unknown. Don’t worry. We get off-track in a hurry.

If we’re going to point out Obama’s blackness, it would be more accurate that he would be compared to the current God of Golf, Tiger Woods.

After becoming the first to compare Obama to Tex Cobb, Ron becomes the 15,000,000th writer to compare him to Tiger Woods. Did he really believe that no one had made this connection yet?

We now come to the paragraph where I become convinced that Ron is white guy who took at least one African Amercan Studies class in college. I am sure he is going to vote for Obama and that has gone to at least one jazz club in his life. Because any conservative would be utterly terrified to write this next paragraph. For Cal Thomas, this would be a career killer.

Should Obama win, there should be no fear that our national anthem will change from “The Star Spangled Banner” to “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” that the annual White House lawn children’s game won’t change from T-ball to craps, that he will pimp the presidential limo, or that his weekly presidential addresses won’t consist of every other sentence being, “You know what I’m saying.”

Sweet merciful Jesus. Are you speechless? All that was missing there was a watermelon reference.

But Ron is a fair man. And he ends in a fair manner.

Furthermore, should John McCain win, we shouldn’t fear that he will cancel the Martin L. King, Jr. holiday.

Oh, well, thank goodness for that.

This is the kind of column that demands knowing the race, age, and politics of the writer. I will not rest until I know Ron Jackson’s bio. Because his background will completely alter how I read this. And I will read it many more times, because I plan on printing it and sticking it on my fridge.

Hackss

Heh.

There is no Dana, only Zule

If you’re looking for hard-hitting analysis of local political issues, then you’re out of luck. If you want ghosts, UFOs, disappearing woodland arches and mysterious black forest beasts, then Cumberland Times-News (Md.) columnist Jim Goldsworthy is your man:

So many things that have no apparent explanation have happened to me, while I was wide awake and cold sober, that I now tend to shrug them off or shake my head and wonder, What next?

You write a 1,000 word column about every single one of them.

Years ago, I was slapped in broad daylight by something I couldn’t see on the third floor of a house I eventually decided was haunted. That’s not all it did, but those are stories for another time.

The ghosts must read his column.

As I watched little green lights flittering around in the middle of the night at the Gettysburg battlefield, I simply wondered, “Is it real, or is it Memorex?” Similar lights have chased and scared the bejabbers out of my friends…

“Is it Live, or is It Memorex?” was coined in 1971. Bejabbers was last used in a speakeasy in Kansas City in 1927. And for the record, three paragraphs into the column we’ve learned that he’s seen ghosts and UFOs.

Such things make life more interesting, and I feel sorry for people who think they have it all figured out. If you tell me something is unlikely in the extreme, I can accept that and might even agree. However, a person who flatly says something is impossible, particularly when it’s not his specific field of knowledge, is someone whose money I could take, if I wanted to.

So, if you disagree with Mr. Goldsworthy, he will mug you, if he wanted to. Speaking of experts, here’s a segue, for your reading pleasure:

Dr. Peter Venkman: Alice, I’m going to ask you a couple of standard questions, okay? Have you or any of your family been diagnosed schizophrenic? Mentally incompetant?
Librarian Alice: My uncle thought he was Saint Jerome.
Dr. Peter Venkman: I’d call that a big yes. Uh, are you habitually using drugs? Stimulants? Alcohol?
Librarian Alice: No.
Dr. Peter Venkman: No, no. Just asking. Are you, Alice, menstruating right now?
Library Administrator: What’s has that got to do with it?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Back off, man. I’m a scientist.

I’ll skip past the vanishing arch in the woods and the disappearing Indian grave.

The sudden absence of things…

Like reason.

…or a unexplained presence that seems out of place — or even out of time — can be unsettling.

Like this column.

Although most wildlife experts say mountain lions are extinct in the eastern United States, folks often report seeing cougar-sized cats, particularly black ones, in places where they shouldn’t be. A fellow from Frostburg was interviewed on a History Channel show about the subject.

One of those big black cats that don’t exist ran across the road in front of my car recently. This was in broad daylight, and at first I thought it was a deer. I’ve seen plenty of deer on this stretch of road.

Running tally: Ghostbusters, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Stargate, Poltergeist, History Channel special on a dude from Frostburg. I sense a pattern to his sighthings. A prediction: during next week’s column he relates his adventures with ManBearPig and the Cardiff Giant.

My advice to our paranormal investigator: take a deep breath, run a warm bath and cancel the cable.

Trouble with synonyms

Hey, gang, it’s been a while. As a fledgling blog, we really shouldn’t go three weeks without content, but sometimes these things happen.

What things, you ask? Why, none of your damn business, of course.

(In all, honesty, I had a tough week at work followed by a week of vacation; bosie may or may not be dead).

But bad writing never takes a vacation. So, let’s take quick look at a little piece in The Nevada Appeal by Chuck Muth. In this, he attacks everyone’s favorite target: frivolous government spending. For an opinion columnist, this is the equivalent of firing an elephant gun into, I don’t know, something smaller than a herd of elephants, I guess. (It was a nice vacation, thanks).

Whenever the issue of laying off government employees is raised, the Left likes to misrepresent the discussion by declaring that to mean teachers, cops and firefighters — as though there are no other kinds of government workers employed by taxpayers. With that in mind, I did a quick search of taxpayer-funded UNLV’s Web site to see if there are any government workers there who AREN’T teachers, cops or firefighters.

First of all, I adore the fact that he capitalized “Left” here, as if John Reed had just returned from Russia and had settled into a suite at the Mirage. Moreover, it’s curious that he decided to prove that there are government employees other than teachers by looking at, of all things, a university.

In fairness, I’ve seen interviews with Larry Johnson so it is possible that no teaching takes place at UNLV.

And you’ll never believe what I found.

Tell! Tell!

There are!

You jest!

• Family Services Specialist II ($43,639)
• University Parking Enforcement Officer II ($35,475)
• Library Assistant III ($30,192)
• Mail Service Technician ($38,523)
• Head Coach Softball ($75,317)
• Public Affairs Specialist ($52,416)
• Dental Assistant II ($32,677)
• Assistant Director of Parking ($67,600)
• Executive Chef ($62,057)
• Sous Chef ($42,805)
• Assistant Track & Field Coach ($41,600)
• Painter I ($47,606)
• Degree Audit System Analyst ($44,587)
• Assistant to the Vice President ($91,520)
• Special Assistant to the Vice President ($94,104)
• Creative Services Manager ($68,350)
• Art Professor ($110,846)
• Associate Professor of Dance ($57,226)
• Associate Professor of Music ($79,556)

So to prove that there are government jobs other than teacher and police officer, Mr. Muth produced a list that that includes three professors and two parking enforcement agents – which are likely an off-shoot of the campus police force. That’s precious.

The rest of the list doesn’t strike me as particularly egregious for a major state university. I suppose you could cut the cafeteria and the athletic department, but I’m not sure that’s a wisest of decisions. And, yes, $90,000 to an assistant to a VP seems a bit high, but you can probably find one or two extraneous job titles in any organization.

And this is just for one school in the Nevada System of Higher Education. It doesn’t even scratch the surface of the rest of government — especially K-12 and Health & Human Services. And don’t even get me started on the Department of Cultural Affairs and the Consumer Affairs Division.

Seriously, don’t get him started. Because apparently, he could not locate a list of those jobs.

The question really is, why go after UNLV of all state institutions? Surely, there is a Department of Sand or something hidden deep within the Nevada state beauracracy.

Is THE RIGHT (see what I did there?) about to take an approach of drastic cuts in higher education? Because that is sure to be a winner at the ballot box.

Stealing from your betters

Whenever a famous writer is interviewed, one of the first questions asked is generally, “Who are you influences?” Most writers seem to immediately name Faulkner because Faulkner for some reason – even if they aren’t Southern. And even if they don’t write impossibly long sentences that may not actually contain a predicate.

This is just something a writer has to do, much like a married man just has to tell his wife that no, those jeans do not make you look fat.

So, there is no shame in having influences. I am influenced by Anatoly Rybakov but only when I write in Russian. Or whatever language it is he spoke.

There is shame, however, in completely ripping off your influences as Kevin Wilson of the Clovis (NM) News Journal does.

Chuck Klosterman may or may not be a great writer. I’ve read four of his books and still can’t answer the question of “Can he write?” He is certainly an interesting writer. And he is unquestionably a successful writer. It is safe to say that he is more famous than Kevin Wilson of Clovis, New Mexico.

My guess is Kevin Wilson of Clovis, New Mexico wants to be as famous as Chuck Klosterman, because – theoretically – that would mean he no longer had to live in Clovis, New Mexico – home of allegedly the only dine-in Dominoes Pizza in America.

So Kevin Wilson of Clovis, New Mexico jumps right into his column by admitting that “Hey, I’m ripping off an idea I read in a book:

In his pop-culture book, “Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs,” Chuck Klosterman has a series of hypothetical questions that makes you consider your world (i.e. If cats could read, would they find Garfield to be an insulting caricature?), and perhaps yourself.

To be perfectly honest, I found this to be the most annoying aspect of “Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs.” Between each chapter, Klosterman writes out these long, pointless, and not terribly amusing hypotheticals about aliens and time travel and sex and God knows what else. I stopped reading them after a while, because they were Klosterman at his most cloying.

And therefore, these are what Wilson chose to steal.

I’ve been dabbling in hypotheticals myself, and here are some questions Professor Wilson would ask in his class:

And may God have mercy on our souls.

1. There is a restaurant you frequent very often. You’re on a first-name basis with the staff, there’s not a single menu item you dislike. Service is fast and it’s a block from your job.

The owner decides you are his favorite customer. You, and anybody who joins you, eats on the house every time you visit. You always get the best table, and the best server waits exclusively on you.

The tradeoff is that you must communicate in pig Latin. The menus are printed in pig Latin, servers speak in pig Latin and they cannot take an order that isn’t in pig Latin.

You cannot return to being a paying customer. How many times a week will you eat at this restaurant?

What’s amazing is that there are written precisely as Klosterman wrote his. Second person. Short precise sentences. There is not one attempt by Wilson to make this concept his own.

Also, if this restaurant existed in New York, it would be mentioned in the Village Voice and be filled with hipsters within a week. Ryan Adams would eventually OD there.

So, I would go often. The answer is: Often.

2. General Motors has revolutionized solar collection techniques, and has applied its knowledge to a new series of vehicles. The car runs without limits during the daytime, and one hour in the sun is enough to run a car for eight hours of darkness.

Additionally, GM has agreed to market the technology to other automakers, provided the company receives commission for each solar-engine vehicle sold. Conversion kits are also available at each dealership, so any gasoline vehicle can be converted for a nominal fee.

The drawback is that 5,000 people will die from the production of these vehicles. The government has effectively argued the sacrifice is a benefit — no soldier on Earth will die protecting oil reserves, and the decreases in pollution will effectively reverse global warming. (It’s my hypothetical.)

The 5,000 victims will be treated as heroes for the final month of their life, and the first event is a dinner party at which you are the featured speaker. What do you say in your 15 minutes?

This one copies the sound of Klosterman but misses the point by a mile. Why must these people die? And how do we know who they are ahead of time? If Klosterman had written this, aliens would provide the technology but would ask for 5,000 humans in return. I’m just puzzled by this.

You can also begin to see why these suck even when Klosterman does them.

3. You are given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to use a time machine. The time machine owner has two different travel packages.

The first option is to travel back to the final five years of Jesus’ life, and to be waited on hand and foot while you observe his final years. You will then return to present time, one minute after you first stepped into the time machine (like in “Back to the Future”).

The second option is to be sent to Las Vegas, in August of 1999, with the total value of your bank accounts and appraised value of possessions converted to its equivalent in 1999-issue U.S. currency. You will arrive at Las Vegas knowing backup Kurt Warner is about to lead the St. Louis Rams to a Super Bowl XXXIV victory against 200-to-1 odds, Shaquille O’Neal will lead the Los Angeles Lakers to the NBA title against 5-to-1 odds, and so on. Basically, your knowledge of sports takes the risk out of gambling (like in “Back to the Future 2”). When your five years of “gambling” is complete, you will return to present time, owing the time travel agent the money he loaned you plus 2 percent of your winnings.

Which option do you take?

This one feels aimed at an audience of old people.

I have several problems with this. First, Klosterman’s hypotheticals are not designed to make moral judgments as this one is: You either love Jesus or love money.

Second, why the last five years? If you follow the Bible, the last three years are the interesting ones. I am going to spend two years watching him make a chair under this scenario.
 
Third, that’s a long goddamn time to be in Vegas. If I am the type of person to choose Vegas over Jesus, I am also probably the type of guy to spend my winnings on hookers and China White. Additionally, I was in Vegas in 2000 already. There is a very good chance I could run into myself causing a split in the space-time continuum and killing us all.

Finally, this is a boring hypothetical. At one time or another, everyone has expressed a desire to go back in time to buy a stock or place a bet or not murder a drifter. This could not be a less original rip-off.